Original Indo Iranian Homeland

[Gill Harley]

I’m wondering whether anyone has read Shrikant Talegeri’s excellent book “The Rig Veda – An Historical Analysis. http://voi.org/books/rig/index.htm

To me, it’s quite astounding as by simply studying both the Rig Veda and the Iranian (Zoroastrian) Zend Avesta, and by putting together the geographical place names named in both, he has come to the conclusion in a quite logical and rational way that the Indo-Iranian homeland was in the Punjab, Harayana and Uttar Pradesh regions of India.


Here is a map that shows (circled in blue) the area that Talegeri's talking about. I've also circled in red where the archaeological finds are. The blue area extends into Afghanistan as Talegeri says there was a general move ttowards the north-west.




Talegeri has also done something that, as far as I’m aware, no other Western "Indologist" has done. By studying the Anukramanis, the indices of the Rig-veda, he has put together a chronology of who wrote which bits and in what order.

From this, Talegeri came to the conclusion that most of the early mandalas (books) were written by the Puru family of Angirasa rishis, and that the Bhrigu family (also Purus) came along at a later date, invented the fire ceremony and wrote Book 10.

He says that the Angirasa rishis came in from the east of India and gradually pushed out the Bhrigus, who were in the Punjab. So apart from one Bhrigu family who married into the Angirasas and who went on to write much of the later wider Vedas (Ramayana, Srimad Bhagavatham etc), the rest of the Bhrigus migrated to Iran and one of these families, called the Spitamas, produced Zoroaster who was responsible for the Zend Avesta and Zoroastrianism.

Talegeri published his book in the year 2000, which was at least five years before the archaeological discoveries in the region he describes as the Indo Iranian homeland. Here is a news item about the finds: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=270163&sid=FTP

Needless to say, he’s been slated by the Western establishment for his theory, especially by a Harvard professor named Michael Witzel whose whole reputation as a linguistic rests on there being an Aryan invasion from the area now known as Turkey, or at least from the Central Asia or even possibly Russia, with the Indians migrating east from Iran to present-day India. Thus, Witzel and his cohorts believe that the Zend Avesta and the Vendidad in particular are early prototypes of the Vedas, instead of the other way round.

Witzel has done such a good job of discrediting Talegeri – he has this disgusting habit, when he can’t disprove the message, of shooting the messenger – that Talegeri’s excellent theory seems to have sunk without trace. I really would like to find a way to promote his theory and so am planning to start hitting Western “Indologists” over the head with it very soon!

But I’d be very grateful to hear other’s views on it here first!

[sarabhanga]

Namaste Gill,

What is meant by “civilization”?

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) were present in India from about 50,000 BC; and it has been known for some time that small agricultural settlements, built with sun-dried clay bricks, were present about 7,000 BC (e.g. at Mergarh, now in Baluchistan).

Irrigation methods were developed after about 6,000 BC (apparently first in Mesopotamia), and by 4,000 BC there were large urban settlements in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. And in the 4th millennium BC, wheels and sails and written scripts appeared in each of these great ancient civilizations.

The first civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Sindhu-Sarasvati, arose at about the same time, and their boundaries were always fairly loose. There is little objection to including the regions now covered by Pakistan and Afghanistan as integral to ancient India; and if the neighbouring areas of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and Iran (cf. Aryan) are also included ~ which seems to me not unreasonable ~ then Aryan “Invasion” Theory is merely suggesting an ancient radiation of Aryan culture from the north-western corner of Arya-desha (i.e. from around the Aral Sea, just north of Afghanistan).

The theory also proposes that Aryan culture invaded (i.e. moved into) Europe from the same region (north of Iran and modern Afghanistan). And Europeans did not invade India in any significant way until about 1500 AD !

a Harvard professor named Michael Witzel whose whole reputation as a linguistic rests on there being an Aryan invasion from the area now known as Turkey, or at least from the Central Asia

Does Witzel actually claim that the original Aryans came from Turkey? It has always been generally accepted by serious scholars that the original Aryan homeland was somewhere around the Aral Sea, which is only a little north of modern Afghanistan ~ i.e. “central Asia”.

