Aryan invasion debate

[Michael Witzel]

At 20:42 +0200 9/7/99, Koenraad Elst wrote:

(part 2)

(invasion:)

As mentioned, archaeologists, linguists, vedicists etc. have been
developing much more sophisticated and involved models (which I hope to
delineate soon).

>    Dr. Thompson requests one RV verse proving indigenousness.  Numerous
>scholars ....  failed to identify a single RV verse proving the invasion.

You do not need resarch assistents etc, as Elst insinuates,  (see above
what happens!) --  just read the text yourself.  (NB he still has not told
us which *translation* he uses, come on!).

The question of an actual direct statement "here we have come!" has been
discussed before on this list and in books.  This is not the nature of the
RV ,nor of other hymns directed to the gods. Such stories anyhow  are rare,
and where they exist  (Abraham coming from Ur, The Romans from Troy !) they
are suspicious, to be polite.

>AIT's next line of defence, viz. a pre-Harappan Aryan invasion;

invasion???   Again: * Whose* Mantra? --  and certainly not before 2600
BCE,  when domesticated "Aryan" horses and chariots still were far off to
the north of the Turkmen, Uzbek deserts.... Why imagine and posit what
scholars might come up with --   when they don't and WON'T????

-- which is indeed a legitimate possibility.

Nope. Too early.

> I am
>simply having a good time pulling the leg of people who are far too sure of
>their case relative to their meagre evidence.

We have see above, how. Next time with exact quotes, please!!!
Readers beware.

& return to sender: IE interpretation of the Indus inscriptions?? An IA
home in the Panjab with IE words such as birch (bhUrja), and on the other
hand, clear innnovations  for local plants and animals (hast-in 'elephant',
dviip-in 'leopard" etc.)???

Precisely, what I miss and what  he dismisses (above) : mutually agreeing
evidence from *various* fields of scholarship, not isolated points
(astronomy) which have other, *easy* (not contorted)  explanations...

In short, he has to do better if he wants to pull our leg.


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Michael Witzel                          Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies
Harvard University                  www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs
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