Random Thoughts

Satya Mev Jayate

I am very proud of my Indian heritage and aware of the first generative grammar, treatise on etymology and philology, the first acceptable theodicy, the first religion of renunciation, the first atheistic moralities, the concept of zero, the invention of chess and the primary source of the bulk of the major languages of the world, the possible invention of the wheel, the domestication of important animals and the the derivation of major critical crops like cotton and sugarcane. We, Indians have much to be proud of and enough to be ashamed about, like our lack of unity and internecine fighting, which allowed invaders to conquer and rule us. What bothers me is this senseless, Soviet like tendency, where we twist the facts to say that we invented the steam engine or English.

There is a group of Indians and other Neo-converts, who for their personal aggrandizement and to the utter detriment of the Indian civilization and for the morbid satisfaction of bragging to not knowing people or to assuage their own insecurities or for reasons, I cannot know or conceive of, propound these points of view by twisting the remotest concordance to buttress their biased views, while ignoring, suppressing or sweeping under the rug any contradictory evidence. Their points of view are equally as racist as Wheeler's proposition of the worshippers of Purandare destroying the forts of the Dasyus.

Let me try to give a balanced point of view. There is no evidence of invading Aryans destroying the Harappa-Mohen Jo Daro civilization. There is very good evidence of a pre-Harappa civilization with urban development and cultivation of crops in Mehrgarh going back to approx. 6000BCE and reasonable evidence to conclude that the Mehrgarh era continued into the Harappan era. There is good evidence of the deterioration of Harappan civilization at many sites from 1900 to 1500 BCE onwards and there is good evidence that the Saraswati system of rivers switched their allegiance from the Indus to the Ganges in that era, accounting for the collapse of the Harappan type civilization, which was river water based like all contemporary civilizations. 

Now we come to the problems! The Harappans were highly civilized with urban planning including drainage systems and broad avenues for wheeled vehicles and used an undeciphered script, traded with the Sumerians, their contemporaries at worst and had a somewhat similar system of using seals to confirm their word instead of signature. They had seen a horse, I suspect, but set no great store by an animal, which was not prevalent and scarce on the continent.

Now comes this ridiculous figment of the imagination of these jingoistic ignorant people, who write books, so all chauvinistic Indians in their futile search for glory and five minutes of Warholish fame follow, like the herd of sheep that most Indians are. So these nomadic Neanderthals, who have no script and have rituals where the horse is revered so much, that it is both a symbol of invincibility (Ashwamedha) and a necessary ritual for the reigning Queen to have a simulated intercourse with the penis of a dead horse, are the continuation of an unknown civilization with a known, but undecipherd script, while they themselves, while inventing a better script more than a millennium later, persist illegibly, abandoning a known script and enjoying the limbo of oral transmission.

Then comes the historical, etymological puzzle, where these so called native peoples have no word for a commonly prevalent animal like the elephant of their so called native habitat and have to make up a complex name like Mruga hastin, the herbivorous deer with a hand and yet they have Sanskritic names for trees, which are not part of their natural habitat. More importantly, let us take a reductio absurdum proof. Let us assume and concede that the so called Aryans were indigenous to India and migrated out of India to propagate the Indo-European languages. We are constrained to explain these, because they stretch from India to Lithuania. Now people who migrate do not reverse their beliefs over short intervals and when they meet a transforming strong force, they may abandon their beliefs and religion, but still retain their linguistic connections and myths, as exemplified by a newly converted Islamic nation like Indonesia, which still has Ramayana as its national ballet and Garuda as its airline.

The worst dichotomy comes so early and is irreconcilable to rational analysis and is available from the Gathas of Zarathushtra, where he clearly designates Indra, the favorite God of the Vedas as a demon. The problem with these new converts to Pseudo-Hinduism with irrational jingoistic overtones is that they ignore the circumstantial evidence, which profusely points in another direction, only for proselytizing their personal fanaticism. As though this were not enough to throw a monkey-wrench into the indigenous Aryan theory, we have the documented treaty between the Hittites and the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, invoking Indra, Varuna and the Nastyutyas as Gods and witnesses. To believe that the Aryans migrated out of India, you have to concede that they were such schizophrenics, that they consistently reversed their gods and demons every 750 miles after emigration from India.

The last of my evidence is mythological speculation but not without substantial support. The earliest myths speak of the Suras and Assuras as brothers with the same father and different mothers. Now try to understand that in Sanskrit H and S are interchangeable as in the Iranian Homa and Indian Soma, So the Hurrian nobles and kings, who had Indo-European Sanskritic names represented the so called noble Suras or Devas, while their close cousins, neighbors and possible much feared relatives from the time of the much maligned Assyrians are the Assuras of Hindu mythology.

This is not a definitive treatise and I am willing to stand corrected by intelligent arguments but not by unsubstantiated fanatic propaganda from ignorant people, chanting repetitively their unreasonable, unsupported, misguided beliefs.  

19-Aug-2001

More by :  Gaurang Bhatt, MD

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Views: 3464      Comments: 1



Comment Dear Aamir,
It's so nice of you bringing down all sensitive issues to light. We mothers need to be aware of the societal happenings. Your opinion about some doctors is true. You needn't bow your heads down for anyone. The issue ' Right to Health' to every child is a very unique concept. Im in social sector, at present volunteering Ekam foundation which strives for the same concept. Dr.Sailakshmi Managing trustee and founder of Ekam is doing a wonderful job all over Tamilnadu. If philonthrophists like you could donate, fund raise or even encourage them, it would be really great. They have organized many fund raising events, Kindly help us, We could achieve all over Tamil nadu. Hats of to you Aamir! I watched qsqt 10 times in my teens. Your doing a great job, May god bless you with good health and happiness to your family and continue your work endlessly.
Regards
lakshmikalai.

lakshmikalai
03-Jun-2012 10:05 AM




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