The ancient Aryans were probably nomadic hunters and herdsmen, who never saw the need to establish fixed dwellings, but that does not mean that they were uncivilized. Their wanderings were at first limited to the wide shores of the Aral and Caspian Seas, but for some reason (perhaps environmental changes) they were displaced.

The so-called “Dravidians” lived further south and had always had somewhat darker skin because of the stronger sunlight. And these dark (or Krishna) people were highly civilized, at least in the huge urban areas that had developed around their fixed agricultural and trading communities.

The two groups of people (one born on the northern slopes of the Himalaya, and the other born on the southern slopes of the Himalaya) perhaps came into conflict when the paler, nomads began moving in numbers into the long established communities of the Sindhu and Shatadru, but there were great changes happening anyway around the Sindhu-Sarasvati plains, as some once mighty rivers dried up completely and others flooded suddenly with multiplied force, and whole cities were swallowed by the sea.

The two traditions, languages, etc., were successfully merged over time, and it is partly due to this great ancient merging of apparently opposite cultures and natures that India and Hinduism are what they are today.

From India’s point of view, the so-called Aryan Invasion is only a trans-Himalayan migration, and it is the same Aryans who invaded Europe at about the same time.

There is some argument as to how destructive the Aryan entry into Indus Valley society really was. There is some evidence of destroyed cities, but exactly what happened is unclear. As I said, there were large scale geological and hydrological changes happening in the area from about 2000 BC, and many Dravidians would have been displaced by this anyway, and who knows what internal conflict may have been occurring in that confused situation. It is thought that the trans-Himalayan Aryans began arriving in numbers around 1500 BC, but they moved into a population that was already sorely disrupted.

When the poetic and philosophical Aryan nomads entered the ancient cultured settlements of Sindh, an even greater nation eventually arose from the ecological disasters and social turmoil that plagued the region after 2000 BC.

But when those same nomads entered the dark forests of totally uncivilized Europe, the effect was quite different. It took Europe another 1,500 years to even begin to get civilized, and their knowledge was either re-invented or (mostly) imported back from the East!

Today, all that remains obvious is the close linguistic connexion of all Indo-European cultures; and if the untruths of Nazi fascists and British imperialists are removed from the “theory of Aryan migration and cultural integration” then it becomes quite an innocuous theory that is actually very helpful in understanding both the Aryan and the Mleccha.

There are some northern European languages that seem to be near the root language of “original Sanskrit”, but Sanskrit itself (especially Vedic Sanskrit) is extremely close to the root!

There are of course many questions still to be answered scientifically, but the academic AIT theory does not suggest that the Aryans came to India from Europe; and it is equally false to imagine that everything in Hindu culture today is completely derived from within the current borders of India!

In the attached satellite images, logical migration routes away from the Aral and Caspian Seas (along major rivers) can easily be seen.

[pratardana]

sarbhanga with regard to yor above post, i do think that your theory though made with good intentions is unfortunately just as destructive as the infamous AIT. on the other hand i do not think that if it is the truth it should be hidden or denied, but mordern genetics has provided proof to show that the AIT theory is at best actually an Out Of iNDIA movemnt and at worst has at least completely disproved the AIT theory.
would like to point you to the book "the real eve" by "Robert Ophhenhiemar", on this topic.
dont internalise the "facts " dished out by our dear scholars like max muller.....to romila thapar.
regards.

[sarabhanga]

Namaste Pratardana,

I always hope to destroy ignorance, but please explain how my comments might be destructive in any onther way.

And I have NEVER read anything regarding the movement of Aryans by Max Muller or Romila Thapar! I prefer always to think for myself.

Please actually read my post, and examine the attached images, before making further comment on the destructive infamy of my remarks.

[Gill Harley]

Namaste Sarabhanga

Many thanks indeed for such a considered reply.

My own research, though, has shown me that there could possibly be a different story, and that this other theory bears as much weight as the AIT theory.

I’ve been working in this area for some time, and talking to academics about it, and I’ve come across such prejudice (that borders on racism) that I feel compelled to at least give the other side of the argument a good airing, because that’s more than many of those are doing. Because Western Indologists have such influence, all major textbooks and encyclopaedias talk about an Aryan invasion into India despite there being little to no archaeological or genealogical evidence for any invasion or migration (the latter being the more preferred theory nowadays) into the Indian subcontinent of fair-skinned Aryans from northern Europe or central Asia.

