Fosse and the date of Rigveda

[Michael Witzel]

He Bose,

Good try. To quote the old adage: Sometimes I doubt about myself...

But I certainly doubt about N. Bose's (statements):  To quote out of
context and with slight modifications always is  'useful', and is the
oldest trick in a politician's book.

(1) all numbers ending in -000 are approximations.

(2) second, and in detail:

At 16:17 -0700 9/7/99, Namrata Bose wrote:
>Hello Fosse,  .....
>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)

That is not a book but a journal, called "Studien zur Indologie und
Iranistik"  (StII, since 1975).
I wonder in which volume/article, maybe 20 years ago, I might have said so.
Anyhow I cannot check here at home.
However, a close reading of the other quotes does not contradict this
sentence  (if indeed quoted correctly which I doubt now, see immediately).

>2. In a second book, Witzel said that the words of Vedas have not changed
>for the last 2000 years (Bronkhorst:1999)

No, you  misquoted and paraphrased: footnote 199 of that paper, in my
computer, says:

"As is well known, the transmission of Vedic texts has been so
extra-ordinarily faithful that words, sounds, and even the tonal accents
went unchanged for more than 2000 years"

Note: "more than".  Nice misquote.  Also, page numbers, each time,  would
have helped.
This date refers, of course, to no. 3:

>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)

Correct (though I do not find the quote  in my papers in that book, nor
does my computer).  Sakalya 'redacted' the RV  during the Brahmana (sic!)
period, but as all specialists know, the changes codified by him then are
minimal, when compared with the Rsis' creations (suvar --> svar, etc.)  See
the retro-active changes made in van Nooten-Holland's metrical  RV (HOS
1994).

In short, there is so little real "change" that I still like the *shortcut*
description of the RV as a tape recording of  (at least ) 1000 BCE, and I
will continue to use it.

And where is the contraction in the above 3 dates, as I used them? --  Only
on the surface, in Bose's quotes. Good try. But an innocent one? Not, when
you read the conclusion:

>I am totally confused because Witzel does not agree with Witzel who does not
>agree with Witzel.


On the lighter side:

>Personally, I root for 'Two thousand' date. This is because the word 'Two'
>shows retroflexion and 'three' does not.

Now I really doubt about you.
Try to bend back your tongue in "two" (as British/American speaker, I
mean).  Well, to a native Indian speaker, t-wo and th-ree are retroflexes.
Do you not know what retroflexion is? Or does your particular Bengali
dialect/idiolect have retroflexion in pronouncing "two" but not in "three"
(due to dissilimiation because of following -r-??? -- narmaartham eva)


>I also searched the consensus on the end date of the Harappan Civilization.

The archaeologists, on whom we all depend here, have revised the dates
several times over the past few decades, as we all know. As as student I
read : upto 1750 BCE;
Now they tell us:  2600 -1900 BCE...
Again, nice try to blame historians, linguists etc.  etc. for the revisions
of the earchaeologists!

Congratulations!

 ==========================================================================
Michael Witzel                          Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies
Harvard University                  www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs
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my direct line (also for messages) :  617- 496 2990
home page:     www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm