New book on Indo-Aryan origins

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BOOK REVIEW:

Title: " Indoaryan Origins and other Vedic Issues "

 

N. Delhi, Aditya Prakashan - written by N. Kazanas

 

For ORDERING A COPY OF THE BOOK, write to 'contact at bibliaimpex dot com'

 

Reviewer : David Stollar, BA Atc

 

 

Dr N. Kazanas is a noted Greek Sanskritist and the Director of a Cultural

Institute in Athens, Greece. Apart from multifarious studies in Greek, he has

published numerous articles in English in Indian and Western Journals and has

participated in many Conferences in India and in the West.

 

 

In this book are collected ten essays of his, all dealing with different aspects

of Indology and particularly the ancient Vedic Tradition. The second paper

examines exclusively the religiophilosophical thought of the Indoaryans from the

Rigveda to the Upanishads and shows that, despite some differences in

terminology and emphasis, the main thread remains one and unchanged - i.e. the

full realization that one's true Self (atman) is the same as the Self of the

universe (brahman).

 

 

The other nine essays revolve round a double axis. One axis is that the bulk of

the hymns of Rigveda were composed before 3100 BCE and enshrine an old oral

tradition which remained alive well into the 20th century. The Indus-Sarasvati

(or Harappan) culture is but a phase, a material expression, of that ancient

oral culture that is known as Vedic Tradition. The other axis is that there is

no evidence whatever for the mainstream notion of the Aryan Invasion/Immigration

Theory which is a dogmatic assertion that the Indoaryans entered N-W India c

1700-1500 BCE. On the contrary, the essays present various types of evidence and

argue that the Indoaryans were settled in their historical habitat since, at the

very latest, c 5000 BCE. The archaeological evidence itself shows that the

material culture, present and developing from the seventh millennium onward in

that wider area, received no intrusion from another culture of a size that would

alter the existing native one (and turn it into the Indoeuropean culture of the

Indoaryans).

 

 

The essays utilize all the latest evidence from the fields of Anthropology

Archaeology, Genetics, History and Literature; also from Comparative Mythology

and from Comparative Philology with its linguistic games. Mainstream theory on

these issues is highly speculative but its conjectures are presented by scholars

of this persuasion as facts and perpetuated through mechanical repetition. These

essays pose a direct and bold challenge to the mainstream views. How come, for

instance, that the ?gveda knows nothing of ruins (from abandoned Harappan

towns), of bricks (the chief building material of the Indus-Sarasvati

Civilization and of cotton (cultivated and exported by Harappans) but knows of a

mighty river Sarasvati which dried up c2000-1900 BCE?

 

 

Some essays examine also the cultures of the Near East and the civilizations of

Mesopotamia and Egypt, always in relation to the Vedic Tradition. Herein it is

argued that, contrary to general belief, the influence does not run from the

Near East to India but rather the opposite direction. The evidence adduced is

quite strong. This is a book that every serious indologist, whether sanskritist,

comparativist, archaeologist or historian, ought to consult.