Rajaram unrepentent!

[Michael Witzel]

A friend in India has alerted me to yesterday's news story on the front
page of:

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THE PIONEER,  New Delhi, Sunday, September 24, 2000

Indus `horse' has historians on the trot


http://www.dailypioneer.com/archives/def1.asp

directly:
http://www.dailypioneer.com/archives/secon22.asp?cat=\story7&d=fpage&t1=Sep24

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What is really remarkable in this news item is that Rajaram shows himself a
real Acalanaatha, and unrepentent:

                          "In his e-mail reply to The Pioneer, Rajaram
clarifies, "Both the photocopy of the seal (Mackay 453) and the artwork (of
the horse image) were
sent to me a couple of years ago by my coauther (sic!) Natwar Jha. I
checked with the original postage-stamp size seal photo in the book and
agreed with his identification and put those graphics in as an
afterthought."

So now, the poor, email-less(?) co-author N. Jha is the guilty one!
But, the recent reprint of the original publication that Rajaram says he
checked out in the Mythic Society, Bangalore, looks just the same as the
one in the original publication by Mackay (*we* checked!), and not at all
like his "computer enhancemnet", see S.Farmer's web site:
http://www.safarmer.com/horseseal/update.html


In addition, Rajaram takes refuge to his usual hobby horse, conspiracy theory:

                          "However, Rajaram terms the charge as a
"vilification campaign" against him. "I see the charge of fabrication (of
the horse image) as a diversionary attack -- to discredit the whole book,
including the decipherment (of the Indus script) by raising extraneous
issues," he writes. "In the process, they want to rob Indians of their
history and tradition, making them an intellectual colony of the West," he
says. "

extraneous, indeed!  -  As my web site
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm
shows sufficiently enough, the "decipherment" is more than flimsy, it is
pure fantasy. I hope he does not mean that Indians want to have *his*
script as their "tradition" !

The note concludes:

                          "Historians, meanwhile, are fiercely debating an
ancient past that may have what may the debate continues."


Indeed, we are not done with Rajaram yet!
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Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies:  http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs