TURNING POINT IN THE HISTORY OF INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

[Rig Vedic]

@ Joe : How do you does ?

And folks thats what I feel my English sounds like when compared with our resident Bengali Shakespeare !

Logic, clarity and honesty will receive respect. Pretentious, high-flown language cannot make up for lack of thinking.

 

[Rig Vedic]

For those who don't read what is not prescribed by the Sarsanghchalak, the British also made it clear to the princes that they would not be given much time if they sought to strike out on their own. Quite apart from Patel's firm hand on the tiller, it was V. P. Menon's partnership with Mountbatten, a close professional relationship, which ensured that there was no splitting up into hundreds of little statelets.

Ignoring your usual ad-hominem rant (you should really put the ranting in separate posts) - Churchill's original intention was to create a Hindustan, Pakistan and a Princistan, besides "keeping a bit of India". It can be said that Mountbatten "went native" to an extent. VP Menon's role was praiseworthy, but I would give Patel the greater credit. Menon was working as a civil servant under Patel's direction. Anyway, this is a digression from the main topic.

 

[Developereo]

there are no turning points. only bends that direc the flow.

From a purely mathematical -- or reductionist -- point of view, one might argue that the turning point comes just after the zenith: the highest point attained, to which India never returned.

Politically, that would be the Maurya Empire; even the Republic of India can't match those days.

Economically, everything's relative and harder to determine the farther back one goes, but the peak is believed to be during the Mughal Era when India's share of the world GDP was among the highest.

Technologically and scientifically, it's hard to determine peaks and valleys since there was no objective measurement of output such as journals, citations, etc.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Logic, clarity and honesty will receive respect. Pretentious, high-flown language cannot make up for lack of thinking.

True; these are orthogonal qualities or attributes. The presence or absence of one set is not mutually exclusive with the other sense. Imagine the deadly effect, both long-term and short-term, of the pompous wanna-be pedant who couches his deadly boring stuff in the language that an Upper Division Clerk uses. A two-in-one delivery of deadening boredom, covering thinking that runs in the grooves created to order for a thought-hostile mass. Imagine them being used to deliver a series of self-adoring pronouncements which all go to show, wherever the point of commencement, that culture began in a specific part of the globe, spread everywhere from that single location, that a particular set of people had a monopoly of all knowledge, even after losing track of it completely for centuries until reminded sharply by the unwelcome western intruders about their own legacy; that a language was superior to all others, and miraculously is found to be tailor-made for even contemporary information-processing; that a religion sprang full-grown, like Pallas Athena from the brow of Zeus, four thousand - or perhaps five thousand, heck, let's make it six thousand and grind the others under our heels - and continued pristine pure, except for minor course correction by savants who were ipso facto the wisest of their ages. That, to continue, a group of dances, and two styles of music constitute the last word in human achievement, and having been achieved all these thousand years ago, leaves contemporaries with nothing to do but grovel in front of the select group who have preserved the true light all through the centuries.

Do you never feel nauseous at the rubbish that you wish everyone else to imbibe?

 

[Bang Galore]

With no comment.

There are all sorts of nuts around claiming all sort of stuff. That is a problem with every religion. To use those idiots to rubbish certain inconvenient questions in AIT & more specifically the interpretation of the Rg veda, is not only unfair but smacks of trying a "guilt by association" just so as to dismiss this is yet another crackpot theory not worth of consideration, just like all the other nonsense which are not worthy of consideration. It is a deliberate ploy to prevent a discussion & indeed to run away from it (present company excluded). I'm almost surprised that this ploy of labelling people as "hindutvadis or internet Hindus" haven't been tried at the geneticists who blew the biggest hole in the AIT. I guess then, the opposite party's reaction of completely dismissing the AIT because the proponents of that theory got something so wrong, for so long is understandable even if not helpful.

