Viveka & Rta/Satya

[N. Ganesan]

Despite the advice given to leave them out, comments by the
eminent neurosurgeon (retired) Dr. Ramamurthi shows that he is
not a 'closet' hindutvavAdi. Not just him alone, English and Indian
language newspapers pour out articles in increasing number
about the Rigveda's age to be 70 centuries or more, Vedic Harappans,
etc., proved by Sarasvati river photographed from deep space by
NASA scientists! One has to wonder whether all this rhetorics
will lead to violence?

Over the years, I have never seen many/any postings on Dravidian
or Munda data from professionals in this scholarly forum.
The appeal is to increase the number of endowments and professorships
on Dravidology, once the linguistic, etymon, textual analysis
from the Dravidian and Munda side increase and when comparative
studies between intra-Indian  cultures prosper, these ridiculous
claims that Aryans were the high Harappans will fade away.
It always strikes me how the Dravidology is not instituitionally
funded with staffing and resources, when compared with, say,
the big full-time publishing industry of the Sankara studies;
Sankara probably lived around 900 CE and the Sankara maths, both
Kanchi and Sringeri, were not founded until after several centuries
of his death. The story that Sankara founded 4 mathas in the
four corners of India is even much later, starting only in the
Maratha times.

As we all know, the out-of-India schoolwallahs' market is the
capturing of the masses in India, and their efforts mainly are
directed towards the Indian public. They know that they cannot
convince the professors in the Indian studies and Sanskrit depts.
Most prominent of them choose to leave, and do not argue out
their OIT positions.

Regards,
N. Ganesan


>In a message dated 7/13/2000 12:13:58 PM Central Daylight Time,
>vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM writes:

> > This is contemporary Indian politics, mixed with generic Indian
> >  conceptions of long yugas. After all, 50 centuries of Kali Yuga
> >  have already passed! The speech does not belong in Indology, and
> >  need not concern Indologists, unless of course, one wants to
> >  avoid being operated upon by a doctor who says such things. I
> >  don't think anybody here needs brain surgery, so Dr. Ramamurthi's
> >  comments are best left aside.
>
>I do not think the speech is as innocuous as it might seem to Vidyasankar.
>One can subject the quote from Ramamurthi's speech to the same textual
>analysis processes Indologists use with other texts.
>
>What struck me most about the speech is the quoted time of 70 centuries.
>How does one go from 50 centuries of Kali yuga to 70 centuries. Is the use
>of 70 centuries a common hyperbole? At least,
>I have not heard it in traditional usage. If others have, I would like to
>know.
>
>On the other hand, in the announcement of Rajaram and Jha's book in the web
>site http://www.safarmer.com/pico/crackedcode.html, we find the following:
>
>"The implications of these findings go beyond the borders of India --
>leading to a possible change in our viewpoint on the origin of civilization
>itself. Since Dholavira, according to Bisht, has shown
>planned cities  dating to the fourth millennium, the Vedic Civilization of
>the Sarasvati heartland must go back at least to the fifth."
>
>"well over 70 centuries" in Ramamurthi's speech equates to stating that the
>Vedic civilization  must go back "at least to the fifth" millennium BC.
>
>To me what the speech reveals is the efficacy of the propagation of views
>of Rajaram and others like him in reaching the Indian intelligentsia
>outside the limited circle of Indologists. This directly relates to what
>Dr. Witzel stated in his post.
>
>Regards
>S. Palaniappan

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