From sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU Sun Mar 1 03:20:35 1998 From: sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU (Paul (Kekai) Manansala) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 98 20:20:35 -0700 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036257.23782.17719946110235133681.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 28 Feb 1998, George Thompson wrote: > Just to show that I am prepared to hold myself to the standards that I > recommended a few days ago: I am prepared to discuss a relevant article: > > H.H. Hock: "Pre-Rgvedic Convergence Between Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and > Dravidian? A Survey of the Issues and Controversies", in _Ideology and > Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language_, > ed. by J. Houben, Leiden 1996. > > Anyone else? Or other recommendations? I'm game but this book is not readily available except through interlibrary loan (which can take some time). Could you summarize its main points? > > To be even more specific, would anyone like to talk about the origins of > retroflexion in Sanskrit? I'm especially interested in an "Indigenous > Aryan" view of retroflexion. I'd also like to know how the "out of India" > model deals with the relationship between Old Indic and Old Iranian. > There was a recent article suggesting that retroflexion in Sanskrit was of IE origin. Not very convincing though when you consider there is such a close phonemic correspondence between this phenomenon in Dravidian aqnd Indic. I'm not an OoIer or an AITer, but from what I understand the OoI theorists simply claim the relationship is due to "Aryans" migrating out of India into Iran. One bit of evidence they use is an Avestan tradition of "homeland" somewhere to the east. From thompson at JLC.NET Sun Mar 1 02:59:35 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 98 22:59:35 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036255.23782.2837638277173175213.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Just to show that I am prepared to hold myself to the standards that I recommended a few days ago: I am prepared to discuss a relevant article: H.H. Hock: "Pre-Rgvedic Convergence Between Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Dravidian? A Survey of the Issues and Controversies", in _Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language_, ed. by J. Houben, Leiden 1996. Anyone else? Or other recommendations? To be even more specific, would anyone like to talk about the origins of retroflexion in Sanskrit? I'm especially interested in an "Indigenous Aryan" view of retroflexion. I'd also like to know how the "out of India" model deals with the relationship between Old Indic and Old Iranian. George Thompson From Vaidix at AOL.COM Sun Mar 1 05:25:53 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 00:25:53 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036260.23782.6329024070516116415.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello everyone, The new discussion on this topic seems to be more informed and interdisciplinary. I appreciate the efforts. The study of migrations of people is Anthropology. Ideas from various other disciplines such as linguistics, geology, history, archaelogy may be used in the discussion, but the last opinion (if not a decision) at any point of time must always be reserved for academic anthropologists. Are there any on this list? Any interpretive effort involves changing the model to suit the facts, instead of selectively presenting the facts to suit the model of one's liking! All the best. Bhadraiah Mallampalli From jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU Sun Mar 1 07:40:00 1998 From: jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU (JR Gardner) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 01:40:00 -0600 Subject: KaaThaka SaMhitaa typo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036264.23782.11406872551275715923.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> My respectful thanks to Makoto Fushimi who furnished the needed data. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John Robert Gardner Obermann Center School of Religion for Advanced Studies University of Iowa University of Iowa 319-335-2164 319-335-4034 http://vedavid.org http://www.uiowa.edu/~obermann/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It is ludicrous to consider language as anything other than that of which it is the transformation. From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Sun Mar 1 15:20:27 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 10:20:27 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036278.23782.17979759045060702434.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George: do you really want to do this? I know I'm going to be provoked into jumping in. Don't you think the folks from RISA on this list have had enough already? Or is this our karma for not having provided them with the debate that was anticipated at the AAR? Anyway, if this is to be a *serious* discussion perhaps it will be useful for some of us, although God knows I don't have the time for it. On Sat, 28 Feb 1998, George Thompson wrote: > Just to show that I am prepared to hold myself to the standards that I > recommended a few days ago: I am prepared to discuss a relevant article: > > H.H. Hock: "Pre-Rgvedic Convergence Between Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and > Dravidian? A Survey of the Issues and Controversies", in _Ideology and > Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language_, > ed. by J. Houben, Leiden 1996. I'm surprised that you have selected Hock given your position on the IA debate. Hock has consistently argued, for two decades now, that many of the non-IE syntacticaL innovations visible in IA that are SA areal features could quite reasonably have been internal developments. The article above summarizes his position. He mostly argues that there are alternative ways of accounting for such features apart from insisting on a Dravidian substratum. > Anyone else? Or other recommendations? Oh, lots. But I'll let you come up with them. > To be even more specific, would anyone like to talk about the origins of > retroflexion in Sanskrit? I'm especially interested in an "Indigenous > Aryan" view of retroflexion. Well, the origin of retroflexion has been debated for over a century and is still not settled. Hock, in his articles notes that internal development is a possibility, as have other linguists before him since the time of Buhler in 1864. So I would imagine an Indig-A view (if there were such a consistent thing) would argue along the same lines. In other words, internal development does not require the existence of a pre-existing non IA linguistic substratum as the originator of retroflexion or of other syntactical features. Of course a linguistic substratum (which would suggest intruder status for the I-A's) remains a perfectly good way of accounting for these phenomena. But it is not the only model. My paper in the forthcoming Michigan volume on Arya and non-Arya is specifically on these issues. I'd also like to know how the "out of India" > model deals with the relationship between Old Indic and Old Iranian. You've brought this up several times. What would prevent an "out-of-India" model arguing that PIE developed into the various languages which departed from the far NW of the South Asian subcontinent, and that Iranian was the last to go? The Avesta does refer to an external ' Aryana vaejam' (unlike the Veda which retains no mention of a foreign origin at all). Gnoli finds reason to suppose this is in the Hindu Kush, since the geographical horizons of the Avest are all Eastern (there is no ref. to the West). Boyce differs, deferring to the standard Caspian sea origin. but there is precious little in the Avesta to help us determine where this place was except that the climate seems to have been severe. Over to you, George......But let's just keep it one small point at a time so this does not end up becoming too time consumming. Tik? Best, Edwin From hschmidt at UCLA.EDU Sun Mar 1 20:40:10 1998 From: hschmidt at UCLA.EDU (M. Dallas Reddick) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 12:40:10 -0800 Subject: KaaThaka SaMhitaa typo Message-ID: <161227036287.23782.9268618843392189169.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> According to my copies of the Sv.M. edition and von Schroeder's edition of KS, the only correction to the passage should be yad vyatiSa^NgaM. Nothing is lurking behind your copy's blurred sections indicated by the asterisks. Mona Reddick >Could anyone with a copy of the KS possibly help me be sure of the >following passage which is blurred in the copy I have of the >Svaadhyaaya-MaNDala edition (1983), page 139, KS 14.6, second line (6th >line on the page)--asterisks/*** mark the unsure bit: > > . . . . . paapmopazliSTo ***yadyatiSa^NgaM*** grahaan gRhNaatya^Ngaad >[end of 6th line].... > >Many kind thanks in advance > >jrg > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >John Robert Gardner Obermann Center >School of Religion for Advanced Studies >University of Iowa University of Iowa >319-335-2164 319-335-4034 >http://vedavid.org http://www.uiowa.edu/~obermann/ >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >It is ludicrous to consider language as anything other >than that of which it is the transformation. From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Sun Mar 1 11:53:58 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 12:53:58 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036266.23782.7460927069729445994.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I haven't got time to comment upon this, but I can't contain myself: >> To be even more specific, would anyone like to talk about the origins of >> retroflexion in Sanskrit? I'm especially interested in an "Indigenous >> Aryan" view of retroflexion. I'd also like to know how the "out of India" >> model deals with the relationship between Old Indic and Old Iranian. Just as part of the general argument, I would like to supply the information that both East Norwegian and West Swedish have produced retroflexion. So have some South Italian dialects. All quite independent of Skt. >I'm not an OoIer or an AITer, but from what I understand the OoI theorists >simply claim the relationship is due to "Aryans" migrating out of India >into Iran. One bit of evidence they use is an Avestan tradition of >"homeland" somewhere to the east. The argument I have seen revolves around the idea that the Iranians refer to airyanam varsha and thereby mean aryavarta in India. They are, apparently, unaware of the fact that the Iranians called their *own* country by that name, and that the modern term for Iran is derived through normal phonological development from airyanam (the Middle Persian term, I believe, is Eran). Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From b.loturco at AGORA.STM.IT Sun Mar 1 12:15:53 1998 From: b.loturco at AGORA.STM.IT (Bruno Lo Turco) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 13:15:53 +0100 Subject: R: Re: Oriental Research Institute Message-ID: <161227036268.23782.1824094391822905578.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> -----Messaggio originale----- Da: Dominik Wujastyk A: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Data: sabato 28 febbraio 1998 18.23 Oggetto: Re: Oriental Research Institute > > > The Director > Oriental Research and Manuscripts Library > University of Kerala > Kariavattom 695581 > Trivandrum, India > > >The former Director, Dr Vijayan, has recently retired, and the new >Director is Dr P. P. Thampi. > >I have a colleague in Trivandrum who uses email regularly, and who has >friends at the MSS library. Let me know if this would help. Dear Dr Wujastyk, Thank you very much for your message. If you plan a trip to Rome, let me know. Bruno Lo Turco Ph.D. student Dipartimento Studi Orientali Universita' di Roma La Sapienza b.loturco at agora.stm.it From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Sun Mar 1 18:25:16 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 13:25:16 -0500 Subject: Retroflexion in IA (was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036280.23782.13413678315830192946.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George Thompson wrote: >[...] would anyone like to talk about the origins of > retroflexion in Sanskrit? I'm especially interested in an "Indigenous > Aryan" view of retroflexion. Let me begin with the disclaimer that I do not claim to represent the `Indigenous proto-IE speakers' theories [Let us not continue to confuse proto-IE speakers and Aryans.], as well as that I can write may be one post a week. the slow pace may not be a bad idea :-) But before we embark on any such discussion, I have two requests: (1) Could the Dravidianologists in this list give a brief summary and pointers to fuller discussions of the evolution of dental/alveolar and retroflex sounds in the various branches of Dravidian? I find the picture that comes out of DEDR to be rather confusing, with no clue as to the intermediate stages. (2) Given that Sinhalese and dialects of Marathi spoken in Kerala and TN show loss of phonemic aspiration, how do people explain the persistence of aspiration in northern IA languages if the retroflexion there was due to `substratum influences'? [Faulty pronunciation of aspirates was not unknown to the praati"saakhyas. So how did they manage to stem that tide?] From sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU Sun Mar 1 20:39:56 1998 From: sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU (Paul (Kekai) Manansala) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 13:39:56 -0700 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036296.23782.15285907882942736532.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Edwin Bryant wrote: > > I'd also like to know how the "out of India" > > model deals with the relationship between Old Indic and Old Iranian. > > You've brought this up several times. What would prevent an > "out-of-India" model arguing that PIE developed into the various languages > which departed from the far NW of the South Asian subcontinent, and that > Iranian was the last to go? The Avesta does refer to an external ' Aryana > vaejam' (unlike the Veda which retains no mention of a foreign origin at > all). Gnoli finds reason to suppose this is in the Hindu Kush, since the > geographical horizons of the Avest are all Eastern (there is no ref. to > the West). Boyce differs, deferring to the standard Caspian sea origin. > but there is precious little in the Avesta to help us determine where this > place was except that the climate seems to have been severe. > The Airyana Vaejah was described as mountainous country in which was located the river Daitya. Interestingly, Daitya is the name of an "aboriginal" people in the Vedas. A lot of focus in this argument is placed on identifying the soma or haoma of the Rgveda and Avesta. Most strongly deny that the soma used in modern brahmin rituals is the same as the Vedic soma. Indian sources state that soma comes from Mujavant or Mujavat. There is a Mount Mujavant in the Himalayas. However, there are numerous other theories on the origin of soma. Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From D.Plukker at INTER.NL.NET Sun Mar 1 13:28:16 1998 From: D.Plukker at INTER.NL.NET (Dick Plukker) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 14:28:16 +0100 Subject: TrueType fonts, TeX etc. Message-ID: <161227036271.23782.17811922799993223813.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> You might try the Dutch TeX Users Group: ntg at nic.surfnet.nl for help with emTeX. >Is there any clever source of information available anywhere on how to >install other TeX fonts? I have gone through all the documentation on >TeX and Metafont that came with emTeX, but I still have not understood >what I am doing wrong. > Dick Plukker India Institute, Amsterdam From D.Plukker at INTER.NL.NET Sun Mar 1 13:30:37 1998 From: D.Plukker at INTER.NL.NET (Dick Plukker) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 14:30:37 +0100 Subject: Multimedia Hindi Message-ID: <161227036273.23782.9376917097436779580.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A good place to start is the South Asia Gopher: gopher://gopher.cc.columbia.edu:71/11/clioplus/scholarly/SouthAsia/ for Hindi teaching materials, software, audio and video tapes. CD-Roms: The Hindi Guru, your personal tutor. Have a look at: http://www.magicsw.com Hindi-English Dictionary (Nagari and transliteration). Have a look at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tbwagenaar/index.htm I too am interested in such materials; please keep me informed. > >Here at Copenhagen University we would like to start a >teaching archive of multimedia resources for Hindi language. >Resources would include the following: > >1. Interactive CD ROM's >2. Videotapes >3. Satellite access to Hindi Language TV >4. Good Language Cassette Tapes > >Ken Zysk Dick Plukker India Institute, Amsterdam From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Sun Mar 1 14:23:48 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 19:53:48 +0530 Subject: Query on the term *mistri* Message-ID: <161227036275.23782.5730434167523794907.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 28 Feb 1998, S Krishna wrote: > The mistake that I made in the posting seems to be in my refering > to Raja Ramanna as an "eminent nuclear physicist"...which has given > the people the impression that the reason why I'd quoted him is > because he was a physicist... > I realise that there are some people who think that a background in > Engg/Science is qualification enough to comment on everything from > geography to metaphysics to astrology, but I am not one of them > and I'd therefore appreciate people not reading in meanings and > attributions that were never intended in the first place..... In all fairness, you should consider carefully what you had written earlier: > >On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, S Krishna wrote: > > > >> The word is most certainly from English...the English word "maste > >> becamed transformed into "mEstrI"..We have this on the word of > >> Dr M.V.Raja Ramanna( the nuclear physicist) who discusses this wh > >[...] "Most certainly" and "the word of" suggest that R. is an authority, while obviously he is not. And I suppose you will agree that there is this unfortunate recent history of bogus 'scientificism' on the list. So I hope you won't blame Dominik, me, and people like us too much for the way we read your message. RZ From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Mar 2 04:11:40 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 20:11:40 -0800 Subject: Scientific Credentials (was Re: Tamil words in English) Message-ID: <161227036303.23782.11476821579380909036.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Luis Gonzalez-Reimann wrote - >Now, R. Thompson is described on the book's cover as having received a Ph.D. >in mathematics from Cornell University, and as having done research in >quantum theory and mathematical biology at the State University of New York >and at Cambridge University (UK). Have Dr. Thompson's scientific >credentials helped him here? Would our physicist friends on Indology >consider this an appropriate discussion for a scientific forum on space >exploration, because one has to keep an open mind? > >The ref. is: Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy, Richard L. Thompson, 1989. >Bhaktivedanta Book trust (U.S.), pp. 130-134. Thompson also claims that human beings co-existed with dinosaurs, that there is fossil evidence to prove this, and that evolutionary biologists and other scientists have covered this up. His scientific credentials do not stop him from making bizarre claims, but his affiliation with his chosen guru explains the phenomenon. On the other hand, it is also clear that these statements have been made through Thompson, precisely because he has the required credentials in scientific fields, so as to appeal to a section of the targeted recipients of Krishna-consciousness teaching. And irrespective of the merits of these statements, one must also admire the aplomb with which an out-of-India religious organization thumbs its nose at the scientific establishment, at a time when the major trend among Indians is to seek an often non-existent "modern" and "scientific" basis for their religious beliefs. Actually, Thompson's case is a good example of why citing the presence or absence of academic credentials can cut both ways. Any sane person, with or without a degree in space exploration or biology, can see that his arguments do not hold. I'm sure there are people in the humanities who make outlandish claims too. What about Mortimer Adler, for instance? He brings all his training in logic and philosophy to back his stance that all Orientals (meaning Hindus and Buddhists, mainly) must accept the broad Judeo-Christian tradition, and more specifically, creation ex-nihilo and the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Why? Because the Orientals have had the benefit of using science and technology, a gift to them from the West. Apart from the historical fact that science in 17th-century Europe advanced by *rejecting* Christian theology, and the contemporary fact that 20th-century science is not a "Western" monopoly, and has little to do with Christian or Judaic religion, Adler's arguments about religion are riddled with so many logical fallacies, it would be a delight to see them answered by a traditional scholar from India/China/Japan. On the other hand, someone without credentials in a humanistic field may say things that may be worthwhile to listen to, at least once in a while. That the someone holds a degree in science/engineering need not always be held against him or her. Do not summarily dismiss everyone who has had scientific training. You can see that I am making this statement with a selfish motive in mind. :-) Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From thompson at JLC.NET Mon Mar 2 00:47:50 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 20:47:50 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036301.23782.6920949636594813472.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> To Edwin Bryant and to the list in general: I am not interested in re-hashing the arguments [largely political] that occurred on the RISA list some time ago, nor in entertaining people with another public performance of our disagreements. Like Edwin, I have reservations about entering into this discussion, because I too am much too busy already. But [unlike Edwin, apparently] I am not satisfied with what I learned from the RISA debate, nor from the AAR panel. I am not satisfied that I understand the processes which early Vedic Sanskrit underwent as it evolved from an Indo-Iranian language into an Indic one. The problem of retroflexion remains an interesting one for me, and, I am happy to see, for Hock too, after all these years. If Edwin on the other hand is satisfied that retroflexion is no problem, he shouldn't bother himself with this discussion. The point of Hock's recent resume of his views is to counterpose two models of the early relationship between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian: one model he characterizes as 'the subversion [or substratum] hypothesis'; the other as 'the convergence hypothesis'. In spite of Edwin's surprise, I am actually sympathetic with this second view, and I am interested in discussions of bilingualism as a factor *in either scenario*. In any case, it is quite clear that in Hock's view *neither* hypothesis has been established. The 'convergence theory' is understood as a brake on the over-confidence of the substratum theory. Fair enough. Let me quote his closing remark: "One of the most exciting -- and potentially fruitful -- avenues for further research therefore would seem to lie in further pursuing this 'convergence hypthesis' regarding the origination of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian retroflexion (and alveolarization)." Would any of the list's ziSTas care to pursue this? George Thompson From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Sun Mar 1 20:26:13 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 21:26:13 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036282.23782.399215469568048949.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Edwin Bryant wrote: >George: do you really want to do this? Apparently he does :) >I know I'm going to be provoked into jumping in. Good :) After you folks are done discussing retroflexion and other alleged Dravidian substratum influence, could you please turn your attention to another argument for IE not to have been in India for "too long" (which I was reminded of in an interesting email discussion) and which is quite independant of the Dravidian influence question, namely the relative lack of linguistic depth of the IA family. In other others, that if IA represented the development in situ of PIE we should notice in IA a linguistic diversity about equal to the diversity noticed in the whole of the IE area outside India combined, and that this is not the case. While somewhat impressionistic and not easy to make completely rigorous (how do you measure "linguistic depth" and "diversity"?), I think this point would nonetheless also deserve some attention from you. From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Sun Mar 1 20:36:07 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 21:36:07 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036285.23782.12903022387815190166.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Erik Seldeschachts wrote: >In the Sarasvati case, if one accepts the view that Dravidian was the language >spoken in North-Western India at that time, how to explain the fact that this language >has been wiped out from that area by intruders, who certainly could have formed only a >minority in a culturally superior environment? We do not have to assume that the state of the inhabitants of the Indus culture area was such that the Aryans felt they were culturally superior. And the ARyans may quickly have become a majority in the region, compare the Europeans in the Americas. How to explain the absence of Dravidian >elements in the oldest forms of Indo-Aryan (the few such elements proposed are all >heavily disputed). Are they? I was under the impression that Dravidian and/or other non-IE elements are present already in the Rigveda, although they increase with time. Please give me some references. Finally, how is it possible that there is no trace of a Dravidian >substratum in placenames and rivernames in most of North-Western India and even in most >of Nortern India as a whole. 1: How do you know that there are virtually no Dravidian place-names? I don't think that the linguistics of Northern India are that transparent. 2: The phenomenon would, however, have parallels. The Norsemen migrated to Norway about 800 BCE. They did not come to an uninhabited area. Still, there is hardly a non-Norse name left south of the Sami areas. And what about the Brahui? They are still there, after quite some time, apparently. A quote from Mallory's book "In Search of the Indo-Europeans": "Circumstantial evidence for identifying the language of the Indus Valley script with Elamite or Dravidian has been greatly strengthened by David McAlpin's work on the relationship between the Dravidian languages and Elamite. McAlpin has demonstrated that the two groups of languages derive from a common proto-language, Proto-Elamo-Dravidian, and that Brahui, traditionally assigned to the Northen Dravidian subgroup, would actually appear to be linguistically as well as geographically intermediate between the two major subgroups. ... McAlpin dates the disintegration of Proto-Elamo-Dravidian to about the fifth millennium B.C. All this makes a good case for associating the early farming economies that formed the foundation of the Indus civilization with Elamo-Dravidian languages - an hypothesis far more probable than Colin Renfrew's recent suggestion that the Indus Valley civilization was Indo-Aryan and that it was Indo-Europeans who introduced the farming economy to this region". In fact, if you look at the map, you will see that the Aryans migrating down the Punjab cut the Dravidian population in two: The ones to the West of the Aryan wave of immigration, and the ones to the South-South-East. This would be the logical conclusion of McAlpin's work on Elamo-Dravidian. I am not a Dravidist, and even less an Elamist, so I cannot vouch for McAlpin's work, but comments from knowledgable people would be interesting. >The Dravidian hypothesis has to be abandoned. I am afraid not quite yet. >> As for the Iranians, there are no traces of >> anything Indian to the best of my knowledge. > >You are right, except for the fact that there are Gypsies among the Iranians too and that >there are a number of Indian loan-words in Persian. However, I do not understand why you >make this remark. The early migration route of Indians towards the west must have >followed the Oxus bassin (formerly leading to the Caspian Sea), an area which came only >relatively late under Iranian controll. "must have followed ... " How can you make such a statement? How can we hypothetically assert which route the Indians followed *if* they migrated out of India? I gather that you belong to the crowd that claims Aryans must leave archaological evidence to prove their migration *into India*. But the same argument would also work the other way around! >> Ah well, the genetic argument again. I think I shall have to quote >> something. I refer to the magnum opus on the genetics of the world by >> Cavalli-Sforza called "The History and Geography of Human Genes". Princeton >> University Press 1994. > >I must confess that I haven't read the work of Cavalli-Sforza, but I have the impression >that he is trying to fit his genetic data into tradional theories. As far as I know there >is no substantial genetical difference between the population of the Indus-Sarasvati >culture and the present population of that area. I think I suggested that you check out the genetic data yourself, since it would be rather a lot to copy. What I did, was simply to give you his conclusions which square fairly well with the picture developed by the linguists. However, this does not mean that Cavalli-Sforza would have supported the linguistic model if it hadn't fit the genetic data. I some time ago on this list gave a reference to another genetic study which evaluated the models of Gimbutas and Renfrew concerning the spread of the Indo-Europeans in Europe. The conclusion was that neither Gimbutas' nor Renfrew's diffusion models could be squared with the genetic data. There is no reason to assume that Cavalli-Sforza is "cooking his books". >> Summing up the population movements in India the book says: > >> 2. The second is a major migration from Western Iran that began in early >> Neolithic times and consisted of the spread of early farmers of the eastern >> horn of the Fertile Crescent. These people were responsible for most of the >> genetic background of India; they were Caucasoid and most probably spoke >> proto-Dravidian languages. These languages are now confined mostly, but not >> exclusively, to the south because of the later arrivals of speakers of >> Indo-European languages, who imposed their domination on most of the >> subcontinent, especially the northern and central-western part. But the >> persistence of a very large number of speakers of Dravidian languages in the >> center and south is an indirect indication that their genetic identity has >> not been profoundly altered by later events. > >Here Cavalli-Sforza implicitly admits the shortcomings of his research saying "they were >Caucasoid and most probably spoke proto-Dravidian languages". Why couldn't they "most >probably" have spoken Indo-Iranian or proto-Indo-Aryan ? I think that Cavalli-Sforza may have had McAlpin's work in mind. But let me remind you that when we are dealing with historical data that in no way are complete, our configuration of the data (to use Edwin Bryant's expression) is always associated with some degree of probability (even if this probability cannot be stated exactly). A configuration of the data that assume an Indo-European (Aryan) migration into India (AIT!) in the second millennium BCE is in my humble opinion simply associated with the highest degree of probability. Other theories just seem to score much lower on the probability scale. >As is the case with so many factors, the genetic shift can easily be interpreted here as >going the opposite way: from east to west. The time and areas indicated are more or less >the period and areas of the westward movement of Indo-Aryan peoples, who by then had >mastered the skills of horse-riding. This is in my opinion simply wishful thinking. >Again, no genetic argument at all, but a purely traditionalist explanation, which can be >easily reversed. Maybe not. You should not argue against my quotations when I urge you to read the whole material in Cavalli-Sforza relevant to South Asia before protesting. (A few pages, but not a superhuman job). And my argument still stands: there is no genetic data indicating that people moved out of India (with the exception of the gypsies, of course!). The genetic evidence that is to be found, so far supports the other model. The burden of proof is on the out-of-India side. Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Sun Mar 1 20:51:02 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 21:51:02 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036289.23782.9723762942758919784.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jacob Baltuch wrote: > >After you folks are done discussing retroflexion and other alleged >Dravidian substratum influence, could you please turn your attention >to another argument for IE not to have been in India for "too long" >(which I was reminded of in an interesting email discussion) and >which is quite independant of the Dravidian influence question, >namely the relative lack of linguistic depth of the IA family. > >In other others, that if IA represented the development in situ of >PIE we should notice in IA a linguistic diversity about equal >to the diversity noticed in the whole of the IE area outside India >combined, and that this is not the case. While somewhat impressionistic >and not easy to make completely rigorous (how do you measure >"linguistic depth" and "diversity"?), I think this point would >nonetheless also deserve some attention from you. > Since Jacob had this discussion with me, I think that you should be given the relevant part of the argument as it was stated. Hope Jacob doesn't mind! Scenario: Aryans moving *out of* India. ************** >Therefore I don't see much merit in the arguments revolving >around not finding dialects other than "Sanskritic" in India. >That's exactly what you would expect if PIE had originated in India. Hmm. I think we are speaking at cross-purposes. If you want to say that the split occurred precisely *because* part of the descendants of PIE moved *out* of India, please do. But let us have a look at models. We have no historical data from the period of Indian history, but we have a lot of data concerning the Roman empire and Roman history. We know that the barbarians who tried to invade Roman territory were divided into tribes - so we must assume was the case with the Aryans. We know that these barbarian tribes were at war with each other, and we know specifically that some of them moved because the military pressure from other tribes became too hot to handle (e.g. the Helvetians). In other words, a plausible motive for leaving India might be military conflict. But be that as it may, the group that was left in India would have to be linguistically quite like the ones that left. Let us look at time depth: The Indo-Iranian languages are very close to each other, Vedic skt. and Awestan may have split at any time between 300 - 800 years before they come into the light of history. But looking at the other IE languages - Hittite, Greek etc. - we know that they were present in their respective areas in the second millenium BCE, and they must have had a long history before that. That would make a split somewhere around 4500 BCE likely. In other words, since 4500 BCE Indo-Europeans were present in India, but did not develop any other languages than Skt. and Iranian. Such a model is counter-intuitive and at variance with the situations we can observe elsewhere. Just like the IE in Eurasia, we would expect the IE in India to develop a rich flora of languages, some of which would have traces of the grammatical features that we find in the West, but not in Skt. and Iranian. Given the existence in the Aryan area of other non-aryan languages, this situation becomes even less probable. Compare the Italics in Italy: They entered Italy around 1000 BCE. At the beginning of the first millennium, there were all sorts of languages spoken in Italy, not only Latin but also Oscan, Umbrian, not to mention Etruscan and quite a few others. Eventually, Latin and its derivatives obliterated these languages, but the traces are there, as inscriptions. In Western Europe, we still have non-IE languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Sami, and Basque, all surviving in a sea of Indo-Europeans. Celtic remained in French Britanny in spite of French. Other Celtic languages stayed on in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, in spite of the tremendous force of English. In India, Skt. or Sanskrit dialects are the starting point of all later NIA languages. There are no parallels to Celtic in Great Britain or France. The most logical explanation is therefore: Skt. intruded into India, the Indo-Europeans did not leave India. >The "Sanskritic" dialects (in other words IA) would be no more >and no less than what the languages of the the branch which stayed >in India evolved into. As I said, that is highly unlikely. But by all means: When hard data fail us, we are forced to use analogies and deductions based on what we observe elsewhere. Thus, the IE "Urvolk" in India MAY just have developed into Skt. and Iranian and nothing else. It is just that when you try to assign a probability to such a development, it becomes very, very tiny. An then, as already stated several times, there is the fact that no languages outside India show any trace of specifically Indian features, neither in vocabulary nor in grammar. *************** Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Sun Mar 1 20:51:57 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 21:51:57 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036291.23782.14211039005755312912.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I wrote: >[...] if IA represented the development in situ of PIE we should notice >in IA a linguistic diversity about equal to the diversity noticed in the >whole of the IE area outside India combined, and [...] this is not the >case. While somewhat impressionistic and not easy to make completely >rigorous, not to mention other possible objections (such as a possible demographic imbalance between the number of those leaving, in several waves, and the stay behinds, or geographic proximity which may have countered divergent development in IA to some extent), >I think this point would nonetheless also deserve some attention from you. From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Sun Mar 1 21:17:55 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 22:17:55 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036293.23782.4543794080101114300.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars wrote: >Since Jacob had this discussion with me, I think that you should be given >the relevant part of the argument as it was stated. Hope Jacob doesn't mind! No, of course. And yes it was to the discussion with Lars I was referring to as interesting. I hope Lars doesn't mind :) Just one observation: my statements Lars responds to in his recent post represent counter-arguments I would have raised before the discussion with him. In other words, he has managed to some extent to convince me. Also keep in mind that Lars and me were discussing the relative merit of individual arguments, not the overall validity of the various positions. From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Sun Mar 1 21:47:20 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 22:47:20 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036297.23782.13584657846328407399.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jacob wrote: >Just one observation: my statements Lars responds to in his recent post >represent counter-arguments I would have raised before the discussion >with him. In other words, he has managed to some extent to convince me. > >Also keep in mind that Lars and me were discussing the relative merit of >individual arguments, not the overall validity of the various positions. This is true! We had what you might call a "scenario" debate where the assumption was that the Aryans left India (in other words, the OoI theory). My latest posting thus contains just a part of the arguments discussed. But given Jacob's email, I thought the part I sent would clarify the question and the argument in a more detailed manner. By the way, I have one question to the list: I gather from Edwin's posting that the Iranians used the term Airyanam varsha (=Indic aryavarta) about a country that was far away from modern Iran (in other words: a land of origin). I have all my adult life (I think!) been under the impression that airyanam varsha referred to the area that is covered by modern Iran (+ a few odd bits and pieces here and there). Could I get some more details about this, please? (References to the Awesta, etc.) Best regards, Lars Martin Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 2 04:56:02 1998 From: witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Michael Witzel) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 98 23:56:02 -0500 Subject: new Vedic vol./ Opera Minora, Harvard Or. Ser. Message-ID: <161227036305.23782.14945238021643333021.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A new Volume of HOS-OM has been released: HARVARD ORIENTAL SERIES, OPERA MINORA, VOL. 2: INSIDE THE TEXTS, BEYOND THE TEXTS NEW APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF THE VEDAS Edited by Michael Witzel Published by the Dept. of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard Univ., Distributed by South Asia Books, Columbia MO. Cambridge 1997 ISBN 1 - 888 789 - 03 - 4 pp. xix, 380. Price c. $35 This volume contains the papers given at the International Vedic Workshop at Harvard University, where some of the leading international specialists in the study of the Veda presented new approaches in Vedic Studies. The volume covers Vedic language and grammar, the structure and nature of the texts and their poetics, canon formation, Vedic ritual, religion and the history of ideas, the social and political history and the archaeology of this earliest period of Indian history that is accessible in decipherable texts. The Opera Minora of the Harvard Oriental Series are available from South Asia Books, P.O. Box 502, Columbia, MO 65205, email: sabooks at juno.com; phone: 573-474-0116; fax: 474-8124. For information write to: Editor, Harvard Oriental Series, Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA; ph. 617-496-2990, email: sanskrit at fas.harvard.edu www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm in future: www.fas.harvard.edu/~sanskrit/hos-om.html =========================================================================== CONTENTS: Introduction v-xix Articles: -------- Joel P. Brereton Why is a Sleeping Dog like the Vedic Sacrifice? The Structure of an Upanisadic Brahmodya....................1 Colette Caillat Vedic and Early Middle Indo-Aryan..........................15 George Cardona Vedic Tradition and Descriptions of Grammarians............33 R.N. Dandekar Vedic Mythology: A Rethinking.............................39 Tatyana Y. Elizarenkova Problems of a Synchronic Description of Language and Style in the Rgveda..............................................49 Walter S. Fairservis The Harappan Civilization and the Rgveda...................61 Harry Falk The Purpose of Rgvedic Ritual..............................69 Masato Fujii On the Formation and Transmission of the Jaiminiya- Upanisad-Brahmana..........................................89 Hans Henrich Hock Chronology or Genre? Problems in Vedic syntax............103 Stephanie W. Jamison Formulaic Elements in Vedic Myth..........................127 Jared Klein On Verbal Accentuation in the Rigveda.....................139 Christopher Z. Minkowski School Variation in the Text of the Nivids................167 Boris Oguibenine On Genuflexion in Vedic and Indo-European.................185 Asko Parpola The Dasas and the Coming of the Aryans....................193 Wilhelm Rau The Earliest Literary Evidence for Permanent Vedic Settlements.........................................203 Hanns-Peter Schmidt Ahimsa and Rebirth....... ................................207 Renate Soehnen Rise and Decline of the Indra Religion in the Veda........235 Calvert Watkins The Indo-European Background of Vedic Poetics.............245 Michael Witzel The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu............. .............257 Participants and their Addresses..................................347 Index.............................................................351 ========================================================================== Michael Witzel witzel at fas.harvard.edu www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies Harvard University www.shore.net/~india/ejvs 2 Divinity Avenue (Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies) Cambridge MA 02138, USA phone: 1- 617 - 495 3295 (voice & messages), 496 8570, fax 617 - 496 8571 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU Mon Mar 2 06:04:22 1998 From: jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU (JR Gardner) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 00:04:22 -0600 Subject: Taittiriiya BraahmaNa In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036309.23782.554818057282174110.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The replies to this need not be addressed to the list as a whole as there are other issues being discussed. I'm simply having a slightly frustrating time reconciling TB accent. As below in 2.8.8.9, it's kind of important as my dissertation concerns the development of the notion of the self, accordingly the distinction between bra'hman and brahma'n is quite important! I am interpreting 2.8.8.9 as follows: bra'hma devaa'najanayat | brahma vi'zvamidaM ja'gat | bra'hmaNaH kSatraM ni'rmitam | bra'hma braahmaNa aatma'naa This assumes that the the verticle stroke above a consonant indicates that svarita is the following accent, with udaatta preceding the verticle mark. The problem is--why would we have bra'hmaNaH kSatraM instead of brahma'NaH kSatraM? Unless ni'rmitam is to blame-- nir + -mA -- "constructed, built" -- by bra'hman the kSatra is constructed(?). I could, perhaps, be misreading the copy of the TB and kSatram is not the word in the first place (the "tr" is not overly clear . . .. .). The brahma vi'zvamidaM ja'gat troubles me as well-- there is an underscore below the "hm" of brahma, and a verticle stroke above the "zv" of vi'zvam-- that is why i've taken it as I have. I am not certain enough about accent rules to know why--if it be the case--brahma is not accented in that portion. I'm willing to be quite wrong in all this, in many ways I just want to know which brahman is which, and I'll sort out the significations for the development of the self accordingly. I thank anyone for answers in advance! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ John Robert Gardner Obermann Center School of Religion for Advanced Studies University of Iowa University of Iowa 319-335-2164 319-335-4034 http://vedavid.org http://www.uiowa.edu/~obermann/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It is ludicrous to consider language as anything other than that of which it is the transformation. From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Mon Mar 2 00:28:19 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 01:28:19 +0100 Subject: Query on the term *mistri* Message-ID: <161227036299.23782.15858751358902973572.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dominik Wujastyk wrote: >Words don't just "transform" from one thing into another. There are >phonological laws involved, and not everything is possible (including >"master > mEstrI"). This is a dangerous statement. Let's hope that there is no Portuguese (resp. English) 't' that has ever resulted in a retroflex (resp. alveolar) 't' in an Indian language, or that if it exists people sharing Subrahmanya's view of linguistics never find it :) or they will be happy to throw it at you saying "You see, linguistics means nothing, it's all nonsense". I don't know if one can say that it is *impossible* for this to happen. Linguistics laws are not like physical laws. They represent statistical trends. It is their failure to understand that which may be part of the reason why *some* people with background in the sciences deny that linguistic methods are rigorous. An unrelated observation re: this thread: there's more to Europe than just England. There's also Portugal (for example). Granted that the main reason the eminent nuclear physicist got it wrong was that he was entirely incompetent in matters of historical linguistics, but isn't the mistake he made typical for another reason? From apandey at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Mar 2 11:51:42 1998 From: apandey at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Anshuman Pandey) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 03:51:42 -0800 Subject: TrueType fonts, TeX etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036320.23782.17289714716241479815.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, John Smith wrote: > Post-1990 TeX has what is without doubt the best approach to the use of > special character sets available in any major system: virtual fonts. A > virtual font is a layer of software that "tames" a raw font and makes it > act as the user wishes. In use it "feels" just like a real font. Among the > advantages of this approach are that one can make virtual fonts > implementing special character sets for any real font one chooses: there > are no copyright hassles. There is a big collection of virtual fonts > implementing CSX for a wide range of underlying real fonts -- both > Computer Modern and PostScript -- available at the website given below: > follow the "fonts" link, then "csx-fonts" and finally "TeX". Yes, emTeX does support virtual fonts, however, some of the filenames of John's CSX virtual fonts exceed the allowable 8 + 3 filename convention of DOS. I was going to rename the files so that they may be used with emTeX but never got around to doing it. John, any new ideas yet? For those interested in coupling TeX with Indology, there's a wealth of software available. (The December issue of Tugboat (journal of the TeX Users' Group) *should* have an article called "Typesetting Indic Fonts in TeX" which summarizes the various packages available for use with TeX.) As of now, every major Indic script can be easily typeset in TeX. Most of these scripts are supported by ITRANS; information about which can be had from . Also, many other Indic TeX packages are available from the INDOLOGY file server. Additionally, the thesis style sheets for many universities are available for TeX, as are numerous other useful styles for letters, vitas, articles, etc. All one has to do is browse the catalogue of the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. For those wishing an introduction to TeX, LaTeX, METAFONT, etc. the following files are of great help: A Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e info/lshort/lshort2e.600.ps The New TeX FAQ (letter) help/uktug-FAQ/letterfaq.ps (a4) help/uktug-FAQ/newfaq.ps also, A Gentle Introduction to TeX info/gentle.tex Setting up emTeX info/jrtex12a Introduction to TeX info/maltby-intro.tex Metafont for Beginners info/metafont-for-beginners.tex these are all available from either ftp.tex.ac.uk or ftp.dante.de in the respective directories indicated above. Also, the "LaTeX Companion" by Michel Goosens, et al. (published by Addison Wesley) is a wonderful "manual" for getting to know TeX and friends. That's enough for a digression... back to the Aryans! Regards, Anshuman Pandey From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Mon Mar 2 12:30:44 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 07:30:44 -0500 Subject: None Message-ID: <161227036323.23782.11762161273020091207.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Quotation from Cavalli-Sforza > [...] Linking the two series > of events in Turkmenia and the Indus Valley, it seems very likely that both > were due to the takover of power by Aryan pastoral nomads who came from the > steppes of Cental Asia, spoke an Indo-European language and used iron and > Horses. More about their origin was given in section 4.3. [.....]" ``take-over of power'' implies continuity in the pattern of political organization and a political organization to take over. Archeologists will very much dispute that for 2nd millennium BCE India. And do philologists really claim that RV shows familiarity with iron? At first I was miffed at the all the put-downs of scientists in Indology. But perhaps it is deserved, to judge by the above quote:-) The question is, why are such elementary mistakes tolerated when the scientist says what Indologists want to hear? ---- Incidentally, there a couple common misconceptions that should be cleared up. The first is that the The famous treaty that mentions Mitra, Indra etc. mention Varunas. The trouble is this: One version has Arunasil, another Urvanasil. Apparently neither of them can be legitimately taken as transcriptions of Varuna based on what we know of Near Eastern languages. One suggestion that I have heard connects to Av. urvan, `soul', suggesting that Mittanis should really be connected to Nuristani groups, whose main pre-Islamic god was Imra ( > >>>At 09:14 PM 2/26/98 +0500, sarma wrote: >>>>parAzarA is supposed to be one of the famous ancient astronomers. >>>>But in viSNupurANa he appears to believe that the Sun in addition to going >>>>round the zodaic once in an year, goes round the zodaic once >>>>in a day also as can be seen from the following verses in viSNupurANa. >>>> >>>> ahOrAtrENa yO bhuKktE samastA rAzayO dvija 2.45.(2) >>>> SaDEva rAzIn yO bhuKktE rAtrAvanyAJsca SaDdivA 2.46(1) >>>> >>>>But this could have been easily found to be incorrect by the observation >>>>at the time of a total solar eclipse >> >>> >>>The sloka numbers are given wrongly. They should be >>> >>> ahOrAtrENa yO bhuKktE samastA rAzayO dvija 2.8.45.(2) >>> SaDEva rAzIn yO bhuKktE rAtrAvanyAJsca SaDdivA 2.8.46(1) >>> >>>Observation of the stars just after sunset also should convince one >>>that Sun does not go round the zodiac daily. >>> >> And in response to my reply: >> There is a very simple explanation of this statement. >>Please refer to VP (1. 3. 10): >> >> ayanam dakSiNam rAtrirdevAnAm uttaram dinam >> >>The ahorAtra referred (2.8.45-6) is the ahoratra of the devAs, which >>corresponds to one year of the mAnavAs. Hence the sun progresses through all >>the rAzi s in one ahorAtra >>Narahari Achar >> he wrote: >I do not think this explanation is valid. These slokas occur in the context >of explaining the lengthening of the day in uttarAyana and the shortening >in dakSiNAyana. > > rAzipramAnAjanitA dIrghahrasvAtmatA dinE 2.8.46(2) > tathA nizAyAM rAzInAM pramANairlaghudIrghatA > dinAdErdIrghahrasvatvaM tadbhOgEnaiva jAyatE 2.8.47 > >Obviously the context here is not the ahOrAtra of dEvAs but of >earthly beings. > This concern of Dr. Sarma together with the earlier remark about ParAzara, whether the famous astronomer understood the most elementary facts of astronomy needs a lengthy and some what technical response. As my other duties demand my immediate attention, I can not do justice to the posting right now. In any case, the interest on net seems to be marginal (compare with tAraka and tArAmaya) so I will persue this with Dr. Sarma by private e-mail, at my earliest. However, I will outline my response: (a) parAzara knows very well the difference between diurnal and annual motions. see slokas 2. 8.29- 2. 8.12 (b) The lines quoted above 2.8.46(2) and 2.8. 47 refer to a novel model to explain the variation of the length of day time in terms of rAzis of variable extent. (never mind whether that model can explain it or not) (c) The lines 2.8.45(2) and 2.8.46(1)appear to have been introduced (later perhaps) to reconcile two models of the motion of the Sun along the ecliptic one with equal divisions of rAzi and another with non-equal divisions. (d) finally, it is not the affairs of devas are mixed with the affairs of humans, it is just that an alternate name for a unit of time. Such uses are not at all uncommon. regards, -Narahari Achar From rmanring at INDIANA.EDU Mon Mar 2 13:23:00 1998 From: rmanring at INDIANA.EDU (Rebecca Manring) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 08:23:00 -0500 Subject: Hindi idiom Message-ID: <161227036325.23782.18445216260575093155.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Colleagues, Does anyone know anything about the origin of the Hindi idiom, nau-do gyArah honA, meaning "to slip away"? Thank you - Rebecca Manring India Studies Indiana University From rsalomon at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Mar 2 17:51:14 1998 From: rsalomon at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Richard Salomon) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 09:51:14 -0800 Subject: Caldwell, Dravidian Linguistics (Was: : Tamil words in English) In-Reply-To: <01ITYAP1I95E000PH2@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227036341.23782.3766642858210140320.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On F.W. Ellis, see Susan Okeksiw, "Francis Whyte Ellis: A Brief Review of his Work," in Adyar Library Bulletin 51 (1987: L. Rocher Festschrift vol.), pp. 267-75. RS On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, N. Ganesan wrote: > Francis Whyte Ellis, a British administrator, is a very interesting > figure. He is the original founder of the idea of Dravidian language > family. This is given in Encyclopaedia Brittanica. > > He appointed A. Muttusami Pillai of Pondichery as a Munshi (language-pundit) > to teach Tamil in the College of Fort St. George, Madras. It was at > the instigation of F. W. Ellis that Muttusami Pillai began collecting > Tamil manuscripts. > > In point of fact, it was most probably Muttusami Pillai who was the > *first* scholar to make an extensive tour of Tamil Nadu, in 1816, > with the explicit purpose to search for, collect and classify Tamil > palmleaf manuscripts in particular the works of Beschi (1680-1747), > a Jesuit missionary, who tamilized his name as Veeramaamunivar. > > Ellis visited the palace of the Sethupatis of Ramnad, because > he can get in touch with erudite scholars. The fate of the > Ellis collection of South Indian manuscripts, mainly with the > help of A. Muttusami Pillai, was unfortunate. > > The successor to Ellis in Madras was not interested in S. Indian languages. > His name is Peter, I recollect. Collector Peter's > butler used Ellis' 2 or 3 rooms-full manuscripts to > kindle the oven fires, for the Collectors' evening parties. > It seems this information is given in an obituary to > an English scholar of Tamil that appeared in Sunday Times, London. > F. W. Ellis' life, his manuscripts, their fate etc., is well worth > investigating. Or, is it already done? I read about the manuscripts and > their burning about 15 years ago in > K. Meenakshisundaram, The contribution of European scholars > to Tamil, Univ. of Madras, 1974, 370 p. > > Ellis published his translation of 13 short chapters of Tirukkural > when he was alive. From his handwritten manuscripts, > Prof. R. P. Sethu Pillai edited for the whole of Arattuppaal section > of Tirukkural. > Tirukkural: Ellis' commentary. > Edited by R. P. Sethu Pillai, Univ. of Madras, 1956, 406 p. > > It appears some more of Ellis' manuscripts, translations remain > unpublished. > R. E. Asher, Notes on F. W. Ellis and an Unpublished fragment of > His Commentary on Tirukkural. > Proc. of the First International Conference Seminar of Tamil studies, > Kuala Lumpur, (2 vol.), 1968-69 > > It is interesting that Beschi(1680-1747) wrote the Christian epic, > Tembavani in chaste Tamil on the life of St. Joseph. Likewise, > F. W. Ellis composed several poems that are included in > tanippaaTal tiraTTu (Anthology of solitary verses). > After Beschi and Ellis, I do not know of non-south-asian scholars > who can compose tamil poetry using ancient or medieval meters. > May be, in 18th/19th centuries, in order to > prove oneself in tamil scholarship, composing poetry was > deemed essential. Nowadays, prose would do. > > Regards, > N. Ganesan > > Some related references: > 1) R. E. Asher, 250 years after: Some features of Ziegenbalg's study of > Tamil, Proc. I Int. Conf. Seminar of Tamil studies, Kuala Lumpur, 1968-69. > > 2) K. Zvelebil, One hundred years of Dravidian comparative philology, > Archiv Orientalni, 24, 1956, p. 599-609 > > 3) K. Zvelebil, A note on early history of Dravidology, > J. of Tamil Studies, Madras, 27, 1985, p. 1-23 > > 4) K. Zvelebil, Dravidian Linguistics today, > J. of Asian studies, Madras, 2, 1, 1984, p. 1-40 > > 5) K. Zvelebil, Beginnings of the history of Dravidian civilization > in South India > J. of Tamil studies, Madras, 23, 1983, p. 17-25 > From jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK Mon Mar 2 09:58:36 1998 From: jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK (John Smith) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 09:58:36 +0000 Subject: HTML formatted papers via Indology? In-Reply-To: <01bd4461$e4d01300$7de6e595@roheko> Message-ID: <161227036313.23782.6807743877695344268.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 28 Feb 1998, Rolf Heiner Koch wrote: > Does anybody know if the Indology-server accepts HTML-messages? For > example to send a paper with HTMLinks in order to facilitate the reading > of such papers for all members? Are the emails restricted absolutely to > text-format? Any members I contact by their personal email-adress > receive HTML-emails easily. Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com Not all of us read our mail through Netscape 4 (or whatever HTML-aware product you are using). Receiving HTML messages is a big pain if your mail client can only display them as text. Of course you can attach a document in HTML format (or indeed any other format) to your message, but in doing so you are restricting the readership to people with "appropriate" software. Plain text is still safest. John Smith -- Dr J. D. Smith * jds10 at cam.ac.uk Faculty of Oriental Studies * Tel. 01223 335140 (Switchboard 01223 335106) Sidgwick Avenue * Fax 01223 335110 Cambridge CB3 9DA * http://bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk/index.html From jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK Mon Mar 2 10:12:21 1998 From: jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK (John Smith) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 10:12:21 +0000 Subject: TrueType fonts, TeX etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036314.23782.3547917589020458140.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > Anshuman Pandey wrote (about TrueType and PK fonts, etc.): > > > Here's another suggestion: Move completely over to TeX and your > > problems will be solved! Ask anyone... :-P > > I'm quite willing to believe you: TeX looks like a wonderful system. My > one problem is, however, that I have not been able to install any font > successfully except the standard Computer Modern font (I am using emTeX > with OS/2) -- with which I can write practically anything I want in > transliteration, using any diacritics I want, but I have not been able > to fully install either other Latin fonts (the system refuses to produce > accented European characters in these other fonts, although the Metafont > files say that they are there) or, for instance, the ITRANS fonts. > > Is there any clever source of information available anywhere on how to > install other TeX fonts? I have gone through all the documentation on > TeX and Metafont that came with emTeX, but I still have not understood > what I am doing wrong. Post-1990 TeX has what is without doubt the best approach to the use of special character sets available in any major system: virtual fonts. A virtual font is a layer of software that "tames" a raw font and makes it act as the user wishes. In use it "feels" just like a real font. Among the advantages of this approach are that one can make virtual fonts implementing special character sets for any real font one chooses: there are no copyright hassles. There is a big collection of virtual fonts implementing CSX for a wide range of underlying real fonts -- both Computer Modern and PostScript -- available at the website given below: follow the "fonts" link, then "csx-fonts" and finally "TeX". EmTeX will certainly be capable of handling such fonts, but as I don't have it on my machine I cannot tell you how to set it up. Usually all that is necessary is (1) to put the TFM files in the usual directory for such things, (2) to put the VF (virtual font) files in a specific directory, and (3) to set an environment variable to point to that directory. If you need further help, it would probably be sensible to post a query to comp.text.tex. I think this group is not an appropriate place to take this topic further. John Smith -- Dr J. D. Smith * jds10 at cam.ac.uk Faculty of Oriental Studies * Tel. 01223 335140 (Switchboard 01223 335106) Sidgwick Avenue * Fax 01223 335110 Cambridge CB3 9DA * http://bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk/index.html From erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE Mon Mar 2 09:32:12 1998 From: erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE (Erik Seldeslachts) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 10:32:12 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036311.23782.9107396847060873890.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dominique.Thillaud wrote: > > There are many ways for an "invasion" and History gives us many > various examples of moving populations, peaceful or violent. About the > linguistical problem there is an useful question: who comes? just few > warriors (eventually first used as mercenaries)? or whole families? > In the first case, they find wifes in situ and the babies, breeded > by the women, learn the mother language. A good example is the coming of > Norsemen in the part of France still called Normandie: in very few > generations they completely loose Norse and all speak French. > But, in the other case, even in a "culturally superior > environment", the political power is able to give a preference to the > newcomers language: an example is found in France where the Gallic is fully > replaced by the Latin. And the religion can be an other powerful vector: in > the Mediterranean aera, the islamization gives the way to the arabization. In Normandie a number of Norse place names have been conserved and even some personal names are continued in last names such as Anquetil P Anskjetill (or something similar). In the reverse situation we get a similar effect: onomastic studies easily reveal the Gallic components in the place names of France and the Greco-Roman component in the place names of the Arab speaking parts of the Mediterranean.So we have here perfect counterexamples of the situation in Northern India were we do not find a Dravidian layer in the names of places and persons. > In my opinion, it's highly probable that Aryans were coming IN, > even if we don't know today how, when and why. No doubt they were coming IN, but they were also going OUT and the questions are then when and whence did they come in and when did some go out and to what places did they go. > Other points of view are nothing but nationalist ones, respectable only in a > > > political scope. This is itself a political statement and I am not the least interested in that. > Erik Seldeslachts Universiteit Gent Gent belgium From L.S.Cousins at NESSIE.MCC.AC.UK Mon Mar 2 10:37:04 1998 From: L.S.Cousins at NESSIE.MCC.AC.UK (L.S.Cousins) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 10:37:04 +0000 Subject: Forms of "Dharmaguptaka" in inscriptions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036342.23782.15835577757322377061.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Richard Salomon writes: >In Kharosthi inscriptions, Dharmaguptaka appears in the forms >dha.mmagutaka- (Qunduz vase; also in a Brahmi ins. from Mathura, L:uders >Mathura Inscriptions no. 150) and dhamautea- (Jamalgarhi; corrected >reading by L:uders, AO 1940, pp.17ff.). (dhar*)mautaa- occurs in a >potsherd ins., to be published in my book. And (dhar*)mautaka- >appears in another potsherd published by Sadakata (JA 1996, >pp.301ff). Another Brahmi ins. from >Mathura is reported to read dharmaguptika (Shizutani p.131), but this has >not be definitively published, as far as I know. All of these forms are >usually found in the gen. pl., in formulaic phrases along the lines of >"acaryana dha.mmagutakana parigrahe". I have been in Oxford where I found Shizutani (with difficulty). It is indeed useful and would have been worth buying, were it in print. >That's the information I have, for what's it's worth. But I doubt that it >will help much in solving the question of the origin of the name. Yes, I think you are right. This all evidences Middle Indian forms equivalent to -aya (or -iya). Had it been the other way (i.e. some form in early inscriptions like dhamauta-), then that would have been strong support for an original name equivalent to Pali Dhammagutta-. Yet, Bareau says that the form Dharmagupta is frequent (Sectes, p. 190: On le trouve souvent ?crit Dharmagupta . . .). Probably, he is referring to Chinese sources. Bareau is undoubtedly right in seeing the origin of their separation from the Mahi.m-saasakas as lying in a dispute over the relative merits of the Buddha and Sangha, but I am not sure if he realized that this could also be the origin of the name. Obviously, if your opponent is including the Buddha under the heading of the Sangha, this easily leads to a view that the Sangha is the highest of the three refuges. So the Dhammaguttas could very well have been defending the primacy of the Dhamma. Lance Cousins MANCHESTER, UK CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS: Email: L.S.Cousins at nessie.mcc.ac.uk From thompson at JLC.NET Mon Mar 2 15:22:54 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 11:22:54 -0400 Subject: Retroflexion Message-ID: <161227036334.23782.6811176605416587111.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In response to the post of Lars Martin Fosse: > >Just as part of the general argument, I would like to supply the information >that both East Norwegian and West Swedish have produced retroflexion. So >have some South Italian dialects. All quite independent of Skt. > Yes, this sort of retroflexion is frequently cited by Hock as well, both in the recently cited article and in his valuable book, _Principles of Historical Linguistics_. But to my knowledge all of the examples that are cited show these retroflexes as allophonic variants of either dentals or alveolars, or even palatals. It seems to me that reference to such phenomena in other languages would be more cogent if one could produce examples of *phonemic* distinctions, not just allophonic ones. In Indic languages one can point to minimal pairs like Skt: pAta ['flight'] vs. pATa ['portion'] [this is one of Hock's preferred examples] Hock has not made it clear that such minimal pairs can be found in non-Indic languages. Can anyone on the list supply such minimal pairs? There is little dispute about the suggestion that retroflexion is an areal feature of the SA subcontinent. The question remains, however: how special a feature is it? Thanks in advance George Thompson From erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE Mon Mar 2 10:32:52 1998 From: erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE (Erik Seldeslachts) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 11:32:52 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036316.23782.4555978238979755945.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jacob Baltuch wrote: > After you folks are done discussing retroflexion and other alleged > Dravidian substratum influence, could you please turn your attention > to another argument for IE not to have been in India for "too long" > (which I was reminded of in an interesting email discussion) and > which is quite independant of the Dravidian influence question, > namely the relative lack of linguistic depth of the IA family. > > In other others, that if IA represented the development in situ of > PIE we should notice in IA a linguistic diversity about equal > to the diversity noticed in the whole of the IE area outside India > combined, and that this is not the case. While somewhat impressionistic > and not easy to make completely rigorous (how do you measure > "linguistic depth" and "diversity"?), I think this point would > nonetheless also deserve some attention from you. The relative lack of linguistic diversity in Indo-Aryan is due to a great extent to the unifying action of standard languages in combination with political and cultural configurations, which for a very long period have counteracted all disintegrating factors there may have been. This happened not only for a much longer period than was the case in Europe but also on a larger geographical scale. Erik Seldeslachts Universiteit Gent Gent, Belgium From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 2 16:50:30 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 11:50:30 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: <199803012051.VAA02524@online.no> Message-ID: <161227036336.23782.2131550022454570137.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > Let us look at time depth: The Indo-Iranian languages are very close to each > other, Vedic skt. and Awestan may have split at any time between 300 - 800 > years before they come into the light of history. Unfortunately, determining the time when these languages entered the light of history is not so easy. It is based, to a great extent, on negative evidence such as the earliest appearance of iron in the archaeological record (which was post-Harappan). But Shaffer, for example, has argued that iron ore was recognized and utilized in S. Afghanistan and was manipulated to produce iron artifacts in the late 3rd millennium BCE, leading him to suppose that Harappan complexes had access to, and knowledge of, an iron technology. But looking at the other > IE languages - Hittite, Greek etc. - we know that they were present in their > respective areas in the second millenium BCE, and they must have had a long > history before that. That would make a split somewhere around 4500 BCE > likely. In other words, since 4500 BCE Indo-Europeans were present in India, > but did not develop any other languages than Skt. and Iranian. Such a model > is counter-intuitive and at variance with the situations we can observe > elsewhere. Just like the IE in Eurasia, we would expect the IE in India to > develop a rich flora of languages, This is an important point. There was an early mouvement among certain scholars to consider India as the homeland (since it appeared to have the oldest language at the time). THis was then modified, somewhat, by scholars such as Muller who preferred "somewhere in Asia" and no more. THe first serious attempt to propose an European homeland was in 1851 by Robert Latham on the grounds outlined by Lars, above. Using a biological model, Latham argued that languages are akin to species which demonstrate a greater variety of forms nearest their geographical center of origin. Europe was more heterogeneous, therefore nearest the homeland, and Indo-Ir more homogeneous, therefore peripheral to it. A similar principal was articulated more recently by Dyen who noted that it is less likely that a large number of different languages migrated from an area as a collection of distinct groups. The area of the most diverse collection of languages, then, is prima facie evidence for supposing the origin of those languages to be in that very area. Mallory, in his Ph.D dissertation criticizes "such facile inferences from such a superficial and questionable methodology". Linguists such as Dolgoposky point out that such evidence completely contradicts other evidence such as loan words. Diebold notes that some languages simply do not stay put, and their migratory routes may be little affected by such neat principals. THe only INdian linguist of whom I am aware who has addressed this point, argues that the languages are more heterogeneous in Europe precisely because they were intruders there and had to impose themselves on non-IE substrata thereby accounting for the greater variety in Europe and explaining the greater homogeneity in INdia. As it happens, this is also a model explaining language innovation and preservation that is acceptable, and has been demonstrated, in linguistics. Personally, the more I study all these arguments and consider counter examples, the less easily I find myself able to draw ready conclusions. > There is the fact that no > languages outside India show any trace of specifically Indian features, > neither in vocabulary nor in grammar. THese arguments are also old ones, going back to the time of Muller, at least. Muller noted that if the IE's left Asia and settling in the West, they would not be likely to preserve the names for uniquely Asian animals in their vocabularies once the referents of these names had disappeared from their purview (except in the cases where such names are transferred onto other referents). So the names of fauna and flora unique to India would not be expected to appear in other languages and vice-versa. Several Indian scholars have noted the problem utilizing such assumptions to try and locate the homeland. Anyway, if such assumptions do have any value, then read Gramkrelidze and Ivanov's recent book. THey find reason to support a more exotic homeland adjacent to the Near East with monkeys, elephants and lions (which do exist in South Asia). While some of their etymologizing has been challenged, this all goes to show that one must be wary of basing too far reaching assumptions on this type of evidence. Regards, Edwin Bryant (and I am never going to be able to keep up with this kind of pace in this discussion). From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 2 16:52:25 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 11:52:25 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: <199803012036.VAA06386@online.no> Message-ID: <161227036344.23782.276650189004375405.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > "Circumstantial evidence for identifying the language of the Indus Valley > script with Elamite or Dravidian has been greatly strengthened by David > McAlpin's work on the relationship between the Dravidian languages and > Elamite. McAlpin has demonstrated that the two groups of languages derive > from a common proto-language, Proto-Elamo-Dravidian, and that Brahui, > traditionally assigned to the Northen Dravidian subgroup, would actually > appear to be linguistically as well as geographically intermediate between > the two major subgroups. ... McAlpin published his provocative and very interesting study quite some time ago and then he himself (if I am not mistaken) appears to have disappeared from academic cirlces and nothing more was heard from him. In any event, while some linguists are still open to considering his line of argument, it is by no means universally accepted at all. Does anyone know of any more recent work predicated on McAlpin's preliminary investigations? Regrards, Edwin From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 2 10:57:26 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 11:57:26 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036318.23782.18431553522756288041.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jacob Baltuch wrote: >> In other others, that if IA represented the development in situ of >> PIE we should notice in IA a linguistic diversity about equal >> to the diversity noticed in the whole of the IE area outside India >> combined, and that this is not the case. While somewhat impressionistic >> and not easy to make completely rigorous (how do you measure >> "linguistic depth" and "diversity"?), I think this point would >> nonetheless also deserve some attention from you. Erik Seldeschlachts wrote: >The relative lack of linguistic diversity in Indo-Aryan is due to a >great extent to the unifying action of standard languages in combination >with political and cultural configurations, which for a very long period >have counteracted all disintegrating factors there may have been. This >happened not only for a much longer period than was the case in Europe >but also on a larger geographical scale. I assume that when you talk about Indo-Aryan here, you include PIE and its development (because this is what Jacob and I were discussing). If you do, the statement above is very interesting. Considering that we are talking about a period that probably stretches from 4500 BCE till 1000 BCE, I would like to see some concrete evidence. Furthermore: How is it that such forces ceased to function in the period 1000 BCE until today? Because in this period, we have seen a strong diversification of North Indian languages, with various royal courts supporting different languages through the ages for literary purposes. Why should it be different in the period 4500 - 1000 BCE? Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK Mon Mar 2 12:08:36 1998 From: jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK (John Smith) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 12:08:36 +0000 Subject: TrueType fonts, TeX etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036321.23782.10724701733016941913.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Anshuman Pandey wrote: > Yes, emTeX does support virtual fonts, however, some of the filenames of > John's CSX virtual fonts exceed the allowable 8 + 3 filename convention of > DOS. I was going to rename the files so that they may be used with emTeX > but never got around to doing it. John, any new ideas yet? So long as you have the current versions, all you need do is rename them (so long as the name you use is unique and doesn't collide with the name of the underlying real font). The old versions were recursive (invoked themselves by name), so you couldn't do that; but the current versions don't have this problem. John Smith -- Dr J. D. Smith * jds10 at cam.ac.uk Faculty of Oriental Studies * Tel. 01223 335140 (Switchboard 01223 335106) Sidgwick Avenue * Fax 01223 335110 Cambridge CB3 9DA * http://bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk/index.html From erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE Mon Mar 2 14:58:18 1998 From: erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE (Erik Seldeslachts) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 15:58:18 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036329.23782.5465910207118905466.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > > Erik Seldeslachts wrote: > > >The relative lack of linguistic diversity in Indo-Aryan is due to a > >great extent to the unifying action of standard languages in combination > >with political and cultural configurations, which for a very long period > >have counteracted all disintegrating factors there may have been. This > >happened not only for a much longer period than was the case in Europe > >but also on a larger geographical scale. > > I assume that when you talk about Indo-Aryan here, you include PIE and its > development (because this is what Jacob and I were discussing). > > If you do, the statement above is very interesting. Considering that we are > talking about a period that probably stretches from 4500 BCE till 1000 BCE, > I would like to see some concrete evidence. Furthermore: How is it that such > forces ceased to function in the period 1000 BCE until today? Because in > this period, we have seen a strong diversification of North Indian > languages, with various royal courts supporting different languages through > the ages for literary purposes. Why should it be different in the period > 4500 - 1000 BCE? When I say Indo-Aryan I mean Indo-Aryan which already had developed out of PIE at least by 3000 BCE. In that period we see developing a culture in North-Western India which alone can have caused the observed linguistic uniformity: the Sindhu-Sarasvati-culture. Also in many aspects of material culture it shows an extraordinary internal uniformity and standardisation. After the collapse of this culture India has seldom seen a comparable period of unity, but strong unifying and converging forces stayed at work till today. After all, the modern Indo-Aryan languages are not that much diverse and have with the partial exception of the Dardic group developed together along similar lines. Erik Seldeslachts Universiteit Gent Gent, Belgium From Richard.Barz at ANU.EDU.AU Mon Mar 2 05:15:06 1998 From: Richard.Barz at ANU.EDU.AU (Richard Barz) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 16:15:06 +1100 Subject: Query on the term *mistri* Message-ID: <161227036307.23782.18356551011026351027.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In his 1884 Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English (Munshiram Manoharlal New Delhi 1993 reprint) John Platts says this (p.1031) about "Mistrii": "prob. corr. fr. the English 'master', pron. mistar". >Recently I read that the so-called mystery plays of the middle ages in >EU were not so called because they had something to do with "religious >mysteries" but because they were staged by guilds called mystry or >mystery. This rang a bell, as the term *mistri* in North India (I don't >know if it also entered Dravidian languages) is usually glossed >similarly to sense 2 below from the OED. > >I checked with the OED, which wrote that senses 2-4 were "probably >confused with *maisterie*, MASTERY." Thus, senses 2 (and maybe 3?) under >*mystery* accorded with the meaning of *mistri* in India and Bangladesh. >(The OED also said that "In med. Latin *mistera* was a form commonly >used with senses 2 & 3." That explains its use in connection with >"mystery plays".) >Sense 2: "Handicraft; craft, art. One's trade, profession, or calling." >Sense 3: "A trade guild or company" > >Would some kind listmember inform as to how the term *mistri* entered >into languages of the subcontinent. > >Thanks for any information, > >Joanna Kirkpatrick From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 2 16:00:12 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 17:00:12 +0100 Subject: None Message-ID: <161227036330.23782.6943538648367133166.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 07:30 02.03.98 -0500, you wrote: >Quotation from Cavalli-Sforza > >> [...] Linking the two series >> of events in Turkmenia and the Indus Valley, it seems very likely that both >> were due to the takover of power by Aryan pastoral nomads who came from the >> steppes of Cental Asia, spoke an Indo-European language and used iron and >> Horses. More about their origin was given in section 4.3. [.....]" > *Vidyanath Rao wrote: >``take-over of power'' implies continuity in the pattern of political >organization and a political organization to take over. This is not the only possible interpretation of "take-over power". It may simply mean that the Indo-Europeans became dominant in the area either in terms of military power or population (or both). Archeologists >will very much dispute that for 2nd millennium BCE India. And do >philologists really claim that RV shows familiarity with iron? Apparently opinions are divided. Cavalli-Sforza (and others, let us not forget the al.) are geneticists, not archaeologists. They receive wisdom from some arcaheologists etc. and see how their information squares with the genetic data. All the geneticists can fairly form an opinion about, is genetic character of various populations and the direction of the the population movements. They can for obvious reasons not form opinions about the particulars of the cultures that the peoples in question actually had. As we all know, there is no "proto-chariot-gene" or "iron-gene"! :-) >At first I was miffed at the all the put-downs of scientists in >Indology. But perhaps it is deserved, to judge by the above quote:-) The put-down of scientists has nothing to do with the fact that they are scientists, but with the fact that some of them seem to think that expertise in nuclear physics or mathematics automatically make them qualified to have strong opinions on Indological or linguistic matters. The point is that in order to have an opinion on such things, you have to do some basic studies of the relevant literature. It works the other way around too. If I were a member of an astronomy list, I would not harangue astronomists in Cyberspace about my home-cooked opinions about the origin of the universe (if I had any) - at least not before I had done a few years of relevant study. >The question is, why are such elementary mistakes tolerated when the >scientist says what Indologists want to hear? Who says they are tolerated? If they are wrong, they will not be tolerated. :-) >Andronov culture, which seem to the currently popular candidate for >original Indo-Iranians, is familiar with irrigation agriculture. >Pastoral nomads and irrigation agriculture make for an odd combination, >don't they?. And is that culture really unfamiliar with wheel-thrown >pottery, as has been suggested for proto-Indo-iranians? Pastoral nomads and irrigation culture ... Hmm. I am not an expert on the Andronovo culture (or Central Asiatic archaeology for that matter), but is this strictly logical? Assuming that the nomads and the agriculturalists share the same language and the same basic culture, they would simply have a mixed economy! But anyway: thank you for a couple of interesting references! Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 2 16:12:43 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 17:12:43 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036332.23782.10004891059263700658.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Erik Seldeslachts wrote: >When I say Indo-Aryan I mean Indo-Aryan which already had developed out of PIE at least by 3000 >BCE. This is very improbable. It is unlikely that Indo-Aryan goes much further back than 2000 BCE. You have to back this up with more argument. In that period we see developing a culture in North-Western India which alone can have caused >the observed linguistic uniformity: the Sindhu-Sarasvati-culture. Also in many aspects of material >culture it shows an extraordinary internal uniformity and standardisation. The Indus-culture/Sindu-Sarasvati culture only became properly standardized in the second half of the third millennium BCE. There is so far no proof that it was Aryan (or Indo-Aryan). It is very probable that it was Dravidian (once again, I refer to the work of McAlpin, which I referred to in an earlier mail). Furthermore, there is no evidence that it was a political monolith. According to the latest data I have read, we may rather be dealing with a series of city states (much like the Mayan cities) which shared a material culture. After the collapse of >this culture India has seldom seen a comparable period of unity, but strong unifying and converging >forces stayed at work till today. Really? Strong unifying forces? I realize someone must be VERY busy rewriting Indian history, because this does not seem like the history I have been reading. As far as I can see, there are few societies where the disruptive forces have been so strong as in South Asia, at least in terms of politics and formation of states. After all, the modern Indo-Aryan languages are not that much >diverse and have with the partial exception of the Dardic group developed together along similar >lines. I think I'll leave this thread to a modern language expert. Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 2 22:15:15 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 17:15:15 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) In-Reply-To: <01IU7HQLKIF891W18Z@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl> Message-ID: <161227036352.23782.12269595035059039442.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Jan E.M. Houben wrote: > On Sun, 1 Mar 1998 Edwin Bryant wrote: > > Hock has consistently argued, for two decades now, that many of > the non-IE syntacticaL innovations visible in IA that are SA areal > features could quite reasonably have been internal developments. The > article above summarizes his position. He mostly argues that there are > alternative ways of accounting for such features apart from insisting on a > Dravidian substratum. Hock, in his articles notes that internal > development is a possibility, as have other linguists before him since > the time of Buhler in 1864. So I would imagine an Indig-A view (if there > were such a consistent thing) would argue along the same lines. > > With these comments, Hock's article has been drawn towards an Indigenous-Aryan > view. In fact, Hock summarizes the major arguments of those thinking that Indo- > Aryan is "subversively" influenced by Dravidian (in matters of retroflexion, > for instance) and those (especially Hock himself) who argue for alternative > accounts, such as a joint development and convergence. There is no indication > that Hock wants to defend an Indogenous Aryan model. Rather, Hock's model can > be called a "harmony model" of the relation between speakers of Indo-Aryan > languages and speakers of Dravidian languages. Hock is most certainly *not* an Indigenous Aryanist. He has submitted an article for the Michigan volume which I have not yet received, but which I understand deals with the linguistic evidence relevant to this issue in support of the standard model of Indo-Aryan linguistic incursion into the subcontinent from outside. Regards, Edwin From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Mon Mar 2 22:28:05 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 17:28:05 -0500 Subject: None Message-ID: <161227036353.23782.9819247104445749094.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > *Vidyanath Rao wrote: > > >``take-over of power'' implies continuity in the pattern of political > >organization and a political organization to take over. > > This is not the only possible interpretation of "take-over power". It may > simply mean that the Indo-Europeans became dominant in the area either in > terms of military power or population (or both). Only if you are being sloppy. If that is what they meant, why not simply say ``IA speakers became dominant''? > Apparently opinions are divided. Cavalli-Sforza (and others, let us not > forget the al.) are geneticists, not archaeologists. They receive wisdom > from some arcaheologists etc. and see how their information squares with the > genetic data. The question is what are these sources from where Cavalli-Sforza et al get their information. Relying on limited or outdated sources is very common on non-specialists. That is why I react the way I do to `take-over of power'. It is the kind of thing that used to be bandied about, and is still very common when the debates occurs in political contexts among Indians. The lurid view of IA speakers riding chariots killing or ensalving the proto-Dravidians and forcing them to speak IA is more common than you may think. Such reliance affects Mallory too. His chronology of Gandhara Grave Complex vis-avis IVC does not fit new dating. and when he confidently asserts that `anaa' means `a-naas', ignoring an-aas, I decide that ``oh, no, not another one of those''. Regards -Nath From reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU Tue Mar 3 01:29:10 1998 From: reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU (Luis Gonzalez-Reimann) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 17:29:10 -0800 Subject: Scientific Credentials (was Re: Tamil words in English) Message-ID: <161227036360.23782.12387536307491061274.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 08:11 PM 3/1/98 PST, Vidyasankar wrote: >On the other hand, someone without credentials in a humanistic field may >say things that may be worthwhile to listen to, at least once in a >while. That the someone holds a degree in science/engineering need not >always be held against him or her. Do not summarily dismiss everyone who >has had scientific training. You can see that I am making this statement >with a selfish motive in mind. :-) --------- Vidyasankar, I am not summarily dismissing anyone from anything. What I was reacting against (as, I think, were Dominik, et al) is the notion that a "respectable degree" from one field confers some kind of authority in another field. Common sense and good judgement don't necessarily come with a degree (just as they don't necessarily require one). Because Indology is more on the humanities side of things, the sciences (physics, enginnering) are the areas whose degrees are foreign to the discussion, but the argument can, of course, also work in the opposite direction. It is probably generally more common, however, for people to brandish "scientific" degrees or achievements as proof of sound judgement. This is, unfortunately, not always the case. Even a Noble price in chemistry says nothing about someone's ability to discuss Indological matters. And I have seen many physicists (and other scientists) become followers of different gurus and take for granted the wildest assertions about Indian history, philosophy, religion, lingustics,... All the best, Luis Gonzalez-Reimann From thompson at JLC.NET Mon Mar 2 21:30:30 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 17:30:30 -0400 Subject: Retroflexion Message-ID: <161227036355.23782.6156527269372619271.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Many thanks to Lars Martin for his interesting examples from Norwegian. That helps. Now back to Vedic: aitareya-AraNyaka 3.2.6: "Now kRSNahArIta proclaims this secret doctrine, as it were, regarding speech to him. prajApati, the year, after creating creatures, burst. He put himself together by means of the meters, therefore it is the saMhitA. Of that saMhitA the letter N is the strength, the letter S the breath, the self. He who knows the saMhitA and the letters N and S, he knows the saMhitA with its breath and its strength.... If he is in doubt whether to say it with an N or without an N, let him say it with an N. If he is doubt whether to say it with an S or without an S, let im say it with an S.... hrasva mANDUkeya says: 'If we repeat the verses according to the saMhitA, and if we recite [according to] the teaching of mANDUkeya, then the letters N and S are obtained for us'.... sthavira zAkalya says: 'If we repeat the verses according to the saMhitA, and if we recite [according to] the teaching of mANDUkeya, then the letters N and S are obtained for us." This passage is cited by Madhav Deshpande in his article "Genesis of Rgvedic Retroflexion" [I take it from the version reprinted in _Sanskrit and Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues_ (1993), p. 142.] As Deshpande goes on to note. for the author of this text a certain option existed between the use of retroflex N and S, as opposed to dental n and s. And clearly the author's preference is for the retroflexes. To return to Lars Martin's Norwegian examples: are the retroflexed forms /ka.t/ and /ma:.t/ found to be in competetion with variants /kart/ and /malt/? And if so is one form considered standard over against the other? The sociolinguistic situation in Norwegian may help us to understand the sociolinguistic in Vedic, and vice versa. And both situations invite a consideration of the important socilinguistic work of William Labov.... George Thompson From thompson at JLC.NET Mon Mar 2 21:38:13 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 17:38:13 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036359.23782.7031658839149591233.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I enthusiastically accept Jan Houben's additional proposals. Erdosy's article is also crucial, and is probably already well-known to many members of the list, as Hock's no doubt is. I will also stop to think a bit before sending any more posts to the list. Looking forward to the discussion that [it is hoped] will follow, George Thompson From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 2 17:50:44 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 18:50:44 +0100 Subject: Retroflexion Message-ID: <161227036338.23782.12355469267215043624.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 11:22 02.03.98 -0400, you wrote: >In response to the post of Lars Martin Fosse: >> >>Just as part of the general argument, I would like to supply the information >>that both East Norwegian and West Swedish have produced retroflexion. So >>have some South Italian dialects. All quite independent of Skt. >> > >Yes, this sort of retroflexion is frequently cited by Hock as well, both in >the recently cited article and in his valuable book, _Principles of >Historical Linguistics_. But to my knowledge all of the examples that are >cited show these retroflexes as allophonic variants of either dentals or >alveolars, or even palatals. > >It seems to me that reference to such phenomena in other languages would be >more cogent if one could produce examples of *phonemic* distinctions, not >just allophonic ones. In Indic languages one can point to minimal pairs >like > >Skt: pAta ['flight'] vs. pATa ['portion'] > > [this is one of Hock's preferred examples] Very well: At the written level, you have the following pair: katt kart (cat - map) Pronounced: kat ka.t (.rt > .t is also known from Indic) Furthermore: mat malt (food - painted, East Norw. dialect) Pronounced: ma:t ma:.t I must emphasize that such words are only minimal pairs when pronounced. When written, historical orthography keeps them apart. Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Mar 3 04:40:55 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 20:40:55 -0800 Subject: Scientific Credentials (was Re: Tamil words in English) Message-ID: <161227036362.23782.14830389490946869172.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >It is probably generally more common, however, for people to brandish >"scientific" degrees or achievements as proof of sound judgement. I agree, but isn't this is a reflection of a broader social trend of our times, where to be "scientific" is to be certain, in an almost religious sense? This is, >unfortunately, not always the case. Even a Noble price in chemistry says >nothing about someone's ability to discuss Indological matters. Or Vitamin C, with apologies to Pauling. > And I have >seen many physicists (and other scientists) become followers of different >gurus and take for granted the wildest assertions about Indian history, >philosophy, religion, lingustics,... loko bhinnaruciH ..... Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 2 21:09:05 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 22:09:05 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036346.23782.16628378440832111947.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 11:52 02.03.98 -0500, you wrote: >On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > >> "Circumstantial evidence for identifying the language of the Indus Valley >> script with Elamite or Dravidian has been greatly strengthened by David >> McAlpin's work on the relationship between the Dravidian languages and >> Elamite. McAlpin has demonstrated that the two groups of languages derive >> from a common proto-language, Proto-Elamo-Dravidian, and that Brahui, >> traditionally assigned to the Northen Dravidian subgroup, would actually >> appear to be linguistically as well as geographically intermediate between >> the two major subgroups. ... > >McAlpin published his provocative and very interesting study quite some >time ago and then he himself (if I am not mistaken) appears to have >disappeared from academic cirlces and nothing more was heard from him. In >any event, while some linguists are still open to considering his line of >argument, it is by no means universally accepted at all. Does anyone know >of any more recent work predicated on McAlpin's preliminary >investigations? Regrards, Edwin > Thanks for the info, Edwin. I asked for some comments upon McAlpin's work, but so far nothing has been heard. Lars Martin Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Mon Mar 2 21:32:25 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 22:32:25 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036348.23782.1163795408114986525.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indo-Aryan Invasion discussants, A few days ago George Thompson made an excellent proposal to turn the Indo- Aryan Invasion discussion into a more fruitful collective scholarly enterprise. I would like to make some additional suggestions. First, those participating in it should adapt the Subject section of their message to something recognizable and distinct from the general Indo-Aryan Invasion. My proposal: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) In this way it will later on, perhaps after several months or years, be possible to overview and review the whole discussion through the search function of the Indology List Archive. Second, a slow or even very slow pace of discussion (my own maximum will be ca. one or two posts a week, preferrably less) by those who read the basic articles about which agreement has been reached is better than an avalanche of statements by those not acquainted with the basic texts. Third, at present we still seem to be in the stage of seeking agreement on the basic literature to be read. I fully endorse George's proposal to take H.H. Hock: "Pre-Rgvedic Convergence Between Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Dravidian? A Survey of the Issues and Controversies" as one of the basic articles. As editor of the volume in which it appeared I know it almost by heart. Some more articles are to be selected as basic literature, and I propose George Erdosy's article "Language, material culture and ethnicity: Theoretical perspectives" as the second. It appeared in The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Ed. by George Erdosy, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995. It deals with problems of Language, material culture and ethnicity from an Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian perspective. The advantage of this article is that it is quite general and that it covers part of the Iranian and Central Asian evidence. Still, one or more basic texts on these latter fields of evidence seem to be required for the discussion. Fourth, we have to find a good formulation of the/an Out-of-India model. Does it exist? Is it forthcoming? If I am not mistaken there is a Marathi- encyclopedia which develops this viewpoint? Any better proposals? Jan E.M. Houben Department of Languages and Cultures of South- and Central Asia ("Kern Institute") P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Mon Mar 2 21:57:34 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 22:57:34 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036350.23782.13251369288027460487.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In this posting, my second and last this week, I will briefly react on some reactions to George's proposal for a focussed discussion. Sun, 1 Mar, Vaidix wrote: >The study of migrations of people is Anthropology. Ideas from various other disciplines such as linguistics, geology, history, archaelogy may be used in the discussion, but the last opinion (if not a decision) at any point of time must always be reserved for academic anthropologists. Are there any on this list? Anthropology is certainly an important discipline for the topic, but I am afraid that no final decision can be expected from someone only informed by anthropological data and theories. Since some of our most extensive and suggestive data consist of languages, the disciplines of sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics would seem to be of crucial importance. In other words: do we really know how language shifts work, what bilingualism implies and what its effects on the development of languages may be, under what circumstances convergence, diversification occur, or creolisation? Understanding some universal aspects of the relevant sociolinguistic processes may be of crucial importance to reconstruct what happened thousands of years ago on and around the Indian subcontinent. On Sun, 1 Mar 1998 Edwin Bryant wrote: > Hock has consistently argued, for two decades now, that many of the non-IE syntacticaL innovations visible in IA that are SA areal features could quite reasonably have been internal developments. The article above summarizes his position. He mostly argues that there are alternative ways of accounting for such features apart from insisting on a Dravidian substratum. Hock, in his articles notes that internal development is a possibility, as have other linguists before him since the time of Buhler in 1864. So I would imagine an Indig-A view (if there were such a consistent thing) would argue along the same lines. With these comments, Hock's article has been drawn towards an Indigenous-Aryan view. In fact, Hock summarizes the major arguments of those thinking that Indo- Aryan is "subversively" influenced by Dravidian (in matters of retroflexion, for instance) and those (especially Hock himself) who argue for alternative accounts, such as a joint development and convergence. There is no indication that Hock wants to defend an Indogenous Aryan model. Rather, Hock's model can be called a "harmony model" of the relation between speakers of Indo-Aryan languages and speakers of Dravidian languages. Jan E.M. Houben Department of Languages and Cultures of South- and Central Asia ("Kern Institute") P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Mon Mar 2 22:30:08 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 98 23:30:08 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036357.23782.6232039973886402244.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Edwin Bryant wrote: >This is an important point. There was an early mouvement among certain >scholars to consider India as the homeland (since it appeared to have the >oldest language at the time). THis was then modified, somewhat, by >scholars such as Muller who preferred "somewhere in Asia" and no more. >THe first serious attempt to propose an European homeland was in 1851 by >Robert Latham on the grounds outlined by Lars, above. Using a biological >model, Latham argued that languages are akin to species which demonstrate >a greater variety of forms nearest their geographical center of origin. >Europe was more heterogeneous, therefore nearest the homeland, and Indo-Ir >more homogeneous, therefore peripheral to it. A similar principal was >articulated more recently by Dyen who noted that it is less likely that a >large number of different languages migrated from an area as a collection >of distinct groups. The area of the most diverse collection of languages, >then, is prima facie evidence for supposing the origin of those languages >to be in that very area. I don't think it is entirely fair to equate Lars's argument with the above. My understanding was that the lack of diversity in IA is taken by him as a negative argument, not as a positive argument to find the IE homeland in any one particular place, which is what the scholars quoted above were doing. Indeed, it doesn't seem that any particular place whether currently or historically in the IE area has enough diversity to be immediately identified as the homeland based on this admittedly simple argument. But for most other places where the homeland has been proposed, there are reasonable and obvious explanations of why this is so: secondary expansions which can homogenize a previously more diverse area, movement of populations which resulted even in some areas ceasing to be IE speaking at all (Turkey, Central Asia to a large extent). None of these explanations seem to be available for India. Thus it is only with India that, as a negative argument, this seems to create some problems. (So I feel a bit disappointed how Edwin dismissed it, I was hoping that it would be adressed more substantially, if at all. I think to avoid identifying Lars's point with others too quickly, it could be put in this simple question form: "Is the linguistic diversity one finds in India (from the point of view of IE) consistent with a 5000 to 7000 year continuous presence (to date) of IE there?") On the other hand Erik does seem to understand Lars's point the same way as me, seems to recognize that it is something to be answered and tries to address it as such. A priori his explanation is fairly reasonable (note linguistic homogeneity of Egyptian culture throughout its history, although on a much more limited land area and with a much higher degree of (proven) political centralization) but it is of course predicated on assumptions that one may or may not share about the old Indian Sindhu-Sarasvati/IVC/Harappan culture (is everyone happy? :), which shows incidentally how intricately connected all those questions seem to be. From Vaidix at AOL.COM Tue Mar 3 12:20:22 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 07:20:22 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036376.23782.15210201051377057669.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello everyone Prof. Jan E.M. Houben's suggestion of sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics is a winning stroke. I buy it with a premium. IAT has become the literary equivalent of cosmological "Big bang theory". Every genuine scientist agrees that a lot of money and effort (and newprint) are spent on proving or disproving the big-bang, squandering scarce resources which could be more fruitfully used to study origins of universe in general or many other subjects. It is a clear case of mismanagement. On the same lines studying the origins of Indology is a much needed area, but arguing for or against AIT is worthless in the long run. The major drawbacks or fallacies of IAT are not lack of quality of linguistic arguments. The definition of IAT is itself narrow in that it specifically refers to an invasion. Secondly it refuses to research into the origins of the invaded people calling them aborigins. Thirdly IAT fails the quantity test. Invasion is only between equals. Invadors may impose their culture, but society never takes it whole heartedly. The red Indians of US are still holding off against the invadors and even winning court cases against US govt for their lost lands. I bet Urdu and English, let alone Islam and Christianity would not become nationallly accepted by 100% of the population in India. (The only exception to this rule is Japanese society which can make 180 degree turns.) The continued use of the irrelevant word "invasion" only insults the lingustic accuracy of this group. Intrusion is more probable on the lines of what happened in Americas when local population of red Indians were displaced from their native lands. Moreover, the red Indians themselves have learnt the use of arms when they were themselves recruited by some European gangs. But then, considering the highly developed moral standing of the so called "recent aryan settlers", the illegal acquisition of native lands or massacring of Dravidians and Dasyus is most improbable. If it is argued that the massacre did inded happen, then it must have happened many thousands of years before the morality on the basis of Dharma is established. Dravid: Someone suggested that the word Dravid itself is of Sanskrit origin meaning "drava" or fluid. Being fluid, they were willing to travel long distances and therefore have settled in the southern most regions of India. Or it could mean their Veda recitation style is fluent, as compared to the broken style of North Indian scholars. There are other questions as well. Did anyone look into why in Tamil there is no distinction between k, kh, g and gh? Is it because the Dravians have started moving away from the mainstream while the new innovations in seggregation of vowels and consonents is still in progress? Did the tamils leave the mainstream with the half knowledge of the new system? Or did they drop the extra letters because they thought they were not needed? I believe in the former, because with the hot climate down south, there would be no physiological forces that can prevent development of a clear pronunciation as compared to chilly north (another assumption that needs further research). If it is argued that the local kings in India have managed to impose the new cultures and lingustic system why didn't they homogenise Tamil alphabet? Also if the aryans were of recent IE origin (less than 4000 years BC), then why dont we find any traces of A, B C, Ds, alpha betas, or alif, be etc? Being so democratic and adoptive as we are, (jokes apart) India would love to have its version of a, ba, ka, da, e, fa etc? Quantity test: Even after a millenium of adopting words from other languages English is still English. Then how do western linguists argue that some Indian languages were born in 900BC when there is no recorded history of movement of people from one state to another within India exept in cases of natural catastrophes or draughts? All we hear of, are conquests by local kings. Other questions in this regard are: How many hundreds or thousands of years are needed for an immigrant population's skin color to harmoniously merge with the Indiginous population through intermixing of races? Did the skin color of Europeans who travelled to South America (which has equally hot climate as India) turn drak in the last 300 years to any degree? If so how many more hundreds of years are needed for them to look like Asian Indians? Numbers play an important role in addition to quality of argements. This is where we need help of anthropologists. I suggest the subject be changed to Aryan-Dravidian Migration to India Theory (ADMIT) or the more funny overtone - Dravidian-Aryan Migration to Nation of India Theory (DAMN IT, that is what my opponents might be thinking!). Thanks Bhadraiah Mallampalli http://members.aol.com/vaidix From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Mar 3 12:24:39 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 07:24:39 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: <199803012051.VAA02524@online.no> Message-ID: <161227036378.23782.8651020748218661410.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: In view of Jacob's admonition, I am revisiting Lars' original statement. > In other words, since 4500 BCE Indo-Europeans were present in India, > but did not develop any other languages than Skt. and Iranian. Such a model > is counter-intuitive and at variance with the situations we can observe > elsewhere. I agree with this. It seems rather unlikely unless there were other homogenizing factors at work, for which there is no easy evidence. There are various weaknesses in the Indig. Aryan position that take a lot of hard work to get around, and this is one of them. > Just like the IE in Eurasia, we would expect the IE in India to > develop a rich flora of languages, some of which would have traces of the > grammatical features that we find in the West, but not in Skt. and Iranian. How would you respond to the argument made by, say, the linguist Lacchmi Dhar in the 50's that the greater variety of linguistic forms in the West is due to the fact that these languages had to impose themselves on non-IE substrata, thereby resulting in the greater linguistic turbulence in the West? In Dhar's out-of-India model, the more homogeneous development of Indo-Iranian is due to the fact that PIE did not have such non-IE substrata in India to cause such linguistic variety. I agree, however, that this model does not easily account for the fact that linguistic variety *does* occur in India in the post-Indo-Aryan period. Clearly, if it occurred in the later period, then why not earlier? And this, of course, is part of your point. But how would you, or anyone, respond to Dhar's argument nonetheless? > And then, as already stated several times, there is the fact that no > languages outside India show any trace of specifically Indian features, > neither in vocabulary nor in grammar. Here, however, for some of the reasons I noted in my previous posting, I don't think the standard arguments are quite as convincing. The I-A languages could have developed their own non-IE grammatical features after the Western languages had left (in an out-of-India model) some of which were developed areally in an adstratum (as opposed to substratum) South Asian linguistic situation. And, as has been pointed out for a century, vocabulary terms for typically South Asian fauna and flora would not be expected to occur in the Western languages once their referents had disappeared from view (but see Gramkrelidze and Ivanov). Nor would typically Western terms (beeches, etc) be expected to surface in I-A since these were coined by the outgoing tribes at a later time upon encountering unfamiliar objects. Regards, Edwin. From winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR Tue Mar 3 11:29:46 1998 From: winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR (winnie fellows) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 08:29:46 -0300 Subject: Retroflexion Message-ID: <161227036373.23782.13466425528805346078.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ->As I said, retroflexion is an East Norwegian/West Swedish phenomenon >(disagreeing Swedes out there, please protest!)... In "educated " spoken Swedish of , say, Stockholm, many words such as embart ( only ), bort ( far away ) and similar have complete retroflexion in final *t*. Jesualdo Correia From winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR Tue Mar 3 12:54:14 1998 From: winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR (winnie fellows) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 09:54:14 -0300 Subject: Retroflexion Message-ID: <161227036381.23782.4288017791806818170.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >->As I said, retroflexion is an East Norwegian/West Swedish phenomenon >>(disagreeing Swedes out there, please protest!)... > > >In "educated " spoken Swedish of , say, Stockholm, many words such as >embart ( only ), bort ( far away ) and similar have complete retroflexion in >final >*t*. > >Jesualdo Correia Reading my post I noticed I misspelled embart, the correct being * enbart*. As a compensation here goes another one: vart ( where to ). JC > > From eclear at UTS.CC.UTEXAS.EDU Tue Mar 3 16:02:00 1998 From: eclear at UTS.CC.UTEXAS.EDU (Edeltraud Harzer Clear) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 10:02:00 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036387.23782.16878395969097924131.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jan Houben wrote: >Third, at present we still seem to be in the stage of seeking agreement on the >basic literature to be read. I fully endorse George's proposal to take H.H. >Hock: "Pre-Rgvedic Convergence Between Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Dravidian? A >Survey of the Issues and Controversies" as one of the basic articles. As editor >of the volume in which it appeared I know it almost by heart. Is this the volume in question: IDEOLOGY AND STATUS OF SANSKRIT: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE. E.J.BRILL 1996 ? Thanks, Edeltraud Harzer Clear Asian Studies, UT Austin, Texas From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Tue Mar 3 09:27:08 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 10:27:08 +0100 Subject: Retroflexion Message-ID: <161227036364.23782.4589074889148170571.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George Thompson wrote: >To return to Lars Martin's Norwegian examples: are the retroflexed forms >/ka.t/ and /ma:.t/ found to be in competetion with variants /kart/ and >/malt/? And if so is one form considered standard over against the other? As I said, retroflexion is an East Norwegian/West Swedish phenomenon (disagreeing Swedes out there, please protest!) ma:.t (= standard ma:lt, "painted") is decidedly dialect/sociolect (rural or lower class). The opposition kat (cat) : ka.t (map) (written katt/kart) is heard in standard East Norwegian and is, as far as I can see, part of educated speech. It is my impression that extended use of retroflexion is part of rural or lower class speech. But I am not the best of informers here. I am a South Norwegian, and my own dialect has no retroflexion. Incidentally, Norwegian makes a difference between aspirated and unaspirated stops: kh/k, ph/p, th/t. These sounds, however, are true allophones. The aspirated stop is used in syllables with stress, the unaspirated in unstressed syllables. This creates a lot of trouble for us when we try to learn French! Historically, the retroflexes come from the combination of r/l + t,d. Best regards, Lars Martin Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Tue Mar 3 10:10:46 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 11:10:46 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036367.23782.3892379390924685929.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Bh. Krishnamurti wrote: > >In my article 'Comparative Dravidian Sstudies since Current Trends 1969' (In For >Gordon Fairbanks, ed. by Veneeta z. Acson and Richard L. Leed,212-231.1985. >Honolulu: Univ of Hawaii Press), I made the following observations on >McAlpin's proposal of Proto-Elamo-Dravidian."...He compares 57 lexical items >drawn from a corpus of 'about 5000 words' of Achaemenid Elamite (640 BC), >and constructs phonological correspondences and a theory of relationship >between Dravidian and Elamite. He even reconstructs Proto-Elamo-Dravidian >(PED). Thhere are 47 correspondences or phonological rules which account for >57 etymological groups ..... Thank you! This is what I needed. Since I do not know anything about Dravidian languages, I must throw myself at the mercy of the specialists! Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From msdbaum at MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL Tue Mar 3 11:02:25 1998 From: msdbaum at MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL (Daniel Baum) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 13:02:25 +0200 Subject: CSX fonts Message-ID: <161227036369.23782.9485153546468067465.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hi, Apropos moving over to TeX, I have actually used nothing other than TeX to write papers etc. with for years. However, it is not a very good file format to actually store information in, since the source files look like gobbledegook, and sometimes you need to do other things than just reading your texts. Also, the Harvard Rigveda is in CSX coding, and I see no reason to convert it to anything else, as it is very readable (as long as you solve the font problems I have come up against) and TeX accepts CSX coded text direct. DB -----Original Message----- From: Anshuman Pandey To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Date: Saturday, February 28, 1998 7:41 AM Subject: Re: CSX fonts >On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Daniel Baum wrote: > >> The solution in the end was to use the Washington Indic truetype font as a >> screen font, and then compile the document in TeX using the Washington Indic >> PK font. Surprisingly the two fonts are coded slightly differently; the >> a-acute is in a different place. I simply programmed a macro in my text >> editor to do a search and replace before I compile the TeX file, and another >> afterwards. I will definitely have a look at the alternative TeX fonts you >> suggested, although I've never used .vf fonts before; is there anything I >> should know before I start? > >The reason the TrueType font differs from the METAFONT is because certain >character positions are rejected or reserved in Windows, so any character >appearing in that position will appear empty. Tom Ridgeway, who made the >WNRI TrueType and Postscript fonts, made copies of certain characters in >duplicate positions to account for this behavior of Windows. These WNRI >fonts really need to be revamped. > >Here's another suggestion: Move completely over to TeX and your problems >will be solved! Ask anyone... :-P > >Regards, >Anshuman Pandey > From kumar at PIXIE.UDW.AC.ZA Tue Mar 3 11:33:48 1998 From: kumar at PIXIE.UDW.AC.ZA (Prof P Kumar) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 13:33:48 +0200 Subject: IAHR Durban-2000 Message-ID: <161227036371.23782.5166119843229057410.