Historical truths about Indology

[Guest guest]

<< I am sending from the Indic Traditions list, Prof. Rajiv Malhotra's

writing about the practice of Indology. Any comments from Indology

listers will be appreciated by all in the list.

 

As one interested in Dravidian studies pursued by Indologists, it will

be nice to know from academic viewpoints. >>

 

Thanks for that nice forwarding, Ganesan. It's an interesting

addition to the ever-growing collection of weird quotes.

 

If Mr. Malhotra seriously believes what he has written there, then it

is not just a matter of being out of step with the times any more (as

L.M. Fosse friendlily supposed), but something else - but then the

erstwhile members of the original Indology List know about the origins

of such weirdness, and this puts it in an understandable and not

quite respectable perspective. Since this kind of thing keeps cropping

up with boring regularity, it may be best not to once again, for the

so-manieth time, write and post a summary of how things really are in

academic Indology, but that somebody puts a few points into clear

writing as a web page, so that when it happens again (as we know it

will) a mere giving of a URL will suffice. (Any volunteers? If anyone

is willing to spend time writing such a piece, I will turn it into HTML

format and put it on my website.)

 

Meanwhile Mr. Malhotra could perhaps be so kind as to let us know from

where he got these "truths". In the academic world once is expected to

give references when proclaiming new discoveries or viewpoints - and

just about every one of those seven points in his post contains

something unproven and / or new. (The most interesting idea is that

the Vedas are German imports. I had not heard that one yet!)

 

Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos

Institut für Indologie und Iranistik

Universität München / Munich University

Deutschland / Germany

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri. Malhotra,

 

Greetings.

 

I forwarded this message to Indology list:

INDOLOGY/message/324

 

W.r.t (3), pl. consider also:

In Tamil sangam literature (some of the names appearing

there also appear on coins in Sri Lanka about 2200 years

old, Ref. Iravatham Mahadevan's recent papers),

Aryans clearly refer to an ethnic folks occupying a

geographical area. The tradition of Arya = Noble was

started only in the second millennium AD, mainly by the

tamil mahAkavi Kamban.

 

Will write about Jung, his Aryanness little later.

He was a man of his times.

 

You're doing great service to propagate Hinduism in

USA. Your friends, like S. Kannappan is my good friend too.

I hear a lot about you, As you know, Kannappan is one of

the founders of Meenakshi temple in Houston, probably

the first major temple to a Goddess.

 

The Aryan intrusion mainly depends on linguistics, and

the classical Indology must include discussions about

the interactions of language families and substratum

influences when Aryans entered India.

 

Any suggestions how these matters should be taught in

USA temples and universities?

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

In Reference to Sri. Malhotra's letter:

INDOLOGY/message/324

 

<<<

1. Europeans discovered Sanskrit in the 17th/18th century and got

very impressed by the high culture represented in its vast literature.

Given the similarities with European languages, the field of

linguistics was born in Europe. For the first time, Europeans learnt

the idea of grammar and started to develop grammar for European

languages. (Gary Tubb of Columbia has researched and found that the

thesaurus was also an idea borrowed from Sanskrit, along with

grammar.)

2. A common source language was postulated, named

Proto-Indo-European. Since such a sophisticated contribution could not

have come from a `backward' people, it was assumed that PIE must be of

European origin.

>>>

 

Appreciations for any references that Europe borrowed idea of grammar

from India. Didn't Latin and Greek have grammars prior to Europe's

colonial contact with India?

 

I thought Europeans first proposed India as the PIE homeland, but

subsequently the advancement of Linguistics and other academic

pursuits over the years firmly rejected that possibility, and scholars

confirm that IIr languages ingressed into India.

 

For example, Herder pointed to India as the source:

 

" In the late 1700s Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) raised new

questions and proposed answers that helped shape the Aryan-Semitic

categories that would influence scholarship in the human sciences

throughout the nineteenth century. Although Herder assigned Hebrew

a special place as "one of the eldest daughters" of the Ursprache,

he also turned his attention to the heights of the "Indian mountains".

A glance at a "map of the world" enabled him to identify the

Ganges as the "river of Paradise (p. 3)

 

T. Trautmann somewhere talks about civilization flooding from the

mountain tops to the low deltas.

 

James Darmesteter (1849-1894): "European scholars, unwitting

playthings of India's mythological illusions, customarily relegated

the Vedas to the most ancient past, not just of history but of human

thought. Brahmanic orthodoxy claimed contact through the Vedas with

the earliest divine revelation. European scientific orthodoxy believed

that through the Vedas it was in contact with the first appearance of

religious thought in the Indo-European race. The Vedas became the

sacred book of the religious origins of the race, the Aryan Bible."

(p.9)

 

"In order to aryanize even more fully the birthplace of civilization,

Renan followed a historiographic tradition that provided a coherent

geography for this project. He proposed that Eden had been located

in Kashmir, in the ancient kingdom of Oudyana, which means "garden"

(vol 8, p. 566-567)" (p.70)

 

"Anticlericals, following the lead of Voltaire, who was fascinated by

India, saw the shores of the Ganges as the source of mankind's most

ancient philosophy." (p.8)

 

All the above quotes are from M. Olender, The languages of Paradise:

Race, religion and philology in the Nineteenth century, HUP, 1992

 

 

Voltaire was eloquently arguing Ganges as the PIE homeland:

"The arctic origins were soon forgotten and Voltaire was able to

record his agreement with Bailly in the following terms:

 

I wholly share your opinion when you say that it is not

possible for different peoples to have shared the same methods,

the same knowledge, the same legends, the same superstitions,

unless all these things had been adopted by a primitive nation

which taught, and led astray, the rest of the world. Now I have

long since regarded the dynasty of the Brahmins as having been

this primitive nation. You must be familiar with the books of

Mr Holwell and Mr Dow .... Finally, sir, I am convinced

that everything has come down to us from the banks of Ganges,

astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc..."

(p. 185, L. Poliakov, The Aryan myth).

 

18-19th century Europeans considered India primitive, however it

appears they treated India as the PIE home. The development that India

is not PIE home, came after intensive and time-consuming

researches by generations of scholars in different fields.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, naga_ganesan@h... wrote:

 

Mr. Bhadraiah wrote:

>The subject of grammar, even that of Vedic sanskrit (leave alone

>European languages), however advanced or modern, will never be

>complete without the ritual.

 

As a scholar on Vedic ritual, appreciations for any comments

and opinions on the Indological works by Prof. Brian Smith,

a) Reflections on resemblance, ritual, and religion and

b) Classifying the universe : the ancient Indian varna system and

the origins of caste.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan