Indologists

"Birthless and deathless and changeless remainaineth the spirit forever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!"

"He who died at Azan sends This to comfort all his friends:— Faithful friends! It lies I know Pale and white and cold as snow; And ye say, 'Abdallah’s dead!' Weeping at the feet and head. I can see your falling tears, I can hear your sighs and prayers; Yet I smile and whisper this: I am not the thing you kiss. Cease your tears and let it lie; It was mine—it is not I."

"We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which moan for rest and rest can never find; Lo! as the wind is, so is mortal life, A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife."

"The Buddhas who have been and who shall be, of these am I and what they did, I do."

"Below the highest sphere four Regents sit Who rule our world, and under them are zones Nearer, but high, where saintliest spirits dead Wait thrice ten thousand years, then live again; And on Lord Buddha, waiting in that sky, Came for our sakes the five sure signs of birth So that the Devas knew the signs, and said "Buddha will go again to help the World." "Yea!" spake He, "now I go to help the World. This last of many times; for birth and death End hence for me and those who learn my Law. I will go down among the Sakyas, Under the southward snows of Himalay, Where pious people live and a just King.""

"Now, when our Lord was come to eighteen years, The King commanded that there should be built Three stately houses, one of hewn square beams With cedar lining, warm for winter days; One of veined marbles, cool for summer heat; And one of burned bricks, with blue tiles bedecked, Pleasant at seed-time, when the champaks bud-- Subha, Suramma, Ramma, were their names. Delicious gardens round about them bloomed, Streams wandered wild and musky thickets stretched, With many a bright pavilion and fair lawn In midst of which Siddartha strayed at will, Some new delight provided every hour; And happy hours he knew, for life was rich, With youthful blood at quickest; yet still came The shadows of his meditation back, As the lake's silver dulls with driving clouds."

"Like everything the British poet Edwin Arnold wrote, The Light of Asia was quickly written: a poem in eight books of about five hundred lines each, mostly in blank verse, composed over a period of several months when Arnold was busy with other concerns. Immediately upon its publication in the summer of 1879, the poem began to sell copies and win attention. It was a life of Siddhartha Gautama, told from the point of view of “an Indian Buddhist” (so read the title page) in high English style. The immediate sensation surrounding The Light of Asia was remarkable: for some time on both sides of the Atlantic, newspapers and dining rooms were charged with discussion about the Buddha, his teaching, and Arnold’s presentation of Buddhism. The book’s success was also sustained. By 1885 the authorized English version had gone through thirty editions. Pirated editions, which went for as little as three cents in the U.S., make a count of the book’s circulation impossible, but it has been estimated at a million copies (not far short of Huckleberry Finn). After thirty years it had become one of the undisputed bestsellers of Victorian England and America, had been translated into a number of languages (German, Dutch, French, Czech, Italian, Swedish, Esperanto), and had inspired a stage version and even an opera."

"Arnold’s great project was a blank verse poem based loosely on the Lalitavistara Sutra. It ran for forty-one thousand words and was composed in eight volumes and published in 1879 as the Light of Asia: the Great Renunciation. The Light of Asia was an instant success and would capture the English speaking imagination. It would be reprinted numerous times in England and the United States. The best estimate I could find was sixty editions in England and another eighty in the US. The Light has also been translated into many languages, including Hindi. But, most importantly, it is generally credited as the first book to bring the life and teachings of Gautama Siddhartha broadly to the attention of the English speaking public."

"The Hindu mind represents humanity's oldest and most continuous stream of conscious intelligence on the planet. Hindu sages, seers, saints, yogis and jnanis have maintained an unbroken current of awareness linking humanity with the Divine since the dawn of history, and as carried over from earlier cycles of civilization in previous humanities unknown to our present spiritually limited culture."

"The Hindu mind has a vision of eternity and infinity. It is aware of the vast cycles of creation and destruction that govern the many universes and innumerable creatures within them."

"Hinduism never seemed to be something foreign or alien to me or inappropriate to my circumstances living in the West. It is the very religion of nature and consciousness in the broadest sense, which makes it relevant to everyone."

"The most important insights that have come to me usually occur while walking in nature, particularly hiking in the high mountains. In the wilderness nature can enter into our consciousness and cleanse our minds of human-centered compulsions. I think that liberation is like wandering off into nature, climbing up a high mountain, and not coming back to the lowlands of human society."

"Hinduism is a religion of the Earth. It honors the Earth as the Divine Mother and encourages us to honor her and help her develop her creative potentials. The deities of Hinduism permeate the world of nature. For example, Shiva is the God of the mountains, while Parvati is the mountain Goddess. Shiva dwells in high and steep rocky crags and cliff faces. Parvati rules over mountain streams, waterfalls, and mountain meadows with their many flowers."

"It is not necessary to live in India to be a Hindu. In fact one must live in harmony with the land where one is located to be a true Hindu."

"In this way I can speak of an American Hinduism and call myself an American and a Hindu – an American connected with the land and a Hindu connected with the spirit and soul of that land. Hinduism has helped me discover the forces of nature in which I live, their past and their future, their unique formations and their connections with the greater universe and the cosmic mind."

"I also remember reading Herman Hesse’s Journey to the East. I learned that there were great spiritual and mystical traditions in the East that perhaps still existed. I began my own journey to the East. Meanwhile I also studied European poetry and art. I particularly enjoyed the French symbolist poets like Rimbaud and Mallarme who had a mystic vision. The German mystic poet Rilke, however, was my favorite and best epitomized what I thought real poetry should be. Poetry had a depth and ambiguity that philosophy could not reach. I realized that it was a better vehicle to reflect this mysterious universe in which we live. ...My own poetry became more imagistic, reflecting a symbolist base like that of Rilke or Rimbaud. Images of the dawn and the night, the sun, wind and fire arose in mind like primordial forces, with vague images of ancient Gods. These poems also had eastern affinities that I was gradually discovering."

"I could sense the march of Vedic dawns unfolding a continual evolution of consciousness in the universe. I could feel the Vedic wisdom permeating all of nature, unfolding the secrets of birth and death, the days and nights of the soul. The Veda was present at the core of our being like an inextinguishable flame and carried the spiritual aspiration of our species. It was sad to contemplate how far we had fallen – that culturally we had closed the doors on these ancient dawns and become mired in a dark night of greed and arrogance."

"References to seas and oceans and a vision of the universe as a series of oceans cannot be explained away by supposing that some big river was imagined to be the ocean by the primitive mind. This is not a rational interpretation of what is said but an irrational reduction of it according to the imposition of outside ideas and preconceptions. Yet this has been part of the general and accepted method of Vedic scholarship. Most of what has been done on the Vedas so far remains largely the unquestioned work of nineteenth century Western scholars who were often trapped in the cultural and sometimes imperialistic bias of their times."

"A culture would not likely have developed the myth of the winning of the rivers to flow into the sea if it had never seen the ocean. Moreover, the winning of the Waters and the winning of the Light are presented in the Rig Veda as a single victory; the Waters are those of the Sun world. Why should a culture equate a daily light myth with a yearly water-rain myth? In north India there is a unique climatic condition wherein the rains occur at the summer solstice, the time when the days are longest. Inhabitants of such a land would quite naturally associate the light with the rains. Equating the rains with the year and the Sun would thus suggest north India as the land wherein this myth originated."

"Some Greek astronomers and astrologers knew of the precession, though they did not know exactly what it was or how to calculate it. Hipparchus appears to have discovered it among the Greeks and calculated it at 36" per year, which Ptolemy, the most famous Greek astrologer, adopted. The Hindus, in the Surya Siddhanta calculated the rate as 54", much closer to what is observed today as 50.3" per year.a While modem scholars consider this figure a lucky guess on the part of the Hindus it may reflect a better knowledge of the precession, perhaps arrived at by long term observations and necessary calendar shifts through time. For this reason, it is hard to derive Hindu astrology from the Greeks, as most Western scholars do. The Hindus compute the zodiac differently and the precession more accurately than the Greeks. Yet we are told, based upon the appearance of minor Greek terms in later Hindu astrology, that any accuracy in Hindu astronomy comes from the Greeks. Hindu astronomy has a long history and an extensive literature following different methods than those of the Greeks. As Vedic astrology is Sidereal, we cannot discountenance the astronomical references we find commonly in Vedic literature relative to the precession. Precessional changes are the hallmark of Hindu astronomy, the essence of the system. We cannot ignore them in ancient texts just because they give us dates too early for our conventional view of human history."

"Hindu Sidereal calculations are thus more complicated than Tropical ones. Hindu astronomy is a very specialized system that requires precise astronomical observations and shows an ongoing knowledge of the exact placement of the planets and equinoxes relative to the fixed stars. Such Sidereal measurements show how much the Hindus relied on actual stellar positions. On this basis it is hard to dismiss the positions of early Hindu astronomy as having no basis in observation."

"Hence, examining astronomical references in Vahara Mihira and Vedanga Jyotish, we arrive at the equinoctial positions of about 1280 BC. This is found as the latest reference in later Vedic texts like the Brahmans, with the new Moon in Magha marking the winter solstice. Using the different points of Krittika as marking the vernal equinox and the lunar positions earlier in the month of Magha back to the eighth day of the waning Moon (Ekashtaka), we get a period of 2800-1760 BC. Vedic references show an ongoing adjustment of their solstice-oriented calendar, proving the existence of Vedic culture at this time along with the existence of a sophisticated system of astronomical observation."

"However, if we look at their actual views, Hindu groups have a very different ideology and practices than the political right in other countries. In fact many Hindu causes are more at home in the left in the West than in the right. The whole idea of the 'Hindu right' is a ploy to discredit the Hindu movement as backward and prevent people from really examining it. The truth is that the Hindu movement is a revival of a native spiritual tradition that has nothing to do with the political right-wing of any western country. Its ideas are spiritually evolutionary, not politically regressive."

"The Hindu cause is similar to the cause of native and tribal peoples all over the world, like native American and African groups. Even Hindu concerns about cultural encroachment by western religious and commercial interests mirrors those of other traditional peoples who want to preserve their cultures. Yet while the concerns of native peoples have been taken up by the left worldwide, the same concerns of Hindus are styled right-wing or communal, particularly by the left in India!"

"When native Americans ask for a return of their sacred sites, the left in America supports them. When Hindus ask for a similar return of their sacred sites, the left in India opposes them and brands them as intolerant for their actions! When native peoples in America or Africa protest missionaries for interfering with their culture, they are supported by the left. Yet when Hindus express the same sentiments, they are attacked by the left. Even the Hindu demand for rewriting the history of India to better express the value of their indigenous traditions is the same as what native Africans and Americans are asking for. Yet the left opposes this Hindu effort, while supporting African and American efforts of a similar nature."

"Not surprisingly, the same leftists in India, who have long been allied to communist China, similarly style the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause as right-wing and regressive, though the Dalai Lama is honored by the American left. This should tell the reader about the meaning of right and left as political terms in India. When one looks at the Hindu movement as the assertion of a native tradition with a profound spiritual heritage, the whole perspective on it changes."

"The Hindu movement in India in its most typical form follows a Swadeshi (own-country) movement like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch. It emphasizes protecting the villages and local economies, building economic independence and self-reliance for the country. It resists corporate interference and challenges multinational interests, whether the bringing of fast food chains to India, western pharmaceuticals or terminator seeds."

"The American Christian right is still sending missionaries to the entire world in order to convert all people to Christianity, the only true religion. It is firmly fixed on one savior, one scripture and a rather literal interpretation of these. Yet when Hindus ask the pope to make a statement that truth can be found outside of any particular church or religion they are called right-wing and backwards, while the pope, who refuses to acknowledge the validity of Hindu, Buddhist or other Indic traditions, is regarded as liberal!"

"The causes taken up by the Hindu movement are more at home in the New Left than in right wing parties of the West. Some of these resemble the concerns of the Green Party. The Hindu movement offers a long-standing tradition of environmental protection, economic simplicity, and protection of religious and cultural diversity. There is little in the so-called Hindu right that is shared by the religious or political right-wing in western countries, which reflect military, corporate and missionary concerns. The Hindu movement has much in common with the New Age movement in the West and its seeking of occult and spiritual knowledge, not with the right wing in the West, which rejects these things. Clearly, the western right would never embrace the Hindu movement as its ally."

"However, the entire right-left division reflects the conditions of western politics and is inaccurate in the Indian context. We must give up such concepts in examining Indic civilization, which in its core is spiritually based, not politically driven. It reflects older and deeper concerns that precede and transcend the West's outer vision. As long as we define ourselves through politics our social order will contain conflict and confusion. Democracy may be the more benign face of a political order, but it still hides the lack of any true spiritual order. We must employ the vision of dharma and subordinate politics to it, which should be a form of Karma Yoga."

"Can we trust transnational internet groups like Wikipedia, which are self-regulating and unaccountable, to determine or censor information for the public, to decide what are the facts in nearly all fields of life and learning?"

"Mosques built over important traditional Hindu temples like Kashi Vishwanath were not monuments to secularism, nationalism, religious pluralism or Bharatiya heritage. They were products of domination by hostile rulers trying to suppress the majority Hindu population."

"Wikipedia has published many questionable statements about Hindu writers, leaders, causes and historical issues. Is not an unbiased forum. Hindus should protest against its anti-Hindu views."

"Social media owners and directors have long allowed or promoted an anti-Hindu and anti-India bias. Are not providing a neutral platform but have their own political agenda. This extends to Wikipedia as well. Time for them to be made accountable."

"Using Marxism to understand India's ancient and vast dharmic civilization is like consulting a frog in a well for explaining the ocean. Those trapped in dialectical materialism cannot understand the unity of Self and universe, humanity and the cosmos."

"What happened India today is probably the only country in the world in which the colonial narrative against it has not been changed.... what happened is that the Marxists perpetuated the negative colonial narrative... so instead of the British being the enemy the Hindus became the enemy...."

"Yoga, Ayurveda, Vedanta and the Vedic view of history should be taught in India's schools as part of the national cultural heritage. If western views of wellbeing, psychology, history and culture can be taught, it is colonialism to exclude the legacy of Bharatiya traditions."

"According Dr. David Frawley eminent teacher and practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine: "No religion, perhaps, lays as much emphasis on environmental ethics as does Hinduism. It believes in ecological responsibility and says like Native Americans that the Earth is our mother. It champions protection of animals, which it considers also have souls, and promotes vegetarianism. It has a strong tradition of non-violence or ahimsa. It believes that God is present in all nature, in all creatures, and in every human being regardless of their faith or lack of it.""

"One occasion where I saw US-based Indian Marxists in action was at the 1996 Annual South Asia Conference in Madison, Wisconsin... I knew that excellent and innovative papers by N.S. Rajaram and Shrikant Talageri had been rejected by the organizers, so I felt entitled to expect presentations of top-notch scholarship dwarfing even that of Rajaram and Talageri. Instead, what the audience got, was a canvassing session for the “Forum of Indian Leftists” without any scholarly papers. The speakers disdained to even mention any of the argumentative contents of the AIT debate, except “David Frawley’s paradox” (the AIT’s puzzling implication pointed out by Frawley, viz. that the Harappan civilization had numerous cities but no literature, while Vedic civilization had a vast literature but no cities), which they simply laughed off without discussion ad rem. ... But Frawley’s paradox is entirely pertinent: what are the chances that a literate culture leaves the biggest conglomerate of archaeological sites behind, but only a handful of short inscriptions as the complete corpus of its literature; while the illiterate conquerors produce a vast and sophisticated literature within a few centuries, but leave no sizable architecture behind? What are the chances that the largest civilization of the world loses its language to a conquering band of nomadic tribesmen? The AIT has the weight of probability against it."

"One final reason for being confident is that because of the work of Ram Swarup, Sita Ram Goel, Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, and Rajiv Malhotra the corpus is now reaching a critical mass. So, that we can think that within few years we will have a library for India and a library of India."

"Here [Witzel] throws a bombshell: “Kazanas is heavily influenced here by Frawley’s most amazing paradox”. (Elsewhere I borrow from Kak or some other “fundamentalist-colleague”.) I was not heavily influenced by Frawley’s paradox. I simply acknowledged (after some research) that Frawley had “first noted” this paradox, namely that the literate Harappans left no literature while the non-literate, archaeologically unattested Aryans left their voluminous productions. With this I suppose [Witzel] tries to draw attention away from the fact that he has no explanation for the Aryanisation of North India. In [Witzel]’s mind Frawley is a fiendish figure of fundamentalist Hindutva, Astrology and the like, and therefore cannot utter any truth; if [Kazanas] is “influenced”, [Kazanas] also cannot utter any truth."

"“David Frawley is one of the most important scholars of Ayurveda and Vedic Science today. I have great respect and admiration for his knowledge and the way he has expounded the ancient wisdom of the Vedas.”"

"“Frawley is an Indian in an American body. The ease with which he enters into the spiritual of the Indian tradition and renders its deeper concepts in terms of modern thought shows an unusual familiarity with this ancient wisdom.”"

"“Certainly America’s most singular “practicing Hindu.””"

"“David Frawley is a formidable scholar of Vedanta and easily the best known Western Acharya of the Vedic wisdom.”"

"The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think…Throughout the Mahabharata … Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviors such as war…. The Gita is a dishonest book …”"

"There is generally, therefore, an inverse ratio between the worship of goddesses and the granting of rights to human women. Nor are the goddesses by and large compassionate; they are generally a pretty bloodthirsty lot. Goddesses are not the solution."

"Aldous Huxley once said that an intellectual was someone who had found something more interesting than sex; in Indology, an intellectual need not make that choice at all."

"As the Hindu gods are "immortal" only in a very particular sense---for they are born and they die---they experience most of the great human dilemmas and often seem to differ from mortals in a few trivial details...and from demons even less. Yet they are regarded by the Hindus as a class of beings by definition totally different from any other; they are symbols in a way that no human being, however "archetypal" his life story, can ever be. They are actors playing parts that are real only for us; they are the masks behind which we see our own faces."

"There was an Indian edition of most of my books, but it didn't make much of a splash."

"I've always felt like I haven't given anything back to India after all that she had given me, just soaked up all the wonderful stories and told them to Americans. Now at last I feel that I have contributed something to India, sharing with them stories that many of them know but many of them do not, and sharing an approach to the history of the Hindus that highlights things that are usually ignored."

"My mother had rubbings from the temple at Angkor Watt on the walls-that was the first thing that interested me. But it really began when I was in my teens, when my mother gave me a copy of A Passage to India. I really came into it from literature-only later did I turn to religious literature. I read Rumer Godden's Mooltiki, and other stories and poems of India (1957) and I read Kipling's Jungle Books. Then I read the Upanishads, and it was just so fascinating to me. I was raised by atheist and communist parents, so we had no religion whatsoever."

"That's what really interested me about India, the religious aspect-and the extravagance of it. There was so much of it; the temples had all these things crawling all over them. It was so alive and complicated compared to the relative austerity that I saw in Jewish and especially Protestant ceremonies. Not so much Catholic ceremonies, though. I always loved Catholicism for the same reason that I love Hinduism, they're so much alike: the kitsch, the colors, the incense, the saints and the pageantry."

"That was the other thing that drew me to India-the language. In high school my Latin teacher taught me Greek unofficially on Monday nights. I loved Greek; I loved the idea that there was another script. And then my Latin teacher told me there was a language that was even older and more interesting than Greek: Sanskrit. So everything started coming together-the art, the literature, the language."

"The culture-its excess-really suited me. I always liked Indian miniature painting much more than Renaissance painting. I didn't see what was so great about Rembrandt or Michelangelo. I liked paintings where there were 10,000 people in the scene and elephants and horses! I liked the carvings on Indian temples so much more than the simple architectural outlines."

"I was raised deeply imbued with my parents' atheism. The thought of really, seriously practicing any religion doesn't really work for me. But I feel at home in religious buildings and ceremonies. I still hang out a lot in Catholic churches in America. I like going to Catholic masses; I always go to Christmas and Easter. In India I always go to temples and to the pujas. But to be committed to the dogma of any religion-to be told what to believe-goes against my grain in some basic way."

"But when I do think about religious problems, I think in Hindu categories. When my father died, it was the first time something really terrible happened to me-and Christianity and Judaism were of absolutely no use to me. My Jewish and Christian friends would take me to synagogues and churches, and it didn't help at all. And then I started thinking about the myths I was translating at the time, which were about death-why there is death, how death came into the world, what happens when we die, speculations about karma and rebirth. The Hindu version of it made more sense to me than anything. It just seemed like Shiva as a god was more likely to be responsible for the world the way I knew it than the gods of Judaism and Christianity. Capricious, beautiful, violent, it just made more sense."

"So I agree with a lot of Hindu mythology and theology, and I think Hinduism describes life better than any other religion. It has a vision of the universe that corresponds more closely to the universe I've glimpsed in my 68 years on this planet than other visions of the universe."

"I feel at home in Hindu temples. I like how complicated they are. Being in a great Hindu temple is like being in a forest. You can wander around all day. People kind of leave you alone. When you wander around temples when there isn't a ceremony, there's a kind of peacefulness about them, and I recognize the scenes and the icons. That's Shiva doing this, that's Parvati doing that. Whereas when I go to the Vatican, I have to have someone explain to me what the Sistine Chapel is all about. So I'm at home in Hinduism in that sense, I know what it's all about."

"It's the religious aspects in which I feel most at home, in a way. No, I don't really feel at home in India anymore. I'm not physically comfortable in India most of the time-I like Chicago, I like snow. It's an irony that I should be an Indologist because I don't like hot climates. I don't like crowds. There are too many things about India that don't suit my physical makeup. And also, I hardly ever go to Bengal, so I don't have a language[ to speak. So I go as a visitor. I visit friends. To some extent, ironically, I'm more at home in India now because there are fabulous hotels with good food and people speaking English, it's like being in New York, but if I go to a village I can't talk to people. I don't know if I ever really was at home in India, but I love being there."

"India is still foreign to me, it's a familiar foreignness in some way, but it's still surprising. When you see a temple in India, you don't say, oh there's another temple, you say: "My God! How could anyone have had the imagination to do something so amazing!" It's never what you expect."

"I myself am by both temperament and training inclined to texts. I am neither an archaeologist nor an art historian; I am a Sanskritist, indeed a recovering Orientalist, of a generation that framed its study of Sanskrit with Latin and Greek rather than Urdu or Tamil. I’ve never dug anything up out of the ground or established the date of a sculpture. I’ve labored all my adult life in the paddy fields of Sanskrit, since I know ancient India best."

"The two sets of sources, textual and nontextual, reveal bits of history to us in different ways, like the lame man riding on the shoulders of the blind man. When it comes to history, you can’t trust anyone: The texts lie one way, while images and archeology mislead us in other ways. On the one hand, the gods did not fly around in big palaces, as the texts insist that they did, and we cannot know if women really did speak up as Gargi does in the Upanishads, or Draupadi in the Mahabharata."

"James Joyce, in his novel Finnegans Wake, in 1939, punned on the word “Hindoo” (as the British used to spell it), joking that it came from the names of two Irishmen, Hin-nessy and Doo-ley: “This is the hindoo Shimar Shin between the dooley boy and the hinnessy."

"I was, of course, angry and disappointed to see this happen, and I am deeply troubled by what it foretells for free speech in India in the present, and steadily worsening, political climate... I do not blame Penguin Books, India. Other publishers have just quietly withdrawn other books without making the effort that Penguin made to save this book [The Hindus: An Alternative History]. Penguin, India, took this book on knowing that it would stir anger in the Hindutva ranks, and they defended it in the courts for four years, both as a civil and as a w:Lawsuitcriminal suit. They were finally defeated by the true villain of this piece – the Indian law that makes it a criminal rather than civil offense to publish a book that offends any Hindu, a law that jeopardizes the physical safety of any publisher, no matter how ludicrous the accusation brought against a book."

"Doniger makes clear that no history focused on an imperial centre can capture the history of the Hindus here, any more than could such a state-focused story in the days before the arrival of the Muslims. But at the same time, the very structure of her presentation points also to the import-ance of the state as a locus for understanding how the history of the Hindus depends also on an engagement with broader currents of historical change extending outside India and linking this history to larger, worldwide processes."

"As a loosely applied, but strongly integrative, model, she proposes three roughly consecutive alliances: first the Vedic one of gods and humans as opposed to anti-gods and ogres, then the epic-Puranic one in which ascetics and renunciants seem to join over-ambitious ogres and anti-gods in threatening the gods, and finally the bhakti alliance that restores human dependence on the gods. From the point of view of the historian such a loose periodisation is satisfactory and convincing, especially in the first three fifths of the book, which deal with little else than the social and cultural history of religion. For the periods of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughals and the British, however, when the author's focus partly shifts to political circumstances, her story is often episodic and sometimes, I think, a little naïve.."

"Long before Doniger’s book was pulped, an event which the secularists have eagerly highlighted, her book was replied to in detail by Vishal Agarwal... He showed that she was either wrong or unmistakably biased in hundreds of passages. For a lifelong tenant of a very prestigious Indology chair, it is shameful that she could deliver such substandard work. But the fact that her work was anything but scholarly, has been carefully hidden by the secularists, including in the present article. Yet the fact that such a bad book was universally applauded and even earmarked for an Indian award, tells you a lot about the power equation, with the anti-Hindu forces jubilantly on top."

"But because Doniger’s flippant approach serves the purpose of belittling and ridiculing Hinduism well, it is welcomed and highlighted by the Indian elite with its many-pronged attack on Hinduism... American Indologists including Wendy Doniger have always condoned religious discrimination on condition that Hindus are at the receiving end; they only protest when Hindus show initiative... Yet, they did have the arguments. A list of the numerous factual errors in Doniger's book has been compiled by Vishal Agarwal.. [he] has shown how her book's treatment of Hinduism is unconscientious and flippant to a degree that would never be accepted from a professor of her rank for more established religions. ... ... And she is not even a psychologist: elsewhere, her “alternative” (actually quite conformistic, only a bit more titillating) deconstruction of a religion would have been criticized as not based on any competence."

"It is a learned book: one cannot help being amazed by the amount and variety of source materials the author has at her command, many of which one would not find, or not expect to find, in a book on the history of Hinduism and its practitioners...She especially loves to illustrate ancient stories by interjecting comparisons with situations with which the audience is familiar: Doniger commands an unbelievably vast array of comparable material, often, though not always, from American popular culture.... Since Wendy Doniger openly disclaims any ambition to have written a conventional history ("my training is as a philologist, not a historian," p. 3), minor historical slips may be forgiven. Yet, there are some that deserve to be rectified."

"There are several issues that need more detailed and nuanced analysis rather than straight-jacketed formulations that we read in The Hindus. These concern terminologies and chronologies invoked, perfunctory manner in which class-caste struggles have been referred to — almost casually, complex inter-religious dialogue seen only in the context of Visnu's avataras, and looking at the tantras merely in terms of sex and political power. The work rarely rises above the level of tale telling... On the whole, this is neither a serious work for students of Indian history, nor for those with a critical eye on 'religious history' of India, nor indeed it is the real Alternative History of the 'Hindus'. The main actors of the narrative are not speaking themselves. They merely seem to be mouthing dialogues scripted by the privileged upper classes."

"An array of puns, asides and (sometimes off-key) jokes makes the book more bulky and somewhat anecdotal, but also entertaining to read."

"Doniger is fond of using pseudoscientific language to make her dismissive, negative and often poorly evidenced opinions on Hinduism sound weightier than they are—claiming for instance that Western feminists who embrace the Hindu Goddess are wrong because, when she compares India to Monotheistic, Male- God cultures, there is “in general an inverse ratio between the worship of goddesses and the granting of rights to human women.” Doniger does not produce any evidence to substantiate this sweeping statement which she has made...."

"Doniger’s school of scholarship universalizes Freudian methodologies and pathologies, and combines them with obscure Indic materials to weave wild theories about Indian culture. Indians advocating Freudian psychoanalysis have simply accepted and mimicked the Western theories without independently verified clinical and empirical data to establish their applicability in Indian contexts."

"“For Hinduism studies, the 21st century opens with an audacious tome by Wendy Doniger, ‘The Hindus An Alternative History’, Penguin/Viking 2009. This act of ‘courage’ or saahasa (also done with plenty of saa-haasa or tongue in cheek humor), ends up being closer to the ancient meaning of the word saahasa as used in Indian law codes, that is, an offence. After reading only a few pages of this book, I was reminded of something I did in my greener days. In late teens, when I had enough Sanskrit to read Valmiki, I went to my village educated mother, hoping to shock her, with my discovery that Valmiki’s Rama when in exile used to hunt the deer, roast the meat and offer it to Sita. My mother, though not pleased at this great news, watched me intently to study my intentions and quickly took away my sadistic pleasure by quoting a line from Tulsidas, of whose Ramayana, she was a daily reader. ‘Naanaa bhaanti Raam avataaraa/ Raamayana shata koti apaaraa’ (Rama has taken many kinds of avatars and Ramayanas are hundred crores in number). Today I marvel at the profound meaning this rural untutored woman had deciphered from the text of Tulsi that some of us are unable to grasp even though we may have spent a life time of reading and teaching heavy classical texts in Sanskrit and that too sitting on the cushion of a salary. She not only kept ‘her Rama’ intact, but showed no antagonism, distaste or horror of the ‘hunter Rama’ who was just another avatara, and not somebody who would threaten her faith, demolish the ‘myth of the holy cow’, endanger notions of Hindu vegetarianism, create doubts about the historicity of Rama, or give a boost to the tension between ‘Hindu attitude to violence in sacrifice and the Hindu ideal of nonviolence’ in life, a favorite theme in Doniger’s book. Myths or stories are many and in many versions. Do they mean to burden us with a past to be carried as a cross or are they meant to liberate us from ignorance and illusion that we ourselves create? Or, are myths to be interpreted as ‘narratives’ that aim to make a people, Hindus specially, uncomfortable, dislocated and even ashamed of their own heritage in order to make them yield to predatory cultures? These are some of the questions that come to mind while reading Doniger’s massive volume.”"

"[High-profile India-watching academics] “need to indulge America’s saviour complex if they need a share of the shrinking funding. The objective of the research needs to alleviate the misery of some victim and challenge a villain. And so, Doniger will provide evidence of how Puranic tales reinforce Brahmin hegemony, while Pollock will begin his essays on Ramayana with reference to Babri Masjid demolition, reminding readers that his paper has a political, not merely a theoretical, purpose. .. Being placed on a high pedestal is central to both strategies. Criticism also evokes a similar reaction in both sides – they quickly declare themselves as misunderstood heroes and martyrs, and stir up their legion of followers... Doniger and Pollock have inspired an army of activist-academicians who sign petitions to keep ‘dangerous’ Indian leaders and intellectuals out of American universities and even American soil”: Subramanian Swamy, Narendra Modi, and in similar controversies Rajiv Malhotra, the Dharma Civilization Foundation and others. Indeed, the Indological community’s touching (occasional) concern for freedom of speech is not erga omnes... No dissent is tolerated. If you agree with either side, you become rational scientists for them. If you disagree with them, you become fascists – or racists.... Being placed on a high pedestal is central to both strategies. Criticism also evokes a similar reaction in both sides – they quickly declare themselves as misunderstood heroes and martyrs, and stir up their legion of followers. ... “Likewise, Doniger and Pollock keep reminding their readers that Hinduism’s seductive ‘spirituality’ must at no point distract one from its communal and casteist truths.”...“Doniger and Pollock follow the Greek mythic pattern that establishes them as heroes who are in the ‘good fight’ against ‘fascist’ monsters.” ... Wendy Doniger’s conception of Hinduism deserves a more thorough treatment, much of which has already been pioneered by Rajiv Malhotra. But one general observation, which counts for the whole current of psycho-analytical “deconstruction” of Hinduism, is that the clumsy Freudian concepts she uses are simply not sufficient to understand Hindu explorations of consciousness and human nature... “Despite their deep knowledge of Hinduism, neither Elst nor Frawley, neither Doniger nor Pollock, believe in letting go and moving on, which is the hallmark of Hindu thought, often deemed as a feminine trait. Instead,... Doniger and Pollock keep reminding their readers that Hinduism’s seductive ‘spirituality’ must at no point distract one from its communal and casteist truths.”"

"She would be widely and enthusiastically agreed to be one of America's major scholars in the humanities, wide-ranging, unusually imaginative and poetic, capable of illuminating fundamental issues through a deft use of comparative analysis."

"It (1973) also happened to be the year when her first major work in early India's religious history, viz., Siva, the Erotic Ascetic was published and had instantly become a talking point for being a path-breaking work. I still prescribe it as the most essential reading to my postgraduate students at the University of Delhi, where I have been teaching a compulsory course on 'Evolution of Indian Religions' for the last nearly four decades. It was the beginning of series of extremely fruitful and provocative encounters with the formidable scholarship of Wendy Doniger."

"And of course, [Wendy Doniger's] translation, again is a ‘re’-translation” of others’ works” in which she has “merely added a fashionable(?) Freudian coating… Simple question: if ‘that’ much is wrong in just one story (and this is a small selection only!) — what about the rest of this book and her other translations?… It might have been better to have used the old translations and to have added her Freudian interpretation to them… In sum: The “translation” simply is UNREALIABLE... In view of all of this, I wonder indeed whether Doniger’s translation would have been accepted in the Harvard Oriental Series rather than in Penguin… And a little less hype would also do: ‘a landmark translation, the first authoritative translation in this century’ (cover); ‘to offer to more specialized scholars new interpretations of many difficult verses.’ (p. lxi) — I doubt it."

"Unfortunately some archaeologists seem to have no eyes to see anything but what the spade digs up from the bowels of the earth, and no ears to hear anything that is not echoed from excavated ruins."

"It is my belief…that the end of British rule has led to a steady deterioration in the critical method of historical studies… I think we are gradually losing sight of the fundamental object and principles of writing history and a lot of confusion of ideas has crept in on this subject… the universally accepted idea which we imbibed at the beginning of this century is that HISTORY MUST BE REGARDED AS AN ETERNAL QUEST FOR TRUTH…everything else being only secondary and subordinate to it… I solemnly hope and pray that these words would be remembered by the present and future generations of historians, for I see great dangers lurking ahead… during the post-Independence period, certain new trends are growing among a section of Indian historians which violate the high ideals of truth… This characteristic is a growing menace to historiography in modern India… I conclude what may be described as my swan-song by saying that HISTORY, DIVORCED FROM TRUTH, DOES NOT HELP A NATION."

"This world tendency to make history the vehicle of certain definite political, social and economic ideas, which reign supreme in each country for the time being, is like a cloud, at present no bigger than a man’s hand, but which may soon grow in volume, and overcast the sky, covering the light of the world by an impenetrable gloom. The question is therefore of paramount importance, and it is the bounden duty of every historian to guard himself against the tendency, and fight it by the only weapon available to him, namely by holding fast to truth in all his writings irrespective of all consequences. A historian should not trim his sail according to the prevailing wind, but ever go straight, keeping in view the only goal of his voyage—the discovery of truth."

"Indians of old were keenly alive to the expansion of dominions, acquisition of wealth, and the development of trade, industry and commerce. The material prosperity they gained in these various ways was reflected in the luxury and elegance that characterized the society... The adventurous spirit of the Indians carried them even as far as the North Sea, while their caravans traveled from one end of Asia to the other."

"There can be no doubt that the architects who planned and built the were Indians. Everything in this temple from Sikhara to the basement as well as the numerous stone sculptures found in its corridors and the terra-cotta...adorning its basement and terraces, bear the indubitable stamp of Indian genius and craftsmanship...In this sense, we may take it, therefore, that the Ananda, though built in the Burmese capital, is an Indian temple.""

"I have approached the subject from a strictly historical point of view. It is an ominous sign of the time that Indian history is being viewed in official circles in the perspective of recent politics. (xxii-xxiii)"

"The official history of the freedom movement starts with the premises that India lost independence only in the eighteenth century and had thus an experience of subjection to a foreign power for only two centuries. Real history, on the other hand, teaches us that the major part of India lost independence about five centuries before, and merely changed masters in the eighteenth century. (xxii-xxiii)"

"There are some obvious difficulties in writing a history of the movement for freedom in India only fifteen years after it was achieved, and by one who has himself passed through the most! eventful period in it, covering the third and fourth phases mentioned above. We are all too near the events to view them in their true perspective. I have been a witness to the grim struggle from 1905 to 1947, and do not pretend to be merely a dispassionate or disinterested spectator ; I would have been more or less than a human being if I were so. My views and judgments of men and things may, therefore, have been influenced by passions and prejudices. Without denying this possibility, I may claim that I have tried my best to take a detached view. On the other hand, I possess certain advantages also#in having a first-hand knowledge of the important events and the fleeting impressions and sentiments they left behind on the minds of the people. It is difficult to form a proper idea of these by one who, living at a later period, has only to rely on the record of the past in order to re- construct its history. Although these reflections do not directly, concern the present Volume, indirect influence cannot altogether be ruled out. I have therefore tried to place before the reader all the relevant facts, leaving them to form their own conclusions. As the feelings and impressions of a class or community, whether justified by facts and events and reasonable or not, are of great significance in history, I have, wherever available, quoted at some length views of representative persons whose names carry some weight. (xv-xvi)"

"For, in any discussion of the question whether the revolt of 1857 was the first national war of independence or not, the real character of> the outbreaks of the civil population must be the decisive factor. A detailed statement of actual, facts, based on authentic sources, is calculated to give a more accurate and definite idea on the subject than any amount of abstract theory or argument. The officially Sponsored Centenary Volume of the Mutiny doe9 not contain sufficient details of this nature, and hence I thought it necessary to add them to counteract the current view that the outbreak of 1857 was the first national war of independence. I have tried, to show, with the help of the details given, that it was neither 'first', nor 'national,' nor 'a war of independence. (xvii)"

"After all, history is no respecter of the feelings of persons and communities, and one cannot alter the facts of history. (xviii)"

"The mere fact that the author of this book happens to be a Bengali should not stand in the way of expressing this truth out of a false sense of modesty. It is a truism that parochialism should not influence an author’s judgment. What it really means is that parochial feeling must not lead him either to exaggerate or to minimize the value or importance of the part played by the narrow geographical region to which he might belong. Both are equally wrong. His views and statements should be judged by the normal canons of criticism and must not be discredited off-hand on the gratuitous assumption of partiality for his own people or province. I leave it to the readers to judge for themselves whether the role attributed to Bengal is right or not. I may be wrong, due to ignorance, particularly of the language and literature of other parts of India, or error in judgment, and I shall be the first to admit it if I am convinced by facts and arguments ; but I shall fail in my duty as a historian' if I desist from stating what I believe to be true, simply out of the fear that it will be set down to parochialism. If I have laid an undue stress or emphasis on any point or aspect, I shall welcome a challenge which, if supported by facts and arguments, is bound to advance or correct our knowledge of history, and there- by do a great deal of good. (xviii - xix)"

"But such an attempt was never made in India, as the existence of two such fundamentally different political units was never fully realized by the Hindu leaders. Even today the Indian leaders would not face the historical truth, failure to recognize which has cost them dear. They still live in the realm of»a fancied fraternity and are as sensitive to any expression that jars against the slogan of Hindu- Muslim bhai bhai , as they were at the beginning of this century. Verily the Bourbons are not the only people who ever forgot the past and never learnt any lesson even from their own history. I yield to none in a genuine desire to promote communal harmony and amity. If I have violated the political convention of the day by revealing the very unpleasant but historical truth about the relations between the Hindus and Muslims, I have done so in order to elucidate and explain the course of events in the past, not unmingled with the hope that our leaders would draw some useful lessons for the future. In any case, I may assure my readers that I have done so with good will to both the communities and malice to none, being convinced that the solid structure of mutual amity and understanding cannot be built on the quicksands of false history and political expediency. Real understanding can only be arrived at by a frank recognition of the facts of history and not by suppressing and distorting them. These considerations have prompted me to discuss Hindu-Muslim relations in a correct historical perspective. Be it also remembered that such a discussion is indispensable in order to offer a rational explanation of the birth of Pakistan. (xix-xx)"

"There is hardly any doubt that the net result of Syed Ahmad’s policy was to widen the cleavage between the two great communities in India, but perhaps it would be more correct to say that he was not so much anti-Hindu as pro-Muslim. He might well say, like the great Roman, Brutus, that it was not that he loved the Hindus less but that he loved the Muslims more. The one aim of his lie was to promote the Muslim interests, come what may. (436)"

"The differences between the Hindus and the Muslims were undoubtedly accentuated by the policy of 'Divide and Rule systematically pursued by the British throughout the 19th century. As far back as 1821 a British officer wrote in the Asiatic Journal : “Divide et Impera should be the motto of our administration,” and the policy was supported by high British officers. At first the policy was to favour the Hindus at the expense of the Muslims, for, as Lord Ellenborough put it. “that race is fundamentally hostile to us and therefore our true policy is to conciliate the Hindus.” It was not till the seventies when the Hindus had developed advanced political ideas and a sense of nationalism that the British scented danger and began to favour the Muslims, now turned docile, at the expense of the Hindus. From about the eighties it became the settled policy of the British to play the Muslims against the Hindus and break the solidarity of the people. Since then the British argument against conceding the political demands of the Congress has always been 'that it would be impossible for England to hand over the Indian Muslims to the tender mercies of a hostile numerical majority.’ (436ff)"

"These communal riots may be justly regarded as an outward manifestation of that communal spirit which grew in intensity throughout the nineteenth century and at last drove the Hindus- and Muslims into two opposite camps in politics. The ground, was prepared by the frankly communal outlook of the Muslims, typified by the Wahabi Movement and the Aligarh Movement. The situation was rendered worse by the policy of Divide and Rule adopted by the British Government with the definite object’ of playing one community against the other. The spectre of communalism which haunted Indian politics even at the close of the nineteenth century was destined to grow in size and volume as years rolled by. The cloud that was no bigger than a man's, hand in 1900 soon overcast the whole sky and brought rain, thunder and storm which drenched the whole country with blood and tears in less than half a century. (440)"

"The four-fold ramification of the Swadeshi movement industrial, educational, cultural and political—and its spread all over India unnerved the Government of India. It was not long before they realized that a local movement for removing a local grievance was being slowly, but steadily, developed into an all-India national movement against British rule. Lord Minto found it difficult to kill the hydra-headed monster let out of the basket of his predecessor. Lord Curzon."

"When the Nawab was being taken in a procession through the public streets, there occurred a case of assault on Hindus, and looting of a few Hindu, particularly Hindu Swadeshi, shops. These incidents were a signal for a general outbreak of hooliganism involving assault, looting, destruction of properties and arson… On the other hand, the Government officials were full of praise for the Muhammadans…The Comilla riot was followed by various other outbreaks of a similar nature….Consider able bodies of Muhammadans, armed with lathis mustered from time to time and molested the Hindus. As a result there was wide-spread panic among the Hindu minority population in East Bengal…"

"The most serious disturbance .broke out at Jamalpur in the District of Mymensingh. In addition to the troubles in the town started by the Muslims in the course of which hundreds of Hindus—men and women—had to take shelter in a temple throughout the night, the riot spread to outside area. There were indiscriminate looting and molestation of Hindus in a large number of localities."

"The accused, Habil Sircar had read over a notice to a crowd of Musalmans and had told them that the Government and the Nawab Bahadur of Dacca had passed orders to the effect that nobody, would be punished for plundering and oppressing the Hindus. Soon after, the image of Kali (Hindu goddess) was broken by the Musalmans and the shops of the Hindu traders were also plundered."

"The Partition of Bengal and the foundation of the Muslim League widened the cleavage between the Hindus and the Muslims. The passionate outburst against the Partition which was noticed not only all over Bengal, but more or less all over India, was in striking contrast to the delight with which the Muslim League welcomed the measure. It undoubtedly gave great offence to the Hindus to see that the way in which Government practically disregarded the wishes of the entire Bengali community found support in u section of the population. The Partition was not merely an administrative measure ; it was a deliberate outrage upon public sentiment. But even more than this, it brought to the forefront a great political issue namely, whether India was to be governed autocratically without any regard to the sentiments and opinions of the people, or on the enlightened principles professed by the British rulers. Looked at from this point of view, the Partition invited a trial of strength between the people and the bureaucracy. It was a momentous issue far transcending the mere wishes and opinions or even the interests of once community or another. It was a national issue of vital importance and the attitude of the Muslims naturally constituted one of the greatest shocks to the national sentiments in India. 227ff"

"Generally communal riots were confined to the British territory, and the Indian States were free from them. A serious riot in 1924 in Gulburga, in the Nizam's territory, formed an exception. The Muhammadan mobs attacked all the Hindu temples in jthe city, numbering about fifteen, and broke the idols. They also raided the Sharan Vish- veshwar Temple and attempted to set fiie to the Temple car. The Police were eventually obliged to fiie, with the result that three Muhammadans, including the Police Superintendent Mr. Azizullah, were killed and about a dozen persons injured. Next morning the streets were again in the hands of Muhammadan mobs and considerable damage was done to Hindu houses and shops. On the arrival of Police reinforcements, order was restored. On the 14th August the Muslim mob fury was at its height and almost all the temples within the range of the mob, some fifty in number, were desecrated, their sanctum sanctorum entered into, their idols broken, and their buildings damaged."