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Announcement of 18th Quinquennial Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions Dear Colleague, The 18th Quinquennial Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions will take place in Durban, South Africa in August 5-12, 2000. Full details of registration and submission of proposals is available at : http//www.udw.ac.za/iahr Please take a look at the website. Contact Programme Chair Prof Rosalind Hackett for submission of proposals. She is available at Thank you for your attention. Regards, P Kumar Prof. P. Kumar (Head of Dept) Department of Science of Religion University of Durban-Westivlle Private BagX54001 Durban 4000 South Africa Tel: 027-31-204-4539 (work) Fax: 027-31-204-4160 (work) Email: kumar at pixie.udw.ac.za Director of 18th Quinquennial Congress of the IAHR Durban- August 5-12 2000 For more info on the Congress please see: http//www.udw.ac.za/iahr From mgansten at SBBS.SE Tue Mar 3 12:36:57 1998 From: mgansten at SBBS.SE (Martin Gansten) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 13:36:57 +0100 Subject: Retroflexion Message-ID: <161227036379.23782.7845558735658321847.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin Fosse wrote: >As I said, retroflexion is an East Norwegian/West Swedish phenomenon >(disagreeing Swedes out there, please protest!) Alright, if you insist: retroflexion is found in large areas of central and northern Sweden, east and west alike -- for instance, in Stockholm (which, as you know, is to the far east of the country). As in Norway, the southern dialects (one of which happens to be my own) lack retroflexion. Jesualdo Correia wrote: >In "educated " spoken Swedish of , say, Stockholm, many words such as >embart ( only ), bort ( far away ) and similar have complete retroflexion in >final *t*. Actually, retroflexion in central/northern Sweden has nothing to do with sociolects; both university professors and illiterates retroflect. In my own parts, however, those who wish to *sound* "educated" sometimes attempt to copy the dialect of the capital, including retroflexion. (A sad spectacle, that.) Incidentally, it's "enbart", and "bort" is just = "away". Regards, Martin Gansten From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Mar 3 22:46:02 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 14:46:02 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036390.23782.5774943422004761322.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vaidix wrote - > >Intrusion is more probable on the lines of what happened in Americas when >local population of red Indians were displaced from their native lands. >Moreover, the red Indians themselves have learnt the use of arms when they >were themselves recruited by some European gangs. But then, considering the >highly developed moral standing of the so called "recent aryan settlers", the >illegal acquisition of native lands or massacring of Dravidians and Dasyus is >most improbable. If it is argued that the massacre did inded happen, then it >must have happened many thousands of years before the morality on the basis of >Dharma is established. Not to question the moral calibre of our mantra-drashTas, but surely you must be aware of the .rshi who confesses to having eaten dog-meat in an extreme circumstance. And admittedly, the people with vision were a minority among the Vedic population. It is too much to claim that every Aryan, whether pastoral nomad or settled farmer, had impeccable morals. Sometimes, as with Asoka, it takes a huge massacre for a moral conscience to develop. There is also the factor that Europeans settling in the Americas were highly moral by their own reckoning. Most of them came with a pretty advanced religion, moral code and the Bible, although it did not stop them from massacring the natives and owning slaves. .... >There are other questions as well. Did anyone look into why in Tamil there is >no distinction between k, kh, g and gh? This is a non-starter, for the most part. The distinction, at least between k and g exists in Tamil speech, if not in writing. Do not confuse the script for the language. And Kannada and Telugu, both Dravidian languages, retain the variations in speech and in script. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From bhk at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN Tue Mar 3 10:26:35 1998 From: bhk at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN (Bh. Krishnamurti) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 15:26:35 +0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036366.23782.889942070960592523.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 11:52 02/03/98 -0500, you wrote: >McAlpin published his provocative and very interesting study quite some >time ago and then he himself (if I am not mistaken) appears to have >disappeared from academic cirlces and nothing more was heard from him. In >any event, while some linguists are still open to considering his line of >argument, it is by no means universally accepted at all. Does anyone know >of any more recent work predicated on McAlpin's preliminary >investigations? Regrards, Edwin In my article 'Comparative Dravidian Sstudies since Current Trends 1969' (In For Gordon Fairbanks, ed. by Veneeta z. Acson and Richard L. Leed,212-231.1985. Honolulu: Univ of Hawaii Press), I made the following observations on McAlpin's proposal of Proto-Elamo-Dravidian."...He compares 57 lexical items drawn from a corpus of 'about 5000 words' of Achaemenid Elamite (640 BC), and constructs phonological correspondences and a theory of relationship between Dravidian and Elamite. He even reconstructs Proto-Elamo-Dravidian (PED). Thhere are 47 correspondences or phonological rules which account for 57 etymological groups (1)...Many of the rules formulated by McAlpin lack intrinsic phonetic/phonological motivation and appear ad hoc, invented to fit the proposed correspondences; e.g. PED i,e > 0 (Elamite) when followed by t, n, which are again followed by a: but these remain undisturbed in Dravidian (1974:93). How does a language develop that kind of sound change? This rule was dropped a few years later, because the etymologies were abandoned (1979:184). (2) he set up retroflexes as an innovation in Dravdian resulting from PED *rt (94). Later he abandoned this rule and set up retrofexes and dentals for PED and said that Elamite merged the retroflexes with dentals (1979, chart on 184-5)....."But, it is puzzling that in the body of the article he referes to the splitting of PED dentals into dentals and post-dentals..(1979:176). His 1981 book was not yet published ; so I took three of his papers for review in the paper that I prepared in Dec. 1980. I was able to show a lot of adhocism in his etymologies as well as correspondences. Dravidian scholars have not accepted McAlpin's proposal of PED. His corpus of 640BC (corresponding to Pre-Tamil period) does not favourably compare with Proto-Dravidian, approximately of 3000 BC. Regards, Bh.K. end Bh. Krishnamurti H.No. 12-13-1233, "Bhaarati" Street No.9, Tarnaka Hyderabad 500 017, A.P. India Telephone (R)(40)701 9665 E-mail: From ami09 at RS1.RRZ.UNI-KOELN.DE Tue Mar 3 15:17:00 1998 From: ami09 at RS1.RRZ.UNI-KOELN.DE (Ulrike Niklas) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 16:17:00 +0100 Subject: Call for Papers Message-ID: <161227036383.23782.9956451535676407577.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Friends! We start now to prepare the next volume of KOLAM, which will appear at the end of July 1998. - We invite you to contribute papers on any aspect of Tamil-Culture. You can write in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish. - You find KOLAM in the Internet: http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/indologie/index.html (then click on "Kolam"). Please, send your questions or suggestions - and mainly your proposals of papers to: kolam-list at uni-koeln.de Thanks and all the best, Ulrike (for all the editors) From Frank.vandenbossche at RUG.AC.BE Tue Mar 3 15:57:28 1998 From: Frank.vandenbossche at RUG.AC.BE (Frank Van Den Bossche) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 16:57:28 +0100 Subject: Shriikaanth Varmaa Message-ID: <161227036385.23782.3952482500880934706.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear members of the Indology list, Does anybody know if the short story 'arathii' (bier) of Shriikaanth Varmaa has been ever been translated into English, and if so where it was published? Thanks in advance, Frank Van Den Bossche Ghent University Ghent, Belgium From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Tue Mar 3 16:14:18 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 17:14:18 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036389.23782.18301413293736666913.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello again, Edwin! First of all: The paper you sent me arrived today. Thankx, once again! As you may have noticed, I have not gotten around to answering your last mail. This is because I wanted to check out a couple of things, while I also had other stuff to do. I hope to come back to it in the near future. >> Just like the IE in Eurasia, we would expect the IE in India to >> develop a rich flora of languages, some of which would have traces of the >> grammatical features that we find in the West, but not in Skt. and Iranian. > >How would you respond to the argument made by, say, the linguist Lacchmi >Dhar in the 50's that the greater variety of linguistic forms in the West >is due to the fact that these languages had to impose themselves on non-IE >substrata, thereby resulting in the greater linguistic turbulence in the >West? In Dhar's out-of-India model, the more homogeneous development of >Indo-Iranian is due to the fact that PIE did not have such non-IE >substrata in India to cause such linguistic variety. I agree, however, >that this model does not easily account for the fact that linguistic >variety *does* occur in India in the post-Indo-Aryan period. Clearly, if >it occurred in the later period, then why not earlier? And this, of >course, is part of your point. But how would you, or anyone, respond to >Dhar's argument nonetheless? Dhar's argument is difficult to answer with an exact statement. Several scenarios are possible when a linguistic group penetrates an area. In America, you have the penetration of English in the North and Spanish/Portuguese in the South. Both these languages intruded in areas where there was a large group of languages in advance. Yet both English and Spanish remain essentially the same. On the other hand, the combination of African languages and French on Haiti has produced something very different from both ordinary French and AFrican. Studies of some Indo-European languages, such as Greek, show that there are quite a number of non-IE words in them. But how did this affect their grammar? That is a more tricky question. In the 15th-16th centuries, the German Hansa had a tremendous linguistic effect on the Scandinavian languages. Platt German is the main reason why we cannot read the Sagas in the original any more, unlike the Icelanders. About 35% of the most frequently used vocabulary in Norwegian is of Platt German origin. Platt German also seems to have had a syntactic influence on Nordic. In other words: we can observe processes where languages meet and influence each other profoundly, and where they meet and hardly have any effect on each other at all. Therefore, I don't think that Dhar's argument can stand without concrete corroboration. It is not a model that can be generalized. But on the other hand, it is not completely impossible. (Winfred P. Lehmann, by the way, discusses this problem in his book on "Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics", 1993, p. 281ff). Factors that seem to influence the process are such things as the number of intruders and their attitude to the cultures where they intrude (the Hittites admired the Babylonians and were very much influenced by them). Some cultures are domineering, some self-effacing, so to speak. As for India, we should remember that 3-4000 years ago, it was in many respects a different country. The population density was much lower, and there was much more jungle in the North. AFAIK, a lot of jungle has been cleared. This implies that groups of population would live more isolated lives than they do today, a fact which should stimulate language differentiation much in the same way it happens to populations living in valleys or who are separated by mountains. >> And then, as already stated several times, there is the fact that no >> languages outside India show any trace of specifically Indian features, >> neither in vocabulary nor in grammar. > >Here, however, for some of the reasons I noted in my previous posting, I >don't think the standard arguments are quite as convincing. The I-A >languages could have developed their own non-IE grammatical features after >the Western languages had left (in an out-of-India model) some of which >were developed areally in an adstratum (as opposed to substratum) South >Asian linguistic situation. And, as has been pointed out for a century, >vocabulary terms for typically South Asian fauna and flora would not be >expected to occur in the Western languages once their referents had >disappeared from view (but see Gramkrelidze and Ivanov). Nor would >typically Western terms (beeches, etc) be expected to surface in I-A since >these were coined by the outgoing tribes at a later time upon encountering >unfamiliar objects. Edwin, aren't you forgetting a population we discussed some time ago: the gypsies? They are undeniably Indian, and they have brought a lot of linguistic and cultural baggage with them that could only have come from India. I agree with the remarks you make above, but if the Indo-Aryans had been in contact with non-IE languages (which would be very likely), some elements of those languages (e.g. vocabulary) would surely have crept into the Indo-Aryan languages and with them been exported to the West. Best regards, Lars Martin Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU Wed Mar 4 02:42:38 1998 From: sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU (Paul (Kekai) Manansala) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 19:42:38 -0700 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: <01IU8RPWXHB6002A07@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227036394.23782.15455235866271673308.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, N. Ganesan wrote: > > B) Place Names: > *************** > > The vast databank of Indian settlement names is under-researched. > Lot more work can be done. For example, I give a section of an old posting > in Indology. Old names from inscriptions should be special, in this regard. > > MICHIGAN-LAUSANNE INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR > "ARYANS AND NON-ARYANS IN SOUTH ASIA : > EVIDENCE, INTERPRETATION, AND IDEOLOGY" In examining this question we should not forget the possibility of other "pre-aryan" language influences. Suniti Kumar Chatterji conducted a study on East Indian place names that is old but still valuable (In: Pre-Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in Sanskrit, P.C. Bagchi, ed.). One of the most interesting suggestions was that the name, Ganga, is of Austric origin. I do not know if subsequent investigation of placenames has been carried on further west, but there is an Austric influence in some of the western most Himalayan languages. And the latter also have to be studied particularly since many of the older placenames in the western Himalayan region seem to come from these languages. Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 4 04:39:41 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 20:39:41 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036398.23782.17287731566481884607.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vaidix at aol.com writes: >Invasion is only between equals. Invadors may impose their culture, but society never takes it whole heartedly. The red Indians of US are stillholding off against the invadors and even winning court cases against US govt for their lost lands. I bet Urdu and English, let alone Islam and Christianity would not become nationallly accepted by 100% of the population in India.>> I'm not sure of what you mean by saying "Invasion is between equals" and that society never takes it whole heartedly...by this token, England should preserve a strong tradition of the way England worked before the Norman Invasion..as far as this American Indian thing is concerned(Red Indian, I believe is politically incorrect), this winning of cases and what have you is recent. Well into the 60s, it was always how the "West was WON", only subsequently have people talked about "HOW THE WEST WAS LOST" ( from the Indian pov). Also, how many American Indians ( including those who live on the rez) can speak their native language? I am unconvinced by your saying that people always hold onto their own culture even when invaded. <> It is a question of what you mean by "moral standing", in the Islamic invasions of countries, thousands used to be put to the sword on the basis of a *religious* and *moralistic* statement that people who didn't follow the *truth* and Allah could be killed. There are interpretations of ayats in the Quran by ISlamic scholars which make this very clear...all this morality thing is the POV of the person making up the rules...The Arabs for example destroyed much writing in Persia under the *morlaistic* stand that the books didn't deserve to exist because they talked about things not mentioned by the Quran and were therefore false...How can it be said that the Aryans didn't take the same stand and supress what existed before them... <> On the other hand, irt can also be claimed that the word is actually from "drOha" i.e. "drOhI" became drAvI which became "drAviDa"( They were betrayers who had to flee because of their betraying the Aryans who employed them in menial jobs...Such etymologists must remember that all this jargon doesn't go back all that long.. If >it is argued that the local kings in India have managed to impose the new >cultures and lingustic system why didn't they homogenise Tamil alphabet? A clear example of assimilation-cum-distinct identity retention is that of the Parsi community who retained some features of their Persian past i.e. religion and lost others i.e. language...the same thing could have happened in Tamil NAdu also... >I suggest the subject be changed to Aryan-Dravidian Migration to India Theory (ADMIT) or the more funny overtone - Dravidian-Aryan Migration to Nation of India Theory (DAMN IT, that is what my opponents might be thinking!). > How about calling it "Aryan Green Card Tactics" i.e. did these guys get green cards legitimately, or did they smuggle in themselves illegally and then put in refugee claims?:-) Regards, Krishna >Thanks >Bhadraiah Mallampalli >http://members.aol.com/vaidix > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Wed Mar 4 02:54:33 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 20:54:33 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036392.23782.14193833141987240085.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A) Language Change: ******************* When the incoming Indo-Aryans have attained sufficient political power and population numbers, the existing people abandoned and/or were made to abandon their native language (some form of Dravidian?) and started to use Indo-Aryan tongues. Is this formulation written by anyone? Much like how Spanish in Mexico or Portugese in Brazil spread as a "prestige" language, as suggested by Dr. Fosse. I searched academic databases, could come up with interesting, but did not see anything for Indic situation. Is this because scarce written data from Dravidian side exists, to a lesser extent from Indo-Aryan. William Labov, On the mechanism of linguistic change, NY J. P. Lantolf, Linguistic change as a socio-cultural phenomenon, PhD P. S. Ureland, Prehistoric bilingualism and pidginization as forces of Linguistic change, J. IE studies, 7, 77-104, 1979 L. M. Torres, Linguistic change in a Language contact situation: A cross-generational study, PhD, 1988 etc., ************************************************************************* B) Place Names: *************** The vast databank of Indian settlement names is under-researched. Lot more work can be done. For example, I give a section of an old posting in Indology. Old names from inscriptions should be special, in this regard. MICHIGAN-LAUSANNE INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR "ARYANS AND NON-ARYANS IN SOUTH ASIA : EVIDENCE, INTERPRETATION, AND IDEOLOGY" October 25-27, 1996 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan DRAVIDIAN PLACE NAMES IN MAHARASHTRA F. C. Southworth (University of Pennsylvania) In their book _The_Rise_of_Civilization_in_India_and_Pakistan_ (1982), the Allchins state that there is a substratum of Dravidian place names in Maharashtra. This statement, based probably on the ideas of H. D. Sankalia, has never been properly investigated. Fortunately there exist two lists of Maharashtrian village names which provide the data for such a study. My investigation of these names turned up a number of candidates for Dravidian origin among the suffixes of Marathi place names. Among these suffixes, the most promising is -vali/oli, both because of its high frequency and because its Dravidian origin is not questioned (< Drav. paLLi 'hamlet, camp, place to lie down' < paT- 'lie,fall'). A study of the spatial distribution of village names with the suffix -vali/oli shows 90% or more of them concentrated in the coastal region known as Konkan. In the remainder of the Marahi-speaking area, the greatest concentration is in the southern part of the Desh, i.e. in the districts of Kolhapur and Solapur. A number of other suffixes of probable Dravidian origin are also found in these areas, though they are of lower frequency of occurrence. Thus these suffixes of Dravidian origin are in a continuous distribution with the Dravidian paLLi, as well as with similar suffixes in the state of Gujarat (discussed in Sankalia's doctoral thesis, which is based on early inscriptions in Gujarat). Thus there can be little doubt that these areas were previously inhabited by speakers of some Dravidian language(s). >The paper will also discuss reflexes of Dravidian paLLi in place names in >Sindh and Pakistani Panjab, where the evidence is somewhat less clear. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Satyanarayana Dasa, Dravidian in North Indian toponymy, Varanasi, 1987 V. Khaire, Dravida Maharashtra, 1977 K. Nachimuthu (editor), Perspectives in place names, 1987, Trivandrum has a paper by Lalitha Prabhu on Palli and its variants in Central India. (I don't know whether Prof. F. C. Southworth has seen this one) Parso Gidvani has written on Sindhi names from Dravidian. Krishnapada Goswami, Place names of Bengal, 1984 H. D. Sankalia, Prehistory of India, 1977 H. D. Sankalia, The prehistory and protohistory of India and Pakistan, N. Lahovary, Dravidian origins and the West, 1963 G. S. Ghurye, Caste and Race in India, Bombay, 1979 For years, F. C. Southworth has written on related topics: a) The reconstruction of Prehistoric South Asian language contact, in E. H. Bendix(ed.), The uses of linguistics, p. 207-234, NY 1990 b) Dravidian and Indo-European: The neglected hypothesis, Int. J. Dravidian linguistics, 11, 1, p.1-21, 1982 c) Lexical evidence for early contacts between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, in Aryan & Non-Aryan in India, UMich. 1979 d) F. C. Southworth, Ancient economic plants of South Asia: Linguistic archaeology and early agriculture. in Language and Culture: Studies in honor of E.C. Polome, p. 649-648, 1988 e) Linguistic masks for power: some relationships between semantic and social change. Anthropological linguistics, 16, p. 177-191 f) Linguistic stratigraphy of North India, IJDL, 3, 2, 1974 C) Substratum theory: ***************** von Munkwitz-Smith, Jefrrey C. Substratum influence in Indo-Aryan grammar, PhD thesis, 1995, U. Minnesota O. Szemerenyi, Structuralism and substratum:Indo-Europeans and Aryans in the Ancient Near East, Lingua 13, 1-29, 1964 Jaroslav Vacek, The non-IE linguistic substratum in the IE languages of India, with reference to the Ashokan inscriptions. 1969 C. A. Winters, The Dravidian and Manding substratum in Tokharian, Central Asiatic Jl., 1988, v.32, 1-2, p. 131- D) Retroflexion in Sanskrit: ******************************** M. B. Emeneau in Collected papers says: "The fact, however, that the later in Indo-Aryan linguistic history we go, the greater is the incidence of retroflex constants and the further fact that most of the Dravidian languages and the proto-Dravidian itself have this type of consonants in abundance, can only lead to the conclusion that the later Indo-Aryan developments are due to a borrowing of indigenous speech habits through bilingualism, and to the well-grounded suspicion that even in the early development of retroflexes from certain IE consonant clusters results from the same historic case." A recent article: Eric P. Hamp, On the IE origin of retroflexes in Sanskrit, JAOS, 116, 4, 719- ****************************************************************************** Can somebody give me Prof. Southworth's e-mail? Any comments, corrections, additions? N. Ganesan, PhD (Structural Dynamics) - But interested in South Indian culturescape, Tamil literature, Art history heavily. Has a bibliography of 70000 tamil books and a 16000 items in english. From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 4 04:27:12 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 98 23:27:12 -0500 Subject: India as an area of concepts (was Re: Retroflexion and Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036396.23782.11978898459039232013.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-02 18:51:39 EST, thompson at JLC.NET writes: << aitareya-AraNyaka 3.2.6: "Now kRSNahArIta proclaims this secret doctrine, as it were, regarding speech to him. prajApati, the year, after creating creatures, burst. He put himself together by means of the meters, therefore it is the saMhitA. Of that saMhitA the letter N is the strength, the letter S the breath, the self. He who knows the saMhitA and the letters N and S, he knows the saMhitA with its breath and its strength.... If he is in doubt whether to say it with an N or without an N, let him say it with an N. If he is doubt whether to say it with an S or without an S, let im say it with an S.... hrasva mANDUkeya says: 'If we repeat the verses according to the saMhitA, and if we recite [according to] the teaching of mANDUkeya, then the letters N and S are obtained for us'.... sthavira zAkalya says: 'If we repeat the verses according to the saMhitA, and if we recite [according to] the teaching of mANDUkeya, then the letters N and S are obtained for us." This passage is cited by Madhav Deshpande in his article "Genesis of Rgvedic Retroflexion" [I take it from the version reprinted in _Sanskrit and Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues_ (1993), p. 142.] As Deshpande goes on to note. for the author of this text a certain option existed between the use of retroflex N and S, as opposed to dental n and s. And clearly the author's preference is for the retroflexes. >> F. B. J. Kuiper in his book, "Aryans in the Rig Veda" (1991) says, "To prove that at a certain time there was much uncertainty as to whether to pronounce Na or na, Sa or sa, Deshpande heavily leans upon Ait. Ar. III.2.6. His theory is, indeed, that this uncertainty arose at the time when the new phonemes were introduced into Sanskrit. As far as I can see, the text proves just the reverse. It stresses the superiority of the saMhitA-text and illustrates and confirms it by a myth that relates how PrajApati once upon a time fell usunder and put himself together again (AtmAnAm samadadhAt) by means of the metres.......The text of the Ait.Ar., as it stands, expresses a similar idea as follows: "He who knows [the mystic character of] these syllables Na and Sa (and) the verses according to the saMhitA-text, he (or: and?) knows the saMhitA-text that is full of strength and breath. He should know that gives a long life.".....In other words:"The modern way of ignoring the original sandhi makes the text powerless. Only if we stick to the old traditional sandhi, the text has vigour and gives a long life." What the text refers to is the well- known importance of "die korrekte und damit allein magisch wirksame Rezitation vedischer Texte" (von HinUber 1989:18)" (p.12-13) The difference between Deshpande and Kuiper is not really about the origin of retroflexion but about its timing. Kuiper assigns it to a far earlier period. While I am not a Sanskrit and hence leave the discussions of the differing interpretations of Vedic texts to specialists, I would like to note one point. In another posting, George Thompson said, "The point of Hock's recent resume of his views is to counterpose two models of the early relationship between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian: one model he characterizes as 'the subversion [or substratum] hypothesis'; the other as 'the convergence hypothesis'. In spite of Edwin's surprise, I am actually sympathetic with this second view, and I am interested in discussions of bilingualism as a factor *in either scenario*." My own research on concepts such as sUtra/nUl, tantra/panuval, and tanu/pAvai suggest a close and longer relationship between Aryan and Dravidian speakers for this type of loan translations to occur in such important textual and religious fields in the earliest texts. The latest discovery regarding the Dravidian origin of VS term "kuyava" meaning harvest also suggests a much closer interaction between the groups. As a result, although earlier I used to accept Dr. Deshpande's arguments regarding the chronology of retroflexion in IA, now my position is closer to Kuiper's. (I am also finding amazing similarity between the roles of potters and brahmins as attested by Classical Tamil and later inscriptions lending more support to my theory of IA AGgirases and bhArgavas being the Aryanized Dravidian kuyavas and vELArs. This along with some Vedic data provided by John Gardner will form a separate posting after I sort out some Dravidian linguistic issues.) By the way "India as an area of concepts" was discussed by Thompson and myself in a private communication. I hope he does not mind my using it as the Subject of the posting. Regards S. Palaniappan From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 4 05:01:44 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 00:01:44 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036399.23782.11842958540018451907.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-02 04:40:30 EST, erik.seldeslachts at RUG.AC.BE writes: << So we have here perfect counterexamples of the situation in Northern India were we do not find a Dravidian layer in the names of places and persons. >> What about place names ending in Ur or pura/pur? What do the IA experts think of -pura? Do they see any connection with the root *pur- meaning to preserve, protect, govern, etc. (DED 3515)? One of the names for forts in CT is "puricai". Any comments on the etymology of pATaliputra? Regards S. Palaniappan From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 4 06:34:52 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 01:34:52 -0500 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036401.23782.5569859877983163195.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The on-going discussion on Indo-Aryan invasion , retroflexion, etc., reveal one basic weakness prevailing in the field of Indology. While the discussion is about the interactions of speakers of Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and other languages, the participation in the discussion shows almost no representation from professional scholars specializing in Dravidian languages except for Dr. Bh. Krishnamurti and Dr. Robert Zydenbos. The Indo-Aryan side, however, has many professional scholars. Since the quality and quantity of the work done on the Dravidian side is as important as those on the Indo-Aryan side for arriving at correct conclusions, I decided to post this appeal. I acknowledge with gratitude Dr. Aklujkar?s comments on an earlier draft. But I alone am responsible for whatever problems one may find in this. My association with Indology started about 20 years ago when I joined University of Pennsylvania as a graduate student. Since that time, I have tried to enhance my knowledge of Indology mainly through self-education. Over the years, I have come to the realization that in the pursuit of Indological inquiry, the Dravidian side has been ignored in comparison with the Indo-Aryan side. As Dr. Aklujkar once pointed out to me, it may be just due to the sheer volume and variety of material available in IA. It may be due to IA being part of IE family making it easy for Westerners to study. In any case, in addition to these factors, the number of American university programs teaching Dravidian languages have dwindled between 1977 and 1997. For instance, as far as I know, currently only University of California, Berkeley, and University of Chicago have tenured positions in Tamil producing PhDs in Tamil literature. Madison offers summer courses in Tamil. Michigan does not have a tenured position and Penn mainly serves as a center for computer-based instruction for Tamil. Wisconsin has a Telugu position. I believe Kannada is offered in one university. (I am willing to be corrected on these.) I do not know about the situation in other Western countries. I joined the Indology list about one year ago. My experience with the list has confirmed my earlier impression even more. In an objective pursuit of Indological truth, if the study of Dravidian is very important, the study of Classical Tamil is absolutely indispensable. Many Indologists in the past, by confining themselves to Indo-Aryan or Indo-European databases of facts, have failed to grasp the truth which they could have done easily by extending their inquiry into the Dravidian side. Whatever be the outcome of the specific discussions we recently had on Indology involving materials in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages, there can be no doubt that a collaborative effort of Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit and Dravidian/Classical Tamil scholars can go a long way towards answering many questions related to the roots of Indian culture and raising some previously unrealized possibilities. As far as general Indian population is concerned, Classical Tamil is seen as "Tamil", and hence associated with Tamils. They do not realize that in having preserved some important information regarding one component of their heritage, which their present languages have lost, Classical Tamil is really important to get a correct understanding of their cultural history also. At present, not even an average Malayalee would know/concede that they would gain anything by a study of Classical Tamil, let alone a Kannadiga or Maharashtrian or Gujarati. (A recent announcement from International Center For Studies Of Classical Languages, Pune, did not seem to consider Classical Tamil as a classical language.) Why go outside Tamilnadu? In today?s Tamilnadu, serious Tamil scholarship is being neglected. (According to Sanskritists who know the Indian scene, Sanskrit scholarship in various parts of India is on the decline too.) Those being rewarded are stand-up comedian-like entertainers who go by the name of Tamil professors. With the last of the serious scholars retiring or passing away, there has been a vacuum created in Classical Tamil studies. Add to this the fact that, by and large, scholars in different languages in India live mutually exclusive compartmentalized lives. There is little hope for someone like Burrow or Emeneau or Kuiper to be produced. All in all, I do not see much future for an unbiased pursuit of Indological knowledge in India. This is where the West and especially the American universities can play an important role. With the economy in very good shape after many years, and many state budgets in surplus, the Indological faculty and people of South Asian origin in the Western world should seek to endow as many positions as possible in Classical Tamil, and other Dravidian languages and positions requiring knowledge of both an Indo-Aryan language and a Dravidian language. They can recognize Classical Tamil as a classical language and include it as an important course of study. As important contributions of the Dravidian component of Indian culture get established with the help of Classical Tamil, more interest may develop in other Dravidian languages. As more resources get allocated to the study of Dravidian, important tasks related to preservation of non-literary tribal languages, collection, preservation, and study of manuscripts, compilation of lexicons, literary studies and comparative studies can proceed. (As the study of Dravidian languages in the West becomes known, it may bring more prestige to the field in India, which may then attract the best and brightest students.) After the study of Dravidian languages get established, establishment of positions in Munda group can be established. (One should note that but for the recognition of the role of Dravidian languages by some eminent Sanskritists and their efforts on behalf of Dravidian, many academic positions specializing in Dravidian might not have been established in the West.) Today, in the archives of the RISA list, I saw the announcement of a lecturership in Tamil at University of Texas at Austin. While something is better than nothing, it is still inadequate. Currently, many of the academic specialists in religion, sociology, history, etc., (here I include people of Tamil origin) have no language or literary expertise. They often depend on others to interpret the texts for them. When the pool of good language and literature specialists dries up what will the Indologists do? It takes many years to produce an expert in a language/literature. I hope and wish that the South Asia faculty at Austin and other places get the funds to get tenure- track positions at least in Classical Tamil as a start towards getting more positions in all Dravidian languages. Hopes and dreams, these may be. But they are important for real progress. Are they not? Regards S. Palaniappan From amnev at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 4 12:57:18 1998 From: amnev at HOTMAIL.COM (Amos Nevo) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 04:57:18 -0800 Subject: Naciketopakhyanam Message-ID: <161227036406.23782.17887166020075323197.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Shalom to all members of the list, According to my information, Mr. Shstry Suryashankar Tuljashankar of Jodiya, Kathiawad in Gujarat, has a manuscript of Naciketopakhyanam. Could anyone help me find his exact address? Thanks in advance. Amos Nevo 14/51 Bolivia St. Jerusalem 96746 ISRAEL fAX. 972 2 6419215 Email: amnev at hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From Vaidix at AOL.COM Wed Mar 4 10:06:20 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 05:06:20 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036404.23782.3396314849552251468.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello everyone, I accept V. Sundaresan's point about Vedic people's possible disregard of morals. The morals that are followed at individual level may not be followed by a group. Also in any society at any time certain things (like discrimination of lower castes or other powerless classes) is not recognized as a immoral, even though it is immoral. The so-called lower castes in Vedic society (more so in the later Hindu society) and other weaker sections like women were probably disadvantaged. However all this improper treatment is justified by the uneven laws that were written, so it is legal in some perverse sense! But there is little evidence that Vedic tribes or Hindu society went against their own laws. Further, the laws regarding wars and battles (ex: stopping the battle at sunset and cultural exchange of opponents before sunrise etc) were quite old as per Mahabharata. Such laws were at least practiced for many thousands of years otherwise they would not be accepted as a norm. If that is the case, oppression of one society by another is impossible (in case of an invasion by vedic tribes). If it is an intrusion, the previously existing population would be so miniscule compared to the waves of intruders that the prior population would cease to have a history any more. The present day American Indians can not possibly hope to create another Mayan civilization in the middle of the concrete jungle created by the intruders! S. Krishna's question on invasion vs intrusion: As the American Indians did not have the modern technology, the European conquest of Americas can not be called invasion precisely because the resistance is not a matching one. It is more of an intrusion. Assuming the Aryan Dravidian conflict ever happened, if the so-called Dravidians existing before were well equipped, it can be called Aryan invasion. If it is an invasion, and if the invaded population was culturally different from the invading one, there is very little chance the invaded population accepting the culture of invaders let alone sing the heroic songs of invaders who attacked them. Look at Israel, the people of this tiny country were displaced some time after the Biblical creation of 4000BC during the time of old testament (let us assume an average of 2000BC when the land conflicts between various tribes started). Now the matter is an international dispute! I agree that Israel is a religious center of three major religions and a strategic post for control of oil; still it does not convince me. When a tiny country's population gets displaced 4000 years ago (from now) it results in a major international dispute, but when an Aryan population invades and massacres Dravidians around the same time, the invaded people happily accept the Aryan gods and live together harmoniously for next five centuries! ... and to add insult to injury the invading population records their conquests in the form of RGveda and Dravidians which sing happily together! Give me a break. Didn't somebody say the stories of RGveda were older than RGveda itself?!?! Then why are Dasyus (if they are Dravidians) mentioned in RGveda? The German/ European scholars had already spelt out their opinion that Dasyus are probably aboriginal Dravidian slaves. Now it is my turn. In my opinion Dasyu has nothing to dAsA (slave) at all. Dasyu may be a proper name of a tribe the Indo Aryans were always in conflict with. It may be a European tribe of RGvedic period, possibly an antecedent to Deutch. Why was this possibility not even thought of?!? Didn't it ever occur to Prof Max Mueller? or was it a cover up? The RGveda never mentions Dasyus in a derogatory manner, the references were always fit for describing an equal opponent . (Most of the derogatory words such as barbarians, robbers etc were used by interpreters and translators like Griffith). Dasyus were probably a heroic tribe with whom the Vedic tribes had many conflcits (which explains the common lingustics strata). If so then the Dravidians (who were the first to leave for the new Indian lands) have every reason to sing RGvedic songs in memory of their conflicts. Unlike the proponents of Aryan Invasion who want to repeat the same lie each time hoping that it will become a fact, I would not repeat the contents of this mail without a new piece of evidence. Regards. Bhadraiah Mallampalli http://members.aoo.com/vaidix From thillaud at UNICE.FR Wed Mar 4 06:32:09 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 07:32:09 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: <34FA7C9C.2F1F@rug.ac.be> Message-ID: <161227036402.23782.18028021881472532768.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Erik Seldeslachts wrote: >In Normandie a number of Norse place names have been conserved and even some >personal names are continued in last names such as Anquetil P Anskjetill (or >something similar). In the reverse situation we get a similar effect: >onomastic >studies easily reveal the Gallic components in the place names of France >and the >Greco-Roman component in the place names of the Arab speaking parts of the >Mediterranean.So we have here perfect counterexamples of the situation in >Northern >India were we do not find a Dravidian layer in the names of places and >persons. I agree with the facts, but don't believe that's a counterexample, just an other case. And an other problem is open: If the onomastic of Northern India gives us only an IA layer, it seems there are just three explanations: - autochthony, the habitants are born from the Earth. - when they come, the land is free of people, uninhabited. - at some time, a strong (administrative?) power cause a whole renaming of places. For peoples, religious causes can be evoked (see Cassius Clay), many anthroponyms containing a God's name. Do you have some preference? or knowledge of a fourth way? Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Wed Mar 4 15:08:36 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 10:08:36 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion In-Reply-To: <199803031010.LAA03326@online.no> Message-ID: <161227036409.23782.12643868435863218030.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In view of the widespread suspicion of the Indo-Aryan invasion/migration theory amongst many intellectuals in India, in view of the sensitivities of many people in this regard, and in view of the massive amount of just plain bad scholarship that has been churned out of the West on this issue over the last two centuries (which has partly contributed to the theory's rejection by such intellectuals), I propose that for discussion's sake it would be useful and appropriate if we trimmed the migration theory of all superfluous details, unwarranted assumptions, speculations that may be reasonable but not decisive, interpretations that can be reversed to support an opposing viewpoint, etc, and establish the basic, compelling, and irrefutable arguments that support or necessitate the claim of an external origin for the Indo-Aryans into the Indian subcontinent. To my sensitivities, we have so far presented one such substantial support of the theory, vis, that had PIE arisen in India, there would have been some kind of variety of non-Indo-Iranian, IE languages extant in the subcontinent in ancient times (this has been contested by Eric, but that would lead us to a discussion, which is probably inevitable at some point, on the RV/IVC connection--but let's stick with linguistics for now). Can we discuss other irrefutable linguistic evidence? Lars: regarding the gypsies--I was not aware that their vocab contained items of this nature. I would be eager to see lists of words referring to exclusively Indian items of material culture such as fauna and flora in their lexicon if you can give me a good reference in this regard. Also, one would have to factor in variables such as the difference in time period between their departure from India and that of our hypothetical case scenario, as well as the difference in linguistic conservatism between itinerant groups and sedentary groups, no? Regards, Edwin Bryant From AppuArchie at AOL.COM Wed Mar 4 15:37:46 1998 From: AppuArchie at AOL.COM (AppuArchie) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 10:37:46 -0500 Subject: Study of Classical Tamil and Indology Message-ID: <161227036411.23782.7695494503082833383.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dr. S. Palaniappan needs no testimonial from me. I was almost chastised for even quoting about the antiquity of THOLKAPPIYAM. Dr. Palaniappan wrote: ?I joined the Indology list about one year ago. My experience with the list has confirmed my earlier impression even more. In an objective pursuit of Indological truth, if the study of Dravidian is very important, the study of Classical Tamil is absolutely indispensable. Many Indologists in the past, by confining themselves to Indo-Aryan or Indo-European databases of facts, have failed to grasp the truth which they could have done easily by extending their inquiry into the Dravidian side. Whatever be the outcome of the specific discussions we recently had on Indology involving materials in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages, there can be no doubt that a collaborative effort of Indo-Iranian/Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit and Dravidian/Classical Tamil scholars can go a long way towards answering many questions related to the roots of Indian culture and raising some previously unrealized possibilities.? I found some solace in the passage quoted below as I find it fits some academics who jumped into the fray to ridicule any non-academic claim that Tamil may be the mother of all languages as claimed by Tamil scholars based on Tamil literature. As always, such views from peers, as quoted below, do not apply to all academics. It is of only one size and if it fits that size only, so be it. ?I am very uneasy as an academic. I dislike the world academia profoundly. I earn my living from it but not only do I dislike the world of academia, I dislike most academics. So I am viewed with a certain amount of disapproval. I find academics in general singularly unwilling to make a moral commitment. Singularly unwilling to declare what they know when it becomes rather awkward to declare it. Unwilling to jeopardize their carreers, even when they possess truths that they ought to disclose. This is a sad lesson I have learned from my experience as a journalist. As soon as you make a commitment to tell the truth, you are denounced from all quarters as being subjective, unsound, and unacademic or impressionistic. This has been my experience.? (Ref. ?David Selbourne Rides Again?, Saturday Review, 10th August, 1985. Assess the Good and Evil of man KURAL 504 Judge him from the sum algebraic. English Rendition by AppuArchie. I do not want to be pelted with bouquets or brickbats, direct them towards the authors please. From jon.skarpeid at HINT.NO Wed Mar 4 14:40:58 1998 From: jon.skarpeid at HINT.NO (Jon Skarpeid) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 15:40:58 +0100 Subject: Occurence of words in Dravidian and IE-languages Message-ID: <161227036408.23782.15154591478742446078.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Some decades back Thorleif Boman made his dissertation "Hebrew thought compared with greek"(actually written in German, but translated to some other language, including English and Japanese). In this study, among others, he studied the use and occurence of different kinds of words. One striking observation was that the hebrew(semitic) language(s) has more verbs denoting action and greek(indo-european) on the contrary, more verbs connected to condition/statelanguage(s), and of course vice versa. According to Boman this also has implication for the religious concepts, including the developement of Christian though in Europe. I am wondering, though not a linguist, if some similar study has been undertaken with regards to South- and North-Indian languages? If yes, what was the results or tendency? Maybe such a study, though implying great methodolgoical problems, could through some light upon the AIT. Jon Skarpeid From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 4 23:42:31 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 15:42:31 -0800 Subject: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion)) Message-ID: <161227036426.23782.4527594252834550155.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidhyanath Rao wrote - >Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote: >>[...] The distinction, at least >> between k and g exists in Tamil speech, > >Not really. It just looks that way because so many urban middle class >children are exposed to English and Hindi quite early. Those who aren't >regularly follow Tamil rules on voicing. As my wife once complained, >they will pronounce her name as `ladaa'. If you want to know original >Tamil phonology, you should visit the villages in the heartland of TN, >not talk to middleclass people in Madras, or totally wrongly, consult >those who grew up outside TN. Well, I grew up in Bombay, so I'll not quote myself as an example. I used to attend Tamil classes at the Bombay Tamil Sangam, where the teacher had recently moved to Bombay from Madurai. He knew no Sanskrit, and very little Hindi or Marathi, and he was not a Brahmin. In the kuRaL, kaRka kacaTaRa kaRpavai kaRRapin niRka ataRkut taka, my Tamil teacher distinctly enunciated D (for T), d (for t) and g (for k). And his pronunciation of the word "english" was something like "inkilis" - where k was substituted for g - suggesting that his English pronunciation was affected by his native Tamil, and not the other way round. Although this is anecdotal evidence, and the sounds are not in the initial position, my impression is that contemporary Tamil speech makes the necessary distinctions, although the script does not, and that this phenomenon is not limited to Brahmin speech. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Wed Mar 4 20:43:09 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 15:43:09 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036415.23782.13443109685239441991.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote: >[...] The distinction, at least > between k and g exists in Tamil speech, Not really. It just looks that way because so many urban middle class children are exposed to English and Hindi quite early. Those who aren't regularly follow Tamil rules on voicing. As my wife once complained, they will pronounce her name as `ladaa'. If you want to know original Tamil phonology, you should visit the villages in the heartland of TN, not talk to middleclass people in Madras, or totally wrongly, consult those who grew up outside TN. This phenomenon can also be observed aomng women of the previous generations. In the singing of bhajans in the group I have gone to the rarer names and Sanskrit words will get the same treatment. Regards -Nath From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Wed Mar 4 20:48:49 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 15:48:49 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036417.23782.12002833469433112943.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Palaniappa wrote: > What about place names ending in Ur or pura/pur? What do the IA experts think > of -pura? The stuatus of puur is controversial. It seems to have cognates outside India, in Lithuanian etc. uur is unlikley to be of IE origin. There is another problem in language contact situations: The meaning of similar sounding words in different langauges can be influnced by one another. This is why ``this in IA and Dravidian. so IA borrowed it from Dravidian'' are too facile. This is precisely what the problem is in discussions of retroflexion. I will expand on this when I get time, may be tomorrow. Regards -Nath From srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU Wed Mar 4 21:31:29 1998 From: srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Srinivasan Pichumani) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 16:31:29 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036419.23782.5242575450319714552.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote: >[...] The distinction, at least > between k and g exists in Tamil speech, Not really. It just looks that way because so many urban middle class children are exposed to English and Hindi quite early. Those who aren't regularly follow Tamil rules on voicing. As my wife once complained, they will pronounce her name as `ladaa'. If you want to know original Tamil phonology, you should visit the villages in the heartland of TN, not talk to middleclass people in Madras, or totally wrongly, consult those who grew up outside TN. This phenomenon can also be observed aomng women of the previous generations. In the singing of bhajans in the group I have gone to the rarer names and Sanskrit words will get the same treatment. Regards -Nath I think Vidyasankar intended the same thing that you have said above... i.e. that voicing does exist in Tamil under certain conditions and hence there is the distinction between k and g. In any case, I have heard this assertion about "original Tamil phonology" being preserved in the "villages", the "heartland" etc way too often that, perversely, I have begun to have my own doubts. Yes, I have travelled quite a bit in various interior parts of TN and have in general heard voiced sounds whenever a stop occurs in the middle of a word etc etc... but is it absolutely clear that voicing never ever occurs at the beginning of a word... is there sound phonological ;-) fieldwork that confirms this without the trace of a doubt ??? (Vaasu ?) Or is it well determined that initial voicing, if it were to occur at all, occurs only in "tatsama" words like kaNecan2. I have heard people assert that the initial k in this word is never voiced but my own "fieldwork" suggests that there is a lot of fluidity without having to bring in issues of urban vs rural, class, caste, etc. How about the dental/alveolar differentiations... are they preserved in the heartland... or has the heartland shifted across the Palghat gap ;-))) And then, what about that unique letter of the alphabet that Tamil and S.Dravidian prides itself on - the letter that mysteriously transliterated as "zh" by commoners and which is enshrined in the very name of the language, Tamizh, and the native word, ezhuttu, for the letter of the alphabet. Maybe we should just toss that bloody thing after all since nobody except a few of us pronounce it right !!! -Srini. From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 4 22:54:38 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 17:54:38 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036423.23782.16092013612839717432.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-04 16:32:50 EST, you write: << but is it absolutely clear that voicing never ever occurs at the beginning of a word... is there sound phonological ;-) fieldwork that confirms this without the trace of a doubt ??? >> As far as I know, initial voicing occurs only in the northern border areas of Tamilnadu with Telugu influence. For instance, you can hear "balli" instead of "palli". Regards S. Palaniappan From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Thu Mar 5 01:36:47 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 20:36:47 -0500 Subject: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed di Message-ID: <161227036428.23782.15010982160662861994.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-04 18:44:13 EST, vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM writes: << In the kuRaL, kaRka kacaTaRa kaRpavai kaRRapin niRka ataRkut taka, my Tamil teacher distinctly enunciated D (for T), d (for t) and g (for k). And his pronunciation of the word "english" was something like "inkilis" - where k was substituted for g - suggesting that his English pronunciation was affected by his native Tamil, and not the other way round. Although this is anecdotal evidence, and the sounds are not in the initial position, my impression is that contemporary Tamil speech makes the necessary distinctions, although the script does not, and that this phenomenon is not limited to Brahmin speech. >> I am surprised that a non-brahmin from Madurai pronounced "taka" as "taga" instead of something like "taha". The intervocalic "g" is more a characteristic of northern Tamilnadu. (I grew up in Madurai Dt. with a good bit of exposure to Tirunelveli dialect at home.) May be his language has been influenced by other dialects. Apart from this, the phenomenon you are describing is not only in contemporary speech but has been for a very long time, from the beginning of writing in Tamil. Tamil orthography has made use of predictable rules of pronunciation and done away with a lot of voiced consonants. As Srini pointed out, both of you Vidyas are saying the same thing. A request to Srini. Please do not mess up my name by doing away with "ciRappu zakaram". Regards S. Palaniappan From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Thu Mar 5 04:03:35 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 22:03:35 -0600 Subject: Tamil Pronunciation Message-ID: <161227036431.23782.3872150445466247628.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Let me try one more time. I did this about a year ago. Regards N. Ganesan **************************************** Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 Subject: Re: Thoughts on Sanskritization Re: Thoughts on Sanskritization Dr. Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote: + Shouldn't we be distinguishing between the script used for writing a + language from the language as a spoken entity? Does anyone *pronounce* + gan(g)gaikoNDacOzhan as kan(g)kaikoNTacOzhan? Surely, Tamil speakers + distinguish between k and g in speech, although not in writing. Similarly, + the sounds s and S frequently occur in speech, although the script allows + strictly only for c (e.g. sol/Sol as variants of col). Sure. All Tamil speakers in villages, knowing no other language, tell my name as "kaNEsan" and not as "gaNEsan". In Tamil, written "ka+G+kai" is pronounced as "kaGgai". So, it is "kaGgaikoNDacOzhan". River Ganga is pronounced as "GaGgai", only if the speaker knows that in Sanskrit or other Indic languages, it is so. Tamil grammar starting from TolkAppiyam allows for distinguishing between "k" and "g/h", "c" and "J/j", "T (.t)" and "D (.d)", "t" and "d","p" and "b", etc., in speech, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE WRITTEN ONLY AS "k", "c", "T", "t", "p" respectively. These letters are called 'hard' consonants - vallinam in tamil. But kh, gh etc., sounds are alien to Tamil. According to the rules, a) when the hard consonants occur in the word in a non-initial position and not surrounded by another hard consonant, they are pronounced 'soft'. b) For the doubling 'hard' consonants in a non-initial position, they are pronounced as written, (ie 'hard'). c) Hard consonants do not get pronounced soft when they are the first letters of the word. The rule is simple and always followed intuitively. Examples: Writing Pronounced as **************** *************** ka + G +kai kaGgai (Ganges) (k is pronounced as g) a + G + ku aGgu (there) (k pronounced as g) taa + k + ka +m taakkam (impact) (Note the "k""k") taa + ka + m taaham (thirst) (Note there only one "k")(k->h) pa + c +cai paccai (green) (Note doubling c) pa + J + cu (cotton) paJju (cotton) (Note the only c) paa + T + Tu paaTTu (song) (Note doubling T) paa + Tu paaDu (to sing) (Note the only T) vi + tai vidai (seed) (one t) vi + t + tai vittai (vidyA) (Double t) a + m + pu ambu (arrow) (one p) ka + m + pa + n kamban, a great poet (one p) a + p + pa + n appan, dad or a dear person (double p) and so on. "k" as a non-first letter of a word and for single occurence, has other sounds too, eg., pi + Ra + ku (piRaku = later) is pronounced as "piRahu". North of Madurai, c is pronounced as s. ++ c, T, t, p. Tamil resistance to include ++ these additional characters is because it would lead to excessive use ++ of Sanskrit words and native Tamil/Dravidian words will face extinction, Sundaresan wrote: +It is the Tamil +resistance to excessive use of Sanskrit that has helped it to maintain its +identity to date. Varying degrees of accommodation of and resistance to +words of Sanskrit origin are seen among all south Indian languages. I agree. Regards, N. Ganesan From spmittal at GIASDL01.VSNL.NET.IN Wed Mar 4 16:50:12 1998 From: spmittal at GIASDL01.VSNL.NET.IN (Surya P. Mittal) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 22:20:12 +0530 Subject: Sanskrit Poetics [::was Availability of 3 books] Message-ID: <161227036413.23782.16350686137175509997.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Ref: EME/FI-4163 Mar 4, 1998 Here is a list of 25 works on Sanskrit Poetics from India. ----------------------------------------------------------------- SELECT INDIAN PUBLICATIONS ON SANSKRIT POETICS 1. Bhattacharya, Bishnupada, 1921- New trends in Sanskrit poetics / Bishnupada Bhattacharya. -- 1st ed. -- Dharwad : Prasaranga, Karnatak University, 1987. 58 p. ; 22 cm. Includes passages in Sanskrit (roman) Collection of lectures delivered as 28th All India Oriental Conference memorial special lectures on 22nd, 23rd and 25th October 1985 at Karnatak University. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. $1.00 (ubd.) DK-55935 2. Dandin, 7th cent. [Kavyadarsa. Sanskrit & Tibetan] Kavyadarsa = Snan dnags me lon : a bilingual edition of the monumental treatise on the principles of Sanskrit poetical composion [sic] / by Dandin (Dbyug-pa-can). -- Rewalsar, H.P. : Zigar Drukpa Kargyud Institute, 1985. xxiv, 286 p. ; 19 cm. In Sanskrit; translation in Tibetan; prefatory matter in English, Sanskrit and Tibetan. Title on added t.p.: Slob-dpon Dbyug-pa-can gyis mdzad pa'i snan nag me lon ma. Reprint. Originally published: Calcutta : University of Calcutta, 1939. Classical treatise on Sanskrit poetics. 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $16.70 DKS-1531 3. De, Sushil Kumar, 1890-1968. Some problems of Sanskrit poetics / Sushil Kumar De. -- 1st ed. -- Calcutta : Firma KLM, 1959, 1981 printing. 267 p. ; 23 cm. Includes passages in Sanskrit. Articles; most previously published. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Poetics. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $4.20 DK-24289 4. Dwivedi, Rewa Prasad, 1935- [Kavyalankarakarika. English & Sanskrit] Kavyalankarakarika : latest Sanskrit poetics / by Rewa Prasada Dwivedi. -- 1st ed. -- Varanasi : Chaukhamba Surbharati Prakashan, 1977. 43, 278 p. ; 23 cm. -- (Chaukhamba Surabharati studies ; 1) Added t.p. in Sanskrit. Commentary in Sanskrit; introd. in English or Sanskrit. Includes bibliographical references and index. Verse work, with autocommentary, on the fundamental considerations of Sanskrit poetics. 1. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. 2. Poetics. $2.50 DK-14619 5. Glimpses of ancient Indian poetics, from Bharata to Jagannatha / edited by Sudhakar Pandey, V.N. Jha. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi, India : Sri Satguru Publications, 1993. x, 216 p. ; 22 cm. -- (Shri Garib Dass oriental series ; no. 166). Includes quotations in Sanskrit. Papers presented at the National Seminar on Indian Poetics, held at University of Poona during 6-8 March 1986. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 81-7030-360-5 1. Poetics--Congresses. 2. Poetics, Sanskrit--Congresses. 3. Poetics, Indic--Congresses. $16.70 DK-79959 6. Gupta, Savitri, 1946- Comparative and critical study of Ekavali : contribution of Vidyadhara to Sanskrit poetics / by Savitri Gupta ; with a foreword by Satya Vrat Shastri. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi, India : Eastern Book Linkers, 1992. xx, 316 p. ; 23 cm. Includes quotations in Sanskrit. Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Delhi, 1976) under the title: Contribution of Vidyadhara to Sanskrit poetics. Bibliography: p. [313]-316. ISBN 81-85133-57-3 1. Vidyadhara. Ekavali. 2. Poetics, Sanskrit. 3. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $25.00 DK-76129 7. Joshi, Natavarlal, 1942- Poetry, creativity, and aesthetic experience : [Sanskrit poetics and literary criticism] / Natavarlal Joshi ; foreword, V.M. Kulkarni. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi, India : Eastern Book Linkers, 1994. xvi, 251 p. ; 23 cm. Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Bombay, 1993) under the title: Poetic composition, its cause and purpose. Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-246). Includes index. ISBN 81-85133-94-8 1. Poetics. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $20.80 DK-88277 8. Kane, P. V. (Pandurang Vaman), 1880-1972. History of Sanskrit poetics / P.V. Kane. -- Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1994. viii, 446 p. ; 23 cm. Originally published: 4th ed. 1971. Includes bibliographical references. Includes index. ISBN 81-208-0274-8 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $15.80 DK-89275 9. Karan, Anita, 1961- Pratiharendureja's contribution to Sanskrit poetics / Anita Karan. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi : Eastern Book Linkers, 1988. xiv, 68 p. ; 23 cm. Footnotes in English and Sanskrit. Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Delhi, 1985. Bibliography: p. [62]-65. Includes index. ISBN 81-85133-17-4 1. Pratiharenduraja. 2. Poetics, Sanskrit. $4.60 DK-56966 10. Kulkarni, V. M. (Vaman Mahadeo), 1917- More studies in Sanskrit sahitya-sastra / V.M. Kulkarni. -- 1st ed. -- Ahmedabad : Saraswati Pustak Bhandar, 1993. 211 p. ; 25 cm. -- (Saraswati oriental series ; no. 6). Includes verses in Sanskrit; with English translation. Running title: More studies in sahityasastra. On Sanskrit poetics and aesthetics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 211). Includes index. 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Aesthetics, Sanskrit. 3. Sanskrit literature. $20.80 DK-82912 11. Lahiri, P.C. (Prakas Chandra), 1906- Concepts of riti and guna in Sanskrit poetics in their historical development / P.C. Lahiri. -- 1st Indian ed. -- Delhi : V.K. Pub. House, 1987. vii, 308 p. ; 23 cm. Includes verses in Sanskrit (roman). Reprint. Originally published: Dacca : Dacca University, 1937. (Dacca University bulletin ; 18). Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dacca University, 1934. Bibliography: p. [275]-279. Includes indexes. 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. 3. Sanskrit language--Rhetoric. $8.30 DK-55883 12. Misra, Prafulla Kumar, 1954- Sanskrit poetics : with contribution of Orissa / Prafulla Kumar Misra. -- Delhi : Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1988. xi, 352 p. : geneal. tables ; 22 cm. English and Sanskrit (roman) Running title: Sanskrit poetics : Orrisan contribution. Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Utkal University, 1983) under the title: Contribution of Orissan authors to Sanskrit poetics. Bibliography: p. 335-348. Includes index. "Errata": 2 p. tipped in. ISBN 81-217-0037-X 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Poets, Sanskrit--India--Orissa. $16.70 DK-57269 13. Mukherji, Ramaranjan, 1928- Literary criticism in ancient India / Ramaranjan Mukherji. -- 2nd ed. -- Calcutta, India : Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1990. xiv, 573 p. ; 22 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [519]-573). 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Aesthetics, Sanskrit. 3. Aesthetics, Comparative. 4. Sanskrit literature--History and criticism. $25.00 DK-85610 14. Nagendra, 1915- A dictionary of Sanskrit poetics / Nagendra. -- Delhi : B.R. Pub. Corp. ; New Delhi, 1987. 207 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. English and Sanskrit (Devanagari and roman) ISBN 81-7018-396-0 1. Poetics, Sanskrit--Dictionaries--Sanskrit. 2. Sanskrit language--Dictionaries--English. 3. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $10.40 DK-49364 15. Panda, P. K. (Pradipta Kumar), 1959- Concept of dhvani in Sanskrit poetics : Indian theory of suggestion and principles of literary criticism, in the light of Anandavardhana's Dhvanyaloka and its commentator Madhusudan Misra's Avadhana commentary / P.K. Panda ; foreword by B.M. Chaturvedi. -- Delhi : Penman Publishers, 1988. xiv, 152 p. : geneal. table ; 22 cm. Bibliography: p. [139]-145. Includes index. 1. Anandavardhana, 9th cent. Dhvanyaloka. 2. Misra, Madhusudan, 1872-1944. Avadhana. 3. Poetics, Sanskrit. $10.00 DK-57211 16. Prakrit verses in Sanskrit works on poetics / edited by V.M. Kulkarni. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi : B.L. Institute of Indology, 1988- v. ; 25 cm. -- (B.L. series ; no. 6). English, Prakrit and Sanskrit. Includes corrections and additions and indexes. Contents: v. 1. Text : with Sanskrit cchaya, appendixes and indexes. Vol. 1 (602, 40, 129 p.) rec'd ; to be complete in 2 v. 1. Prakrit poetry. 2. Poetics, Sanskrit. $13.30 (v. 1) DK-65449 17. Rajendran, C. (Chettiarthodi), 1952- A transcultural approach to Sanskrit poetics / C. Rajendran. -- [Calicut] : C. Rajendran, 1994. 109 p. ; 22 cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. [100]-105). Includes index. 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $5.00 (ubd.) DK-91398 18. Sadhale, Nalini, 1934- Katha in Sanskrit poetics / by Nalini Sadhale. -- 1st ed. -- Hyderabad, A. P., India : Sanskrit Academy, Osmania University, 1986. 76 p. ; 22 cm. -- (Sanskrit Academy series ; 37). Includes Sanskrit text of Kathalakshanam; with English translation. Study on the various forms of the story in the theoretical works of Sanskrit and Prakrit literature. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Poetics. 2. Sanskrit literature--History and criticism. 3. Prakrit literature--History and criticism. $1.30 DK-70871 19. Schelling, Andrew, 1953- Twilight speech : essays on Sanskrit and Buddhist poetics / Andrew Schelling. -- Calcutta : Punthi Pustak, 1993. 151 p. ; 22 cm. Articles; Previously published. Includes bibliographical references (p. [148]-151). ISBN 81-85094-64-0 1. Poetics. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. 3. Buddhist poetry--History and criticism. 4. Prakrit poetry--History and criticism. $15.40 DK-85792 20. Sharma, Brahmanand, 1923- [Rasalocana. English & Sanskrit] Reassessment of rasa theory = Rasalocanam / by Brahmanand Sharma ; with English translation by B.N. Sharma, author & Prabhakar Shastri. -- 1st ed. -- Jaipur : B.N. Sharma, 1985. 57, 78 p. ; 22 cm. Text in Sanskrit; translation and pref. in English. Added t.p. in Sanskrit. "Advanced research project approved by U.G.C." Treatise on the theory of sentiment (rasa) in Sanskrit poetics. 1. Sentimentalism in literature. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. 3. Poetics, Sanskrit. $5.00 DK-47414 21. Shastri, Mool Chand, 1930- Buddhistic contribution to Sanskrit poetics / Mool Chand Shastri. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi : Parimal Publications, 1986. xii, 167 p. ; 22 cm. Includes quotations in Sanskrit. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Delhi, 1972. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Buddhist poetry, Sanskrit--History and criticism. 3. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $8.30 DK-48143 22. Siddhartha, Sundari. Post Mammata Sanskrit poetics : as reflected in Nanjarajayasobhusana / Sundari Siddhartha. -- Delhi : Publication Division, University of Delhi, c1992. xv, 281 p. : map ; 22 cm. Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Delhi, 1987) under the title: A study of Nanjarajayasobhusana of Narasimha Kavi. Includes bibliographical references (p. [253]-267). Includes index. ISBN 81-85695-01-6 1. Narasinha Kavi, 18th cent. Nanjarajayasobhusana. 2. Poetics, Sanskrit--Early works to 1800. 3. Poetics--Early works to 1800. $15.00 DK-80675 23. Sriramachandrudu, P. (Pullela), 1927- The contribution of Panditaraja Jagannatha to Sanskrit Poetics / P. Sri Ramachandrudu ; foreword by K. Krishnamoorthy. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi : Nirajana Publishers & Book Sellers, 1983. 2 v. (xv, iv, 581 p.) ; 22 cm. Includes quotations in Sanskrit. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Osmania University, 1968. Bibliography: p. 566-576. Includes glossary and index. 1. Jagannatha Panditaraja, 17th cent. 2. Poetics. 3. Sanskrit Poetry--History and criticism. $25.00 per set. DK-34762 24. Swaroop, Sharda, 1925- The role of dhvani in Sanskrit poetics / Sharda Swaroop ; foreword by P.L. Vaidya. -- Moradabad : Onkar Swaroop, [1984] 333 p. ; 23 cm. Includes quotations in Sanskrit. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Banaras Hindu University, 1958. "Textual authority indicated by foot-notes": p. 293-322 (in Sanskrit). Bibliography: p. [323]-326. Includes errata and index. 1. Poetics, Sanskrit. 2. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. 3. Rhythm. 4. Sound. $6.70 DK-45071 25. Visvanatha Kaviraja, 14th cent. [Sahityadarpana. English]. The sahitya-darpana, or, Mirror of composition of Visvanatha : a treatise on poetical criticism / translated by J.R. Ballantyne and Pramada Dasa Mitra. -- Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1994. xvii, 444 p. ; 23 cm. Translated from Sanskrit. Includes passages in Sanskrit. Caption title: The mirror of composition. Originally published: The mirror of composition, a treatise on poetical criticism. Calcutta : Printed by C.B. Lewis, 1875. ISBN 81-208-1145-3 1. Poetics. 2. Poetics, Sanskrit. 3. Sanskrit poetry--History and criticism. $29.20 DK-97058 ------------------------------------------------------- Surya P. Mittal e-mailto:surya at pobox.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: D.K. AGENCIES (P) LTD. Fax: (+91-11) 5647081, 5648053 A/15-17 Mohan Garden Phones: (011) 5648066, 5648067 Najafgarh Road E-mail: dka at pobox.com New Delhi - 110 059. E-mailto:custserv at dkagencies.com Our Website : http://www.dkagencies.com Online Search : http://www.dkagencies.com/booksearch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sreenivas Paruchuri wrote: > > Could someone please tell me about the availability of following > three titles in India (and/or eventually elsewhere), preferably as > Paper-Backs: > > Krishna Chaitanya: Sanskrit Poetics-A critical and comparative Study > Friedhelm Hardy: Viraha Bhakti (OUP, 1980) and > N.R. Acharya: Subhaashita_ratna_bhaanDaara (NSP, 1978) > > What about _Hist. of Sanskrit Poetics_ by P.V.Kane and S.K.De > (2 separate books!)? Or, are there any better works than the > aforementioned ones in the past ~20 years? > > Thanks in advance! > > Regards, --Sreenivas From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Wed Mar 4 22:54:01 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 23:54:01 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036421.23782.15409105427037723832.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Edwin Bryant wrote: , I propose that for >discussion's sake it would be useful and appropriate if we trimmed >the migration theory of all superfluous details, unwarranted assumptions, >speculations that may be reasonable but not decisive, interpretations that >can be reversed to support an opposing viewpoint, etc, and establish the >basic, compelling, and irrefutable arguments that support or necessitate >the claim of an external origin for the Indo-Aryans into the >Indian subcontinent. The question is, Edwin, what these superfluous details etc. are. Apparently, people disagree.... > >Can we discuss other irrefutable linguistic evidence? > >Lars: regarding the gypsies--I was not aware that their vocab contained >items of this nature. I would be eager to see lists of words referring to >exclusively Indian items of material culture such as fauna and flora in >their lexicon if you can give me a good reference in this regard. Edwin, I did not say that gypsy languages (or dialects) contain the sort of words you mention (in fact, I am not an expert on such languages, although I know one who is). But they contain a large number of words that can easily be related to North Indian languages. An example: the Norwegian Tater language (which can be regarded as an Indian language in its absolutely last stage - only the words (or some of them) are Indic - the grammar is Norwegian) has the word "pu" which means "earth". The phonology shows that "pu" must come from bhuumi or bhuu. *bh > p is a regular feature of the Indic words in this language. Another example is the English word "pal" (borrowed from Gypsy!), which comes from bhraatar. The phonetic development is regular. There are other examples, but I can't remember them, and I don't have the material here. As for Indo-European, my point was that they would have been in contact with other non-Indo-European languages, and that we should expect to find words in Western languages that could be related to non-IE languages in India. Those words could relate to anything, not necessarily flowers etc. I would for instance expect Persian to show traces of non-IE languages if it had come from India. Also, >one would have to factor in variables such as the difference in time >period between their departure from India and that of our hypothetical >case scenario, as well as the difference in linguistic conservatism >between itinerant groups and sedentary groups, no? Relevant point. My impression is that gypsy languages borrow to some extent (an expert would have to say how much). In Norway, there is a gypsy dialect called "lovari". This word comes from the Hungarian word "lo", possessive "lova", which means "horse". Lovari is then the language of the horse-traders! Guess where this group of gypsies had been. Best regards, Lars Martin Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From Vaidix at AOL.COM Thu Mar 5 05:39:56 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 00:39:56 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036434.23782.17104173172194117305.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Prof Bryant There has never been any bad scholarship. All work done for Indology was greatly helpful in preserving the subject. There are many known portions of the subject, which have been treated exceedingly well by all scholars traditional or modern (starting from sayana till date), but many of these scholars did a poor job when they met with unknowns or forgotten symbols. Leaving the unknown as unknown would be more appropriate and leaves a chance for future scholars to develop better interpretations. Rewriting the history of IE/PIE/IA/IAD is welcome but we are not looking for any quick results. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU Thu Mar 5 06:03:16 1998 From: srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Srinivasan Pichumani) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 01:03:16 -0500 Subject: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed di Message-ID: <161227036436.23782.16546163920188646089.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >>A request to Srini. Please do not mess up >>my name by doing away with "ciRappu zakaram". Don't worry, I will just force everyone to sing pazanIappA - j~nAna pazam nI appA - tamiz j~nAna pazam nI appA - pazantamiz j~nAna pazam nI appA That should be enough to make you change your name ;-))) Cheers, -Srini. From ramakris at EROLS.COM Thu Mar 5 09:17:36 1998 From: ramakris at EROLS.COM (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 01:17:36 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036864.23782.6605877865221520403.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > Let it be very clear: V. is not mainstream Hinduism; scholars in Mysore > assure me that the Ramakrishna Maths actually had themselves legally > declared non-Hindu in court several years ago. V. is a figurehead for > urbanised, Anglicised, well-to-do Indians who are partly alienated from > traditional Hinduism. In rural India, as per my own observations, he is The Ramakrishna Mutt _tried_ to get itself declared as a different religion, basically because of the pseudo-secularism by which they could have got some tax benefits as a non-Hindu religion. However they failed. Rama. From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Thu Mar 5 14:16:07 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 08:16:07 -0600 Subject: Tamil Pronunciation Message-ID: <161227036446.23782.7249189363229742128.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian +But, there is no "sa" in thamiz. Is there some rule for changing ca to sa also? +The most common example is paci (hunger). I have never heard it being +pronounced as paci. And isn't it an original thamiz word, I mean not a loan +from the Sanskrit? I already wrote that "North of Madurai, c is pronounced as s". North of Madurai, 'paci' is spoken as 'pasi' (hunger). 'col' (to tell, word) is spoken as 'sol'. But note that if doubling c occurs, it is told as such. 'paccai' is spoken as 'paccai'. N. Ganesan From rbalasub at ECN.PURDUE.EDU Thu Mar 5 13:35:44 1998 From: rbalasub at ECN.PURDUE.EDU (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 08:35:44 -0500 Subject: Tamil Pronunciation In-Reply-To: <01IUA8G2ZM0I002K26@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227036443.23782.1034610521953665411.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dr. Ganesan wrote: Thanks for the interesting post. > + distinguish between k and g in speech, although not in writing. Similarly, > + the sounds s and S frequently occur in speech, although the script allows > + strictly only for c (e.g. sol/Sol as variants of col). > > Sure. All Tamil speakers in villages, knowing no other > language, tell my name as "kaNEsan" and not as "gaNEsan". But, there is no "sa" in thamiz. Is there some rule for changing ca to sa also? The most common example is paci (hunger). I have never heard it being pronounced as paci. And isn't it an original thamiz word, I mean not a loan from the Sanskrit? > In Tamil, written "ka+G+kai" is pronounced as "kaGgai". > So, it is "kaGgaikoNDacOzhan". River Ganga is pronounced > as "GaGgai", only if the speaker knows that in Sanskrit > or other Indic languages, it is so. Rama. From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Thu Mar 5 09:56:24 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 09:56:24 +0000 Subject: WinMASS LIPI... (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036441.23782.9331518648158489327.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 17:13:41 +0800 (SGT) From: Das Menon Subject: WinMASS LIPI... Dear Indian Language Lovers, Scripts India is please to announce the release of their Indian Scripts "enabler" software for Windows 95, called WinmASS LIPI. The software enables multi-lingual capabilities in products like Word, Netscape, Eudora, Internet Explorer etc., enabling these application to sent and receive information in Indian Languages. Anyone familiar with the standard QWERTY keyboard will find it very easy to type in the Indian Script of their choice, since most of the vowels and consonents have been mapped phonetically to the QWERTY keys (with the notable exception of ~na; "na; .Ta; .Tha, .Da; .Dha; .Na, and Malyalam/Tamil "zha"). The program also supports the automatic formation of conjunct characters. The first release of the software supports the following scripts: 1. Devanagari 2. Gujarati 3. Gurmukhi 4. Malayalam 5. Tamil Roman input method is available for Tamil in this release. The next release will have Roman input support for the other scripts (based on the Vethuis scheme). The next release is planned with support for Assamesse/Bengali, Kannada and Telugu. The software is being retailed at US$99.00, inclusive of the above five scripts. Those interested to receive more information on this product or to place an order, please contact the undersigned. Thanks & Regards...Das Das Menon Scripts India Pte Ltd 52 Chin Swee Road #05-00 Singapore 169875 email: dmenon at pacific.net.sg From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Thu Mar 5 15:42:19 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 10:42:19 -0500 Subject: Tamil Pronunciation Message-ID: <161227036449.23782.16379047520770671832.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-05 08:54:55 EST, rbalasub at ECN.PURDUE.EDU writes: << But, there is no "sa" in thamiz. Is there some rule for changing ca to sa also? The most common example is paci (hunger). I have never heard it being pronounced as paci. And isn't it an original thamiz word, I mean not a loan from the Sanskrit? >> Intervocalically (if you look in the word "paci", "c" occurs between the vowels "a" and "i"), "ca" is pronounced as "sa" all over Tamilnadu except in some brahmin dialects where it is pronounced as "za". The alternation between "ca" and "sa" occur only in the word-initial position. Regards S. Palaniappan From jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM Thu Mar 5 16:30:13 1998 From: jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM (SP) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 11:30:13 -0500 Subject: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed di Message-ID: <161227036451.23782.14711271753342761860.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> -----Original Message----- From: Palaniappa To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Date: March 4, 1998 8:37 PM Subject: Re: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed di > >I am surprised that a non-brahmin from Madurai pronounced "taka" as "taga" >instead of something like "taha". This "surprise" is what my tamil teacher also felt. When I was in school I had a great Tamil teacher (Mr. S.Srinivasan who prided himself as being named after U.V. Swaminatha Iyer) who was a brahmin. He was most certain that those of us non-brahmins would not properly pronounce certain words in Thamizh (e.g., Pazham) and gave us a few words to pronounce. Lo and behold we could not only pronounce, but that was the way we spoke and he was taken aback, but had the graciousness to accept that he was mistaken. On another note re: pronouncing letters like "ca" as "sa" and the different forms of "ka" - is this not based on some grammatical rule? I clearly remember learning something to that effect in school, but am unable to recall the exact rule. This could also be found in a book called Thamizh Ilakkiya Varalaru which was part of our curriculum at University. If anybody remembers this rule in Thamizh grammar, please enlighten me. I know Thamizh in Kanyakumari dt. is influenced by Malayalam, but there are certain words that are used in that part of Thamizh Nadu which are pronounced with no colloquialism, i.e., Thalaiyanai for Pillow whereas in the rest of Thamizh Nadu it is pronounced by all (including brhamins) as Thalahani. Is this a Malayalm influence or is it something else. On another note does anyone know how to nominate a teacher for Rajaji Award. Is it possible to do that if the person is retired. I would like to nominate Mr. Srinivasan, but am at a loss as to how. Any pointers would be appreciated. I am not a Thamizh Pulavar or a linguist so pardon me if I sound too elementary :-) Sujatha From jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM Thu Mar 5 19:11:05 1998 From: jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM (SP) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 14:11:05 -0500 Subject: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed di Message-ID: <161227036453.23782.8485365679900736409.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Please read S. Srinivasan as S. Swaminathan. In addition to not being a linguist and a Thamizh Pulavar, I also obviously do not spell well :-(((( Sujatha -----Original Message----- From: SP To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Date: March 5, 1998 11:29 AM Subject: Re: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed di >-----Original Message----- >From: Palaniappa >To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK >Date: March 4, 1998 8:37 PM >Subject: Re: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed di > > > >> >>I am surprised that a non-brahmin from Madurai pronounced "taka" as "taga" >>instead of something like "taha". > >This "surprise" is what my tamil teacher also felt. When I was in school I >had a great Tamil teacher (Mr. S.Srinivasan who prided himself as being >named after U.V. Swaminatha Iyer) who was a brahmin. He was most certain >that those of us non-brahmins would not properly pronounce certain words in >Thamizh (e.g., Pazham) and gave us a few words to pronounce. Lo and behold >we could not only pronounce, but that was the way we spoke and he was taken >aback, but had the graciousness to accept that he was mistaken. > >On another note re: pronouncing letters like "ca" as "sa" and the different >forms of "ka" - is this not based on some grammatical rule? I clearly >remember learning something to that effect in school, but am unable to >recall the exact rule. This could also be found in a book called Thamizh >Ilakkiya Varalaru which was part of our curriculum at University. If anybody >remembers this rule in Thamizh grammar, please enlighten me. > >I know Thamizh in Kanyakumari dt. is influenced by Malayalam, but there are >certain words that are used in that part of Thamizh Nadu which are >pronounced with no colloquialism, i.e., Thalaiyanai for Pillow whereas in >the rest of Thamizh Nadu it is pronounced by all (including brhamins) as >Thalahani. Is this a Malayalm influence or is it something else. > >On another note does anyone know how to nominate a teacher for Rajaji Award. >Is it possible to do that if the person is retired. I would like to nominate >Mr. Srinivasan, but am at a loss as to how. Any pointers would be >appreciated. > >I am not a Thamizh Pulavar or a linguist so pardon me if I sound too >elementary :-) > >Sujatha > From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Thu Mar 5 09:31:02 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 15:01:02 +0530 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036439.23782.11042072653754064493.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A few remarks in response to Palaniappan's observations about Dravidian studies. > Over the years, I have come to the realization that in > the pursuit of Indological inquiry, the Dravidian side has been > ignored in comparison with the Indo-Aryan side. > [...] > it may be just due to the sheer volume and > variety of material available in IA.[...] It is true that the Indian situation somewhat resembles the European, where the quantity of historical material of the Romance languages (starting with Latin) exceeds that of e.g. the Germanic or Celtic languages. But we must also realise that people are not aware of just how much Dravidian material there is, or how important it is. It is a vicious circle: Indologists tend not to study Dravidian things, because they do not know how much there is to be done and how important it is, hence they work on IA things, which as a result become increasingly well known and Dravidian remains less known, etc. etc. (Compare it with Indian philosophical studies: Western scholars tend to study Advaitavedanta rather than Dvaita or Visistadvaita or anything else, because... etc.) > It may be due to IA being part of IE family making it > easy for Westerners to study. In my own experience, this factor is not so significant as it would seem. > In any case, in addition to these factors, > the number of American university programs teaching Dravidian > languages have dwindled between 1977 and 1997. > [...] > I do not know about the situation in other Western > countries. Hardly better. > In an objective > pursuit of Indological truth, if the study of Dravidian is very > important, the study of Classical Tamil is absolutely > indispensable. Tamil has had the good fortune of being noticed at all, and as a paradoxical result its importance vis-a-vis the other Dravidian languages has been, to my mind, somewhat exaggerated. For the study of ancient India, it is unique; but when we reach the mediaeval period, which gives us far more data to base solid research on and is of importance for an understanding of pan-Indian cultural synthesis, Kannada is not at all inferior to it. (But nobody knows, because... etc.) > All in all, I > do not see much future for an unbiased pursuit of Indological > knowledge in India. This is where the West and especially the > American universities can play an important role. Sympathetic as your thought is, I am rather pessimistic, with the present trend in commercialisation and reliance on outside funding. Such funding is from industries and goes to rocket science etc. (although occasionally we come across a happy exception, like Volkswagen funding Indology in Germany. Of course Germany is special). In Europe, entire Indology departments have been shut down due to 'paucity of funds', although the social sciences, women's studies etc. are thriving -- in other words, it seems there is no popular support / political will at present. > Currently, many of the > academic specialists in religion, sociology, history, etc., (here I > include people of Tamil origin) have no language or literary > expertise. They often depend on others to interpret the texts for > them. Which visibly affects their work (irrespective of whether they deal with Tamil or any other language). > When the > pool of good language and literature specialists dries up what will > the Indologists do? It takes many years to produce an expert in a > language/literature. > [...] > (As the study of Dravidian languages in the West becomes known, > it may bring more prestige to the field in India, You may like to know that Western Indologists who do Dravidian studies are punished. To give one of my own experiences: one of my theses was a study of contemporary Kannada literature, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. I approached numerous academic publishers in America and Europe who were not even interested in seeing the manuscript. Two German publishers had the decency to openly tell me what the problem was: from a commercial point of view, a book on something Kannada was dangerously eccentric, and either of them would publish it only if I could provide several thousand DM of printing subsidy, to reduce the financial risk. So there you go: the living language with the second oldest literature in the sub-continent, a literature which has won more Jnanpith Awards than any other, etc. etc. -- it didn't matter. (The book was published, though, seven years later. The upshot is: the Dravidian researcher needs a certain kind of mentality, which not everyone has or can afford to have.) The only non-Indian colleague I know who did his doctorate on something Dravidian in the confidence that he could continue his further research in a conducive academic environment was from Japan. But then, the Japanese academic world apparently is less affected by market forces and other fashions. Major work is going on there (like the large Kannada dictionary project), and it will not be surprising if also in this branch of Indology the rest of the world will soon have to look towards, and up to, Japan. Of course Dravidian studies are essential for a balanced kind of Indology: fortunately we have reached a stage where nobody will dare contradict that. But I think we have to admit that the serious study of India is out of fashion. (This is largely because India is out of fashion.) Indology is something for independently rich bachelors to pursue. At present, to have it as a profession is highly irresponsible, and Dravidology is practically suicidal. How do you change that, in an increasingly anti-intellectual world? RZ From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Thu Mar 5 21:54:38 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 98 16:54:38 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036455.23782.13619525641304200825.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > In any case, I have heard this assertion about "original > Tamil phonology" being preserved in the "villages", the > "heartland" etc way too often that, perversely, I have > begun to have my own doubts. I was being a bit hasty. I should have said ``phonology of late19th-early 20th c. Tamil''. I sometimes get tired of being precise :-) > is there sound phonological ;-) > fieldwork that confirms this without the trace of a doubt ??? I think that Zvelebil's fieldwork, published in Acta orientalia (the one from Hungary) in the laste 50's does. I will have to check to make sure. > > Or is it well determined that initial voicing, if it were > to occur at all, occurs only in "tatsama" words like kaNecan2. > I have heard people assert that the initial k in this word is > never voiced but my own "fieldwork" suggests that there is a > lot of fluidity without having to bring in issues of urban vs > rural, class, caste, etc. There seems to be an issue of familiarity. I seldom hear/heard people voice the t of siitaa, but it is often d/tasaradar. It also seems that voicing of intervocalic stops is much more common than unvoicing of word initials. I also suspect that the ubiquity of TV has changed things quite a bit in the last 15 years. There is also a generational gap here. > > How about the dental/alveolar differentiations... are they > preserved in the heartland... or has the heartland shifted > across the Palghat gap ;-))) Only for the nasal. Of course, you can claim that r is alveolar too :-) > And then, what about that unique letter of the alphabet that > Tamil and S.Dravidian prides itself on - the letter that > mysteriously transliterated as "zh" by commoners and which > is enshrined in the very name of the language, Tamizh, and > the native word, ezhuttu, for the letter of the alphabet. > Maybe we should just toss that bloody thing after all since > nobody except a few of us pronounce it right !!! But you still need a seperate letter since people pronounce it many different ways, and using any other letter will confuse everybody. > > -Srini. > From ramakris at EROLS.COM Fri Mar 6 10:55:51 1998 From: ramakris at EROLS.COM (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 02:55:51 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036920.23782.2534958509045104079.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> N. Ganesan wrote: > Swami Vivekananda on Aryan Invasion Theory [ ... ] Couldn't help laughing on reading this! > I totally agree with Vidyasankar. Swami Vivekananda was needed > to counter overenthusiastic missionaries and enslavers of India. > But propaganda is one thing, truth is another. Yes. Another point I'll make here is that just people from Mysore are hardly representative of opinions of Hindus on Vivekananda. The dvaitins and vishistadvaitins have no reason to like V: he called dvaita and vishistadvaita stepping stones for advaita (in that order)! However, he is quite popular in many places, eg, Madras. I wouldn't say V was as influential as Sha.nkara, but definitely V's role in the giving the Indians of that time some self-confidence cannot be denied (which was very important!). No doubt, he is not as popular among scholars as Sha.nkara for obvious reasons. Also not so many people have got tenure studying V's works :-) :-). > Enough of Hindu credentials, I guess. Swami Chidbhavanadar's explanation of the tiruvachagam is very lucid. I highly recommend it if anyone's interested in that kind of thing. Rama. From prince at MX.KOBE-SHINWA.AC.JP Fri Mar 6 00:42:58 1998 From: prince at MX.KOBE-SHINWA.AC.JP (Matsumura) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 09:42:58 +0900 Subject: D: Bibliographie bouddhique Message-ID: <161227036458.23782.6654740070992633237.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Cear collegues, I need your help on a bibliographical matter. I would like to know volume number, place, publisher, and date of publication of Bibliographie bouddhique which contains "Bibliographie retrospective, l'oeuvre de Leon Feer" (pp.1-17). Thanks in advance. Hisashi Hisashi MATSUMURA prince at kobe-shinwa.ac.jp From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Mar 6 18:38:51 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 10:38:51 -0800 Subject: Two questions - Taranatha and Robert Gussner Message-ID: <161227036477.23782.3233722872991592343.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> 1. What is the period in which Taranatha wrote his account of the history of Buddhism in India? Is the original in Tibetan or in Sanskrit? There are remarkable mirror stories about Dharmakirti and Kumarila, if one compares Taranatha's account with the Sankaravijaya texts. Also, Taranatha's description of the initial conversation between Aryadeva and mAt.rceta is almost identical to the traditional description of the Sankara-maNDana miSra dialogue, beginning with "whence the shaven head?" "from the neck up ..." and both stories include a theme where the eventual loser in debate was performing an annual sacrifice for his ancestors. 2. Is anyone on this list aware of a publication by Robert Gussner (PhD, 1974, Harvard) about a stylometric study of the Dakshinamurti stotra attributed to Sankaracharya? A 1976 paper by Gussner analyzes a number of other stotras, and ends with a brief statement that the Dakshinamurti hymn was probably written by Sankara, and a tantalizing promise that the more detailed discussion will be provided in a subsequent paper. However, I've been unable to track down the second paper, and have seen only the first one quoted. Any help would be greatly appreciated, although I can't promise instant moksha ... Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Fri Mar 6 10:48:25 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 10:48:25 +0000 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036465.23782.8887480612535059151.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> INDOLOGY members of long standing will remember an unexpected posting to the group in January 1995 which was sent from McMurdo Station in Antarctica -- surely the most remote imaginable location for indological reflection. The author of that posting, Rolf Sinclair, now writes to us from the more temperate location outside Washington D.C. -- Dominik Wujastyk ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:26:23 -0500 From: Rolf Sinclair/NSF Physics Division Subject: Re: fwd: The Shiva Hypothesis Dear Colleagues -- I would like to describe some recent work in astronomy that may interest you because it has led to the naming of an astronomical theory as the "Shiva Hypothesis". This theory describes an astronomical model for the seemingly periodic mass extinctions of species on Earth, and a subsequent "starting over" of the biological record. I would be grateful for your comments on the choice of "Shiva" to identify the hypothesis. I am not on this list, so please send any comments to me as well as to the list. The basic idea is this: the Sun is one of a very large number of stars that make up our galaxy -- the galaxy that is spread across the sky as the "Milky Way". (Outside our own galaxy we glimpse many other such collections of stars -- other galaxies -- making up the universe we observe. A good description is in the Encyclopedia Britannica, under "Galaxies".) Our own galaxy is disk-shaped and rotates like a giant pinwheel, with the Sun and the other stars joining in this rotation. As the Sun turns with the galaxy (taking some 220 million years for each rotation), it periodically oscillates back and forth through the plane of the galaxy -- an "up-and-down motion", perpendicular to the rotation, on a time scale of 26 to 30 million years. The planets (including the Earth) travel along with the Sun, like a brood of chicks with their mother hen. Each time the Sun (and of course the Earth) crosses the higher-density central plane of the Galaxy, it periodically encounters greatly increased interactions with other stars and with the small-scale interstellar debris, a lot of which we term comets. Michael Rampino (New York University), the author of recent papers on this subject(*), then asks: Could recurrent waves of impact by comets be responsible for the recurrent mass extinctions of species seen in the geologic record over many millions of years ? A few years ago such a suggestion would have seemed far-fetched, but recent evidence is converging on the conclusion that mass extinctions coincide with comet or asteroid impacts, and that periodic comet showers, triggered by the Solar System's motions through the Milky Way Galaxy may provide a general theory to explain impact-related mass extinctions. The cyclic extinctions are followed by explosive evolution of the surviving species that re-filled the many life niches emptied by the global catastrophe, so he has named this idea the "Shiva Hypothesis", after the Hindu deity of cyclic destruction and renewal. Like Shiva, the Hindu Destroyer/Creator, the cyclic impacts bring an end to one world, and allow the beginning of a new one. For example, it is now well established that an impact 65 million years ago ended the Mesozoic world, populated by giant dinosaurs and flying reptiles, and gave way to the modern world of mammals and birds. (*) A short version of Rampino's paper is at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/gpol/abstracts/96.RampinoHaggerty2.abs.html. A popular version is in: The Planetary Report, Vol. 18, No. 1, p. 6-11 (1998), and a longer, technical version in: Earth, Moon and Planets, v. 72, p. 441-460 (1996). An earlier paper is: "Shiva versus Gaia: Cosmic Effects on the Long-Term Evolution of the Biosphere": in "Scientists on Gaia", ed. S.H. Schneider and P. Boston, MIT press, Cambridge Mass, p. 382-391 (1991). Rolf Sinclair Division of Physics National Science Foundation rsinclai at nsf.gov From mcdermot at CANISIUS.EDU Fri Mar 6 15:53:47 1998 From: mcdermot at CANISIUS.EDU (James P McDermott) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 10:53:47 -0500 Subject: Padmabhushan Message-ID: <161227036470.23782.9936864303426871691.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Although at best peripheral to the concerns of the Indology List, perhaps someone can be so kind as to provide me information (or a source thereof) about the nature of India's Padmabhushan award and a list of its winners. Thanks for any help. --Jim McDermott From kumar at OSWEGO.EDU Fri Mar 6 16:26:17 1998 From: kumar at OSWEGO.EDU (Alok Kumar) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 11:26:17 -0500 Subject: science topics In-Reply-To: <199803061553.KAA05317@gort.canisius.edu> Message-ID: <161227036472.23782.16747004536141601164.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I am a new member to this list. I teach a course on the contributions of various ancient civilizations to science at the State University of New York, Oswego. I have seen many science textbooks that indicate that the place-value notations, zero, and the trigonometric function "sin" were originated in India. However, I have not seen any recent article that provides primary references. Almost all articles provide secondary references. I would appreciate any help on this issue. Alok Kumar Department of Physics State University of New York Oswego, NY 13126. From matsuda at MBOX.KYOTO-INET.OR.JP Fri Mar 6 02:46:59 1998 From: matsuda at MBOX.KYOTO-INET.OR.JP (Kazunobu Matsuda) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 11:46:59 +0900 Subject: D: Bibliographie bouddhique Message-ID: <161227036460.23782.13629512741809985384.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Professor Matsumura, Vol. 2 (Mai 1929- Mai 1930), Paris 1931, Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner. By the way, Did you receive my papers which I sent you two months ago. I have not yet received your appreciation! With best wishes. Prof. Kazunobu Matsuda (Bukkyo University, Kyoto, Japan) -------------------- At 9:42 AM 98.3.6 +0900, Matsumura wrote: >Cear collegues, > >I need your help on a bibliographical matter. I would like to know volume >number, place, publisher, and date of publication of Bibliographie >bouddhique which contains "Bibliographie retrospective, l'oeuvre de Leon >Feer" (pp.1-17). > >Thanks in advance. >Hisashi >Hisashi MATSUMURA prince at kobe-shinwa.ac.jp From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Fri Mar 6 20:52:41 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 14:52:41 -0600 Subject: Tamil Pronunciation Message-ID: <161227036479.23782.17580635712809333548.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ************************* TAMIL PRONUNCIATION RULE ************************* Tamil 'hard' consonants such as k, c, T, t, p and R are pronounced 'soft' except when they occur as first letter in a word or when adjascent to another 'hard' consonant. Application of this rule to individual letter: ************************************************************************ Hard consonant Pronounced As Occurence ************************************************************************ k k if 'k' is the first letter of a word, or when adjascent to a 'hard' consonant. k g if 'k' is after nasal G. k *h* softens elsewhere. (eg., intervocalical, after l, L, z) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ c c if 'c' is the first letter of a word, or when adjascent to a 'hard' consonant. c j if 'c' is after nasal J. c *s* softens elsewhere. (eg., intervocalical, after l, L, z) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ T T if 'T' is the first letter of a word, or when adjascent to a 'hard' consonant. T D softens elsewhere. (eg., intervocalical, after retroflex N, l, L, z) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ t t if 't' is the first letter of a word, or when adjascent to a 'hard' consonant. t d softens elsewhere. (eg., intervocalical, after dental n, l, L, z) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- p p if 'p' is the first letter of a word, or when adjascent to a 'hard' consonant. p b softens elsewhere. (eg., intervocalical, after m, alveolar n2, l, L, z) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- R *TR* if 'R' is the first letter of a word, or when adjascent to a 'hard' consonant. R *DR* softens elsewhere. (eg., after alveolar n2, intervocalical) ************************************************************************ This simple, elegant rule is followed always. The only exception is letter c as the first letter in a word. North of Madurai, 'col' is pronounced as 'sol' in some dialects and this appears to be a later innovation. When I talk of 'hard' consonant 'k' becoming soft '*h*', there is a qualification. It is not english h, There is little of english g in *h* too. Can we denote it as 'g-h' or a weighted average (0.7h + 0.3g)?? Similarly, When I talk of 'hard' consonant 'c' becoming soft '*s*', there is a qualification. It is not english s, There is little of english c in *s* too. Can we denote it as 'c-s' or a weighted average (0.7s + 0.3c)?? *TR* = (0.2T + 0.8R); *DR* = (0.2D + 0.8R), I think. Have seen Toronto transcribed as RoraaNTO, observe the TR sound in "Ro" of RoraaNTO. This minimal set of consonants among the entire gamut of Indian languages is employed in Tamil along with intuitive rules of pronunciation. This minimal set of consonants is one reason why Tamil could have the first printed book using movable types, first typewriter etc., in India. K. Zvelebil, Drav. linguistics today, 1984 says: "Proto-Dravidian phonology may be very much like (Old) Tamil; In morphology and syntax, Tamil and South Dravidian had their far-reaching innovations". Regards N. Ganesan Examples: Writing Pronounced as Occurence ********************************************************************** ka + G + kai kaGgai (Ganges) k -> g as k is after nasal a + G + ku aGgu (there) k -> g as k is after nasal taa+k+ka+m taakkam (impact) k preceded by another k taa + ka + m taaham (thirst) k -> h as it is intervocalical ************************************************************************ pa + J + cu paJju (cotton) c -> j as c is after nasal ta + J + ca +m taJjam (shelter) c -> j as c is after nasal mi + c + ca + m miccam (remainder) double c pa + cu + mai pasumai (green) c -> s as c is intervocalical ************************************************************************ a + N + Tu aNDu (approach) T -> D as T is after N tu + N + Tu tuNDu (towel) T -> D as T is after N paa + T + Tu paaTTu (song) double T paa + Tu paaDu (to sing) T -> D as T is intervocalical ************************************************************************ vi + n + tai vindai (wonder) t -> d as t is after dental n ta + n + tu tandu (having given) t -> d as t is after dental n vi + t + tai vittai (vidyA) Double t vi + tai vidai (seed) t -> d as it is intervocalical ********************************************************************** a + n2 + pu anbu (love) p -> b as p is after n2 ka + m + pa + n2 kamban,(great poet) p -> b as p is after m a + p + pa + n2 appan, (dad/dear person) Double p. a + pa + ya + n2 abayan (Sanskrit abhaya) p is intervocalical *********************************************************************** pi + Rai piRai (crescent) R is intervocalical, softens ka + R + pu kaTRpu (chastity) double 'hard' consonants te+ n2+ Ra+ l tenDRal (breeze) R follows n2, softens o + R + Ru + mai oTTRumai (unity) double R, TRTR -> TTR ********************************************************************* Tamil grammar, starting from TolkAppiyam onwards, allows for distinguishing between "k" and "g/h", "c" and "j/s", "T (.t)" and "D (.d)", "t" and "d","p" and "b", etc., in speech, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE WRITTEN ONLY AS "k", "c", "T", "t", "p" respectively. They follow a consistent rule and take multiple phonetic values. These letters are called 'hard' consonants - vallinam in tamil. But kh, ch, bh, gh etc., sounds are not accorded any formal status in Tamil. Tamil 'hard' consonants such as k, c, T, t, p and R are pronounced 'soft' except when they occur as first letter in a word or when adjascent to another 'hard' consonant. Note that the words pronounced as kaRpu, veTkam, uTku, taTpam, mukti, aRpudam, nalhu, valsi, caalbu, muuzgu, kaalDuvel.. also pass this rule. Two corollaries follow from the pronunciation rule. a) For the doubling consonants in a non-initial position, 'hard' consonants are pronounced as written, (ie 'hard'). b) Hard consonants do not get pronounced 'soft' when they are the first letters of the word. The rule is simple and always followed intuitively. Observations by a native tamil, interested individual, an engineer. Will read references from linguistics on tamil phonetics. Comments, suggestions? Regards N. Ganesan ----- End Included Message ----- From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Fri Mar 6 09:55:40 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 14:55:40 +0500 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036462.23782.12391102859464697206.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Robert, that is what I also feel, and agree with Palaniappan. On Thu, 5 Mar 1998, Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > A few remarks in response to Palaniappan's observations about > Dravidian studies. > > > All in all, I > > do not see much future for an unbiased pursuit of Indological > > knowledge in India. This is where the West and especially the > > American universities can play an important role. > > Sympathetic as your thought is, I am rather pessimistic, with the > present trend in commercialisation and reliance on outside funding. What I feel here in India, where I live near about 2 years, that people here are not interested in their own cultural heritage and especially classical ancient history, arts, languages and folklor. I mean it still exists in some remote village areas and carried on basically by old aged layer of population.But drastically decreasing and washing out from contemporary Indian life. Soon we will hear about Indian culture only from pulpits some where in Oxford or Harvard. Now here everybody is interested only in MBA and computers.And how to go abroad to earn crazy money.When I approach people and say I want to learn and discuss your culture and languges, get in answer forget it, better you learn computers and do business. It is exhausting.Now It is a dream to see High Culture-in Classical meaning, we find just opposite. > Such funding is from industries and goes to rocket science etc. > (although occasionally we come across a happy exception, like > Volkswagen funding Indology in Germany. Of course Germany is > special). In Europe, entire Indology departments have been shut > down due to 'paucity of funds', although the social sciences, > women's studies etc. are thriving -- in other words, it seems there > is no popular support / political will at present. Because so many Indians came to the West with purpose to dive in and consume Western Pop values, and doing it very successfuly with more eagerness than native Westerners. It appears they become more West-rooted than natives. And also richer. Although some Westerners traditionally are still and inspite of it remaining interested in India Study. > > When the > > pool of good language and literature specialists dries up what will > > the Indologists do? It takes many years to produce an expert in a > > language/literature. I am student of Classical Indology and in a big difficulty, because to find out even now and even in INDIA bonafide aware PROFESSORS is seems to be impossible. > You may like to know that Western Indologists who do Dravidian > studies are punished. To give one of my own experiences: one of my You may say about Classical Indic studies same. There is not a single Scholarship dedicated to the field. > The only non-Indian colleague I know who did his doctorate on something > Dravidian in the confidence that he could continue his further research > in a conducive academic environment was from Japan. But then, the > Japanese academic world apparently is less affected by market > forces and other fashions. Major work is going on there (like the > large Kannada dictionary project), and it will not be surprising if > also in this branch of Indology the rest of the world will soon > have to look towards, and up to, Japan. Japanese Society is very traditional itself, that is why they are interested to study traditions of other countries, especially India-oldest still living traditional Society. > dare contradict that. But I think we have to admit that the serious > study of India is out of fashion. (This is largely because India is > out of fashion.) Indology is something for independently rich > bachelors to pursue. At present, to have it as a profession is > highly irresponsible, and Dravidology is practically suicidal. How In our nowdays popculture-read false valueless artificial culture world studies of High Real Culture Traditions are looking like eccentricity or dullness. Example: recent appearance of Spicy Girls in Khajuraho Temples in Madhya Pradesh denotes TOTAL devaluation, rather devastation of tradition. Have to agree: we live in anti-intellectual, anti-cultural therefore anti-human world. Sincerely Viktor V. Sukliyan Chandigarh. From gopal at AERO.IISC.ERNET.IN Fri Mar 6 12:25:50 1998 From: gopal at AERO.IISC.ERNET.IN (K V N Gopal) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 17:55:50 +0530 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036468.23782.5856036623851975292.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 6 Mar 1998, Viktor V. Sukliyan wrote: > What I feel here in India, where I live near about 2 years, that > people here are not interested in their own cultural heritage and > especially classical ancient history, arts, languages and folklor. > I mean it still exists in some remote village areas and carried on > basically by > old aged layer of population.But drastically decreasing and washing out > from contemporary Indian life. Soon we will hear about Indian culture > only from pulpits some where in Oxford or Harvard. > Now here everybody is interested only in MBA and computers.And how to go > abroad to earn crazy money.When I approach people and say I want to learn > and discuss your culture and languges, get in answer forget it, better > you learn computers and do business. > It is exhausting.Now It is a dream to see High Culture-in Classical > meaning, we find just opposite. > > Because so many Indians came to the West with purpose to dive in and > consume Western Pop values, and doing it very successfuly with more eagerness > than native Westerners. It appears they become more West-rooted than natives. > And also richer. > Although some Westerners traditionally are still and inspite of it remaining > interested in India Study. > > I am student of Classical Indology and in a big difficulty, because > to find out even now and even in INDIA bonafide aware PROFESSORS is seems > to be impossible. > > You may say about Classical Indic studies same. > There is not a single Scholarship dedicated to the field. > > Japanese Society is very traditional itself, that is why they are interested > to study traditions of other countries, especially India-oldest still > living traditional Society. > > In our nowdays popculture-read false valueless artificial culture > world studies of High Real Culture Traditions are looking like eccentricity > or dullness. Example: recent appearance of Spicy Girls in Khajuraho > Temples in Madhya Pradesh denotes TOTAL devaluation, rather devastation > of tradition. > Have to agree: > we live in anti-intellectual, anti-cultural therefore anti-human world. > > Sincerely > Viktor V. Sukliyan > Chandigarh. > Dear Viktor, I very much share your concern regarding the total lack of interest in their own culture and heritage among a large percentage of Indians. This malaise has been steadily eating into the society for the last few decades and can be observed in every walk of life. Right from areas like movies and music (woeful lack of appreciation for classical music/ movies and music of an earlier period). In a way there are certain factors which cause these indirectly... the breakdown of social values brought about a peculiar convoluted idea of democracy + economy.. a poor standard of living forces most people to drift towards things which will help them acquire a better standard of living. As I often say this seems to be the 'age of pygmies' when 'mediocrity is glorified as excellence' in almost every field of human endeavour. When such is the case field of indic studies and humanities as a whole has become the first casuality of such an attitude among people. Though I am an research scholar in aerospace engineering I take tremendous interest and spend a lot of time learning things not related directly to my area of work because of the sheer joy I finding in learning and appreciating those things. The monetary usefulness of those things should be the last thing in mind but well I guess reality seems to be different. Sorry for rambling, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on these things which are dear to my heart and on which I feel so strongly about. gopal _____________________________________________________________________________ K.V.N.Gopal | A friend thinks of you when everyone Research Student | think of themselves IISc, Bangalore | email:gopal at aero.iisc.ernet.in | http://144.16.73.100/~gopal/ | ___________________________________________________________________________ From g.v.simson at EAST.UIO.NO Fri Mar 6 17:03:32 1998 From: g.v.simson at EAST.UIO.NO (Georg von Simson) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 18:03:32 +0100 Subject: science topics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036475.23782.3625486926141563159.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On March 6, Alok Kumar wrote: >I am a new member to this list. I teach a course on the contributions of >various ancient civilizations to science at the State University of New >York, Oswego. I have seen many science textbooks that indicate that the >place-value notations, zero, and the trigonometric function "sin" were >originated in India. However, I have not seen any recent article that >provides primary references. Almost all articles provide secondary >references. I would appreciate any help on this issue. See Johannes Bronkhorst, A Note on Zero and the numerical Place-Value System in Ancient India, in: Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques, 48:4 (1994), p. 1039-42. Best regards Georg v.Simson From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Sat Mar 7 00:13:02 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 19:13:02 -0500 Subject: Tamil pronunciation (was Re: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion)) Message-ID: <161227036482.23782.2312158655362420641.