Who is a Hindu?

[dabong1]

An excellent post as usual and as expected of you sir,

Just one bone of contention though

Hindu Kush mountain is not only named for its natural barrier or wall, but it is known to be a place where muslim invaders murdered 100 thousand Hindu's. Thus the name.

Your theory about the hindu kush has been demolished a thousand times but you keep repeating the same claims...

No name calling please
KEYSER

 

[roadrunner]

Your going absolutely off-topic, picking up my out of context posts and replying to as I said your desperate to discuss and prove something which is not even being discussed.



The Aryan Invasion theory is wrong is what was being talked about nothing else, and indeed all these pages I gave some genetical articles to prove the same. Nothing else is being talked about, your emergency in putting something which isn’t being talked is strange.

Niaz, see even roadrunner agrees that there has been no Aryan invasion theory, yet he uses points proposed from the AIT proposers to create a hypothetical theory that Aryans existed only in Pakistan and not India When Aryan/Dravidian tride was created on linguistical differences thereby proposing AIT, amusing isn’t it?

Roadrunner I'm not commenting on your Punjabi-Gujrati-Dravidian Ancestory.

Interesting thing if your interested,



If your more interested,

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
by G. W. F. Hegel
Translated by J. Sibree

http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Hegel - Philosophy of History.htm

Remember, Marxist Historian have throuout tried to prove the Euro-Centric viewpoint of AIT as per MAx Mueller, and their hypothesis is a derivation from Hegel and that of William Jones in early 1800 to 1900.

Some Points in summary why there was no AIT proposed by The European Scholars of the time.

1. The Aryan invasion model is largely based on linguistic conjectures which are unjustified (and wrong). Languages develop much more slowly than assumed by nineteenth century scholars. According to Renfrew speakers of Indo-European languages may have lived in Anatolia as early as 7000 BCE

2. The supposed large-scale migrations of Aryan people in the second millennium BCE first into Western Asia and then into northern India (by 1500 BCE) cannot be maintained in view of the fact that the Hittites were in Anatolia already by 2200 BCE and the Kassites and Mitanni had kings and dynasties by 1600 BCE

3. There is no memory of an invasion or of large-scale migration in the records of Ancient India-neither in the Vedas, Buddhist or Jain writings, nor in Tamil literature. The fauna and flora, the geography and the climate described in the Rigveda are that of Northern India.

4. There is a striking cultural continuity between the archaeological artefacts of the Indus-Saraswati civilisation and subsequent Indian society and culture: a continuity of religious ideas, arts, crafts, architecture, system of weights and measures.

5. The archaeological finds of Mehrgarh (copper, cattle, barley) reveal a culture similar to that of the Vedic Indians. Contrary to former interpretations, the Rigveda shows not a nomadic but an urban culture (purusa as derived from pur vasa = town-dweller).

6. The Aryan invasion theory was based on the assumption that a nomadic people in possession of horses and chariots defeated an urban civilisation that did not know horses, and that horses are depicted only from the middle of the second millennium onwards. Meanwhile archaeological evidence for horses has been found in Harappan and pre-Harappan sites; drawings of horses have been found in paleolithic caves in India; drawings of riders on horses dated c. 4300 BCE have been found in Ukraina. Horsedrawn war chariots are not typical for nomadic breeders but for urban civilisations.

7. The racial diversity found in skeletons in the cities of the Indus civilisation is the same as in India today; there is no evidence of the coming of a new race.

8. The Rigveda describes a river system in North India that is pre-1900 BCE in the case of the
Saraswati river, and pre-2600 BCE in the case of the Drishadvati river. Vedic literature shows a population shift from the Saraswati (Rigveda) to the Ganges (Brahmanas and Puranas), also evidenced by archaeological finds.

9. The astronomical references in the Rigveda are based on a Pleiades-Krittika (Taurean) calendar of c. 2500 BCE when Vedic astronomy and mathematics were well-developed sciences (again, not a feature of a nomadic people).

10. The Indus cities were not destroyed by invaders but deserted by their inhabitants because of desertification of the area. Strabo (Geography XV.1.19) reports that Aristobulos had seen thousands of villages and towns deserted because the Indus had changed its course.

11. Excavations in Dwaraka have lead to the discovery of a site larger than Mohenjodaro, dated c. 1500 BCE with architectural structures, use of iron, a script halfway between Harappan and Brahmi. Dwarka has been associated with Krishna and the end of the Vedic period.

12. A continuity in the morphology of scripts: Harappan, Brahmi, Devanagari.

13. Vedic ayas, formerly translated as 'iron,' probably meant copper or bronze. Iron was found in India before 1500 BCE in Kashmir and Dwaraka.

14. The Puranic dynastic lists with over 120 kings in one Vedic dynasty alone, fit well into the 'new chronology'. They date back to the third millennium BCE Greek accounts tell of Indian royal lists going back to the seventh millennium BCE.

15. The Rigveda itself shows an advanced and sophisticated culture, the product of a long development, 'a civilisation that could not have been delivered to India on horseback'.

16. Painted Gray Ware culture in the western Gangetic plains, dated ca 1100 BCE has been found connected to (earlier) Black and Red Ware etc.

A nice pic,

http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aitstageseu8.jpg



The Rig Vedic river Saraswati is not fiction, many in the sciences refer to it. Get updated with recent research done by indologists, There has been satellite imagiries of dried up river course, Kindly get updated with latest developments of past decade till now. Get updated with the wiki article on River Saraswati.

Saraswati is said to have originated from the Har-ki-Dun glacier in west Garhwal (Uttaranchal). It flowed parallel to the river Yamuna for some distance and later joined it, proceeding south as the Vedic Saraswati. The seasonal rivers and streams, including Ghaggar, joined Saraswati as it follow the course of the present river through Punjab and Haryana. River Sutluj, the Vedic Shatadru, joined the river Saraswati as a tributary at Shatrana, approximately 25 km south of Patiala. Saraswati then followed the course of Ghaggar through Rajasthan and Hakra in Bhawalpur before emptying into the Rann of Kutch via Nara in Sindh province, running parallel to the Indus River. It has been established that the river Saraswati, carrying the waters of three perennial and numerous seasonal rivers,.

Mostly, Indus and Saraswati, were the two major waterway, schemes of northwestern India during the Vedic period Sridhar have classified the rivers into four main groups– (i) Sindhu (Indus) and its tributaries, Vitasta (Jhelum) and Askini (Chenab); (ii) Shatadru (Sutlej) and its two major tributaries Vipasa (Beas) and Parasuni or Iravati (Ravi); (iii) Saraswati and its three tributaries, Markanda, Ghaggar and Patialewali, in its upper reaches and a major branch in its middle course; (iv) Drishadvati, and Lavanavati.

You might want to look in these few,

http://www.helsinki.fi/~aparpola/



And if you consider the groundbreaking deciphering of Indus scripts by recently a German Indologist the article which I have already posted here, who have done it using Brahmni Scripts and Sumeria Scripts (also proving the CLEAR LINK between Puranas and Vedas which was already proven before by the Puranas), Saraswati gets more profound philological proof, as it is very well chronicled in the Puranas, and the puranas has given a excellent analysis of many of the kingdoms and kings of that time and the flowing of the river.

Also look in these,

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/oct25/articles20.htm
FROM: Current Science, of the Indian Academy of Sciences



Ancient shorelines of Gujarat, India, during the Indus civilization (Late Mid-Holocene): A study based on archaeological evidences

Late Quaternary Drainage Disorganization, and Migration and Extinction of the Vedic Saraswati

CURRENT 1144 SCIENCE, VOL. 87, NO. 8, 25 OCTOBER 2004

And A bit of Archeological Evidence that of groundbreaking finding of Elephant fossils in Thar Desert.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2534775.stm

http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=parp01rz2.jpg

http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=discsitesmaphm8.jpg

Here is an article with a muslim author (Sri Zahid Hussain) in one of the journals of the The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). Let me quote,



Nicholas Kazanas, Vedic & Mesopotamian cross influences, Oct 2004:

"The river Sarasvati dried definitely c 1900 BC, according to geological and palaeoenvironmental studies (Rao 1991: 77-9; Allchins 1997: 117)."

Now do not make me quote from details of the research treatises of Allchins, Kenoyer, Meadow and other Harappan Archaeology gurus, or get into Archeological excavations.


You have repeated most of the above down under, so see them.

Actually, Vedic people migrated northwards out of India-Pakistan-Iran-Aghansitan regions. Though migration on both ways are common FROM THE EPICENTRE of the mature phase of Indus-Saraswati civilization, but if we are to consider early migration that’s the actual disproponent of AIT, Under no circumsatnce can we imagine a Bronze age spread of IE into India. Kindly check the Archeological finding of Bronze age culture in South India and Sri lanka and the dates of such. Excluding this possibility we are led to Oppenheimer's dynamic of a northward repopulation from South asia due to the Ice age. If you look at latest researches (see wiki) about the Afro-Asiatic locus, they also need same deep time depths. And look into kivisild et al of the new genetic findings which totally de-anounces the Bamshed study of Indian caste population, a known Marxist and proposer of AIT, interistingly Kivisild was the co-author of the same but further mtDNA lines complete proved it wrong.