The Sarasvati dilemma bothers the proponents of the AIT the most. Accepting the existence of the river in India fatally undermines their timeline & even brings into question the supposed migration. So, obfuscation is what is resorted to and quite often. The Sarasvati of the Rg veda is quite clearly a river in northern India, not the Afghanistan river. The location of the river is given clearly as being between the Sutlej & the Yamuna. However that hasn't prevented some from attempting to suggest that references to the Sarasvati in other mandalas is to the river in Afghanistan though even there, some have other locations of North India mentioned or it is said the the Sarasvati flows to the ocean which would be a bit puzzling if the river was the Afghan one. That kind of scholarship is no better than the examples of the "Hindutvadis" given & is actually worse because these people are supposed to be historians and therefore should have an understanding of the subject concerned. They cannot claim ignorance of something that they are apparently giving their professional opinion on. This business of fudging facts to suit a theory that one is already predisposed to is not something that affects only the non-historians but is true of some historians too.


P.S. @ JS - Since this questioning of the AIT is, according to you, a solely hindutvadi/internet Hindu brainchild, I'm just curious where you would put me for my questioning. Am I an "internet Hindu", a Hindu nationalist or just a naive, plain gullible fool....what? Very curious on what you think.

 

[Joe Shearer]

There are all sorts of nuts around claiming all sort of stuff. That is a problem with every religion. To use those idiots to rubbish certain inconvenient questions in AIT & more specifically the interpretation of the Rg veda, is not only unfair but smacks of trying a "guilt by association" just so as to dismiss this is yet another crackpot theory not worth of consideration, just like all the other nonsense which are not worthy of consideration. It is a deliberate ploy to prevent a discussion & indeed to run away from it (present company excluded). I'm almost surprised that this ploy of labelling people as "hindutvadis or internet Hindus" haven't been tried at the geneticists who blew the biggest hole in the AIT. I guess then, the opposite party's reaction of completely dismissing the AIT because the proponents of that theory got something so wrong, for so long is understandable even if not helpful.

The Sarasvati dilemma bothers the proponents of the AIT the most. Accepting the existence of the river in India fatally undermines their timeline & even brings into question the supposed migration. So, obfuscation is what is resorted to and quite often. The Sarasvati of the Rg veda is quite clearly a river in northern India, not the Afghanistan river. The location of the river is given clearly as being between the Sutlej & the Yamuna. However that hasn't prevented some from attempting to suggest that references to the Sarasvati in other mandalas is to the river in Afghanistan though even there, some have other locations of North India mentioned or it is said the the Sarasvati flows to the ocean which would be a bit puzzling if the river was the Afghan one. That kind of scholarship is no better than the examples of the "Hindutvadis" given & is actually worse because these people are supposed to be historians and therefore should have an understanding of the subject concerned. They cannot claim ignorance of something that they are apparently giving their professional opinion on. This business of fudging facts to suit a theory that one is already predisposed to is not something that affects only the non-historians but is true of some historians too.

Addressing your comments is always something to be attempted with a clear head, and, of late, a completely clinical detachment from the subject addressed or the objects of this response - not rebuttal, but response. Does that mean that other posts do not demand a clear head or detachment? No, not in the least, it merely is necessary to say this prior to a specific response to you, in order to distinguish your comments from the maunderings of the riff-raff who constitute the revisionist school.

As for the specific instances raised by you, I shall treat them in a separate comment, for greater clarity.

It is a pity that we fail to remind ourselves, before launching into this particular subject at least, that Clio does not rule here. This is not history; comments about "that kind of scholarship" being no better than the examples of "Hindutvavadis" are wholly misdirected. History deals with the written record of events past. On occasion, archaeology lends a helping hand, epigraphy is used, numismatics supports a theory, but what we are discussing here is proto-history, in fact, to purists, pre-history. At least those among us who have clearly demonstrated their balance and level-headed approach in their past postings need to clean up their act and refrain, once and for evermore, from this egregious muddling of the scope of the discussion and the disciplines entitled to speak about it.

Historians do have opinions about pre-history, for the simple reason that they happen to be closest to the subject, compared to all others but the archaeologists. No historian worth his salt will claim any subject to be reliably illuminated by fact in the absence of written record, unless there is sound archaeological backing. Even then, Schliemann's discoveries do notconstitute history, Arthur Evans' extensive work in the field and at the desk do not constitute history; never, ever could either Alexander Cunningham, John Marshall or Mortimer Wheeler have expected that some day, their ceaseless toil to uncover the secrets of the Indus Valley Civilisation have been so summarily and brutally transferred out of the jurisdiction of archaeology, and the shadowy matter before history which we summarise as pre-history.