The only evidence of any significance that appears to exist is language-based, with Western linguists showing a breadcrumb trail of language into the Indian subcontinent from the north. However, as several eminent archaeologists have pointed out, linguistics is an inexact science, to say the least, and this breadcrumb trail could equally well run in the opposite direction, i.e. out of India, a direction that would support the “out of India” theory for the spread of Vedic culture.

This telling quote is from the late AB Keith, a renowned Sanskrit scholar and author who was a professor of philology at Edinburgh University.

“...taking the linguistic evidence too literally, one could conclude that the original Indo-European speakers knew butter but not milk, snow and feet but not rain and hands...”

As Edwin Bryant, Assistant Professor of Religion at Rutgers University said:

“...linguistics palaeontology has not provided much uncontroversial data to exclude an eastern homeland that cannot be reversed to support the same. Neither has evidence of loanwords, nor dialect geography, nor arguments based on homogeneity versus heterogeneity. Philology and linguistics can actually offer surprisingly little to compel disenchanted Indian scholars to modify their suspicions of the ability of those disciplines to make authoritative pronouncements of the Indo-Aryan peoples in pre-history...”

And in fact....

“...The one-way borrowing of Indo-Aryan (or Indo-Iranian) loans into the Finno-Ugric language might enhance the possibility that the Indo-Aryans were migrating out of the north-west of the subcontinent towards such regions, and not emigrating away into the subcontinent.”

Talegeri, in the aforementioned book, proposes that there was actually a westward movement from the east of the India across Uttar Pradesha, Harayana, the Punjab, Indus valley and out to Afghanistan. This is the breadcrumb trail in reverse.

As you know, the great patrarich Yayati from the Srimad Bhagavatham had five sons, Puru, Anu, Turvashu, Druhyu and Yadu.


Talegeri says that the Purus were the ‘Aryans’, but that the battles that occurred in the Rig-veda were between two Puru families: the Angirasa family were pushing out the Bhrigu family (who had settled in the Punjab after migrating south from Kashmir) as the Angirasas moved westwards from Uttar Pradesh.

He also says that around the same time the Druhyus and Anus were being pushed out (to become Mlecchas) into the north west and Afghanistan. It is my view that these were probably the infamous Proto-Celts who were responsible for the Gundestrop cauldron dated 1000 BC and found in Denmark.




And this is an Indus seal:



Yes sorry Sarabhanga. I was mistaken. Witzel believes that the Aryans came from the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex), which is just south of the Aral and Caspian seas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMAC

But his criticism of Talegeri’s book were petty and insubstantial, mainly attacking the man rather than his theory. This, though, has been damaging for Talegeri, and so I believe that his theory deserves to be heard more widely and discussed more objectively.

I think it’s fairly well-known that migration routes often (if not usually) followed rivers). However, I can’t see from your maps that these routes are actually coming into India. On the other hand, I never was much good at map reading!

[sarabhanga]

major textbooks and encyclopaedias talk about an Aryan invasion into India despite there being little to no archaeological or genealogical evidence for any invasion or migration (the latter being the more preferred theory nowadays) into the Indian subcontinent of fair-skinned Aryans from northern Europe

It has always been generally accepted by serious scholars that the original Aryan homeland was somewhere around the Aral Sea, which is only a little north of modern Afghanistan ~ i.e. “central Asia”.

And I am surprised that any learned person is still bothering to refute the long discredited exaggerations of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi cronies!

I hope that you can understand the attached satellite image that very clearly shows the simple immigration route from the southern shores of the Aral Sea, which was once much larger than it is today. On the far left is the current Aral Sea, and around it the wide plains that have at times been completely submerged, and which at the time when the original Aryans lived there were probably covered with marshes, broad grasslands, and forests, and populated with large numbers of grazing animals.

The Oxus (or Amu Darya ~cf. Arya) flows directly from Afghanistan into the Aral Sea, and it has been an important trading and migration route for many thousands of years.

I assume that any large scale migration of the ancient Aryans through what is now called Afghanistan and onto the northern plains of Bharata (and also westwards into Europe) was caused by the eventual desertification of their once bountiful homeland.

