Review of Talageri's book - comments by Michael Witzel

[Guest guest]

[Dear list, I am giving below what MW wrote about Kelkar's posting of

Dr Kalyan's review of Talageri. Michael mentions Koenraad Elst in his

remarks. While I am sure that Talageri and NSR are not members here,

all the others - Prof. Michael Witzel, Dr Kalyansundaram, Prof

Koenraad Elst and Mayuresh Kelkar are members here. Certainly, we

will see more fireworks from all the guys involved- with few, if at

all hopefully, academic cookies thrown in - Kishore patnaik]

Indo-Eurasian_research , Michael Witzel

<witzel wrote:

 

Dear List,

 

Our (former) list member Kelkar (who is " specializing " in cutting and

pasting snippets from linguistic articles as to " prove " his Out of

India theories) has sent us the message quoted below some 2 weeks

back. I now have a moment to deconstruct it, for your late weekend

delectation.

 

(More serious stuff to follow on Monday or so.)

 

This is a " book review " of a new book by the " Out of India " proponent

S. Talageri by our old friend, the ardent Hindutva proponent, Dr. K.

 

From what appears in his copious quotations from the book, it is a

continuation of the uninformed and hare-brained theories proposed by

T. earlier (1993, 2000). And, as always, hailed and actually aided by

the Belgian Hindutva fan K. Elst (who also had praised the Indus

signs 'decipherment' by Rajaram, before we picked it apart on the old

INDOLOGY list (Liverpool) in 2000.

 

The following quotes from T.'s new elaboratum, however, are enough to

cast aside this book just like its predecessors. (I may, perhaps?,

write something on it once I have received it.)

 

For the moment just a few remarks -- for a perfect end to this

weekend. Have fun:

 

* The Rgveda in 3400 – 2200 BCE -- is of course impossible as it

is full of horses and chariots, which were invented (in the Ural

area, or Mesopotamia as some maintain) only around 2000 BCE. The

steppe animal, the horse, was introduced into South Asia only around

1800 BCE (and similarly into the Ancient Near East)

 

That alone is enough to throw out T's dating of his three layers of

the RV (which even *as such* are wrong: books 3 and 7 can by no means

be shown to be early; they belong to the end of the Bharata conquests

under Sudas and are preceded by the books mentioning his ancestors,

such as books 4, 6).

 

* The funny thing about this book, just as about its predecessors

(see quotes in EJVS 2001 etc,) is the absolute certainty ( " the only

possible conclusion " ... ) with which T. makes his statements.

 

One may think of a 19th c. German professor, not a 21st c. writer

(who is, BTW, not a specialist but a bank clerk... What is it about

Indian bank employees like Dr. (Manila) K. and retired

mathematicians/science people like Rajaram to become 'historians' and

`linguists' at the drop of a hat?)

 

If T. is that sure, why to write another book about the same subject

matter as in his 1993 and 2000 elaborata?

 

It seems that the active help of K. Elst with this book has not

helped T. to change his preconceived ideas about an origin of the RV

and of all Indo-Europeans deep in the bosom of Mother India... This

is AW. Schlegel of 1808, not the 21st century.

 

 

 

* As for our friend Dr K., opining his own views in the last few

lines of this 'review.' We all know that he has deciphered the Indus

signs several times over, and always they are about smiths and

metals, notably: his ingenious identification of the Soma plant

with ... electrum. Hard to swallow, that mineral...

 

He repeats the same below, and adds the long-refuted nonsense about

Shivalingas etc. (well: small pillars between three bricks, for

positioning cooking pots).

 

* All of that fantasy is crowned by his proposal of a mleccha vaacas

(wrong for Skt. vacas or: vaak!) which somehow should explain the

origin of Dravidian and Munda ... in a " linguistic area called

Bharatam " : idam bharatam janam of RV 3.53.12. Well, the author of

that hymn (Vishvamitra, or rather his descendants) speaks about the

tribe and king by whom he has been hired: Sudaas of the Bharata, a

small tribe (that overcame others) and " settled " in the Kuruksetra

area NW of Delhi. So Dr K.' linguistic area is confined to Haryana

State, and not all of modern India (Bhaarat) + Pakistan + Bangla

Desh, etc.

 

No end to Hindutvavadin fantasies... Nice, however, to see how hey

disagree with each other.

