[INDOLOGY] politics of ICHR

[koenraad.elst at telenet.be]

Dear listfolk,


Since this topic seems to be still with us, a few mises à point. I won't mention any names (almost), they are not important, but the topics are. 

1) Dileep Chakravarty is correctly quoted as lambasting Delhi University's Sanskrit Professor Bharadwaj for wanting to research the exact chronology of the Vedas and pleading his case in terms of "Aryan" history. But then, Chakravarty is assumed to consider the "Aryan" controversy as old hat. Also true. But, having heard Chakravarty speak several times, I was under the impression that he is one of the numerous Indian historians and (especially) archaeologists who don't believe in an "Aryan" invasion. And "old hat" here means something else than what many think. The present lambasting of any further "Aryan" research is typical of a school of thought (best exemplified by the notorious NS Rajaram, who lambasted Talageri and myself for even treating the debate as still worth pursuing) that asserts the debate has finished years ago and that the anti-invasionist school has won it fair and square. In India, the main debate is not between invasionists and nativists (though that is there too) but between those who dig for new and finally clinching arguments, and those who think the invasion has been definitively disproven years ago.

2) A genetic study is quoted as proving the invasion. In fact, the study proves far less, and after the technical research within their domain, the scholars in their conclusion suddenly bring in the presently predominant theory of Indo-European expansion that they have vaguely heard about. This mismatch between technical genetical research and the general conclusion mediated by non-comprehending and often partisan journalists is common and is the reason why I myself have relied on this research as little as possible until it has completely matured. But anyway, the latest genetic publications are pertinent -- and do not prove the invasion at all. This is a serious debate and perhaps too voluminous for this forum, but let me go into one example. As has been quoted here, lactose tolerance was imported in Central and then Western Europe less than 5000 years ago from Ukraine. This fits the picture of Indo-European invading from the East (as it does in both the Russian and the Indian Homeland theories) and being brought by cowherds, colourfully illustrated by the common etymology of "daughter" as literally meaning "milkmaid". But this should be linked with another recent genetic study to which an Italian Indologist drew my attention: it argues that the cows in Ukraine are genetically shown to descend partly from Indian cows, not the otherway around as the invasion scenario would imply. Cows don't hang out on top of the Hindu Kush unless humans ake them there, so this genetic mother-and-daughter relation is only possible if cowherds took their cattle across the Khyber Pass -- and this turns out to have been an India-to-Russia movement.

3) The proposed research was into the chronology of the Vedic texts. This is an entirely justified project, as a correct chronology is crucial in historiography. When scholars write things like "Katha Upanishad (600 BC)", I always wonder: How does he know? The foundation of the chronology given in textbook is very shaky,and certainly not based on any timing given in the texts themselves. One of the very few secure keys is the astronomical indications in the texts themselves. There are only few, but they are all consistent (reproducing the relative chronology of the texts based on other criteria) and they consistently point to a moderately higher chronology than that implied in and compatible with the invasion theory (though not to the wildly high chronology proposed by some Hindu writers). Not a single astronomical datum supports the low chronology taught in the textbooks. The clearest and most indisputable example is of course the Vedanga Jyotisha, which dates itself in two different ways at two different places to ca. 1350 BC, though it is defitely a post-Vedic text conventionally dated to 500 BC at most. For a scholar, the normal course of conduct would be, not immediately to drop all conventional chronology, but at least to seriously research this question, rather than lambast those who choose to do this research as "morons", "racists" and worse (to borrow terms used by one of the professors on this forum).    

4) For those who demonize the Indian homeland theory because of its alleged political connotations, please consider these aspects: a) A theory may be correct even if held for reprehensible reasons, such as, according to many, Hindu nationalism. Indeed, most of you assume as much, because you people advocate a non-Indian homeland theory also espoused by the Nazis. Indeed, for the Nazis, the Aryan invasion theory (which most of you advocate in spite of clothing it in weasel words like "migration" instead of "invasion") was the illustration par excellence of their racial view: it has a dynamic race invade the country of an indolent race, it has a superior race try to guard its racial purity with the caste system, it has the superior race still partly mixing with the natives and thereby becoming inferior to their purer cousins, the British. Much of this was a Nazi interpretation, to be sure, but it was based on a scenario essentially the same as what you espouse, viz. a non-Indian homeland necessitating an intrusion into India to explain the presence of IE languages there. So, if you assume the same scenario as the Nazi assumed for specifically nazi reasons, and optimistically presumng you are not Nazis yourselves, you clearly reason that a theory can be correct eventhough the motives why some have espoused it, were/are reprehensible. So, your assumption the the Indian homeland theory has political connotations, does not imply that the theory is wrong. b) Your confident assumptions about the political miss out on many facts on the ground. Shrikant Talageri (The Rigveda, a Historical Analysis, 2000) and myself (Asterisk in Bharopiyasthan, 2007)