Motivations behind selecting the name 'India' in 1947

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

The amount of indians using multiple id's and that keep coming back for more, prove my contention - that it indians obsessed with Pakistan.

Indians are obssesed with knowledge and quality discussions,If don't understand what i mean.

Jut get rid of the mods/think tanks/military professionals and a few senior members here ,overnight 90% will leave this forum.

 

[Rafi]

Indians are obssesed with knowledge and quality discussions,If don't understand what i mean.

Jut get rid of the mods/think tanks/military professionals and a few senior members here ,overnight 90% will leave this forum.

Quality discussions about other forum such as Pakdef and Pakistanidefence have little or no indian participation and do fine.

But most Pakistanis are the least bit interested in bharatrakshak and other indian sites are up to.

This fascination is mostly from your side.

 

[Bang Galore]

Quality discussions about other forum such as Pakdef and Pakistanidefence have little or no indian participation and do fine.

But most Pakistanis are the least bit interested in bharatrakshak and other indian sites are up to.

This fascination is mostly from your side.

Kindly stop whining. It gets a bit tiresome after a while. If the forums mentioned by you are more interesting in your opinion, why do you spend your time here wasting it on a forum that you particularly have issues with.

We are here because the administrators have chosen to adopt this particular format & membership. If you have issues with that, kindly take it up with them & spare us your continuous ranting.

 

[Bang Galore]

Originally Posted by Joe Shearer View Post
But about the dates, very briefly, and without prejudice, meaning I am representing the commonly held view for your ready reminder in a separate note (I will try and see if a table formed in Word can be fitted into this format).

Indo-Iranian tribes in Central Asia: 2500 BC to 2000 BC
Iranian tribes move westward: 2000 to 1700 BC
Composition of the Avesta: 1700 BC to 1300 BC
Indian tribes move eastward: 2000 to 1700 BC
Last dates of viable IVC settlements, latest: 1300 BC
Composition of the Rg Veda and three other Vedas*: 1700 BC to 1000 BC
Composition of the Mahabharata*: 800 BC to 800 AD

Okay, some issues with the dates now. Why I brought the Saraswati into the discussion was because its mention as the major river at the time of the Rig Veda and its decline thereafter would throw into question the dates normally given for movement of the Aryans. The Rig Veda , it can be argued would have been composed after a settlement had been well established and a language distinct from any other common earlier language had evolved. Let's say that this took place over a few hundred years. The saraswathi dried up long before 1000B.C.

The wide river bed (paleo-channel) of the Ghaggar river suggest that the river once flowed full of water during the great meltdown of the Himalayan Ice Age glaciers, some 10,000 years ago, and that it then continued through the entire region, in the presently dry channel of the Hakra River, possibly emptying into the Rann of Kutch. It supposedly dried up due to the capture of its tributaries by the Indus system and the Yamuna river, and later on, additionally, the loss of water in much of its catchment area due to deforestation and overgrazing.[23] This is supposed by some to have happened at the latest in 1900 BCE [24][25]

Painted Grey Ware sites (ca. 1000 BCE) have been found in the bed and not on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra river, suggesting that the river had dried up before this period

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/application/archaeology/site/archs0001.htm
http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/oct25/articles20.htm

That puts back the dates suggested by you considerably as the river to be spoken of so highly & personified as a Goddess suggests that it was a river in greater flow than others in comparison.(The Aryans would have had to cross the Indus to come to the Saraswati)
A second problem is one on which you & I have touched upon on an earlier thread- The Mitanni. They came to power, as you know about 1500 B.C. & specifically used Indo-Aryan names & words including aika. That would suggest not only a separation between the Iranian tribes & the Indian tribes but also a considerable interval wherein the specific culture & language evolved with the difference being clear & distinct. Regardless of what you think of the Mitanni's presence(you had an interesting theory, I remember), it is the presence of the their distinct Indo-aryan roots that are important for our purpose. The dates given by you are too tight to accommodate this & certainly the question of the saraswati.

 

[Rafi]

Kindly stop whining. It gets a bit tiresome after a while. If the forums mentioned by you are more interesting in your opinion, why do you spend your time here wasting it on a forum that you particularly have issues with.

We are here because the administrators have chosen to adopt this particular format & membership. If you have issues with that, kindly take it up with them & spare us your continuous ranting.