"A mystic or saint — such as Gandhi undoubtedly was is beyond the purview of political history, but in dealing with Gandhi as the great leader of the Indian National Congress, a purely political organization fighting for freedom from British yoke, history must apply to him the same standards of judgment and criticism as have been applied to all other personalities, great or small, who have played any role in political affairs. Sober history must subject the public life of Gandhi to a critical and rational review without passion or prejudice, uninfluenced in the least by personal feelings of admiration or devotion, and, above all, by a disposition or proneness to believe as right and proper whatever he might have chosen to do or say. Such history must begin by discounting the halo of semi-divinity — and therefore also of infallibility — which was cast round Gandhi during his life and continues to a large extent even now, thanks to the propaganda to exploit his name for political purposes. I yield to none in my profound respect for Gandhi, the saint and the humanitarian. But as the author of this volume, I am only concerned with the part he played in the struggle for India's freedom from the British yoke. I have necessarily to view his life and activities, thoughts, and feelings primarily from a narrow angle, namely as a politician and statesman leading a great political organization which was not intended to be a humanitarian association or World Peace Society, but had been formed for a definite political object, namely, to achieve India's freedom from political bondage. It has been my painful duty to show that, looked at strictly from this point of view, the popular image of Gandhi cannot be reconciled with what he actually was. A historian must uphold the great ideal of truth which was so dear to Gandhi himself, and if we delineate the political life of Gandhi with strict adherence to truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it will, I believe, be patent to all that Gandhi was lacking in both political wisdom and political strategy — as we commonly understand these terms — and far from being infallible, committed serious blunders, one after another, in pursuit of some Utopian ideals and methods which had no basis in reality. It will also be seen that the current estimate of the degree or extent of his success bears no relation to actual facts. I am not unaware of the rude shock that such treatment would give to a large section of Indians and the great probability that they would curse or at least denounce the author without perhaps even going through the book itself. But I am sustained by two considerations. In the first place, I have sincerely tried to uphold the dignity of history by telling the truth as it has appeared to me in the light of such judgment or intellect as God has vouchsafed to me. I have done no less — I could do no more. Secondly, the adverse criticisms I have made against Gandhi — and the most serious ones at that — have almost all been upheld by one or more of his most admiring devotees, perhaps in some unguarded moments of their lives or when they were free from the magic influence of their political Guru. (xviii ff)"

"That Gandhi played a very great role in rousing the political consciousness of the masses nobody can possibly deny. But it would be a travesty of truth to give him the sole credit for the freedom of India, and sheer nonsense to look -upon Satyagraha (or Charka, according to some) as the unique weapon by which it was achieved. As mentioned above, Gandhi’s followers could not wield this weapon forged by him and therefore * it never came into play. A successful Satyagraha, as conceived by Gandhi, would necessarily mean that the British had given up their hold on India in a mood of repentance or penitence for their past sinful acts in India. But of this we have no evidence whatsoever. (xxiii)"

"Jinnah, at least in is a er life put up a brave fight. It was, however, a fight not for the’ freedom of India, except in a very qualified sense, but for the freedom of the Muslims from the tyrannical yoke of the Hindus, as he put it. He won the fight ; the cult of violence decided the issue. To what extent Gandhi s cult of non-violence may claim credit for the freedom of India is a matter of opinion. But there is no doubt that the creation of Pakistan was the triumph of violence— in its naked and most brutal form-and of the leadership of Jinnah. Nobody can reasonably doubt that India would have surely attained independence, sooner or later, even without Gandhi, but it is extremely doubtful whether there would have been a Pakistan without Jinnah. So, if we are to judge by the result alone, the events of 1946-7 testify to the superiority of violence to non-violence in practical politics, and of Jinnah to the leaders of the Congress. But this affords an illustration of the blunder that is often committed by hasty inference drawn from the immediate result, apparently flowing from a certain course of action, without weighing the force of other circumstances. It ought to serve as a corrective to those who look upon Gandhi as having wrested independence from the British by waving his magic wand of Satyagraha. In any case Jinnah stands out as the most successful political leader of the period. Whatever the Hindus might think of Jinnah, he has secured a high place in the history of the Muslim nation, a term at which we can hardly cavil after the foundation of Pakistan. He carried to its logical consummation the work that was begun by Sir Syed Ahmad. (xxviii ff)"

"It is, therefore, not unlikely that the views I have expressed may not commend themselves to any, and perhaps a large section of my countrymen would bitterly resent some of them. But I find consolation in the wise saying of one of the greatest Sanskrit poets to the effect, that ‘there may be somewhere, at some time, somebody who worild agree with my views and appreciate them ; for time is eternal and the world is wide and large’. I may assure my readers that it has been a very painful task to have to comment adversely on the views and actions of some of our great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who are held in the highest veneration. I shall not be surprised if what I have said about them hurts the feelings of many. My only excuse is that it is impossible to avoid all such comments in writing on a subject such as is treated in this book. I may, however, assure my readers that I have always tried to tell the truth, and in doing so followed no other guide than the light of my own judgment, sincerely formed, with malice to none and goodwill to all, and without any personal or ulterior motive of any kind. xxxiii"

"It is hardly necessary to say that August 15 was hailed with joy all over India, and no words can adequately describe the tumultuous scenes of wild rejoicings witnessed in every city and every village. Lord and Lady Mountbatten, driving in state, were greeted with resounding cheers by the enthusiastic crowds that lined the streets. This heralded a new era of goodwill between India and Britain. Stories of many hard and bitter struggles between India and Britain, and of animosities between the Indians and the British fill the pages of this work. Let it end with a note of goodwill, trust, and confidence which manifested itself on the streets of Delhi on 15 August, 1947. How the author wishes that he could have closed this volume with a similar note in respect of the relation between India and Pakistan. But that was not to be. Instead of an era of goodwill, the independence ushered in one of communal hatred and cruelty of which there is perhaps no parallel in the recorded history of India. It is unnecessary to recount that story of shame and barbarity as it falls beyond the period under review. (819 ff)"

"No doubt, every generation will produce a host of historians, but it will take decades to produce one of Dr. Majumdar's calibre."

"But then, R.C. Majumdar was made of the stuff of Bharatavarasha’s Modern Renaissance. He was undeterred in his quest to author the most authentic history of the freedom struggle of his own countrymen: to keep their hopes, pains, sacrifices, spirit, struggles and tears ever-fresh, and to preserve the vast woodland of their heroic memories watered and evergreen. For this proud son of Bengal, this noble endeavor was not merely a project: it was akin to working towards the same goal with the same spirit that fuelled our freedom struggle: Majumdar had after all, lived during that entire era. It was National Service in the truest sense of the word. And so, with meagre resources, he worked alone and completed the majestic three-volume work in just seven years. It still remains the most comprehensive, authoritative and unchallenged work on India’s freedom struggle. This point has an immense bearing on what will follow."

"Most of us worshipped at this altar of ‘progress’. We denigrated historians like R.C. Majumdar who spent their lives in understanding the Indian historical sources. We sang hymns in praise of the bullies who could neither read an original ancient text nor decipher an inscription. We were given sermons on the glory of the Marxist approach and the value of diverse sociological and anthropological models. Dissidents were quickly dubbed rightist reactionaries."

"The only voice which was heard against this nation-wide exercise in suppressio veri suggestio falsi in the field of medieval Indian history, was that of the veteran historian, R.C. Majumdar. For him, this “national integration” based on a wilful blindness to recorded history of the havoc wrought by Islam in India, could lead only to national suicide. He tried his best to arrest the trend by presenting Islamic imperialism in medieval India as it was, and not as the politicians in league with Stalinist and Muslim historians were tailoring it to become. .... But his voice remained a voice in the wilderness. Fourteen years later, he [R.C. Majumdar] had to return to the theme and give specific instances of falsification."

"To sum up this subject of synthesis, assimilation, and composite culture, I would better quote Dr. R.C. Majumdar, one of the best and certainly the most versatile historian which modern India has known."

"The tale contains an institutional warning also: for this is not the first time that the project to write the history of the freedom movement has been hijacked, and eventually derailed. In the Introduction and Appendix to his three-volume History of the Freedom Movement in India, Dr R.C. Majumdar recorded what happened to the original project – how at his instance the Indian Historical Records Commission passed a resolution in February 1948 that a history of the country’s struggle for freedom ought to be prepared; how the education ministry headed by Maulana Azad sat over the matter till Dr Rajendra Prasad, the then president of the country, nudged it ahead; how an Editorial Board was set up; how Majumdar was appointed director for the project; how the first volume was prepared; how it met with the approval of the Editorial Board; how the government, having stated in one breath that the volumes were well on their way to getting ready, alleged in the next that there had been some differences in the Board about the content of the first volume which had been circulated; how suddenly the Board was dissolved; and the project handed over to a previous secretary of the education ministry; how some of the members become turncoats. The result? Mediocre volumes which no one reads, volumes which further what was then the official line… By contrast the British produced their version …. There was the Indian side to the events. This was available at the time in the recollections of those who had led the movement against the British – for many of them were still alive; it was available in their private papers. The Towards Freedom Project was to garner this record. As control over institutions passed to the Leftists, the entire project was yoked to advancing their Line and Theses."

"What was Majumdar’s crime? He refused to bend history to suit the interest of the Congress."

"[In 1948, R.C. Majumdar submitted a proposal to the Government to write an official history of the freedom struggle, a fact that he records in detail in the Appendix of Volume One of the History of the Freedom Movement in India. This first-ever proposal on this much-needed endeavour was accepted by the Government. What happened next is best narrated by Dr. B.N. Pandey...:] In 1952 the Ministry of Education appointed a Board of Editors for the compilation of the history. Professor Majumdar was appointed by the Board as the Director and entrusted with the work of sifting and collecting materials and preparing the draft of the history. However, the Board as consisting of politicians and scholars, was least likely to function harmoniously. Perhaps this was the reason why it was dissolved at the end of 1955. ... In [the first] volume the distinguished author has shown ample courage and sound scholarship in approaching some very controversial and delicate questions. On the question of Hindu- Muslim relationship in pre-British India he refutes the commonly held view that the Hindus and Muslims lived in harmony before the advent of the British and that the Hindu-Muslim tension was the outcome of the British policy to divide and rule. These two communities, the author holds, lived as "two separate communities with distinct cultures and different mental, and moral characteristics" (p. 33). He argues that the Hindu leaders, including Gandhi and Nehru, deliberately ignored the fundamental differences between the Hindus and Muslims and made no serious efforts "to tackle the real problem that faced India, namely how to make it possible for two such distinct units to live together as members of one State."

"Yet K.S. Lal maintains that for several decades the Left-liberals in the history establishment have discriminated against people of differing views. "The ICHR was not politicised by the BJP but by the Marxists. Nurul Hasan, and Irfan Habib after him, packed the place with Leftists," Lal says, citing instructions by the NCERT in 1982 to "weed out undesirable textbooks in history" and the notification by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, which in 1989 said "Muslim rule should never attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned." As far as he's concerned, says K.S. Lal, this is an attempt to suppress facts. He also says the Congress has always promoted its brand of official history through agencies like the NCERT."

"I have tried my utmost to be judicious in my conclusions, and have neither explained an act or policy to the extent of excusing, nor have I uncritically dispraised or blamed."

"With the Muslim conquest the position of Indian women suffered a set-back."

"Muslim conquest was not without its blessings in Bengal. There, as elsewhere, developed an understanding between Hindus and Muslims. Hindus offered sweets at Muslims shrines; consulted and kept copies of the Quran. Musalmans responded with similar acts."

"But even in the deepest darkness light persists. Timur’s gruesome invasion had a silver lining. Hindus and Muslims all stood up to a man to fight him wherever he went. The days of Mahmiid of Ghazni were a story of the past, and Timur met resistance everywhere. The people of India were known for their disunity in the face of a foreign invader. But they stood united against Timur. At Tulamba, Ajodhan, Deopalpur, Bhatnir, Meerut and Delhi—nay everywhere —the Hindus and Muslims fought shoulder to shoulder against the , invader. Shaikh Sa’iduddin interceded with Timur on behalf of the Hindu chief of Bhatnir. At Meerut, Ilyas Afghan, a Muslim, burnt his womenfolk in the fire of jawhar. During Timur’s visitation the Hindus and Muslims learnt to sink their differences and stand united."

"Ziyauddin's sarcasm is incisive. Occasionally his sardonic humour helps him to sum up his ideas in a few words. His remark that in Alauddin's days " a camel could be had for a dang," but wherefrom the dang?" - shows at once how the reforms of Alauddin had made articles cheap and people poor."

"If the medieval chronicler cries out "Jihad" it is not heard, but if he cries out persistently, it is claimed that he never meant it."

"Any study of the population of the precensus times can be based only on estimates, and estimates by their very nature tend to be tentative."

"Population studies of pre-census times are being successfully attempted in many western countries but in India not much work has been done in this area. This book is almost: a maiden attempt at population study the medieval period. ... Besides, any study of population of pre-census times can be based only on estimates and estimates by their very nature tend to be tentative. In our computation, however, sufficient historical evidence has been forthcoming for any demographic behaviour. If nothing more. I have at least been able to collect in one place direct and indirect evidence leading to fairly good estimates of medieval Indian population, although the estimates themselves may not always be invulnerable to challenge. However I hope that the uniqueness, magnitude and delicacy of the task would make the reader indulgent and the critic tolerant."

"The weaknesses of medieval chronicles are well-known. Their style is by and large turgid and ornamental; their narrative is often exaggerated. And this applies as much (if not more) to figures as to facts. A few no doubt are trustworthy but many of them are extremely faulty with regard to figures and statistics ; and almost all of them let their imagination and their pen run riot. Consequently, even when they are not quite reticent on demograghic matters, they are neither very informative nor always reliable."

"Ziyauddin Barani is an eye-witness historian, but his figures and data are not always precise. When sometimes he means to convey‘a very large number’, he gives the figure of 100,000.... Let us take another fourteenth century historian, Shams Siraj Afif. If Barani has a weakness for 100,000, Afif is very fond of 180,000, so that the slaves of Firoz Tughlaq numbered 180,000, the revenue from his 1200 gardens was 180,000 tankahs, and in his war with Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah (A.D. 1353), he killed 180,000 men in Bengal. The immensity and coincidence of the numbers create misgivings. ... The chronicler has left no stone unturned to convince us of his veracity. Still the figure seems to be unduly. large for Firoz Tughlaq ; it could have fitted in with the narrative of massacres of Chingiz or Timur. And then there is the authority of the Sirac-i-Firoz Shahi , which says that only 60,000 were killed."

"In the Assam campaign “khani-khanan ordered that the prisoners should have the heads of the slain tied round them, and be thus exposed to the derision of the camp...and afterwards put to death."

"Husain Khan. Jagirdar of Patiali and Sruvmsabati, had ordered that the Hindus of his jagtr should wear a piece of cloth on their dress as a mark of distinction from the Muslims. (19)"

"Mahmud's invasions alone meant to the country' a loss of about two million people.... Bakhtiyar Khalji marched through Bihar into Bengal and massacred people in both the regions. During his expedition to Gwalior Iltutmish (1210-36) massacred 700 persons besides those killed in the battle on both sides. His attacks on Malwa (VMisha and Ujjain) were met with stiff resistance and were accompanied by great loss of life. He is also credited with killing 12,000 Khokhars (Gakkhars) during Aibak's reign. The successor of XhutmisK (Raziyah, Bahrain etc.,) too fought and killed zealously."

"During the reigns of Nasiruddin and Balban (1246-86) warfare for consolidation and expansion of Turkish dominions went on apace. Trailohyavarman, who ruled over Southern U.P., Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand, and is called ‘Dalaki va Malaki’ by Persian chroniclers, was defeated alter great slaughter (1248). In 1251, Gwalior, Chanderi, Narwar and Malwa were attacked. The Raja of Malwa alone had 5,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry and would have been defeated only after great loss of life. The inhabitants ofKaithal were given such severe punishment (1254) that they ‘might not fotgtt (the lesson) for the rest of their lutes’: In 1256 Ulugh' Khan Balban carried on devastating warfare in Saimur, and ‘so many of the rebellious Hindus were killed that numbers cannot be computed or described’. Ranthambhor was attacked in 1259 and ‘many of its valiant fighting men were sent to hell’. In the punitive expedition to Mewat (1260) ‘numberless Hindus perished under the merciless swords of the soldiers of Islam’. In the same year 12,000 men, women and children were put to the sward in Hariyana."

"Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq (c. 1296-1350) were great warriors and killers. Alauddin’s conquest of Gujarat (1299) and the massacres by his generals in Anhilwara, Cambay, Asavalli, Vanmanthali etc., earned him, according to t[ie Rasmafq, the nickname of Khuni. His contemporary chronicler proclaims that Alauddin shed more blood than the Pharaohs did. He captured Ranthambhor after very heavy casualties . Chittor’s capture was followed by a massacre of 30,000 people, after Jauhar had been performed and the the Rajputs had died fighting in large numbers. When Malwa was attacked (1305), its Raja is said to have possessed 40000 horse and 100,000 foot. After the battle, ‘so far as human eye could see the ground was muddy with blood. Many cities of Malwa like Mandu, Ujjain, Dharanagri and Chanderi were captured after great resistance, The capitulation of Sevana and Jalor ( 1311) were accompanied by massacres after years of ‘prolonged warfare. In Alauddin’s wars in the South, similar killings took place, especially in Dwarsamudra and Maabar. In the latter campaign Malik Kafur went from place to place and to some places many times over, and in his rage at not finding the fleeing prince Vira pandya, be killed the people mercilessly’. His successor Mubarak Khalji once again sacked Gujarat and Devagii. Under Muhammad Tughlag, wars and rebellions knew no end. Even an enhancement of land-tax ended in massacres in the Doab, Many more perished on the way when the capital was shifted to Daulatabad. His Qarachal expedition cost him a whole army. His expeditions to Bengal, Sind and the Decean, as well as ruthless suppression of twenty two rebellions, meant only depopulation’. From all accounts it is certain that in the thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century the loss of population was immense. For one thing, in spite of constant efforts no addition of territory could be made by Turkish rulers from 1210 to 1296, for another while the weapons of the Turkish period were not as sophisticated ‘as those of the Mughal, the Turkish rulers were more ruthless in war and less merciful towards rebels, ‘with the result their killings were heavy. Hence, the extirpating ‘campaigns of Balban,, and the repeated ‘attacks on regions already devastated but not completely subjugated. Bengal was attacked by Bakhiiyar, by Balbap, by Alauddin, and by all the three Tughlags Ghayas, Muhammad and Firoz. Malwa and Gujarat were repeatedly attacked and sacked. Almost every Muslim ruler invaded Ranhambhor until if was subjugated by Alauddin Khalji (1301, again temporarily). Gwalior, Katehar ‘and Avadh regions were also repeatedly attacked. Rajputana, Sind and Punjab (also because of the Mongol invasions) knew to peace. Tn the fist decade of the fourteenth century Turkish invaders penetrated into the South, carrying death and destruction."

"If the seventeenth century in India was a century of demo¬ graphic growth, the eighteenth was of decline. All evidence in¬ variably leads to this conclusion. During the last twenty years of the seventeenth century, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was strenuously fighting against the Marathas and the independent Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan. In the early years of the war, the loss of life does not appear to have been great. 58 But a quarter of a century’s warfare in the Deccan did show is effects, and by the beginn¬ ing of the eighteenth century pestilence and death began to stalk the Deecan countryside. From 1702 to 1704 there was no rain, “but instead plague prevailed. In these two years there expired over two, million souls.” 57 In 1706 Aurangzeb moved northwards, “leaving behind (in the words of the eye-witness Manucci)...fields... devoid of trees and bare of crops, their place being taken by the bones of beasts. Instead of verdure all is blank and barren. The country is so entirely desolated and depopulated that neither fire nor light can be found in the course of a three or four days’ journey...” 58 This picture may be a little overdrawn. But Khafi Khan, ‘one of the best and most impartial historians’ of Mughal India, says almost the same about the Deccan... (84-85)"

"Over and above this, foreign invasions also followed in quick succession. Nadir Shah invaded the country' in 1739. Besides the loss of life in the Punjab and decimation of the Mughal army, in Delhi itself he massacred not less than 30,000 people 86 Ahmad Shah Abdali followed in the footsteps of Nadir Shah and led a number of campaigns in each of which there was great loss of life. In his first invasion (1748), all men bearing arms in Sarhind were put to the sword. His killings in the Punjab, massacres at Mathura (1757), and mass deportations were followed by famine and pesti¬ lence/ 7 The battle of Panipat (1761) was preceded by famine and followed by pestilence. In the battle itself 100,000 men were killed and, according to Siyar-uI-Mntakhirin , no less than 20,000 persons were carried away as captives to Afghanistan. (86)"

"In the year A.D. 1000 the first attack of Mahmud of Ghazni was delivered. He captured many frontier towns and appointed to them his own governors, rt is also reasonable to assume that in these places some people would have been converted to Islam. In his attack on Waihind (Peshawar) in 1001-3, Mahmud is reported to have captured Jayapal and fifteen of his principal chiefs and relations some of whom, like Suhhpal, were made Musalmans. At Bhera all the inhabitants, except those who embraced Islam, were put to the sword. Since the whole town is reported to have been converted the number of converts may have been quite large. At Multan too conversions took place in large numbers, for writing about the campaign against Nawasa Shah (converted Sukhpal), Utbi says that this and the previous victory fat Multan) were 'witnesses to his exalted state of prosclytism’! In his campaign in the Kashmir Valley (1015) Mahmud 'converted many infidels to Muhammadanism, and having spread Islam in that country, returned to Ghazni’. In the latter campaigns, in Mathura, Baran and Kanauj, again, many conversions took place. While describing ‘the conquest of Kanauj’, Utbi sums up the situation thus : "The Sultan levelled to the ground every fort..., and the inhabitants of them cither accepted Islam, or took up arms against him.” In short, those "ho submitted were also converted to Islam* In Bn ran (Bn lands!: a hr) alone 10,000 persons were converted including the Raja, During his fourteenth invasion in A.D, 1023, Kirat. Nur, Lohkot and Lahore were attacked. Hie chief of Kirat accepted Islam, and many people followed his example. According to Nizamuddin Ahmad. 'Islam upread in this part of the country by the consent of the people and the influence of force’. Conversion of Hindus to Islam was one of the objects of Mahmud. A1 Qazwini writes that when Mahmud went “to wage religious war against India, he made great efforts to capture and destroy Sotnnat, in the hope that the Hindus would then become Muhammadans", 2 Sultan Mahmud was well-versed in the Quran and was considered its eminent interpreter. 3 He ardently desired to play the role of a true Muslim monarch and convert non-Muslims to his faith. Tarikh-i-Yamim , Rausai-us-Safa and Totikh-UFerfshtah, besides many other works, speak of construction of mosques and schools and appointment of preachers and teachers by Mahmud and his successor MasudA Wherever Mahmud went, he insisted on the people to convert to Islam. (102-3)"

"Aibak-entered upon a series of conquests. He despatched Ihhtiyaruddin Bakhtiyar Khalji to the East and himself captured Kol (modern Aligarh) in 1194. There “those of the garrison who •were wise and acute were converted to Islam, but those who stood "by their ancient faith were slain with the sword.” 51 In 1195 when Raja Bhim of Gujarat was attacked, 20,000 prisoners were •captured, 55 'and in 1202 at Kalinjar 50,000, 55 “and we may be sure that (as in the case of Arab conquest oT Sind) all who were made •slaves were compelled to embrace the religion of the masters to -whom they were allotted.” 57 Ferishtah specifically mentions that on the capature of Kalinjar “fifty thousand kaniz vo gliulam, having suffered slavery, were rewarded with the honour of Islam.” is According to Ferishtah three to four hundred thousand Khokhars jmd Tirahias were also converted to Islam by Muhammad Ghori. (106)"

"During the lime of Qutbuddin Aibak a large number of places were attacked and prisoners captured than for which actual figures, given above, are available. Figures of any conversions during campaigns to Kanauj, Ranaras (where the Muslims occupied “a thousand” temples), sfi Ajmer (attacked thrice), Gujarat, Havana and Gwalior, and the campaigns carried out rigid up to Bengal arc not available. (107)"

"Muslim rulers were keen to obtain captives in war and convert them. During wa:fare it was still more easy to enslave women and children. It was almost s matter of policy with the Turkish rulers and their commanders, from the \erv start of Muslim rule, to capture and convert or disperse and destory the male population,’ and carry into slavery women and children. Ibn-til Asir says that Qutbuddin Aibak made ‘war against the provinces of Hind.He killed many, and returned home with prisoners and booty." 8 In Banaras, according to Ibn-ul Asir, Shihabuddin’s slaughter of the Hindus was immense, none was spared except women and children". 53 No wonder that slaves began to fill the household of ctcry Turk from the very in¬ ception of Muslim rule in Hindustan. Fakhre Mudabbir informs us that as a result of the Turkish achievements under Muhammad Ghori and Qutbuddin Aibak, ‘even a poor householder (or soldier) who did not possess a single slave (before) became the owner of numerous slaves.’ (113-4)"

"In 1231 Sultan Iltutmish attacked Gwalior, and ‘captured a large number of slaves’. 31 Minbaj Siraj Jurjani writes that ‘his (Balban’s) taking of captives, and his capture of the dependents of the great Ranas cannot be recounted." Talking of his war in Avadh against Trailokyavarman of the Chandela dynasty (Dalaki wa Malaki of Minhaj), the chronicler says : ‘All the infidel’s wives, sons and dependents...and children . fell into the hands of the victors.’ In 1253 in his campaign against Ranthambhor also Balban appears to have captured many prisoners. 31 In 1259, in an attack on Hariyana (the Shhvahk hills), many women and children were enslaved. Twice Balban led expeditions against Kampil, Patiali, and Bhojpur, and in the process captured a large number of women and children. In Katehar he ordered a genera! massacre of the male population of over eight years of age and carried away women and children. (114)"

"Alauddin had 50,000 slaves some of whom worn mere boys,* and surely many captured during wax. Firoz Tughlaq had issued an order that whichever places were sacked, in them the-captives should be sorted out and the best ones tht for service with the Sultan) should be forwarded to the court/ 0 Soon he was enabled to collect ISO.OOO slaves.’ Ziyauddin Barani's description of the Slave Market in Delhi (such markets were there isi other places also) during the reign of Alauddin Khaljt, shows (hat ficsh batches of slaves were constantly replenishing them."

"Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured in the minor yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the Id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor."

"The forcible conversion of frontier tribes by Aurangzeb is a well-known fact. “Popular Hindu and Sikh tradition ascribes mass conversions by force to Aurangzebs reign. (151)"

"On serious estimates of the total death toll, Hindu efforts have been remarkably defective. Twitterati bandy about the number arrived at by historian KS Lal back in 1979: “80 to 100 million between 1000 and 1525” missing from the demographic figures, which already are necessarily vague in themselves. Moreover, these are not all victims of massacres: some fell as collateral damage of agricultural or economic policies that disrupted food production (as under the British or in Maoist China), or were never born because of the potential parents’ displacement or enslavement. On the other hand, in the Northwest the killing started centuries earlier, and after 1525, it resumed."

"The source is the late Delhi Univ history professor K.S. Lal. But his claim is not that 80 millions were physically killed by the invaders/occupiers, merely that 80 million have gone missing from the extrapolated demographic development (itself already a very risky guess) during that period. This includes people killed, but also the effect of lawlessness and famines which he claims were triggered by the extremely high taxation and other deliberate poverty-promoting policies of the Delhi Sultanate."

"We assert that the N.C E.R.T. books have met their fate because of the studied bias and fantastic theories and interpretations of writers like Habib and his friends, and their communal approach in deliberately glossing over the misdeeds of one section of medieval Indian society and repeatedly hammering on the failings of the other....."

"It is not surprising that for some communal historians suffering from extra-territorial chauvinism, the Persian wheel, the spinning wheel, the dome and the arch all came from lands outside India and the highly developed ancient Indian civilization was unaware of these...."

"Early Muslims in India lived and preferred to live in cities. (116)"

"The large establishment of wives and servants rendered the nobles immobile. No Indian scholars, engineers or travellers went abroad to learn the skills the Europeans were developing in their countries. While people from Europe were frequently coming to Hindustan, no Indian nobleman could go to the West because he could not live without his harem and he could not take with him his cumbersome harem to countries situated so far away. Europe at this time was forging ahead in science and technology through its Industrial Revolution, but the Mughal elites kept themselves insulated from this great stride because of inertia. Consequently, the country was pulled back from marching with progress, a deficiency which has not been able to be made up until now."

"In short, while there can be no doubt about the presence of some Muslims in Sind, Gujarat and on the western coast of India, their number till the end of the tenth century was almost microscopic. In Hindustan proper, east of the river Indus, there were hardly any Musalmans in C.E. 1000."

"Indigenous converts added to the numerical strength of foreign Muslims. How quickly their numbers swelled may be inferred from the fact that when, early in the fourteenth century, Malik Kafur marched into Maabar (Malabar), about 20,000 Musalmans who had settled in South India for long and were fighting on the side of the Hindus, deserted to the imperialists and were spared."

"A year before the dawn of the fifteenth century, Timur had claimed to have invaded Hindustan to destroy its infidels and idolators.1 In the year 1400 India was predominantly Hindu; Muslims comprised less than 2 per cent of the population. ... Timur might have made his declaration merely as a champion of Islam, and yet he was not wrong in his assessment of the Hindu population of India."

"About the percentage of Muslims in the total population no precise information can be obtained from the contemporary records. Babur’s statement that most of the inhabitants were Hindus, conveys only a general impression. Two facts are, however, certain. First, it is widely recognised that the majority of Muslims were converts from Hinduism. Secondly, the largest number of conversions took place under the Turks and Afghans who ruled between C. 1300 and 1556."

"In April 1667, four revenue collectors (qanungos), who had been dismissed for various faults, were reinstated on their accepting the Muhammadan faith.39 Aurangzeb’s declared policy of “Qanungo basharte Islam” (Qanungoship on the condition of conversion to Islam) brought many converts and many Muslim families in Punjab still retain the letter of reinstatement on conversion or fresh appointment of Muslims in place of Hindu Qanungos who were retrenched because they would not convert."

"The forcible conversion of Frontier Tribes by Aurangzeb is a well-known fact. “Popular Hindu and Sikh tradition ascribes mass conversions by force to Aurangzeb’s reign.”"

"So, all through the medieval period, Foreign and Indian Muslims strove hard to make India a Muslim country by converting and eliminating the Hindus. They killed and converted, and converted and killed by turns. In the earlier centuries of their presence here, the picture was sombre indeed. Turkish rule was established in northern India at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Within fifteen years of Muhammad Ghori’s occupation of Delhi, the Turks rapidly conquered most of the major cities of northern India. Their lightening success, as described by contemporary chroniclers, entailed great loss of life. Qutbuddin Aibak’s conquests during the life-time of his master and later on in the capacity of king (c.1200-1210) included Gwalior, parts of Bundelkhand, Ajmer, Ranthambhor, Anhilwara, as well a parts of U.P. and Malwa. In Nahrwala alone 50,000 persons were killed during Aibak’s campaign.8 No wonder, he earned the nickname of killer of lacs.9 Bakhtiyar Khalji marched through Bihar into Bengal and massacred people in both the regions. During his expedition to Gwalior Iltutmish (1210-36) massacred 700 persons besides those killed in the battle on both sides. His attacks on Malwa (Vidisha and Ujjain) were met with stiff resistance and were accompanied by great loss of life. He is also credited with killing 12,000 Khokhars (Gakkhars) during Aibak’s reign.10 The successors of Iltutmish (Raziyah, Bahram, etc.) too fought and killed zealously. During the reigns of Nasiruddin and Balban (1246-86) warfare for consolidation and expansion of Turkish dominions went on apace. Trailokyavarman, who ruled over Southern U.P., Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand, and is called “Dalaki va Malaki” by Persian chroniclers, was defeated after great slaughter (1248). In 1251, Gwalior, Chanderi, Narwar and Malwa were attacked. The Raja of Malwa alone had 5,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry and would have been defeated only after great loss of life. The inhabitants of Kaithal were given such severe punishment (1254) that they ‘might not forget (the lesson) for the rest of their lives.’ In 1256 Ulugh Khan Balban carried on devastating warfare in Sirmur, and ‘so many of the rebellious Hindus were killed that numbers cannot be computed or described.’ Ranthambhor was attacked in 1259 and ‘many of its valiant fighting men were sent to hell.’ In the punitive expedition to Mewat (1260) ‘numberless Hindus perished under the merciless swords of the soldiers of Islam.’ In the same year 12,000 men, women and children were put to the sword in Hariyana."

"In 1000 Muslim numbers in India were microscopic. In 1200 they were perhaps about three to four hundred thousand. By 1400 their number had risen probably to 3.2 million and they formed about 1.85 percent of the total population. In 1600 they were probably 15 million. And from the 1:9 to 1:10 Muslim-Hindu ratio in 1600 the proportion of Muslims to Hindus had gone up to about 1:7 by the year 1800...Thus at about the middle of the ninteenth century, the Muslim-Hindu ratio stood approximately at 1:6.... By the end of the nineteenth century, the ratio had changed to 1:5, and Stanely Lanepoole, whose Medieval India was first published in 1903, rightly observes: “The population of India in the present day is over three hundred millions, and every sixth man is a Muslim.”"

"Had India been completely converted to Muhammadanism during the thousand years of Muslim conquest and rule, its people would have taken pride in the victories and achievements of Islam and even organised panIslamic movements and Islamic revolutions. Conversely, had India possessed the determination of countries like France and Spain to repulse the Muslims for good, its people would have forgotten about Islam and its rule."

"Here the feudal nobility was a military aristocracy which incidentally owned land, rather than a landed aristocracy which occasionally had to defend Royal lands and property by military means but at other times lived quietly."

"Its history is soaked in blood of the supposed enemies of Islam. But all this is denied by Marxists who always try to cover up the black spots of Muslim rule with thick coats of whitewash."

"Abdul Qadir Badaoni is not an exception. This style of writing, born out of the ingrained prejudice against non-Muslims, is found in all medieval chronicles in various shades of intensity. They denounce non-Muslims. They write with jubilation about the destruction of their temples, massacre of men, raising towers of skulls and such other “achievements”. They also write about the enslavement of women and children, and the licentious life of their captors, their polygamy and concubinage. There is a saying that no man is condemned save by his own mouth. By painting their heroes as cruel and atrocious destroyers of infidelity, Muslim chroniclers themselves have brought odium on the kings and conquerors of their own race and religion, all the while thinking that they were bringing a good name to them."

"Now, it is a recognised fact that the contribution of European scholars in general and of British historians in particular to the study of Muslim literature and history is invaluable. ... Their painstaking diligence and honesty compel our admiration. ... Indian historians owe a lot to the pioneering researches of British historians, whatever may be said about their merits and shortcomings. .... There is no need to get ruffled about such assertions. Most of the conclusions of British historians about Muslim history do find confirmation in the description of cruelties perpetrated by the Muslims in their own chronicles as well as their reiteration in indigenous source materials in Hindi, Sanskrit, Rajasthani and Marathi. Hindu source materials are few. They are also not as informative as the Muslim chronicles. But curiously enough the meagre Hindu and the voluminous Muslim source-materials corroborate and supplement rather than contradict each other about the behaviour of the Muslim regime."

"At the close of the Khalji regime, Ghiyasuddin declared himself as a champion of the faith, because the Ulama had been dissatisfied with Alauddin’s policies and Ghiyasuddin with the activities of Nasiruddin Khusrau. “The slogan of ‘Islam in danger’ so common yet so effective in the history of the Muslims, was started.”39 And this to a great degree won Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq the throne."

"So that, in the Islamic state, Delhi was not the capital of the empire; it was Quwwat-ul-Islam. The king was not the ruler of the people; he was Amir-ul-Mauminin, “the conqueror of infidels and shelterer of Islam.” The army was not the royal army; it was Lashkar-i-Islam. The soldier was not a cavalry man or infantry man; he was Ahl-i-Jihad. The law of the state was not any secular or humanitarian law; it was Shariat, the law of Islam. The state was not an end in itself, like the Greek state, but a means of sub-serving the interests of Islam. Conquests were made, shrines were broken, captives were taken, converts were made - all in the name of Islam. The raison d’etre of the regime was to disseminate the Islamic faith."

"On the other hand, Hindu saints used to assuage the outraged feelings of Hindus and encourage them reconvert to Hinduism. For instance Harihar and Bukka, sons of the Raja of Kampil ,converted to Islam by Muhammad bin Tughlaq, fled his court. At the instance of sage Vidyaranya they reverted to Hinduism and founded the Vijayanagar kingdom to resist the expansion of Muslim power in the South. Like Vidyaranya, there were scores of Bhakta saints who were helping people to resist injustice and retain their original religion. In Maharashtra, Namdeva in the fourteenth century declared that people were blind in insisting upon worshipping in temples and mosques, while His worship needed neither temple nor mosque.69 Such courageous denunciations were infectious and these spread in Gujarat, Bengal, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Ramananda, Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya, Raidas, Dhanna, Sain, Garibdas and Dadu Dayal and a host of others spoke out in the same idiom openly and repeatedly. They came from all classes of society - Raidas was a chamar, Sain was a barber while Pipa was a Raja, Raja of Gauranggarh - but they were all respected and listened to. Of these the three most important saints who turned Bhakti into a movement were Kabir, Nanak and Chaitanya."

"Muhammad Bihamad Khani, the author of Tarikh-i-Muhammadi, gives a clear idea of the keenness of the Muslim sultans and their subtle methods in obtaining converts. He writes that sultan Mahmud while fighting Rai Sumer in the vicinity of Irich “concluded that if he allowed his brave warriors to wage the war (outright), they would undoubtedly extirpate the infidels… but he deemed it fit to delay the operation (or advance slowly) in the hope that the infidels might accept Islam”."

"The Girvan-Vanmanjari of Dhuniraj 119 written in 1702-04 during the reign of Aurangzeb, brings out this problem clearly. The book is written in the form of a catechism between two Brahmanas discussing the correct course of action to be adopted to put a stop to the injustices of Aurangzeb. One of them advocates protest and resistance. The other is of the view that such a course would still more exacerbate the tyranny of the King, but if they cooperated with the regime, they might obtain some relief and minimise the tribulations of the Hindus under the Mughal government. Centuries have rolled by, the country has been partitioned on religious lines, and yet the problem remains as a legacy of Muslim rule in India. How to live with the Muslims who cannot but discriminate between the faithful and the infidels? Through appeasement or confrontation? Not a happy legacy indeed."

"In short, the avalanche of Turco- Mughal invaders, and the policy of their Government turned many settled agriculturists into tribals of the jungles....For example, many Parihars and Parmars, once upon a time belonging to the proud Rajput castes, are now included in lower castes. So are the “Rajputs” counted in Backward Classes in South India. ... in course of time many of these Jats and Khokhars were pushed into belonging to low castes of to-day. For the later times is the example of the Satnamis. This sect was an offshoot of the Raidasis.....At last Aurangzeb crushed them by sending 10,000 troops (March, 1672) and facing a most obstinate battle in which two thousand Satnamis fell on the field and many more were slain during the pursuit. Those who escaped spread out into small units so that today there are about 15 million Satnami Harijans...."

"In June 1576 Maharana Pratap of Chittor had to face Akbar’s armies in the famous battle of Haldighati. Rana Pratap fought with exemplary courage and of his soldiers only a little more than half could leave the field alive. In the darkness of the evening, the wounded Rana left the field on his favourite horse Chetak. A little later, in October, Akbar himself marched in person in pursuit of the Rana, but the latter remained untraced and unsubdued. Later on he recovered all Mewar except Mandalgarh and Chittor. His nearest associates, the Bhil and Lohia tribals, had taken a vow that until their motherland was not freed, they would not eat in metal plates, but only on leaves; they would not sleep on bedsteads, but only on the ground; and they would renounce all comforts. The bravest among them even left Chittor, to return to it only when Mewar had regained independence. That day was not destined to come in their life-time. It was not to come for decades, for generations, for centuries."

"Throughout the Muslim rule destruction of Hindu shrines and construction of mosques and other building from their materials and at their very sites went on as a normal practice. From the Quwwal-ul-Islam mosque in Delhi built out of twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples in the twelfth century to the Taj-ul-Masajid built from hundreds of Hindu and Jain temples at Bhopal in the eighteenth century, the story is the same everywhere."

"The exploits of Mahmud Ghaznavi in the field of forced proselytization were cherished for long. His example was presented as the model before all good Muslim rulers, as early as the fourteenth century by Ziyauddin Barani in his Fatawa-i-Jahandari and as late as the close of the eighteenth century by Muhammad Aslam in his Farhat-un-Nazirin. There were forcible conversion both during the war and in peace. Sikandar Butshikan in Kashmir to Tipu Sultan in Mysore, Mahmud Beghara in Gujarat to Jalaluddin Muhammad in Bengal, all Muslim rulers carried on large-scale forcible conversions through jihad."

"Hindus and Muslims can both be fanatics, but it is only Muslims (and Christians) who can be fundamentalists."

"Every riot is followed by an Inquiry Committee, but its report is never published. Take U.P. for instance. A report in the Times of India of 13.12.1990 from Lucknow says: “At least a dozen judicial inquiry reports into the genesis of communal riots in the state have never seen the light of the day. They have been buried in the secretariat-files over the past two decades. The failure of the successive state governments to publish these reports and initiate action has given credence to the belief that they are not serious about checking communal violence… There were other instances when the state government instituted an inquiry and then scuttled the commissions. In the 1982 and 1986 clashes in Meerut and in the 1986 riots in Allahabad, the judicial inquiries were ordered only as an ‘eye-wash’…” Judicial inquiries are ordered as an eye-wash because the perpetrators of riots are known but cannot be booked. In a secular state it is neither proper to name them nor political to punish them. Inquiry committee reports are left to gather dust, while those who should be punished are pampered and patronised as vote-banks in India’s democratic setup. Therefore communal riots in India as a legacy of Muslim rule may continue to persist. If these could help in partitioning the country, they could still help in achieving many other goals."

"Jaisi, Rahim, Raskhan and Dara Shukoh, though no conventional philosophers, are rare phenomenon. Recognized leading lights of Islamic philosophy like Shaikh Ahmad Sarhindi, Shah Waliullah and Shah Ismail Shahid, find no place in the histories of Indian philosophy."

"For example, Monstuart Elphinstone, a Governor of Bombay, suggested in his Minute dated 14 May 1859: “Divide et Impera was the old Roman motto, and it should be our”. Given the circumstances, it would have been foolish of any imperialist power not to follow such a policy. But for achieving this aim there was no need for them to distort Indian history. British historians had just to reiterate what the Muslim chroniclers themselves had written about the “glorious achievements” of their kings and conquerors. Their stories needed no proof: they stood confirmed by the hundreds of vandalised medieval monuments. The mistake lay with the misjudgement of our Congress-culture Government and the so-called secularist and Stalinist historians. They chose to treat history as a handmaid of politics to please the Muslim minority. They instructed their text-book writers to eschew mention of unpalatable historical facts like destruction of temples and forced conversions by Muslims in history, language and social science. But perpetration of lies has proved counter-productive. It has encouraged Muslims to ask for proof as to when Babur or Aurangzeb broke this or that temple, knowing full well that such shrines were actually vandalised and razed."

"Aurangzeb’s religious policy had created a division in the Indian society. Communal antagonisms resulted in communal riots at Banaras, Narnaul (1672) and Gujarat (1681) where Hindus, in retaliation, destroyed mosques. Temples were destroyed in Marwar after 1678 and in 1680-81, 235 temples were destroyed in Udaipur. Prince Bhim of Udaipur retaliated by attacking Ahmadnagar and demolishing many mosques, big and small, there. Similarly, there was opposition to destruction of temples in the Amber territory, which was friendly to the Mughals. Here religious fairs continued to be held and idols publicly worshipped even after the temples had been demolished.64 In the Deccan the same policy was pursued with the same reaction. In April 1694, the imperial censor had tried to prevent public idol worship in Jaisinghpura near Aurangabad. The Vairagi priests of the temple were arrested but were soon rescued by the Rajputs.65 Aurangzeb destroyed temples throughout the country. He destroyed the temples at Mayapur (Hardwar) and Ayodhya, but “all of them are thronged with worshippers, even those that are destroyed are still venerated by the Hindus and visited by the offering of alms.” Sometimes he was content with only closing down those temples that were built in the midst of entirely Hindu population, and his officers allowed the Hindus to take back their temples on payment of large sums of money. “In the South, where he spent the last twenty-seven years of his reign, Aurangzeb was usually content with leaving many Hindu temples standing… in the Deccan where the suppression of rebellion was not an easy matter… But the discontent occasioned by his orders could not be thus brought to an end.” Hindu resistance to such vandalism year after year and decade after decade throughout the length and breadth of the country can rather be imagined than described."

"A Hindu can not be a fundamentalist because there is nothing fundamental or obligatory in his socio-religious life, but he can be fanatic, a greater fanatic than all...."

"Many women from Hindu rulers’ families were forcibly married by Muslim kings throughout the medieval period and yet only Shams Siraj Afif narrates in detail of the marriage of Firoz Shah’s mother to Malik Rajjab, a cousin of the king, and emperor Jahangir tells how he demanded daughters of Hindu kings."

"In this background, it would be an unremitting task both in volume and repetition to give all anecdotes, facts and figures of enslavement and concubinage of captive women in the central and provincial kingdoms and independent Muslim states found mentioned in the chronicles. This would only lead to repetition resulting in the book becoming bulky."

"From the day India became a target of Muslim invaders its people began to be enslaved in droves to be sold in foreign lands or employed in various capacities on menial and not-so-menial jobs within the country. To understand this phenomenon it is necessary to go into the origins and development of the Islamic system of slavery. For, wherever the Muslims went, mostly as conquerors but also as traders, there developed a system of slavery peculiar to the clime, terrain and populace of the place."