 

A few notes interspersed, not that is worth the effort:

 

 

 

On Nov 18, 2008, at 1:22 PM, mayureshkelkar wrote:

 

(quoted without cuts, but interspersed with my brief notes)

 

Book review: S.G. Talageri, 2008, The Rigveda and the Avesta †" the

final evidence, Delhi, Aditya Prakashan

 

The theses of Shrikant G. Talageri, presented in this book, are:

 

1.Early Rigvedic people (Puru/Paurava) were settled to the east of

Sarasvati river in 3rd millennium BCE and started migrating,

expanding westwards.

 

2.Proto-Iranians, Proto-Greeks, Proto-Armenians and Proto-Albanians

(Anu/Anava) were settled in areas to the west of the Rigvedic people

and started expanding westwards around that period.

>> ----Nowhere any

evidence that these IE peoples/languages are referred to as Anu/

Aanava: fantasy

 

3.Areas to the west and north of Anu people were Proto-Anatolian,

Proto-Tocharian, Proto-Italic, Proto-Celtic, Proto-Germanic, Proto-

Baltic and Proto-Slavic (Druhyu tribes) who started expanding

northwards into Central Asia.

 

>>-- Ditto: for Druhyu, see EJVS 2001

etc. <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ewitzel/ejvs-new.htm> or:

<http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/>

 

4.Yadu/Yadava, Turvasus/Turvas'as settled to the south of Rigvedic

people included Indo-European groups †" whose speech forms were not

included in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European linguistic

paradigm for lack of detailed records) and other linguistic groups

(Proto-Dravidian, Proto-Mundas etc.)

 

In Section I of the book, Talageri finds a large body of classes of

names and name elements found both in Rigveda (mainly in386 hymns in

late books)

 

>> T.'s " late books " have been criticized in EJVS long ago… <http://

www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0702/ejvs0702article.pdf>

 

and in Avesta-Mitanni-Kassite data. " Name elements shared with Avesta

consist mainly of a few restricted types of compound names with a few

prominent prefixes of a basic nature (Su-, Deva-, Puru-, Vis'va-),

which are found in the names of important historical personalities of

the Early Period. However, these name-elements are found in even

greater profusion in the Late Books…In short: the Early and Middle

Books of the Rigveda are earlier than the Avesta, and the Late Books

of the Rigveda are contemporaneous with the Avesta; and the common

'Indo-Iranian' culture visible in the two texts is a product of the

LateRigvedic Period. "

 

Dealing with the evidence of chronology of the meters used in the two

texts, Talageri concludes: " The evidence of the Avestan meters

confirms to the hilt the conclusions compelled by the evidence of the

Avestan names: namely, that Zarathushtra, the first and earliest

composer of the Avesta, is contemporaneous with the Late Period and

books of the Rigveda (notably with the non-family Books), that the

Early and Middle Books of the Rigveda precede the period of

composition of the Avesta, and that the 'Indo-Iranian' culture common

to the Rigveda and the Avesta is a product of the Late Rigvedic

Period. "

 

>> Can it get worse? It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the

IIr. language and culture preceded both the Avesta and RV... And is

older than T.'s " late RV " of 2200-1400 BCE. T's " absolute chronology "

is contradicted by the Mitanni data (long discussed on this list)

that he marshals: ome Mitanni-Indo-Aryan forms (*written* down in

Nuzi etc. around 1400 BCE) are OLDER than *all of the RV* (zh, azd

(h), ai?), -- so how come that the RV has been composed in 3400 BCE

onwards? ;

 

Geography of the Rigveda is closely linked with River Sarasvati.

Talageri notes: " The importance of the Sarasvati in Indian historical

studies has multiplied manifold since archaeological analyses of the

Ghaggar-Hakra river bed, combined with detailed sattllite imagery of

the course of the ancient (now dried up) rigver, conclusively showed

that it had almost dried up by the mid-second millennium BCE itself,

and that, long before that, it was a mightly river, mightier than the

Indus, and that an overwhelming majority of the archaeological sites

of the Harappan cities are located on the banks of the Sarasvati

rathern than of the Indus. This has lethal implications for the AIT,

which requires an Aryan invasion around 1500 BCE after the decline of

the Harappan civilization, since it shows that the Vedic Aryans, who

lives 'on both banks' (Rigveda VII.96.2) of a mighty Sarasvati in

full powerful flow, must have been inhabitants of the region long

before 1500 BCE and in fact may be identical with the indigenous

Harappans. "

 

>> The " Sarasvati " canard has long been exposed as well. The exact

date

of the drying up of *certain* portions, not all, is unclear; see

Mughal, Cholistan 1997, and a host of other publications. (Nobody

knows what the river was called in Harrapan time's certainly not by

the Skt. word Sarasvati).