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I was thinking about phonemic distinctions, and not sounds. Tamil has k and g in the sense that Japanese has both r and l sounds and English has aspirated and unaspirated sounds. The p in pin is aspirated (though not as strongly as in IA), but the p in spin is not. But English speakers are not conscious of the difference. There is a difference between saying that Hindi has aspirated stops and saying that English has aspirated stops. When I was talkinga about the caste/class/urban vs rural etc, I was talking about the pronunciation of >Sanskrit< words, not Tamil words. There are definite differences in how far people go to reproduce Sanskrit phonology. While very few pay any attention to aspiration, there is a great deal of variation in voicing and in the distinction of sibilants. It is possible to find people whose regularly use unvoiced intervocalic stops in case of certain (but not all) words of Sanskrit origin. The number of such words is definitely related to various group identities. From AppuArchie at AOL.COM Sat Mar 7 01:30:42 1998 From: AppuArchie at AOL.COM (AppuArchie) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 98 20:30:42 -0500 Subject: Tamil Sound and Writing Message-ID: <161227036486.23782.9532372562556162743.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Greetings List Members, Does all this verbosity about Tamil sounding differently as written in a foreign language necessary? As I understand 30 Tamil letters represent 30 phonemes that have 216 dependencies. With the ?velar fricative? or ?Ajtam? there are only 247 ?letters? in Tamil alphabet. Dialects in Tamil may adopt different sounds for the letters but can only be represented by the 247 single or double or combination characters. Of course writing foreign languages with Tamil script is another ?kettle of fish.? ?Tamil is a language which illustrates particularly well the grouping of several quite distinct sounds into single phonemes. It is noteworthy that Tamil orthography does not show any difference between all these sounds. Those who originally invented this orthography must have had a clear conception of the phoneme idea, though the theory had never been formulated.? -- Daniel Jones, The Phoneme its Nature and Use. p. 22. I think all this confusion is because we are writing Tamil in English script using symbols such as dots, dashes etc. Tamil Alphabet or ?nedungkanhakku? can be written with English script for the 247 letters and thus eliminate confusion. The ?Yarzhan Tamil Alphabet Chart? tabulates the 247 Tamil letters with English script. Anyone interested may obtain the edited version by sending a self addressed stamped envelope to: R. Shanmugalingam 36, Farrell Court Marblehead. MA 01945. Thank you. From Vaidix at AOL.COM Sat Mar 7 06:44:33 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 01:44:33 -0500 Subject: Tamil Sound and Writing Message-ID: <161227036490.23782.10023596984456942066.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Another possibility I forgot to mention is that, the Indian alphabet may be a Dravidian invention which was improved upon by later migrations. It is a good practice to open up all possibilities, then discuss the pros and cons instead of biasing ourselves about one possibility. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli http://members.aol.com/vaidix From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Sat Mar 7 04:15:57 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 05:15:57 +0100 Subject: Tamil Sound and Writing Message-ID: <161227036488.23782.5968465803363718171.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> R. Shanmugalingam wrote: >Tamil is a language which illustrates particularly well the grouping of >several quite distinct sounds into single phonemes. It is noteworthy that >Tamil orthography does not show any difference between all these sounds. Those >who originally invented this orthography must have had a clear conception of >the phoneme idea, though the theory had never been formulated. Nothing extraordinary. Subphonemic distinctions are not recorded in writing in most languages. Most native speakers are not even aware of them. On the contrary, it is recording such distinctions which would seem to indicate a linguistic tradition with an unusual degree of phonetic awareness and analysis. From jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM Sat Mar 7 13:22:14 1998 From: jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM (Stephen) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 08:22:14 -0500 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036493.23782.13856042996274983637.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >-----Original Message----- >From: K V N Gopal >To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK >Date: March 6, 1998 8:03 AM >Subject: Re: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) > > > As I often say this >>seems to be the 'age of pygmies' when 'mediocrity is glorified as >>excellence' in almost every field of human endeavour. Mr. Gopal: I hope you did not imply that pygmies are mediocre!! Sujatha From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 7 17:30:15 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 09:30:15 -0800 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036502.23782.7092589421502560956.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 6 Mar 1998, Viktor V. Sukliyan wrote: >> What I feel here in India, where I live near about 2 years, that >> people here are not interested in their own cultural heritage and >> especially classical ancient history, arts, languages and folklor. >> I mean it still exists in some remote village areas and carried on >> basically by old aged layer of population.But drastically decreasing and washing out from contemporary Indian life. Soon we will hear about Indian cultur only from pulpits some where in Oxford or Harvard. Now here everybody is interested only in MBA and computers. -------------------------------- Please don't forget Greencards....the ancient saying "jananI janmabhUmizca svargAdapi garIyasI" has been transformed into "greencard americadEzazca svargAdapi garIyasI" by the NRAs( Indians residing in India whose world revolves around migrating to America are called NRAs(Non-Resident Americans)) In addition, in Northern India, there has been a long tradition of glamorizing essentially non-Indian cultures and languages like Farsi , whose patronage(atleast by the upper middle classes) came about only at the cost of indigenous tradition. Through out the middle ages, there was a tradition of strong Farsi learning in the Mughal courts which certainly did undermine the local tradition. (I realise that the Mughals did support some Sanskrit learning and poets; jagannAtha paNDitarAya being one example and Dara Shukhokh, the brother of Aurangazeb getting the upaniSads translated into Farsi but the overwhelming support was very much in support of Farsi)..this finds reflection not simply in the poetry of Amir Khusrao, but also in the poetry of Persian notables like Jalaluddin Rumi who says(in the "mathnavI", his magnum opus) "Rumi, whose fame has spread to Hind and Samarkand")(The reason why I am bringing up Rumi is because he lived in Persia and subsequently in Turkey but never in India; inspite of that he knew that his works were respected in India, which only reflects the extent to which Farsi was patronized in India)...It is not mere coincidence that there is not much writing in Sanskrit after the 12th century and that the Turko-Mughal rule in India started from this point onwards...Over a period of 700 years, this culture spread itself so far and wide that IT became the classical culture/language..this phenomenon has also found it's way into folklore ..in Hindi/URdu there is a saying "Padhe Farsi beche tel, dekho ray taqdeer ka khel" (He studied Farsi but is forced to sell oil for a living; look at the tricks fate can play)..The key word to be noticed here is Farsi, not Sanskrit...while patronage of various fields is welcome, I believe that it is essential to uphold the primacy of indigenous tradition in terms of allocation of resources which is unfortunately not true of Sanskrit or any other classical language of India.... << Japanese Society is very traditional itself, that is why they are interested to study traditions of other countries, especially India-oldest still living traditional Society.>> I agree with Mr Sukliyan in terms of lack of interest in Indian studies, Classical Indology etc from a fiscal point of view..However, I believe there is another factor that prevents propagation/study of ancient India namely the diversity of ancient Indian tradition... In China for example, there has been one and only one language and culture, namely Chinese( dynasties changed and the form of the language may have changed, but the essential character of Chinese culture does/did have a long tradition of continuity). On the other hand in India, there was always more than one culture/more than one language...Depending on the religion,region, time period and interest one can define Sanskrit/Pali/Tamil/Ardhamagadhi to be a classical language(besides others that I do not know). While they are related to each other, they are also separate and distinct entities that do compete with each other for the meagre resources that are allocated to Indology with the result that none gets patronized or propogated properly. I believe that this is one instance where the diversity of Indian culture has been it's own Achiless heel and has substantially undermined study. This feature can always be noticed among those in the younger generation who are interested in ancient India- the first impression that one gets of India and Indology is one of bewildering confusion -Sanskrit,Hinduism,Buddhism....there are a long list of things that compete for attention. Since there exists no user-friendly method for guiding people through all this confusion, most people simply give up and take to *something* that is far simpler to follow, the *something* invariably being URdu poetry ( it has glamor value as well as easy to follow since the basic vocabulary overlaps with that of Hindi) or worse, rock and roll..(Afterall, it doesn't require any genius to understand and appreciate lyrics like "We don't want no education, we want greencards":-) or "IF you can't pay your rent, don't worry, be happy"). I realise that there are sections of this post that seem very parochial, provincial and opinionated...but then these are the results of my own experience and discussions with others who were interested in Indology but were forced to give up...I believe it is also important to address these issues in additions to bewailing the lack of interest in Indology. Regards, KRishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 7 18:03:29 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 10:03:29 -0800 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036505.23782.16890054917432360176.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In connection with Prof Rampino's Shiva hypothesis, does anybody know of instances of using "Indian"( all religions/languages/cultures included) to describe any scientific phenomenon/discovery? I know that when Dmitri MEndeleev came up with his atomic table, he used the sanskrit word "eka"( one) to name 3 unknown elements( whose properties he could predict but hadn't been discovered at the time of his writing the paper)- namely Eka-Boron,Eka-Silicon and Eka- Magnesium( think that the last is wrong, welcome corrections). The reason for this I'm told is that MEndeleev had a lot of respect for Indian culture and was determined to use the one and only word of sanskrit he knew, namely "Eka".( a fanciful story probably:-) I'm interested only in things that were named after Indian phenomena, as opposed to discoveries named after Indian scientists, of which there are many ( i.e. Raman effect, Krishnan effect( named after R.S.Krishnan), Karmarkar's algorithm( in Operations Research, named after NArendra Karmarkar), Hoyle-Narlikar theory( astrophysics) and Faulkner-Kamesam process( an alternate name for varnishing) are NOT what I'm looking for). regards, KRishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU Sat Mar 7 18:19:24 1998 From: sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU (Paul (Kekai) Manansala) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 11:19:24 -0700 Subject: science topics In-Reply-To: <199803071749.LAA26449@curly.cc.utexas.edu> Message-ID: <161227036512.23782.14033670141390324267.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 7 Mar 1998, Edeltraud Harzer Clear wrote: > >On March 6, Alok Kumar wrote: > >>I am a new member to this list. I teach a course on the contributions of > >>various ancient civilizations to science at the State University of New > >>York, Oswego. I have seen many science textbooks that indicate that the > >>place-value notations, zero, and the trigonometric function "sin" were > >>originated in India. However, I have not seen any recent article that > >>provides primary references. Almost all articles provide secondary > >>references. I would appreciate any help on this issue. > > > >See Johannes Bronkhorst, A Note on Zero and the numerical Place-Value > >System in Ancient India, in: Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques, 48:4 > >(1994), p. 1039-42. > > > >Best regards > > > > Georg v.Simson > > Another similar title is: > D. Seyfort Ruegg. "Mathematical and Linguistic Models in Indian Thought: > The Case of Zero and Sunyata." > Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens and Archiv fur indische > Philosophie. (1978) 22, pp.171-181. > > Best, > Edeltraud Harzer Clear > In Feb. 1997, the Indian National Science Academy held the "Seminar on Sunya," at New Delhi, in which numerous papers on this subject were presented (including one from myself). You can write Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan at IGNCA or Dr. A.K. Bag at INSA for a copy of the published papers. Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From eclear at UTS.CC.UTEXAS.EDU Sat Mar 7 17:49:51 1998 From: eclear at UTS.CC.UTEXAS.EDU (Edeltraud Harzer Clear) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 11:49:51 -0600 Subject: science topics Message-ID: <161227036504.23782.1410867547178513173.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >On March 6, Alok Kumar wrote: >>I am a new member to this list. I teach a course on the contributions of >>various ancient civilizations to science at the State University of New >>York, Oswego. I have seen many science textbooks that indicate that the >>place-value notations, zero, and the trigonometric function "sin" were >>originated in India. However, I have not seen any recent article that >>provides primary references. Almost all articles provide secondary >>references. I would appreciate any help on this issue. > >See Johannes Bronkhorst, A Note on Zero and the numerical Place-Value >System in Ancient India, in: Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques, 48:4 >(1994), p. 1039-42. > >Best regards > > Georg v.Simson Another similar title is: D. Seyfort Ruegg. "Mathematical and Linguistic Models in Indian Thought: The Case of Zero and Sunyata." Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sudasiens and Archiv fur indische Philosophie. (1978) 22, pp.171-181. Best, Edeltraud Harzer Clear From dupuche at ONE.NET.AU Sat Mar 7 12:08:45 1998 From: dupuche at ONE.NET.AU (John Dupuche) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 12:08:45 +0000 Subject: Abhinavagupta, Tantraloka ch. 29, the Kula Ritual Message-ID: <161227036484.23782.14862838942039160438.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Members, I am at present completing a translation of chapter 29 of the Tantraloka of Abhinavagupta on the kula ritual as well as a translation of Jayaratha's commentary. I have prepared extensive explanatory footnotes together with an introduction, overview and appendices etc. The work is towards a doctoral dissertation and eventual publication. I would appreciate entering into discussion on this field. John Dupuche From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Sat Mar 7 17:13:17 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 12:13:17 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036499.23782.6751903461756027401.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-04 15:49:57 EST, vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU writes: << The stuatus of puur is controversial. It seems to have cognates outside India, in Lithuanian etc. >> Frank Southworth in his article "Lexical Evidence for Early Contacts between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian" says the following: "There is also a possible connection between OIA pura- 'fortress, town' (RV pur- 'stronghold') and the Dravidian verb pura- 'keep, protect, defend, etc. (DED 3515)." Has there been any discussion evaluating this suggestion vs. the IA cognates? Regards S. Palaniappan From jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM Sat Mar 7 18:31:44 1998 From: jp_stephens at CLASSIC.MSN.COM (Stephen) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 13:31:44 -0500 Subject: science topics Message-ID: <161227036507.23782.10437487385448582841.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> -----Original Message----- From: Alok Kumar To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Date: March 6, 1998 11:45 AM Subject: Re: science topics I have seen many science textbooks that indicate that the >place-value notations, zero, and the trigonometric function "sin" were >originated in India. As a Trigonometry student in India the first thing I learnt was that Ramanujam, in his short life, was a major contributor to Trig. In the West though I never see his name mentioned anywhere in most Trigonometry books. I have come across a biography or two, but nothing else - very rarely would a person read the biography if he did not know who Ramanujam was or what his contributions were. Is this an oversight or did someone else take credit for his work? Sujatha From msdbaum at MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL Sat Mar 7 15:58:28 1998 From: msdbaum at MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL (Daniel Baum) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 17:58:28 +0200 Subject: Electronic Geldner Message-ID: <161227036497.23782.10018970259730819206.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hi, The subject says it all; has anyone ever made an electronic version of Geldner's Rigveda translation? DB From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Sun Mar 8 03:15:00 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 19:15:00 -0800 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036509.23782.6024910820480196014.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> K V N Gopal wrote: > > On Fri, 6 Mar 1998, Viktor V. Sukliyan wrote: > > > What I feel here in India, where I live near about 2 years, that > > people here are not interested in their own cultural heritage and > > especially classical ancient history, arts, languages and folklor. > > I mean it still exists in some remote village areas and carried on > > basically by > > old aged layer of population.But drastically decreasing and washing out > > from contemporary Indian life. Soon we will hear about Indian culture > > only from pulpits some where in Oxford or Harvard. > > Now here everybody is interested only in MBA and computers.And how to go > > abroad to earn crazy money.When I approach people and say I want to learn > > and discuss your culture and languges, get in answer forget it, better > > you learn computers and do business. > > It is exhausting.Now It is a dream to see High Culture-in Classical > > meaning, we find just opposite. > > > > Because so many Indians came to the West with purpose to dive in and > > consume Western Pop values, and doing it very successfuly with more eagerness > > than native Westerners. It appears they become more West-rooted than natives. > > And also richer. > > Although some Westerners traditionally are still and inspite of it remaining > > interested in India Study. > > > > I am student of Classical Indology and in a big difficulty, because > > to find out even now and even in INDIA bonafide aware PROFESSORS is seems > > to be impossible. > > > > You may say about Classical Indic studies same. > > There is not a single Scholarship dedicated to the field. > > > > Japanese Society is very traditional itself, that is why they are interested > > to study traditions of other countries, especially India-oldest still > > living traditional Society. > > > > In our nowdays popculture-read false valueless artificial culture > > world studies of High Real Culture Traditions are looking like eccentricity > > or dullness. Example: recent appearance of Spicy Girls in Khajuraho > > Temples in Madhya Pradesh denotes TOTAL devaluation, rather devastation > > of tradition. > > Have to agree: > > we live in anti-intellectual, anti-cultural therefore anti-human world. > > > > Sincerely > > Viktor V. Sukliyan > > Chandigarh. > > > > Dear Viktor, > I very much share your concern regarding the total lack of interest > in their own culture and heritage among a large percentage of Indians. > This malaise has been steadily eating into the society for the last > few decades and can be observed in every walk of life. Right from areas > like movies and music (woeful lack of appreciation for classical music/ > movies and music of an earlier period). In a way there are certain > factors which cause these indirectly... the breakdown of social values > brought about a peculiar convoluted idea of democracy + economy.. a > poor standard of living forces most people to drift towards things which > will help them acquire a better standard of living. As I often say this > seems to be the 'age of pygmies' when 'mediocrity is glorified as > excellence' in almost every field of human endeavour. When such is the > case field of indic studies and humanities as a whole has become the > first casuality of such an attitude among people. Though I am an research > scholar in aerospace engineering I take tremendous interest and spend > a lot of time learning things not related directly to my area of work > because of the sheer joy I finding in learning and appreciating those > things. The monetary usefulness of those things should be the last thing > in mind but well I guess reality seems to be different. Sorry for > rambling, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on these things which > are dear to my heart and on which I feel so strongly about. > > gopal > _____________________________________________________________________________ > K.V.N.Gopal | A friend thinks of you when everyone > Research Student | think of themselves > IISc, Bangalore | > email:gopal at aero.iisc.ernet.in | > http://144.16.73.100/~gopal/ | > ___________________________________________________________________________ I think both Viktor V. Sukliyan and K.V.N Gopal have a point and their preoccupation with preserving a precious cultural heritage is entirely accurate. I would like to interject a note of optimism, however. It seems to me that our Indian friends may simply be doing what we did in Europe : we "unlearned" Latin and Greek in our schools; we "unlearned" classical litterature and poetry. We "unlearned" attending theaters when they play Shakespeare, Racine or Goethe.We "unlearned" going to classical concerts unless some star is plkaying, etc. All of this of course was to the benefit of the Mac Donald's culture which is prevailing nowadays. Yet this does not mean that our cultural heritage disappeared. It simply became common ground of joy and study for fewer people than before. May be this is what is happening in India ? Charles From spmittal at GIASDL01.VSNL.NET.IN Sat Mar 7 15:15:44 1998 From: spmittal at GIASDL01.VSNL.NET.IN (Surya P. Mittal) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 20:45:44 +0530 Subject: Q. Lokayata texts Message-ID: <161227036495.23782.4242648617222179859.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Sorry for this delayed reference to the matter. Here is a list of books on LOKAYATA: -------------------------------------------------- 1. Barthakuria, Apurba Chandra, 1938- A critical study of the Lokayata philosophy presented by the author of the Prabodhacandrodaya / Apurba Chandra Barthakuria. -- Rev. ed. -- Calcutta : Sanskrit Pustak, 1977. 26 p. ; 18 cm. On the Hindu materialistic philosophy as revealed in the Prabodhacandrodaya, an allegorical Sanskrit drama by Krsna Misra, 11th cent. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Krsna Misra, 11th cent. Prabodhacandrodaya-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Lokayata. $1.00 (ubd.) DK-23247 2. Carvaka/Lokayata : an anthology of source materials and some recent studies / edited by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, in collaboration with Mrinal Kanti Gangopadhyaya. -- New Delhi : Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 1994. xv, 543 p. ; 23 cm. Originally published: 1990. Includes bibliographical references. Includes index. ISBN 81-85636-11-7 1. Lokayata--Sources. 2. Materialism--Sources. 3. Philosophy, Hindu--Sources. $20.80 DK-101710 3. Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad, 1918- In defence of materialism in ancient India : a study in Carvaka/lokayata / Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. -- New Delhi : People's Pub. House, 1989. xiii, 129 p. ; 22 cm. Includes index. ISBN 81-7007-086-4 1. Carvaka. 2. Lokayata. 3. Materialism-India. 4. Philosophy, Hindu. $2.50 (ubd.) DK-61952 4. Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad, 1918- Lokayata : a study in ancient Indian materialism / Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. -- 7th ed. -- New Delhi : People's Pub. House, 1992. xxvii, 696 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Originally published: 1st ed. 1959. Includes bibliographical references (p. [679]-686). Includes index. ISBN 81-7007-006-6 1. Lokayata. 2. Materialism. 3. Philosophy, Hindu. $10.00 (ubd.) DK-85298 5. Franco, Eli. Perception, knowledge, and disbelief : a study of Jayarasi's scepticism / Eli Franco. -- 2nd ed. -- Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1994. xvi, 618 p. ; 26 cm. Includes Sanskrit (roman) text with translation of Jayarasi Bhatta's Tattvopaplavasimha. Reprint. Includes bibliographical references (p. 587-605). Includes indexes. ISBN 81-208-1119-4 1. Jayarasi Bhatta. Tattvopaplavasimha. 2. Skepticism--Early works to 1800. 3. Lokayata--Early works to 1800. 4. Philosophy, Hindu--Early works to 1800. $41.70 DK-86953 6. Giri, Gagan Deo, 1936- Charvaka sasti / Gagan Deo Giri. -- Ranchi : Jyoti Publications, 1982. xiv, 184 ; 22 cm. In English, Hindi, and Sanskrit. On the Hindu materialistic philosophy of Carvaka; exegesis, with Sanskrit text and Hindi translation, most selected from Naisadhiyacarita and other selected texts. Includes bibliographical references and index. "A short history of Indian materialism, sensationalism and Hedonism / Dakshinaranjan Shastri ": p. [140]-180. 1. Carvaka. 2. Philosophy, Hindu. 3. Hindu logic. 4. Lokayata. $5.00 DK-27822 7. Joshi, Shubhada A. (Shubhada Avinash), 1954- Lokayata : a critical study : Indian spiritualism reaffirmed / Shubhada A. Joshi. -- 1st ed. -- Delhi, India : Sri Satguru Publications, 1995. xiii, 272 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. -- (Sri Garib Das oriental series ; no. 180). Abridged version of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Bombay, 1985. Includes bibliographical references (p. [252]-263). Includes index. ISBN 81-7030-410-5 1. Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad, 1918- Lokayata. 2. Lokayata. 3. Philosophy, Hindu. $31.30 DK-94852 8. Krishna, K. B. (Katragadda Bala), 1898-1948. Studies in Hindu materialism / K.B. Krishna ; foreword by K. Satchidananda Murty. -- 1st ed -- Guntur : Milinda Publications, 1994. x, 170 p. ; 22 cm. With reference to Lokayata philosophy. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Materialism--Religious aspects--Hinduism. 2. Lokayata. 3. Philosophy, Hindu. $5.00 (ubd.) DK-99414 9. Shastri, Dakshina Ranjan, 1897-1961. Charvaka philosophy / Dakshinaranjan Shastri. -- Calcutta : Rabindra Bharati University, 1996. 68 p. ; 19 cm. Originally published: Calcutta : Purogami Prakasani, 1967. Includes bibliographical references (p. [67]-68) Includes index. ISBN 8186438025 1. Lokayata. 2. Materialism. 3. Philosophy, Hindu. 4. Philosophy, Indic. $2.90 DK-102778 10. Shastri, Hara Prasad, 1853-1931. Lokayta and vratya / Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri ; introduction by Anil Kumar Bandyopadhyay ; general editor, Satyajit Chaudhury. -- Naihati, [West Bengal] : Haraprasad Shastri Gaveshana Kendra, 1982. 73 p. ; 23 cm. On Hindu philosophy. Includes bibliographical references, errata and index. 1. Lokayata. 2. Vratyas. 3. Philosophy, Hindu. $3.30 DK-37515 ALSO RELEVANT Ramakrishnan, Velupillai, 1932- Perspectives in Saivism / by V. Ramakrishnan. -- [Madras] : Dr. S. Radhakrishnan Institute for Advanced Study in Philosophy, University of Madras, 1978. iv, 134, [1] p. ; 24 cm. "A golden jubilee publication". "Texts cited (select bibliography)": p. (135) "Notes and references": p. [113]-134 (English or Tamil) On the Saiva and Buddhist philosophical thoughts on causation, karma, ignorance, salvation, etc.; special lectures delivered at the Institute. 1. Lokayata. 2. Philosophy, Buddhist. 3. Sivaism. $1.00 (ubd.) DK-12998 -------------------------------------------------- Hope this list is of some use. Surya P. Mittal e-mailto:surya at pobox.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: D.K. AGENCIES (P) LTD. Fax: (+91-11) 5647081, 5648053 A/15-17 Mohan Garden Phones: (011) 5648066, 5648067 Najafgarh Road E-mail: dka at pobox.com New Delhi - 110 059. E-mailto:custserv at dkagencies.com Our Website : http://www.dkagencies.com Online Search : http://www.dkagencies.com/booksearch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ N. Ganesan wrote: > > 2/13/98 > > Want to know the titles of texts on Lokayata philosophy in Sanskrit > and other Indian languages. I read that Madhava Vidyaranya's > Sarva Darshana Samgraha has few quotations. Where can I find > Brhaspati's sutras taught to Indra? Is there a complete text > in Sanskrit on Lokayatam? > > The reason I am asking this is because, in Tamil there is late > 11th century/early 12th century vaLamaTal prabandham > by Kaviccakravartti JayamkoNTaar. It is only 550 lines > and expresses Lokayata philosophy. Of course, Buddhist > Manimekalai, Jain Neelakesi and Saiva Siddhanta SivaJaana > Siddhiyaar refutes Lokayata princilpes. A palm leaf mss. > of the Lokayata prabandham is at GOML, Madras. The other > is at Perur Adheenam near Coimbatore. > > Thanks, > N. Ganesan From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Mar 8 05:46:14 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Sat, 07 Mar 98 21:46:14 -0800 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036520.23782.2232877041386457190.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S Krishna wrote - >In connection with Prof Rampino's Shiva hypothesis, does anybody know >of instances of using "Indian"( all religions/languages/cultures >included) to describe any scientific phenomenon/discovery? Other than Mendeleev's use of eka- there is the word antarafacial, (from Skt. antara-) and there is the compound called anandamide, a neurostimulant. Can't think of any other scientific term using Indian words. (Wasn't there an Indology list discussion about this, a year or so ago?) Indian/Skt. terminology seems to have entered only chemistry. Physics and biology seem immune to it. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Sat Mar 7 20:32:35 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 01:32:35 +0500 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) In-Reply-To: <35020D34.75F6@iprolink.ch> Message-ID: <161227036514.23782.4111459116953471368.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > It seems to me that our Indian friends may simply be doing what we did > in Europe : we "unlearned" Latin and Greek in our schools; we That is why Latin and Greek diagnosed as a remnants of dead Culture. > Yet this does not mean that our cultural heritage disappeared. It simply > became common ground of joy and study for fewer people than before Only for obsolete few in Oxford or Harvard?!! May > be this is what is happening in India ? > Charles > Thanks God not, I believe. I haven't yet been in South India(Dravida),but heard many good things. There are still living traditional societies, preserved thru milleniums, aren't they? -VS From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Sat Mar 7 21:08:58 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 02:08:58 +0500 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) In-Reply-To: <19980307173015.1239.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <161227036516.23782.6675117466530485017.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 7 Mar 1998, S Krishna wrote: > > In addition, in Northern India, there has been a long tradition of > glamorizing essentially non-Indian cultures and languages like Farsi > , whose patronage(atleast by the upper middle classes) came about only > at the cost of indigenous tradition. Through out the middle ages, Northern Indians notoriously sounding about values and treasures of "India" , but having in view ONLY Post or Pre-post Independence India. It seems to be they don't like to preserve memories and/or facts of previous troublesome ages, which are not shaping well in their domestic outlooks on Indian achievements. > I believe there is another factor that prevents propagation/study > of ancient India namely the diversity of ancient Indian tradition... > that one gets of India and Indology is one of bewildering confusion > -Sanskrit,Hinduism,Buddhism....there are a long list of things that > compete for attention. Since there exists no user-friendly method for > guiding people through all this confusion, most people simply give > up and take to *something* that is far simpler to follow, the It resembles situation with break down of Sovietology Studies in the West after decay of SU, when suddenly emerged decades of Eastern European and Central Asian Independent Countries-with need to be studied out of communist context. Manifolds of languages and cultures NOT-KNOW well before. And not so easy to know also. So, what was the wise decision: just to curtail any studies on that region,or in a better case to extinct them down to level of only Russia Studies with relative funding cut. VS- From Vaidix at AOL.COM Sun Mar 8 08:25:18 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 03:25:18 -0500 Subject: An appeal to Indologists (Was Re: Indo-Aryan invasion) Message-ID: <161227036522.23782.128102202013730287.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello In developing economies there is severe shortage of capital leading to neglect of arts. With loss of royal patronage and the British instistance of ICS/matriculation for jobs, Indian studies took a back seat irreversibly. One must admit that the content of school education is a lot better than in US (and possibly many other countries) in terms of general knowledge about world, we could do some justice adding more Indian studies not requiring pass grades. (There are already complaints of overload on students). Or more state funding for free classes on Indian arts and literature for interested students might also help. I remember there used to be a music teacher in our school who taught Karnatic to a few girls who opted for it. The talk of greedy people is out of place. Such people are always there in society greencards or no greencards. A proportion of people in any society is always born greedy and we can do nothing about it. But a proportion of population in "every" society is always righteous, and concerned about upkeep of the society, and these traits are visible from childhood! Believe me. It is these people whom we must recognize early enough and train them in the required subjects. Now the same neglect of arts and culture might be happening in Russia after fall of communist state. Aerospace is being salvaged by the vested interests who want the technology, but who cares about arts? Bhadraiah Mallampalli From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Sun Mar 8 05:13:27 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 06:13:27 +0100 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036518.23782.6529736427620430306.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S. Krishna wrote: > I know that when Dmitri MEndeleev came up with his atomic table, >he used the sanskrit word "eka"( one) to name 3 unknown elements( >whose properties he could predict but hadn't been discovered at the time >of his writing the paper)- namely Eka-Boron,Eka-Silicon and Eka- >Magnesium( think that the last is wrong, welcome corrections). ekaaluminium From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Mar 8 20:32:02 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 12:32:02 -0800 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036529.23782.11923637122472323894.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In relation to the question brought up by me i.e. concepts named after Indian things, I would like to make the following additions: 1. There is an antibiotic called Gangamycin ( not sure of how it got it's name though..one story that I heard is it was named after the river Ganga, another version says that it was named after the discoverer, whose name was Gangadharan.) 2. In 1961, a fossil of a hitherto unknown kind of Dinosaur was found (I think that the chief scientist in this was a Bengali gentleman)..since 1961 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tagore , the speicies was named "Tagori". 3. In geology, one of the geological masses of land that existed nearly 50 million? years ago ( i.e. when there were just two continents existing) was named Gondwanaland after the province of Gondwana in 16th century India( modern Madhya Pradesh-Orissa). 4. In Flexible Manufacturing Systems i.e. FMS, a very popular technique of pictorial modelling is called "Petri net theory". I have been told that the "Petri" is related to Samskrt "pitr~"(father) . This derivation is obviously far fetched, but there may be a different reason(India related) for it's having that name since a lot of the theoritical work in this field was done in the late 70s at the Ramanujan Institute of Mathematics in MAdras. I believe that one of the people involved in this, a certain Dr Balasubramanian also came up with a proof for a specific case of Fermat's puzzle sometime in the 80s( proof for a specific case as opposed to all integers, as was done by Dr Andrew Weil of Princeton University). Regards, KRishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From sbaums at STUD2.STUD.UNI-GOETTINGEN.DE Sun Mar 8 16:20:49 1998 From: sbaums at STUD2.STUD.UNI-GOETTINGEN.DE (Stefan Baums) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 17:20:49 +0100 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) In-Reply-To: <19980308054615.16818.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <161227036524.23782.402186335410775636.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On 08-Mar-98 Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote: > > neurostimulant. Can't think of any other scientific term using Indian > words. (Wasn't there an Indology list discussion about this, a year or > so ago?) Indian/Skt. terminology seems to have entered only chemistry. > Physics and biology seem immune to it. > >?From biology there are there are the names of the early hominids Ramapithecus and Sivapithecus (-pithecus is from a Greek word meaning "ape"). The former was first dug up in Northern India in the 1930s. From jkirk at MICRON.NET Mon Mar 9 00:28:09 1998 From: jkirk at MICRON.NET (Jo Kirkpatrick) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 17:28:09 -0700 Subject: fasting inside a barrel Message-ID: <161227036533.23782.18202350474146063331.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Sounds just like Diogenes! I wonder if Greece sent the idea to India or vice versa. Jo Kirkpatrick From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Sun Mar 8 16:43:51 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 17:43:51 +0100 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036526.23782.6342821455650501069.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> How about the continent `Gondwana'? From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Mar 9 05:45:27 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 21:45:27 -0800 Subject: Two questions - Taranatha and Robert Gussner Message-ID: <161227036538.23782.8997030767225518504.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thanks for the information on Taranatha's date and Gussner's papers. I had similar comments to make about Gussner's methodology. I was particularly interested in seeing if he considered the theory that the Dakshinamurti Stotra and its commentary, the Manasollasa, are originally from the Pratyabhijna school of Kashmir Saivism. This has been proposed before, on the basis of the word sphuraNa that has an important place in this hymn. A few of your own findings with respect to texts like the two-part kenopanishad bhAshya and the vivekavUDAmaNi would also be appreciated. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From roheko at MSN.COM Sun Mar 8 21:56:42 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 22:56:42 +0100 Subject: fasting inside a barrel Message-ID: <161227036531.23782.16219769964902147589.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Anyone came across a description/picture/piece of architecture (Sanskrit/Prakrit/Pali/Tibetan/Gujarati/Hindi) about tApasas, which are fasting monthly or so, namely in a uSTrika/uTTiya/uTTika.. (barrel??) Some South Indian temple reliefs present a standig person, from knees upto his neck covered by something that appears to be a (burbon-)barrel. Why not? Wearing a barrel instead of cloth could signalize the vow of fasting. Any suggestions? Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ramakris at EROLS.COM Mon Mar 9 09:58:59 1998 From: ramakris at EROLS.COM (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 01:58:59 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037047.23782.160777789097024569.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> John Richards wrote: >wonder if there is not a confusion here. I do not have access to the >texts quoted below, but it seems to me, in quotation, that the >reference here may well be to SCHOLARLY ERUDITION rather than what we >would call "spiritual knowledge". Obviously, Shudras could hardly >become knowledgeable about the scriptures if they were precluded from >reading/hearing them. At the same time, I see that Shankara makes no If it is of any help, I can state that the interpretation of John is the interpretation given to the sUtra bhAshhya by the orthodox sha.nkara maTha-s like Sringeri. Namely, shUdra-s are not qualified to recite/study veda-s, but are open to receiving moxa. According to this view, eligibility of karma depends on caste while moxa does not depend on caste, since moxa arises from knowledge not karma. I can give references (from Sringeri publications) if anyone is interested. Also refer to Yoshitsugu Sawai's paper "Samkara's theory of Samyasa", in JIP, Vol 14, 1986, pp. 371-387 on how sureshvara explicitly disagrees with sha.nkara on the caste issue (though he also excludes shudra-s) in the bR^ihadAraNyaka vArttika (also mentioned by Vidyasankar). Rama. From ramakris at EROLS.COM Mon Mar 9 10:10:03 1998 From: ramakris at EROLS.COM (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 02:10:03 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037050.23782.10227893471780560861.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Palaniappa wrote: > other religions, zankaracharyas and other Hindu fundamentalists want I'd like to point out two facts: 1. The shankaracarya's have _not_ wanted to ban conversion (not sure about the present Kanchi head). 2. In the Khilafat case, the British prosecuted the Sha.nkaracarya of Puri, which was very embarrassing for them since an acknowledged Hindu leader was supporting the muslims. I very firmly agree that lower castes were suppressed and also missionary activity was benefecial, but let's not get carried away by political rhetoric of DK politicians. Rama. PS: It was Narayana guru et al, who helped Kerala's renaissance not Christian missionaries! From sns at IX.NETCOM.COM Mon Mar 9 15:22:33 1998 From: sns at IX.NETCOM.COM (Sn. Subrahmanya) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 09:22:33 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036546.23782.2059773242527875552.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >To my sensitivities, we have so far presented one such substantial support >of the theory, vis, that had PIE arisen in India, there would have been >some kind of variety of non-Indo-Iranian, IE languages extant in the >subcontinent in ancient times Are there any good references available for the Bangani language of Himachal Pradesh ?. What branch of IE languages is Bangani ? Will really appreciate any info. What about the Tocharian language ? This whole stretch from Tajikistan & Western China down to the Gujarat coast, is truly fascinating with languages like Tocharian, Bangani and Brahui exploding myths about language & ethnicity. Subrahmanya Houston, TX From athr at LOC.GOV Mon Mar 9 15:12:35 1998 From: athr at LOC.GOV (Allen W Thrasher) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 10:12:35 -0500 Subject: Assoc. for Asian Studies - Library of Congress Events Message-ID: <161227036544.23782.878887503553565373.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The Library of Congress invites Association for Asian Studies participants to A PROGRAM Friday, March 27, 1997 Mumford Room Madison Building 6th Floor (Capitol South Metro Station) A ROUNDTABLE ON "LC FORGING AHEAD INTO THE 21ST CENTURY" >?From 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. LC speakers are from the African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division, Asian Division, Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Law Library, and Photoduplication Service. VISIT THE NEW ASIAN READING ROOM IN THE JEFFERSON BUILDING (LJ150) 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Visitors' Center, Library of Congress (in the lobby of the Jefferson Building) offers Daily tours of the Jefferson Building, Monday-Saturday: 11:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 4:00 p.m. Visitors should enter the building from the carriage entrance of First Street, S.E. (facing the Capitol). Tours start at the information desk. A sign language interpreter can be arranged for the Monday tour at 2:30 p.m. and the Friday tour at 11:30 a.m. upon request by calling TTY (202) 707-6362 or fax (202) 707-0823 in advance. The Digital Library Visitors' Center (in the Atrium of the Madison Building) offers Daily demonstrations at 1:00 p.m. For special demonstrations call Cathy Yang (202) 707-1649. From dran at CS.ALBANY.EDU Mon Mar 9 15:46:01 1998 From: dran at CS.ALBANY.EDU (Paliath Narendran) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 10:46:01 -0500 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) In-Reply-To: <19980308203203.17401.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <161227036548.23782.10219269425674708110.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > 4. In Flexible Manufacturing Systems i.e. FMS, a very popular > technique of pictorial modelling is called "Petri net > theory". I have been told that the "Petri" is related to > Samskrt "pitr~"(father) . This derivation is obviously far > fetched, Petri nets are named after Carl Adam Petri, who invented them in the early 60's. -Narendran P.S. A bibliography of Petri nets is available at http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/TGI/pnbib/index.html -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paliath Narendran Associate Professor URL: http://www.cs.albany.edu/~dran/ Department of Computer Science phone: (518)442-3387 University at Albany --- SUNY fax: (518)442-5638 Albany, NY 12222 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From dargie at CLTR.UQ.EDU.AU Mon Mar 9 01:15:04 1998 From: dargie at CLTR.UQ.EDU.AU (David Dargie) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 11:15:04 +1000 Subject: Two questions - Taranatha and Robert Gussner Message-ID: <161227036535.23782.280824358007345425.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >1. What is the period in which Taranatha wrote his account of the >history of Buddhism in India? Is the original in Tibetan or in Sanskrit? >There are remarkable mirror stories about Dharmakirti and Kumarila, if >one compares Taranatha's account with the Sankaravijaya texts. Also, >Taranatha's description of the initial conversation between Aryadeva and >mAt.rceta is almost identical to the traditional description of the >Sankara-maNDana miSra dialogue, beginning with "whence the shaven head?" >"from the neck up ..." and both stories include a theme where the >eventual loser in debate was performing an annual sacrifice for his >ancestors. > >2. Is anyone on this list aware of a publication by Robert Gussner (PhD, >1974, Harvard) about a stylometric study of the Dakshinamurti stotra >attributed to Sankaracharya? A 1976 paper by Gussner analyzes a number >of other stotras, and ends with a brief statement that the Dakshinamurti >hymn was probably written by Sankara, and a tantalizing promise that the >more detailed discussion will be provided in a subsequent paper. >However, I've been unable to track down the second paper, and have seen >only the first one quoted. 1. Though I am no Buddhism expert, the references that I see have Taranatha born in 1575. His "History of Buddhism in India" (Rgya gar chos 'byun) is translated from the Tibetan in the following reference. AUTHOR Taranatha, Jo-nan-pa, b. 1575. TITLE Taranatha's history of Buddhism in India / Translated from the Tibetan by Lama Chimpa [and] Alaka Chattopadhyaya ; edited by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. PUBLISHER Simla : Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1970. DESCRIPT xvi, 472 p : facsim ; 23 cm. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bibliography: p. [471]-472. NOTE Translation of: Rgya gar chos 'byun. SUBJECT Buddhism -- India -- History. Mahayana Buddhism -- History. OTHER AUTH Chimpa, Lama. Chattopadhyaya, Alaka. (I have no doubt that there are many such similarities in the hagiographies of ancient Indian religious teachers.) 2. Gussner's doctoral dissertation (1973) and the JAOS article (1976) covered mostly the same ground. The same seventeen strotras are mentioned in each, and I do not think that the latter was the product of further research. I have nearly completed my own PhD dissertation on statistical authentication of some of Sankaracarya's works (mostly bhaashyas and other philosophical compositions) and I would certainly be interested in further work in this field by Gussner, but sadly I do not think there is any. As for Gussner's conclusions about the authenticity of any of the stotras, I would have to hold them in doubt for the following reasons: (a) He selects only seventeen stotras on the advice of another scholar that these are the most likely to be genuine. (b) He uses for quantitative evidence a few dozen medium to high frequency words, some of which are doubtless context-sensitive (e.g. avidyA, saMsAraH, bhakti) and others that are relatively insensitive (e.g. yathA/tathA, tu, yadvat/tadvat) and assumes that if the author of the stotras and the metrical portion of the Upadesha SAhasrI is one and the same Sankaracarya, then the frequencies of all of these selected words would be nearly equal. This in itself is a difficult assumption to defend, and neither does the evidence support it. (c) In a more traditional philological analysis, Gussner examines the occurrences of bhakti, hRd, and Ananda, assuming (perhaps rightly) that these words are definite indicators of spurious authorship in the Sankara corpus. Only the DakShiNAmUrti stotra passes as authentic due to the non-occurrence of these words. (d) Gussner uses the metrical portion of the Upadesha SAhasrI as his control sample of true Sankara authorship, but he calls into question various sections of that work when they fail to meet the above criteria of authenticity. However, Gussner's work is important if only for his assiduous editing and collation of manuscripts for the seventeen stotras, including documenting from where in India each manuscript was recovered. I do have a copy of Gussner's dissertation on microfilm, but for copyright reasons I think I am bound not to distribute further copies. However, if you want to know more about its contents, then I guess I could oblige. The following reference is the only other Gussner work that I know of. I would be happy to hear of others. TITLE Ending the enslaving power of karma doctrine : Osho Rajneesh's teachings on awareness, karma and rebirth / AUTHOR/S Gussner, Robert, 1931- La Trobe University. School of Asian Studies. PUBLISHER Bundoora, Vic. : School of Asian Studies, La Trobe University, 1996. COLLATION 26 p. ; 21 cm. SUBJECT/S Rajneesh, -- Bhagwan Shree, -- 1931- SERIES Asian studies papers. Research series ; 7. NOTES CIP changed: formerly had series number 6. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN # 186446092X : ABN RID abn96070000 Regards David Dargie ***************************************************************** David Dargie Centre for Language Teaching and Research University of Queensland email: dargie at lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au Phone: +61 7 3365 6917 Home: +61 7 3397 6863 ***************************************************************** From rveluri at SMTPGATE.ANL.GOV Mon Mar 9 17:21:24 1998 From: rveluri at SMTPGATE.ANL.GOV (Venkateswara Rao Veluri) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 11:21:24 -0600 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036550.23782.5428176463245381879.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ____________________Reply Separator____________________ Sree KRishna on 3/8/98 12:32 PM surmises: "....I would like to make the following additions: 1. There is an antibiotic called Gangamycin ( not sure of how it got it's name though..one story that I heard is it was named after the river Ganga, another version says that it was named after the discoverer, whose name was Gangadharan.)---" Gangamycin is named after its discoverer Sree Gangadharam, Pattisapu who is currently employed as a Professor of Biochemistry at the Rush Medical School in Chicago, Illinois, USA. I'll try to forward this message to him! Regards, V Rao Veluri From pcooper at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Mon Mar 9 19:30:27 1998 From: pcooper at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (P. Cooper) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 11:30:27 -0800 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036552.23782.15199066961088307376.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I don't think this has been mentioned yet: The oldest rock formation in the Grand Canyon, which lies at the very bottom, is called Visnu Schist. These metamorphic rocks are approximately 2 billion years old, and they apparently formed the base of an ancient mountain range. According to a fairly recent article on the geology of the Grand Canyon, Visnu Schist was first identified by this name in an 1890 article in the Bulletin of the American Geological Society by Charles D. Walcott. However, a brief survey of this article yielded no mention of how or why Visnu schist got its name. Incidentally, there is a granite intrusion associated with the Visnu schist that is called Zoroaster Granite. This name can be traced to work done in 1938 by men named Campbell and Mason, but I haven't looked into their reasons for coming up with it. Paul Cooper From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Mon Mar 9 12:02:18 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 12:02:18 +0000 Subject: French-Sanskrit computer dictionary Message-ID: <161227036540.23782.5208326246508654205.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Andresig Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 09:54:02 EST Subject: French-Sanskrit Dictionary for Winword. Dear Dr. Wujastyk For the past few years I have been working on an interactive French-Sanskrit dictionary and grammar in WinWord format. This is now complete, and I would like to make it freely available to Sanskrit scholars on the Internet. I wonder therefore if you could copy this message to members of the Indology List so that they can know of its existence. It can be downloaded from - http://members.aol.com/andresig/ File to be downloaded : W7FRASKT.EXE=09 This is a self-extracting file of about 900K, containing both the dictionary/grammar and the font (Nina 1.0) necessary for the Sanskrit diacritical marks and French accents. Perhaps too you could put a link to the dictionary in the Library section of the Indology List? Yours sincerely Andr=E9 Signoret "Les Romarins" 84460 CHEVAL BLANC France. Telephone Intern. : (33 490 710 910)=0A --- End Forwarded Message --- From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Mar 9 22:39:24 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 14:39:24 -0800 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) Message-ID: <161227036554.23782.15336502515152590683.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I would like to thank Paliath Narendran for correcting me about the origin of Petri nets and for providing the bibliography...I think that the gentleman who I was refering to was Dr Thiagarajan and not Balasubramaniam since the adds seems to match..I'm sorry for any confusion that may have arisen out of this. I thank V.Rao Veluri for the correct derivation of Gangamycin and would like to mention in the context of P.Cooper's comment that: >I don't think this has been mentioned yet: > >The oldest rock formation in the Grand Canyon, which lies at the very >bottom, is called Visnu Schist. In the Grand Canyon, aren't there formations or mountains that have been named after Vishnu and Brahma in addition to Siva? As usual, all corrections are welcome. Regards, KRishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From pcooper at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Mar 10 00:34:32 1998 From: pcooper at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (P. Cooper) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 16:34:32 -0800 Subject: The Shiva Hypothesis (fwd) In-Reply-To: <19980309223924.10337.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <161227036558.23782.5449667726610596110.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, S Krishna wrote: > In the Grand Canyon, aren't there formations or mountains that have been > named after Vishnu and Brahma in addition to Siva? As usual, all > corrections are welcome. You're right - I know of one ridge/mountain that is named Brahma temple. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other features of the canyon with Indian names. However, let me clarify why I didn't include such names in my earlier posting. Visnu schist and Zoroaster granite are not just names for particular outcroppings of rock, they represent entire strata, identifiable by their location within the overall stratigraphy of the canyon and their characteristic metamorphic composition. This broad sense is what I meant by the term 'formation'. Whereas Brahma Temple is the name of one mountain made of different types of sandstone; Visnu schist and Zoroaster sandtone are what they are, wherever they might be found within the canyon. Since the tpoic being discussed on the list had to do with scientific names of Indian origin, I thought it relevant to bring up Visnu schist (and Zoroaster granite) as geological terms. The issue of geographical or topographical names of Indian origin outside of India is another interesting question, but for now I'll leave that to others to pursue. Sorry for any confusion, Paul Cooper From thompson at JLC.NET Mon Mar 9 23:52:29 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 19:52:29 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036564.23782.10531993762883965292.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> For the past week I have taken every free moment I've had to re-examine Hock's 1996 article [in IDEOLOGY AND STATUS OF SANSKRIT: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE. E.J.BRILL], in light of some of the earlier literature available to me. I would like to confine my comments to the problem of retroflexion, and in particular to retroflexion in the RV. This is not to say that other issues [e.g., syntactic and lexical evidence] raised in Hock's article are unimportant. It is just to take one issue at a time. I should say at the outset that for a long time I have been sympathetic to Madhav Deshpande's views re RV retroflexion: that it may well be that the retroflexion which we see in the only recension of the RV that we have was introduced into the text by "Dravidianized oral transmission of the text" [see most recently Deshpande's article, "Vedic Aryans, non-Vedic Aryans, and non-Aryans: Judging the Linguistic evidence of the Veda", in the same volume as Hock's article, cited above]. At the AAR panel in San Francisco which Edwin Bryant referred to in his first post on this thread, I briefly mentioned my view of RV retroflexion,in a comment after my paper, though without mentioning Deshpande by name. [I hope that he does not mind my raising this issue on the list!] In no way do I consider the question settled, and I have brought it to the list in order to see if the question could be illuminated [which I would hope], if not resolved [which I do not expect]. I think that there is general agreement that retroflexion in the RV is rather incipient, that there is much less of it in the RV than in classical Sanskrit. However, it would be nice to see this general impression confirmed by something specific. Perhaps the statisticians on the list could easily produce a retroflex-to-total letter count in every book of the RV and compare that with the same in the MBH [just kidding]. It has also occurred to me, after soliciting minimal pairs in Norwegian from Lars Martin Fosse, that there actually are not very many minimal pairs that one can produce from the RV itself. For example, the pair frequently cited by Hock: pAta 'flight' vs. pATa 'portion' is not attested in the RV [in fact, neither word is attested there]. I'd be grateful if others on the list would call some RV pairs to my attention. There aren't many [e.g., the pair kuTas, apparently a proper name at 1.46.4, vs kutas 'whence']. Another puzzling detail, often mentioned in the literature I think, is that there is only one word-initial retroflex consonant in the RV: SaT [and its derivatives]. Historically, /S/ appears to be an allophone of /s/ by the ruki rule and in other contexts. It is not clear to me to what extent retroflexion in the RV is a phonemic process, as opposed to a purely allophonic one triggered by mechanical application of recitation techniques, such as those referred to by Deshpande. Perhaps the learned of the list can enlighten me about this problem, which I acknowledge has been treated already not only by those already cited but also by previous scholars such as Emeneau and Kuiper [I have also consulted Vedic Variants, vol 2, and Wackernagel, vol 1]. Perhaps a re-examination of this problem would be of use to others as well as myself. I have no thesis. I am just trying to figure things out. If these matters have been dealt with in literature that I am unfamiliar with, I would be grateful for relevant references, and will no longer trouble the list about them. Best wishes, George Thompson From s9651546 at ANU.EDU.AU Mon Mar 9 12:46:30 1998 From: s9651546 at ANU.EDU.AU (Deepthi Kumara Henadeerage) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 98 23:46:30 +1100 Subject: Sinhala Language web page Message-ID: <161227036542.23782.16985905778092602420.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Sinhala language web page was updated on March 01, 1998. The site contains information on bibliographies, study materials for learning Sinhala and study programs offered by different schools/universities. In addition, there are links to papers written on various aspects of Sinhala language, literature and culture. Also you will find links to information about Sinhala fonts, editors, transliteration schemes, Sinhala humor, music and slangs etc. Please let me know if you have something to be included in the page. Here is the URL: http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/sinhala/ - Kumara. ________________________________________________ Kumara.Henadeerage at anu.edu.au http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/sinhala/ku.htm Linguistics - Australian National University ================================================ From kradhikary at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU Tue Mar 10 00:16:53 1998 From: kradhikary at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU (Kamal R. Adhikary) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 00:16:53 +0000 Subject: Lecture abstract Message-ID: <161227036556.23782.250592289318360764.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear colleagues: An absract of the talk "Reading and Writing Indian Women: the Last 50 Years", by Geraldine Forbes, given at the South Asian Seminar at Asian Studies, UT Austin is given below. The abstract is also posted at: http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/SAsem1998spirng.html Abstract Reading and Writing Indian Women: the Last 50 Years by Geraldine Forbes, The focus of this paper is the changing scholarship about Indian women since independence. Key aspects of this dynamic scholarship are 1) living women are its principal subjects, 2) newly discovered sources provide its material, and 3) the reformulation of basic questions sets the context. The period 1947-97 is divided into three periods, each illustrated by a few representative works. The works selected for each period are analyzed in terms of how they defined women, their relationship to traditional disciplines, and the questions they deemed most relevant. Each set of works is examined in relation to the context that framed it as well as its relationship to more general reinterpretations of South Asian history. Synthesizing the Past and Assessing the Present, 1947 - 1969 This period was characterized by books on prominent nationalist women and synthetic works that surveyed history and commented on women's position in the new Indian state. Although old-fashioned in many ways, these studies mark the beginning of scholarship on women which placed women and gender questions at the center of the analysis and interrogated records in new ways. Critiquing the Present and Excavating the Past, 1970 - 1985 This period was dominated by Toward Equality: the Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India. The first systematic effort to question what constitutional guarantees of equality and justice actually meant to women, Toward Equality dramatically altered the study of women and gender in India. In addition to the studies commissioned for the report, this period witnessed the publication of a number of interdisciplinary anthologies with articles challenging conventional assumptions about women and their history. This was also a period of discovery and institution building. Historians discovered rich sources for writing women's history and worked to preserve them. Throughout India universities used UGC grants to set up institutes or units to carry out research on women. The energy and dynamism generated by Toward Equality was put on hold during the Emergency only to re-emerge in the early 1980s as a full-blown feminism movement supported and nurtured by academic women. By the end of this period India had a number of women's studies programs, a feminist press, and a feminist magazine. Challenging Categories, Reassessing Colonialism, and Revisiting the 'Third World Woman': 1986- 1997 This last period witnessed a significant shift in terms of redefining Indian history within a post-colonial framework, working gender into the meta-narrative, and developing theoretical perspectives. Innovative work in the discipline of history set the tone for a reconsideration of the past. During this period a number of anthologies and books of women's writings were published. Meanwhile, Subaltern Studies presented a significant challenge to elitist colonialist, nationalist, and Marxist historiography though they largely ignored women and gender until the ninth (1996) volume. In this last volume a way of recovering the subaltern woman's history is finally advanced. This period was again one of synthetic works in history and the social sciences. The talk concludes with a look at dominant trends in India and the USA. In India, Women's Studies programs are engaged in professionalization while many women academics feel challenged to respond to hindutva. In the USA post-modernism has left its mark and current studies pay attention to discourse, symbols and representation, the diaspora, and transnationalism. In this new work gender is central and authors are motivated to make contributions to theory. Has the scholarship on women and gender in India changed the fields of Indian History and/or of Women's Studies? The field of Indian history has been only marginally affected. Women's Studies scholars remain in the grip of the downtrodden 'Third world' woman paradigm, and unless they are area specialists, pay little attention to new research on Indian women. _____________________________________________________ Thanks. Kamal From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Tue Mar 10 00:43:17 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 00:43:17 +0000 Subject: fwd: Hearts Sutra Message-ID: <161227036560.23782.8209656687828739211.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> --- Begin Forwarded Message --- Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 15:42:46 +0000 From: McComas Subject: Hearts Sutra Dear Friends I have established a modest Heart Sutra Home Page at http://cres.anu.edu.au/~mccomas/heartsutra/ with Tibetan, Sanskrit and English versions, and links to Chinese and Japanese texts. Could you please mention it via the Indology list? With thanks Kunga Sanggye (McComas) ================================================== McComas CRES, ANU Tel. (06) 249 0665 http://cres.anu.edu.au/~mccomas/ ================================================== McComas CRES, ANU Tel. (06) 249 0665 http://cres.anu.edu.au/~mccomas/ --- End Forwarded Message --- From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Tue Mar 10 00:48:19 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 00:48:19 +0000 Subject: Harappa sites Message-ID: <161227036561.23782.14187527771251211219.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 09:56:02 +0000 (GMT) From: Chris Wooff To: Dominik Wujastyk Subject: Any good? Harappa [QuickTime, RealPlayer] http://www.harappa.com/welcome.html No Frames: http://www.harappa.com/welcomenf.html Harappa was a city in the Indus Valley civilization that flourished around 2,500 B.C. in the western part of South Asia. This site, produced by Omar Khan, contains a number of items related to the study of this ancient city, including a 90-slide tour of the Indus Valley and 3-D computer recreations of the city's gateway and surrounding topography. The site also offers a large number of audio and visual resources concerning pre-1947 South Asia in general. Users can browse 130 historical photos via a city index or active map, view a selection of lithographs, postcards, and engravings, and view a number of newsreels in QuickTime format. Although only nine newsreels and archival films are currently available, the site plans to eventually offer 50 in honor of South Asia's 50 years of independence. Additional offerings include several rare amateur color movies filmed c.1940, RealAudio recordings by several prominent historical figures, and a wonderful collection of reflections in audio, video, and text formats by Princess Abida Sultaan of Bhopal, a contemporary of many of the leaders of the independence movement. [MD] ------------------------------------------------------------ From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Tue Mar 10 00:51:20 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 00:51:20 +0000 Subject: [Info] Tibetan book of the dead Message-ID: <161227036566.23782.14750921630860122180.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 13:51:43 +0000 (GMT) From: Chris Wooff Subject: Any interest to Indology? The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Literature and Artwork on Prayer, Ritual, and Meditation from the Religious Traditions of Tibet, India and Nepal --UVA Library [Javascript] http://www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/dead/ The Special Collections Department of the University of Virginia Library has recently launched this site, a companion to an exhibit running from November 7, 1997 to March 4, 1998. The UVA Library holds one of the world's largest collections of Tibetan literature; this site is designed to "demystify the sacred Tibetan texts on death and dying and to create an opportunity to share the wisdom of these ancient beliefs and practices." The text and artwork sections highlight the site; they contain six and three subsections respectively. Under texts there are explanations, and page samples of Sutras, Tantras, The Art of Dying, and Transitions to the Other World, among others. The still-developing artworks section contains explanations and/or examples of selected scroll paintings, statuary, and ceremonial art. The only drawback to this fascinating site is the confusing Javascript navigation interface, which requires users to click on the "Choose a Page" button and make a selection, even if there is only one selection. [JS] ------------------------------------------------------------ Chris Wooff (C.Wooff at liv.ac.uk, ....mcsun!uknet!liv!C.Wooff) Sent with Simeon Version 4.1.5 Build 42 From ramakris at EROLS.COM Tue Mar 10 10:01:40 1998 From: ramakris at EROLS.COM (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 02:01:40 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037093.23782.16196774451643712186.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Palaniappa wrote: > As part of the Shanan?s struggle for temple entry, "On May 14, 1897, fifteen > Shanans, despite the efforts of temple custodians to prevent them from doing > so, entered the Minakshi Sundareswara Temple at Kamudi and worshipped there. > The temple?s hereditary trustee, the Raja of Ramnad, Raja M. Bhaskara > Sethupathi, natural leader of the Maravan community and dedicated enemy of > Shanan "pretensions", brought suit against the offenders, asking that they > compensate the temple for the purification ceremonies undertaken after its > defilement and that it be established that neither by sacred law nor by custom > did Shanans have a right to enter the temple." (The Modernity of Tradition, p. > 41) Since you mentioned the case of the Nadars I can mention some practices of the CSI (Church of south India). The (Christian) Nadars mainly are CSI christians. They are well educated in general and hold high posts, e.g., the very capable police officer Devaram who has received public acclaim. There is a large concentration the Tirunelveli Dt. However, do you know that there are separate burial grounds for P-CSI, N-CSI and Dalit CSIs? P=Pillai, N=Nadar. They don't usually inter marry either. The CSI hardliners are _very_ anti catholic and it intensified after the appointment of the present Archbishop of Mylapore (his name escapes my mind now) because he is a Dalit! They also have an elaborate system of initials to their names (more the better) which I'll skip. How ridiculous! The problem is that you do not get to know these usually. The Kerala Syrian Christains can be equally (if not more) casteist. ~1500 years of Christianity doesn't seem to have done much! Prof Narendran may correct me if I'm wrong. Moral of the story: Casteism does not go away if people adopt Christianity. There has to be a fundamental change in attitude. But definitely the presence of missionaries helped foster these sentiments. As did the DK, DMK etc (though now they are more of a headache). Definitely the communists helped a whole lot. Also there are quite a few Hindu leaders who have helped (Narayana Guru). Why condemn Hindus wholesale? Rama. From mmdesh at UMICH.EDU Tue Mar 10 12:37:23 1998 From: mmdesh at UMICH.EDU (Madhav Deshpande) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 07:37:23 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036570.23782.5204845987651005340.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I want to thank George Thompson for bringing up the discussion of the genesis of RV retroflexion. He has already referred to my publications and Hans Hock's publications on this subject. As I see it, old hands like Hans and myself get entrenched in our own positions. I would like to see someone else take up this question and re-evaluate the debate from some new angle, perhaps George Thompson could do it. All the best, Madhav Deshpande On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, George Thompson wrote: > For the past week I have taken every free moment I've had to re-examine > Hock's 1996 article [in IDEOLOGY AND STATUS OF SANSKRIT: CONTRIBUTIONS TO > THE HISTORY OF THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE. E.J.BRILL], in light of some of the > earlier literature available to me. I would like to confine my comments to > the problem of retroflexion, and in particular to retroflexion in the RV. > This is not to say that other issues [e.g., syntactic and lexical evidence] > raised in Hock's article are unimportant. It is just to take one issue at a > time. > > I should say at the outset that for a long time I have been sympathetic to > Madhav Deshpande's views re RV retroflexion: that it may well be that the > retroflexion which we see in the only recension of the RV that we have was > introduced into the text by "Dravidianized oral transmission of the text" > [see most recently Deshpande's article, "Vedic Aryans, non-Vedic Aryans, > and non-Aryans: Judging the Linguistic evidence of the Veda", in the same > volume as Hock's article, cited above]. At the AAR panel in San Francisco > which Edwin Bryant referred to in his first post on this thread, I briefly > mentioned my view of RV retroflexion,in a comment after my paper, though > without mentioning Deshpande by name. [I hope that he does not mind my > raising this issue on the list!] > > In no way do I consider the question settled, and I have brought it to the > list in order to see if the question could be illuminated [which I would > hope], if not resolved [which I do not expect]. > > I think that there is general agreement that retroflexion in the RV is > rather incipient, that there is much less of it in the RV than in classical > Sanskrit. However, it would be nice to see this general impression > confirmed by something specific. Perhaps the statisticians on the list > could easily produce a retroflex-to-total letter count in every book of the > RV and compare that with the same in the MBH [just kidding]. > > It has also occurred to me, after soliciting minimal pairs in Norwegian > from Lars Martin Fosse, that there actually are not very many minimal pairs > that one can produce from the RV itself. For example, the pair frequently > cited by Hock: > > pAta 'flight' vs. pATa 'portion' > > is not attested in the RV [in fact, neither word is attested there]. > > I'd be grateful if others on the list would call some RV pairs to my > attention. There aren't many [e.g., the pair kuTas, apparently a proper > name at 1.46.4, vs kutas 'whence']. > > Another puzzling detail, often mentioned in the literature I think, is that > there is only one word-initial retroflex consonant in the RV: SaT [and its > derivatives]. Historically, /S/ appears to be an allophone of /s/ by the > ruki rule and in other contexts. > > It is not clear to me to what extent retroflexion in the RV is a phonemic > process, as opposed to a purely allophonic one triggered by mechanical > application of recitation techniques, such as those referred to by > Deshpande. Perhaps the learned of the list can enlighten me about this > problem, which I acknowledge has been treated already not only by those > already cited but also by previous scholars such as Emeneau and Kuiper [I > have also consulted Vedic Variants, vol 2, and Wackernagel, vol 1]. > > Perhaps a re-examination of this problem would be of use to others as well > as myself. I have no thesis. I am just trying to figure things out. If > these matters have been dealt with in literature that I am unfamiliar with, > I would be grateful for relevant references, and will no longer trouble the > list about them. > > Best wishes, > > George Thompson > From hanneder at MUENCHEN.ORG Tue Mar 10 12:59:06 1998 From: hanneder at MUENCHEN.ORG (hanneder) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 13:59:06 +0100 Subject: Abhinavagupta: Tantraaloka 29 Message-ID: <161227036572.23782.1363409920183690258.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Topic: John Dupuche's question about Tantraaloka, chapter 29 I cannot claim to have read much of this aahnika, but I would like to draw attention to one passage in Jayaratha's commentary on TA 29.13 about the necessity to drink alcohol at every ritual session. For while the wide-spread concept of Kaulas being libertines and trying to transcend the social and religious boundaries of their time (caste, purity etc.) fits into a rather modern Western slot, Jayaratha quotes unnamed and unidentified (?) sources that display a more ritualistic and perhaps MImAMsA-like spirit: madyamAMsAdhivAsena mukhaM 'sUnyaM yadA bhavet| tadA pa'sutvaM AyAti prAya'scittaM samAcaret|| (Tantraalokaviveka on 29.13) (Jayaratha adds that sadA (in "pibet sadA" in TA 29.12) refers to the time of ritual.) Another quotation stipulates that the best option is to drink always, next comes the practice to drink only on Parvan-days, the least is to drink once a month, beyond that one becomes a Pa'su. (The Sanskrit is too enjoyable to be ommited: uttamaM tu sadA pAnaM bhavet parvasu madhyamam| adhamaM mAsamAtre.na mAsAd UrdhvaM pa'sur bhavet|| That this is to be taken literally is indicated by Jayaratha who says that this applies only to aapatkaale (prohibition etc.), that means, under normal circumstances no such laxity is allowed! This does not at all tally with the notion about free-spirited Kaulas, it rather seems that not freedom from the rules that forbid alcohol etc.---which would not have to be demonstrated daily---but repeated, ritualised infrigement of the rules is necessary. Perhaps someone has found similar discussions in other texts? Another question: Did you find mss. for this chapter? Juergen Hanneder From reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU Tue Mar 10 23:03:36 1998 From: reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU (Luis Gonzalez-Reimann) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 15:03:36 -0800 Subject: Quotations from Bhusundi-ramayana Message-ID: <161227036580.23782.11279563445489529948.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members, The following is a request from a colleague who is not on the list. You can respond on the list or to him directly; his email address is at the end of the message. Thanks for any help, Luis Gonzalez-Reimann University of California, Berkeley >Does anyone know where I could obtain a copy of the >_RAma-nava-ratna-sAra-saNgraha_ by RAma-caraNa-dAsa? It was published >by ZrI-avadha-ZaraNa of JAnakI-ghATa at the Goloka Press, AyodhyA, in >Vikrama Samvat 1985 (1907 CE). Or does anyone have information about >accessible manuscripts of this text? > >I am searching for any early quotations of verses ascribed to the >_BhuZuNDi-rAmAyaNa_. ("Early" means verses not taken from the edition >of the text published by Bhagavati Prasad Singh in 1975-1985.) I have >seen Singh's publications and the 1976 edition of BhuvaneZvaranAtha >MiZra's 1957 _RAmabhakti-sAhitya me~ Madhura UpAsanA_, which include >such quotations. If anyone can supply other verses, or even just >references, I would appreciate it. > >Since what I need is only the verse (or verses?) the >_RAma-nava-ratna-sAra-saNgraha_ quotes from the _BhuzuNDi-RAmAyaNa_, if >more of the text is not available even a photocopy of page 27 of the >published text, which includes one verse, (and a photocopy of the title >page if possible) would be helpful. If this is not available, if >someone could definitely supply even just the verse itself, that would >be a final alternative. > >Similarly, I have not yet been able to obtain the exact verse ascribed >to the _BhuZuNDi-rAmAyaNa_ quoted by Rn N. TripAThI in the introductory >material to his edition of the _RAma-carita-mAnasa_ (Allahabad: Hindi >Mandira, 1936). A copy of this publication is available in the Central >Secretariat Library in New Delhi (and a microfilm is to be made by CRL), >but I have not yet obtained it. Can anyone help with this or any other >early quotations of the _BhuZuNDi-rAmAyaNa_? > >Thanks, > >Allan Keislar >Dept. of South and Southeast Asian Studies >University of California, Berkeley >Berkeley, CA 94720 >(510)-548-3247 >keislar at uclink2.berkeley.edu > > From apandey at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Mar 10 23:25:20 1998 From: apandey at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Anshuman Pandey) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 15:25:20 -0800 Subject: Electronic texts, irt Jan Dvorak. In-Reply-To: <19980310143054.21185.qmail@dec59.ruk.cuni.cz> Message-ID: <161227036582.23782.2701935463476262019.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello, Jan Dvorak raised an important question in a recent post about whether there exists a list of available electronic texts. I know that the Sanskrit Documents Project housed at jaguar.cs.utah.edu maintains such a list, but the list does not begin to contain them all. TITUS aims to provide such a list, however, its enumeration of "Indica" texts is far from being an exhaustive one. Also, the INDOLOGY website has links to various sites which house electronic texts, but again there are other links which are absent. There are other such lists spread across the net, each with links or texts not found on other lists, ie. John Smith's bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk server and the kyoto file server upon which reside the texts of Profs. Yano, Tokunago, Ikari, et al., and John Gardner's Vedavid. Are there any opinions as to whether a comprehensive list of Indic electronic texts ought to be compiled, and whether such a list would be beneficial? Regards, Anshuman Pandey On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Jan Dvorak wrote: > working on a project dealing with the old Indo-Aryan and Dravidian > literatures we plan to type some texts. I attach a proposed list and ask > you to let me know if some of them have already been typed anywhere in > the world. Or is there any center collecting information on available > electronic texts? Thank you for your responses. From Jan.Dvorak at FF.CUNI.CZ Tue Mar 10 14:30:54 1998 From: Jan.Dvorak at FF.CUNI.CZ (Jan Dvorak) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 15:30:54 +0100 Subject: Sanskrit/Prakrit electronic texts Message-ID: <161227036575.23782.14490874106560527556.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear colleagues, working on a project dealing with the old Indo-Aryan and Dravidian literatures we plan to type some texts. I attach a proposed list and ask you to let me know if some of them have already been typed anywhere in the world. Or is there any center collecting information on available electronic texts? Thank you for your responses. Jan Dvorak ******************** Texts to by typed: 1. Kavya lyrical poems: Kalidasa: Meghaduta Kalidasa: Rtusamhara ?Kalidasa: Ghatakarpara Amaru: Amarusataka Mayura: Mayurastaka Bilhana: Caurisuratapancasika Bharthari: Srngarasataka 2. Verses appearing in dramatical works: Bhasa: Svapnavasavadatta Bhasa: Avimaraka Bhasa: Daridracarudatta Sudraka: Mrcchakatika Visakhadatta: Mudraraksasa Kalidasa: Abhijnanasakuntala Kalidasa: Vikramorvasiya Kalidasa: Malavikagnimitra Harsadeva: Ratnavali Harsadeva: Priyadarsika Harsadeva: Nagananda Bhavabhuti: Mahaviracarita Bhavabhuti: Uttararamacarita Bhavabhuti: Maltimadhava Rajasekhara: Viddhasalabhanjika Rajasekhara: Karpuramanjari Bana: Parvatiparinaya 3. Kavya Epics: Kalidasa: Kumarasambhava Kalidasa: Raghuvamsa Bharavi: Kiratarjuniya Magha: Sisupalavadha Ratnakara: Haravijaya Bhatti: Ravanavadha X-XIII Sriharsa: Naisadhacarita Mankha: Srikanthacarita 4. Kavya Prose: Dandin: Dasakumaracarita (complete) Subandhu: Vasavadatta Bana: Harsacarita Bana: Kadambari From nozawa at LA.NUMAZU-CT.AC.JP Tue Mar 10 07:55:02 1998 From: nozawa at LA.NUMAZU-CT.AC.JP (Nozawa Masanobu) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 16:55:02 +0900 Subject: Vaishesikasutra E-text In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036567.23782.9547064829318663135.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear members, I put an E-text of the Vaishesikasutra by CS fonts in http://lapc01.ippan.numazu-ct.ac.jp/c/VSCtext.htm Happy to be informed of errors or comments. Nozawa Masanobu Division of Liberal Arts Numazu College of Technology E-mail: nozawa at la.numazu-ct.ac.jp From thompson at JLC.NET Tue Mar 10 23:47:28 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 19:47:28 -0400 Subject: bangani - non Indo-Aryan Indo-European? Message-ID: <161227036588.23782.12558908387253559085.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Bangani came up as an issue last year on a couple of lists. I happened to cite these very comments of Beekes [against Zoller] which Jan Houben has just cited, and got this response from Hock: Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 17:04:19 -0600 Reply-To: hhhock at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sender: owner-indoeuropean at mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Precedence: bulk From: hhhock at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu To: indoeuropean at mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Subject: Bangani Mime-Version: 1.0 To anyone concerned with the question of Bangani, The issue of Bangani has recently been revived through discussion on the Vyakaran list (as well as elsewhere). The following observations were sent earlier to the Vyakaran (S. Asia) list and may be of some interest to subscribers to the Indoeuropean list, too. ***On Bangani*** The controversy over Bangani and the authenticity of its apparent evidence for a centum language in northern South Asia does not seem to be coming to an end. In the opinion of some scholars, the claims by Dr. George van Driem and Dr. Suhnu Ram Sharma that their own fieldwork shows Dr. Claus-Peter Zoller's centum forms in Bangani to be spurious has in effect laid the claim -- and the controversy -- to rest. Recent fieldwork by Professor Anvita Abbi (Linguistics and English, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) supports Zoller's evidence and in so doing casts doubt on the fieldwork and/or claims of van Driem and Sharma. As a consequence, Zoller's evidence must be taken seriously and its implications for Indo-European comparative linguistics and for South Asian linguistic prehistory must be carefully considered. As is well known, in the course of fieldwork on Bangani, a language of northern South Asia, Zoller unearthed lexical items that appear to show centum developments of PIE palatalo-velars, instead of the satem outcomes expected in an Indo-Aryan language. At the same time, the language also contains lexical layers that are clearly Indo-Aryan and therefore satem; some of these result from recent influence of languages such as Hindi, others exhibit features typical of the northern languages belonging to the Indo-Aryan/Indo-Iranian family. Among the forms with centum features are various words derivable from PIE *GenH-, such as OgnOM 'unborn' and gOnNO 'give birth', as well as kOtrO 'fight' (cf. Skt. Zatru-, Gaul. catu- 'battle') and dOkru 'tear' (*(d)aKru). [O = open _o_; G(h), M = nasalization, N = retroflex nasal, z = s with hacek, Z = palatal voiceless sibilant, S = retroflex voiceless sibilant, K = PIE palatalo-velars, uu = long [u:], I = Slav. front jer.] While some of the forms are marked as doubtful, either by Zoller or by Abbi, and some other forms involve etymologies from Pokorny that many Indo-Europeanists would consider uncertain, there remains an impressive residue. What is especially interesting is that dOkru 'tear', with its initial d-, suggests affiliation with a western Indo-European language (cf. Gk. dakru, Lat. dacruma > lacrima, Germ. Zaehre, Engl. tear), while more eastern members show forms without d-: Skt. aZru, Av. asru, Lith. azara, Toch. B akruuna. More western affiliation is also suggested by lOktO 'milk' and gOsti 'guest (of honor)', which have good correspondences in Gk. galakt-, Lat. lact- and Lat. hostis, Gmc. *gasti-, OCS gostI, but not in more eastern Indo-European languages. Note that these forms do not necessarily contain original palatalo-velars (the fact that OCS has _gostI_ may be attributable to the transition-area status of Slavic and Baltic between satem and western centum languages); but they are nevertheless important, since they suggest western IE (rather, than, say Tocharian or even Indo-Iranian) origin. Van Driem and Sharma claim that their fieldwork suggests that Zoller's forms are spurious, that some are based on misidentification and others are simply non-existent. In a recent summary of arguments pro and con, Dr. Kevin Tuitte further suggests that Zoller may have fallen victim to fieldwork consultants' tendency to provide evidence that they think may please the investigator. Even a priori, however, the latter suggestion is dubious, since it would be hard to imagine how illiterate villagers would be able to know that words like _dOkrO, lOktO, gOsti_ would please an investigator (to have that knowledge would require more than a superficial understanding of comparative Indo-European linguistics). In January 1997 I had the opportunity to meet with Abbi and to go over some of her Bangani notes from fieldwork that she recently conducted in situ. She will provide a fuller report on her work in due course, but has asked me to provide a preliminary report, so as to set the record straight. While van Driem and Sharma appear not to have actually entered Bangani-speaking territory but limited themselves to interviewing Bangani speakers on the fringes of the territory, Abbi went into the territory and interviewed, among others, at least one monolingual speaker of Bangani. According to her fieldwork, most of Zoller's forms are genuine. Her fieldwork also confirms that the lexicon of Bangani contains at least three layers: Words of the type _dOkrO, lOktO, gOsti_, words that exhibit "northern" Indo-Aryan features, and words that seem to be borrowed from more southern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi. Given these circumstances, Bangani poses several challenges to linguistics. First, there is the question of what appears to be western centum influence. At this point, the evidence for this influence is highly suggestive; but a larger amount of words of the same type would certainly be helpful to allay worries that we might be dealing with chance similarities. (Zoller's data also contain a number of words in which RUKI apparently fails to apply. But RUKI-_S_ merges with dental _s_ (and with _Z_) in most of Indo-Aryan, and there are well-known problems with RUKI in Nuristani; as a consequence, words of this type do not provide unambiguous evidence -- unless we were dealing with words of the type _dOkrO, lOktO, gOsti_ which, qua words, seem to indicate western IE origin.) A related question is the nature of the western centum influence. Words like _gOsti_ seem to rule out Greek influence (and thus the possibility that we are dealing with linguistic echoes of Alexander's army); _lOktO_ would eliminate Germanic and Celtic; and _kOtrO_ would eliminate Greek and Latin. That is, no known western centum language could be the source for all of the relevant words. At the same time, the fact that *a and *o exhibit the same outcome (O, no doubt via *a, see below) suggests possible affiliation with the Balto-Slavo-Germanic group (or possibly with Antalolian?). The fact that *a and *o are reflected as O further suggests that, whatever the source of the words, they participated in the Bangani change of earlier *a to O and that therefore they must have entered (the ancestor of modern) Bangani prior to that change. But that change may be a very recent one. The question of what time these words entered Bangani therefore cannot be satisfactorily answered at this point. Moreover, it is not at all clear whether the words in question actually entered Bangani, or whether they are part of the original lexicon of the language, and the northern Indo-Aryan lexical layer is a later accretion, comparable to the clearly secondary layer of southern Indo-Aryan words. It is to be hoped that more extensive field work on Bangani will unearth evidence that will make it possible to answer some of these questions, or at least to make it possible to more clearly establish the nature of the different lexical layers of Bangani and their relationship to each other. Moreover, as noted earlier, the evidence for western IE influence or origin at this point is still rather limited; if more evidence could be found this would definitely strengthen the claim that Bangani contains a significant layer of centum vocabulary. Hans Henrich Hock Professor of Linguistics and Sanskrit Linguistics, 4088 FLB, University of Illinois 707 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801 telephone: (217) 333-0357 or 333-3563 (messages) e-mail: hhhock at staff.uiuc.edu fax: (217) 333-3466 Acting Director, Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 211 International Studies Building, 910 S. Fifth, Champaign, IL 61820 telephone: (217) 0796, fax: (217) 333-6270 From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Tue Mar 10 19:09:23 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 20:09:23 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (proposal for virtual sattra) Message-ID: <161227036577.23782.3180785985180974097.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Protected by my vrata to write not more than two postings a week on the Indo- Aryan Invasion I had the opportunity to monitor the continuing discussion and to reflect about possibilities to make the discussion more rewarding. The nature of the medium of the Indology opens up certain possibilities of direct and fast communication, but it has also certain drawbacks. Agreement on the problems at issue can hardly be expected to arise from an internet discussion. But the exchange of ideas may be fruitfully directed towards establishing a list of basic relevant topics connected with the main issue, and a list of some basic publications. My proposal is to continue with the earlier proposal of George Thompson, and to select a month for more focussed discussion of the ever recurrent theme of the Indo-Aryan Invasion: basic topics so far seem to be: (1) linguistic arguments for entering of Indo-Aryans into Indian subcontinent a) retroflexion b) typology (more variety outside India) c) . . . (2) archeological arguments (3) (4) 19th century and modern political constellations favoring Indo-Aryan Invasion theory. (5) . . . Two important publications have been mentioned so far: 1. H.H.Hock: Pre-rgvedic convergence between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian? A survey of the issues and controversies, in: Ideology and Status of Sanskrit, ed. by J.Houben, Leiden, Brill 1996. 2. George Erdosy: Language, material culture and ethnicity: Theoretical perspectives, in: The Indo-Aryan of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, ed. by G.Erdosy, Berlin/New York, 1995. No answer was received on an earlier question by me whether there is a good statement of the Aryans out of India view. I found references to a certain Dhar, but I don't know the bibliographical details. Any more suggestions for basic topics to be discussed (not to be solved) in the month to be selected for a virtual sattra on Indo-Aryan Invasion, for instance in May, and for important relevant literature to be studied? Greetings, Jan Houben From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Tue Mar 10 20:29:38 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 21:29:38 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (proposal for virtual sattra) Message-ID: <161227036578.23782.4253490528223870111.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > >Any more suggestions for basic topics to be discussed (not to be solved) in the >month to be selected for a virtual sattra on Indo-Aryan Invasion, for instance >in May, and for important relevant literature to be studied? > I would like to suggest another paper appearing in the same volume as Erodsy's (The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity). The paper is written by Michael Witzel and is called "Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and polities"). Then not only the linguistic and the archaeological dimension would covered, but also the historical. Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Tue Mar 10 21:38:33 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 22:38:33 +0100 Subject: bangani - non Indo-Aryan Indo-European? Message-ID: <161227036584.23782.7650671590302624038.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 9 Mar 1998 09:22:33 -0600 "Sn. Subrahmanya" wrote: > Are there any good references available for the Bangani language of Himachal Pradesh ? I cite from Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: an Introduction, by R.S.P. Beekes, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1995, p. 19-20 (which is a reworking from a book which appeared earlier in Dutch): "In 1987 it was announced at a congress held in Leiden that traces had been found of an unknown Indo-European language in northern India to the north of Delhi, in the foothills of the Himalayas. The language in question is a modern Indian (Indo-Aryan) language called Bangani, which contains large numbers of words, notably those found in old stories, which are not Indo-Aryan. The remarkable fact is that this language belongs to the centum group (while the Indo-Iranian languages are all satem languages . . . ). Compare koto 'hundred' (PIE *kmtom, Skt s'atam) . . . . . . Add. [This addition appears not yet in the Dutch version, only in the new English one:] My Leiden colleague George van Driem went to the Bangani area in December 1994, and observed that these forms are incorrect and especially their supposed meanings. Most words have good Indo-Aryan etymologies. Thus *koto is kiti 'how much' . . . This is the end of the Bangani story." JH From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Tue Mar 10 22:00:03 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 23:00:03 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (proposal for virtual sattra) Message-ID: <161227036586.23782.5733788654586743599.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hey, Hey, don't we forget a few important basic topics in the discussion on the Indo-Aryan Invasion? I am first of all thinking of Ritual. Or is it to be categorized under the topic of linguistic arguments, as "the language of ritual"? In any case, Vedic ritual seems to have been a powerful factor of cultural and linguistic standardization and homogenization. Ritual transmits language plus (at least intra-ritual) meaning (including a network of well-established linguistic meanings; one should not be misguided by a limited set of problematic terms). Priest A gives command X, and priest B indeed executes act X, etc. Though Vedic ritual was confined to certain classes of society, there was a radiation to other rituals such as Tantric ritual in which more or less correct Sanskrit was also important. Moreover, the wish to conserve the ritual gave rise to numerous linguistic sciences, among them Nirukta and Vyakarana. And the latter dealt not only with Vedic language, but also with the language of the well-educated. And not only Brahminical authors wanted to be well-educated, also Buddhist and Jaina ones. Again we have found a strong standardizing and homogenizing factor. Their working can be observerd in the post-Christian centuries. To what extent can we extrapolate to the pre-Christian centuries? Wouldn't this affect the argument of "less linguistic diversity within the Indian subcontinent"? Another basic topic is "what early neighbours thought about India". Old Persian and Avestan testimonies would be of main importance here. An interesting article by W.Vogelsang which unfortunately will not be published before the virtual sattra in May is "The Sixteen lands of Videvdat", on a famous passage in the beginning of this text where sixteen lands are enumerated which were created by Ahura Mazda. It is to be published in the autumn issue of Persica. There is no indication that the Zoroastrians projected their origin in the southeast. They rather thought of the north as an early place of origin. Earlier discussions of this passage are: A.Christensen, Le premier chapitre du Vendidad et l'histoire primitive des tribus iraniens, Copenhagen 1943, and G. Gnoli "Avestan Geography" in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 3. Any other suggestions for basic topics and basic literature for the virtual sattra in May? Greetings, Jan Houben From ramakris at EROLS.COM Wed Mar 11 12:07:45 1998 From: ramakris at EROLS.COM (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 04:07:45 -0800 Subject: Request for references on Chitsukha, his works Message-ID: <161227037130.23782.10970469967981960857.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I would be grateful if anyone can point me to references on chitsukha and his works. I am aware of translations of some of his works. I would be interested such info also, but I am mainly interested in studies comparing his works with other schools of thought like buddhism, nyAya etc. Also, has anyone dealt with the topic of which part of India he was from, and has anyone attempted to determine his time period? Thanks. Rama. From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Wed Mar 11 14:18:56 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 08:18:56 -0600 Subject: North Dravidian Message-ID: <161227036602.23782.4215653872110191165.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> North Dravidian languages: Recent Discoveries? *************************************************** Are there any North Dravidian languages discovered, say within the last two or three decades? Apart from Brahui, Malto and Kurukh. The reason I am asking this is because several new unlettered Dravidian languages have been found in South & Central Dravidian language families. What is the latest count on Dravidian languages? 23 ? or 25? In Abhidhaana ChintaamaNi published in 1930 talks of a Dravidian language called "timal" north of Bengal and east of Nepal. Is this true? If so, any description of that language. Father Xavier Thaninayagam in one of his books says he has heard from an English (or Russian?) Professor that in Afghanistan there are about 1000 families speaking a Dravidian language. I read this in Dr. N. Sanjivi's Araayccik kaTTuraikaL, vol. 1; Is this true? I can post exact sentences from Abhidhanna ChintaamaNi and Fr. Thaninayagam's words if needed. Thanks, N. Ganesan From bpj at NETG.SE Wed Mar 11 09:16:34 1998 From: bpj at NETG.SE (B.philip Jonsson) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 11:16:34 +0200 Subject: ASCII-ization of Dravidian sounds. Message-ID: <161227036592.23782.6795445329267685446.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indologists, I need to cite some proto-Dravidian and Dravidian forms in an email, but am at a loss as to transcription. Is there any agreed-upon rendition of such sounds as {_r, _l, _n} with underscore -- apart from the kludge I used just now? Please "Cc:" my own address bpj at netg.se, since I only get the list in index form (have to call long distance to download mail!) Sarvamangalam, /Philip Jonsson +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | PLEASE "cc:" my own address when replying to mailing- | | list posts from me! This is to ensure that I read your responses, | | since I am subscribed to several high-volume lists and receive most | | of them as indexes only. (I have to pay for my downloadingtime! :-) | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Posts written in Net Swenglish (if at all readable to Anglophones!) | | Humor only occasionally marked! MY OPINIONS ARE MINE! | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Unsolicited commercial e-mail entirely declined. I will NEVER buy! | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Froothr saa thykkisk es fregna kann ok segja hit sama (Haavamaal) | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ From D.H.Killingley at NEWCASTLE.AC.UK Wed Mar 11 12:54:18 1998 From: D.H.Killingley at NEWCASTLE.AC.UK (D.H. Killingley) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 12:54:18 +0000 Subject: Two books In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036594.23782.16533290137102101062.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear members of the list, Please allow me to introduce two books on Sanskrit. Yours sincerely, Dermot Killingley --------------------------------------------------------------- Beginning Sanskrit: A practical course based on graded reading and exercises. By Dermot Killingley, revised by Dermot Killingley and Siew-Yue Killingley. Three volumes. Vol I 1996. ISBN 3 89586 062 X. USD 42 / DM 56 / stg 23.60. Vol II in press; vol. III in preparation. The aim of the course is to develop reading ability. Each of the 65 lessons contains explanation, oral practice, a passage for reading, and written exercises. Devanagari is introduced in Lessons 23-27, and is used from then on in all the reading passages; roman script is used thoughout in the explanations, practice sentences and exercises. The grammatical terminology of modern Sanskrit scholarship has been adapted to conform with linguistic theory. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sanskrit By Dermot Killingley and Siew-Yue Killingley. 1995. USD 31.75 / DM 41 / stg 18.65. A sketch of the historical and sociolinguistic setting, phonology, morphology and syntax. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Both books published by: Lincom Europa, Paul Preuss-Str. 25, 80995 Mu"nchen, Germany. e-mail: lincom.europa at t-online.de http://home.t-online.de/home/LINCOM.EUROPA From nozawa at LA.NUMAZU-CT.AC.JP Wed Mar 11 04:44:22 1998 From: nozawa at LA.NUMAZU-CT.AC.JP (Nozawa Masanobu) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 13:44:22 +0900 Subject: Errata of the Vaishesikasutra E-text In-Reply-To: <199803100755.AA00253@Aristotle.la.numazu-ct.ac.jp> Message-ID: <161227036590.23782.7632483649930281684.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> E-text of the Vaishesikasutra I opened yesterday has so far proved to be containing the following errors. The text has been revised with these errors corrected. Errata of Vaishesikasutra E-text errors corrections 1.2.15,17 -vizeSAbhAvAc ca. -vizeSAbhAvena ca. 2.1.22 -AnukRpti- -AnukLpti- 2.2.20 dRSTam adRSTAm. dRSTam adRSTam. 2.2.21 dRSTaM ca dRSTAvat. dRSTaM ca dRSTavat. 2.2.34 kAraNo vikArAt. kAraNato vikArAt. 5.1.15 -ityu - -ity 6.2.13 tanmjayatvAt. tanmayatvAt. $B!!!!!! (B 6.2.17 - dharmaAdharmayoH - dharmAdharmayoH 7.1.2 gu:na- guNa- 7.1.20 missing 7.1.20 dRSTAntAt ca. 7.1.25 tad anitye. 7.1.25 tad anitye 'nityam. 7.2.4 -pRthaktvAbhAvo. -pRthaktvAbhAvo'NutvamahattvAbhyAM vyAkhyAtaH. 7.2.24 sAmAyikaH - sAmayikaH - 9.18 ekArhta- ekArtha- 10.4 -jJAnAntaratve hetuH. -jJAnAbhyAM vyAkhyAtA $B!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (B . Nozawa Masanobu Division of Liberal Arts Numazu College of Technology E-mail: nozawa at la.numazu-ct.ac.jp From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Wed Mar 11 14:14:21 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 14:14:21 +0000 Subject: [Info] New book by Prof. Tokunaga Message-ID: <161227036599.23782.1134312894896641885.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:05:36 +0900 From: Muneo TOKUNAGA Subject: notice of publication [...] --- The new critical edition of the BRhaddevatA is now available for distribution. Since the publisher is not known outside Japan, I would like to give an account of this publication on Indology for those who are interested in the exegetical literature of the Rgveda. TITLE: The BRhaddevatA, Text Reconstructed from the Manuscripts of the Shorter Recension with Introduction, Explanatory Notes, and Indices. December 1997. Editor: Muneo Tokunaga, Professor of Indian Philosophy, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University Size: B5, Fine Cloth Hard Cover, Total 456 pages Price: 14,300 Japanese Yen (and postage). Publisher: Rinsen Book Company 8 Tanaka-shimoyanagi-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto-city Japan 606-8204 Tel: Japan 075-721-7111 (phone personnell only understands Japanese) Free dial: Japan 0120-396166 Fax: Japan 075-781-6168 (Fax order recommended) ISBN: 4-653-03481-8 Table of Contents: Introduction Recensions Legends Relationship with the MahAbhArata Meters (both Slokas and TriSTubh-JagatI verses) Textual History The Rgveda Khilas in the BRhaddevatA (description of all the related passages with special attention to the Kashmir Khila collection) New Manuscripts (found in India, including two of the shorter recension) Text with detailed Critical Apparatus Adhyaayas I -- VIII Explanatory Notes with Special Reference to the Legends Adhyaayas I -- VIII (Explanatory Notes contain analysis of all the legends in the BRhaddevatA, as well as parallel and related passages in Skandasvaamin's commentary on the Rgveda, Durga's commentary on the Nirukta, Skandasvaamin-Maheshvara's commentary on the Nirukta, and others) Index of Vedic PratIkas (including those of the longer version) Index of Words and Names in the BRhaddevaTA (exhaustive index including those of the longer version; grammatically analyzed and arranged) Abbreviations Bibliography Muneo Tokunaga, Kyoto, Japan ---- =============================================== Muneo TOKUNAGA Professor of Indian Philosophy Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan (606-01) Tel: 075-753-2778 email: mtokunag at bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp =============================================== From W.Behr at EM.UNI-FRANKFURT.DE Wed Mar 11 15:09:30 1998 From: W.Behr at EM.UNI-FRANKFURT.DE (Wolfgang Behr) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 16:09:30 +0100 Subject: bangani - non Indo-Aryan Indo-European? Message-ID: <161227036604.23782.250886102816337152.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> For an overview of the "Bangani controversy" cf. also http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/bangani.html on Professor Hook's homepage at the University of Michigan. Best wishes, Wolfgang ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr, Research Fellow , I.I.A.S., Tel. +31-(0)71-527-4159 e-mail: wbehr at rullet.leidenuniv.nl / w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.d400.de ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From roheko at MSN.COM Wed Mar 11 15:44:20 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 16:44:20 +0100 Subject: Electronic texts, irt Jan Dvorak. Message-ID: <161227036606.23782.12897971012026558880.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> All links are to be find with help of the Indology-list If anybody knows a list not linked with Indology just write an email to the list. Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Anshuman Pandey An: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Datum: Mittwoch, 11. M?rz 1998 00:25 Betreff: Electronic texts, irt Jan Dvorak. >Hello, > >Jan Dvorak raised an important question in a recent post about whether >there exists a list of available electronic texts. I know that the >Sanskrit Documents Project housed at jaguar.cs.utah.edu maintains such a >list, but the list does not begin to contain them all. TITUS aims to >provide such a list, however, its enumeration of "Indica" texts is far >from being an exhaustive one. Also, the INDOLOGY website has links to >various sites which house electronic texts, but again there are other >links which are absent. There are other such lists spread across the net, >each with links or texts not found on other lists, ie. John Smith's >bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk server and the kyoto file server upon which >reside the texts of Profs. Yano, Tokunago, Ikari, et al., and John >Gardner's Vedavid. > >Are there any opinions as to whether a comprehensive list of Indic >electronic texts ought to be compiled, and whether such a list would be >beneficial? > >Regards, >Anshuman Pandey > >On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Jan Dvorak wrote: > >> working on a project dealing with the old Indo-Aryan and Dravidian >> literatures we plan to type some texts. I attach a proposed list and ask >> you to let me know if some of them have already been typed anywhere in >> the world. Or is there any center collecting information on available >> electronic texts? Thank you for your responses. > From kappa-y at SH0.PO.IIJNET.OR.JP Wed Mar 11 13:23:41 1998 From: kappa-y at SH0.PO.IIJNET.OR.JP (Yasuhiro Okazaki) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 98 22:23:41 +0900 Subject: An announcement Message-ID: <161227036597.23782.156848976877443190.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Members I will change my E-mail adress (To: kappa-y at nn.iij4u.or.jp), for reasons of the providing services that I use. So my old adress will not be available. I am going to unsub from this mailing list, and soon subscribe to this by my new adress. I am sorry I can not contact all of you for a whole. Best Regards Yasuhiro Okazaki Yasuhiro Okazaki 613-2 Arima, Chiyoda-cho, Hiroshima-ken, Japan 731-15 TEL&FAX +81-826-72-8851 Office Hiroshima Prefectual Kabe High School TEL +81-82-814-2032 From janbrz at MICROTEC.NET Thu Mar 12 15:52:10 1998 From: janbrz at MICROTEC.NET (Jan Brzezinski) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 07:52:10 -0800 Subject: To the lamenters In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036608.23782.13193662404153786121.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In response to the lamenting about lack of interest in Indological matters: Good news! Madonna has come over! Her latest record is full of things like Om shunty shunty shunty. And something which sounds like Hindi, though I do not consider myself qualified to judge. I hear that Alanis Morrissette is also backpacking through India looking for succour. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging and we can expect the Beatles-Maharshi phenomenon to repeat itself. Jan From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Thu Mar 12 19:13:33 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 14:13:33 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion In-Reply-To: <01IUII7SL40896VOTS@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl> Message-ID: <161227036611.23782.5843580052057970904.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Jan E.M. Houben wrote: > No answer was received on an earlier question by me whether there is a good > statement of the Aryans out of India view. I found references to a certain > Dhar, but I don't know the bibliographical details. There is no good comprehensive statement on the Indig. Aryan point of view (a distinction needs to be made between an out-of-India view, and an Indig. Aryan view as I noted in a previous posting). Challenges to the theory go back at least to Dayananda, Vivekanada and Aurobindo (and I am sure that there is a plethora of reactions even earlier in Bengali and other non-English sources). Statements may be in the form of passages inserted here and there in literature dedicated to other topics, or of articles or complete books focused on some aspect of this specific problem. The standard of these materials varies considerably and ranges from what most critical scholars would consider (and have often stated) to be blatantly biased and poor scholarship, to quite brilliant and penetrating insights that really do impel one to reconsider certain of one's own assumptions (in my opinion). For example, Aurobindo's witty and scathing critique in "The Secret of the Veda" so many decades ago of the philological attempt to find racial references to the Aryan invasion in the Rigveda, (a theme which has been taken up by many Indian scholars over the years), has only very recently been echoed in mainstream Western academic circles (see Trautman's 1997 book on the Aryans and British India, and also Hock's forthcoming paper "Through a Glass Darkly..." in the Michigan volume). In short, one has to plough through a lot of material to put a comprehensive Indigenous Aryan case together. In my experience, one gains much if one is prepared to cull and extract useful and insightful comments even from the more blatantly biased or uncritical or 'unscholarly' publications rather than just rejecting them out of hand. I suggest that it is important to also bear in mind that many of these scholars in India do not have access to the same academic facilities and publications that we take so much for granted here in the West. So most of these critiques lack the state-of-the-art minutiae in terms of details, but are still very relevant in questioning the basic assumptions and broad picture that some of us take so much for granted. > Any more suggestions for basic topics to be discussed (not to be solved) in the > month to be selected for a virtual sattra on Indo-Aryan Invasion, for instance > in May, and for important relevant literature to be studied? Well, I'll try to think of some Indig. Aryan stuff that is of better quality as well as easily available if you all feel that this would be useful to this discussion. You requested the biblio of L. Dhar's book "The Home of the Aryas", Delhi U. Pub, 1930 (not 1950 as I stated before) but the only copy of this in the US is in the NY public library, as I recall. Anyway, for a decent start, K.D.Sethna's critique of Parpola's "The Coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the Cultural and Ethnic Identity of the Dasas" in Supplement five of the second part of the *second* edition of his book "The Problem of Aryan Origins" Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1992 (not the 1980 first edition version) is a pretty good example of an Indig. Aryan critique of a particular interpretation of the evidence, albeit an outdated one--Parpola's article was published in Studia Orientalia, vol 64 1988: 195-265 (but bear in mind the time lag between much Western scholarship and it's arrival in, and the response to it from, parts of India). Other parts of Sethna's book are much less convincing, of course, such as his attempt to identify a Harappan wheel in an iconographic symbol, but this does not negate all of his arguments (and that is part of the point I am making above). And the book is not polemical or political in tone. Regards, Edwin Bryant From apandey at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Thu Mar 12 22:41:40 1998 From: apandey at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Anshuman Pandey) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 14:41:40 -0800 Subject: To the lamenters In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036620.23782.495912336048373554.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Jan Brzezinski wrote: > In response to the lamenting about lack of interest in Indological > matters: Good news! Madonna has come over! Her latest record is full of > things like Om shunty shunty shunty. And something which sounds like > Hindi, though I do not consider myself qualified to judge. > > I hear that Alanis Morrissette is also backpacking through India > looking for succour. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging and we can expect > the Beatles-Maharshi phenomenon to repeat itself. Ah, "marketing the mystic East!" Perhaps these two would be so kind as to donate some amount of their record profits to South Asian language and civilization departments. Speaking of American musicians in India, I heard that our beloved Masala Mlecchas, the Spice Girls, want to throw a concert at Khajuraho. Regards, Anshuman Pandey From gadapb9jafna at POL.NET Thu Mar 12 21:09:15 1998 From: gadapb9jafna at POL.NET (Premchand Gada) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 16:09:15 -0500 Subject: change of email address Message-ID: <161227036615.23782.8907941970613855968.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Friend, I have your email address on my file. May be I have contacted you earlier either for JAINA, Jain Academic Foundation of North America (JAFNA) or personally by me or may be we have common friends. My email # has changed and please take a note of a new email address. If you have sent me any email in last week you may send it again at this new address to be sure I have read it. Please excuse me if this email has caused any inconvenience to you. Please reply. Thank you. Regards. Premchand From gadapb9jafna at POL.NET Thu Mar 12 21:10:44 1998 From: gadapb9jafna at POL.NET (Premchand Gada) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 16:10:44 -0500 Subject: change of email address with correct eamil Message-ID: <161227036613.23782.12595009159493635196.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Friend, I have your email address on my file. May be I have contacted you earlier either for JAINA, Jain Academic Foundation of North America (JAFNA) or personally by me or may be we have common friends. My email # has changed and please take a note of a new email address. If you have sent me any email in last week you may send it again at this new address to be sure I have read it. Please excuse me if this email has caused any inconvenience to you. Please reply. Thank you. Regards. Premchand From jage at LOC.GOV Thu Mar 12 21:36:39 1998 From: jage at LOC.GOV (James E. Agenbroad) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 16:36:39 -0500 Subject: change of email address with correct eamil In-Reply-To: <199803122110.QAA14240@web2.po.com> Message-ID: <161227036617.23782.10543574834949411186.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Premchand Gada wrote: > Dear Friend, > > I have your email address on my file. May be I have contacted you earlier either for JAINA, Jain Academic Foundation of North America (JAFNA) or personally by me or may be we have common friends. > > My email # has changed and please take a note of a new email address. If you have sent me any email in last week you may send it again at this new address to be sure I have read it. Please excuse me if this email has caused any inconvenience to you. > > Please reply. Thank you. > > > Regards. > > > Premchand > Thursday, March 12, 1998 I think we're both on the 'Indology' list. Best wishes. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage at LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-9334 U.S.A. From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Thu Mar 12 15:50:39 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 16:50:39 +0100 Subject: bangani - non Indo-Aryan Indo-European? Message-ID: <161227036610.23782.8633639398536528883.