"The special interest of Muslims in sex slavery was universal and widespread."

"The Hindus who naturally resisted Muslim occupation were considered to be rebels. Besides they were idolaters (mushrik) and could not be accorded the status of Kafirs, of the People of the Book-Christians and Jews.... Muslim scriptures and treatises advocated jihad against idolaters for whom the law advocated only Islam or death.... The fact was that the Muslim regime was giving [them] a choice between Islam and death only. Those who were killed in battle were dead and gone; but their dependents were made slaves. They ceased to be Hindus; they were made Musalmans in course of time if not immediately after captivity ... slave taking in India was the most flourishing and successful [Muslim] missionary activity.... Every Sultan, as [a] champion of Islam, considered it a political necessity to plant or raise [the] Muslim population all over India for the Islamization of the country and countering native resistance."

"The early inhabitants of Eastern Bengal and Assam comprised of Garos, Rabhas, Mechs, Mikris, Lalungos, Lushais, Kukis, Koches, Manipuris, Nagas, Khasis, Miris, Ahoms and many others. Before some of them became Muslims and Christians, they were all reckoned as Hindus, For example, Ahoms (a Shan tribe) willingly converted to Hinduism from ‘Animism’ (an artificial differentiation from Hindus created by British anthropologists and administrators). These tribes worship a whole pantheon of Hindu gods and godesses. They celebrate Holi, Rath Yatra, Janmashtami, Kali and and Baisakh Bihu or the advent of the Hindu new year...."

"In Sindh, because of Islamic influence, Muslim tribes have a leading place, while castes are relegated to a subordinate position."

"We may close with a word on Nepal. According to the ancient chronicles kept in Nepal, the earliest dynasty was founded by eight Ahirs from Gujarat, followed by the same race from Hindustan. ...."

"Medieval Muslim chroniclers, who are our main source of information for the history of the Middle Ages in India, nowhere distinguish between tribal, low caste and high caste Hindus.(21)"

"In this respect as in many others, India’s forests have been a boon to the country. In ancient times Hindu seers developed great philosophies in the silent and serene quietude of the jungles; in medieval times they served as green fortresses of escape and offense. While encountering the onslaughts of an aggressive and ruthless enemy, thousands and thousands of people sought shelter in the impenetrable jungles, and although in course of time they drifted into becoming “scheduled” tribes and low castes, they did manage to survive with their religion and culture. And from the jungle “fortresses” many Rajas and people dashed out to beat the enemy in offensive guerrilla at- tacks, offence being another form of defence."

"From 1501 to 1505 Sikandar Lodi sacked Dholpur, a dependency of Gwalior, so thoroughly that trees and orchards extending to fourteen miles around were “torn up from roots”. Houses and temples were destroyed and mosques built with their debris.”’ (57)"

"In the preliminary pages, the list of books "by the same author" shows that during the past fifty years I have written a dozen books on medieval Indian history beginning from 1950 onwards. As usual these have been reviewed in journals in India and abroad, bestowing both praise and blame as per the custom of the reviewers. However, during the last fifteen years or so, some of my books have received special attention of a certain brand of scholars for adverse criticism. Although this gives me publicity and raises demand for my books because such reviews arouse curiosity of readers, it also provides me with an opportunity to defend myself from my detractors determined to denigrate my work. It is not customary to answer the reviewers - they have their right of judgement - but when a systematic smear campaign is launched criticising everything that I say, without a single word of appreciation for anything, a rebuttal is called for, more so when a connection and not mere coincidence is discernible between the uncharitable review of one of my books in a British journal and some other harsh reviews by a group of Aligarh historians in Indian historical journals."

"Like proselytization, desecrating and demolishing the temples of non-Muslims is also central to Islam.... India too suffered terribly as thousands of Hindu temples and sacred edifices disappeared in northern India by the time of Sikandar Lodi and Babur. Will Durant rightly laments in the Story of Civilization that "We can never know from looking at India today, what grandeur and beauty it once possessed". In Delhi, after the demolition of twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples, the materials of which were utilized to construct the Quwwat-ul-Islam masjid, it was after 700 years that the Birla Mandir could be constructed in 1930s. Sita Ram Goel has brought out two excellent volumes on Hindu Temples: What happened to them. These informative volumes give a list of Hindu shrines and their history of destruction in the medieval period on the basis of Muslim evidence itself. This of course does not cover all the shrines razed. Muslims broke temples recklessly. Those held in special veneration by Hindus like the ones at Somnath, Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura, were special targets of Muslims, and whenever the Hindus could manage to rebuild their shrines at these places, they were again destroyed by Muslim rulers. From the time of Mahmud of Ghazni who destroyed the temples at Somnath and Mathura to Babur who struck at Ayodhya to Aurangzeb who razed the temples at Kashi Mathura and Somnath, the story is repeated again and again."

"The scale and effectiveness of conversions by force are clearly detailed in al-Kufi's Chachnama (for Muhammad Qasim in Sindh), Utbi's Tarikh-i-Yamini (for Mahmud of Ghazni) Hasan Nizami's Taj-ul-Maasir (for Muhammad Ghauri, Qutbuddin Aibak etc.) and Minhaj Siraj's. Tabqat-i-Nasiri (for the early years of the Sultanate period). All Muslim chronicles from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century write with pride about forcible conversions by rulers and nobles."

"In my computation, however, sufficient historical evidence has been set forth for any demographic behaviour and on that basis I have arrived at the conclusion that the population of India in A.D. 1000 was about 200 million and in the year 1500 it was 170 million.... The loss of Indian population during Mahmud of Ghaznavi's invasions was about 2 million as studied in some detail in Appendix A of the Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India."

"The Raja of Malwa had 5,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry and would have been defeated only after great slaughter. The inhabitants of Kaithal were given such severe punishment (1254) that "they might not forget the lesson for the rest of their lives". In 1256 Ulugh Khan Balban carried on devastating warfare in Saimur, and "so many of the rebellious Hindus were killed that numbers cannot be computed or described". Ranthambhor was attacked in 1259 and many of its valiant fighting men were killed. In the punitive expedition to Mewat (1260) "numberless Hindus perished. In the same year 12,000 men, women and children were put to the sword in Hariyana." When Balban became the sultan "large sections of the male population were massacred in Katehar and, according to Barani, in villages and jungles heaps of human corpses were left rotting". During the expedition to Bengal, "on either side of the principal bazar (of Lakhnauti), in a street two miles in length, a row of stakes was set up and the adherents of Tughril were impaled upon them"..... During campaigns and wars, the disorganized flight of the panic-stricken people must have killed large numbers through exposure, starvation and epidemic. Nor should the ravages of famines on populations be ignored. Drought, pestilence, and famines in the medieval times find repeated mention in contemporary chronicles."

"But, I remember, we students used to discuss among ourselves that there was lot of 'white washing' and 'polishing' and suppressio veri in what we were taught in the class room. .... I became convinced that until this "gagging of others" was not challenged, their brand of history would go unchecked. Since then I have challenged them in my books.... And since I do no believe that "Muslim rule should not attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim invaders and rulers should not be mentioned and forcible conversions to Islam should be ignored and deleted, etc. etc.", my books are free from such restrictions. I now also apply the same yardstick to medieval Indian history as is done with respect to modem Indian history. If British imperialism was bad for the Indian people so also was Muslim imperialism. Both these sought sustenance from cooperation of indigenous elements but neither of them became indigenous in nature. We in India write the history of British rule not from the point of view of European imperialism but from that of the victims of colonization. I apply the same methodology to the history of Muslim rule. I write about it from the people's point of view rather than from the view of Islamic imperialists. We cannot apply different standards of approach and methodology to different periods of Indian history."

"The growing awareness that Muslim religion and Muslim rule were impositions and that Indians belonged to a different religious and political tradition, has not escaped Hindu consciousness of medieval history. It does not accept the Ilbaris, the Khaljis, the Tughlaqs, the Bahmanis, the Sharqis, the Lodis and the Mughals as indigenous dynasties on par with the Mauryas, the Guptas, the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Sangamas, the Marathas, the Sikhs, and the Jats. Its heroes are Prithviraj Chauhan, Vikram Pandya of Madura, Harihar and Bukka and Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagar, Maharanas Kumbha, Sanga and Pratap, Maharajas Shivaji and Ranjit Singh and not Muhammad Ghauri, Alauddin Khalji, Sikandar Lodi or even Shahjahan."

"Akbar abolished Jiziyah in 1564. In all probability many of his 'devout' officers in far off regions, did not care to enforce this anti-Islamic measure. Therefore, ten years later he once again issued orders for its abolition. Badaoni tells us that it was customary "to search out and kill heretics" (Shias), let alone non-Muslims as late as 1574. Hemu's father, when captured, was offered his life if he turned Muslim. Abdun Nabi executed a Brahman for blasphemy on the complaint of a Qazi. Husain Khan, the governor of Lahore (died 983H/ 1575-76) ordered Hindus to stick patches on their shoulders so that no Muslim could be put to the indignity of showing them honour by mistake, nor did he allow Hindus to saddle their horses. Jihad was practised as usual, massacre at Chittor was done in true Jihadist spirit. "The Akbar Nama, the Ain-i-Akbari and Badaoni are all agreed that prior to 1593, some Hindus had been converted to Islam forcibly." In 1581 some Portuguese captives at Surat were offered their lives if they turned Muslim. Even iconoclastic zeal did not disappear under Akbar. Kangra was invaded in 1572-73, and even though Birbal was in joint command, the umbrella of the Goddess was riddled with arrows, 200 cows were killed and Muslim soldiers threw their shoes full of blood at the walls and doors of the temple. A Mughal officer, Bayazid, converted a Hindu temple into a Muslim school. Jain idols in Gujarat could not escape vandalism. "Such seem to have been and continued to be the popular prejudices against the Hindus", under Akbar and his successors as per the obligations of the Shariat and practice of Sunnah, writes S.R. Sharma."

"The chroniclers of the early Turkish rulers of India take pride in affirming that Qutbuddin Aibak was a killer of lakhs of infidels. Leave aside enthusiastic killers like Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq, even the "kind-hearted" Firoz Tughlaq killed more than a lakh Bengalis when he invaded their country. Timur Lang or Tamerlane says he killed a hundred thousand infidel prisoners of war in Delhi. He built victory pillars from severed heads at many places. These were acts of sultans. The nobles were not lagging behind. One Shaikh Daud Kambu is said to have killed 20,000 with his dagger. The Bahmani sultans of Gulbarga and Bidar considered it meritorious to kill a hundred thousand Hindu men, women and children every year. .... The rite of Jauhar killed the women, the tradition of not deserting the field of battle made Rajputs and others die fighting in large numbers. When Malwa was attacked (1305), its Raja is said to have possessed 40,000 horse and 100,000 foot.43 After the battle, "so far as human eye could see, the ground was muddy with blood". ...Under Muhammad Tughlaq, wars and rebellions knew no end. His expeditions to Bengal, Sindh and the Deccan, as well as ruthless suppression of twenty-two rebellions, meant only depopulation in the thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century. For one thing, in spite of constant efforts no addition of territory could be made by Turkish rulers from 1210 to 1296; for another the Turkish rulers were more ruthless in war and less merciful in peace. Hence the extirpating massacres of Balban, and the repeated attacks by others on regions already devastated but not completely subdued..... Mulla Daud of Bidar vividly describes the war between Muhammad Shah Bahmani and the Vijayanagar King in 1366 in which "Farishtah computes the victims on the Hindu side alone as numbering no less than half a million." Muhammad also devastated the Karnatak region with vengeance..... Under Akbar and Jahangir "five or six hundred thousand human beings were killed," says emperor Jahangir. The figures given by these killers and their chroniclers may be a few thousand less or a few thousand more, but what bred this ambition of cutting down human beings without compunction was the Muslim theory, practice and spirit of Jihad, as spelled out in Muslim scriptures and rules of administration."

"I knew Muhammad Mujeeb personally. He was Head of the Department of History and Shaikh-ul-Jamia... In 1972, however, there was a mild 'confrontation' between him and me. Sometime that year there was a Selection Committee meeting for the post of Professor of History in Delhi University. I was then a Reader and candidate for the post of Professor. Mujeeb was an 'expert'... Mujeeb asked me a question: "Why did the Hindu convert to Islam?" It was a loaded question carrying the suggestion that the initiative for conversion came from the Hindu. In all probability Mujeeb expected me to say that the Hindus suffered from the injustices of the caste system, that Islam was spiritually so great and its message of social equality so attractive that the Hindus queued up for conversion the moment they came in contact with Islamic invaders. A tactful candidate (not a truthful one) would have said what Mujeeb desired, but my answer was different. I said that Hindus did not (voluntarily) convert to Islam; they were converted, often forcibly, as told by Muslim chroniclers. Muslim invaders and rulers felt proud of their achievements in the fields of loot and destruction, enslavement and proselytization. Their chroniclers, writing at their command or independently, speak about their achievements in these spheres in glowing terms. They repeatedly write about the choice offered to the Hindus - "Islam or death". Mujeeb expected a different answer. I was not selected."

"In the reign of Akbar, a mosque was built in 975 H/1567-68 CE at Jaunpur. It merits mention because the details of the undertaking show how the owner was dispossessed of his property and how the officer completing the task was rewarded. The mosque was built by Nawab Mohsin Khan. The materials for the mosque were "taken from those of the temple of Lachman Das, Diwan of Khan-i-Zaman Ali Quli Khan... Akbar made over all the property of the Diwan to Nawab Mohsin Khan," for "thanks that by guidance of the Everlasting and Living (Allah), this house of infidelity became the niche of prayer (i.e. Mosque). As a reward for that the generous Lord, constructed an abode for its builder in paradise."148 Akbar took great interest in conserving, repairing and adding to the Dargah of Muinuddin Chishti at Ajmer which is also built on a Dev temple."

"According to Mulla Ahmad, "the main object of levying of Jiziyah on them (the Hindus) is their humiliation... God established (the custom of realising) Jiziyah for their dishonour. The object is their humiliation and the (establishment of) prestige and dignity of the Muslims."6"

"Sri Ram Sharma reproduces Aurangzeb's order about the imposition and collection of Jiziyah dated 26th July, 1696. It says that "Jiziyah lapses on death and on acceptance of Islam". During the course of the year some people used to die and some used to convert, but the amount of Jiziyah for the place remained unaltered. In view of this the first type of payment was disadvantageous to Hindus. The last paragraph of the order reads: "The nonMuslim should himself bring the Jiziyah; if he sends it through his deputy it should not be accepted. At the time of payment the non-Muslim should keep standing, while the chief should keep sitting. The hand of the non-Muslim should be below and that of the chief above it and he should say. 'Make payment of Jiziyah, O! non-Muslim' and should not say, 'O! infidel'." Aurangzeb thus imposed it in the true spirit and letter of the tax."

"In medieval India Muslim ruling classes drank freely, at the same time punishing poor helpless Muslims for the "crime". For example, while Alauddin Khalji had prohibited wine-drinking, his own son Qutbuddin Mubarak drank hard and so drank his nobles. All Mughal emperors from Babur to Shahjahan drank hard, Jahangir drank the hardest. But since wine is prohibited in Islam, it was a matter of routine for rulers to put a stop to drinking by common people. Even orthodox sultans like Firoz Tughlaq and Sikandar Lodi drank secretly "to keep in good health". Most of the Mughal nobles drank openly and "all princes drank in secret.""

"Should it be a matter of criticism if I deplore "government-sponsored attempts to rewrite Indian history in the interest of minorityism by suppressing unpalatable truths about the character of Muslim rule"? I have quoted from government circulars addressed to authors of school and college textbooks. Here some instructions/suggestions are reproduced. These appear on p. 70 of the Legacy. "Muslim rule should not attract any criticism... Destruction of temples by Muslim invaders and rulers should not be mentioned... Ignore and delete mention of forcible conversions to Islam" etc., etc. Curiously enough the instructions themselves admit of destruction of temples and forcible conversions. Why are there no instructions about writing the history of the ancient (Hindu) period or the British period? Does it mean that the record of Muslim rule in India alone is unmentionable? Or, does it mean that only the destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned (for the appeasement of one minority), while destruction by Portuguese invaders and rulers should be freely mentioned? Evils of Hindu society may be discussed but the evils of Muslim society should not. Warren Hastings, Wellesley and Dalhousie may be impeached relentlessly but no Muslim governor or ruler. These are double angles of approach, double standards of judgement recommended for writing Indian history. But this is actually being done by historians engaged by the establishment for writing school and college textbooks."

"“Fundamentalism is not accidental but essential to Islam… It sees unchangeability as strength. That is why the word reform is so abhorrent to Muslim thinkers and religious leaders ...”"

"“The Islamic principles of denigrating the non-Muslims, of aggression and violence against them - principles that perpetually incite to riot and rapine - have boomeranged. However brave face the fundamentalists may try to put up, the victims of Islam today are by and large Muslims themselves. The Prophet must have known that violence begets violence and repeatedly exhorted Muslims not to kill one another after his death. He also had a premonition that violence of Islam against non-Muslims will be met with a backlash. There is a hadis in Sahih Muslim which says that once the Rasul opined that Islam which began in poverty in Medina would one day return to Medina in poverty. ‘Just as a snake crawls back and coils itself into a small hole, so will Islam be hunted out from everywhere and return to be confined to Mecca and Medina.’ The increasing power of the non-Muslim West and the disenchantment of Muslim dissidents point towards that possibility, howsoever remote.”"

"To people at large, life inside the harem was a mystery."

"Study of history has a value at all times. But it is of the utmost importance today when the world is shrinking and we are coming closer to one another. We can be nearer to one another better if we understand one another well. (Meaning and Purpose of History in Volume I)"

"Bias or prejudice born out of chauvinism and imaginary interests of national glorification is not only undesirable, it is indeed dangerous. It is harmful not only to the cause of historical truth... (Meaning and Purpose of History in Volume I)"

"In brief, the onus of protecting Hindus against Muslim and Christian proselytization falls on Hindu social and cultural organizations."

"Dr. K.S.Lal belongs to the the galaxy of serious Indian scholars who have interpreted a number of sensitive problems of medieval Indian history and attempted to place the whole period covering about one thousand years on a rational footing in the overall context of global history.... In contrast to a large number of his companions, he does not adhere to any rigid school of historiography whether it be "pro-Muslim" or "apologist", "Marxist" or "manipulated". ... The literary flavour found in the writings of Dr. Lal recalls to the mind the style of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by the celebrated historian Gibbon."

"Professor Lal was already a veteran whose major book, History of the Khaljis, was compulsory reading for students of medieval Indian history from the undergraduate class onwards. I still find it very useful when I teach any course on the Delhi sultanate. ... Historiographically the book fell entirely and conspicuously in the genre of nationalist historiography whose hallmark was its challenge· to the portrayal of medieval Indian history as a story of unrelenting conflict between the medieval Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects. History of the Khaljis is one of the best works in this genre: empirically sound, objective in its assessment of events and persons, non-judgemental in its evaluation of the motives of rulers or their opponents. The remarkable quality gave the book a long life in the discipline, even when newer problematiques of socio-economic history began to displace the ones of dynastic history that had remained the preoccupation of the earlier generation."

"To write a history of an age of political disintegration, accompanied with numerous and intricate internecine wars, is an exacting task and Professor Kishori Saran Lal has accomplished it admirably... One merit of the work deserves special notice. As in his previous work, the History of the Khaljis, the author throughout exhibits a spirit of judicious impartiality in dealing with Muslim policy towards the Hindus. Evidence which in the hands of biased writers has been misused, finds its proper place in Professor Lai's assessment... On the whole the Twilight of the Sultanate is a highly creditable work. Professor Lai has a lucid, fluent, and forceful style and his book, apart from its scholarship, makes good reading."

"The book is a valuable and scholarly contribution to a very confused period of north Indian history, and may well become one of the foundations for a full scale modern history of north India in the fifteenth century."

"In this second edition of the standard political history of the Khalji period..."

"The fact that Prof. Mukhia has many like-minded colleagues in academe while his opponents have to remain on the outside is not the result of better competence among his friends, but of a deliberate policy in university nominations. Any young historian who lets on too early that he has pro-Hindu convictions, will see his entry into academe barred. Word will spread around that this man is “dangerous to India’s secular fabric” and he will be excluded. There have been some old historians who entered the profession before their cards were on the table and who only became forthright critics of Islam at the end of their careers, the likes of Prof. Harsh Narain and Prof. K.S. Lal, both since long deceased. Today among university historians, the school that sets the record on Islam straight is simply non-existent."

"K.S. Lal provided a painstakingly researched account of the Khalji period, which remains a standard reference."

"Dr. KS Lal has managed to fill a very important gap in our national history. I have read his work several times with pleasure and profit. He has utilized for his work all contemporary authorities which seem to be within the reach of the present generation in Persian, Hindi and Sanskrit. He has critical discrimination and complete freedom from all prejudices. No student of Indian history can afford to ignore Dr. Lal's excellent work."

"I don't say so, but my spade tells me so."

"It is true that the Rigveda does not provide us details of the inner layout of these forts, but surely the text was not meant to be a treatise on Vastusastra. May it be remembered that it is essentially a compilation of prayers to gods and should be looked at as such. All the evidence that it provides regarding the material culture of the then people is only incidental."

"The great civilization of the Indian subcontinent, has had its roots deep in antiquity, some seven to eight thousand years ago, and its flowering in the third millennium B.C. still lives on. In contrast, when we look round the world we are surprised by the fact that the Egyptian and Mesopotamia civilizations that flourished alongside this Indic Civilization have all disappeared, leaving hardly any trace behind. Why? The Indian psyche has indeed been pondering over this great cultural phenomenon of 'livingness', and this quest."

"What is that ‘something’, some inherent strength? Doubtless it lies in the liberal character of the Indian civilization, which allows for cross-fertilization with other cultures, without losing its own identity. Even time (kala), the great devourer, has stood testimony to the fact that the deep foundations of Indian culture could not be shaken either by internal upheavals, however great may have been their magnitude.... " the soul of India lives on!""

"Here it may perhaps be stated straightaway that so far no unimpeachable evidence has been adduced to prove or even to disprove either of the above-mentioned theories. (about Indo-Aryan invasions or migrations) In such a situation there is little wonder that guesses run wild and pride and prejudice safely prey on them."

"Under a project called ‘Archaeology of the Ramayana Sites’ excavations were carried out between 1975 and 1986 at five sites, viz. Ayodhya, Sringaverapura, Bharadvaja Asrama, Chitrakuta and Nandigrama, all associated with that epic."

"At Ayodhya, as many as fourteen trenches were laid out at different spots, one of which was the area known as the Janmabhumi. Over here is a trench hardly three metres to the south of the compound wall of the structure known as Babri Masjid, a series of square brick-bases, running in parallel east-west and north-south rows, were discovered within about 25-30 cm. below the surface. Since one row of these pillar-bases lay under the edge of the trench towards the compound wall of the mosque, it is likely that there may exist many more such pillar-bases in the unexcavated area in that direction. Stratigraphic evidence indicates that these pillar-bases are ascribable to a period around A.D. 1100. From the level associated with the destruction of these pillar-bases has been found glazed pottery ascribable to fourteenth-fifteenth century A.D."

"In the mosque there are fourteen stone pillars some of which appear to be in position and oriented east-west and north-south. On the basis of the decorative motifs, sculptures, etc. these pillars are also ascribed to the eleventh century A.D. In all probability, there the brick-bases found in the excavations and the stone pillars standing in the mosque belong to one and the same structural complex which stood at the site immediately before the Babri Masjid."

"The supporters of the Aryan-invasion theory have not been able to cite even a single example where is evidence of 'invaders.' represented either by weapons of warfare or even of cultural remains left by them."

"To put the tale synoptically. The Harappan cities collapsed, the civilization declined, but the people survived it all, though bereft of their glorious past. Their great, great, great _.. grandfathers had brought into being these Gites — gradually from a village economy to that of a town and through great strides to that of a city. The decline of the civilization entailed an end of the cities and reversed the direction. To borrow a simile, the Harappan urbanism may be likened to a storm on the vast ocean of Indian time, which raged, held on for some time but finally subsided, leaving the waters as placid as before. Cities came and went, but the villages kept on for ever!"

"Lal (1997, 9) considers the Sarasvati to have been alive in Kalibangan in the third millennium B.C.E. and dried up at the turn of the millennium: "The Sarasvati dried up around 2000 BC. This clearly establishes that the Rigveda, which speaks of the Sarasvati as a mighty flowing river, has to be assigned to a period prior to 2000 BC. By how many centuries it cannot be said for certain" (Lal, forthcoming)."

"The obvious result [of the diversion of the Sarasvatī’s waters into the Yamuna system] was the migration of the [Harappan] people towards the north-east where some water was still available in the uppermost reaches of the Sarasvatī and Ghaggar and further east in the upper plains of the Gangā-Yamunā Doāb.’"

"Though he himself never allowed his successes to go to his head, it must, in hindsight, be an archaeologist’s dream come true to play a prominent role in major controversies and be proven right in the end. At any rate, such are the highlights of Prof. B.B. Lal’s career."

"Today, even taking the name of Mahabharata and Ramayana is considered as anti-national and communal by the communist leaders, Babri Masjid Action Committee historians and the pseudo-secularists... I have been thinking about the behavious of our Marxist friends and historians, their unprovoked slander campaign against many colleagues, hurling abuses and convicting anyone and everyone even before the charges could be framed and proved. Their latest target is [so] sobre and highly respected a person as prof. B.B. Lal, who has all his life (now he is nearing 70) never involved himself in petty politics or in the groupism [which is] so favourite a sport among the so- called Marxist intellectuals of this country. But then [slander] is a well-practised art among the Marxists.""

"B.B. Lal made his name as an archaeologist in the 1950s and 60s by exploring the Painted Grey Ware culture, which he then identified as the Aryan invader culture during its expansion from the Panjab border zone deeper into India; but along the way he realized that his data offered no support to the AIT which he had been using as a prism through which to interpret the data... Especially in his case, this latter fact is remarkable. It was he who, as a young archaeologist in the 1950s, made his name by finally digging up the long-awaited proof of an Aryan invasion. He had identified a pottery style, the Painted Grey Ware (1200-800), as typifying the Aryans penetrating deeper into India. That is what was taught to us in university, and even recently-published books upholding the Aryan Invasion Theory cite this finding as “proof”. But Lal himself has grown away from it. At the time, he had simply applied the reigning invasionist framework, until he understood that this was but a hypothetical construct unsupported by hard findings. ... Thus, the anti-invasionist case put forward by the archaeologists like B.B. Lal and the late S.P. Gupta has often been dismissed without further ado “because they are, not coincidentally, the same ones who claim to have discovered pillar-bases underneath the Babri mosque in Ayodhya and thus supported the Hindu claim to the site”. Of course, this finding on Hindu-Muslim relations in medieval history wouldn’t make any difference to their case on the Aryan question in ancient history, at least not to scientists. ... But in this case there is an even more pertinent fact: the finding of the pillar-bases, ridiculed by self-appointed “experts” and their foreign dupes, has been confirmed. Both the Archaeological Survey of India and the Allahabad High Court have, after gathering solid evidence during thorough excavations as well as questioning many “experts” (whose performance under oath was extremely embarrassing, undercutting whatever credibility they had been credited with, see Jain 2013:201-273), ruled that there had indeed been a Hindu temple until it was demolished and its foundation (“pillar-bases”) reused to underpin a mosque. These archaeologists were lambasted worldwide for upholding a case that has ultimately been proven correct.... On the Aryan question too, they may well end up being proven correct. Conversely, the anti-Hindu academics worldwide who parroted the “experts” and expressed seething (though borrowed) hatred for the temple party, have been shown to have been babes in the wood, led by the nose by political agitators using the aura of the academic positions they had cornered to promote a very artificial lie, launched in the late 1980s against what had been a consensus about a pre-existing temple among all concerned parties. (see Elst 2011) On the Aryan question too, they might end up finding that they had safely chosen the side of a dominant opinion fated to be proven wrong... In our midst is the nonagenarian dean of Indian archaeology, Prof. B.B. Lal. I first heard from him in the 1980s at university in Leuven, Belgium, where Prof. Pierre Eggermont taught us that Lal had at last identified the Aryans on their way deeper into India, viz. through the Painted Grey Ware. That is how Lal first made his name: by identifying the theoretically deduced Aryan invasion with something tangible. Indeed, that is how Pradhan (2014:67) cites him even now: “Lal considered Painted Grey Ware to be intrusive”. Yet, Lal has later described that identification as false and written books denying an invasion, e.g. Lal 2002. Like most Indian archaeologists, he has had to face the fact that all attempts to find traces of the Aryan invaders had proved erroneous. You all have heard him say it right here: “Vedic culture and the Harappan cities are but the two sides of the same coin.”"

"Most older OIT champions are converts from the AIT. The most important conversion to the Out-of-India position was by the dean of Indian archaeology, Prof. BB Lal, deceased last year at age 101. As we personally learned in our student days from leading Indologist Pierre Eggermont, it was Lal who first added an archaeological scaffolding to the linguists’ hypothesis of an Aryan immigration. In the 1950s, he had mapped out the newfound Painted Grey Ware in the Mahābhārata cities, and theorized that this must be typical for the Aryans on their way deeper into India. From the 1980s onwards, he understood that this had merely been an application of the Aryan Invasion paradigm, not proof of it as he and the AIT crowd had believed. The last decades of his life he wrote several books against the AIT, summing his position up as: “Vedic and Harappan are two sides of the same coin.” Pray, why can the mature BB Lal, with many other feathers in his cap (e.g. identifying the Harappan script’s now-unquestioned writing direction), be cavalierly ignored while the young BB Lal could be trumpeted as the decisive voice of archaeology in the Homeland debate?"

"The most telling illustration has been provided by the silence over the new archaeological findings. .... When the findings of the excavations which had been conducted over a decade ago became public, and these left little doubt about the fact that there had indeed been a temple at the site, archaeology itself was denounced. Papers made themselves available for tarnishing one of the most respected archaeologists in the world - the former Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India who had led those excavations. ... The lesson is plain: should such double-standards continue, Hindu opinion will become even less amenable to the minatory admonitions of our editorialists than it has already become."

"This Nehruvian-Left bias began right from the days of independence. For example, scholars, especially in humanities, like Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swarup and many others found themselves without employment. As mentioned above, if a scholar found some academic job, he or she would be hounded out if there was suspicion about his or her loyalty to the Red cause. The existence of a ‘JNU lobby’ is a well-known fact in academia and the media. Scholars like B B Lal and others can be insulted and doubts raised about their antecedents built over years of hard work if they change their views which are not in conformity with their friends’ established views. He was put out of charmed circles and slandered for his discovery of Ram Temple below the Babri structure. K. Mohammed a senior ASI director was trashed because he confirmed B B Lal’s discovery as part of his team in 1978 during discovery, and because he declared that Ram Temple issue was complicated by Left historians who egged on extremist Islamists to go against the truth."

"Another major aspect of Indian culture is its open attitude to science. India's religious ideas deal only with the relations of god and man, and, consequently, there are no dogmatic views regarding material aspects of the universe. You are no doubt aware of the tremendous shock to the European world of belief when the discovery of Copernicus, that it is the earth which rotates round the sun, was announced. It took many decades before the discovery could be publicly stated. And yet Aryabhatta had made the same discovery more than a thousand years before the time of Copernicus, without causing any flutter in India. This shows the open attitude of Indian Culture to science was not shared generally even by Europe."

"“In the first place, the missionary brought with him an attitude of moral superiority and a belief in his own exclusive righteousness …… Secondly, from the time of the Portuguese to the end of the Second World War, the association of Christian Missionary work with aggressive imperialism introduced political complications into Christian work…… Inevitably, national sentiment looked upon Missionary activity as inimical to the country’s interests and native Christians as secondary barbarians.”"

"With the separation of the Pakistan Provinces, the main sites of what was known as the Indus Valley Civilisation have gone to Pakistan. It is clearly of the utmost importance that archaeological work in connection with this early period of Indian history must be continued in India. A preliminary examination has shown that the centre of the early civilisation was not Sind or the Indus Valley but the desert area in Bikaner and Jaisalmer through which the ancient Saraswati flowed into the Gulf of Kutch at one time."

"In judging of the Portuguese and their actions in India, one has to recollect that they were a century nearer feudal Europe than were any of the other nations that invaded the country — a century further back in civilisation and political organisation. In fact, they had very little of the latter, as practically every Factor had a right to address the Portuguese Crown direct and write home what he thought fit — truth or untruth, praise or slander — of the Viceroy, Governor or other superior authority. Authoritative government is impossible under such conditions, and so the Portuguese officials made it."

"In their mediaevalism there was little to choose between the higher Portuguese officials and their Indian contemporaries. The insincerity, dishonesty, selfishness, chicanery and cruelty were about on a par, though perhaps, the cruelty of the Portuguese was the greater, and indeed commercial and political intercourse must have been difficult when no man’s word was to be trusted on either side."

"The Portuguese, we are told, came to India with a Cross in the one hand and a sword in the other. Their own pretensions in the East were based first on the Pull of Nicholas V, dated January 8th 1454, by which Affonso V was given, by virtue of the pontifical and apostolic authority of the Pope, exclusive right to all the countries that might be discovered by the Portuguese in Africa and India. The conversion of the inhabitants of the lands so discovered was to be one of the objects of Portuguese policy. In fact Dom Joao II, who was the real originator of the expedition, had much of this evangelistic spirit in him. To the pious Kings of mediaeval Europe conversion of the heathens seemed to be an imperative duty."

"The Christians of the Syrian Church had been treated generously by Hindu Rulers who had allowed them to live without molestation or interference. Even Gouvea, the biographer of de Meneses, states, “that their privileges were most religiously guarded by native Rajahs.” They lived in religious matters under their own Metrans. And yet, though the Hindu Rulers had treated them like this, at the very first opportunity, they hastened to disclaim their allegiance and to accept the sovereignty of the King of Portugal. Little did they imagine that by this change they were inviting on themselves a reign of religious terror and oppression which was to culminate in the Synod of Diamper. The centuries of schism and split, which have weakened the ancient and prosperous Church of Malabar may be traced to the foolish and short-sighted action by which its representatives accepted the authority of Portugal. “Kerala Pazhama” gives detailed information about their visit to Gama, which account is also corroborated by Faria. They surrendered their privileges and authority to Portugal and undertook to conduct their affairs only in the name of the Portuguese King. The ancient records and insignia which their Chief possessed were also handed over to Gama. More than even this, they suggested to him that with their help he should conquer the Hindu Kingdoms and invited him to build a fortress for this purpose in Cranganore. This was the recompense which the Hindu Rajahs received for treating with liberality and kindness the Christians in their midst."

"But in the time of Joao III, evangelisation was taken up as a main object of policy. A Bishopric at Goa was created in 1538 and Frei Joao d’Albuquerque, a cousin of the great Governor, was sent out as Bishop. Cochin was soon raised to a Bishopric, and the Malabar coast was placed under it. The King was particularly anxious about the spread of Christianity and wrote to the Viceroy Joao de Castro demanding that all the power of the Portuguese should be directed to this purpose. “The great concernment which lies upon Christian princes to look to matters of faith and to employ their forces for its preservation makes me advise you how sensible I am that not only in many parts of India under our subjection but in our city of Goa, idols are worshipped, places in which our Faith may be more reasonably expected to flourish ; and being well informed with how much liberty they celebrated heathenish festivals. We command you to discover by diligent officers all the idols and to demolish and break them up in pieces where they are found, proclaiming severe punishments against any one who shall dare to work, cast, make in sculpture, engrave, paint or bring to light any figure of an idol in metal, brass, wood, plaster or any other matter, or bring them from other places; and against who publicly or privately celebrate any of their sports, keep by them any heathenish frankincense or assist and hide the Brahmins, the sworn enemies of the Christian profession ... It is our pleasure that you punish them with that severity of the law without admitting any appeal or dispensation in the least.”"

"The effects of Asian contacts on Europe, though considerably less, cannot be considered insignificant. The growth of capitalism in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in itself a profound and revolutionary change, is intimately connected with the expansion of European trade and business into Asia. The political development of the leading Western European nations during this period was also related to their exploitation of their Asian possessions and the wealth they derived from the trade with and government of their Eastern dependencies. Their material life, as reflected in clothing, food, beverages, etc., also bears permanent marks of their Eastern contacts. We have already dealt briefly with the penetration of cultural, artistic and philosophical influences, though their effects cannot still be estimated. Unlike the Rococo movement of the eighteenth century, the spiritual and cultural reactions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are deeper, and have not yet fully come to the surface. The influence of Chinese literature and of Indian philosophical thought, to mention only two trends which have become important in recent years, cannot be evaluated for many years to come. Yet it is true, as T. S. Eliot has stated, that most modern poets in Europe have in some measure been influenced by the literature of China. Equally the number of translations of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, which have been appearing every year, meant not for Orientalists and scholars but for the educated public, and the revival of interest in the religious experience of India, are sufficient to prove that a penetration of European thought by Oriental influences is now taking place which future historians may consider to be of some significance."

"Better understanding of the Asian mind ‑ Indian and Chinese ‑ had one further consequence which needs emphasis. It had been almost a dogma of European thought that everything of value arose in the regions that touched the Aegean Sea. Religion, philosophy, art and even science, it was claimed, originated in this area. In fact, for all civilization a Greek origin was postulated. A persistence in this belief was responsible in the early years of Oriental research for the futile attempts made to date events in Asia, especially Indian history, to periods where they could be conveniently adjusted to developments in Greece. That belief in a monopoly of wisdom for the Greeks had to be reluctantly abandoned, as a result of increased knowledge of Asian civilizations. The liberalization of the Furopean mind consequent upon the recognition of the fact that all nations have contributed towards the growth of human civilization, is a gain of considerable significance."

"It is unnecessary for our pupose to go into the sordid details of the Company's early administration of their Diwani of Bengal. In brief, it may be stated that for a decade the whole power of the organized State was directed to a single purpose ‑ plunder. It was a robber State that had come into existence, and Richard Becher, a servant of the Company, wrote to his masters in London on May 24, 1769, as follows: `It must give pain to an Englishman to have reason to think that since the accession of the Company to the Diwani the condition of the people of this country has been worse than it was before .... This fine country, which flourished under the most despotic and arbitrary government, is verging towards ruin.'..."

"In fact, in the plantation areas conditions amounting to slavery were re‑established by the planters with the acquiescence of the Government.Some idea of the misery to which the population of these areas was reduced by this system of merciless exploitation in the interests of British capital may be gained from the Bengal Indigo Commission's Report and from some of the literature of the period. Nil Darpan or the Mirror of Indigo, a Bengali drama, created a sensation by throwing a little light on this dark corner of Britain's action in India, and the reaction in official circles was so great that a European missionary, Mr Long, who translated and published it in English, was fined and imprisoned. During the whole of this period, in fact till the rise of nationalism after the Great War, conditions in plantations were of a kind which showed the worst features of European relations with Asia."

"The captain-general’s ship flew at its mast a flag on which was painted a large cross of Christ and also carried cannon, symbols of the new power entering the East."

"St Xavier had come to the East representing both the Pope ‑ as a Legate ‑ and the King as an inspector of missions. As missionary work was a State enterprise charged to the Crown's revenues in Portugal, this identification of national, interests with religious activity should not be a matter of surprise."

"Lin had made two miscalculations. He was under the impression that the British Government was not a parry to the smuggling of opium, which like an honest man he thought was the activity of unscrupulous traders and of depraved and barbarous pirates. This is well brought out in the letters which he addressed to Queen Victoria. ....Indeed the British Government was committed up to the hilt in this illegal and depraved traffic and in the piracy which went along with it. This Lin did not and could not be expected to know, especially when his own view of the State, as a true Confucian, was a moral one, where the Emperor under a mandate of Heaven upheld the proprieties.... These miscalculations affected the result, but they did not alter the legal rectitude of Lin's action. Nor could they be held to justify the action of Elliot in forcing a war on the Chinese and giving his Government's moral authority to a commercial system based on illegal traffic in drugs enforced by organized piracy."

"Wilhelm II styled himself Admiral of the Atlantic, though that ocean had never been claimed to be an inland waterway. The fleet of gunboats that cruised up and down the Yangtze was a standing temptation for the local representatives of the Great Powers to give point to their often unreasonable demands by a demonstration or the threat of a bombardment. Many instances could be given of this kind of 'gunboat diplomacy' in the interests of missionaries, private debtors and even ordinary Christian converts."

"Unfortunately, before his mission could be completed, Burlinghame died in St Petersburg. His mission was important from two points of view. In the first place he was able to secure assurances both from America and England that they would deal only with the Central Government at Peking, and the danger that existed at one time of the Powers directly negotiating with viceroys and thus securing a dissolution of the central authority on which British mercantile opinion was insistent was avoided. The Shanghai merchants' refrain at this time was `when will the Foreign Office realize that China was a confederation of many States?'"

"More important than these two considerations was the fact that Russia was at no time concerned with the two policies ‑ the forcing of opium on China and the trade in human flesh ‑ which both the people and Government of China resented and which brought her untold humiliation. ... In the `pig trade' ‑ that is, the forcible transportation of Chinese workers to plantations and mines again, in defiance of the orders of Government and of the protests of the people ‑ in this new slave trade, where sometimes forty per cent of those transported died on the way, all Western Powers including America were deeply involved. Russia, for whatever reason, was no party to it. It was these two, the `poison trade' and the `pig trade', that made the iron enter the soul of the Chinese and made them bitterly anti‑foreign."

"Also, it should be remembered that Count Lamsdorff, the Russian Foreign Minister, declared to the British Ambassador in St Petersburg that his government `took no interest in missionaries' and would not therefore associate itself with other Powers in demanding punishment of those who had attacked missionaries. This deserves to be contrasted with the demand persistently made by the Western Powers for the execution of those against whom they preferred the charges of attacking missionaries."

"Up to this time the attempt of the Portuguese, secular and missionary, was to carry the heathen fort by assault. The state enterprise in christianization, which the Portuguese attempted at Goa, Cochin and other fortified centres, was one of conversion by force. Even at Goa, with the Inquisition in force for a long time, the majority of the population however continued to be non‑Christian. Clearly the strategy of direct assault had to be given up. Valignani and Ruggieri now attempted to evolve a new line. The new policy was for the missionaries to conciliate the high officials and to render special service to them which would make the Christian propagandists valuable to those in authority. In order to do so, it was necessary to study the language, manners and customs of the country and conform to the life and etiquette of the circles in which they aspired to move."

"A violent propaganda campaign was launched by Carey and his associates against Hinduism in Bengal which seemed to them to be in a state of dissolution. But Hindu orthodoxy reacted vigorously and Lord Minto felt obliged to prohibit such propaganda in Calcutta. Minto's letter to the Court of Directors is worth quoting: `Pray read the miserable stuff addressed specially to the Gentoos (Hindus) in which . . . the pages are filled with hell fire, and hell fire and with still hotter fire, denounced against a whole race of men, for believing in the religion which they were taught by their fathers and mothers. . ."

"The French joined the second China War on the pretext ‑ which was to become a classic excuse in China to cover political aggression ‑ that the execution of a missionary demanded punishment. In the treaties that were concluded with the Powers in 1858, the missionaries obtained the privilege of travelling freely all over China, together with a guarantee of toleration of Christianity and protection to Chinese Christians in the profession of their faith. Thus was Christianity not only identified with Europe, but reduced to the position of a diplomatic interest of Western Powers in their aggression against China. The missionaries were clothed with extra‑territoriality and given the right to appeal to their consuls and ministers in the `religious' interests of Chinese Christians. No greater disservice, as history was to show, could have been rendered by its proclaimed champions to the cause of the Church of Christ. It is also significant that out of the unconscionable indemnities exacted from China after the various wars, the churches received a considerable portion. The missions thus started by benefiting from the humiliations of China and by being identified in the eyes of the Chinese with aggressions against their country."

"The treaty clauses, in fact, wrote the ultimate doom of Christian activity in China. To have believed that a religion which grew up under the protection of foreign powers, especially under humiliating conditions, following defeat, would be tolerated when the nation recovered its authority, showed extreme shortsightedness. The fact is that the missionaries, like other Europeans, felt convinced in the nineteenth century that their political supremacy was permanent, and they never imagined that China would regain a position when the history of the past might be brought up against them and their converts. `The Church', as Latourette has pointed out, `had become a partner in Western imperialism.' When that imperialism was finally destroyed, the Church could not escape the fate of its patron and ally."

"The success of the missions need not have been so meagre but for certain factors which may be discussed now. In the first place, the missionary brought with him an attitude of moral superiority and a belief in his own exclusive righteousness. The doctrine of the monopoly of truth and revelation, as claimed by William of Aubruck to Batu Khan when he said 'he that believeth not shall be condemned by God', is alien to the Hindu and Buddhist mind. To them the claim of any sect that it alone possesses the truth and others shall be `condemned' has always seemed unreasonable. Secondly the association of Christian missionary work with aggressive imperialism introduced political complications. National sentiment could not fail to look upon missionary activity as inimical to the country's interests. That diplomatic pressure, extra‑territoriality and sometimes support of gun‑boats had been resorted to in the interests of the foreign missionaries could not be easily forgotten. Thirdly, the sense of European superiority which the missionaries perhaps unconsciously inculcated produced also its reaction. Even during the days of unchallenged European political supremacy no Asian people accepted the cultural superiority of the West. The educational activities of the missionaries stressing the glories of European culture only led to the identification of the work of the missions with Western cultural aggression."

