Guest guest Posted March 5, 2005 Report Share Posted March 5, 2005 IndianCivilization, "vishalsagarwal" <vishalsagarwal> wrote: sEE BELOW - IndianCivilization, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig> wrote: > > > Dear Vishal, > > IndianCivilization, "vishalsagarwal" > <vishalsagarwal> wrote: > > > Of the 4000 or so seals, > how many depict the tiger (perhaps less > than a dozen)? > > I. Mahadevan counted twenty-one depictions of the tiger in the IVC > seal/tablet imagery available at the time he analysed them. > > Please check out p. 35 of the PDF document posted at > > http://www.safarmer.com/indus/Harvard2004.pdf VA: Forget about Farmer's guesses. But it is apparent that even in Mahadevan's comcordance (which I believe takes into account 2000-2500 seals), the percentage of seals showing tigers is a merely 1%. > > Of the 10500 > mantras, how many mention the lion (maybe half a > dozen)? > > About 15-20 occurrences in Griffith's translation. VA: I believe it is lesser, but anyway, even with 20 it becomes 0.2% > > > For > arguments sake, let us assume that the seals are religious- > magical in > function. But even then, nothing prevented the > Harappans from > depicting the lion on potshards and so on. > > Here I agree with you. Indeed, the absence of lion depictions in the > IVC is another strange fact that calls for an explanation. In India, > lions once ranged east to the state of Bihar, but declined under > heavy hunting pressure -- see map at > > http://lynx.uio.no/catfolk/asaleof1.htm > > Likewise, is the mention > of lion in RV exactly along magico- > religious lines (I will leave it > to you to dig the text of RV and > find the revealing answers > yourself)? > > No, the lion in the RV is above all a metaphoric image. Most often, > the RV alludes to the roar of the sim.ha stating that somebody > speaks and sounds like the roar of the lion. VA: Good, so you do see now, as I had hoped, that the contexts in which lion is mentioned in RV are 'secular', whereas the context in which the tiger is depicted on seals is 'magico-religious'. Now tell me - would it be even appropriate or useful to compare the two populations statistically? I do not thin so (if the the populations were comparable, we could have still done the statistical Fisher test). In summation then, you cannot conclude that the IVC and IA/Vedic culture were different on the basis of non mention of tiger in one and non mention of lion in the other. > > > I would argue > that the Lion was absent in ancient China and YET > figurines of lion > are found from pre-Christian period. > > http://www.5000art.com/e-files/chinesse%20lion.htm > << According to Chinese historical records lion was imported from > the West Land in Han period ca. the first century. The lion is > called SIH-TZU, was named from the Sanskrit SIMBA -- lion, in > ancient China. >> VA: Good. If you study some ancient Chinese literature, you will also find similes related to the Roar of a Lion even though the creature is thought to be absent in the region for those periods. BTW, you may want to do some investigation on the bull motifs in Mesopotamia and Elam and you will find a few representations that bear a striking resemblance to the Unicorn of IVC seals. The difference being that the IVC seals are typically older than these Mid-Eastern depictions. Again, look for representations of Bos indicus / humped cattle (indigenous to the Indian subcontinent) in Egypt/Mesopotamia. They occur in the same period (or a little after) the time of Mittanis/Hittites and so on, indicating an outward migration of cattle from India. It would be silly to assume that while the Aryans were moving into India, the Indian cattle were terrified of the neighing Aryan horses and started fleeing across Persian pleateau to Mesopotamia and Egypt. > > > In contrast, BOTH the tiger > (which was present right from India > through central Asia into Siberia > overlapping with the supposed > Indo-Iranian areas, in ancient times) > and Lion (again, found > througought Harappan domain in Chalcolithic > period) were found in > areas traversed by IVC culture and Vedic Aryans > but one mentions > the lion in a FEW verses and the other depicts the > tiger in a FEW > seals. The absence does not indicate anything > significant to me at > all. > > This twofold absence demands some explanations that haven't been > provided by scholars as yet. I already said I cannot accept > Talageri's 'taboo' hypothesis as a viable one. As to the non- > mentions of the tiger and panther in the RV, Witzel explains them > away as 'inherited poetical convention' -- likewise, an > unfalsifiable assumption. > VA: Maybe the occurrences of tiger and lion are just too few to merit any detailed investigation or sweeping conclusions derived from this absence of evidence. > > VA: Do the Vedic texts say ANYWHERE that their symbols were > inscribed > on seals? Was the Vedic faith iconic to any significant > extent? > > I don't follow you here. What's the purpose of such