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I am grateful to George Thompson and Wolfgang Behr for updating my information on the Bangani issue. The site mentioned by Wolfgang Behr contains cross-links with different parties involved in the controversy. For those who have no (direct) access to the website and/or want to see statements in print, van Driem and Sharma's argument and a rejoinder by Zoller appeared in Indogermanische Forschungen 101 and 102 (which is also mentioned in the statements of the site; no. 102 was not accessible to me at this moment, so that I did not see his printed rejoinder, only the one on the website). To conclude with Kevin Tuite's statement (found via the mentioned site): "I would counsel withholding judgment until more information comes in." JH From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Mar 13 04:54:57 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 20:54:57 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion Message-ID: <161227036624.23782.6102791201106971858.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Edwin Bryant writes: . Challenges to the >theory go back at least to Dayananda, Vivekanada and Aurobindo (and I >am sure that there is a plethora of reactions even earlier in Bengali >and other non-English sources). Statements may be in the form of passages >inserted here and there in literature dedicated to other topics, >or of articles or complete books focused on some aspect of this specific problem. Since Questioning the intentions of the scholars who came up with the whole business of Dravidian vs Aryan in the veda and it( the AI/AM theory)reflecting the divide and rule policy of the British is a recurring theme( in different ways and tones all the way from Aurobindo Ghose to Rajaram and Subhash Kak) with all indigenous theory scholars, I would like to point out( what in my non-academic view point) is a basic fallacy with this whole business. It is true that the British followed a divide and rule policy in India, but their picking on South Indian "Dravidians" and North Indian "Aryans" and dividing them consequentially seems to be a big illogical leap. The Harappa excavations were carried out only in this century, by which time the MAdras province ( i.e. Dravidian) had already acquired the reputation of being "benighted". It is only too very well known that the extremist faction of the Congress ( and consequent terrorist activity) was weak in the South and that the Britishers had labelled Madras as a province that was more governable than the others. (This shows up in one form or the other in the works of both non-Indian and Indian historians- M.Venkatarangaiya,Irschick, Wolpert being just random examples) On the other hand, the provinces which had a lot of political activity( and were regarded as trouble spots) were the Bombay province (Poona city being singled out for special consideration) , BEngal and Punjab.( This is a fact that is so well known that most elementary history books written in India mention it; not to speak of official Indian government sanctioned and commisioned histories like the 2 volume book edited by Dr B.Pattabhiseetaramaiya). In light of this divide between "politically dangerous" and "safe" provinces, would the British have benefitted by classifying all the dangerous states into one category i.e. Aryan and the relatively safe people i.e. Dravidian people into another? The theory would be more credible if they tried to divide the "dangerous" states and races into splinter groups, as opposed to the classification that they came up with. TRanslated into plain English, when one has to fight a group of "lions" and "sheep"( pardon my expressions), who would one fear, the "lion" or the "sheep"...So, when one is trying to win wars by creation of divisions, who would one try to divide, the lions or the sheep? I find the overlooking of this particular point by the revisionists a little strange, unless they've glossed it over because of it's inconvenience. And then, to rub salt into *THEIR*i.e. British wounds( this was the time when "The White Man's Burden" theory was still strong, as can be discerned thru Winston Churchill's utterances), would they( the rulers) actual allow a theory to be postulated about their having a common ancestry with the ruled i.e. the Indians? Our historians who are always ready to talk of "divide and rule" seemed to have overlooked this also. I therefore believe that the people who came up with this whole theory of racial divide did so because of genuine conviction( however flawed their conclusions may have been) and not because of some political agenda of dividing and ruling India... I welcome all comments and explanations for this phenomenon. Regards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From jkirk at MICRON.NET Fri Mar 13 05:06:55 1998 From: jkirk at MICRON.NET (Jo Kirkpatrick) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 22:06:55 -0700 Subject: change of email address Message-ID: <161227036627.23782.9184521902713536717.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> To Listowner: With due respect, why are posts as shown below posted on the list? Isn't this private email? Joanna Kirkpatrick > ****************************** > Premchand Gada wrote: > > > > Dear Friend, > > > > I have your email address on my file. May be I have contacted you earlier either for JAINA, Jain Academic Foundation of North America (JAFNA) or personally by me or may be we have common friends. > > > > My email # has changed and please take a note of a new email address. If you have sent me any email in last week you may send it again at this new address to be sure I have read it. Please excuse me if this email has caused any inconvenience to you. > > > > Please reply. Thank you. > > > > Regards. > > > > Premchand From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Fri Mar 13 04:36:49 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 23:36:49 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion Message-ID: <161227036622.23782.9341497615226105923.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-12 14:17:17 EST, ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU writes: << There is no good comprehensive statement on the Indig. Aryan point of view (a distinction needs to be made between an out-of-India view, and an Indig. Aryan view as I noted in a previous posting). Challenges to the theory go back at least to Dayananda, Vivekanada and Aurobindo (and I am sure that there is a plethora of reactions even earlier in Bengali and other non-English sources). Statements may be in the form of passages inserted here and there in literature dedicated to other topics, or of articles or complete books focused on some aspect of this specific problem. >> The views of late Candrasekaraendra Sarasvati (ZankarAcArya) of Kanchi should also be considered here. According to him, the racial connotation of the terms Arya and Dravida was due to the Divide and Rule policy of the Whites. (teyvattin2 kural, vol.2, 35). In a discussion of the 'research of the Whites: good and bad' ("veLLaiyar ArAycci:nallatum keTTatum" teyvattn2 kural, vol. 2, p. 234-244), he discusses the work of Indologists and Orientalists (Max Mueller, William Jones, Arthur Avalon) and their approach to Vedic studies and Vedic chronology. He also has a short discussion on Indo-European in pages 469-470. Based on the word "danta"/dental he concludes Sanskrit is the mother of English, French, Latin, etc. In a discussion of Vedic religion he says that it was the religion which was prevalent all over the world. (As evidence he gives the Hittite treaty, a Mexican festival he calls "rAmacItA", etc.) Nobody migrated from one place to another to spread the religion. (teyvattin2 kural, vol. 1, 167-175) By the way, is there any reason why the IA experts do not seem to consider Kuiper's book (in which he discusses Deshpande's thesis) as worthwhile to include in their discussion, Indo-Aryan Invasion "focussed discussion"? Regards S. Palaniappan From Vaidix at AOL.COM Fri Mar 13 06:22:07 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 01:22:07 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion Message-ID: <161227036629.23782.12884373752475245376.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Krishna, I am not very keen on a political agenda, but I better answer this one. One has to put different things together for a complete picture. If isolated ideas are discussed, it is easy to get confused. Dravidians were supposed to be barbarian Dasyus! When did they change from being barbarians to meek good cultured sheep? There is no answer because the proposal is false. Dasyus are an ancient European tribe, and according to RGveda they are particularly feroceous and hateful. The aryans were so fed up fighting with them that they finally found the Indian subcontinent a peaceful place to live. This fact was covered up and the Dasyu qualities were imposed on Dravidians who are actually a peaceloving lot. That was a double trick which established European origins of Indian arts and dividing India into North and South. North Indians are politically active because they were the most recent tribes to migrate to Indian subcontinent, and for most recent centuries they have been facing invasions on the north western frontiers. South India has always been peaceful, so it had enough time to develop culturally. The postulate that Aryans moved to India would never have hurt the then white rulers because it was also argued that the Aryans who migrated to India had racially mixed up with the black Dravidians (implying the migrated Aryans lost their racial purity, and so they are no more Aryans in the correct sense of the word). Such an explanation surely establishes that Europeans are superior, at the same time establishes their cultural past (in terms of links to Vedic literature) and is therefore not objectionable. Being less informed linguistically and scientifically, the Indian scholars countered the onslaught with foolish arguments mostly quoting from purANAs which are themselves fictional. To give a parallel, the fight between Indigenous scholars and western scholars is like the battles Britishers had with the Indian kings in which systematic battalions of guns and canons attacked disorganized animal riders holding conventional weapons. There are plenty of weaknesses in AIT that have been covered up nicely, sometimes under scholarly garb. Most foreign scholars still want to view ancient Indian history in fast forward (by dating RGveda at 1500BC). It does not need intense astronomical, historical or archaelogical proofs to dismantle such nonsense, common sense would do. I suggest it is time for indiginous Indologists to stop being reactionary and devote their time to develop the subects as insiders, a skill western scholars can rarely achieve. I believe it is possible to bring up a new generation of scholars who can create new scriptures that the west can later study and interpret (fun intended). Let us concentrate on strengths rather than lament on weaknesses. BTW, politics has to be renounced at the end for any one to understand the core of Indology. Regards, Bhadraiah Mallampalli http://members.aol.com/vaidix From thillaud at UNICE.FR Fri Mar 13 07:38:21 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 08:38:21 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion In-Reply-To: <34866c2a.3508d089@aol.com> Message-ID: <161227036652.23782.5928776520566548534.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Bhadraiah Mallampalli wrote: >the Aryans who migrated to India had >racially mixed up with the black Dravidians (implying the migrated Aryans lost >their racial purity, and so they are no more Aryans in the correct sense of >the word). "racial purity" and "correct sense" sound strangely for a westerner reader: there were the Nazi arguments for the genocid of the gypsies ... Le ventre est encore fecond d'ou nacquit la bete immonde ... Sadly, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From kumar at PIXIE.UDW.AC.ZA Fri Mar 13 08:19:50 1998 From: kumar at PIXIE.UDW.AC.ZA (Prof P Kumar) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 10:19:50 +0200 Subject: To the lamenters Message-ID: <161227036631.23782.16132166880732611476.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > >Ah, "marketing the mystic East!" Perhaps these two would be so kind as to >donate some amount of their record profits to South Asian language and >civilization departments. Speaking of American musicians in India, I heard >that our beloved Masala Mlecchas, the Spice Girls, want to throw a concert >at Khajuraho. > >Regards, >Anshuman Pandey Speaking of the Spice Girls show at Khajuraho-- there has been a serious objection made from the mainline Arti critics in India, not to mention the religious leaders and others. Perhaps can we discuss the ramifications of such criticism for academic study on the one hand and the public or lay perception (mainly religious perception) on the other. The question that we could raise is, is Khajuraho a religious centre or is it an art exhibit? Does any one religious community have a "sole mandate" on it, or does it belong to Indian art. A corrolary question is are Spice Girls doing art? Or are they commercial entertainers? In other words, are Spice Girls claim the space of Khajuraho as artists in traditional sense or are they simply using it for commercial promotion? Any thoughts!!! Pratap Prof. P. Kumar (Head of Dept) Department of Science of Religion University of Durban-Westivlle Private BagX54001 Durban 4000 South Africa Tel: 027-31-204-4539 (work) Fax: 027-31-204-4160 (work) Email: kumar at pixie.udw.ac.za Director of the 18th Quinquennial Congress of the IAHR Durban- August 5-12 2000 For more info on the Congress please see: http://www.udw.ac.za/iahr From roheko at MSN.COM Fri Mar 13 10:44:48 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 11:44:48 +0100 Subject: Papers - Where to send articles? Message-ID: <161227036634.23782.11802117638796518460.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does probably anyone know about a list of institutions, publishers or so, to whom Indological papers can presented for publishing? Of course they all have to be written in English language. Are there anyone versed in translating French, Italian, Spain, Dutch and German articles into English? Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU Fri Mar 13 20:08:14 1998 From: reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU (Luis Gonzalez-Reimann) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 12:08:14 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (proposal for virtual sattra) Message-ID: <161227036647.23782.8062171134752015954.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jan Houben wrote, >Any more suggestions for basic topics to be discussed (not to be solved) in the >month to be selected for a virtual sattra on Indo-Aryan Invasion, for instance >in May, and for important relevant literature to be studied? A topic that I have never seen mentioned when the discussion comes up is whether we can draw any conclusions from references to weather or the environment in the Rg Veda and Iranian texts. More specifically, the fact that whereas water plays an important role in both Rg Vedic and Iranian mythologies, in Iran it is mainly through images of rivers, while in the Rg Veda rain is added as an important element, and it grows in importance as times goes on. This coincides with the fact that monsoon weather covers the subcontinent but it doesn't reach Iran. A recent article that mentions this is G. V. Vajracharya's "The Adaptation of Monsoonal Culture by Rgvedic Aryans: A Further Study of the Frog Hymn," in the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 3,2 (1997). Luis Gonzalez-Reimann University of California, Berkeley From tritsch at MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE Fri Mar 13 11:41:36 1998 From: tritsch at MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (Mark F. Tritsch) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 12:41:36 +0100 Subject: Man/nature traditions (India) Message-ID: <161227036637.23782.6788829920283104051.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I am currently collecting material for an Indian nature guide. One of the sections will cover traduitional relationships between people and nature/wildlife in India. One idea I have is to contrast the shikari tradition still found among traditional hunting castes like the Rajputs with the principles of Ahimsa most vehemently espoused by the Jainas but also perfused through all of hinduism. There are also many other possible aspects. I would like to receive suggestions as to secondary literature (bibliographies!) and source material. Can anyone help me? Many thanks in advance. Mark Tritsch *************************************************** Dr. Mark F. Tritsch Breslauer Strasse 14 B 65203 Wiesbaden GERMANY Tel/Fax: +49 611 691497 *************************************************** From Alan.Thew at LIVERPOOL.AC.UK Fri Mar 13 18:03:40 1998 From: Alan.Thew at LIVERPOOL.AC.UK (Alan Thew) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 18:03:40 +0000 Subject: [admin] Old archive server shutdown Message-ID: <161227036644.23782.10022908534555081630.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The new software and archives have been up and running now since September of last year. The server that used to host the archives for gopher and web access will be shortly shut down although a minimal version will continue to give pointers to the new server for sometime. Unfortunately several of the web indexers still list the old data (I have mailed Excite about this today). There will be no gopher access after the shutdown. If people complain to your list that data is not available, please point them to the URL: http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives Thanks. -- Alan Thew alan.thew at liverpool.ac.uk Computing Services,University of Liverpool Fax: +44 151 794-4442 From xpolakis at HOL.GR Fri Mar 13 16:36:29 1998 From: xpolakis at HOL.GR (Antreas P. Hatzipolakis) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 18:36:29 +0200 Subject: Indian Philosophy and Mathematics Message-ID: <161227036639.23782.12157846601243413446.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello, Following is a message I received from Prof. B. Ravindra. I am fwd-ing it to the Indology list (with his permission), since one paragraph (marked with ********) is related to Indian Philosophy. I have some questions on the Subject: Indian Philosophy and Mathematics 1. Which was the role of the Indian Philosophy (Brahmanism) in great S. Ramanujan's Mathematics? 2. Are there influences of Indian Philosophies on Modern Mathematical Theories/ inventions? Thanks, and apologies for this long message and my bad English. Greetings from Athens Antreas FWD Message ------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ravindra Subject: Re: Request To: xpolakis at hol.gr (Antreas P. Hatzipolakis) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 15:42:49 +0100 (MET) Dear Antreas, [...] Some reflections on the recent debate in Math-history list concerning Dieudonne's 'mathematics as the Music of Reason', Whiggism in Math-history and the role of external factors in the development of pure mathematics: In history and philosophy of science there is a distinction between 'context of discovery' and 'context of justification'. For some, context (and process) of discovery is not a meaningful category. (Poincare and Hadamard are exceptions) It is probable that one's prejudices, psychological and cultural influences might play a role in the process of discovery. Kepler is one good example in this case. But perhaps, Riemann is a better example. Felix Klein speculated that Riemann might have used Electrostatic analogies to obtain his results in complex function theory. ******** Whatever may be the case with Riemann's inspiration in complex function theory, his investigation of Geometry was influenced also by the teachings of the psychologist Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841). Can somebody tell me to what extent Grassmann's preoccupation with his translation of 'Rig veda' might have influenced his 'Ausdehnungslehre'? (Or is this a meaningful question for a historian of mathematics!) Is it true that Brouwer acknowledges 'Gita'? (I run the risk of being branded as ethnocentric here) Discussing the origins of mathematical ideas, like duality is another example. A nice paper in a recent Isis on ''infinity'' and influence of Cathars in thirteenth century might provide interesting reading. The role of ergodic theory and statistical mechanics in pure mathematics such as measure theory, inspiration for Girard's linear logic, etc one can go on. Gibbs lectures in Bull AMS give ample number of such examples and remind us that the distinction between 'pure' and 'applied' is somewhat spurious. The structuralist controversy in Humanities and social sciences and Bourbaki's program have similarities. There is enough room for speculation in Weil and Levi-strauss. (One can see its impact on Philosophy of Stegmueller). The topic of this discussion is deep and one needs to discuss 'poverty of historicism' and how it was countered by various philosophers and historians. Mathematics poses several problems for Kuhnian framework. I tend to believe that the emergence of set theory and 'modern math' is a decisive break. For some, paradigm is a dirty word and for Kuhn 'deconstruction' is not acceptable. One need to judge their relevance to math-history. Scientific process always involves in breaking with tradition and again seeking a reunion with it. Mathematicians (and scientists) take comfort in (whiggish?) historical reflections (exception: Van der waerden). It is necessary for their sustenance in their profession and inspiration for further work. Tracing their lineage as far back in time as possible.. Was it Schrodinger who wrote '2400 years of quantum mechanics'? History is an ongoing dialogue between the past and the present. (Carr!) Another (whiggish?) example: In the prehistory of integral calculus, an important place is occupied by the remarkable work of Kepler ''Stereometry of Wine Barrels'' (see Vol. 9 of his Gesammelte Werke). Integrals that give the volume of solids of revolution used in commerce were calculated in this work at a time when the general definition of an integral had not yet appeared. The mathematical theory of Feynman's magnificient integrals, which physicists write in vast numbers, is not really far removed from the stereometry of wine barrels. - Y. Manin, Mathematics and Physics, P93, Birkhaeuser. (btw, is there an account of history of volume computations of wine barrels? reminds me of Heidelberg schloss wine barrels!) Recently, we learnt that volume computation is difficult! (Computing the Volume is difficult: Proc. of the 18th Annual Symp.on Theory of computing, pp 442-447, 1986, by I. Barany, Z. Furedi.) Juxtaposing these facts in such a manner might look silly for a historian, but it is exciting for those who pursue scientific activity! As Borges said ''Every genius creates its own ancestors''. History is not static and just a dead pile of facts. Of course one needs to remember: Alisdair MacIntyre in After Virtue (1984, p91): 'Charles II once invited the members of the Royal Society to explain to him why a dead fish weighs more than the same fish alive; a number of subtle explanations were offered to him. He then pointed out that it does not'. On mathematicians as the vanguards of reason and rationality: Chance and Chaos, D. Ruelle, Chapter 2 (page 8): ''Mathematical talent often develops at an early age. This is a common observation, to which the great Russian Mathematician Andrei N. Kolmogorov added a curious suggestion. He claimed that the normal psychological development of a person is halted at precisely the time when mathematical talent sets in. In this manner, Kolmogorov attributed to himself a mental age of twelve. He gave only an age of eight to his compatriot Ivan M. Vinogradov, who was for a long time a powerful and very much feared member of the Soviet Academy of sciences. The eight years of Academician Vinogradov corresponded, according to Kolmogorov, to the age when little boys tear off the wings of butterflies and attach old cans to the tails of cats. Probably it would not be too hard to find counterexamples to Kolmogorov' theory, but it does seem to be right remarkably often.'' I do not know where does one put Dieudonne in this scale but do believe, it is not a good idea to insist that only eminent Mathematicians (or Field medallists alone) should tell us what the music of reason is all about! The controversy of 'elitism' will disappear if we shift the analogy from music to atheleticism in sports. Indeed Hardy does compare Mathematics to doing sport, as it is difficult to prove big theorems, as one gets older. Probably the same thing is not true for music. Best regards, Ravindra ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr B. Ravindra Residence: Care Professor P. Hagedorn wohnung 3, Institut fur mechanik II Dieburger strasse, 241 Hochschul str. 1 Lichtenberg house TU, Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt-64287 Darmstadt, Germany E-mail: ravindra at ag2.mechanik.tu-darmstadt.de Phone: Phone (off): 49-(0)-6151-162285 (Res) 49-(0)-6151-700823 Fax: 49-(0)-6151-164125 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- END --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From xpolakis at HOL.GR Fri Mar 13 17:07:14 1998 From: xpolakis at HOL.GR (Antreas P. Hatzipolakis) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 19:07:14 +0200 Subject: science topics Message-ID: <161227036642.23782.9796715385789537126.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 6 Mar 1998, Alok Kumar wrote: >I am a new member to this list. I teach a course on the contributions of >various ancient civilizations to science at the State University of New >York, Oswego. I have seen many science textbooks that indicate that the >place-value notations, zero, and the trigonometric function "sin" were >originated in India. However, I have not seen any recent article that >provides primary references. Almost all articles provide secondary >references. I would appreciate any help on this issue. > >Alok Kumar >Department of Physics >State University of New York >Oswego, NY 13126. On the sin: A recent interesting paper by the distinguished Math. Historian Takao Hayashi: Aryabhata's Rule and Table for Sine-Differences. Historia Mathematica 24(1997), 396-406 (with a rich bibliography) Greetings from Athens. Antreas PS: Greetings to your colleague George B. From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 14 05:06:51 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 21:06:51 -0800 Subject: Indian Philosophy and Mathematics Message-ID: <161227036654.23782.18007287157444842982.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dr Antreas Hatzipola asks: > >1. Which was the role of the Indian Philosophy (Brahmanism) >in great S. Ramanujan's Mathematics? AFAIK, Ramanujan was a deeply religious person who brought in his family diety, nAmagiri,( the consort of narasimha in nAmakkal) into every mathematical discussion...one of his early feats( not an original idea, but a mathematical feat) was to reel off the Mc Laurin expansions for complex functions without the benefit of paper and pencil: i.e. something like the Mc Laurin series expansion of (e**2x)*cos(2x)*tan(3x)...... Asked how he managed it, his reply would be : "nAmagiri said so"/"nAmagiri appeared to me in my dream and wrote it on a blackboard"( The last statement also occurs in some of his theorems in number theory) I don't think ( based on my perusal of "The Man who knew Infinity", "The collected letters and papers of Ramanujan" and S.R.Ranganathan's book on Ramanujan) that he directly used Hindu philosophy in any of his mathematical theories. There are references to his talking about the mystical significance of certain series e.g.N= (2**n) -1; for n=1 , we get N=1 i.e. God, for n=2, we get N=3 i.e. the trinity, n=3, N=7 (saptarsi) etc etc. but this seems to be a simple interpretation instead of any new mathematical truth. > >2. Are there influences of Indian Philosophies on Modern Mathematical Theories/inventions? I am not a mathematician professionally, but have a very healthy interest in mathematics and specially in number theory. As a result of perusing papers,I have therefore seen very few SPECIFIC MENTIONS of Hindu philosophy in papers/books. The only place where I've directly seen a mention is in the autobiography("Across 50 years"), of the late Sir S.V.Ramamurti, a ICS officer who was an amateur mathematician. He claims that he developed some concept in number theory thru Hindu philosophy(details not stated) and showed it( or rather, barged into the office of :-) Albert Einstein and tried to get Einstein to read it; Einstein went thru it once or twice and returned it as being a little too complex for him to understand and being outside his field of expertise. I am speculating here, but there COULD be some related work ( in this context)by one Dr Erakkal Chandy George Sudarshan, a prof at UT Austin, AFAIK. I remember reading in a newspaper report some 7-8 years ago that he was deeply influenced by Hinduism in both his personal and professional life; but then newspapers aren't the best sources for scientific research. Hoping to help, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 14 05:44:39 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 21:44:39 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion Message-ID: <161227036656.23782.16160961079017720665.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear List members, I know some of you don't like discussions which are not based on "research" i.e. field work/scholarly research etc..obviously this whole business of attributing motives to indologists is based completely on speculation and I beg pardon for starting the whole business...if it gets a little too boring/un-academic, please let me know.... Bhadriah Mallampalli writes: <> This sentence is exactly what I was questioning...In light of the fact that there was no political activity in the south, what was the point i.e. what was the British gain by division into Aryan and Dasyu races? In other words, what was the point in dividing things into North and South India? I also am not sure of what you mean by "European Origins of Indian Arts"? Was it ever claimed that "Indian Arts were derived from Europe? If so, may I request for the source of information? If this is what the Europeans wanted to prove, TRUST ME, they didn't have to come up with such an elaborate story. In the 19th century, there was enough borrowing from European art, music and literature into various Indian languages/cultures, in music, for example, in music,Muttusvami Dikshitar wrote what he called "nOTTusvaram"( a samskrt lyric for a borrowed band/Suropean tunes) as did Tyagaraja( his "sara sara" in kuntalavarali was based on a band song); bAlusvAmi dIkshitar ad(o/a)pted the violin into Carnatic music. In Bengal, Tagore used many western tunes for his songs and Atul Prosad Sen used ITalian Gondolier songs( The patriotic song "Utthogo Bharata Lokkhi" for e.g.). In painting, the Bengal school of art was very much influenced by European painting. In literature, works in different Indian languages were also inspired by the west e.g. in Telugu, "rAjasEkhara caritamu" was inspired by the "Vicar of Wakefield",in marATHI, "zunzar rAv" was inspired by "Macbeth" being two random examples. The point I'm trying to make is that they had lots of DIRECT evidence for proving this influence business instead of looking for such nebulous and long-drawn out theories. <> I'm afraid that this argument is completely incorrect. As support, please read about the case of "Vishnu Sakharam Pandit vs the United States Immigration Service" circa 1920. This V.S.Pandit, the first Indian to legally settle down in the US, based his case on the fact that he was a pure blooded Aryan and was therefore not inferior to the West Europeans who were allowed to migrate to the USA in the 1920s . He managed to convince an American judge in the 1920s( date emphasized because of the very strong anti-Asian bias that these people had) of his argument by quoting texts and papers; I therefore am at a loss to understand how you concluded that the Europeans argued that "purity had been lost"?( since there had to be irrefutable evidence for this gentleman to win his case against the INS) Regards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN Sat Mar 14 00:49:49 1998 From: narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN (DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA) Date: Sat, 14 Mar 98 05:49:49 +0500 Subject: Indian Philosophy and Mathematics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036649.23782.2900549020972776838.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 06:36 PM 3/13/98 +0200, you wrote: >Hello, > >Following is a message I received from Prof. B. Ravindra. >I am fwd-ing it to the Indology list (with his permission), since one paragraph >(marked with ********) is related to Indian Philosophy. > >I have some questions on the Subject: Indian Philosophy and Mathematics > >1. Which was the role of the Indian Philosophy (Brahmanism) >in great S. Ramanujan's Mathematics? > >2. Are there influences of Indian Philosophies on Modern Mathematical Theories/ >inventions? > >Thanks, and apologies for this long message and my bad English. > > >Greetings from Athens > >Antreas > > If I remember correctly, Ramanujan when questioned about his method of solving problems, replied that he was able to solve them by the grace of "Godess of Namakkal" and that she showed him the solutions in his dreams. regards, sarma. From Vaidix at AOL.COM Sat Mar 14 12:43:36 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Sat, 14 Mar 98 07:43:36 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion Message-ID: <161227036658.23782.803525402972580610.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members, I fully understand that whatever I wrote is politically and ethically incorrect. There is no documental proof of any of the intentions of researchers or the erstwhile rulers of India. I fully understand that this is a research forum. Every researcher should know that their research findings are understood differently by society. The overtones and other tendencies not necesarily expressed in the findings can become part of folklore. You may see nothing in Prof. Max Mueller's or others' writings, but what you see in articles published in Sunday newspapers are only the overtones. This is what the public sees. That is the reason why so much heat is generated when you raise subjects like AIT. People (including me) are willing to forget all scholarship and jump into emotions. AIT is a clear case of improper research methodology. When other alternatives are completely ignored branding them nationalistic, it is not research any more. Till now the focus has been on AIT and indiginous theories. My proposal is for a midway which picks the best of both theories. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Sat Mar 14 14:03:32 1998 From: bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Bijoy Misra) Date: Sat, 14 Mar 98 09:03:32 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036660.23782.17659043387005043888.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indology list members, I have been following various discussions on this topic and can understand the rudeness of the colonial researchers and opinions of the natioalist scholars. For persons from the subcontinent, the topic does get emotional. I seem to agree with Ed Bryant's views to create a scholarly debate on the topic such that the evidences are presented and defended. A set of books/papers on a particular evidence may be recommended for people to refer and express opinions. As has been suggested one can take up a particular topic for a couple of months, move on and revisit later. The material on the debate can be indexed and archived. If this is agreeable, let the first ball roll.. We may begin with the evidence of outside origin on language. Let a proponent enumerate and present. Regards - Bijoy Misra On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Edwin Bryant wrote: > On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Jan E.M. Houben wrote: > > > No answer was received on an earlier question by me whether there is a good > > statement of the Aryans out of India view. I found references to a certain > > Dhar, but I don't know the bibliographical details. > > There is no good comprehensive statement on the Indig. Aryan point of view > (a distinction needs to be made between an out-of-India view, and an > Indig. Aryan view as I noted in a previous posting). Challenges to the > theory go back at least to Dayananda, Vivekanada and Aurobindo (and I > am sure that there is a plethora of reactions even earlier in Bengali > and other non-English sources). Statements may be in the form of passages > inserted here and there in literature dedicated to other topics, > or of articles or complete books focused on some aspect of this specific > problem. > > The standard of these materials varies considerably and ranges > from what most critical scholars would consider (and have often stated) to > be blatantly biased and poor scholarship, to quite brilliant and > penetrating insights that really do impel one to reconsider certain of > one's own assumptions (in my opinion). For example, Aurobindo's witty and > scathing critique in "The Secret of the Veda" so many decades ago of the > philological attempt to find racial references to the Aryan invasion in > the Rigveda, (a theme which has been taken up by many Indian scholars over > the years), has only very recently been echoed in mainstream Western > academic circles (see Trautman's 1997 book on the Aryans and British > India, and also Hock's forthcoming paper "Through a Glass Darkly..." in > the Michigan volume). > > In short, one has to plough through a lot of material to put a > comprehensive Indigenous Aryan case together. In my experience, one gains > much if one is prepared to cull and extract useful and insightful comments > even from the more blatantly biased or uncritical or 'unscholarly' > publications rather than just rejecting them out of hand. I suggest that > it is important to also bear in mind that many of these scholars in India > do not have access to the same academic facilities and publications that > we take so much for granted here in the West. So most of these critiques > lack the state-of-the-art minutiae in terms of details, but are still very > relevant in questioning the basic assumptions and broad picture that some > of us take so much for granted. > > > Any more suggestions for basic topics to be discussed (not to be solved) > in the > > month to be selected for a virtual sattra on Indo-Aryan Invasion, for instance > > in May, and for important relevant literature to be studied? > > Well, I'll try to think of some Indig. Aryan stuff that is of better > quality as well as easily available if you all feel that this would be > useful to this discussion. You requested the biblio of > L. Dhar's book "The Home of the Aryas", Delhi U. Pub, 1930 (not 1950 as > I stated before) but the only copy of this in the US is in the NY public > library, as I recall. Anyway, for a decent start, K.D.Sethna's critique > of Parpola's "The Coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the Cultural > and Ethnic Identity of the Dasas" in Supplement five of the > second part of the *second* edition of his book "The Problem of Aryan > Origins" Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1992 (not the 1980 first edition > version) is a pretty good example of an Indig. Aryan critique of a > particular interpretation of the evidence, albeit an outdated > one--Parpola's article was published in Studia Orientalia, vol 64 1988: > 195-265 (but bear in mind the time lag between much Western scholarship > and it's arrival in, and the response to it from, parts of India). Other > parts of Sethna's book are much less convincing, of course, such as his > attempt to identify a Harappan wheel in an iconographic symbol, but this > does not negate all of his arguments (and that is part of the point I am > making above). And the book is not polemical or political in tone. > > Regards, Edwin Bryant > From amnev at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 14 21:04:25 1998 From: amnev at HOTMAIL.COM (Amos Nevo) Date: Sat, 14 Mar 98 13:04:25 -0800 Subject: MSS Collections Message-ID: <161227036662.23782.2811516765358332524.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Shalom to all members of the list, I shall be grateful if anyone could help me with the exact addresses of three Sanskrit Mss collections: 1. Shastri Suryashankar Tuljashankar - Jodiya, Kathiawad, Gujarat. 2. Private library of HH the maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir. 3. Govind Shastri Nirantar - Nasik. Thanks in advance. Amos Nevo 14/51 Bolivia St. Jerusalem 96746 ISRAEL fAX. 972 2 6419215 Email: amnev at hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU Sun Mar 15 04:11:42 1998 From: reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU (Luis Gonzalez-Reimann) Date: Sat, 14 Mar 98 20:11:42 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan invasion Message-ID: <161227036664.23782.18299020209650066078.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A propos the gypsies: At 11:54 PM 3/4/98 +0100, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: >>Relevant point. My impression is that gypsy languages borrow to some extent >>(an expert would have to say how much). In Norway, there is a gypsy dialect >>called "lovari". This word comes from the Hungarian word "lo", possessive >>"lova", which means "horse". Lovari is then the language of the >>horse-traders! Guess where this group of gypsies had been. _____ In an earlier posting, someone wrote of the Gypsies leaving India in the 6th century or so. At the time I hesitated, and then kept quiet, but shouldn't it have to be the 11th century? I thought there was general agreement on this. Am I wrong? The following is from the Britannica (the author is not mentioned): It is likely, from the evidence of comparative linguistics, that Romany separated from related North Indian languages in about AD 1000. Modern Gypsy dialects all over the world have been classified (by the Slovenian scholar Franz von Miklosich) according to their European originals, of which there are 13: Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Czecho-Slovak, German, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Scandinavian, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Welsh, and Spanish. The dialectal differentiations originated during the Gypsies' stay in the regions where these languages were spoken; while living in these regions they accepted many loanwords from the native languages and sometimes phonetic and even grammatical features. The vocalic (vowel) and consonantal systems of all Romany dialects are clearly derived from Sanskrit. Some of the changes correspond to those undergone by modern Indian languages; others represent a more archaic state (e.g., the preservation of initial consonant clusters dr-, tr- and medial st[h], st[h]); and a few are difficult to explain. The vowels of a typical central European dialect (Cracow-Lovari) are i, e, a, o, u. Indo-Aryan retroflex consonants have disappeared from the consonantal system, while Slavic fricative and affricate sounds have been accepted. Romany possesses a grammatical system analogous to that of the modern North Indian languages. The Romany direct case represents the Sanskrit nominative and accusative, while the oblique is derived from the genitive. Various postpositions (elements occurring after the noun) can also be added, as in Hindi or Bengali, for other syntactic purposes. The verbal system has three persons, two numbers, five tenses (present, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, and future), and three moods. It is in its vocabulary that Romany best reflects the wanderings of its speakers. The main sources (apart from the original Indian stock) are Iranian (doshman "enemy," from Persian doshman), Armenian, Greek (drom "way," from ? ), Romanian (bolta "shop," from bolta), Hungarian (bino "sin," from bun), and the Slavic languages (glas "voice," rebniko "pond," grob "tomb," dosta "enough," ale "but"). Indo-Aryan words include bokh "hunger," from Hindi bhukh; bal "hair," from Sanskrit bala; gelo "gone," the past participle of za "go" (compare Bengali jawa, g?lo); and rat "blood," from Prakrit ratta. Luis Gonzalez-Reimann University of California, Berkeley From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Sun Mar 15 05:53:14 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 00:53:14 -0500 Subject: Palm leaf manuscripts Message-ID: <161227036666.23782.16205888421371287865.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a posting dated Mon, 5 Jan 1998 18:49:52 -0500 Michael Witzel said about some manuscripts in north India/Nepal: "All written with ink (except for a very few South Indian MSS in the National Archives, inscised with stylus)." Is incising palm-leaf manuscripts with stylus a southern Indian custom? How were manuscripts prepared in the north ? Only by writing instead of incising? Has the word nArAca ever been used to mean 'stylus' in the north/Sanskrit? Regards S. Palaniappan From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Sun Mar 15 06:01:44 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 01:01:44 -0500 Subject: etymology of karN Message-ID: <161227036668.23782.12924723396302571663.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does the Sanskrit word "karN" as in {karNayati} , to pierce , bore or karNi meaning the act of splitting , breaking through have a widely accepted IE etymology? Regards S. Palaniappan From Vaidix at AOL.COM Sun Mar 15 10:54:40 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 05:54:40 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion Message-ID: <161227036670.23782.1388934046235261749.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Krishna, I am sorry I took off on a tangent in my last mails. The facts you presented can not be challenged. Officially the British never committed slander, bound as they were by their highly developed legal and administrative systems. They were also aware of the politically and legally enlightened intelligentia. The north south divide can not be attributed to them, even though the undercurrent of division was always there. Examples are encouraging a discussion of division of India (even though there was no popular opinion or upsurge in favor of a division), and an undisclosed plan to balkanise it (this is brought to light and discussed widely in Indian news papers in later 80s). The balkanisation plan was supposed to be a backup plan in case a division can not be done. Divide and rule is a frequent accusation against British, but we have learnt by today that it is just a standard office practice in the modern organization (which we follow to date). Remember it was Britishers who brought the modern organization to India. India never had formal organizations except in king's courts. The kings mostly depended on faith loyalty and patriotism to safeguard their assets. The only objectionable items that I heard of in scholarly materials were the explanation of Dasyus, and the mix up of Chandraguptas I and II (and other related misunderstandings) and the history taught in schools. Prof Max Mueller's team toiled and collected mss, and translated them but nobody in India cared to read them with the exception of his popular book on ancient Indian history. The ony slanderous material that I once glanced through was supposedly printed by Christian missionaries. This literature was understood as having endorsement by British. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From thillaud at UNICE.FR Sun Mar 15 10:12:26 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 11:12:26 +0100 Subject: etymology of karN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036672.23782.1685356656751683353.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S. Palaniappan asked : >Does the Sanskrit word "karN" as in {karNayati} , to pierce , bore or karNi >meaning the act of splitting , breaking through have a widely accepted IE >etymology? Mayrhofer (KEWA) gives just an entry "karNa" (ear, loop) with the comment (I translate from German for Indian readers): "As the basic meaning is probably "Spitze, Herausragendes" (point, up rising), the word is perhaps from *qol-no-s, see Lituanian "kalnas" (mountain); the meaning being very near of Greek "kolophOn", (palatalized) Russian "celo" (point)." He rejects a metathesis from *kel-eu- (to hear) > zRNoti. My point of view: Semantically, it seems we have a general meaning "prominent, protuberant": Russian "celo" is also "front" and Greek words give related meanings: "kolophOn" (top, achievement); "keleontes" (vertical weaving loom's uprights). But the meaning "to pierce" is in other words: "kolaptO" (to gash, to peck, to stake out); "kolios", "keleus" (woodpecker). Actually, a metaphor "to pierce"/"to rise up" is known by the French "percer" which can be used for "to become famous" for a man, or "to come up" for a plant. Phonetically there is a difficulty in Greek with the initial stop, the forms excluding a labiovalar ("po", "te" expected); an evolution *qo > Greek ko is just known in the case of a dissimilation by "u": boukolos < *gvou-qolos (cattleman, see gocaraH) against hippopolos (horseman). Possibly, we can imagine a *q(near L) > Gr. k as in *wLqos (vRka) > Gr. lukos (the L in *qL becoming normally "ol" in Greek), but there are other explanations of the difficult word "lukos". Moreover, we don't have never *qe > Gr. ke. Perhaps the easier way would be to suppose a root *kel-, fitting well for the meaning with Latin "celeber" (famous), and to explain karN (*zarN expected) by an labialization induced from "l" (the same thing occuring in Lituanian)??? Mythologically, that's easy to understand the hero's name karNa as "famous, out of the common": eldest son of kuntI, despite his obscure birth he is supposed becoming even better than arjuna. The reference to the earrings could be a secondary motivation of the name (his Greek parallel Glaukos bears just a golden plate). Hoping to help, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Mar 16 00:34:35 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 16:34:35 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036688.23782.7751661332111399575.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Charles Poncet says: >> > >Talking about scholarship and the sometimes inevitable overlap with >"political" issues, what do you guys make of the contention, recently >expressed in a book by David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein, that the >whole idea of an Aryan invasion is a western invention and that the >Indus civilization essentially disappeared because of a change in the >course of the Sarasvati river ? I found the book entertaining and well >argued, if at times a little manichean, In this context does anybody have the adds of Dr Klaus Kostermaier of UManitoba? IF so, with consensus may we invite him to take part in this AIT/AMT debate? He was the academic who gave Messrs Kak,Feurstein and Frawley a glowing review; this review is normally passed off by this school as *proof* of it's mainstream acceptance. I'm sure we would all benefit from finding out why Dr Kostermaier says what he says..... REgards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From cssetzer at MUM.EDU Sun Mar 15 22:47:05 1998 From: cssetzer at MUM.EDU (Claude Setzer) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 16:47:05 -0600 Subject: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? Message-ID: <161227036686.23782.1105372846705651190.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I believe there is only one such software, that has passed through several hands over the years (including David Hewlett of Hewlett Packard). I have access to it, however, I have not actually used it because it is very slow, runs only on an old MAC, and makes too many mistakes to actually save any time (due to required editing). Even the best English ones, that require extensive knowledge of English usage and dictionary to achieve good accuracy are not all that good. Some of the best English ones only achieve 99% accuracy on reasonably good text. The devanagari one is more like 95%, which means a huge amount of editing. Some work is being done on adding an extensive Sanskrit grammar and dictionary to the above software, which could to bring it up to "English" error levels, but it is on the back burner and certainly many years off. Another option which may only a slight chance of being implemented is the Verbot (PC base verbal robot) approach which carries on conversations in English now and promises to be extended to other languages in the next few years. I think these people are going to have better and less expensive voice recognition than what is available now, and since Sanskritists are sometimes willing to put more attention on "consistent" pronunciation than speakers of other languages, this might prove to be quite interesting as a way to enter text. Claude Setzer cssetzer at mum.edu -----Original Message----- From: Viktor V. Sukliyan To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Date: Sunday, March 15, 1998 10:46 AM Subject: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? >Does anybody out there know about availibility of software for >OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION (OCR) of Indian fonts(Devanagari, >Bengali etc) for purpose of scanning Indian texts with further >conversion them in text files? >It is known that we have this facility for european languages. >What about Indian languages? > >With best regards >Viktor Sukliyan. > From umadevi at SFO.COM Mon Mar 16 01:06:57 1998 From: umadevi at SFO.COM (Mary Storm) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 17:06:57 -0800 Subject: To the lamenters Message-ID: <161227036690.23782.10139616858709093224.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > > Jan Brzezinski wrote: > > > Good news! Madonna has come over! Her latest record is full of > > things like Om shunty shunty shunty. And something which sounds > > like Hindi, though I do not consider myself qualified to judge. > > Good gracious! We missed out entirely on that here. The Indian > papers I have seen claim that she has become a Kabbalist, and they > were rather satirical about that. > > > I hear that Alanis Morrissette is also backpacking through India > > looking for succour. > > (Please let me know, anyone, whether and when she reaches Mysore. My > daughter wants to meet her.) > > > Perhaps the pendulum is swinging and we can expect the > > Beatles-Maharshi phenomenon to repeat itself. > > Perhaps this is something for an anthropological study: the > Beatles, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Quintessence,... what they > did and what prompted them to be like they were. > > RZ I understand Yanni is quite a hero in some quarters because he gave a large part of the proceeds of his Taj concert to preservation efforts. I don't know if this really happened, but that is the gossip. While the idea of Yanni, the Spice Girls or Madonna performing at an important Indian cultural site seems to be a bit of an appalling aesthetic misfit, the nexus of Indian temples and entertainment has been present in the past. Besides the historic precedents of music and dance offerings associated with puja, there are numerous modern Indian productions of dance and music performances. There have been regular classical dance festivals held at Khajuraho and at Konarak for quite a while. If the concern is the crass materialism that that "Material Girl" and her ilk represent, commercialism has also been a part of traditional temple compounds, there have always been vendors selling puja materials, bangles, saris, and now post cards, calendar prints, plastic toys , etc within the area of the temple walls. The pendulum does swing both ways: calendar prints originated with Indian artists, such as Raja Ravi Varma or Bamapada Bandopadhaya, who were curious about Western oil painting effects and Western oleographic printing techniques (the Kalighat school and other Indian pilgrimage painting styles were also, of course, part of the process). The style eventually swung back to a more Indianized aesthetic, but still retained certain Western elements of shading and perspective. Calendar prints continued to follow certain Western fashions in hair styles, make-up, etc. Then in the 1960's and '70's ISKCON devotees started producing calendar prints in a more overtly Westernized style employing oils once again and using 18th classical and 19th c. romantic elements as conceits for new interpretations of Radha and Krsna idylls. Now Indian artists are producing new interpretations of those ISKCON paintings. Western fascination with Indian aesthetic interpretation and Western pastiches of Indian art are nothing new. Many of these seemingly frivolous forays into Orientalism were to become influential points in 19th c. Western romanticism. Shubert's opera Sakuntala was a German interpretation of Jones' translation of the play by Kalidasa. The Brighton Pavilion designed by John Nash in 1815-18, was an Englishman's fantasy of Mughal architecture, but it was part of a an early 19th c. English interest with all things in the Indian arts. Emerson's poem "Brahma," reflected a contemporary American interest in Indian religious thought. Maybe all this is a good thing, as Madonna sings: Om shunty, shunty! Mary From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Mar 16 01:59:46 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 17:59:46 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036695.23782.11618765833226570454.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Charles Poncet says: >> > >Talking about scholarship and the sometimes inevitable overlap with >"political" issues, what do you guys make of the contention, recently >expressed in a book by David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein, that the >whole idea of an Aryan invasion is a western invention and that the >Indus civilization essentially disappeared because of a change in the >course of the Sarasvati river ? I found the book entertaining and wellargued, if at times a little manichean, because they too seem to discardanything that won't fit with the point they want to make, but thedebunking of the "invasion" I found convincing because it does seem thatthe alledged "invasion" was never proved by much, if anything. >Am I wrong ? I would like to make a few comments and ask a few questions about this book: 1. First and foremost, this book reads not like a scholarly text, but more like an introduction to ancient Indian culture aiming at over-anglicized Indians, NRIs who want to know about their roots and ABCDs who are trying to learn about themselves. The best verification of this lies in the injudicious use of photographs and their mystifying titles: Page 33 has a picture of "South Indian Shaiva priests performing a rain making ceremony around a fire altar"( reminds me of captions in a tourist guide), Page 46 refers to "South Indian temple"( these scholars donot know and possibly don't care about the four+ different cultures found in the South),a feature also repeated on Page 16 refering to a "South Indian priest". Page 187 etches the figure of "Om"( not sure why a scholarly text has to outline "Om", a symbol that is known to anybody and everybody interested in ancient India) and Page 129 gives us the text of the gAyatri mantra ( very novel if viewed from the POV of an Indian cut off from India, not novel from the POV of an Indologist/Samskrt scholar). While they are not wrong in any of these places, it gives the impression that the writing suffers from imprecision and is aimed largely at a un-scholarly audience. 2. Page 115 makes the claim( un referenced) that the earliest settlers of Srilanka came from Gujarat. This is something I find strange, since all texts that I know off talk about descent of the Sinhalese from East Indians i.e. Bengalis/Oriyas/Biharis; some people also claim that the name "Sinhala" is from Vijaya Sinha, the king who sailed with 700 men from Tamralipti in Bengal to Srilanka to establish a kingdom. Has anybody seen this Gujarati origin in any other text? 3. Page 129 says "The concept of one million did not become common in the west until the nineteenth century" quoting C.W.Ceram. Now, in the 18th century, the mathematician Euler refers to infinity a few times and the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Kepler have certainly dealt with these kinds of distances(I remember seeing a numerical working of Kepler's third law by either him or his disciple). Etymologically, the word "million" goes back to atleast the 14th century...I am not sure of how much weight one can attach to the sayings of this Ceram. 4. Pages 139-142 talk about the "Dravidian puzzle", a very appropriate name since I'm left genuinely puzzled after reading what these gentlemen have to say. They talk about the creation of Tamil by Agastya, which I'm afraid is in the realm of myth for if one were to accept this story, one would also have to accept things like Agastya asked the Vindhya mountains to bow down till his return; Agastya went south to counterbalance the weight of people going north to attend Sri Rama's wedding( or was it the coronation?)..I'm not sure of how Subhash KAk( an electrical engineer) accepts this kind of stuff without question, more so when he criticizes "myth being passed off as history".It must also be pointed out that the creation of Tamil is also attributed to Siva himself( Sumathi Ramasvami of UPenn quotes a poem to this effect in her new book "Passions of the tongue"); I'm not sure of what is so sacrosanct about the agastya story other than it fits into their theory. 5. They claim that "Dravidian languages have borrowed 50% of their vocabulary from Sanskrit". This is incorrect of many dialects/ historical periods of Tamil. In classical Tamil, prof Hart doesn't put the percentage of Skt words at higher than 5%, Drs Illakuvanar and M.Varadarajan give a even lower figure. This figure of 50% may be true of maNipravALam literature, but is not true even in modern spoken Tamil where sociologists claim that the average Rural Tamil speaker uses not more than 5% Sanskritized Tamil vocabulary. In Kannada and Telugu, modern day Dalit poetry uses a very low percentage of Sanskrit words, due to their sub-altern nature. In mediaval/classical Kannada, there are tracts like the dAsara padagaLu which use samskrtized kannaDa attributable to the fact that many composers,( with exceptions like kanakadAsa) were Brahmin, there are other tracts like the veerashaiva vacanas which are unsamskrtized owing to the nature that many non-Brahmins coming from unsamskrtized backgrounds contributed to this genre. This figure of 50% can be arrived at only in Mylapore/Triplicane/TNagar Tamil or Udupi/Mandya Kannada or Konaseema Telugu:-), a clear case of sociological bias. 6."There have been attempts to characterize Shaivism as South Indian" (Page 142) implying that this is a mainstream argument. Not true AFAIK I know; this was the theory of Suniti Chaterjee( who derives "Shambhu" from Tamil "cempu") and is not mainstream. IT is interesting that Skanda worship, attributed to Dravidian culture, is overlooked by these scholars. 7. They claim that the word "Nostratic" was coined by Holger Pederson in 1924 and imply that the Dravidian-Aryan linguistic theory is being replaced by the newer "nostratic" theory..this does injustice to the fact that Monier Williams was the first one to propound the theory of all languages being descended from Sanskrit and Messrs Campbell, Caldwell refining/changing this theory. BTW, what was the name given by Monier-Williams to his theory?( since nostratic is of 20th century origin) 8. Page 138 is very interesting. It says that through frequency ocuurences, Subhash Kak has proved that the Brahmi script and Indus script are almost identical. The next paragraph reveals that the texts have to be longer for decipherment. I think there is a contradiction between the two; for if one has so many frequencies with Brahmi, then even with few datapoints, one should read Indus stuff with the rules of Brahmi and come up with something intelligible, which apparently isn't the case here. It reminds me of the joke about a person saying that he had made a million dollars, but in a dream:-) I would be grateful for any discussion,pointers, answers to my queries. REgards, KRishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From roheko at MSN.COM Sun Mar 15 17:59:32 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 18:59:32 +0100 Subject: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? Message-ID: <161227036693.23782.7853059989096301811.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> It is possible. I do not know where to buy, but you can adjust any of the programs like OPLIMIT/RECOGNITA/OCRTRACE to read devanagari manuscripts. You have to open the file where the bits are fixed at certain positions and harmonise it with devanagari-letters. If any of these programs provides the model as FON or TTF or PFB file, it will be easy. Some knowledge of programming would be helpful. Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Viktor V. Sukliyan An: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Datum: Sonntag, 15. M?rz 1998 17:48 Betreff: [INDOLOGY] Software for scanning of Indian rarities? >Does anybody out there know about availibility of software for >OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION (OCR) of Indian fonts(Devanagari, >Bengali etc) for purpose of scanning Indian texts with further >conversion them in text files? >It is known that we have this facility for european languages. >What about Indian languages? > >With best regards >Viktor Sukliyan. > From sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU Mon Mar 16 02:03:25 1998 From: sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU (Paul (Kekai) Manansala) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 19:03:25 -0700 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <19980316003435.15547.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <161227036699.23782.7504582112779519565.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 15 Mar 1998, S Krishna wrote: > Charles Poncet says: > >> > > >Talking about scholarship and the sometimes inevitable overlap with > >"political" issues, what do you guys make of the contention, recently > >expressed in a book by David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein, that the > >whole idea of an Aryan invasion is a western invention and that the > >Indus civilization essentially disappeared because of a change in the > >course of the Sarasvati river ? I found the book entertaining and well > >argued, if at times a little manichean, > > > In this context does anybody have the adds of Dr Klaus Kostermaier of > UManitoba? IF so, with consensus may we invite him to take part in this > AIT/AMT debate? He was the academic who gave Messrs Kak,Feurstein > and Frawley a glowing review; this review is normally passed off by this > school as *proof* of it's mainstream acceptance. > > I'm sure we would all benefit from finding out why Dr Kostermaier says > what he says..... > Where does the Journal of Indo-European Studies fall into all this controversy. I remember some articles from that publication that seemed to suggest that the Indus Valley civilization was "Aryan." Regards Paul Kekai Manansala From barathi at PC.JARING.MY Sun Mar 15 11:16:35 1998 From: barathi at PC.JARING.MY (jayabarathi) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 19:16:35 +0800 Subject: Palm leaf manuscripts Message-ID: <161227036674.23782.4146419242224744995.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 12:53 AM 3/15/98 EST, you wrote: >In a posting dated Mon, 5 Jan 1998 18:49:52 -0500 >Michael Witzel said about some manuscripts in north >India/Nepal: >"All written with ink (except for a very few South Indian MSS in the National >Archives, inscised with stylus)." > >Is incising palm-leaf manuscripts with stylus a southern Indian custom? How >were manuscripts prepared in the north ? Only by writing instead of incising? > >Has the word nArAca ever been used to mean 'stylus' in the north/Sanskrit? > >Regards > >S. Palaniappan Dear S.PL., The documents from the North known as "lekha" and "lipi" were generally written on "burjapatra" by painting the letters onto the leaf with "maSI" or ink. With such a method a sharp stylus -"elzuththANi' can't be used. The majority of the Tamil manuscripts have been incised on the palmyra leaf - "tAlipatra" or "Olai" or "Edu". The instrument "nArAcam" was used for punching a round hole at the left end of the palm leaf. A bundle of leaves comprising of a full document or a complete book could be compiled in order, and then tied by a ribbon of rattan thong which is passed into the respective holes. This compilation is known as "cuvadi" or "poththakam". Rarely was the word used to mean the stylus. "ANi" or "elzuththANi" was the most commonly used word. The nArAcam was also a small sharp instrument which was used to pierce the ear-drums of people to make them deaf. This was a form of punishment. Regards Jayabarathi > > From mrabe at ARTIC.EDU Mon Mar 16 02:35:22 1998 From: mrabe at ARTIC.EDU (Michael Rabe) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 20:35:22 -0600 Subject: To the lamenters Message-ID: <161227036697.23782.8927589700629825289.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Who wouldn't rather see the Spice Surasundaris at Kharjura-vahaka than Yanni at the Taj Mahal? Shamlessly, the author of the only scholarly treatment of the Khajuraho temples in an e-journal: @ http://www.shore.net/~india/ijts/issue4/index.htm#art1 >> Speaking of the Spice Girls show at Khajuraho-- >no > >> or are they simply using it for commercial promotion? > >obviously (as something to giggle about) > >RZ Namaskara, Robertappa From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Mon Mar 16 04:41:59 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 20:41:59 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036680.23782.7168603522923454913.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Bijoy Misra wrote: > > Dear Indology list members, > I have been following various discussions on this topic and > can understand the rudeness of the colonial researchers and > opinions of the natioalist scholars. For persons from the > subcontinent, the topic does get emotional. > > I seem to agree with Ed Bryant's views to create a scholarly > debate on the topic such that the evidences are presented > and defended. A set of books/papers on a particular evidence > may be recommended for people to refer and express opinions. > As has been suggested one can take up a particular topic > for a couple of months, move on and revisit later. The > material on the debate can be indexed and archived. > > If this is agreeable, let the first ball roll.. > We may begin with the evidence of outside origin on language. > Let a proponent enumerate and present. > > Regards > > - Bijoy Misra > > On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Edwin Bryant wrote: > > > On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Jan E.M. Houben wrote: > > > > > No answer was received on an earlier question by me whether there is a good > > > statement of the Aryans out of India view. I found references to a certain > > > Dhar, but I don't know the bibliographical details. > > > > There is no good comprehensive statement on the Indig. Aryan point of view > > (a distinction needs to be made between an out-of-India view, and an > > Indig. Aryan view as I noted in a previous posting). Challenges to the > > theory go back at least to Dayananda, Vivekanada and Aurobindo (and I > > am sure that there is a plethora of reactions even earlier in Bengali > > and other non-English sources). Statements may be in the form of passages > > inserted here and there in literature dedicated to other topics, > > or of articles or complete books focused on some aspect of this specific > > problem. > > > > The standard of these materials varies considerably and ranges > > from what most critical scholars would consider (and have often stated) to > > be blatantly biased and poor scholarship, to quite brilliant and > > penetrating insights that really do impel one to reconsider certain of > > one's own assumptions (in my opinion). For example, Aurobindo's witty and > > scathing critique in "The Secret of the Veda" so many decades ago of the > > philological attempt to find racial references to the Aryan invasion in > > the Rigveda, (a theme which has been taken up by many Indian scholars over > > the years), has only very recently been echoed in mainstream Western > > academic circles (see Trautman's 1997 book on the Aryans and British > > India, and also Hock's forthcoming paper "Through a Glass Darkly..." in > > the Michigan volume). > > > > In short, one has to plough through a lot of material to put a > > comprehensive Indigenous Aryan case together. In my experience, one gains > > much if one is prepared to cull and extract useful and insightful comments > > even from the more blatantly biased or uncritical or 'unscholarly' > > publications rather than just rejecting them out of hand. I suggest that > > it is important to also bear in mind that many of these scholars in India > > do not have access to the same academic facilities and publications that > > we take so much for granted here in the West. So most of these critiques > > lack the state-of-the-art minutiae in terms of details, but are still very > > relevant in questioning the basic assumptions and broad picture that some > > of us take so much for granted. > > > > > Any more suggestions for basic topics to be discussed (not to be solved) > > in the > > > month to be selected for a virtual sattra on Indo-Aryan Invasion, for instance > > > in May, and for important relevant literature to be studied? > > > > Well, I'll try to think of some Indig. Aryan stuff that is of better > > quality as well as easily available if you all feel that this would be > > useful to this discussion. You requested the biblio of > > L. Dhar's book "The Home of the Aryas", Delhi U. Pub, 1930 (not 1950 as > > I stated before) but the only copy of this in the US is in the NY public > > library, as I recall. Anyway, for a decent start, K.D.Sethna's critique > > of Parpola's "The Coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the Cultural > > and Ethnic Identity of the Dasas" in Supplement five of the > > second part of the *second* edition of his book "The Problem of Aryan > > Origins" Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1992 (not the 1980 first edition > > version) is a pretty good example of an Indig. Aryan critique of a > > particular interpretation of the evidence, albeit an outdated > > one--Parpola's article was published in Studia Orientalia, vol 64 1988: > > 195-265 (but bear in mind the time lag between much Western scholarship > > and it's arrival in, and the response to it from, parts of India). Other > > parts of Sethna's book are much less convincing, of course, such as his > > attempt to identify a Harappan wheel in an iconographic symbol, but this > > does not negate all of his arguments (and that is part of the point I am > > making above). And the book is not polemical or political in tone. > > > > Regards, Edwin Bryant > > Talking about scholarship and the sometimes inevitable overlap with "political" issues, what do you guys make of the contention, recently expressed in a book by David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein, that the whole idea of an Aryan invasion is a western invention and that the Indus civilization essentially disappeared because of a change in the course of the Sarasvati river ? I found the book entertaining and well argued, if at times a little manichean, because they too seem to discard anything that won't fit with the point they want to make, but the debunking of the "invasion" I found convincing because it does seem that the alledged "invasion" was never proved by much, if anything. Am I wrong ? If Indology taught the Arian invasion for more than a century and if that was wrong, shouldn't authoritative scholars in the field publish papers acknowledging the mistake of their predecessors ? Charles Poncet From narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN Sun Mar 15 15:43:39 1998 From: narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN (DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 20:43:39 +0500 Subject: Palm leaf manuscripts In-Reply-To: <199803151116.TAA05373@relay14.jaring.my> Message-ID: <161227036676.23782.6057075085989133393.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 07:16 PM 3/15/98 +0800, you wrote: >At 12:53 AM 3/15/98 EST, you wrote: >>In a posting dated Mon, 5 Jan 1998 18:49:52 -0500 >>Michael Witzel said about some manuscripts in north >>India/Nepal: >>"All written with ink (except for a very few South Indian MSS in the National >>Archives, inscised with stylus)." >> >>Is incising palm-leaf manuscripts with stylus a southern Indian custom? How >>were manuscripts prepared in the north ? Only by writing instead of incising? >> >>Has the word nArAca ever been used to mean 'stylus' in the north/Sanskrit? >> >>Regards >> >>S. Palaniappan > > Dear S.PL., > > The documents from the North known as "lekha" > and "lipi" were generally written on "burjapatra" > by painting the letters onto the leaf with "maSI" or > ink. With such a method a sharp stylus -"elzuththANi' > can't be used. > The majority of the Tamil manuscripts have been > incised on the palmyra leaf - "tAlipatra" or "Olai" > or "Edu". The instrument "nArAcam" was used for punching a round > hole at the left end of the palm leaf. A bundle of leaves > comprising of a full document or a complete book > could be compiled in order, and then tied by a ribbon > of rattan thong which is passed into the respective holes. > This compilation is known as "cuvadi" or "poththakam". > Rarely was the word used to mean the stylus. > "ANi" or "elzuththANi" was the most commonly used word. > The nArAcam was also a small sharp instrument > which was used to pierce the ear-drums of people to > make them deaf. This was a form of punishment. > > Regards > > Jayabarathi > In telugu the stylus used to write on palmyra leaves is called 'ghaMTaM' or 'gaMTaM'. regards, sarma. From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Sun Mar 15 17:25:11 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 22:25:11 +0500 Subject: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980315204339.006873c0@hd1.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <161227036678.23782.15479603845451084926.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anybody out there know about availibility of software for OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION (OCR) of Indian fonts(Devanagari, Bengali etc) for purpose of scanning Indian texts with further conversion them in text files? It is known that we have this facility for european languages. What about Indian languages? With best regards Viktor Sukliyan. From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Sun Mar 15 21:58:27 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 03:28:27 +0530 Subject: To the lamenters Message-ID: <161227036682.23782.2209611552543824623.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Prof P Kumar asked: > Speaking of the Spice Girls show at Khajuraho-- > Any thoughts!!! A few opinions: > Perhaps can we discuss the ramifications of > such criticism for academic study on the one hand and the public or > lay perception (mainly religious perception) on the other. The > question that we could raise is, is Khajuraho a religious centre or > is it an art exhibit? Both, in different senses. That the buildings are temples should indicate a religious function, but it is a kind of religiosity that has been lost in the course of time, making it more of an art exhibit today (at best; or something to giggle about). > Does any one religious community have a "sole mandate" on it, No. Some of the temples are brahminical, at least one other is Jaina. > A corrolary question is are Spice Girls doing art? no > Or are they commercial entertainers? yes > In other words, are Spice Girls claim the > space of Khajuraho as artists in traditional sense no > or are they simply using it for commercial promotion? obviously (as something to giggle about) RZ From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Sun Mar 15 21:58:58 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 03:28:58 +0530 Subject: To the lamenters Message-ID: <161227036684.23782.17929187251925822976.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jan Brzezinski wrote: > Good news! Madonna has come over! Her latest record is full of > things like Om shunty shunty shunty. And something which sounds > like Hindi, though I do not consider myself qualified to judge. Good gracious! We missed out entirely on that here. The Indian papers I have seen claim that she has become a Kabbalist, and they were rather satirical about that. > I hear that Alanis Morrissette is also backpacking through India > looking for succour. (Please let me know, anyone, whether and when she reaches Mysore. My daughter wants to meet her.) > Perhaps the pendulum is swinging and we can expect the > Beatles-Maharshi phenomenon to repeat itself. Perhaps this is something for an anthropological study: the Beatles, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Quintessence,... what they did and what prompted them to be like they were. RZ From narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN Mon Mar 16 03:54:18 1998 From: narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN (DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 08:54:18 +0500 Subject: To the lamenters In-Reply-To: <350C7B21.1C7D@sfo.com> Message-ID: <161227036702.23782.17495267750024701548.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 05:06 PM 3/15/98 -0800, you wrote: >Besides the historic precedents of music and dance offerings associated >with puja, there are numerous modern Indian productions of dance and >music performances. There have been regular classical dance festivals >held at Khajuraho and at Konarak for quite a while. > > > Temple dances are very closely associated with worship. They used to be an essential part of the ritual and there are well defined items to be presented in a specified order. You have forgotten about the Chidambaram (Tillai) dance festival. regards, sarma. From torella at AXRMA.UNIROMA1.IT Mon Mar 16 10:11:59 1998 From: torella at AXRMA.UNIROMA1.IT (Raffaele Torella) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 10:11:59 +0000 Subject: Asiatic Society 's fax number Message-ID: <161227036704.23782.3459681759565312068.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Colleagues, I urgently need the fax number of the Asiatic Society Library, Calcutta. Thank you very much in advance! Yours cordially, Raffaele Torella From d.smith at LANCASTER.AC.UK Mon Mar 16 11:49:52 1998 From: d.smith at LANCASTER.AC.UK (DAVID SMITH) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 11:49:52 +0000 Subject: email address for Masakazu Tanaka? Message-ID: <161227036706.23782.826622857162960456.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> E-mail address for Masakazu Tanaka? Or postal address. Many thanks in advance, David Smith From jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK Mon Mar 16 13:01:24 1998 From: jds10 at CUS.CAM.AC.UK (John Smith) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 13:01:24 +0000 Subject: Problems with Times CSX fonts Message-ID: <161227036708.23782.10902099509163366868.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A few weeks ago I received two separate reports of problems with the PC TrueType versions of the Times CSX fonts held on my server. Investigation showed that when they were converted to TrueType from the original Type 1 PostScript a number of characters were lost. These characters were not "core" Indian requirements, but rather certain European accented forms: even so, it is surprising that it should have taken well over six months for the omissions to be noticed! Andrew Glass has kindly re-converted the fonts, and the new versions are now in place on my server. If you are using traditional ftp, connect to bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk and go to /pub/john/software/fonts/csx_fonts; the file containing the fonts is tm-csx.zip. If you are using a Web browser, connect to http://bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk/index.html (or follow the link from the Indology page), and click on the "fonts" link. Please note that the problem affected *only* TrueType versions of the CSX fonts for the PC. The Norman fonts are unaffected, as are PostScript and Macintosh versions of the CSX fonts. As far as I can see, the new fonts work fine. Please let me know as soon as possible of any problems you encounter with them. John Smith -- Dr J. D. Smith * jds10 at cam.ac.uk Faculty of Oriental Studies * Tel. 01223 335140 (Switchboard 01223 335106) Sidgwick Avenue * Fax 01223 335110 Cambridge CB3 9DA * http://bombay.oriental.cam.ac.uk/index.html From mmdesh at UMICH.EDU Mon Mar 16 18:36:47 1998 From: mmdesh at UMICH.EDU (Madhav Deshpande) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 13:36:47 -0500 Subject: Buddhist question Message-ID: <161227036711.23782.12181586873461168292.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indologists, Does anyone know of biographical or other information about a Burmese Buddhist monk named Thaton Mingun Jetavan Sayadaw? He is also known by the name U Narada, and was a preceptor of the famous Burmese meditation teacher Mahasi Sayadaw. Jetavan Sayadaw passed away in 1955. This monk is briefly mentioned by Nyanaponika in his Heart of Buddhist Meditation, but I do not find any further information about him. This monk wrote a Pali commentary on Milindapanha which was published in 1949. It became immediately controversial because of some of his suggestions for reforms and was banned and destroyed. A copy of this commentary was given to Late Professor P.V. Bapat in 1952 during his visit to Burma. In 1968, Bapat gave me this Pali commentary (in Burmese script) and asked me to transcribe it. Many years ago, I completed the roman transcription of this commentary and I am now working on a brief introduction, before the work is published. A student of mine, Patrick Pranke, mentioned to me that there are hagiographies of this and other monks in Burmese. But is there any such material in a western language? I would appreciate any help from our Buddhism pros on the net. Madhav Deshpande From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Mon Mar 16 20:45:27 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 14:45:27 -0600 Subject: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? Message-ID: <161227036714.23782.12670155304460314807.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> OCR for Indic scripts can be developed in stages. As a first step, OCR can be developed for Tamil. Because Tamil has a minimal set of consonants, - no separate symbols for voiced consonants - it will be far more easier to develop OCR for Tamil. In addition, tamil has no cluster letters in orthography. So, with the least number of symbols to be recognized by OCR, Tamil will be a natural choice to develop and test OCR software. For the same reason, Printing and Typewriting came to Tamil far earlier than other Indian languages. Once Tamil OCR is field-tested, Nagari OCR will be easier to develop. N. Ganesan From raja at GALILEO.IFA.HAWAII.EDU Tue Mar 17 03:02:46 1998 From: raja at GALILEO.IFA.HAWAII.EDU (Narayan S. Raja) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 17:02:46 -1000 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <199803162359.NAA11084@galileo.IfA.Hawaii.Edu> Message-ID: <161227036718.23782.11309378354626909795.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S Krishna wrote: > 2. Page 115 makes the claim( un referenced) that the earliest settlers > of Srilanka came from Gujarat. This is something I find strange, since > all texts that I know off talk about descent of the Sinhalese from > East Indians i.e. Bengalis/Oriyas/Biharis; some people also claim that > the name "Sinhala" is from Vijaya Sinha, the king who sailed with 700 > men from Tamralipti in Bengal to Srilanka to establish a kingdom. Has > anybody seen this Gujarati origin in any other text? A few years ago I was reading a lot of books about the ancient history of Tamils and also of Sri Lanka. While less frequent than the "East India" theory, I did also encounter statements that the ancestors of today's Sinhalas came from Gujarat. Unfortunately, I can't cite the references. By the way, Thor Heyerdahl's "Maldive Mystery" also has something to say about this, though it is far from being a scholarly book. Regards, Raja. From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Tue Mar 17 04:14:28 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 20:14:28 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036712.23782.16306044994039168807.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In his very interesting and thorough message of March 15th, S KRISHNA made a number of comments on Frawley's book. Since Krishna's comments were extensive, I am taking the liberty not to reproduce them hereunder and I would like to react to his message as follows : I totally agree with Krishna's point that Frawley's book at times is a bit like a tourist guide but this could come from the fact that their primary audience was not Indians or NRI but Westerners, most of whom, if they have any interest in India, will have been exposed to the Aryan invasion "history" which Frawley and Feuerstein set out to debunk. Also, some of their other claims - plainly wrong I agree - about western maths or science being supposedly in infancy until Indian wisdom came along should perhaps be excused as merely a consequence of the authors' general irritation with and antipathy towards Western values and attitudes. In other words, the somewhat "new age" or "let's all go to Kathmandu" style of the book should not disguise the value and the strenghth of their main point : the West may have been wrong - and stubbornly so - on a crucial part of the history of the sub continent, for more than a century. The REAL questions are therefore : a) Are Frawley and Co right about this ? b) If they are, this should be spread all over the planet and people - scholars particularly - should junk the "Aryan invasion" fairy tale for ever. Since I cannot claim to be a scholar - or even an expert - in the field of Indology, I would be very interested to know how the specialists react to this new theory. I might add that as a matter of pure logic and compared to other historical facts, I have never been happy with the idea of these "Aryans" supposedly turning up suddenly, destroying a civilization without leaving any records and then pushing the Dravidians through to South India. To make my point about Western attitudes, let me quote Jean Herbert, a very gifted translator and Indologist who died in the early eighties. He was living in Geneva and once told me that in the thirties, when he was translating Vivekananda into French, a professor of Indology and Sanskrit at the Sorbonne once told him "mr. Herbert, why do you have any interest in this local commentator ?". Wouldn't a scholarly tradition which produced this kind of nonsense be perfectly capable of inventing an Aryan invasion which never took place ? Your comments will be most welcome. Regards. Charles From thompson at JLC.NET Tue Mar 17 00:54:02 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 20:54:02 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036716.23782.5730921070950407735.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In response to some of the suggestions that have recently come in re our virtual sattra: There is no question in my mind that the important work of Kuiper and Witzel will also have to be taken into consideration if we want to be serious and thorough. I would also reiterate the claims made by Luis Gonzalez-Reimann and Jan Houben for the relevance of Avestan. In lieu of W. Vogelsang's article "The Sixteen lands of Videvdat", there are a few recent articles by P.Oktor Skjaerv? which may serve: "The Avesta as source for the early history of the Iranians", in the already frequently cited volume _The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia_, edited by G. Erdosy. "The State of Old Avestan Scholarship", in JAOS 117.1 [1997]. The interest of this review article is that it summarizes the recent "revisionist" movement among certain Avestan scholars [esp. Kellens and Pirart] to challenge the historicity of the prophet Zarathustra, and to consider the Gathas [the oldest Avestan texts, attributed to Zarathustra himself] as ideologically much closeer to the hymns of the RV than has been generally considered. That is, the figure of the "prophet Zarathustra" who stands radically aloof from the inherited Indo-Iranian traditions of his forefathers is being challenged by recent scholarship. I myself am convinced that we will learn much from examining early Vedic and early Avestan as two pakSas of a single cultural unit [a single linguistic and cultural area]. However, I should point out that I myself am not committed to this "revisionist" movement, since Martin Schwartz, the scholar who introduced me to Avestan studies, has persuaded me that the Gathas are the work of a strong coherent poetic voice, a genuinely historical individual by the name of Zarathustra. The language of early Avestan is difficult and problematic for a number of reasons. It will not provide us with easy solutions. But it is clearly relevant to our concerns. Perhaps we can invite a few Iranists to our sattra! As for Jan Houben's speculations about ritual: yes, we need to talk about that too. Best wishes, George Thompson From bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Mar 17 11:27:57 1998 From: bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Bijoy Misra) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 06:27:57 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036728.23782.10290946971905621718.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Robert, It's useful in a debate to comment on a person's work rather than the person himself/herself. By using strong language against individuals we would simply sidetrack and get into emotional exchanges. I thought strong language against Swami Vivekananda is not necessary to make a point in this forum. For many people in the world (including me!) he was a genius .. During the debate, personalities (past and present) would show up. It would be healthy not to use the "attack" mode, but a "critic" mode. Regards, Bijoy Misra On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > S. Krishna's critique of that book by Frawley and Feuerstein more > or less seem to summarise the general atmosphere in which the > 'repudiation' of the Aryan Invasion Theory is being propounded. > Krishna's remarks are so damaging that I wonder why any scholar > should spend time reading a book that already on the surface reveals > itself as superficial and ill-informed. > > Please forgive me, dear list members, but the urge to write something is > too great. > > There has been a lot of speculation and innuendo in various parts (the > popular Indian press, the Indology List, and elsewhere) on why > researchers should have come up with an AIT/AMT in the first place. The > proposed reasons usually are racism / ethnic biases and colonialism, or > something that looks like a variation on these themes. The AIT/AMT is > depicted as a sort of conspiracy; but no variation on the anti-AIT/AMT > conspiracy theory which I have come across till now convinces (for > reasons like those which Krishna gave). At their best, the revisionists > give examples of how real politicians picked up and abused scholarly > work, and of occasional unscrupulous scholars with selfish motives, and > this is taken as a basis for a sweeping condemnation, a pogrom against > everything that supports the External-Aryan view. The baby is thrown out > together with the bath-water. > > The historical revisionists, in their attacks on the established > theory, habitually take to arguments in which 'white people', > 'colonial prejudices and interests', 'ethnic superiority complex', > etc. etc. figure prominently. A few years back I attended a seminar > in Mysore (not at the university, but at a private college: this > should be noted) where an internationally known Indian archaeologist > spoke on Harappan things, and when afterwards a student asked why the > archaeologist rejected the idea that the Aryans came from outside India, > this scholar had the audacity to declare in public that "All that is the > talk of white people. We don't have to believe that." This is the level > on which most of the 'debate' takes place. > > What the revisionists apparently do not realise is that such arguments > can with the greatest ease be reversed and used against them (Halbfass > has remarked on the durability of the 'mleccha ideology' and Indian > xenophobia in his _India and Europe_, as did Al-Biruni many centuries > ago). One list member here has casually remarked some two weeks back > that the views of Indigenous-Aryanists go down well politically > nowadays, but this has hardly been picked up in our further discussions. > If the members of this list want to read a bit of nauseating > indigenous-Aryanist political junk which nicely presents the ideology > with its racialist, casteist, political and quasi-religious > ramifications, I can recommend a booklet that originally appeared in > Hindi as _Aaryo.m kaa Aadide;sa_ by Swami Vidyananda Saraswati. I have > read the Kannada translation (_Bhaarata aaryara muulanivaasa_), > published by the Arya Samaj, Bangalore, 1989; vii+43 pp., Rs. 5. > > While the 'deconstruction' of established views is progressing > energetically, with some non-mainstream Westerners supporting it (and, > fortunately, mainstream Indian scholarship too is not revisionist), a > similar 'deconstruction' of this revisionism has not been undertaken. > Why is the younger generation of scholars in the West so gullible? Is it > 'political correctness'? a new fashion? Or perhaps it is simply > ignorance and sloth -- the nature of right-wing ideology and its > workings in India is not sufficiently known, because too few Westerners > have access to what is really happening on the ground, and they think > they can be informed through English-language interpreters during a > two-week Indian vacation or by reading an issue of _India Today_. > > And I am afraid, Charles Poncet, that I understand what that > professor of Indology and Sanskrit at the Sorbonne meant when he > spoke about Vivekananda as "this local commentator". If you learn > an Indian language, walk around here and speak with a cross-section > of society for a while, you will see that Vivekananda really lives > only among a certain kind of people. He wrote in English and was an > inconsistent, ill-informed, third-rate thinker and demagogue with > racist ideas of the type that is again becoming popular among the > urbanised semi-educated Indian new right. -- Not that I blame you for > your miscomprehension: how many Westerners (also those who are > considered scholars!) know this, or even care to find out? They have > other things to do. And there are sloth and gullibility again, perhaps. > Vivekananda too was a fashion once in certain circles in the West (which > is still dominated by a quite Christian polar thinking: mea culpa, we > are all sinners, what is originally Western must therefore be sinful, > and we must be saved by someone from the East), and he played on that, > as did many others after him. On the other hand, paradoxically, hardly > anyone takes him really seriously (who will really study those eight > volumes of all his writings, the friendly as well as the sordid?). > Things should remain pre-packaged, lightly entertaining and > undisturbing, without effort... like the Spice Girls at Khajuraho, > Madonna's om shunty shunty, etc. etc. > > (In a similar way: the AIT/AMT came from the West, so it must be sinful > and condemned. We'll receive enlightenment / entertainment from some > Indian savants and take care not to criticise them too much, just as we > don't criticise Vivekananda.) > > By the way, the Indian press is catching up on Madonna, whom one paper > describes as "the mistress of musical metamorphosis and media > manipulation," I found out today. Poor material memsahib. Suppose there > is something genuine in this new turn of hers? We'll never know. Maybe > she will never know either. Deepak Chopra and the soft circuit must be > cashing in on this. > > RZ > From Vaidix at AOL.COM Tue Mar 17 12:04:09 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 07:04:09 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036733.23782.4736414707502925183.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Mr Zydenbos I find that the journalistic standards of many news paper reporters in the west including some leading ones are not very great when it comes to reporting about India. These journalists always assume that their readers in the west can not grasp and remember simple words like "Scheduled castes" of Indian scoiety, and continue to use the incorrect "untouchables" (a word banished from official Indian media long ago). They even assume their readers do not have memory and repeat known facts again and again wasting valuable newsprint. When this is the standard of journalists, why talk of other writers? Let us take the core of their research discarding the presentation issues. The term "revisionists" is not acceptable or even not respectable. "Revision" can go to any extent, meaning that some people can say Manu created the universe. One has to be specific when talking of revision. Also the word "revision" implies the "revisionists" are attacking an "established" theory. Could you enlighten me what is that "established" one? When was it established? AIT was just a proposal of 19th century interpreters. We dont have to stick to it 100% at any cost. We can take the best of it and discard what is doubtful. Interpretation is not a mathematical equation. I am one of the (leading) opponents of AIT but I agree with European/north asian origin of sanskrit/RGveda and Indian arts despite all my notes on biases of western scholars (my posturing was just meant to be tactical and temporary for the purpose of discussion). As for junk nobody wants this group to look like the Anthropology news group. That is what makes this group distinct. Scholars and intellectuals are opinion leaders in any society. They can not afford to leave gaps that can lead to misunderstandings. To give a recent example, a science agency published a study of an asteroid possibly getting too close to the earth in 2028. Later NASA disproved it, and termed the release of the news item as unprofessional. NASA thought the matter must have been thoroughly discussed before being disclosed to public. Let me put on my sociology hat for a moment. I believe "Indology" is a generic term meant to study ancient and medieval India. It must not be meant "literary or linguistic" only. Vivekananda's linguistic works may be third rate but he had a great social impact equalling Adi zaGkara. Terming him racist shows that you did not really read his works. I believe I read that junk work about him which talked about his "third rate english" and even said "people like him come to west for beef and easy women". The book was meant for exposing some Indian gurus. Vivekananda was less of an original philosopher but more of a social reformer and an inspiration for youth in popularizing upaniSats among Hindu society. He was an extremist in some sense and sometimes even revolted against the religious establishment, ate meat etc. Historially speaking, he was also trying to turn the tide against spread of Christianity. At the universal level he said all religions are equal and all people are equal, but when it comes to social level he countered the other religions and societies which had a low opinion about India (also because his ideas were not reciprocated by other religious leaders). By his own self admission he was not a philosopher who can take adverse criticism of his religion. Therefore It has to be expected of him to be critical of other religions. To criticise him is like criticising a politician for having played politics. He praised western societies, especially US as "karma bhoomi" and criticised Indian society back home for having forgotten the virtue of work. He wanted west to take up India's best philosophical works, while India must adopt the virtues of work and technology from the west. To miss these points is one- sided reporting. For the west, Vivekananda's utility was third rate because the West which usually looks for a new fad every decade forgot him quickly and went for newer ones. The East as always takes up the best of a person's teachings discarding anything personal that is not upto standard. The east always remembers the best of a person forever and ignores the weaknesses while the west makes a scandal of weaknesses and ignores the best. Here again, I am not creating an east-west divide, just talking sociology. I do agree that eastern scholars routinely blame everything on British, Max Muellers and Mc Caulays. This is more of a rhetoric than racism or anti- colonialism. Let us also understand that colonialism and anti-colonialism live together. It is customery in India that whenever people have a problem with local municipality in day to day matters like absense of street lights they blame the British for handing down a red tape bereaucracy. You can not call the whole society colonialist on that count. The major weaknesses of AIT/AMT are 1. The inflexibility of its time frames, giving an impression of cramming every thing into 4000BC and 2. Lack of discussion of alternatives which is a prerequisite to any research work. 3. Ignoring the latest scientific developments. I am not the owner of this listsev, but I feel using words like "religous right' etc is not appropriate in this listserv. The words like right/left/revisionists/colonialism being themselves narrow and stereotypic, and of recent origin (coined at best a century or two ago), can not be used to describe ancient and medieval societies when these phrases were not in use. I hope such phrases will be dropped in future. If my note is not a part of scholarly debate, here are my apologies. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From BLQM at MUSICB.MCGILL.CA Tue Mar 17 12:32:35 1998 From: BLQM at MUSICB.MCGILL.CA (GHOSE,LYNKEN,MR) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 07:32:35 -0500 Subject: address Sanskrit Institute Message-ID: <161227036737.23782.16070718177792164130.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indology List: I inadvertently erased a message I did not intend to with the address of an institute in South India which was collecting manuscripts (and donations for their work). It was posted on this list about 3 - 4 weeks ago. I am not speaking of the one at the University of KErala headed by Dr. Thampi. Thanks in advance, Lynken Ghose McGill University From d.smith at LANCASTER.AC.UK Tue Mar 17 08:16:01 1998 From: d.smith at LANCASTER.AC.UK (DAVID SMITH) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 08:16:01 +0000 Subject: email address for Masakazu Tanaka - Thanks In-Reply-To: <199803170425.NAA23447@yas.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp> Message-ID: <161227036726.23782.15888399434383391019.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thank you very much for the information David Smith From sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU Tue Mar 17 15:36:47 1998 From: sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU (Paul (Kekai) Manansala) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 08:36:47 -0700 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036751.23782.5856795814151875906.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > S. Krishna's critique of that book by Frawley and Feuerstein more > or less seem to summarise the general atmosphere in which the > 'repudiation' of the Aryan Invasion Theory is being propounded. I disagree. The AIT theory is already repudiated on lack of evidence. What the saffron crowd attempts to do is repudiate the AMT theory. Also, these people do not really represent the Indigenous Aryan crowd among mainstream Indian scholars. They market more to Indians in the West and New Agers. I also have to agree that is wrong to call these people revisionists. There is no former history of an Aryan invasion of India. Not among the Indians, Iranians, Greeks, Chinese, Muslims or anyone. Not the slightest suggestion. The idea originated among the British of the 19th century, so they are the ones revising history. Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU Tue Mar 17 15:55:09 1998 From: sac51900 at SACLINK.CSUS.EDU (Paul (Kekai) Manansala) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 08:55:09 -0700 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (horse argument and Bhimbetka) In-Reply-To: <01IUS06PYZJU96VWIR@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl> Message-ID: <161227036759.23782.7611715168314745153.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Regarding the Kurgan culture, we should remember their connection with IE speakers is highly hypothetical. From the anthropological evidence the evidence, in my opinion, is contradictory. The so-called "steppes type" mentioned by Gimbutas, for example. Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 17 14:56:39 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 08:56:39 -0600 Subject: Hello Message-ID: <161227036747.23782.3985289188756620070.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Dr. Houben I gave several references under the heading "Re: Indo-Aryan invasion" dated 3 mar 1998 in Indology. Pl. sift thru' them. Some of them will be very relevant, I hope. The subgroups were a) language change b) place names c) substratum theory d) retroflexion. For example: what about a) von Munkwitz-Smith, J. C. Substratum influence in Indo-Aryan grammar, PhD thesis, 1995, U. Minnesota. Regards N. Ganesan From umadevi at SFO.COM Tue Mar 17 17:09:57 1998 From: umadevi at SFO.COM (Mary Storm) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 09:09:57 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036753.23782.308341306120626458.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jan E.M. Houben wrote: > A compact argumentation for the view that Aryans came to India, not necessarily > in an invasion, is provided by Asko Parpola in his book: Deciphering the Indus > Script, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994, pp. 155-159. The brevity of the argument > (in four pages with maps and pictures) should make it a suitable topic of > discussion. > > Parpola presents: > "one important reason why the Harappans are unlikely to have been Indo-European > or Aryan speakers. This is the complete absence of the horse (equus caballus) > among the many wild and domesticated animals that have been identified at a > large number of Early and Mature Harappan sites." Sorry to jump in here, as an art historian, not a linguist, I am not sure if my comments will be very welcome. I offer this archaeological data with all humility: The horse argument has been going on for a while. There is, in fact, evidence of the horse at Indus sites. The eminent archaeologist B. B. Lal (hardly a saffron crackpot) in his latest book The Earliest Civilization of South Asia, New Delhi, 1997, pp. 285-86, sums up some of the horse evidence: Mohenjo-daro: Terracotta horse figure found by Mackay ( although some controversy about the interpretation). Lothal: teracotta horse figure and second right upper molar of a horse. Surkotada: horse bones, the bones are from a true horse, Equus Caballus, as determined by the enamel pattern of the teeth, and by the size of the incisors as well as the phalanges. "Since no wild horses lived in India in post-pleistocene times the domestic nature of the Surkotada horse is undoubtful." Kalibangan: horse bones. Nausharo: terracotta horse figurines have just very recently been discovered on the Harrapan levels of the site. Tally-ho, Mary Storm > From thompson at JLC.NET Tue Mar 17 13:15:11 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 09:15:11 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036743.23782.9207680738567977019.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Charles Poncet, and the List in general, Please, take another look at the subject heading of this thread: we're supposed to be talking about a *migration theory*. If you keep on insisting on an *invasion theory*, where there is none, you will find yourself with no one to talk to [besides the long-dead ghosts of the past]. As for Frawley, Feuerstein and Kak, their books are like your posts: on the one hand, they begin with the assumption that western scholarship is driven by colonialism and therefore unquestionably wrong; on the other, they assume that the Aryan presence in India goes way back in time, beyond the Indus Valley Civilization, into some hoary pre-history which no one is familiar with but themselves. Their books, just like your posts, assert many things, many wild things, and prove, argue, demonstrate nothing. I have found their books a waste of time. If you want me to read your posts and discuss ideas with you, please offer me *reasons* to do so. Argue with me, show me evidence, point out my illogical resaonings, etc. But if all you are going to do on this thread is to ask for my apologies for a view which I do not hold, and ignore my efforts to discuss the matter in a reasonable [and even a scholarly] manner, then I won't trouble you with any more responses to your posts. Best wishes, George Thompson From dkprint at 4MIS.COM Tue Mar 17 14:29:43 1998 From: dkprint at 4MIS.COM (DK Printworld) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 09:29:43 -0500 Subject: Asiatic Society 's fax number Message-ID: <161227036720.23782.2293670596967469828.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Raffaele Torella wrote: > > Dear Colleagues, > I urgently need the fax number of the Asiatic Society Library, Calcutta. > Thank you very much in advance! > > Yours cordially, > Raffaele Torella Asiatic Society Calcutta's fax no. is 033-290355 or 033-2260355. Thanks. Susheel K. Mittal D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd. dkprint at 4mis.com From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 17 15:34:52 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 09:34:52 -0600 Subject: Sangam Translation Index again Message-ID: <161227036749.23782.16967130442811140197.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dr. Ulrike Niklas, Institute of Indology and Tamil studies, Univ. of Koeln, posted a web site giving an index of translated ancient Tamil sangam poetry. Evidently, only a small percentage has been translated. This 2,000+ year old Indian heritage from the oldest living language (spoken by millions even today) in the subcontinent will be an important component to the understanding of ancient India. It assumes special significance as these poems are not based on Sankrit as their "meta-models". This can happen only when all the Tamil sangam corpus is fully translated. Even amidst the available translations, some are not in good English. By delving deep into Sangam texts, the World of Indology can open up new fields of knowledge to understand ancient India. Invitations to all of you! The following three aesthetic translations can be added to the Index. They are from: V. S. Rajam, A reference grammar of classical Tamil poetry, (150 B.C - pre-fifth century A.D.) American Philosophical Society, 1992 Thanks, N. Ganesan ************************************************************************** aiGkuRunuuRu 423 Translation by David D. Shulman, Hebrew university Dark clouds Thundering Let loose their rain: her bright forehead has gone pale now that you're to go away. Still, we haven't deserted you. No peace of us any more - deadly eyes fading like flowers are flooded with tears. ************************************************************************ puRanaan2uuRu 278 Translation by A. K. Ramanujan, University of Chicago The old woman's shoulders were dry, unfleshed, with outstanding veins; her low belly was like a lotus pad. When people said her son had taken fright, had turned his back on battle and died, she raged and shouted, "if he really broke down in the thick of battle, I'll slash these breasts that gave him suck," and went there, sword in hand. Turning over body after fallen body, she rummaged through the blood-red field till she found her son, quartered, in pieces, and she rejoiced more than on the day she gave him birth. ************************************************************************** akanaan2uuRu 9 Translation by George L. Hart, University of California Buds of iruppai emerge like arrow tips stuffed into swelling quivers, heads small and sharp, bright for their task of killing. Shoots red as copper plates and in them the hollow stamens sweet as butter scratch holes you can see with their soft ends. Petals grow loose, spread in the wind like rain and hail, on steep paths red as coral, they spread like fat on thick blood. Near that wilderness, a little town: women with thin curling hair raise fine pestles with ornamental rings and beat their mortars, and their rhythm seems to echo the crying of the owls on high, dark hills. And I pass by, I leave them behind urged by strength hurrying even when the sun falls, it seems my home is close, horses speed, and I go never slowing their pace. Yet, even faster, reaching even sooner standing on one side of our fine high house as she prays every time the lizard calls on the wall, in the evening when cows go home, he comes and curving his arms around her, covers her eyes and touches her back soft as the trunk of a female elephant, caressed by her bangled hand: my woman, chaste and modest, forehead bright, words so sweet My heart has already gone to her, covering her soft arms, my heart has already found its joy. ************************************************************************* From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Tue Mar 17 09:45:42 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 10:45:42 +0100 Subject: Vaishesikasutra E-text Message-ID: <161227036755.23782.10984500624847559477.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Better late than never: we should be grateful to Prof. Masanobu that he made available an E-text of the sUtra of Vaisheshika, this interesting orthodox Brahminical philosophical school which accepted (just like the Buddhist logicians DiNnAga and DharmakIrti), only direct perception and inference (pratyakSa and anumAna) as the two main sources of valid knowledge (pramANas), sacred texts (Agama) having validity only on the basis of these two.l Jan E.M. Houben *** On Tue, 10 Mar 1998 16:55:02 +0900, Nozawa Masanobu wrote: Dear members, I put an E-text of the Vaishesikasutra by CS fonts in http://lapc01.ippan.numazu-ct.ac.jp/c/VSCtext.htm Happy to be informed of errors or comments. Nozawa Masanobu Division of Liberal Arts Numazu College of Technology E-mail: nozawa at la.numazu-ct.ac.jp From sns at IX.NETCOM.COM Tue Mar 17 17:24:36 1998 From: sns at IX.NETCOM.COM (Sn. Subrahmanya) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 11:24:36 -0600 Subject: Scholarship ??? Message-ID: <161227036757.23782.1511479460577430318.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Since there seems to be so much talk of scholarship or lack of it - there is a interesting new book "The Footnote - A Curious History" by Anthony Grafton. The book is illuminating and humorous. The Footnote - A Curious History" by Anthony Grafton Published by Harvard Univ Press ISBN: 0674902157 The Footnote is described as -.... "The weapon of pedants, the scourge of undergraduates, the b?te noire of the ?new? liberated scholar: the lowly footnote emerges in this book as a singular resource with a surprising history that says volumes about the evolution of modern scholarship." The footnote has indeed played an important part in Indological scholarship as well for eg: anaasa Subrahmanya Houston, TX From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Tue Mar 17 12:25:53 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 12:25:53 +0000 Subject: [Info] Macdonell re-typeset Message-ID: <161227036735.23782.13055562928550632681.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 16:16:13 -0500 From: dkprint at 4mis.com Dear Dr. Wujastyk, I would be grateful if you kindly forward the following message to the Indology List for the interest of scholars and Indologist. With kindest regards, Yours sincerely, Susheel K. Mittal Director Message D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd., New Delhi have recently recomposed the book A Sanskrit Grammar for Students by A.A. Macdonell. The book has been recomposed with the main objective to provide a better printed text ( on a better quality paper) to the Sanskrit students/scholars. Its hardbound edition is priced at Rs. 130.00 and paperback edition is priced at Rs. 90.00. Its Publishers address is: D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd. Sri Kunj , F-52, Bali Nagar New Delhi - 110 015 Phones: (011) 545 3975, 546 6019 Fax: (011) 546 5926 Email: dkprint at 4mis.com From fujii at ZINBUN.KYOTO-U.AC.JP Tue Mar 17 04:24:29 1998 From: fujii at ZINBUN.KYOTO-U.AC.JP (Masato FUJII) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 13:24:29 +0900 Subject: email address for Masakazu Tanaka? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036721.23782.2283443870900959655.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> E-mail address of Masakazu Tanaka is shakti at zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp Masato FUJII ====================================================== Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University E-mail: fujii at zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp Phone: +81-75-753-6949 Fax: +81-75-753-6903 ====================================================== From: DAVID SMITH Subject: email address for Masakazu Tanaka? Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 11:49:52 +0000 > E-mail address for Masakazu Tanaka? Or postal address. Many thanks in > advance, > David Smith > From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Tue Mar 17 08:24:26 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 13:54:26 +0530 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036723.23782.4166020248276313171.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S. Krishna's critique of that book by Frawley and Feuerstein more or less seem to summarise the general atmosphere in which the 'repudiation' of the Aryan Invasion Theory is being propounded. Krishna's remarks are so damaging that I wonder why any scholar should spend time reading a book that already on the surface reveals itself as superficial and ill-informed. Please forgive me, dear list members, but the urge to write something is too great. There has been a lot of speculation and innuendo in various parts (the popular Indian press, the Indology List, and elsewhere) on why researchers should have come up with an AIT/AMT in the first place. The proposed reasons usually are racism / ethnic biases and colonialism, or something that looks like a variation on these themes. The AIT/AMT is depicted as a sort of conspiracy; but no variation on the anti-AIT/AMT conspiracy theory which I have come across till now convinces (for reasons like those which Krishna gave). At their best, the revisionists give examples of how real politicians picked up and abused scholarly work, and of occasional unscrupulous scholars with selfish motives, and this is taken as a basis for a sweeping condemnation, a pogrom against everything that supports the External-Aryan view. The baby is thrown out together with the bath-water. The historical revisionists, in their attacks on the established theory, habitually take to arguments in which 'white people', 'colonial prejudices and interests', 'ethnic superiority complex', etc. etc. figure prominently. A few years back I attended a seminar in Mysore (not at the university, but at a private college: this should be noted) where an internationally known Indian archaeologist spoke on Harappan things, and when afterwards a student asked why the archaeologist rejected the idea that the Aryans came from outside India, this scholar had the audacity to declare in public that "All that is the talk of white people. We don't have to believe that." This is the level on which most of the 'debate' takes place. What the revisionists apparently do not realise is that such arguments can with the greatest ease be reversed and used against them (Halbfass has remarked on the durability of the 'mleccha ideology' and Indian xenophobia in his _India and Europe_, as did Al-Biruni many centuries ago). One list member here has casually remarked some two weeks back that the views of Indigenous-Aryanists go down well politically nowadays, but this has hardly been picked up in our further discussions. If the members of this list want to read a bit of nauseating indigenous-Aryanist political junk which nicely presents the ideology with its racialist, casteist, political and quasi-religious ramifications, I can recommend a booklet that originally appeared in Hindi as _Aaryo.m kaa Aadide;sa_ by Swami Vidyananda Saraswati. I have read the Kannada translation (_Bhaarata aaryara muulanivaasa_), published by the Arya Samaj, Bangalore, 1989; vii+43 pp., Rs. 5. While the 'deconstruction' of established views is progressing energetically, with some non-mainstream Westerners supporting it (and, fortunately, mainstream Indian scholarship too is not revisionist), a similar 'deconstruction' of this revisionism has not been undertaken. Why is the younger generation of scholars in the West so gullible? Is it 'political correctness'? a new fashion? Or perhaps it is simply ignorance and sloth -- the nature of right-wing ideology and its workings in India is not sufficiently known, because too few Westerners have access to what is really happening on the ground, and they think they can be informed through English-language interpreters during a two-week Indian vacation or by reading an issue of _India Today_. And I am afraid, Charles Poncet, that I understand what that professor of Indology and Sanskrit at the Sorbonne meant when he spoke about Vivekananda as "this local commentator". If you learn an Indian language, walk around here and speak with a cross-section of society for a while, you will see that Vivekananda really lives only among a certain kind of people. He wrote in English and was an inconsistent, ill-informed, third-rate thinker and demagogue with racist ideas of the type that is again becoming popular among the urbanised semi-educated Indian new right. -- Not that I blame you for your miscomprehension: how many Westerners (also those who are considered scholars!) know this, or even care to find out? They have other things to do. And there are sloth and gullibility again, perhaps. Vivekananda too was a fashion once in certain circles in the West (which is still dominated by a quite Christian polar thinking: mea culpa, we are all sinners, what is originally Western must therefore be sinful, and we must be saved by someone from the East), and he played on that, as did many others after him. On the other hand, paradoxically, hardly anyone takes him really seriously (who will really study those eight volumes of all his writings, the friendly as well as the sordid?). Things should remain pre-packaged, lightly entertaining and undisturbing, without effort... like the Spice Girls at Khajuraho, Madonna's om shunty shunty, etc. etc. (In a similar way: the AIT/AMT came from the West, so it must be sinful and condemned. We'll receive enlightenment / entertainment from some Indian savants and take care not to criticise them too much, just as we don't criticise Vivekananda.) By the way, the Indian press is catching up on Madonna, whom one paper describes as "the mistress of musical metamorphosis and media manipulation," I found out today. Poor material memsahib. Suppose there is something genuine in this new turn of hers? We'll never know. Maybe she will never know either. Deepak Chopra and the soft circuit must be cashing in on this. RZ From kumar at PIXIE.UDW.AC.ZA Tue Mar 17 12:03:05 1998 From: kumar at PIXIE.UDW.AC.ZA (Prof P Kumar) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 14:03:05 +0200 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036730.23782.1382025584120162804.