[INDOLOGY] politics of ICHR

[George Thompson]

I myself am not walking into this swamp.

George

On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 2:19 PM, <koenraad.elst at telenet.be> wrote:

>
> 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)
>
>
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