"In 1454 he [Prince Henry the Navigator] received from the Pope Nicholas V the right to all discoveries up to India. The Bull, which is of fundamental importance and is the first of three which determines the Portuguese monopoly in the East, is quoted below:...‘We, after careful deliberation, and having considered that we have by our , apostolic letters conceded to King Affonso, the right, total and absolute, to invade, conquer and subject all the countries which are under rule of the enemies of Christ, Saracen or Pagan, by our apostolic letter we wish the same King Affonso, the Prince, and all their successors, occupy and possess in exclusive rights the said islands, ports and seas undermentioned, and all faithful Christians are prohibited without the permission of the said Affonso and his successors to encroach on their sovereignty. Of the conquests already made, or to be made, all the conquests which extend to Cape Bajador and Cape Non to the coast of Guinea and all the Orient is perpetually and for the future the sovereignty of King Affonso.’"

"But he was a keen-eyed observer. He noticed that the Portuguese had landed artillery to protect the area in which Christians lived. On a visit to a Portuguese vessel to see Father Coelho he observed that the ship, though small, was heavily armed. He was also well aware of the interest that the western daimyos were manifesting in the arms and equipment of the Portuguese and of their attempts to strengthen themselves by friendship with the foreigners. Hideyoshi acted with firmness and in 1587 the activities of the missionaries were prohibited throughout the length and breadth of Japan."

"Jacques Spex had explained to Ieyasu the methods of Spain and Portugal and in 1612 Henrick Brower presented to the Shogun a memorandum on Spanish and Portuguese methods of conquest. In the time of the second Tokugawa Shogun (Hidetada) the European nations were themselves denouncing each other's imperialist intentions. The Japanese converts had, as elsewhere, shown that their sympathies were with their foreign mentors and for this they had to pay a very heavy price. The Christian rebellion of 1637 in Shembara disclosed this danger to the Shogun. It took a considerable army and a costly campaign to put down the revolt which was said to have received support from the Portuguese. The Japanese were also fully informed of the activities of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Spaniards and the English in the islands of the Pacific especially in the Philippines, the Moluccas and Java ‑ and these had taught them the necessity of dealing with the foreigners firmly and of denying them an opportunity to gain a foothold on Japanese territory. In 1615 the Japanese sent a special spy to the southern regions to report on the activities of the Europeans there. They were strengthened by the information that reached them in 1622 of a Spanish plan to invade Japan itself. By the beginning of the seventeenth century Spain had consolidated her position in the Philippines, where she maintained a considerable naval force. Japan was the only area in the Pacific which Spain could attack without interfering with Portuguese claims or the Papal distribution of the world which in her own interests she was bound to uphold. It seemed natural to the Spaniards that they should undertake this conquest. The reaction of the Shogunate was sharp and decisive. All Spaniards in Japan were ordered to be deported, the firm policy of eliminating the converts was put into effect and a few years later the country was closed to the Western nations."

"One strange act, which was precursor of many such in Chinese history, may be noted. The Chinese Repository, XI, 68o, records: 'Sept. 3. A party of British officers and others acting the barbarian in right good earnest visited the porcelain tower. They went (so the Abbots testified) with hatchets and chisels and hammers and cut off and carried away large masses doing no inconsiderable damage.' A Chinese observer of this desecration noted that `the English barbarians frequently ascended the pagoda . . . took away several glazed tiles, which is indeed detestable in the extreme'. William Dallas Barnard even excuses this act of desecration as 'a not unnatural desire to possess specimens or relics'. This inveterate tendency to desecrate and destroy was repeated again and again in European relations with China, in the Summer Palace in 1860, in Tientsin in 1870, and in Peking itself in 1900."

"The explanation for capturing the vessel is perhaps to be found in Barroes’ remark: ‘It is true that there does exist a common right to all to navigate the seas and in Europe we recognize the rights which others hold against us; but the right does not extend beyond Europe and therefore the Portuguese as Lords of the Sea are justified in confiscating the goods of all those who navigate the seas without their permission.’ Strange and comprehensive claim, yet basically one which every European nation, in its turn, held firmly almost to the end of Western supremacy in Asia. It is true that no other nation put it forward so crudely or tried to enforce it so barbarously as the Portuguese in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, but the principle that the doctrines of international law did not apply outside Europe, that what would be barbarism in London or Paris is civilized conduct in Peking (e.g. the burning of the Summer Palace) and that European nations had no moral obligations in dealing with Asian peoples (as for example when Britain insisted on the opium trade against the laws of China, though opium smoking was prohibited by law in England itself) was pact of the accepted creed of Europe’s relations with Asia. So late as 1870 the President of the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce declared: ‘China can in no sense be considered a country entitled to all the same rights and privileges as civilized nations which are bound by international law.’ Till the end of European domination the fact that rights existed for Asians against Europeans was conceded only with considerable mental reservation. In countries under direct British occupation, like India, Burma and Ceylon, there were equal rights established by law, but that as against Europeans the law was not enforced very rigorously was known and recognized. In China, under extra‑territorial jurisdiction, Europeans were protected against the operation of Chinese laws. In fact, except in Japan this doctrine of different rights persisted to the very end and was a prime cause of Europe’s ultimate failure in Asia."

"Legislature protected the right of converts to their share in Hindu joint families, and High Court decisions enabled converts to blackmail their wives to follow them into the fold of their new religion. The Government also encouraged the missionaries to work among the backward tribes.”"

"“It was the devout hope of Macaulay… and of many others, that the diffusion of new learning among the higher classes would see the dissolution of Hinduism and the widespread acceptance of Christianity. The missionaries were of the same view, and they entered the education field with enthusiasm, providing schools and colleges in many parts of India where education in the Christian Bible was compulsory for Hindu students. The middle classes accepted Western education with avidity and willingly studied Christian scriptures, but neither the dissolution of Hindu society so hopefully predicted nor the conversion of the intellectuals so devoutly hoped for showed any sign of materialization. On the other hand, Hinduism assimilated the new learning, and the effects were soon visible all over India in a revival of a universalistic religion based on the Vedanta.”"

"“The feudal rulers of that part of Japan were anxious at that time to attract Portuguese vessels to the harbours mainly with the object of strengthening themselves against other feudal Lords. They realized instinctively the close connection between the foreign powers across the seas and the missionaries who had come to preach the new religion.”"

"“The commander of a Spanish galleon which was driven ashore spoke of Spanish power and recounted to the local daimyo who had salvaged the vessel and claimed the cargo the glories and prowess of the Conquistadores in a boastful manner. Hideyoshi’s suspicious mind, already aware of Portuguese action in the East, ordered the arrest of all Spaniards in the country and had them crucified in Nagasaki as spies.”"

"“These sisters arranged for the payment of a sum for every child brought to the orphanage, that is, in plain words established a kind of purchase system, encouraging the less scrupulous Chinese middlemen to kidnap children…"

"[The Treaty that followed] “provided for the suspension of official examinations for five years in towns where foreigners had been molested - a device meant to give a chance to the missionary educated young men and Christians to be employed in service…”"

"“Sir John Bowring, who negotiated the treaty of 1855, was able to secure the principle of extra-territoriality for British subjects, permission to build churches and exemption of all duty for import of opium.”"

"“The monarch of Siam assumed the title of the Defender of the Buddhist Faith in imitation of the British King’s title. The conservative but generally enlightened policy followed by the monarchy during the critical period between 1870 and 1920 had the effect of getting Siam through the transition without violent tumult and a disorganization of society, so that in the period following the First [World] War she was enabled to recover her natural independence in full by the gradual abolition, through negotiations, of the rights of extraterritoriality which the foreign nations possessed.”"

"There was considerable missionary sympathy for Karen separatism, and not an insignificant part of the troubles that Burma had to face after her independence may justifiably be attributed to the favouritism with which the Christian elements among the Karens were treated by the West."

"Not satisfied with this, after entering Peking, Lord Elgin ordered the burning of the Summer Palace `whose splendours' the conquerors themselves had `found it difficult to describe'. This action Elgin in his ignorance had imagined would impress the Oriental and leave a lasting fear of the European in the Chinese mind. By a strange process of reasoning, the Europeans have, throughout their relations with Asians, convinced themselves that acts of savagery and inhumanity will increase their prestige in the eyes of Asian people. ... The Elgins have been unfortunate in their historical imagination- — whether it be in respect of Greek marbles or Chinese palaces."

"“With the Portuguese, Christianization was a state enterprise.” (Asia and Western Dominance, London, 1953, p. 380)."

"Panikkar’s study was primarily aimed at providing a survey of Western imperialism in Asia from CE 1498 to 1945. Christian missions came into the picture simply because he found them arrayed always and everywhere alongside Western gunboats, diplomatic pressures, extraterritorial rights and plain gangsterism. Contemporary records consulted by him could not but cut to size the inflated images of Christian heroes such as Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci. They were found to be not much more than minions employed by European kings and princes scheming to carve out empires in the East. Their methods of trying to convert kings and commoners in Asia, said Panikkar, were force or fraud or conspiracy and morally questionable in every instance. Finding that “missionary activities… which became so prominent a feature of European relations with Asia were connected with Western political supremacy in Asia and synchronised with it” he concluded: “It may indeed be said that the most serious, persistent and planned effort of European nations in the nineteenth century was their missionary activities in India and China, where a large-scale attempt was made to effect a mental and spiritual conquest at supplementing the political authority already enjoyed by Europe. Though the results were disappointing in the extreme from the missionary point of new, this assault on the spiritual foundations of Asian countries has had far-reaching consequences in the religious and social reorganization of the people..."

"The message that Panikkar had tried to convey to Asians in general and to his own countrymen in particular was that the history of Christianity surveyed by him was a running commentary on the imperialist character of the Christian doctrine. But the Brown Sahibs who had taken over from the British - the politicians and the intellectual’s elite in India - failed to grasp his message and ignored his monumental study altogether. On the other hand, the missionaries were up in arms against him. “To prove his point,” they said, “Panikkar picks and chooses historical facts and then deals with them one-sidedly.” But none of them came out with facts which could redeem or even counterbalance those. presented by Panikkar. Efforts to explain them away or put another interpretation on them, also remained a poor exercise. Fr. Jerome D’Souza had jibed, “A very fine narrative Mr. Panikkar, but you must not call it history.” But he or his missionary colleagues never bothered to tell what was that history which Panikkar had not taken into account. Subsequent Christian writings show that the missionaries have never been able to stop smarting from the hurt caused by Panikkar’s book."

"What hurt the Christian missionaries most, however, was Panikkar’s observation that “the doctrine of the monopoly of truth and revelation… is alien to the Hindu and Buddhist mind” and that “to them the claim of any sect that it alone represented the truth and other shall be condemned has always seemed unreasonable”. He had knocked the bottom out of the missionary enterprise. No monopoly of truth and revelation, no missions. It was as simple as that."

"The Christian missionary orchestra in India after independence has continued to rise from one crescendo to another with the applause of the Nehruvian establishment manned by a brood of self-alienated Hindus spawned by missionary-macaulayite education. The only rift in the lute has been K.M. Panikkar’s Asia and Western Dominance published in 1953, the Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Committee Madhya Pradesh published in 1956, Om Prakash Tyagi’s Bill on Freedom of Religion introduced in the Lok Sabha in 1978, Arun Shourie’s Missionaries in India published in 1994 and the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill introduced in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly by Mangal Prabhat Lodha, M.L.A. on 20 December 1996."

"A new image of medieval India had also emerged in my mind by reading K.M. Panikkar’s A Survey of Indian History. It was no more the India of Muslim monarchs ruling leisurely over a large empire, building mosques and mazãrs and madrasas and mansions, and patronizing poets and other men of letters. On the contrary, it was the story of the long-drawn-out war which took a decisive turn to the disadvantage of Islamic imperialism with the rise of Shivaji. The war had ended in a victory for the Hindus by the middle of the 18th century."

"I still remember how much impact the portions on missionaries in Sarkar Panikkar's Asia and Western Dominance made on me."

"I have seriously changed my mind on this subject; I have no axe to grind, as it were, no position or reputation to maintain; I can and shall change my mind again if strong and sufficient evidence emerges. Prof Witzel raises many points for discussion - some useful, some wasteful - but offers no evidence other than conjecture. Conjecture or hypothesis is not admissible as evidence in any impartial Court of Law."

"The Aryans, even according to the AIT, moved not into a vacuum but a region thickly populated by a people who may have been on the decline and moving eastward but who were also more numerous, more advanced in urbanized civilization and literate. Now, would the immigrants be in a position to give new names and would the natives accept them for their rivers? … I doubt it. When thousands of Greeks were forced out of Turkey in the early 1920s and immigrated into the Greek islands and the mainland, they formed new communities and often gave to these the names of their former habitats (eg New Ionia, New Smyrna, New Halkidona etc). This is as far as their “nostalgia” went. They did not rechristen nearby mountains, plains or rivers, but accepted the existing geographical nomenclature."

"Neither the AIT, nor the invasionists’ or non-invasionists’ views, nor IE reconstructions, nor philological, archeological etc pursuits, hold much interest for me. What essentially concerns me is the subject of Ethics (in Scholarship and daily life) because this will determine how we meet death. Everything else in the world can be avoided, hoodwinked etc, but not death. Ethics also infuses communal life with the quality of excellence."

"So sarcasm should be aimed at in that direction also - unless W practises discriminatory self-restraint... the isoglosses - an area full of quick-sand uncertainties."

"Such were the motives of the mainstream pundits who were also pillars of the Church: to preserve their own power. Why today all this feverish fight against the indigenists? I don’t believe it is racist as many Indians think, nor any noble motive to keep Indological studies “scholarly”as W claims, though neither need be ruled out altogether. I think it is mainly the most shameful of all motives – to be on top and keep control of others. As soon as a Head of Dept or Professor feels strong (and rich) enough, they launch a Journal (with other people’s money) to promote their own pet theories, acquire kudos, confound opposition and control thinking thus perpetuating their own power and all the advantages this entails. And to this referred E Leach in a quotation I gave fully in AS ¨ 19, very end, which W presented in a truncated form omitting the sentences saying that IE scholars did not scrap their theories because “vested interests and academic posts were involved”. I added “They still are”. And W ought to know because like Leach he has been up to his ears in the game for many years. (Sweeping the dirt under the doormat will not make it disappear.)"

"And in case these academics wonder, yes, I would allow a dissenting view if I edited a Journal: I am not afraid of truth and I have no position, no reputation and no income to maintain."

"Why does he attack this group of Indians and allies himself to a group of marxists, like the editors of Frontline? A Professor of his standing ought to be publishing his scholarly papers in the most prestigious academic Journals (like ABORI), not lend status to such popular magazines. Marxists of this sort have caused untold damage to every country – whether they usurped power (as in Czechoslovakia) or failed to do so (as in Greece)."

"The odd thing about this story is that the heliocentric view was known in Europe long before Copernicus but, for various reasons, was totally ignored by the "established" dogma... All this time all kinds of absurdities were written about the heavens, the celestial spheres, the Empyrean and so on, which constituted the “established” view. And all the time the real knowledge was there and all those schoolmen, could, with some practical observation and sensible application of Mathematics, have found out that the Ptolemaic system was not true. But they did not: they preferred to argue about such weighty matters as how many angles could sit on the point of a pin. And when the proofs were presented to them in black and white, hard and irrefutable mathematical demonstrations, they still rejected them preferring the comforts of the ‘‘established” dogma. Theology (and Church interests) decided what was acceptable, not Mathematics."

"The situation whereby the Aryans are indigenous and compose the bulk of the [Rg Veda] in the 4th millennium in Saptasindhu is a very simple one and in harmony with the archaeological data in the region. Scholars who think that this simple situation is at odds with their linguistic theories need do no more than reexamine these theories, which necessitate the further theory of the Aryan immigration, which theory generates complexities and problems and is in conflict with the data of archaeology. After all it is not as though these linguistic theories are without problems of their own or that in their present form they harmonize with archaeological data anywhere else in the Eurasian belt involved....Instead of emitting such strident emotional cries and witch- hunt slogans, Prof Witzel and his followers had better re-examine their unfounded linguistic assumptions and recall the words of Edmund Leach [published in 1990], who was neither an Indian nationalist technocrat, nor a New-Age writer, but a solid, mainstream pillar of the academic establishment..."

"The all-inclusiveness of the RV in the realm of mythology is also observable in the sphere of poetics. There is hardly a major poetic device in the various IE branches that is not present in the RV. A significant aspect, for example, is that in early Greek poetry (epics of Homer and Hesiod, and some epigraphic material) the fairly strict syllabic meter (the hexameter with its dactylic, iambic and other variants) is preponderant with only traces of alliteration; in Germanic poetry alliteration prevails while the syllabic meter is very loose: both are present in the RV. ...Early Irish poetry (6th century CE) has both meter and alliteration (and rhyme) but this hardly counts since the Irish poets knew these poetic devices “from Vergil and Ovid” and, of course, the Romans developed them from the Greek tradition."

"Frankly, his strident obsession with New-Age/Hindutva/Right-wing recalls right-winger MacCarthy who thought he saw in every closet conspiring communists, or left-winger Stalin hounding Jews, Gypsies, dissidents, revisionists and other “enemies of the State”."

"Furthermore, if W had examined his last reference with only a fraction of the assiduity he uses to witch-hunt New-Age/Hindutva/Right-wing people he would have noticed... If we reject every ancient source (even if not Indian) because it does not suit our theory, we may as well end the pretence of discussion."

"First, it is the function of scholarship to establish and promote true knowledge so that our life be regulated by this – not prejudices, partisan views (even patriotic but false) or pet theories. Second, Indian (proto-)history must be restored and revalued in a correct time-frame."

"Subsequently I taught the AIT with the South Russian Steppe as the locus of dispersal of the Indo-Europeans (IE hereafter) for 18 years and I wrote a Course of Sanskrit (in Md Greek) in which I actually concocted fictitious passages about the Aryans invading with chariots and subduing the natives who thought it prudent to accept them and cooperate! In 1987, I began to wonder about the AIT. In the same year I went to India and collected much material which took a few years to sort out and digest, since I had little acquaintance with Indian archaeology and early history. What became abundantly clear in the early 1990s (and filled me with incredulity) was the fact that there was no evidence whatever for any invasion (which by that time was becoming “migration”)."

"Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo were ‘revisionists’ in rejecting the geocentric system of Ptolemy (which held sway for some 1500 years) and, against an oppressive and repressive mainstream opinion (and officialdom), reinstated—with improvements—the heliocentric system of Aristarchos of Samos (3rd cent BCE)."

"M. Witzel attacked several scholars who since the early 1990s manifested support for the Indian Indigenous Origin (IIO hereafter); amid various criticisms he used the term “revisionists”, ignoring obviously that in the early 19th century many European scholars took India, on the strength of Sanskrit, to be the original homeland... The term “revisonist” is therefore inapplicable. Witzel ignores also that Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo were ‘revisionists’ in rejecting the geocentric system..."

"In summing up his extended survey of linguistic evidence Witzel tells us that the mode of the IA entry is "archaeologically still little traced"; it is, he states, securely traced in the texts (horses, chariots, religion etc) and from linguistics and possibly from future studies of the male Y chromosome (2001: 55-56). Here we have an attempt at falsification ("little" when in fact it is none) and wishful thinking. Neither horses and chariots nor linguistic phenomena, such as Witzel provides, prove any entry. They are interpretations of facts by a mind already colored by the AIT."

"In this study Witzel talks of a peaceful immigration but also uses the terms "battles" and "campaigns" (324), "initial conquest" (326) and "frequent warfare" (339) thus indicating that beneath the lipservice to "migration" (which became fashionable) lurks the notion of invasion."

"That most mainstream philologists will react unfavourably to this thesis I take for granted. I know well in myself the force of habit and of attachment to deep-rooted notions that reacts more through emotional outbursts than cool rationality. I repeat that the issue of origins, of when and how, is one not for philologists but for archaeologists and experts in related fields. We owe it, other than to the peoples of India who, I think, have long been wronged (by their own faults no less than foreign influences), to truth itself, which is the primary concern of all of us, to consider this thesis without prejudice."

"Sanskrit appears to have lost far fewer items and preserves much greater organic coherence than the other branches. This supports the general idea that Sanskrit is much closer to Proto-Indo-European and that, since this could only happen in sedentary conditions, the Indoaryan speakers of Sanskrit did not move (much) from the original homeland."

"Now in Avestan ‘lake/pool’ is vairi-. In fact Avestan has no verb or nouns cognate to the Sanskrit ones √sṛ >sar-. The only cognation is harah- in the name of the river harahvaiti – nothing else. But S √sṛ >sar- is a perfectly PIE morpheme appearing in Tocharian B sal-ate, Gk hiallō/hallomai and Latin salire all implying ‘moving, jumping’. Avestan somehow lost this root and its derivatives. So, how did the Iranians manage to concoct this name Harahvaiti, that sounds so exactly like a transliteration of the Vedic Sarasvatī , when they had no words from √sṛ > sar-? Adherents of the AIT offer no rational answers. (For full discussion see Kazanas 2004b, Prabhakar 1994/1995.) There is only one possible explanation. The Iranians, having lived in Saptasindhu moved to Iran (retaining the memory of the place as Haptahәndu); on meeting an amenable river there they gave it the name of the river they had formerly known – Sarasvati > Harahvaiti. The AIT can in no way, except by violating rationality, explain the two Avestan names Haptahәndu and Harahvaiti. This, if nothing else, should have alerted the AIT adherents to the possibility that there is something very seriously wrong in their migrationist scenario. Moreover, it is part of the general linguistic theory that the Avestan h derives from PIE s: so, it is again extremely difficult to see how the IAs who moved further southeast, retained the original s (in saras and saptasindhu) while the Iranians changed it to h."

"From a very long experience of reading, studying and teaching, of participating in Conferences and, in recent years, of editing articles for Journals (and, of course, private contacts and exchanges with scholars in many fields) I acquired the certainty that very few academics use their reason to the full and even fewer are, despite their vociferous protestations to the contrary, interested in truth."

"This, then, is the basis for the mainstream chronology of ancient Indian literature and the AIT. It is not based on linguistic evidence as is generally and vaguely but vociferously claimed but on a ghost story composed 2500 years after the alleged Aryan invasion (which initially was Egyptian and Mesopotamian) and on a Christian ecclesiastic myth: in other words, on two fictions!"

"How did the Indoaryans manage to maintain an oral tradition of such quality that their culture retained more cultural elements (eg names of deities) and many more lexical items (and grammatical features as any text on IE philology testifies? The only explanation I can think of regarding the superiority in retentions of Sanskrit is that the Indoaryans moved very little or not at all."

"It could be argued that the IAs developed their complex but secure system of oral transmission while on the move. ... But, if that were so, what would the IAs (or Indo- Iranians, since they were one people, according to the AIT) be transmitting and thus preserving? Their sacred RV was composed in the Saptasindhu. If they had developed their superb system while on the move, then they would have at least a few tales of their adventurous trekking and these would have been embodied in the hymns of the RV."

"Rather, the Iranians left the region of the 7 rivers and held the name in their memory. Something very similar happens with the V river-name Sarasvat/ and Av Harahvaiti-. Avestan has no other cogn with harah- whereas S has sr > sarati/sisarti, sarana, saras, sarit, etc, etc and of course cognates are found in other IE branches: here again it is the Iranians that took with them the memory of the Indic river and gave it to a river in their new habitat... Moreover, Vedic retains the PIE s but this becomes h in Avestan. All this actual linguistic evidence and the conclusion it forces upon us has some archaeological/geographical support. G Gnoli, who is a normal AIT adherent and by no means an indigenist, showed very clearly that the early portions of the Avesta hardly know northern and western Iran and he analyses migrations there from south to north and east to west but not north- west down to south-east (1980). Thus while the conjectural Indo-Iranian movement south-eastward contains many anomalies, the Iranian movement from Saptasindhu north-westward accommodates all facts."

"Saptasindhu as the name of the ancient region of the Seven Rivers in N-W India and Pakistan - countries which did not exist at that period. I use it as a bahuvrīhi, as many others have done before me, although in the RV we find references only to the Seven Rivers saptá síndhavaḥ (and different oblique cases of the plural). Now (e6) Avestan has the name Haptahǝndu as a place, like Airyana Vaējah, Raŋhā, Haetumant, etc, from which the Iranians had passed before settling down in eastern Iran, then spreading west and north. But what is this name? Yes, hapta- is the numeral ‘seven’ but what of hǝndhu? It is a fairly obvious Avestan correspondence to the Sanskrit síndhu. Now hǝndu is an isolated occurrence. The stem does not otherwise exist in Avestan. Hindu appears in Old Persian indicating the Indian province under the Achaemenids, and that is all. The interpretation ‘seven rivers’ comes from the Sanskrit collocation. But the Avestan for river is usually θraotah- (=S srotas) and raodah-.... Surely nobody would be so foolhardy as to suggest that the IAs took this otherwise unattested stem from Iranian and used it so commonly and productively."

"But what of the Iranian name Haraxvaiti? This name appears in the first chapter of the Vidēvdād along with placenames Haetumant (=Helmand), Māuru or Margu (= Margiana), Bāxδī or dhri (=Bactria) etc and, of course, Haptahǝndu. Haraxvaiti means simply ‘one who has harah-’. But Harah̦ - or Harax- is a stem entirely isolated in Avestan: it has no cognates, no other related lexemes.... But nothing, not one cognate, in Avestan other than the lonely and pitiful *harah̦ -! Observe now two absurdities implicit in the Doctrine. The Iranians who stayed put in Iran lost their own root *har/*hǝrᵊ- or whatever and all derivatives, while the IAs who moved further away retained this thoroughbred IE root and all its ramifications. And then they gave the name Sarasvatī (with the change of ha > sa) not to a large river like the Indus but to a dried-up stream in memory of the Haraxvaiti in Arachosia!"

"I find it very difficult to think that I am dealing with a science fully grounded in the realities of language as we ordinarily know and use it. All these specialized terms, the artificial models, the reconstructions that exist in no known texts and cannot be verified and the endless hypotheses — they all seem to belong to a world of airy-fairy speculation."

"I start with some literary evidence. RV 4.1.13 & 4. 2.16 the Angirases declare that their ancestors made sacrifices “here” atra, ie in Saptasindhu. 3.53.11 Sudās fought enemies prāk ‘east’, apāk ‘west’ and udāk ‘north’ only, but not south. So we have no Indoaryans coming from the north and driving natives southward. The movement here is from east westward (apāk) and from south northword (udāk)! M6.61.9,12: Sarasvatī, the Rivergoddess, spread all five tribes beyond the other seven sister-rivers as the sun spreads out the days – again, days and sunlight from the east! 7.6.3 Agni turned the unholy Dasyus from east to west –pūrvaś cakāra áparām! Notice – NOT SOUTH (avāk or nyāk)."

"All in all, I cannot fault Kazanas for feeling the need to undertake a critique of the evidence supporting the Aryan Migration hypothesis. In my view, the Indo-Aryan invasion/migration theory, at least in its present forms, as well as the dating of the Vedic texts, remain unresolved issues that invite unbiased fresh scrutiny."

"I agree that a plausible explanation has yet to be given as to how the newcomers could have completely eradicated the pre-existing language of the entire North of the subcontinent in the short interval normally allotted between their arrival and the composition of the Rg Veda, in which the local topography is Indo-Aryan. ... Kazanas has a right to wonder how and why would the Indus Valley dwellers have so thoroughly and completely adopted the language of these illiterate herdsmen if the latter were not invaders – a status denied them by archaeology?"

"I do believe, though, that Kazanas is doing a great service to Indology in campaigning to change the mindset of how academia an interested intelligent people all over look at the dating of the early Indian tradition. While my disagreements with Kazanas are significant, they pale when it is taken into consideration that we both agree that there is no reasonable reason for the usual present Western academic dating of the Vedic tradition, and that this tradition is to be dated much earlier."

"... the changing perception of the chronology of the Indian proto-history (see "The Rgveda and the Indo-Europeans" by Nicholas Kazanas, ABORI vol. 80, 1999, pp. 15-42) has not been taken into account. If it gets well-established, a fresh thinking on this subject may be necessary."

"Kazanas is heavily influenced here by Frawley’s most amazing paradox."

"Hedged in though she [Savitri] is by mortality, her life‘s movement keeps the measure of the Gods. Painting her being and its human-divine beauty Sri Aurobindo achieves some of his supreme effects. Perhaps his grandest capture of the mantra are the nine verses which form the centre of a long passage, variously mantric, in which Savitri‘s avatarhood is characterised (...) A hieratic poetry, demanding a keen sense of the occult and spiritual to compass both its subjective and objective values, is in this audacious and multi-dimensioned picture of a highly Yogic state of embodied being. Not all might respond to it and Sri Aurobindo knew that such moments in Savitri would have to wait long for general appreciation. But he could not be loyal to his mission without giving wide scope to the occult and spiritual and seeking to poetise them as much as possible with the vision and rhythm proper to the summits of reality. Of course, that vision and that rhythm are not restricted to the posture and contour of the summits, either the domains of divine dynamism or (...) or the mid-worlds, obscure or luminous, fearsome or marvellous, of which Savitri‘s father, King Aswapathy, carries out a long exploration which is one of the finest and most fascinating parts of the poem. They extend to the earth-drama too and set living amongst us the mysteries and travails of cosmic evolution, like that dreadful commerce of Savitri with one to whom Sri Aurobindo gives no name:"

"“the true nature of the campaign in which SudAs is engaged… (is the) conquest over supernatural agents who… stand inwardly antagonistic to the Divine light.”...[The DAsas ranged against SudAs,] were “supernatural deniers and destroyers of the inner and spiritual progress of spiritual initiates,”269 and the Aryas ranged against him were “the lords of higher states of being and consciousness in the inner world, beyond whom the Aryan man would go and who therefore resent his progress and join hands with the DAsas/Dasyus, the obstructors in that occult dimension.”"

"As there are no depictions of the cow, in contrast to the pictures of the bull, which are abundant, should we conclude that Harappa and Mohenjo- daro had only bulls? And what about that mythical animal, the unicorn, which is the most common pictorial motif on the seals? Was the unicorn a common animal of the proto- historic Indus Valley? Surely, the presence or absence of depictions cannot point unequivocally to the animals known and decide for or against Aryanism?"

"According to Aurobindo,... there are passages in which the spiritual interpretation of the Dasas, Dasyus and Panis is the sole one possible and all others are completely excluded. There are no passages in which we lack a choice either between this interpretation and a nature-poetry or between this interpretation and the reading of human enemies."

"The case for a fresh perspective in the post-Alexandrine epoch is argued in a positive tone which may create the impression in some places that the writer has no misgiving at all about any element of his thesis. As said at the very start of this Introduction, no historian can afford to be cocksure: he must always keep his mind plastic. But he is allowed to state as forcibly as he can whatever he believes to be worthy of audience - all the more if he is pleading on behalf of something that has seemed a lost cause . The present writer has no wish to appear in the eyes of historians a convinced heretic. He is prepared for criticism, open to correction and agreeable to further dialogue. What he has not bargained for is indifference. His hope is to deserve, by setting about his job as honestly and thoroughly as possible, the right of the Themistoclean appeal: "Strike, but hear!""

"We may legitimately conclude: "Th ere were a number of Saka Eras. Two of them were much older than that of 78 A.D ., and one of them which both Bhattotpala and Varahamihira have used to indicate the epochs of their works went back to the middle of the 6th century before Christ: the year 551-550."

"Whatever we may say, by way of criticism, about fixing the Kaliyuga in 3102 B.C., the Bhārata War in 3138 B.C., the coronation of Mahapādma Nanda in 1638 B.C. or, since the Nandas Purānically reigned 100 years, the beginning of the Mauryas in 1538 B.C, we cannot help being struck by the precision with which this chronology leads us to synchronise Chandragupta I with Sandrocottus."

"Even without our calculations about the kingdoms and dynasties of the post-Andhra epoch, the very fact that the Puranas can terminate the Andhras in 390 B.C. and that a Chandragupta of Pataliputra arrives on the scene not long after—this very fact is enough, with Sandrocottus in the last quarter of the 4th century B.C., to make us sit up and take sharp notice of the extraordinary coincidence."

"Surely, there is a limit even to the lack of the historical sense we may attribute to Indian chronologists. Critics of the Puranic time-scheme would definitely overshoot the mark by asking us to believe that an Indian living day after day under a particular king could be mad enough to push publicly the same monarch back in history by more than 6 centuries. Here is a reductio ad absurdum of the modern criticism and of the chronology currently accepted."

"It seems impossible to doubt that Prithu Vainya at the commencement and Chandragupta I, founder of the Imperial Gupta in Magadha, at the termination are what the Indian informants of Megasthenes intended when they spoke of a series of 153 kings from Dionysus to Sandrocottus. Through Megasthenes the Purānic chronology of the rise of the Imperial Guptas in the last quarter of the 4th century B.C. appears to be completely vindicated."

""Here is the book I was looking for," I had said to myself aloud as I finished the first edition of The Problem of Aryan Origins by K.D. Sethna... [it was] undoubtedly a brilliant piece of research. I had seen in this book the birth of a new dawn on the horizon of Indian historiography... It was in the midst of this stifling atmosphere that K.D. Sethna's work came like a breath of fresh air. But now a whole school of historians is coming forward... All of them recognize K.D. Sethna as the forerunner in the field. Future generations are bound to hail him as the harbringer of a new dawn."

"It is telling that the pioneering work on this topic by K.D.Sethna has been thoroughly ignored by India's politically motivated historians."

"“Orientalism is reproduced in the name of a critique of Orientalism. It is completely irrelevant whether one uses a Marx, a Weber or a Max Müller to do so. (…) the result is the same: uninteresting trivia, as far as the growth of human knowledge is concerned; but pernicious in its effect as far as Indian intellectuals are concerned.”"

"[About caste,] “Nehru used Orientalist descriptions of the Indian society of his day and made their facts his own.” [the Western India-watcher] “is not accounting for the Indian caste system by using the notion of fossilized coalitions in India; he is trying to establish the truth of Nehru’s observations (that is, the truth of the Orientalist descriptions of India)”, [because the social sciences] “where uncontested, (…) presuppose the truth of the Orientalist descriptions of non-Western cultures.”"

"“When Indian intellectuals use existing theories about religion and its history – for example, to analyse ‘Hindu-Muslim’ strife – they reproduce, both directly and indirectly, what the West has been saying so far. (…) the ‘secularist’ discourse about this issue can hardly be distinguished – both in terms of the contents or the vocabulary – from Orientalist writings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” (p.47) [Secularism is the direct heir of the colonial dispensation.]"

"“The secular state assumes that the Semitic religions and the Hindu traditions are instances of the same kind”"

"Here, India will be a global player of considerable political and economic impact. As a result, the need to explicate what it means to be an Indian (and what the ‘Indianness’ of the Indian culture consists of) will soon become the task of the entire intelligentsia in India. In this process, they will confront the challenge of responding to what the West has so far thought and written about India. A response is required because the theoretical and textual study of the Indian culture has been undertaken mostly by the West in the last three hundred years. What is more, it will also be a challenge because the study of India has largely occurred within the cultural framework of America and Europe. In fulfilling this task, the Indian intelligentsia of tomorrow willhave to solve a puzzle: what were the earlier generations of Indian thinkers busy with, in the course of the last two to three thousand years? The standard textbook story, which has schooled multiple generations including mine, goes as follows: caste system dominates India, strange and grotesque deities are worshipped in strange andgrotesque ways, women are discriminated against, the practice of widow-burning exists and corruption is rampant. If these properties characterize India of today and yesterday, the puzzle about what the earlier generation of Indian thinkers were doing turns into a very painful realization: while the intellectuals of Europeanculture were busy challenging and changing the world, most thinkersin Indian culture were apparently busy sustaining and defendingundesirable and immoral practices. Of course there is our Buddha andour Gandhi but that is apparently all we have: exactly one Buddha and exactly one Gandhi. If this portrayal is true, the Indians have butone task, to modernize India, and the Indian culture but one goal: to become like the West as quickly as possible."

"Going deeper into the history of these disciplines (with respect to India) drove home some lessons very deeply: in both form and content, there was pretty little to differentiate between the Christian missionary reports of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries and the Indological tracts."

"Modern psychoanalysis of India, beginning with Carstair’s ‘The Twice Born’ through ‘The Oceanic Feeling’ of Mussaief-Masson (another Indologist using psychoanalysis to understand Indian religions), had already told our tale: Indian culture was ‘narcissistic’ (in the sense of ‘secondary narcissism’) and thus pathological in nature."

"Most of our so-called social sciences are not ‘sciences’ in any sense of the term: they are merely bad Christian theologies"

"If this is true, it also helps us understand why both ‘conversion’ and the notion of ‘secularism’ jars Indian sensibilities. Somehow or the other, Nehruvian ‘secularism’ always connotes a denigration of Indian traditions; if you look at the debates in the EPW and SEMINAR and journals like that, one thing is very clear: none of the participants really understands what ‘secularism’ means. In India, ‘secularism’ is counter posed to ‘communalism’ whereas ‘the secular’, in European languages, has only one contrast—‘the sacred’."

"Zydenbos launches personal attacks on me, on Jakob De Roover, and on those coming from the University of Ghent. He tries to make my credentials appear suspect because, heaven forbid, www.bharatvani.org provides a link to an article I wrote and published elsewhere! Koenraad Elst hails from Belgium, I teach at a Belgian University, my article is referenced to by a ‘Hindutva filth factory’ and, voila, he suggests, ‘perhaps a glance at Bharatvani helps us hermeneutically to gain an insight into the intentions behind the writings coming out of Ghent.’"

"Brahminism is an invention of western Indology. Indology which is fond of ‘-isms’ has created quite a few: Brahminism, Vedism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on."

"All you need to know at this stage is that while it is true that people subjugate people, so does a religion. The latter’s colonisation is an entirely different process from conversion into a religion."

"Superficially speaking, Islamification looks very much like religious conversion, but it is not. The violent subduing of socio-cultural phenomena and attempts to deform them make this phase (or aspect) of Islam different from religious conversion. Conversion is an individual religious process, whereas Islamification is a secularisation process at a social scale driven by violence."

"Take the example of the reaction of most Indian intellectuals to the movie The Kashmir Files and the massive response of ordinary people. If the first aspect demonstrates anything, it lays bare the absolute barrenness of Indian intellectual landscape. I have not read a single reflection or review that even minimally tries to understand what people are responding to when they respond to the movie. Like everything else, this too is another occasion for moralising lectures about communalism, posturing against the imputed hatred the movie apparently propagates combined with expressions of pseudo-horror about an allegedly partial portrayal. Very few things can move the entire population like this movie did and I am still thinking about it. And perhaps will also write on the movie. Tragedies or violence are not new, especially when they are in the news every day. So, it cannot be that the overwhelming response of people had only to do with the horrors faced by the Pandits in Kashmir or the treachery of our ruling classes (politicians, intellectuals, and media). Shortly after the movie came out, I saw it in Belgium, I remember telling my daughter that this movie would enter the national consciousness of India."

"What I hope will happen in India is that a generation will come which can look at the ravages wrought by colonialism and the post-independence institutions and start dismantling the useless and dangerous structures and start building anew. They will have to be intellectuals and builders, formed and shaped by the consequences of the current generation’s failures. Perhaps the grandchildren of the millennials. They will need intellectual tools and frameworks. It is for that posterity that I write."

"Balu is a Kannadiga Brahmin by birth, a former Marxist, and his discourse has a very in-your-face quality. In his latest book, Reconceptualizing India Studies, the attentive reader will see a critique of the Indological establishment in the West and the political and cultural establishment in India. Like Rajiv Malhotra’s recent works, it questions their legitimacy. The reigning Indologists and India-watchers would do well to read it.... Balu’s theses are uncomfortable and sure to provoke debate. So far, the attitude of the India-watching class and of the elites in India has been to ignore any criticism of their worldview. … On the whole, Balu’s thesis is optimistic. He offers solutions to the problems he analyzes, mostly solutions that he himself has already worked out or has been practising for years. It is not as if any fate condemns Indian policy and academic India-watching to their present prejudices. He also believes in the promise of the age of globalization, and thinks Indians and Europeans genuinely have something to offer each other."

"First, this hypothesis of a population movement from Iran and elsewhere to Peninsular India does not conform to the geographic framework suggested earlier in the present paper on the basis of documented political and economic records .... Second, almost all the suggested analogies are too general to be of any use in a valid and meaningful archaeological comparison .... Third, some of the analogies cited are positively misleading .... Fourth, the suggested West Asiatic analogies do not belong to any single cultural assemblage or even different assemblages of any specific period .... Finally, it should be pointed out that not a single demonstrably West Asiatic type fossil occurs in the cited Indian assemblages. . . . Moreover, the basic character of these Indian assemblages is very different from that of their supposedly parent [in Sankalia's hypothesis they are parent sites] West Asiatic sites, a difference which should be obvious to anybody who studies these assemblages without primarily looking for similarities."

"“In several Indian universities that I can think of – Delhi University, for instance -- students were positively discouraged to read those ‘nationalist’ writings”"

"The communists had a free run so far, their opponents being no match in the psychological warfare launched by the communists. These opponents have had the control of the ICHR uninterruptedly since 2014 but they have basically been unable to neutralize the communist lobby in Indian historical studies. They are not motivated enough and focused enough. They regrettably are not even professional enough to realize where the communists have to be hurt to their disadvantage."

"After Independence . . . [Indians]—especially those from the ‘‘established’’ families—were no longer apprehensive of choosing History as an academic career . . . To join the mainstream, the historians could do a number of things: expound the ruling political philosophy of the day, develop the art of sycophancy to near- perfection or develop contacts with the elite in bureaucracy, army, politics and business. If one had already belonged to this elite by virtue of birth, so much the better. For the truly successful in this endeavor, the rewards were many, one of them being the easy availability of ‘foreign’ scholarships/fellowships, grants, etc. not merely for themselves but also for their protégés and the progeny. On the other hand, with the emergence of some specialist centers in the field of South Asian social sciences in the ‘foreign’ universities, there was no lack of people with different kinds of academic and not-so-academic interest in South Asian history in those places too, and the more clever and successful of them soon developed a tacit patron-client relationship with their Indian counterparts, at least in the major Indian universities and other centers of learning. In some cases, ‘institutes’ or ‘cultural centers’ of foreign agencies were set up in Indian metropolises themselves, drawing a large crowd of Indians in search of short-term grants or fellowships, invitations to conferences, or even plain free drinks."

"If one goes through the archeological literature on Egypt and Mesopotamia, [especially] the areas where Western scholarship has been paramount since the beginning of archeological research in those areas, one notes that the contribution made by the native Egyptian and Iraqi archeologists is completely ignored in that literature. The Bronze Age past of Egypt, Mesopotamia and the intervening region are completely appropriated by the Western scholarship. Also, when Western archeologists write on Pakistani archeology, they seldom mention the contribution made by the Pakistani archeologists themselves. There are exceptions, but they are very rare. After Independence, the Archeological Survey of India pursued a policy of relative isolation, which enabled archeology as a subject to develop in the country and helped Indian archeologists to find their feet. The policy seems to be changing now. . . . There is a great deal of arrogance and sense of superiority in that segment of the first world archeology, which specializes in the third world. Unless this segment of the first world archeology changes its way and attitude, it should be treated with a great deal of caution in the third world."

"Chakrabarti (1997) has nothing but scorn for the Indian intellectual elites who "fail to see the need of going beyond the dimensions of colonial Indology, because these dimensions suit them fine and keep them in power" (213). In his view, "as the Indian historians became increasingly concerned with the large num- ber of grants, scholarships, fellowships and even occasional jobs to be won in Western universities, there was a scramble for new respectability to be gained by toeing the Western line of thinking about India and Indian history" (2). The result is that "institutions on the national level have to be 'captured' and filled up with stooges of various kinds," and "making the right kind of political noises is important for historians" (212). Accord- ingly, "after independence, when the Indian ruling class modeled itself on its departed counterpart, any emphasis on the 'glories of ancient India' came to be viewed as an act of Hindu fundamentalism" (2).19"

"Thus, anti-Aryan invasionist scholarship, in its turn, is stereotyped as being subser- vient to secular, Marxist ideology. The most maligned figureheads are precisely those who have most publicly opposed the Indigenous Aryan position, particularly R. S. Sharma, "a 'Marxist' historian of Indian variety who became a pillar of the historical establishment in his country," and Romila Thapar, "another 'mainstream' historian who harangued us on the importance of looking at ancient Indian history and archaeology through the prism of anthropological and sociological ideas, without telling us if such exercises by themselves would lead to a better historical understanding of ancient In- dia" (Chakrabarti 1997, 164)."