Let me explain a bit more simply which I said before,

There is no conclusive eividence that there has been a Aryan invasion,the Aryna inavsion theory(AIT)was so discredited in the academic community that it was replaced with Aryan migration theory(AMT),while Aryans did Migrate, but it was not from the Central asian steppes.

There good reaosn to belive that a ehtno-linguistic group may have inhabited the Ghaggar-Hakra rivers of North India (ghaggar is In present India.while hakra lso glows in modern pakistan) the people who authored Indus valley also may have co-habited the northern banks of the Ghaggar- hakra river along with Indus,the fact only 80 Indus valley sites have been excavated on the banks of river Indus and more than 415 on the banks of Ghaggar hakra river, and of 1400 known Indus valley sites that have been excavated, 917 are in india, 417 are in Pakistan and 1 in Afganistan

Its clear from this Indus was not the only river that sustanised the indus valley civilization,one of main was Ghaggar-Hakra , now it is widely accepted that the mythical Saraswati that is praised in the also Rigveda is the Ghaggar-Hakra , satellite based photographs and extensive GIS simulations and studying the shift patterns of Ghaggar Hakra, it has been concluded that Sutlej(sutidri) and yamuna were tributaries of Ghaggar-Hakra river, but subsequently shifted course and sutlej became a tributary of Indus and Yamuna the tributary of Ganges, Ghaggr-Hakra flowed between the Sutlej and Yamuna and before its drying up it was the major river west of ganges.

Rigveda was composed on the banks of river Ghaggar-hakra in the foot hills of the siwaliks in modern Punjab- haryana,the nAdai stuti praises ghaggar-hakra as a magnificient river that starts in the mountains and flows into the ocean, so when did it dry up, from geologoical evidence we know that ghaggar hakra began the slow process of drying up not later than 2000 BCE, and this is why at the end of the Vedic age,s indhu(indus) gains prominence while saraswati(ghaggar) loses its importance, by the time of mahabharatha(epic period)Saraswati is almost dried up, Note the word almost.

Sri Balarama's pigrimage journey form Mathura near Delhi to Dwarka via the Sarawati. This is decisive proof that Saraswati was extent during Mbh times. There are many such beyond excellent and accurate explanations of the same which are chronicled in the Puranas.

In simple terms, People who stick to AIT claim that Aryans invaded Indus valley in 1500 BC and destroyed it, but they cant explain why harappan civilization existed right upto 1300 BC,besides it cannot account for the fact that ghaggr-Hakra which was the river of Rigveda had already dried up by 1500 BCE, Rig veda praises the mighty ghaggar when in full flow which was certanly before 2000 BC,this was the mature phase of the harappan civilization, its clear that harappans did not vanish when the rig vedas were being composed and there was no invasion.

As for your oft-repeated assertion that Indus was more central to rigveda, or why Indus valley civilization would move to ganges (when this very assertion is wrong) see these two links: (which already has been proven wrong previously).

1. BBC on 1000 plus sites dotting the Saraswati
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2073159.stm

2. Prof. Ahmad Hasan Dani writes (Ed. Indus Civilization -- New Perspectives, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 1981, pp.3- 12): `To him (John Marshall) goes the credit of coining the term The Indus Civilization. But his geographic horizon no longer holds good and the term deriving therefrom is open to question ... . The wide-spread nature of the Indus Civilization throughout Panjab and Sind had already expanded the meaning of the original term. Still later in the post-1947 period the Indus Civilization sites have been discovered in large number outside the present Indus region right up to the very borders of Yamuna in the north-east (Alamgirpur on the Hindon, a tributary of the Yamuna about 30 miles north of Delhi), along the dried-up bed of the river Ghaggar in northern part of Rajasthan, and in Gujrat right upto the mouths of Narbada and Tapti rivers'.

3. Quoting Nicolas Kazanas again from, Vedic & Mesopotamian cross influences, Oct 2004:

- Indus Valley Civilisation is not restricted to the Indus, although the name was coined when the earlier excavations found remains at the Indus and thus the appellation stuck for some time. Of course it has now long been called the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilisation, Indus-Saraswati Civilisation or Harappan Civilisation.

It is insane to think that Indus valley civilization , as per the name means everything sorrounding Indus, Shows your unawareness of basic traits of history.



Factually, Historically, Archeologically, Academically and Realistically incorrect.

(1) The purus had their terrotory in haryana and Punjab. The more ancient dynasties (eg Iskvakus) had a more eastwardly locus. Purus are known for authoruing Rig Veda while the exploits of the other dynasties are chronicled in the Puranas. Even Nadistuta hymn mention mention Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, in that specific order- from east to west. Oldest parts od Rig Veda contain references to Jahnavi (Ganga). This was the natural orientation of the peoples, continuing to the present day. Vedic Harappan gold was mined in the South. I am sure they were familiar with all terrotories spanning from Rasa in the NW to SE Asia. They even carried out a dispropotionate trade with the ME; entire corpuses of Indic artifacts have been unearthed form Mesopotamia and Egypt while hardly any ME artifacts are seen in India. Even the Romans later claimed that their treasury was being emptied by the Indian traders.

(2) Archaeology says people of IVC (Harappans) moved back east (again) and resettled in today's East Punjab and Gujarat:

So now we know the river Saraswati - which was praised as greatest River in the RV before the Sindhu ever was - existed, and that it lies in India not elsewhere.

According to Hindu literature, even the people who had moved westward (from their earlier eastern origin) and created the 'Indus Valley Civilisation' moved back to East Punjab and Gujarat and resettled there. This is confirmed in archaeology:

Also read, Vedic Evidence of Aryan Migration Theory : Omilosmeleton



So, even if for a time they had moved from the Saraswati settlement to settle the Sindhu (Indus, Pakistan) and extend the IVC there, they moved back long ago. This '*significant*' regional population shift from the IVC to E Punjab and Gujarat that happened long ago means that even (by far the most, if not all) the descendants of the IVC in Pakistan territory have long been in - gasp - present India proper.


Your first part has already been answered before, Moving on,

Don't be a faux-historian. Either come up with undeniable proof from valid sources or don't say anything. In fact, if you have not read Hindu literature, no need to pontificate/speculate/invent stories from your chair.

There is no evdience of Dravidian being spoken in the north. In fact, Indologists have tied themselves up in contortions trying to wish away the purely Vedic placenames in the North. Dravidian transhumant economy was totally different than Vedic agricultural economy.

Also, give proof for Aryan Invasion please since you claim on one hand there was no Aryan invasion yet claim Aryans invaded India from Pakistan?. In fact, GIVE PROOF OF ARYANS (and subsequently Dravidians) please. References to writers who assume their existence or speculate on it does not count as 'proof'. Hard proofs are required: genetics, and archaeology and radio carbon dating - but only where archaeologists have found material remains with engravings like "the aryans were here" - else how do we know that 'aryans' made them? (See much further below for why this requirement.)

Before you rush off to the library or whatever, the situation before you is the following - in summary. There are a number of languages that scholars have grouped together as Indo-European ('Aryan'). Some scholars had put forth the theory that maybe these were all related by a common ancestor: a *hypothetical* language called PIE (the 'Proto-Indo-European' language).

NOTE: not all scholars believed this, and in fact, there's equally sound reason why there need not be any PIE at all.

NOTE: also that nothing written in PIE has ever been found at all. There's nothing, ZIP!

ONLY from the hypothesis that there may have been a PIE does the idea derive that there might have been a people who spoke it - a people which western schools call Indo-Europeans (the 'original Aryans'). That is, in this context, the 'Aryans/Indo-Europeans' are not a language, but are the hypothetical people of 'long ago' who spoke the hypothetical language PIE. That's no one today, definitely.

But here's some researchers working in Indo-European studies showing how there's serious doubt about (a) the very existence of any PIE and - even more doubt on - (b) the existence of any 'Indo-Europeans' (Aryans) who spoke it:

(1) Summary of Trubetskoy quotes below: Trubetskoy says that 'IE' languages need not have derived from a common ancestor at all. But that in fact, it is equally likely that different languages converged and that's why they ended up having similarities. In other words: he says there's no need for any PIE. If there's no need for PIE, this also means there's no need for the derived assumption that there existed a people who spoke it...

FROM: Trubetzkoy, N. S. (2001), Studies in General Linguistics and Language Structure, Anatoly Liberman (Ed.), translated by Marvin Taylor and Anatoly Liberman, Durham and London: Duke University Press.

