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!
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