Indo-Aryan words in Hurrian

[Venkatraman Iyer]

>There has been too much speculation based on theories of Aryan superiority;

Today,
>We should forget everything that was written about the Hurrians
>during the Nazi era - and even today, by some German researchers who are
>heavily biased. (More about this later.)

Are there any efforts to scrutinize these academically? Ph.D., theses,
journal and book and web publications by scholars? Poliakov and
Olender books. Imported from Europe, this has led to many disasters in
the Indian subcontinent.

Prof. Peter Schalk, Review of Tambiah, S. J.: Buddhism betrayed?
Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka, UChicago press, 1992
Temenos, vol. 29, 1993, p. 183-9.

"This is indeed an important aspect that still has to be considered
as the background for what is patriotically called an anti-Indian,
nationalistic stand. Behind this present anti-Indianism, promoted by
the JVP and ideologically related political ideologies fractions in
the UNP, SLFP and MEP, we find an antagonism agaisnt Indian trade,
against Indian labour like estate labour, and against Indian dominance
in the cultural sphere. This concept of "Indians" also includes the
Sri Lankan Tamils who are (wrongly) classified as immigrants.

Tambiah focuses especially on the anti-Muslim propaganda by the
Anagarika that resulted in the Muslim riots in 1915. This propaganda
was also directed against the Tamils. Tambiah does, however, miss one
essential point, namely that the Anagarika, under the influence of
Western antisemitism, applies this very anti-semitism to the Muslims.
His anti-Muslim stand was much more radical than it seems to be -
because it is part of a racist ideology. Let us see how the Anagarika,
the Buddhist, homologises the Muslims to the Jews in an anti-semitic
tirade,

The Muhammadans, an alien people who in the early part of the
ninteenth century were common traders, by Shylockian methods became
prosperous like the Jews (Tambiah 1992:8)

As the Jews were looked down upon in "Aryan" circles, in which the
Anagarika included himself, by  association with the Jews, the Muslims
were pejoratively classified. The Anagarika made himself a victim of
the Aryan-Semitic debate in the late 19th century in Europe, although
he himself regarded himself as speaking on behalf of pristine
Buddhism. He applied the  Aryan-Semitic European debate on the
relationship between the Sinhalese and the minorities of Tamils and
Muslims.

The Anagarika is the man who gave a racist base to Buddhism. He will
go down in history for that. We should not neglect thata aspect of his
performance. This Sinhala-Buddhist racism became important in pointing
the way to the later racist theories that were launched in
pseudo-scientific physical anthropologies from the 1940s and 1950s
issued in Colombo. In them the Tamils and Sinhalese are described
words  and pictures as biological lower and higher races."

Best,
V. Iyer



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