"Chakrabarti (1997) is not at all reticent in stating: It is the interplay of race, language and culture which has provided the most strong plank of the understanding of ancient India by the Westerns and the Indians alike. This plank was laid down at the height of Western political hegemony over India, and the fact that this still has been left in its place speaks a volume for the post-1947 pattern of the reten- tion of Western dominance in various forms. . . . We believe that unless this major plank of colonial Indology is dismantled and taken out, it is unlikely that there will be a non- sectarian and multi-lineal perspective of the ancient Indian past which will try to under- stand the history of the subcontinent in its own terms. (53)"

"Chakrabarti (1997) is forcefully pronouncing in print what many Indian intellectuals will reveal in private conversations: We have no hesitation in asserting that the "Nigger Question" is in various forms still very much a part of the Indological scene. Right from patronizing comments on "Babu English" to wry remarks on Indian nationalism for refusing to accept the idea of Greek and other extraneous origins of some of the crucial traits of Indian culture, the Western Indological literature has been consistent in viewing the general Indian scholarship in the matter as an inferior product. . . . Some Indians' refusal to acknowledge the veracity of Aryan invasion of India is interpreted by Western Indologists as misdirected symp- toms of "north Indian nationalism." (114)"

"Chakrabarti (1997) comments: Rumblings against some of the premises of Western Indology have been heard from time to time, but such rumblings have generally emerged in uninfluential quarters, and in the context of Indian historical studies this would mean people without control of the major national historical organizations, i.e., people who can easily be fobbed off as "fundamen- talists" of some kind, mere dhotiwalas of no intellectual consequence. (3)"

"Regarding the pastoral nature of the Indo-Aryans, Chakrabarti (1986) adds a further observation that "the inconvenient references to agriculture in the Rigveda are treated as later additions. The scholars who do this forget that effective agriculture is very old in the subcontinent, and surely no text supposedly dating from 1500 B.C. could depict a predominantly pastoral society anywhere in the subcontinent. Something must be wrong with the general understanding of this text" (Chakrabarti 1986, 76). In other words, if the Indo-Aryans were pastoralists, they must have always coexisted with agriculturists in India since agriculture predates the assumed date for their arrival by millennia. There could never have been a purely pastoral economic culture."

"Dilip Chakrabarti's comments (1986) are of relevance here: "Archaeology must take the entire basic framework of the Aryan model into consideration. It should not be a question of underlining a particular set of archaeological data and arguing that these data conform to a particular section of the Vedic literary corpus without at all trying to determine how this hypothesis will affect the other sets of the contemporary archaeological data and the other sections of the Vedic literary corpus" (74)."

"Chakrabarti (1977b) finds that they "may more satisfactorily be explained as nothing more than what they apparently are: isolated objects finding their way in through trade or some other medium of contact, not necessarily any population movement of historic magnitude" (31). He notes that prior to die artificial boundaries demarcated by the British, the southern part of the Oxus, eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and the Northwest of the subcontinent all constituted an area with significant economic and political interaction throughout the ages—a sphere of activity distinct from the Iranian heartland to the west and Gangetic India to the east. In such an economic and geopolitical zone, "any new significant cultural innovation in any one area between the Oxus and the Indus is likely to spread rapidly to the rest of this total area" (31). As far as he is concerned, "the archaeological data from the Indus system and the area to its west . . . which have been interpreted as different types of diffusion from a vague and undefined West Asia are no more than the indications of mutual contact between the geographical components of this interaction sphere" (35)."

"Chakrabarti (1997b) believes such constraints have severely crippled the visualization of "protohistoric growth in inner India in its own terms, without any reference to the supposed multiple waves of people pouring in from the West" (35)."

"When the Harappan civilisation experienced the Copper Age in the Indus valley, southern India experienced the Iron Age."

"The idea of break between the early periods was for some unknown reasons, was almost axiomatic in the Indian archaeological writing of the period."

"Mill’s contempt for ancient India extends to the other Asian civilizations as well and . . . much of Mill’s framework has survived in the colonial and post-colonial Indology. For instance, his idea that the history of ancient India, like the history of other barbarous nations, has been the history of mutually warring small states, only occasionally relieved by some larger political entities established by the will of some particularly ambitious and competent individuals has remained with us in various forms till today."

"This book explores some underlying theoretical premises of the Western study of ancient India, These premises developed in response to the colonial need to manipulate the Indians’ perception of their past. The need was felt most strongly from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, and an elaborate racist frame work, in which the interrelationship between race, language and culture was a key element, slowly emerged as an explanation of the ancient Indian historical universe. The measure of its success is obvious from the fact that the Indian nationalist historians left this framework unchallenged, preferring to dispute it only in some comparatively minor matters of detail, This book argues that this framework is still in place, and implicitly accepted not merely by Western Indologists but also by their Indian counterparts. The image of the ancient Indian past remains the same. The persistence of the old image is reflective of India’s relationship as a part of the Third World with the West and Western historical scholarship,"

"The academic scope of the present volume may be clearly stated at the outset, It begins by arguing that one of the underlying assump- tions of Western Indology is a feeling of superiority in relation to India, especially modern India and Indians. This feeling of superi- ority is expressed in various ways. On one level, there are recurrent attempts to link all fundamental changes in Indian society and history to Western intervention in some form. The image of ancient India which was foisted on Indians through hegemonic texts emanating from Western schools of Indology had in mind an India that was steeped in philosophical, religious and literary lores and unable to change herself without external influence, be it in the form of Alexander the Great, Roman ships carrying gold or the Governor-Generals of the British East India Company. On a different level, expressions of Western superiority can be more direct and encompass a wide range of forms: patronizing and/ or contemptuous reviews of Indian publications, allusions to per- sonal hardships while working in India, refusal to acknowledge Indians as “agents of knowledge”, or even blatant arrogance which makes one wonder if the civilized values of Western academia have not left its Indology mostly untouched."

"Historically, this should hardly cause any surprise. After all, Western Indology is an essential by-product of the process of the establishment of Western dominance in India. Racism—in this case a generic feeling of superiority in relation to the natives—was, quite logically, one of the major theoretical underpinnings of this process. Itis but natural that Western Indology should carry within it a lot of this feeling of superiority. We are not surprised by this."

"To join the main stream the historians could do a number of things: expound the ruling political philosophy of the day, develop the art of sycophancy to near-perfection or develop contacts with the elite in bureaucracy, army, politics and business. If one had already belonged to this elite by virtue of birth, so much the better."

"...without bothering to find out if.. such blind fetishism did not sometimes lead to a theoretical position undermining the Indian national identity."

"To us, this is the first major racist elaboration of the ancient Indian history and culture in Western Indology, and all that we note here is that Mill’s contempt for ancient India extends to the other Asian civilizations as well and that much of Mill’s framework has survived in the colonial and post-colonial Indology. For instance, his idea that the history of ancient India, like the history of other barbarous nations, has been the history of mutually warring small states, only occasionally relieved by some larger political entities established by the will of some particularly ambitious and competent individuals has remained with us in various forms till today. His ideas that the Indian civilization never prospered except under foreign domination and that it was no doubt inferior to the Greek and Roman civilizations have been accepted almost as axioms by Western and neo-colonial Indian Indology..."

"The way in which the evidence of pre-Sargonic contact of the Indus civilization with Mesopotamia has been pushed into the background while making its chronological assessment and the way in which the sporadic material from the Bactria-Margiana complex ... has been dated to make that related to the end-phase of this civilization may be considered singularly interesting and indicative of a great mental block suffered by some archaeologists to accept the obvious and admit of the possibility of a considerably earlier beginning of the Indus civilization and its much larger duration."

"We need not follow Spooner further in his exploration of the bylanes of Indology where anything goes."

"Indians would certainly try to understand the fact that for more than a hundred years in the late fourth, third and early second centuries BC, there was a state which controlled the entire natural geographical domain of south Asia. Not even the British controlled such a large area for such a long period. This fact should in any case be one of the answers to the notion that there have only been divisive tendencies in the political history of India."

"Chakrabarti himself served at Delhi University for a while, and was the target of Communist slander there. Editing A History of Ancient India in 2013, he found that major publishers refused, slated contributors withdrew etc.: “cancel culture”."

"We of the Occident are about to arrive at a crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of India some seven hundred years before Christ. This is the real reason, why we become both vexed and stimulated, uneasy and yet interested, when confronted with the concepts and images of Oriental wisdom."

"The whole edifice of Indian civilization is imbued with spiritual meaning."

"Finally, however, under the onslaught of Islam, from the eighth century to the tenth, both Buddhist and Manichaean as well as the Nestorian Christian culture and monuments of the region were destroyed.... In the north very little survives of the ancient edifices that were there prior to the Muslim conquest: only a few mutilated religious sites remain. It is clear from Indian literature that both temples and images must have existed in the second century BC and perhaps earlier. Very little architectural evidence remains, however, antedating the epoch of the Gupta dynasty (C. AD 320-650), for it was precisely in the Ganges Valley, the central and chief area of the Gupta empire, that the Muslim empire flourished a millennium later and most of the monuments above ground were destroyed by the sectarian zeal of Islam. The oldest stone ruins that have been found represent not the beginnings of a style, but fully developed forms... Since the earliest important body of Indian art surviving to us stems from the century of Asoka, it is predominantly Buddhist. During subsequent periods, however, Buddhist and Hindu (Brahmanical) themes alternate in rich profusion. The two traditions flourished side by side, even sharing colleges and monasteries, for nearly two millenniums, until about the height of the Muslim conquest (C. AD 1200), Buddhism disappeared from the land of its birth."

"When I was a student, the term "Indian philosophy: was usually regarded as self-contradictory, a contradictio in adjecto, comparable to such an absurdity as "wooden steel." "Indian philosophy" was something that simply did not exist."

"Hegel's argument—and it is still the argument of those who entertain the old reluctance to confer the title "philosopher" upon the immortal thinkers of India and China—is that something is missing from the Oriental systems. When they are compared with Western philosophy, as developed in antiquity and in modern times, what is obviously lacking is the ever-renewed, fructifying close contact with the progressive natural sciences—their improving critical methods and their increasingly secular, nontheological, practically anti-religious, outlook on man and the world. This is enough, we are asked to agree, to justify the Western restriction of the classic term."

"Hardly any other Indological book has had such a long life as a standard work on the early history of the Do-Aryan tribes who immigrated to India as Heinrich Zimmer's habilitation thesis "Altindiisches Leben", published in 1879. This presentation by the Berlin Indo-Europeanist and Celticist on the cultural conditions of the Indian Arya is based on a meticulous evaluation of the Rgveda. For almost a century it has retained this reputation to a certain extent up to the present day. It has produced a standard judgement that still lives on today in part in the work of Indologists and historians of India and whose basic statements have only been questioned to a limited extent - despite the much more differentiated view of the cultural milieu and religion of the Rgveda and of the migration problem associated with the question of the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans that archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research in South, Middle and Central Asia has brought about over the last sixty years."

"Given this appreciation of his person, it is understandable that the image of the Aryans that Zimmer created could become part of the overall national image of the ancestors of the Germans and as such was later received by those who derived the historical role of the Aryan race from the "oldest cultural conditions". Zimmer's reputation as an exact philologist also contributed to the fact that the correctness of this image was never doubted and the pattern of interpretation that gave rise to it was not generally questioned."

"Frits Staal... describes Heinrich Zimmer, an exponent of this ethnic division of Indian thought, as “the author of an original but one-sided description of Indian philosophies — based on an interpretation not free of racial prejudice: according to Zimmer, there is in Indian thought an opposition between the monist Vedanta philosophy which stems frorn the Vedic Aryans and the realistic dualism of Jainism and Buddhism which he links with the ‘original’ Dravidian India." He dismisses this as “romantic ideas not verified in reality”."

"There are then based on this common foundation three main religions, Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism. Of the second, a great and universal faith, it has been said that, with each fresh acquirement of knowledge, it seems more difficult to separate it from the Hinduism out of which it emerged and into which (in Northern Buddhism) it relapsed. This is of course not to say that there are no differences between the two, but that they share in certain general and common principles as their base."

"To an Indian, self-conscious of the greatness of his country's civilization, it must be gall and wormwood to hear others speaking of the "education" and "civilization" of India. India who has taught some of the deepest truths which our race has known is to be 'educated.' She whose ancient civilization ranks with the greatest the world has known is to be civilized."

"We should never forget that Gautama was born and brought up a Hindu and lived and died a Hindu. His teaching, far-reaching and original as it was, and really subversive of the religion of the day, was Indian throughout. He was the greatest and wisest and best of the Hindus."

"[Gautama Buddha] ‘was the only man of our own race, the only Aryan, who can rank as the founder of a great religion’ [and that therefore] ‘the whole intellectual and religious development of which Buddhism is the final outcome was distinctively Aryan, and Buddhism is the one essentially Aryan faith’ (1896:185), [which] ‘took its rise among an advancing and conquering people full of pride in their colour and their race… ‘ (1896:187).”"

"In his researches, Grünendahl (2012:194) has checked Rhys-Davids’ writings and discovered a telling example of how the racialist “NS” worldview was already present in Britain earlier: “However, a more important factor seems to me to be Rhys Davids’s racialist—or more precisely Aryanist—bias, documented, for example, in statements to the effect that Gautama Buddha ‘was the only man of our own race, the only Aryan, who can rank as the founder of a great religion’ and that therefore ‘the whole intellectual and religious development of which Buddhism is the final outcome was distinctively Aryan, and Buddhism is the one essentially Aryan faith’ (1896:185), which ‘took its rise among an advancing and conquering people full of pride in their colour and their race... ‘(1896:187).”"

"The Japanese spirit wavered from then on between the lure of the West and the need to preserve her territorial integrity. Slowly, inexorably, Western civilization covered up with its veneer this other civilization patiently built up in the course of centuries, long nurtured in suffering and in pride by generations of men and women. But this was only in semblance. The Japan of old still dwells deep in the soul of every inhabitant of her islands and manifests itself at every turn in some euphuistic subtlety or an exquisitely delicate courtesy."

"The spirit of Japan, conceived in the Nara epoch, carried in the womb of her islands throughout the Heian period, delivered in the anguish of the Middle Ages, schooled by the rod of iron of the Tokugawas, fully grown now, benefited from all her past experiences. She cannot forget them."

"Towards the end of the twelfth century, while Western Europe was still wavering between a dying Roman influence and a dawning Gothicism, preliminaries to a medieval era which would make possible the development of a world-wide humanism, Asia had already lived through her classical period and, sinking into decay, was preparing to face a long period of political and spiritual unrest. While India was beginning to suffer under the yoke of the victorious Mussulman, who had come down on her from the mountains of Afghanistan and the plains of Iran, and while the domination of the Khmers was reaching its climax at Angkor, China, under pressure from the barbarians of the north, was withdrawing to the south where the Song empire, thinking itself safe from invasions, continued to live a life of luxury."

"Mohammed Ghori had the Hindu temples of Ajmer demolished and ordered the construction of mosques and Quran schools on their ruins…He plundered Kanauj and Kashi and destroyed their temples... [While his generals] destroyed in passing the remaining Buddhist communities of Bihar and destroyed the universities of Nalanda.... Bakhtiar Khilji “established a Muslim capital in Lakhanauti (Gaur) on the Ganga and destroyed, in 1197, its basalt temples. In Odantpuri, in 1202, he massacred two thousand Buddhist monks.... [Meanwhile, back in Delhi:] “This Quwwat-ul-Islam (Might of Islam) was built in a hurry using the debris, chiefly sculpted pillars, of twenty-seven dismantled Hindu temples.” Thirty years later, “Iltutmish did not forget that he was a Muslim conqueror. He showed himself to be very pious, never forgetting to do his five devotional daily….He likewise showed himself totally intolerant vis-à-vis the Hindus who refused to convert, destroying their temples and annihilating Brahmin communities.”"

"Nothing is gained by a total denial of even sporadic cases of religious persecution and vandalism. But such cases were very few and their very paucity emphasizes and illuminates the great religious tolerance of the Indian people for more than two thousand years.’ ... There is a great difference between local brawls as in the above case and a general policy by a community or a king of wholesale persecution."

"Ancient sages laid the foundation by insisting...that there is and must be harmony between man’s spirit and the spirit of the world and man’s endeavor should be to realize in his actions and in his life this harmonyand unity. The Upanishads teach that man gains by giving up (by renunciation) and exhorts man not to covet another’s wealth (Ishopanishad I: ‘tena tyaktena bhunjeetha maa grdhah kasya svid dhanam.’... there are certain values of our culture that have endured for three thousand years, viz, the consciousness that the whole world is the manifestation of the Eternal Essence, restraint of senses, charity and kindness...Many young men have in these days hardly anything which they believe as worth striving for whatever the cost maybe, and hence they have nothing to practice as an ideal. We have to preserve a religious spirit among common men and women, while getting rid of superstitions...opposed to all science and common sense...It is not the age-old principles of Hindu religion that are at fault, it is modern Hindu society that has to be reorganized... [23] Social reforms and politics have to be preached through our age-old religion and philosophy. If a large majority of our people and the leaders throw away or neglect religion and spirituality altogether, the probability is that we shall lose both spiritual life and social betterment..."

"Kane, in fact, wrote that the Rigvedic people were earlier than the Indus valley people” and that there was some evidence to believe that the Indus valley people “were probably Aryans “ or different but ‘contemporaneous with the Rigveda Aryans”."

"To the Hindus is due the invention of algebra and geometry, and their application to astronomy."

"For what purpose then, has this enormous territory been committed to England? .... that every man, woman and child from Cape Comorin ot the Himalaya mountains, may be elevated, enlightened, Christianised."

"But how is this previous process of elevating and Christianizing the men to be effected? We must begin with the schools... In this way we shall best prepare our Indian school-boys for a voluntary acceptance of Christian truth."

"When the walls of the mighty fortress of Brahminism are encircled, undermined, and finally stormed by the soldiers of the Cross, the victory of Christianity must be signal and complete."

"I must draw attention to the fact that I am only the second occupant of the Boden Chair, and that its founder Colonel Boden stated most explicitly in his will that the special object of his munnificent bequest wass to promote the translation of Scriptures into Sanskrit, so as to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian Religion.... My very first public lecture delivered after my election in 1860 was on "The Study of Sanskrit in Relation to Missionary Work in India"."

"“Such, indeed, is the exuberance and flexibility of this language and its power of compounding words, that when it has been, so to speak, baptised and thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of Christianity, it will probably be found, next to Hebrew and Greek, the most expressive vehicle of Christian truth.”"

"India though it has more than five hundred spoken dialects, has only one sacred language and only one sacred literature, accepted and revered by all adherence of Hinduism alike, however diverse in race, dialect, rank and creed. That language is Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature, the only repository of the Veda or knowledge in its widest sense, the only vehicle of Hindu mythology, philosophy, law, the mirror in which all the creeds, opinions, and customs and usages of the Hindus are faithfully reflected and the only quarry whence the requisite materials may be obtained for improving the vernaculars or for expressing important religious and scientific ideas."

"By Sanskrit is meant the learned language of India - the language of its cultured inhabitants, the language of its religion, its literature and science - not by any means a dead language, but one still spoken and written by educated men by all parts of the country, from Kashmir to Cape Comorin, from Bombay to Calcutta and Madras."

"The grammar of Panini is one of the most remarkable literary works that the world has ever seen, and no other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality of plan or analytical subtlety."

"If only the self-deluded but fervent-spirited Muhammad, whose soul was stirred within him when he saw his fellow town-men wholly given to idolatry, had been brought into association with the purer form of Christianity ... he might have died a martyr for the truth, Asia might have numbered her millions of Christians, and the name of Saint Muhammad might have been in the calendar of our Book of Common Prayer ... Think, then, of the difference in the present condition of the Asiatic world, if the fire of Muhammad's eloquence had been kindled, and the force of his personal influence exerted on the side of veritable Christianity."

"Indeed, if I may be allowed the anachronism, the Hindus were Spinozists more than two thousand years before the advent of Spinoza, and Darwinians many centuries before Darwin, and Evolutionists many centuries before the Doctrine of Evolution was accepted by the scientists of the present age, and before any word like ’Evolution’ existed in any language of the world."

"[I]t must be borne in mind that Hinduism is far more than a mere form of theism resting on Brāhmanism. It presents for our investigation a complex congeries of creeds and doctrines which in its gradual accumulation may be compared to the gathering together of the mighty volume of the Ganges, swollen by a continual influx of tributary rivers and rivulets, spreading itself over an ever-increasing area of country and finally resolving itself into an intricate Delta of tortuous steams and jungly marshes. … The Hindu religion is a reflection of the composite character of the Hindus, who are not one people but many. It is based on the idea of universal receptivity. It has ever aimed at accommodating itself to circumstances, and has carried on the process of adaptation through more than three thousand years. It has first borne with and then, so to speak, swallowed, digested, and assimilated something from all creeds."

"The strength of Hinduism lies in its infinite adaptability to the infinite diversity of human character and human tendencies. It has its highly spiritual and abstract side suited to the philosopher; it's practical to the man of the world, its aesthetic and ceremonial side attuned to the man of the poetic feeling and imagination; and its quiescent contemplative aspect that has its appeal for the man of peace and the lover of seclusion."

"He (Rama) IS the type of a perfect husband, son, and brother. Sita also rises in character far above Helen and even above Penelope, both in her sublime devotion and loyalty to her husband, and her indomitable patience and endurance under suffering and temptation .... .it may be affirmed generally that the whole tone of the Ramayana is certainly above that of the Iliad." 4"

"The motions of the sun and moon were carefully observed by the Hindus and with such success that their determination of the moon's synodical revolution is a much more correct one than the Greeks ever achieved. They introduced the period of Jupiter with those of the sun and moon into the regulation of their calendar in the form of Sixty years common to them and the Chaldeans. They were keenly interested m logic and grammar, and in medicine and surgery they once kept pace with the most enlightened people of the world." 46<>"

"This Building, dedicated to Eastern sciences, was founded for the use of Aryas (Indians and Englishmen) by excellent and benevolent men desirous of encouraging knowledge. The High-minded Heir-Apparent, named Albert Edward, Son of the Empress of India, himself performed the act of inauguration. The ceremony of laying the Memorial Stone took place on Wednesday, the tenth lunar day of the dark half of the month of Vaisâkha, in the Samvat year 1939 (= Wednesday, May 2, 1883). By the favor of God may the learning and literature of India be ever held in honour; and may the mutual friendship of India and England constantly increase!"

"It is probable that one of the earliest homes (if not the first seat) of the members of the great Aryan family was in the high land surrounding the sources of the Oxus, to the north of die point connecting the Hindu Kush with the Himalayas . . . the Pamir Plateau."

"To know the Hindus, to understand their past and present condition, to reach their very heart and soul, we must study Sanskrit literature. It is, in truth, even more to India than classical and patristic literature was to Europe at the time of the Reformation. It gives a deeper impress to the Hindu mind, so that every Hindu, however unlettered, is unconsciously affected by it."

"“We may be assured that as Christianity comes into actual close contact with Orientals of acute intellects…it will be met with a style of controversy which will come upon some among us with surprise. Many things will be disputed which we have been accustomed to take for granted, and proofs will be demanded, which those who have been brought up in the external evidence school of the last century, may not be prepared to supply.”"

"The Hindu, sickened by idolatry (Islam's and Christianity's common name for Hinduism), turns to the other two religions which surround him, and inquires into their respective claims ... we must be ready at hand to meet him with the proofs of our most holy faith... the comparison of the two religIOns, Christianity and Islam, cannot fail to be of essential service, under God's blessings, to lead to practical results."

"None of the Sanskrit books, not even the most ancient, contain any distinct reference or allusion to the foreign origin of the Indians."

"“You should never revile people who are satisfied with their own religion... Listen you disciples of Christ! I, solicitous of your own welfare, tell you this truthfully... Diminution of Hari’s religion, anger, cruelty, subversion of authority and dissensions among the populace would result from reviling the religion of others. Increase of God’s religion, contentment, gentleness, harmony between the ranks would result from praising all religions. For each person his own religion is best; the same religion would be perilous for another person.”"

"“Only that man... who is deluded, who is desirous of acquiring profits, who has neither deliberated upon his own religion, nor looked at the defects in Christianity, would become a Christian.”"

"“The materials in these still standard books never betray the author’s original purpose in amassing them: to demonstrate that Christianity is rationally superior to Hinduism.”"

"A new opportunity came again for Christianity when Europe, and particularly England, dominated the world during the last few centuries. During this while, one would have expected, according to Muir, that Christian Europe would have improved its advantages for evangelizing the East, that "Britain, the bulwark of religion in the West, would have stepped forth as its champion in the East, and displayed her faith and her zeal where they were most urgently required." But, alas! it was not to be so and, Muir continues, "England was then sadly neglectful of her responsibility; her religion was shown only at home and she was careless of the spiritual darkness of her benighted subjects abroad; her sons, who adopted India as their country, so far from endeavouring to impart to its inhabitants the benefits of their religion, too often banished it from their own minds, and exhibited to heathens [Hindus] and Mohammadans the sad spectacle of men without falth ... [and] their lives too often presented a practical and powerful, a constant and a living, argument against the truth of our holy faith.""

"These lectures were written to help candidates for a prize of Pound Sterling 200- given by John Muir, a well-known old Haileybury man and great Sanskrit scholar, for the best refutation of the Hindu Religious System."

"We see the effects of this new skepticism in John Muir's influential collection, Original Sanskrit textson the origin and history of the people ofIndia. In the first edition (i858ff.) he had argued from the evidence of language that the Indians were kin to the Europeans on grounds that "affinity in language implies affinity in race" and went on to demonstrate that "there is no objection arising from physiological considerations, i.e. from colour or bodily structure, to classing the Hindus among the Indo-European races." But in the second edition (1868-73), in response to criticism, he scaled that back to the view that "affinity in language affords some presumption of affinity in race" (emphasis added) and treated it as a question of whether physiological considerations prevented classing the Indians among the Indo-European races (Muir 1874-84, 2:277-286). The retreat of the Sanskritists had begun."

"Though its fame is much restricted by its specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini's grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world."

"The age in which true history appeared in India was one of great intellectual and spiritual ferment. Mystics and sophists of all kinds roamed through the Ganga Valley, all advocating some form of mental discipline and asceticism as a means to salvation; but the age of the Buddha, when many of the best minds were abandoning their homes and professions for a life of asceticism, was also a time of advance in commerce and politics. It produced not only philosophers and ascetics, but also merchant princes and men of action."

"“The ancient civilisation of India differs from those of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, in that its traditions have been preserved without a break down to the present day. Until the advent of the archaeologist, the peasant of Egypt or Iraq had no knowledge of the culture of his forefathers, and it is doubtful whether his Greek counterpart had any but the vaguest ideas about the glory of Periclean Athens. In each case there had been an almost complete break with the past. On the other hand…to this day legends known to the humblest Indian recall the names of shadowy chieftains who lived nearly a thousand years before Christ, and the orthodox Brahman in his daily worship repeats hymns composed even earlier. India and China have, in fact, the oldest continuous cultural traditions in the world.”"

"“At most periods of her history India, though a cultural unit, has been torn by internecine war. In statecraft, her rulers were cunning and unscrupulous. Famine, flood and plague visited her from time to time, and killed millions of her people. Inequality of birth was given religious sanction, and the lot of the humble was generally hard. Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man, and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilisation were slaves so few in number, and in no other ancient lawbook are their rights so well protected as in the Arthasastra. No other ancient lawgiver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair play in battle as did Manu. In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants…There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, in comparison with conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity.” (pp.8-9)]."

"Prof. Arthur Basham (d. 1986), the leading authority on ancient Indian culture and Oriental civilizations, writes about ancient Indian codes of war that ‘In all her history of warfare, Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants. The ghastly sadism of the kings of Assyria, who flayed their captives alive, is completely without parallel in ancient India. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity.’"

"In A Cultural History of India, A.L. Basham notes that “[by] the fifth century CE, Indianised states, that is to say states organised along the traditional lines of Indian political theory and following the Buddhist or Hindu religions, had established themselves in many regions of Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, Malaysia, and Indonesia”."

"In one respect the Harappa people were technically in advance of their contemporaries - they had devised a saw with undulating teeth , which allowed the dust to escape freely from the cut, and much simplified the carpenter's task. From this we may assume that they had particular skill in carpentry."

"Direct testimony to the assumed fact is lacking, and no tradition of an early home beyond the frontier survives in India."

"The capitals of Asoka's columns, some of which were perhaps made before his reign, are the earliest important sculptures after those of the Indus cities."

"The famous lions of the Sarnath column and the less famous but more beautiful bull of the column of Rampurva are the work of realistic sculptors, owing something to Iranian and Hellenist tradition... Yet, if we did not know that the possibility of Western influence existed , we might suggest that the animal sculptures of the columns were those of a school directly de- scended from the engravers of the Indus seals , which show a realistic treatment very unusual for so early a civilization."

"Medieval Indian mathematicians, such as Brahmagupta (7th century), Mahavira (9th century) and Bhüskara (19th century), made several discoveries which in Europe were not known until the Renaissance or later, They understood the import of positive and negative quantities, evolved sound systems of extracting square and cube roots, and could solve quadratic and certain types of indeterminate equations."

"Through the necessity of accurately laying out the open-air site of a sacrifice Indians very early evolved a simple system of geometry, but in the sphere of practical knowledge the-world owes most to India in the realm of mathematics, which were developed in Gupta times to a stage more advanced than that reached by any other nation of antiquity. ‘The success of Indian mathematics was mainly due to the fact that the Indians had a clear conception of abstract number, as distinct from numerical quantity of objects or spatial extension. While Greek mathematical science was largely based on mensuration and geometry, India transcended these conceptions quite early, and, with the aid of a simple numeral notation, devised a rudimentary algebra which allowed more complicated calculations than were possible to the Greeks, and led to the study of number for its own sake."

"“Land of ancient India Cradle of humanity, hail Hail ! revered motherland, Whom centuries of brutal invasions Have not yet buried Under the dust of oblivion. Hail ! Fatherland of faith, Of love, of poetry and of science, May we hail a revival of thy past In our Western future !”"

"India, the birthplace of the human race and ageless mother with bountiful breasts."

"In point of authenticity the Vedas have incontestible precedence out of the most ancient records. These holy books which, according to the Brahmins, contain the revealed word of God, were honoured in India long before Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt and Europe were colonised or inhabited."

"— 'India is the world’s cradle : thence it is that the common mother in sending forth her children, even to the utmost west has, in unfading testimony of our origin bequeathed us the legacy of her language, her laws, her 'Morale,' her literature and her religion-Traversing Persia, Arabia, Egypt and even forcing their way to the cold and cloudy north far from the sunny soil of their birth, in vain they may forget their point of departure, their skin may remain brown or become white from contact with snows of the west, of the civilizations founded by them splendid kingdoms may fall and leave no trace behind but some few ruins of sculptured columns, new people may arise from the ashes of the first; new cities may flourish on the site of the old but time and ruin united fail to obliterate the ever legible stamp of origin. The legislator Manu; whose authenticity is incontestible, dates back more than three thousand years before Christian era; the Brahmans assign him a still more ancient epoch. What instruction for us, and what testimony almost material, in favour of the oriental chronology, which, less ridiculous than ours (based on Biblical traditions) adopts, for the formation of this world, an a speech more in harmony with science. We shall presently see Egypt, Judea, Greece, Rome, all antiquity, in fact, copies Brahminical society in its castes, its theories, its religious opinion, and adopts its Brahmins, its priests, its levites as they had already adopted the language, legislation and philosophy of the ancient Vedic Society whence their ancestors had departed through the world to dessiminate the grand ideas of primitive revelation."

"The Greek," says Jacolliot, "is but the Sanscrit. Pheidias and Praxiteles have studied in Asia the chefs-d'oeuvre of Daonthia, Ramana, and Aryavosta. Plato disappears before Dgeminy and Veda-Vyasa, whom he literally copies. Aristotle is thrown into the shade by the Pourva-Mimansa and the Outtara-Mimansa, in which one finds all the systems of philosophy which we are now occupied in re-editing, from the Spiritualism of Socrates and his school, the skepticism of Pyrrho, Montaigne, and Kant, down to the positivism of Littre."

""To study India," he says, "is to trace humanity to its sources." "In the same way as modern society jostles antiquity at each step," he adds, "as our poets have copied Homer and Virgil, Sophocles and Euripides, Plautus and Terence; as our philosophers have drawn inspiration from Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle; as our historians take Titus Livius, Sallust, or Tacitus, as models; our orators, Demosthenes or Cicero; our physicians study Hippocrates, and our codes transcribe Justinian--so had antiquity's self also an antiquity to study, to imitate, and to copy. What more simple and more logical? Do not peoples precede and succeed each other? Does the knowledge, painfully acquired by one nation, confine itself to its own territory, and die with the generation that produced it? Can there be any absurdity in the suggestion that the India of 6,000 years ago, brilliant, civilized, overflowing with population, impressed upon Egypt, Persia, Judea, Greece, and Rome, a stamp as ineffaceable, impressions as profound, as these last have impressed upon us? "It is time to disabuse ourselves of those prejudices which represent the ancients as having almost spontaneously-elaborated ideas, philosophic, religious, and moral, the most lofty--those prejudices that in their naive admiration explain all in the domain of science, arts, and letters, by the intuition of some few great men, and in the realm of religion by revelation." *"

"My complaint against many translators and Orientalists," says Jacolliot, "while admiring their profound knowledge is, that not having lived in India, they fail in exactness of expression and in comprehension of the symbolical sense of poetic chants, prayers, and ceremonies, and thus too often fall into material errors, whether of translation or appreciation." ** Further, this author who, from a long residence in India, and the study of its literature, is better qualified to testify than those who have never been there, tells us that "the life of several generations would scarce suffice merely to read the works that ancient India has left us on history, ethics (morale), poetry, philosophy, religion, different sciences, and medicine."

"More serious is Nietzsche’s uncritical reliance on the flawed translation of the text by Jacolliot, an amateur openly denounced by leading philologists like Friedrich Max Muller. Uncritical reading of this text led Nietzsche to quote mistranslations and later insertions in support of the claim concerning the Chandala (low caste) origins of the Semites, used to attack Christianity in TI and AC. Elst goes on to highlight what Nietzsche missed or omitted in his reading of the text, including not just the actual politics and institutions of the caste system, but also some striking affinities with his own views and teachings. Despite these philological blunders and misjudgements, however, Nietzsche seems to have landed on his feet after all; for in Elst’s view, he did succeed in grasping Manu’s view of man and society."

"To realize Medieval India there is no better way than to dive into the eight volumes of the priceless History of India as Told by its Own Historians which Sir H. M. Elliot conceived and beganot, and which Professor Dowson edited and completed with infinite labour and learning. It is a revelation of Indian life as seen through the eyes of the Persian court annalists. It is, however, a mine to be worked, not a consecutive history, and its wide leaps in chronology, its repetitions, recurrences, and omissions, render it no easy guide for general readers."

"The Hindu was taxed to the extent of half the produce of his land, and had to pay duties on all his buffaloes, goats, and other milk-cattle. The taxes were to be levied equally on rich and poor, at so much per acre, so much per animal. Any collectors or officers taking bribes were summarily dismissed and heavily punished with sticks, pincers, the rack, imprisonment and chains. The new rules were strictly carried out, so that one revenue officer would string together 20 Hindu notables and enforce payment by blows. No gold or silver, not even the betelnut, so cheering and stimulative to pleasure, was to be seen in a Hindu house, and the wives of the impoverished native officials were reduced to taking service in Muslim families. Revenue officers came to be regarded as more deadly than the plague; and to be a government clerk was disgrace worse than death, in so much that no Hindu would marry his daughter to such a man. ... [These edicts] were so strictly carried out that the chaukidars and khuts and muqad-dims were not able to ride on horseback, to find weapon, to wear fine clothes, or to indulge in betel. . .... No Hindu could hold up his head. ..... Blows, confinement in the stocks, imprisonment and chains were all employed to enforce payment.""

"The fatal blot in Islām is the degradation of women.… Yet it would be hard to lay the blame altogether on Moḥammad. The real roots of the degradation of women lie much deeper. When Islām was instituted, polygamy was almost necessitated by the number of women and their need of support; and the facility of divorce was quite necessitated by the separation of the sexes, and the consequence that a man could not know or even see the woman he was about to marry before the marriage ceremony was accomplished. It is not Moḥammad whom we must blame for these great evils, polygamy and divorce; it is the state of society which demanded the separation of the sexes, and in which it was not safe to allow men and women freely to associate; in other words, it was the sensual constitution of the Arab that lay at the root of the matter."

"It is not so much in the matter of wives as in that of concubines that Moḥammad made an irretrievable mistake. The condition of the female slave in the East is indeed deplorable. She is at the entire mercy of her master, who can do what he pleases with her and her companions; for the Muslim is not restricted in the number of his concubines, as he is in that of his wives. … The female white slave is kept solely for the master’s sensual gratification, and is sold when he is tired of her, and so she passes from master to master, a very wreck of womanhood. Her condition is a little improved if she bear a son to her tyrant; but even then he is at liberty to refuse to acknowledge the child as his own, though it must be owned he seldom does this. Kind as the Prophet was himself towards bondswomen, one cannot forget the unutterable brutalities which he suffered his followers to inflict upon conquered nations in the taking of slaves. The Muslim soldier was allowed to do as he pleased with any ‘infidel’ woman he might meet with on his victorious march. When one thinks of the thousands of women, mothers and daughters, who must have suffered untold shame and dishonour by this license, he cannot find words to express his horror. And this cruel indulgence has left its mark on the Muslim character, nay, on the whole character of Eastern life."

"Whatever may be the discoveries of the scientific mind, none can dispute the eternal truths propounded by the Upanishads. Though they may appear as riddles, the key to solving them lies in our heart and if one were to approach them with an open mind one could secure the treasure as did the Rishis of ancient times."

"The Upanishads have tackled every fundamental problem of life. They have given us an intimate account of reality." ...."On the tree of wisdom there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads, and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy,'... 'The system of Vedanta, as founded on the Upanishads and Vedanta Sutras and accompanied by Shankara's commentary on them---equal in rank to Plato and Kant---is one of the most valuable products of the genius of mankind in his researches of the eternal truth.'"

"[T]he study of Schopenhauer, combined with the reading of the New Testament, shaped itself inside my mind into a harmonic whole, which united the most powerful claims of science with the equally imperative needs of the religious mentality in a completely satisfy- ing way. Schopenhauer’s name was always on my lips; I plagued people [ hardly knew with it; the whole day, in so far as it belonged to me, I devoted myself to his ideas and at night, they followed me into my dreams. .. ."

"Moreover, the autonomy and differentness of Indian thought could have a very healthy impact on Europeans, ‘“‘who have been born and bred on classical antiquity and the Bible”; the encounter, he believed would result not in ‘“‘a superficia] transformation, but one that stirs the [western tradi- tion’s] very depths.” Those who had met Indian thinkers personally, he continued, could appreciate their profundity and breadth of knowledge, while also seeing the one-sidedness in them that they do not perceive. ‘“Who knows,” he continued, “‘if a similar sort of one-sidedness and narrowness also inheres in us, and in all of the traditional conceptions, in which we were raised, and if we might not learn just as much from the Indians as they can from us, if perhaps in a different way?’’4°"

"In the universa] quest for knowledge, recent European “‘progress” in the natural sciences did not matter, for the ancients— Indians and Europeans— already understood nine-tenths of Being; indeed, natural forces and human nature “were grasped in a more pristine and clear way by the ancient philosophers ‘who lived much nearer the gods’ ... than the later ones, that is, by [those] whose vision was not muddied by a jumble of traditions.”4*"

"This encounter laid the foundations for the medieval world, he wrote, one that represented a world-historical mixing of “rivers of two different kinds of water [the classical and the Semitic] ... but the union was an unnatural one and could not endure. The human spirit at the end of the medieval period awoke to consciousness of its own power and attempted to free itself from the fetters the Middle Ages had put on it. Modern philosophy [beginning with Kant] is this struggle for freedom.”’"

"The excellent textual critic [Kritiker] but philosophically less well-advised writer of the famous Life of Jesus, David Friedrich Strauss, in the publication of his old age The Old Faith and the New, throws out the question: ‘‘Are we still Christians?” and answers it with a clear and decisive No. But he who is able to remove the philosophical kernel from the historical and therefore accidental shell, he who no longer holds to mere words and is able to recognize a thing when it appears under a different name and in new clothing, he will, even in the wake of all the achievements in historical research, natural science and philos- ophy answer Strauss’s question: Are we still Christians? With an equally clear and decisive Yes. For the essence of Christianity extends far wider than its name and consists in an idea, which is as eternal as the world and will never be extinguished: it is the Indian-Platonic- Christian idea, that our life on earth is not an end in itself... that indeed the highest task of life consists in ... separating ourselves from all inborn egotism ..."

"Deussen is certainly the freest among scholars in the expression of his opinion about the Vedanta. He never stops to think about the "What they would say" of the vast majority of scholars. We indeed require bold men in this world to tell us bold words about truth; and nowhere, is this more true now than in Europe where, through the fear of social opinion and such other causes, there has been enough in all conscience of the whitewashing and apologising attitude among scholars towards creeds and customs which, in all probability, not many among them really believe in. The greater is the glory, therefore, to Max Müller and to Deussen for their bold and open advocacy of truth!"

"If Max Müller is thus the old pioneer of the new movement, Deussen is certainly one of its younger advance-guard."

"But Paul Deussen — or as he prefers to be called in Sanskrit, Deva-Sena — and the veteran Max Müller have impressed me as being the truest friends of India and Indian thought. It will always be among the most pleasing episodes in my life — my first visit to this ardent Vedantist at Kiel, his gentle wife who travelled with him in India, and his little daughter, the darling of his heart — and our travelling together through Germany and Holland to London, and the pleasant meetings we had in and about London."

"India ... beyond all doubt possesses a deep underlying fundamental unity, far more profound that that produced either by geographical isolation or by political suzerainty. That unity transcends the innumerable diversities of blood, color, language, dress, manners and sect."

"Hinduism has never produced an exclusive, dominant, orthodox sect, with a formula of faith to be professed or rejected under pain of damnation."

"The most systematic record oflndian Historical tradition is that preserved in the dynastic lists of the Puranas, five out of the eighteen works of this class, namely the Vayu, Matsya, Vishnu, Bramhanda and Bhagvata contain such lists. The Brahmanda and the Vayu as well as the Matsya, which has large later additions, appear to be the earliest and most authoritative."

"Ancient Tamil literature and the Greek and Roman authors prove that in the first two centuries of the Christian era the ports on the Coromandel or Cholamandal coast enjoyed the benefits of active commerce with both East and West. The Chola fleets.....uncrossed the Indian ocean to the islands of the Malaya Archipelago."

"‘In the 7th century of the Christian era,’ Vincent Smith wrote, ‘the Nalanda establishment undoubtedly was the most important and splendid of its kind in India, or, in fact, the world. It was the principal centre of Buddhist learning, and was crowded with students from every quarter. It was truly a great university…’"

"The university was the centre of Mahayana learning, of course – so much so that, reviewing its significance, Vincent Smith observed, ‘A detailed history of Nalanda would be a history of Mahayanist Buddhism, from the time of Nagarjuna in the 2nd cent A.D. (?), or possibly even from an earlier date, until the Muhammadan conquest of Bihar in A.D. 1197 – a period well over a millennium. All the most noted doctors of the Mahayana seem to have studied at Nalanda…’"

"Summarizing the evidence relating to the slaughter of the Buddhist Monks perpetrated by the Musalman General in the course of his invasion of Bihar in 1197 AD, Mr. Vincent Smith says, "The Musalman General, who had already made his name a terror by repeated plundering expeditions in Bihar, seized the capital by a daring stroke... Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the 'shaven headed Brahmans', that is to say the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed, that when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who was able to read them. 'It was discovered,' we are told, 'that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar.' "Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India...."

"Muhammad ibn Tughlaq “led forth his army to ravage Hindostan. He laid the country waste from Kanauj to Dalmau [on the Ganges, in the Rai Baréli District, Oudh], and every person that fell into his hands he slew. Many of the inhabitants fled and took refuge in the jungles, but the Sultan had the jungles surrounded, and every individual that was captured was killed.”"

"India beyond all doubts possesses a deep underlying fundamental unity, far more profound than that produced either by geographical isolation or political suzeranity. That unity transcends the innumerable diversities of blood, colour, language, dress, manners and sects? ... The most essential fundamental Indian unity rests upon the fact that the diverse people of India have deyeloped a peculiar type of culture and civilisation utterly different from any type in the world. That civilization may be summed up by the term Hinduism. India primarily is a Hindu country..."

"No tradition of an early home beyond the frontier survives in India."

"The Greek influence never penetrated deeply into the Indic civilization... On the other hand, the West learned something from India in consequence of the communications opened up by Alexander's adventure. Our knowledge of the facts is so scanty and fragmentary that it is difficult to make positive assertions with confidence, but it is safe to say that the influence of Buddhist ideas on Christian doctrine may be traced in the Gnostic forms of Christianity, if not elsewhere. The notions of Indian philosophy and religion which filtered into the Roman empire flowed through channels opened by Alexander."

"For their riches the monasteries came to be coveted by the Turkish invaders. They became special targets of the invaders’ greed. The Turks killed a large number of Buddhist monks in Nalanda, although some of the monks managed to escape to Nepal and Tibet."

"We find that in the beginning every religion is inspired by the spirit of reform, but eventually it succumbs to rituals and ceremonies it originally denounced. Buddhism underwent a similar metamorphosis. It became a victim to the evils of brahmanism against which it had fought in the beginning."

"It is also true that the present Ayodhya is the same old Ayodhya...It is also true that it is found from the sources of Jain religion that Saket and Ayodhya are the same, It is also true that at many places, Lord Rama has been referred to as Koshal Naresh (king of Koshal)"

"From the seventh century A.D. onwards the Bhakti cult spread throughout the country, and especially in the south. Bhakti meant that people made all kinds of offerings to the god in return for which they received the prasada or the favour of the god. It meant that the devotees completely surrendered to their God. This practice can be compared to the complete dependence of the tenants on the land-owners."

"Obviously tantricism arose as a result of the large-scale admission of the aboriginal peoples in brahmanical society."