 

>> And the more copious number of sites along the Ghagghar-Hakra has

long been explained as due to the desertification of the area that

allows to find these settlement right on the surface while they are

buried by the deep Indus deposits elsewhere.

 

 

On relative chronology of the Rigveda, Talageri cites Edward W.

Hopkins (1896, Pragathikani, pp.23-92 in Journal of the American

Oriental Society, Vol. 17: 74-81): " …most of these Avestan words

preserved in viii, withal those of the most importance, are common

words in the literature posterior to the Rik…Take for instance,

udara or ushtra or mesha, the first is found only in viii.i.x; the

second in viii.i; the last in viii.i.ix., x. Is it probable that

words so common both early and late should have passed through an

assumedly intermediate period (of ii-vii) without leaving a

trace?...We must, I think, suppose that the Avesta and RV viii are

younger than RV ii., vii; or else that the poets of viii were

geographically nearer to the Avestan people, and so took from them

certain words, which may or may not have been old with their Iranian

users, but were not received into the body of Vedic literature until

a time posterior to the composition of ii-vii. " Talageri notes that

the second alternative is not correct since these words are shared by

the Atharvaveda and later texts, geographically much further to the

east and 'the common factor is late date, and not close geographical

location',

 

>> We have long progressed beyond the early observation of Hopkins,

more than 100 years ago. He should read K. Hoffmann 1975 sqq. and

yours truly.

 

 

 

Talageri dares to provide a'the absolute chronology of the Rigveda':

 

Early period †" Books 6,3,7 early I: 3400 †" 2600 BCE;

 

Middle period †" Books 4,2, middle 1: 2600 †" 2200 BCE;

 

Late period †" Books 5,8,9,10, rest of 1: 2200-1400 BCE.

 

 

 

>>See above.

 

 

 

This thundering statement is based on 'Mitanni evidence', citing J.P.

Mallory and Witzel. Citing Mallory (1997, Encyclopaedia of Indo-

European Culture, Mallory J.P. and Adams D.Q., Fitzroy Dearborn

Publishers, London and Chicago), Talageri concludes: " …theactual

Mitanni IA language must have been present in the area (northern Iraq/

Syria) as a living language, influential enough to influence its

neighbouring languages, only centuries before 1460 BCE " Then,

Talageri cites Witzel: " the Kassite language belongs to an altogether

unknown language group…the vocabulary of their largely unknown

language hardly shows any IA influence, not even in their many

designations for the horse and horse names. " (Witzel, 2005,

Indocentrism: autochthonous visions of ancient India. Witzel,

Michael, in: 'The Indo-Aryan controversy †" evidence and inference

in Indian history' ed. Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton,

Routledge, London & New York: 362,380) and adds: " Therefore the

Kassites (whose conquest of Mesopotamia is dated by Witzel to 1677

BCE, though earlier dates have been suggested) probably acquired

their few IA words some time earlier from the original Mitanni IA

language which was probably already a dying language by the time the

Kassites conquered Mesopotamia around 1677 BCE… " Talageri concludes

that " Mitannia IA language, which became the Mitannia IA language in

West Asia, was a culture which developed in northwestern India in the

period of the Late Books of the Rigveda; and these proto-Mitanni

speakers must have migrated from India well after the development of

this common culture at some time in the Late Rigvedic Period. "

(p.188).

 

>> Cf. above: T. does not seem to realize that the Mitanni realm (c.

1500 BCE ) and the Kassite realm (c. 1677 BCE) are situated in two

different areas of Mesopotamia and overlap in time. The Kassite one

is earlier: so how do they borrow from a dying Mitanni (IA) language

-- which has been characterized by scholars as an adstrate (or at

best, a superstrate) of Hurro-Caucasian ... Non sequitur.

 

In Section II of the book, Talageri locates the Indo-European

homeland in India, based principally on the evidence of isoglosses

discussed by Hock (1999: a.Out of India? The linguistic evidence.

Hock, Hans H., pp. 1-18 in: " Aryan and non-Aryan in South Asia:

evidence, interpretation, and ideology " (proceedings of the

International Seminar on Aryan and non-Aryan in South Asia, Univ.

ofMichigan, October 1996; b. Through a glass darkly: Modern 'racial'

interpretations vs. textual and general prehistoric evidence on arya

and daasa/dasyu in Vedic society. Hock, Hans H., pp. 145-174, ibid.).