Your doing the whining, shows that the inferiority complex is alive and kicking in you.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Okay, some issues with the dates now. Why I brought the Saraswati into the discussion was because its mention as the major river at the time of the Rig Veda and its decline thereafter would throw into question the dates normally given for movement of the Aryans.

Not really.

It is not by any means the major river in the Rg Veda; an important one, certainly, but to assign a rank order to it superior to that of the Sindhu is stretching a bit, don't you think? Naturally, the question that arises is - how did you calculate the rank order? How and where did you get the superiority of the Saraswati over the Sindhu?

And the dates don't seem to be inconsistent. See below.

The Rig Veda , it can be argued would have been composed after a settlement had been well established and a language distinct from any other common earlier language had evolved. Let's say that this took place over a few hundred years. The saraswathi dried up long before 1000B.C.

The Saraswati:- Where lies the mystery
Saraswati – the ancient river lost in the desert

That puts back the dates suggested by you considerably as the river to be spoken of so highly & personified as a Goddess suggests that it was a river in greater flow than others in comparison.(The Aryans would have had to cross the Indus to come to the Saraswati)

There are several issues here.

1. It is precisely NOT the case that the Rg Veda was composed by a settled people, leave alone a sedentary people, and in fact, the bulk of the evidence shows that the hymns were composed and sung when the tribes were wanderers and herdsmen.
2. Nor is the point about the language having been differentiated consistent with historical facts. On the contrary. The earlier hymns and the language of the Zend Avesta are so close as to seem dialectal variants. It was written precisely at around the time of the physical break, when the linguistic break was not yet congealed into significant differences.
3. The dates are not inconsistent with a possibility that the Saraswati stopped sustaining the IVC around 1000 BC. We are looking at generally accepted dates of 1700 BC to 1000 BC for the composition of the Vedas, and 1000 BC (according to your figure) for the cessation of the Saraswati. I have already proposed a last date of 1300 BC for the IVC. If the river stopped flowing in 1000 BC, it might very well have become unable to sustain its client cities by three hundreds years previous to that.
4. There is no inconsistency with the hymn-writers having written about the Saraswati in the Rg Veda, as it was in a flux till as late as 1000 BC. So why should a river that was significant until then not find mention? Or putting it the other way around, why should it finding mention surprise us?

I find it difficult to agree that the river should be given such a high priority as you seem to assign it. Its personification as a Goddess does not necessarily signify a greater size or a greater volume of water flow. As we already know, the preferred term for dealing with a large body of water was already the Sindhu, and there is clear room to believe that some of the earliest references to the Sindhu might have been references to the Aral Sea, the Syr Daria or the Amu Daria.

Such might have been the case with the Saraswati also. We cannot rule out that the existence of the Ghaggra/Hakkra apart, the name Saraswati may have belonged to another river, flowing into another Sindhu, in the earliest times, and may have been transferred when the migrants in their eastward wanderings encountered new water-bodies and used their old familiar names for them, reminders of their earlier wanderings. An example is New York, New Hampshire and their type; Cartagena, New Carthage, in ancient and mediaeval times in the Mediterranean; in India, Then Kasi for Madurai, signifying the southern Kasi and others.

A second problem is one on which you & I have touched upon on an earlier thread- The Mitanni. They came to power, as you know about 1500 B.C. & specifically used Indo-Aryan names & words including aika.

That would suggest not only a separation between the Iranian tribes & the Indian tribes but also a considerable interval wherein the specific culture & language evolved with the difference being clear & distinct. Regardless of what you think of the Mitanni's presence(you had an interesting theory, I remember), it is the presence of the their distinct Indo-aryan roots that are important for our purpose.

As a matter of fact, linguistically, the names of the Gods of the War Band date back to the Indo-Iranian and earlier, NOT to the Indo-Aryan. These same gods are known to a wide array of allied tribes and cultures within the Indo-European speaking peoples.

The Mittanni are presently thought, generally, to be a tribe speaking a variant of Proto-Indo-Iranian, and to have branched off from the Greek-Armenian- Indo-Iranian stem. Greek and Armenian separated out later, and left the Indo-Iranian balance to the rest of the march eastward.

No problem, Saar.

Secondly, I am not entirely certain what you refer to by the phrase 'separation'. The Parama Kamboja and the Kuru were separated; they were separated by distance, they were separated by then by language, but literary records insist that they were allied in battle sometime before 800 BC. We need not take literary records as absolute evidence, but it does give us clues.

