01.07.09
More on OIT
Another review, Review of Update on Aryan Invasion Debate, of the book cited by James that started our discussion
UPDATE ON THE
ARYAN INVASION DEBATE by KOENRAAD ELST, there seems to be another version
here, what’s this? It discusses yesterday’s Indo-Hitte issue.
I remain on the sidelines here, until I can study the issue further.
Complaints against the ideological bias in the Invasion paradigm are understandable, but fail to consider that we do see, without a doubt, the same invasion in repeated cases, e.g. in Greece.
Are we to protest that the Greeks didn’t really invade because their invasion wasn’t nice (consider the Spartan treatment of the ‘helots’)?
And I detect a prejudice against Dravidians here. What’s wrong with Dravidians being the source of the great spiritual culture of India?
Anyway, thanks to James for provoking this discussion. On my way to a fourth edition of WHEE I need to extend the basic analysis to a larger framework.
It would help to have the decipherment of Harappan.
Here’s one of the many (I hope not lunatic) candidates for the decipherment: http://www.geocities.com/olmec982000/Indus.html
These come in almost all possible combinations.
Comment from James
James said,
January 7, 2009 at 8:48 pm · Edit
That was a link from his 2007 book. Unfortunately, the whole thing isn’t online. I think Elst’s main point about the Dravidian hypothesis is that it is presented as established fact when it was mostly based on a flawed interpretation of the Vedas (acknowledged by pro-AIT scholar Asko Parpola who sees it as describing a conflict with Iranian tribes). Also, his last book isn’t really committed to any scenario; he thinks it could go either way or perhaps another way that nobody has thought of yet.
Another update:
James said,
January 7, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Also, as another illustration of the enigmatic and complex nature of this debate, here is a paper questioning whether the “Indus Script†is really a script:http://www.safarmer.com/fsw2.pdf
James said,
January 7, 2009 at 8:48 pm
That was a link from his 2007 book. Unfortunately, the whole thing isn’t online. I think Elst’s main point about the Dravidian hypothesis is that it is presented as established fact when it was mostly based on a flawed interpretation of the Vedas (acknowledged by pro-AIT scholar Asko Parpola who sees it as describing a conflict with Iranian tribes). Also, his last book isn’t really committed to any scenario; he thinks it could go either way or perhaps another way that nobody has thought of yet.
nemo said,
January 7, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I am inserting your comment into post, so I don’t erase it.
I think I erased another of your comments tonight (the spam moderation is awful these days)
nemo said,
January 7, 2009 at 9:13 pm
This issue hasn’t reached a crystallized level of understanding prior to solution. So I don’t know what to think at this point.
I am puzzled by the history of Indian religion, and this reversal of the AIT to OIT would make a big difference.
As I have suggested, however, at G-con blog, I have often thought that Indian religion with its gurus and all that goes back to the Neolithic, to the period from -5500 to the rise of civilization.
And it is therefore a good question what culture and language was involved with that.
Another wild speculation: I was watching the recent PBS program on India.
It pointed out that the ‘Out of Africa’ scenario of man’s evolution and exodus from Africa, brings man along the coastlines all the way to south India, which is in many ways the branching off point for the whole subsequenct globalization of man.
And to this day there are spirituals remnants of cultural archaeology there visible. ‘
I find it worth considering that primordial forms of Indic religion have been there all along, from the southern source, in forms that began to exteriorize as yoga in the Neolithic period.
It is not easy for modern man to recognize ‘self-consciousness’ in primitive men, when he has often lost it himself. But it is always possible for this kind of consciousness to exist very early. It is a species characteristic, although we might not see its signs in primitive manifestations. A confusing point.
All the subsequent world travellers lost this aspect of man’s earliest potential.
Speculation, of course.
James said,
January 7, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Also, as another illustration of the enigmatic and complex nature of this debate, here is a paper questioning whether the “Indus Script” is really a script:
http://www.safarmer.com/fsw2.pdf