- “It is usually supposed that, at one time, there was a single Indo-European language, the so-called Indo-European protolanguage, from which all historically attested Indo-European languages are presumed to descend. This supposition is contradicted by the fact that, no matter how far we peer back into history, we always find a multitude of Indo-European-speaking peoples. The idea of an Indo-European protolanguage is not absurd, but it is not necessary, and we can do very well without it (Trubetzkoy 2001, p. 87).”

- “There is therefore, no compelling reason for the assumption of a homogeneous Indo-European protolanguage from which the individual branches of Indo-European descended. It is equally plausible that the ancestors of the branches of Indo-European were originally dissimilar but that over time, through continuous contact, mutual influence, and loan traffic, they moved significantly closer to each other, without becoming identical (Trubetzkoy 2001, p. 88).”

- "This possibility must always be kept in sight when the Indo-European problem is addressed [and every statement about the problem should be formulated so as to be valid for either assumption: divergence or convergence.] Since only the hypothesis of a single protolanguage has been considered until now, the discussion has landed on the wrong track. Its primary, that is, linguistic, nature has been forgotten. Prehistoric archaeology, anthropology, and ethnology have been brought in without any justification. Attempts are made to describe the home, race, and culture of a supposed Indo-European proto-people that may never have existed. The Indo-European problem is formulated [by modern German (and not only German) scholars] in something like the following way: “Which type of prehistoric pottery must be ascribed to the Indo-European people?” But scholarship is unable to answer questions of this kind, so they are moot. Their logic is circular because the assumption of an Indo-European protopeople with definite cultural and racial characteristics is untenable. We are chasing a romantic illusion instead of keeping to the one positive fact at out disposal—that “Indo-Europeans” a purely LINGUISTIC concept (Trubetzkoy 2001, p. 90, emphasis in the original).”

(2) Bruce Lincoln also makes it clear there's no valid reason to accept belief in any imaginary people - the Indo-Europeans 'Aryans' - even *if* we assumed the hypothetical PIE existed. He also illustrates how other scholars in the field have stated that even if there were a PIE, there need not have been a single ethnic group that uniquely spoke it, how there are other hypotheses (than the one supposing Aryans) that are equally admissable.

FROM: Lincoln, Bruce (1999), Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

- "In specific, reconstructing a "protolanguage" is an exercise that invites one to imagine speakers of that protolanguage, a community of such people, then a place for that community, a time in history, distinguishing characteristics, and a set of contrastive relations with other protocommunities where other protolanguages were spoken. FOR ALL THIS, NEED IT BE SAID, THERE IS NO SOUND EVIDENTIARY WARRANT (Lincoln 1999, p. 95, emphasis added)"

- "we recognize that the existence of a language family does not necessarily imply the existence of a protolanguage. Still less the existence of a protopeople, protomyths, protoideology, or protohomeland (Lincoln 1999, p. 216)."

- "Other authors have challenged the Stammbaum model on other grounds, observing that even if the historically attested Indo-European languages did descend from a single proto-language, the existence of this ancestral language by no means implies the existence of a single, ethnically homogeneous people who spoke it. Thus Franco Crevatin suggested that Swahili—an artificial lingua franca, spoken across vast portions of Africa as an instrument to facilitate long distance trade—may be a better analogue than Latin for theorizing Proto-Indo-European. In Crevatin's view there was a Proto-Indo-European language and there were people who spoke it for certain finite purposes, but no community of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Similar is Stefan Zimmer's position, intended as a rebuke of racist theories, hypothesizing a protolanguage spoken not be an ethnically pristine Urvolk but by a shifting, nomadic colluvies gentium, a "****** confluence of peoples," (Lincoln 1999, pp. 212-213)."

(3) And finally, here Stefan Arvidsson gives us a lowdown on all the 'evidence' there is in support of that hypothetical people, the Indo-Europeans/Aryans: All the proof for any Indo-European/Aryan people is .... air. That's it. There's nothing. There's only stuff that some obsessed western scholars have imagined might be the remains of their imaginary Aryans, but at the end of the day, what they're doing is just construing things the way they like.

FROM: Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

- "For over two hundred years, a series of historians, linguists, folklorists, and archaeologists have tried to re-create a lost culture. Using ancient texts, medieval records, philological observations, and archaeological remains they have described a world, a religion, and a people older than the Sumerians, with whom all history is said to have begun. Those who maintained this culture have been called "Indo-Europeans" and "Proto-Indo-Europeans," "Aryans," and "Ancient Aryans," "Japhetites," and "wiros," among many other terms. THESE PEOPLE HAVE NOT LEFT BEHIND ANY TEXTS, NO OBJECTS CAN DEFINITELY BE TIED TO THEM, NOR DO WE KNOW ANY "INDO-EUROPEAN" BY NAME. IN SPITE OF THAT, scholars have STUBBORNLY tried to reach back to the ancient "Indo-Europeans," with the help of bold historical, linguistic, and archaeological reconstructions, in the hopes of finding the foundation of their own culture and religion there. (Arvidsson 2006, p. xi, emphasis added)."

There can be no talk of Aryans (or aryan invasions or what not) unless you can prove that there were Aryans in the first place. And even if you ever managed to prove that (a) the hypothetical PIE existed, you'd still have to prove (b) a single ethnic group, specifically the Indo-Europeans/Aryans, existed who spoke it. That's because point (b) does not automatically follow from (a), as seen in (2).



Conjecture and propaganda only.When Portuguese arrived they were horrified at the blackness of Indian Murthis. What 'colour'-based discrimination? Again Your disapproving the Aryan Invasion theory on one hand and proposing it on another to create your own theory?

The important aspect of your analogy that one or two tribes came from Pakistan created caste system to maintain power? This is again terms from the proponents of AIT moulded by you to make a mythical story of your version.

Even indologists agree that such interpretations were all manufactured - see for instance Thomas R. Trautmann's "Constructing the racial theory of Indian civilization" and Hans Hock's "Through a glass darkly: modern 'racial' interpretations vs. textual and general prehistoric evidence on ārya and dāsa/dasyu in Vedic society".

- Trautmann goes over the historical record of early Indology to show how the race theories of the 19th century forced racial interpretations on text fragments which had never been read in that sense before, e.g. how the single reference to the enemies as an-ās, "mouthless" (i.e. "of defective speech", meaning "not groomed in Vedic culture", Sayana's reading consistent with the traditional cultural interpretation) was read as a-nās, "noseless",
i.e. "flat-nosed" by Max Müller, then cited by anthropometrist H.H. Risley as a racial description which the Vedic Aryans often made, and finally adopted in that version by most textbooks. ( p.287-288)

- Trautmann likewise points out that there is no contextual evidence supporting the nontraditional interpretation of varna, "colour, caste" as "skin colour": "On the evidence of use it appears that varna here simply means 'category, social group'." (p.288)

- Hans Hock ("Through a glass darkly: modern 'racial' interpretations vs. textual and general prehistoric evidence on ārya and dāsa/dasyu in Vedic society") also points to the genesis of the racial interpretation in the context of the "scramble of the European powers to divide up the non-European world", in which "the British take-over of India seemed to provide a perfect parallel to the assumed take-over of prehistoric India by the invading 'Aryans'" (p.168). He argues that "such notions as 'race', defined in terms of skin color, are an invention of (early) modern European colonialism and imperialism and thus inappropriate for the prehistoric contact between ārya and dāsa/dasyu", citing as example the absence of racial considerations in the Roman empire. (p.159)

It seems to me your picking up nuggets from the proponents of AIT and making your ‘own theory’ and on the other hand dis-claiming AIT, whats your standing ground? Are you creating new theory out of yourself picking up theories from proponents of AIT and disproponent of AIT? There can be only two standing ground here not any third.

There are only two theories in academic circles and debates surrounding it and AIT , AMT. AMT has two branches each of one can br proposed in each way which is due to large size and heterogenous civilization; None of your theory does not falls inside any one parameters rather spans across one and two parameters from AIT and you have disproved AMT saying there were no migration other than 1 or two Tribes (citation remember one or two), your standing ground is False both historically and academically. On one hand you are disproving AIT and on another your proposing the Marxist-Euro-centric viewpoint of AIT, to create a pseudo-viewpoint of your own.



It has been already proved wrong. Your assumption of gagentic plains being Dravidian Transhumand economy is wrong in the very sense, I'm not even going into the others as much of it has been answered before.



First you claimed There have been no findings about Harappan civilization in UP, and now your claiming one or two tribes moved there, Where do you got one or two tribes from? Again part of your answer has been answered before.

In any case, THERE HAS BEEN NO mention of Dravidians in the Vedas. The enemies mentioned in the Vedas (like Dasas, Dasyus, Panis and Pakthas) are all proven Iranian tribes - the names match those of Iranian tribes, as even confirmed by many indologists (incl. Bernard Sergent and Asko Parpola from Finland).

I have already dwelled upon this earlier, so check them there.
But thought of something more, (2003 research)

Northward movement of Indians after Saraswati dessication: They also show up in the ME as Kassites and Mittani, part of the Hittite phenomenon. Significantly, no trace of Russian or Germanic has ever been found in the ME.

