RV: Guide me????

[Guest guest]

De: Radha-Govinda Mandir <govinda (AT) mcsa (DOT) net.mx>Fecha:

Viernes 14 de Diciembre de 2001 1:06 PMAsunto: Guide me????

My dear Prabhu:

Pranam!!! Prabhupada ki jay!!! Please forgiven me, but I had received this

letter; but I don't know if it is all right. Could you said me what is right

and what is wrong of this opinions from this devotee????Ys. Hare Krishna das

Original Message-----De: Frank Morales <fmorale1 (AT) students (DOT) wisc.edu>Para:

Radha-Govinda Mandir <govinda (AT) mcsa (DOT) net.mx>Fecha: Miércoles 12 de Diciembre de

2001 11:50 AMAsunto: RE: Final Call for Papers

May dear Vaisnava:

Pranam!!! Prabhupad ki jay!!! Forgiven me by call you in your civil lastname,

because I was thinking in wrong way about your real identity. Let me try to

answer your very nice letter.

Dear Mr. Arganis, Greetings. Thank you very much for sending me your

article. The overall theme of your paper is precisely what I'm looking for to

include in the book. Before I can seriously consider including your article in

the anthology, however, I need to offer a few suggestions. First, can

you please provide me with a short biography of your academic

achievements/endeavors? Can you please tell me about any degrees that you

presently have, as well as what your ultimate goal is in your education

(Ph.D.?)? Probably, It is depent in Lord Krsna . May be yes!!!!!

I studied the carrier of Laboratarist Tecnical in the CECYT (Centro de Estudios

Científicos y Tecnológicos) of Tlacotalpan Veracruz

Horacio F. Arganis J.Linguistic and Literatura Student

Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación y Humanidades

U A de C.Campus Saltillo. .Author of Book Vaisnavism, Historical study and

confrontation of scential Doctrine of Hinduism and Rescanning the Srimad-

Bhagavatam from the Chanakya's Works, Editate by Consejo Editorial del Estado

de Caohuila ( In spanish)

I am Working in the thesis What is the real ancients of Bhagavata Purana ?

I Achieve two times the best premium Diploma in scholarship in all University

2000-2001. Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila. Second, your paper should

have many more footnotes and references to scholarly works. It's important

that with each and every contention or citation you make, that you support it

with a reference either to a scriptural or a scholarly source. Can you

possibly slightly re-write your paper and include these?

I already put the notes. Bibliography

Bentley, John, 1825, Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy, Osnabruck; Biblio

Verlang, etd 1970.

(RVL) Goswami, Sartsvarupa, dasa. Reading in the Vedic literature. The tradition

speak by itself. Bhaktivedanta Books Truths , 1977.

(K Bg.) Goswami Hridayananda Ph. D. Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gîta, Starling an

Exploration in the meanings. Conference in the UCLA. Editade in the BTG. (Part

I, BTG, IX-X p.21, y Part III, BTG, I-II, pp.32).

(HK) Gelberg, Steven J. ed., Hare Krishna Hare Krishna. FIVE DISTINGUE SCHOLARS

ON KRISHNA MOVEMENT, Groves Prees, N.Y.1983.

(V) Rosen, Steven, Vaisnavism, Cotemporary Scholars Discuss the Gaudiya

Tradition N. Y. Folks Books, 1992.

(VCC) Thompson, Richard L. Ph D, VEDIC COSMOGRAPHY AND ASTRONOMY, The

Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1991.

(KHL) Majumdar, Bimanbehari. KRISHNA IN HISTORY AND LEGEND. University of Calcuta 1969.

"Third, you need to have only works by recognized scholars in your bibliography.

I would recommend that you remove all references to works written by Hare

Krishna authors (even those by Hrdayananda Maharaja, who may have graduated

from Harvard, but who is by no means recognized as an authority on any aspect

of Indian religion). I also suggest that you include very updated books and

articles written by established scholars (e.g., Klostermaier, Knipe, Coward,

etc.). A.L Basham did most of his work over forty years ago, and much of his

work is very outdated. For a paper to be taken seriously, you need to show

that you did actual research of the very latest developments in the field."

Yes I am agreed with your strategy. But if you could make this changes? Now I

am overhead with work it is the time of ending my studies. Therefore I have no

time and the libraries are closet by Christmas time they haven't actual works

in this field. Please you can make all this changes and you can used my name

with your like co-authors. or as you want? " This is a discussion that

I've had with many Vaisnava authors (of which I am one). Often we see writing

papers as a chance to "preach Krsna Consciousness" in a semi-intellectual way.

This is a very short-sited goal that often only leads to serious scholars not

taking us seriously. Rather, we have to see things in a very long term way.

We mustn't cripple ourselves by trying to use Hare Krishna books in academic

writing. If we do, then we won't be taken seriously. If we can be more

creative, then we might not get the immediate satisfaction of "preaching", but

we do have the powerful effect we want. The art of good writing is to subtly

encourage scholars to see things in a more Vedic way without ever having them

even suspect that we are devotees. "

Yes my Lord: I undestarnd and your are right. for exemple chekc this

Chapter 9 (Appendix 2)

Michael Witzel - An Examination of Western Vedic Scholarship

The question of the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages

is a purely academic subject, although discourse on the subject, particularly

in India, has been highly politicized.

We have already examined, in Appendix I, the various aspects of this politicization.

But while the most vocal and extremist supporters of the theory (that the

Indoaryan languages spoken in most parts of India were originally brought into

South Asia by invaders or immigrants in the second millennium BC) are

undoubtedly politically motivated, the theory is generally accepted by most

academic scholars as well, purely on the ground that it represents the general

consensus in the international academic world.

The question, therefore, is: how far can we rely on the objectivity and

sincerity of world scholarship?

We have, in our earlier book, presented a new theory which answers the problem

of the original Indo-European homeland more effectively than the generally

accepted theory. In this present book, we have shown that the Rigveda confirms

our theory with evidence which, at least so far as the literary aspect of the

debate is concerned, is practically unanswer-able.

A true scholarship would examine, and then either accept or reject, with good

reason, any new theory which challenges a generally accepted theory admitted to

be full of sharp anomalies.

However, this has not been the attitude of world scholarship towards our earlier book.

The general attitude has been as follows: there is a school of crank scholarship

in India which is out to prove, by hook or by crook, that India was the original

homeland of the Indo-European family of languages; and the writers of this

school deserve to be firmly put in their place.

And the best method of doing this is by tarring all scholars who support, or

even appear to support, an Indian homeland theory, with one brush; and then

pointing out particularly untenable propositions made by one or the other of

the scholars so branded together, to prove that all the scholars so named

belong to one single school of irrational scholarship.

Thus, Bernard Sergent, a French scholar, in his book Genèse de l’Inde

(Bibliothèque Scientifique Payot, Paris, 1997) has the following (roughly

translated into English by us) to say about these scholars:

"Thus Knipe, D.K. Chakrabarti, George Feuerstein, Klaus Klostermaier, Coward,

Richard Thompson, David Frawley, Jim Shaffer, Koenraad Elst, Paramesh

Choudhury, Navaratna S. Rajaram, K.D. Sethna, S.R. Rao, Bhagwan Singh, Subhash

Kak, Shrikant Talageri… It can be seen that the case is argued mainly

from a nationalist Indian viewpoint, relayed also by some westerners. Above

(p.155) we have been able to evaluate manipulations indulged in by one of these

scholars, J. Shaffer, in order to arrive at his above conclusions: he simply

argues that it is not necessary to take into account any linguistic data!

Rajaram arrives at the same conclusion: Linguistics is not a science since it

does not lead to the same conclusions as his own… On this subject,

Bryant (1996, 8 and 11) remarks that what he calls the ‘Indigenous

School’ ignores all the linguistic literature, in particular those which

draw attention (by decisively demonstrating the existence) to a substratum, and

only use linguistics when it happens to benefit them. As for Choudhury, he is

the author of a work entitled Indian Origin of the Chinese Nation (well,

let’s see!), and of another entitled The India We Have Lost: Did India

Colonise and Civilise Sumeria, Egypt, Greece and Europe?: Self-service is the

best service! Nationalism, obviously, has no limits. In any case, these authors

battle to make their beautiful ‘discovery’ triumph through the

organisation of conferences in the United States, sending panels to other

conferences, etc. This ‘struggle’ shows up the ideological nature

of this exercise: a student of science does not need to impose his ideas

through propaganda, he has arguments to furnish."1

It may be noted that a whole range of scholars, Western and Indian, are clubbed

together, and then two specific points are elaborated: N.S. Rajaram’s

disdain for linguistics, and Paramesh Choudhury’s fantastic scenarios

(clearly modelled on the writings of P.N. Oak). The inference is that these two

points characterize the writings of all the scholars concerned!