The dates given by you are too tight to accommodate this & certainly the question of the saraswati.

I believe that there is room, room for the existing hypothesised sequence of facts that I have presented, room for the Saraswati, room for the broad fit of events discussed by us.

But we can always discuss any further doubts.

 

[Bang Galore]

Not really.

It is not by any means the major river in the Rg Veda; an important one, certainly, but to assign a rank order to it superior to that of the Sindhu is stretching a bit, don't you think? Naturally, the question that arises is - how did you calculate the rank order? How and where did you get the superiority of the Saraswati over the Sindhu?

The fact that the Sutlej & the Yamuna flowed into the saraswathi? That would automatically lower the flow in the Indus, wouldn't it?

[*]The dates are not inconsistent with a possibility that the Saraswati stopped sustaining the IVC around 1000 BC. We are looking at generally accepted dates of 1700 BC to 1000 BC for the composition of the Vedas, and 1000 BC (according to your figure) for the cessation of the Saraswati.

Not quite correct.; What I said was that the river had dried up by then since there is evidence suggesting to that end.

"Painted Grey Ware sites (ca. 1000 BCE) have been found in the bed and not on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra river, suggesting that the river had dried up before this period"

I have already proposed a last date of 1300 BC for the IVC. If the river stopped flowing in 1000 BC, it might very well have become unable to sustain its client cities by three hundreds years previous to that.
[*]There is no inconsistency with the hymn-writers having written about the Saraswati in the Rg Veda, as it was in a flux till as late as 1000 BC. So why should a river that was significant until then not find mention? Or putting it the other way around, why should it finding mention surprise us?
[/LIST]

I find it difficult to agree that the river should be given such a high priority as you seem to assign it. Its personification as a Goddess does not necessarily signify a greater size or a greater volume of water flow.

I did not claim an exact date for the decline of the Saraswathi even though the links provided by me suggests a much earlier date for its drying up. Since I am not very clear about the veracity of such statements (& hidden agendas if any) I pointed out the date given as being most certain because of the evidence of inhabited sites on the bed of the river by about 1000 B.C. It is however unlikely that a river in the process of drying up would have been given as much importance as the Saraswathi was. I also find your dismissal of the Goddess personification a bit troublesome. No other river(including Ganga) achieved the status as an independent Goddess(not just as a river Goddess) in the sub continent. Stories of the Saraswathi existing as an underground river finally meeting the Yamuna & the Ganga at Allahabad indicate the importance given to that river. This continued even when the focus had long shifted to the gangetic plains.

As a matter of fact, linguistically, the names of the Gods of the War Band date back to the Indo-Iranian and earlier, NOT to the Indo-Aryan. These same gods are known to a wide array of allied tribes and cultures within the Indo-European speaking peoples.

The Mittanni are presently thought, generally, to be a tribe speaking a variant of Proto-Indo-Iranian, and to have branched off from the Greek-Armenian- Indo-Iranian stem. Greek and Armenian separated out later, and left the Indo-Iranian balance to the rest of the march eastward.

I have to disagree, The Mitanni used many words which are similar to Sanskrit & not to an earlier Proto Indo-Iranian language. While accepting that your knowledge of history is probably greater, let me remind you that you admitted in an earlier thread that that particular part baffled you.

Secondly, I am not entirely certain what you refer to by the phrase 'separation'. The Parama Kamboja and the Kuru were separated; they were separated by distance, they were separated by then by language, but literary records insist that they were allied in battle sometime before 800 BC. We need not take literary records as absolute evidence, but it does give us clues.

I was referring to your theory of absorption of Aryan tribes into a pre existing culture. My point was that if such an absorption did occur than ties based on tribal loyalties with those in the east would have suffered. Not disputing dates but just pointing out some of the problems caused by the newer theory.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I must apologise for the spasmodic nature of my writing.

Between the demands of my travel, and the close attention that has to be paid to my father's establishment in Calcutta, and the need to retain a foothold in Bangalore, it is difficult to snatch time on line. On top of that, the grip of the birthsign I was born under doesn't permit me to give incomplete or half-hearted answers. Even if someone is being sarcastic or ironic, I believe that he (or she) has the right to the same courtesy and full reply that any other supportive person would have; a greater right, in fact.