But starting at about 1900 B.C.E.—2 or 3 centuries after the drying period to the west—the city and nearby settlements began to lose population. By 1600 B.C.E., people appear to have abandoned their towns and moved north[/B].

Climate Spurred Later Indus Change
by Andrew Lawler (2003)[/I]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5827/978b

Read thus further regarding AMT,
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/VedicEvidenceforAMT.pdf

The original migration was an E to W movement, of the civilization.

(1) Population movement in early times (before and during composition of Vedas): From river Ganga-Yamuna in E to Punjab in W.

Dr Eslt states,

(a) "The fragmentary Vedic data and the systematic Puranic account tally rather splendidly. The Puranas relate a WESTWARD MOVEMENT of a branch of the Aila/Saudyumna clan or Lunar dynasty FROM PRAYAG (Allahabad, at the junction of GANGA AND YAMUNA) TO SAPTA SAINDHAVAH, the land of the seven rivers. There, the tribe splits into five, after the five sons of the conqueror Yayati: Yadu, Druhyu, Anu, Puru, Turvashu. All the rulers mentioned in the Vedas either belong to the Paurava (Puru-descended) tribe SETTLED on the banks of the SARASWATI, or have come in contact with them according to the Puranic account, whether by alliance and matrimony or by war. LATER, the Pauravas (and minor dynasties springing from them) extend their power eastward, into and across their ancestral territory, and the Vedic traditions spread along with the economic and political influence of the metropolitan Saraswati-based Paurava people."

(b) Population movement in significantly later times (after Vedic culture was established):
And even when Witzel was desperately trying to read an 'Aryan invasion/immigration' (from the west into the east) in the Vedas, it turned out he had made a profound mistake in translating and the record has since been set straight. Besides, in his search for an eastward migration from the far west he had to resort to an "admittedly much later" text (the BSS) and yet his hopes of an Aryan migration eastward were disappointed.

Since this text was later than the oldest material of the Vedas which points to a westward migration from the Ganga/Yamuna to the Saraswati as seen above, all eastward migration are back into Indians' historically populated lands - lands of origin, as mentioned in (a) above. But now, the actual statement (in correct translation) still has something interesting to say about migration into *West* Punjab:

The summary meaning for BSS 18.44 is (full meaning below): "“Ayu went east, his is the Yamuna-Ganga region”, while “Amavasu went west, his is Afghanistan, Parshu and WEST PANJAB”. Though the then location of “Parshu” (Persia?) is hard to decide, it is definitely a western country, along with the two others named, WESTERN FROM the viewpoint of a people settled near the SARASWATI river in what is now HARYANA. Far from attesting an eastward movement into India, this text actually speaks of a westward movement towards Central Asia, coupled with a symmetrical eastward movement from India’s demographic centre around the Saraswati basin towards the Ganga basin." (Two sides of AMT as I said)

Now do you even know what is BSS text and their interpretations?


Saraswati was praised as greatest first - again indicating an E to W movement, The River Indus was glorified later than the River Saraswati - once more the meaning is an E to W migration.

"While conceding that the Saraswati is described as the most divine among the rivers and other superlatives in RV 2:41:16, (Indologist Hans) Hock reminds us that the Sindhu is also glorified in superlatives in RV 8:26:18. The 8th book of the Rg-Veda is the most northwesterly book, the one which mentions Afghan flora and fauna (8:5, 8:46, 8:56). From that perspective, the Sindhu is the greatest nearby river, even in the heyday of the Saraswati which was at any rate far more to the east, beyond even the five main auxiliaries (Panj-āb) of the Indus. But the 8th book is younger than the family books (2 to 7), which are unambiguously located in India and near the Indian Saraswati. If the Sindhu becomes more prominent than the Saraswati at some point, this amounts to a movement from east to west, from Panjab to the frontier (Indus) to Afghanistan."


Also Willem Caland states,

"Willem Caland, the Samavedin from Utrecht, translates[52] the verse in question as [same, Baudhayana Srautasutra 18:44 - 45]: “To the East went Ayus; from him descend the Kurus, Pancalas, Kasis and Videhas. These are the peoples that originated as a consequence of Ayus's going forth. To the West went Amavasu; from him descend the Gandharis, the Sparsus and the Arattas. These are the peoples which originated as a consequence of Amavasu's going forth.” Other renowned experts translate the verse in the same way as Caland does.[53]" (Willem Caland, Eene Nieuwe Versie van de Urvasi-Mythe. Album-Kern, Opstellen Geschreven Ter Eere van Dr. H. Kern, pp. 57 - 60)


Memory of the Urheimat states that,

The Vedas do not preserve any veneration, not even any mention, of an Urheimat. Compare this with the Thora (the first five books of the Bible): edited in about the 6th century BC, it gives a central place to Moses? exodus from Egypt in about 1200 BC, and of Abraham from ?Ur of the Chaldees? in about 1600 BC. Similarly, in the 16th century, the Aztecs in Mexico still preserved the memory of Aztlan (probably Utah), the country from which they migrated in the 12th century. Postulating that the Vedic people kept silent about a homeland which they still vividly remembered, as the invasionists imply, is not coherent with all we know about ancient peoples, who preserved such memories for many centuries.

Admittedly, the Vedas are a defective source of history. As religious books, they only deal with historical data in passing. But that has never kept the invasionist school from treating the Vedas as the only source of ancient Indian history, to the neglect of the legitimate history books, the ItihAsa-PuraNa literature, i.e. the Epics and the Puranas. It is like ignoring the historical Bible books (Exodus, Joshua, Chronicles, Kings) to draw ancient Israelite history exclusively from the Psalms, or like ignoring the historians Livius, Tacitus and Suetonius to do Roman history on the basis of the poet Virgil. What would be dismissed as ?utterly ridiculous? in Western history is standard practice in Indian history.

Essentially the same remark was already made by Puranic scholar F.E. Pargiter.41 It was dismissed by some, with the remark that the Puranas are even more religious and unhistorical than the Vedas.42 However, that does injustice to the strictly historical parts of the Puranas, mixed though they are with religious lore. No serious historian would ignore the Exodus narrative simply because it also contains unhistorical episodes like the Parting of the Sea and the voice from the Burning Bush.

Experience should also make us skeptical towards the knee-jerk skepticism displayed by historians when confronted with ancient historiography. Thus, the king-list of the Chinese Shang dynasty (16th-12th century BC) was dismissed as ?obviously mythical?, but when in the 1920s the Shang oracle bones were discovered, all the kings were found to be mentioned there: the ?mythical? dynastic list proved to be correct to the detail. Likewise, the first Bible historians were skeptical of Biblical history, e.g. of the ?obviously wildly exaggerated? description of the huge city of Niniveh; but then archaeologists discovered the ruins of Niniveh, and found that the Bible editors had been fairly accurate in their description.

The Bible provides another important parallel with the Epics and Puranas: most historians now accept the basic historicity of the Biblical account of Israelite political history from at least king David until the Exile, yet it is almost completely unattested in non-Biblical documents, just as ancient Indian history as narrated in the Epics and Puranas (and glimpsed in the Vedas) is practically unattested in non-Indic literature. The non-attestation of Israel?s history in the writings of its highly literate neighbours is more anomalous than the non-attestation of early Indian history in the writings of other literate cultures, which were more distant from India geographically and linguistically than Babylon was from Jerusalem. So, if Biblical history can be accepted as more than fantasy, the same credit should be given to the historiographical parts of the Epics and Puranas.

Value of the Puranas,

In spite of the low esteem in which they are held, the Puranas are essentially good history. More than 30 years ago, P. L. Bhargava has already demonstrated that the dynastic lists which form the backbone of Puranic history cannot be dismissed as legend or propaganda.43 His first argument is that the oldest names of kings, though mostly Indo-Aryan, are often of a different type (e.g. absence or paucity of theophoric names, like in ancient Greek or Germanic) than those common at the time of the Puranic editors, who show their unfamiliarity with the obsolete names by sometimes misspelling or misinterpreting them. This would not be the case if they had made them up.

Secondly, against those who think that court historians may have concocted genealogies and ancient claims to the land for their royal patrons, Bhargava points out that the Puranas do not locate any dynasties in those areas which are reasonably assumed to have been non-Aryan originally but which were dominated by Indo-Aryan dynasties (or Dravidian-speaking dynasties claiming an ?Aryan? ancestry) at the time of the Purana editors, e.g. parts of Bihar, the east coast (Utkala, Kalinga, Cola), and the south (Pandya, Kerala): ?This clearly means that the lists are all genuine and the later Puranic editors, in spite of their failings, never went to the extent of interspersing imaginary genealogies with genuine ones.?44

The argument is similar to one of Irving Zeitlin?s arguments for the authenticity of the Biblical account of the conquest of Palestine by the Israelites.45 Zeitlin shows that the land conquered by Joshua according to the Biblical narrative did not coincide with the Promised Land as promised by Jahweh to Joshua (it falls short of the promised area while also comprising some non-promised territory); a purely propagandistic narrative intent on legitimizing the later extent of the Israelite kingdom or on glorifying Jahweh?s reliability, would have made Joshua acquire the exact territory promised by the Lord.