There is little objection to including the regions now covered by Pakistan and Afghanistan as integral to ancient India; and if the neighbouring areas of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (and Iran) are also included ~ which seems to me not unreasonable ~ then Aryan “Invasion” Theory is merely suggesting an ancient radiation of Aryan culture from the north-western corner of Arya-desha (i.e. from around the Aral Sea, just north of Afghanistan).

[Gill Harley]

Namaste Sarabhanga

Thanks for replying to this.

It looks to me as if you and I have been getting some different information on this subject, so I think it will be interesting to have this discussion. I hope you agree. If by “any learned person” you mean me, I’m highly flattered but it’s not true. I’m not particularly learned – it’s just that I have been discussing this subject for some time with people on both sides of the debate, which, in academic circles, is split right down the middle - and probably won’t be resolved to any great degree until the Indus seals are transcribed to everyone’s satisfaction.

Of course, Adolf Hitler’s views on the subject been completely discredited. But, in my experience, the idea of paler skinned “super race” that tamed the “savage, darker skinned and indigenous” Dravidians is still current in academic circles, whether these so-called Aryans came from central Asia or northern Europe. (They are also called “Indo Europeans”, so please note the “European” bit.) And rather like the Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, the “theory” bit continually gets dropped or ignored in debate, so that it’s become a given that the Aryans (or Indo-Europeans) came from the north into India, carrying the Vedas with them (or at least composing it when they got there) and any other opinion (learned or otherwise) on this subject is treated with scorn and derision. So for these Western Indologists (many of whom have never been to India) it’s not a question of “was there an race of Aryans who invaded from the north?” but “where in the north was the Aryan homeland?” All this, despite there being no archaeological or genealogical evidence for this theory, only linguistics which, as I said in my last post, can work in either direction.

So where does this idea of the paler skinned Aryan race from the north come from? As I’m sure you know – but I’ll go into a little more detail for others who may be reading this - it came from Professor Max Muller, an 19th century Oxford academic who translated the Rig-veda for the British Raj when they were ruling India, and came to the conclusion that the Rig-veda described an invasion into India of paler-skinned Aryans.

This fitted in well with the linguists’ theories of the time. They had discovered that Sanskrit ran through many European languages, including Greek, Latin, Celt and Germanic. Thus they decided that these Europeans invaded India, bringing their language with them.

Writings from Max Muller prove that his aim (and that of his paymasters, the British Raj) was to destroy the Hindu religion and replace it with Christianity. Here a quote from a letter he wrote to his wife:

“This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during three thousand years of history.”

Now my understanding – and I’m sure your knowledge on this is much greater, so please correct me if I’m wrong, Sarabhanga – is that the word Aryan comes from “arya” which means “noble” in Sanskrit, and "noble" referred to those living by Vedic principles. So this misunderstanding on Muller’s part has carried on to the present, (despite Muller at the end of his life saying that he’d made a mistake - no one would listen to him). And this has led to learned scholars, like Michael Witzel, chasing around central Asia after a fair skinned race that has never been proved to have existed and that were led by a rampaging war lord called Indra.

Athough as your map clearly shows, there were people living around the Aral Sea and surrounding areas, and that there are migrations routes from there, there is no archaeological, genealogical or literary evidence that a) the Aryans or Indo Europeans as a separate race existed and b) that anyone, Aryans or not, invaded the Indian subcontinent from the north.

However, what Talegeri has done in his book – and this is why I think he deserves a hearing instead of being ridiculed by Witzel and his cronies – is to go back to the literature that started this whole debate off – the Rig-veda – and compare it with the writings of the Zend Avesta. From this, he has put together place names and rivers to come up with another theory – in my view, as equally valid as the “Aryans-In” one – which we could call for our purposes here, the “Aryans-Out” theory (i.e. the migration of the children of Yayati, recorded in the Srimad Bhagavatham Canto 9, Chapter 19, out of India).

My own view is that while we can prove that there were migratory trails around the Aral sea, recent archaeological finds now tell us that there was also a thriving population prior to the Indus valley civilisation in just the area (Uttar Pradesh, Harayana and the Punjab) where Talegeri says the composers of the Rig-veda migrated across from the east. Talegeri published his findings in the Year 2000, whereas the archaeological evidence has only much more recently come to light.

So for these reasons, I believe that Talegeri should be given a fair hearing by the academic establishment. So far, he hasn’t had one.