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Robert Zydenbos, For a serious scholars like yourself, your comments (just a sample is attached) are full of sarcasm. While I agree with your general argument, as you yourself indicate serious scholars in India are still unconvinced about the revisionist theory. However, I hope you are not implicitly indicating therefore that the revisionist attempt is to be abandoned. As someone else (I cant remember who it was) suggested recently on this list that altough generally the revisionist arguments are lacking in evidence and academically sound arguments, there are none the less some points that are valid. But what is important is that we need to keep the debate open and yes indeed there will be a lot of substandard (I wouldn't call it garbage for reasons of political correctness) material gets circulated on this debate, as serious scholars we need to separate the junk from the good material which often gets enmeshed in each other. Cheers, Pratap >(In a similar way: the AIT/AMT came from the West, so it must be sinful >and condemned. We'll receive enlightenment / entertainment from some >Indian savants and take care not to criticise them too much, just as we >don't criticise Vivekananda.) > >By the way, the Indian press is catching up on Madonna, whom one paper >describes as "the mistress of musical metamorphosis and media >manipulation," I found out today. Poor material memsahib. Suppose there >is something genuine in this new turn of hers? We'll never know. Maybe >she will never know either. Deepak Chopra and the soft circuit must be >cashing in on this. > >RZ Prof. P. Kumar (Head of Dept) Department of Science of Religion University of Durban-Westivlle Private BagX54001 Durban 4000 South Africa Tel: 027-31-204-4539 (work) Fax: 027-31-204-4160 (work) Email: kumar at pixie.udw.ac.za Director of the 18th Quinquennial Congress of the IAHR Durban- August 5-12 2000 For more info on the Congress please see: http://www.udw.ac.za/iahr From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Tue Mar 17 13:19:35 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 14:19:35 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227036739.23782.1241385872240678715.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> What would be a good way to discuss the Indo-Aryan im/e-migration problem on the Indology list? Trying to reach agreement between all scholars on a single theory is probably not realistic. But we could try to reach agreement on the types of arguments to be used, probably only: pratyakSa and anumAna. Linguistic pratyakSa evidence counts, but may be a bit tricky, depending on 'trained perception' and thus open to be influenced by biased presuppositions. I have been keeping track of proposals for publications which would be important in an Indo-Aryan im/emigration debate next May for which all those wishing to participate could prepare themselves (see below). The list is soon becoming too long, and one of the purposes of the debate next May (for which Dr Klostermayer should indeed be invited) could be to churn the ocean of all possible relevant publications, and to come with briefly stated main arguments for different theories, and with a shortlist of publications really crucial to the debate. For instance, Hock's article on retroflexes (see earlier postings) pre-fixes a period of Aryan-Dravidian harmony to the Vedic period, but it does not say anything directly on Aryans coming into or going out of India. It is only relevant to the Indo-Aryan im/e-migration debate to the extent that it places great question marks behind ONE of the traditional arguments for emigration. On the other hand, Erdosy's "Language, material culture and ethnicity" (see earlier postings) seems more centrally important for the debate. In the mean time, in the archive of this very Indology List I found a posting of Raoul Martens, dated 16 Jan 1998, with several references on "the Indus script", "Aryan Invasion Theory" and "horse in Indus valley". This could form the basis of a list of literature for "the other side of the argument". The posting mentions also addresses of various websites, but several of these seem to have become outdated. I was only successful at the site http://www.indiastar.com This contains postings with reviews of recently appeared books, and it seems that books "debunking Aryan Invasion" are extremely popular (does this reflect the popularity of the subject with Indian readers or the policy of the maintainers of the site?). Under the sub-address http://www.indiastar.com/ancient.htm a review of four "new age" antiAryanInvasion books may be found: In search of the Cradle of Civilization, by Feuerstein, Kak and Frawley; Myth of Aryan Invasion by Frawley; Politics of History: Aryan Invasion and Subversion of Scholarship, Navaratna Rajaram; Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan S. Gidwani. Proposals for publications which would be important in the Indo-Aryan im/emigration debate: I noted: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 21:29:38 +0100, Lars Martin Fosse: I would like to suggest another paper appearing in the same volume as Erodsy's (The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity). The paper is written by Michael Witzel and is called "Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and polities"). Then not only the linguistic and the archaeological dimension would be covered, but also the historical. *** Thu, 12 Mar 1998 23:36:49 EST From: Palaniappa The views of late Candrasekaraendra Sarasvati (ZankarAcArya) of Kanchi should also be considered here. According to him, the racial connotation of the terms Arya and Dravida was due to the Divide and Rule policy of the Whites. (teyvattin2 kural, vol.2, 35). In a discussion of the 'research of the Whites: good and bad' ("veLLaiyar ArAycci:nallatum keTTatum" teyvattn2 kural, vol. 2, p. 234-244), he discusses the work of Indologists and Orientalists (Max Mueller, William Jones, Arthur Avalon) and their approach to Vedic studies and Vedic chronology. By the way, is there any reason why the IA experts do not seem to consider Kuiper's book (in which he discusses Deshpande's thesis) as worthwhile to include in their discussion, Indo-Aryan Invasion "focussed discussion"? Regards S. Palaniappan *** Fri, 13 Mar 1998 12:08:14 -0800 From: Luis Gonzalez-Reimann A recent article that mentions this is G. V. Vajracharya's "The Adaptation of Monsoonal Culture by Rgvedic Aryans: A Further Study of the Frog Hymn," in the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 3,2 (1997). *** About a month ago a text was mentioned by From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Tue Mar 17 13:20:18 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 14:20:18 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227036741.23782.239723255890010425.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I thank S Krishna for his discussion of the recent book by David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein which I could not yet see for myself; and Charles for asking some pertinent questions which force indologists to come out of their ivory tower. To quote from the latter's posting: >In other words, the somewhat "new age" or "let's all go to Kathmandu" style of the book should not disguise the value and the strenghth of their main point : the West may have been wrong - and stubbornly so - on a crucial part of the history of the sub continent, for more than a century. The REAL questions are therefore : a) Are Frawley and Co right about this ? b) If they are, this should be spread all over the planet and people - scholars particularly - should junk the "Aryan invasion" fairy tale for ever. As an interested indologist NOT specializing in im/e-migration theories I would answer: the Aryan-Invasion theory in the strong sense of the term is not any more seriously defended by Indologists for the last so many decades (Edwin Bryant, am I right?). See for instance some remarks by Romila Thapar in "Archeological Background of the Agnicayana" in Agni (edited by F. Staal, Berkeley Univ. Press, 1983), vol. II p. 11. More recent statements questioning an Aryan Invasion in the strong sense of the term can be found in, for instance, The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia (ed. by George Erdosy), Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1995. Elsewhere I wrote: "Earlier ideas associating the authors of the Rgvedic hymns with hordes of invading Aryas destroying the earlier Indus- civilisation have become obsolete, and scholars are searching for entirely different models to account for the linguistic shifts which must have taken place in these periods (e.g. Kuiper 1967a, 1991; Renfrew 1987). Rather, the Rgvedic Aryas should be seen as "a multitude of ethnic groups subscribing to a newly emerging ideology" (Erdosy 1995), for which Allchin proposed to use the term "acculturated Aryan" (Allchin 1995:43)." The last reference is to Allchin's Archeology of Early Historic South Asia: the emergence of cities and states, Cambridge Univ. Press 1995. In other words, my answer to Charles' REAL question (a) "Are Frawley and Co right about this ?" would be: They are combating an outdated theory which modern scholars do not take serious any more. They are positively wrong in suggesting that modern Indologists are still defending the very theories which Max Mueller and others suggested more than a century ago. The implication for REAL question (b) is clear. So what kind of view is current among modern scholars dealing with the problem? Allchin, as referred to above (p. 43), seems to make a reasonable statement: "we envisage a situation in which groups of Indo-Aryan speakers arrived in an area where another language or languages were prevalent, and living there for a period of interaction with the existing population, became involved in a process of acculturation." Now, what kind of argument can be presented to support the view that somehow Indo-Aryan speakers arrived in the Indian subcontinent? It is possible to demonstrate Galileo's and Copernicus's theories with three oranges representing sun, earth and moon. Is it possible to come with a simple formula to represent the arguments for insights as those of Allchin in an accessible way? To find such a formula would in my view be one of the purposes of a scholarly debate on the Indology list. Such formula would be helpful for "both parties" in the debate, as those arguing for Indo-Aryans originating in and moving out of India will know where to direct their attempts for refutation. And with proper discussions the good result for all would be that, in our attempt to understand what is utterly apratyakSa (coming or going of Aryans thousands of years ago), we have to look better at the numerous pieces of pratyakSa evidence (archeological, linguistic data) which have been insufficiently studied so far. JH From magier at COLUMBIA.EDU Tue Mar 17 20:03:53 1998 From: magier at COLUMBIA.EDU (David Magier) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 15:03:53 -0500 Subject: book notice Message-ID: <161227036763.23782.1347360299689796669.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I was asked to forward the following publication announcement to your listserv or mailing list. I do not have further information on this book, so please contact your local South Asia librarian or the book publisher listed below. David Magier ==================== Proceedings of the Bengal Studies Conference, 1996, has just been published: Contributions to Bengal Studies: An Interdisciplinary and International Approach, edited by Enayetur Rahim and Henry Schawarz, Dhaka: Pustaka, 1998. This 600 page bound volume can be obtained from: Abdul Hannan, Managing Editor, Pustaka, Beximco Media Complex, 32 Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, Karwan Bazar, Dhaka 1215, Bangladesh. Tel: 011 880 2 812 9938, email: ind at citechco.net. Price $25 including postage. From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Tue Mar 17 14:21:08 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 15:21:08 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (horse argument and Bhimbetka) Message-ID: <161227036745.23782.1517618736377898637.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In my last posting I suggested to look for a simple formula to represent the arguments for Indo-Aryan im/e-migration, in order to stimulate a fruitful debate of this issue. One example I may give even now, not in order to start discussion of this example but to stimulate others to look for alternative ones. A compact argumentation for the view that Aryans came to India, not necessarily in an invasion, is provided by Asko Parpola in his book: Deciphering the Indus Script, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994, pp. 155-159. The brevity of the argument (in four pages with maps and pictures) should make it a suitable topic of discussion. Parpola presents: "one important reason why the Harappans are unlikely to have been Indo-European or Aryan speakers. This is the complete absence of the horse (equus caballus) among the many wild and domesticated animals that have been identified at a large number of Early and Mature Harappan sites." It is further stated: "The wild relatives of the horse . . . and donkey . . . are ot native to the Iranian plateau and South Asia, the domesticated animals having been brought into the area probably from the west and north. Why should the horse be such a strong indication of the Aryan and Indo-European culture? The first strong evidence for horse domestication comes from Dereivka on the Dnieper rever, a site belonging to the Ukrainian Srednij Stog culture, which flourished about 4200-3500 BC. . . . domesticated horse, wheeled vehicles, stockbreeding and limited horticulture, spread from the Ukraine eastwards over the vast grasslands. The Proto-Aryan word for 'horse' aZva . . . is clearly a Proto-Indo-European inheritance. . . . The horse and chariot can thus with good reasons be expected to be physically and ideologically present in the archaeological cultures identified as Aryan. This is the case in the Gurgan culture of northern Iran, with the chariot seal of Tepe Tissar . . in the Bactria and Margiana Archaeological Complex . . . The picture is totally different when we turn to the Indus Civilisation. There is no evidence of the horse whatsoever.. . . This does not prove that Aryans never visited the Indus Valley in the third millennium - a few probably did - but it does suggest that the Indus Civilisation in general and its rulers were non-Aryan." iti Parpola uvAca In this posting, which, indeed, is becoming too long, I want to make a brief suggestion to expand Parpola's argument with a body of evidence which has been too much neglected so far: the Bhimbetka cave- and rock paintings. Prehistoric cave/rock-paintings comparable with those found in France and Spain were discovered at the end of the sixties in Bimbhetka near Bhopal. Research has been going on for decades, but comprehensive reports from the Archeological Survey are still forthcoming. The paintings of generations of people living in or near the caves have been preserved. The oldest are estimated to date back some 10.000 years, and youngest are attributed to the first millennium AD. These paintings, which I went to see almost two years ago, are in my view the best pratyakSa argument (in combination with Indus Valley evidence and Parpola's horse argument) against proposals for a VERY old date of the Veda and the Vedic people (as proposed by Frawley, Kak and others). The environment presupposed in the Veda is simply incompatible with the environment of reflected in these paintings (horse is missing, people apparently live as hunter-gatherers for millennia; writing appears very late). Scholars from the Archeology department in Poona have been working on these findings. The only preliminary scholarly publication I know of is Bhimbetka: Prehistoric man and his art in Central India, by Virendra Nath Misra, Yashodhar Mathpal, Malti Nagar, Pune: Deccan College, 1977. (With a foreword by H.D. Sankalia) Suppose these caves would have contained evidence for a very old Veda. How quickly would they have been studied, and how quickly would the results have been published and become famous? Should we conclude that "the Indians" are trying to cover up evidence against an old Veda? In fact I believe as little in such a 'conspiracy theory' as I believe in a 'conspiracy' of 19th century European scholars against Indians. After all, to quote Halbfass from the recent book Beyond Orientalism, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997, p. 9: "the causal and conceptual relationship between textual and academic Orientalism and actual political and economic subjugation of the Orient remains unclear and ambiguous . . . " as there are so many "twists and turns . . . unexpected transformations and side-effects in Europe's encounter with Asia . . . a process which locked, for instance, the Asian activities of the Christian missionaries into the growth of secularism and the critique of Christianity in Europe, and which turned the efforts of 'agents of imperialism' and arch-Orientalists as William Jones or Max Mueller into forces which would contribute to the demise of colonialism and imperialism." JH {Dominik, to atone for my too long postings (transgressing the two-screen rule) I promise to remain silent on this topic for the coming weeks} From bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Mar 17 21:08:36 1998 From: bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Bijoy Misra) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 16:08:36 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036770.23782.5274185021007437620.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Let's not get offtrack. What I said that here we are not evaluating personalities, but the views, that too regarding Indo-Aryans. Let's see if we can achieve results with calmness.. I agree Vivekananda can be provocative, probably he was.. We should not. On Wed, 18 Mar 1998, Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > Bijoy Misra wrote (about Vivekananda, in response to me): > > > It's useful in a debate to comment on a person's work rather > > than the person himself/herself. > > I'm going through his writings right now, but you will have to wait > till my written report is ready for presentation. Till then, I'm > only offering you these few of my preliminary conclusions (which > surely will remain among the concluding). Then you will have the > quotes, references to page numbers in his writings, etc. > > > I thought strong language against Swami Vivekananda > > is not necessary to make a point in this forum. > > If you had followed the thread, you would have seen that the > previous poster, to whom I referred, had mentioned low esteem of V. > as an example of "nonsense" among Western scholars. The few > characterisations I gave of V. (admittedly provocative: I had to be > clear in a few words; and at times I like bating the ill-informed > to expose themselves and making the list more lively) seem quite > uncontrovertible. > > > For many people > > in the world (including me!) he was a genius .. > > A (healthy) point that is regularly made here on INDOLOGY is that > freedom of thought and expression (including criticism, debunking > of myths and personal glorification, etc.) is good. And > irrespective of whoever's personal sentiments, I demand such rights > when I speak / write of a wild demagogue like Vivekananda. > > (Do you think you could explain, in objective terms which stand to > reason, in the light of the history of Indian thought and of > comparative religion and philosophy, why V. was a 'genius'? I have > not yet found anyone who can, so I am curious.) > > RZ > From srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU Tue Mar 17 22:51:40 1998 From: srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Srinivasan Pichumani) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 17:51:40 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036780.23782.1184057474809170348.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In his recent posting, Krishna made a number of points to criticize the book which I thought were quite good but just telling the Frawley-like people to go to hell is unlikely to solve the REAL questions: a) Was there an Aryan migration/invasion of India which destroyed the Indus valley civilization ? or b) Is it a fairy tale concocted by certain scholars in the last century ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ and if so why ? Regards Charles There is a mistake in dates here... the Indus Valley Civilization was discovered/announced only in this century, by John Marshall in 1924, although various inscribed seals had been found in the Indus Valley region in the late 1800s itself by Alexander Cunningham. And it was only in the 1940s that Mortimer Wheeler and others proposed that Indo-Aryan speaking invaders destroyed the civilization. In the Jan/Feb 1998 issue of Archaeology there is a good, concise review of the Indus Valley Civilization by Jonathan Kenoyer of Wisconsin. He says, "Wheeler and others thought that Indo-Aryan-speaking Vedic warriors from Central Asia invaded the region, overwhelming the cities and contributing to their demise. There is in fact no archaeological or literary evidence for invasions during the period of the Indus civilization's decline. Current theories take into account many factors that would have contributed to the fragmentation of the society, including the breakdown of agricultural life, the migration of people following changes in river courses, and the failure to maintain political and economic control over the vast region." Later in the article he attributes this mistake of Wheeler to the discovery of unburied skeletons in the latest level of Mohenjadaro, and to his uncritical reading of the Rig Veda. -Srini. From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 18 02:01:03 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 18:01:03 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036781.23782.6389127752605115889.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Charles Poncet writes: >In his recent posting, Krishna made a number of points to criticize the book which I thought were quite good but just telling the Frawley-like people to go to hell is unlikely to solve the REAL questions: >a) Was there an Aryan migration/invasion of India which destroyed the >Indus valley civilization ? >or >b) Is it a fairy tale concocted by certain scholars in the last century and if so why ? >Regards >Charles First of all , thank you for the compliment! It has made my day!;-) The more important question is : Was there an Aryan migration into India?(I don't believe in "invasion", the question I think can be rephrased as "did the Aryans have an internal origin or external origin( w.r.t India)) The evidence is for experts to evaluate, not for lay people like me to talk about(This is exactly the problem that I have with people like Messrs Kak, Rajaram etc who are not trained Indologists. They have a lot of enthusiasm, but can enthusiasm compensate for formal training?) I think not....The attitude of neo-scholars jumping in and pronouncing judgement brings to mind the zlOka: "anAhUta: pravizati apr~SThO bahubhASatE | avizvAse vizvasiti mUDhacEtA narAdhama:||" These gentlemen give out opinions which are uncalled for and barge into just about every forum and yell about their theories. The basic angle that they have is :Should we take all these Westerners seriously since they were trying to enslave us? In other words, questioning motive, not scholarship, is their driving force. There are other instances in India where this kind of pressure has helped revised opinion, e.g. Shivaji was thought of as a mountain rat and a marauder till the advent of Tilak; Mahmood of Ghazni was thought of as a great military genius until there came Hindu historians, but these later events lie in the realm of verifiable history and not in some mystical past( as is the case with the Aryan thing); morever none of these historians like Frawley or Rajaram or whatshisname can hold up a candle to the erudition of Tilak( who e.g. was very well versed in Sanskrit). The point is : The driving force here is some kind of misplaced patriotism, not genuine scholarship and should therefore be taken with a pinch of salt. It would be more profitable to discuss K.D.Sethna's works( as pointed out by Edwin) who also opposes AMT than people like Rajaram or Kak. Regards, KRishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 18 04:34:47 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 20:34:47 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036783.23782.7971224042641132184.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In all the heat about Vivekananda, may I point out that he is quite relevant for large numbers of Indians today? Just go into homes where pictures of him and Ramakrishna and Sarada line the walls, and count their numbers. It might be due to what Agehananda Bharati calls the pizza-effect, but still, it is there, undeniably. He is far from a "local" interpreter, whatever that might mean. Scholarly interest in his work, whether to applaud him or to criticize him, is quite legitimate. It is the same attitude towards "local" interpretations, that keeps people from paying attention to non-Advaita thought, or to non-Sanskrit literature, isn't it? If Indology is about a study of modern India, as much as about ancient and medieval India, then one should look for Vivekananda's motivations. He certainly did not claim to be an erudite scholar, and we should not expect him to have been one. He saw his goal as imparting self-respect to a generation of Indians who had been greatly snubbed by Christian missionaries, and their depictions of Hinduism as idolatrous tomfoolery. Imagine yourself explaining to a Catholic missionary from the 19th century about the concept of an arca avatAra. Or for that matter, try explaining it to the Pat Robertsons of today, who put ads on TV showing a temple pUjA juxtaposed with a poor child, presenting Christianity (their version of it) as the ideal answer to India's problems. One kind of religious politics deserves another. Forget about Harappa and the Rgveda. If you balance out V.'s comments about the superiority of the ancient Indian against the immediate contextual reference of the "white man's burden" that was used to justify colonialism, and still lurks under the surface in today's global political thinking, he seems quite tame. All that has changed is that "white" has been replaced with "west," and that is simply because of superficial American PC. V.'s thought had its place in Indian politics, and probably continues to have one today, but do remember that those who come in his religious/philosophical footsteps often look askance at those who have appropriated his politics. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From reusch at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU Wed Mar 18 06:37:09 1998 From: reusch at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU (B. Reusch) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 22:37:09 -0800 Subject: Romani In-Reply-To: <199803150411.UAA26551@uclink.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <161227036788.23782.1911399334261394816.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Quoted from Encyclopaedia Britannica (?): >It is in its vocabulary that Romany best reflects the wanderings of its >speakers. The main sources (apart from the original Indian stock) are >Iranian (doshman "enemy," from Persian doshman), Armenian, Greek (drom >"way," from ? ), Romanian (bolta "shop," from bolta), Hungarian (bino >"sin," from bun), and the Slavic languages (glas "voice," rebniko "pond," >grob "tomb," dosta "enough," ale "but"). Indo-Aryan words include bokh >"hunger," from Hindi bhukh; bal "hair," from Sanskrit bala; gelo "gone," the >past participle of za "go" (compare Bengali jawa, g?lo); and rat "blood," >from Prakrit ratta. Does Romani really appear far "apart from the original Indian stock" in all the examples cited above to illustrate this point? >main sources (apart from the original Indian stock) are >Iranian (doshman "enemy," from Persian doshman), Isn't "doshman" a cognate of Vedic *durmanman* and Epic Skt. *durmanas* and Homeric (and later) Greek *dusmenEs*? >Armenian, Greek (drom >"way," from ? ), see Homeric *dromos* = running, race, race-course; see Vedic and later Skt. roots *dru* (*drav-a-ti*) and *drA* and *dram* Beatrice Reusch University of California, Berkeley From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Wed Mar 18 06:45:30 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 22:45:30 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036775.23782.8947930243977692997.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > > S. Krishna's critique of that book by Frawley and Feuerstein more > or less seem to summarise the general atmosphere in which the > 'repudiation' of the Aryan Invasion Theory is being propounded. > Krishna's remarks are so damaging that I wonder why any scholar > should spend time reading a book that already on the surface reveals > itself as superficial and ill-informed. > > Please forgive me, dear list members, but the urge to write something is > too great. > > There has been a lot of speculation and innuendo in various parts (the > popular Indian press, the Indology List, and elsewhere) on why > researchers should have come up with an AIT/AMT in the first place. The > proposed reasons usually are racism / ethnic biases and colonialism, or > something that looks like a variation on these themes. The AIT/AMT is > depicted as a sort of conspiracy; but no variation on the anti-AIT/AMT > conspiracy theory which I have come across till now convinces (for > reasons like those which Krishna gave). At their best, the revisionists > give examples of how real politicians picked up and abused scholarly > work, and of occasional unscrupulous scholars with selfish motives, and > this is taken as a basis for a sweeping condemnation, a pogrom against > everything that supports the External-Aryan view. The baby is thrown out > together with the bath-water. > > The historical revisionists, in their attacks on the established > theory, habitually take to arguments in which 'white people', > 'colonial prejudices and interests', 'ethnic superiority complex', > etc. etc. figure prominently. A few years back I attended a seminar > in Mysore (not at the university, but at a private college: this > should be noted) where an internationally known Indian archaeologist > spoke on Harappan things, and when afterwards a student asked why the > archaeologist rejected the idea that the Aryans came from outside India, > this scholar had the audacity to declare in public that "All that is the > talk of white people. We don't have to believe that." This is the level > on which most of the 'debate' takes place. > > What the revisionists apparently do not realise is that such arguments > can with the greatest ease be reversed and used against them (Halbfass > has remarked on the durability of the 'mleccha ideology' and Indian > xenophobia in his _India and Europe_, as did Al-Biruni many centuries > ago). One list member here has casually remarked some two weeks back > that the views of Indigenous-Aryanists go down well politically > nowadays, but this has hardly been picked up in our further discussions. > If the members of this list want to read a bit of nauseating > indigenous-Aryanist political junk which nicely presents the ideology > with its racialist, casteist, political and quasi-religious > ramifications, I can recommend a booklet that originally appeared in > Hindi as _Aaryo.m kaa Aadide;sa_ by Swami Vidyananda Saraswati. I have > read the Kannada translation (_Bhaarata aaryara muulanivaasa_), > published by the Arya Samaj, Bangalore, 1989; vii+43 pp., Rs. 5. > > While the 'deconstruction' of established views is progressing > energetically, with some non-mainstream Westerners supporting it (and, > fortunately, mainstream Indian scholarship too is not revisionist), a > similar 'deconstruction' of this revisionism has not been undertaken. > Why is the younger generation of scholars in the West so gullible? Is it > 'political correctness'? a new fashion? Or perhaps it is simply > ignorance and sloth -- the nature of right-wing ideology and its > workings in India is not sufficiently known, because too few Westerners > have access to what is really happening on the ground, and they think > they can be informed through English-language interpreters during a > two-week Indian vacation or by reading an issue of _India Today_. > > And I am afraid, Charles Poncet, that I understand what that > professor of Indology and Sanskrit at the Sorbonne meant when he > spoke about Vivekananda as "this local commentator". If you learn > an Indian language, walk around here and speak with a cross-section > of society for a while, you will see that Vivekananda really lives > only among a certain kind of people. He wrote in English and was an > inconsistent, ill-informed, third-rate thinker and demagogue with > racist ideas of the type that is again becoming popular among the > urbanised semi-educated Indian new right. -- Not that I blame you for > your miscomprehension: how many Westerners (also those who are > considered scholars!) know this, or even care to find out? They have > other things to do. And there are sloth and gullibility again, perhaps. > Vivekananda too was a fashion once in certain circles in the West (which > is still dominated by a quite Christian polar thinking: mea culpa, we > are all sinners, what is originally Western must therefore be sinful, > and we must be saved by someone from the East), and he played on that, > as did many others after him. On the other hand, paradoxically, hardly > anyone takes him really seriously (who will really study those eight > volumes of all his writings, the friendly as well as the sordid?). > Things should remain pre-packaged, lightly entertaining and > undisturbing, without effort... like the Spice Girls at Khajuraho, > Madonna's om shunty shunty, etc. etc. > > (In a similar way: the AIT/AMT came from the West, so it must be sinful > and condemned. We'll receive enlightenment / entertainment from some > Indian savants and take care not to criticise them too much, just as we > don't criticise Vivekananda.) > > By the way, the Indian press is catching up on Madonna, whom one paper > describes as "the mistress of musical metamorphosis and media > manipulation," I found out today. Poor material memsahib. Suppose there > is something genuine in this new turn of hers? We'll never know. Maybe > she will never know either. Deepak Chopra and the soft circuit must be > cashing in on this. > > RZ Dear Robert, Do you really mean what you wrote about Vivek?nanda ? I fully respect your opinion, of course, but presenting him as a racist third-rate thinker does seem a bit, shall I say, unscholarly. Wether or not one agrees with him, it is hard to deny the quality and the importance of Vivek?nanda's writings. Regards Charles From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Wed Mar 18 06:55:29 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 98 22:55:29 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036778.23782.12023953083725738593.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George Thompson wrote: > > Dear Charles Poncet, and the List in general, > > Please, take another look at the subject heading of this thread: we're > supposed to be talking about a *migration theory*. If you keep on insisting > on an *invasion theory*, where there is none, you will find yourself with > no one to talk to [besides the long-dead ghosts of the past]. > > As for Frawley, Feuerstein and Kak, their books are like your posts: on the > one hand, they begin with the assumption that western scholarship is driven > by colonialism and therefore unquestionably wrong; on the other, they > assume that the Aryan presence in India goes way back in time, beyond the > Indus Valley Civilization, into some hoary pre-history which no one is > familiar with but themselves. > > Their books, just like your posts, assert many things, many wild things, > and prove, argue, demonstrate nothing. I have found their books a waste of > time. If you want me to read your posts and discuss ideas with you, please > offer me *reasons* to do so. Argue with me, show me evidence, point out my > illogical resaonings, etc. > > But if all you are going to do on this thread is to ask for my apologies > for a view which I do not hold, and ignore my efforts to discuss the matter > in a reasonable [and even a scholarly] manner, then I won't trouble you > with any more responses to your posts. > > Best wishes, > > George Thompson Dear George, I never asked for apologies and I certainly don't subscribe to the theory that westerners are the source of all evils ! My posting - which does not appear to have been off the mark considering the reactions - meant to sound out the experts on this list and to ask for their views on the alleged Aryan migration/invasion into India which, we were told until recently, destroyed the Indus civilization. This seems to be disputed strongly nowadays, admittedly by writers such as Frawley who may have some rather contemptuous views on the West generally and Indology in particular. In his recent posting, Krishna made a number of points to criticize the book which I thought were quite good but just telling the Frawley-like people to go to hell is unlikely to solve the REAL questions: a) Was there an Aryan migration/invasion of India which destroyed the Indus valley civilization ? or b) Is it a fairy tale concocted by certain scholars in the last century and if so why ? Regards Charles From thompson at JLC.NET Wed Mar 18 04:35:07 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 00:35:07 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036785.23782.11963094302594265835.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Charles Poncet in good faith asks: >a) Was there an Aryan migration/invasion of India which destroyed the >Indus valley civilization ? >or >b) Is it a fairy tale concocted by certain scholars in the last century >and if so why ? a. There was a migration, no doubt whatsoever. Early archaeologists thought they saw evidence of violence at the last stages of IVC and assumed a connection with the incoming Vedic Aryans. They were wrong. We know virtually nothing about what happened to IVC. Certainly what went on in the heads of IVC people will not be known by us until someone deciphers their script [if that is what it is]. Frawley and friends are not capable of reading IVC minds across great distances of time and lost culture and *no mediating language*. b. It is a fairy tale concocted by scholars to explain what looked like facts to them. That they were wrong is forgiveable if there were no malicious motives in their researches. If malicious, then no forgiveness. If that is what you want. Now, as for fairy tales, read Frawley and friends: they have turned IVC into pure Atlantis. If there are no malicious motives behind their fairy tales then they too are forgiveable. But their books are fairy tales. And to tell the truth I doubt their motives. Frawley's fairy tale factory appears rather lucrative. Rather filthy lucrative. [My views on the other hand have gotten me absolutely nothing and I like it like that]. I am no ivory tower elitist. I just do not want to waste the precious time that I have remaining to me -- who knows? tomorrow I may be hit by a truck -- repeating myself over and over again, to no avail. Especially to people who do not listen. If you will listen to me, I will listen to you. Fair enough? George Thompson From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Tue Mar 17 19:36:12 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 00:36:12 +0500 Subject: Perso-Aryan Hypothesis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036761.23782.2305781074129416517.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Perso-Aryan Hypothesis Reverend Indology Guild! Please take a grave view of the matter below. I would like to announce framing of a new hypothesis which is destined to challenge to a duel an existing hypertrophied controversy called into being by Indo-Aryan Invasion theory. Firstly, Indus seals morphosyntax is largely distinct from those of Brahmi & Nagari. Failure of clear lexicographic decipherment caused by wrongly approach given to derivation from Proto-Indo-Aryan or/and Proto-Dravidian Languages .The Pan Idea of Monogenesis from Proto-Indian sources gives false premisses. Retroflexive phonology substantiate this point further. People preoccupied with logically fallacious monogenetic ideas concoct new self-evident paradigms.Let them... It is very 'fair' to relate everything to nothing. Neti, neti, neti. Why not to conclude that as soon as there were no evidences of Aryan Invasion, there was Proto-Perso-Aryan Indus Valley Civilisation. Let us search for protoforms' origin of Indus Script from the side of historical phonology of Proto-Persian, but not Indian/Dravidian. Archeologically speaking, attribution of Indus Civilisation to the Pre-Avestian times seems to be very reasonable. Popular idea of similarities between Avestian and Proto-Indian languages as a support for their monogenesis not so evident in the comparison of Proto-Persian. For example, stability of noun-verbal inflexion in Avestian is not necessarily existent in Ancient Persian. Therefore let us contemplate historical retrospective of Indus Civilisation as the marginal southern modification of an Ancient Persian Civilisation which was intensively influenced (e.g. retroflexion) and later on inherited refined morphology from the neighbouring Ancient Indian Civilisation. Subcontinent was always reputed as a cultural molten pot, which preserved differences and helped them to co-exist. Conclusions : 1) Indus Civilisation is of an Early Persian Origin; 2) Indus Script is a southern branch of an Ancient Persian; 3) Historical co-existence had drawn nearer later Persian and Indian languages; 4) There was no exhausting IA invasion at all, but successive mutual correlation. Working Perso-Aryan hypothesis brought to your attention by Viktor Sukliyan. From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 18 05:59:20 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 00:59:20 -0500 Subject: Address of Dr. Wayne Howard Message-ID: <161227036786.23782.11101704248925338310.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Can anybody provide me with the phone number/email of Dr. Wayne Howard? Thanks in advance. Regards S. Palaniappan From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Tue Mar 17 20:58:05 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 02:28:05 +0530 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036764.23782.7627139749331508068.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Prof P Kumar wrote on Tue, 17 Mar 1998 14:03:05 +0200: > as you yourself indicate serious scholars in India are still > unconvinced about the revisionist theory. However, I hope you are > not implicitly indicating therefore that the revisionist attempt is > to be abandoned. Surely not offhand -- I quite agree with you on that point. Marvellous discoveries are often made in totally unexpected corners, and all should get a fair hearing. My only concerns in that posting of mine are that researchers should beware of double standards (e.g.: "old Western researchers and their Indian followers had hidden political and racialist agendas, recent Indian researchers and their Western followers cannot have any") and that besides being self-critical, we should not be afraid of being critical of our opponents in scholarly debates when there are clear signs of foul play in certain quarters - irrespective of who the other is. > For a serious scholars like yourself, your comments (just a sample > is attached) are full of sarcasm. Here I have to admit that I do not quite know to what extent our list is a serious scholarly forum!... The seriousness varies from thread to thread. If the treatment of this topic in the list had been less bizarre, I surely would have been less sarcastic and fiery. Regards, RZ From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Tue Mar 17 20:58:29 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 02:28:29 +0530 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036766.23782.12850705652240031282.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vaidix wrote on Tue, 17 Mar 1998 07:04:09 EST: > The term "revisionists" is not acceptable or even not respectable. Since you are not a careful reader, allow me to quote myself from that previous posting of mine, where I refer to a racist revisionist: Z> this scholar had the audacity to declare in public that "All that Z> is the talk of white people. We don't have to believe that." This Z> is the level on which most of the 'debate' takes place. Please answer these questions (if not in public, then at least for yourself): (a) do you respect such a mentality / person? (b) do you seriously expect me to respect such a mentality / person? (c) should scholars respect such a mentality / person? (A simple 'yes' or 'no' will do for an answer.) > I believe "Indology" is a > generic term meant to study ancient and medieval India. Also modern India. > It must not be meant > "literary or linguistic" only. I have never said so; on the contrary, I have earlier denied it (admittedly in a different thread). > Vivekananda's linguistic works may > be third rate but he had a great social impact equalling Adi > zaGkara. (1) I said nothing about V.'s linguistics. (2) To compare V. to ;Sa:nkara looks rather absurd (something like comparing Jerry Falwell to John Calvin). > Terming him > racist shows that you did not really read his works. Wrong: you didn't read him, or you would have seen lots of essentialisations about the French, the Germans, the British, the Americans, the what-not, and of course the super-race: the Hindu. "The debt which the world owes to our motherland is immense... there is not one race on this earth to which the world owes so much as to the patient Hindu... who has always been the blessed child of God. Civilisations have risen in other parts of the world... great ideas have emanated from strong and great races... India... peacefully existed... when even Greece did not exist, when Rome was not thought of, when the very fathers of the modern Europeans lived in the forests and painted themselves blue", etc. etc. (from "First Public Lecture in the East"). This is the man whom you compared to Aadi-;Sa:nkaraacaarya. Another list member speaks of him as a 'genius'. (I just happened to have this lying on my desk. I am collecting more, for later.) So here again: (a) do you respect such a mentality / person? (b) do you seriously expect me to respect such a mentality / person? > The words like > right/left/revisionists/colonialism being themselves narrow and > stereotypic, and of recent origin (coined at best a century or two > ago), can not be used to describe ancient and medieval societies > when these phrases were not in use. I hope such phrases will be > dropped in future. The English language did not exist in those early times either. I will gladly switch over to Sanskrit, if there is a popular will to do so on this list. RZ From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Tue Mar 17 20:59:03 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 02:29:03 +0530 Subject: Vivekananda etc. Message-ID: <161227036768.23782.14290666678939786599.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Bijoy Misra wrote (about Vivekananda, in response to me): > It's useful in a debate to comment on a person's work rather > than the person himself/herself. I'm going through his writings right now, but you will have to wait till my written report is ready for presentation. Till then, I'm only offering you these few of my preliminary conclusions (which surely will remain among the concluding). Then you will have the quotes, references to page numbers in his writings, etc. > I thought strong language against Swami Vivekananda > is not necessary to make a point in this forum. If you had followed the thread, you would have seen that the previous poster, to whom I referred, had mentioned low esteem of V. as an example of "nonsense" among Western scholars. The few characterisations I gave of V. (admittedly provocative: I had to be clear in a few words; and at times I like bating the ill-informed to expose themselves and making the list more lively) seem quite uncontrovertible. > For many people > in the world (including me!) he was a genius .. A (healthy) point that is regularly made here on INDOLOGY is that freedom of thought and expression (including criticism, debunking of myths and personal glorification, etc.) is good. And irrespective of whoever's personal sentiments, I demand such rights when I speak / write of a wild demagogue like Vivekananda. (Do you think you could explain, in objective terms which stand to reason, in the light of the history of Indian thought and of comparative religion and philosophy, why V. was a 'genius'? I have not yet found anyone who can, so I am curious.) RZ From Vaidix at AOL.COM Wed Mar 18 11:26:38 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 06:26:38 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036796.23782.1630471119816734668.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Robert J. Zydenbos > (a) do you respect such a mentality / person? > (b) do you seriously expect me to respect such a mentality / person? > (c) should scholars respect such a mentality / person? > (A simple 'yes' or 'no' will do for an answer.) I can not respect such persons, except when such arguments are used for political purposes to counter opponents who talk or imply slander other way. To say such things with cold blood is evil. I do discount emotional speeches provoked by a sense of desperation generated as a result of oppression, counter propaganda etc (it is only human to react). On the same lines the proposal to write off a vast chunk of ancient Indian history without presenting a clear proof is equally cold blooded. > > I believe "Indology" is a > > generic term meant to study ancient and medieval India. > Also modern India. I agree that Indology includes modern India, but please read the front page of this listserv homepage. It does not mention modern India. If you want to include modern India please write to the administrator to get it included and we will be happy to discuss Madonnas, elections etc. > > It must not be meant > > "literary or linguistic" only. > I have never said so; on the contrary, I have earlier denied it > (admittedly in a different thread). Thanks for clarification. My remark was not meant for you. I used it to include my arguments about Vivekananda's reform efforts. I did not say he was as great as zaGkara, but his impact equalled zaGkara. He became a household figure in India (in his days) something that only compares Adi zaGkara. People for the first time became interested in upanisats after his talks, but no body started hating Europeans despite his writings or speeches; because everyone knew it was a figure of speech. If it offends you I apologize to you on behalf of V. On the contrary the first thing people remember about him is his quote "Brothers and sisters of America' and so on. Believe me, his impact was never negative. If you still think he had a negative racist impact on Indian public, let us finance a statistical survey by a recognized agency in India about V, and publish the results. I am sure you will believe that the opinion polls are quite accurate and modern tools used on daily basis in modern world (definitely better than home cooked opinions of yourself or myself). If results are positive, then I would myself call Vivekandanda a racist. > > Vivekananda's linguistic works may > > be third rate but he had a great social impact equalling Adi > > zaGkara. > (1) I said nothing about V.'s linguistics. > (2) To compare V. to ;Sa:nkara looks rather absurd (something like > comparing Jerry Falwell to John Calvin). Already answered. I suspect poor english if any might have been edited before printing. > > Terming him > > racist shows that you did not really read his works. > Wrong: > So here again: > (a) do you respect such a mentality / person? > (b) do you seriously expect me to respect such a mentality / person? I can not repect such writings, except as part of an emotionally arousing speech meant to counter anti-Hindu propaganda carried out by other missionaries. You need not dig up more about V's writings, you made your point. If you insist, then I have to order for all that junk literature circulating in those days which does no good for current discussion. > > The words like > > right/left/revisionists/colonialism being themselves narrow and > > stereotypic, and of recent origin (coined at best a century or two > > ago), can not be used to describe ancient and medieval societies > > when these phrases were not in use. I hope such phrases will be > > dropped in future. > The English language did not exist in those early times either. I > will gladly switch over to Sanskrit, if there is a popular will to > do so on this list. Those words can be used to describe contemporary India. I think I take back that argument if you were referring to modern India. In ancient/medieval India religion was not a "right" to be countered by a "left". Religion was always on top of everything and accepted as the highest virtue. If a monk comes to king's court the kings used to vacate their seat for them. There are stories like Visvamitra that tell us some conflict between kings and priesthood, but the stories themselves are treated as divine. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From thompson at JLC.NET Wed Mar 18 12:25:09 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 08:25:09 -0400 Subject: some remarks Message-ID: <161227036800.23782.186646923406888923.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In response to Dominique Thillaud's remarks: > >George Thompson wrote: "we're supposed to be talking about a *migration >theory*. If you keep on insisting on an *invasion theory*, where there is >none ..." > I don't understand clearly the difference between the two words. >Was the coming of Europeans in East America a migration or an invasion? Was >the coming of East Americans in West America a migration or an invasion? > From the American point of view they were peaceful farmers going >toward free lands, undoubtly a migration. Alas, Amerindians knew well the >land was not "free", the peaceful farmers were armed with guns and >travelling with a powerful army, undoubtly an invasion (some >ill-intentioned people say a genocid)! > Once again, debating about words is not debating about reality but >about ideological point of view ;) > Dominique, Your point is well-taken. Perhaps the distinction between 'migration' and 'invasion' is merely ideological. I will respond by quoting George Erdosy, whose article has been included for discussion in our virtual sattra ["Language, material culture and ethnicity: Theoretical perspectives"]. I think that we all can agree that Erdosy cannot be labelled as a western colonialist [nor, for that matter, as a fanatical linguist]. In summarizing the results of his investigations, Erdosy says [p.23]: "... some support was found in the archaeological record for small-scale migrations from Central to South Asia in the late 3rd/2nd millennia B.C., but any support for Burrow's 2-wave model [Burrow 1973] was firmly ruled out. The idea of invasions by a barbaric race enjoying technological and military superiority was -- I hope -- fatally undermined, and the chronology of movement into South Asia has been extended by several centuries, beyond what has generally been assumed from a misreading of the Rgveda as an account of foreign invasions. Linguists were, moreover, urged to construct more realistic models of social changes, which could be further tested against the archaeological record." So, beyond any ideological considerations, it seems preferable to talk about migrations rather than invasions, since the former term seems to fit better with the archaeological record. I also take seriously Erdosy's call for linguists to come up more realistic models.... bonjour, George From thillaud at UNICE.FR Wed Mar 18 08:17:01 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 09:17:01 +0100 Subject: some remarks Message-ID: <161227036790.23782.10979457001350538894.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indologists, Despite my intention don't to touch my keyboard in dubious debates, I can't restrain to write few words ;) 1) can we stop to playing with words ? Bhadraiah Mallampalli wrote: "can not grasp and remember simple words like "Scheduled castes" of Indian society, and continue to use the incorrect "untouchables" (a word banished from official Indian media long ago)" 1) I suppose English and American peoples are better judges about the use of their own mother tongue ;) 2) Changing names don't change the reality. I find ridiculous the new tendancy of "banishing words". In France, it's today incorrect to say "aveugle" (blind) or "sourd" (deaf), they must be replaced by "non-voyant" (not seeing) and "mal-entendant" (badly hearing): what is changing for them? I agree with a french humorist who suggested to replace "con" (bloody) by "mal-comprenant" (badly undrstanding). I'm afraid that rejecting "untouchables" is nothing but a poor essay to close the eyes over a real problem; "scheduled castes" seems to me an insulting euphemism and, speaking French, I'll continue to use the words "intouchables" or "parias". George Thompson wrote: "we're supposed to be talking about a *migration theory*. If you keep on insisting on an *invasion theory*, where there is none ..." I don't understand clearly the difference between the two words. Was the coming of Europeans in East America a migration or an invasion? Was the coming of East Americans in West America a migration or an invasion? From the American point of view they were peaceful farmers going toward free lands, undoubtly a migration. Alas, Amerindians knew well the land was not "free", the peaceful farmers were armed with guns and travelling with a powerful army, undoubtly an invasion (some ill-intentioned people say a genocid)! Once again, debating about words is not debating about reality but about ideological point of view ;) 2) colonialist scholars ? I, personnally, reject firmly any accusation of colonialism or neo-colonialism. I know perfectly that India was colonized by England, a big part of Africa by France, Greece and Gaul by Roma, &c. I know perfectly that few scholars gave an ideological support to all conquests and slaveries, eurindianist Germans to the nazi power, Russian biologists to the stalinian one, &c. But they were very few! In a large majority, scholars are honest and honourable* peoples, rarely supporting the politic of their government, rarely involved in military or economical war. To reject the point of view of westerner scholars with an accusation of colonialism is not only insulting, but also stupid. When I consider the Indian civilization as an Eurindian one, that's based on many serious and published studies. I have nothing to do with the eventual "greatness" of any land! I'm studying them but I don't like Eurindians nor their ideology. They were war fans and the extension of Eurindian languages all over the world shows perfectly they had no problems in destroying civilizations. It's true that some of them, by a later evolution, attained a wonderful state of spiritual development, but just few of them (I know only Greece and India in this way). I suppose (just my religious opinion: no debate, please) that other ones were "perverted" in their evolution by bellicist monotheistic ideologies ("Dieu reconnaitra les siens", "Gott mit uns", "the Holy Bible in each GI's pocket", &c.). I hope to be a religious, peaceful and honnest man, but I'm not sure that all my pitaras were good guys and I don't intend to defend them blindly. Hence, I don't intend to be judged for their faults and, in the actual case, for the English conquest of India! ... Regards, Dominique * not in Antonius' sense ;) Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From sns at IX.NETCOM.COM Wed Mar 18 15:19:41 1998 From: sns at IX.NETCOM.COM (Sn. Subrahmanya) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 09:19:41 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036804.23782.15951226607131675240.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > Mr Subrahmania says the archeology is scientific: I agree, but >perhaps that's not true for the interpretation of archeology's results ;) > > Regards, >Dominique > What you say is true for linguistics also. Subrahmanya From silk at WMICH.EDU Wed Mar 18 14:48:24 1998 From: silk at WMICH.EDU (jonathan silk) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 09:48:24 -0500 Subject: Vaishesikasutra E-text -- and names In-Reply-To: <01IURQKDNJ2096VWIR@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl> Message-ID: <161227036802.23782.7480551085609099442.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A note to Prof. Jan (Houben); the scholar who generously provided the Vaishesikasutra E-text is Prof. Nozawa -- his first name is Masanobu. Jonathan Silk SILK at wmich.edu From thillaud at UNICE.FR Wed Mar 18 09:05:53 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 10:05:53 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument In-Reply-To: <350EAE5D.4D1D@sfo.com> Message-ID: <161227036792.23782.11571257113467386789.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Mary Storm wrote: >Sorry to jump in here, as an art historian, not a linguist, I am not >sure if my comments will be very welcome. I offer this archaeological >data with all humility: >The horse argument has been going on for a while. There is, in fact, >evidence of the horse at Indus sites. >The eminent archaeologist B. B. Lal (hardly a saffron crackpot) in his >latest book The Earliest Civilization of South Asia, New Delhi, 1997, >pp. 285-86, sums up some of the horse evidence: >Mohenjo-daro: Terracotta horse figure found by Mackay ( although some >controversy about the interpretation). >Lothal: teracotta horse figure and second right upper molar of a horse. >Surkotada: horse bones, the bones are from a true horse, Equus Caballus, >as determined by the enamel pattern of the teeth, and by the size of the >incisors as well as the phalanges. "Since no wild horses lived in India >in post-pleistocene times the domestic nature of the Surkotada horse is >undoubtful." >Kalibangan: horse bones. >Nausharo: terracotta horse figurines have just very recently been >discovered on the Harrapan levels of the site. Perhaps a difference between knowing horses and having a cultur based on them. Do you won't really compare this few remains with the material of the Scythian graves? This list is strictly comparable with the list of lions' remains in Mycenian Greece: few artifacts, one or two teeth and bones. Archeologists' opinion is that the lion was a rare imported prestige pet. The important use of eagles and bees in Napoleonian insigns don't prove the 1800's French people was consecrated to the falconry and beekeeping. Mr Subrahmania says the archeology is scientific: I agree, but perhaps that's not true for the interpretation of archeology's results ;) Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Wed Mar 18 17:20:23 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 11:20:23 -0600 Subject: some remarks Message-ID: <161227036811.23782.12228770508772535700.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dominique Thillaud wrote: >the extension of >Eurindian languages all over the world shows perfectly they had no >problems in destroying civilizations. It's true that some of them, > by a later evolution, attained a wonderful state of spiritual > development, but just >few of them (I know only Greece and India in this way). Like Spanish in Mesoamerica, Indo-Iranians entered India. Gently ? or with a Stick? - Well, it all depends on one's position. (elitist or dalitist, I guess.) Aryans "acculturated/blended" with the pre-existing peoples. As far as India is concerned, the most likely cause of the "wonderful state of spiritual development" of Aryans happened due to their contact with Dravidians. Just like American Blacks talking English, Indians speak Aryan tongues today. Even now in India, the pressure is great to make everyone speak IA language(s). Indo-Europeans have several times overrun more civilized people and taken over their culture: the Hittites did it, the Greeks did it, the Celts did it. The Aryans in India did the same thing. Aryans were not as advanced as Egypt or Mesopotamia, definitely not as the Indus civilization. If anything, IE pitaras were good mercenaries, military schemers - we find them all over middle east. The spiritual development came few centuries later, that too for a small segment of Aryans. One reason for underestimating the Dravidian component is the paucity of funds, professorships endowed to the study of Dravidian or Subaltern or Dalit or non-Sanskrit culture. This is the situation even in India. As more and more material becomes available, we will see India as a complex culture produced due to intermixing of Aryan and Nonaryan (manily Dravidian) elements. Another problem is the British colonial rulers with their monolingual and monoreligious culture were unable to comprehend the multilingual, multireligious culture of India. They emphasised too much on Sanskrit. Sanskrit was chosen by the Europe, They canonized it, put it on a citadel, Indians just followed their lead. Another task remained still. Indians have to find a "Book". Vivekananda and today's Hindus found/find the "Book" in Gita. Semiticization of Hinduism leads to Ramakrishna missions, etc., (Thanks to USA universities, we hear about Dravidian literatures atleast a little. Works of Emeneau, Shulman, V. N. Rao, Ramanujan, Hart, Paula Richman, Indira Peterson, Vasudha Narayanan etc., European universities still emphasize Sanskrit only. Notable exceptions exist, I agree (eg. Zvelebil). Germany Univ. of Koeln has started/done tremendous work on the creation of tamil e-texts, Luckily, Japan funds Inst. of Asian studies, Madras. According to my opinion, Europe's, especially UK, contribution in the last few decades to study non-sanskritic Indian cultures seem small. Just a personal thought.) Sincerely, N. Ganesan Two paragraphs from an article, The case of a wounded literature that appeared in The Hindu: (I posted more to Indology on 13 Aug 1997 under the title: A wounded literature) Colonial intervention had in fact been a major blow to Indian literatures in that it privileged Sanskrit and Perso-Arabic over the modern Indian languages. Earlier a poet like Kabir had found Sanskrit ''the stagnant water of the Lord`s private well`` while the spoken language was ''the rippling water of the running stream.`` This perception of the medieval saint poets many of whom were the founders of native poetic traditions was subverted by the British who drew on a completely invented ''tradition`` to legitimate and endorse ''modernisation.`` Lord Minto ignored all literatures in modern Indian languages to assert that science and literature in India were ''in a progressive state of decay.`` The General Council of Education in India found Indian literatures to be ''profane`` ''immoral`` and ''impure``, and Sir Richard Temple found them ''scanty`` and ''obsolete.`` Thus began the colonial project for the creation of a ''national`` literature for India through translations of Sanskrit and Arabic classics into English and of English ''classics`` into Indian languages. Charles Trevelyan had found ''The diversity among languages`` to be ''one of the greatest existing obstacles to improvement in India.`` The British with their monolingual and monoreligious culture were unable to comprehend the multi-lingual, multi-religious culture of India. ***************************** The insurrectionary Dalit writing, most visible in languages like Marathi and Gujarati and emerging into visibility in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada, for example, attempts to define difference in terms of caste. Thirty centuries of silent suffering a whole ''culture of silence`` lie behind their articulations of indignant subalternity. They have succeeded in redrawing the literary map in their languages by exploring a whole new continent of experience as also by revitalising language with styles, tones, timbers, words and phrases so far kept out of literary use. They compel critics to re-examine their canons, challenge the fixed and stale social modes of looking at reality and ordering knowledge, beauty and power and subvert the age-old aesthetic principles of what they qualify as ''Brahminist poetics`` with dhwani, rasa and oucitya at the centre. They are ideologically heterogeneous as they have ambivalent relationships with Buddha, Gandhi and Ambedkar. Their poems and stories are invocations of cultural memory while their autobiographies unearth a whole buried realm of oppressive experience. The achievements of Dalit literature seem most evident in poetry as in the poems of Narayan Surve, Namdeo Dhasal, Keshav Meshram or Mallika Amar Sheikh of Marathi, Yoseph Macwan or Pravin Gadhvi of Gujarati or Siddhalingaiah of Kannada to cite only a few writers attempting to form an alternative aesthetics of social combat. ***************************************** From silk at WMICH.EDU Wed Mar 18 16:37:15 1998 From: silk at WMICH.EDU (jonathan silk) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 11:37:15 -0500 Subject: reliable Net Alert: WinNuke, from H-ASIA Message-ID: <161227036808.23782.12853253575750188979.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I thought this might be worth forwarding from a reliable source: ************************************************************ > H-ASIA > March 18, 1998 > >An alert re: WinNuke >************************************************************************** >From: H-Net Announcements Editor > >H-Net normally discourages the dissemination of virus alerts, because >in almost every case the supposed virus is a hoax or has already been >thwarted by upgraded software and new antivirus programs. However, the >Chronicle of Higher Education reports this week that attacks upon >computers through the internet, so-called "WinNuking," have been >occurring with increased frequency in the past months, and that news >about a free patch protecting against win-nuking has not been widely >disseminated to universities. > >These "attacks" are not viruses. Instead, they exploit a bug in >Windows 95/NT's networking system by forcing a shutdown/reboot of the >affected computer. The attacker sends a code to the host computer's IP >address, (obtained in chat rooms, or through visits to web pages), that >confuses Win95/NT and forces the shutdown. The attacks themselves do >not erase data, but they do force the user to reboot (and therefore >lose unsaved data) and disconnect from the network. Versions of the >attacks have different names, such as "teardrop," "ping o'death," "land >attack," etc., which operate on the same basic rationale and exploit >the same flaw in the operating system. > >Microsoft has developed a Win95/NT fix for this bug, which can be >downloaded free from Microsoft. A sensible, readable, explanation of >the situation, along with instructions and direct download links to >Microsoft to obtain patches for Win95 and versions of WinNT, can be >found at: > >http://users.nac.net/splat/winnuke/ > >The patch itself is 968K. It will install quickly, and does fix the bug. > > >Microsoft's security bulletin on the "teardrop" variant of the attack >is at >http://www.microsoft.com/security/newtear2.htm > >Subscribers interested in tracking virus hoaxes will find the Computer >Virus Myths site useful: > >http://www.kumite.com/myths/home.htm > >regards > > >Dr. Peter Knupfer >Associate Director >H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online >Voice: 785-532-5824 > >http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~asociate > >mailto:asociate at h-net.msu.edu >=========================================================================== > Jonathan Silk SILK at wmich.edu From L.S.Cousins at NESSIE.MCC.AC.UK Wed Mar 18 12:03:34 1998 From: L.S.Cousins at NESSIE.MCC.AC.UK (L.S.Cousins) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 12:03:34 +0000 Subject: Buddhist question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036806.23782.1949662983484706693.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I am posting a response to Madhav Deshpande's query (appended) about the Mingun Sayadaw on behalf of Gustaaf Houtman. (I have not tried to edit the encoding of Burmese.) Lance Cousins >Gustaaf Houtman >---------------------------------------------------------------- >Visiting Professor >Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures > of Asia and Africa (ILCAA) >Tokyo University of Foreign Studies >ghoutman at aa.tufs.ac.jp (until 30 August 1998) >ghoutman at compuserve.com (permanent) > >Dear Madhav, > >I received your request from Peter Flugel via the Indology list-serv. > >I was not aware that the Mingun had written a controversial work, but below >is my own summary of his life from my PhD thesis entitled `Ttraditions of >Buddhist practice in Burma'. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, >1990, pp 289-90. > >Do you have the email of Patrick Pranke? I would very much like to get in >touch with him. What is he doing now? > >Please do let me know more about yourself and your project! > >Hope to hear from you soon. > >Gustaaf Houtman >---------------------------------------------------------------- >Visiting Professor >Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures > of Asia and Africa (ILCAA) >Tokyo University of Foreign Studies >ghoutman at aa.tufs.ac.jp (until 30 August 1998) >ghoutman at compuserve.com (permanent) >******************************** >M?n-g Hsa-ya-daw, Zei-da-wun Mu-l(Na-ra-d >(1869-1954) >His biographer (1958: 203-08) gives 107 meditation centres teaching his >methods, though some of these, e.g. those of the Ma-ha-si and Taung-pu-l >should now clearly be treated as `new' traditions in their own right. >1869 Born on 16 January 1869 in Kan-gyg?? Village (10 miles north of the >town Sa-ga??g and west of M??-g??). Named Maung Tha By??, he had three >sisters. His father was from Kyauk-pa-nan Village (1 mile south of >Kan-gyg??-), and his mother from Kan-gyg?? Village. >1883 He became a novice at age of 14 with S??-kKya??g Hsa-ya-daw. >1886 He left monkhood for a while at age 17 when the English took Upper >Burma, but reentered under a cousin (ta-wun-gwe naung-daw), Hsa-ya-daw Lek-hka-na, at Man-gyst??-yMonastery, east of Kan-gyg?? Village. >1887 He was ordained a monk in this monastery in 1887 (1249). >He went to study the scriptures with Ya-zein-dfrom M??-g??-taung-baw-gyMonastery. Then he went to: Mgaung Monastery in Mandalay, Dak-hknwun >Monastery, Mydaung Monastery, and San Kya??g Monastery. He then went to >Lower Burma to study with Wei-lwun Hsa-ya-daw in Shwei-daung My He >returned to M??-g??-taung-baw Monastery where he continued his studies. >1894 He disrobed after 6 rainy seasons for his sisters. >1896 He returned to the monkhood after more than a year in 1896, this time >under the famous A-le-t??-yHsa-ya-daw Myit-zu. >Na-ra-dfirst developed interest in meditation under A-le-t??-yHsa-ya-daw >Myit-zu-tha, but the M??-g?? Hsa-ya-daw is alleged to have said that `Myit-zu-tha did not distinguish between this and that method of the >tha-dpat-htan practice' (Teik-hka-sa-r1958: 35). When A-le-t??-yasked >what he wanted, M??-g?? replied `neik-ban', to which A-le-t??-yreplied >with a phrase taken from tha-dpat-htan thok. M??-g??, dissatisfied, went >on to find out (1958: 36-7). >1905 At age 37 he moved 4 furlongs west of A-le-t??-yMonastery into his >own little meditation monastery. >1908 At age 40 (1908) he became a meditation teacher. >1911 In 1911 a new meditation centre was built in MyHlby San D?? >(named MyHlBo-dg?? Ka-ma-ht?? Hta-n where he taught meditation for 2 >rainy seasons. He then left for Tha-hton, where the Zei-da-wun Monastery was >built for him. Here he taught and wrote about insight. >1954 He died 16 May 1954. > >Burmese >Teik-hka-sa-r(1958) >M??-g?? Hsa-ya-daw [n.a.] (n.d.) >Myat Kyaw (1971:359-368): compares Le-di and M??-g?? Hs. >HteHlaing (1981: 434-477) >HlTha-mein (1961: 143-144) >Kyaw Nan-dAung (1988:25-50) >Tha-tha-nWthok-d(1977: 255-266) >Wthda (1980: hs- z): on the relationship between M. Hsa-ya-daw & >Taung-pl >Kei-la-th(1979:279-282) > >English >King (1980: 121, 132). >Nyanaponika (1962:85-7) >Than Tun (n.d.: 70) ---- >> Does anyone know of biographical or other information about a >>Burmese Buddhist monk named Thaton Mingun Jetavan Sayadaw? He is also >>known by the name U Narada, and was a preceptor of the famous Burmese >>meditation teacher Mahasi Sayadaw. Jetavan Sayadaw passed away in 1955. >>This monk is briefly mentioned by Nyanaponika in his Heart of Buddhist >>Meditation, but I do not find any further information about him. This >>monk wrote a Pali commentary on Milindapanha which was published in 1949. >>It became immediately controversial because of some of his suggestions for >>reforms and was banned and destroyed. A copy of this commentary was given >>to Late Professor P.V. Bapat in 1952 during his visit to Burma. In 1968, >>Bapat gave me this Pali commentary (in Burmese script) and asked me to >>transcribe it. Many years ago, I completed the roman transcription of >>this commentary and I am now working on a brief introduction, before the >>work is published. A student of mine, Patrick Pranke, mentioned to me >>that there are hagiographies of this and other monks in Burmese. But is >>there any such material in a western language? I would appreciate any >>help from our Buddhism pros on the net. MANCHESTER, UK CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS: Email: L.S.Cousins at nessie.mcc.ac.uk From jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU Wed Mar 18 18:41:31 1998 From: jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU (JR Gardner) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 12:41:31 -0600 Subject: Perso-Aryan Hypothesis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036817.23782.2443490398444744692.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Viktor: It would have been nice if you'd have replied privately to my original post--sent privately to you--as well. My note was not intended as a podium for a diatribe against the participants in the debate. My apologies to all jrg On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Viktor V. Sukliyan wrote: > Hello John, > > You are absolutely right regarding present unhealthy situation on the > List,resembling mass bombing of virgins. > Current omnivorous moderators just make powerful speeches with purpose to > massacre their opponents. If they would have a modicum of sense... > It's obvious how modest their means of scholarly argumentation and > comprehension.Modulating for the modulating sake. > Let us await for a soberly implicatum scholarship. > > On your 2nd para. I have got some references of people REMOTELY digging > in the same direction. If you like I'll supply you with the stuff privately. > > Viktor Sukliyan > > On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, JR Gardner wrote: > > > > > I'm quite curious as to what sources you base this upon. I'm very > > interested, but I do not get into the internet debate these days b/c it is > > simply too acrimonious at times-- thuse even intelligent statements get > > lost in the clamor of conflict. > > > > If there are other scholars/sources considering this, please let me knwo. > > I may not fully understand you position as some the way in which I > > understand english is different from yours, but I think I got the general > > idea, and it is intriguing. I'd like to read more. Are you the only > > person pursuing this? > > > > jrg > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > John Robert Gardner Obermann Center > > School of Religion for Advanced Studies > > University of Iowa University of Iowa > > 319-335-2164 319-335-4034 > > http://vedavid.org http://www.uiowa.edu/~obermann/ > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > It is ludicrous to consider language as anything other > > than that of which it is the transformation. > > > > > From mgansten at SBBS.SE Wed Mar 18 12:04:46 1998 From: mgansten at SBBS.SE (Martin Gansten) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 13:04:46 +0100 Subject: Sanskrit science terminology Message-ID: <161227036798.23782.14301814663387060733.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members, In the context of measuring subtle divisions of time, the 17th century text Horaaratna refers to various instruments, using the phrase "yantra-turya-dhruva-bhramaadi-vicitra-yantra". Would anyone out there happen to know the proper English terms for these instruments? Best regards, Martin Gansten From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 18 18:34:10 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 13:34:10 -0500 Subject: etymology of karN Message-ID: <161227036815.23782.15557664120285285744.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-15 06:06:08 EST, you write: << My point of view: Semantically, it seems we have a general meaning "prominent, protuberant": Russian "celo" is also "front" and Greek words give related meanings: "kolophOn" (top, achievement); "keleontes" (vertical weaving loom's uprights). But the meaning "to pierce" is in other words: "kolaptO" (to gash, to peck, to stake out); "kolios", "keleus" (woodpecker). Actually, a metaphor "to pierce"/"to rise up" is known by the French "percer" which can be used for "to become famous" for a man, or "to come up" for a plant. Phonetically there is a difficulty in Greek with the initial stop, the forms excluding a labiovalar ("po", "te" expected); an evolution *qo > Greek ko is just known in the case of a dissimilation by "u": boukolos < *gvou-qolos (cattleman, see gocaraH) against hippopolos (horseman). Possibly, we can imagine a *q(near L) > Gr. k as in *wLqos (vRka) > Gr. lukos (the L in *qL becoming normally "ol" in Greek), but there are other explanations of the difficult word "lukos". Moreover, we don't have never *qe > Gr. ke. Perhaps the easier way would be to suppose a root *kel-, fitting well for the meaning with Latin "celeber" (famous), and to explain karN (*zarN expected) by an labialization induced from "l" (the same thing occuring in Lituanian)??? Mythologically, that's easy to understand the hero's name karNa as "famous, out of the common": eldest son of kuntI, despite his obscure birth he is supposed becoming even better than arjuna. The reference to the earrings could be a secondary motivation of the name (his Greek parallel Glaukos bears just a golden plate). >> Am I right in understanding that the IE etymology is not very satisfactory? Before I post the following in Indology, I want to get your view. There is a Dravidian root kaN- meaning to incise, pierce, cut. The words related to this root are given in DED 979. (I do not have DEDR.) Ta. kaNai arrow; kaNicci battle-axe, pick-axe, goad, Ka. kaNe, gaNa arrow, Tu. kaNe quill of a porcupine; gane' arrow, Go (L) kaNI arrow, Kur. kannA arrow with an iron point, Malto kani barb of an arrow. Since all branches of Dravidian are represented here, the root should go back to Proto Dravidian. There is another set of words with the root kaN- meaning "to become cylindrical or globular"as in Ta. kaNai cylindrical or globular shape, kaNu joint in a bamboo, kaNukkAl ankle, kaNaikkAl shin, kaNaiyam club; Ma. kaNa roller of mills, the cylindrical wood of an oil press, Ko. kaN joint of bamboo, To. koN joint of bamboo or cane, Ka. kaN joint in reeds, gaNalu knuckle of the fingers, joint or knot in cane or reed, gaNike knot or joint, kaNe, kaNi heavy wooden roller which stands upright in the mortar of an oil- mill, Te. kanu, kannu joint in cane or reed, Kur. khann place on bamboo or cane where side shoot was cut away. Moreover, the word kaN- is used as a verb also, especially in the compound kaNNezuttu meaning incised letters. In my opinion, it is this root which is found in the Tamil word kaNakku meaning text as well as accounts/mathematics, etc. Till now many have held kaNakku is derived from Sanskrit. Compare gaNaka one who reckons , arithmetician MBh. ii , 206 ; xv , 417 ; a calculator of nativities , astrologer VS. xxx , 20 R. i , 12 , 7 Katha1s. ; m. pl.N. of a collection of 8 stars VarBr2S. xi , 25 ; (%{I})f. the wife of an astrologer Pa1n2. 4-1 , 48 Ka1s3. ; (%{ikA}) f. a harlot , courtezan Mn. iv Ya1jn5. i , 161 MBh. xiii Mr2icch. &c. ; = %{gaNikA7rikA} q.v. L. ; counting , enumerating W. ; apprehension W. However, based on the Dravidian information presented here, Sanskrit kaRN seems to be based on Dravidian kaN with an r inserted before N. According to Kuiper, "In Sanskrit the tendency to 'naturalize' an unconditioned N by inserting an r or R has been common in many periods." (Aryans in the Rig Veda, p.70) With an enunciative 'a' after 'r' one will get "karaNa" meaning a man of a mixed class (the son of an outcast Kshatriya Mn. x , 22 ; or the son of a S3u1dra woman by a Vais3ya Ya1jn5. i , 92 ; or the son of a Vais3ya woman by a Kshatriya MBh. i , 2446 ; 4521 ; the occupation of this class is writing , accounts &c.) a writer, scribe W. I think Dravidian kaN- can explain kaRN and karaNa better than the IE explanation. You should also note that incising palm leaf is a South Indian custom as opposed to writing with ink found in north. Thus Sanskrit karaNa scribe cannot be related to Sanskrit kaRN. What do you think? What is the IE view of the etymology for gaNaka arithmatician and karaNa scribe, accountant? Thanks in advance. Regards S. Palaniappan From physgb1 at MATHOU.UOM.AC.MU Wed Mar 18 17:53:35 1998 From: physgb1 at MATHOU.UOM.AC.MU (Girish Kumar Beeharry) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 13:53:35 -0400 Subject: Space-time & gravitation Message-ID: <161227036794.23782.13767003378965968062.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Indologists, I would like to know whether ideas/theories about space, time & gravitation have been discussed in the Indian peninsula before Newton's time, say. I am not asking for mathematical theories but whatever discussions there might have been on the attraction of bodies (eg apples falling or the motion of the Moon) within a space-time framework. I am more generally interested in what the Chinese, Tibetan and civilisations not influenced by the Greek-Roman-'European'* civilisation have to say on gravitation. Any reference is most welcome. Many thanks in advance. Girish Kumar Beeharry * I am really asking a Physics question. Please don't misinterpret Greek-Roman-'European' and start a new mahaabhaarata! :-)) From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 18 18:58:27 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 13:58:27 -0500 Subject: Apology Message-ID: <161227036819.23782.511597910207828109.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> To the list members: I apologize for the error in sending to the list an email meant for private communication to Dr. Dominique Thillaud. Regards S. Palaniappan From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Wed Mar 18 19:11:46 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 14:11:46 -0500 Subject: Palm leaf manuscripts Message-ID: <161227036821.23782.9874636396800536239.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Many thanks to Dr. Jayabarathy. In a message dated 98-03-15 06:16:45 EST, barathi at pc.jaring.my writes: << Rarely was the word used to mean the stylus. "ANi" or "elzuththANi" was the most commonly used word. >> I guess it is this rare usage Tamil Lexicon must be referring to when it gives the meaning "arrow, style" for "nArAyam". I heard that in Malayalam "nArAyam" means writing stylus. Is it right? Thanks in advance. Regards S. Palaniappan From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Wed Mar 18 19:56:08 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 14:56:08 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036823.23782.11366028371494088294.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > Perhaps a difference between knowing horses and having a cultur > based on them. Do you won't really compare this few remains with the > material of the Scythian graves? Do the remains of horses in India ever reach the levels of Scythian graves, at least before 1000 CE? From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Wed Mar 18 21:05:11 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 15:05:11 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036827.23782.16066959226871970260.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Subject: Re: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: >> Perhaps a difference between knowing horses and having a cultur >> based on them. Do you won't really compare this few remains with the >> material of the Scythian graves? >Do the remains of horses in India ever reach the levels of Scythian >graves, at least before 1000 CE? At least, Horses increase in numbers dramatically. Horses are allied to positions of power, eg: Bharhut stupa basreliefs. T. K. Biswas, Horse in early Indian art, Delhi has many sculptures of horses and kings. N. Ganesan From srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU Wed Mar 18 20:28:23 1998 From: srini at ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Srinivasan Pichumani) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 15:28:23 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227036825.23782.9498726859269336764.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> This weird parallel occured to me after reading recent posts by George Thompson and Jan Houben quoting Erdosy, Allchin, etc. So, here I go, requesting your indulgence, and parding your beggon for this flight of fancy. ________ All this jostling that goes on between archeologists and linguists/ Vedicists on the AIT/AMT/OOI issue seems to mirror very well the Aryan/non-Aryan scenario of the Vedic times. Think about it... the linguists think that they have the blemishless evidence i.e. Vedas and IE "speech" on their side... thus, they are the "Aryas" with their powerful "mantra"... the archeologists are devoid of it or at least don't pay that much attention to it, and hence, are "anArya", "mRdhravAca" etc. The archeologists on the other hand have their telling, extensive material evidence - their stunning excavations, their cities, their "pura"s - starting off with the Indus Valley civilization digs, ranging over time and geography, all the way down to early Indian historical times... thus they are like the "dAsas" of yore... and are always at loggerheads with the "Aryas". _______ :-) -Srini. ps: As for the linguist-Vedicist/archeologist divide, I only witnessed it all too well in the Aryan/non-Aryan seminar at U of M where, in one of the panels, Witzel sat at one corner and Jim Shaffer on the other with nary a look at each other ;-) From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Wed Mar 18 23:56:38 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 15:56:38 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036831.23782.15619090339113904887.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George Thompson writes: >Their books, just like your posts, assert many things, many wild things,and prove, argue, demonstrate nothing. I have found their books a waste of time. and in another posts talks about the fairy tales of Feuerstein. Churchill is supposed to have said that he didn't read a book unless it gave him either pleasure or profit. As has been agreed before the writings of Messrs Kak and Frawley are as unprofitable as can be ; and give other genuine anti-AMT resarchers like Sethna a bad name. So, let us look at their entertainment value now. Page 47 lists the words in various languages for given words...these souls tell us that in sanskrit, "two" becomes "dva", which is correct superficially, not correct if taken in it's most accurate form...it is normally written as -dvi-( when prefixed, as in "dvija:") and changes to dva in conjunction with dasha, vimsha and trimsha) and when used individually, becomes dvau or dve depending on the gender. Yet, These souls try to hoist off "dvA" as the most common form of two in Samskrt. OF course, lower down, they mention the samskrt word for "8" as "ashtau"..this is something absurd, since the "-au" ending comes about only in dvivacanam. (just as it is meaningless to have words like ekai:, or ekAbhyAm, the word "aSTau" for 8 is also nonsensical.) Subhash Kak then claims in regard with his frequency distributions that the "-sya ending" is most common in shashThI vibhakti words... (This is how the decipherment of some of the Indus valley seals was carried out) I am not sure as to how this can be since this ending exists in pullimga and napumsakalimga akArAnta endings( and probably in a few other zabdas that I don't know of) but is it so common as he claims? Page 245 makes the claim that the saptarSis married the kr~ttikAs who are the same as "Plaeides" and were 7 in number,this is certainly not sure since the krttikAs were 6(Both V.S.Apte and Monier Williams give the number as 6) and this can also be verified in the 'kumArasambhavam". This correction of 6 to 7 seems to be another example of "kAkism". This therefore raises very serious doubts about the ability of these gentlemen to translate the samskrt texts that they quote, and all translations veracity cannot be vouched for. Bottom line : The book is a good test for determining the quality of a potential proof reader. since faultswise the book is "AdimadhyAntarahitam"( lacks neither a begining, a middle nor and end )....so faultswise, the book is a good example of "The more the merrier". Regards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From thillaud at UNICE.FR Wed Mar 18 16:32:31 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 17:32:31 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980318151941.010daa08@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: <161227036841.23782.1422775935534044536.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >> Mr Subrahmania says the archeology is scientific: I agree, but >>perhaps that's not true for the interpretation of archeology's results ;) >> >> Regards, >>Dominique >> >What you say is true for linguistics also. > >Subrahmanya I agree too Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From thompson at JLC.NET Wed Mar 18 21:57:49 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 98 17:57:49 -0400 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036829.23782.11835862040733989681.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In response to Mary Storm's useful summary: Much of this evidence was discussed on the RISA list back, I think, in October 1996. One could check the archives for specific references, but I recall that archaeologists had not come to a consensus about these possible horse remains at that time. Is this right, Edwin? George Thompson >Sorry to jump in here, as an art historian, not a linguist, I am not >sure if my comments will be very welcome. I offer this archaeological >data with all humility: >The horse argument has been going on for a while. There is, in fact, >evidence of the horse at Indus sites. >The eminent archaeologist B. B. Lal (hardly a saffron crackpot) in his >latest book The Earliest Civilization of South Asia, New Delhi, 1997, >pp. 285-86, sums up some of the horse evidence: >Mohenjo-daro: Terracotta horse figure found by Mackay ( although some >controversy about the interpretation). >Lothal: teracotta horse figure and second right upper molar of a horse. >Surkotada: horse bones, the bones are from a true horse, Equus Caballus, >as determined by the enamel pattern of the teeth, and by the size of the >incisors as well as the phalanges. "Since no wild horses lived in India >in post-pleistocene times the domestic nature of the Surkotada horse is >undoubtful." >Kalibangan: horse bones. >Nausharo: terracotta horse figurines have just very recently been >discovered on the Harrapan levels of the site. >Tally-ho, >Mary Storm > >> From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Wed Mar 18 19:05:34 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 00:05:34 +0500 Subject: Perso-Aryan Hypothesis Message-ID: <161227036813.23782.10522830833375389648.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hello John, You are absolutely right regarding present unhealthy situation on the List,resembling mass bombing of virgins. Current omnivorous moderators just make powerful speeches with purpose to massacre their opponents. If they would have a modicum of sense... It's obvious how modest their means of scholarly argumentation and comprehension.Modulating for the modulating sake. Let us await for a soberly implicatum scholarship. On your 2nd para. I have got some references of people REMOTELY digging in the same direction. If you like I'll supply you with the stuff privately. Viktor Sukliyan On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, JR Gardner wrote: > > I'm quite curious as to what sources you base this upon. I'm very > interested, but I do not get into the internet debate these days b/c it is > simply too acrimonious at times-- thuse even intelligent statements get > lost in the clamor of conflict. > > If there are other scholars/sources considering this, please let me knwo. > I may not fully understand you position as some the way in which I > understand english is different from yours, but I think I got the general > idea, and it is intriguing. I'd like to read more. Are you the only > person pursuing this? > > jrg > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > John Robert Gardner Obermann Center > School of Religion for Advanced Studies > University of Iowa University of Iowa > 319-335-2164 319-335-4034 > http://vedavid.org http://www.uiowa.edu/~obermann/ > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > It is ludicrous to consider language as anything other > than that of which it is the transformation. > > From roheko at MSN.COM Thu Mar 19 04:22:21 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 05:22:21 +0100 Subject: Is there a list for s c h o l a r s on INET? Message-ID: <161227036836.23782.17075577174818603503.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I would be very thankful for any response Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN Thu Mar 19 01:05:15 1998 From: narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN (DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 06:05:15 +0500 Subject: etymology of karN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036833.23782.11736601995759654926.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 01:34 PM 3/18/98 EST, S.palaniappa wrote: >In a message dated 98-03-15 06:06:08 EST, you write: > >mill, Te. kanu, kannu joint in cane or reed, Kur. khann place on bamboo or >cane where side shoot was cut away. > >Regards > >S. Palaniappan > > In Telugu kaNiti (kaMti) = tumour, kaNupu or kanupu = joints of bamboo or reed (protuberance) kaMta, kannamu = hole; kaMtalu = h0les kannu = eye, kannulu (kaLLu) = eyes, kaNatalu = depressed areas on the sides of the forehead. (Perhaps because of the hole or depression in the skull in these places) Te. gaMtamu or ghaMtamu for stylus (Sk. kaNTaka , Te. kaMTamu = thorn) may also be related to kan (to pierce). regards, sarma. From Vaidix at AOL.COM Thu Mar 19 11:45:05 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 06:45:05 -0500 Subject: zrauta technology Message-ID: <161227036847.23782.18309689787751607178.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members Please let me give you a quick overview of my findings on the subject. I find that the vedic civilization made a number of discoveries regarding the thought process. Following is the summary of what I found till now. Primarily the method I used to arrive at these conclusions is prANAyAmA. These findings can be confirmed by anyone who has been trained in yoga/prANAyAmA techniques. Others may criticise from linguistic/zrauta angle. (The findings are subject to change as research progresses. I suggest further discussion of this subject be taken offline and only end results be presented to the list members.) Abstract: ------------- The spine represents what is Unknown. The nervous endings in the region of mouth, neck etc represents what is known. The brain represents what is desirable. These three fields interact with each other and often try to take control of each other generating the thought process. When the known is controlled by the unknown it is called bRhaspati, this function resides in the mouth. When the desirable is controlled by the unknown it is called indra, this function is seated in the hindbrain. When the known is controlled by the desirable it is called maruts, maruts are located in the forehead (fronto temporal lobes?). The first perception of the unknown is viSNu, which resides in the feet. And the last perception of the known is rudra which resides at the ower end of spine. soma is to be interpreted as the secretions of brain-like tissue found in the gut. A number of other vedic symbols are at various stages of inquiry. The idea of control (mentioned above) is itself a fallacy because it assumes action at a distance. Removing this fallacy involves substitution by a mathematical model using neuro-fuzzy algorithms for which I am not prepared yet. The findings match descriptions of various bits and pieces of zrauta theories such as consecration yajJa or bartering of cow for soma etc in soma-yAga; but I am nowhere near interpreting a regular brAhmaNa text. Any list members who know/practice any form of prANAyAmA and who are interested in this new field of inquiry may please write to me. I will provide all necessary hints to start their own research. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From pf at CIX.CO.UK Thu Mar 19 09:35:00 1998 From: pf at CIX.CO.UK (Peter Flugel) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 09:35:00 +0000 Subject: Buddhist question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036843.23782.18270481995722318082.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Madhav, I received your request from Peter Flugel via the Indology list-serv. I was not aware that the Mingun had written a controversial work, but below is my own summary of his life from my PhD thesis entitled `Ttraditions of Buddhist practice in Burma'. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1990, pp 289-90. Do you have the email of Patrick Pranke? I would very much like to get in touch with him. What is he doing now? Please do let me know more about yourself and your project! Hope to hear from you soon. Gustaaf Houtman ---------------------------------------------------------------- Visiting Professor Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA) Tokyo University of Foreign Studies ghoutman at aa.tufs.ac.jp (until 30 August 1998) ghoutman at compuserve.com (permanent) ******************************** M?n-g?n Hsa-ya-daw, Zei-da-wun Mu-l? (Na-ra-d?, ?) (1869-1954) His biographer (1958: 203-08) gives 107 meditation centres teaching his methods, though some of these, e.g. those of the Ma-ha-si and Taung-pu-l?, should now clearly be treated as `new' traditions in their own right. 1869 Born on 16 January 1869 in Kan-gy?-g?n Village (10 miles north of the town Sa-ga?ng and west of M?n-g?n). Named Maung Tha By?w, he had three sisters. His father was from Kyauk-pa-nan Village (1 mile south of Kan-gy?-g?n-), and his mother from Kan-gy?-g?n Village. 1883 He became a novice at age of 14 with S?w-k? Kya?ng Hsa-ya-daw. 1886 He left monkhood for a while at age 17 when the English took Upper Burma, but reentered under a cousin (ta-wun-gwe naung-daw), Hsa-ya-daw ? Lek-hka-na, at Man-gy?-s?-t?w-y? Monastery, east of Kan-gy?-g?n Village. 1887 He was ordained a monk in this monastery in 1887 (1249). He went to study the scriptures with ? Ya-zein-d? from M?n-g?n-taung-baw-gy? Monastery. Then he went to: M?-gaung Monastery in Mandalay, Dak-hk?-n?-wun Monastery, My?-daung Monastery, and San Kya?ng Monastery. He then went to Lower Burma to study with Wei-l?-wun Hsa-ya-daw in Shwei-daung My?. He returned to M?n-g?n-taung-baw Monastery where he continued his studies. 1894 He disrobed after 6 rainy seasons for his sisters. 1896 He returned to the monkhood after more than a year in 1896, this time under the famous A-le-t?w-y? Hsa-ya-daw ? Myit-zu. Na-ra-d? first developed interest in meditation under A-le-t?w-y? Hsa-ya-daw ? Myit-zu-tha, but the M?n-g?n Hsa-ya-daw is alleged to have said that `? Myit-zu-tha did not distinguish between this and that method of the tha-d?-pat-htan practice' (Teik-hka-sa-r? 1958: 35). When A-le-t?w-y? asked what he wanted, M?n-g?n replied `neik-ban', to which A-le-t?w-y? replied with a phrase taken from tha-d?-pat-htan thok. M?n-g?n, dissatisfied, went on to find out (1958: 36-7). 1905 At age 37 he moved 4 furlongs west of A-le-t?w-y? Monastery into his own little meditation monastery. 1908 At age 40 (1908) he became a meditation teacher. 1911 In 1911 a new meditation centre was built in My? Hl? by ? San D?n (named My? Hl? Bo-d?-g?n Ka-ma-ht?n Hta-n?) where he taught meditation for 2 rainy seasons. He then left for Tha-hton, where the Zei-da-wun Monastery was built for him. Here he taught and wrote about insight. 1954 He died 16 May 1954. Burmese Teik-hka-sa-r? (1958) M?n-g?n Hsa-ya-daw [n.a.] (n.d.) Myat Kyaw (1971:359-368): compares Le-di and M?n-g?n Hs. Hte? Hlaing (1981: 434-477) Hl? Tha-mein (1961: 143-144) Kyaw Nan-d? Aung (1988:25-50) Tha-tha-n? W?-thok-d? (1977: 255-266) W?-th?-da (1980: hs? - z?-): on the relationship between M. Hsa-ya-daw & Taung-p?-l?- Kei-la-th? (1979:279-282) English King (1980: 121, 132). Nyanaponika (1962:85-7) Than Tun (n.d.: 70) From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Thu Mar 19 15:29:32 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 10:29:32 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036851.23782.6991784674396877284.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "N. Ganesan" wrote: > "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > >> Perhaps a difference between knowing horses and having a cultur > >> based on them. Do you won't really compare this few remains with the > >> material of the Scythian graves? > > >Do the remains of horses in India ever reach the levels of Scythian > >graves, at least before 1000 CE? > > At least, Horses increase in numbers dramatically. Horses > are allied to positions of power, eg: Bharhut stupa basreliefs. How were the number of actual horses (not sculptures) estimated? Representations of horses and chariots in sculptures raise serious questions. Comparing the discussions of actual functional chariots by Littauer, Spruytte etc with the representations of chariots at Sanchi make me wonder if the sculptors of Sanchi had first hand knowledge chariots. Sanchi sculputres show the yoke rather high on the neck, and ``girths'' running at angles that would be impossible for ropes in tension. But there are no representations (or textual evidence for) yoke saddles that would make this physically possible, even if still a little implausible. (Yoke saddle would be neccessary for fast maneuverable chariots with neck yokes. Without yoke saddles and backing elements, we would have at most carriages useful for parades and straight line travelling, with turns few and done at a walk.) As Littauer pointed out once, it is hard to reconcile things like this with claims of horse loving chariot riding Central Asian nomads setting up shop. On the other hand, if horses and chariots were rare items acquired by trade and had only symbolic value, and were not in routine use, then this would not seem so strange. Regards -Nath From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Thu Mar 19 05:51:54 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 10:51:54 +0500 Subject: Sloppy Blunder:Re: Perso-Aryan Hypothesis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036838.23782.13822391362158447628.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear friends from Indology I am very sorry for my sloppy blunder of publishing private message from Prof. John R. Gardner adressed to me personally. Unfortunately I didn't mention that it came not from Indology Listserv, before saving to folder. I thought it was written in public, therefore I felt moral responsibility to reply accordingly to all my respected friends on Indology List, for the betterment of last. In no way I wanted to use your sincere letter as a "podium for the for a diatribe against the participants in the debate".It was just inattentive emotional reply. Sorry for it. I also apologize for being exposed as unethical netter before my reverend friends and well-wishers. Sincerely Yours Viktor Sukliyan On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Viktor V. Sukliyan wrote: > Viktor: > > It would have been nice if you'd have replied privately to my original > post--sent privately to you--as well. My note was not intended as a > podium for a diatribe against the participants in the debate. My > apologies to all > > jrg > > On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Viktor V. Sukliyan wrote: > > > Hello John, > > > > You are absolutely right regarding present unhealthy situation on the > > List,resembling mass bombing of virgins. > > Current omnivorous moderators just make powerful speeches with purpose to > > massacre their opponents. If they would have a modicum of sense... > > It's obvious how modest their means of scholarly argumentation and > > comprehension.Modulating for the modulating sake. > > Let us await for a soberly implicatum scholarship. > > > > On your 2nd para. I have got some references of people REMOTELY digging > > in the same direction. If you like I'll supply you with the stuff > privately. > > > > Viktor Sukliyan > > > > On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, JR Gardner wrote: > > > > > > > > I'm quite curious as to what sources you base this upon. I'm very > > > interested, but I do not get into the internet debate these days b/c > it is > > > simply too acrimonious at times-- thuse even intelligent statements get > > > lost in the clamor of conflict. > > > > > > If there are other scholars/sources considering this, please let me knwo. > > > I may not fully understand you position as some the way in which I > > > understand english is different from yours, but I think I got the general > > > idea, and it is intriguing. I'd like to read more. Are you the only > > > person pursuing this? > > > > > > jrg > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > John Robert Gardner Obermann Center > > > School of Religion for Advanced Studies > > > University of Iowa University of Iowa > > > 319-335-2164 319-335-4034 > > > http://vedavid.org http://www.uiowa.edu/~obermann/ > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > It is ludicrous to consider language as anything other > > > than that of which it is the transformation. > > > > > > > > > > From JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL Thu Mar 19 11:58:19 1998 From: JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL (Jan E.M. Houben) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 12:58:19 +0100 Subject: Space-time & gravitation Message-ID: <161227036849.23782.2812472447130985156.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Among several relevant publications I would definitely recommend to start with Barend Faddegon's The Vaisesika System: described with the help of the oldest texts (Amsterdam 1918, reprint: Lichtenstein 1969), and in this work especially part II chapter 2 entitled "Physics" and chapter 3 entitled "Mathematical notions (number, time, space, movement)". Chapter 2 also contains a section on physics in other Indian systems and on the physical notions of the ancient Greeks. Of course, Faddegon could not make use of some important Vaisesika-texts which became accessible after his time, such as Candrananda's commentary and the corresponding version of the suutras. I am not aware of an English publication as comprehensive and thorough as that of Faddegon but taking account these newly available texts. You may also want to look into the first chapters of the AbhidharmakoZabhASya for alternative physical (and atomic) theories and criticism of the Vaisesikas. For Jaina physical theories cf. Dixit's Jaina Ontology, Ahmedabad, 1971, under the relevant headings (perhaps other List members can suggest here further publications). Suitable for introductory reading also: A.B. Keith, Indian Logic and Atomism, Oxford 1921, part II.B on Ontology and the Philosophy of Nature. JH On Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:53:35 -0400, Girish Kumar Beeharry wrote: >Dear Indologists, I would like to know whether ideas/theories about space, time & gravitation have been discussed in the Indian peninsula before Newton's time, say. I am not asking for mathematical theories but whatever discussions there might have been on the attraction of bodies (eg apples falling or the motion of the Moon) within a space-time framework. I am more generally interested in what the Chinese, Tibetan and civilisations not influenced by the Greek-Roman-'European'* civilisation have to say on gravitation. Any reference is most welcome. Many thanks in advance. Girish Kumar Beeharry * I am really asking a Physics question. Please don't misinterpret Greek-Roman-'European' and start a new mahaabhaarata! :-)) From cssetzer at MUM.EDU Thu Mar 19 20:03:24 1998 From: cssetzer at MUM.EDU (Claude Setzer) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 14:03:24 -0600 Subject: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? Message-ID: <161227036860.23782.2240967326651659466.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Good points, but remember that voice recognition coupled with powerful artificial intelligence is very trainable....far more trainable I think than the best text recognition systems that I have seen. Also the human voice can be far more consistent than the many font faces available....almost unlimited. Even in English using the best of quality fonts, can be beyond the capability of the best OCR. Scanning a real book is another problem altogether. The speaker can compensate for many of the problems of the printed text. I don't know how soon this will be available but I believe that voice recognition has more potential than OCR. I also am not advocating even the possibility of universal untrained voice recognition, but the use of a carefully trained and practiced human speaker. There is really no possibility to "train" a specific text, especially an old one. With OCR you can train only the software, not the "speaker." Claude Setzer -----Original Message----- From: Viktor V. Sukliyan To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Date: Thursday, March 19, 1998 1:30 PM Subject: Re: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? >On Sun, 15 Mar 1998, Claude Setzer wrote: > >> Another option which may only a slight chance of being implemented is the >> Verbot (PC base verbal robot) approach which carries on conversations in >> English now and promises to be extended to other languages in the next few >> years. I think these people are going to have better and less expensive >> voice recognition than what is available now, and since Sanskritists are >> sometimes willing to put more attention on "consistent" pronunciation than >> speakers of other languages, this might prove to be quite interesting as a >> way to enter text. >> >> Claude Setzer cssetzer at mum.edu > >I don't think it's practically possible. It won't be possible for robot to >tetermine accoustical difference appearing in pronounciation >of different speakers, say from Bengal (can't pronounce such consonants >as v, ya), Punjab (instead of krishna-krishan, dharma-dharam etc),Tamils >(I suspect some difficulties with ka, kha, ga, gha, as it was mention on >Indology previously ), English speakers are in more difficulties with >their specific phonetic system situated very far away from that of Sanskrit. >Secondly voice recognition is not so universal as optical one where you > need not to have phonology experts qualified to read and speak. > >Viktor > From thillaud at UNICE.FR Thu Mar 19 13:05:18 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 14:05:18 +0100 Subject: etymology of karN In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036853.23782.10135299814069019954.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S. Palaniappan answered me: ><< My point of view: > Semantically, it seems we have a general meaning "prominent, > protuberant": Russian "celo" is also "front" and Greek words give related > meanings: "kolophOn" (top, achievement); "keleontes" (vertical weaving > loom's uprights). But the meaning "to pierce" is in other words: "kolaptO" > (to gash, to peck, to stake out); "kolios", "keleus" (woodpecker). > Actually, a metaphor "to pierce"/"to rise up" is known by the French > "percer" which can be used for "to become famous" for a man, or "to come > up" for a plant. > Phonetically there is a difficulty in Greek with the initial stop, > the forms excluding a labiovalar ("po", "te" expected); an evolution *qo > > Greek ko is just known in the case of a dissimilation by "u": boukolos < > *gvou-qolos (cattleman, see gocaraH) against hippopolos (horseman). > Possibly, we can imagine a *q(near L) > Gr. k as in *wLqos (vRka) > Gr. > lukos (the L in *qL becoming normally "ol" in Greek), but there are other > explanations of the difficult word "lukos". Moreover, we don't have never > *qe > Gr. ke. Perhaps the easier way would be to suppose a root *kel-, > fitting well for the meaning with Latin "celeber" (famous), and to explain > karN (*zarN expected) by an labialization induced from "l" (the same thing > occuring in Lituanian)??? > Mythologically, that's easy to understand the hero's name karNa as > "famous, out of the common": eldest son of kuntI, despite his obscure birth > he is supposed becoming even better than arjuna. The reference to the > earrings could be a secondary motivation of the name (his Greek parallel > Glaukos bears just a golden plate). > >> > >Am I right in understanding that the IE etymology is not very satisfactory? >Before I post the following in Indology, I want to get your view. You're perhaps right. But what is "very satisfactory"? Personnally, I'm "normally" satisfied by this IE analysis where the only problem is the supposed assimilation *kol-no- > *qol-no- which would need a proof. Usually, such a proof needs two parts: - phonetic: it must be acceptable regarding general rules. That's here the case: the "l" sound is known to have a labial feature (see in ancient French the evolution chivals > chivaus which give the modern irregular plural cheval/chevaux) and the "o" being also labial is able to inforce the process of anticipation. - other examples of such a treatment: finding a specific groupment of phonems attested in the specific languages is not always easy, but here we can consider the old high German "klagOn" (to moan, complain, giving German "klagen") which is coming from a *galgh-. If we accept (not a difficulty) a semantic comparison with Skr. "garhati", "gRhuH" we have our example of labialization (*gva > ga but *ga > ja). Unfortunately, the two well known roots *kel- (to hide) and *gleubh- (to carve, sculpt, bark, hollow) are not attested in Sanskrit and we are limited to one example. Do YOU are "very satisfied"? "normally"? not? I, normally :) What is the opinion of other Eurindian linguists on the list? Alas, I'm strictly unable to comment your own hypothesis on the word, completely out of my competence. Best regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From jage at LOC.GOV Thu Mar 19 20:30:54 1998 From: jage at LOC.GOV (James E. Agenbroad) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 15:30:54 -0500 Subject: Gurmukhi Alphabetic Order? Message-ID: <161227036862.23782.6795861898215416937.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thursday, March 19, 1998 Could someone tell my why in the Gurmukhi script 'sa' and 'ha' come before 'ka' instead at the end as with other Brahmi based scripts? I do not plan to interfile Panjabi with other scripts soon; it's just an anomaly I'd like to understand if possible. Thank you. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage at LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-9334 U.S.A. From thillaud at UNICE.FR Thu Mar 19 14:37:29 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 15:37:29 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <19980318235638.16929.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <161227036855.23782.16838716538429418204.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Krishna writes: > OF course, lower down, they mention the samskrt word for "8" as >"ashtau"..this is something absurd, since the "-au" ending comes about >only in dvivacanam. (just as it is meaningless to have words like >ekai:, or ekAbhyAm, the word "aSTau" for 8 is also nonsensical.) "the "-au" ending comes about only in dvivacanam" ? No: nominative aSTau (RV, &c.) being a counter-example. There was tentatives to explain aSTau by a dual, but without any good result. The simpler was to consider *qet(w)r- (4), to cut the last "r" (without understand it!), to suppose a zero degree with "qt" > "kt" and to prefix by a dubious particle "O" (near) suggested by few Greek words and Skr. A-gam- (shortened before two consonants?); finally: "two 4s brought nearer"!! In fact, it seems we have a "vanishing" "w" at the end of the Eurindian root, suggested by the ordinals Lat. octAuos, Gr. ogdo(w)os and by Got. ahtau. The Indian variants aSTa, aSTA, aSTau find a parallel in Greek where the two forms oktO- and okta- coexist early (Homer) in compounds; okta- was explained by the analogy with hepta- and hexa- but nothing is sure with this mysterious number and the "a" could be genuine (see the Osq. form Uhtavis of the Lat. name Octavius). Nevertheless, I agree with Krishna's comment. Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN Thu Mar 19 11:58:08 1998 From: zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN (Robert J. Zydenbos) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 98 17:28:08 +0530 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036846.23782.5111648453085451449.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Charles wrote on Tue, 17 Mar 1998 22:45:30 -0800: > Do you really mean what you wrote about Vivek?nanda ? Yes. > presenting him as a racist third-rate > thinker does seem a bit, shall I say, unscholarly. I hope you are keeping in mind that on the Indology list there is a general request to limit messages to 2 screens: even though I too sin against this, I do not want to upload all the material I have collected. V.'s collected writings are easily available for all who care to have a look, if you want documentation. You will also have noticed that I have already given one random example in another message to this list. I was collecting such quotes from V. enthusiastically for a while, until I found that his statements on racial groups, religious groups etc. were _so_ many and so inconsistent, and many of them so bizarre (like claiming that marriage does not exist among Buddhists in Tibet), that I tired of this. So now this bit of work has been moved to the background in favour of studies of more serious things. (This may come as a solace to Vivekananda fans on the list.) That he is inconsistent, sloppy and racistic is not a great discovery; but I am looking for an underlying pattern in his boisterousness, which I think is there, and that will take some more time yet to find. > Wether or not one > agrees with him, it is hard to deny the quality and the importance > of Vivek?nanda's writings. Quality? That is precisely my contention. As for 'importance': a thing can be important in many different ways. As statements of religious / philosophical truth, a good part of his writings are fourth- / fifth-rate. His importance and relevance today are just what I stated earlier: in certain political circles, and for utterly unreligious reasons. True, he served some time as a promotor of Indian (Hindu, rather) self-respect, which was good, even if most of his arguments for such self-respect, if we look back, turn out to be largely false and / or absurd. Still his ideas provide the metaphysical basis of Hindutva (so, yes, he is 'important' in a way). Let it be very clear: V. is not mainstream Hinduism; scholars in Mysore assure me that the Ramakrishna Maths actually had themselves legally declared non-Hindu in court several years ago. V. is a figurehead for urbanised, Anglicised, well-to-do Indians who are partly alienated from traditional Hinduism. In rural India, as per my own observations, he is never more than a picture on a wall, 'the man through whom Hinduism conquered the world' and a protagonist in myths without substance, a writer the bulk of whose writings are read by none. (Sorry if this sounds crude or 'unscholarly', but I've already reached my third screenful.) Hardly anybody, besides the residents of Ramakrishna Maths and Hindutva ideologues, has any idea of what he stood for. (Why? For that extremely common reason: popular myths are easy to lap up; critically reading the man takes time, effort, and may produce results one doesn't want to see. I surely did not want to see them! but what to do? turn a blind eye and join the mob of uncritical eulogists?) RZ From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Thu Mar 19 20:07:35 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 01:07:35 +0500 Subject: Software for scanning of Indian rarities? In-Reply-To: <01bd5064$470b0c60$0bcc91d0@cs> Message-ID: <161227036857.23782.199077031094768241.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 15 Mar 1998, Claude Setzer wrote: > Another option which may only a slight chance of being implemented is the > Verbot (PC base verbal robot) approach which carries on conversations in > English now and promises to be extended to other languages in the next few > years. I think these people are going to have better and less expensive > voice recognition than what is available now, and since Sanskritists are > sometimes willing to put more attention on "consistent" pronunciation than > speakers of other languages, this might prove to be quite interesting as a > way to enter text. > > Claude Setzer cssetzer at mum.edu I don't think it's practically possible. It won't be possible for robot to tetermine accoustical difference appearing in pronounciation of different speakers, say from Bengal (can't pronounce such consonants as v, ya), Punjab (instead of krishna-krishan, dharma-dharam etc),Tamils (I suspect some difficulties with ka, kha, ga, gha, as it was mention on Indology previously ), English speakers are in more difficulties with their specific phonetic system situated very far away from that of Sanskrit. Secondly voice recognition is not so universal as optical one where you need not to have phonology experts qualified to read and speak. Viktor From sudheerbirodkar at YAHOO.COM Fri Mar 20 12:11:20 1998 From: sudheerbirodkar at YAHOO.COM (sudheer birodkar) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 04:11:20 -0800 Subject: Origins of Caste System in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227036871.23782.13721339693848637704.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Members of the Indology List, I have recently completed a book on Castes in India. The book addresses question like: - How did the Caste system originate in ancient India? - Why do casteist practices like those of untouchability (in rural areas) and endogamy continue to exist though Caste as a system of occupational heredity and a matrix of production and exchange relationships which needed such practices has itself disappeared? I have put up a web edition of my book on Caste System in India. This is a sociological and historical study of the subject. You can access the site at: "http://members.tripod.com/~sudheerb/caste.html" I look forward to receiving feedback from Sociologists and Indologists. Regards Sudheer Birodkar _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From Vaidix at AOL.COM Fri Mar 20 10:38:22 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 05:38:22 -0500 Subject: apology Message-ID: <161227036868.23782.17315717203437474268.