Thirdly, many names from the Puranic lists also show up in other sources, including the Epics, the Jain Agamas, the Sutras, and earliest of all, the Vedas. Of course, persons are sometimes shown in a rather different light in different sources, and there are differences on details between the different Puranas as well as between the Puranas and the other sources; but that is exactly what happens when authentic events (such as a traffic accident) are related by different witnesses.

Dynastic history in the Puranas,

Shrikant Talageri takes up the argument where Bhargava had left it, and proceeds to demonstrate that the fragmentary Vedic data and the systematic Puranic account tally rather splendidly.46 The Puranas relate a westward movement of a branch of the Aila/Saudyumna clan or Lunar dynasty from Prayag (Allahabad, at the junction of Ganga and Yamuna) to Sapta Saindhavah, the land of the seven rivers. There, the tribe splits into five, after the five sons of the conqueror Yayati: Yadu, Druhyu, Anu, Puru, Turvashu. All the rulers mentioned in the Vedas either belong to the Paurava (Puru-descended) tribe settled on the banks of the Saraswati, or have come in contact with them according to the Puranic account, whether by alliance and matrimony or by war. Later, the Pauravas (and minor dynasties springing from them) extend their power eastward, into and across their ancestral territory, and the Vedic traditions spread along with the economic and political influence of the metropolitan Saraswati-based Paurava people.

This way, the eastward expansion of the Vedic horizon, which has often been read as proof of a western origin of the Aryans, is integrated into a larger history. The Vedic people are shown as merely one branch of an existing Aryan culture, originally spanning northern India (at least) from eastern Uttar Pradesh to Panjab. The approximate and relative chronology provided by the dynastic lists allow us to estimate the time of those events as much earlier than the heyday and end of the Harappan cities.

Puranic history reaches back beyond the starting date of the composition of the Vedas. In the king-lists, a number of kings are enumerated before the first kings appear who are also mentioned in the Rg-Veda. In what remains of the Puranas, no absolute chronology is added to the list, but from Greek visitors to ancient India, we get the entirely plausible information such a chronology did exist. To be precise, the Puranic king-list as known to Greek visitors of Candragupta?s court in the 4th century BC or to later Greco-Roman India-watchers, started in 6776 BC.47 Even for that early pre-Vedic period, there is no hint of any immigration.

Emigrations in the Puranas,

What is more: the Puranas mention several emigrations. The oldest one explicitly described is by groups belonging to the Afghanistan-based Druhyu branch of the Aila/Saudyumna people, i.e. the Pauravas? cousins, in the pre-Vedic or early Vedic period. They are said to have moved to distant lands and set up kingdoms there. Estimating our way through the dynastic (relative) chronology given in the Puranas, we could situate this emigration in the 5th millennium BC. It is not asserted that that was the earliest such emigration: the genealogy starts with Manu?s ten successors, of whom six disappear from the Puranic horizon at once, while two others also recede m the background after a few generations; and many acts of peripheral tribes and dynasties, including their emigration, may have gone unnoticed. But even if it were the earliest emigration, it is not far removed from a realistic chronology for the dispersion of the different branches of the IE family. It also tallies well with the start of the Kurgan culture by Asian immigrants in ca. 4500 BC.

Later the Anavas are said to have invaded Panjab from their habitat in Kashmir, and to have been defeated and expelled by the Pauravas in the so-called Battle of the Ten Kings, described in Rg Veda 7:18,19,33,83. The ten tribes allied against king Sudas (who belonged to the Trtsu branch of the Paurava tribe) have been enumerated in the Vedic references to the actual battle, and a number of them are unmistakably Iranian: Paktha (Pashtu), BhalAna (Bolan/Baluch), Parshu (Persian), PRthu (Parthian), the others being less recognizable: VishANin, AlIna, Shiva, Shimyu, BhRgu, Druhyu. At the same time, they are (except for the Druhyus) collectively called ?Anu?s sons?, in striking agreement with the Puranic account of an Anava struggle against the Paurava natives of Panjab. Not mentioned in the Vedic account, but mentioned in the Puranic account as the Anava tribe settled farthest west in Panjab (most removed from the war theatre), is the Madra (Mede?) tribe.

Talageri tentatively identifies the other tribes as well: the Druhyu as the Druids or Celts (untenable)48; the Bhrgus as the Phrygians (etymologically reasonable); the AlInas as the Hellenes or Greeks (shaky); the Shimyus with the Sirmios/Srems or ancient Albanians (possible), etc. It is hard to prove or disprove this; all we can say is that along with the Iranian tribes, there may have been several non-Iranian tribes who emigrated from northwestern India after the Battle of the Ten Kings.

More migrations are attested, of individuals, families as well as whole tribes. The Vedic character Sarama calls on the Panis to go far away and to the north; assuming that the Panis are not some kind of heavenly creatures, this presupposes that the northward exit was a well-known route, and perhaps a common trail for exiles, outlaws and refugees (just as in the colonial period, an Englishman who had lost all perspectives in his homeland could always move to Australia).49 Vishvamitra?s sons, fifty in number, dissented from their father and left the country, after which they are called udantyah, ?those of the northern border?.50 A group of Asuras are said to have fled across the northern border, chased by Agni and the Devas, who mounted guard there.51

Migration history of other IE tribes,

Other branches of IE have a clear migration history, even if no literary record has been preserved. It is commonly accepted that the Celtic and Italic peoples were invaders into their classical habitats. The Celts? itinerary can be archaeologically traced back to Slovakia and Hungary, and Germany still preserves some Celtic place-names.52 In France, Spain, and the British Isles, a large pre-IE population existed, comprising at least two distinct language families. Of the Iberian languages, only a few written fragments have been preserved. Etruscan is extinct but well-attested and fully deciphered, though we don?t know what to make of the persistent claims that it was a wayward branch of the IE Anatolian family. The Basque language survives till today, but attempts to link it to distant languages remain unsuccessful. At any rate, this area witnessed a classic case of IE expansion, resulting in the near-complete celtization or latinization of western and southern Europe.

Germanic, Baltic and Slavic cover those areas of Europe which have been claimed as the Urheimat: Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, South Russia. In the case of the Germanic peoples, there is no literary record (but plenty of archaeological indications) of an immigration, nor of the replacement or assimilation of an earlier population. The Baltic language group, represented today by Latvian and Lithuanian, once covered a slightly larger area than today, but there is no literary memory of a migration from another area. However, many Balts today will tell you that they originally came from India. Before this is declared to be an argument for an Indian Urheimat, it should be verified that this belief really pre-dates the 19th century, when it was the prevalent theory among scholars throughout Europe. The folklore avidly recorded by nationalist philologists in the 19th century could well contain not only age-old oral traditions of the common people but also some beliefs fashionable among those who recorded them. The Slavic peoples have expanded to the southwest across the Danube, and in recent centuries also (back?) to the east, across the Ural mountains. The farthest in time that human memory can reach, Ukraine and southern Poland seem to have been the Slavs? homeland.

When scholars from the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic countries started claiming their own country as the IE Urheimat, this certainly was not in contradiction with facts known at the time. But these Urheimat claims were only based on a weak argumentum e silentio: the first written records of these peoples are comparatively recent, several millennia younger than the break-up of PIE, and the true story of their migratory origins has simply been lost. This is not to deny that they may have preserved traditions of their own migrations for as long as the Israelites, but apart from the erosion wrought by time, it is christianization which has generally put a stop to the continuation of the traditional tribal knowledge. And where Christian monks stepped in to collect and preserve remnants of the national heritage (as in Ireland), it was too late: stories had gotten mixed up, the people who remembered the traditional knowledge were dying out, the thread had become too thin not to be broken,

That the Greeks took their classical habitat from an Old European population is not in doubt, but there is no definite memory of their immigration. Perhaps the myth of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece, located in Georgia, should be read as a vague indication of a Greek migration from there, overseas to Thracia, whence the Greek tribes entered Greece proper in succession. But an actual immigration narrative is missing.

From Iranian Urheimat,

The one branch of IE which has preserved a relatively unambiguous record of its migration, is Iranian. The Iranians once controlled a much larger territory than today, after the Slavic and Turkic expansions. The Cimmerians and Scythians spread out over the steppes between Ukraine and the Pamir mountains; of this branch of the Iranians, only the Ossets in the northern Caucasus remain. The Sogdians in the Jaxartes or Syr Darya valley and even as far east as Khotan (Xinjiang) made important contributions to culture and especially to Buddhist tradition. An unsuspected wayward branch of the Iranian family is the Croat people: till the early Christian era, when they were spotted in what is now Eastern Europe, they spoke an Iranian language, which was gradually replaced by Slavic ?Serbo-Croat?. They call themselves Hrvat, apparently from Harahvaiti, the name of a river in Western Afghanistan, which is merely the Iranian form of Saraswati. In an Achaemenid inscription, the Harahvaita tribe is mentioned as one of the tribute-paying components of the Iranian empire. The migration of the Croats from Afghanistan to the western Balkan (and likewise, that of the Alans, a name evolved from Arya, as far west as France) could be the perfect illustration of the general cast-to-west movement which the Indian Urheimat hypothesis implies.