This is where I take singular exception to completely mistaken suppositions like the one in your post above, that the kind of scholarship displayed is no better than the examples of the Hindutvavadis given, and is actually worse because these people are supposed to be historians and therefore should have an understanding of the subject concerned;that they cannot claim ignorance of something that they are apparently giving their professional opinion on. That this business of fudging facts to suit a theory that one is already predisposed to is not something that affects only the non-historians but is true of some historians too.

The kind of scholarship, dear Sir, that is on display is not the kind of scholarship that historians are necessarily required to give by the nature of their working knowledge or by the nature of the subject. That is the subject matter of archaeologists, nobody else, as far as the IVC is concerned. As far as the Aryan problem is concerned, it is properly the subject matter of linguists. No historian has claimed access to the kind of information that would allow this subject to be brought properly under the focussed discipline of their type of work, although there are many examples of people like Pargiter who have sought to bring some method into the madness by putting up a hypothetical reconstruction of the past made possible by treating the myths and fables of a religious system as serious historical data.

This raises the obvious question of why historians have an opinion at all about either the IVC or about the Aryan question. Let us remind ourselves of the fundamentals. We have a situation where the first recorded fact that can be dated with any reliability is the invasion of Alexander. We take this as a given and work forwards and backwards around this date, comparing the facts that are built up thus with the nebulous information available. It is this work that is our field and to which we apply our skills, and it is this work that is constantly interrupted by propagandists and chauvinists of an inferior kind who interpolate their own completely concocted theories to make their own completely prejudiced points. It is when these interruptions and interpolations occur that we are forced to pay attention to the areas that the propagandists attack in order to make their point. These areas are usually the IVC and the Aryan problem, and the reason for this selection is that by starting at points not covered by regular historians, and postulating facts about a period not properly subject to the discipline of writing history, it is possible to raise a number of red herrings, mainly through the question, "What if?"

It is not that historians offer their professional opinion on their own area, and are found wanting, it is instead the case that historians find themselves being dragged into these areas due to the points of approach to regular history that these areas offer the professional creators of neo-history. All that you have seen is historians reluctant to accept new postulations which they are not themselves supposed to do, and which the linguists refuse to do, as they are ignored and set aside by the revisionists. Not, emphatically, of historians fudging facts to suit a theory that one is already predisposed to. Again I repeat, the situation is that historians are reluctant, unwilling to comment on areas that are habitually used by the Hindutvavadi joint family.

And yet, we are compelled to. For the simple reason that left unchecked, these charlatans will then impose the consequences of their speculations on the sphere of Indian history from 326 BC onwards, with results that switch between the hilarious to the grimly despicable.

Nevertheless, in the next post, I shall try to address those questions that you have raised. If for nothing else, then in order to deny the lobbyists intellectual oxygen.

Before going on, one last point: Regrettably, the discussion between the Hindutvavadis and what is apparently a set of rational exegetes on the one hand, and the historians' community has reduced itself to a confrontation between the two sets mentioned and one individual. You have not, in fact, got the opinion of the community of professional historians, so your criticism is wholly individual; these may be true of one person, it is so obviously fallacious to extend them to the entire body of people who make a living out of doing history that one is left considering the possibilities of a CIA-led conspiracy.


You might want to find out why professional practitioners of history abhor discussions on these subjects, in particular, abhor discussions with those who have set points of view, and whose relentless and unfounded propaganda depends on exhausting the other side through constant iteration, while remaining completely oblivious to the arguments marshalled against them.

 

[Joe Shearer]

There are all sorts of nuts around claiming all sort of stuff. That is a problem with every religion. To use those idiots to rubbish certain inconvenient questions in AIT & more specifically the interpretation of the Rg veda, is not only unfair but smacks of trying a "guilt by association" just so as to dismiss this is yet another crackpot theory not worth of consideration, just like all the other nonsense which are not worthy of consideration. It is a deliberate ploy to prevent a discussion & indeed to run away from it (present company excluded). I'm almost surprised that this ploy of labelling people as "hindutvadis or internet Hindus" haven't been tried at the geneticists who blew the biggest hole in the AIT. I guess then, the opposite party's reaction of completely dismissing the AIT because the proponents of that theory got something so wrong, for so long is understandable even if not helpful.