That last obviously doesn't apply to you; the other day, I was horrified to find one of the most sober and balanced posters taking umbrage at a phrase I used, which had nothing whatsoever to do with my high respect for him. I am now careful.

The fact that the Sutlej & the Yamuna flowed into the saraswathi? That would automatically lower the flow in the Indus, wouldn't it?

The Sutlej flowing into the Saraswati would certainly affect the flow in the Indus. The Yamuna wouldn't; it went off to join the Ganges at Allahabad anyway. All this assuming that they did in fact flow into the Saraswati.

Not quite correct.; What I said was that the river had dried up by then since there is evidence suggesting to that end.

"Painted Grey Ware sites (ca. 1000 BCE) have been found in the bed and not on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra river, suggesting that the river had dried up before this period"

I did not claim an exact date for the decline of the Saraswathi even though the links provided by me suggests a much earlier date for its drying up. Since I am not very clear about the veracity of such statements (& hidden agendas if any) I pointed out the date given as being most certain because of the evidence of inhabited sites on the bed of the river by about 1000 B.C. It is however unlikely that a river in the process of drying up would have been given as much importance as the Saraswathi was.

There is a gap of 300 years between the last settlements clearly ascribable to the IVC and the dried up PGW sites in the Ghaggra-Hakkra bed. Wouldn't you agree that this gap would give sufficient time for the Saraswati to dry up and leave the IVC settlements unsustainable?

We are on the same page, I hope, wrt the PGW settlements; those were little hamlets, in some cases, and have been assigned to the early incoming Indo-Aryan culture.

I also find your dismissal of the Goddess personification a bit troublesome. No other river(including Ganga) achieved the status as an independent Goddess(not just as a river Goddess) in the sub continent. Stories of the Saraswathi existing as an underground river finally meeting the Yamuna & the Ganga at Allahabad indicate the importance given to that river. This continued even when the focus had long shifted to the gangetic plains.

Frankly this is difficult to deal with; as you know, there is no other case of this sort.

I have to disagree, The Mitanni used many words which are similar to Sanskrit & not to an earlier Proto Indo-Iranian language. While accepting that your knowledge of history is probably greater, let me remind you that you admitted in an earlier thread that that particular part baffled you.

I take your general point, but it is still true that the Mitanni usages are consistent with a much earlier break-away than the Indo-Iranian, which was quite late, about 2000 BC. Linking it to Sanskrit is difficult; which variety of Sanskrit did you have in mind, Vedic or Classic? (pre- or post-Panini?). It is utterly impossible to synchronise it with post-Panini Sanskrit, as the codification by the great man lost several Proto-Indo-Iranian language features, which indicate clearly that the two were not in proximity.

What was puzzling was the sequence proposed for the break-away, that it separated out from PIE even earlier than Greek-Armenian-Indo-Iranian. This was not a sequence I had expected, but my knowledge of the precise sequence of break-aways currently favoured by linguists is a little grey.

It is now time to rip off my false whiskers and stand revealed in public view as a mere historian with little knowledge of the current trends in linguistics. Contrary to your summation, this discussion is not within the boundaries of history, but of linguistics. So, quite honestly, we are quite on par in the matter.

What we are discussing is that awkward period that historians normally dread, that grey period before history started settling down into what it properly is, a period when it was necessary to resort to linguistic and literary interpretation - never an historian's first resort! - and more so, resort to it without the comfort of material culture to support any conclusions.

I was referring to your theory of absorption of Aryan tribes into a pre existing culture. My point was that if such an absorption did occur than ties based on tribal loyalties with those in the east would have suffered. Not disputing dates but just pointing out some of the problems caused by the newer theory.

It all depends on the question of absorption and of communications while the process of absorption goes on. We can consider parallel cases and see what happens in those. Some examples in Pakistan, on their Punjab/KP borders, are more appropriate to this discussion than any other. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to find a cooperative interlocutor who will lead the discussion at this point, since apparently the only things that are of interest are how quickly our nation will decay and vanish, and which weapons are likeliest to do the most damage.

 

[Bang Galore]

The Sutlej flowing into the Saraswati would certainly affect the flow in the Indus. The Yamuna wouldn't; it went off to join the Ganges at Allahabad anyway. All this assuming that they did in fact flow into the Saraswati.