The Iranians are fairly clear about their history of immigration from Hapta-Hendu and Airyanam Vaejo, two of sixteen Iranian lands mentioned in the Zoroastrian scripture Vendidad. To the extent that they are recognizable, all sixteen are in Bactria, Afghanistan or northwestern India. Iran proper is not m the picture, nor is the Volga region whence the Iranians are assumed to have migrated m the AIT. Their religious reformer Zarathushtra, whom modern scholarship dates to the mid-2nd millennium BC, lived in present-day Balkh in Afghanistan, then a more domesticated land than today.53 Afghanistan was a half-way station in a slow migration from India. The Iranians may have brought the name of the lost Saraswati river along with them and given it, in the phonetically evolved form Harahvaiti, to a river in their new country; similarly with the name Sarayu, the river flowing through Ayodhya, becoming Harayu, the old name of another river in western Afghanistan.

The Iranian homelands Airyanam Vaejo, described as too cold in its 10-months-long winter, and Hapta-Hendu, described as rendered too hot for men (i.e. the Iranians) by the wicked Angra-Mainyu, are Kashmir and Sapta-Saindhavah (Panjab-Haryana) respectively.54 They are considered as the first two of sixteen countries successively allotted to the Iranians, the rest being the areas where the Iranians have effectively been living in proto-historical times. This scenario tallies quite exactly with the Vedic and Puranic data about the history of the Anavas, one of the five branches of the Aila/Saudyumna people: from Kashmir, they invaded Sapta-Saindhavah, but were defeated by the Paurava branch (which composed the Rg-Veda) and driven northwestward.

Those who deny this scenario have had to invent a second ?land of seven rivers? as the common Indo-Iranian homeland, from which the Iranians? Vedic cousins took the name but not the memory into India; or to interpret the Avestan river-name Ranha (correlate of Sanskrit RasA, the Puranic name of the Amu Darya or Oxus) as meaning the Volga.55 It is a safe rule of scientific method that ?entities are not to be multiplied without necessity? (Occam?s razor), and therefore, until proof of the contrary, we should accept that the term Sapta Saindhavah and its Iranian evolute Hapta Hendu refer to the same region historically known by that name. Both Indian and Iranian sources situate the break-up between Indians and Iranians, Deva- and Asura-worshippers, in Sapta-Saindhavah. Before such a concordant testimony of all parties concerned, it is quite pretentious to claim that one knows it all better, and that they separated in Iran or Central Asia instead.

The balance-sheet is that some branches of the IE family have no memory of any migration, some have vague memories of their own immigration into their historical habitat, the Iranian branch has a distinct memory of migration from India to Iran, and only the Indian branch has a record of emigration of others from its own habitat.


And, What difference is there between Hinduism and Vedic religion., we never called ourself Hindus, did Shankara ever call the Sanathana dharma Hindu, its was something the Greeks and Muslims adopted from Persian.in avestan the dialect 's' is replaced with 'H' dialect..do you think Persians called themselves Persians,Greeks called these as Persians after the Parshyus who founded the Achemenid dynasty. Parshyus are one of the ten tribes that fought king sudas which is mentioned in rig veda. Iranians themselves called their land Aryavenuim(similar to what north India was called Arya vartam) the whole Indo-Iranian geographical landscape was the heart of the ‘so called’ Aryan culture. Hapta Hindu is mentioned in Avestan and was later adopted by the Greeks,it refers to the land east of Parshyus(persia). Megasthenes wrote his travelogue 'India' and he was describing the empire of Mauryas ruled from Pataliputra in Modern Bihar,obviously he was referring to India as the country as we know today(which included pakistan).

It is ridiculous how a change of customs which difference were there even among the tribes of the whole of Indus society if being taken into account, determines The difference between Vedism and Hinduism in its absolute sense as per you, not withstanding hundred thousands of reforms that has went through the same religion, which is so diverse that if you move from one place to another you see a different way of it, It is pure hypocricy from your POV when you say Linguistics can be force fed, thus linguistics cannot be the basis of Aryan-Dravidian invasion theory (which is correct), yet you seem to take a few change in practices as not being something that can change over a period of time, not withstanding the vast similarities between the two that exists albeit with many dissimilarities just in the same way that there were differences even between Indus civilizations of mature period and early period and so on.

Even critical historians, If you want I can put up the whole interview who worked on differences between Late Hinduism and Early Vedism says Hinduism has evolved from the other and they are inseperable from other than material practice.

Don’t try to interpret something theologically when it isn’t Theological, Theological interpretations works for Theological religions viz Abrahmic faiths ((like Wahhabis claiming shias this and this, catholics claiming my path is of true salvation (recently pope commented on that), this is called throw the book or theological interpretations) and not Dharmic faiths. Todays Sanatana Dharma is much more than a central belief surrounding a few books, The very consideration of all religious or non-religious path leads to the same salvation is something unique to Dharmic faiths which does not requires dogmatic theological explanations.

Tomorrow you might as well claim Gita does not means anything to us since Krishna had more than 1 wives and tens of not hundreds of Ladies serving, but Hindus don’t marry more than one. You have no clue of Saurashtras, And Vedantas and Panchatantras and Puranas etc and their relations and the differences are. Then there are hundreds of sects inside Sanatana Dharma and each with their own sets of belief yet the core belief remains the same, like Shaivism, Vaishnivism, Shakha-hari and Mansak-hari et als.

John Marshall mentions the discovery of rectangular altar in the Indus valley site in Kalibangan and now we know such Altar were common throughout many of the Indus sites that have been excavated,the fire altar is at the heart of the Vedic religion till today,whether its the Upanayana ceremony,marriage,house warming ceremony or death. all the Hindu religion from gods to philosophy are from the Chatur Vedas, which central to the sanathana dharma, and the last time i checked its more closely related to them than the differences between them.

In the rig Veda please look at the kind of animals that are mentioned,there are cattle's,water buffalo's, elephants, Gaur(bisons are are usually found on the gangetc terai and further east and in forests of south india). Aryans or Sanskrit speaking vedic people have been on the ganga-yamuna delta along with the later Indus valley people for a long time, sites in sanauli in UP clearly shows this wasn't based on the Indus-Ghaggar alone, please tell me do you think that pastoral Aryans invaded Indus cities destroyed them and then sat down to write Vedas in just 500 years and in the mean time they also developed advanced knowledge of astronomy and medicine and surgery all in 500 years, not only that in just 5 centuries these pastoral nomadic Aryans also became experts in Agriculture and started cultivating the vast gangetic delta and started rasing three crops in a years., Aryas were no nomads they developed the science of agriculture just like the Sumerian and Egyptians did, over a period of couple or more thousand years.

The Indus valley civilization was the largest civilization among the 4 ancient civilization,spread over nearly 1 million square KM area, archaeologist don't believe even the people of Indus valley were entirely Homogenous THEY WERE HETEROGENOUS, even the cities style differed,cities found in upper Indus differed from cities excavated in south on the rann of kutch, cities excavated from east in sanauli differed from cities in harappa and Moenjodara, even the seals differed sometimes, the belief is Vedic people cohabited the subcontinent in the same areas as the harappans and harappans co habited the same areas where the the eventual authors of Vedas did, there was difference in cultural traits due to the immense size of the civilization. (I posted this part before)

Vedic-Harappans existed through out the indo-gangetic plain as we know from the ruined cities,it is believed that during times of flood and drought east-west and west-east migration was regular,and eventually the center of gravity completely moved towards the gangetic basin and people stopped migrating towards west(except perhaps into Iran and and westwards much earlier).

Take the example of Mesopotamia, Sumerians first developed the advanced urban culture in Mesopotamia and eventually the Akkadians took over, the Akkadians had cultural traits distinct from the Sumerians but they were of the same ethnic stock and many of their cultural iconry came from Sumerians, Sumerians and Akkadians were cohabitants of the same land but at some point of time the cultural traits of the Akkadians began to appropriate Mesopotamia. Cultures evolve with civilization, and when they evolve over a couple of thousands years they attain distinct characteristics which may make them indistinguishable from the original source. Vedic people may have evolved from the Indus cultural environment but embellished with unique traits which was a result of may centuries of evolution.

