Book review: Indus Age- the Writing System by Gregory L.Possehl.

Vishal Agarwal vishalagarwal at HOTMAIL.COM
Sun May 2 14:56:42 UTC 1999


----Original Message Follows----
From: "N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM>

Dear Sri Ganesan

Greetings.

I am overstepping Prof. Y. Vassilkov's nice advice that 'Aryan
invasion' is a 'taboo' in this list; Don't know how long you have been
writing in INDOLOGY.

I am not an expert on this issue and have not written anything on this
issue.
There should be no need for anyone to feel emotional bout the issue. Even
those who claim that the anscestors of Indians came from outside 30
centuries back should ponder over the fact that there are not many countries
in the world that can claim such a long continuity in ethnic identity. And,
in
any case, modern anthropological studies have demonstrated that Indians
share almost 80% of all genetic traits, showing that even if different
groups
entered into India at different times, they have intermarried so much at
different
times that they have ceased to be different racial groups.


Prof. George Thompson, a trained Vedicist knowing Vedic quite well,
wrote here that Rig Veda's date is about 1000 B.C.
The classical phase of Indus culture was around 2500 B.C.,
I am not so sure that Jha or anyone else can read Indus
seals using Vedic glossary. The problem is about ONE
millennium gap in time.

So be it. But then the traditional Pundits of India are no less trained
Vedicists.
I have come across Rigvedins who will, from memory, point out most of
the Richas with the word 'Shambhar', Arya etc. if requested to do so.
There competence in the intepretation of Vedic Sanskrit can be second to
none. We must realize one thing-- many scholarly works in the field of
Indology are published outside India not because there are more scholars
there than in India, but because there are more resources and facilities
available in the west for publishing one's work. As an Engineer myself who
has lived in India as well as abroad, I can attest to this perhaps more
strongly than many.

Regards,

Vishal




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