 

" An isogloss is a special linguistic feature which develops in any

one language and then spreads to other languages and dialects over a

contiguous area. Thus, the distinction between dental sounds and

cerebral sounds (i.e. between dental t,d and n as opposed to cerebral

T,D,N) is an isogloss peculiar to the Indian area: it is found in all

kinds of languages not genetically related to each other: Indo-Aryan,

Dravidian, Austric (Kol-Munda) and Burushaski. " (p.215)

 

Talageri notes that Hock's evidence " is deliberately partial and

selcctive: not only does Hock fail to take into account many

important isoglosses linking together different branches, but he even

pointedly excludes from his arrangement one crucial branch,

Tocharian, on the plea that 'it is difficult to find dialectal

affiliation' (Hock 1999a: 16) for it…In no reasonable

dialectological arrangement of Indo-European dialects can these three

(Hittite, Tocharian and Italic) be shown to be sharing these

important isoglosses with each other in contiguous areas and then

'maintaining their relative positions to each other as they fanned

out from the homeland' to their respective earliest attested areas.

So Hock, simply ignores the concerned isoglosses, and excludes

Tocharian from his arrangement, and crosses his fingers in the hope

that no-one notices. "

 

>> I will have to read T. to see what he does with Hock's arguments in

detail. Hindutvavadins have shown a remarkable ability in te past to

quote his data and conclusions as to fit their 'theory'.

 

>> Of course everybody knows that Tocharian is a Centum (western) IE

language, though its exact position with Centum between Hittite,

Italic, Celtic, Germanic etc.) is difficult to pin down. Long

discussion among IE scholars.

 

Discussing the evidence of contacts between the European Dialects of

Indo-European and various non-Indo-European languages of Eurasia,

Talageri concludes: " …there is no linguistic evidence for any

assumed movement of the main body of Indo-Aryans and Iranians of the

south through Eurasia in any direction at any time in the past. " And

adds that " Indo-Aryan is the dialect which remained in the homeland

after all the others had left. "

 

>> This is of course utter nonsense. It has long been shown that the

other IE languages do not contain any hint of S. Asian elements

nor names of tropical plants, animals etc. (EJVS 2001).

 

>> And, some of them have early contact with people to the north

(Uralic, Yeneseian) that were imported into India such as the word

for the bee (makSikaa ~ Uralic mekse, note the pre-IA vowel `e' that

turned into `a' in Indo-Iranian) ...

 

Trying to delineate the linguistic roots of India, Talageri cites

George Erdosy, whom he calls " an AIT writer " : " we reiterate that

there is no indication in the Rigveda of the Arya's memory of any

ancestral home, and by extension of migrations. " (Erdosy 1989,

Ethnicity in the Rigveda and its bearing on the question of Indo-

European origins. Erdosy, George pp.35-47 in 'South Asian Studies'

vol. 5, London: 40-41).

 

>> Again an old canard. Many IE peoples (that should have come from

India, as per T.) do not remember where their ancestors (well,

correctly: the earlier speakers of their respective languages) came

from. Plus, there are clear reminiscences of Central Asian place

names in the RV (see again EJVS 2001).

 

Concluding 'a complete linguistic case for the Indian Homeland or Out-

of-India theory " , Talageri notes: " Isisore Dyen, in a paper presented

in 1966 and published in 1970, makes out a case showing the

similarities between many basic words reconstructed in the proto-Indo-

Eropean and proto-Austronesian languages, including such basic words

as the first four numerals, many of the personal pronouns, and the

words for 'water' and 'land.' (Dyen, 1970, The case of the

Austronesian languages. Dyen, Isidore, in 'Indo-European and Indo-

Europeans', ex. By George Cardona, HM Hoenigswald and Alfred Senn,

University of Pennsylvania Press,Philadelphia: 439). " Talageri cites

SK Chatterjee for the ultimate origins of the Austronesian family of

languages in an Indian homeland hypothesis: " India was the centre

from which Austric speech spread into the lands and islands of the

east and Pacific (Majumdar ed. 1951/1996, The Vedic Age. General

Editor Majumdar R.C., The History and Culture of the Indian People.

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Mumbai: 156). " (p.289)

 

>> Some linguists discuss whether Dyen's paper was not meant as a

linguistic joke.