"Tribal rituals, charms, and symbols […] were distorted by the brahmanas (sic) and priests to serve the interests of rich patrons."

"The Study of ancient Indian history, therefore, is relevant not only to those who want to understand the true nature of the past that some people want to relive but also to those who want to appreciate the nature of obstacles that hamper the development of the country."

"The most explicit statement of immigration into the Subcontinent."

"People will be surprised to find that the V.H.P. has been unable to cite any ancient Sanskrit text in support of its claim that there has been an ancient Hindu belief in Ram Janma-sthãna at Ayodhya. Surely, if there were such a strong belief there would have been numerous Vaishnavite texts exhorting worshippers to visit the spot. The absence of any such reference makes it very dubious that the belief in Ram Janma-sthãna is of such respectable antiquity as is being made out. It is even doubtful if it is earlier than the late eighteenth century, as we shall see."

"This is how the matter stood till 1972 when the ICHR was established by the Government of India with R S Sharma as its chairman and S Nurul Hasan as its presiding Minister. The members of the Council all belonged to the political left and there was a consistent attempt to fill up the history vacancies in Delhi and elsewhere with fellow- communists. A new university—Jawaharlal Nehru University—was established under the government auspices in Delhi to espouse the leftist cause. The ICHR became the most important source of funding of historical research. With the control of both appointments and funding, historical research in India went completely into the leftist control during this phase. This control was immeasurably strengthened by the simultaneous leftist control of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) which led to a uniform history syllabus at the school level all over the country and the selection of a few communist authors to write books expounding this syllabus. These authors, because of the wide circulation of their books at the school level, gained almost celebrity status overnight. R S Sharma and Romila Thapar were selected for writing books on ancient India."

"Coincidentally, we find this selective use of “truth” in a recent paper by Marxist scholar Prof. Ram Sharan Sharma... In a short space, Sharma crams pell-mell arguments which he clearly regards as devastating, leaving no one in doubt about the truth of the good old Aryan invasion / migration theory...However, on closer scrutiny, Sharma’s points rest on manipulated quotations and data, in consonance with the Pravda method... His recourse to misrepresentation and concealment does little to inspire confidence in the inherent strength of the invasionist model: if indeed that is all he can find to oppose the “indigenist” school, then the latter’s adherents have ground to rejoice."

"From his high pedestal, Prof. Sharma could afford to disregard the 'very few authors whose work effectively addresses the feudalism thesis in a critical manner', and he 'appears to have been in no mood to take heed of criticism levelled at his work'. This disregarding and ignoring of counter-evidence is tactically the best way to prolong your dominant position (which is why this tactic was adopted by most secularists in the Ayodhya debate): it denies publicity and respectability to the critic's alternative thesis. But to the progress of science, this upholding of dogma and suppression of debate is detrimental."

"In the late Sixties and early Seventies, historical research got entangled in the larger politics of the state in which the Congress under Indira Gandhi and the Communist Party of India found themselves on the same wave length. The establishment of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) in 1969 under the chairmanship of Prof. R. S. Sharma was largely the result of this politics. Besides being an eminent scholar, Prof. Sharma's sympathy for the Left ideology in general and for the CPI in particular was well-known. His close association with the then Education Minister and CPI sympathiser, Nurul Hasan, was common knowledge. During his chairmanship, there were allegations from many historians that ICHR was being used for propagating history from a Marxist standpoint. The nexus between ICHR and NCERT was also mentioned in the same vein. [….] During the Emergency, people watched with dismay the camaraderie between the Congress and the CPI and in that context the role played by the Left historians was not overlooked. [….] At the micro- level, it was the Left-oriented historians versus the rest. [….] The battle apparently looked like one between ‘secular’ and `communal’ historians but behind the facade was the realpolitik of the Congress and the CPI, on the one hand, and the Janata bandwagon, on the other."

"Sharma had “tried to place Indian history [….] in an alien framework”, and secondly, that the textbook writer had “given … wrong data and also suppressed some vital information... Page after page and paragraph after paragraph [showed] something extremely shocking. Data which do not exist. Informations which are wholly or are partially wrong. Facts which are disputed. Theories which are outdated. Chronology which no serious scholar would accept. Terms which are not in vogue. Sociological and cultural interpretations of archaeological data without giving due regard to the inherent limitations of the data themselves. Maps which are not organically related to the text. Absence of several vital facts and epoch- making discoveries."

"Besides history, Prof. R.S.S. loves politics, equally, if not more."

"R.S. Sharma's whose Indian Feudalism has misguided virtually all historians of the period, not only because it it entirely written from the a priori assumption of the 'dark age', doggedly searching for point by point parallels with Europe, but also, ... because there has never been anything to challenge it... Sharma has repeated his views innumerable times - almost verbatim often, and hardly developing them... Sharma's thesis "involves an obstinate attempt to find 'elements' which fit a preconceived picture of what should have happened in India because it happened in Europe (or is alleged to have happened in Europe by Sharma and his school of historians whose knowledge of European history is rudimentary and completely outdated) or because of the antiquated Marxist scheme of a ‘necessary’ development of ‘feudalism’ out of ‘slavery’. The methodological underpinnings of Sharma's work are in fact so thin that one wonders why, for so long, Sharma's colleagues have called his work 'pioneering. It generated a spate of ‘feudalism studies’, elaborat­ing Sharma’s thesis, differing perhaps on minor points, as the case maybe, and critical here and there of ‘the inadequacy of the data’, but remaining variations on a theme.... There are, as indicated before, a very few authors whose work effec­tively addresses the feudalism thesis in a critical manner... Sharma, for one, appears to have been in no mood to take heed of criticism levelled at his work. Under the impact of the feudalism thesis the historiography of the period is still in utter disarray."

"The big buffoon of the debate was the Stalinist Professor, R.S. Sharma. He had patched up a book, Communal History and Rama's Ayodhya, in December, 1990. Claiming to “call the VHP bluff,” he was trying to bluff his way by hurling abuse at those who had offered hard and clinching evidence. In January, 1991 he led forty-two “academics” in a public statement that there was absolutely no evidence for pre-Babri Hindu temple at the disputed site. The AIBMAC was led to believe that it had found a powerful advocate for its case. But when the chips were down, their stalwart was the first to turn tail and run away from the contest. He needed six weeks to study the evidence on a matter on which he had already reached firm and final conclusions. It had been easy for him to make statements and allegations in the partisan press. But confronted with genuine scholars who placed authentic evidence on the conference table, Sharma and comrades found themselves comered. Their talk was no longer that loud."

"There is nothing remarkable about the people in premodern South Asia having a clear and accurate conception of the spatial organization of their world."

"“How, concretely, does one do Indology beyond the Raj and Auschwitz in a world of pretty well tattered scholarly paradigms?”"

"“An example of this more sophisticated orientalism is the work of Paul Thieme”... esp. his “analysis of the Sanskrit word ārya, where at the end he adverts to the main point of his research: to go beyond India in order to catch the ‘distant echo of Indo-germanic customs’.”"

"“Moving beyond orientalism finally presupposes moving beyond the culture of domination and the politics of coercion that have nurtured orientalism in all its varieties, and been nurtured by it in turn.”"

"“In German Indology of the NS era, a largely nonscholarly mystical nativism deriving ultimately from a mixture of romanticism and protonationalism merged with that objectivism of Wissenschaft earlier described, and together they fostered the ultimate ‘orientalist’ project, the legitimation of genocide.”"

"“The Ŗg-Veda as an Aryan text ‘free of any taint of Semitic contact’; the ‘almost Nordic zeal’ that lies in the Buddhist conception of the marga [way]; the ‘Indo-Germanic religion-force’ of yoga; the sense of race and the ‘conscious desire for racial protection’; the ‘volksnahe kingship’ such is the meaning of the Indo-Aryan past for the National Socialist present, a present that, for Wüst, could not be understood without this past.”"

"“From among the complexities of NS analysis of the Urheimat question it is worth calling attention to the way the nineteenth-century view expressed by Schlegel was reversed: the original Indo-Europeans were now variously relocated in regions of the Greater German Reich; German thereby became the language of the core (Binnensprache), whereas Sanskrit was transformed into one of its peripheral, ‘colonial’ forms.”"

"... there exist no good accounts or theorizations of the end of the cultural order that for two millennia exerted a trans-regional influence across Asia-South, Southeast, Inner, and even East Asia- that was unparalleled until the rise of Americanism and global English. We have no clear understanding of whether, and if so, when, Sanskrit culture ceased to make history; whether, and if so, why, it proved incapable of preserving into the present the creative vitality it displayed in earlier epochs, and what this loss of affectivity might reveal about those factors within the wider world of society and polity that had kept it vital."

"For one thing, Sanskrit literary culture was never affected by communicative incompetence, which began to enfeeble Latin from at least the ninth century. The process of vernacularization in India, in so many ways comparable to the European case, was nowhere a consequence of growing Sanskrit ignorance."

"The Veda, the transcendent śāstra, subsumes all knowledge."

"‘Such voices … in any case are pretty much in the minority. The dominant ideology is that which ascribes clear priority and absolute competence to shastric codification.’"

"We may in fact characterize the ideological effects of the shastric paradigm more broadly as follows: First, all contradiction between the model of cultural knowledge and actual cultural change is thereby at once transmuted and denied; creation is really re-creation, as the future is, in a sense, the past. Second, the living, social, historical, contingent tradition is naturalized, becoming as much a part of the order of things as the laws of nature themselves: Just as the social, historical phenomenon of language is viewed by Mīmāṃsā as natural and eternal, so the social dimension and historicality of all cultural practices are eliminated in the shastric paradigm. And finally, through such denial of contradiction and reification of tradition, the sectional interests of pre-modern India are universalized and valorized. The theoretical discourse of śāstra becomes in essence a practical discourse of power."

"Pattanaik makes a good observation when he writes that high-profile India-watching academics “need to indulge America’s saviour complex if they need a share of the shrinking funding. The objective of the research needs to alleviate the misery of some victim and challenge a villain. And so, Doniger will provide evidence of how Puranic tales reinforce Brahmin hegemony, while Pollock will begin his essays on Ramayana with reference to Babri Masjid demolition, reminding readers that his paper has a political, not merely a theoretical, purpose.”... Sheldon Pollock, a very good Sanskritist at least in a purely linguistic sense, is more explicitly involved with the anti-Hindu discourse promoted in India by the missionaries and the Ambedkarites, and their first line of attack, the “secularists”. He has pioneered some valid insights into the Sanskrit “cosmopolis”, which did not oppress vernacular languages from Gandhari to Javanese but fruitfully coexisted with them to their mutual benefit. But at the same time, he has helped greatly in belittling and politicizing the Ramayana and in promoting the “Hinduism bad, Buddhism good” thesis. This is not very original, in fact it is only a sophisticated formulation of widely-held views. ... But in this discourse of hate, which instrumentalizes Buddhism as a bludgeon to beat Hinduism with, Pollock has gone farther than all others. In 1993 he published a paper arguing that Hinduism (particularly the Mimansa school, Brahminical par excellence) sits at the centre of Nazi doctrine. Yes, it is long ago, and partly explainable from the war psychology emanating from the Ayodhya controversy, in which he explicitly sided with the negationist school denying Islam’s well-documented destructive role in Hindu history. But he has never retracted this position and has remainthis position and has remainthis position and has remained a leading voice in anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin discourse.... “Being placed on a high pedestal is central to both strategies. Criticism also evokes a similar reaction in both sides – they quickly declare themselves as misunderstood heroes and martyrs, and stir up their legion of followers. Doniger and Pollock have inspired an army of activist-academicians who sign petitions to keep ‘dangerous’ Indian leaders and intellectuals out of American universities and even American soil”: Subramanian Swamy, Narendra Modi, and in similar controversies Rajiv Malhotra, the Dharma Civilization Foundation and others. Indeed, the Indological community’s touching (occasional) concern for freedom of speech is not erga omnes... “Despite their deep knowledge of Hinduism, neither Elst nor Frawley, neither Doniger nor Pollock, believe in letting go and moving on, which is the hallmark of Hindu thought, often deemed as a feminine trait. Instead,... Doniger and Pollock keep reminding their readers that Hinduism’s seductive ‘spirituality’ must at no point distract one from its communal and casteist truths.”"

"I am not alone in making this point. At least one European Indologist accuses Pollock of relocating Orientalism 'to the "New Raj" across the deep blue sea'... He [Grünendahl] says Pollock's narrative 'is not an evidence-based study of Orientalism or Indology in Germany, but a sophisticated charge of anti-Semitism based largely on trumped-up "evidence".... Pollock's post-Orientalist messianism would have us believe that only late twentieth-century (and now twenty-first century) America is intellectually equipped to reject and finally overcome [‘Eurocentrism’...] The path from the 'Deep Orientalism' of old to a new 'Indology beyond the Raj and Auschwitz' leads to the 'New Raj' across the deep blue sea.... Thus, Grünendahl has noted Pollock's tendency to develop broad narratives without any supporting evidence. Moreover, he draws attention to Pollock's messianism in promoting American scholarship.... , casting doubt on Pollock's attempt to analyse Sanskrit objectively. He raises the pertinent question as to whether Pollock is providing the intellectual foundations for America's 'New Raj', to replace the dead British Raj - i.e., whether American imperialism is replacing the dead British imperialism."

"“As was the case with the 1933/34 volume and Rhys Davids’s paper of 1904, none serve to corroborate Pollock’s presumptions. The same holds for recent evidence-based studies that in any way pertain to such issues […], all of which confirm that Pollock’s deep ruminations on ‘the political economy of Indology in Germany in the period 1800–1945’ (1993: 118n5) are entirely unfounded. Nevertheless, his attendant admonition that this is an ‘important question’ awaiting ‘serious analysis’ (118n5) has become a kind of gospel, recited by others […] with increasing confidence, but with very little to show as yet in terms of substantiation. Yet, all this while, dozens of ‘histories of German Indology’ are built on the—still unfulfilled—promises of that gospel.”"

"“The fundamental flaw of Pollock’s narrative is that it hinges entirely on the exact reverse of the ‘Nordic’ notion. This reversal, which provides the basis for the ‘founding myth’ of the entire discourse machinery he set in motion, is enshrined in the grotesque proposition that ‘the Germans… continued, however subliminally, to hold the nineteenth-century conviction that the origin of European civilization was to be found in India (or at least that India constituted a genetically related sibling)’ (1993:77) Even to the Romantic period [end of 18th, early 19th century, when this notion was upheld by Johann Herder], this assertion only holds with considerable qualifications (…) To make it the basis for theorizing any aspect of the NS period is rendered absurd by the above-mentioned texts alone”."

"Wilhelm Halbfass, the late Indologist at the University of Pennsylvania, took such ridiculous statements into strange, speculative areas and wrote: Would it not be equally permissible to identify this underlying structure as 'deep Nazism' or 'deep Mimamsa'? And what will prevent us from calling Kumarila and William Jones 'deep Nazis' and Adolf Hitler a 'deep Mimamsaka'?"

"One of his [Pollock's] goals is to critique and expunge what he sees as deeply entrenched static social hierarchies, barbarisms and poisons. I do not see anything inherently wrong with this intention by itself; most Hindus welcome improvements and the evolution of their culture. The issue worth debating is that Pollock sees these ills as deeply rooted in the Vedas themselves and as requiring the abandonment of core metaphysical and sacred perspectives."

"It is important for Pollock that Muslims not be blamed for the decline of Sanskrit. He writes that any theory 'can be dismissed at once' if it 'traces the decline of Sanskrit culture to the coming of Muslim power'. ... The contradiction between his two accounts, published separately, is serious: Muslim invasions created a traumatic enough shockwave to cause Hindu kings to mobilize the 'cult of Rama' and therefore the Hindus funded the production of extensive Ramayana texts for this agenda. And yet, the death of Sanskrit taking place at the same time had little relation to the arrival of Muslims. When Hindus are to be blamed for their alleged hatred towards Muslims, the Muslims are shown to have an important presence; but when Muslims are to be protected from being assigned any responsibility for destruction, they are mysteriously made to disappear from the scene."

"Grünendahl cites many examples where Pollock and his defender Adluri manipulate quotations to make past authors witnesses for their accusations. I vaguely knew that Pollock was wrong in associating the OIT with National-Socialism, but not that he was so spectacularly wrong. His thesis is first of all that India was a central concern for the Nazis. This is put forward most emphatically (but only with bluff) by Pollock and, on his authority, generally taken for granted... The Nazi regime’s favourite historian H.K.F. Günther believed the homeland lay in Southeastern Europe. This was the reigning opinion in Europe, challenged only by some Nazis who insisted on Germany or Scandinavia as the homeland. All of them agreed that the Indo-European language family had only reached India through an Aryan invasion... Let us add that Marchand agrees to include among the Nazi Indologists Paul Thieme, the revered teacher of Michael Witzel; and he was, like his more militant pupil, a believer in the AIT."

"Pollock’s attempt to even link the Out-of-India Theory with the Nazi worldview is the diametrical opposite of the truth; it was the rivalling Aryan Invasion Theory (which Pollock himself upholds) that formed the cornerstone and perfect illustration of the Nazi worldview. This linking could only pass peer review because of the general animus against Hinduism and Indo-European indigenism in American academe. The whole forced attempt to associate Hinduism with National-Socialism suggests a rare animosity against Hinduism.... Yes, that is how the Nazis saw it because they were racist and anti-Semitic to begin with. But the knowledge of the Sanskrit tradition could add absolutely nothing to that. There was nothing in the Vedas themselves that suggested anti-Semitism, it was entirely in the eye of the beholder. .... But the objective finality of Pollock’s thesis is more specific, viz. to blacken the Indian homeland hypothesis by associating it with National-Socialism. Reality, however, is just the opposite: more even than other Europeans, the Nazis espoused and upheld a westerly homeland and the invasion hypothesis. This invasion happens to be a corner-stone of Pollock’s worldview, with invader castes guilty of expropriating and subjugating the natives, who became the lower castes. Hitler-Pollock, same struggle!... Pollock’s own enumeration of supposedly India-related activities usually confuses “Indian” with “Indo-European”, i.e. “Aryan” or essentially “Nordic”. It is only by confusing those two that an impression of a NS orientation towards India can be created.... That is certainly the NS reading, but from a top Indologist, we might have expected an explanation of whether this was the Indians’ own intended reading. He doesn’t go into this question at all but confidently assumes an indubitably positive answer. To exonerate him, we might take this as merely a logical application of the Aryan invasion scenario, firmly established since the mid-19th century: the Aryans came in, met a different race of aboriginals, and imposed a racial Apartheid on them: the caste system. So, in a way, the case against Pollock is the case against Western Indology as a whole. ... The situation with allegations is simple: either you prove them, or you yourself are guilty of slander. This then can be held against Pollock: he has made a grave allegation, yet has failed to buttress it with proof, though not for lack of trying... The question which Hindus should contemplate, then, is this one. Should the Sanskrit tradition be given in care to a pofessor of Sanskrit who stands by such a grave though false allegation against it?"

"Without weighty grounds, we must not push aside unanimous Indian tradition; else one practises scepticism, not criticism."

"It is easy to see that this estimate [i.e., two hundred years] is far below the minimum of the possible period, during which in India a department of literature could take its rise, reach perfection, become obsolete and die out, to give place finally to a thoroughly new departure. For a Brahmana, for example, could only be widely spread by being learned by heart by a gradually extending circle of Brahmanas, and with the size of the country this would certainly demand a long time. Every man, who learned such a work, became, so to say, a copy of it. ... But several of such works must successively take the place of their predecessors, before the entire class of works in question becomes obsolete. I maintain that a minimum of a thousand years must rather be taken for such a process, which in the conditions that prevailed in ancient India was of necessity a very slow one, especially when we take into consideration that in historical times die literature of the classical period remained for more than a thousand years unaltered."

"“The river Yavyavati is mentioned once in the RV; it has been identified with the Zhob in E. Afghanistan. At PB 25.7.2, however, nothing points to such a W. localisation. The persons connected with it are known to have stayed in the Vibhinduka country, a part of the Kuru-PañcAla land.” [....] “A dolphin lying on the sands, dried out by the North wind, could refer to the Gangetic dolphin, as in fact it does at 1.176..."

"North-West India was a large "colonial" area, where the Indo-Iranian or early Vedic immigrant clans and tribes (including their poets) were struggling with each other and with more numerous local populations of non-Aryan descent which belonged to the post-Indus civilizations (c. 1900 B.C. and later).... The immigrating group(s) may have been relatively small one(s), such as Normans who came to England in 1066 and who nearly turned England into French speaking country- while they originally had been Scandinavians, speaking N. Germanic. This may supply a model for the Indo-Aryan immigration as well...…..However, the introduction of the horse and especially of the horse-drawn chariot was a powerful weapon in the hands of the Indo-Aryans. It must have helped to secure military and political dominance even if some of the local elite were indeed quick to introduce the new cattle-based economy and the weapon, the horse drawn chariot, - just as the Near Eastern peoples did on a much larger and planned scale. If they had resided and intermarried with the local population of the northern borderlands of Iran (the so called Bactro-Margiana Archaeological complex) for some centuries, the immigrating Indo-Aryan clans and tribes may originally have looked like Bactrians, Afghanis or Kashmiris, and must have been racially submerged quickly in the population of the Punjab, just like later immigrants whose staging area was in Bactria as well: the Saka, Kusana, Huns, etc……"

"“India possesses, it is true, a class of texts that proclaims to be a history of the subcontinent, the Puranas. …..Nevertheless, they have been used uncritically, e.g., by some historians such as R. Thapar, and by modern archaeologists as materials to establish their identifications of particular pre-historic cultures.”"

"Poets such as Śamyu Bārhapatasya 6.45.1, some early Kaṇvas (in book 8) [belong to the] Early Ṛgvedic level."

"“[…] the Vedas were composed orally and they always were and still are, to some extent, oral literature. They must be regarded as tape recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and usually without the change of a single word.” (WITZEL 1997b:258)."

"At the outset, it must be underlined that the Vedic texts excel among other early texts of other cultures in that they are 'tape recordings' of this archaic period. They were not allowed to be changed: not one word, not a syllable, not even a tonal accent. If this sounds unbelievable, it may be pointed out that they even preserve special cases of main clause and secondary clause intonation, items that have even escaped the sharp ears of early Indian grammarians. These texts are therefore better than any manuscript, and as good―if not better―than any contemporary inscription" (WITZEL 1999a:3)."

"I would not care, eg, if the IA-s could be shown to emerge from the proto-Masai culture of E-Africa."

""In Europe, river names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C. (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe)... “in northern India rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on" (WITZEL 1995a:104-105)."

"“Right from the beginning, in Ṛgvedic times, elaborate steps were taken to insure the exact reproduction of the words of the ancient poets. As a result, the Ṛgveda still has the exact same wording in such distant regions as Kashmir, Kerala and Orissa, and even the long-extinct musical accents have been preserved. Vedic transmission is thus superior to that of the Hebrew or Greek Bible, or the Greek, Latin and Chinese classics. We can actually regard present-day Ṛgveda recitation as a tape recording of what was composed and recited some 3000 years ago. In addition, unlike the constantly reformulated Epics and Purāṇas, the Vedic texts contain contemporary materials. They can serve as snapshots of the political and cultural situation of the particular period and area in which they were composed. […] as they are contemporary, and faithfully preserved, these texts are equivalent to inscriptions. […] they are immediate and unchanged evidence, a sort of oral history ― and sometimes autobiography ― of the period, frequently fixed and ‘taped’ immediately after the event by poetic formulation. These aspects of the Vedas have never been sufficiently stressed […]” (WITZEL 1995a:91)."

"“Something of this fear of the horse and of the thundering chariot, the "tank" of the 2nd millennium B.C. is transparent in the famous horse 'Dadhikra' of the Puru king Trasadasya ("Tremble enemy" in RV 4.38.8) ……..The first appearance of thundering chariots must have stricken the local population with terror similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and the Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards.”"

"“apart from archaeology, our principal source for the early period must be. the Rigveda…”"

"Since the SarasvatI, which dries up progressively after the mid 2nd millennium BC is still described as a mighty river in the Rigveda, the earliest hymns in the latter must have been composed by C.1500 BC. (p. 98)"

"“in contrast to its close relatives in Iran (Avestan, Old Persian), Vedic Sanskrit is already an Indian language”. (p 108)"

"“In South Asia, relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan place-names survive in the North; however, many more in central and southern India. Indo-Aryan place-names are generally not very old, since the towns themselves are relatively late.” (p 104)"

"“A better case for the early linguistic and ethnic history of South Asia can be made by investigating the names of rivers. In Europe river-names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 BC (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe). It would be fascinating to gain a similar vantage point for the prehistory of South Asia.” (p 104-5)"

"“in northern India, rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on.” (p 105)"

"“River names in northern India are thus principally Sanskrit, with few indications of Dravidian, MuNDa or Tibeto-Burmese names. However, Kosala, with its uncharacteristic -s- after -o- may be Tibeto-Burmese (Sanskrit rules would demand KoSala or KoSala, a corrected form that is indeed adopted in the Epics).” ... To sum up, what does the evidence of hydronomy tell us? Clearly there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanisation in northern India; this has progressed much less in southern India and in the often inaccessible parts of central India. In the northwest there are only a few exceptions, such as the names of the rivers GangA, SutudrI and perhaps KubhA.” (p 106-7)"

"This leads to the conclusion that the Indo-Aryan influence, ... was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England with the name of the state of Massachussetts next to the Charles river, formerly called the Massachussetts river, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc., next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri."

"Between the arrival of the Aryans ... and the formation of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda a much longer period must have elapsed than is normally thought."

"“The Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, acculturation, or, if one prefers, the substitution of Indo-Aryan names for local ones, was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river-names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus civilization, where one would have expected the survival of earlier names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England, with the name of the State of Massachussetts next to the Charles River formerly called the Massachussetts River, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc. next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri. The failure to preserve old hydronomes even in the Indus Valley (with a few exceptions noted above) indicates the extent of the social and political collapse experienced by the local population.” (p 107)"

"Other evidence, from Mitanni and neo-Hittite sources, indicates that the names of Mitanni kings were traditionally Indo-Aryan, even though the Mitanni belonged to the Hurrian-speaking peoples. We therefore surmise that the Mitanni once lived close to an early Indo-Aryan group, that had perhaps taken a dominant position over the pre-Mitanni population, and then became quickly acculturated as Hurrian speakers."

"[rice first appears in the Atharvaveda] unless the Ṛgvedic words (brahma-)-udana and puroḷāś mean a certain rice dish, as they do later on."

"It is interesting to note, however, that some of these [Rigvedic] names are found in Iranian forms closer to the older, Ṛgvedic home [Afghanistan!] of the Vedic tribes […] It seems that the Iranians simply changed the old Indo-Iranian names into their respective Iranian forms when they moved into the area, while the Vedic, Indo-Aryan speakers took some of these names with them eastwards, up to Bihar, in the typical fashion of people on the move."

""The structure of the text has been more extensively studied, already by Bergaigne (1878-83) and Oldenberg in the 19th century. From the latter's Prolegomena (Oldenberg 1888), it appears that the Ṛgveda was composed and assembled in the following stages, beginning 'at the centre' with books 2-7" (WITZEL 1995b:309)."

"[the SarasvatI is] “prominent in Book 7: it flows from the mountains to the sea (7.95.2) - which would put the battle of 10 kings prior to 1500 BC or so due to the now well-documented dessication of the SarasvatI”. (p. 335)"

"“Book 8 concentrates on the whole of the west: cf. camels, mathra horses, wool, sheep. It frequently mentions the Sindhu, but also the Seven Streams, mountains and snow.” [This MaNDala] “lists numerous tribes that are unknown to other books”. [In this MaNDala,] “camels appear (8.5.37-39) together with the Iranian name KaSu, ‘small’ or with the suspicious name Tirindra and the ParSu (8.6.46). The combination of camels (8.46.21, 31), Mathra horses (8.46.23) and wool, sheep and dogs (8.56.3) is also suggestive: the borderlands (including GandhAra) have been famous for wool and sheep, while dogs are treated well in Zoroastrian Iran but not in South Asia.” (pp. 317-322)"

"“books 2 to 7 (usually referred to as the ‘family books’) … have been ordered according to the increasing number of hymns per book” ... “very important principle in their arrangement.”"

"By contrast, the Pürus, who along with the Bharatas appeared on the scene later, began to use the designation “Five Peoples” immediately: as dis­cussed above, they probably regarded themselves as being located at the centre. In the later books the tribes mentioned include both the older “Five Peoples” as well as the newcomers, namely the Pürus and the Bharatas."

"We know very little about the Püru domination in the Panjab. It is only clear that they were the leaders in a coalition of Five Peoples, and some other tribes, against the Bharata chief Sudäs in the dasaräjna battle."

"The entire book 7 is thus a snapshot o f history: the incursion o f the Bharata into the Panjab from across the Sindhu, and their battle with the “Five Peoples” and the Püru."

"Theoretically, since Gartsamada Saunaka [the eponymous Rsi of Mandala II of the Rigveda] is made a Bhargava, he could be later than Book 6."

"“all these geographical notes belonging to diverse hymns are attributed to one and the same poet, SyAvASva, which is indicative of the poet’s travels.” [about Mandala 5 of the RV]"

"Book 5 [...] even knows, in a hymn not suspected as an addition, of the Yamunā."

"Book 6, again, knows of the west (including the Yavyävatp) but once mentions even the Ganga in an unsuspicious hymn [a hymn not suspected to be an addition]."

"[W]hile it would be easy to assume reference to skin colour, this would go against the spirit of the hymns: for Vedic poets, black always signifies evil, and any other meaning would be secondary in these contexts."

"There is the following direct statement contained in the (admittedly much later) BSS, 18.44:397.9 sqq which has once again been over-looked, not having been translated yet: ‘Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-PañcAla and the KASI-Videha. This is the Ayava (migration). (His other people) stayed at home in the West. His people are the GAndhArI, ParSu and AraTTa. This is the AmAvasava (group)’."

"[Kurukṣetra] became the heartland of the Bharatas well into the Vedic period. It is here that 3.53.11 places the centre of the earth."

"Even a brief look at this list indicates that in northern India, by and large, only Sanskritic river names seem to survive.... [he notes that over 90% don't just look IA but] “are etymologically clear and generally have a meaning” [in Indo-Aryan]... [He attributes this unexpectedly large etymological transparency to] “the ever-increasing process of changing older names by popular etymology”. ... [Sindhu might be an] “Indo-Iranian coinage with the meaning ‘border river, ocean’ and fits Paul Thieme's etymology from the IE root *sidh, ‘to divide’”."

"During the Vedic period, there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanization of the North Indian hydronomy. . . . Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, cultural expansion, or. ... the substitution of indigenous names by Sanskrit ones, was from early on powerful enough to replace the local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. The development is especially surprising in the area of the Indus civilization. One would expect, just as in the Near East or in Europe, a survival of older river names and adoption of them by the IA newcomers upon entering the territories of the people(s) of the Indus civilization and its successor cultures.... "such names tend to be very archaic in many parts of the world and they often reflect the languages spoken before the influx of later populations" (368-369). ... "by and large, only Sanskritic river names seem to survive" in the Northwest (370). [In the Kuruksetra area,] "all names are unique and new formations, mostly of IA coinage" (377). ...[in] "the 'homeland' of the Rgvedic Indians, the Northwest "we find "most Rgvedic river names . . . are Indo-Aryan, with the possible exception of the Kubha, Satrudri, and perhaps the Sindhu" (373). [These latter, according to Witzel (1999)] "prove a local non-IA substrate."

"Nevertheless, in order to bolster his claim for the antiquity of the "Vedic horse (as) a native Indian breed", he connects this dead horse with the Rigvedic one, which is described as having 34 ribs (Rigveda 1.162.18). But, while horses (Equus caballus) generally have 18 ribs on each side, this can individually vary with 17 on just one or on both sides. This is not a genetically inherited trait. ... As for the number 34, numeral symbolism may play a role in this Rigveda passage dealing with a horse sacrificed for the gods. The number of gods in the Rigveda is 33 or 33+1, which obviously corresponds to the 34 ribs of the horse, that in turn is speculatively brought into connection with all the gods, many of whom are mentioned by name (Rigveda 1.162-3). But this is mere philology, not worthy of "scientific" study..."

"“I have read Elst’s criticism of my 1995 BSS translation. This is one of the “very” few cases where he is right indeed in his stringent immigration/trickling in stance (who speaks of “invasion” these days?) My translation, as it reads, is wrong in the “translations” of “amaavasus.” (Interpretation is quite another thing, see below. The whole passage plays with names and their Nirukta-like interpretation as verbs). My paper in Erdosy, Ancient Indo-Aryans, where this was published, is full of printing and some other mistakes; I did not see the proof and could not correct it before it was published. The BSS translation as printed is a mixture of translation and interpretation. I have already corrected it in a paper (still in press) which has been given to some friends long ago.”25"

"So far archaeology and palaeontology, based on multi-variate analysis of skeletal features, have not found a new wave of immigration into the subcontinent after 4500 BCE (a separation between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic populations of Mehrgarh), and up to 800 BCE."

"[the Sintashta-Arkaim culture on the W. Siberian plains east of the Urals,] "dated to c.2200/2100-1700/1600 BC", [where] "the earliest attested traces of Aryan material culture "and even of Aryan belief". ..[there we find] "remnants of horse sacrifices (aśvamedha) and primitive horse drawn chariots (ratha, raθa) with spoked wheels [....] a real tripura [....] adobe bricks (*išt) [....] frame houses (which reminds of Rgvedic kula 'hollow, family‘ [....]) [....] Most tellingly, perhaps, at the site of Potapovka (N. Krasnayarsk Dt., near Kybyshev on the N. Volga steppe), a unique burial has been found. It contains a human skeleton whose head has been replaced by a horse head, a human head lies near his feet, along with a bone pipe, and a cow‘s head is placed near his knees. This looks like an archaeological illustration of the Rgvedic myth of Dadhyanc, whose head was cut off by Indra and replaced by that of a horse. The bone pipe reminds, as the excavator has noted, of the RV sentence referring to the playing of pipes in Yama‘s realm, the world of the ancestors"."

"Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N. S. Rajaram... who ship their ideas to India from U.S. shores."

"Given the scholarly inclinations among the expatriate communities in North America we may expect a slew of new interpretations, in fact, a whole new cottage industry. Their impact will appear especially on the internet."

"“Not only the language, but also the culture of the newly arrived elite was appropriated, including the 'Vedic Tank' the horse drawn chariot.”"

"“I have also since changed my opinion, based on new evidence, about the relative date of the bulk of RV2 which I would now include in the mid-level texts”."

"This word [Druhyu] means, literally, ‘the ones who seek to cheat’. Non-linguist as he is, Talageri missed a great chance for a ‘socio-ethnic’ study based on an etymology!"

"Other writers in Kazanas’ class, including D. Frawley, K. Elst, and N. S. Rajaram, have already caused significant damage to linguistics, philology, Indology, archaeology, and history.... In the fundamentalist/nationalistic circles from, which Kazanas draws support – despite his pretense of political naivete."

"The so-called ‘invasion’ of IA speakers is not (yet) visible in the archaeology."

"“The language of the RV is an archaic form of Indo-European. Its 1028 hymns are addressed to the gods and most of them are used in ritual. They were orally composed and strictly preserved by exact repetition through by rote learning, until today. It must be underlined that the Vedic texts are ‘tape recordings’ of this archaic period. Not one word, not a syllable, not even a tonal accent were allowed to be changed. The texts are therefore better than any manuscript, and as good as any well preserved contemporary inscription. We can therefore rely on the Vedic texts as contemporary sources for names of persons, places, rivers (WITZEL 1999c)” (WITZEL 2006:64-65)."

"Even now, however, three RV periods can be established, as follows: 1. early Ṛgvedic period: c.1700-1450 BCE: RV books 4, 5, 6. 2. middle, main Ṛgvedic period : c.1450-1300 BCE: books 3, 7, 8.1-47, 8.60-66 and 1.51-191, most probably also 2; prominent: Pūru chieftain Trasadasyu and Bharata chieftain Sudās and their ancestors, and 3. late Ṛgvedic period: c.1300-1200 BCE: books 1.1-50, 8.48-59 (the late Vālakhilya hymns), 8.67-103, large sections of 9, and finally 10.1-84, 10.85- 191; emergence of the Kuru tribe, fully developed by the time of Parīkṣit a descendant of Trasadasyu... With Indo-Aryan settlement mainly in Gandhāra/Panjab, but occasionally extending upto Yamunā/Gangā, e.g. Atri poem 5.52.17; the relatively old poem 6.45.13 [sic] has gāngya [...] Even the oldest books of the RV (4-6) contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab: note the rivers Sindhu 4.54.6, 4.55.3, 5.53.9 ̳Indus‘; Asiknī 4.17.5 ̳Chenab‘; Paru ṣṇ ī 4.22.3. 5.52.9 'Ravi‘; Vipāś 4.30.11 (Vibali) 'Beas‘; Yamunā 5.52.17; Gangā 6.45.31 with gāngya 'belonging to the Ganges‘ [...] G. van Driem and A. Parpola (1999) believe that these oldest hymns were still composed in Afghanistan [...]. This is, however, not the case as these books contain references to the major rivers of the Panjab, even the Ganges (see above)."

"In general, the books of RV level I (RV 4-6) are thoroughly South Asian and have reference to local climate, trees and animals. We therefore have to take them seriously at their word, and cannot claim that they belong just to Afghanistan."

"None of the archaeologically identified post-Harappan cultures so far found, from Cemetery H, Sarai Kala III, the early Gandhara and Gomal Grave Cultures, does make a good fit for the culture of the speakers of Vedic […] At the present moment, we can only state that linguistic and textual studies confirm the presence of an outside, Indo-Aryan speaking element, whose language and spiritual culture has definitely been introduced, along with the horse and the spoked wheel chariot, via the BMAC area into northwestern South Asia. However, much of present-day Archaeology denies that. To put it in the words of Shaffer (1999:245) ‘A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan’ people into South Asia is not described by the archaeological record’ […] [But] the importation of their spiritual and material culture must be explained. So far, clear archaeological evidence has just not been found""

"Apparently, Dravidian speakers began influencing the Panjab only at this moment in time. Consequently, all linguistic and cultural deliberations based on the early presence of the Drav. in the area of speakers of IA, are void or they have to be reinvestigated. ... In short, the Panjab is an area of a Pre-rigvedic, largely Para-Munda substrate that apparently overlays a still older local level. Since no traces of the supposedly Dravidian language of the Indus civilization (Parpola 1994) are visible in the early RV (see below), the people who spoke this language must either have disappeared without a trace, or, more likely, the language of the Panjab was Para-Munda already during the Indus period (2600- 1900 BCE). Therefore, the most commonly used language among the languages of the Indus people, at least of those in the Panjab, must have been Para-Munda or a western form of Austro-Asiatic.... In short, even if Drav. had been the traders' language, it remains unexplainable why Drav. influence is only seen in the middle and late RV as well as later one (AV+). The reason cannot be, as van Driem (1999, appendix p. 2, quoting agreement with Parpola) supposes, that the oldest RV hymns were still "composed in more northerly areas, perhaps as far north as modern Afghanistan." (Parpola forthc.) On the contrary, even the oldest books of the RV (4-6) contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab..."

"“It must be underlined that just like an ancient inscription, these words have not changed since the composition of these hymns c.1500 BCE, as the RV has been transmitted almost without any change […] The modern oral recitation of the RV is a tape recording of c.1700-1200 BCE.” (WITZEL 2000a:§8)."

"The IAs, as described in the RV, represent something definitely new in the subcontinent […] The obvious conclusion should be that these new elements somehow came from the outside."

"Elst disingenuously insists on calling any migration or even a ‘trickling in’ an ‘invasion’. However, immigration/trickling in and acculturation are entirely different from a (military) invasion, or from overpowering and/or eradicating the local population.... For Elst, however, ‘the ancient Hindus colonized the world’ while India, in reality, by and large, has been a cul de sac."

"[the Mitanni IA language] is attested by a number of OIA loan words in the non-IE Hurrite language of the Mit. realm of northern Iraq/Syria (c.1460-1330 BCE). The loans cover the semantic fields of horses, their colors, horse racing, and chariots, some important ‘Vedic‘ gods, and a large array of personal names adopted by the ruling class."

"The Kassite conquerors of Mesopotamia (c.1677-1152 BCE) have a sun god Šuriiaš, perhaps also the Marut and maybe even Bhaga (Bugaš?), as well as the personal name Abirat(t)aš (Abhiratha); but otherwise the vocabulary of their largely unknown language hardly shows any IA influence, not even in their many designations for the horse and horse names."

"Chicken and still later exports from India are absent in common Laurasan ritual."

"It will be an important reference work in mythological studies for decades to come, being easily the most ambitious work in that field. Witzel makes an attempt, with apparent success, to reconstruct the history of myth, not for one culture in the past several thousand years but for mankind as a whole since its dispersal from Africa more than fifty-thousand years ago. ... Note that this work has only become possible now. We have collected the mythologies of nearly all tribes, very often recording them just as they were dying, either because tribes got converted to Christianity and were forgetting their own traditions, or because communities disintegrated into modern societies.... For the first time, we can give an account of the whole world’s myths, and therefore we must be glad that finally someone has taken on this task. ... This builds its reconstruction with the help of the archaeological and genetic evidence. Specialists of those disciplines will certainly complain that more of it could have been given, but then this book is a pioneering innovation and other scholars are invited to expand on this new paradigm."

"The thrust of all Witzel’s misrepresentations is one and the same: to replace reasonable opinions with far-fetched or plainly nonsensical claims. Or in other words: to depict me as some kind of weirdo, fanatic and other ugly things besides.... For a well-established academic at a leading university, safe in his tenure and his creamy salary, approaching the completion of his career, Prof. Witzel’s behaviour seems odd to me. What is he afraid of that he thinks he must stoop to tackling me with these unacademic tricks? The reason for this unpleasant pattern of falsely attributing silly opinions to me is probably not far to seek. It is the fact that I have exposed a mistake made by Witzel in a crucial part of his pro-AIT argumentation... I have never accused Prof. Witzel of deceit or fraud. I prefer to live by Napoleon’s dictum: “Never attribute to malice what can be explained through incompetence”,-- or in this case, through over-enthusiasm for a long-hoped-for “discovery”. When people are very very thirsty, they start to see an oasis on the horizon; no malice intended, just self-delusion. Only, after his innocent mistake had been highlighted, Witzel’s reaction was rather unsportsmanlike. He claimed that it was all due to a printing error. That sounds a bit random for such a precise and sensational reading. As if you can put monkeys at a typewriter and let them produce an AIT-friendly translation by coincidence... What’s the big deal about standing corrected once in a while?"

"“Witzel quotes favourably a statement at the beginning of this rather long article about India's role as "the cultural diffusion cul -de-sac of Asia" (p.1), an idea that has "kept me occupied on and off over the past few years." This sums up Witzel's view of Indian civilisation — it is the cultural backwater and dead end of Asia, where wandering nomads can go no further, with no real civilisation of its own. Not surprisingly Witzel has little appreciation for the Vedas, Vedanta, Yoga, Buddhism or anything else India has produced. His extensive bibliographies on ancient India seldom refer to any Indian scholars, and certainly avoid mentioning any yogis like Aurobindo who have different views. You would never find Witzel chanting Om, practicing Yoga or in any other way honouring the great traditions of the region. His anti-India views reflect those of the colonial era which he is continuing. For this reason Witzel is mainly honoured by Marxists in India whose political agenda favours rejecting anything great not only in the Vedas but in Indian civilisation as a whole, which many Marxists following Marx himself see as an invention of the British. However, no one who really studies and loves the Vedas will be fooled by such theatrics. There is much more to the Vedas than Witzel's philology."

"Witzel’s way of arguing, by concocting a false position for the opponent and attacking it, is unethical, whether it was done deliberately or because of lack of understanding."

"To sum up: when it comes to indulging in “inane accusations and outright slander”, even under cover of writing a “review article” of a book, Witzel is second to none! .... Throughout the whole debate, Witzel epitomizes the kind of scholar described by Max Muller (in his book “India – what it can teach us”) as being very rare in India, but not so rare in the west (a generalization which need not be true in general, but is definitely true in this case): the scholar who indulges in “rudeness of speech … quibbling….. special pleading ….. (and) untruthfulness” and who “writes down what he knows perfectly well to be false, and snaps his fingers at those who still value truth…”"

"Translations of this kind pervade the Witzel/Goto version, but I find them remarkable both for meaninglessness, and for lack of poetic charm. They stand out as bizarrely improbable in the context of the contemplative lyricism of the poems. Like Chomsky’s “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”, although grammatical, they don’t make sense."

"Witzel’s scholarship ... is a prime example of intellectual misdirection and falsity... It may also serve as a warning exposition, of the sly and dangerous assortment of techniques frequently employed by such “scholars” to cast traps for those with a sincere intent to pursue civilizational studies and then co-opt them into a school of thought with deception, falsification, fabrication as its pillars."

"As in its original language, we see the roots and shoots of the languages of Greek and Latin, of Celt, Teuton and Slavonian, so the deities, the myths and the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda throw a flood of light upon the religions of all European countries before the introduction of Christianity. As the science of comparative philology could hardly have existed without the study of Sanskrit, so the comparative history of the religions of the world would have been impossible without the study of the Veda."

"The Indus civilization has challenged scholars’ understanding since its discovery some eighty years ago, and in recent years the application of systematic and problem-orientated research, coupled with much new and unexpected data, has overturned many previous interpretations."