Let us see how far they apply to our own earlier book:

N.S. Rajaram has been a friendly supporter of the theory outlined by us in our

earlier book. But he has equally been a critic of our failure to share his

disdain for linguistics. Referring to our book, he specifically states: "One

can have some reservations about his excessive reliance on linguistics, and his

acceptance of Dravidian languages (which did not exist much before the Christian

era) as constituting a separate language family."2

Paramesh Choudhury’s theories about the origins of the Chinese, Sumerians

and Egyptians in India can have no relevance whatsoever to our theory about the

origins of the Indo-European languages in India. No Western scholar will accept

that the Indians, Chinese, Sumerians and Egyptians had a common origin in one

particular land; but surely they do accept that the different Indo-European

languages did have a common origin in one particular land. So how does the

location of the Indo-European homeland in India fall into the same category as

the location in India of a fantasy homeland of the Chinese, Sumerians and

Egyptians?

Sergent’s last thrust represents the unkindest cut in this whole smear

campaign. It is not we who have avoided debate. It is these Western scholars

who have chosen to conduct a spit-and-run campaign from a safe distance, while

restricting their criticism of our theory (elaborated by us in our earlier

book) to name-calling and label-sticking rather than to demolition of our

arguments.

We would certainly have loved to joust with Sergent. However, the restraints of

language prevent us from doing so. His book is in French, which is Greek to us.

So we must turn to scholars more amenable to our scrutiny.

To go deeper into the unacademic attitude of Western scholarship, we will

examine the writings of one particular American scholar, Michael Witzel (whom

we have had occasion to refer to many times within our present volume).

We will examine, in particular, the papers presented by him during a conference

on Archaeological and Linguistic Approaches to Ethnicity in Ancient South Asia,

held in Toronto (Canada), 4th-6th October 1991.

This conference was held in 1991, well before the publication of our earlier

book in 1993; but the papers presented at this conference were published later,

in a volume entitled The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia - Language, Material

Culture and Ethnicity, edited by George Erdosy and published by Walter de

Gruyter, Berlin-New York, in 1995.

The particular paper by Witzel which we will examine in detail is Rgvedic

history: poets, chieftains and polities.3 In the course of our examination, we

will also quote from another paper by Witzel, Early Indian history: linguistic

and textual parametres4, included in the same volume; and, occasionally, from

another paper by Witzel, On the Localisation of Vedic Texts and Schools5,

published in a separate volume.

There are two basic reasons why we will be examining Michael Witzel’s papers:

1. The volume containing the above papers also contains critical references to

our earlier book in its footnotes to both the editorial preface as well as the

papers by Michael Witzel. These references cast strong aspersions on the

scholarly value of our earlier book.

It is therefore, necessary to examine, in return, the scholarly value of

Witzel’s own writings.

2. Our present book contains a complete and logical historical analysis of the

Rigveda. Michael Witzel’s papers also purport to present a logical

historical analysis of the Rigveda, and, what is more, his basic approach very

closely parallels our own, as we shall see presently.

However, the conclusions he arrives at are diametrically opposed to our own: to

him the Rigveda gives evidence of a migration of the Vedic Aryans from

Afghanistan to India. Clearly, one of the two analyses has to be wrong. But,

which one?

To arrive at an answer to this question, again, it is necessary to examine

Witzel’s writings in detail.

We will examine Witzel’s writings under the following heads:

I. Scientific Evaluation of Rival Theories. II. Basically Sound Approach to the

Rigveda. III. Witzel’s Theory, Evidence and Conclusions. IV. Careless

Misinterpretations. V. The Chronology and Geography of the MaNDalas. VI.

Geographical Misrepresentations VII. Violation of Basic Principles.

So my dear sir. Please I am in full agreement or according with you in the

changes that your prudent person can make for your public. Because for some,

Hopking T. is authority and for other he is any authority and for other school

of methodology like our University, any body is authority. If you work pass the

test and rigor of objective method and probative in the universal way, you are

right without importance of your religion background, etc......... So depend

who are the public. So please, if you fine person can make all the changesl be

every happy with your holy self.

Thansk very much Prana Krsna Prabhu.

YS. Hare Krishna das