 

>> Anyhow, such correspondences, if accepted, can easily be due to

older

stages in pre-IE (such as in Nostratic, or Borean). [i have noticed

similarly old strata in IE and Polynesian mythology, see my forthc.

book, `Origins' NY 2009].

 

>> Chatterjee is of course outdated by now, and linguists are still

discussing whether the Austro-Asiatic (not: Austric) homeland was in

E. India or SE Asia or even S. China. Lots of recent publications

that I can supply.

 

Referring to archaeology, Talageri notes: " So far as the

archaeological evidence is concerned, the only possible conclusion

that can be reached is that the undisturbed archaeological and

anthropological continuity in the Harappan areas between 'the 5th/4th

and … the 1st millennium BCE' constitutes formidable, and lethal,

evidence against the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory), which just simply

cann not be explained away. " He goes on to see the possibility of

matching Harappan civilization with 'Indo-Iranian'/Rigvedic phase and

PGW (Painted Greyware) culture for the post-Rigvedic phase.

 

>> Here we go: " the only possible conclusion .. formidable, and

lethal,

evidence " …

 

>> No inkling of modesty in this latter day 19th century writer.

 

>> The " matching of Harappan and IIr/RV " phase is nonsense, see above.

Again, this has been discussed endlessly, and any serious scholar

will see that the Harappan and Rgvedic civilizations just don't match.

 

>> Only Hindutvavadins insist on their identity, and of course

preferably of a date of 3102 BCE (February 18, to be precise)...

 

 

 

>>Now, here comes Dr. K:

 

To conclude this précis of Talageri's work which logically follows

his earlier works on Rigvedic history (1993, The Aryan invasion

theory and Indian nationalism, Voice of India, New Delhi; 2000, The

Rigveda: A historical analysis, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi), we may

say that relying upon isoglosses and name-elements are simplistic

enterprises. Languages are far beyond these elements traceable in

phonetic peculiarities or names which occur in a few texts. The major

omission in Talageri's work is a failure to trace the cultural

markers in the civilizations of the periods he is dealing with. In a

recent address, BB Lal noted that Sarasvati is the mother of Indian

civilization and cited many examples of cultural continuity from

Vedic times evident in modern India: to name just two: 1. finds of

Shivalingas in Harappa; 2. the practice of wearing sindhur at the

parting of the hair. Many more have been cited in e-books, links and

references at http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/sarasvati-hindu-

civilization Beyond phonetics, place names, river names and name

elements is the cultural substratum which defines the world-view and

self-identities of people. This is an area which is as substantive as

semantics of language while superficial phenomena such as phonetics

and building up isoglosses may be only a mechanistic explanation for

a complex cultural phenomenon called the origins and evolution of

civilizations.

 

>> Well, Dr K: if the data of T. were right, they would be important

markers, not just your imagined " hieroglyph decipherments " :

 

For example, one of the theses developed in the e-books cited is that

the the so-called Indus Script has been decoded as 1) Sarasvati

hieroglyphs read rebus and related to the semantics of mint/smithy,

with particular reference to minerals, metals, alloys, furnaces,

smelters invented by early artisans †" vishwakarma of the Hindu

tradition and 2) the underlying language as mleccha vaacas as

distinct from arya vaacas (lingua franca or spoken dialects as

distinct from grammatically correct written form). The mleccha vaacas

and arya vaacas may explain the indigenous formation and evolution of

Munda-Dravidian and Indo-Aryan in the Indian Homeland; this requires

further investigation by language scholars with special focus on

general semantics in a linguistic area called Bharatam (cf.

Vishwamitra's famous line: Vishwamitrasya rakshati brahmedam bharatam

janam: Rigveda 3.53.12).

 

>> See above: ... fantasy in overdrive...

 

Since Talageri's work is a point-by-point refutation of two

proponents of AIT: Witzel and Hock, one hopes that both of them will

read and respond to the evidence marshaled superbly by Talageri.

 

 

>>Well, if Hock deigns to do so, that is his prerogative. I wonder

whether I will AGAIN carve out the time to so, as I have done with

T.'s earlier, 2000 book. Labor lost -- as even this brief summary by

our Dr K indicates.

 

>>I wish you continued happy reading from his 1-2 room " Sarasvati

Research Centre " ...

 

 

S. Kalyanaraman

, Sarasvati Research Centre.

 

18 November 2008 kalyan97@

 

 

 

>> 'nough said.

 

>> More serious matters next time around.

 

Cheers!

 

Michael