[sarabhanga]

Namaste Gill,

The European Fascist view was that of a paler skinned “super race” from Northern Europe who tamed the “savage, darker skinned and indigenous” Dravidians.

There current academic view is that of the paler skinned Aryans from northern Afghanistan migrating into the Punjab and reforming the preexisting society of darker skinned “Dravidians”.

Please note that the term “Indo-European” was coined for a group of related languages, which all stem from an early version of Sanskrit. And it is assumed that these linguistic relations are also indicative of the cultural and genetic relationships of the societies using those languages.

“Indo” comes before “European”, and everyone agrees that the root language is very close to old Sanskrit; so (given that Hitler’s views have been completely discredited) why should anyone assume that the term is indicative of some European priority in this extended linguistic family?

The current academic view, as expressed by Michael Wizel, is that the earlier parts of the Rig Veda were composed in Afghanistan and Kashmir, with the later parts being composed in the Punjab. S.G. Talageri’s view, however, is that the earliest parts of the Rig Veda were composed in the east, with the later parts composed in the north-west.

Academics generally understand that EVERYTHING they assume to be true is ultimately only a theory!

The current theory is based in Linguistics and it is supported by Archaeology, and also by analysis of the Vedas themselves.

And this has led to learned scholars, like Michael Witzel, chasing around central Asia after a fair skinned race that has never been proved to have existed and that were led by a rampaging war lord called Indra.

Skin color is the least important part of the theory and it could be completely discarded without affecting the argument ~ although the Vedas are quite clear about the lightness and fairness of the Aryan appearance, which would make sense if the Aryans originated in Afghanistan rather than in Harayana!

And has Witzel actually said anything like “the Aryans were led by a rampaging war lord called Indra”??

The disagreement between Witzel and Talageri is in the methods used for establishing a relative chronology for the hymns of the Rig Veda ~ and Witzel does have some valid concerns about Talageri’s method, which have not yet been properly addressed by Talageri.

Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization has been discovered at numerous sites, from Afghanistan across to the Doab in Uttarpradesh, from the Punjab, and Harayana, and south into Maharastra ~ and all of these were known well before the year 2000!

[Gill Harley]

Namaste Sarabhanga

Thank you for your comments.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read MW’s views that Indra was an actual human war lord, as I have read so much of his writings that it would take me a while to dig it out. However, I will continue to bear it in mind and if I can find the relevant quote, I will post it here. You only have to read any of his papers, though, to realise that he has little understanding of mythology.

Skin color is the least important part of the theory and it could be completely discarded without affecting the argument ~ although the Vedas are quite clear about the lightness and fairness of the Aryan appearance, which would make sense if the Aryans originated in Afghanistan rather than in Harayana!

I agree that skin colour shouldn't be important. But it is continually raised by scholars when they say that "arya" means "fair or pale" and therefore "Aryans have pale skins" and, therefore, must have come from Afghanistan.

But Afghanistan is not the only place north of India where people developed paler skins and also, imho, "arya" does not mean "fair skinned."

For our purposes here, I have looked up the word ‘arya’ in the Monier Williams Sanskrit dictionary and it gives the following:

arya:
kind, favourable
attached to
true, devoted, dear
a master
lord

Aryaman:
" Name of an (RV ) Aditya who is commonly invoked together with Varuna and Mitra, also with Bhaga, Brihaspati and others; he is supposed to be chief of the Manes; the Milky Way is called his path (aryaannah panthah); he presides over the Nakshatra Uttaraphalguni, VarBrs."
(Incidentally, the path of the Mayan Quetzacoatl is also the Milky Way.)

There is no mention in the Monier Williams dictionary of “arya” meaning “fair or pale-skinned”. I also think it would not be unreasonable to conclude, from the above definition, that “arya” means one devoted to Aryaman and his spiritual principles.

That said, it should be abundantly clear to anyone who has ever been or lived in India that there are taller, fairer skinned Indians who tend to live in the north, and that many who come from south of the Deccan are smaller and darker skinned. So is this proof that there was an invasion/migration of fairer skinned people from the north? Not necessarily...well, certainly not in the time period that the Rig-veda was supposed to have been composed (according to the Encylopaedia Brittanica, it was between 1500 BC and 800 BC) because the genealogists’ studies show that there has been no significant change in the genetic mix of the Indian race for at least 10,000 years.

