Indo-Aryan migration vs Indigenous origin - scholarly debate

[S Krishna]

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


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