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> My apologies for mention of anthropology new group in an earlier letter. In that news group at one time I saw a group of people post many racial arguments but never willing to come to an agreement. I got so fed up I quit that group. When there is a difference, one can find the reason why there is a difference, and work on understanding from other's point of view. mAvidviSAvahai is a good idea to follow. Looks like I am wrong. I revisited that group today and find it is back to professional. Bhadraiah Mallampalli From umhardy at CC.UMANITOBA.CA Fri Mar 20 15:17:20 1998 From: umhardy at CC.UMANITOBA.CA (Kristen Hardy) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 09:17:20 -0600 Subject: Indian art texts Message-ID: <161227036877.23782.15510770788958322994.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members, I am in search of the following: 1. English translations of any of the principal Shilpa-shaastras (e.g., Maanasaara, Mayamata, etc.) 2. Secondary sources discussing the creation of (Indian) art as a form of religious practice/discipline. Any references which list members can provide would be much appreciated. Thanks, Kristen Hardy, student of Religion and Sanskrit University of Manitoba umhardy at cc.umanitoba.ca From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Fri Mar 20 17:18:38 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 11:18:38 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036885.23782.8506037675131960549.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Subject: Re: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument > "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > >> Perhaps a difference between knowing horses and having a cultur > >> based on them. Do you won't really compare this few remains with the > >> material of the Scythian graves? > Vidyanath Rao wrote: > >Do the remains of horses in India ever reach the levels of Scythian > >graves, at least before 1000 CE? > "N. Ganesan" wrote: > At least, Horses increase in numbers dramatically. Horses > are allied to positions of power, eg: Bharhut stupa basreliefs. Vidyanath Rao wrote *How were the number of actual horses (not sculptures) estimated? *Representations of horses and chariots in sculptures raise serious *questions. [...] *As Littauer pointed out once, it is hard to reconcile things like this *with claims of horse loving chariot riding Central Asian nomads *setting up shop. On the other hand, if horses and chariots were *rare items acquired by trade and had only symbolic value, and were *not in routine use, then this would not seem so strange. Dear Vidyanath, I know you have been writing about impossiblity of chariots used by incoming Aryans for years in Indology, newsgroups etc., My expertise/interest is more towards old printed works in tamil, tamil medieval prabandhams etc., I am not an expert on horses. I have not even seen Prof. Parpola's book yet. (As Dr. M. Rabe once mentioned it will give immense joy to me :-)) But skimming some postings and upon reflection, some things are clear to me. Horses increase dramtically after 1000 BC. Let me explain: In the historical period, it is for sure. 1) Take North Indian sculptures in Sanchi, etc., What is more, they are represented with warriors, kings, positions of power. Bharhut, Amaravati, Jaggayapeta ... 2) Evidence from classical Tamil sangam works. Critically, they are dated to 200 BC to 200 AD. A look into Word Index of Tamil caGkam literature, T. Lehmann and T. Malten, (1993, Inst. Asian studies) has atleast 150 occurences of horse. Words like kutirai, pari, puravi, ivuLi, maa. How long does it take to populate Southern tip of India with horses, as is evident from classical Tamil literature. Decades? Centuries? What is the diffusion rate? Some could have come via sea. Roman coins in S. India; Sangam literature talking of Yavanas, etc., Horses must be used by people at least from 400 B.C in Tamil Nadu. North of TN it must be even earlier. Sculptures show it; Vedas onwards, horse is an important part of Aryan culture (eg., azvamedha). So from Vedic times (1200 BC? or 1000 BC?), horses in India increase a lot. Are there excavations to determine the no. of horses vs. each century BC/AD? This is in stark contrast to Indus valley civilization. Aboslutely, no horse in 4000+ seals so far; one clay figurine but disputed. In late Indus findings, one or two horses. pets? curiosities? That too, some are disputed. They say they are really asses. Even after long, long search by dedicated Indian archaelogists motivated to find them, the horse bones are not turning in greater quantities in IVC. Regards, N. Ganesan PS: I will hardly consider Dr. B. B. Lal as unbiased. He is now a theorist of Indigenous Aryan school. One of the main speakers in "Revisiting Indus Saravathi age" seminar in Atlanta. This seminar organizers were S. Kak, David Frawley, and Vishva Hindu Parishad. From filipsky at SITE.CAS.CZ Fri Mar 20 10:22:10 1998 From: filipsky at SITE.CAS.CZ (Jan Filipsky) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 11:22:10 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036866.23782.12343655024532942092.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidyanath Rao wrote (in response to earlier postings): >> In any case, I have heard this assertion about "original >> Tamil phonology" being preserved in the "villages", the >> "heartland" etc way too often that, perversely, I have >> begun to have my own doubts. > >I was being a bit hasty. I should have said ``phonology of >late19th-early 20th c. Tamil''. I sometimes get tired of being precise :-) > >> is there sound phonological ;-) >> fieldwork that confirms this without the trace of a doubt ??? > >I think that Zvelebil's fieldwork, published in Acta orientalia >(the one from Hungary) in the laste 50's does. I will have to >check to make sure. > Just to make the record straight, the results of Prof. K. Zvelebil's fieldwork were not published in Acta orientalia but in Archiv orientalni (the one from Prague - we are no longer part of Austro-Hungarian Empire ;-]), abbreviated ArOr, or even ArO which may be a bit misleading... Perhaps the following references may be relevant: - Dialects of Tamil - I: Introduction and Texts, ArOr 27(1959), 272-317; - (with S. Viswanathan), Dialects of Tamil II - Texts (Madras and Madras Brahmin), ArOr 27 (1959), 572-603; - Dialects of Tamil II (Appendix), ArOr 28 (1960), 220-224; - Dialects of Tamil III (Madurai), ArOr 28 (1960), 414-456; - Dialects of Tamil IV - Erode, Tutucorin, Ramnad, ArOr 31 (1963), 535-668; - Spoken Language of Tamilnad, ArOr 32 (1964), 237-264 (being naturally just a fraction of the author's vast work on the subject). Jan Filipsky, Oriental Institute, Pod vodarenskou vezi 4, 182 08 Praha 8 phone 004202 6605 3729 e-mail private: U Pentlovky 466/7, 181 00 Praha 8 - Troja phone 004202 855 74 53 From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Fri Mar 20 16:29:58 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 11:29:58 -0500 Subject: Origins of Caste System in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227036879.23782.13236356525614660471.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-20 07:24:38 EST, sudheerbirodkar at YAHOO.COM writes: << You can access the site at: "http://members.tripod.com/~sudheerb/caste.html" I look forward to receiving feedback from Sociologists and Indologists. >> The following story is found in the web site. "Cannibalism? - The Story of Chilaya This is the story of Chilaya who was fortunate in two respects - he was born in a royal family and his parents were deeply religious. The prince Chilaya grew up under the care and affection showered on him by his parents. His father had a charitable table disposition apart being a devout person. His fame as a ardent worshipper of Lord Shiva spread far and wide. So much so that even Lord Shiva came to hear about it. To test the integrity of his worshipper Shiva took upon the guise of a hermit and one early morning knocked on the palace doors asking for alms. The King was very pleased on seeing a hermit at his door and asked him to demand whatever he wanted. To the King's horror the hermit coolly asked for being served human meat for his meal, and that meat was to be nobody else's but prince Chilaya's. The very idea of their only son Chilaya being sacrificed to satisfy the quaint hermit came as a whiplash to the devout God-fearing parents. But a guest that he was, the hermit's demand could not be turned down, and the idea of deceiving him by offering him some other meat was not one which the sincere couple could entertain. Ultimately they gave in to that ghastly demand and arranged for Chilaya to be sacrificed to feed the hermit. But the emotional stress for Chilaya's mother was too much and she arranged for her son's head to be preserved with the intention of asking the Gods to revive it later. But the wily hermit saw the absence of the head in the meat served to him and demanded that it be given to him if his host expected him to touch the food. Reluctantly, the heartbroken mother presented Chilaya's head to her unrepentant guest and while doing so burst into hysterical sobs. As the wily sage, who was no other than Lord Shiva himself, knew that his disciples had passed his severe test and thereupon revealed his true form. On recognising that the Lord himself stood before them, Chilaya's parents fell at his feet and on being asked by the Lord for any boon, they naturally asked for their son. Shiva asked them to call out their son's name. The stupefied parents did so and to their amazement the food they had placed before their guest disappeared and the son Chilaya descended from the heavens and stood before them. This story is a fableised recollection of cannibalism amongst the Aryans. Had it not been so it need not have been incorporated into a legend that was supposed to be believed by lay people." This story is remarkable in its resemblance to the Tamil story of ciRuttoNTar, the Pallava general who is said to have sacked vAtApi, the cALukyan capital, and who is said to have offered his son as food to ziva. He is one of the 63 zaivite saints known as nAyan2mAr. Is the Chilaya story in Kannada or Marathi? How old is this story? Regards S. Palaniappan From george9252 at EMAIL.MSN.COM Fri Mar 20 16:47:17 1998 From: george9252 at EMAIL.MSN.COM (George Cronk) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 11:47:17 -0500 Subject: E-Texts Message-ID: <161227036881.23782.9067388787109038131.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone know whether there are on-line or CD-ROM English translations of the following available? Ramanuja's "Shri-Bhashya," Shamkara's "Brahmasutra-Bhashya," Nagarjuna's "Madhyamika-Karika," and Vasubandhu's "Twenty Verses" and "Thirty Verses"? If so, can you instruct me as to how to obtain them? Thank you. From amnev at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Mar 20 22:07:31 1998 From: amnev at HOTMAIL.COM (Amos Nevo) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 14:07:31 -0800 Subject: Naciketas Message-ID: <161227036906.23782.17874543517817048794.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Shalom to all, Joining the list, I introduced myself as writing a thesis about Naciketas.I am grateful for the information that I have received until now, and I would like to share with you one of the questions that I am dealing with. In almost all sources Naciketas is a boy, or a young lad, cursed to death by his father, going to the realm of Yama, and coming safely back to world of the living. According to anthropological and literary logic, he should have become a great sage. The only allusion to it is found in the Brahma PurANa(IV, 1,28), where a person by the name of Naciketas is mentioned as the tenth of eleven sages who established the "mAnuSa puNyatIrtha." Does anyone know of any other source referring to Naciketas as a grown up sage? Thanks in advance. Amos Nevo 14/51 Bolivia St. Jerusalem 96746 ISRAEL fAX. 972 2 6419215 Email: amnev at hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Mar 20 22:09:26 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 14:09:26 -0800 Subject: Origins of Caste System in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227036908.23782.14445356524396647524.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> You wrote: <> No direct reply to this question, but............ My experience has been that over a period of time, one notices that there is a certain amount of repitivity in some of the stories of saints related to the Bhakti movement from different parts of India. It could be(am COMPLETELY speculating here) that stories of one saint from one part of India could have been influenced by a legend of another part of India where by the two stories( with the difference of the name) take on a striking resemblance ...D.P.Chattopadhyay discusses this feature in a modified form where one has the collapse of various persons by the same name ( in different chronological ages) into one. Other examples of this i.e. saints from different parts of India having surprisingly similar stories are: 1. There is a similarity in the stories about both Chokha Mela of Maharashtra ) and tiruppANAzhvAr the AzhvAr saint in terms of a temple priest( pandharpUr in the former case, zrIrankam in the later) hitting the bhakta on account of his low caste and the temple doors not opening/blood on the cheek of the diety(I've heard both versions about the tiruppANAzhvAr story). The temple doors open /bleeding stops only after the priest acknowledges his error and the devotee is brought into the presence of the diety. 2. Disappearance/becoming one of the devotee with the diety- tirupp ANAzhvAr in zrIrankam, mIrAbai in dwaraka( one of the stories about her death). 3. Thieves conspiring to steal material/property belonging to the bhakta and God intervening to protect it- happens to the rAmcaritmAnas of Tulsidas in Hindi literature, again to tyAgarAja. If one were to include sinking material written by the bhakta/sinking the bhakta himself, it also occurs in the cases of kabIr, the bengali poetchanDidAs and also the marAThi saint (EknAth if I remember right, whose bhAvArth rAmayaNa was thrown into the indrAyaNI and given back by the indrAyaNI herself). 4. Lighting of lamps through devotion alone- occurs in the case of nambi nandigaL, the nayan2mAr and again in the case of the Sai baba of Shirdi.(I realise that the later has nothing to do with the bhakti movement but note the resemblance in the legend) 5. Rejection of a woman being the cause of rejecting the world and turning to spirituality - occurs with both tulsidAs and the telugu poets vEmana& kSEtrayya and also one of the AzhvAr saints ( one of the samskrt names for this gentleman is vipranArAyaNasvAmi, though the more popular tamil name slips my mind) 6. God performing a miracle in order to demonstrate the quality of devotion of a particular bhakta- he comes in person to be a witness at the trial of his devotee Gopal( as in the sAkshigopal temple in Orissa), turns around 180 degrees from his usual position and gives darsana to kanakadAsa in uDupi( i.e. the kanakana khiDkI episode) and makes one of his ornaments adorn Narsinh Mehta, the Gujarati poet. In a modified form, this also occurs in the life of puranadaradAsa the kannaDa saint. 7. Intervention in person to save a bhakta who has been accused/guilty of theft of money from the public exchequer/king- mANikkavAcakar , the tamil nanyan2mAr as well as bhadrAcala rAmadAsu, the telugu poet. 8. Princesses turned poetesses rejecting their husbands and proclaiming themselves the brides of God- the kannaDa poetess mahAdEviyakka as well as mIrAbai of rAjAsthAn. The bhakti movement does have surprisingly similar stories in various parts of India. Regards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From tritsch at MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE Fri Mar 20 13:18:27 1998 From: tritsch at MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (Mark F. Tritsch) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 14:18:27 +0100 Subject: Firearms Message-ID: <161227036873.23782.9617282412758901397.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anyone know when firearms (muskets and the like) were introduced into India? Mark Tritsch ********************************************************** Dr. Mark F. Tritsch Institut fuer Zoologie III Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet 55099 Mainz GERMANY Tel/Fax: +49 6131 392197 ********************************************************** From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Fri Mar 20 22:37:42 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 14:37:42 -0800 Subject: saptaRshis and kRttikAs Message-ID: <161227036910.23782.4700216233185842139.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Re: S. Krishna's recent post about Messrs. Frawley and Kak, I don't intend to defend these authors, but changing 6 to 7 is not an example of Kak-ism. It is well attested in Hindu myth, and all Kak does is to report it in a nebulous way, notwithstanding his engineering background. :-) An early version of the myth of skanda's birth, in which agni is the father (not Siva), makes the six kRttikAs the wives of six of the saptaRshis. agni desires the wives of the seven Rshis, but is ashamed of his desire. svAhA, the daughter of Daksha, desires agni, and successfully mates with him six times, by assuming the forms of six of the seven wives. She is unable to take the form of arundhatI, that well known pativratA. skanda is born with six heads and one body, and these six wives are implicated indirectly in his birth. So their husbands abandon them, after which skanda gives them a position in heaven as a constellation. However, the sages and the mothers are all present in the assembly that welcomes skanda. The number 7 enters into the myth in another way too. indra sends the ferocious and murderous mothers of the world (the sapta-mAtrkAs?) to kill skanda, but they can't, because their breasts fill with milk and they want to feed the child. The sapta-mAtrkAs are drinkers of blood, and play a role in the mahishAsura set of myths too. In versions like kumArasambhava, which make Siva the father of skanda, the kRttikAs are six in number, but there is still an important seventh mother, i.e. umA, or even an eighth, if we take gangA's role into account (agni receives Siva's seed, finds it too hot to hold, and casts it into the gangA). And significantly, in the different context of the mahishAsura myth, the varAha purANa reports eight instead of seven mothers, sent by Vishnu, two of whom (yogeSvarI and mAheSvarI) are consorts of Siva, just like umA and gangA. What makes the symbolism of 6 and 7 even more interesting is that there is a faint seventh star in the constellation of the Pleiades. The anomalous seventh goddess is presented both in conjuction with and in opposition to the six, and has parallels in Greek myth too. S. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From jkirk at MICRON.NET Fri Mar 20 21:49:56 1998 From: jkirk at MICRON.NET (Jo Kirkpatrick) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 14:49:56 -0700 Subject: Origins of Caste System in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227036904.23782.1926120565076507519.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I venture to say that the source of the attribution quoted below is questionable, an example of unscholarly interpretation, especially as this motif is found in folklore in many parts of the world. "Had it not been so, it need not have been incorporated..." is a non seq. Joanna Kirkpatrick >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. S. Palaniappan quoted from a website: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>snipped>>>>>>>>>> This story is a fableised recollection of cannibalism amongst the Aryans. Had it not been so it need not have been incorporated into a legend that was supposed to be believed by lay people." > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.... From jdwhite at UNCCVM.UNCC.EDU Fri Mar 20 19:58:58 1998 From: jdwhite at UNCCVM.UNCC.EDU (J. Daniel White) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 14:58:58 -0500 Subject: Indian art texts Message-ID: <161227036895.23782.13860125865295165528.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Dear list members, > > I am in search of the following: > > 1. English translations of any of the principal Shilpa-shaastras >(e.g., Maanasaara, Mayamata, etc.) Consider the following textx from Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Scientific Research, 1101, New Delhi House, 27, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi 110001: (a) MAYAMATA, trans. by Bruno Dagens. 1985. (b) ARCHITECTURE IN THE AJITAGAMA AND IN THE RAURAVAGAMA (1984) (c) BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS ON VASTUSASTRA (1986) > > 2. Secondary sources discussing the creation of (Indian) art as a form >of religious practice/discipline. (a) Still the best text is Stella Kramrisch. THE HINDU TEMPLE. 2 vols. Originally U. of Calcutta, now reprinted by Motilal Banarsidass. Also, as I had one of my art and architecture students do recently: a boolean search on First Search using combinations such as architecture and India, temples and India, festivals and temples, and word and/or subject searches such as vastupurusa, vastushastra (vastusastra), etc. > > Any references which list members can provide would be much >appreciated. > Thanks, > > Kristen Hardy, > student of Religion and >Sanskrit > University of Manitoba > umhardy at cc.umanitoba.ca > From r.l.schmidt at EAST.UIO.NO Fri Mar 20 13:11:56 1998 From: r.l.schmidt at EAST.UIO.NO (Ruth Laila Schmidt) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 15:11:56 +0200 Subject: Comparative Hindi-Urdu and Punjabi Message-ID: <161227036875.23782.4646310696959414284.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear members of the list, I am looking for references to works on comparative aspects of Hindi (or Urdu) grammar or syntax with that of Panjabi. I have the references to Vidya Bhaskar Arun's work on comparative phonology of Hindi and Panjabi, and Devi Dutt Shama's work on the syllabic structure of Hindi and Panjabi. Thank you for your help, With best wishes, Ruth Schmidt *********************************************** Ruth Laila Schmidt Dept of East European and Oriental Studies University of Oslo P.O. Box 1030 Blindern N-0315 Oslo, Norway Phone: (47) 22 85 55 86 Fax: (47) 22 85 41 40 Email: r.l.schmidt at east.uio.no From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Fri Mar 20 22:39:59 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 16:39:59 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036912.23782.1979842658273974194.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Swami Vivekananda on Aryan Invasion Theory "Our archaeologists' dreams of India being full of dark-eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryans came from - the Lord knows where. According to some, they came from Central Tibet; others will have it that they came from Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that the Aryans were all red haired. Others, according to their idea, think that they were all black-haired. If the writer happens to be a black-haired man, the Aryans were all black-haired. Of late, there was an attempt made to prove that the Aryans lived on Swiss lake. I should not be sorry if they had been all drowned there, theory and all. Some say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their habitations! As for as the truth of these theories, there is notone word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it ends..." "And the theory that the Shudra caste were all non-Aryans and they were a multitude, is equally illogical and irrational. It could not have been possible in those days that a few Aryans settled and lived there with a hundred thousand slaves at their command. The slaves would have eaten them up, made chutney of them in five minutes. The only explanation is to be found in the Mahabharat, which says that in the beginning of the Satya Yoga there was only one caste, the Brahmins, and then by differences of occupations they went on dividing themselves into different castes, and that is the only true and rational explanation that has been given. And in the coming Satya Yuga all other castes will have to go back to the same condition." (The Complete Work of Swami Vivekananda, Vol.III Page 293.) *********************************************** I totally agree with Vidyasankar. Swami Vivekananda was needed to counter overenthusiastic missionaries and enslavers of India. But propaganda is one thing, truth is another. By the way, Swami Chidbhavanandar, my grandfather's cousin went to one of the four direct disciples of Vivekananda. I think his name was Sivananda. He was a medical doctor who took to Sanyasam under V. (Correct me if the name, Sivananda is not correct.) Chidbhavanandar's Gita translation into Tamil sold in millions. Chidbhavananda Swami started a series of institutions in TirupparaayttuRai, Salem, Karur, Tiruvedagam, etc., Also, Swami Vipulanandar, the great tamil scholar from Jaffna and author of yaazh nuul, treatise on ancient tamil music, took to sanyas under the guidance of Sivananda. Vipulanandar stayed in TirupparaayttuRai school doing research for months together. Chidbhavandar's another friend is T. S. Avinashilingam whose Ramakrishna Mission school, colleges in and around Coimbatore are legendary. It was Baskara Sethupathi of Ramnad who got the ticket for Vivekananda to US, and upon Swami's triumphant return (we are told), Sethupathi, the Raja of Ramnad, carried him around in a palanquin around Madras. Enough of Hindu credentials, I guess. N. Ganesan From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Fri Mar 20 17:14:01 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 17:14:01 +0000 Subject: Electronic texts, irt Jan Dvorak. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036888.23782.9166497099918649150.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> A "union list" of Sanskrit, Prakrit, Persian, Tamil, or other e-texts would be extremely useful. But it would also be a pretty labour-intensive task. My experience with such projects is that they are hardest and most interesting at the beginning, but after keeping up with the field for a year or two it can become less interesting. However, the initial work done on such a union list would be extremely important and of great general interest. I would be delighted to host such a list on the INDOLOGY web site. Another possibility is for all e-texts to be systematically submitted to an institutionally-funded site such as the Oxford Text Archive or the Rutgers Center for Electronic Texts. These places have paid staff who catalogue and manage e-texts. That would be ideal. All texts would probably be normalized into SGML (TEI) format, which would be fine. One drawback would be that such authorities have to be very pernickety about copyright, and some of the texts which we cheerfully exchange with each other might turn out to be infringing others' copyright. The present rather laissez-faire situation does not properly address these issues, which is not to say that they may not become more prominent in the future. If we are going to submit all texts to, say, the OTA, I could certainly act as one conduit for such submissions. -- Dominik Wujastyk Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, England. FAX +44-171-611-8545 email: d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk WWW: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Fri Mar 20 17:28:35 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 17:28:35 +0000 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate) In-Reply-To: <01IURY19BCHQ96VWIR@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl> Message-ID: <161227036890.23782.396764565527146442.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> There is clearly a strong need for a work on this topic akin to Cardona's _Panini: a survey of research_ or Harry Falk's work on the history of script. Perhaps Bryant's work will provide this sort of overview? -- Dominik Wujastyk Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, England. FAX +44-171-611-8545 email: d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk WWW: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Fri Mar 20 17:34:48 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 17:34:48 +0000 Subject: Space-time & gravitation In-Reply-To: <9803181753.AA00663@mathou.uom.ac.mu> Message-ID: <161227036892.23782.3556180325265505512.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The theory of gravitation was, of course, an innovation arising out of Newton's laws of motion. Ancient and medieval Indian writers on astral topics tended to use explanatory theories of motion based on winds causing the movement of heavenly bodies, as well as more anthropomorphic ideas. The best starting point for someone with some mathematical ability is David Pingree's magisterial essay on Indian Mathematical Astronomy in the supplement volume to Gillispie's _Dictionary of Scientific Biography_. There are some very intriguing early ideas about motion etc. in the Vaisesikasutras and their commentators. Barend Fadeggon's study of this system of thought is now old, but still very perceptive. -- Dominik Wujastyk Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, England. FAX +44-171-611-8545 email: d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk WWW: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw From sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE Fri Mar 20 17:04:48 1998 From: sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE (Sreenivas Paruchuri) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 18:04:48 +0100 Subject: Origins of Caste System in Ancient India In-Reply-To: <840f9b01.35129988@aol.com> Message-ID: <161227036883.23782.5149763107892076468.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Dr. Palaniappan, > > "Cannibalism? - The Story of Chilaya > This story is remarkable in its resemblance to the Tamil story of ciRuttoNTar, > the Pallava general who is said to have sacked vAtApi, the cALukyan capital, > and who is said to have offered his son as food to ziva. He is one of the 63 > zaivite saints known as nAyan2mAr. Is the Chilaya story in Kannada or Marathi? > How old is this story? For an excellany analysis of the Tamil and Telugu versions of this ciRuttoNTar/siriyaaLa story, please check, Prof. Shulman's: The hungry God : Hindu tales of filicide and devotion Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993, Chicago ISBN 0-226-75571-1 The well-known Telugu mediaeval poet; Srinaatha (14th century), while creating; _haravilaasam_, his puranicized version of Saiva material - drawn in part from (veeraSaiva poet) Paalkuriki sOmanaatha's work- re-narrates the story in calm and harmonious fashion. Shulman compares this (gruesome) story of "ciRuttoNTar/siriyaaLa" in Tamil, VeeraSaivaite texts and in Srinatha's. Regards, --Sreenivas From athr at LOC.GOV Fri Mar 20 23:14:25 1998 From: athr at LOC.GOV (Allen W Thrasher) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 18:14:25 -0500 Subject: LC Roundtable at LC March 27 Message-ID: <161227036914.23782.15097324447819809772.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRESENTS A ROUNDTABLE : LC FORGING AHEAD INTO THE 21ST CENTURY Friday, Mary 27, 1998 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Mumford Room, Madison Bldg., 6th Floor Library of Congress Asian Reading Room : Reader and Reference Services Helen Poe, Asian Division Access to LC Collections via Photoduplication Service Myron B. Chace, Photoduplication Service Highlights of Cataloging Issues Thomas Yee, Cataloging Policy Office The LC/ILS and Vernacular Data for Authority Records Barbara Tillett, Integrated Library System The Law Library and the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) Constance A. Johnson & Janice Hyde, Law Library Acquisitions Directorate Reorganization : African/Asian Acquisitions & Overseas Operations Division (AFAAOVOP) Judy McDermott, African/Asian Acquisitions & Overseas Operations Division Electronic Dissemination of Information Beyond Books Ichiko Morita, Japan Documentation Center From athr at LOC.GOV Fri Mar 20 23:19:53 1998 From: athr at LOC.GOV (Allen W Thrasher) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 18:19:53 -0500 Subject: LC events at AAS Message-ID: <161227036916.23782.4686692534179075325.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The Library of Congress invites AAS participants to A PROGRAM Friday, March 27, 1997 Mumford Room Madison Building 6th Floor (Capitol South Metro Station) A ROUNDTABLE ON "LC FORGING AHEAD INTO THE 21ST CENTURY" >?From 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. LC speakers are from the African/Asian Acquisitions and Overseas Operations Division, Asian Division, Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Law Library, and Photoduplication Service. VISIT THE NEW ASIAN READING ROOM IN THE JEFFERSON BUILDING (LJ150) 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Visitors' Center, Library of Congress (in the lobby of the Jefferson Building) offers Daily tours of the Jefferson Building, Monday-Saturday: 11:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 4:00 p.m. Visitors should enter the building from the carriage entrance of First Street, S.E. (facing the Capitol). Tours start at the information desk. A sign language interpreter can be arranged for the Monday tour at 2:30 p.m. and the Friday tour at 11:30 a.m. upon request by calling TTY (202) 707-6362 or fax (202) 707-0823 in advance. The Digital Library Visitors' Center (in the Atrium of the Madison Building) offers Daily demonstrations at 1:00 p.m. For special demonstrations call Cathy Yang (202) 707-1649. From thillaud at UNICE.FR Fri Mar 20 17:33:51 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 18:33:51 +0100 Subject: The Story of Chilaya (was Re: Origins of Caste System in Ancient India In-Reply-To: <840f9b01.35129988@aol.com> Message-ID: <161227036918.23782.12058226161860876100.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S. Palaniappan wrote >"Cannibalism? - The Story of Chilaya > ..... >This story is a fableised recollection of cannibalism amongst the Aryans. Had >it not been so it need not have been incorporated into a legend that was >supposed to be believed by lay people." > >This story is remarkable in its resemblance to the Tamil story of ciRuttoNTar, >the Pallava general who is said to have sacked vAtApi, the cALukyan capital, >and who is said to have offered his son as food to ziva. He is one of the 63 >zaivite saints known as nAyan2mAr. Is the Chilaya story in Kannada or Marathi? >How old is this story? I don't believe such story to have any link with the cannibalism, but to absolute devotion to the God(s). They are many examples of it in various civilizations: 1) the biblical sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham (happy end). 2) the sacrifice (tophet) of eldest sons by Phoenicians (bad end). 3) in Greece, Tantalos, wishing to honour the Gods invited to a lunch, give them his son Pelops to eat (happy end for Pelops, bad for Tantalos). This last story (and Cronos eating his children) was interpreted by the psychoanalysis as an unconscient fear of children to be eated by their parents. In any case, the cannibalism is a very different ritual destined to acquire some of the powers of the victim (strength of ennemy, wisdom of elders, &c.). Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 21 04:26:00 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 20:26:00 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036933.23782.13302326346877391833.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> N. Ganesan wrote: >By the way, Swami Chidbhavanandar, my grandfather's cousin went to >one of the four direct disciples of Vivekananda. I think his name was >Sivananda. He was a medical doctor who took to Sanyasam under V. >(Correct me if the name, Sivananda is not correct.) If this is the same Sivananda of the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, he was not Vivekananda's disciple, although people say he modelled his religious career after him. Sivananda's guru was one Visvananda Sarasvati, a more traditional daSanAmI sannyAsin. I think Sivananda, more than Vivekananda, defines the somewhat diffuse boundary between traditional Advaita influenced sannyAsa and the renunciation associated with modern neo-Vedanta. As for Bhaskara Setupati of Ramnad, who financed V, he is a classic example of the process of Sanskritization. He patronized many Hindu religious institutions liberally. But the transformation from a kaLLar (or is it maRavar?) chieftain to a proper kshatriya came with a huge cost for him. He got into serious debt, mismanaged his estate, and was almost totally impoverished when he died. In any case, V is hardly a person with purely local relevance, if that refers to his Bengali origin, or even to his tendency to assume that Bengal represents all of India. There was a pronounced Bengal-centrism in most Indian issues at the end of the 19th century, and V was just one aspect of it. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Sat Mar 21 05:18:35 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:18:35 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227036897.23782.5389369622996653197.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George Thompson wrote: > > Charles Poncet in good faith asks: > > >a) Was there an Aryan migration/invasion of India which destroyed the > >Indus valley civilization ? > >or > >b) Is it a fairy tale concocted by certain scholars in the last century > >and if so why ? > > a. There was a migration, no doubt whatsoever. Early archaeologists thought > they saw evidence of violence at the last stages of IVC and assumed a > connection with the incoming Vedic Aryans. They were wrong. We know > virtually nothing about what happened to IVC. Certainly what went on in the > heads of IVC people will not be known by us until someone deciphers their > script [if that is what it is]. Frawley and friends are not capable of > reading IVC minds across great distances of time and lost culture and *no > mediating language*. > > b. It is a fairy tale concocted by scholars to explain what looked like > facts to them. That they were wrong is forgiveable if there were no > malicious motives in their researches. If malicious, then no forgiveness. > If that is what you want. > > Now, as for fairy tales, read Frawley and friends: they have turned IVC > into pure Atlantis. If there are no malicious motives behind their fairy > tales then they too are forgiveable. But their books are fairy tales. And > to tell the truth I doubt their motives. Frawley's fairy tale factory > appears rather lucrative. Rather filthy lucrative. [My views on the other > hand have gotten me absolutely nothing and I like it like that]. > > I am no ivory tower elitist. I just do not want to waste the precious time > that I have remaining to me -- who knows? tomorrow I may be hit by a truck > -- repeating myself over and over again, to no avail. Especially to people > who do not listen. > > If you will listen to me, I will listen to you. Fair enough? > > George Thompson Dear George, Thank you for a very balanced and interseting comment. Let me emphasize that I totally share your view that one should never blame scholars or scientists of the past for having been wrong. In fact one of the nice things about western science and scholarship is that it has the ability to figure out its own mistakes. On Frawley and Co, even a layman like me can figure out that they are biased against anything non-Indian. This comes out also in Frawley's attitude to Ayur-Veda. Nobody denies its value and beauty but Ayurveda is not a cure all and neither is allopathic medicine a doomed technique taught by quacks seeking to force ever increasing amounts of drugs on defenseless patients as Frawley claims ! (This is a bit of an exageration of mine actually, but only a bit) My point was to ask wether such works as Frawley's - clouded by intellectual prejudice as they may be - should still be seriously considered. Biased people can make valid points at times and I think our exchanges on this topic in the last few days have certainly made that clear. Thank you for contributing to what I thought was a very interesting discussion of delicate topic. Charles From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Sat Mar 21 02:22:47 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:22:47 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036922.23782.916883211056429495.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Well, we're on spring break so I have some time to catch up a bit on this Indo-Aryan discussion. I'll keep future postings shorter. On Wed, 18 Mar 1998, George Thompson wrote: > In response to Mary Storm's useful summary:> > Much of this evidence was discussed on the RISA list back, I think, in > October 1996. One could check the archives for specific references, but I > recall that archaeologists had not come to a consensus about these possible > horse remains at that time. Is this right, Edwin? There have been a stream of reports over the years about horse bone findings which have claimed dates from 4500 BCE in Bangor up to the late Harappan period. Due to the fact that this animal is central to the Vedic and IE world, it has become almost symbolic of this whole controversy and accordingly "the most sought after animal in Indian archaeology." This quest became particularly highlighted when a world-renowned horse bone expert, Sandor Bokonyi, verified that the Surkotada findings were indeed those of Caballus Linn. To be brief, Richard Meadows, here in Harvard, has questioned all these reports, including Bokonyi's (who is, unfortunately, no longer alive to defend his conclusions). Some of these reports *may* be those of horses (they have not necessarily been *disproved* as such), but due to the technical difficulties in differentiating between the bones of the equus species, and lack of published material (photos, etc) of most of these reports, this cannot be presently determined to the satisfaction of all, as George notes above. I think it is relevant to note that just as horses were central to the Vedic Indians they have always been central in Indian history, but *they have always been imported into the subcontinent* from the Epic, Mauryan, Mughal through to the British period. So the horse has always been highly prized despite not being indigenous to the subcontinent (although there is an indig species of onager native in the NW). So the non-indigenousness of the horse need not a priori indicate the non-indigenousness of the Indo-Aryans. It was an elite, imported animal used for sacrificial and military purposes (not for food) and therefore not likely to show up in great quantities in the arch record. Indeed, even in the post-Harappan period, when few would deny that the I-A 's were very much present in the subcontinent, there is not exactly an explosion of horse bones in the arch record. To my knowledge, findings remain sparse in the late 2nd and early part of the 1st millennium BCE (Hastinapur, etc). More on this in the post following this one. I would like to submit a further point for consideration. IE'sts have constructed a proto form *ekwos. But some linguists have gone so far as to point out that it cannot actually be determined whether this animal was domesticated, or wild, or even what kind of an equid it was in the *proto*-period. It has been noted by a few linguists (troubled by the over-prioritization of the horse evidence) that the identification of this animal with Caballus Linn comes not from etymology, but from archaeology. It seems to me that there is an element of circularity here: linguistics cannot determine exactly what kind of an equid *ekwos refers to in the joint proto-period: archaeology does. But the archaeology of the (commonly accepted) IE homeland is primarily situated in the Kurgan grave area because Equus Caballus Linn was first domesticated there. And this is deemed conclusive (to a great, but not exclusive, extent) on the authority of linguistic palaeontology and its identification of a proto IE horse which is generally assumed to be caballus Linn. It seems to me this could all be problematized. Anyway, Gimbutas has her own detractors who need not detain us here. Allowing, along with most linguists, that *ekwos does indeed refer to Caballus Linn (which I think is perfectly reasonable), one last connected point. We should perhaps focus attention, for a moment, on the assumption that the area of the domestication of the horse is necessarily the area of origin of the IE's (several IE'ists have questioned this assumption, Gramkrelidze and Ivanov being the most recent). It is therefore not so easy to counter the Indigenous Aryan charge that the "horse could have been very well known to the proto-Indo-Europeans in their original homeland before their dispersal from it (which is the only thing indicated by the facts), without the horse necessarily being a native of that homeland, or they themselves being its domesticators" (Talageri, 158). The logic, here, is that just as the horse has always been imported and central to Indic culture right throughout the historic period, it could likewise have similarly been imported and central in the proto-IA period (for the Indig. Aryan School, and earlier still in the PIE period for the Out-of-India school). Regards, Edwin Bryant From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Sat Mar 21 05:26:19 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:26:19 -0800 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227036900.23782.9843184649733055444.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Jan E.M. Houben wrote: > > I thank S Krishna for his discussion of the recent > book by David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein which I could not yet see for > myself; and Charles for asking some pertinent questions > which force indologists to come out of their ivory tower. > > To quote from the latter's posting: > > >In other words, the somewhat "new age" or "let's all go to Kathmandu" > style of the book should not disguise the value and the strenghth of > their main point : the West may have been wrong - and stubbornly so - on > a crucial part of the history of the sub continent, for more than a > century. > The REAL questions are therefore : > a) Are Frawley and Co right about this ? > b) If they are, this should be spread all over the planet and > people - > scholars particularly - should junk the "Aryan invasion" fairy tale for > ever. > > As an interested indologist NOT specializing in im/e-migration theories I would > answer: > the Aryan-Invasion theory in the strong sense of the term is not any more > seriously defended by Indologists for the last so many decades (Edwin Bryant, > am I right?). See for instance some remarks by Romila Thapar in "Archeological > Background of the Agnicayana" in Agni (edited by F. Staal, Berkeley Univ. > Press, 1983), vol. II p. 11. More recent statements questioning an Aryan > Invasion in the strong sense of the term can be found in, for instance, The > Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia (ed. by George Erdosy), Berlin/New York: de > Gruyter, 1995. Elsewhere I wrote: "Earlier ideas associating the authors of the > Rgvedic hymns with hordes of invading Aryas destroying the earlier Indus- > civilisation have become obsolete, and scholars are searching for entirely > different models to account for the linguistic shifts which must have taken > place in these periods (e.g. Kuiper 1967a, 1991; Renfrew 1987). Rather, the > Rgvedic Aryas should be seen as "a multitude of ethnic groups subscribing to a > newly emerging ideology" (Erdosy 1995), for which Allchin proposed to use the > term "acculturated Aryan" (Allchin 1995:43)." > The last reference is to Allchin's Archeology of Early Historic South Asia: the > emergence of cities and states, Cambridge Univ. Press 1995. > > In other words, my answer to Charles' REAL question (a) "Are Frawley and Co > right about this ?" would be: > They are combating an outdated theory which modern scholars do not take serious > any more. They are positively wrong in suggesting that modern Indologists are > still defending the very theories which Max Mueller and others suggested more > than a century ago. The implication for REAL question (b) is clear. > > So what kind of view is current among modern scholars dealing with the problem? > > Allchin, as referred to above (p. 43), seems to make a reasonable statement: > "we envisage a situation in which groups of Indo-Aryan speakers arrived in an > area where another language or languages were prevalent, and living there for a > period of interaction with the existing population, became involved in a > process of acculturation." > > Now, what kind of argument can be presented to support the view that somehow > Indo-Aryan speakers arrived in the Indian subcontinent? It is possible to > demonstrate Galileo's and Copernicus's theories with three oranges representing > sun, earth and moon. Is it possible to come with a simple formula to represent > the arguments for insights as those of Allchin in an accessible way? To find > such a formula would in my view be one of the purposes of a scholarly debate on > the Indology list. Such formula would be helpful for "both parties" in the > debate, as those arguing for Indo-Aryans originating in and moving out of India > will know where to direct their attempts for refutation. > > And with proper discussions the good result for all would be that, in our > attempt to understand what is utterly apratyakSa (coming or going of Aryans > thousands of years ago), we have to look better at the numerous pieces of > pratyakSa evidence (archeological, linguistic data) which have been > insufficiently studied so far. > > JH Dear JH, It took me a while to read all the postings my questions generated. I found your answer of March 17th particularly enlightening for a non specialist in this field. Thank you Charles From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Sat Mar 21 02:31:59 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:31:59 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument In-Reply-To: <01IUVYKEYDEA000IEV@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227036925.23782.7907118731291288070.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, N. Ganesan wrote: > Horses increase dramtically after 1000 BC. Let me explain: > 1) Take North Indian sculptures in Sanchi, etc., > 2) Evidence from classical Tamil sangam works. Critically, > they are dated to 200 BC to 200 AD. > So from Vedic times (1200 BC? or 1000 BC?), horses in India > increase a lot. Apart from Hastinapur, Pirac, Stacul and one or two other places, what references do you have for horses in the North in the *pre*-Mauryan period (say, 1500-500 BCE) that would suggest that the horse increases dramatically during this period (this is info I am still trying to fine tune for my research)? I am presently under the impression that it is quite sparse (but can easily check with Meadow's if you don't know) despite the fact that the horse-centered Indo-Aryans were very much present during this period. Likewise, evidence of the chariot does not occur till the Mauryan period, a full millennium after the chariot-using Indo-Aryans were undoubtedly in the subcontinent. So the sparsity or lack of horse and chariot remains might not be so easily equatable with the absence of the Indo-Aryans. To restate this, if indeed there is no chariot, and little horse, evidence from 1500-500 BCE when the Indo-Aryans *were* in the subcontinent, how can we hold the absence of chariot and horse (or, at best, a few contested evidences of the horse) in a still earlier period as evidence of their absence? It is important to note such problems with argumenta ab silentio in the arch record. > PS: I will hardly consider Dr. B. B. Lal as unbiased. > He is now a theorist of Indigenous Aryan school. One of the main > speakers in "Revisiting Indus Saravathi age" seminar in > Atlanta. This seminar organizers were S. Kak, David Frawley, > and Vishva Hindu Parishad. Well, I was also at this seminar and Lal's paper had nothing to do with the Indig. Aryan school. He had long argued on the basis of the horse bones found at Hastinapur (and the PGW found there and at other Epic sites) that the Aryans had introduced the horse into the subcontinent when they entered. He has only recently began to reconsider this long-held position (see the brief appendix of his 1997 book where he calls for a reexamination of all the evidence). The fact is, apart from Ratnagar, R.S.Sharma, R. Thapar, Jha and a few other historians and archaeologists (usually, but not exclusively, connected with JNU or Delhi U), you'll be hard-pressed today to find many archaeologists and historians in India who are not reconsidering things. I'm not sure considering them all biased is useful. They have a point of view based on the archaeological (and textual) record. Naturally this point of view needs to be in dialogue with linguistics. I have noted the paucity of historical linguistic dept's in Indian universities in a previous post. Whatever we may think of this point of view, it needs to be addressed in a non-dismissive, respectful and scholarly fashion (in my opinion). As I have repeatedly said, this is not exclusively a Hindutva discourse. Many scholars are understandably uncomfortable about unquestioningly inheriting a version of their ancient history that was assembled for them by their erstwhile colonial masters. I suggest we be more sensitive to the 'post-colonial' dimension to such 'reconsideration' (even though it coexists and sometimes overlaps with blatant Hindutva discourse). Besides, how are we going to stereotype Western archaeologists such as Shaffer and Kenoyer who share similar opinions with their Indian colleagues but have absolutely nothing to do with Hindutva or Neo-Hinduism? Regards, Edwin Bryant. From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Sat Mar 21 02:32:58 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:32:58 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration. Max Muller In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036927.23782.5691131770632906143.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Dominik Wujastyk wrote: > There is clearly a strong need for a work on this topic akin to Cardona's > _Panini: a survey of research_ or Harry Falk's work on the history of > script. Perhaps Bryant's work will provide this sort of overview? Well that is my intention. But (unlike the good old days of yore) no one can nowadays pretend be a specialist in: South Asian linguistics, IE historical linguistics, SA archaeology, Central Asian archaeology, Vedic philology, Avestan, Vedic and Babylonian Astronomy, 18th and 19th century European history, 19th century Indian Nationalist history, and 20th century Indian nationalist and post-colonial history (amongst other things) all at the same time. So I have to decide whether to spend the next decade on this thing, to cover every single possible minutia (by which time it'll all be out of date and the whole debate settled or passe'), or make sure I have thoroughly outlined the basic infrastructure of the problem from all points of view and make it available in a timely and useful fashion. What do you think? Edwin Bryant From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Sat Mar 21 02:36:24 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:36:24 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate) In-Reply-To: <01IURY2F51QC96VWIR@rullet.LeidenUniv.nl> Message-ID: <161227036929.23782.11737495970859243752.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Jan E.M. Houben wrote: > the Aryan-Invasion theory in the strong sense of the term is not any more > seriously defended by Indologists for the last so many decades (Edwin Bryant, > am I right?). > They are combating an outdated theory which modern scholars do not take serious > any more. They are positively wrong in suggesting that modern Indologists are > still defending the very theories which Max Mueller and others suggested more You are right that no serious scholar talks of invasions anymore (although see Allchin as late as 1993 in Possehl's "Harappan Civilization"). However, we should be aware that many people (including scholars in many universities in India) do not have access to state-of-the-art material such as your "Ideology and Status of Sanskrit" volume, or Erdosy, etc (except in a few universities, and even then, maybe). Many people in India *are* still reading Muller--he *is* still being reprinted--you can buy him in any Indological bookstore. Also, even though people are talking about linguistic migrations, nowadays, and not invasions, most of the infrastructure for the idea that these Indo-Aryans came from outside the subcontinent was put in place decaades ago when scholars *were* talking of invasions. Hence it is easy (and perhaps understandable) for people who have taken it upon themselves to critique this infrastructure to utilize the same terms as are used in such sources. Best, Edwin Bryant. From cponcet at IPROLINK.CH Sat Mar 21 05:41:22 1998 From: cponcet at IPROLINK.CH (Charles) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 21:41:22 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036902.23782.11690778311614442923.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Robert J. Zydenbos wrote: > > Charles wrote on Tue, 17 Mar 1998 22:45:30 -0800: > > > Do you really mean what you wrote about Vivek?nanda ? > > Yes. > > > presenting him as a racist third-rate > > thinker does seem a bit, shall I say, unscholarly. > > I hope you are keeping in mind that on the Indology list there is a > general request to limit messages to 2 screens: even though I too sin > against this, I do not want to upload all the material I have collected. > V.'s collected writings are easily available for all who care to have a > look, if you want documentation. You will also have noticed that I have > already given one random example in another message to this list. > > I was collecting such quotes from V. enthusiastically for a while, > until I found that his statements on racial groups, religious > groups etc. were _so_ many and so inconsistent, and many of them so > bizarre (like claiming that marriage does not exist among > Buddhists in Tibet), that I tired of this. So now this bit of work > has been moved to the background in favour of studies of more > serious things. (This may come as a solace to Vivekananda fans on > the list.) That he is inconsistent, sloppy and racistic is not a great > discovery; but I am looking for an underlying pattern in his > boisterousness, which I think is there, and that will take some more > time yet to find. > > > Wether or not one > > agrees with him, it is hard to deny the quality and the importance > > of Vivek?nanda's writings. > > Quality? That is precisely my contention. As for 'importance': a thing > can be important in many different ways. As statements of religious / > philosophical truth, a good part of his writings are fourth- / > fifth-rate. His importance and relevance today are just what I stated > earlier: in certain political circles, and for utterly unreligious > reasons. True, he served some time as a promotor of Indian (Hindu, > rather) self-respect, which was good, even if most of his arguments for > such self-respect, if we look back, turn out to be largely false and / > or absurd. Still his ideas provide the metaphysical basis of Hindutva > (so, yes, he is 'important' in a way). > > Let it be very clear: V. is not mainstream Hinduism; scholars in Mysore > assure me that the Ramakrishna Maths actually had themselves legally > declared non-Hindu in court several years ago. V. is a figurehead for > urbanised, Anglicised, well-to-do Indians who are partly alienated from > traditional Hinduism. In rural India, as per my own observations, he is > never more than a picture on a wall, 'the man through whom Hinduism > conquered the world' and a protagonist in myths without substance, a > writer the bulk of whose writings are read by none. (Sorry if this > sounds crude or 'unscholarly', but I've already reached my third > screenful.) Hardly anybody, besides the residents of Ramakrishna Maths > and Hindutva ideologues, has any idea of what he stood for. (Why? For > that extremely common reason: popular myths are easy to lap up; > critically reading the man takes time, effort, and may produce results > one doesn't want to see. I surely did not want to see them! but what to > do? turn a blind eye and join the mob of uncritical eulogists?) > > RZ Gee, I thought Indologists were a bunch of rather dry and at times boring scholars ! You certainly do not qualify for that description ! Thank you for pointing out forcefully what is wrong with Vivek?nanda in your view. It was very interesting to hear that view and I will certainly keep it in mind. I would think that the discussion of the last few days showed that the interaction between specialists and generalists - or even amateurs in my case - can be quite positive and fruitful. Charles From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 21 06:02:31 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 98 22:02:31 -0800 Subject: Firearms Message-ID: <161227036935.23782.4128982530468931112.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Fr >From: "Mark F. Tritsch" >Subject: Firearms >Comments: To: indology at liverpool.ac.uk >To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK > >Does anyone know when firearms (muskets and the like) were introduced >into India? > >Mark Tritsch I'm no expert on this, but I remember reading somewhere that the vijayanagara kings are supposed to have used a few portuguese musketeers in order to quell rivals. This event would be roughly in the first decade of the 16th century, since Vasco Da Gama, the first westerner to find the sea route to India came there in 1498...So, there were muskets in India by the early 16th century hoping to help Regards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Sat Mar 21 07:40:57 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 02:40:57 -0500 Subject: Cologne Tamil text corrections Message-ID: <161227036937.23782.16178126133780419792.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> While using the Cologne University e-texts, I noticed these possible errors. Since an earlier e-mail to a name listed at the web site (regarding another error) went unacknowledged, and the error was not seen to be corrected, I am not sure who is in charge of the maintenance of the e-text. So I am posting this in Indology with the hope that whoever is in charge of it can see this and edit the text. Since I do not have any printed text, those with access to printed texts can check if my suggestions make sense. Item 1. Qkam6x32x32x1=9751 \BT vAn2avarkku iRaivan2 tiRai tantan2a \et Qkam6x32x32x2=9751 \BT An2avarkkam Or Ayira kOTiyAl; \et Qkam6x32x32x3=9751 \BT tAn2avarkku iRaivan2 tiRai tantan2a \et Qkam6x32x32x4=9751 \BT En2aivarkkam kaNakku ila, ivvelAm. \et In the above poem, the words "An2avarkkam" should be split into "An2a varkkam" and "En2aivarkkam" should be split into "En2ai varkkam", if the text is to be split into individual words which can be easily searched for. (This may not conform to the metrical feet of the poem, however.) Item 2. QsivTx733x1 \BT piRaiyAr tirunutalum pEra maruN kaNNum \et The above line may be rearranged into "piRai Ar tiru nutalum pEr amar uN kaNNum". Compare the following. Qtev1x60x10 \BT ciRai Arum maTakkiLiyE igkE vA tEn2OTu pAl \et Qkali060x16 \BT pEr amar uN kaN nin2 tOzi uRIiya \et Of course "maTakkiLi" can be split into maTa kiLi following the majority of conjoined words where the "oRRu" has been left out. Item 3. Qvil1x143x1 \BT tan2akku vin2mai nilaiyiTTa kOvai oru taman2iyat tavicil vaittu, 'nI \et Qvil1x143x2 \BT en2akku nan2mai tara vanta nal tavam iruntavA!' en2a, iruntapin2, \et Qvil1x143x3 \BT 'kaNakkum veN taraLa vaTa mulaip periya kariya kaNNi ivaL, kAtalAl\et Qvil1x143x4 \BT un2akku man2Ral peRa uriyaL Akuka!' en2a uvakaiyOTu avan2 uraikkavE, \et In this, the the word "kaNakkum" should be changed into "kan2akkum". It is also good to make sure if kaNNi is indeed the correct reading. Regards S. Palaniappan From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Sat Mar 21 14:59:52 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 08:59:52 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument Message-ID: <161227036942.23782.18232789260743889177.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> RE: Indo-Aryan im/e-migration: Horse argument On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, N. Ganesan wrote: > Horses increase dramtically after 1000 BC. Let me explain: > 1) Take North Indian sculptures in Sanchi, etc., > 2) Evidence from classical Tamil sangam works. Critically, > they are dated to 200 BC to 200 AD. > So from Vedic times (1200 BC? or 1000 BC?), horses in India > increase a lot. *Apart from Hastinapur, Pirac, Stacul and one or two other places, what *references do you have for horses in the North in the *pre*-Mauryan period *(say, 1500-500 BCE) that would suggest that the horse increases *dramatically during this period (this is info I am still trying to fine *tune for my research)? I am presently under the impression that it is *quite sparse (but can easily check with Meadow's if you don't know) *despite the fact that the horse-centered Indo-Aryans were very much *present during this period. [...] I do not know the archaeological record. What I wrote is from art history & literature perspective. I thought I made this clear. AND, I posted a questio regarding archaeological record in my original posting: *Has systematic study of the horse finds vs. century BC/AD *is conducted? (something like this) N. Ganesan From umadevi at SFO.COM Sat Mar 21 17:32:46 1998 From: umadevi at SFO.COM (Mary Storm) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 09:32:46 -0800 Subject: Indian art texts Message-ID: <161227036950.23782.687812275840891286.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Kristen Hardy wrote: > > Dear list members, > > I am in search of the following: > > 1. English translations of any of the principal Shilpa-shaastras > (e.g., Maanasaara, Mayamata, etc.) > > 2. Secondary sources discussing the creation of (Indian) art as a form > of religious practice/discipline. > > Any references which list members can provide would be much > appreciated. > Thanks, > > Kristen Hardy, > student of Religion and > Sanskrit > University of Manitoba > umhardy at cc.umanitoba.ca Hi Kirsten, Try the comprehensive ACSAA bibliographies 1975-76. 77-80, 81-83, 86-88. Available from Mary Beth Heston, 11 Boardman Rd, Charleston, SC 29407. Mary Storm From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Sat Mar 21 16:19:58 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 10:19:58 -0600 Subject: Chidbhavanandar etc., Message-ID: <161227036944.23782.11563527131602896999.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> N. Ganesan wrote: >By the way, Swami Chidbhavanandar, my grandfather's cousin went to >one of the four direct disciples of Vivekananda. I think his name was >Sivananda. He was a medical doctor who took to Sanyasam under V. >(Correct me if the name, Sivananda is not correct.) Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote: *If this is the same Sivananda of the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, *he was not Vivekananda's disciple, although people say he modelled his *religious career after him. Chidbhavanandar's guru, Sivananda of Belur Mutt was different from Sivananda of Divine Life Society. Dr. Amos Nevo asked for some info on Chidbhavanandar. Let me write it in the list, some may be interested. Chidbhavanandar was born in 1896 AD. Parents: Periyanna Gounder - Nanjammai. village: Senguttai Palayam in Pollachi taluk. watered by AaziyaaRu river. Nowadays Parambikulam-Aliyaer dam waters make these lands fertile. Situated in Palghat gap. His original name was Chinnu. Brilliant student, aim was to become an ICS. Earlier, his relative S. G. Sengodayan became the first nonbrahmin ICS. He started Ramakrishna Mission in Ooty, Gandhiji visited him. For harijans, the aalaya pravesam was done there, .... (Someone mentioned in Indology once about Chidbhavanadar's gita before and said he liked it, or something like that.) Dr. Brenda Beck has wriiten extensively on Kongu country. Read her "Peasant society in Konku, 1972, U. of Br. Columbia, for a good study on the people of Kongu country. Her study of the tamil oral epic, "aNNanmAr cuvAmi katai" - a story of past heros of my people. Then came Dr. Gene Roghair's Palnati virula katha, study of a Telugu epic .... Also, pl. see David Arnold, The Gounders and the Congress: Political recruitment in South India, South Asia, vol. 4, August 1974, p. 1-20 Chidbhavanandar printed in his school press, Kovai Kizaar (C. M. Ramachandran Chettiar, M.A., M.L., d. 1956) Kongu naaTTu varalaaRu. Kovai Kizaar was the first to study tamil folklore. ... Like to hear more from Dr. Amos Nevo on Chidbhavanandar. By the way, CS, Chidbhavanandar's elder brother's son, is the latest Bharata Ratnam. (Note Sri S. Krishna :-) :-) We Tamils have *five* Bharat Ratnas, two nobel laureates, don't foget Ramanujan, FRS - the mathematician. I will come to Origins of Bhakti later. There is a Padmapuranam quote that Bhakti was born in the tamil country and went northward. In all the stories that S. Krishna writes, Tamil stories are the *earliest*. Like folk tales being grouped, is there any typology and comparative bhakti stories. Any referencses?) Sivananda of the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh is *NOT* the teacher of Chidbhavanandar. They know each other. This Sivananda comes from a good lineage. Adayapalam (Near Vellore) Appayya Dikshitar, his relative, Neelakanta Dikshitar, author os Sivalilarnava (a translation of tamil tiruviLaiyal, stalapuraaNam of Madurai) served the Madurai Nayak court. Later, their descendents settled on the banks of TamraparaNi river. Sivananda of DLS has other illustrius relatives. The famous historian, K. A. Neelakanta Sastri, epigraphist Venkataramana Sastri, ... Regards, N. Ganesan From sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE Sat Mar 21 10:31:07 1998 From: sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE (Sreenivas Paruchuri) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 11:31:07 +0100 Subject: This may be of some interest to some of you :-) Message-ID: <161227036940.23782.11987782636161108286.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Farmer stumbles upon Third Century copper plates http://www.webpage.com/hindu/daily/980321/02/0221000f.htm Regards, --Sreenivas From yavass at YAVASS.USR.PU.RU Sat Mar 21 08:36:31 1998 From: yavass at YAVASS.USR.PU.RU (Yaroslav V. Vassilkov) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 11:36:31 +0300 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227036938.23782.144241865745509808.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >From yavass Sat Mar 21 11:22:50 MSK 1998 1. HORSE On March 20 (or 21) Edwin Bryant wrote: Message-ID: <161227036931.23782.3566501726825423127.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 5:14 PM +0000 3/20/98, Dominik Wujastyk wrote: >A "union list" of Sanskrit, Prakrit, Persian, Tamil, or other e-texts >would be extremely useful. But it would also be a pretty labour-intensive >task. My experience with such projects is that they are hardest and most >interesting at the beginning, but after keeping up with the field for a >year or two it can become less interesting. However, the initial work >done on such a union list would be extremely important and of great >general interest. I would be delighted to host such a list on the >INDOLOGY web site. > >Another possibility is for all e-texts to be systematically submitted to >an institutionally-funded site such as the Oxford Text Archive or the >Rutgers Center for Electronic Texts. These places have paid staff who >catalogue and manage e-texts. That would be ideal. All texts would >probably be normalized into SGML (TEI) format, which would be fine. One >drawback would be that such authorities have to be very pernickety about >copyright, and some of the texts which we cheerfully exchange with >each other might turn out to be infringing others' copyright. The present >rather laissez-faire situation does not properly address these issues, >which is not to say that they may not become more prominent in the future. > >If we are going to submit all texts to, say, the OTA, I could certainly >act as one conduit for such submissions. > Hello, I also think that this is an issue of great importance. A little off topic, I would like to mention the web site created by Shigeki Moro, in which he attempts to gather information about all the available Buddhist e-texts of Chinese Taisho Canon (available online or in CD-ROM, etc.). It is at: http://www.bekkoame.or.jp/i/moro/ebt_index/ It is certainly not very complete; and the site itself could be improved (for example by using some web form, to let people who watch these pages to send informations...), but I think that this is a very good beginning. There is an electronic discussion group, in a Japanese commercial BBS called NiftyServe, dealing with problems related to Asian humanity studies and the use of computer (in which there are many scholars of Buddhism). Mr. Moro is an active member of this discussion group, and we can assist him to improve his web site. I am sure that Indology list can play a similar role if some member decides to build a web site of "union list" of Indology related e-texts. Best regards, Nobumi Iyanaga Tokyo, Japan From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 21 20:49:36 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 12:49:36 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036957.23782.626742580230280782.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Palaniappa wrote: > >Zydenbos had said, "(2) To compare V. to ;Sa:nkara looks rather absurd >(something like comparing Jerry Falwell to John Calvin)." For most of the >Tamil population, V as well as Zankara are equally irrelevant. True. >As for Adi >zankara's intellectual genius, there is a segment of non-brahmin intelligensia >(here many atheistic as well as theistic people are included) who find his >views on zUdras abhorrent and abominable. Include Vivekananda among those who find Sankara's comments about SUdras abhorrent. If you read Sankara's brahmasUtrabhAshya carefully however, you will see that right after he quotes the smRtis denying study of the Veda to SUdras, Sankara admits that some, like vidura and dharmavyAdha, gain self-knowledge through other means. In other words, he is clear that tradition prohibits scriptural learning to SUdras, but allows both that scriptural knowledge is not necessarily spiritual knowledge and that spiritual knowledge is available through non-Sruti sources. And Sankara also ultimately devalues scriptural knowledge in relation to spiritual (self-)knowledge, something that is unthinkable for most others. In upadeSasAhasrI, Sankara emphasizes not that the teacher should be a brAhmaNa by caste, but that the teacher should be one who knows brahman. The two need not be the same thing. One could say that only he who knows brahman is a true brAhmaNa, but this does not really address the issue. However, Sankara presumes that the student is a brAhmaNa, but the actual qualifications he seeks in a student are quite different. Sankara also makes varNa irrelevant (and even non-existent) for him who knows brahman. There is a seed of revolutionary thought in it, which has indeed been developed by people like Narayana Guru of Kerala, but there is no point in finding fault with Sankara himself for not having been a social revolutionary. His way of affirming universality is through renouncing society, not by reforming it nor by a political statement that all men are equal. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Sat Mar 21 18:22:29 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 13:22:29 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036953.23782.13636844486195073984.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-19 12:27:27 EST, zydenbos at BLR.VSNL.NET.IN writes: << V. is a figurehead for urbanised, Anglicised, well-to-do Indians who are partly alienated from traditional Hinduism. In rural India, as per my own observations, he is never more than a picture on a wall, 'the man through whom Hinduism conquered the world' and a protagonist in myths without substance, a writer the bulk of whose writings are read by none. (Sorry if this sounds crude or 'unscholarly', but I've already reached my third screenful.) Hardly anybody, besides the residents of Ramakrishna Maths and Hindutva ideologues, has any idea of what he stood for. >> I agree with Robert Zydenbos on Vivekananda in general, but I would like to add a note on zankara as well. My personal impression based on living in Tamilnadu is that it is the upper castes (mainly Brahmins and Vellalas) who have been admirers and knowledgeable about V. The percentage of these followers in the general population is very very small. Even though, Vivekanandar's biography "aRivukkan2alE aruTpun2alE" might have appeared in Kalki, a Tamil magazine, the circulation of that one-time orthodox magazine was so unrepresentative of the general population, that V.'s relevance for the general population is insignificant. The Ramakrishna mission schools and colleges are the only avenues of possible relevance for V.'s views w.r.t the wider population. Even here, if the comments of my IIT friends who were graduates of Vivekananda College in Madras (this was more than 20 years ago) were correct, the distribution of students by caste was weighted towards upper castes. (Of course, the government-mandated reservation of seats might have resulted in some representation of other castes as well.) I think V. filled a market need for self-assurance among newly urbanized elites moving from mofussil areas into emerging urban areas. Zydenbos had said, "(2) To compare V. to ;Sa:nkara looks rather absurd (something like comparing Jerry Falwell to John Calvin)." For most of the Tamil population, V as well as Zankara are equally irrelevant. As for Adi zankara's intellectual genius, there is a segment of non-brahmin intelligensia (here many atheistic as well as theistic people are included) who find his views on zUdras abhorrent and abominable. Commenting on Brahmasutra (1.3.38) that zUdras are prohibited from acquiring spiritual knowledge, zankara says, "The zUdras are not qualified for that reason also that smRti prohibits their hearing the Veda, their studying the Veda, and their understanding and performing Vedic matters. The prohibition of hearing the Veda is conveyed by the following passages: 'The ears of him who hears the Veda are to be filled with (molten) lead and lac,' and 'For a zUdra is (like) a cemetery, therefore (the Veda) is not to be read in the vicinity of azUdra'. From this latter passage the prohibition of studying the Veda results at once; for how should he study Scripture in whose vicinity it is not even to be read? There is, moreover, an express prohibition (of the zUdras studying the Veda). 'His tongue is to be slit if he pronounces it; his body is to be cut through if he preserves it....'" If it is argued that he was just commenting on somebody else's sUtra, one can see the qualifications he sets for a spiritual teacher in his upadeza sAhasri. Here he says only a brahmaNa can be a teacher. He excludes even kSatriyas. So, when some insist that advaita is the ultimate concept of universality, and zankara was its greatest exponent, one has to wonder what type of universal vision they are talking about. If the following questions by Zydenbos w.r.t Vivekananda were to be raised against zankara, I wonder what the answers might be. <> As for Vivekananda's statements, "Civilisations have risen in other parts of the world... great ideas have emanated from strong and great races... India... peacefully existed... when even Greece did not exist, when Rome was not thought of, when the very fathers of the modern Europeans lived in the forests and painted themselves blue", etc. etc. (from "FirstPublic Lecture in the East").", one should probably look for its inspiration in "On Liberty", the work by John Stuart Mill (and his wife). (I remember reading in one of Ambedkar's works that Mill's writings were popular among Indian nationalists in the beginning of the 20th century.) Talking about the despotism of Custom, Mill says, "This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result. Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life; they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or dependents of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when theirs had magnificent places and gorgeous temples, but over whom custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress." J. S. Mill, retired as the Examiner of India Correspondence for East India Company in England in 1858, the same year in which his essay "On Liberty" was completed. Regards S. Palaniappan From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Sat Mar 21 19:27:16 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 13:27:16 -0600 Subject: Martin Luther university, Germany Message-ID: <161227036955.23782.962478072418388292.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> There is a news item in DinamaNi, the tamil edition of Indian Express on 17-March-98. It talks of several diaries, handbooks, etc of Germans writings about tamils, s. india etc., for about 300 years. They are in a bad deteriorating shape in Martin Luther university. Anyone who knows what is there? catalogs? papers on the collections? They should go to Indological depts in the west or india?? Any thoughts, N. Ganesan From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 21 21:40:50 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 13:40:50 -0800 Subject: Chidbhavanandar etc., Message-ID: <161227036959.23782.4989487348162195717.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> N.Ganesan writes: > His original name was Chinnu. >Brilliant student, aim was to become an ICS. Earlier, his >relative S. G. Sengodayan became the first nonbrahmin ICS. >He started Ramakrishna Mission in Ooty, Gandhiji visited >him. For harijans, the aalaya pravesam was done there, .... >(Someone mentioned in Indology once about Chidbhavanadar's gita >before and said he liked it, or something like that.) A tangential point here : S.G.Sengodaiyan(the S&G standing for Selva Gounder) was NOT the first non-Brahmin ICS officer. The very first ICS officer from the South was himself a non-Brahmin, namely Pulicat Ratnavel Mudaliar( who was the 5th or the 6th Indian ~1875). Susequently, you had people like V .Venugopal Chetty, actively involved in Justice Party politics and V.Ramakrishniah, who had passed the examination in 1920, all of whom were directly (or indirectly) involved in Justicite politics. If I remember, D.A.Washbrook says that Sengodaiyan was the first GOUNDER to pass the ICS, who passed the exam sometime in the 30s. Of course all this overlooks the contribution of the Nairs, (In the 40s there used to be a joke/complaint about the ICS suffering from "Menon-gitis"( in view of the numbers of officers with the name MEnon) who are also non-Brahmin. > Chidbhavanandar's elder brother's son, is the latest >Bharata Ratnam. (Note Sri S. Krishna :-) :-) Noted! Once my knowledge of classical Tamil improves to the level where I can attempt classical Tamil poetry, I will remember to write a verse praising you and your genealogy, the same way in which the poetess auvaiyAr praised the cEra king nEduman2 aJci or iruGkOvEL was praised by kapilar:-)....in lieu, can I be appointed "court poet" and a bag of gold coins be mailed immedeatly to me with the appointment letter?:-),:-) >We Tamils have *five* Bharat Ratnas, two nobel laureates, >don't foget Ramanujan, FRS - the mathematician. Does this figure of 5 include MGR, who was a malayALi? Sure, I realise that he got people to write a book attesting to the fact that he was "centamizh" ( because the Nairs migrated from Tanjavur to Kerala) but the mainstream hardly believes this tale...... But then, what use are all these Bharat Ratnas and what have you when tamilians cannot rule in their own land? mu ka is of telugu descent, jayalalita is a kannaDigA, rajnikAnth is mahArAstrian and MGR was a malayALI! As ChO rAmasvAmi once remarked, "The curse of kaNNAkI has come true!":-),:-) (This was meant to be a joke and not taken seriously). N.Ganesan makes another point below on which I would like to comment in the next post. I apologize for any non-Indological content in this post. REgards, KRishna >I will come to Origins of Bhakti later. There is a Padmapuranam quote >that Bhakti was born in the tamil country and went northward. >In all the stories that S. Krishna writes, Tamil stories are >the *earliest*. Like folk tales being grouped, is there any typology >and comparative bhakti stories. Any referencses?) > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU Sat Mar 21 21:57:10 1998 From: reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU (Luis Gonzalez-Reimann) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 13:57:10 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036962.23782.7841003453761182809.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 09:41 PM 3/20/98 -0800, Charles Poncet wrote (to RZ): >Gee, I thought Indologists were a bunch of rather dry and at times >boring scholars ! You certainly do not qualify for that description ! As you can see, Charles, prejudiced views come in all shapes and sizes. They even sneak up on you sometimes. There is more to Indology than is dreamt of in a layman's philosophy (and indologists have all kinds of backgrounds). Best regards, Luis Gonzalez-Reimann University of California, Berkeley From jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE Sat Mar 21 17:07:41 1998 From: jacob.baltuch at EURONET.BE (Jacob Baltuch) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 18:07:41 +0100 Subject: elephant question Message-ID: <161227036948.23782.4739136843962899520.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Why does Indra ride an elephant? From roheko at MSN.COM Sat Mar 21 18:27:32 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 19:27:32 +0100 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227036969.23782.2951790420508691727.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> If I remember well it looks not quadrangle, more 2 or three times the length in relation to the bright. It has two or four long rows. I saw this in Ajanta. Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Yaroslav V. Vassilkov An: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Datum: Samstag, 21. M?rz 1998 09:48 Betreff: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India >>From yavass Sat Mar 21 11:22:50 MSK 1998 >1. HORSE >On March 20 (or 21) Edwin Bryant wrote: > > > and at the end of his contribution Edwin Bryant uses the same >supposed fact as a base for an important historical conclusion: > ><...just as the horse has always been imported and ><(for the Indig. Aryan School, and earlier still in the PIE period for the > > But can we really say that *the horse has always been imported* while >since the Vedic period Sanskrit literature constantly mentions horse-breeding >in the North-West of the subcontinent? The first such mention one can probably >find in the Nadiistuti of the Rgveda (X.75.8) where the Sindhu river is called >*svazvaa, surathaa* and *vaajiniivatii* - *famous for its fine horses, good >chariots* and *rich in race-horses*. After that we can see that in many >sources different regions of the North-West (Sindhu-Sauvira, Gandhara, Kamboja) >are described as well-known centers of horse-breeding (see, e.g, Mbh. V.46.13; >VI.86-3-4; VII.137.3; XII.36.11). > By the way, I think that the participants in the debate on the spread >of horses in India quite undeservedly ignored the archeological materials >of the *megalithic* culture which at some sites (e.g. on the territory of >historical Vidarbha) can be dated now as early as the beginning of the I >mill. BC. Here we can speak really in terms of MASS material, consisting of >bone remains and innumerable articles of metal harness. The megalithic >material makes quite possible its comparison with the relevant data from >"Scythian graves" (while some of the participants has asserted earlier >that the latter have no analogues in India). > > 2. DICE. > As the participants in this debate demonstrate vast knowledge of the >present state of archeological studies in India, it gave me idea to address >them a special question. > Many years ago (in the early 1970-ies?) Professor B.B.Lal visited >Leningrad in the USSR (now St Petersburg in Russia) and read two lectures >(at the Institute of Archeology and the Institute of Oriental Studies) on >the progress of his studies of the Painted Grey Ware culture. > I remember very well one of the slides that he demonstrated to the >audience. It was a picture of a gambling die: oblong and biconical, made >of terracotta. Since then I tried many times but failed to find any published >information bearing on the PGW dice. > Can you give me a reference to any source containing a picture or >a good description of the dice typical of the PGW culture? > Thanks in advance > Yaroslav Vassilkov > St Petersburg > From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Mar 22 04:04:46 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 20:04:46 -0800 Subject: Chidbhavanandar etc., Message-ID: <161227036968.23782.16436584442643190526.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> N.Ganesan writes: >I will come to Origins of Bhakti later. There is a Padmapuranam quote >that Bhakti was born in the tamil country and went northward. >In all the stories that S. Krishna writes, Tamil stories are >the *earliest*. Like folk tales being grouped, is there any typology >and comparative bhakti stories. Any referencses?) > Sorry for the long post! I realise that in all cases, Tamil stories may have been the earliest and I myself have read this poem about Bhakti spending her child hood in the Tamil country, her teenage years in the Kannada country and her old age in the North etc. The northward diffusion of the Bhakti movement can also be traced in terms of the earliest poets belonging to this school- by the 8th century CE this school was strong in Tamil Nadu, by the year 1100 it had started in KArnataka, Dyaneshwar, the first well known Marathi poet belonging to this genre was from the 13th century ...and by the 15th century this school was also strong in what are now the Hindi speaking areas. However, can the fact that this school started in Tamil NAdu also mean the the stories/legends in other parts be all offshoots /inspired by Tamil legends? I am not sure if this is the case ; it has to be seen if the stories really diffused with the movement and were adopted to local conditions or if the stories were independently developed in each case. The factors supporting the later argument are: 1. In all the legends, there is some degree of historicity. I find it difficult to believe that if the story originated in one part of India and diffused, then traces of this diffusion in the end product would be hidden so well. Note that people who talk about Aesop's fables being inspired by the hitOpadEsa point out that the animals that Aesop refers to are unusual by Greek standards and do not occur in any other Greek story,but are common in India and do occur in other legends also. However, in this case i.e. Bhakti movement, we find that each legend fits in very well into the environment in which it is said to have evolved and there are no such incongruities surroundingswise. In addition, if the stories were spread thru diffusion(instead of independent birth) then one would also expect to see a much larger number of common stories as opposed to isolated examples i.e. one would expect to hear of 63 Shaiva saints in other parts of India also, but this is not the case. Within Tamil NAdu, itself one can see a parallel between the cases of the nayan2mAr nan2dan2Ar and the AzhvAr tiruppANAzhvAr. Yet both of them exist independently of each other as opposed to duplication. 2. There are examples of similar legends existing in different parts of the world independent of each other. Let us compare ancient Jewish history with that of ancient India. Examples are: a) Waters parting in order to help a chosen person(s) to safety: occurs in the case of Krishna when being taken across the yamunA by his father just after his birth, also occurs in the case of the Red Sea opening up when the Israelis were brought out of Egypt by Moses. b) God accepting to be one/equal to his devotees and participate in a ritual: This occurs in Chidambaram where the priests are called the "mUvAyiravar"(3000), there was a head count held and it turned out that there were only 2999 where upon Shiva is supposed to have appeared in person and proclaimed that he was one with the priests i.e. the 3000th Surprisingly, the same story is told about a synagogue called "Eliahu Hanavi" in Jerusalem where Elijah the prophet is supposed to have appeared in person to complete a minyan when the gathering was one short of an eligible candidate. c)There are similarities( however insignificant) between mAdhvA's interpretation of vAyu's status in dvaita philosophy and the Holy Ghost in Christian theology. This was a source of endless speculation in the 19th century about mAdhva being influenced by Christianity which was *flourishing* in nearby KErala. However, since the whole story of St Thomas is believed now to be a fabrication( even by the Church) and Christianity was not as influential in mAdhva's days in Kerala as thought earlier, it can only be concluded that such similarities that exist are entirely accidental. I have noticed the interesting concept of people inviting physical infliction upon themselves in order to demonstrate their devotion to a person both in Tamil literature and Hebrew. As examples, one has in akanAn2URu 166( translation by Geroge Hart), the hero swearing to his beloved "May I be tormented by a terrifying God if I made love to a courtesan"( The nature of torment, while not specified in this poem is described in other poems: kuRuntokai 308 eg refers to an elephant who rubs his head on plaintain leaves, is afflicted by a spirit living on the leaf and then sleeps fitfully in pain). Compare this with Psalm 137 i.e. the lament of the exiled children of Israel about Jerusalem: "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strangle land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget it's cunning If I don't remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Jerusalem above my highest joys!" There is a remarkable resemblance here in terms of cause( lack of faithfullness) and effect(physical pain), yet nobody has posited that the Old Testament has influenced the puRanAn2URu or the akanAn2URu, leading me to conclude that the resemblance is accidental and not the result of diffusion. In a different context, The episode of the Sun being made to stop over the valley of Ayalon in the Bible, I'm told, has parallels in China and Mayan writings which developed this legend/story independently. I realise that there is some speculation about the Tamils and the Jews trading with each other, but this has been debunked by many people, all the way from the 1950s by Basham. The only defence that I've read of this theory is by one Parasuraman ( in the book that I read, he doesn't indicate whether he is talking about B.C. or C.E., in which case it is possible to come up with all kinds of parallels) which is very unconvincing. In view of this the only way of explaining this is to conclude that the two civilizations developed the same concept independent of each other. My experience has been that it is also possible to see this concept of independent development of the same theme by two unrelated cultures in literature. For example, on comparing the literature of the 16th-17th century of Andhra i.e. kSEtrayya with punjabi literature of say Bulleh Shah,(both unrelated) one sees that both visualise the relationship between a devotee and God as the same as that of two lovers. IF this is not impressive enough, let us take into consideration the fact that both Sufi literature(from IRan) and Bhakti movement(India) independently arrive at the concept of a normally prohibited activity representing a union between the devotee and God on a more sublime plane (Sufism always talks about intoxication( normally prohibited) about God, Bhakti movement talks about indiscriminate love making(normally prohibited) with God.) There was no contact between say IRan in the 12th century and Tamil NAdu for this idea to have diffused from place to another. The last illustration of this concept of independent development utilizes a story that I read sometime ago in the Encyclopedia of Tamil culture which refers to the king Krishnadevaraya (the Vijayanagara king) who is bailed out by a clever minister. A rival king sends a dancer to Krishnadevaraya who impresses him with her dance; she is allowed to "ask for anything and the King will provide it". In order to humiliate the King, she expresses her desire to defecate on the throne. The king ( who's now caught in a quandry) is bailed out by his minister who (noting that since she didn't say anything about urinating) tells her that she can defecate on the throne but not urinate during defecation. This story parallels the logic of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, where Portia does the same thing to Shylock. ( i.e. the villain in both cases asks for B. which is linked to some event A; since there is no mention of A in the pre-condition, the rescuer asks the villain to perform B without doing A and thereby traps them). Now, it is impossible for Shakespeare to have known about Indian history and the Vijayanagar empire(He was born in 1564, the battle of Talikota took place in 1565) and the contact was minimal even when Shakespeare passed away in 1616; again the only alternative is independent development. The last argument that would support indepedent development is: In India, where one poet from one part of India has influenced another in a different part of India, there is some mention of this influence textually. As examples, Tyagaraja mentions the names of NAmdev, Eknath and Tulsidas( all non-Telugu) in the prelude to his opera the "Nouka Charitamu", some of the Kannada Saiva poets acknowledge the influence of the nayan2mArs and the Guru Granth Sahib acknowledges the contributions of the Marathi poet Namdev. The Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya in Bengal acknowledges the influence of Ramanuja(?) and MAdhva. While lack of such acknowledgement does not rule out diffusing influence automatically, it does present a strong argument to counter it. In none of the cases brought up by me would any one notice any such acknowledgement by one saint or a reference to another which would preclude diffusion. I therefore believe that one will have to find very strong evidence supporting diffusion before accepting it as the cause of commonality. As always, ideas, criticism and discussion are welcome. I apologize once again for the length of the post. Regards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From bhk at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN Sat Mar 21 17:32:55 1998 From: bhk at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN (Bh. Krishnamurti) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 98 22:32:55 +0500 Subject: This may be of some interest to some of you :-) Message-ID: <161227036946.23782.3077115983906812110.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Srinivas: There have been no postings from telusaa. Or have they dropped my name again? Sincerely, Bh.K. At 11:31 21/03/98 +0100, you wrote: >Farmer stumbles upon Third Century copper plates > >http://www.webpage.com/hindu/daily/980321/02/0221000f.htm > >Regards, --Sreenivas > > end Bh. Krishnamurti H.No. 12-13-1233, "Bhaarati" Street No.9, Tarnaka Hyderabad 500 017, A.P. India Telephone (R)(40)701 9665 E-mail: From mcv at WXS.NL Sun Mar 22 02:16:09 1998 From: mcv at WXS.NL (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 02:16:09 +0000 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036965.23782.2992892862585979682.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: >"the "-au" ending comes about only in dvivacanam" ? >No: nominative aSTau (RV, &c.) being a counter-example. > > There was tentatives to explain aSTau by a dual, but without any >good result. The simpler was to consider *qet(w)r- (4), to cut the last "r" >(without understand it!), to suppose a zero degree with "qt" > "kt" and to >prefix by a dubious particle "O" (near) suggested by few Greek words and >Skr. A-gam- (shortened before two consonants?); finally: "two 4s brought >nearer"!! Leaving lurk-mode... What's wrong with the much simpler one: Avestan "width of four fingers" (IE *ok^t-is, *ok^t-os "4" => du. *ok^toH "8")? > In fact, it seems we have a "vanishing" "w" at the end of the >Eurindian root, suggested by the ordinals Lat. octAuos, Gr. ogdo(w)os and >by Got. ahtau. > The Indian variants aSTa, aSTA, aSTau find a parallel in Greek >where the two forms oktO- and okta- coexist early (Homer) in compounds; >okta- was explained by the analogy with hepta- and hexa- but nothing is >sure with this mysterious number and the "a" could be genuine (see the Osq. >form Uhtavis of the Lat. name Octavius). If the IE laryngeals h1, h2, h3 were analogous to the velar series k^, k, kw (i.e. they were phonetically palatal /x^/, plain /x/ and labialized /xw/), then reconstructing a dual form *ok^toh3 (/ok^toxw/) would explain all these forms (the Sanskrit dual with -u, Gothic ahtau, Greek *ogdowos "8th", and Latin Octa:vius < *oktoh2wi- < *ok^toh3i- [=*ok^toxwi-]). ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From barathi at PC.JARING.MY Sat Mar 21 23:15:50 1998 From: barathi at PC.JARING.MY (jayabarathi) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 07:15:50 +0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036963.23782.9288875809329429582.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 12:49 PM 3/21/98 PST, you wrote: >Palaniappa wrote: > >> >>Zydenbos had said, "(2) To compare V. to ;Sa:nkara looks rather absurd >>(something like comparing Jerry Falwell to John Calvin)." For most of >the >>Tamil population, V as well as Zankara are equally irrelevant. > >True. > >>As for Adi >>zankara's intellectual genius, there is a segment of non-brahmin >intelligensia >>(here many atheistic as well as theistic people are included) who find >his >>views on zUdras abhorrent and abominable. > >Include Vivekananda among those who find Sankara's comments about SUdras >abhorrent. > >If you read Sankara's brahmasUtrabhAshya carefully however, you will see >that right after he quotes the smRtis denying study of the Veda to >SUdras, Sankara admits that some, like vidura and dharmavyAdha, gain >self-knowledge through other means. In other words, he is clear that >tradition prohibits scriptural learning to SUdras, but allows both that >scriptural knowledge is not necessarily spiritual knowledge and that >spiritual knowledge is available through non-Sruti sources. And Sankara >also ultimately devalues scriptural knowledge in relation to spiritual >(self-)knowledge, something that is unthinkable for most others. > >In upadeSasAhasrI, Sankara emphasizes not that the teacher should be a >brAhmaNa by caste, but that the teacher should be one who knows brahman. >The two need not be the same thing. One could say that only he who knows >brahman is a true brAhmaNa, but this does not really address the issue. >However, Sankara presumes that the student is a brAhmaNa, but the actual >qualifications he seeks in a student are quite different. Sankara also >makes varNa irrelevant (and even non-existent) for him who knows >brahman. There is a seed of revolutionary thought in it, which has >indeed been developed by people like Narayana Guru of Kerala, but there >is no point in finding fault with Sankara himself for not having been a >social revolutionary. His way of affirming universality is through >renouncing society, not by reforming it nor by a political statement >that all men are equal. > >Vidyasankar Dear Sir, In this context also, it would be appropriate if you could throw some light from your perspective, about the "ManIsha Pancakam" and the episode concerning it. Thank you. Regards Jayabarathi > >____________ __________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > > From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Sun Mar 22 16:42:32 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 08:42:32 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036973.23782.12796500135480382185.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> jayabarathi wrote: > > Dear Sir, > > In this context also, it would be appropriate > if you could throw some light from your perspective, > about the "ManIsha Pancakam" and the episode concerning > it. > Thank you. Gladly. The story is that Siva appeared before Sankara, as an outcaste with four dogs, at the bathing ghat. When Sankara asked him to move away, the outcaste responded with a question about whether he wanted the body to move away or the omnipresent Atman. This is said to be the occasion when Sankara composed the manIshA pancakam, which says that whether he is a brAhmaNa or a cANDAla, the knower of the Atman is to be regarded as a guru. Siva then reveals himself to Sankara, and the four dogs are the four Vedas. One can doubt the attribution of the verses to Sankara, but the remarkable thing remains that such a story is found in works that glorify Sankara. And advaita texts repeatedly use a metaphor based on the reflection of the same sun in the pots of the cANDAlas as in other places. There is also the Mahabharata story of udanka, that Sankara refers to in the upadeSasAhasrI. After doing long penance, udanka gains the grace of vishNu, who promises him anything he asks. udanka asks that he should never lack water. Once when he is travelling in the desert, udanka feels very thirsty, and looks for water. A cANDAla appears before him and offers his urine to drink, but udanka is scandalized and refuses. When he reproaches vishNu for deserting him, vishNu explains that the cANDAla was really indra and that the urine was nectar, which would have made him immortal. The extreme violation of normal notions of purity is remarkable. Not only is the person who offers water a cANDAla, but the water itself is his urine. The notion that the gods use the lowest member of the caste hierarchy to test the members of the highest is noteworthy. And if you think about it, the sannyAsin is also an outcaste in one sense. Sankara explicitly asks, katham varNASramI bhavet?, and denies that the sannyAsin is bound by the usual brahminical rules of purity and ritual. The paramahamsa ascetic is also allowed to receive alms from all castes. And both ascetics and cANDAlas have connections to the cremation ground. So it goes on ... Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From roheko at MSN.COM Sun Mar 22 11:13:37 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 12:13:37 +0100 Subject: elephant question Message-ID: <161227036971.23782.6747778087040740579.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Because - and this is a secret, which Indra did never speak about to anyone else - he loved it to move around while watching the world standing on the head. Because he was not very well trained in standing on the head and fell often backwards on the hard ground he became depressive. However, one day, when he secretly was moving on his hands he hurd himself very badly, his neck was turned nearly half ways back without finding back to his original position. Consequently his face looked backwards while he moved straight ahead. Of course because of this he felt again ashamed for the people. Therefore he ordered a rope-dancer to construct a wooden mask that appears to be his really face. This wooden face he rammed against the backside of his backwords directed head. One day, while he jumped around on this hands, both faces downwards and viewing in both directions he felt so happy that he let out a strong cry of joy, without any knowledge about the elephant-speach, his cry was listened by a great and strong male elephant, who came running closer to Indra, thereby causing big clouds of dust , which darkened the world for some moments. Watching Indra, who lied there around in the dust because of the earth-quacking caused by the elephant, this strong animal was absolutely impressed by the double-faced Indra. He directed Indra to walk along the elephants tusk exactly on the top of his head, where Indra took a seat. Moreover by the power of the elephant-vidyA he supportet Indra as soon as he startet to turn upwards, what he liked so much, by help of his tusk. Indra got now a feeling of heaven, moving on the head of an elephant, standing on his head and watching the world. After he had taken over the knowledge of elephant-vidyA he decided once to order the construction of two further wooden faces for both sides, meanwhile he was able through the elephant-vidyA to see with the eyes of the wooden faces. Finally he was absolutely satisfied, making circles while standing on his head and moving forwards on the back of a strong elephant, which supported him with his tusk. After some years they met a surprisingly appearing being, walking around without a head, yes, a corpse without head. This man was called Brahma. He was very unhappy about his missing head. He asked Indra for his four faces. Indra handed over all his four faces to Brahma. That is the reason why Indra likes to ride on an elephant. The end. Moving around Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Jacob Baltuch An: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Datum: Samstag, 21. M?rz 1998 18:08 Betreff: elephant question >Why does Indra ride an elephant? > From dran at CS.ALBANY.EDU Sun Mar 22 18:50:42 1998 From: dran at CS.ALBANY.EDU (Paliath Narendran) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 13:50:42 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <19980321042600.25104.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <161227036976.23782.3431115623283832869.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidya wrote: > ... In any case, V is hardly a person with purely local > relevance V is widely admired in Kerala, and, from what I have read, this admiration cuts across religious and political boundaries, from conservative Hindus to Marxists to Christians and Muslims. There is some irony here, since V once referred to Kerala as "a vast lunatic asylum". This was mainly because of the practice of "tiinTal" or unapproachability, an elaborate system of distances that a member of one caste should keep from that of another. Many social reformers --- Agamananda, Dr. Palpu, the great poet KumAran ASAn --- drew inspiration from him. It is true (AFAIK) that mainstream Hinduism in Kerala is the temple-based Bhakti religion. But I don't think the Ramakrishna Mission is any more marginal than other sannyasi organizations. Also, Mrdananda and Siddhinathananda, to name two, are highly regarded for their scholarship. -Narendran P.S. Perhaps I am more sympathetic to V because of my name. :-) :-) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paliath Narendran Associate Professor URL: http://www.cs.albany.edu/~dran/ Department of Computer Science phone: (518)442-3387 University at Albany --- SUNY fax: (518)442-5638 Albany, NY 12222 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Sun Mar 22 19:19:17 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 14:19:17 -0500 Subject: Indo-Aryan Invasion (focussed discussion) Message-ID: <161227036978.23782.11052659470947241533.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thanks for the corrections. I apologize to the list members for not checking things and instead relying on my sieve-like memory. Due to personal reasons, I have been unable to spend as much time in the library as I usually do. From thillaud at UNICE.FR Sun Mar 22 17:11:39 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 18:11:39 +0100 Subject: elephant question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036995.23782.16407341106824884034.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Why does Indra ride an elephant? Dear Jacob, Excellent question! And quite puzzling from a comparativist point of view! I'm able to propose the trumpeting of the beast, the loudest and deepest animal cry, well fitting with a Thunder God commonly characterized by his very strong voice. And I suppose the elephant is here replacing an other animal don't living in India; if the cry is the key, that inforce my hypothesis (not yet proved) of the great horned stag of the temperate forest being early the varSiSTho varSI vRSaH, replaced in Greece by the lion (see Herakles bearing his hide) but keeping the same name (Gr. lewOn ~ ravAn). This leads to a curious fact about the name airAvata wherein rAva sounds! Does someone could explain the initial "ai"? An other puzzling fact is the resemblance between the Greek names "elephAs" (< *elephant-s), early known by the Mycenian "e-re-pa-te-jo" (elephanteios = adj. ivory), and "elaphos" (stag). The last word is apparently without difficulty, coming easily from *eln-bhos, compared to Greek "ellos" (fawn) (< *elnos), Lituanian "elnis" (stag), Welsh "elain" (doe), with the same suffix as vRSabha. "elephas" is considered by the hellenist Chantraine as a loan word (Anatolian?) also loaned by Hittit "laHpash" (ivory tusk). Mayrhofer, cutting the Greek *el-ephAs, suppose a link with ibha (*H1-bh- ?) and Latin "ebur" (ivory) but don't explain the Greek el-. Many scholars believe to a semitic origin but their explanations are very dubious. To link "elaphos" and "elephas" could be possible but quite acrobatic. Endly, we can't reject absolutely a link with the male power of Indra, comparing ibha (root of eti?) to RSabha and vRSabha. A great number of the litterary comparisons involving the elephant show him in rut with the mada on his temples. The image is so common that we can't avoid to think at an etymology, true or false, of yabh- by ibha. And we come back to the stag, also reputed for his virility (see the French expression "bander comme un cerf"). He is able to have tens of coits in a day, like Herakles with the fifty daughters of Thespios. What about the elephant? Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE Sun Mar 22 20:26:26 1998 From: sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE (Sreenivas Paruchuri) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 21:26:26 +0100 Subject: Martin Luther university, Germany In-Reply-To: <01IUXHCUA4HU000P0Q@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227036980.23782.5696129440042182499.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Dr. Ganesan, In late November the "Franksche Stiftung" (where all the writings of Ziegenbalg, Schultze et al writings are preserved) organized a seminar on "Halle and the south-Indian link", where scholars like Drs. Heike Liebau (nee Pelikan), Indira Peterson, Daniel Jeyaraj, Dharampal-Frick, .... presented a series of interesting papers. I don't know when (if at all!) those proceedings would be available for public. I 'll send you the complete details of this recent seminar in a day or two. Have you got the 3 (perhaps more?! I am aware of 3!) books published on the eve of 40th anniv. of Indian independance, by the erstwhile DDR govt. These manuscripts were published for the first time; which includes Benjamin Schultze's _grammatica telugica_ (1728), _Grammatica Hindostanica_ and Ziegenbalg's _Grammatica Damulica_ (from 1716), from Frank's foundation's archives. Still, a lot more materials; esp. those diaries/correspondance need to be dug out and studied ..... To my knowledge Daniel Jeyaraj is the only Indian to work on Halle-material. His thesis: Inkulturation in Tranquebar : der Beitrag der fruehen daenisch-halleschen Mission zum Werden einerindisch-einheimischen Kirche (1706 - 1730), Martin Luther Univ., Halle, Diss. 1995 is published by: Verl. der Ev.-Luth. Mission, Erlangen, 1996 Serien: Missionswissenschaftliche Forschungen ; N.F., Bd. 4 ISBN: 3-87214-334-4 I am told that now he is back in India. > They are in a bad deteriorating shape in Martin Luther > university. Anyone who knows what is there? > catalogs? papers on the collections? I am hearing, infact, for the first time that they are in deteriorating shape! I heard that the "Stiftung" is a well-organized one. More later, Regards, --Sreenivas From thompson at JLC.NET Mon Mar 23 01:27:58 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 21:27:58 -0400 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227036984.23782.12725886857574240725.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I have to agree with Yaroslav Vassilkov that horse-breeding was unquestionably a *fundamental* and *native* feature of Vedic society. There are numerous passages in the RV that suggest this [however, RV 10.75.8 is not likely to be the *first* of these, I would think -- at least chronologically speaking]. Furthermore, it is clear that horse-breeding was known also in Avestan, so that we can take for granted the view that horse-breeding is at least Indo-Iranian, and not just Indic. Of course, horse archaeology has played a prominent role in the debate re the migration vs indigenous theories, because of this simple fact: the horse is virtually if not totally insignificant in IVC, whereas it is patently both fundamental and native in Vedic [as well as Avestan]. This fact is an obvious problem for those who insist on some sort of cultural continuum between IVC and Vedic. One understands indeed why the horse continues to be "the most sought after animal in Indian archaeology", as Edwin Bryant observes. What Edwin seems to be doing in his recent series of posts is this: he seems to be conceding the fact that the horse is not indigenous to the sub-continent. But [correct me if I am wrong, Edwin] he seems to be arguing that this fact can be severed from the claim that the Aryans themselves are indigenous. In other words, Edwin is trying to save the indigenous Aryan thesis from the absence of any supporting horse evidence. According to Edwin, there is no sudden spike in horse evidence in the archaeological record at the time when the Aryans are supposed to have migrated into the sub-continent. He concludes from this that the absence of horse evidence in the sub-continent is *not* an indicator of the absence of Aryans there. It indicates rather only the absence of horses. But as I have claimed on the RISA list, if you do not find horses in the sub-continent, then you will not find Aryans. As the infamous Vedic horse sacrifice shows, the two -- horse and Aryan -- go hand in hand, as it were. This is not true of the horse and IVC. But I hope that Edwin will clarify what he meant, rather than leaving us to guess. This reminds me that I have several times wanted to protest against the simple dichotomy that seems to dominate this discussion: linguistics vs. archaeology. No, we are not talking about one theoretical model [linguistics] against another [archaeology]. Both of these are crucial tools. But knowledge of Vedic is not theoretical knowledge, as both linguistic and archaeolgical evidence is in this case. Vedic is the most concrete evidence that is available to us: it is textual, philological, yes -- but not theoretical! And that is why, in my opinion, we Vedicists have an advantage in this debate. We are the only ones who are operating with concrete facts, Vedic facts. Is there anything wrong with the principle that if a proposal about the Aryan question does not agree with Vedic facts then it has to be abandoned?* George Thompson *of course, keeping Avestan always in mind. To repeat: an Indo-Iranian perspective will improve our understanding of this problem in general,since in my view we are dealing with an Indo-Iranian culture, not simply an Indic one. From sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE Sun Mar 22 20:43:08 1998 From: sreeni at KTPSP2.UNI-PADERBORN.DE (Sreenivas Paruchuri) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 21:43:08 +0100 Subject: apologies (Re: Martin Luther university, Germany) In-Reply-To: <01IUXHCUA4HU000P0Q@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227036982.23782.18431345361520456109.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> apologies for posting a personal note to Mr. Ganesan on the list. should have checked the headers before hitting the "send" button! am sorry about it!! and thanks for bearing those grammatical and typographical mistakes (/blunders) :-)! Regards, --Sreenivas From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 23 02:59:21 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 21:59:21 -0500 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036986.23782.5463624396632300427.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sat, 21 Mar 1998, Yaroslav V. Vassilkov wrote: > But can we really say that *the horse has always been imported* while > since the Vedic period Sanskrit literature constantly mentions horse-breeding > in the North-West of the subcontinent? The first such mention one can probably > find in the Nadiistuti of the Rgveda (X.75.8) where the Sindhu river is called > *svazvaa, surathaa* and *vaajiniivatii* - *famous for its fine horses, good > chariots* and *rich in race-horses*. After that we can see that in many > sources different regions of the North-West (Sindhu-Sauvira, Gandhara, Kamboja) > are described as well-known centers of horse-breeding (see, e.g, Mbh. V.46.13; > VI.86-3-4; VII.137.3; XII.36.11). The areas listed above, along with other areas outside of India mentioned in the artha sastra (2.30.29), were known for breeding horses in the Vedic, Epic and Mauryan periods. These horses were imported into the subcontinent from these places (it was very difficult to successfully breed horses in the plains). As Trautman notes: "it has yet to be determined why exactly India has never been self-sufficient in horses...whatever the reason, the stock has always had to be replenished by imports, and the imports came from westward in the ancient period: Kamboja...Bactria...Central Asia generally...It is a structure of it's history that India has always been dependent upon western and central Asia for horses." (India: History and Thought, p. 261) Although horses could be bred in the NW of the subcontinent, the horse (Caballus Linn) is *not* native to this area. The khur (equus hemionus khur) is, but this is not the Vedic steed. The arrival of the domesticated horse (caballus Linn) is therefore (quite reasonably) correlated with the arrival of the Indo-Aryans. One Indigenous Aryan response to this (as outlined by, say, Talageri whom I quote in a previous post) is that the arrival, domestication and utilization of the horse need not imply the arrival of a new linguistic group. This whole assumption is being questioned. But more on this in response to George's posting which has just popped into my box. > By the way, I think that the participants in the debate on the spread > of horses in India quite undeservedly ignored the archeological materials > of the *megalithic* culture which at some sites (e.g. on the territory of > historical Vidarbha) can be dated now as early as the beginning of the I > mill. BC. Along these lines, horse bones from the Neolithic site Hallur, in Karnataka by the archaeo-zoologist K.R.Alur are also relevant *if* his identification is correct (he insists they are caballus Linn). The dates for these bones are 1500-1300 BCE. Meadows might well have the same problem with these claims as with the others from the North, but if there is any validity to them, such findings would also problematize the idea that the incoming Indo-Aryans were supposedly introducing the horse into the Northwest (during, or even later than, this time frame). Regards, Edwin From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 23 03:44:22 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 22:44:22 -0500 Subject: Horse In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227036988.23782.3680462077868198397.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Sun, 22 Mar 1998, George Thompson wrote: > What Edwin seems to be doing in his recent series of posts is this: he > seems to be conceding the fact that the horse is not indigenous to the > sub-continent. But [correct me if I am wrong, Edwin] he seems to be arguing > that this fact can be severed from the claim that the Aryans themselves are > indigenous. In other words, Edwin is trying to save the indigenous Aryan > thesis from the absence of any supporting horse evidence. Not 'save' exactly, but separate the arguments that are more compelling from those that seem to me to be less so. My role, in this exchange, is to introduce perspectives from the Indigenous Aryan school that might help us reexamine our assumptions and fine-tune our understanding of things. > According to Edwin, there is no sudden spike in horse evidence in the > archaeological record at the time when the Aryans are supposed to have > migrated into the sub-continent. Quite. I have noted that, to my knowledge, there have been some findings such as Pirac, Stacul, Hastinapur and one or two other places (including, as has been noted, down South) in the, say, 1500-500 BCE period (but I also noted that I need to get exact details from Meadows), and no evidence of the chariot during this period (again, if anyone can correct this, please do so). I am suggesting that there may be a problem with these types of argumenta ab silentio in the archaeological record. > He concludes from this that the absence of > horse evidence in the sub-continent is *not* an indicator of the absence of > Aryans there. It indicates rather only the absence of horses. Yes. If the above facts are correct, and if the Aryans were very much in the subcontinent during this period (as most scholars hold), then their presence there is not really demonstrated by *significant* evidence of horse, and not by any evidence of chariot at all. If this is the case, how can their presence even earlier be denied on *these* particular grounds (especially since archaeological findings are obviously going to proportionately lessen the further we go back in time). This is my main point. > But as I have > claimed on the RISA list, if you do not find horses in the sub-continent, > then you will not find Aryans. As the infamous Vedic horse sacrifice shows, > the two -- horse and Aryan -- go hand in hand, as it were. This is not true > of the horse and IVC. Well, I am questioning how true this is of the post-IVC culture as well--although, granted, the findings that have been reported in this period have met with Meadow's approval unlike the findings claimed for the IVC (some of which still remain a possibility btw). I would add to your comments above, that *three* entities -- horse, Aryan and chariot -- must go hand in hand. Accordingly, perhaps you can now explain why evidence of the chariot does not occur till the Mauryan period if we are to argue that the chariot, too, must go hand in hand with the Aryans along with the horse? In the meantime, I will try and contact Meadows about the exact nature and quantity of the horse evidence in this 1500 -- 500 BCE period to see how much explaining the hand in hand connection has to account for in this regard as well. > But I hope that Edwin will clarify what he meant, rather than leaving us to > guess. Hope that is clearer. Best, Edwin From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Mon Mar 23 03:54:12 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 22:54:12 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036989.23782.6891117648433775170.