"In contrast, changes taking place in the Saraswati Valley in the early second millennium were probably a major contributor to the Indus decline. In Harappan times, the Saraswati was a major river system flowing from the Siwaliks at least to Bahawalpur, where it probably ended in a substantial inland delta. The ancient Saraswati River was fed by a series of small rivers that rose in the Siwaliks, but it drew the greater part of its waters from two much larger rivers rising high in the Himalayas: the Sutlej and the Yamuna. In its heyday the Saraswati appears to have supported the densest settlement and provided the greatest arable yields of any part of the Indus realms. The Yamuna, which supplied most of the water flowing in the Drishadvati, a major tributary of the Saraswati, changed its course, probably early in the second millennium, to flow into the Ganges drainage. The remaining flow in the Drishadvati became small and seasonal: Late Harappan sites in Bahawalpur are concentrated in the portion of the Sarawati east of Yazman, which was fed by the Sutlej. At a later date the Sutlej also changed its course and was captured by the Indus. These changes brought about massive depopulation of the Saraswati Valley, which by the end of the millennium was described as a place of potsherds and ruin mounds whose inhabitants had gone away. At the same time new settlements appeared in the regions to the south and east, in the upper Ganges-Yamuna doab. Some were located on the palaeochannels that mark the eastward shift of the Yamuna. Presumably many of the Late Harappan settlers had originated in the Saraswati Valley."

"The decline of Harappan urbanism probably had many contributing factors. The shift to a concentration on kharif cultivation in the outer regions of the state may have seriously disrupted established schedules for craft production, civic flood defense, building and drain maintenance, and other publicly organized works on which the smooth running of the state depended. The reduction in the waters of the Saraswati and the response of its farmers by migrating into regions to the east tore apart the previous unity of the Harappan state, disrupting its cohesion and its ability to control the internal distribution network."

"‘[The desertion of the Drishadvati and the Sutlej] is typical of the instability of the river courses in the Indus plains—but in the case of the Saraswati, the effect was not localized but devastating on a major scale. Cities, towns, and villages were abandoned, their inhabitants drifting to other regions of the Indus realms and eastward towards the Ganges, pushing back the centuries-old eastern boundaries of Indus culture and venturing into uncharted territory.’"

"This work revealed an incredibly dense concentration of sites, along the dried-up course of a river that could be identified as the ‘Saraswati’. . . Suddenly it became apparent that the ‘Indus’ Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the rise and development of the civilization, the ‘lost Saraswati’ River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity...Many people today refer to this Early state as the ‘Indus-Saraswati Civilization’ and continuing references [in her book] to the ‘Indus Civilization’ should be seen as an abbreviation in which the ‘Saraswati’ is implied."

"The now-dry Hakra River forms part of this river system. Surveys along its dry bed revealed that this was one of the most densely populated areas of the 3rd millennium, the agricultural heartland of the civilization, although it is now virtually desert."

"In the Indus period the Saraswati river system may have been even more productive than that of the Indus, judging by the density of settlement along its course. In the Bahawalpur region, in the western portion of the river, settlement density far exceeded that elsewhere in the Indus civilization . . . While there are some fifty sites known along the Indus, the Saraswati has almost a thousand . . . [The Yamuna] shifted its course eastward early in the second millennium, eventually reaching its current bed by the first millennium, while the Drishadvati bed retained only a small seasonal flow; this seriously decreased the volume of water carried by the Saraswati. The Sutlej gradually shifted its channel northward, eventually being captured by the Indus drainage . . . The loss of the Sutlej waters caused the Saraswati to be reduced to the series of small seasonal rivers familiar today. Surveys show a major reduction in the number and size of settlements in the Saraswati region during the second millennium."

"[The Indians] live happily enough,... being simple in their manners, and frugal. They never drink wine except at sacrifice. . . . The simplicity of their laws and their contracts is proved by the fact that they seldom go to law. They have no suits about pledges and deposits, nor do they require either seals or witnesses, but make their deposits and confide in each other. . . . Truth and virtue they hold alike in esteem. . . . The greater part of the soil is under irrigation, and consequently bears two crops in the course of the year. . . . It is accordingly affirmed that famine has never visited India, and that there has never been a general scarcity in the supply of nourishing food."

"Of several remarkable customs existing among the Indians, there is one prescribed by their ancient philosophers which one may regard as truly admirable: for the law ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess: for those, they thought, who have learned neither to domineer over nor to cringe to others will attain the life best adapted for all vicissitudes of lot: for it is but fair and reasonable to institute laws which bind all equally, but allow property to be unevenly distributed."' Among the Indians officers are appointed even for foreigners, whose duty is to see that no foreigner is wronged. Should any of them lose his health, they send physicians to attend him, and take care of him otherwise, and if he dies they bury him, and deliver over such property as he leaves to his relatives. The judge also decides cases in which foreigners are concerned, with the greatest care, and come down sharply on those who take unfair advantage of them."

"[Their] law ordains that no one among them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom, they shall respect the equal right to it which all possess: for it is but fair and reasonable to institute laws which bind all equally, but allow property to bo unevenly distributed."

"Megasthenes, for example, who visited the Maurya court at Pataliputra in the fourth century bc, noted: All Indians are free, and none of them is a slave…. Indians neither invade other peoples, nor do other peoples invade India…. They fare happily, because of their simplicity and their frugality…. Since they esteem beauty, they practise everything that can beautify their appearance. Further, they respect alike virtue and truth…."

"All Indians are free, and not one of them is a slave."

"We have three versions of a statement by Megasthenes... Pliny (VI. xxl.4-5) reports about the Indians: "From the days of Father Bacchus to Alexander the Great, their kings are reckoned at 154, whose reigns extend over 6451 years and 3 months." Solinus (52.5) says: "Father Bacchus was the first who invaded India, and was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians. From him to Alexander the Great 6451 years are reckoned with 3 months additional, the calculation being made by counting the kings, who reigned in the intermediate period, to the number of 153." Arrian (Indica, I. ix.) observes: "From the time of Dionysus to Sandrocottus the Indians counted 153 kings and a period of 6042 years, but among these a republic was thrice established... and another to 300 years, and another to 120 years. The Indians also tell us that Dionysus was earlier than Heracles by fifteen generations, and that except him no one made a hostile invasion of India but that Alexander indeed came and overthrew in war all whom he attacked...""

"‘[…] the Brahmins […] already knew all those doctrines concerning nature which were subsequently taught by the Greeks.’"

"“All the Dravidian languages known to us fairly bristle with loans from Sanskrit and the Aryan vernaculars. Dravidian literature in South India came into existence under the impulse and influence of Sanskrit literature and speech. Wherever there is a correspondence in the vocabularies of Sanskrit and Dravidian, there is a presumption, to be removed only by specific argument, that Sanskrit has been the lender, Dravidian the borrower.” ....“If a word can be explained easily from material extant in Sanskrit itself, there is little chance for such a hypothesis”."

"“The discovery of ‘Aryan’ looking names of (Mitanni) princes on cuneiform documents in Akkadian from the second half of the second millennium BC (chiefly tablets from Bogazkoy and El-Amarna), several doubtlessly Aryan words in Kikkuli’s treatise in Hittite on horse training (numerals: aika- ‘one’, tera- ‘three’, panza- ‘five’, satta – ‘seven’, na(ya) – ‘nine’; appellatives: varttana – ‘circuit’, course (in which horses move when being trained),’ aliya – ‘horse’), and, finally, a series of names of Aryan divinities on a Mitanni-Hatti and a Hatti-Mitanni treaty (14th century BC), poses a number of problems that have been reportedly discussed since the beginning of the century.”"

"In a list of names of gods with Babylonian equivalents we find a sun-god Suriyas (rendered Samas) which must clearly be identified with Skt Surya. In addition, Maruttas the war-god (rendered En-Urta) has been compared with Skt Marut ... Among the kings of this dynasty one has a name which can be interpreted as Aryan: Abhirattas: abhi-ratha ñ ëfacing chariots in battleí."

"The fact that proto-Aryan *ai and *au are replaced in Indo-Aryan by e and o, while in Iranian they are preserved as ai and au and that ai and au regularly appear on the Anatolian documents (eg. Kikkuli‘s aika), is unfortunately inconclusive. It is quite possible that at the time of our oldest records (the hymns of the Rigveda) the actual pronunciation of the sounds developed for *ai and *au spoken and written by the tradition as e and o, was still ai and au. The e and o can be a secondarily introduced change under the influence of the spoken language or the scholastic recitation."

"In the 1930s, numerous Indologists sought to anchor Nazi racial theory in ancient "Aryan" history and literature, including Erich Frauwallner, Hermann Güntert, Hermann Lommel, Paul Thieme, and Ludwig Alsdorf."

"“An example of this more sophisticated orientalism is the work of Paul Thieme”... esp. his “analysis of the Sanskrit word ārya, where at the end he adverts to the main point of his research: to go beyond India in order to catch the ‘distant echo of Indo-germanic customs’.”"

"“….the ‘Sanskrit-origin’ hypothesis runs into insurmountable difficulties, due to the irreversible nature of relevant linguistic changes [….but….] the likelihood of the ‘PIE-in-India’ hypothesis cannot be assessed on the basis of similar robust evidence” (HOCK 1999a:2), and that “The ‘PIE-in-India’ hypothesis is not as easily refuted as the ‘Sanskrit-origin’ hypothesis, since it is not based on ‘hard-core’ linguistic evidence, such as sound changes, which can be subjected to critical and definitive analysis. Its cogency can be assessed only in terms of circumstantial arguments, especially arguments based on plausibility and simplicity” (HOCK 1999a:12)."

"A close reading of the Rg-vedic passages in which terms meaning white or light and dark or black are employed in reference to human beings convinces me that a racial interpretation of these terms is not required by textual evidence."

"[RV 1.100.18] is the only one among these that contains a word meaning white or light. Given that the very next line begins with a reference to the sun, it is perfectly natural to assume that white or light here refers to the brightness of the sun or of a world that is illuminated by the sun, see Sayana's interpretation. Geldner's tentative equation of white/light with skin color is not required by the context."

"Examples 6-9 contain references to black or dark or even black skin; and Geldner's interpretation is almost consistently a racial one. Closer examination, however, shows that either within the same line or verse , or in a closely neighboring one, we find references to the sun [RV 1.130.8, 4.6.13-14], to broad light [7.5.3-6], or to red or fiery beings [RV 3.31.21]."

"Moreover, to get his racial interpretation in [RV 4.6.13-14], Geldner has to unnecessarily assume "attraction", i.e. inaccurate agreement between krsna black and sahasra 'thousands'. This is not necessary if we interpret krsna as a sandhi form krshnah and construe it as modifying puro 'forts'. Under this interpretation, of course, krsna refers not to people , but to forts."

"The word tvac 'skin' ... does not necessarily designate human or animal skin, but can also refer to the surface of the earth. Examples of this occur in RV 1.79.3, 1.145.5., 10.68.4, and possibly 4.17.14. An important variant, in the expression roma prtivyah (1.65.8) 'the body hair of the earth' = 'the plants', suggests that the metaphor of tvac as the skin or surface of the earth was well-established in the poetic language of the Rigveda. In [RV 1.130.8, 9.41.1-5, 9.73.5] , therefore, the reference may well be to the 'dark earth' or 'dark world' of the dasas/dasyus, which contrasts with the broad light of the aryas, which is lit up by the sun or by 'fiery beings'."

"Moreover, in [RV 2.20.7 , 1.101.1] , Geldner's translations of the krsnayonih... as meaning 'having blacks or embryos of the blacks in their wombs' is quite recherché; a more natural interpretation would be 'having dark wombs', and this interpretation permits a reading 'having dark interiors' - which could refer either to dark interiors of the dasas forts or to the dark world in which the forts of the dasas /dasyus are located , in contrast to the 'light' world of the aryas. In fact the close similarity between the expressions... 'he created land for Manu' in [RV 2.20.7] and... 'making broad light for the arya' in [RV 7.5.3 - 6] provides strong support for the view that words for light and dark are indeed used to refer to the earth, land, or world of aryas vs dasas."

"Geldner's interpretation of [RV 9.73.5 , 10.116.4 ] strike me as even more arbitrary, given the limited context; Grassmanns' interpretation that the reference is to darkness or a dark cloud is at least equally possible."

"In light of the preceding discussion, the racial interpretation of the of the notions light/white and dark/black found in Geldner's translations and echoed or precedented in numerous other publications must be considered dubious. Where there is sufficient context for interpretation, we find that the notions can at least equally well be read as an ‘ideological’ distinction between the ‘dark/black’ world of the dāsas/dasyus and the ‘light/white’ world of the āryas.”"

"Early Sanskrit literature offers no conclusive evidence for preoccupation with skin color. More than that, some of the greatest Epic heroes and heroines such as Krshna, Draupadi, Arjuna, Nakula and (...) Damayanti are characterized as dark-skinned. Similarly, the famous cave-paintings of Ajanta depict a vast range of skin colors. But in none of these contexts do we find that darker skin color disqualifies a person from being considered good, beautiful, or heroic. Even more significant, in these and other passages in Sanskrit literature that characterize a person's skin color as dark, this characterization applies to individuals - we have no evidence of the classification of entire racial groups in terms of skin color."

"In the Gopatha Brahmana, brahmins are sukla white, while the Kathaka samhita uses the term sukla white to refer to the vaysia, and more significantly, characterizes the rajsanya as dhumra dark. Later on the caste colors are sukla white for the brahmin, rakta red for the kshatriya, pita yellow for the vasya, and krsna black for the sudra. Classifications of this type, for which there seem to be counterparts in Chinese and Japanese drama and ritual, make no sense in racial terms ... But the classical system of color association can be made sense of in 'ideological ' terms: white, i.e. ritually pure for the brahmin, red the color of blood for the warrior caste, yellow the color of ripe grain and perhaps also of gold... and black the opposite of ritually pure white for the serfs etc who came to be excluded from the ritual at a fairly early period."

"Words meaning white light are widely used in reference to the world of the Aryans or their gods, and so are terms meaning broad, wide (note the combination of broad and light in the uru jyotih broad light of [RV 7.5.3 - 6])."

"Note also the widespread use of uru- loka- 'wide space' found eg in RV 1.93.6.(Agni and Soma have made wide space for the sacrifice) and RV 6.23.7 (Indra is asked to create wide space for the worshipper) and note the related u loka- . The similarity to the uru jyotih found in some of our earlier examples goes beyond the fact that the two collocations are used in the same general contexts and with about the same meaning , and beyond the fact that the same adjective (uru) is used in both collocations - etymologically , loca is derived from the root ruc- shine and thus comparable in meaning to jyotih light."

"The fact that racial interpretations arose in the 19th century is not surprising , given the prevalence at the time of quasi-scientific attempts to provide a justification for racially based European imperialism , and the well known scramble of the European powers to divide up the non-European world. Moreover, the British take-over of India seemed to provide a perfect parallel to the assumed take-over of prehistoric India by the invading ‘Aryans’."

"A few things can be established with certainty, others with a good degree of likelihood, and yet others remain entirely uncertain."

"The expression róma prthivyâh (1.65.8) ‘the body-hair of the earth’ ‘the plants’, suggests that the metaphor of tvac- as the ‘skin’ or surface of the earth was well established in the poetic language of the Rig-Veda."

"Closer examination suggests an alternative interpretation of the terms ‘black’ or ‘dark’ as referring to the dark world of the dasas/dasyus in contrast with the light world of the aryas, an interpretation which is in perfect agreement with the contrast between good/light and evil/dark forces that pervades the Vedas (and has parallels in many, perhaps most other traditions around the world)."

"First, wherever there is sufficient context for interpretation (which excludes [11], [12], and [13]), either the same line or verse or a closely neighboring one contains a reference to the ‘sun’ [5], [6], and [9], to ‘broad light’ [7], or to ‘red’ or ‘fiery’ beings [8].23 These references are marked in roman."

"Further, elsewhere in the Rig-Veda the word tvac- ‘skin’, which occurs in [1.130.8 ], [9.41.1,5], and [9.73.5], does not necessarily designate human or animal skin, but may refer to the surface of the earth. Examples of this use occur at RV 1.79.3, 1.145.5, 10.68.4, and possibly 4.17.14. The expression róma prthivyâh (1.65.8) ‘the body-hair of the earth’ ‘the plants’, suggests that the metaphor of tvac- as the ‘skin’ or surface of the earth was well established in the poetic language of the Rig-Veda. In [1.130.8 ], [9.41.1,5], and [9.73.5], therefore, the reference may well be to the ‘dark earth’ or ‘dark world’ of the dasas/dasyus that contrasts with the urújyótih ‘broad light’ of the aryas, which is lit up by the sun or by ‘fiery beings’. In this regard note the close similarity between the expressions ájanayan mánave ksâm ‘he created land for Manu’ in [2.20.7] and urújyótir janáyann âryaya ‘making broad light for the arya’."

"The abuse of linguistic prehistory and early history in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries is well known. A racial interpretation of the earliest stages of Vedic Sanskrit, projected back into Proto-Indo-European, formed fertile ground for the racist "Aryan" ideology, the most horrific outgrowth of which was the genocide of Jews, Gypsies or Roma and other so-called "inferior" races carried out by the Nazis in the name of Germany. It is also a fact that a somewhat milder form of racism characterizes a large part of the overall Indology of the 19th and early 20th centuries. (232)"

"A closer study of all the passages that provide sufficient context for interpretation shows that the black or dark of the Dasas/Dasyus is not contrasted with the light or white skin color of the Aryas, but with their bright, sunny world. (236)... Even the expression tvac "skin" does not need to be understood literally, but can also refer to the surface of the earth. In general, the assumption of racial self- and external identification, as well as the alleged parallel with the English conquest of India for the time of the alleged Indo-Aryan immigration to India, is extremely questionable. (236-7)"

"In the case of Pirak, however, it must be admitted that the cultural innovations do not appear to be clearly Indo-European. Perhaps there was only indirect contact via other ethnic groups in Seistan. (244)"

"A great difficulty is the fact that archaeology offers no firm evidence either for the Aryan invasion theory or for the Aryan emigration theory, or even for the historically attested multiple later immigrations or invasions into South Asia - at least if we restrict ourselves to the evidence of skeletal types and general cultural tradition. As already indicated earlier, invasions of this kind probably do not leave the kind of traces that traditional archaeology would expect. (246)... We can therefore conclude that the Aryan invasion theory is preferable to the emigration theory. But this conclusion is only valid as long as our knowledge of Indo-European culture and expansion or of the Indus culture remains unchanged... If, on the basis of this decipherment, the language of the Indus culture should clearly prove to be Indo-Aryan, then our conclusion would of course have to be revised fundamentally. (246-7)... All existing interpretations of the early and prehistory of South Asia are at best scientific hypotheses, hypotheses that differ only in their degree of probability. In view of the often tense political situation in India with regard to the Hindutva and Dravida self-image, it is in my opinion appropriate to remember the hypothetical nature of these hypotheses. There is no such thing as complete certainty and there cannot be. Why should people then be hostile, heretical or even beat each other up over these hypotheses? (247)"

"He even-handedly takes up three Aryan Invasion interpretations and three Indian Origin interpretations from the Vedic texts, and cautions us at the very outset (HOCK 2005:283) that “the passages in question and their interpretation do not provide cogent support for the hypotheses they are supposed to support”, while reasonably conceding that “this does not mean that either of the two theories is therefore invalidated. It merely means that the evidence in question is not sufficiently cogent to provide support for the respective hypothesis and therefore must be considered irrelevant. First of all, neither hypothesis rests solely on the evidence here examined; and it is in principle perfectly possible that other evidence can show one hypothesis to be superior to the other”. He even reasonably concedes the possibility that “any new evidence or better interpretation would, in true scientific spirit, be able to overturn the so far victorious hypothesis”, or that “in principle none of the currently available evidence stands up under scrutiny and that nevertheless, one or the other hypothesis was historically coreect, except that the evidence in its favour has not been preserved for us”. ... And in his conclusion to the article, he writes: ”Personally, I feel that most of the evidence and arguments that have been offered in favor either of the Aryan In-Migration hypothesis or of the Out-of-India are inconclusive at closer examination” (HOCK 2005:303)."

"He emphasizes an approach where truth is the “ultimate goal”, but “truth is always conditional, to be superseded by better evidence or interpretation of evidence” (HOCK 2005:282)."

"The aim should be not to “forestall all dissenting voices”, but (a) to “invite meaningful debate”; (b) “to invite the scholarly challenges and ensuing debate that can lead to better insights and closer approximation of the truth”; (c) “to go beyond what can be grasped at first contact, and as a consequence of having to defend perceptions against competing views, to investigate matters more thoroughly”; (d) to “approximate truth more closely”; (d) to “go beyond initial impressions and beyond the validation of preconceived interpretations”; (e) to “embrace the scientific approach of being transparent and vulnerable – transparent by being open to verification in terms of providing supporting evidence and discussing potentially conflicting evidence, and vulnerable by being open to challenge and potential falsification“; (f) “to evaluate the very different perspectives that are current and thus to reach beyond the differences in perspective, ideology or bias” (HOCK 2005:282-3)."

"He also expresses his opinion about the Vedas that “whatever their original and/or secondary purposes may have been, they were not intended as data bases for latter-day historians”, and suggests that “whatever historical evidence they contain, therefore, can only be gleaned by a careful, philologically well-grounded reading of the lines – and between the lines – of the texts” (HOCK 2005:303).He emphasizes the need for “other” and “better” evidence (than astronomical references in the Rigveda) “to establish a date for the Rigveda” (HOCK 2005:303) and (than isolated words in the Avesta) to determine “historical movements in the Indo-Iranian linguistic territory” (HOCK 2005:295)."

"Best of all is his classic ending, declaring his honesty and openness: “Throughout I have endeavored to live up to the desiderata outlined at the beginning, namely being transparent and vulnerable – transparent by providing supporting evidence that is easily available to verification, and vulnerable by being open to challenge and potential falsification. As I stated at the outset, this, I believe, is the only way that we can establish a common ground for those working in Vedic studies. Without this common ground there is nothing to evaluate the many conflicting theories without either questioning each others’ motives, or saying ‘Trust me, trust me’. As I tell my students: If people merely say ‘Trust me, trust me’, don’t trust them, don’t trust them. And as to questioning each others’ motives, it is good to note that people as different in their motives as Elst and Zydenbos have stated on the Indology List that what really counts is the evidence and its interpretation – even racists and communalists can come to correct results if their evidence and their methodology are correct (however much we may deplore their ideologies and biases)” (HOCK 2005:303-4)."

"“Indo-Europeanists must exercise caution, lest they unwittingly support ideologically motivated agendas”!"

"The general scholarly consensus has been that the Yoginī cults so foundational to early Tantra emerged out of an autochthonous non-Vedic Indian source. (…) The point I wish to make here is that it is quite artificial to inject a distinction between ‘Vedic’ or ‘Indo-Aryan’ tradition, on the one hand, and ‘non-Vedic’ or ‘Indus Valley’ on the other. The religion and culture is already present in the Vedas, together with the more predominant Indo-Aryan material, and is no more ‘indigenous’ to the Indian subcontinent and no more ‘alien’ to the Veda than the latter. (…) It suffices to scratch the surface of the salient features of the Yoginī cults to find a vast reservoir of Vedic and classical Hindu precursors, in (1) the cults of Vedic goddesses (…); (2) the various groupings of unnumbered mother goddesses (…); and (3) in general attitudes toward women and femininity."

"Tantra is the w:Asia}Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains that universe, seeks to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosm in creative and emancipatory ways."

"The energy levels of the Tantric universe are generally represented as a set of concentric circles (cakras) of hypostasized forms of the divine energy which, in addition to appearing as an array of divine enlightened, perfected , demonic, human or animal beings, also manifest themselves on an acoustic level, as garlands or piled-up aggregates of phonemes (mantras), on a graphic level, as the written characters of the hieratic alphabets and as the hierarchized cakras of the yogi body."

"Perhaps the best-known mandala-cum-plotting device in the Tantric universe is the Sri Cakra and Sri Yantra of Hindu Tantric practice, a perfectly balanced three-dimensional geometric diagram of a series of eleven interlocking and embedded triangles (also called Cakras) radiating downward and outward from a central point and enclosed by a circle and a square. The mandalas of Buddhist and Jain Tantric practice follow similar structural and dynamic principles."

"The theory and practice of the Tantric mandala operates on a mesocosmic level , that is, on the level of a mediating template between protocosm and metacosm as well as between macrocosm and microcosm."

"Tantra emerged out of South Asian elite and popular mainstream some time in the middle of the first millennium C.E."

"These lectures were written to help candidates for a prize of Pound Sterling 200- given by John Muir, a well-known old Haileybury man and great Sanskrit scholar, for the best refutation of the Hindu Religious System."

"The system of learning Bengalee among the natives .... their notion of learning Bengalee was by learning Sanscrit. If you make a man a good Sanscrit scholar he will be able to write Bengalee with perfect accuracy and elegance.... Bengalee is the language most akin to Sanscrit. I have taken pains to ascertain the proportion of Sanscrit in the first 500 words... they amount to 350.... Sanscrit forms the very body of most of the dialects, particularly of Upper India, and though it is not so essentially a part of the languages of Southern India, yet it enters so largely into the composition of even the language of Malabar, that four-fifths of the words are Sanscrit."

"“By annihilating native literature, by sweeping away from all sources of pride and pleasure in their own mental efforts, by rendering a whole people dependent upon a remote and unknown country for all their ideas and the words in which to clothe them, we should degrade their character, depress their energies and render them incapable of aspiring to any intellectual distinction.”"

"The Brahmans who compiled," says H. H. Wilson, "a code Hindu law, by command of Warren Hastings preface their performance by affirming the equal merit of every form of religious worship. Contrarities of belief, and diversities of religion, they say, are in fact part of the scheme of Providence; for as a painter gives beauty to a picture by a variety of colours, or as a gardener embellishes his garden with flowers of every hue, so God appointed to every tribe its own religion.""

"We must confess that we are disposed to look upon this limit |two hundred years for the Brahmanas] as much too brief for the establishment of an elaborate ritual, for the appropriation of all the spiritual authority by the Brahmans, for the distinctions of races or the institutions of caste, and for the mysticism and speculation of the Aranyakas or Upanishads: a period of five centuries would not seem to be too protracted for such a complete remodelling of the primitive system and its wide dissemination through all those parts of India where the Brahmans have spread."

"The earliest seat of the Hindus within the confines of Hindusthān was undoubtedly the eastern confines of the Panjab. The holy land of Manu and the Purānas lies between the Drishadwatī and Saraswatī rivers, the Caggar [Ghaggar] and Sursooty [Sarsuti] of our barbarous maps. Various adventures of the first princes and most famous sages occur in this vicinity; and the Āshramas, or religious domiciles, of several of the latter are placed on the banks of the Saraswatī . . . These indications render it certain, that whatever seeds were imported from without, it was in the country adjacent to the Saraswatī river that they were first planted, and cultivated and reared in Hindusthān."

"Thus Wilson, in a letter to his parents, noted that "the Aryan tribes in conquering India, urged by the Brahmanas, made war against the Turanian demon worship. . . . It is among the Turanian races, . . . which have no organized priest-hood and bewitching literature, that the converts to Christianity are most numerous" (quoted in Devendraswarup 1993, 35)."

"Although the philological frame is very important, it is the philosophy of the Hindus which interests me most in Sanskrit literature and it has been my chief aim to bring about a better understanding of the same."

"the Upanishads are "sublime emanations of the Human mind"."

"Shankara's commentary is "a shining example of comprehensive erudition, patient research and philosophical acumen of the ancient Hindus"."

"The Indians are the nation of romanticists of antiquity. The Germans are the romantics of modem times. SentImentality and feelings for Nature are common to both German and Indian poetry."

"Nearly all the philosophical and mathematical doctrines attributed to Pythagoras are derived from India."

"If we consider the results obtained together, we will not be able to doubt the conclusion to be drawn from them. The ancient priestly geometry of the Indians not only knew the Pythagorean theorem, but it even played the main role in their calculations; with its help, they constructed elements that the Greeks found in a completely different way; with its help, they also found the irrational quantities. And it was precisely these two things that Pythagoras introduced into the Greek-Italian world; these two things, according to the Greeks, he invented. Indeed, even more! The way in which Pythagoras proved his theorem was also, in all likelihood, the same as that which we find in the Vedic Shulba Sutras. After examining the Shulba Sutras, we could have said: If Pythagoras really was in India, as we previously suggested, and initiated himself into the priestly wisdom of the Brahmins, then he could have brought precisely these theorems of geometric science to Greece; — and history has been telling us for several millennia now that this was indeed the case!"

"Schroeder wrote in 1887, responding to the conventional philhellenist insistence that the Greeks were able to form everything in their own image: “But the whole cultural evolution of the Indians can be said to be unique and autonomous to a higher degree than that of the Greeks, who were, already very early on, influenced by the Egypt, Phoenicia and other countries.’’"

"Hereafter, we will have to reckon again and again with Japan, indeed, with the Orient as a whole. Orientalistik will become a practical field of study, no longer what it was previously, a scrupulously avoided domain of dry as dust pedants. A chair for Japanology will soon be created [actually, the first came in 1914]. But chairs are not the only thing — and they are not the most important thing in the world. In hundreds and thousands of canals the life blood of the peoples is flowing back and forth. From now on will it circulate in a totally different, powerful way, between the Orient and Occident ... and not only will the Occident act on the Orient, but the Orient will also act on the Occident."

"Leopold von Schroeder's interest in the problem of the Aryan came from completely different sources than that of Heinrich Zimmer and would be worth a more detailed presentation. ... In his lectures on "India's Literature and Culture in Historical Development" (1887) he presents Indian culture from this perspective. However, he is far removed from the German-ethnic view of history that was increasingly practiced in the capital of the German Empire at the time, and initially leans much more towards its antipodes in Basel. He took his cue from Jakob Burckhardt and Friedrich Nietzsche, who do not focus on the national community but on the individual, the new Dionysian human being, and deny the state, as well as traditional church education, the ability to form this new human being and perfect him for his task in history. However, what is meant in a generally philosophical sense by Burckhardt and Nietzsche becomes very consciously German in Schroeder's implementation...."

"“Now until the end of Great Moghul rule, that is to say till the beginning of the eighteenth century, Ayodhya was the capital of one of the provinces of the Muslim empire in North India. In consequence, Hindu sects had few rights to defend in the city. Pilgrimage was tolerated, but the cream of the profits from it was taken by the Muslim rulers in the form of a tax on pilgrims. It was forbidden to build temples or monasteries of more than a certain dimension in the city, and the existing temples fell into decay and disappeared or were replaced by mosques. The latter took place with the temple on the supposed spot of Rama’s birth, dating from the early eleventh century. This small temple was replaced by a mosque, the Babri Masjid, in AD 1528, during the reign of the first Moghul emperor, Babur, a deed which was to have far-reaching consequences.”"

"“The oldest pieces of archaeological evidence are the black columns which remain from the old (Visnu) temple that was situated on the holy spot where Rama descended to earth (Janma-bhumi). This temple was destroyed by the first Mogul prince Babur in AD 1528 and replaced by a mosque which still exists. The following specimens of these pillars are known to exist: fourteen pillars were utilized by the builder Mir Baqi in the construction of the mosque and are still partly visible within it; two pillars were placed besides the grave of the Muslim saint Fazl Abbas alias Musa Ashikhan, who, according to oral tradition, incited Babur to demolish the Hindu temple. The grave and these two pillars (driven upside-down into the ground) are still shown in Ayodhya, a little south of the Kubertila. A seventeenth specimen is found in the new Janmasthana temple of the north of the Babur mosque. It is rather a door-jamb than a column.”"

"“Notwithstanding all the difficulties discussed above, the original location of the Janma-sthãna is comparatively certain since it seems to be attested by the location of the mosque built by Babur in the building of which materials of a previous Hindu temple were used and are still visible. The mosque is believed by general consensus to occupy the site of the Janmasthana. After the destruction of the original temple a new Janmasthana temple was built on the north side of the mosque separated from it by a street."

"“In conclusion we may say that there is evidence for the existence of five Vishnu temples in Ayodhya in the twelfth century. Harismriti (Guptahari) at the Gopratara ghat, (2) Vishnu-hari at the Chakratírtha ghat, (3) Chandrahari on the west side of the Svargadvãra ghats, (4) Dharmahari on east side of the Svargadvãra ghats, (5) a Visnu temple on the janmabhùmi. Three of these temples have been replaced by mosques and one was swept away by the Sarayù. The fate of the fifth is unknown but the site is occupied today by a new Guptahari Chakrahari temple.” (p. 54)"

"The original birthplace temple dated from the 10th or 11th century. Before its destruction the temple must have been one of the main pilgrimage centres of Ayodhya, _ especially on the occasion of Ramanwami .... The destruction of the temple would not have implied the end of all forms of worship in and around the holy site. Just as they do today,.. pilgrims may have assembled near the mosque to have darsan of the tihrtha, and in order to perform the puja special _ provisions may have been made ... .... The ritual of Ramanavami described in OA 22 (a recension of the Ayodhya Mahatmya), which is said to be carried out in the Janmasthan (OA 22.22), does not require a temple or the like and could therefore have been performed somewhere near the original holy spot in the 16th and following centuries. Such perseverance and flexibility of Hinduism under Muslim repression, which was demonstrated throughout the history of North India, could have provided an objective reason for the compiler of the OA recension not to delete or minimize his description of the Janamsthan despite its occupation by a mosque ..."

"About 250 m to the south-east of the Svargadvara mosque is [the] ruin of another masjid very similar to the former. The two mosques stand symmetrically on both sides of the main bathing ghats, which are collectively called Svargadvara. The eastern mosque, built at the same time as the other one, replaces an old Visnu temple built by the last Gahadavala king Jayacandra in AD 1184. An inscription found in the ruins of the mosque testifies to the construction of this Vaisnava temple."

"In conclusion we may say that there is evidence for the existence of five Visnu temples in Ayodhya in the twelfth century: 1) Harismrti (Guptahari) at the Gopratara ghat, 2) Visnuhari at the Cakratirtha, 3) Candrahari on the west side of the Svargadvara ghats, 4) Dharmahari on the east side of the Svargadvara ghats, 5) a Visnu temple on the Janmabhumi. Three of these temples have been replaced by mosques and one was swept away by the Sarayu. The fate of the fifth is unknown but the site is occupied today by a new Guptahari/Cakrahari temple."

"Much of the contemporary evidence on temple desecration cited by Hindu nationalists is found in Persian materials translated and published during the British occupation of India. Especially influential has been the eight-volume History of India as Told by its Own Historians, first published in 1849 and edited by Sir Henry M. Elliot, who oversaw the bulk of the translations, with the help of John Dowson. But Elliot, keen to contrast what he understood as the justice and efficiency of British rule with the cruelty and despotism of the Muslim rulers who had preceded that rule, was anything but sympathetic to the “Muhammadan” period of Indian history."

"The notion that Babur’s officer destroyed a temple dedicated to Rama’s birthplace at Ayodhya and then got the emperor’s sanction to build a mosque on the site – the Babri Masjid – was elaborated in 1936 by S.K. Banerji. However, the author offered no evidence that there had ever been a temple at this site, much less that it had been destroyed by Mir Baqi. The mosque’s inscription records only that Babur had ordered the construction of the mosque, which was built by Mir Baqi and was described as “the place of descent of celestial beings” (mahbit-i qudsiyan). This commonplace rhetorical flourish can hardly be construed as referring to Rama, especially since it is the mosque itself that is so described, and not the site or any earlier structure on the site."

"When Firuz Tughluq invaded Orissa in 1359 and learned that the region's most important temple was that of Jagannath located inside the raja's fortress in Puri, he carried off the stone image of the god and installed it in Delhi 'in an ignominious position'."

"Before marching to confront Shivaji himself, however, the Bijapur general [Afzal Khan] first proceeded to Tuljapur and desecrated a temple dedicated to the goddess Bhavani, to which Shivaji and his family had been personally devoted."

"One often hears that between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, Indo-Muslim states, driven by a Judeo-Islamic “theology of iconoclasm,” by fanaticism, or by sheer lust for plunder, wantonly and indiscriminately indulged in the desecration of Hindu temples. Such a picture, however, cannot be sustained by evidence from original sources for the period after 1192. Had instances of temple desecration been driven by a “theology of iconoclasm,” as some have claimed, such a theology would have committed Muslims in India to destroying all temples everywhere, including ordinary village temples, as opposed to the highly selective operation that seems actually to have taken place."

"An inscription dated 1455, found over the doorway of a tomb-shrine in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh [mentions] the destruction of a Hindu temple by one Abdullah Shah Changal during the reign of Raja Bhoja, a renowned Paramara king who had ruled over the region from 1010 to 1053. ... Goel does, however, consider it more likely that the event took place during the reign of Raja Bhoja II in the late thirteenth century rather than during that of Raja Bhoja I in the eleventh century."

"Ironically, one of the few things that Indian and Pakistani textbooks seem to agree on is in fact a falsehood: namely, that Islam grew in precolonial India through the agency of Sufi saints. There is little contemporary evidence for such a thing. Generally speaking, Sufis were not interested in converting Hindus."

"But as I mentioned in my published essay, the tables and maps I presented “by no means give the complete picture of temple desecration after the establishment of Turkish power in upper India.” And I concluded that “we shall never know the precise number of temples desecrated in Indian history.” All we can talk about are instances for which there is contemporary evidence, whether it appears in the archaeological record, in the epigraphic record, or in contemporary chronicles. And even those data must be closely interrogated."

"Think of trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle in which 30% to 50% of the pieces are missing, and you have no border pieces at all. The best you can do is to fit together the few pieces you have in order to construct a reasonable approximation of what the whole picture most likely looked like. An honest historian will admit that the evidence is almost always fragmentary, incomplete, or even contradictory. But what one cannot do is to try to fill in the blank spaces with pieces that don’t exist, or that you think “must have” existed."

"I have no doubt that more than 80 temples were desecrated by Muslims, just as there were probably more temples desecrated by Hindus than are in the record. Again, to quote myself, “Undoubtedly some temples were desecrated but the facts in the matter were never recorded, or the facts were recorded but the records themselves no longer survive. Conversely, later Indo-Muslim chroniclers, seeking to glorify the religious zeal of earlier Muslim rulers, sometimes attributed acts of temple desecration to such rulers even when no contemporary evidence supports the claims.”"

"On the other hand, there is considerable evidence of colonial-era Muslim communities attributing to Sufi shaikhs – or in many cases, men who were retroactively given a Sufi identity -- the conversion of their ancestors. District gazetteers compiled in the 19th and 20th centuries are full of such narratives. However, such attributions are not supported by contemporary evidence."

"[T]he demonization of Mahmud and the portrayal of his raid on Somnath as an assault on Indian religion by Muslim invaders dates only from the early 1840s. In 1842 the suffered the annihilation of an entire army of some 16,000 in the (1839-42). Seeking to regain face among their Hindu subjects after this humiliating defeat, the British contrived a bit of self-serving fiction, namely that Mahmud, after sacking the temple of Somnath, carried off a pair of the temple's gates on his way back to Afghanistan. By 'discovering' these fictitious gates in Mahmud's former capital of Ghazni, and by 'restoring' them to their rightful owners in India, British officials hoped to be admired for heroically rectifying what they construed as a heinous wrong that had caused centuries of distress among India's Hindus. Though intended to win the latters' gratitude while distracting all Indians from Britain's catastrophic defeat just beyond the Khyber, this bit of colonial mischief has stoked Hindus' ill-feeling toward Muslims ever since. From this point on, Mahmud's 1025 sacking of Somnath acquired a distinct notoriety, especially in the early twentieth century when nationalist leaders drew on history to identify clear-cut heroes and villains for the purpose of mobilizing political mass movements. By contrast, Rajendra Chola's raid on Bengal remained largely forgotten outside the Chola country."

"Although we often hear the rather glib assertion that medieval Indian Sufis were primarily responsible for converting Hindus to Islam, the issue has not been at all closely examined. (...) In sum, the Warrior Sufi may be seen as one of the earliest products that arose from the contact between Arab Islamic and Indie civilizations. In their psychological appeal, philosophical underpinnings, and historical development, these two civilizations are diametrically opposed. Where the one is ardent, dogmatic, and austere, the other is reflective, syncretic, and sentimental. Where Arab Islam centers upon the submission to a single discipline and perceives society, the universe, and the divine principle in terms of unity, Indie Hinduism diffuses into an elusive aggregate of metaphysical systems, folk beliefs, customs, symbols, and traditions that collectively perceive society, the universe, and the divine principle in terms of plurality. By the early fourteenth century the Arab Islamic and Indie traditions had only just begun their long and tortuous process of fusing into what later was to become “Indian Islam.” Hence the Warrior Sufi did not represent a synthesis of the Islamic and Indie traditions, but only a transplant of the former into the world of the latter. (...) More than that, the phenomenon of Sufis using their prestige to lead, or as was more likely the case, to legitimize a jihad spelled the ultimate breakdown of relations between landed Sufis and non-Muslims. There is no record of any landed or orthodox Sufi in the kingdom at this time urging the policy of “peace with all” ( suhl-i kitll), a slogan that many writers have attributed to Indian Sufis generally. (...) Some of [the Sufis of Bijapur] wielded a sword, others a pen, others a royal land grant, and still others a begging bowl... Some were orthodox to the point of zealous puritanism, others unorthodox to the point of heresy. Indeed, this study demonstrates that the stereotyped conception of medieval Indian Sufis as pious and quietistic mystics patiently preaching Islam among Hindus is no longer valid. It is simply not possible to generalize about the Sufis of medieval Bijapur, much less of India as a whole, as any unitary group relating in any single or predictable way to the society in which they lived. They clearly played a variety of social roles."

"‘During the period of Ala al-Din Khalaji (Alauddin Khilji, d. 1316), the Shah of Delhi, he (Pir Ma’bari) accompanied the camp of the army of Islam in the year A.H. 710 (A.D. 1310–11) when buried treasures of gold and silver came to the hands of Muslims and the victory of Islam was effected.’"

"(Pir Ma’bari) came here and waged Jihad against the rajas and rebels (of Bijapur). And with his iron bar, he broke the heads and necks of many rajas and drove them to the dust of defeat. Many idolaters, who by the will of God had guidance and blessings, repented from their unbelief and error, and by the hands of (Pir Ma’bari) came to Islam."

"A local oral tradition collected in 1844 further attributed to Pir Ma‘bari Khandayat the expulsion of a group of local Brahmins from their agrahar, or Brahmin village, at Bijapur.” Notwithstanding this portrayal of Pir Ma‘bari as a fierce wager of jihad wielding an iron bar, some recent works have interpreted the Sufi in a peaceful light. The Bombay Gazetteer for 1884 stated that around 1305 he came to the Deccan as a “missionary’ and converted to Islam a large number of Jains whose descendants are among the cultivating classes of Bijapur District... His name, Khandayat, literally means “blunted bar.’"

"This passage was cited by Thomas W. Arnold in his Preaching of Islam to support his contention that the most important agents in the spread of Islam in the Deccan were peaceful Muslim saints. While Arnold's general argument may have a good deal of valid- an argument that will be explored in greater depth in the present study, it would seem that in the case of Pir Ma‘bari he ‘chose the wrong example to illustrate it. For the question arises: why did Arnold cite a tradition, the 1884 Bombay Gazetteer, which presented only one side, the “peaceful missionary” side, ‘of Pir Marais life? One possibility is that the hagiographic traditions such a the one quoted above were unknown to Arnold and that he had available to him only the Gazetteer version. Another possibility is that Arnold was aware of the Sufi’ militancy in the hagiographic traditions but chose to ignore it, an interpretation that would accord with the general effort in his books to revise the simplistic nineteenth-century image of Islam as religion of the sword. But it does not suffice to correct one distorted view by presenting an equally distorted, if opposite, view. If the Sufis peaceful character can be supported by both ‘written and oral traditions, so can his militancy. In view of the tendency of both oral and written traditions to extol or even fabricate the pious qualities of Sufis, it is most likely that Pir ‘Matbari like Sufi Sarmast, was in reality a militant Sufi and only acquired the reputation of peaceful missionary through generations of oral transmission of his life story."

"Thapar and Eaton also provide cases in which Hindu kings destroyed the temples of other Hindu rulers, rather than capturing them. As scholars of India in the late twentieth century, their aim in doing so is to counter the accusations by Hindu nationalists that Muslim rulers had uniquely violated the sensibilities and rights of Hindus by destroying temples, by showing that Hindu rulers had done much the same thing before Muslims reached India. From the perspective of the AT (Antagonistic Tolerance) project, of course, it would be surprising had Hindu rulers not done so. Tantalizingly, Eaton (2000a: 293) mentions that temples not identified with royal patrons were normally left unharmed. Eaton’s observations suggest that political patronage of cultic establishments was an important factor in defining the faith of the conquered temples."

"One Western author who has become very popular among India's history-rewriters is the American scholar Prof. Richard M. Eaton. Unlike his colleagues, he has done some original research pertinent to the issue of Islamic iconoclasm, though not of the Ayodhya case specifically. A selective reading of his work. focusing on his explanations but keeping most of his facts out of view, is made to serve the negationist position regarding temple destruction in the name of Islam. Yet, the numerically most important body of data presented by him concurs neatly with the classic (now dubbed “Hindutva”) account."