It is untrue to believe that Harappan people and their culture remained un evolved and unchanged over 5000 years,even the earliest harappan sites excavated from mehergarh(7000BCE)bear no resemblance to the sites excavated from the mature phase period, they evolved, the people of mehergarh cannot described as the same as Indus valley people if you dont take cultural evolution into account,what is important is that they show strong sense of inheritance which it does,same is the case with Vedics and Indus people,if we expected them to be the same, no they probably are not, but they(indus) clearly show traits which have been inherited and continued from their Vedic people(like the fire altar,burial ceremony)



DUH, who says Indians are one race? Neither India is one Race nor are Indian Religions Homogenous, Even Islam in India is different than that of Islam in Turkey or say some other countries.

Hehe It seems like your sure about Pakistanis being Aryans ? Good!



Yes Lets be clear, In light with my points presented so far.



I have given you a possible interpretations of the word Hindu (NOTE : I have not said which one of them is correct, you claimed all are wrong except one), I have told you NONE of our books mention the word Hindu but rather Sanatana Dharma, What if I’m a Persian and as I told you the book published in Lucknow calls a Hindu as chor , dakoo, I think that is legitimate, Can you explain me why it isn’t legitimate? .. Just for Example.

I’ll again Repeat this you need to proper reading, Sindhu in Rig Veda mentions the rivers as well as seas, the context of it can only be found or differentiated by someone of Vedic scholar or Indologists, and varies on verse to verse in Rig Veda.

I have repeatedly told here Hinduism is precisely known as Sanatana Dharma, not otherwise to end the mismatch of words.




Why are you picking out unconditional posts of mine from here and there?

At first you said, ‘Don’t use language to determine who is Dravidian and who is Aryan’, Then you are saying there is no Dravidian gene as such but there is Aryan gene that has been swamped out? It is wrong, go and Read latest research of Oppenheimers Genetical traits, or that of kivisilds general traits of genetics, who was once the author of Bamshed study of Indian caste population, which forcefed AIT, and was proved wrong by introduction of new genetical lines and research done.

I’m not so sure if I’m listening to pulp fiction here, you should write a book on this, I will pay back double the penny for each award you will win for your groundbreaking discovery on the exact 'LIST' you have done above

Just to clear something regarding Aryans since you want me to call Pakistanis as Aryans (I have no problem doing that because I dont really care about whose from whom), Please check my post above where I asked you to prove the existence of Aryans,

(1) Arya and Airya in the contexts of Sanatana Dharma and Zoroastrianism

Airya was applied by Zoroastrians only to Zoroastrians not other Iranians (Scythians were specifically not Airya even though they were Iranian). Likewise Arya was used by Sanatana Dharmics only for Sanatana Dharmics - in the Ramayanam, Rama addresses the monkeys fighting with him as Aryas. Otherwise Sanatana Dharmics applied it to those they considered as following comparable beliefs and practises, like Chinese Buddhists (historical records show Dharmics applied 'Arya' to them). Arya means a way to address respected people. But in Bharata too, the Scythians invaders were again branded anarya for their mass-violence and horrible behaviour. In its original and only sense, neither the Samskritam term nor the Avestan one can be applied to Pakistan's current religious climate - because as seen in the case of the earlier Scythians, the ethnic group or language of the subject is irrelevant (instead, it was both behavioural *and* religious co-resonance that mattered); and neither the original Zoroastrians nor ancient Sanatana Dharmics would have applied Airya/Arya to Islam.

http://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aryavartamr6.jpg

(b)The western context: the recent word 'aryan'

'Aryan' is a modern term coined in the west, a word that has no meaning either in original Sanatana Dharma or Zoroastrian contexts. But in the west, it refers to a *language group*. Pakistanis can choose to call themselves that, but strictly speaking, they're naming themselves after a language family... So it comes down to asking yourself: are you a language or a person? In fact, the specific term applicable to the Indian subcontinet is the 'Indo-Aryan language family'. Thus, in terms of the western word too, you *can't* ethnically be an Indo-Aryan. Your language can be Indo-Aryan. However, many Pakistani scholars are falling over themselves in arguing that Urdu derives not from Hindi mainly (with some Persian and bits of Arabic) but rather mostly from Arabic instead (don't ask me to explain their logic). If you were to believe their 'arguments', then even *linguistically* (that is, in the western sense), Pakistan is not Indo-Aryan either (but Semitic instead)....

I hope I have not wasted my time by replying to you, by going through some of other posts and breifly having a introduction of the way you came into this argument and your theories , oh well, The last reply you gave to Samudra is ridiculously laughable, you mess it up while concluding ,Samudra I'm sure he dont even knows what is being taught in Indian Schools, or even how many Indian Education boards are there to begin with.

You need to read this and possibly buy this when it comes out, very simply done this map will come out after some years a ongoing project by Archeological Society of India, get it and get learned about the excavations and sites of Indus valley people, Thank You.



I'll conclude with a nice pic depicting Dynasties of Epic India,

http://img70.imageshack.us/my.php?image=epicindiahz1.jpg

PS : Incase any Edit needed, I might do it. Have been edited number of times already.

For crying out loud. Can you summarize this sh*t? You really expect me to read it all?

I might do the first paragraph later.

 

[Bull]

For crying out loud. Can you summarize this sh*t? You really expect me to read it all?

I might do the first paragraph later.

Who wants you to read it, it would be a insult if you did.

 

[roadrunner]

Who wants you to read it, it would be a insult if you did.

It was in response to my replies genius

 

[Averroes]

lol @ the comment of Rumi having anything to do with this stone age conction of hinduism. all those who delve into deeper thoughts about God reach similar levels. That's why the philosophies of Judaism, Christianity , and Islam are almost the same, with subtle differences. Thomas Aquinas philosophy for Christianity based his work essentially off of Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides' book A guide for the perplexed is one of the most profound philosophical works out there.

 

[joey]

Thomas Aquinas philosophy for Christianity based his work essentially off of Ibn Rushd, and Maimonides' book A guide for the perplexed is one of the most profound philosophical works out there.

I wouldn't quote from Thomas Aquinas in order to give a character reference for islam. After all, he's the man who said:

"Unbelievers deserve not only to be separated from the Church, but also... to be exterminated from the World by death. (St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica of 1271)"

He also had other nasty views, supporting slavery of darker people and his writings on imaginary beings led to the witch burnings and inquisition. But hey, if you think the guy is okay, then by all means refer to him. Lets end your post to here for now.

For crying out loud. Can you summarize this sh*t? You really expect me to read it all?

I might do the first paragraph later.

I dont have desire to rehash all the arguments presented before for sake of slow learners. How hard can it be to read. Your posts where you were fantasizing, I proved that it was all fantasy, but you are unwilling (unable?) to read the refutation. Are you really willing to abandon/lose your arguments by defaulting? (Yes, a paltry excuse like 'I can't read more than one paragraph at a time' *is* defaulting.)

 

[Marathaman]

deleted *

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

In all fairness, I reckon it does take a way longer for some people to read as they have to spell out each word. As for understanding thereafter, it is a million dollar issue!

Even so, they also serve, not by standing and waiting, but by being irrelevant!

As the Hymn goes:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all..........

The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one;

 

[Ababeel]

HINDUISM IS NOT THE OLDEST AND BEST RELIGION
Islam is the oldest religion
Hinduism is not the oldest of all the religions. It is Islam which is the first and the oldest of all religions. People have a misconception that Islam is 1400 years old and that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the founder of this religion. Islam existed since time immemorial, ever since man first set foot on this earth. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was not the founder of Islam. He was the last and final Messenger of Almighty God.

The oldest religion need not be the purest and the most authentic religionA religion cannot be claimed to be most pure and authentic, only on the criterion that it is the oldest. It is similar to a person saying that the water he has kept in an open glass, in his house, outside the refrigerator, for three months is purer than the water which has just been collected in a clean glass, immediately after it has been purified.

The latest religion need not be the purest and the most authentic religion
On the other hand a religion cannot be claimed to be the purest or authentic, only on the criterion that the religion is new or the latest. A bottle of distilled water which is sealed, packed and kept in the refrigerator for three months is much purer than a bottle of water freshly collected from the sea.

For religion to be pure and authentic, it should not have interpolations, changes and revisions in its scriptures revealed from God
For any religion to be pure and authentic, its scriptures should not contain any interpolation, addition, deletion or revision. Moreover the religion’s source of inspiration and direction should be Almighty God. The Qur’an is the only religious scripture on the face of the earth which has been maintained it its original form. All the other religious scriptures, of all the other religions have interpolations, additions, deletions or revisions. The Qur’an has been in the memory of a multitude of people, intact in its original form ever since its revelation, and now there are hundreds of thousands of people who have preserved it in their memory. Moreover, if you compare the copies made by Caliph Uthman from the original Qur’an which is yet present in the museum in Tashkent and in Koptaki museum in Turkey, they are the same as the ones we possess today.

Allah (swt) promises in the Qur’an, in Surah Al Hijr, chapter 15 verse 9

"We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption)."

