Fw: [Shakti-L: 9131] Witzel in Delhi - some questions to ask

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----- Forwarded Message ----sri venkat <ahvenkiteshFHRS_USA <fhrs_usa >Thursday, July 9, 2009 9:44:07 AM[shakti-L: 9131] Witzel in Delhi - some questions to ask-------- ForwardeRadha Rajan <radharajan7Dear Witzel is in Delhi today at the IIC and at Nehru Museum . So ifany of you is a Hinduwavadi on this liost pl feel free to use thesequestions which also have excerpts from Witzel's own writings. Thisshld be educative for all of you.Beamingly,

RRThamizh Chelvan <thamizhchwitzelDear Mr.WitzelQuestions from www.tamilhindu.comQuestion 1: You will agree that no culture or civilization is perfect,and we Indians are quite aware of the imperfections of our society. Atthe same time, most of us are proud of belonging to this land. ManyWestern thinkers and Indologists have also expressed great admirationfor Indian culture and for India’s intellectual heritage inparticular. You must have seen testimonies by people like Emerson,Thoreau, Durant, Toynbee, Renou, Filliozat or Kramrish. How is itthat, by contrast, you do not seem to find anything good to say aboutIndian culture, and

have often hinted, especially on Internet lists,that it is something barbaric or primitive? Would you not like tospend some time travelling through India, since you are now among us,so as to judge this culture firsthand and decide?Question 2: In the recent noisy controversy over history textbooksprepared by the California State Board of Education, and in Internetdebates, it is often made out that those opposing the teaching of thetheory of an Aryan invasion of, or migration into, India are a bunchof dangerous “Hindutva†fanatics. This completely eclipses the factthat the strongest opponents of this theory have been Westernscholars: U.S. archaeologists George Dales, Jim Shaffer, U.S.anthropologist K.A.R. Kennedy, British archaeologist Colin Renfrew,French archaeologists Jean-Paul Demoule, Jean-François Jarrige,Henri-Paul Francfort, Estonian biologist Toomas Kivisild, and manymore. Why is

this never openly acknowledged and debated in a fair andcivilized manner?Question 3: Why is, instead, the Aryan invasion or migration theorypushed down the throats of Indian schoolchildren (and now U.S. ones!),even as everyone knows fully well that this colonial theory was usedto divide Indian society, leaving wounds that have remained unhealedto this day? What do learned scholars like yourself gain byperpetuating the colonial game of division and demonizing those whooppose this theory as “Hindutva†propagandists?Question 4: In a 1995 paper, you wrote: “The first appearance of [theinvading Aryans’] thundering chariots must have stricken the localpopulation with a terror similar to that experienced by the Aztecs andIncas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse-riding Spaniards.†[*1]That is exactly the colonial paradigm of the invasion theory in allits military splendour. Yet in

2001, you wrote, “Why, then, should allimmigration, or even mere transhumance trickling in, be excluded inthe single case of the Indo-Aryans … ? Just one ‘Afghan’ Indo-Aryantribe that did not return to the highlands but stayed in their Panjabwinter quarters in spring was needed to set off a wave ofacculturation in the plains, by transmitting its ’status kit’ … to itsneighbors.†[*2] It is the complete absence of archaeological,anthropological and genetic evidence for the “hard†version of theAryan invasion which forced you to dilute it to a mere “trickling in�And is it conceivable that a single overstaying Afghan tribe couldhave set off a process of radical linguistic and cultural change overthe whole of North India?[*1] - Michael Witzel, “Early Indian history: Linguistic and textualparametres,†in The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language,Material

Culture and Ethnicity, ed. George Erdosy (Berlin & New York:Walter de Gruyter, 1995), p. 114.[*2] - Michael Witzel, “Autochthonous Aryans ? The Evidence from OldIndian and Iranian Textsâ€, Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, Vol. 7(2001), issue 3 (May 25).Question 5: In a 1995 paper,[*3] in an attempt to find evidence forthe Aryan migration theory in Sanskrit literature, you quoted anexcerpt of the Baudhâyana Shrauta Sûtra in your own translation. Thistranslation was proved wrong (by Koenraad Elst in 1999, more recentlyby Prof. B.B. Lal), and the mistranslation was no accident, since itfigured in an earlier paper of yours.[*4] We all know, of course, thatthe best scholars are not immune from error, and this is true of alldisciplines. Yet you did not have the grace to acknowledge your errorand retract the mistranslation. Instead, we have since seen historians(for

instance Romila Thapar,[*5] R.S. Sharma [*6]) quote thismistranslation in support of the Aryan migration theory. Would youkindly issue a statement to stop such misuse of your mistranslation?[*3] - Michael Witzel, “Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains andpolities,†in The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language,Material Culture and Ethnicity, ed. George Erdosy (Berlin & New York:Walter de Gruyter, 1995), pp. 320-321.[*4] - Michael Witzel, “Tracing the Vedic Dialectsâ€. In Dialectes dansles littératures indo-aryennes, Publications de l’Institut decivilisation indienne, Série in-8, Fascicule 55, ed. by C. Caillat(Diffusion de Boccard: Paris 1989).[*5] - Romila Thapar’s lecture titled “The Aryan Question Revisitedâ€,available online at http://members.tripod.com/ascjnu/aryan.html[*6] - R.S. Sharma, Advent of the Aryans in India (Manohar: NewDelhi, 1999),

pp. 87-89.--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~To post to this group, send email to shakti-l (AT) googl (DOT) com