The Sarasvati dilemma bothers the proponents of the AIT the most. Accepting the existence of the river in India fatally undermines their timeline & even brings into question the supposed migration. So, obfuscation is what is resorted to and quite often. The Sarasvati of the Rg veda is quite clearly a river in northern India, not the Afghanistan river. The location of the river is given clearly as being between the Sutlej & the Yamuna. However that hasn't prevented some from attempting to suggest that references to the Sarasvati in other mandalas is to the river in Afghanistan though even there, some have other locations of North India mentioned or it is said the the Sarasvati flows to the ocean which would be a bit puzzling if the river was the Afghan one. That kind of scholarship is no better than the examples of the "Hindutvadis" given & is actually worse because these people are supposed to be historians and therefore should have an understanding of the subject concerned. They cannot claim ignorance of something that they are apparently giving their professional opinion on. This business of fudging facts to suit a theory that one is already predisposed to is not something that affects only the non-historians but is true of some historians too.


P.S. @ JS - Since this questioning of the AIT is, according to you, a solely hindutvadi/internet Hindu brainchild, I'm just curious where you would put me for my questioning. Am I an "internet Hindu", a Hindu nationalist or just a naive, plain gullible fool....what? Very curious on what you think.

I put you as a remarkably balanced and rational analyst, but nevertheless an amateur of history, who is seeking an answer to the conundrums raised around both the IVC and the Aryan problem in the wrong forum. The place for you to seek these answers is with the practitioners of history, many of whom will refuse to have anything to do with the subject. Still, the minority who will talk to you will be far more useful than your spending time with the half-a-historian that is all that you will get here.

 

[Rig Vedic]

It should be mentioned that the IVC units of measurement are also found in many other traditional structures which are very much in existence today. These include the town of Thimi in Khatmandu Valley, the ancient Iron pillar near the Qutb Minar in Delhi, and even the Taj Mahal. These details are mentioned in another paper here - http://ncsm.gov.in/science_pdf/The Metrology Behind Harappan Town Michel Dadino.pdf

Also see Prof. R. Balasubramanian's Current Science article, focusing on the Taj in particular - http://www.itbhuglobal.org/chronicle/archives/chronicle/july09/Bala-current science.pdf. The traditional Indic measures are in fact a better fit than the Mughal ones.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I put you as a remarkably balanced and rational analyst, but nevertheless an amateur of history, who is seeking an answer to the conundrums raised around both the IVC and the Aryan problem in the wrong forum. The place for you to seek these answers is with the practitioners of history, many of whom will refuse to have anything to do with the subject. Still, the minority who will talk to you will be far more useful than your spending time with the half-a-historian that is all that you will get here.

PS: With the benefit of breakfast to add to my mental ability to cope with a constant barrage of fast in swingers, I would like to point out that you are my alter ego, the rational secularist who happens to be increasingly irritated at the gaps that appear in the earlier narrative, and the apparent unwillingness or inability of the academic community to address those gaps with a coherent revision of their own.

I also take this opportunity of denying that I think that the questioning of the AIT is solely an Internet Hindu/Hindutvavadi brainchild. There are very many of us who are unhappy at the lack of coherent response from academe. Including, it might surprise you to learn, myself. That does not, in my individual case, demand that the new hypothesis be considered canonical; only that its unchallenged presence is seen to disturb the canonical position of the earlier narrative.

 

[Icewolf]

New turning point of Indian subcontinent will be when Bangladesh dives under the sea in 2050

 

[Joe Shearer]

I'm almost surprised that this ploy of labelling people as "hindutvadis or internet Hindus" haven't been tried at the geneticists who blew the biggest hole in the AIT.

First, the genetics issue.

The biggest question about the AIT came with the finding that Indians were a homogeneous mass, very slightly distinguishable one from the other, certainly not conforming to the assumptions that seemed to accompany the AIT: a genetically distinct master-race visible through their features and physiognomical characteristics from the subject race that they conquered, during their triumphant sweep down from the mountain passes.