The oldest religion need not be best religion
A religion cannot be claimed to be the best religion only on the criterion that it is the oldest. It is similar to a person saying, that my 19th century car is better than a Toyota car manufactured in 1998, because it is older. He would be considered to be a fool to say that his 19th century car which required a rod to be turned in circles to start it, is better than a key-start 1998 Toyota car, just because it is older.

The latest religion need not be the best religion
On the other hand a religion cannot be called as the best religion only on the criterion that the religion is new or that it came later. It is similar to a person who says that my 800 cc Suzuki car manufactured in 1999 is better than a 5000 cc Mercedes 500 SEL manufactured in 1997. To judge which car is better, a person should compare the specifications of the car e.g. the power of the car, safety measures, the capacity of the cylinders, the pickup, the speed, the comfort, etc. 5000 cc Mercedes, 500 SEL car manufactured in 1997, is far superior and better than a 800 cc Suzuki (Maruti Suzuki 800) manufactured in 1999.

A religion is best, if it has the solutions to the problems of mankind
For a religion to be considered the best, it should have the solution to all the problems of mankind. It should be the religion of truth, and should be applicable to all ages. Islam is the only religion which has the solution to all the problems of mankind. e.g. the problem of alcoholism, surplus women, rape and molestation, robbery, racism, casteism, etc.

Islam is the religion of truth, and its laws and solutions are applicable to all the ages. The Qur’an is the only religious book on the face of the earth, which has maintained its purity and authenticity proving itself to be the word of God in all the ages. i.e. previously, when it was the age of miracles, literature and poetry and in present times when it is the age of science and technology. Moreover, Islam is not a man-made religion, but a religion revealed and inspired by Almighty God. It is the only religion acceptable in His Sight.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Good grief!

 

[Ababeel]

IS ALLAH MENTIONED IN OTHER SCRIPTURES

Almost all the major religious scriptures of the world contain the word "Allah" as one of the names of God.

Elohim El, Elah, Alah
In the Bible, God is very often referred to as ‘Elohim’ in the Hebrew language. The ‘im’ in the ending is a plural of honour and God is referred to as ‘El’ or ‘Elah’ in the English Bible with commentary, edited by reverend C. I. Scofield. ‘Elah’ is alternatively spelled as ‘Alah’. The difference in spelling is only of a single ‘L’. Muslims spell Allah as ‘Allah’ while the Reverend has spelled it as Alah and they pronounce it as ‘Elah’. Muslims pronounce it as Allah. Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages therefore we say it should be pronounced as ‘Allah’ and not as ‘Elah’.

When I was in school, I was taught ‘D, O’ is do, ‘T, O’ is to. What is ‘G, O’ It is ‘go’ and not ‘gu’. ‘N, U, T’ is nut, ‘C, U, T’ cut; ‘B, U, T’ is but, what is ‘P, U, T’? Not ‘pat’ but it is ‘put’. If you ask "Why?" The answer is "It is their language". If I have to pass I have to say ‘P, U, T’ is ‘put’ and not ‘pat’. Similarly the right pronunciation for A, L, L, A, H, is Allah.

Jesus (pbuh) cried out Allah Allah when he was put on the cross
It is mentioned in the New Testament in the Gospel of Mathew, chapter 27 verse 46 as well as Gospel of Mark, chapter 15 verse 34 when Jesus (pbuh) was put on the cross.

Jesus cried with a loud voice saying "E’-Li, E’-Li la’-ma sa-bach’-tha-ni?" that is to say, ‘My God, My God why hast Thou Forsaken Me?’ Does this sound like Jehovah! Jehovah! why has thou forsaken me? Does it sound like Abba Abba? The answer is ‘No’. Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages and if you translate "E’-Li, E’-Li la’-ma sa-bach’-tha-ni" into Arabic it is ‘Allah Allah lama tarak tani’ does it sound similar?

This statement of Jesus (pbuh), "E’-Li, E’-Li la’-ma sa-bach’-tha-ni" is preserved in its original Hebrew in each and every of its translation which is available in more than 2000 different languages of the world and in each and every of them, "Allah" is present.

"Allah" in Sikhism
One of the names by which Gurunanak Sahib referred to God is "Allah".


"Allah" in Rigveda Book 2 Hymn I verse II
Even in the Rigveda which is the most sacred scripture of the Hindus, one of the attributes given to God Almighty in Book no 2 Hymn no I verse II, is ‘Ila’ which if pronounced properly is the same as Allah.

Allo Upanishad:
Amongst the various Upanishads one of the Upanishad is named as ‘Allo’ Upanishad in which God is referred to as "Allah" several times.

 

[Adux]

Allah means God in Arabic, it doesnt mean a particular muslim god or a christain god. It just means god.
Christian Arabs call god Allah.

 

[aksingh]

IS ALLAH MENTIONED IN OTHER SCRIPTURES

Almost all the major religious scriptures of the world contain the word "Allah" as one of the names of God.

Elohim El, Elah, Alah
In the Bible, God is very often referred to as ‘Elohim’ in the Hebrew language. The ‘im’ in the ending is a plural of honour and God is referred to as ‘El’ or ‘Elah’ in the English Bible with commentary, edited by reverend C. I. Scofield. ‘Elah’ is alternatively spelled as ‘Alah’. The difference in spelling is only of a single ‘L’. Muslims spell Allah as ‘Allah’ while the Reverend has spelled it as Alah and they pronounce it as ‘Elah’. Muslims pronounce it as Allah. Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages therefore we say it should be pronounced as ‘Allah’ and not as ‘Elah’.

When I was in school, I was taught ‘D, O’ is do, ‘T, O’ is to. What is ‘G, O’ It is ‘go’ and not ‘gu’. ‘N, U, T’ is nut, ‘C, U, T’ cut; ‘B, U, T’ is but, what is ‘P, U, T’? Not ‘pat’ but it is ‘put’. If you ask "Why?" The answer is "It is their language". If I have to pass I have to say ‘P, U, T’ is ‘put’ and not ‘pat’. Similarly the right pronunciation for A, L, L, A, H, is Allah.

Jesus (pbuh) cried out Allah Allah when he was put on the cross
It is mentioned in the New Testament in the Gospel of Mathew, chapter 27 verse 46 as well as Gospel of Mark, chapter 15 verse 34 when Jesus (pbuh) was put on the cross.

Jesus cried with a loud voice saying "E’-Li, E’-Li la’-ma sa-bach’-tha-ni?" that is to say, ‘My God, My God why hast Thou Forsaken Me?’ Does this sound like Jehovah! Jehovah! why has thou forsaken me? Does it sound like Abba Abba? The answer is ‘No’. Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages and if you translate "E’-Li, E’-Li la’-ma sa-bach’-tha-ni" into Arabic it is ‘Allah Allah lama tarak tani’ does it sound similar?

This statement of Jesus (pbuh), "E’-Li, E’-Li la’-ma sa-bach’-tha-ni" is preserved in its original Hebrew in each and every of its translation which is available in more than 2000 different languages of the world and in each and every of them, "Allah" is present.

"Allah" in Sikhism
One of the names by which Gurunanak Sahib referred to God is "Allah".


"Allah" in Rigveda Book 2 Hymn I verse II
Even in the Rigveda which is the most sacred scripture of the Hindus, one of the attributes given to God Almighty in Book no 2 Hymn no I verse II, is ‘Ila’ which if pronounced properly is the same as Allah.

Allo Upanishad:
Amongst the various Upanishads one of the Upanishad is named as ‘Allo’ Upanishad in which God is referred to as "Allah" several times.

So what? does that makes us all muslims??

 

[niaz]

Allah means God in Arabic, it doesnt mean a particular muslim god or a christain god. It just means god.
Christian Arabs call god Allah.

Sorry for quoting you Hon Adux.

It is true that Allah or Ilahi means God in Arabic. However, at the time of our holy Prophet ( PBUH) Kaaba was a depository of many Gods. Some, such as Lat and Uzza, were female dieties. Total number of major and minor Gods ran into hundereds. Allah was one of the major dieties. That is why Allah o Akbar ( Allah is the greatest) and La ilaha il -a- llah ( There is no God but Allah). All the sanams ( any Idol or Image that is worshipped) were destroyed after the fall of Mecca to muslims in the 630 AD and since that time there has been no image or idol inside the Kaaba or Masjidul Haraam.

Some researchers have mentioned that Allah is Arabic name of the Hebrew 'Yahwa' mentioned in the Torah. It is possible as name do change with the language ( Yohanna in Arabic, Johannes in Swedish, John in English, Jean in French / Italian and Ian in Celtic). However, there is no certainty. One thing is however correct that both the Jews and Muslims are staunchly monotheistic religions.

 

[Chanakya]

One thing is however correct that both the Jews and Muslims are staunchly monotheistic religions.

Niaz
Even Hindusim is a Monotheistic religion . but its belives that a person has the freedom to focus his devotion to that supreme being by imagening it in any physical form which is known as bhakti Marg . ( path of devotion)
There are other paths to achieve that supreme being like path of Knowledge , and path of ethical duties