-14_The Linguistic Argument about the Rigveda^s Date.htm Chapter Eleven THE LINGUISTIC ARGUMENT ABOUT THE RIGVEDA'S DATE A linguistic argument apart from the Boghaz-keui documents is also in the field. Perhaps the best statement of it is in the words of B.K. Ghosh. "The language of the Rigveda," he writes in one place, "is certainly no more different from that of the Avestan Gāthās than is Old English from Old High German, and therefore they must be assigned to approximately the same age: and the relation between the language of the Gāthās and that of Old Persian inscriptions of the sixth century B.C. cannot be better visualised than by comparing the former with Gothic and the latter with Ol

Chapter Two THE SUPPOSED ARYAN INVASION The first question has to be considered under two heads: archaeological and literary. In an article of 1966, "The Decline of the Harappans", G.R. Dales, director of archaeological fieldwork in South Asia, particularly in West Pakistan, for a good number of years, wrote in connection with the topic of an Aryan invasion of India: "The Aryans... have not yet been identified archæologically."1 Even a diehard defender like Sir Mortimer Wheeler of the Aryan-invasion hypothesis and of the theory that the Rigvedic Aryans destroyed the Harappā Culture had to state: "It is best to admit that no proto-Aryan material cultu

-25_A General Survey of Asko Parpola^s Latest Study.htm SUPPLEMENT V* A GENERAL SURVEY OF ASKO PARPOLA'S LATEST STUDY: "The Coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the Cultural and Ethnic Identity of the Dāsas" This is the title of an article covering pp. 195-265 of Studia Orientalia, vol. 64, Helsinki, 1988. As soon as I heard of the thesis I wrote to its celebrated author, some of whose views expressed elsewhere I had already discussed. I requested an offprint. He was kind enough to post it at once. It was graciously inscribed "With best regards" and signed with his name. I thanked him for the personal touch as well as for the prompt dispatch, but while greatly appreciatin

Chapter Seven PRE-HarappāN ARYANISM AND THE RIGVEDA How well a pre-Harappān Rigveda, in an all-round context and not merely in that of the spoked wheel, fits into the historical picture of India's remote antiquity can be noted if we revolve a question which Sankalia put to the present writer in a letter of 21 March 1963. I had sent him the typescript of the first draft of my book, The Harappā Culture and the Rigveda, which has now been considerably enlarged but is still unpublished. He wrote to me a very appreciative letter of some length, in the course of which he observed: "Like a clever lawyer you have shown how the archaeologists have ve

ANALYTIC REVIEW OF THE CHAPTERS CHAPTER Page 1. The theory of an invasion of Dravidian India by the Rigvedic Aryans in the 2nd millennium B.C. 1 Its unhealthy effect on North-South relationship today 1 Were the Rigvedic Aryans really outsiders and invaders? 1 The right attitude and approach to the problem 1-2 Four crucial historical questions to be faced for the correct answer 2-3 2. Any archaeological evidence? Negative answers from G. R. Dales and Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the champion of the

Chapter Three THE INVASION-THEORY AND THE ALLEGED ARYAN-DRAVIDIAN DIFFERENCE The conclusion at which we have arrived is exactly that of Sri Aurobindo who was a multi-linguist and a cultural exponent, besides being a political guide, a philosophical thinker, a literary critic, a poet on a grand scale and a master of integral spirituality. As far back as 1914, after mentioning how the old conceptions of the recent emergence of civilized man from the mere savage had been shaken by our increasing knowledge of remarkable civilizations many thousands of years ago, he wrote: "If the Vedic Indians do not get the bene

SUPPLEMENT IV PROBABLE HISTORICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL WORK AT DWARAKA Reports have been appearing at various times in Indian newspapers about the archaeological work of Dr. S.R. Rao. One of them, after touching on his past discoveries, says:1 "His recent discovery centres around the excavations at Dwaraka, the famed city mentioned in the MahaBhārata, which interests the historian, scientist and common man alike. While Dwaraka arouses reverence in the common man, it also inspires curiosity among scientists and historians, who wish to know whether there really existed a port town... Did it reall