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-21 15:49:49 EST, vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM writes: << If you read Sankara's brahmasUtrabhAshya carefully however, you will see that right after he quotes the smRtis denying study of the Veda to SUdras, Sankara admits that some, like vidura and dharmavyAdha, gain self-knowledge through other means. In other words, he is clear that tradition prohibits scriptural learning to SUdras, but allows both that scriptural knowledge is not necessarily spiritual knowledge and that spiritual knowledge is available through non-Sruti sources. And Sankara also ultimately devalues scriptural knowledge in relation to spiritual (self-)knowledge, something that is unthinkable for most others.>> I do not think this is right. Commenting on Brahmasutra 1.3.34, responding to the opponents' view that "smRti moreover speaks of vidUra and others who were born from zUdra mothers as possessing eminent knowledge.-Hence the zUdra has a claim to the knowledge of Brahman", zankara says: "To this we reply that the zUdras have no such claim, on account of their not studying the Veda. A person who has studied the Veda and understood its sense is indeed qualified for Vedic matters; but a zUdra does not study the Veda, for such a study demands as its antecedent the upanayana-ceremony, and that ceremony belongs to the three (higher) castes only. The mere circumstance of being in a condition of desire does not furnish a reason for qualification, if capability is absent. Mere temporal capability again does not constitute a reason for qualification, spiritual capability being required in spiritual matters. And spiritual capability is (in the case of the zUdras) excluded by their being excluded from the study of the Veda.-The Vedic statement, moreover, that the zUdra is unfit for sacrifices intimates , because founded on reasoning, that he is unfit for knowledge also; for the argumentation is the same in both cases." One cannot be more emphatic than this w.r.t to denying spiritual knowledge to the zUdras. Regarding the case of vidUra he says in his commentary on Brahmasutra 1.3.39, "The prohibitions of hearing and studying the Veda already imply the prohibition of the knowledge and performance of Vedic matters; there are however, express prohibitions also, such as 'he is not to impart knowledge to the zUdra,' and 'to the twice-born belong study, sacrifice, and the bestowal of gifts.'-From those zUdras, however, who like Vidura and 'the religious hunter,' acquire knowledge in consequence of the after effects of former deeds, the fruit of their knowledge cannot be withheld, since knowledge in all cases brings about its fruit. smRti, moreover, declares that all the four castes are qualified for acquiring the knowledge of the itihAsas and purANas; compare the passage, 'He is to teach the four castes' (mahAbh.).-It remains, however, a settled point that they do not possess any such qualification with regard to the Veda." Thus, according to zankara's commentary on Brahmasutra, zUdras are excluded from spiritual knowledge. The only knowledge they are entitled to is the knowledge of itihAsas and purANas. His acceptance of the zUdras' access to itihAsas and purANas is not revolutionary either. It has been there for a long time. One should note that in his Brahmasutra commentary he does not deny access to spiritual knowledge to kSatriyas and vaizyas. But in his own work upadeza sAhasrI, his narrow-mindedness is very clear. Vidyasankar writes <> Vidyasankar is right that zankara explicitly does not state that the teacher has to be a Brahmin. However, in the prose section of upadeza sAhasrI, in Chapter I on "How to enlighten the pupil", zankara says: "1. Now we shall explain how to teach the means to final release for the benefit of seekers thereafter with faith and desire. 2. The means to final release is knowledge [of Brahman]. It should be repeatedly related to the pupil until it is firmy grasped, if he is dispassionate toward all things non-eternal which are attained by means [other than knowledge]; if he has abandoned the desire for sons, wealth, and worlds and reached the state of a paramahaMsa wandering ascetic; if he is endowed with tranquility, self-control, compassion, and so forth; if he is possessed of the qualities of a pupil which are well known from the scriptures; if he is a Brahmin who is [internally and externally] pure; if he approaches his teacher in the prescribed manner; if his caste, profession, behavior, knowledge [of the Veda], and family have been examined. 3. The zruti also says: "Having scrutinized [the worlds that are built up by action, a Brahmin should arrive at indifference....For the sake of this knowledge let him go, with fuel in hand, to a spiritual teacher who is learned in the scriptures and established in Brahman. To him who has approached properly, whose thought is calm, who has reached tranquility, the man of knowledge teaches] in its very truth that knowledge of Brahman [by which he knows the Imperishable}" (muND. up. I,2,12-13); for when knowledge [of Brahman] is firmly grasped, it is conducive to one's own beatitude and to the continuity [of knowledge of Brahman]." One should note that the student must meet each of the qualifications prescribed in 2. zankara does not simply presume that the student is a Brahmin, he actively makes sure he is none but a Brahmin. He does not have to be a revolutionary to include kSatriyas and vaizyas. He can just prescribe what he has admitted in his commentary on Brahmasutra. The qualifications set by zankara means that even paramahaMsas [wandering ascetics] are to be denied the knowledge of Brahman if they are not Brahmins. This seems to contradict Vidyasankar's statement <> Obviously, zankara is interested in the brahminhood of even those who have renounced the society. Certainly, muNDaka upaniSad classifies Vedas as lower knowledge and the knowledge by which the Undecaying is apprehended to be higher. But since zankara will allow only Brahmins to be students (which means that in the world of zankara, teachers will have to be Brahmins as well, because, the teacher must have been a student earlier.), only Brahmins can attain the higher knowledge. Further, the expectation that zankara should affirm the right of zUdras to the knowledge of Brahman is not based on any political correctness either. That zankara's view is self-contradictory is pointed out by Ramanuja in a lengthy discussion of Brahmasutra 1.3.39 who says, "We must point out that the non- qualification of zUdras for the cognition of Brahman can in no way be asserted by those who hold that a Brahman consisting of pure non-differentiated intelligence constitutes the sole reality; that everything is false; that all bondage is unreal; that such bondage may be put an end to by the mere cognition of the true nature of Reality." Ironically, Ramanuja accepts the prohibition against the zUdras' access to Brahman and based on that argues zankara's advaita is wrong. I apologize for the length of this posting. As for "universal" thoughts in South India, before zankara's time, I shall do it in a separate posting. Regards S. Palaniappan Vidyasankar >> From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Sun Mar 22 18:19:21 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 23:19:21 +0500 Subject: Re Gurmukhi Alphabetic Order? In-Reply-To: <01bd5372$130c6b00$0fcc91d0@cs> Message-ID: <161227036974.23782.14433415041473224878.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Thursday, March 19, 1998 James E. Agenbroad wrote <> Jim, as I know it'll be historically mistaken to look up origin of Gurmukhi script in Brahmi based scripts. It is well-known that sikhs gurus invented scripts with purpose to put into code their military and business plans. Initially they used landA language-code. Gradually it was sanskritisised and transformed in Gurmukhi. The cause is that Punjabi was only spoken language at that times. Written languages were either Urdu(mostly) or Hindi (very less). Bible of Sikhism-Guru Grant Sahib was originally compiled in one variety of medieval Hindi. Later on it was rewritten in specially designed Gurmukhi and Urdu (of course) to make it easily understandable by layman of Gurdwaras. Viktor Sukliyan. From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Mon Mar 23 04:47:49 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 98 23:47:49 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227036993.23782.12722534256463552263.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-22 11:43:32 EST, you write: << There is also the Mahabharata story of udanka, that Sankara refers to in the upadeSasAhasrI. >> I am curious about this story. Can you give references in Up.S and Mbh? Thanks. Regards S. Palaniappan From zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL Mon Mar 23 04:15:56 1998 From: zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL (Robert Zydenbos) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 02:15:56 -0200 Subject: Vivekananda (was: IA migration etc., - scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227037052.23782.10969507262217379014.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Replies to msg 22 Mar 98: indology at listserv.liv.ac.uk (Paliath Narendran) dAE> Vidya wrote: > ... In any case, V is hardly a person with purely local > relevance dAE> V is widely admired in Kerala, and, from what I have read, dAE> this dAE> admiration cuts across religious and political boundaries, dAE> from dAE> conservative Hindus to Marxists to Christians and Muslims. But what is the nature of that admiration? Has anyone cared to investigate why Vivekananda is admired? I would be very interested in hearing of scholarly researched work about V. that goes beyond the superficial level of noticing that his portret hangs in some schools and philosophy departments of colleges in India as well as in the homes of some people who have hardly, or never read him. Similarly, I would like to hear of serious scholars besides Paul Hacker who have critically gone through his work. He went to Chicago a hundred years ago, said 'brothers and sisters of America' (only America?) and made a few speeches which, if we place them next to what common encyclopedias tell us about Hinduism or comparative religion today, contained an absolute minimum of substance. He wrote about Vedanta as the future religion, but the philosophical / theological level of the article is below that of popular 'new age' magazines today. I think we would not be wrong in believing that V.'s relevance today has little, perhaps nothing, to do with the quality of his writings and his thinking, but everything with the image that was built around him. -- And when I mention that this same V. has written: "Caste is good. Wherever you go, you will find caste," people do not become angry at him, but at _me_ for supposedly calumniating this great man. (I certainly hope that this anti-scholarly attitude will not spread through the Indology List.) Only after some further study has been made of just how much of V.'s writing is actually read and discussed in India (and how it is) will we be able to form a proper judgment about whether _V._ really is admired, rather than the myth around him that catches people's imagination. Until then, any statements that _he_ is 'important', 'relevant', 'admired', etc. etc. are without scholarly significance. dAE> There is some irony here, since V once referred to Kerala as "a dAE> vast lunatic asylum". Typical! But how many people in Kerala know this? Robert Zydenbos zydenbos at flevoland.xs4all.nl From kalyan97 at YAHOO.COM Mon Mar 23 14:46:42 1998 From: kalyan97 at YAHOO.COM (S. Kalyanaraman) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 06:46:42 -0800 Subject: Sarasvati River and Indo-Aryan migration Message-ID: <161227037007.23782.3877949372185159844.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Hi, The scholarly debate on the Indo-Aryan migration issue with a lot of interest has so far proceeded on archaeological/philological paths. Was there a discussion on the Vedic references to the Sarasvati River (charted also by Witzel)? What was the locus of the Sarasvati River in Rigvedic times? Was it the tributary to Kubha called Haraquaiti or was it the Markanda/Ghaggar/Hakra? Geophysical/ glaciological/ archaeological/RV/MBh evidence has been assembled with a bibliography at URL: www.probys.com/sarasvati Regards. Kalyanaraman == Dr. S. Kalyanaraman, 19 Temple Avenue, Srinagar Colony Saidapet, Chennai 600015, India; Tel. +91 44 2354640; Fax. 4996380; kalyan97 at yahoo.com USA: 34315 Eucalyptus Terrace, Fremont, CA 94555. http://www.probys.com/sarasvati http://members.tripod.com/~navagraha http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/2875 (Cosmic Dancer Shiva-Nataraja) _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From rdsaran at UMICH.EDU Mon Mar 23 13:44:33 1998 From: rdsaran at UMICH.EDU (Richard D. Saran) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 08:44:33 -0500 Subject: Firearms In-Reply-To: <01IUW47O2P5MC8TWEW@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE> Message-ID: <161227037003.23782.16633569696768346698.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Fifteenth-century European travellers mention cannon (bombarda) and muskets in their accounts of the Deccan and Vijayanagar. For these, see INDIA IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, ed. R.H. Major. Fifteenth century Persian chronicles also mention cannon. The Kanhadeprabandha, an old Gujarati text recently translated into English, has references to "nalas flashing" in the darkness; the nala ("tube") might have been a type of gun (or perhaps a tube for spraying some sort of Greek fire). This text was written in 1455. To my knowledge, no one has found contemporary sources that attest to the existence of gunpowder weapons in South Asia before 1400. On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Mark F. Tritsch wrote: > Does anyone know when firearms (muskets and the like) were introduced > into India? > > Mark Tritsch > ********************************************************** > > Dr. Mark F. Tritsch > > Institut fuer Zoologie III > Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet > 55099 Mainz > GERMANY > > Tel/Fax: +49 6131 392197 > > ********************************************************** > From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Mon Mar 23 13:54:58 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 08:54:58 -0500 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227037005.23782.7442076517611290921.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Just a quick note about what seems to be a gap in communication.] George Thompson wrote: >[...] the > horse is virtually if not totally insignificant in IVC, whereas it is > patently both fundamental and native in Vedic [as well as Avestan]. This > fact is an obvious problem for those who insist on some sort of cultural > continuum between IVC and Vedic. It should be noted that there are >three< different theories around, not just two. Thompson and many philologists seem to assume that either Vedic culture developed mostly outside South Asia and was introduced as a finished product, or India must have been the urheimat of PIE speakers. >?From the perspective of archaeology, it is very possible that IE speakers got to the Northwest part of the subcontinent well before 2000 BCE, and the Indo-Iranian culture, with its emphasis on the horse developed in situ, after the domesticated horse reached them via trade. In fact, one archaeologist, in South Asian Archaeology '95, noted that various features considered to be hallmarks of Vedic culture arise and spread in this area, rather than marching lockstep from Central Asia, in a Northwest to Southeast direction. It is not good scholarship to ignore this model, even if it is good politics/propaganda. From jhr at ELIDOR.DEMON.CO.UK Mon Mar 23 09:31:49 1998 From: jhr at ELIDOR.DEMON.CO.UK (John Richards) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 09:31:49 +0000 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037000.23782.4668194983950814757.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I wonder if there is not a confusion here. I do not have access to the texts quoted below, but it seems to me, in quotation, that the reference here may well be to SCHOLARLY ERUDITION rather than what we would call "spiritual knowledge". Obviously, Shudras could hardly become knowledgeable about the scriptures if they were precluded from reading/hearing them. At the same time, I see that Shankara makes no attempt to water down verse 9.32 of the Bhagavad Gita in his commentary. This verse explicitly asserts that the "supreme state" (paraa.m gati.m) is open to women and Shudras too, and Shankara merely rephrases the assertion, substituting "gacchanti" for "yaanti" and "prk.rshtaa.m" for "paraa.m". He was undoubtedly a man of his time - as we all are! - but I feel that one can over-emphasise his arid traditionalism, unless, of course, one includes such verses as the above from the Bhagavad Gita in his "tradition". Ramakrishna too behaved rather unbecomingly to our eyes in leaping away when his feet were touched in devotion by an ex-courtisan. But these are surely minor warts on great men, who could afford a few little conditioned weaknesses from their past environment. Would that we all had such minor blemishes! John Richards jhr at elidor.demon.co.uk Stackpole Rectory, Pemboke, UK >I do not think this is right. Commenting on Brahmasutra 1.3.34, responding to >the opponents' view that "smRti moreover speaks of vidUra and others who were >born from zUdra mothers as possessing eminent knowledge.-Hence the zUdra has a >claim to the knowledge of Brahman", zankara says: > >"To this we reply that the zUdras have no such claim, on account of their not >studying the Veda. A person who has studied the Veda and understood its sense >is indeed qualified for Vedic matters; but a zUdra does not study the Veda, >for such a study demands as its antecedent the upanayana-ceremony, and that >ceremony belongs to the three (higher) castes only. The mere circumstance of >being in a condition of desire does not furnish a reason for qualification, if >capability is absent. Mere temporal capability again does not constitute a >reason for qualification, spiritual capability being required in spiritual >matters. And spiritual capability is (in the case of the zUdras) excluded by >their being excluded from the study of the Veda.-The Vedic statement, >moreover, that the zUdra is unfit for sacrifices intimates , because founded >on reasoning, that he is unfit for knowledge also; for the argumentation is >the same in both cases." > >One cannot be more emphatic than this w.r.t to denying spiritual knowledge to >the zUdras. From thompson at JLC.NET Mon Mar 23 14:38:15 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 10:38:15 -0400 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227037009.23782.5126160672499816763.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Perhaps I can clarify my remarks, and possibly reduce this gap in communication: >Just a quick note about what seems to be a gap in communication.] > [snip irrelevant stuff] > >It should be noted that there are >three< different theories around, >not just two. Thompson and many philologists seem to assume that >either Vedic culture developed mostly outside South Asia and was >introduced as a finished product, or India must have been the >urheimat of PIE speakers. There are probably *hundreds* of theories. But on this thread there has been a tendency [shared by all of us, I think] to group theories together according to the sorts of evidence they deal with and the sorts of interpretations that they use. Linguists have their methods and biases. Archaeologists have theirs. I merely wanted to distinguish philology from linguistics, in this sense: if you are working directly with texts, you are not being 'theoretical' [as a linguist is who reconstructs a proto-language, for example]. That's all. As for the following: > >>From the perspective of archaeology, it is very possible that IE speakers >got to the Northwest part of the subcontinent well before 2000 BCE, >and the Indo-Iranian culture, with its emphasis on the horse >developed in situ, after the domesticated horse reached them via >trade. In fact, one archaeologist, in South Asian Archaeology '95, >noted that various features considered to be hallmarks of Vedic >culture arise and spread in this area, rather than marching lockstep >from Central Asia, in a Northwest to Southeast direction. > I don't have any trouble with this. I have repeatedly said that I think of early Vedic, at least, as an Indo-Iranian culture, rather than as an Indic one, yes. But it becomes more Indic and less Indo-Iranian as time goes by, and as it migrates, like a swift, long-winged zyena [= Avestan zaEna], deeper and deeper into the sub-continent, carrying soma [= Av. haoma] on its very strong back. Now I am sorry if my belief in the migration thesis offends Vidhyanath Rao. Best wishes, George Thompson From jkirk at MICRON.NET Mon Mar 23 17:46:20 1998 From: jkirk at MICRON.NET (Jo Kirkpatrick) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 10:46:20 -0700 Subject: Horse, Indo-Iranians, nomads and origins? Message-ID: <161227037036.23782.16893250999315226633.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> May I humbly inquire, only because there seems to be some illogic going on here: considering nomadic cultures, how can one postulate a "more compact source of origin"? I assume one can hypothesize a geographical area which is traversed by a nomadic culture, but if that area is extremely large, a vast expanse of teritory, then what? How does one identify in this case a "compact source of origin", especially since nomads leave a less concentrated archaeological record of their presence than do settled people. Cautiously yours, J. Kirkpatrick ********************* Edwin Bryant wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>{cut] Kenoyer argues that nomads were constantly criss-crossing this area to and fro resulting in a common language family. While this might work archaeologically, and is convenient in so far as it bypasses the need for refuting either an 'into' or 'out of' India model I suspect that most linguists would say that a language family needs a more compact source of origin for its members to develop significant shared morphological and lexical features (based on the geographical history of other language families that are presently known). Regards, > Edwin From filipsky at SITE.CAS.CZ Mon Mar 23 09:55:57 1998 From: filipsky at SITE.CAS.CZ (Jan Filipsky) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 10:55:57 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration; Re:descent of the Sinhalese Message-ID: <161227036998.23782.13679130152042271802.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >S Krishna wrote: >> 2. Page 115 makes the claim( un referenced) that the earliest settlers >> of Srilanka came from Gujarat. This is something I find strange, since >> all texts that I know off talk about descent of the Sinhalese from >> East Indians i.e. Bengalis/Oriyas/Biharis; some people also claim that >> the name "Sinhala" is from Vijaya Sinha, the king who sailed with 700 >> men from Tamralipti in Bengal to Srilanka to establish a kingdom. Has >> anybody seen this Gujarati origin in any other text? > Narayan S. Raja wrote: >A few years ago I was reading a lot of books about >the ancient history of Tamils and also of Sri Lanka. >While less frequent than the "East India" theory, I did >also encounter statements that the ancestors of today's >Sinhalas came from Gujarat. Unfortunately, I can't >cite the references. > Just two relevant extracts: "According to the Mahavansa, the most important of the early Ceylonese chronicles, Indo-Aryans had made their way along the coast of India to Sri Lanka by about the fifth century B.C. ... evidence seems to indicate that one wave of the initial migration was from north-west India. The Mahavansa itself seems to provide evidence that settlers arrived from the north-eastern parts of India too." Chandra Richard de Silva: Sri Lanka. A History, Vikas, New Delhi 1987, 4th impression, 1991, pp. 18-19 :The original home of the first Indo-Aryan immigrants to Sri Lanka was probably north-west India and the Indus region. There was, very likelz, a later immigration from the east around Bengal and Orissa. K.M. de Silva: A History of Sri Lanka, C. Hurst & Co., London 1981, 2nd impression, OUP in arrangement with C. Hurts, Delhi 1984, p. 3. Hope this clarifies the point. Jan Filipsky, Oriental Institute, Pod vodarenskou vezi 4, 182 08 Praha 8 phone 004202 6605 3729 e-mail private: U Pentlovky 466/7, 181 00 Praha 8 - Troja phone 004202 855 74 53 From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 23 16:23:16 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 11:23:16 -0500 Subject: A third Indo-Aryan thesis? In-Reply-To: <199803231354.IAA09973@math.mps.ohio-state.edu> Message-ID: <161227037016.23782.10506822853287289421.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 23 Mar 1998, Vidhyanath Rao wrote: > It should be noted that there are >three< different theories around, > not just two. Thompson and many philologists seem to assume that > either Vedic culture developed mostly outside South Asia and was > introduced as a finished product, or India must have been the > urheimat of PIE speakers. > > >From the perspective of archaeology, it is very possible that IE speakers > got to the Northwest part of the subcontinent well before 2000 BCE, > and the Indo-Iranian culture, with its emphasis on the horse > developed in situ, after the domesticated horse reached them via > trade. Well, if I understand you correctly, I would consider this to be primarily a variant of the Aryan migration thesis, albeit with a modified time frame. It does, however, contain an element that would be acceptable to some Indigenous Aryanists which I have tried to note in previous posts, vis, that horse domestication could have arrived into the NW/Pak/Afghanistan area where the Indo-Iranians where already in situ (and, therefore independent of them). But there is what I would consider to be a distinct third theory which is less of a variant of the two we have been presently considering. This seems to be favoured by Kenoyer, and was argued by K.D.Sethna. In this view, the original area where IE dialects were spoken was much larger than is generally accepted and stretched all the way from the Caspian to the NW of the subcontinent. Kenoyer argues that nomads were constantly criss-crossing this area to and fro resulting in a common language family. While this might work archaeologically, and is convenient in so far as it bypasses the need for refuting either an 'into' or 'out of' India model I suspect that most linguists would say that a language family needs a more compact source of origin for its members to develop significant shared morphological and lexical features (based on the geographical history of other language families that are presently known). Regards, Edwin From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Mon Mar 23 16:26:36 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 11:26:36 -0500 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA Message-ID: <161227037018.23782.11562212273169875575.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> [I was unable to finish editing the following response to Thompson to my satisfaction due to other demands on my time. I hope that it is not too late. I have already said much of what follows when I tried to discuss Hock's article a little more than a year ago. I am repeating myself to make sure that these objections do not get passed over.] --------------- It seems to me that it is suspect methodology to discuss the origin of retroflexion in a piecemeal fashion, limiting ourselves to just RV and just t/.t etc contrast. The most serious objection to appeals to a Dravidian substratum has nothing to do with retroflexs at all. Dravidian does not have aspirated stops. How come Dravidians, who couldn't tell alveolar nasals from retroflex nasals, managed to preserve aspirations so well? Nor can I see how Hock's objections can be answered by studying the RV. As we all know (or should know :-) proto-Dravidian had a three way contrast between dental, alveolar and retroflex in non-nasal stops and a dental/alveolar vs retroflex contrast in nasal stops (or perhaps it was three way in nasal stops as well). So why should Dravidian speakers confuse alveolar and retroflex stops? The only attempts to tackle this explicitly assume that Dravidian languages in North and Central India must have evolved in such a way that the sounds were reallocated in such a way that a dental vs alveolar/retroflex contrast alone remained both in nasal and non-nasal series. This is ad-hoc, and, in the humble opinion of a mere mathematician, hard to reconcile with the correspondences given in DEDR. That is why a few days ago I requested Dravidianologists to give a brief synopsis of possible evolution of these sounds in North and Central Dravidian, together with some recent references (I have read Zvelebil, and am aware of Subramanyam but that I need to get that by ILL). I was hoping that Professor Krishnamurthy would respond, may be he will when he finds time. However some of the comments I have heard/read are easily debunked by a little spot checking, and makes me wonder about if ``retroflexion is due to Dravidian substratum'' has not become a dogma, not susceptible to criticisms. One claim was that the distinction between alveolar and retroflex nasals is lost in all Dravidian languages. This is a great shock to my contemporaries who grew up in Madurai. The field-work reported by Zvelebil in the 50's does not indicate any such loss for Tamil. Another was the claim that in Tamil people transcribe English n by the retroflex .n. This is easily disproved by simple checking. A visit to the Columbus Public Library even produced such transcriptions as `.tve_n.tifaiv' (in a dialog in a novel). Reports of the death of alveolar nasal in Tamil are premature. [A North Indian listening to a Tamilian would be an interesting scene: When a typical Tamilian attempts to say ``bhavana'', he will say ``bava_na'' (or ``pava_na''). the North Indian will of course hear it as ``bava.na'', and conclude that Tamilians retroflex all nasals. We cannot base our conclusions on such stereotypes, but that is what some of the arguments amount to.] ------- The problem applies with even more force to the sibilants. In many Prakrits, the sibilants even fall together. This is rather strange if the distinction between the dental and retroflex sibilants was imported from Dravidian. We would expect such influences to increase in Prakrits. This fact is again ignored in most discussions of this topic that I have seen. Evolutionary trends don't get reversed just like that. ---------- From sns at IX.NETCOM.COM Mon Mar 23 17:26:54 1998 From: sns at IX.NETCOM.COM (Sn. Subrahmanya) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 11:26:54 -0600 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227037026.23782.15149415964469341993.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 04:42 PM 3/23/98 +0100, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > >The horse cult is also known from Celtic religion. Consequently, if the >horse cult developed in situ about the year 2000 BCE in the Northwest part >of the subcontinent, we must assume that the Celts migrated from that area >to WEstern Europe. That is of course what some Indic writers, such as >Talageri, suggest. But it is not a very probable idea. > Please give reasons as to why it is not probable ?. Celtic images very closely resemble seals from the Indus-Sarasvati region. Subrahmanya Houston. TX From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Mon Mar 23 16:33:03 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 11:33:03 -0500 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227037021.23782.18374804084914157251.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > The horse cult is also known from Celtic religion. Consequently, if the > horse cult developed in situ about the year 2000 BCE in the Northwest part > of the subcontinent, we must assume that the Celts migrated from that area > to WEstern Europe. But that assumes that the Celtic and Indic rites show similarities in details. I am not sure that that is warranted. What I have read suggestes that the Celtic rite was at coronation, involved a mare and the king who bathed in the broth. In the a"svamedha, it is a stallion, is not regular and not connected with coronation. From NACHAR at MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU Mon Mar 23 17:34:07 1998 From: NACHAR at MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU (Narahari Achar) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 11:34:07 -0600 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227037038.23782.13141821090606019261.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > Hello, I have been a silent, but interested watcher of this scholarly debate which has been taking place at a breakneck speed, due in part to my lack of expertise. Now that AIT is no longer the theory of choice of the scholars, but AMT is. Countless children in India still are taught in schools the good old AIT. It was posted by Vidyanath Rao: >>It should be noted that there are >three< different theories around, >>not just two. >> >>From the perspective of archaeology, it is very possible that IE speakers >>got to the Northwest part of the subcontinent well before 2000 BCE, What is the current consesus on the time scale attached to the AMT/ or its variants? Also, Lars wrote: >The horse cult is also known from Celtic religion. Consequently, if the >horse cult developed in situ about the year 2000 BCE in the Northwest part >of the subcontinent, we must assume that the Celts migrated from that area >to WEstern Europe. That is of course what some Indic writers, such as >Talageri, > It may be of interest to know that "Horse" does not show up in Mesopotamia until about 1700 or 1800 BCE. When it does appear it is referred to as the "ass of the eastern mountains". AfghAnistan is of course, azvasthAna. Regards,-Narahari Achar From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Mon Mar 23 17:42:56 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 11:42:56 -0600 Subject: Rig Vedic Racism Message-ID: <161227037031.23782.15722749990900787749.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Have heard that Rig Veda has racial references. What are the verse numbers? Any papers/published references? >?From hindutva/neohindu/marxist/IE-comparative/ dravidian/dalit/or_whatever angles. In these kind of things, my tendency is to believe what people who got PhDs in the study of classical India say. Thanks. Eager to hear, N. Ganesan From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Mon Mar 23 16:54:53 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 11:54:53 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037024.23782.6691562498701478330.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-23 04:53:52 EST, jhr at ELIDOR.DEMON.CO.UK writes: << I wonder if there is not a confusion here. I do not have access to the texts quoted below, but it seems to me, in quotation, that the reference here may well be to SCHOLARLY ERUDITION rather than what we would call "spiritual knowledge".>> There is no confusion here. The whole discussion is about brahmavidya. <> BG 9.32 states, "They who take refuge in me, son of pRthA, Even if they are born of those whose wombs are evil (i.e. those of low origin), Women, vaizyas, even zUdras, Also go to the highest goal." BG 9.33 says "How much more easily then, th e pure BrAhmans And the devoted royal seers! Having attained this impermanent and unhappy world, Devote thyself to me." The translation is by Winthrop Sargeant. It is easy to introduce your own views when the text commented on is a cryptic one like Brahmasutra or when you are writing your own text like upadeza sAhasrI. Consider the story of satyakAma jAbAla in chAndogya upaniSad IV. 4. When satyakAma, an obviously illegitimate child, asks his mother jabAlA "Of what family am I?". She replies, " I do not know, my child, of what family you are. In my youth, when I went about a great deal, as a maid servant, I got you. So I do not know of what family you are. However, I am jabAlA by name and you are satyakAma by name. So you may speak of yorself as satyakAma jAbAla (the son of jabAlA). (According to S. Radhakrishnan, zankara says that the mother had no time to ascertain about her gotra or family as she had to move about much in her husband's house, attending upon guests.) When satyakAma goes to haridrumat gautama and requests to be accepted as a student, the teacher asks him, "Of what family are you, my dear?". When satyakAma tells the teacher what his mother had told him, the teacher says, "None but a BrAhmaNa could thus explain. Bring the fuel, my dear, I will receive you, as a pupil. Thou has not departed from the truth." Here one can interpret (1) irrespective of birth, a person who speaks the truth is a brahmin or (2) because satyakAma spoke the truth he must be of brahmin parentage. zankara chose the latter. To avoid the parallel with the story of vidUra, he interprets the mother to be a wife instead of maid-servant. And to explain away the lack of knowledge of gotra, he says mother had no time to ascertain the gotra of her husband. Obviously, if satyakAma were to be a brahmin, he will be patrilineal. It is considerably more difficult to do such contrived explanations when you are commenting on an explicit text such as BG 9.32. zankara had to either disregard these two verses as interpolations (Obviously they are linked in their content) or explain it and hope nobody from the group (women, vaizyas, and zUdras) would have the access to the texts and the temerity to challenge the status quo. He probably chose the latter. What is interesting is the concept of all women as born of evil wombs (pApayonayaH). Obviously for the author of BG, the wombs of vaizya women and zUdra women are permanently evil. But the wombs of brahmin and kshatriya women are only temporarily evil. When they conceive/give birth to a male they become puNya wombs while at other times they are evil wombs. Or they are normally puNya wombs but when they conceive/give birth to female children, they become pApa wombs. <> He was not being magnanimous but just constrained by the nature of the text he was commenting on. See the comment above. <> Calling these minor blemishes especially zankara's is to deny the unjust misery and cruelty that had been inflicted upon millions and millions of Indians under the system which was being given intellectual support by zankara and others of his ilk. Let me ask this question. In a hypothetical situation in which an upper caste mob is lynching a zUdra who might have come into an area where Vedic recitation was going on (out of curiosity or innocent desire to know what Vedas were all about) what do you think zankara would have done? You think he would have tried to save the poor zUdra? One should thank Roman Catholic and Protestant missionary activity, but for which the oppression of the lower castes in zankara's native Kerala (which even Vivekananda seemed to have commented on as noted in a post by P. Narendran) and other places like Tamilnadu would have continued even more vigourously than it is now. No wonder when scheduled castes try to convert to other religions, zankaracharyas and other Hindu fundamentalists want to ban conversion. Scholarship is pursuit of truth. Truth can make one free. It can also make one uncomfortable. Regards S. Palaniappan From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Mon Mar 23 20:31:44 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 12:31:44 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037042.23782.14419778310241377857.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Palaniappa wrote: ... >Thus, according to zankara's commentary on Brahmasutra, zUdras are excluded >from spiritual knowledge. The only knowledge they are entitled to is the >knowledge of itihAsas and purANas. His acceptance of the zUdras' access to >itihAsas and purANas is not revolutionary either. It has been there for a long >time. I hardly think this is the forum for discussing advaita philosophy in great detail or for carrying on a caste war, but let us get off the political horse and see what this implies. itihAsa usually means mahAbhArata. purANa includes a number of texts. In the mahAbhArata is the bhagavad gItA, which is the pre-eminent smRti for Sankara, and also the mokshadharma. In the various purANas are other such texts, like ashTAvakra gITA, Rbhu gItA, Siva gItA etc. (speaking only from the advaitic perspective). Functionally, what this means is that the teaching is accessible to everybody through these texts, but not through the upanishads, which are restricted for the twice-born. The spiritual knowledge is available through the itihAsa and the purANa, if not from Sruti. To fully appreciate all this, one has to understand the epistemological role of Sruti and smRti in advaita vedAnta, but I won't enter into that now. Suffice it to say that the basic attitude is very much like the one held by specialists in any field. They simply don't want to spend time talking to non-specialists. How one decides who is a specialist and who is not, is a different issue, determined by the then accepted rules of the game. And moving away from Sankara, we see that many later teachers translated the gItA into local languages, in order to provide easier access to those who were denied a knowledge of Sanskrit. In doing so, they consciously went against the conservative brahmin opinion of their times. And there were other brahmins like basava in Karnataka, who became leaders of movements that rejected all varNASrama distinctions. I'm talking about an unfashionable thing here, but to say that brahminical society heaped cruelty and torture on lower castes, until the Christian missionaries came along, is not an accurate picture. There is even less point in basing all this on Sankara and advaita. Read pUrva mImAmsA literature instead, to get a better idea of the brahminical discrimination against SUdras. And note that even in the mImAmsA sUtras, there is a liberal line of thought which is presented through the mouths of some very revered people (bAdarAyaNa argues that all human beings have adhikAra). This is rejected in the siddhAnta, presented by other very revered people (jaiminI and Atreya). >zankara does not simply presume that the student is a >Brahmin, he actively makes sure he is none but a Brahmin. He does not have to >be a revolutionary to include kSatriyas and vaizyas. He can just prescribe >what he has admitted in his commentary on Brahmasutra. > >The qualifications set by zankara means that even paramahaMsas [wandering >ascetics] are to be denied the knowledge of Brahman if they are not Brahmins. >This seems to contradict Vidyasankar's statement <universality is through renouncing society, not by reforming it nor by a >political statement that all men are equal.>> Obviously, zankara is interested >in the brahminhood of even those who have renounced the society. And note that sureSvara, Sankara's direct disciple, disagrees with his teacher, and affirms that kshatriyas and vaiSyas can also take to samnyAsa. This is in his vArttika on Sankara's bhAshya to the bRhadAraNyaka upanishad. Neither brahminical thought as a whole, nor Sankara and his disciple lineage in particular, is as monolithic and rigid as is commonly assumed. Sankara's arguments are directed mostly against the pUrva mImAmsA, and to that extent, subverts some of the preconceptions of traditional brahmin society. Sankara is interested in upholding the renouncer ideal to brahmin society. But once somebody renounces, he is no longer a brahmin in the conventional sense. He cannot officiate at Srauta sacrifices, he cannot receive gifts at domestic rituals, etc. He can only beg for food, and even that is only to survive. In my opinion, to tell a poor, low-caste man to renounce the material world is a bigger cruelty to him than to deny him scriptural knowledge. There is a time and place for everything, and in Sankara's world, the time and place were very different from what we expect or are used to nowadays. The usual presumption is that by following one's own svadharma, one attains a better birth in the next life. There may be legitimate social and political arguments about it, but to present a truly philosophical/religious argument, which is the only one an advaitin would be interested in, try tackling the very doctrine of karma. You will get the contemporary SankarAcAryas and other fundamentalist Hindu leaders to listen, if you can do this. Getting to the chAndogya story of satyakAma jAbAla, note that gautama hAridrumata's logic is not like the following - Perception: satyakAma spoke the truth. Inference: therefore satyakAma is fit to be called a brahmin. Rather, it is more like this - Assumption: only a brahmin speaks the truth. Perception: satyakAma spoke the truth. Inference: therefore satyakAma must be a brahmin. The assumption says a lot, and notwithstanding Sankara's somewhat naive assumption about satyakAma's mother, his explanation is quite in keeping with what the upanishad itself presumes. The only real place where one can read more into an upanishad than from Sankara's commentary is the bRhadAraNyaka reference to a daughter who is a paNDitA. This upanishad presents some remarkable women, who ask pointed questions to yAjnavalkya, so there is more to it than Sankara's view of "skilled in household chores." >Further, the expectation that zankara should affirm the right of zUdras to the >knowledge of Brahman is not based on any political correctness either. That >zankara's view is self-contradictory is pointed out by Ramanuja in a lengthy >discussion of Brahmasutra 1.3.39 who says, "We must point out that the non- >qualification of zUdras for the cognition of Brahman can in no way be asserted >by those who hold that a Brahman consisting of pure non-differentiated >intelligence constitutes the sole reality; that everything is false; that all >bondage is unreal; that such bondage may be put an end to by the mere >cognition of the true nature of Reality." Ironically, Ramanuja accepts the >prohibition against the zUdras' access to Brahman and based on that argues >zankara's advaita is wrong. Yet, rAmAnuja has a reputation for being more liberal than Sankara. He shouted out the liberating nArAyaNa mantra from the temple top, so that even the SUdras could hear him. And for rAmAnuja, nArAyaNa is the highest brahman. The text says something, the behavior shows something else. Isn't this self-contradictory too? Still, rAmAnuja is being entirely consistent according to his own terms. These commentators simply do not use their commentaries for any purpose other than exposition of traditional doctrine. And if part of traditional doctrine means that some sections of society are discriminated against, so be it. Their actions may be different, but their texts won't compromise what they see as the integrity of the tradition. There *is* the apaSUdrAdhikaraNa in the brahmasUtra. There *is* the pApayoni statement in the gItA. Those who take these texts as canonical will not directly refute them in their commentaries. Vidyasankar ps. The story of udanka is in the aSvamedhaparva of MBh. Sankara's reference to it is in the 5th or 6th chapter of the metrical part of upadeSasAhasrI. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 23 15:42:14 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 16:42:14 +0100 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227037013.23782.16439148258266956251.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > >It should be noted that there are >three< different theories around, >not just two. Thompson and many philologists seem to assume that >either Vedic culture developed mostly outside South Asia and was >introduced as a finished product, or India must have been the >urheimat of PIE speakers. > >From the perspective of archaeology, it is very possible that IE speakers >got to the Northwest part of the subcontinent well before 2000 BCE, >and the Indo-Iranian culture, with its emphasis on the horse >developed in situ, after the domesticated horse reached them via >trade. In fact, one archaeologist, in South Asian Archaeology '95, >noted that various features considered to be hallmarks of Vedic >culture arise and spread in this area, rather than marching lockstep >from Central Asia, in a Northwest to Southeast direction. The horse cult is also known from Celtic religion. Consequently, if the horse cult developed in situ about the year 2000 BCE in the Northwest part of the subcontinent, we must assume that the Celts migrated from that area to WEstern Europe. That is of course what some Indic writers, such as Talageri, suggest. But it is not a very probable idea. Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Mon Mar 23 17:36:48 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 17:36:48 +0000 Subject: [INFO] Tibetan Extensions to Unicode: TIBEX list (fwd) Message-ID: <161227037029.23782.18418547726545529639.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 20:27:12 +0000 From: Christopher Fynn Subject: Tibetan Extensions to Unicode: TIBEX list TIBEX MAIL LIST HELP FILE ========================= The public mail list "tibex at unicode.org" is open to anyone who wishes to be involved in technical discussions of Tibetan extensions to Unicode / ISO10646. 1. 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UNSUBSCRIBE You may remove yourself from the mail list at any time by similarly sending an "unsubscribe" message, for example, assuming your address is "Leon_Trotsky at whitehouse.gov" you would unsubscribe by sending the following message to the same address "tibex-request at unicode.org": unsubscribe Leon_Trotsky at whitehouse.gov tibex 3. POST MESSAGES When you wish to post a message to the list itself (i.e., to the subscribers), send it to "tibex at unicode.org", NOT to the request address, "tibex-request at unicode.org". The "-request" address is only for subscription and unsubscription. You may respond to posted messages by using your mailer's "reply" feature. 4. CAVEAT EMPTOR The subscription mechanism is very literal, and it doesn't know about all the aliases by which you may be known. Therefore when you subscribe please make a note of your precise subscription address. You will not be able to unsubscribe without matching the precise address by which you subscribed. For example, if you subscribe as "karl_marx at nowhere.com" then you will NOT be able to unsubscribe by the name "k.marx at nowhere.com", or by "karl_marx at mail.nowhere.com" or any other such mis-matched address. 5. NOTES The mail lists are not serviced by a LISTSERV type of server. The command set of the server is limited to simple requests for addition & removal. There is no digest mode. The list of subscribers is not available. Messages are usually archived on a temporary basis, but the archives are not currently available for downloading; and there are no plans to make them available. Last revision: 1998-03-13 09:58 From oldthww at HUM.AAU.DK Mon Mar 23 18:44:16 1998 From: oldthww at HUM.AAU.DK (Heinz Werner Wessler) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 18:44:16 +0000 Subject: Firearms Message-ID: <161227037033.23782.12880976216117213020.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> David D. Saran wrote: > Fifteenth-century European travellers mention cannon (bombarda) and > muskets in their accounts of the Deccan and Vijayanagar. For these, see > INDIA IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, ed. R.H. Major. Fifteenth century Persian > chronicles also mention cannon. The Kanhadeprabandha, an old Gujarati > text recently translated into English, has references to "nalas flashing" > in the darkness; the nala ("tube") might have been a type of gun (or > perhaps a tube for spraying some sort of Greek fire). This text was > written in 1455. > > To my knowledge, no one has found contemporary sources that attest to the > existence of gunpowder weapons in South Asia before 1400. > > On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Mark F. Tritsch wrote: > > > Does anyone know when firearms (muskets and the like) were introduced > > into India? > > > > Mark Tritsch I may some more pieces of information (also referring to S.Krishna's message on this topic): Portuguese "defectors" formed part of the armies of Vijayanagara, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar etc. from very early in the sixteenth century. Their main value in warfare was their expertise in the use of firearms. Pedro Alvares Cabral's account demonstrates, how Indian rulers became convinced by the military efficiency of firearms very early after the arrival of the Portuguese, especially for nautical enterprises. As early as 1503 two Milanese connon makers, being brought to India, switched over from the Portuguese to the famous Zamorin (Samudri Raja). In 1506 already, the Zamorin's fleet had been equipped with cannons and protectory measures against artillery bombardment. The "Asian cannon" has been in use in the 15th century, as David D. Saran demonstrated, but their rather limited use was confined to land warfare. Besides, there is no hint on cannons on bord of the Chinese exploration fleets either. It was only after the arrival of the Portuguese in India and European methods of casting that firearms became the decisive tool in warfare. Compare Pearson, M.N., The Portuguese in India, Cambridge 1987 [= The new Cambridge history of India 1,1], p.57ff; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, The career and legend of Vasco da Gama, Cambridge 1997, p.111ff Does anyone know, when and how "top" was introduced into North Indian languages? To my knowledge, "top" doesn't occur in early bhakti poetry, which doesn't prove much, however. Kind regards, Heinz Werner Wessler __________________________________________________________ Dr.Heinz Werner Wessler Indisk Afdeling, Aarhus Universitet Bygn. 327, Ndr. Ringgade DK-8000 Aarhus C Tel.:0047-89422162 e-mail: oldthww at hum.aau.dk From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Mar 24 04:20:05 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 20:20:05 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda (was: IA migration etc., - scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227037055.23782.4222939768263786147.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Robert Zydenbos wrote: >I think we would not be wrong in believing that V.'s relevance today >has little, perhaps nothing, to do with the quality of his writings >and his thinking, but everything with the image that was built around >him. -- For most people, image is indeed everything. The same holds true for most followers of the contemporary Sankaracharyas or even devotees of Sai Baba. Their pictures hang in homes and university departments, but how many read what they write? The myths and miracles that grow around their names have more power to make them relevant to most Indians than what they actually say or write. >And when I mention that this same V. has written: "Caste is good. >Wherever you go, you will find caste," people do not become angry at >him, but at _me_ for supposedly calumniating this great man. (I >certainly hope that this anti-scholarly attitude will not spread >through the Indology List.) I wonder why. People getting angry at you, that is. Isn't it an all-pervasive Hindu notion that caste is inevitable, if not divinely mandated? What is so exceptional about the fact that V said something similar? Maybe caste is such an emotional issue that Indians don't want to hear anything about it from Europeans or Americans, however well-intended. >Only after some further study has been made of just how much of V.'s >writing is actually read and discussed in India (and how it is) will >we be able to form a proper judgment about whether _V._ really is >admired, rather than the myth around him that catches people's >imagination. Until then, any statements that _he_ is 'important', >'relevant', 'admired', etc. etc. are without scholarly significance. > Maybe a survey of Indian judges, IAS officers, police commissioners and other bureaucrats should be done. They may all be anglicized, urban and alienated, but they certainly decide what happens in India today. And most of them will not have the training to make informed, scholarly judgments about Vivekananda either, but that is besides the point. It might be useful to tie the survey to the attitudes that these people bring to issues like inheritance, strIdhana, dowry, caste, riots, temple management, the universality of Hinduism, etc. > dAE> There is some irony here, since V once referred to Kerala as "a > dAE> vast lunatic asylum". > >Typical! But how many people in Kerala know this? Probably more than one realizes. After all, Kerala is the one Indian state with full literacy, and the Ramakrishna organizations are quite active there. And yes, rather than getting angry with him, many Keralites would agree that the fastidious rules of caste purity in Kerala were indeed maddening. Even nambUdiri priests in important temples would concede it nowadays, if grudgingly. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 23 19:43:05 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 20:43:05 +0100 Subject: 1. Horse and 2. Dice in India Message-ID: <161227037040.23782.14039468510331694855.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Sn. Subrahmania wrote: At 11:26 23.03.98 -0600, you wrote: >At 04:42 PM 3/23/98 +0100, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: >> >>The horse cult is also known from Celtic religion. Consequently, if the >>horse cult developed in situ about the year 2000 BCE in the Northwest part >>of the subcontinent, we must assume that the Celts migrated from that area >>to WEstern Europe. That is of course what some Indic writers, such as >>Talageri, suggest. But it is not a very probable idea. >> >Please give reasons as to why it is not probable ?. >Celtic images very closely resemble seals from the Indus-Sarasvati region. First a few general remarks on the horse sacrifice (from Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, p. 135ff): "The major ritual enactment of a horse-centered myth is supported by evidence from ancient India and Rome, and, more distantly, medieval Ireland. .... The ashvamedha bears comparison with the major Roman horse sacrifice which was known as the October Equus. Following a horse race on the ides of October, the right-sided horse of the team was dispatched by a spear and then dismembered, again in such a fashion as to indicate its "functional" division into the three estates. .... A detailed analysis of this and other material has led Jaan Puhvel to propose a Proto-Indo-European myth and ritual which involved the mating of a figure from the royal class with a horse from which ultimately sprung the famous equine divine twins. He offers some additional linguistic support for such a ritual in the very name of the Indic ceremony, the ashvamedha. This derives from the Proto-Indo-European *ek'wo-meydho 'horse-drunk', attesting a ritual which included both a horse and drunkenness. This is quite comparable to the personal name Epomeduos which is found in ancient Gaul and appears to derive from *ekwo-medu 'horse-mead'. .... Hence, both the Indic and Celtic worlds still preserve the ancient Proto-Indo-European name of a horse-centered ceremony involving intoxication. The horse ritual warrants one more comment since it illustrates all too well how a comparison of myths may lead us along paths that appear to be contradicted by archaeological evidence. Both the ashvamedha and the October Equus clearly concern the sacrifice of a draught horse and in a striking instance of parallelism, both require that the horse in question excels on the right side of the chariot ... Clearly, this suggests that the horse is selected from a paired chariot team. But archaeological evidence indicates that the horse was not likely to have been employed in paired draught until the invention of the spoked wheel and chariot, which is normally dated after about 2500 BC and, consequently, some time after we would have assumed the disintegration of the Proto-Indo-European community. Indeed, the entire concept of horse-twins, totally points to paired draught, while the archaeological evidence suggests that this should not be so at the time-depth we normally assign to Proto-Indo-European." So much for data. Vidyanath Rao wrote: Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > The horse cult is also known from Celtic religion. Consequently, if the > horse cult developed in situ about the year 2000 BCE in the Northwest part > of the subcontinent, we must assume that the Celts migrated from that area > to WEstern Europe. >But that assumes that the Celtic and Indic rites show similarities >in details. I am not sure that that is warranted. What I have read >suggestes that the Celtic rite was at coronation, involved a mare >and the king who bathed in the broth. In the a"svamedha, it is a >stallion, is not regular and not connected with coronation. >?From the data given above, it should be clear that the horse-sacrifice is well attested both in the West and the East. However, as myths go, we cannot always expect to find entirely clear parallels. The Roman case shows clear parallels with the Indic. In the Celtic area, the connection with the coronation may not have been original (or the connection may have been lost in Rome, where there was no king). The main point is that there was a major sacrifice involving horse sacrifice and drunkenness. There is Nordic archaeological material which shows that horses were sacrificed in that area too, usually in the way that certain parts of the horse were put down in the moss (head, four legs, tail). Unfortunately, I have no more details on this. The Old Norsemen, by the way, used to slaughter horses for Christmas (the winter solstice) and eat, drink and be merry. The eating of horse meat was prohibited by the Christian church because of its connection with the pagan ritual. And now to the question raised by Mr. Subrahmania: If the Celts had migrated from the area in question about 2000 BCE, it would be different to explain the linguistic distance between Indo-Iranian and Celtic. We would expect the "forefather" of Celtic to have left the "forefather" of Indo-Iranian perhaps a 1000 years or more earlier. But as pointed out by Mallory, there are elements of the argument that seem difficult to reconcile. Possibly, the horse sacrifice as such is older than the use of paired draught, but has been changed in accordance with the new technological development. This is one of those questions where there is ample ground for making hypotheses, but where hard evidence is difficult to come by. As for the supposed similarity of Indus seals and Celtic images, I would have to have more data to venture an opinion. Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Mar 24 04:53:43 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 20:53:43 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037057.23782.14878649381836470846.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> S.Palaniappan says: <> Before I start, please allow to present my impeccable anti-Hinduttvavada credentials by refering to my recent posts about Frawley,Kak and company and earlier on my jokes about derivations of place names a la Hinduttvavaada. I would like to make a few comments on the general development of the argument of S.Palaniappan : I guess what Palaniappan is trying to say is that zamkara doesn't deserve any credit since he was...well, racist( He had ukases against women and zUdras learning the Veda.)(I am using the word "racist" since it best sums up the whole argument about the ideology of Zankara. ) I would like to point out that this whole concept of "racism", "equality to all people" applied to a society as a whole( as opposed to individual/group ideology, as happened with the nayan2mArs, the veerashaivas etc) goes back no earlier than the 17th century. Some societies called it caste, others called it race, others called it patrician&plebian, but the bottom line is: There was, in every society an equivalent of a "master race" and a whole gamut of "inferior races",with the "master race" coming up fom time to time with theories (real or the result of modern interpretation)that supported the idea of their being a master race. This idea was taken for granted in most places and the idea of equality applied to this era is a classical example of an anachronism. By the same token as a result of which Shankara is being condemned, shouldn't we also condemn Moses who spoke about the "Chosen People"( the others being beneath contempt), or the Islamic theologians( contemporaries of zamkara)who draw up a *caste system* in the form of Moslems, Ahl-E-Qitaab(people of the book) and the lowliest i.e. the kafir. The result of using a model that is invalid in the first place is that it allows one to come up with the most entertaining kinds of results, by the same token of racism being a crime, some of the other souls who end up as villains are Shakespeare( read his depiction of Jews in "The merchant of Venice"), Tulsidas( there is a passage where he says that Sudras and women are fit only to be thrashed) and Tilak( read his comments on the Maratha community), for starts. EVEn AFTERthe advent of the concept of equality, you still have Charles Dickens( read his description of "Fagin the Jew") and Mark Twain ( read his comments about African Americans in "Puddn'ead Wilson" and American Indians in "Tom Sawyer") and Karl Marx( YES EVEN KARL MARX, the ideological guru of D.D.Kosambi, who started many of these anti-Brahminical tirades)rave and rant merrily about the inferiority of other races; I'm not sure as to why zamkara had to be singled out when he came much earlier than this idea took root. (There are plenty of such examples in India itself, but that will have to await some other day) As the saying goes "Rome wasn't built in a day", likewise society cannot be reformed in a day. It is impossible and unfair to expect zamkara to achieve so much of reform into a mere 32 years of existence . It is arguable that he may have done things differently had he lived longer, but then such questions lie in the realm of speculation. I therefore believe that it is neccesary to first take note of the face and then follow it up with warts on the face, but to concentrate on the warts and lose track of the face is most certainly a waste of time and energy. A very interesting question brought up here is:What would have happened if a zudra wanted to listen to the veda being chanted? This has 2 answers:1. Well, if they did, they wouldn't have been neccesarily lynched, au contraire they would have gone down in 20th century history as great poets..all that one has to do is to look at the example of Janabai, the Sudra servant maid of Dyaneshwar, who is a well known poetess in marathi. In Tamil itself, one has the examples of non-Brahmin nayan2mArs sing about the 4 Vedas( i.e. nAn2maRai); I wonder if they could sing the praises of something they didn't know? And then, how could they compose verses later if they got lynched as soon as they found about the Veda? 2. How many Shudras wanted to learn the vedas? Please read Kancha Illiah's book "Why I am not a Hindu"; one comes away with the feeling that the majority of them don't know and don't care. He makes it very clear that he and his community don't have the interest or the time to contemplate about Gods who don't make sense to them, indulge in just about every proscribed activity and then want to be worshipped.(I realise that this argument is going to raise quite a few eyebrows and I myself run the risk of getting lynched, but please read Illiah's book and tell me what you think). Bottom line : For zudras/women interested in learning the essence of the vedas, "where there is a will, there there is a way". (Even zamkara the *misogynist* apparently bestowed a shawl on a lady scholar in Kashmir). <> While I agree with you completely about the prevention of persecution of lower castes, by higher castes, I'm afraid that giving the Catholics and Protestants credit for social reform is something of a real jump. All that one has to do in order to study how some of this conversion was carried out is to read "Dhannavada Anantam(1850-1949)", the life of one of the first converts in Andhra and the compiler of the Telugu Bible....since zamkara is guilty of racism(20th century terminology), the charming souls who converted Anantam are guilty of child abuse and kidnapping.(another 20th century term); this point is made discreetly in a book written by his own son, who is very pro-Christian. It would also be pertinent to find out why, in Srilanka, there were large scale conversions into Christianity and then away from Christianity into Buddhism in this century i.e. what was the reason for conversion into Christianity? Social reform or Social harm? Please also don't forget that the same G.U.Pope who went around *improving* things in Tamil Nadu started the business of Tamil domination ( or shall we say, imperialism)in Mysore..the problem with most of these reformers was that they alternated between playing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and people who want to see only Dr JEkyll are liable to come to erroneous conclusions...If zamkara is guilty of Hinduttvavaada, Pope is guilty of Christavada( He is the one who started the theory of tiruvaLLuvar being a Christian& the kuRaL being the greatest work in the south because it paralleled his beliefs, a line faithfully echoed by Basham, who says that vIramAmunivar was the greatest of poets because he wrote the "tempavANi", overlooking the "paramArta kuruvin2 katai", which is a literary classic in Tamil.) Last but the very least, it must be remembered that Narayana Guru, a Hindu was responsible for much for the reform in Kerala, not the Church. In conclusion, all that I can do is quote a Persian couplet by Amir Khusrau: "Tawafut ast man-i-shanidan-i-man-o-to Tu bastan-i-dar,man fatahe-bab me shanwam" (What you and I hear seem to be different. You hear a door closing, I hear a door opening). REgards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN Mon Mar 23 16:14:33 1998 From: madhava at CH1.VSNL.NET.IN (Viktor V. Sukliyan) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 21:14:33 +0500 Subject: Vivekananda &c. In-Reply-To: <199803231354.IAA09973@math.mps.ohio-state.edu> Message-ID: <161227037011.23782.5745105441583638413.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anybody have references from Vedic or Puranic literature which support following statement " In Kaliyuga everyone is zUdra"??? Viktor On Mon, 23 Mar 1998 John Richards wrote <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I wonder if there is not a confusion here. I do not have access to the texts quoted below, but it seems to me, in quotation, that the reference here may well be to SCHOLARLY ERUDITION rather than what we would call "spiritual knowledge". Obviously, Shudras could hardly become knowledgeable about the scriptures if they were precluded from reading/hearing them. At the same time, I see that Shankara makes no attempt to water down verse 9.32 of the Bhagavad Gita in his commentary. This verse explicitly asserts that the "supreme state" (paraa.m gati.m) is open to women and Shudras too, and Shankara merely rephrases the assertion, substituting "gacchanti" for "yaanti" and "prk.rshtaa.m" for "paraa.m". He was undoubtedly a man of his time - as we all are! - but I feel that one can over-emphasise his arid traditionalism, unless, of course, one includes such verses as the above from the Bhagavad Gita in his "tradition". Ramakrishna too behaved rather unbecomingly to our eyes in leaping away when his feet were touched in devotion by an ex-courtisan. But these are surely minor warts on great men, who could afford a few little conditioned weaknesses from their past environment. Would that we all had such minor blemishes! John Richards jhr at elidor.demon.co.uk Stackpole Rectory, Pemboke, UK >I do not think this is right. Commenting on Brahmasutra 1.3.34, responding to >the opponents' view that "smRti moreover speaks of vidUra and others who were >born from zUdra mothers as possessing eminent knowledge.-Hence the zUdra has a >claim to the knowledge of Brahman", zankara says: > >"To this we reply that the zUdras have no such claim, on account of their not >studying the Veda. A person who has studied the Veda and understood its sense >is indeed qualified for Vedic matters; but a zUdra does not study the Veda, >for such a study demands as its antecedent the upanayana-ceremony, and that >ceremony belongs to the three (higher) castes only. The mere circumstance of >being in a condition of desire does not furnish a reason for qualification, if >capability is absent. Mere temporal capability again does not constitute a >reason for qualification, spiritual capability being required in spiritual >matters. And spiritual capability is (in the case of the zUdras) excluded by >their being excluded from the study of the Veda.-The Vedic statement, >moreover, that the zUdra is unfit for sacrifices intimates , because founded >on reasoning, that he is unfit for knowledge also; for the argumentation is >the same in both cases." > >One cannot be more emphatic than this w.r.t to denying spiritual knowledge to >the zUdras. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> From grotebev at UNI-KOELN.DE Mon Mar 23 21:55:36 1998 From: grotebev at UNI-KOELN.DE (Tobias Grote-Beverborg) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 98 22:55:36 +0100 Subject: Cologne Tamil text corrections In-Reply-To: <5d706ba6.35136f0c@aol.com> Message-ID: <161227037044.23782.2085746452436660862.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear members of the list, please, allow me some explanation on the current situation at the Institute of Indology and Tamil Studies (IITS) at the University of Cologne, Germany. On Sat, 21 Mar 1998, Palaniappa wrote: > While using the Cologne University e-texts, I noticed these possible errors. > Since an earlier e-mail to a name listed at the web site (regarding another > error) went unacknowledged, and the error was not seen to be corrected, I am > not sure who is in charge of the maintenance of the e-text. The person in charge of the Tamil E-Text Database is Dr. Malten. He is doing research in India right now and won't return till end of april. Though the IITS hosts the largest Tamil library outside of India and tries to enlargen its Indological Database (Dictionaries, E-Texts, etc.) on the WWW (http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/indologie/gopher.e.html) it has only a very limited staff which works hard to maintain these services besides its teaching obligations, library service, etc.. I used to administrate its webpages but am doing some research work right now at the University of Hawaii. Due to budget cuts my position hasn't been filled and a colleague tries to keep up with my work. We still receive a lot of Emails concerning our various projects and let me state the fact that these are very welcome and needed to support the work. Unfortunately it's not always possible to reply to them right away but be assured that they are saved and are very much appreciated. My apologies to all who didn't receive a reply to their message. Please, do have some patience with us and continue to support the IITS. Yours sincerely * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mr. Tobias Grote-Beverborg * * * * 3029 Lowrey Ave #2117 * * Honolulu * * 96822 HI * * USA * * * * fon: (808) 988-2495 * * email: grotebev at uni-koeln.de * * grotebev at rocketmail.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Tue Mar 24 07:42:14 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 02:42:14 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037060.23782.11616444106607455447.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In a message dated 98-03-23 15:34:13 EST, vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM writes: <> I do not think anybody is being political here or engaged in a caste war. The very fact that surezvara changed zankara?s qualifications for a student shows that the questions I have raised are germane to the discussion of the positions zankara has taken. <> If the exclusion of zUdras is only because they lack the pre-requisites (i.e., Vedic study, for reasons independent of whatever the philosophers might/might not have done) then the detailed discussion by Ramanuja holds that this is not correct for the precepts of the advaitins. <> I have no arguments about this. <> I do not know exactly what you mean by brahminical society. If you mean I am just referring to the brahmins that is not correct. But if you mean the whole system of graded inequality where everybody is guilty except perhaps the persons at the very bottom, you are right. Take the example of Nadars of Tamilnadu/Kerala. They were known as Shanars in the 19th century. They were just above the scheduled castes in the caste hierarchy. The remarkable progress of this community has been well documented in scholarly studies. An important factor in the advancement of this community was the Christian missionary activity. But for the missionary help, the Shanan women would not have been allowed to wear a cloth covering their breasts in Southern Travancore. As for the violence inflicted upon people asserting their rights, let me give an example. In the late 1800s, when the Shanans agitated for entry into a temple in Sivakasi, the manager first closed the temple. That was considered a partial victory by Shanans and their opponents. Most opposed to Shanan mobility were the Maravans, their near neighbors in space and status. A "clean" caste, the Maravans could enter the temple at Sivakasi. To share it with the Shanans, a polluting caste according to the ritual definitions of traditional society, seemed intolerable. The Maravans, with the sympathetic support of other higher castes in the area. hoped to so punish and intimidate the Shanans as to pre-empt further Shanan efforts to rise, through the use of force and violence. They launched attacks on Shanan villages and sections, burning, looting, and sometimes killing. On June 6, 1899, Maravans marched on Sivakasi where Shanans, who had been expecting the attack, succeeded at the cost of sixteen lives in driving them away from the town. The final police statistics showed 23 murders, 102 robberies, many cases of arson, 1958 arrests, and 552 convictions including 7 death sentences. (Source: The Modernity of Tradition by L. I. Rudolph and S. H. Rudolph) I am not basing all this on zankara and advaita. As I noted in the posting, Ramanuja also excludes zUdras. I blame all those who by their commissions or omissions have helped to perpetuate the varNa/caste system. It so happened that zankara?s name came up during the discussion, differentiating him from Vivekananda. <> I did not know that and I am glad surezvara was more liberal than zankara. But I have a question. Since the time of surezvara, have the zankara mutts followed surezvara?s recommendation or zankara?s regarding who gets inducted into the order? In other words, what are the percentages of kshatriyas and vaizyas in the order? <> My opinion is that nobody should tell a low-caste person what to do or what not to do. He/she can make up his/her own mind as many, like Tamil siddhas, have done. <> I shall discuss the time and place and prevailing worldviews in detail in another post. I am not interested in convincing an advaitin or zankaracAryas or fundamentalists to listen to me. My interest is in talking to others. <> I have come across at least two scholars S. Radhakrishnan and Umesh Chandra Sharma who hold that the upaniSadic tradition thought differently. Let me just give Radhakrishnan?s view. He says, "The upaniSad seers are not bound by the rules of caste, but extend the law of spiritual universalism to the utmost bounds of human existence. The story of satyakAma jAbAla, who, though unable to give his father?s name, was yet initiated into spiritual life, shows that the upaniSad writers appeal from the rigid ordinances of custom to those divine and spiritual laws which are not of today or of yesterday, but live for ever and of their origin knoweth no man. The words tat tvam asi are so familiar that they slide off our minds without full comprehension." (The Principal Upanisads, p. 51) What this tells me is that according to these scholars at least, satyakAma was called a brahmin not due to parentage but due to his character, i.e., the word brahmin in the assumption refers to quality and not birth. <> Yes, it is if this is a historic fact as opposed to just part of a mythology built around him. But then not many are going to check this behavior against what he has written. Of course, the followers can always come up with ingenious explanations to reconcile the two. <> Fine, but in zankara?s case the canonical texts seem to be relatively more liberal than his own creation so much so that his disciple had to make a correction. Regards S. Palaniappan From jage at LOC.GOV Tue Mar 24 15:12:50 1998 From: jage at LOC.GOV (James E. Agenbroad) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 10:12:50 -0500 Subject: Forwarded mail.... Message-ID: <161227037062.23782.9333429121400080419.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> An item of interest. Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( jage at LOC.gov ) The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-9334 U.S.A. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 03:58:33 +0530 From: "Cibu C.J." To: Malayalam Language Lovers <> Dear friend, I have made available a tool for transliteration of Malayalam between English and Malayalam scripts, under the URL: http://members.tripod.com/~CibuCJ/varamozhi.html. Varamozhi is the name given to it. May be it is the first tool which allows font conversion, transliteration scheme conversion, for any font in Malayalam. Please forward this mail to those whom you think will love to edit or view Malayalam text in their computer. -With Best Regards, Cibu C. J. From vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Mar 24 18:23:40 1998 From: vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 10:23:40 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037079.23782.892449070278724816.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Palaniappa >I did not know that and I am glad surezvara was more liberal than zankara. But >I have a question. Since the time of surezvara, have the zankara mutts >followed surezvara?s recommendation or zankara?s regarding who gets inducted >into the order? In other words, what are the percentages of kshatriyas and >vaizyas in the order? I don't know exact numbers, but of the ten orders of daSanAmIs, at least three have significant numbers of non-brAhmaNa monks. See histories written by Jadunath Sarkar or Sadananda Giri, or the more comprehensive PhD dissertation by Wade Dazey from UC, Santa Barbara (1987). You won't find historical instances of non-brAhmaNa heads of the principal maThas, but there are many 'minor' maThas with non-brAhmaNa lineages. Contingents of kshatriya monks used to be standard parts of most Rajput armies. The Ramakrishna orders, who are derived from the daSanAmIs in lineage, have large numbers of non-brAhmaNa monks. In fact, Vivekananda, whose name started this discusion, was himself a kshatriya by birth. Vidyasankar ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 24 16:58:23 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 10:58:23 -0600 Subject: Font translations Message-ID: <161227037071.23782.4023667424983211779.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> About 12-14 years ago, I was thrilled at just seeing Tamil wordprocessing. George Hart developed the first Tamil font for an Apple machine, I think. Then the TEX and LATEX, hard to use in my opinion. Then different people started developing tamil fonts. Dr. Vijay from Toronto and Dr. Kuppu at John Hopkins univ., Many others also developed elegant fonts. Then an explosion of web Tamil material, magazines, etc., Important is the tamil net organized by Muthu, Bala Pilai from Sigapore/Malaysia. I gather that about 50,000 people exchange e-mail in Tamil via Murasu Anjal scheme. Many font developers insisted their keyboard mapping is the best. Usually, they followed tamil typewriter keyboard or roman transliteration keyboard or a variant/mixture of these two. For the last 30 months, I have been using a user-friendly software from S. Periyasamy in a PC. It bypasses the need to input according to the font developer's keyboard mapping. I type in what is convenient for me. The software converts the input and stores in a font-neutral format. Then we can go to any font, or even a mixture of fonts developed by different people. For example, take the Koeln university Tamil file which uses roman transliteration and no diacretical marks for 12 tamil vowels and 18 tamil characters. This can easily be converted into a Word file displaying Madras university roman transliteration font with diacretical marks or tamil script font developed by anybody. This software makes the font translations a joy. Going from tamil script to roman transliteration with diacreticals to roman transcription without diacreticals. In any direction or any combination! Parts of english text and grantha characters also are handled. Regards, N. Ganesan From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 24 17:24:48 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 11:24:48 -0600 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037073.23782.6583982657318630974.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Interesting to read Vidyasankar and Palaniappan writings. Not only the Thevar hereditary chief, Sethupathis. Nadars (Shanar is a "bad" term nowadays, equivalent to Negro) are subject to sanskritization now. Rich trader Nadars vie with each other and others to sponsor homams, RSS, etc. They spend lot of money on temples to become trustees. eg., Madurai Meenakshi temple has many rich Nadar trustees, traditionally held by Nattukottai Chettiars. There is big demand for fair skinned brides among TuuttukkuDi Nadars. (once told to me by a white Indology professor) Nadars represent one rare case illustrating mobility in hindu caste hierarchy. By becoming businessmen, getting educated. The position of Maravars has slipped considerably. They still are rural, illiterate, tied to land to a large extent. Regards, N. Ganesan From Palaniappa at AOL.COM Tue Mar 24 16:32:11 1998 From: Palaniappa at AOL.COM (Palaniappa) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 11:32:11 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037065.23782.7949068775036793584.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In my earlier posting, I forgot to mention a fact linking the Shanan?s struggle for social rights and Vivekananda N. Ganesan had earlier said: <> Vidyasankar Sundaresan has said: <> As part of the Shanan?s struggle for temple entry, "On May 14, 1897, fifteen Shanans, despite the efforts of temple custodians to prevent them from doing so, entered the Minakshi Sundareswara Temple at Kamudi and worshipped there. The temple?s hereditary trustee, the Raja of Ramnad, Raja M. Bhaskara Sethupathi, natural leader of the Maravan community and dedicated enemy of Shanan "pretensions", brought suit against the offenders, asking that they compensate the temple for the purification ceremonies undertaken after its defilement and that it be established that neither by sacred law nor by custom did Shanans have a right to enter the temple." (The Modernity of Tradition, p. 41) The case which went all the way to Privy Council was decided against the Shanans. "The court invoked Brahman written and edited law and the testimony of Brahman witnesses concerning local custom to sustain its interpretation... In the court?s judgment, birth, not achievement, defined social identity. Rights were rooted in Brahmanically-defined custom and Brahmanically-edited sacred texts, not in general ideas of treating equals equally or in "right reason."" (The Modernity of Tradition, p. 42-43) One can see how the Hindu Shanans indirectly aided by the Christian Missionaries through Christian Shanans tried to advance the cause of Shanans as a whole. Sanskritized Raja of Ramnad in whose region of influence the Shanans were living fought to suppress the Shanan aspirations. He also gave money to Vivekananda (who disliked Christian Missionaries) who used it go to USA and proclaim the glory of Hinduism. He also called Kerala a lunatic asylum apparently due to extreme caste inequities there. But he accepted money from Raja of Ramnad who was trying to perpetuate caste inequities against those who had also fought against caste inequities in Kerala. Interesting, is it not? Regards S. Palaniappan From vasur at CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU Tue Mar 24 16:33:43 1998 From: vasur at CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU (Vasu Renganathan) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 11:33:43 -0500 Subject: Publicly available transliterators (was Re: Forwarded mail.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037068.23782.9902180315229351696.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Just to add to the list of translitrators that are freely available for Indic scripts: Following are some of the other links of interest: Vasu. ------------- Devnagari transliteration (font: xdvng.ttf) http://weed.arch.com.inter.net/~sibal/jtrans/editor.html Tamil transliteration (font: tamilnet.ttf) http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/tamilweb/trans/trans1.html ITRANS: (uses LaTeX. Supports Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali) http://chandra.astro.indiana.edu/itrans/readme.html >Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 03:58:33 +0530 >From: "Cibu C.J." >To: Malayalam Language Lovers <> > >Dear friend, > >I have made available a tool for transliteration >of Malayalam between English and Malayalam scripts, >under the URL: >http://members.tripod.com/~CibuCJ/varamozhi.html. >Varamozhi is the name given to it. May be it is the >first tool which allows font conversion, transliteration >scheme conversion, for any font in Malayalam. > >Please forward this mail to those whom you think >will love to edit or view Malayalam text in their >computer. > > >-With Best Regards, > Cibu C. J. > > From thillaud at UNICE.FR Tue Mar 24 11:12:44 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 12:12:44 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <35566c50.266104863@mail.wxs.nl> Message-ID: <161227037075.23782.15260657659477232385.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal answer me: > >>"the "-au" ending comes about only in dvivacanam" ? >>No: nominative aSTau (RV, &c.) being a counter-example. >> >> There was tentatives to explain aSTau by a dual, but without any >>good result. The simpler was to consider *qet(w)r- (4), to cut the last "r" >>(without understand it!), to suppose a zero degree with "qt" > "kt" and to >>prefix by a dubious particle "O" (near) suggested by few Greek words and >>Skr. A-gam- (shortened before two consonants?); finally: "two 4s brought >>nearer"!! > >Leaving lurk-mode... What's wrong with the much simpler one: Avestan > "width of four fingers" (IE *ok^t-is, *ok^t-os "4" => du. >*ok^toH "8")? > >> In fact, it seems we have a "vanishing" "w" at the end of the >>Eurindian root, suggested by the ordinals Lat. octAuos, Gr. ogdo(w)os and >>by Got. ahtau. >> The Indian variants aSTa, aSTA, aSTau find a parallel in Greek >>where the two forms oktO- and okta- coexist early (Homer) in compounds; >>okta- was explained by the analogy with hepta- and hexa- but nothing is >>sure with this mysterious number and the "a" could be genuine (see the Osq. >>form Uhtavis of the Lat. name Octavius). > >If the IE laryngeals h1, h2, h3 were analogous to the velar series k^, >k, kw (i.e. they were phonetically palatal /x^/, plain /x/ and >labialized /xw/), then reconstructing a dual form *ok^toh3 (/ok^toxw/) >would explain all these forms (the Sanskrit dual with -u, Gothic >ahtau, Greek *ogdowos "8th", and Latin Octa:vius < *oktoh2wi- < >*ok^toh3i- [=*ok^toxwi-]). Undoubtly a simple and well-structured explanation. Alas, some problems remain. Even writed *h3ekt-, *ok^t-os "4" don't fit well with *kwet- "4" (the Greek tessares don't shows any prothesis in any dialect). The isolated Avestan aSti- don't seems sufficient to postulate such a form. The analogy between h1, h2, h3 and k^, k, kw is oversimplifying (and the last serie is dubious). It's true that a labial feature is probable in h3 and used for a reconstruction *h3ekteh3 "8" (a voiced form of h3 being useful to explain the Greek ordinal ogdowos) but that's not sure that h3 is necessary to explain the direct animated thematic dual case which could be -oh1(w) (see the common vedic dual forms in -A). I'm afraid that all such choice are uniquely made to link aSti and aSTau and we can't exclude the fact that, even if they are linked, aSti could be derived from an aSTau falsely interpreted (such inverse derivations are well known in linguistic). Not lurking but too few facts to decide ;^( Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU Tue Mar 24 20:37:31 1998 From: reimann at UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU (Luis Gonzalez-Reimann) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 12:37:31 -0800 Subject: Vivekananda (was: IA migration etc., - scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227037086.23782.14719072714877300607.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 02:15 AM 3/23/98 -0200, Robert Zydenbos wrote: >Only after some further study has been made of just how much of V.'s writing is actually read and discussed in India (and how it is) will we be able to form a proper judgment about whether _V._ really is admired, rather than the myth around him that catches people's imagination. Until then, any statements that _he_ is 'important', 'relevant', 'admired', etc. etc. are without scholarly significance. But, is this really a valid parameter? Does the importance of Christianity depend on how well Christians know the Bible? Or is it the myth around Jesus (and the saints) that 'catches people's imagination'? Luis Gonzalez-Reimann From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 24 22:49:13 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 16:49:13 -0600 Subject: Horse Message-ID: <161227037091.23782.8106324447832634592.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Yaroslav V. Vassilkov" wrote: * By the way, I think that the participants in the debate on the spread *of horses in India quite undeservedly ignored the archeological materials *of the *megalithic* culture which at some sites (e.g. on the territory of *historical Vidarbha) can be dated now as early as the beginning of the I *mill. BC. Here we can speak really in terms of MASS material, consisting of *bone remains and innumerable articles of metal harness. The megalithic *material makes quite possible its comparison with the relevant data from *"Scythian graves" (while some of the participants has asserted earlier *that the latter have no analogues in India). For the time period of 1000 BC onwards, sites like this will be important for archaeology. From literature perspective, horse is a central Indian figure. References (admittedly some for later periods): Cristiano Grottanelli, Yoked horses, Twins and the Powerful Lady: India, Greek, Ireland and elsewhere. j. IE studies, 14, p. 125-152, 1986 Massive terracota horse construction. Oklahoma state university, Stillwater, 19 min. film, Ron DuBois. The ancient art of S. Indian potters building 9 to 25 feet terracota horses. Stephen Fuchs, The Vedic horse sacrifice in its culture-historical relations, Inter-India, 1996, 248 p. T. K. Biswas, Horse in early Indian art, 1987 Elinor G. Smith, Horses, history and havoc: through the ages with hoof in mouth, New York, 1969 Mary C. Lanius, The rampant horse and rider motif - its development as a major decorative element in S. India, 1966, M.A. thesis, Univ. of Hawaii. Regards, N. Ganesan From bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Tue Mar 24 22:32:59 1998 From: bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Bijoy Misra) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 17:32:59 -0500 Subject: Vivekananda (was: IA migration etc., - scholarly debate) In-Reply-To: <199803242037.MAA11430@uclink.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <161227037088.23782.12007687353876382061.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Friends, I have been off the list for a while and today I notice this huge discussion on Swami Vivekananda, which looks to me has little basis on this list. He was a religious reformer and tried his best given the social conditions prevailing in nineteenth century India. He gave speeches and composed some hymns. All missionaries in the world could be denegrated because of their dogmatic views. We should keep religion and academy separate. Mother Theresa opposed abortion, wanted people baptised to receive help. These actions or thoughts didn't reduce her being a great personality in this century. So was Swami Vivekanaanda. He spoke well (I am given to understand) and he had a special knack to arouse the germ of Indian thoughts. Ramakrishna Mission, initiated by him, has been singularly responsible in compiling thousands of manuscripts. His efforts to provide medical help through missionary efforts have been exemplary and hence he has found a place in thousands of homes and minds. But finally, we should examine critical work by scholars and not speeches by missionaries! We would get lost if we try the later.. It's difficult to understand why missionaries do what they do. At the same time, more money is spent in churches and temples than understanding death or finding roots in Indology. Why a person needs a faith to live on, is a different track of discussion (I think).. Bijoy Misra On Tue, 24 Mar 1998, Luis Gonzalez-Reimann wrote: > At 02:15 AM 3/23/98 -0200, Robert Zydenbos wrote: > > >Only after some further study has been made of just how much of V.'s > writing is actually read and discussed in India (and how it is) will we be > able to form a proper judgment about whether _V._ really is admired, rather > than the myth around him that catches people's imagination. Until then, any > statements that _he_ is 'important', 'relevant', 'admired', etc. etc. are > without scholarly significance. > > But, is this really a valid parameter? Does the importance of Christianity > depend on how well Christians know the Bible? Or is it the myth around > Jesus (and the saints) that 'catches people's imagination'? > > > Luis Gonzalez-Reimann > From thillaud at UNICE.FR Tue Mar 24 17:30:07 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 18:30:07 +0100 Subject: Horse In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037077.23782.7716380915100917603.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Introducing lightly myself in the Edwin/George debate: Dear both, The problem of few horses' remains in India evoke the same problem in Mycenian Greece. In fact, both lands don't are well lanscaped for a military use of the war chariot and we can suppose that the link between horses and Eurindians was necessarily limited in both cases to the maintening of strong religious traditions as royal sacrifices, ritual horse races, &c., just needing a few lot of horses! The overwhelming role played by the war chariot in the epic warfare don't is a proof of real use. Even for the people who suppose Trojan War and Kurukshetra were historical wars, there is no need to believe the equipment of Akhilleus or Arjuna was exactly described by Homer or Vyasa. Horses' hooves need a smooth herbous plain and the same is true for the manoeuvrability of the chariot. Such conditions were probably satisfied in the "Eurindian birthland", not in Greece nor in India. Cordially, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From suddis at GEOCITIES.COM Tue Mar 24 18:36:46 1998 From: suddis at GEOCITIES.COM (Fredrik Arnell) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 19:36:46 +0100 Subject: SV: Re: Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037081.23782.16351409959508312523.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> visit http://hem2.passagen.se/elium > Palaniappa > >>I did not know that and I am glad surezvara was more liberal than >zankara. But >>I have a question. Since the time of surezvara, have the zankara mutts >>followed surezvara?s recommendation or zankara?s regarding who gets >inducted >>into the order? In other words, what are the percentages of kshatriyas >and >>vaizyas in the order? > >I don't know exact numbers, but of the ten orders of daSanAmIs, at least >three have significant numbers of non-brAhmaNa monks. See histories >written by Jadunath Sarkar or Sadananda Giri, or the more comprehensive >PhD dissertation by Wade Dazey from UC, Santa Barbara (1987). You won't >find historical instances of non-brAhmaNa heads of the principal maThas, >but there are many 'minor' maThas with non-brAhmaNa lineages. >Contingents of kshatriya monks used to be standard parts of most Rajput >armies. > >The Ramakrishna orders, who are derived from the daSanAmIs in lineage, >have large numbers of non-brAhmaNa monks. In fact, Vivekananda, whose >name started this discusion, was himself a kshatriya by birth. > >Vidyasankar > >______________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From mcv at WXS.NL Tue Mar 24 19:40:13 1998 From: mcv at WXS.NL (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 19:40:13 +0000 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037083.23782.18434255065156468263.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > Even writed *h3ekt-, *ok^t-os "4" don't fit well with *kwet- "4" >(the Greek tessares don't shows any prothesis in any dialect). Pas de probl?me, I don't think *kwet(wr)- and *ok^t- are related. That's really impossible. But if we can have two roots for IE "4" (*kwetwr- and *mew- [Hittite meu-, Luwian mawwa-]), having a third is no unsurmountable problem. >The isolated >Avestan aSti- don't seems sufficient to postulate such a form. As you say, it cannot be excluded that aSti- is a back-formation on aSta:, analyzed as a dual. It also cannot be excluded that *ok^toH(w) *is* a dual and only Avestan has retained the original singular. It is interesting to compare Proto-Kartvelian *os^txw- "four". ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From sudheerbirodkar at YAHOO.COM Wed Mar 25 08:49:05 1998 From: sudheerbirodkar at YAHOO.COM (sudheer birodkar) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 00:49:05 -0800 Subject: Origins of the Caste in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227037099.23782.13496357620683717232.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear Readers, Here is an extract from my page on Origins of the Caste System in Ancient India. I seek critical feedback from Indologists on the hypothesis given below: __________________________________________________ Caste is an institution which is truely Indian in character. So much so that even the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as, Hindu hereditary class, with members socially equal, united in religion, and usually following same trades having no social intercourse with persons of other castes. The word caste itself is derived from the Spanish word 'Casto' which means pure or chaste. In the Indian lexion we refer to caste by the words 'Varna' meaning colour and 'Jati' which is derivedfrom the root syllable 'Ja' which means 'to be born'. But etymology apart what matters is that Casteism is today still a living, rather festering, practice which continues to plague our 20th century Indian society. Time and again our newspapers carry reports about caste wars in various parts of our country. While reading about Parliamentary news in newspapers, we come across references to the Jat Lobby, Maratha Lobby, Rajput Lobby, Brahmin Lobby which brings to the fore the fact that even at the highest level of our country's democratic institutions, caste as a factor is still a living one. And this brought to be so as in the electoral strategies of political parties we hear of caste vote banks, caste equations in voting patterns, caste-based reserved constituencies, caste politics, ad nauseam. All this alongwith the recurring caste carnages and the ongoing caste politics are a constant reminder to us Indians that caste and casteism which we have inherited from our history are still active and alive around us. Thus the institution and attitude both of which go into the making of caste and casteism in today's India remain an enigmatic one for Indians as also for foreign Indologists. The fact that casteist feelings are still part of our psyche make it all the more relevant that we are informed about how the institution of caste could have come into being. Possible Origins of the Caste System Our scriptures already have an answer to this. The Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda says that the four fold division of society into Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (cultivators) and Shudras (menial servants) has been created by primeval man 'Purusha'. From Purusha's brain have emerged the Brahmins, from his forearms have emerged the kshatriyas from his abdomen have emerged the Vaishyas and from his feet have emerged the Shudras. But to examine how the institution of caste could have originated alongwith the auxiliary practices of untouchability and endogamy we will have a peep into the society in which the composers of the Rig Veda lived some three to four thousand years back. BRAHMINS - THOSE BAPTISED BY FIRE Caste is a gift of centuries of history whose origin goes back to 3 or 4 millennia in. The past when the tribal Aryans roamed the plains of Central Asia before reaching India. In the new stone age these tribals lived in conditions of savagery and barbarism. There obviously was no room for caste division as each and every able-bodied male member had to) help in the tribe's only vocation of hunting and gathering the means of subsistence. But with the domestication of fire, things began to change. It became necessary for some members of the Aryan tribes to undertake the task of tending the fire and prevent it from being extinguished. This was before the days when humans learnt to ignite fire through friction. Initially the fire must have been obtained from an already burning source like forest fires. In these circumstances, before the days of ignition the task of tending the fire was very crucial. The function of tending the fire became a specialised one which begun to be passed from father to son and this select group came to be called Agni-hotras i.e. 'preservers of fire'. As they tended to the fire they also roasted and later cooked food for the entire tribe. Fire was then, as it still is, an object of worship as the tribal peoples had seen fire as a powerful destructive medium in forest fires and volcanic eruptions. By virtue of being placed between the tribe and the domesticated fire, this section of the tribe also performed functions like making offerings to the fire and invoking it to spell prosperity for the tribe, victory in war, etc., apart from cooking which was their primary function. These Agni-hotras were the prototype of the brahmin caste of today. The above theory of the origin of the Brahmin caste may seem fantastic and unbelievable, but even today we can see that at our weddings or any other social and religious occasions the cooks are traditionally Brahmins. In some Indian languages the word for cook is Achari which comes quite close to Acharya meaning a scholar. In Hindi and Gujarati the word Maharaj is used to address both priests and cooks. Another word which we use to designate a scholar viz. 'Shastri' also originally meant a wielder of instruments and not a scholar according to the; noted Sanskritalogist P.V. Kane. This corollary between cooking and priestly functions may appear to be outrageous and unreal but the etymological closeness between the Sanskrit words given below also corroborates this corollary: ______________________________________________________ GOD Shri Shripati FAITH Shradhaa PRIEST Shrotriya Sadhu (ascetic) Yajakaha PRAYING Bhajana Pathana ______________________________________________________ FOOD Shri Shraa, Shraadha (Food offered to God and departed relatives) COOK Shrapayati Siddha Pachakaha COOKING ROASTING Bhajja Bharjana Patharaha (Source : English-Sanskrit Dictionary by Prof. Vaman Shivram Apte, Mumbai, 1920) But this apart, Hindu Shastras (religious texts) have a different explanation to offer as per the Holy scriptures ' Brahma Janayate Iti Brahamana' i.e. a Brahmin is a person who has mastered the essence of Brahma (Universe). In the Bhagavad Geeta, Sri Krishna says that the caste divisions have been created by Him. But if the earlier theory is correct it would justify the origin of Brahmins as a profession of cooks. It is quite possible that this is the explanation behind the Brahmin insistence on cleanliness and purification which quite logically seem to be a corollary of the culinary profession. In fact even the Yagna fire sacrifice of today is a ritualisation of the original cooking function. During the Yagna; milk, honey, grains, clarified butter and small figures of animals Pista Pashu) made from wheat flour have to be offered to the fire. A Yagna is accompanied with mass feeding of people. As mentioned in an earlier chapter in the original Yagna ritual, which is today observed only by some Sadhus (ascetics) is a process in which almost all primitive social life has to be recreated. You have to produce fire by friction of two pieces of wood, to build a cottage where no iron is used but only specific wood and grass, to milk cows, to make curds, pound corn with stone (not even a stone mill), kill and skin animals, boil and cook them". This description brings out the close resemblance between the original Yagna ritual and the function of cooking on which Brahmin's had come to acquire hereditary monopoly. But this hereditary monopoly over the cooking function in Vedic times also gave this section the priestly functions of invoking the fire-god in favour of the tribe. Thus they came to be looked upon as representatives of God, whose word carried divine sanction. This being so they also came to acquire the exclusive right of learning (and writing) religious scriptures and virtually of all knowledge. This was so as, in ancient India, most knowledge had scriptural overtones. Astrology, Astronomy, Mathematics, Philosophy, linguistics, Law, etc., were the main areas which were developed in ancient India and all these subjects were closely bound up with religious dogmas. Brahmins who had become the clergy, could thus virtually monopolise the areas of acquiring and imparting education, to the exclusion of other castes. _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU Wed Mar 25 09:26:30 1998 From: jgardner at BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU (JR Gardner) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 03:26:30 -0600 Subject: Origins of the Caste in Ancient India In-Reply-To: <19980325084905.16068.rocketmail@send1d.yahoomail.com> Message-ID: <161227037101.23782.214300405917216953.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> As Van Buitenen, among others, has noted (The Large Aatman, HR 4(1), 1964: 103ff), it is somewhat remarkable the level of sophistication with which the puruSa "appears" in the RV. It is a remarkably uncommon word, with less than 20 total occurrences (7 of which are in the Sukta cited here, RV 10.90). Elsewhere in the RV, the puruSa is not quite so auspicious as it is in 10.90-- it is prone to sin in 4.12.4, and 7.57.4, cf also 10.15.6. However Agni is the mysterious "puruSa" of plants in 10.51.8, while the hymn to healing herbs, 10.97, refers to the selfsame(?) puruSa as vulnerable to disease. There is reason, from several quarters of research, to consider the RV's final composition as reflective of several--if not many--cultural views upon the individual and society. Since 10.90 is the lynchpin of the caste system, it would be time well spent to full decipher why--in 10.90 alone of all the RV--the puruSa is the paradigmatic prototypical creative sacrifice-- a role assigned to no other entity in the RV--even the aatman. Elizarenkova (1995, Language and Style of teh Vedic RSis, p. 67) suggests puruSa might well reflect an incorporation from a language different from teh RV. In short, I think the question of caste is pivotal. However, the so-called "origins" in RV 10.90 are hardly a given and may, in many ways, point to an uncharted realm of discovery in Vedic studies which could electrify the sociologist, anthropologist, and linguist alike. No, I'm not suggesting we "change" the caste system. Instead, a critical inquiry into its "origins" in the RV is more than warranted. Incidentally, RV 10.90 is among the absolute latest, last additions to the RV as well (Oldenberg, 1888, Arnold, 1880, etc.). Incidentally, there is no such thing as a "kshatriya" in 10.90-- the word is raajanyaH-- again, a study in an of itself. One should consider, for instance, the respective references to raajanyaH and kshatriya in the ZB for instance which do not support their complete synonymity. I have no idea how much else may have been said in this posting-- it's 3:30am, and I only commented upon what I know something about. 45-screen postings are, in general, impossible to digest. But the point of 10.90 struck a chord.It's likely that the 10.90 issue is relevant to the Indus Valley discussion as well. respectfully, jrg On Wed, 25 Mar 1998, sudheer birodkar wrote: > > Possible Origins of the Caste System > > Our scriptures already have an answer to this. The Purusha Sukta of > the Rig Veda says that the four fold division of society into Brahmins > (priests), Kshatriyas > (warriors), Vaishyas (cultivators) and Shudras (menial servants) has > been created by primeval man 'Purusha'. From Purusha's brain have > emerged the Brahmins, > from his forearms have emerged the kshatriyas from his abdomen have > emerged the Vaishyas and from his feet have emerged the Shudras. From Vaidix at AOL.COM Wed Mar 25 10:41:50 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 05:41:50 -0500 Subject: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037103.23782.11472447003985102156.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members The references are too numerous to quote, so I go ahead with my monologue. The original conflict is with manusmriti and brahma sUtrAs, which should eliminate all subsequent discussion as a consequence. Let us understand that there was no publishing technology or cdroms those days, this seems to be the reason for stringency of laws. The vedic knowledge being too specialised, could not be fully grasped by everbody in the society, it was feared that spreading to everybody might lead to reckless creation of subdivisions leading to degeneration of vedas. I still wonder how the powerless lower castes can become a threat to vedas, but the idea may be that, as only a minority of people can grasp and preserve vedic knowledge (considering the depth of knowledge needed), the rest of the majority has to kept oppressed at any cost. Probably the authors of manusmriti and brahma sUtrAs thought that at one time in future some people who do not know the importance of vedas might get into position of power and neglect the vedas. By manusmriti we can also infer that it was written at a time when the vedic tribes had settled down at a place long enough to have had a society which can be categorized into castes. If they were still fighting with the barbarians (of south India or Europe as the case may be depending on political inclination), then manusmriti would have looked differently. In today's world we may have to rewrite the smriti to read: "All the vedic mss must be protected at any cost, etc.." Despite manusmriti, the meaning of vedas was long forgotten even by the time of bhagwAn buddha, therefore when buddha questioned the brahmins they had no answer (which again proves the antiquity of vedas to buddhA's time). zaGkarA spent most of his time countering buddhism, the practice of which has weakened the military of Indian kings. He popularised gIta (a war song) probably to bring up warriors from every household; and upaniSats to counter buddhism at philosophical level. He probably thought it was still not the right time to fully liberalise vedic knowledge, hence his ambivalence on eligibility of the so-called lower castes. But then he only followed the purANAs which were themselves ambivalent with conflicting examples of ekalavyAs at one end, and zabarIs on the other. advaita was indeed a great discovery from veda but it must be understood that beyond advaita (and its cousins viziStAdvaita etc) there were no other major discoveries since zaGkarA's time. Not to disregard his logical brilliance, his presentation skills and his efficient propagation through the length and breadth of India, zaGkarA himself did not go beyond the obvious while interpreting the upaniSats. Most of his ideas on advaita were already known to his teachers. If that is the case with zaGkarA, why talk of Vivekananda? V was living at a time when Indians were called coolies and blacks at the social level (though not official). Alexander was called "The Great" because he was a great invader (of India) about which we have no issue (why was Julius Caeser left out?), and Asoka was called the "The Great" because of his excellent administrative skills and his being a messenger of peace to this world (despite his two major military blunders of 1. reckless use of army by first attempting daNDa without trying sAmA, dAnA and bhedA and 2. subsequent complete abandonment of army, thus making India vulnerable to invasions), but every other Indian king including candraguptA was left out for the title. It also sent a message that Indians must be peaceful and not rise against British empire. This is what piqued the late 19th century thinkers like Vivekananda, hence the slanderous reference to greeks as a reaction. V's writings about greeks or keralites are not to be inferred as his enemity with any section of humanity. He was trying to awaken the society that has become inbred and divided into multiplicity of castes and sects. By saying that "castes are always there" he means the modern university professors and civil cervants are the modern brahmins, politicians and warriors are kSatriyAs etc. Why do some people have an issue if V brings up a new interpretation of the scripture? The trend seems to be "Damn them if they do, and damn them if they dont". The ideas propagated by reformers like V were widely discussed at temple discourses even in villages and that is how a social network was laid out which was later used by 20th century freedom fighters. In modern India the temple discourses have all but vanished as the brahmins have migrated to cities (along with V's pictures). To say that V is a semi-urban figure is to overlook the demographic changes that took place in modern India. If scholars can not properly understand demographic changes in post colonial India, how you expect me to believe their postulations on vedic aryan demographies which happened thousands of years ago? Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From thillaud at UNICE.FR Wed Mar 25 07:33:50 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 08:33:50 +0100 Subject: Rig Vedic Racism In-Reply-To: <01IV06B8NKPU000XQO@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227037095.23782.8454315200905227198.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> N. Ganesan ask: >Have heard that Rig Veda has racial references. >What are the verse numbers? > >Any papers/published references? >>From hindutva/neohindu/marxist/IE-comparative/ >dravidian/dalit/or_whatever angles. > >In these kind of things, my tendency is to believe what people >who got PhDs in the study of classical India say. Even without the PhD, I believe it's a problem to evoke racial references in a language which don't had words to design a "race" in the today's sense. anvayaH, kulaM, saMtAnaH, saMtati, vaMzAvalI, gotraM, jAti, vargaH seem words for family, lineage, categories internal to a society, and I don't have found Vedic references for any of them. Considering the more largest gaNa of the words zatruH, ariH, vairin, dviS, &c. don't give nothing but hostility. "to hate the enemy" don't is "to be racist". I don't have found any word with the meaning "people inferior because having a different look"*. Hence this "racial references" are perhaps nothing but an anachronical interpretation. In Greece, the word "barbaros" just means "not Greek-speaker" and the Hesiod's myth of races lies in the diachrony, not in the synchrony; his Indian equivalent is the theory of yugAH, the today's "iron race" being the kaliyugaH. Even with the animals, the differences between them are not considered as "racial" but as "provenance". That's allways true today with the geographical names of cats, dogs, cows, &c. and I suppose the notion of "race" don't exist before Mendel. Regards, Dominique * see recent debate on this list showing that "dark-skinned" don't is pejorative nor "racial" in India. Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR Wed Mar 25 12:34:14 1998 From: winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR (winnie fellows) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 09:34:14 -0300 Subject: Origins of the Caste in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227037105.23782.4333706970117345758.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> wrote: The word caste itself is derived from the >Spanish word 'Casto' which means pure or chaste. In the Indian lexion >we refer to caste by the words 'Varna' meaning colour and 'Jati' which >is derivedfrom the >root syllable 'Ja' which means 'to be born'. >>>> Thanks for the elucidative remarks regarding the meanings of the Indian lexikon, for we probably didn't know that until now, but as for the word cast its etymology is Portuguese, *casta*. From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Wed Mar 25 08:47:02 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 09:47:02 +0100 Subject: Rig Vedic Racism Message-ID: <161227037097.23782.13316528812912014087.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dominique Thillaud wrote: > Even with the animals, the differences between them are not >considered as "racial" but as "provenance". That's allways true today with >the geographical names of cats, dogs, cows, &c. and I suppose the notion of >"race" don't exist before Mendel. Actually I think it does. But it is not terribly old, at least not in the modern sense. The journal Discover ran a feature (rather large) on race and the history of race research and race theories a couple of years ago. I am sorry I can't give you any details, because I sent the copy I had to my daughter. However, it is a quite useful set of articles, which I recommend. Lars Martin Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From mittals at MAGELLAN.UMONTREAL.CA Wed Mar 25 16:00:55 1998 From: mittals at MAGELLAN.UMONTREAL.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 11:00:55 -0500 Subject: CFP: Millennialism in Hinduism Message-ID: <161227037112.23782.14008368571561203275.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Announcement and Call for Papers The _International Journal of Hindu Studies_ is planning a 'Millennium in Hinduism' issue to appear in the year 2000. We encourage potential authors to consider the theme as widely as possible and to engage with past and future millennium events, as well as the phenomenon of millennialism, in Hindu religious traditions. Possible theme topics include: yuga theories, Kalki avatara, creation of the golden age in ritual space and time, gurus and mahants who are perceived by their followers to usher in the golden age, sense of apocalypsm in the Mahabharata, and pralaya and the re-creation of the universe. Contributions submitted for this special issue will be evaluated through the usual _International Journal of Hindu Studies_ peer reviews. Manuscripts, including notes, should not exceed 40 pages in length. Please submit four copies. All submitted work should be double-spaced, including extracts, notes, and references. Footnotes should be as few as possible, and typed double-spaced at the end of the text. Documentation should follow the style recommended in sections 16.3 through 16.28 of the _Chicago Manual of Style_, 14 ed. Authors are encouraged to submit tables, figures, maps, photographs, and other illustrations along with their manuscripts; please consult the editor for specifications. Additional guidelines on manuscript preparation will be sent upon request. The deadline for submission is January 30, 1999. Completed manuscripts, inquiries about material for possible publication, and correspondence to the editor should be send to the Journal's editorial offices: Sushil Mittal, editor _International Journal of Hindu Studies_ International Institute of India Studies 1270 St-Jean, St-Hyacinthe Quebec, Canada J2S 8M2 Tel (514) 771 0213 FAX (514) 771 2776 Email: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full details on the _International Journal of Hindu Studies_ can be found on the Journal homepage at: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/ijhs/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From a018967t at BC.SEFLIN.ORG Wed Mar 25 16:28:43 1998 From: a018967t at BC.SEFLIN.ORG (Aditya, the Hindu Skeptic) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 11:28:43 -0500 Subject: Dr Hardy Message-ID: <161227037114.23782.1474884083986304670.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I happened to get hold of a book "The Muslims of British India" by Dr P. Hardy (1972). I am very impressed by the amount of research but the book does not give any details about the author. I would like to know his whereabouts and if he has an email address so that I can contact him personally. --- Have a peaceful and prosperous day. ?1998, Aditya Mishra e-mail: a018967t at bc.seflin.org homepage: http://www.smart1.net/aditya Voice mail: http://www.phonefree.com/Scripts/cgiParse.exe?sID=87282 ICQ Pager: 1131674 Thought of the day: The Family: that noble institution responsible for 70 percent of all murders, over 80 percent of incidents of child abuse, and a full 100 percent of all cases of incest. From winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR Wed Mar 25 16:28:45 1998 From: winnie.fellows at UNIKEY.COM.BR (winnie fellows) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 13:28:45 -0300 Subject: Origins of the Caste in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227037116.23782.3349746828820258157.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> -- > wrote: > > The word caste itself is derived from the >>Spanish word 'Casto' which means pure or chaste. In the Indian lexion >>we refer to caste by the words 'Varna' meaning colour and 'Jati' which >>is derivedfrom the >>root syllable 'Ja' which means 'to be born'. > >>>>> > ( rectification ) > >Thanks for the elucidative remarks regarding the meanings of >the Indian lexikon, for we probably didn't know that until now, >but as for the word caste its etymology is Portuguese, *casta*. > > >Jesualdo Correia > > > > > From roheko at MSN.COM Wed Mar 25 12:39:38 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 13:39:38 +0100 Subject: Origins of the Caste in Ancient India Message-ID: <161227037107.23782.16774829956834654362.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I would be interested for the reference to the source where the origin of fire is described to related with forest fire. I am reading in a Jain text about the origin of culture this has to be realted with Rishabha, of course. But Rishabha appeared a f t e r the fire was established, after it fell on the earth from trees which stood to close together. I would suggest the fire was established just by two pieces of wood like we know this from several aborigines. But the texts do not say this. Any suggestion? Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: sudheer birodkar An: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Datum: Mittwoch, 25. M?rz 1998 09:53 Betreff: Origins of the Caste in Ancient India >Dear Readers, > >Here is an extract from my page on Origins of the Caste System in >Ancient India. I seek critical feedback from Indologists on the >hypothesis given below: >_________________________________________________ _ >Caste is an institution which is truely Indian in character. So much >so that even the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as, Hindu >hereditary class, with members >socially equal, united in religion, and usually following same trades >having no social intercourse with persons of other castes. The word >caste itself is derived from the >Spanish word 'Casto' which means pure or chaste. In the Indian lexion >we refer to caste by the words 'Varna' meaning colour and 'Jati' which >is derivedfrom the >root syllable 'Ja' which means 'to be born'. > >But etymology apart what matters is that Casteism is today still a >living, rather festering, practice which continues to plague our 20th >century Indian society. Time >and again our newspapers carry reports about caste wars in various >parts of our country. While reading about Parliamentary news in >newspapers, we come across >references to the Jat Lobby, Maratha Lobby, Rajput Lobby, Brahmin >Lobby which brings to the fore the fact that even at the highest level >of our country's >democratic institutions, caste as a factor is still a living one. And >this brought to be so as in the electoral strategies of political >parties we hear of caste vote banks, >caste equations in voting patterns, caste-based reserved >constituencies, caste politics, ad nauseam. > >All this alongwith the recurring caste carnages and the ongoing caste >politics are a constant reminder to us Indians that caste and casteism >which we have inherited >from our history are still active and alive around us. Thus the >institution and attitude both of which go into the making of caste and >casteism in today's India remain an >enigmatic one for Indians as also for foreign Indologists. The fact >that casteist feelings are still part of our psyche make it all the >more relevant that we are informed >about how the institution of caste could have come into being. > >Possible Origins of the Caste System > >Our scriptures already have an answer to this. The Purusha Sukta of >the Rig Veda says that the four fold division of society into Brahmins >(priests), Kshatriyas >(warriors), Vaishyas (cultivators) and Shudras (menial servants) has >been created by primeval man 'Purusha'. From Purusha's brain have >emerged the Brahmins, >from his forearms have emerged the kshatriyas from his abdomen have >emerged the Vaishyas and from his feet have emerged the Shudras. > >But to examine how the institution of caste could have originated >alongwith the auxiliary practices of untouchability and endogamy we >will have a peep into the >society in which the composers of the Rig Veda lived some three to >four thousand years back. > >BRAHMINS - THOSE BAPTISED BY FIRE > >Caste is a gift of centuries of history whose origin goes back to 3 or >4 millennia in. The past when the tribal Aryans roamed the plains of >Central Asia before >reaching India. In the new stone age these tribals lived in conditions >of savagery and barbarism. There obviously was no room for caste >division as each and every >able-bodied male member had to) help in the tribe's only vocation of >hunting and gathering the means of subsistence. > >But with the domestication of fire, things began to change. It became >necessary for some members of the Aryan tribes to undertake the task >of tending the fire and >prevent it from being extinguished. This was before the days when >humans learnt to ignite fire through friction. Initially the fire must >have been obtained from an >already burning source like forest fires. > >In these circumstances, before the days of ignition the task of >tending the fire was very crucial. The function of tending the fire >became a specialised one which >begun to be passed from father to son and this select group came to be >called Agni-hotras i.e. 'preservers of fire'. As they tended to the >fire they also roasted and >later cooked food for the entire tribe. > >Fire was then, as it still is, an object of worship as the tribal >peoples had seen fire as a powerful destructive medium in forest fires >and volcanic eruptions. By virtue >of being placed between the tribe and the domesticated fire, this >section of the tribe also performed functions like making offerings to >the fire and invoking it to spell >prosperity for the tribe, victory in war, etc., apart from cooking >which was their primary function. These Agni-hotras were the prototype >of the brahmin caste of >today. > >The above theory of the origin of the Brahmin caste may seem fantastic >and unbelievable, but even today we can see that at our weddings or >any other social and >religious occasions the cooks are traditionally Brahmins. In some >Indian languages the word for cook is Achari which comes quite close >to Acharya meaning a >scholar. In Hindi and Gujarati the word Maharaj is used to address >both priests and cooks. Another word which we use to designate a >scholar viz. 'Shastri' also >originally meant a wielder of instruments and not a scholar according >to the; noted Sanskritalogist P.V. Kane. > >This corollary between cooking and priestly functions may appear to be >outrageous and unreal but the etymological closeness between the >Sanskrit words given >below also corroborates this corollary: >_________________________________________________ _____ > GOD > > Shri > > Shripati > > FAITH > > Shradhaa > > PRIEST > > Shrotriya > > Sadhu (ascetic) > > Yajakaha > > PRAYING > > Bhajana > > Pathana > >_________________________________________________ _____ > >FOOD > >Shri > >Shraa, Shraadha (Food offered to God and departed relatives) > >COOK > >Shrapayati > >Siddha > >Pachakaha > >COOKING ROASTING > >Bhajja > >Bharjana > >Patharaha > >(Source : English-Sanskrit Dictionary by Prof. Vaman Shivram Apte, >Mumbai, 1920) > >But this apart, Hindu Shastras (religious texts) have a different >explanation to offer as per the Holy scriptures ' Brahma Janayate Iti >Brahamana' i.e. a Brahmin is a >person who has mastered the essence of Brahma (Universe). In the >Bhagavad Geeta, Sri Krishna says that the caste divisions have been >created by Him. > >But if the earlier theory is correct it would justify the origin of >Brahmins as a profession of cooks. It is quite possible that this is >the explanation behind the Brahmin >insistence on cleanliness and purification which quite logically seem >to be a corollary of the culinary profession. > >In fact even the Yagna fire sacrifice of today is a ritualisation of >the original cooking function. During the Yagna; milk, honey, grains, >clarified butter and small figures >of animals Pista Pashu) made from wheat flour have to be offered to >the fire. A Yagna is accompanied with mass feeding of people. As >mentioned in an earlier >chapter in the original Yagna ritual, which is today observed only by >some Sadhus (ascetics) is a process in which almost all primitive >social life has to be recreated. >You have to produce fire by friction of two pieces of wood, to build a >cottage where no iron is used but only specific wood and grass, to >milk cows, to make curds, >pound corn with stone (not even a stone mill), kill and skin animals, >boil and cook them". This description brings out the close resemblance >between the original >Yagna ritual and the function of cooking on which Brahmin's had come >to acquire hereditary monopoly. > >But this hereditary monopoly over the cooking function in Vedic times >also gave this section the priestly functions of invoking the fire-god >in favour of the tribe. Thus >they came to be looked upon as representatives of God, whose word >carried divine sanction. This being so they also came to acquire the >exclusive right of learning >(and writing) religious scriptures and virtually of all knowledge. >This was so as, in ancient India, most knowledge had scriptural >overtones. Astrology, Astronomy, >Mathematics, Philosophy, linguistics, Law, etc., were the main areas >which were developed in ancient India and all these subjects were >closely bound up with >religious dogmas. > >Brahmins who had become the clergy, could thus virtually monopolise >the areas of acquiring and imparting education, to the exclusion of >other castes. >_________________________________________________ ________ >DO YOU YAHOO!? >Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com > From g.v.simson at EAST.UIO.NO Wed Mar 25 14:07:41 1998 From: g.v.simson at EAST.UIO.NO (Georg von Simson) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 15:07:41 +0100 Subject: Origins of fire (was: Origins of the Caste) in Ancient India In-Reply-To: <03dc35239121938UPIMSSMTPUSR04@email.msn.com> Message-ID: <161227037109.23782.8908305184270443717.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Rolf Heiner Koch wrote: > I would be interested for the reference to the > source where the origin of fire is described to > related with forest fire. I am reading in a Jain > text about the origin of culture this has to be > realted with Rishabha, of course. But Rishabha > appeared a f t e r the fire was established, > after it fell on the earth from trees which stood > to close together. > I would suggest the fire was established just by > two pieces of wood like we know this from several > aborigines. But the texts do not say this. Any > suggestion? The locus classicus for the origin of the sacrificial(!) fire is the story of PurUravas and UrvazI, ZatapathabrAhmaNa 11.5.1. Here the fire (belonging to the Gandharvas) originates indeed from two pieces of wood (araNI), either from a piece of azvattha wood and a piece of zamI wood or from two pieces of azvattha wood (11.5.1.15-17). Best regards, Georg v. Simson From thompson at JLC.NET Wed Mar 25 19:15:01 1998 From: thompson at JLC.NET (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 15:15:01 -0400 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA Message-ID: <161227037119.23782.1053679578165740655.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidhyanath Rao observes: >--------------- > >It seems to me that it is suspect methodology to discuss the origin of >retroflexion in a piecemeal fashion, limiting ourselves to just RV >and just t/.t etc contrast. Agreed. But to my knowledge no one uses this methodology. The /T/ vs /t/ contrast was just one example, used to refer to the entire retroflex and dental series in Skt. [just imitating the Skt. grammarians, that's all]. I also agree that the RV should not be studied in isolation, just as retroflexion itself should not be studied in isolation. Of course. But I am not attempting to figure out the origin of retroflexion in all of IA. I am trying to figure out the origin of retroflexion in a specific text, the RV. There is none in Avestan, there is some in RV, there is more in later Vedic, and still more in Classical Sanskrit. I assume that Dravidian is a factor in this development, but I do not know how to characterize its role [convergence? substratum? an open question]. Remember, the RV is an orally composed and orally transmitted text. Therefore I think it is reasonable to take Deshpande's theory seriously. Best wishes, George Thompson From kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET Wed Mar 25 23:31:57 1998 From: kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET (Paul K. Manansala) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 15:31:57 -0800 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA Message-ID: <161227037126.23782.7590097204961895968.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > From: George Thompson wrote: > Vidhyanath Rao observes: > >--------------- > > > >It seems to me that it is suspect methodology to discuss the origin of > >retroflexion in a piecemeal fashion, limiting ourselves to just RV > >and just t/.t etc contrast. > > Agreed. But to my knowledge no one uses this methodology. The /T/ vs /t/ > contrast was just one example, used to refer to the entire retroflex and > dental series in Skt. [just imitating the Skt. grammarians, that's all]. I > also agree that the RV should not be studied in isolation, just as > retroflexion itself should not be studied in isolation. Of course. > > But I am not attempting to figure out the origin of retroflexion in all of > IA. I am trying to figure out the origin of retroflexion in a specific > text, the RV. There is none in Avestan, there is some in RV, there is more > in later Vedic, and still more in Classical Sanskrit. > > I assume that Dravidian is a factor in this development, but I do not know > how to characterize its role [convergence? substratum? an open question]. > Remember, the RV is an orally composed and orally transmitted text. > Therefore I think it is reasonable to take Deshpande's theory seriously. > Initial retroflex consonants might require study of the Munda and related influence. For example, initial retroflex "d." is found looking to the east. Regards, Pual Kekai Manansala From zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL Wed Mar 25 19:11:42 1998 From: zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL (Robert Zydenbos) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 17:11:42 -0200 Subject: Vivekananda (was: IA migration etc., - scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227037121.23782.12461339314510331058.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Replies to msg 24 Mar 98: indology at listserv.liv.ac.uk (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) vC> For most people, image is indeed everything. The same holds vC> true for vC> most followers of the contemporary Sankaracharyas or even vC> devotees of vC> Sai Baba. Their pictures hang in homes and university vC> departments, but vC> how many read what they write? The myths and miracles that vC> grow around vC> their names have more power to make them relevant to most vC> Indians than vC> what they actually say or write. But can we then still say that *they* are relevant? There are some extreme cases where the views of a supposedly admired leader / thinker are distorted to their opposite. E.g., Madhva (in his Bhagavadgiitaataatparyanir.naya) has argued that var.na is based on individual characteristics, not on birth, and he very explicitly says that one who is born a sudra but shows brahmin characteristics should be considered a brahmin. This is affirmed by his popular commentator Jayatiirtha. Yet I once caught two supposedly staunch Maadhvas in U.dupi quoting ;Sa:nkara (yes, the most popular enemy of all Maadhvas!) that in order to be a brahmin, one had to be born in a brahmin jaati (and hence I was condemned to ethnic inferiority. They did not know they were actually quoting ;Sa:nkara). When I pointed out this un-Maadhva-ness to my interlocutors, they simply flatly denied that my quotes from Madhva existed. So we can conclude that there are Maadhvas who consider some of the most striking features of Madhva's teachings not relevant. Similar things happen with other religious figureheads, and V. is one of them. >And when I mention that this same V. has written: "Caste is good. >Wherever you go, you will find caste," people do not become angry at >him, but at _me_ for supposedly calumniating this great man. (I >certainly hope that this anti-scholarly attitude will not spread >through the Indology List.) vC> I wonder why. People getting angry at you, that is. Isn't it vC> an all-pervasive Hindu notion that caste is inevitable, if not vC> divinely vC> mandated? What is so exceptional about the fact that V said vC> something vC> similar? Maybe caste is such an emotional issue that Indians vC> don't want vC> to hear anything about it from Europeans or Americans, vC> however well-intended. That is probably an important part of it. Inflated egos of would-be spiritual people who want to impress a mere Indologist with their supposedly deep learning are another frequent cause. Robert Zydenbos zydenbos at flevoland.xs4all.nl From thillaud at UNICE.FR Wed Mar 25 16:54:10 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 17:54:10 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <351e0c1b.4470236@mail.wxs.nl> Message-ID: <161227037123.23782.12752941219539609877.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote (>> are mine): >> Even writed *h3ekt-, *ok^t-os "4" don't fit well with *kwet- "4" >>(the Greek tessares don't shows any prothesis in any dialect). > >Pas de probl?me, I don't think *kwet(wr)- and *ok^t- are related. >That's really impossible. But if we can have two roots for IE "4" >(*kwetwr- and *mew- [Hittite meu-, Luwian mawwa-]), having a third is >no unsurmountable problem. > >>The isolated >>Avestan aSti- don't seems sufficient to postulate such a form. > >As you say, it cannot be excluded that aSti- is a back-formation on >aSta:, analyzed as a dual. It also cannot be excluded that *ok^toH(w) >*is* a dual and only Avestan has retained the original singular. > >It is interesting to compare Proto-Kartvelian *os^txw- "four". Sure, considering the facts, you're perhaps right. My reserves are just methodological ones. *kwetwores "4" and *oktoH(u) "8" are broadely attested in Eurindian languages and satisfy easily the "3-families rule". That's not the case for the Anatolian *mew- (how to be sure that's an Eurindian word?) nor for the Iranian aSti- and we are in a worse case introducing the Proto-Kartvelian. I don't reject definitely an *okt- "4" but I don't consider proved his presence in the Eurindian family. May be Not- or Pre-Eurindian and we are perhaps here in the Nostratic domain where I am uncompetant ;) It's a fact that the internal analysis of number's names is difficult - even the common rapprochment between five and the fist is not so easy - and we are probably farther than our knowledge scope ... On an other way, I like to dream, I'm over-curious and I find your hypothesis very interesting and satisfying for an open spirit. I hope sincerely you can prove it some day and, if I'm dubious, that's just my schizoid comportment between intuition and demonstration ;) Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL Wed Mar 25 23:20:30 1998 From: zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL (Robert Zydenbos) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 21:20:30 -0200 Subject: Vivekananda (was: IA migration etc., - scholarly debate) Message-ID: <161227037168.23782.6768249652704591760.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Replies to msg 24 Mar 98: indology at listserv.liv.ac.uk (Luis Gonzalez-Reimann) >Only after some further study has been made of just how much of V.'s rBE> writing is actually read and discussed in India (and how it rBE> is) will we be rBE> able to form a proper judgment about whether _V._ really is rBE> admired, rather rBE> than the myth around him that catches people's imagination. rBE> Until then, any rBE> statements that _he_ is 'important', 'relevant', 'admired', rBE> etc. etc. are rBE> without scholarly significance. rBE> But, is this really a valid parameter? It is one of a few possible valid parameters. But when one is drawn into a discussion / polemic by a person who claims that he knows what Vivekananda has written and that this is what makes him 'relevant' etc., or similarly if an innocent member on the Indology List says that I seem "unscholarly" because I appear to deny the "quality and importance" of V.'s writings, then it is the _only_ valid parameter. Other approaches to the phenomenon of V. are of course perfectly possible, but in such cases we are dealing with something different. I am personally quite sure that a study of the 'myth' / 'image' of V. could be a highly interesting thing: how V. was marketed, adopted by Hindutva, etc. But this is a different matter, and we should not confuse these issues (since that would be _really_ unscholarly). But even if we were to study primarily the image rather than what the man did, then too it is essential that we find out just what the man did. Otherwise, how will we know what is the man's own doing / thinking / writing and what is the later image? Therefore a study of V.'s writings and their popular reception should inevitably be a part of any study of V., and I object to those voices here on the list that insist that we should pay no attention to V.'s writings. rBE> Does the importance of Christianity rBE> depend on how well Christians know the Bible? Or is it the rBE> myth around rBE> Jesus (and the saints) that 'catches people's imagination'? I don't think these two comparisons are very happy ones, and for more than two reasons. If I may give only a few: (1) V.'s writings are not a Bible, (2) Jesus lived 2000 years ago, we know very little about the historical person, we know only a few of his utterances (passed on only in translation), and mythology very quickly overtook the historical person. V. lived just 100 years ago, we know much more about the historical person, and he left eight volumes of published writings, almost all of them his own written words, (3) we are not discussing the importance of Hinduism; but if we were, then in my view V.'s role is rather peripheral, since Hinduism can do perfectly well without him - as is demonstrated throughout India. Robert Zydenbos From jhubbard at SOPHIA.SMITH.EDU Thu Mar 26 02:45:39 1998 From: jhubbard at SOPHIA.SMITH.EDU (Jamie Hubbard) Date: Wed, 25 Mar 98 21:45:39 -0500 Subject: CSX fonts In-Reply-To: <01bd4123$4faf6f00$LocalHost@default> Message-ID: <161227037133.23782.1731936175869734569.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> There is also a set of fonts available on my server that are based on the CS encoding and MS Times New Roman. The only advantage is that they include the necessary diacritics for Japanese (long o, O, e, E). There are both Mac and PC TT font sets. I am out of the country at the moment, but I believe that they should still be available somewhere at: www.smith.edu/~jhubbard. Another nice font set based on (and extended) the Norman font can be had from Urs App's site at http://www.iijnet.or.jp/iriz/irizhtml/tools/appeal.htm Jamie Hubbard From mcv at WXS.NL Thu Mar 26 01:44:26 1998 From: mcv at WXS.NL (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 01:44:26 +0000 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037128.23782.16741817788095794843.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > I don't reject definitely an *okt- "4" but I don't consider proved >his presence in the Eurindian family. May be Not- or Pre-Eurindian and we >are perhaps here in the Nostratic domain where I am uncompetant ;) The rapprochement with Kartvelian that I mentioned (PIE *ok^toxw ~ PK *os'txw) was not necessarily meant in a Nostratic context. Internal analysis of the numbers is, as you say, difficult, and so is their "external" analysis. On the face of it, there seem to be a number of indications that there may have been a fair amount of borrowing of numerals (especially in the range 6 to 9) going on at some early stage, presumably the Neolithic. I personally have little doubt that Kartvelian *cxra- "9" was borrowed from Semitic *tis3a(t)-, but I am more uncertain about Kartvelian *arwa "8" < Semitic *?arba3a(t)- "4" as suggested by Johanna Nichols. That Indo-European *septm "7" was borrowed from Semitic *sab3a(t)- "7" is in my opinion a near-certainty, but I again I'm less positive about PIE *s(w)ek^s "6" < Sem. *sidTa(t)- (Akk. s^is^s^-). The same goes for Proto-Kartvelian *eks^w- "6" and *s^wid- "7" (from Semitic?) and the already mentioned *os^txw- (from IE?). Finally there is the interesting semantic parallel noted by Loprieno between Egyptian "9" (cf. "new moon") and IE *(h1)newn "9" (cf. *newos "new"): independent creation or calque, and if so, which way? I had better stop now, since all of this is of course only very indirectly relevant to the topic of the "Indo-Aryan migration". However, it *does* seem to suggest contacts between PIE and PKartv/PSem. at an early date, as do some other borrowed Neolithic items such as *tawros "bull" ~ PS. *Tawr-; *woinos "wine" ~ PS. *wajn-, etc., contacts which are incompatible with both the Southern Russian steppe-model AND the Indi-genous model. ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From lnelson at ACUSD.EDU Thu Mar 26 07:38:22 1998 From: lnelson at ACUSD.EDU (Lance Nelson) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 07:38:22 +0000 Subject: Religion in South India, Conference Message-ID: <161227037149.23782.14802325406589842944.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Forwarded FYI from Paul Courtright . Please send any inquiries to Prof. Courtright. LN ------------------------------------------------------ Conference on Religion in South India Annual Workshop, University of Florida, Gainesville Thursday evening, June 19--Sunday noon, June 22, 1998 Theme: Nocturnal Realities in South Indian Religions This year's workshop will focus on the many ways in which Night figures in South Indian religious life. Topics such as night as a temporal locale for ritual performance, night as a symbol in poetic expression, night as a conceptual category (e.g., night = darkness) in philosophical and psychological discourses (e.g., night= ignorance or psychological trauma), night as a context for religio-cultural/political events (e.g., cinema, political rallies, etc.) Presentations may include detailed studies of particular texts, rituals, or events; and/or comparative explorations between traditions within South India and its diasporas. Please send or email a proposal by May 15 to Paul B. Courtright, Director, Asian Studies Program, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA, Phone: 404-727-2103; Fax: 404-727-6187, email: relpbc at emory.edu. Costs: $30.00 registration fee (includes Friday evening catered dinner of Indian cuisine at the home of Vasudha Narayan) Accommodations in the Reitz Union on the University of Florida Campus: dtandard double room, $40.00 per night + 6.00% tax (if two persons, each pays half); deluxe double room, $47.00 + 6.00% tax (if two persons, each pays half); single room, $40.00 per night + 6.00% tax Room charge includes continental breakfast. Persons interested in attending should contact Paul Courtright at the above address. The Conference on Religion in South India (CRSI) was formed in 1971 to support the academic study of religious traditions in South India and its areas of influence elsewhere. The CRSI sponsors an annual workshop in an informal setting where scholars can present their work at various stages of completion in a more extended and leisurely setting than most scholarly conferences can provide. It is an independent organization and is financially self-supporting. Emory University provides administrative support for publicizing the workshops. ------------------------ Lance Nelson Religious Studies University of San Diego lnelson at acusd.edu From thillaud at UNICE.FR Thu Mar 26 07:40:02 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 08:40:02 +0100 Subject: Origins of the Caste in Ancient India In-Reply-To: <19980325084905.16068.rocketmail@send1d.yahoomail.com> Message-ID: <161227037135.23782.12755951773469318679.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> sudheer birodkar wrote >In the new stone age these tribals lived in conditions >of savagery and barbarism. There obviously was no room for caste >division as each and every able-bodied male member had to help in the >tribe's only vocation of >hunting and gathering the means of subsistence. Probably a quite romantic vision, but that's not the problem. >But with the domestication of fire, things began to change. It became >necessary for some members of the Aryan tribes to undertake the task >of tending the fire and >prevent it from being extinguished. This was before the days when >humans learnt to ignite fire through friction. Initially the fire must >have been obtained from an >already burning source like forest fires. > >In these circumstances, before the days of ignition the task of >tending the fire was very crucial. The function of tending the fire >became a specialised one which >begun to be passed from father to son and this select group came to be >called Agni-hotras i.e. 'preservers of fire'. As they tended to the >fire they also roasted and >later cooked food for the entire tribe. > >Fire was then, as it still is, an object of worship as the tribal >peoples had seen fire as a powerful destructive medium in forest fires >and volcanic eruptions. By virtue >of being placed between the tribe and the domesticated fire, this >section of the tribe also performed functions like making offerings to >the fire and invoking it to spell >prosperity for the tribe, victory in war, etc., apart from cooking >which was their primary function. These Agni-hotras were the prototype >of the brahmin caste of >today. Some problems of datation and confusion between various stages of humankind "progress". It seems you neglect the importance of the neolithic "revolution" but that's a good point to show the role of the Agni-hotras in the constitution of the brahmin varna, even if that is perhaps an Indo-Aryan feature. But to link the cooking to the fire-cult is not so easy and some problems remain. Before going back to the Indian varnas, let me make (you know that's my domain) a small Greek digression: In Greece, the problem of the fire sacrifice is quite well known by myths (Prometheus) and history (organisation of cult in Vth century BCE). Simplifying: The sacrifice was a feast, the only circumstance where people eat meat, rituously equally shared between the human participants. The central character was the "mageiros" who was playing three roles: - acting as a priest, he kills the victim and give their part to the Gods (bones, fat, &c.), burning it in the fire. - acting as a butcher, he cuts equally the beast in pieces. - acting as a cook, he prepares the meal, roasting the offals and boiling the flesh. Clearly, he is competent in three domains which can be easily linked to the three dumezilian functions of the society, priesthood, warfare, nutrishment. Back to India, specially to the Vedic and epic times where sacrifying animals was accepted. There are two important clues which show the kshatriyas playing a role as butcher and/or cook. - a priest, the zamitR* was a kshatriya. - in Virata's kingdom, Bhima, one of the two "true kshatriya" Pandavas, disguise himself in cook; later, killing Duhshasana, he acts explicitely as a sacrifier. And you can remember a recent discussion on the list showing the potter treated as a brahmin. We can't reject the possibility that an evolution towards the "purity" of the fire cult and the elimination of the meat-eating, place the brahmins as the unique specialists of fire use. Hence, the importance of the Agni-hotra could be more recent than the "old stone age", that could explain why we don't find the equivalent in other civilization, even in Eurindian ones (excepting Iranian: the (pejorative) term used by the muslims in the "1001 Nights" to design the zoroastrians was uniquely "fire-worshippers" and I was invited to take part myself in 1968 to such perfumed sacrifice in the Iranian town of Yazd). Regards, Dominique * : my knowledge of the zamitR being just "second hand", I would be happy if some specialists can give textual references, specially on his exact role and his varna. Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Thu Mar 26 14:41:26 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 08:41:26 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227037144.23782.4289773091306838724.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Subhash C. Kak, On the classification of Indic languages, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 75, 1994, p. 185-195 This article will show light on the Indigenous Aryan school's views on linguistics, how two main language families, viz., Indo-Aryan and Dravidian exist etc., Regards, N. Ganesan From thillaud at UNICE.FR Thu Mar 26 07:56:34 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 08:56:34 +0100 Subject: Rig Vedic Racism In-Reply-To: <199803250847.JAA05193@online.no> Message-ID: <161227037138.23782.10751067360862795997.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin answer: >Dominique Thillaud wrote: > >> Even with the animals, the differences between them are not >>considered as "racial" but as "provenance". That's allways true today with >>the geographical names of cats, dogs, cows, &c. and I suppose the notion of >>"race" don't exist before Mendel. > >Actually I think it does. But it is not terribly old, at least not in the >modern sense. Dear Lars, I agree. I was simplifying. Perhaps this modern sense begins with the colonization of Africa and America and the "soul problem". But that was just a christian racism and I suppose Mendel's theories giving firstly a scientific approach, alas used later as a pseudo-scientific justification to various horrors :( Dominique PS: thanks for your clues, I'll try to give a report if I'm able ... Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From thillaud at UNICE.FR Thu Mar 26 08:45:55 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 09:45:55 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <351aa999.6257946@mail.wxs.nl> Message-ID: <161227037155.23782.5111058740684225122.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: >The rapprochement with Kartvelian that I mentioned (PIE *ok^toxw ~ PK >*os'txw) was not necessarily meant in a Nostratic context. Internal >analysis of the numbers is, as you say, difficult, and so is their >"external" analysis. On the face of it, there seem to be a number of >indications that there may have been a fair amount of borrowing of >numerals (especially in the range 6 to 9) going on at some early >stage, presumably the Neolithic. > >I personally have little doubt that Kartvelian *cxra- "9" was borrowed >from Semitic *tis3a(t)-, but I am more uncertain about Kartvelian >*arwa "8" < Semitic *?arba3a(t)- "4" as suggested by Johanna Nichols. >That Indo-European *septm "7" was borrowed from Semitic *sab3a(t)- "7" >is in my opinion a near-certainty, but I again I'm less positive about >PIE *s(w)ek^s "6" < Sem. *sidTa(t)- (Akk. s^is^s^-). The same goes >for Proto-Kartvelian *eks^w- "6" and *s^wid- "7" (from Semitic?) and >the already mentioned *os^txw- (from IE?). Finally there is the >interesting semantic parallel noted by Loprieno between Egyptian > "9" (cf. "new moon") and IE *(h1)newn "9" (cf. >*newos "new"): independent creation or calque, and if so, which way? > >I had better stop now, since all of this is of course only very >indirectly relevant to the topic of the "Indo-Aryan migration". >However, it *does* seem to suggest contacts between PIE and >PKartv/PSem. at an early date, as do some other borrowed Neolithic >items such as *tawros "bull" ~ PS. *Tawr-; *woinos "wine" ~ PS. >*wajn-, etc., contacts which are incompatible with both the Southern >Russian steppe-model AND the Indi-genous model. I'll stop after a trivial remark: We know from languages where the numbers are only "one, two, three, many" that the notion of numbers is probably not very old, perhaps linked with the neolithic and the new need to count grains' jars, cattle, &c. Hence, I accept easily the borrowing of their names as highly probable and the Mesopotomia (but not necessarily the "recent" Akkadian) plays perhaps a role in the process. But I'm strictly unable to understand: - why such "contacts are incompatible with both the Southern Russian steppe-model AND the Indi-genous model". The broad and ancient diffusion of neolithical technics is well known and probably earlier than an Eurindian dispersion. - how the borrowing of a coherent serie (eg. "4".."10") could be from different languages as showed in your examples. "7" is useless without "6" and "8" ... I'm persuaded that the process is much older than our linguistical knowledge, that, stones and bones don't talking, going farther than 2 or 3 millenars before the writing is dubious, and, personnally, I accept to be ignorant about this process, waiting for the development of well organized time-travels. Nothing but my opinion. Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From lsrinivas at YAHOO.COM Thu Mar 26 18:39:39 1998 From: lsrinivas at YAHOO.COM (Lakshmi Srinivas) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 10:39:39 -0800 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA Message-ID: <161227037161.23782.208596996434789516.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> ---Vidhyanath Rao wrote: > BTW, as long as I limit myself to words of IE origin that have undergone > only the >regular< sound changes to Sanskrit, I find it very hard to come > up with examples of contrasting pairs that exhibit dentals and retroflexes > as different phonemes. Of course, if we go to MIA, it is easy. Or if we > take unexplained retroflexion, as in .sa.s/.sa.t. But otherwise, > only laryngeals and voiced sibilants become zero in Sanskrit. I don't > see how to create contrasting pairs just with those. The difficulty of > finding contrasting pairs in RV may be due to the relative rarity of > backformations/borrowing from MIA, and loan words with retroflexes. > > ---- Since contrasting pairs seem hard to find, I would venture to suggest that we look for variants (of the same word) which have retroflexed and unretroflexed, say dental , forms. Hypothetically, if an unretroflexed form has been successfully handed down thru the medium of the RV, then perhaps this may represent one example where oral transmission did not introduce retroflexes where there were none. Afaik, such examples are available from later texts. For example, udumbara-uDumbara (Ficus Glomerata as per MW). The latter version is, I understand, the only one in Classical Sanskrit whereas the former version (with the dental) is attested in AV, TS etc.. (I don't know if that is the only form in those texts). This is somewhat different from the panyAt panyatarA example quoted by Prof. Deshpande. What about words like khala (threshing floor) which is attested in RV, which according to some experts (Burrow, Emeneau etc) is a Dravidian lw with a _retroflex in the original language_(?), but has been handed down pretty much without retroflex? Are these valid examples representing exceptions to the retroflexion due to oral transmission phenomenon? Regards. == Lakshmi Srinivas _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Thu Mar 26 15:43:29 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 10:43:29 -0500 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA Message-ID: <161227037147.23782.13675375401248207884.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George Thompson wrote: > But I am not attempting to figure out the origin of retroflexion in all of > IA. I am trying to figure out the origin of retroflexion in a specific > text, the RV. I am afraid that I don't understand this. Sound changes must affect dialects/langauges, not texts, right? > There is none in Avestan, there is some in RV, there is more > in later Vedic, and still more in Classical Sanskrit. But in RV, retroflexion occurs in phrases, across word boundaries. Why does this not become more common. > I assume that Dravidian is a factor in this development, but I do not know > how to characterize its role [convergence? substratum? an open question]. > Remember, the RV is an orally composed and orally transmitted text. > Therefore I think it is reasonable to take Deshpande's theory seriously. Only if the phenomena I mentioned can be explained: Preservation of aspiration, loss of retroflex sibilants in MIA that seems to go with the lack of retroflex sibilants in Dravidian, presence of alveolar vs retroflex contrast for stops and nasals in proto-Dravidian. My problem is that ``substratum influence'' has become a deux ex machina (sp?) in Indology. If we see any change, then the immediate reaction is to say ``substratum influence'', without looking for possibility of internal evolution. --- BTW, as long as I limit myself to words of IE origin that have undergone only the >regular< sound changes to Sanskrit, I find it very hard to come up with examples of contrasting pairs that exhibit dentals and retroflexes as different phonemes. Of course, if we go to MIA, it is easy. Or if we take unexplained retroflexion, as in .sa.s/.sa.t. But otherwise, only laryngeals and voiced sibilants become zero in Sanskrit. I don't see how to create contrasting pairs just with those. The difficulty of finding contrasting pairs in RV may be due to the relative rarity of backformations/borrowing from MIA, and loan words with retroflexes. ---- Regards -Nath From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Thu Mar 26 18:06:22 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 12:06:22 -0600 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate Message-ID: <161227037159.23782.3184117454868508752.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Upon netsurfing, I found an interesting website of NRIs. It is at www.indiastar.com. It has nice poems (eg., on Nataraja of Chidambaram by a girl born in US), articles (An Indian engineer/scientist's life in USA by Kollengode Venkataraman, Indian Roads by Palaniswami of Hinduism Today, ..) It hosts glorious reviews of books by S. C. Kak (faculty in electrical engg., at Louisiana state university), David Frawley, etc., of Indigenous Aryan school. What is interesting is the Bookforum where issues on Ancient India are discussed by indigenous Aryan schoolers. Samplers of recent postings by Sri. Subrahmanya who writes in Indology on his views of linguistics, apparent non-distictions between kannada/telugu and sanskrit and Dr. S. C. Kak are given below. It will be interesting to see the archives for 1997 and 1996. Only 1998 is there at www.indiastar.com bookforum. Regards, N. Ganesan >?From www.indiastar.com bookforum: ********************************************************************* Subject: Re: Indian art From: Subrahmanya To: Subhash Kak Forum: IndiaBooksForum: Date: Fri, Mar 06, 1998 The seated yogic figure with animals on the Gundestrup cauldron so very closely resembles the seal from the Indus-Sarasavati region which is identified to be Pashupati a so called Dravidian god!!!!. It is really fascinating that how much Celtic imagery resembles Indus-Sarasvati seals. -Subrahmanya *********************************************************************** Subject: Ancient India From: Subhash Kak Forum: IndiaBooksForum: Date: Tues, Mar 17, 1998 Just wished to bring to your attention that exciting new findings have been made regarding ancient Indian rock art. These prehistoric paintings and drawings go back to 40000 BP (before present). There are aspects in these sketches which show up later in the Harappan seal art. For those who would like to get acquainted with the literature, see ROCK ART IN THE OLD WORLD, edited by Michel Lorblanchet (1992). It appears that even our views regarding the formation of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization may be in for a major change! -Subhash Kak ***************************************************************************** From roheko at MSN.COM Thu Mar 26 14:02:57 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 15:02:57 +0100 Subject: ikSvAkuvaMza Message-ID: <161227037141.23782.7263004413364281135.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Any suggestion about the following middle-aged Jaina-source, which describes the origin of the ikkhAgu-vaMsa? Sakko (=Indra) maha-ppamANAo ikkhu-laTThIo gahAya uvagato jayAvei. !!! bhagavatA laTThIsu diTThI pADitA. !!! tAhe SakkeNa bhaNiyaM: kiM bhagavaM! ikkhu aku? aku bhakkhaNe. Then the Bhagavan stretched out his dakSiNa hand, atIva tammi hariso jAto bhagavantassa. taeNaM Sakkassa ayam eyArUve ajjhatthite: jamhA NaM titthagaro ikkhuM abhilasati tamhA ikkhAgu-vaMso bhavatu. evaM Sako vaMsaM ThaveUNa gato. There seems ikkhu + aku = ikSvAku-vaMza. Probably aku means a + ku (not + bad) ?Someone of the listmembers remembers how many knots there are on one sugarcane? Always the same number 2 ? Or different? Any suggestion?? Probably in connection with the twin-mythologem? Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE Thu Mar 26 15:57:12 1998 From: axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (Axel Michaels) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 16:57:12 +0100 Subject: JOB ANNOUNCEMENT Message-ID: <161227037151.23782.6928784798813462535.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At the South Asia Institute Heidelberg the chair for Cultural and Social Anthropology of South Asia (former chair of the late Prof. Richard Burghart)has been advertised. Dead line is 30th of April, 1998. Details can be found under: www.jobs.zeit.de. If you face problems, you can also contact me or (since I will be on vacation for a couple of days, Dr. Thomas Lehmann (d53 at ix,urz.uni-heidelberg.de): just send me your fax number. I will in return send you the (German) text of the ad. Best wishes, Axel Michaels From axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE Thu Mar 26 16:07:04 1998 From: axel.michaels at URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (Axel Michaels) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 17:07:04 +0100 Subject: Madonna and Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227037153.23782.7128122370176176598.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I read in an interview with Madonna that an American Professor taught Sanskrit to her. Does anybody know who it was? I would like to teach her Nepali. Best wishes, A.M. From thillaud at UNICE.FR Thu Mar 26 16:43:45 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 17:43:45 +0100 Subject: Madonna and Sanskrit In-Reply-To: <351A7D28.5CC@urz.uni-heidelberg.de> Message-ID: <161227037182.23782.7497349127914320071.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >I read in an interview with Madonna that an American Professor taught >Sanskrit to her. Does anybody know who it was? I would like to teach her >Nepali. >Best wishes, A.M. Strange idea; I would like to learn anything from her ... Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From roheko at MSN.COM Thu Mar 26 16:51:47 1998 From: roheko at MSN.COM (Rolf Heiner Koch) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 17:51:47 +0100 Subject: Madonna and Sanskrit Message-ID: <161227037157.23782.14158013337604633405.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Really really sorry, but Nepali is out of fashion for Madonna. Could you imagine why I am learning day and night Gujarati? Mfg RHK roheko at msn.com -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Axel Michaels An: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Datum: Donnerstag, 26. M?rz 1998 17:01 Betreff: Madonna and Sanskrit >I read in an interview with Madonna that an American Professor taught >Sanskrit to her. Does anybody know who it was? I would like to teach her >Nepali. >Best wishes, A.M. > From thillaud at UNICE.FR Thu Mar 26 17:10:57 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 18:10:57 +0100 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA In-Reply-To: <199803261543.KAA09827@math.mps.ohio-state.edu> Message-ID: <161227037184.23782.14070120073366060274.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Vidhyanath Rao wrote: >My problem is that ``substratum influence'' has become a deux ex machina (sp?) >in Indology. If we see any change, then the immediate reaction is to >say ``substratum influence'', without looking for possibility of >internal evolution. Alas, not just in Indology! Supposed loan words and postulated "substratum influence" are the medicine against the unknown in the all range of the linguistic! Fabulous domains where there are no rules nor laws: not even necessary to give any clue about the mysterious influencing language, the best being to choose it very bad known or even undeciphered! Thraco-Phrygian, Lycian, Illyrian, even Etruscan or Minoan are the common shops of a lot of Hellenists... Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL Thu Mar 26 21:51:04 1998 From: zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL (Robert Zydenbos) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 19:51:04 -0200 Subject: request for e-mail address Message-ID: <161227037166.23782.4176432048761835794.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Could anyone please pass on to me the e-mail address of the Poornaprajna Vidyapitha in Bangalore? RZ From mcv at WXS.NL Thu Mar 26 19:54:29 1998 From: mcv at WXS.NL (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 19:54:29 +0000 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037164.23782.14689814698071003176.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > But I'm strictly unable to understand: > - why such "contacts are incompatible with both the Southern >Russian steppe-model AND the Indi-genous model". The broad and ancient >diffusion of neolithical technics is well known and probably earlier than >an Eurindian dispersion. "Incompatible" was probably too strong a word. Johanna Nichols, in her article "The Epicentre of the Indo-European Linguistic Spread" [in: Archaeology and Language I", Blench/Spriggs eds., 1997] actually uses these numerals and some other words like "bull" etc. to prove a Central Asian origin of Indo-European (and Kartvelian). I strongly disagree, but there you have it. The question is: why do we find these (possible) borrowings between IE, Kartvelian, Semitic, and why do we not find them in, say, Dravidian, NW and NE Caucasian, Altaic etc.? The diffusion may have been broad, but it wasn't that broad! And, again, why do we (possibly) find them in Basque (sei "6", zazpi "7") and Etruscan (s'a "6", semph "7")? And are the Berber words (sd.is "6", sa "7") borrowings as well, or inherited from Afro-Asiatic? Questions, questions... Another question (out of curiosity): why "Eurindian" instead of Indo-European? ======================= Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl Amsterdam From mittals at MAGELLAN.UMONTREAL.CA Fri Mar 27 03:14:44 1998 From: mittals at MAGELLAN.UMONTREAL.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 22:14:44 -0500 Subject: FYI: Upcoming articles.... Message-ID: <161227037170.23782.6152060589259348251.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HINDU STUDIES, the _only_ fieldwide triannual scholarly, refereed journal on Hindu religion. IJHS is the preeminent scholarly publication in Hindu Studies today. Upcoming articles for Volume 2 (1998) include: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The Indo-European prehistory of _Yoga_ N. J. Allen, University of Oxford At home in the world: The lives of Sitadevi Rebecca J. Manring, Indiana University The Gurav Jatipuranas Jayant Bhalchandra Bapat, Monash University Theosophy and the origins of the Indian National Congress Mark Bevir, University of Newcastle Indianization versus Sanskritization in Javanese law Mason C. Hoadley, Lund University Indianizatoin versus Pali-ization in Burmese law Andrew Huxley, London University Ajatsattu and the future of psychoanalytic anthropology. Part III of III: Culture, imagination, and the wish Dan W. Forsyth, University of Southern Colorado Matrimonials: A variation of arranged marriages Rajgopal Ryali, Auburn University Early Advaita and Madhyamaka Buddhism: The case of the _Gaudaaidyakarika_ Richard King, University of Stirling --------------------------------------------- And more...Final list will be announced soon. --------------------------------------------- An issue entitled "Hinduism and Religion" Working through Traditions: Yoga and the Synthesis of Indic Religions Christopher Chapple, Loyala Marymount University Looking at Eucharist through the Lens of Puja: An Exploration in Comparative Ritual Studies Paul Courtright, Emory University Empire, Invasion, and India's Epics Alf Hiltebeitel, The George Washington University Body Connections: Hindu Discourse of the Body and the Study of Religion Barbara Holdrege, University of California Santa Barbara _Sabdapramana_: Hindu Contributions to Understanding the Meaning and Function of Scripture Anantanand Rambachan, St. Olaf College Questioning Authority: Constructions and Deconstructions of Hinduism Brian K. Smith, University of California, Riverdale ========================================================================= The annual subscription rates, which includes postage, for the Journal are N. America Rest of World Institutions: $150 $156 Individuals: $60 $66 Students: $30 $36 Orders from outside Canada must be paid in U.S. dollars. Canadian orders must add 7% GST (#138810882). Contact: World Heritage Press 1270 St-Jean, St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada J2S 8M2 Tel (514) 771 0213 Fax (514) 771 2776 Journal Homepage: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/ijhs ========================================================================= CONTENTS Volume 1 (1997) ~ 656 pages April issue ----------- ARTICLES: The center and circumference of silence: Yoga, poststructuralism, and the rhetoric of paradox ~ 3-18 George Kalamaras, Indiana Univeristy-Purdue University Imagining Ayodhya: Utopia and its shadows in a Hindu landscape ~ 19-54 Philip Lutgendorf, University of Iowa The power of space in a traditional Hindu city ~ 55-71 Robert I. Levy, University of California San Diego Mountains of wisdom: On the interface between Siddha and Vidyadhara cults and the Siddha orders in Medieval India ~ 73-95 David Gordon White, University of California, Santa Barbara Temple rites and temple servants: Religion's role in the survival of Kerala's Kutiyattam drama tradition ~ 97-115 Bruce M. Sullivan, Northern Arizona University Bengali religious nationalism and communalism ~ 117-39 Peter Heehs, Aurobindo Ashram Ajatasattu and the future of psychoanalytic anthropology Part I of III: The promise of a culture ~ 141-64 Dan W. Forsyth, University of Southern Colorado Advaita Vedanta and typologies of multiplicity and unity: An interpretation of nondual knowledge ~ 165-88 Joseph Milne, University of Kent BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES ~ 189-220 August issue ------------ ARTICLES: When Rahu devours the moon: The myth of the birth of Krsna Caitanya ~ 221-64 Tony K. Stewart, North Carolina State University The yogi and the Goddess ~ 265-87 Nicholas F. Gier, University of Idaho Jaina ideology and early Mughal trade with Europeans ~ 288-313 Ellison Banks Findly, Trinity College Ajatasattu and the future of psychoanalytic anthropology Part II of III: The imperative of the wish ~ 314-36 Dan W. Forsyth, University of Southern Colorado What's a God? The quest for the right understanding of devata in Brahmanical ritual theory (mimamsa) ~ 337-85 Francis X. Clooney, Boston College Radhakrishnan as advocate of the class/caste system as a universal religio-social system ~ 386-400 Robert N. Minor, University of Kansas Scandals, cover-ups, and other imagined occurences in the life of Ramakrsna: An examination of Jeffrey Kripal's _Kali's child_ ~ 401-20 Svami Atmajnanananda [birthname, Stuart Elkman], Ramakrsna Order BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES, ~ 421-40 December issue -------------- A Book Symposium of Robert I. Levy's _Mesocosm: Hinduism and the organization of a traditional Newar city in Nepal Goddesses dancing in the city: Hinduism in an urban incarnation A review article ~ 441-84 Steven M. Parish, University of California, San Diego Sacred Space and the city: Greece and Bhaktapur ~ 485-499 Michael H. Jameson, Stanford University Macrocosm, mesocosm, and microcosm: The persistent nature of 'Hindu' beliefs and symbolical forms ~ 501-39 Michael Witzel, Harvard University Does symbolism 'construct an urban mesocosm'? Robert Levy's _Mesocosm_ and the question of value consensus in Bhaktapur ~ 541-64 David N. Gellner, Brunel University Kingship and 'contra-priests' ~ 565-80 Declan Quigley, Queen's University of Belfast Afterthoughts ~ 581-95 Robert I. Levy, University of California San Diego BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES ~ 597-644 =========================================================================== From Vaidix at AOL.COM Fri Mar 27 04:44:39 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 98 23:44:39 -0500 Subject: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037172.23782.16078218889633757433.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> List members, I see that asparza yoga (mentioned in gauDapAdA kArikA) in absent in zaGkarA's writings which implies that saGkarA did not follow up on yoga/meditative aspects, but placed all his emphasis on logic. As for VivekanandA, one statement that I thought is his original (most other stuff is spiritual), reads something like "Education is the manifestation of the knowledge that is already in the mind etc". This implies that people already know, but the knowledge is just uncovered by the process of education. Any one knows this idea is expressed by any thinker before him? Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From Vaidix at AOL.COM Fri Mar 27 06:22:48 1998 From: Vaidix at AOL.COM (Vaidix) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 01:22:48 -0500 Subject: Consecration yajJa: Evidence of Embryonic Psychology Message-ID: <161227037174.23782.14498964778864753066.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear list members Following is an interpretation of some of the symbolism used in consecration sacrifice (dIkSA) (ref: aitareya brAhmaNA). ABSTRACT The gods agni and viSNu are described as two ends of the sacrifice, and also as lords of consecration (of the yajamAnA, the performer of the sacrifice). It was also mentioned that the consecrated becomes an embryo. The circumstantial evidence points to the psychology of the embryo which is living in the mother's womb. The embryo, in its early stages only has a head and a tail (which were to become its feet). It eats/drinks the placental fluids with its mouth and dives with its feet. As it swims/dives using its feet it goes to newer places within the womb and the food becomes plentiful as it finds more food at the other places. Therefore the embryo thinks as it were, logically, that striding with its feet is the cause of its food. But then, head is agni, and feet are viSNu (please note viSNu's association with striding). Therefore the embryo's life is made up of meditation re: agni and viSNu, which is no other than consecration sacrifice. This process does not end with the delivery. The traits continue in the living being even after delivery, till death. Therefore whenever a person finds something new, one observes a tingling sensation in ones feet (it needs some keen observation). Also one respects elders by touching feet because the intention is to respect the viSNu that feeds that person. The meditation re: agni and viSNu as described above has been observed to be equivalent to pUraka prANAyAmA. ------------------------------ Any criticism is welcome from various angles including literary, yoga, srautA etc. Regards Bhadraiah Mallampalli From mittals at MAGELLAN.UMONTREAL.CA Fri Mar 27 11:44:50 1998 From: mittals at MAGELLAN.UMONTREAL.CA (Mittal Sushil) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 06:44:50 -0500 Subject: Book Review Panel Message-ID: <161227037181.23782.16033923184616819958.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> BOOK REVIEW PANEL _International Journal of Hindu Studies_ wishes to add to its files the names of individuals willing to undertake occasional book review assignments for the Journal. It is important to keep our reviewers files up to date in order to have access to as broad a group of scholars as possible for the numerous book review assignments. _International Journal of Hindu Studies_ invites interested individuals to complete the form below and mail/email it to: Carl Olson Review Editor IJHS Department of Religious Studies Allegheny College Meadville, Pennsylvania 16335-3902 USA Tel: (814) 332 3313 Fax: (814) 333 8180 Email: colson at alleg.edu ======================================================================= Journal Homepage: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/ijhs ======================================================================= _International Journal of Hindu Studies_ Book Review Panel I would be willing to accept occasional assignments to review books for _International Journal of Hindu Studies_. Name: Mailing address: Tel nos: Work: Home: Fax no: Email: Present position, Institutional affiliation (if any): Academic discipline (e.g., Religion, Anthropology): Subject interest (e.g., folklore, women): Geographical area of interest (e.g., India, Nepal) Specialist research (e.g., Kashmir Saivite theory of aesthetics) Cite one recent title you have published (publisher and date): Signature: Date: ======================================================================= From lsrinivas at YAHOO.COM Fri Mar 27 15:47:04 1998 From: lsrinivas at YAHOO.COM (Lakshmi Srinivas) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 07:47:04 -0800 Subject: A Correction Message-ID: <161227037188.23782.15308305179729718369.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I wrote: >Afaik, such examples are available from later texts. For example, >udumbara-uDumbara (Ficus Glomerata as per MW). The latter version is, > I understand, the only one in Classical Sanskrit whereas the former > version (with the dental) is attested in AV, TS etc.. (I don't know > if that is the only form in those texts). The third sentence in the above paragraph should read: The latter version is, I understand, attested only in Classical Sanskrit whereas the former version (with the dental) is attested in AV, TS etc.. The error is regretted. Warm Regards. == Lakshmi Srinivas _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From g.v.simson at EAST.UIO.NO Fri Mar 27 08:32:21 1998 From: g.v.simson at EAST.UIO.NO (Georg von Simson) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 09:32:21 +0100 Subject: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. In-Reply-To: <2369fe79.351b2eb9@aol.com> Message-ID: <161227037176.23782.14238807006336980094.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Bhadraiah Mallampalli wrote: >As for VivekanandA, one statement that I thought is his original (most other >stuff is spiritual), reads something like "Education is the manifestation of >the knowledge that is already in the mind etc". This implies that people >already know, but the knowledge is just uncovered by the process of education. >Any one knows this idea is expressed by any thinker before him? Platon, of course! Regards, Georg v. Simson From brao at POLLUX.USC.EDU Fri Mar 27 17:53:23 1998 From: brao at POLLUX.USC.EDU (Bapa Rao) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 09:53:23 -0800 Subject: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. In-Reply-To: <2369fe79.351b2eb9@aol.com> Message-ID: <161227037198.23782.18414047205807690094.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > > List members, > > I see that asparza yoga (mentioned in gauDapAdA kArikA) in absent in zaGkarA's > writings which implies that saGkarA did not follow up on yoga/meditative > aspects, but placed all his emphasis on logic. > > As for VivekanandA, one statement that I thought is his original (most other > stuff is spiritual), reads something like "Education is the manifestation of > the knowledge that is already in the mind etc". This implies that people > already know, but the knowledge is just uncovered by the process of education. > Any one knows this idea is expressed by any thinker before him? Etymology of the word "education" : "drawing out", as opposed to "putting in." The humorist P.G. Wodehouse was often fond of portraying this as an old cliched theme favored by stuffy dons who give boring lectures to schoolchildren. Don't know if Wodehouse got the idea from Vivekananda or not. :-) Bapa Rao From kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET Fri Mar 27 19:11:50 1998 From: kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET (Paul K. Manansala) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 11:11:50 -0800 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA Message-ID: <161227037201.23782.16233950924496310099.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > Vidhyanath Rao wrote: > > >My problem is that ``substratum influence'' has become a deux ex machina (sp?) > >in Indology. If we see any change, then the immediate reaction is to > >say ``substratum influence'', without looking for possibility of > >internal evolution. > > Alas, not just in Indology! Supposed loan words and postulated > "substratum influence" are the medicine against the unknown in the all > range of the linguistic! Fabulous domains where there are no rules nor > laws: not even necessary to give any clue about the mysterious influencing > language, the best being to choose it very bad known or even undeciphered! > Thraco-Phrygian, Lycian, Illyrian, even Etruscan or Minoan are the common > shops of a lot of Hellenists... > Regards, > Dominique > By the same token, are those who try overly hard to deny "substratum"influences showing interest in language"purity"? Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Fri Mar 27 17:52:18 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 11:52:18 -0600 Subject: Rammohun Roy Message-ID: <161227037196.23782.10190536893783801619.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> I read a quote by Rammohun Roy: "The Sanskrit language, so difficult that almost a lifetime is necessary for its acquisition, is well known to have been for ages a lamantable check to the diffusion of knowledge. And, the learning concealed under this almost impervious veil is far from sufficient to reward the labour of acquiring it". Where does Rammohun Roy say this? Regards, N. Ganesan From mmdesh at UMICH.EDU Fri Mar 27 16:56:47 1998 From: mmdesh at UMICH.EDU (Madhav Deshpande) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 11:56:47 -0500 Subject: Sanskrit Retroflexes In-Reply-To: <19980327154704.17503.rocketmail@send1a.yahoomail.com> Message-ID: <161227037191.23782.17744937107795884193.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Suggestions for Dravidian role in the development are discussed in a paper "Retroflexion in Sanskrit" by D.H. Killingley. This paper was published in the Proceedings of the First International Conference of Tamil Studies, Kuala Lumpur. International Academy of Tamil Research, 1966, pp. 596-606. Somehow I missed this excellent paper when I published my own paper "Genesis of Rigvedic Retroflexion". Dr. Killingly was kind enough to send me a copy. The discussion of phonetic motivations in the emergance of Sanskrit retroflexion is worth reading. All the best, Madhav Deshpande From aktor at COCO.IHI.KU.DK Fri Mar 27 09:58:42 1998 From: aktor at COCO.IHI.KU.DK (Mikael Aktor) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 11:58:42 +0200 Subject: YogasUtra, Update Message-ID: <161227037179.23782.9101687944431900674.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear listmembers, One of my postgrad students is doing research on relations between yoga and sAMkhya. As he is not on this list, I promised him to ask for updated references to literature on the Yoga SUtra. He is particularly interested in YS _as text_ (history, background etc.). In this connection: do some of you know what happened to the book by T. Gelblum on Yoga Philosophy, planned as part of Fasc. 5 in the 6th vol. of Gonda's History of Indian Literature?. And now we are on that subject, what about the other missing parts (e.g. UpaniSads)? Kind regards Mikael Aktor, University of Aarhus, Denmark aktor at post8.tele.dk From girish at MUSHIKA.WANET.COM Fri Mar 27 21:11:29 1998 From: girish at MUSHIKA.WANET.COM (Girish Sharma) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 13:11:29 -0800 Subject: Bhaa.sya on Graha names Message-ID: <161227037206.23782.12391956604871514952.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Are there any traditional Bhaa.sya-s on the 108 names of each of the nine planets? If so, does anyone have references for available editions? Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------- Girish Sharma San Diego, CA From thillaud at UNICE.FR Fri Mar 27 13:14:05 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 14:14:05 +0100 Subject: Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate In-Reply-To: <3527aecf.73138547@mail.wxs.nl> Message-ID: <161227037186.23782.15150923574896870758.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Another question (out of curiosity): why "Eurindian" instead of >Indo-European? >Miguel Carrasquer Vidal This personnal neologism was early polemical, an answer to a German scholar defending "indogermanisch" with the argument: "too much hiatus in *indoeuropaeisch!". Hence, I suggested Eurindian, eurindisch, eurindien, evrindikos, &c. as a simple alternate solution, just refering to the two subcontinents. There was also a funny hommage to the Indian brothers, their part becoming the more stressed in this new compound, fitting well against the English colonization and, for the old Frenchman I am, against the well-known "ueberalles". But all this is past. Today, I've just one answer: SHORTER! Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From vnjha at UNIPUNE.ERNET.IN Fri Mar 27 20:49:33 1998 From: vnjha at UNIPUNE.ERNET.IN (Prof. V. N. Jha) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 15:49:33 -0500 Subject: new courses Message-ID: <161227037227.23782.11894307347404658580.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear colleagues! From July 1998 our Centre is introducing the following new courses: 1.Research-oriented M.A. in Sanskrit Linguistics (Mimamsa,Vyakarana) of duration of two years. 2.Post-graduate Diploma in Sanskrit Linguistics (Mimamsa,Vyakarana) of duration of one year. 3.Research-oriented M.A. in Indian Logic and Epistemology of duration of two years. 4.Post-graduate Diploma in Indian Logic and Epistemology of duration of one year. Master's degree is necessary for admission.Details are available on http://www.unipune.ernet.in/dept/cass/san_home.htm Would you kindly encourage scholars and students to take advantage of these courses. Yours sincerely VNJha ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- VASHISHTHA NARAYAN JHA Residence Office Professor and Director,CASS, (Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit) Shree Raj Heritage, University of Pune,Ganeshkhind, Flat No.204,Bhusari Colony, Pune 411007,Maharashtra, Paud Road, India Pune 411029,Maharashtra, India phone:00-91-212-354220 CASS office 00-91-212-356061 phone:00-91-212-349802 extention 2196 chamber telegraph:UNIPUNA telex: 01457719 UNIP IN fax: 0212353899 home page:http://www.unipune.ernet.in/ dept/cass/san_home.htm e-mail:vnjha at unipune.ernet.in ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From ramakris at EROLS.COM Sat Mar 28 01:07:48 1998 From: ramakris at EROLS.COM (Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 17:07:48 -0800 Subject: Humans, animals and plants Message-ID: <161227037646.23782.8233859597533883220.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> N. Ganesan wrote: > Any references on Siva in a historical perspective > that I must read. Suggestions welcome. Vedic Rudra-Siva, by Doris M. Srinivasan. JAOS 103.3 (1983) pp. 543-556. Rudra from the vedas to the Mahabharata, Sukumari Bhattacharji, ABORI, Vol 41-43, pp. 85-128. References from these would be a good starting point. The classical reference is Sivaism and Vishunism, by Jan Gonda though the references here are a bit dated. You could also try Medeival Religious Literature in Sanskrit, by Jan Gonda, Chapters I, X, XI, XII, XIII for some general material about North Indian Saivism. A book which I haven't read yet is Vaishnavism, Saivism and minor religious systems, by Sir R. G. Bhandarkar. Of course the references here must be pretty old also. Rama. From kradhikary at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU Fri Mar 27 17:50:43 1998 From: kradhikary at MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU (Kamal R. Adhikary) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 17:50:43 +0000 Subject: Paper abstracts Message-ID: <161227037193.23782.3132743653154557836.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear colleagues: The abstracts of the papers to be presented at the symposium on "Affirmative Action in Comparative Perspective: India and the United States," University of Texas, Austin, 10 April 1998, are given below: "Affirmative Action in Comparative Perspective: India and the United States," University of Texas, Austin, 10 April 1998. ABSTRACTS PANEL 1 Troy Duster, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley "Masking Group Privilege Behind the Rhetoric of Individual Fairness: Synchronicity and Harmony Among Historical Elites in India, South Africa, and the United States" In 1996, I joined a tri-national commission looking at the sharp and sometimes dramatic transformations in the composition of the students in higher education in South Africa, India and the United States. At first glance, it would appear that, on this topic, these three countries have little in common. (Albeit the U.S. is characterized as the oldest democracy, South Africa the newest, and India the largest democracy). Despite important differences, there is an astonishing similarity in the rhetoric of each of the historically privileged groups across the nations. Since the official end of the caste system in India, in 1948, the higher castes have complained about "group preferences" in government policies aimed at providing greater access to higher education of the lower castes and the "outcastes." Since the Civil Rights Act of 1965, whites in the United States have routinely complained about "group preferences" in government-backed policies aimed at providing greater access of Blacks to higher education. Since the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1993, many white South Africans have complained about group preferences in government policies aimed at providing greater access of Blacks to higher education. A close examination of the rhetoric in relationship to continuing social stratifying practices reveals a mask in the new found elevation of "the individual." Sunita Parikh, Asst. Professor of Political Science, Washington University "Mandal and the Electoral Imperative: Caste and Party Politics in Contemporary India" The expansion of affirmative action, or reservations, in India, to groups beyond its original beneficiaries has been fraught with conflict to a far greater extent than the analogous policy in the United States. Yet while American affirmative action is under strong pressure from the public, elected officials, and the courts, Indian reservations continue to be institutionalized. What explains these divergent outcomes? In this paper I argue that the differences in the sizes of the targeted groups, the nature of party politics, and the symbolic and practical salience of the policies for the "backward classes" made it impossible for any party, even the upper-caste-based Bharatiya Janata Party, to repudiate reservations in theory or practice. But it is not enough to merely note the endurance of reservations as a result of the interests of critical voters and vote-seeking politicians. The institutionalization of new forms of caste-conscious policies have had major ramifications not just for politics, but for the ways groups identify themselves in the political arena. In current Indian politics, myriad caste categories are being collapsed into two main groups: the "forwards" and "backwards." These two groups, along with Dalits and minorities (mainly Muslims), comprise the vast majority of the electorate, and all parties are forced to attract support from both "forwards" and "backwards" if they hope to play a role at the center. I explore the case of Bihar to to evaluate the effects of the "Mandalization" of caste politics in a specific context. PANEL 2 Ravina Aggarwal, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Smith College "Reserving the Border: The Question of Tribal Identity in Indi In 1989, after a series of negotiations and protests, 85% of the residents of the Ladakh Himalayas were granted Scheduled Tribe status by the government of India. In this paper, I explore the construction of tribal identity in Ladakh by discussing the implications of reservation policies on categories of religion, class and national citizenship. These issues become all the more poignant given Ladakh's strategic location in the state of Jammu and Kashmir bordering Pakistan and occupied Tibet. By linking these events to the flows of global capital and militarization in the area, I attempt to locate avenues through which critical area studies research can provide insights into the cross-cultural understanding of affirmative action. "For I am also Jim Crowed": India in the heart of Black America. Vijay Prashad, Assistant Professor of International Studies, Trinity College While American Orientalism (Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau) saw "India" as the font of spirituality, Black Americans found in India another front in the fight against white supremacy. While the Vedanta Society attracted alienated white Americans, THE CRISIS reported on the work of the Indian nationalist movement. The divergence in these views will be explored in this essay. I will also trace the shift in the view of "Gandhi," at once the messiah of struggle, but now, in some circles, considered to be anti-dalit. Here I will offer an analysis of Rajshekar's The Black Untouchable, Dalit borrowings from the black liberation movement, as well as the activism of Dalits in the US from the 1970s onwards. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Discussant: Eleanor Zeliot The abstracts are also posted at: http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/upcoming98.html, and http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/whatisnew1998.html Thanks. Kamal From pwyzlic at PWYZ.RHEIN.DE Fri Mar 27 17:17:31 1998 From: pwyzlic at PWYZ.RHEIN.DE (Peter Wyzlic) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 18:17:31 +0100 Subject: YogasUtra, Update In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037203.23782.9967477731392685404.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >> Mikael Aktor wrote Fri, 27 Mar 1998 11:58:42 +0200: MA> In this connection: do some of you know what happened to the book by MA> T. Gelblum on Yoga Philosophy, planned as part of Fasc. 5 in the MA> 6th vol. of Gonda's History of Indian Literature?. And now we are on MA> that subject, what about the other missing parts (e.g. UpaniSads)? In 1997, the publisher of the series, Harrassowitz in Wiesbaden, informed us that the series is closed now. As I understand it, the volumes or parts you are referring to will remain unpublished -- at least as part of the series "History of Indian Literature". Peter Wyzlic From kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET Sat Mar 28 02:19:41 1998 From: kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET (Paul K. Manansala) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 18:19:41 -0800 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA Message-ID: <161227037213.23782.15674861372657955594.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Dominique.Thillaud" wrote: > >By the same token, are those who try overly hard to deny > >"substratum"influences showing interest in language"purity"? > > > >Paul Kekai Manansala > > I don't have any interest in language "purity". As other ones, my > mother tongue is a marvellous mixing of an ancient evolution and of words > coming from everywhere in the world when their meanings were needed. > I'm not racist, nor nationalist; on the contrary! > I don't deny "substratum" influences nor borrowing of words. > I just criticize those who use the notion without any proof, just > to mask their ignorance. > Reading an etymological dictionnary, I prefer to read "unknown" > than "XXX loan word" without any serious analysis of the phonetical > ajustment and of the historical circumstances. > Then, you would be very careful to suggest loan words in other languages also? Do you think the suggestion that retroflexion in IA is of foreign lacks serious analysis? Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL Fri Mar 27 20:49:44 1998 From: zydenbos at FLEVOLAND.XS4ALL.NL (Robert Zydenbos) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 18:49:44 -0200 Subject: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037229.23782.12796477064545763550.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Replies to msg 27 Mar 98: indology at listserv.liv.ac.uk (Vaidix) VC> As for VivekanandA, one statement that I thought is his VC> original (most other VC> stuff is spiritual), reads something like "Education is the VC> manifestation of VC> the knowledge that is already in the mind etc". This VC> implies that people VC> already know, but the knowledge is just uncovered by the VC> process of education. VC> Any one knows this idea is expressed by any thinker before VC> him? This is basically the Jaina view of knowledge: the soul, which _is_ knowledge (in a certain sense; we should of course always be careful when translating such terms) is clouded / covered by karma, and as the soul is purified (i.e., karma is removed) the innate pure knowledge (which is omniscience) manifests itself increasingly. (This is just one ancient view with which I am familiar. Are there any comparable views, of comparable antiquity?) Robert Zydenbos zydenbos at flevoland.xs4all.nl From george9252 at EMAIL.MSN.COM Sat Mar 28 01:13:21 1998 From: george9252 at EMAIL.MSN.COM (George Cronk) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 20:13:21 -0500 Subject: Book Review Panel Message-ID: <161227037208.23782.2804645430215554193.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> -----Original Message----- From: Mittal Sushil To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK Date: Friday, March 27, 1998 6:47 AM Subject: Book Review Panel >BOOK REVIEW PANEL > >_International Journal of Hindu Studies_ wishes to add to its files the >names of individuals willing to undertake occasional book review >assignments for the Journal. It is important to keep our reviewers files >up to date in order to have access to as broad a group of scholars as >possible for the numerous book review assignments. > >_International Journal of Hindu Studies_ invites interested individuals to >complete the form below and mail/email it to: > >Carl Olson >Review Editor IJHS >Department of Religious Studies >Allegheny College >Meadville, Pennsylvania 16335-3902 >USA > >Tel: (814) 332 3313 >Fax: (814) 333 8180 >Email: colson at alleg.edu > >======================================================================== >Journal Homepage: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/ijhs >======================================================================== > >_International Journal of Hindu Studies_ Book Review Panel > >I would be willing to accept occasional assignments to review books for >_International Journal of Hindu Studies_. > > >Name: Dr. George Cronk > > >Mailing address: Bergen Community College 400 Paramus Road Paramus, NJ 07652 > > > > >Tel nos: Work: (201)447-7167 > Home: (973)238-1009 > > >Fax no: (973)238-1009 > > >Email: george9252 at msn.com george190 at juno.com > > >Present position, Institutional affiliation (if any): Professor of Philosophy & Religion; Chair, Department of Philosophy & Religion, Bergen Community College > > > >Academic discipline (e.g., Religion, Anthropology): Philosophy, Religion, Law > > > >Subject interest (e.g., folklore, women): History of Philosophy; Eastern Philosophy; Logic; Metaphysics; Episteomology > > > > > >Geographical area of interest (e.g., India, Nepal) India, China > > > >Specialist research (e.g., Kashmir Saivite theory of aesthetics) > >Advaita Vedanta Indian Philosophy > > > >Cite one recent title you have published (publisher and date): > >Eight Philosophical Classics, Harcourt Brace (1998) > > > >Signature: George Cronk > > >Date: March 27, 1998 > >======================================================================== From amnev at HOTMAIL.COM Sat Mar 28 08:54:54 1998 From: amnev at HOTMAIL.COM (Amos Nevo) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 00:54:54 -0800 Subject: Bhaa.sya on Graha names Message-ID: <161227037215.23782.16603281694791287619.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 13:11:29 -0800 >Reply-To: Indology >From: Girish Sharma >Subject: Bhaa.sya on Graha names >To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK > >Are there any traditional Bhaa.sya-s on the 108 names >of each of the nine planets? If so, does anyone have >references for available editions? Thank you. > > >------------------------------------------------------- > >Girish Sharma >San Diego, CA > Shalom to all, A summary of the worship of the nine planetsw can be found in "the Gods of India" byE. Osborn Martin pp. 295-299. Amos Nevo 14/51 Bolivia St. Jerusalem 96746 ISRAEL fAX. 972 2 6419215 Email: amnev at hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From thillaud at UNICE.FR Sat Mar 28 00:18:46 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 01:18:46 +0100 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA In-Reply-To: <199803271847.KAA17651@dry.jps.net> Message-ID: <161227037210.23782.2188042865099349143.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >By the same token, are those who try overly hard to deny >"substratum"influences showing interest in language"purity"? > >Paul Kekai Manansala I don't have any interest in language "purity". As other ones, my mother tongue is a marvellous mixing of an ancient evolution and of words coming from everywhere in the world when their meanings were needed. I'm not racist, nor nationalist; on the contrary! I don't deny "substratum" influences nor borrowing of words. I just criticize those who use the notion without any proof, just to mask their ignorance. Reading an etymological dictionnary, I prefer to read "unknown" than "XXX loan word" without any serious analysis of the phonetical ajustment and of the historical circumstances. I can give you a funny example (alas in the Greek domain, but I'm sure you're able to find other ones in Indian domain): The Greek knows (Herodotos) a word "angaros" with the meaning "official courier of the Achemenid empire". ALL the etym.dict., even the betters, say: "Persian loan word". Alas, the word is strictly unknown in any Persian text nor any near word, nor in any near language! How, in such circumstances, can a scholar write seriously "Persian loan word"?? In fact the word can be precisely dated by the institution itself, the first great www established by Darios (Dariush). Remembering that Greek peoples (Ionian) were in the Persian Empire and examining the Iranian phonetism (no equivalent of the Greek "e", confusion between "l" and "r"), it becomes evident that "angaros" is nothing but the Greek "angelos" (messenger) pronounced with a strong Persian accent! The first word to say, even not knowing the Greek, the only word to know to save himself in an unexpected encounter! And that's not just a funny story! This pseudo-Persian "angaros" had given for a long time a false track to study the Greek "angelos", leading to reject the hypothesis of "h1" to explain the "e" despite the frequency of the suffixation -h1lo- in Greek, hence to reject the link with aGgiras ... I remember my Professor of Greek and Sanskrit saying about a submitted work: "Votre hypothese est absurde, elle ne tient pas compte du perse angaros!". I was young and impulsive, I threw the work in the trash can, said few irreparable words, banged the door, and was never diplomed in Classicals. Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Sat Mar 28 12:34:30 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 06:34:30 -0600 Subject: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. Message-ID: <161227037222.23782.11536967864327236667.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Re: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. Bhadraiah Mallampalli wrote: >As for VivekanandA, one statement that I thought is his original (most other >stuff is spiritual), reads something like "Education is the manifestation of >the knowledge that is already in the mind etc". This implies that people >already know, but the knowledge is just uncovered by the process of education. >Any one knows this idea is expressed by any thinker before him? I think this is related to the Indian idea that Knowledge is eternal, ever existing. Remember the puranic story that vedas were stolen by demons, hidden under the sea, Vishnu recovers them. Alvar bhakti poetry, the divya prabandham of 4000 verses, were lost. In a flash, upon meditation Nathamuni brings them back to the world. Regards, N.Ganesan From raoul at MARTENS.PP.SE Sat Mar 28 09:27:05 1998 From: raoul at MARTENS.PP.SE (Raoul Martens) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 10:27:05 +0100 Subject: Sankara, Vivekanda &c. Message-ID: <161227037218.23782.7115561328005805983.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> George v. Simson wrote: Platon of course! The platonic idea, probably referred to, has been described as follows: "Contemporary physics resurrects not only Plato's dream of a symmetrical perfection underlying nature, but also his vision of learning as rememb- rance. Socrates, coaching the untutored slave boy in the precepts of geo- metry, claimed to have demonstrated that the 'soul has been forever in a state of knowledge' and that all real learning therefore is recollection." (Timothy Ferris: Grand Unification Theories: Faith in Ultimate Simplicity in Next: The Coming Era in Science, ed. Holcombe B. Noble, Boston 1988) From thillaud at UNICE.FR Sat Mar 28 11:19:56 1998 From: thillaud at UNICE.FR (Dominique.Thillaud) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 12:19:56 +0100 Subject: Origin of retroflexion in IA In-Reply-To: <199803280155.RAA27049@dry.jps.net> Message-ID: <161227037224.23782.6851758852783488412.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >Do you think the suggestion that retroflexion in IA is of foreign >lacks serious analysis? > >Paul Kekai Manansala Surely not! Just not achieved by a consensus ;) An analogous problem occurs with the rare sound /y/ known in French (u) and German (ue) where a "substratum" influence was longly evoked. Alas, the submarine language was never identified and internal phenomens (apophony, &c.) are quite able to explain the fact. The main problem is that we must know VERY well all the languages involved and the historical circumstances to decide between internal or parallel evolution, convergence, phonetical borrowing, &c. That's rarely the fact. I know that many serious scholars are seriously studying the problem but the difficulty let the door open to other ones who are able to make freely groundless assertions. We are not hopeless. Remember the poor knowledge of the linguistic in the past. I trust human capacity to explore difficult problems and I suppose we'll have some day a performant theoretical model which up a part of the veil ;) Regards, Dominique Dominique THILLAUD Universite' de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France From kumar at OSWEGO.EDU Sat Mar 28 17:52:54 1998 From: kumar at OSWEGO.EDU (Alok Kumar) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 12:52:54 -0500 Subject: Sankara, Vivekananda &c. In-Reply-To: <7e1_9803280741@flevoland.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <161227037231.23782.10183660207903872979.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In the Western tradition, Socrates gave the similar idea which beacame a basis of Socartic dialogue. Alok Kumar Department of Physics State University of New York Oswego, NY 13126. ****************8 On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Robert Zydenbos wrote: > Replies to msg 27 Mar 98: indology at listserv.liv.ac.uk (Vaidix) > > VC> As for VivekanandA, one statement that I thought is his > VC> original (most other > VC> stuff is spiritual), reads something like "Education is the > VC> manifestation of > VC> the knowledge that is already in the mind etc". This > VC> implies that people > VC> already know, but the knowledge is just uncovered by the > VC> process of education. > VC> Any one knows this idea is expressed by any thinker before > VC> him? > > This is basically the Jaina view of knowledge: the soul, which _is_ knowledge (in a certain sense; we should of course always be careful when translating such terms) is clouded / covered by karma, and as the soul is purified (i.e., karma is removed) the innate pure knowledge (which is omniscience) manifests itself increasingly. > > (This is just one ancient view with which I am familiar. Are there any comparable views, of comparable antiquity?) > > Robert Zydenbos > zydenbos at flevoland.xs4all.nl > From yigal at MD2.VSNL.NET.IN Sat Mar 28 12:09:01 1998 From: yigal at MD2.VSNL.NET.IN (Yigal Bronner) Date: Sat, 28 Mar 98 17:39:01 +0530 Subject: Indian art texts Message-ID: <161227037220.23782.3921533883951957300.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The first vol. of the following book might have several papers you will find interesting: Dallapiccola Anna Libera (ed.): Shastric Tradition in the Indian Arts. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GMBH Stuttgart, 1990. NX576 .A1 S480 1990 Hope it helps, Yigal Bronner. >Dear list members, > > I am in search of the following: > > 1. English translations of any of the principal Shilpa-shaastras >(e.g., Maanasaara, Mayamata, etc.) > > 2. Secondary sources discussing the creation of (Indian) art as a form >of religious practice/discipline. > > Any references which list members can provide would be much >appreciated. > Thanks, > > Kristen Hardy, > student of Religion and >Sanskrit > University of Manitoba > umhardy at cc.umanitoba.ca From bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 30 11:39:02 1998 From: bmisra at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Bijoy Misra) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 06:39:02 -0500 Subject: Sankara, Vivekanand In-Reply-To: <7e1_9803280741@flevoland.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <161227037236.23782.1882713311000058958.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Robert Zydenbos wrote: > Replies to msg 27 Mar 98: indology at listserv.liv.ac.uk (Vaidix) > > VC> him? > > This is basically the Jaina view of knowledge: the soul, which _is_ knowledge (in a certain sense; we should of course always be careful when translating such terms) is clouded / covered by karma, and as the soul is purified (i.e., karma is removed) the innate pure knowledge (which is omniscience) manifests itself increasingly. > > (This is just one ancient view with which I am familiar. Are there any comparable views, of comparable antiquity?) > Sankara's VivekachuDamaNi powerfully explores this. Of course Srimadbhagavadgita has good sections devoted. Also see gauDapada's SAnkyasutram. - BM From 044GYM at MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA Mon Mar 30 08:14:49 1998 From: 044GYM at MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA (MR GARTH JOHN MASON) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 09:14:49 +0100 Subject: Book Review Panel Message-ID: <161227037234.23782.14753966507101938505.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Garth Mason From sns at IX.NETCOM.COM Mon Mar 30 17:55:40 1998 From: sns at IX.NETCOM.COM (Sn. Subrahmanya) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 11:55:40 -0600 Subject: Classification of... Message-ID: <161227037243.23782.8296861839840456124.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 12:15 PM 3/30/98 -0500, you wrote: >On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > >> I am looking for an article in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, >> 75, 1994, p. 185-195 by Subhash C. Kak, On the classification of Indic >> languages. >> Is there a kind soul out there who could supply me >> with a copy of the article? > >Yes. But it involves digging around downstairs again. What else might >you need? Edwin > > Instant-Moksha ? Instant-Moksha sounds like what one can get at Starbucks for 2.99 :) Subrahmanya From ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU Mon Mar 30 17:15:07 1998 From: ebryant at FAS.HARVARD.EDU (Edwin Bryant) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 12:15:07 -0500 Subject: Classification of... In-Reply-To: <199803301651.SAA10490@online.no> Message-ID: <161227037241.23782.607910958643196192.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > I am looking for an article in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, > 75, 1994, p. 185-195 by Subhash C. Kak, On the classification of Indic > languages. > Is there a kind soul out there who could supply me > with a copy of the article? Yes. But it involves digging around downstairs again. What else might you need? Edwin From mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM Tue Mar 31 00:35:18 1998 From: mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM (S Krishna) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 16:35:18 -0800 Subject: Classification of... Message-ID: <161227037252.23782.3381047992461011027.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Edwin Bryant wrote: >>Yes. But it involves digging around downstairs again. What else might >>you need? Edwin Sn Subrahmanya writes: >Instant-Moksha ? Moksha? No! We are talking about "Kak kaTAksha"! his "sikshA", and requesting for Kak's" bhikshA" (in the form his article) and stop our infinite "pratIkshA".... Regards, Krishna ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK Mon Mar 30 16:17:28 1998 From: ucgadkw at UCL.AC.UK (Dominik Wujastyk) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 17:17:28 +0100 Subject: YogasUtra, Update In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037238.23782.10060194720927394858.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Mikael Aktor wrote: > In this connection: do some of you know what happened to the book by T. > Gelblum on Yoga Philosophy, planned as part of Fasc. 5 in the 6th vol. of > Gonda's History of Indian Literature?. And now we are on that subject, > what about the other missing parts (e.g. UpaniSads)? Dear Mikael, Tuvia Gelblum retired from SOAS some years ago, and since then he has been rather ill. I don't know whether he still plans to write the "Gonda" volume, but I can imagine his illness would make it very difficult for him to do so. All the best, Dominik From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 30 16:51:37 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 18:51:37 +0200 Subject: Classification of... Message-ID: <161227037240.23782.3137561835485180183.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear members of the net, I am looking for an article in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, 75, 1994, p. 185-195 by Subhash C. Kak, On the classification of Indic languages. The university of Oslo subscribes to the ABORI, but unfortunately we don't have the relevant issue. Is there a kind soul out there who could supply me with a copy of the article? Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 30 18:21:00 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 20:21:00 +0200 Subject: Classification of... Message-ID: <161227037245.23782.2452259625324218815.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> At 12:15 30.03.98 -0500, you wrote: >On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Lars Martin Fosse wrote: > >> I am looking for an article in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, >> 75, 1994, p. 185-195 by Subhash C. Kak, On the classification of Indic >> languages. >> Is there a kind soul out there who could supply me >> with a copy of the article? > >Yes. But it involves digging around downstairs again. What else might >you need? Edwin Hello again, Edwin! As far as I know, nothing else. But I would be terribly grateful if you got me a copy of the article. The alternative is to go through the library service of the university, which would take several weeks. That is why I try to use my Indology connections. Is there anything I can get you? Our library is not so well geared for modern Indological studies as some collections I have seen abroad, but it has a good classical collection. Best regards, Lars Martin Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From lmfosse at ONLINE.NO Mon Mar 30 18:22:42 1998 From: lmfosse at ONLINE.NO (Lars Martin Fosse) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 20:22:42 +0200 Subject: Classification of... Message-ID: <161227037247.23782.15066263946300050122.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> >> >>Yes. But it involves digging around downstairs again. What else might >>you need? Edwin >> >> >Instant-Moksha ? > >Instant-Moksha sounds like what one can get at Starbucks for 2.99 :) > >Subrahmanya > Dear Mr. Subrahmania, I would love Instant-Moksha, but not quite yet (rather in about 30 years time or so :-)). Best regards, Lars Martin Fosse Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114, 0674 Oslo Tel: +47 22 32 12 19 Fax: +47 22 32 12 19 Email: lmfosse at online.no Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45 From a9607945 at UNET.UNIVIE.AC.AT Mon Mar 30 21:11:58 1998 From: a9607945 at UNET.UNIVIE.AC.AT (nathalie Pernstich) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 23:11:58 +0200 Subject: Classification of... Message-ID: <161227037250.23782.11195863634028278919.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> > Instant-Moksha sounds like what one can get at Starbucks for 2.99 :) > > Subrahmanya Really? They sell Herbal Cigarettes at Starbucks? Only ever spotted them on Camden Market before. :-) Nat From Johannes.Bronkhorst at ORIENT.UNIL.CH Tue Mar 31 07:00:46 1998 From: Johannes.Bronkhorst at ORIENT.UNIL.CH (Johannes Bronkhorst) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 07:00:46 +0000 Subject: Address Max Sparreboom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161227037259.23782.16187629048623816777.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Does anybody know the present address of Dr. Max Sparreboom? I would be glad if someone could let me know. Johannes Bronkhorst From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 31 14:46:24 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 08:46:24 -0600 Subject: Rammohun Roy Message-ID: <161227037267.23782.12802842746417787315.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Thank you, Dr. Killingley. After seeing Prof. Deshpande mention your paper on retroflexes in sanskrit for the 1966 Kualalumpur tamil conference, I thought of posting this important remark by R. Roy. Thaninayaga Adigal organized this conference. Fr. Xavier S. Thaninayagam mentions in several places some North Dravidian languages not described till date. I posted a query on North Dravidian in Indology. No answers were forthcoming, as is to be expected. As there are not too many specializing in Dravidian studies. Regards, N. Ganesan From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 31 15:59:11 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 09:59:11 -0600 Subject: G. U. Pope Message-ID: <161227037269.23782.16319158038779038632.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Have read that G. U. Pope has written: "Inscribe on my tombstone that a student of Tamil sleeps here". Want to know where G. U. Pope says this? Thanks, N. Ganesan From GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU Tue Mar 31 17:08:22 1998 From: GANESANS at CL.UH.EDU (N. Ganesan) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 11:08:22 -0600 Subject: Rig Veda Message-ID: <161227037271.23782.7435571443255880609.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Reading an article by Prof. Thomas Burrow on Aryans intruding into India. Reference: Arthur Cotterell, Encyclopaedia of ancient civilizations, 1980 "Systematic excavation has hardly started and the chief site, Harappa, was plundered between 1856 and 1919 for building materials. During the construction of the Lahore-Multan railway line *hundreds of thousands* of ancient kiln-burned bricks were used to provide a firm footing for the rail track across muddy lowlands". - T. Burrow Is it because of this plundering, the invasions and remnant ashes could not be found nowadays? Rig veda has no word for bricks. The fire altars found are later than the Indus culture. (Ref. F. Stahl) "Such battles, and the destruction of forts or cities, are most frequently mentioned in connection with the god, Indra, who as a result, receives the epithet Purandra, 'the destroyer of cities'. The god of fire, Agni, is also prominent in this aspect as a result of his part in destroying the cities of the Dasyu. One verse (Rig Veda 7.5.3) is paricularly explicit on this point: *Through fear of you (Agni) the dark people went away, not giving battle, leaving behind thier possessions. when, O Vaishvaanara, burning brightly for Puuru, and destroying the cities, you did shine*." - T. Burrow Are these the blurred recollectins? "The Aryans were aware of the numerous ruined Indus sites among which they lived, and they referred to them by the term arma, armaka, 'ruined site, ruins'. Among the references to these the following is of particular significance: *The people to whom these ruined sites, lacking posts, formerly belonged, these many settlements widely distributed. they, O, Vaishvaanara, having been expelled by thee, having migrated to another land*." - T. Burrow What is the verse number in Rig Veda of the above? When the ecological balance and balance of power in the pre-aryan society turned against the indus valley people, Aryans established. This verse appears to be referencing that critical event. Regards, N. Ganesan From kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET Tue Mar 31 19:10:09 1998 From: kabalen at MAIL.JPS.NET (Paul K. Manansala) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 11:10:09 -0800 Subject: The horse argument, part 3 Message-ID: <161227037282.23782.18181305510227764004.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Even if we acknowledge that the domesticated horse in India came from Central Asia, it does equate that the Vedic people also came from there. That would be like saying that since modern Indians use motorized vehicles they all came from Detroit. Regards, Paul Kekai Manansala From D.H.Killingley at NEWCASTLE.AC.UK Tue Mar 31 10:27:04 1998 From: D.H.Killingley at NEWCASTLE.AC.UK (D.H. Killingley) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 11:27:04 +0100 Subject: Rammohun Roy In-Reply-To: <01IV5RSAOGMA001X08@cl.uh.edu> Message-ID: <161227037262.23782.14538807826601609175.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> In answer to N. Ganesan's query: The quotation is from Rammohun's letter to the Governor-General, Lord Amherst, in 1823. The letter is printed in _The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy,_ ed. Jogendra Chunder Ghose and Eshan Chunder Bose, Allahabad, Panini Office, 1906; reprinted New York, AMS Press, 1978. It will also be found in other editions of Rammohun's works, and in _Sources of Indian Tradition_, ed. W. T. de Bary and others, 1st edn, Columbia University Press, 1958, pp 592ff. People have often puzzled over why Rammohun should have disparaged Sanskrit literature in this way, when he used Sanskrit sources in his religious works, and himself established a Vedantic college. I think the answer, as often in Rammohun, lies in the context in which he is writing, which as usual is that of a controversy. In the letter to Amherst, he is writing within the realm of discourse of public policy. He is arguing that public funds for education (earmarked originally in the 1813 Charter Act) should be applied to modern learning, particularly science, and not to 'establishing a Sanscrit school under Hindu pandits to impart such knowledge as is already current in India'. In his religious works, on the other hand, the realm of discourse is traditional Indian thought, and he is defending his own interpretation of Advaita Vedanta against that of others, or against non-Advaita views (particularly Gaudiya Vaishnava) within that realm. The arguments in the letter to Amherst were taken up later by Macaulay in his well-known Minute on Education of 1835, without acknowledgment to Rammohun. Macaulay, however, attacked Islamic as well as Hindu learning (without knowing either of them, as Rammohun did, though he claimed to have read translations). The education he advocated was in English literature, not science. Dr Dermot Killingley Dept of Religious Studies University of Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU Phone 0191 222 6730 Fax 0191 222 5185 On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, N. Ganesan wrote: > I read a quote by Rammohun Roy: > > "The Sanskrit language, so difficult that almost a lifetime is > necessary for its acquisition, is well known to have been for ages a > lamantable check to the diffusion of knowledge. And, the learning > concealed under this almost impervious veil is far from sufficient to > reward the labour of acquiring it". > > Where does Rammohun Roy say this? > > Regards, > N. Ganesan > From n-iyanag at PPP.BEKKOAME.OR.JP Tue Mar 31 03:23:29 1998 From: n-iyanag at PPP.BEKKOAME.OR.JP (Nobumi Iyanaga) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 12:23:29 +0900 Subject: [Announce] Taisho Daizo-kyo database released! Message-ID: <161227037254.23782.8330646704269276598.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Please forward this message to anybody who may be interested... [I personally posted this message to Buudha-L and Indology list. Please forgive me if you receive it more than once.] =============== I am very happy to be able to announce the release, on March 30, of Sa.mganikiik.rta.m Tai'sotripi.taka.m (or SAT), online database of the Chinese Buddhist Canon Taisho Daizo-kyo, by the Association for Computerization of Buddhist Texts (ACBUT), a sub organization of the Japanese Society of Indology and Buddhology (please note that I don't belong to that Association. So this is not an "official announce". I only have friends who are working on this project). The url is: http://bun.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~sat/ The first available on-line e-text is Taisho No. 220, the Mahaa-praj~naa-paaramitaa-suutra in 600 juan, Taisho vol. 4-7 (15 MB!). For now, the web pages are only in Japanese, and the e-texts are in SJIS encoding, in both MS-DOS/Windows format and Macintosh format. But hopefully there will be soon pages in English and Chinese ("Traditional Chinese" or Big5), and e-texts in Big5 encoding also. All the "gaiji" (characters which are not in SJIS encoding) are encoded in special SGML entities, and can be retrieved in SAT pages. The ACBUT is aiming to publish on-line all the 85 volumes of Taisho Tripitaka in electronic text in about ten years. In April, the following texts will be available: Taisho vol.29, No.1558 vol.29, No.1559 vol.29, No.1560 vol.29, No.1561 Taisho vol. 32, No.1670A/B vol. 32, No.1671 vol. 32, No.1674 vol. 32, No.1689 and other 24 texts of the last part of the vol. 32. And in May, the following texts will be available: Taisho vol.9, No.262 vol.18, No.848 vol.18, No.849 vol.44, No.1851 vol.47, No.1985 vol.52, No.2102 vol.77, No.2425 vol.82, No.2582 vol.83, No.2608 vol.83, No.2646 vol.84, No.2692 I hope these informations are useful for students and scholars working in the studies of Buddhism and other related fields. Best regards, Nobumi Iyanaga Tokyo, Japan From suzuki at IOC.U-TOKYO.AC.JP Tue Mar 31 03:43:14 1998 From: suzuki at IOC.U-TOKYO.AC.JP (SUZUKI Takayasu) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 12:43:14 +0900 Subject: [Announce] Taisho Daizo-kyo database released! In-Reply-To: <199803310329.MAA11374@soda1.bekkoame.or.jp> Message-ID: <161227037256.23782.9586839064001127875.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dear All, On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 12:23:29 +0900, Nobumi Iyanaga wrote: > The url is: > > http://bun.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~sat/ Thank you for your information! http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~sat/ is better :-) -- SUZUKI Takayasu @ Inst. of Oriental Culture, Univ. of Tokyo suzuki at ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Tue Mar 31 18:29:14 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 13:29:14 -0500 Subject: The horse argument, part 1 Message-ID: <161227037273.23782.6592585190340465726.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> This is the first in a series of long postings, and in some cases contains arguments and references that I have hinted at before. But as the same old shibboleths are trotted out again and again, I have decided that it is worthwhile to be more explicit. I have put the references in a separate post so that those who are so inclined can simply read the references rather than wade thru my spiel. Recently there has been a lot of posts complaining that others do not make any attempt to become familiar with basic linguistics before mouthing their opinions. That sword cuts both ways. Linguists must become familiar with the basic facts in other areas, such as horse and chariots before making ridiculous statements such as `steppe chariots were more sophisticated than Near Eastern ones because the former had more spokes' or that `chariots were the tanks of 2nd millennium BCE'. --------- "N. Ganesan" wrote: >So from Vedic times (1200 BC? or 1000 BC?), horses in India >increase a lot. Is there any archaeological evidence to back up this assertion? That is the question. What we see in the texts may simply be due to poetic convention. As long as horses and chariots/carriages remained rare and expensive, they would be prestige items and it may be expected that all poets describe their patrons as possessing such things in abundance. ------- Dominique Thillaud had written a post saying that evidence of horse is not found in Mycenean Greece. If I remember right, cheek pieces of the type used in the Near East and Central Asia have been found in the shaft graves of Mycenean times. I don't know the precise figures, but from what I have read, these cheek pieces were not rare. ---------- Another interesting fact is that Herodotus says that the Indian contingent in Darius's army used chariots drawn by onagers. [The original is , but as asses are not native to India, he must mean onagers.] This too raises interesting questions concerning the whole horse argument. ------ From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Tue Mar 31 18:29:47 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 13:29:47 -0500 Subject: The horse argument, part 2 Message-ID: <161227037276.23782.2179143995812002401.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> "Yaroslav V. Vassilkov" wrote: >But can we really say that *the horse has always been imported* while >since the Vedic period Sanskrit literature constantly mentions horse-breeding >in the North-West of the subcontinent? In Jan/Feb 97, there was a discussion in this list about the alleged difficulty of breeding horses in India. In spite of confident assertions of such difficulty, attributed to the climate, horse-breeding (of local breeds, naturally, not of thorough-breds:-) was alive and well in India, including Central India and parts of the peninsula, as attested by one of the references I gave. >By the way, I think that the participants in the debate on the spread of >horses in India quite undeservedly ignored the archeological materials >of the *megalithic* culture which at some sites (e.g. on the territory >of historical Vidarbha) can be dated now as early as the beginning of >the I mill. BC. Here we can speak really in terms of MASS material, >consisting of bone remains and innumerable articles of metal harness. I will appreciate current references on this topic. Apart from a couple of paras to a few pages in general books on Indian archaeology, the only reference I have access to is Leshnik's ``South Indian `Megalithic' burials''. What I find here only makes matters worse. The ``articles of metal harness'' seem to be, for the most part, bits, often snaffle bits, and in one case a curb bit. Now Hellenistic writers clearly state that bits were unknown to Indians, presumably at the time of Alexander. The type of control they describe as being in use in India is based on a dropped nose band, with some sort of flat `cheek pieces' with sharp points turned towards the inside to reinforce the action. This kind of reining is known from early 2nd millennium BCE elsewhere, but outside India true bits become the norm by 1200-1000 BCE. But in North India, the evidence for bits is non-existent before the Greeks; even the sculptures at Sanchi do not show depictions of bits; and the Sanskrit word for bit `khalina' is most likely a borrowing from Greek. Precise dating of the bridle pieces from these `megalithic' burials is important. Leshnik assigns these dates of 3rd c. BCE to 2nd c. CE, and attributes them to Greek/Saka influence and/or immigrants from Iran coming in the mid-I millennium BCE. On the other hand, the earliest burials are now given dates approaching 1000 BCE. If the bits are earlier than 400 BCE, then we have a clear anomaly. Central and southern India, presumably dominated by Dravidian speakers, who, it is said, did not know of the horse till it was brought in by the `Aryans', are up-to-date but the `horse centered Aryans' of North India are quite backward, and managed to avoid leaving large scale evidence of the horse. ------- From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Tue Mar 31 18:30:10 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 13:30:10 -0500 Subject: The horse argument, part 3 Message-ID: <161227037278.23782.13106371019779363424.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Lars Martin Fosse quoted Mallory: >... Clearly, this suggests that the horse is >selected from a paired chariot team. But archaeological evidence indicates >that the horse was not likely to have been employed in paired draught until >the invention of the spoked wheel and chariot, which is normally dated after >about 2500 BC and, consequently, some time after we would have assumed the >disintegration of the Proto-Indo-European community. I had already touched on this point well before this, but as I did not have the precise references then, let me expand on this. The classic war chariot that we know from Near Eastern and Egyptian evidence had three components that would be essential to racing chariots as well. These are (1) yoke saddles, (2) backing element and (3) long wheel base and nave/sleeve. As Littauer and Crouwel point out in their paper in Antiquity there is no evidence of the first two in the steppes, and the third is definitely ruled out for the vehicle whose traces were found at Sintasha. I will add that if Indo-Aryans brought their ``chariots'' from Central Asia, then the fact that there is no clear evidence of (1) and (2) in India makes things worse. Now even the Sintasha vehicle can be dated only about 2000 BCE. Hence classic chariots in 2000 BCE are unlikely and chariots in 2500 BCE are a figment of IE-ists' imagination. But, as Mallory admits, even 2500 BCE is too late for IE dispersal. I fail to see how any one can maintain that choice of the horse to sacrifice from paired team harnessed to a chariot is an inheritance. It has to be from diffusion or parallel evolution. Indo-Europeanists and Indologists simply assume that the chariot was invented in the steppes and used by them to `conquer' Near East, India etc. The problem with the evidence from Near East has been well summarized by Littauer and Crouwel [In particular the common belief that the term ``mariannu' is a loan and that it was an IE-speaking aristocracy are both wrong.] Mallory brushes aside Littauer and Crouwel's objections by quoting Piggot. Piggot, in his 1983 book already, agrees that the war chariot was likely to have been developed in the Near East, but argues that the use of horse draught and attempts to lighten the vehicle began in the steppe, and that original was likely to have been status display. This is a far cry from war chariots. Even the idea that these vehicles could have been used in races that included sharp turns is implausible. ------------ BTW, the paper of Diakonov I mentioned earlier is in in ``When worlds collide : the Indo-Europeans and pre-Indo-Europeans'' [Ann Arbor, Mich. : Karoma Publishers, 1990]. See espeically p. 64. ------- From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Tue Mar 31 18:32:59 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 13:32:59 -0500 Subject: The horse argument, basic references Message-ID: <161227037280.23782.16468207408711036492.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Here is the list of references I promised in another post. ----------------- AUTHOR Clutton-Brock, Juliet. TITLE Horse power : a history of the horse and the donkey in human societies / Juliet Clutton-Brock. PUBLISH INFO Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1992. A general introduction with pointers to more detailed references. Gives a good overview of equid use in 3rd-2nd millennium BCE Near East. ------------------------- AUTHOR Shakespear, Henry. TITLE The wild sports of India: with remarks on the breeding and rearing of horses, and the formation of light irregular cavalry. By Captain Henry Shakespear. PUBLISH INFO Boston, Ticknor and Fields, 1860. Written by a commander of an irregular (means that the soldiers furnished their own mount and weapons) cavalry unit, who seems to have one of the rare ones with first-hand knowledge of local horse market and breeding. Should disabuse anyone of thinking that horse breeding in India was difficult or was never practiced in a large scale. ------------- AUTHOR Gilbey, Walter, Sir, 1831-1914. TITLE Horse-breeding in England and India, and army horses abroad. EDITION 2d ed. PUBLISH INFO London, Vinton & Co., 1906. Gives a thumb-nail sketch of horse breeding and local breeds at the turn of the [19th?] century. ------------- AUTHOR Spruytte, J. TITLE Early harness systems : experimental studies : contribution to the history of the horse / by J. Spruytte ; translated by Mary Littauer. IMPRINT London : J. A. Allen, 1983. A very readable book on the practical side of harnessing. Also includes detailed description of experiments with reconstructions of Egyptian chariots. Explains why the ideas of des Noette on ancient harnessing are wrong. ----------- AUTHOR Littauer, M. A. TITLE Wheeled vehicles and ridden animals in the ancient Near East / M. A. Littauer and J. H. Crouwel ; drawings by J. Morel. IMPRINT Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1979. History of chariots in the Near East and arguments for local development of the war chariot and horse riding. ----------- Littauer, M. A., ``Bits and pieces'', Antiquity 43 pp 289-300 A very readable exposition of horse control and the various techniques used in 2nd-1st millennium BCE. --- [There is an article in v.42 about harnessing and yoke saddles. It may be worth noting that wrong information has not been eradicated in the ensuing years. I remember seeing a book in Barnes and Nobles in which a photo of a display from a museum in Florence was shown without noting that the yoke saddles were hung upside down, due to the influence of the wrong notions of des Noette.] --- Littauer, M. A. and Crouwel, Antiquity v.70 (1996) pp 934--939 Explain why the vehicle whose traces were found at Sintasha cannot be considered to be a war chariot. ----------- AUTHOR Cotterell, Brian, 1934- TITLE Mechanics of pre-industrial technology : an introduction to the mechanics of ancient and traditional material culture / Brian Cotterell, Johan Kamminga. IMPRINT Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1990. A somewhat technical (freshman level physics in the USA) discussion of harnessing, traction and such. ----------- From stone_catend at COMPUSERVE.COM Tue Mar 31 18:45:46 1998 From: stone_catend at COMPUSERVE.COM (Anthony P Stone) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 13:45:46 -0500 Subject: Indic transliteration draft 2.03 on the Web Message-ID: <161227037284.23782.13002512274158624860.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> The latest draft Indic transliteration scheme is now available at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stone_catend/trd203a.htm Criticism, comments, and suggestions are welcome. Please email me directly, unless of course you want to raise a discussion on the list. Apologies to those who receive more than one copy of this message. Tony Stone Dr Anthony P. Stone, Project Leader, ISO/TC46/SC2/WG12 Transliteration of Indic scripts. Email: stone_catend at compuserve.com Thinking aloud on transliteration: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stone_catend/translit.htm From vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU Tue Mar 31 19:07:14 1998 From: vidynath at MATH.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Vidhyanath Rao) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 14:07:14 -0500 Subject: Horse argument, part 4 (of 4) Message-ID: <161227037286.23782.14123039835149653653.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Absurd assertions on the topic of chariots and horse made by Indologists abound. I will give two examples below. For now, all I can say is that statements about horses and chariots made by Indologists and Indo-Europeanists must be treated with extreme caution. Facts about horse size and use of onager and onager- donkey crosses, which can be found in ``Horse Power'' with pointers to more detailed references, should put to rest the usual nonsense about horse drawn vehicles being frightening to people of 2nd millennium BCE Near East. Elementary consideration of military tactics and the construction of early chariots make it clear that the 2nd m. chariot could not have been used like a tank. Yet Indologists continue to assert that chariots were `tanks'. This includes one who, in this forum, complained about how others make uninformed statements lingusitic matters without bothering to learn the basics of the subject! Parpola, quoted by Houben, elsewhere (Deciphering the Indus script, p. 151)asserts that the steppe `chariots' were more sophisticated because they had more spokes. As both weight and strength increase with the number of spokes, while the Egyptian chariots were more than adequately durable [see tests with reconstructed chariots in Spruytte ], it is the lesser number of spokes that is more advanced. When we take into account the fact that Egyptian chariots used composite hubs and compound spokes, this becomes even stronger. It is sheer nonsense to assert that greater number of spokes indicates greater sophistication. Are we supposed to believe that Egyptians used only four or six spokes because they couldn't count any higher? ------------ It is also common to assert that Indo-iranians taught chariotry to others in the Near East because of the Kikkuli text. But the Hittite archives contain other texts on horse breeding/management and chariotry. Some of them are older than the Kikkuli text. References can be found in ``Wheeled vehicles''. ------------- To summarize, the horse argument, as given by the `usual sources' has serious problems that are apparent to any one who has taken time to look read the literature, but which Indologists continue to ignore by the effective strategem of remaining ignorant of information that contradicts what they want to believe. --------- From W.Behr at EM.UNI-FRANKFURT.DE Tue Mar 31 12:21:51 1998 From: W.Behr at EM.UNI-FRANKFURT.DE (Wolfgang Behr) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 98 14:21:51 +0200 Subject: Address Max Sparreboom Message-ID: <161227037265.23782.7699929969775821505.generated@prod2.harmonylists.io> Dr Max Sparreboom can be reached at the following address: ESF -- Asia Committee 1 quai Lezay-Marne'sia 67080 Strasbourg Cedex France Wolfgang Behr ======================== in reply to ================================ >Does anybody know the present address of Dr. Max Sparreboom? I would be >glad if someone could let me know. > >Johannes Bronkhorst ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wolfgang Behr, Research Fellow, Int'l. Inst. for Asian Studies wbehr at rullet.leidenuniv.nl | w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/fellows/fellows.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~