Dating the Veda: Using the Horse and Planets

[Vidhyanath Rao]

This reminds me of a question I have been searching for an answer to: Do
languages of NW (including Gujarat, Sindh) reliably distinguish between the
ass/donkey (Equus asinus) and the hemione (E heminous), subspecies Khur?
[Sanskrit doen't seem to.]

At the risk of wasting bandwidth and boring many, it may be worthwile to
point out that (1) E. asinus is native to North Africa and neighboring
parts of Asia; (2)All domestic donkeys seem to be E. asinus; (3) E.
heminous is native to Iran and NW India (though it had a bigger range 5000
BP, extending further North) and the status of the Tibetian E. seems to be
contested (another species or just a subspecies of E. heminous?) but never
seems to have been domesticated.

Note that any reference to wild asses in India must be to the Khur. In
particular, Herodotus must be saying that Indians in Darius' army used
hemiones (also) to draw chariots.

Tamil ivuli (sp?) refers to the horse. If so, its inherited status would
seem to put strong constraints on the entry of Tamil into S. India. The
other suggestion, (apparently first suggested by McAlpin) that it was
transferred from the hemione to the horse has equally interesting
implications.