Fosse and the date of Rigveda

[Namrata Bose]

Hello Fosse,

I did some investigation for you to find the consensus on the date of RV.
Here is what I found
1. In one book, M. Witzel says that the Vedas, as we have now, are a 3000
year old tape recording (studien zum iranistik und indologie)
2. In a second book, Witzel said that the words of Vedas have not changed
for the last 2000 years (Bronkhorst:1999)
3. In a third book, Witzel said the available text of Rigveda was finalized
by Sakalya in the age of Brahamanas (800-600 BC?) (Erdosy:1995)
I am totally confused because Witzel does not agree with Witzel who does not
agree with Witzel. Or maybe, Philology is moving very fast. Or perhaps,
Witzel is very open minded and thinks that all these dates are correct.
Personally, I root for 'Two thousand' date. This is because the word 'Two'
shows retroflexion and 'three' does not. Therefore. by accepting 'two
thousand', I can find that Dravidian substratum that I am desperately
looking for. Of course, if I want to look for a Munda substratum tomorrow, I
will move on to three thousand or four thousand or whatever suits me.

I also searched the consensus on the end date of the Harappan Civilization.
In the publications of experts like Parpola, Witzel, Erdosy, Alchin, Romila
Thapar and many others, I found 2100 bc, 1900 bc, 1800 bc, 1500 bc etc. Am I
getting confused?

I think I agree with you. Although we do not know when the Vedas were given
their final form, we also have no reason prefer 2000 bc over 1000 bc. So let
us adopt 1000 bc. See, we have reached a perfect scholarly consensus now.

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