Date of the Buddha and RV

[Luis Gonzalez-Reimann]

At 04:20 PM 09/03/1999 -0700, V. Agarwal wrote:

>VA: Jacobi is an old author.  The introduction to a recent edition of the
>Vedanga Jyotisha (Yajurvediya)  are written by a Vaidik proficient in
>Astronomy and he has demonstrated that the text belongs to the 14th Cent.
>B.C.E. 

The astronomical dating of Vedic and Epic texts is a complex matter.  Your
statement implies that it is an exact science, and this is very misleading.
 I don't know the edition of the VJ you are referring to (would appreciate
the ref.) but one must be careful about stating that such things have been
"proven," unless a general consensus has been reached.  This is the problem
with many of the assertions of indigenous aryanism; writers decide (often
on very flimsy grounds) that something (such as the immigration theory) has
been proven to be false and consequently ignore it, even though the
majority of scholars accept it.  This attitude ignores scholarship when it
disagrees with one's ideas.  Rajaram has taken this to the ultimate extreme
by declaring that the whole of Indology as a discipline is irrelevant, and
can, therefore, conveniently be ignored so that he can start building his
hypotheses from zero, without the annoying criticism of established
scholars.  This is what he says in his site, to which you referred members
of this list:

"The real problem is the field known as Indology - a creation of alien
interests with their own axes to grind. It is not enough if we expose the
distortions that are part of the current version of history. We must strike
at the root of the problem and expose the forces that created these
distortions to serve their own interests. When we do so, what we find is
that the Aryan invasion theory is only the symptom, an external
manifestation. The real insidious force is the academic discipline known as
Indology."

"As it stands today, Indology resembles nothing so much as comparative
mythology. Clearly, this cannot be the basis for history let alone
historiography. So we must look elsewhere to build a foundation for the
study of ancient India."

"It is clear from this tortured course of Indology over the past two
hundred years, and its present moribund state in which assertions take the
place of facts, and negation serves as refutation that an alternative
approach to Indian historiography needs to be developed. This is what
empirical researchers have been trying to do for nearly fifty years,
culminating in Jha�s decipherment of the Indus script." 

Is this wholesale rejection of decades of scholarship, including the work
of many on this list (and very many more outside it), sound scholarship?
Is it science?  Are these absurd generalizations what you are suggesting
professional scholars should ponder?  Is this the exchange of ideas that
Rajaram pretends to foster?

By the way, If Jha has really deciphered the Indus script he will surely
have a place in history, but that can only be decided by scholarly
consensus, not by pompous declarations.

And, Dr. Elst,

How does this fit in with the "dialogue" you seem to be so concerned about
while you defend Rajaram?

Also, by the way, being a "former NASA scientist" is unfortunately no
guarantee of competence in certain matters. It was a NASA scientist who
proposed that the vision of Ezequiel in the Bible was a detailed
description of an alien spacecraft... 
Sincerely,

Luis Gonzalez-Reimann, Ph.D.
Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies
University of California, Berkeley