paradoxes? > VA: Hint - try comparing the supposed religious motifs of IVC now with the religious concepts of Atharvaveda and Yajurveda Samhitas. Benjamin has already understood the clear paradox. Since we are dealing with fauna here, consider some other pieces of evidence. Even as late as AV Shaunaka Samhita, babhru and nakula are mentioned separately (falsifying the Indology view that in RV the babhru represents mongoose). Babhru means beaver and not mongoose because beaver IS attested archaeologically in the area covered by IVC and is distinguished from mongoose even in AV. Now you may wish to investigate when exactly we stop seeing beaver remains in Indian subcontinent? And where exactly do we find beaver remains in the Indian subcontinent? Sincerely, Vishal Agarwal "Francesco Brighenti" > > <frabrig> wrote: > > > > > > Thus, according to the most updated genomic researches the _Bos > > > indicus_ would have been introduced into East Africa via > maritime > > trade. > > Mmmh…..who were those early South Asian > traders who carried their > > zebus to Africa by ship? The date > proposed (2000 BC) coincides with > > Period 3C of the Indus Valley > tradition... So, were they the > > ***Vedic Aryans?*** > > > > > > Once again, a `maritime' R.gveda? :-) > > > VA: Wrong. First, the date is wrong but anyway, do you even know > how > cattle and horses are transported via ships? > > > > "Page 170: Ships were not big enough till 1000 BCE to be able to > > carry horses and cattle." > > > > Reference: > > EDWARDS Elwyn Hartley. 2000. The New Encyclopedia of Horse. > Dorling > Kindersley: New York > > > > Dear Vishal, > > My main sources for the above: > > http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046%2Fj.1365- > 294x.2000.00858.x > > http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/04/0411_020411_africacat > tle.html > > http://dagris.ilri.cgiar.org/dagris/display.asp?ID=28 > > Dhanyavaad. > > Francesco The first two of three links do not work. The third one says "The Small East African Zebu are *BELIEVED* to have descended from the recent introductions of zebu into Africa from Asia, and some may have ancestral linkages with cattle of the Large East African Zebu group (emphasis added)." Darwinism! M. kelkar : Lions, tigers, panthers... IndianCivilization, "ndevarshi" <ndevarshi> wrote: > If the conflation hypothesis is true (I've heard modern and educated > Indians talk of the 'Lion' as the vehicle of Durga even when the > representation was obviously of a tiger, so I tend to consider this > hypothesis as plausible) the panther or the tiger could have > been 'Simhas' too. > > Isn't it? You should ask *Witzel* about the viability of this linguistic hypothesis of his, which I merely cited as a possibility. I only know that tigers (not to speak of panthers) don't roar so loud as lions do, and that in R.gvedic hymns the "mighty" roar of the "sim.ha" is evoked -- the Maruts raor like sim.has, Parjanya's rain-clouds roar like the sim.ha, Br.haspati roars like a sim.ha... A tiger's roar can be heard up to two or three kilometres away. Tigers can produce sounds below 20 hertz. This low-pitched sound, called "infrasound," can travel long distances cutting through dense forests, and even passing through mountains. The lower the frequency, the farther the distance the sound can travel. This low- frequeny-roar has the effect to paralyze listeners. The much louder lion's roar can carry five miles or more. Lion roars are really sequences of three distinct types of "elements." They start soft and low with moan-like "prelude" elements, escalate into high-energy "roar" elements that begin at a frequency of about 240 Hz and drop to around 120 Hz. What is more likely, that the roaring of the animal termed as sim.ha, compared in the RV to the thunder and the Maruts, is a lion's roar, or a tiger's one? I think it's the lion's roar and, therefore, that the word sim.ha in the RV only means "a lion" -- i.e., tigers and panthers, though they were certainly known to the R.gvedic Aryans are, for some reason, not mentioned in the RV. Regards, Francesco > IndianCivilization, "Francesco Brighenti" > <frabrig> wrote: > (...) > > According to Witzel, the absence of the tiger in the RV may be due > > to an early conflation of the IIr/IA words for 'tiger', 'lion' > and, > > maybe even 'panther' -- see p. 78 of > > > > http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/EJVS-7-3.pdf > > > > The fact still remains that, even admitting (as I do) that the > Indo-> > Aryan speakers knew of the tiger when they were still located in > > Central Asia/Afghanistan, the only feline being mentioned in their > > oral poetry as subsequently recorded in R.gvedic hymns is the > lion, > > siMha. The panther and the tiger are both absent, but they are, > > OTOH, represented iconically in the IVC (for a possible depiction > of > > a leopard from Harappa, see > > > > http://www.harappa.com/indus/61.html ) > > > > Best, > > Francesco Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.