So could there be another explanation for the existence of fairer-skinned Indians? Possibly. It’s well known that those who developed and evolved in mountainous regions have fairer skins than those who evolved on the plains. I forget the details of the scientific explanation, but it’s something to do with altitude and oxygen.

In the Vendidad, (which is thought to be a precursor to the Zend Avesta) the first story is about the patriarch Yima leading a migration south from regions that had become too icy and snowbound to support life. Some believe this to be the Polar Regions and that the migration south was prompted by the last Ice Age that began in 18,000 BC.

However, Talageri in his book claims that the Bhrigus (who he believes are the Proto Iranians) were originally from Kashmir. The name of Kashmir comes from Kashyapa Muni, the patriarch from the Srimad Bhagavatham, which Talageri also believes that offshoots of the Bhrigus were responsible for).

If you look at this map showing the areas that were iced over during the last Ice Age, you will see that the Himalayas are included. Kashmir’s highest mountains, the Kolahoi and the Harmukh, are both more than 5000m above sea level.

The disagreement between Witzel and Talageri is in the methods used for establishing a relative chronology for the hymns of the Rig Veda ~ and Witzel does have some valid concerns about Talageri’s method, which have not yet been properly addressed by Talageri.

And vice-versa! I agree, though. I'm just trying to establish a level playing field here! At the moment, imho, Witzel's whole tone is to attack the young johnny-come-lately Talageri personally as uneducated Indian bank clerk of no importance. I think that if Witzel was more certain of his position, he wouldn't feel the need to do that.

I think it is also worth noting that while Talageri has established his chronology by studying the Anukramanis (the indices of the Rig-veda) and building it from there, Michael Witzel appears to have constructed his chronology around his own pre-existing theory of fair skinned Aryans invading from Afghanistan. For this reason, and this reason only, he puts Book 2 as the oldest book, whereas Talageri has the oldest books as 3, 6 and 7.

[sarabhanga]

Namaste Gill,

The whole theory is based on the “Indo-European” or “Aryan” language group, which arose from a common ancestral tongue that existed perhaps as early as 4,000 BC, somewhere around the Aral and Caspian Seas.

The expansion of “Proto-Aryan” began about 3,000 BC, and it developed along two distinct lines ~ Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan) and “European”. The now extinct Anatolian (including Hittite) branch was established by about 2,000 BC.

In India, Vedic Sanskrit was spoken ONLY by Brahmanas, who generally have paler skin than the genetic members of other Varna. And ALL of the European language speakers have paler skin.

So, if one imagines that the original Aryan population was more dark skinned, none of the “Indo-European” language-group theory can make any sense!

And if one does not accept the whole argument of an “Indo-European” relationship, it is foolish to use the same arguments to suggest an expansion of darker-skinned Aryans out of India, who were miraculously transformed into pale Europeans over a period of a few hundred years!

In Sanskrit, Arya is synonymous with Brahma, and as mentioned above, the descendants from Brahmana Gotras have ALWAYS been assumed to have a paler complexion.

It is no mere coincidence that “fair” means both “kind or noble” and “pale or light”!!

The Himalayas were covered with ice during the last Ice Age, and they still are today! Why do you think they are called Hima-Laya ~ “Ice-Land”?

And you seem to have no understanding of Witzel’s method for establishing the RV chronology (which was well established more than 100 years ago and is currently accepted by all academics (except Talageri, who has NOT explained why the accepted method should not be followed)!

I agree that Witzel’s tone is rather dismissive and arrogant, but that has no bearing in a rational examination of the facts of the matter.

The Witzel-Talageri argument is only a vehicle for fascist Europeans and fascist Indians to promote their own misguided agendas, and I would prefer to avoid what has become rather a fierce personal argument with rowdy gangs shouting from the side-lines.

And since most fundamentalist Hindus would deny that ANY “chronology” can be established for the Rig Veda, which was received as one complete divine utterance that has never been edited or adjusted, any involvement in this particular debate is quite ridiculous!!

As I said before, the debate has become an international stage for ignorant fascists who think that they are arguing something about the supremacy of white skin or defending the honor of black skin.