To be honest, this outcome was more of a self-goal than a ripping off of a mask from the villainous features of the British and European conspirators to keep the ancient, universe-centric role of India a secret from its own people and from the people of the world that revisionists seem to take as almost scriptural truths. The time that the Indo-Aryan language took to percolate to the east may have been as long as 700 years. If the Rg Veda was finally in place complete sometime around 1500 BC, and if the dates of the Buddha are around 600 BC, assuming that it took a couple of centuries at least for the new political orders to settle in, the gap that emerges is around seven centuries.

Just as an aside, a similar religious and cultural interpolation occurred in the 11th century, and took 600 years, till the reign of Aurangzeb, scion of the latest wave of conquerors, akin, ironically, to the first Turks who came in with the Ghurid. In this period, they managed to lay down the foundations of a similar society, but never managed to overcome the existing religion and culture, which existed side by side. Looking at what this wave 'achieved', if achieved is the right word, gives us a lot of insight into what might have happened in similar circumstances in a similar span of centuries two and a half millennia earlier.

Clearly, the new entrants did not come in a tidal wave of humanity. They did come in as family units, and women and children were definitely present, but they were not an overwhelming mass. What the geneticists remind us is that the leading wave must have marched fast and hard, but through very small distances initially, throughout the seven centuries that we are considering. Did they carry the entire people with them? If we are to believe accounts of cattle raids and assaults on walled or protected settlements, the chances are that they did not. That was not what raiders did in any culture in any location. It does not take much reasoning to conclude that during this long period of seven centuries, each succeeding impulse of conquest or absorption involved a further dilution of the original people, until the vast masses became an indistinguishable pool of almost-identical character.

Seven centuries was enough to drive all distinctive genetic characteristics into the background mass, and it was enough to achieve the same two and a half millennia later too. It is equally significant that the Muslims who claim to have been the Man on Horseback in this era are also indistinguishable from those they conquered and held in bondage for almost the same period of time. Which is why it is surprising that we did not draw the right inferences earlier; but not surprising considering that people tended to go by superficial characteristics, fairness of skin, for instance, height, nasal character, features in general, beards and their characteristics and the like.

Of course the geneticists were right; the total absence of any inference of biased thinking may have been due partly to their transparent objectivity, and second, due to the obvious understanding of observers that they had overlooked an evident fact.

 

[Bang Galore]

PS: With the benefit of breakfast to add to my mental ability to cope with a constant barrage of fast in swingers, I would like to point out that you are my alter ego, the rational secularist who happens to be increasingly irritated at the gaps that appear in the earlier narrative, and the apparent unwillingness or inability of the academic community to address those gaps with a coherent revision of their own.

I also take this opportunity of denying that I think that the questioning of the AIT is solely an Internet Hindu/Hindutvavadi brainchild. There are very many of us who are unhappy at the lack of coherent response from academe. Including, it might surprise you to learn, myself. That does not, in my individual case, demand that the new hypothesis be considered canonical; only that its unchallenged presence is seen to disturb the canonical position of the earlier narrative.

So many nice kind words. Must have been one hell of a breakfast.......

 

[miss]

From a purely mathematical -- or reductionist -- point of view, one might argue that the turning point comes just after the zenith: the highest point attained, to which India never returned.

Politically, that would be the Maurya Empire; even the Republic of India can't match those days.

Economically, everything's relative and harder to determine the farther back one goes, but the peak is believed to be during the Mughal Era when India's share of the world GDP was among the highest.

Technologically and scientifically, it's hard to determine peaks and valleys since there was no objective measurement of output such as journals, citations, etc.

well.. if y ou look at it that way in terms of highs and lows, i think the turning point was when the ancient hindus wwnt to other planets on ther vimaans leaving behind only the chaff on earth. how abot that?

you thinkg vertically when you say that turning points come only after a peak or a trough. when you think horizontally there are no peaks or troughs.

 

[Don Jaguar]

well.. if y ou look at it that way in terms of highs and lows, i think the turning point was when the ancient hindus wwnt to other planets on ther vimaans leaving behind only the chaff on earth. how abot that?

What are you saying?

 

[Developereo]

well.. if y ou look at it that way in terms of highs and lows, i think the turning point was when the ancient hindus wwnt to other planets on ther vimaans leaving behind only the chaff on earth. how abot that?

you thinkg vertically when you say that turning points come only after a peak or a trough. when you think horizontally there are no peaks or troughs.

I was answering with reference to the original question:

what according to u all was the reason for downfall of a country