Sorry for not being clearer. My point was that the Saraswathi would be a greater river if both the Sutlej & the Yamuna flowed into it.(In comparison, the Indus & the Ganges would be slightly lesser rivers)

 

[Joe Shearer]

Sorry for not being clearer. My point was that the Saraswathi would be a greater river if both the Sutlej & the Yamuna flowed into it.(In comparison, the Indus & the Ganges would be slightly lesser rivers)

If you are still interested, there is evidence that the Yamuna was captured alternately by the Indus system and the Gangetic system. The note does not refer to the Saraswati but does refer separately to both the Ghaggra and the Hakkra.

 

[fujistu]

i dont no why becouse in the earliers the real name of india was bharat

 

[roadrunner]

the sarasvati wasn't a river that dried up, if I've read you correct Joey/Blore.

It was just the Indus and its tributaries. If any river was bigger than the Indus, ancient maps would all have recorded it. But the only river they record is the Indus.

Conclusion: The Sarasvati was the Indus.

 

[alphamale]

the sarasvati wasn't a river that dried up, if I've read you correct Joey/Blore.

It was just the Indus and its tributarieRosa Caracciolo. If any river was bigger than the Indus, ancient maps would all have recorded it. But the only river they record is the Indus.

Conclusion: The Sarasvati was the Indus.

no it has been proved that there was a river which started from Himalayas & flows into today's haryana, rajasthan into pak thar & adjacent to indus. u can search on internet, there are many satellite images showing dry river bed of same river.

 

[roadrunner]

Satellite imagery of land indentations aren't proof a river existed.

Here's a satellite image. How much of the so called Sarasvati Basin can you see? Virtually nothing.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I had planned to wind up my contributions to this thread and retire gracefully, but was prevented from doing so by certain unfortunate events occurring elsewhere. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to bring an orderly end to my personal contributions to the thread.

the sarasvati wasn't a river that dried up, if I've read you correct Joey/Blore.

It was just the Indus and its tributaries. If any river was bigger than the Indus, ancient maps would all have recorded it. But the only river they record is the Indus.

Conclusion: The Sarasvati was the Indus.

To be honest, this conclusion would appear to be a misunderstanding. My views, such as they are, are best taken from notes 534 and 535.

no it has been proved that there was a river which started from Himalayas & flows into today's haryana, rajasthan into pak thar & adjacent to indus. u can search on internet, there are many satellite images showing dry river bed of same river.

Yes. This has been confirmed many times. It is speculated that the Sarasvati or Ghaggra or Hakkra dried up by 1900 BC, since the oldest civic establishments are dated to that period.

Satellite imagery of land indentations aren't proof a river existed.

Here's a satellite image. How much of the so called Sarasvati Basin can you see? Virtually nothing.

If you are seriously interested, this can be discussed in full, with attendant evidence in the form of very sound scientific findings.

However, to me, this is a dead subject, as the Sarasvati/ Ghaggra/ Hakkra complex has been co-opted by very determined propagandists for the oout of India theory. It is their case that these settlements prove, in some mysterious magical way, that Sanskrit was disseminated from India outward; that the so -called Indo-European languages were all derived from Sanskrit; that all the dates must be adjusted to allow for this particular model, including the unending interval that is created in order to explain the gap between the Rg Veda and other, subsequent compositions.

How does one respond to these attacks by the bigots and fascists?

I am in no position to offer advice to people as wise or as learned as you. However, what can be done without losing face is to narrate one's own responses to these attacks by the Hindutvavadis, and their academic minions, and to leave it to the understanding of the reader how it applies to their situation. My response is to flee the battle. As I was originally Hindu, it is appropriate to confirm that the urgency and the pressing imperative of this demand is sufficient to release that most civilised garment, the dhoti, from all its restraints, and to conjure up the picture which in Pakistan seems to have an irresistible allure - a dhoti with its ends fluttering. Only reading a Pakistani brigadier on the subject will make apparent how much emotion, how much erotic feeling can be brought into this simple imagery.

To cut a long story short, run, run for your lives, when you read these magic words, Sarasvati, Ghaggra and Hakkra; in the Bard's words,"Stand not on the order of thy going, but go!" When faced by a ghost, this is the only response.

Perhaps on some other occasion, in some other forum, I will have an opportunity to point out to Roadrunner that he spoilt a perfectly good argument, a tenable, sustainable argument, by one single, simple flaw, and what agonies I suffered in restraining myself from bringing this to his notice.