Out of Bharat

[S.Kalyanaraman]

Thanks to Prof. Deshpande for inviting attention to the specially
invited article by Prof. Hock titled: Out of India?The linguistic evidence, in
Opera Minora, Vol. 3, 1999.

I have read with great interest all the contributions in this volume.
Prof. Hock is indeed fascinated by the R.ca 10.129.7 which he cites
twice: 'who is the overseer of this (world) in highest heaven, 
he knows--unless he does not know'. I deeply respect Prof. Hock's 
concerns on 'racial' interpretation of early Vedic evidence.

I think Prof. Hock has not refuted Prof. Misra's evidence related to
Gypsy language and in particular, the comment related to the absence
of any evidence, whatsoever, suggeting that the PIE differentiated a,o,e
vowels merged into Vedic a. On the contrary, Gypsy attests emphatically
to the Sanskrit a undergoing sound changes into three vowels. Prof. 
Hock's argument is that Misra's interpretation does not agree with
well-established principles and practices of comparative reconstruction. I
wish Prof. Misra had also been invited to contribute to the Opera Minora vol.


Well, there comes a time, when the practices may need to be reviewed and
changed.

The relative chronology of Avestan and Vedic is not discussed by Prof. Hok. It
will be nice to hear arguments against the s'--h sequence of transforms of
initial consonants even based on the post 20th
century linguistics of IE. Or contrast the social and cosmic settings of
Vedic aryaman and Avestan aryaman. (See GL Windfuhr's brilliant piece
in the opera minora vol.)

There are, also, earlier indications (e.g. Mitanni, Kikkuli) for out of bharat
movements of Sanskrit-speakers. The horse or the ass do not speak; but the RV
is sure that the chariot- riders par excellence, the As'vins had the asses
pulling their chariots. The jury is still out to determine if as'va indeed
meant only the equus caballus but may also have included other members of the
equus family which are used even today in Bilaspur, Kapalamochan and Adh Badri
(Ambala Dist.,on the foothills of Siwalik ranges) to draw the jat.kas carting
earth (not soma!). 

On Sarasvati_, Prof. Hock makes a feeble attempt, as did Hillebrandt and
Witzel to locate the 'original' river in Afghanistan. (Prof. Kochar goes
overboard trying to locate even Ganga and Yamuna there). No doubt, the 70+
references in r.cas do refer to Sarasvati_ also as a_pri devata_, as speech
personified,as an allegory (ghr.ta_ci_). If Saras-vati_ can be derived from
saras-mati_ (i.e. 'with' saras, or lakes), there is no reason to impute
complex explanations for the straight-forward etymon, samudra (see Bengali:
sodo bha_sa_na_ lit. launching at sea, boat festival; OSinhala. muhuda =
ocean), which means 'the ocean'. Witness the scores of references to Bhujya,
vessels plying on the samudra...

In brief, the hypothesis of Out of Bharat is reasonable, despite oft-
attempted practices in recent studies of comparative linguistics, 
of personal background checks and labelling of proponents of the hypothesis
without reasoning out the contents or the arguments involved.

Cheers. Dr. S. Kalyanaraman

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