"According to the cover text on his book, Eaton is professor of History at the University of Arizona and “a leading historian of Islam”. Had he defended the thesis that iconoclasm is rooted in Islam itself, he would have done justice to the evidence from Islamic sources, yet he would have found it very hard to get published by Oxford University Press or reach the status of leading Islam scholar that he now enjoys. One can easily become an acclaimed scholar of Hinduism by lambasting and vilifying that religion, but Islam is somehow more demanding of respect."

"Regardless of this change in emphasis, it is important to note that not all Western Sufi scholarship of the last half century avoids discussing Sufi support of and active involvement in the martial jihad; in fact, there are some notable exceptions. In particular, Richard Eaton’s study of Sufi s in the Deccan region of India, The Sufi s of Bijapur: 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufi s in Medieval India (Princeton, 1978) stands out in Western Sufi scholarship, in that it argues convincingly in the chapter “Sufi s as Warriors” that Sufi s were at the forefront of the conquest that brought Islam to the Deccan region of India. Eaton makes an important point in his book with regard to the methodology necessary for studying the social roles of Sufi s in that he critiques the “classical approach to Sufi studies.”... Eaton also points out the error of most Western scholarship in assum- ing that mysticism necessarily precludes martial endeavors. 10 Eaton’s book was the first significant Western study of Sufis to discuss at length the phenomenon of Sufis as warriors and to make use of sources from the popular tradition, such as vernacular hagiography; however, it concentrates solely on Sufi s in India and does not pretend to be a monograph on the history of Sufi jihad. Though Eaton’s book was well received, it was not without its critics."

"One intriguing thing about Eaton is that his own research of the medieval literatures on Indian Sufis for his Ph.D. thesis, published in Sufis of Bijapur 1300–1700, failed to find any trace of peace in the views and actions of Sufis and in their method of conversion. He found that all the revered Sufis, particularly the earlier ones to arrive at Bijapur, were fierce Jihadis and persecutor of Hindus.."

"India is universally held to be the land of quiet contemplation, escapist mysticism, dreaming passivity. But whoever knows India knows that this image is onesided. It is true that the Indo-Aryans, very early in their history, turned inward with an exceptional fervor. . . . [But] the urge toward contemplation and a turn away from the world is only one side of the Indo-Aryan essence. Complementing it in a polar tension is an extraordinary activism that worked itself out ever anew through the millennia in gladiatorial battles, and in the building of temples and riches. The powerful northern blood inheritance [nordische Bluterbe] of the Aryans who migrated into India roughly three millennia before Christ did not remain concealed in India."

"Research in comparative religion has shown that the oldest, religious documents of ancient India point back to an Ur-Germanic age."

"Today, it is considered settled that the racial traits of the Indo-Aryans link them historically to that race which has had the definitive influence in the Indo-Germanic world, the northern [race]."

"Even today one finds overall in the realm of the Indo-Aryans and their anthropological and geographical surroundings blond and blue-eyed types, so that we may assume that the dark-haired and dark-eyed ‘north Indians’ became darker partly under the influence of the climate [and] partly through admixture with the dark-skinned pre-Aryan inhabitants of ancient India."

"The exemplary researches of [Egon] von Eickstedt, now evaluated in Rassenkunde und Rassengeschichte der Menschheit.... [demonstrates] that even today primarily in northwest India, indeed all the way to Bengal and further into the mountains of south India, a type of human close to the northern type is to be found, which von Eickstedt calls the north Indios [Indiden]."

"So much at least is clear, that Indo-Arya remained extensively under the influence of northern blood and stands even today, albeit in pronounced admixture with non-Aryan elements."

"In the two burning centers [Brennpunktsgebieten] of this great expanse, in Indo-Arya and in Germania, we find, even in the religious and spiritual attitudes and formations, an unmistakable kinship, one that extends all the way to their roots."

"If there is something characteristic of the northern spirit, it is the extraordinary vigor that courses through it. . . . Ever again, the Indo-Germanic community has been forced to the most intensive activity in a struggle for the unity of forces that threaten to pull apart."

"The only positive connection between India and National-Socialism would be in the person of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer. (...) Hauer was one of those German Upanishad-lovers in the tradition of Arthur Schopenhauer. There was nothing wrong with his search for a universal religion in which Hinduism would be a major tributary. The point is that the regime was hostile to this project. When he propagated Paganism, he had to clothe it in a verbiage of Germanness, downplaying his Hindu sources. (...) The Nazis mocked him as a failed missionary now making a second soul-winning attempt on the Germans..."

"It is locally affirmed that at the Musalman conquest there were three important Hindu temples at Ayodhya: these were the Janma-sthanam, the Svargadvaram, and the Treta-ka-Thakur. On the first of these Mir Khan built a Masjid, in A.H. 930 during the reign of Babar, which still bears his name."

"It is dated Samvat 1241 or A.D. 1184, in the time of Jaychchandra of Kanauj, whose praises it records for erecting a Vaishnava temple, from whence this stone was originally brought and appropriated by Aurangzeb in building his masjid known as Treta-ki-Thakur. The original slab was discovered in the ruins of this Masjid."

"The old temple of Ramachandra at Janmasthanam must have been a very fine one, for many of its columns have been used by the Musalmans in the construction of Babar's masjid. These are of strong, close-grained, dark-coloured or black stone, called by the natives knsnuti, 'touch-stone slate,' and carved with different devices. They are from seven to eight feet long, square at the base, centre and capital, and round or octagonal intermediately"

"Bābar‘s Masjid at Ayodhyā was built in A.H. 930, or A.D. 1523, by Mīr Khān, on the very spot where the old temple Janmāsthānam of Rāmachandra was standing."

"This stone was originally brought and appropriated by Aurangzeb in building his masjid known as Treta ki (sic) Thakur. ... [It was] rescued from the ruins of Aurangzeb's Masjid, known as Treta-ka-Thakur, and is now in the Faizabad Museum."

"Inscription No. XLIV is written in twenty incomplete lines on a white sandstone, broken off at either end, and split in two parts in the middle. It is dated Saṁvat 1241, or A.D. 1184, in the time of Jayachchhandra of Kanauj, whose praises it records for erecting a Vaishṇava temple, from whence this stone was originally brought and appropriated by Aurangzīb in building his masjid known as Tretā-kī-Thākur. The original slab was discovered in the ruins of this Masjid, and is now in the Faizābād Local Museum."

"The oldest building in Jaunpur is the masjid of Ibrahim Naih Barhak in the fort ; it is a long narrow building of the early Bengali type, that is, a simple arcade supported on carved Hindu pillars, with three low domes in the middle."

"The Atala Masjid was the work of Ibrahim Shiih during the early part of his reign. It was built on the site of the Hindu temple of Atala Devi, which is said to have been erected by Jayachchhandra Deva (1175 — 1193), the last Rathor prince of Kanauj. Of all the masjids remaining at Jaunpur, the Atala Masjid is the most ornate and the most beautiful. .... As is proved by nine inscriptions found in the Atala Masjid, Firuz Shah commenced the appropriation of the Ataladevi temple in A.D. 1376 and Ibrahim Shah finished the Atala Masjid in A.D. 1408."

"It is a fact of immense significance that whereas in the making of Europe the conquests of Islam played the role of a powerfully effective but mostly external factor, in the East the expansion of Islam went on for more than a millennium and here, in South and large parts of Southeast Asia the association with Islam became so intimate that, as a result, we find an Indo-Islamic pattern of society and culture. (Introduction)"

"In summary, we find an interrelated set of significant changes occurr­ing in the eleventh and twelfth centuries on a global scale. With the rise of Europe, the expansion of Islam into North India, and the upsurge of China, the economic supremacy of the Middle-Eastern caliphate was gradually reduced."

"But in the delta region of Sind people were actively engaged in agri­culture. Hiuen Tsang and Ibn Khordadbhih recorded that wheat and millet were produced here, apart from salt."

"It is in this direction, probably, that we have to look for an answer to the question why Buddhism disappeared, in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, from its homeland in the South-Asian subcontinent, while being successfully disseminated to the peasant societies of mainland Southeast Asia. When one turns to the secondary literature on Buddhism one finds mere hints of an explanation of this issue. If it is addressed somewhat more systematically, it usually amounts to one or another version of the theory that since Buddhism at one time prevailed only in those areas which later converted to Islam, and since there are no Buddhists left in these areas, we must deduce that the Buddhists converted to Islam. Thus it is most often observed that Buddhism disappeared from those parts of South and Southeast Asia which were overrun by Muslim armies in the medieval period and hence-forward became subject to Islamic rule. Mass conversion of Buddhists to Islam in Sind and Bengal, it is then alleged, occurred due to political pressure or because Buddhists saw in Islam a means to escape from the Hindu caste system and brahmanical oppression. This, we are told, is also the reason why Buddhism survived in areas which did not suffer the largely 'destructive' Islamic impact: the Himalayas and beyond, Sri Lanka, mainland Southeast Asia (but not Indonesia, which was conquered by indigenous Islamic rulers)."

"By the time that the Turko-Islamic conquerors arrived in North India, in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, Buddhism was no longer a religion of a floating population of itinerant monks but had become institutionalized in monasteries, which, supported by royal endowments of land as well as by donations from the mercantile communities, tended to become large academically oriented centres with permanent residents, vulnerable to outside attack, but still aloof from the rural masses (which only adopted random cultic elements from the religion). What happened, then, during the Islamic conquest, is that the academic (and soteriological / philosophical) tradition of Buddhism was uprooted in India itself, but replaced, outside the orbit of Muslim rule, by a variety of regional forms of Buddhism."

"The first conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing analysis is that ecology was a major factor determining the progress and character of the Islamic conquest of al-Hind. For one thing, the subcontinent was unsuitable for Mongol-style nomadism on account of the absence of sufficient good pasture land. With the Mongols failing to penetrate beyond its western periphery, the Indian subcontinent cannot really be said to have experienced a 'nomadic conquest' at all. In this respect the thirteenth-century situation in the north was unlike the Iranian plateau, where Mongol conquest was followed by extensive nomadization and destruction of agriculture."

"We have argued that, in contrast to Iran and China, in al-Hind such a merger of the frontier world of nomadic mobility and long- distance trade on the one hand and settled agriculture on the other did occur in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Secondly, that this merger brought about a new productive and mercantile dynamism (without any serious deleterious impact on population density), the effects of which deepened and broadened in the subsequent centuries. This is not to deny that the Muslim- Turkish conquest of Hind was quite violent at times, and could be disruptive in some areas as well. It has not been our intention to 'sanitize' the narrative of Hindu-Muslim encounter in these centuries of invasion and extensive raiding. Nor has it been our intention to deny that in many respects the Muslim conquest was a major challenge to the integrity of Indian culture. But the Turkish-led Muslim armies that conquered North India in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were generally small compared to those of the Mongols operating elsewhere in Eurasia; nor did a vast influx of nomads follow in their wake, unlike in Iran or parts of China."

"If institutional indeterminacy pervaded the post-nomadic empires of Hind, the peripatetic exercise of power was another feature which they all seem to have shared. Muhammad bin Tughluq spent the greater part of his life in military camps. Most other rulers were often on campaign, sometimes for one or two years, or more, particularly in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when com munications could be broken off with the capital for months or a whole year. Firuz Shah Tughluq stayed away on a campaign to Bengal and Orissa for two years and seven months, losing his way on the return journey through jungles and mountains, when for six months there was no news from him and the viceregent had great difficulty keeping things under control. The same Sultan got lost in the Rann of Cutch, and was again cut off from Delhi for six months, altogether spending two-and-a-half years on the trip, while the viceregent pretended he had good news."

"We should not be misled by this into thinking that these scholars were anti-racist. They did not have to rely on a theory of race as such, for they had their own global theory that was fully able to inferiorize the languages (and by implication the cultures) of the other purely on linguistic grounds. Max Müller's linguistic taxonomy was a Hegelian hierarchy in which . . . cultural geography [becomes] the same as world history."

"The most important shift, especially in South Asia, has been the rise to prominence of scholarship that returns not to Hegel but to Marx. (154-5)"

"Throughout this book I have argued· that. the problem with orientalism is not just one of bias or o( bad motives and hence, confined to itself. The problem lies in my view, with the way in which the human sciences have displaced human agency on to essences in the first place. Taking up some leads of Collingwood, I have tried to show how an alternative approach that focuses on human agency might be constructed, and how it might be used, as a vantage­ point from which both to criticize previous scholarship and to reconstruct our knowledges of the human world. (264)"

"Independence governments implemented secularism mostly by refusing to recognize the religious pasts of Indian nationalism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and at the same time (inconsistently) by retaining Muslim 'personal law' ."

". . . Euro-American Selves and Indian Others have not simply interacted as entities that remain fundamentally the same. They have dialectically constituted one another. Once one realizes the truth of this, he or she will begin to see that India has played a part in the making of nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe (and America) much greater than the "we" of scholarship, journalism, and officialdom would normally wish to allow. The subcontinent was not simply a source of colonial riches or a stage-setting in which Western hunters could stalk tigers, the sons of British merchants and aristocrats could make a financial killing, or the spiritualist find his or her innermost soul (or its Buddhist absence). More than that, India was (and to some extent still is) the object of thoughts and acts with which this "we" has constituted itself."

"With such simple tools the patient Hindu, thanks to his industry, can produce specimens of work which are often not to be distinguished from those imported at great expense from foreign countries."

"It must be admitted that the laws of etiquette and social politeness are much more clearly laid down, and much better observed by all classes of Hindus, even by the lowest, than they are by people of corresponding social position in Europe."

"And there is no stronghold of evil so impregnable as Brahmins."

"I have never seen anything in the history of the Egyptians and Jews," writes Abbe Dubois, forty years a resident of India, "that would induce me to believe that either of these nations, or any other on the face of the earth, have been established earlier than the Hindus, and particularly the Brahmans; so I cannot be induced to believe that the latter have drawn their rites from foreign nations. On the contrary, I infer that they have drawn them from an original source of their own. Whoever knows anything of the spirit and character of the Brahmans, their stateliness, their pride, and extreme vanity, their distance, and sovereign contempt for everything that is foreign, and of which they cannot boast to have been the inventors, will agree with me that such a people cannot have consented to draw their customs and rules of conduct from an alien country."

"But there is this vast difference between the ancient philosophers and the modern sages of India, that the former were too few in number to influence the public mind, and had not sufficient support, to combat successfully the errors into which the multitude had fallen ; whereas the Brahmans, from their numbers and the high consideration in which they are held, if they seriously desired it, and if their interest and passions. did not run the other way, might throw down by a single effort, the whole edifice of idolatry in India, and substitute without difficulty, in its room, the knowledge and worship of the true God; of whom they themselve still preserves the loftiest conceptions."

"In 1823, Dubois published a book titled—‘Letters on the State of Christianity in India’, which contained a short phrase—‘In which the conversion of the Hindoos is considered as impracticable’."

"[Dubois opined that Bible translations will] ‘expose the Christian religion and its followers to the ridicule of the public’."

"A significant section of early Englishmen in India also found in Indian culture “a deep and appealing wisdom.” John Z. Holwell (1711-1798), in his Interesting Historical Events, relative to the Provinces of Bengal and the Empire of Indostan (1767), declared that “the world does not now contain annals of more indisputable antiquity than those delivered down by the ancient Brahmins.” He avowed that the people “from the earliest times have been an ornament to the creation if so much can with propriety be said of any known people upon earth.”"

"Holwell wrote in his preliminary discourse to the Religious Tenets of the Gentoos, "Having studiously perused all that has been written of the empire of Indostan, both as to its ancient as well as more modern state; as also the various accounts transmitted to us, by authors in almost all ages.... I venture to pronounce them all very defective, fallacious and unsatisfactory to an inquisitive searcher after truth; and only tending to convey a very imperfect and injurious resemblance of a people, who from the earliest times have been an ornament to the creation if so much can with propriety be said of any known people upon earth.""

"A mere description of the exterior manners and religion of a people, will no more give us a true idea of them than a geographical description of a country can convey a just conception of their laws and government. The traveller must sink deeper in his researches.... His telling us such and such a people, in the East or West Indies, worship this stork, or that stone, or monstrous idol; only serves to reduce in our esteem our fellow creatures to the most abject and despicable point of light. Whereas, was he skilled in the language of the people he describes, sufficiently to trace the etymology of their words and phrases, and capable of diving into the mysteries of their theology; he would probably be able to evince to us, that such seemingly preposterous worship, had the most sublime rational source and foundation.""

"The mythology, as well as the cosmogony of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, were borrowed from the doctrines of the Brahmins."

"there would be no distinction between truth and falsity in experience. There would be nothing to distinguish illusions from valid experiences. All experience would be suspect."

"Since identifying experimentality as the whole criterion of self identity, it goes without saying that where it is absent self-identity too must necessarily be non-existant"

"When we compare the doctrines, aims, orgamzation of this (Pythagorean) brotherhood with Buddhistic monarchism, we are almost tempted to regards Pythagoras as the pupil of the Brahmins ... Dualism, Pessimism, metempsychosis, celibacy, a common life according to the rigorous rules, frequent self- examination, meditation, devotion, prohibitions against bloody sacrifices, kindliness towards all men, truthfulness, fidelity, justice, and all these elements are common to both."

"We pass at once into the magnificent edifice which bears the name of Panini as its architect and which Justly commands the wonder and admiration of everyone who enters, and which, by the very fact of its sufficing for all the phenomenon which language presents, bespeaks at once the marvelous ingenUity of its inventor and his profound penetration of the entire material of the language."

""The Sanscrit is the language which has retained the most primeval form and has adhered the most tenaciously to that parent ground. . . . [It] has preserved a great number of roots which have been lost in the other languages (Weber 1857, 6)"

"It was a commonplace in medieval accounts of kings that in fact the Muslims are incarnations of the demons, while the Hindu king who wages war against them is an incarnation of one of the Hindu Gods, whose function it is to descend to earth in human form and extirpate the demons, thus winning one more round in the on-going battle between the Gods and the demons (§). The comparison, then, that the Muslims do no more against the divine images than the demons have always done against the Gods themselves, suggests this deeper identification."

"The Ekalingamahdatmya is clearly sufficiently preoccupied with the Muslim invasions of North India to raise directly the issue of how and why the Muslims could have overrun the land. Indeed as we have just seen it asks forthright how the images of the Hindu Gods, which it regards as the Gods themselves, could have been broken and battered by the unbelievers. The central stories of the text, the stories designed to explain the origins of the holy site and its images, I believe should be understood in this broader context of the text. Doing so reveals the consummate artistry that is at work in the reshaping of the underlying puranic stories to fit its special circumstances: the curse of Parvati, making the hard-hearted Gods into stones, is aptly suited to a period in history when building of more precious materials was a clear invitation to disaster. The Ekalingamabatmya may use the understatement of story telling, but it is nonetheless a valuable testimony to fears and attitudes in this perilous period of Indian religious history."

"'The question of an adequate standpoint [i.e., epistemology] for the evaluation and comparison of different cultural traditions has been decided by the course of history itself, and it has been decided in favor of Europe. European thought has to provide the context and categories for the exploration of all traditions of thought.'"

"During Gobineau's lifetime, the old theory of the Asian origin of the European languages and traditions, and of cultural movements from the East to the West, increasingly gave way to speculations on primeval movements from the West to the East, and on Aryan migrations from Europe, specifically Northern Europe, or even the North Pole, to India. According to these speculations, the European or Northern invaders gave their superior culture to the Indians and then lost their superiority through mixing with the local inhabitants and perished in a climate for which they were not suited. In 1903, E. de Michelis summarized this view by stating that Asia, and India in particular, was not the 'cradle', but the 'grave of the Aryans'."

"The caste system and the Aryan invasion assume a paradigmatic place in Gobineau's conservative and pessimistic historiography and racial ideology."

"Neither from the intrinsic evidence of indigenous literature, nor from the facts of recorded history, is it permissible to infer the simultaneous existence in the country of an alien-speaking race at any period"

""The existence of such a race is simply assumed by those who find it convenient to represent as non-aryan any formation which their acquaintance with unwritten Aryan speech in its growth and decay is too superficial to enable them at once to identify" (320). He further complained that "a derivation from Sanskrit by the application of well-established but less popularly known phonetic and grammatical laws, is stigmatized as pedantic" (320)."

""So many names that at a hasty glance appear utterly unmeaning can be traced back to original Sanskrit forms as to raise a presumption that the remainder, though more effectively disguised, will ultimately be found capable of similar treatment: a strong argument being thus afforded against those scholars who hold that the modern vernacular is impregnated with a very large non-Aryan element" (Growse 1883, 353)."

"The four temples, commenced in honour of this event,, still remain, though in a ruinous and hitherto sadly neglected condition. They hear the titles of GoLind Deva, Gopi-nath, Jngal-Hishor and Madan Mohan. The first named is not only the finest of this particular series, hut is the most impressive religions edifice that Hindu art has ever produced, at least in Upper India."

"...The sacrarium has been utterly razed to the ground,t the chapel toners were never completed, and that over the choir, though the most perfect, has still lost several of its upper stages. This last was of slighter elevation than the others, occupying the same relative position as the spirelet over the sanetus bell in western ecclesiology., The loss of the towers and of the lofty arcaded parapet that surmounted the walls has terribly marred the effect of the exterior and given it a heavy stunted appearance ; while, as a further disfigurement, a plain masonry wall had been run along the top of the centre dome. It is generally believed that this was built by Aorangzeb for the purpose of desecrating the temple, though it is also said to have been put up by the Hindus themselves to assist in some grand ill ami- nation. It either case it was an ugly modern excrescence, and its removal was the very first step taken at the commencement of the recent repairs."

"A British civil servant had a great deal to say about Mathura in the 1870s. F.S. Growse belonged to the Bengal Civil Service and was the Collector of Mathura district. I quote from his 'Mathura: A District Memoir,' Bulands hahr 1882: The neighbourhood is crowded with sacred sites, which for many generations have been reverenced as the traditionary scenes of Krishna's adventures; but thanks to Muhammedan intolerance, there is not a single building of any antiquity either in the city itself or its environs. Its most famous temple - that dedicated to Kesava Deva- was destroyed, as already mentioned, in 1669, the eleventh year of the reign of the iconoclastic Aurangzeb. The mosque erected on its ruins is a building of little architectural value, but the natural advantages of its lofty and isolated position render it a striking feature in the landscape."

"In his Mathura: A District Memoir, Growse has recorded his exhaustive survey and research about Brajbhoomi. He was so overhelmed by the vandalism that visited the area repeatedly, that he wrote feelingly, although his home was in far away England. To quote: thanks to Muhammadan intolerance, there is not a single building of any antiquity either in the city itself or its environs.Its most famous temple - that dedicated to Kesava Deva (Krishna) - was destroyed in 1669, the eleventh year of the reign of the iconoclast Aurangzeb (Alamgir was also his name). The mosque (idgah) erected on its ruins is a building of little architectural value. Mahmud Ghazni was however the first iconoclast to vandalise Mathura. That was in 1017 AD about which Growse wrote: If any one wished to construct a building equal to it, he would not be able to do so without expending a hundred million dinars, and the work would occupy two hundred years, even though the most able and experienced workmen were employed. Orders were given that all the temples should be burnt with naphtha and fire and levelled with the ground. The city was given up to plunder for twenty days. Among the spoils are said to have been five great idols of pure gold with eyes of rubies and adornments of other precious stones, together with a vast number of smaller silver images, which, when broken up, formed a load for more than a hundred camels. The total value of the spoils has been estimated at three millions of rupees; while the number of Hindus carried away into captivity exceeded 5,000.... To go back to Aurangzeb, over two centuries after the desecration, Growse felt that: of all the sacred places in India, none enjoys a greater popularity than the capital of Bra}, the holy city of Mathura. For nine months in the year, festival follows upon festival in rapid succession and the ghats and temples are daily thronged with new troops of way-worn pilgrims. So great is the sanctity of the spot that its panegyrists do not hesitate to declare that a single day spent at Mathura is more meritorious than a lifetime passed at Benares. All this celebrity is due to the fact of it being the birthplace of the demi-god Krishna. In his chapter entitled The Bra} Mandai, the Ban Yatra and the Holi as Growse puts it: Not only the city of Mathura, but with it, the whole of the western half of the district has a special interest of its own as the birthplace and abiding home of Vaishnava Hinduism. It is about 42 miles in length with an average breadth of 30 miles and is intersected throughout by the river Jamuna. In the neighbourhood is Gokul and Brindaban, where the divine brothers Krishna and Balaram grazed their herds. He continues: Almost every spot is traditionally connected with some event in the life of Krishna or of his mythical mistress Radha."

"There is no doubt, in our mind, that the Ad-Bisheswar temple stood on this site, and was destroyed by the Mohammedans, who, as usual, transferred its stones to their own mosque."

"The entire area is called Benares; and the religious privileges of the city are extended to every portion of it. Whoever dies in any spot of this enclosure is, the natives think, sure of happiness after death; and so wide is the application of this privilege, that it embraces, they say, even Europeans and Mohammedans, even Pariahs and other outcasts, even liars, murderers, and thieves. That no soul can perish in Benares is, thus, the charitable superstition of the Hindus."

"When we endeavour to ascertain what the Mohammedans have left to the Hindus of their ancient buildings in Benares, we are startled at the result of our investigations. Although the city is bestrewn with temples in every direction, in some places ve1y thickly, yet it would be difficult, I believe, to find twenty temples, in all Benares, of the age of Aurungzeb, or from 1658 to 1707. The same unequal proportion of old temples, as compared with new, is visible throughout the whole of Northern India. Moreover, the diminutive size of nearly all the temples that exist is another powerful testimony to the stringency of the Mohammedan rule. It seems clear, that, for the most part, the emperors forbade the Hindus to build spacious temples, and suffered them to erect only small structures, of the size of cages, for their idols, and these of no pretensions to beauty.... If there is one circumstance respecting the Mohammedan period which Hindus remember better than another, it is the insulting pride of the Musulmans, the outrages which they perpetrated upon their religious convictions, and the extensive spoliation of their temples and shrines. It is right that Europeans should clearly understand, that this spirit of Mohammedanism is unchangeable, and that, if, by any mischance, India should again come into the possession of men and this creed, all the churches and colleges, and all the Mission institutions, would not be worth a week's purchase."

"When Babylon was struggling with Nineveh for supremacy, when Tyre was planting her colonies, when Athens was growing in strength, before Rome had become known, or Greece had contended with Persia, or Cyprus had added lustre to the Persian monarchy, or Nebuchadnezzar had captured Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of Judaea had been carried into captivity, she (Varanasi) had already risen to greatness, if not to glory."

"The Europeans should clearly understand that this spirit of Mohammedanism is unchangeable, and that, if by any mischance, India should again come into the possession of men ofthis creed, all the churches and colleges and all the Mission institutions, would not be worth a week's purchase. So wrote Reverend Mathew Atmore Sherring. The Muslims had done no harm to the Christians of British India. But he was so upset at the vandali sm he saw in Benares that he could not help speaking out."

"Reverend Sherring was a devout, and maybe a s lightly bigoted evangelist member of the London Missionary Society. He was dead against idol worship. As he has written idolatry is a word denoting all that is wicked in imagination and impure in practice. IdolatJy is a demon- an incarnation of all evil. And yet he said it would not be difficult, I believe, to find twenty temples in all Benares of the age of Aurangzeb, or from 1658 to 1707. The same unequal proportion of old temples, as compared with new, is visible throughout the whole of northern India. Hi s description of the desecration of temples b y the thousand, and their blatant conversion into either mosques, mausoleums, dargahs, palaces or pleasure houses has to be seen to be believed."

"In his view, if there is one circumstance respecting the Mohammedan period which Hindus remember better than another, it is the insulting pride of the Musulmans (sic), the outrages which they perpetrated upon their religious convictions, and the extensive spoilation of their temples and shrines. When we endeavour to ascertain what the Mohammedans have left to the Hindus of their ancient buildings in Benares, we are startled at the result of our investigations. Although the city is bestrewn with temples, it is unlikely that there are many which are old."

"Reverend Sherring continued, the diminutive size of nearly all the temples in India except for the south that exist is another powerful testimony to the stringency of the Mohammedan rule: It seems clear, that, for the most part, the emperors forbade the Hindus to build spacious temples, and suffered them to erect only small structures, of the size of cages,for their idols, and these of no pretensions to beauty. The consequence is, that the Hindus of the present day, blindly following the example of their predecessors of two centuries ago, commonly build their religious edifices of the same dwarfish size as formerly."

"Thus, NS Indologist Erich Frauwallner says, in Pollock’s account: “Frauwallner argued that the special meaning of Indian philosophy lay in its being ‘a typical creation of an aryan people’, that its similarities with western philosophy derived from ‘the same racially determined talent’, and that it was a principal scholarly task of Indology to d emonstrate this fact. Reiterating an axiom of NS doctrine, that ‘Wissenschaft in the strict sense of the word is something that could be created only by nordic Indo-Germans’, Frauwallner adds, ‘From the agreement in scientific character of Indian and European philosophy, we can draw the further conclusion that philosophy as an attempt to explain the world according to scientific method is likewise a typical creation of the Aryan mind.’""

"'The third day saw the beginning of the end. The victorious Mussulmans had halted on the field of battle for rest and refreshment, but now they had reached the capital, and from that time forward for a space of five months Vijayanagar knew no rest. The enemy had come to destroy, and they carried out their object relentlessly. They slaughtered the people without mercy; broke down the temples and palaces, and wreaked such savage vengeance on the abode of the Kings, that, with the exception of a few great stone-built temples and walls, nothing now remains but a heap of ruins to mark the spot where once stately buildings stood. They demolished the statues, and even succeeded in breaking the limbs of the huge Narasimha monolith. Nothing seemed to escape them. They broke up the pavilions standing on the huge platform from which the kings used to watch festivals, and overthrew all the carved work. They lit huge fires in the magnificently decorated buildings forming the temple of Vitthalaswami near the river, and smashed its exquisite stone sculptures. With fire and sword, with crowbars and axes, they carried on day after day their work of destruction. Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city; teeming with a wealthy and industrious population in the fun plenitude of prosperity one day, and on the next seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description' The loot must have been enormous. Couto states that amongst other treasures was found a diamond as large as a hen's egg, which was kept by the Adil Shah.'"

"Early in A.D. 1366 the Sultan opened his first regular campaign against Vijayanagar. Originating in an after-dinner jest, it ended only after such slaughter that Firishtah computes the victims on the Hindu side alone as numbering no less than half a million."

"De Couto, describing the death of Rama Raya, states that Hussain Nizam Shah cut off his enemy's head with his own hand, exclaiming, "Now I am avenged of thee! Let God do what he will to me!""

"They (the allies) slaughtered the people without mercy; broke down the temples and palaces; and wreaked such savage vengeance on the abode of the kings, that, with the exception of a few great stone-built temples and walls, nothing now remains but a heap of ruins to mark the spot where once the stately buildings stood. They demolished the statues, and even succeeded in breaking the limbs of the huge Narasimha monolith. Nothing seemed to escape them. They broke up the pavilions standing on the huge platform from which the kings used to watch the festivals and overthrew all the carved work. They lit huge fires in the magnificently decorated buildings forming the temple of Vitthalasvami near the river, and smashed its exquisite stone sculptures. With fire and sword, with crowbars and axes, they carried on day after day their work of destruction. Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city; teeming with a wealthy and industrious population in the full plentitude of prosperity one day, and on the next seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description … such was the fate of this great and magnificent city. It never recovered, but remained forever a scene of desolation and ruin. At the present day the remains of the larger and more durable structures rear themselves from amongst the scanty cultivation carried on by petty farmers, dwellers in tiny villages scattered over the area once so populous."

"Admitting the Hindu and Alexandrian authors [such as Diophantus], to be nearly equally ancient, it must be conceded in favor of the Indian algebraist, that he was more advanced in the science […] In the whole science [of algebra], he [Diophantus] is very far behind the Hindu writers […] he is hardly to be considered as the inventor, since he seems to treat the art as already known."

"In progress of such researches, it is not perhaps too much to expect that something may yet be gleaned for the advancement of knowledge and improvement of arts at home [in Britain]. In many recent instances, inventive faculties have been tasked to devise anew, what might have been as readily copied from an Oriental type; or unacknowledged imitation has reproduced in Europe, with an air of novelty, what had been for ages familiar to the East. Nor is that source to be considered as already exhausted. In beauty of fabric, in simplicity of process, there pos sibly yet remains something to be learnt from China, from Japan, from India, which the refinement of Europe need not disdain."

"The course of inquiry into the arts, as into the sciences, of Asia, cannot fail of leading to much which is curious and instructive. The inquiry extends over regions, the most anciently and the most numerously peopled on the globe. The range of research is as wide as those regions are vast; and as various as the people who inhabit them are diversified. It embraces their ancient and modern history; their civil polity; their long-enduring institutions; their manners and their customs; their languages and their literature; their sciences, speculative and practical: in short, the progress of knowledge among them; the pitch which it has attained; and last, but most important, the means of its extension.... [I]t is in Asia that recorded and authentic history of mankind commences."

"The more we study ancient Indian philosophy, "the more intimate will the relation be found between the philosophy of Greece and that of India. Whichever is the type or the copy, whichever has borrowed or has lent, certain it is that the one will serve to elucidate the other. The philosophy of India may be employed for a commentary on that of Greece; and conversely, Grecian philosophy will help to explain Indian. That of Arabia, too, avowedly copied from the Grecian model, has preserved much which else might have been lost. A part has been restored through the medium of translation, and more yet [may] be retrieved from Arabic stores."""

""The ancient language of India, the polished Sanskrit, not unallied to Greek and various other languages of Europe, may yet contribute something to their elucidation, and still more to the not unimportant subject of general grammar."'"

"Connected as those highly polished and refined languages [Sanskrit and Arabic] are with other tongues, they deserve to be studied for the sake of the particular dialects and idioms to which they bear relation; for their own sake, that is, for the literature which appertains to them; and for the analysis of language in general, which has been unsuccessfully attempted on too narrow ground, but may be prosecuted, with effect, upon wider induction."

"Colebrooke also expressed the familiar argument of the eighteenth century in behalf of a liberal spirit between cultures. The West, he stated, “owes a debt of gratitude” to the civilizations of Asia for their contributions in the arts and sciences. In fact, “civilization had its origin in Asia.”"

"It appears that Aryabhatta affirmed the diurnal revolution of the earth on its axis, and that he accounted for it by a wind or current of aerial fluid, the extent of which, according to the orbit assigned to it by him, corresponds to an elevation of little more than a hundred miles from the surface of the earth : that he possessed the true theory of the causes of lunar and solar eclipses, and disregarded the imaginary dark planets of the mycologists and astrologers, affirming the moon and primary planets (and even the stars) to be essentially dark, and only illumined by the sun: that he [468] noticed the motion of the solstitial and equinoctial points, but restricted it to a regular oscillation, of which he assigned the limit and the period : that he ascribed to the epicycles, by which the motion of a planet is represented, a form varying from the circle and nearly elliptic : that he recognized a motion of the nodes and apsides of all the primary planets, as well as of the moon j though in this instance, as in some others, his censurer imputes to him variance of doctrine."

"H. T. Colebrooke (1803) also used this method to calculate the degree of difference between the constellation in which Spring, and hence the vernal equinox, began in the Veda and the constellation in which it began in his own time. He concluded that the Vedas "were not arranged in their present form earlier than the fourteenth century before the Christian era" (284)."

"On the subject of demonstrations, it is to be remarked that the Hindu mathematicians proved propositions both algebraically and geometrically: as is particularly noticed by Bhaskara himself, towards the close of his algebra, where he gives both modes of proof of a remarkable method for the solution of indeterminate problems, which involve a factum of two unknown quantities."

"In 1819 he donated his priceless collection of oriental manuscripts to the East India Company library. His precision, patience, insight, and mental poise produced marvellous results in a work that has not become outdated after more than a century of admiration: the Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindus. Written on topics he had studied thoroughly during the first years of his stay in India, Colebrooke allowed his work to ripen thirty years before publishing it. It exerted a decisive influence in European intellectual circles. Like Anquetil, Colebrooke had a respect for human variety. His constant submission to rational truth, both as a scholar and magistrate, led him to work with positive facts, with equivalent components of a whole, with beliefs different from his own. This kind of integrity is a credit to the English school, which exhibited lofty examples of it, and compensates for the political insensitivities of certain men of action and the blindness of a certain kind of faith. Colebrooke must also be credited, again like Anquetil, with the intransigence that led him to denounce bluntly what he considered faulty or criminal in the colonial methods of his nation. As early as 1795, he did just that in a memorandum on commercial dealings in Bengal, and he continued to do so at every opportunity."

"Peaceloving Indians, ancient owners of a fertile land, you harvest in tranquility the fruits that it provides for your needs. Content with little, only the skies, by stopping the rain, could render you unhappy. Your internecine squabbling, and which nation does not have them? your disputes settled, or at least suspended by the arrival of the monsoon, do not leave in your countryside those signs of devastation with which the activity of the conqueror stamps, that is what the dominating character of a people is capable of. The Muslims annexed a part of your land, the most beautiful provinces of Hindustan, and left you your manners, customs, should I say? your laws. These were the most fanatical followers of the Arab Prophet, whose banners announced submission to the Koran or death; conquered as much by your gentleness as by the climate, one saw them setting aside this pride, this roughness which was the original character of their sect; they chose their ministers among your Brahmins, your Banias are their bankers; your Rajputs, their best soldiers: such that an observer has difficulty in distinguishing, by their habits, by the religion, between the province which obeys the Rajas [Hindus], and that which submits to the Nababs [Muslims]. Was it necessary for the rumours of your riches to penetrate through to the climate where artificial needs have no limits? Soon new foreigners approached your frontiers; inconvenient guests, everything that they touched belonged to them: your squabbles maintained, and aggravated, by Agents who are powerful, and what is more, motivated by self-interest, so that your disputes become eternal: it is no matter that they have invaded your market, have tripled the price of basic foodstuffs, and as to merchandise, have altered its quality; manufacturing industry almost annihilated, the workers fleeing to the mountains, the dying son asking his father what he had done to these foreigners who take away rice from his mouth: nothing touches them, or softens their hearts: your gold, one said to the Peruvians, to the Mexicans: here, the revenue of Hindustan, that is what we demand, even at the cost of rivers of blood. At least, unhappy Indians, perhaps you will learn that in two hundred years, a European who has seen you, who has lived among you, has dared to ask on your behalf, and present to the Tribunal of the Universe, for your wounded rights, denied by a humanity tainted by a vile interest."'"

"Peaceful Indians, did the rumor of your riches have to penetrate a clime in which artificial needs know no bounds? Soon, new foreigners reached your shores; inconvenient guests, everything they touched belonged to them... "If the British ... neglect any longer to enrich Europe's scholars with the Sanskrit scriptures ... they will bear the shame of having sacrificed honor, probity, and humanity to the vile love for gold and money, without human knowledge having derived the least lustre, the least growth from their conquests."

"In 1778, Anquetil-Duperron, a French Orientalist who spent seven years in India, penned this moving testimony: Peaceful Indians …, did the rumour of your riches have to penetrate a clime in which artificial needs know no bounds? Soon, new foreigners reached your shores; inconvenient guests, everything they touched belonged to them …; it was not enough that they should invade your commerce, make the price of foodstuffs and goods triple, alter their quality; your factories almost wiped out, the workers taking refuge in the mountains, a dying son asking his father what harm he did those foreigners who have taken the bread out of his mouth — nothing touches or softens their hearts: “Your gold,” the Peruvians and Mexicans were told; here, the revenue of Industan is what we demand, even if for that streams of blood have to flow. At least, unfortunate Indians, you will perhaps learn that in the space of two hundred years, one European who saw you and lived among you! has dared to plead your cause and present to the Court of the Universe your wounded rights, those of mankind blackened by a vile interest."

"What gives to the Upanishads their unique quality and unfailing human appeal is an earnest sincerity of tone, as of friends conferring upon matters of deep concern."

"Hinduism is one of the greatest assimilants that the world has known... It is infinitely absorbent like the ocean."

"My real profession is namely the science of India, specifically of Indian philosophies and religions. In contrast to nearly all of my colleagues, however, during my thirteen-month stay in India, I established connections with the mission, primarily the Catholic mission, but also the Protestant mission. I wanted to place my science in the service of the Church."

"Acting on Hacker's wishes, the editor of his collected works excluded the author's polemical Christian writings from the compilation... Many such polemical writings also appeared in fringe religious pamphlets and propaganda literature which are unknown to most scholars. Hacker's suppression of this material compromised his integrity as an objective scholar, as it misled readers into thinking his writings on Hinduism were objective evaluations when in fact they were, in Andrew Nicholson's words, the work of a 'Christian polemicist'. In his posthumously published writings, Hacker is as explicit in his support for Christianity as he is in his attack on contemporary Hinduism."

"[Buddhism is] a Hindu phenomenon, a natural product, so to speak, of the age and social circle that witnessed its birth. When we attempt to reconstruct its primitive doctrine and early history, we come upon something so akin to what we meet in the most ancient Upanishads and in the legends of Brahmanism, that it is not always easy to determine what features belong peculiarly to it."

"[A Hindu] may be a theist, pantheist, atheist, communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does."

"As Frits Staal wrote in 1982 in “What is happening in Classical Indology?”, “Some chocolates can only be sold if they are wrapped up in gold- speckled papers. Books about the Rigveda will only be read through the medium of some fashionable theory”."

"Frits Staal reminds us of three special chariots. First, the composer of a hymn describes himself as “he who constructs the high seat of the chariot in his mind” (with reference to 7.64.4). The second instance comes from the famous hymn of the wedding of Sµuryå, daughter of the Sun (Sµurya), which “relates how travels in a chariot made of mind (manas), whether it is to her future husband, immortality or the abode of Soma” (with reference to 10.85). The third comes from a deeply enigmatic dialogue between a (possibly dead) father and his (possibly alive) son; the former tells the latter about “the new chariot without wheels, which you boy have made manaså, which has one draught pole and goes in all directions, standing on it you are seeing nothing” (with reference to 10.135)."

"‘Western civilization […] produced a science of language only belatedly, after being influenced by the Sanskrit grammar of Panini.’ (Staal 1988: 48)"

"‘the notion of “context-sensitive-rule” was not […] recognized as such in Western linguistics until the twentieth century, whereas it had been discovered in India before 500 BCE […] We can now assert, with the power of hindsight, that Indian linguists in the fifth century BCE knew and understood more than Western linguists in the nineteenth century CE. Can one not extend this conclusion and claim that it is probable that Indian linguists are still ahead of their Western colleagues and may continue to be so in the next century?’ (Staal 1988: 48)"

"According to Kuiper (1967, 1997: xxiv, quoted with approval by Witzel 1999a: 388), “between the arrival of the Aryans ( . . . ) and the formation of the oldest hymns of the RV a much longer period must have elapsed than normally thought.”"

"It IS an undeniable fact that no philosophy outside India makes such a varied and manifold use of[spiritual] instruction in order to visualize the supreme Truth. It is the very metaphysical bent of Hindu thought which makes room for practical educational training."

"The God of Indian devotion - bhakti who responds to the same eternal needs of the human heart as exists anywhere else, never detaches himself wholly from the immanence of the world. He is personal and endowed with feelings only in the eyes of popular piety; to thought he reveals himself both far beyond and within at the same time; he reveals it as much as he hides it; and each man is in himself in some sort a manifestation of God."

"India presents to the visitor an overwhelmingly visual impression. It is beautiful, colorful, and sensuous. It is captivating and intriguing, repugnant and puzzling. It combines the intimacy and familiarity of English four o'clock tea with the dazzling foreignness of carpisoned elephants or vast crowds bathing in the Ganga during an eclipse. India's displays of multi-armed images, its processions and its pilgrimages, its beggars and Its kings, its street life and markets, its diversity of people - all appear to the eye in a kaleidoscope of images. Whatever Hindus affirm of the meaning of life, death, and suffering, they affirm with their eyes wide open."

"It was an awesome city - captivating, challenging, and endlessly fascinating - Banaras raised some of the questions about the Hindu tradition which have interested me ever since - its complex mythological imagination, its prodigious display of divine images, its elaborate ritual traditions, and its understanding of the relation of life and death. It was Banaras that turned me to the study of India and the Hindu religious tradition.""

"We human beings constitute and reconstitute ourselves through cultural traditions, which we experience as our own development in a historical time that spans the generations. To investigate the life-world as horizon and ground of all experience therefore requires investigating none other than generativity - the processes of becoming, of making and remaking, that occur over the generations and within which any individual genesis is always already situated... Individual subjectivity is intersubjectively and culturally embodied, embedded, and emergent."

"Mind emerges from matter and life at an empirical level, but at a transcendental level every form or structure is necessarily also a form or structure disclosed by consciousness. With this reversal one passes from the natural attitude of the scientist to the transcendental phenomenological attitude."

"Tamilnadu has known no "real" [R]enaissance-like development . . . there was no development comparable to the European rinascimento of the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, to European rationalism of the seventeen–eighteenth centuries or to European empiricism and positivism of the nineteenth century."

"However, until before the bhakti trend set in, before the so-called 'dark ages', in the Tamil classical age, in the age of Murugan, the Tamil man seems to have had a clear, optimistic, rather simple, very secular view of life, in a heroic age of meat-eating and wine-drinking pre-feudal society, with relatively simple but meaningful religious conceptions."

"the pitfall of the simplistic view of Indian cultural development, which reduces everything to the tension between autochthonous features (primarily Dravidian) and imported Indo-Aryan traits. ... [the indigenous Tamil framework] was invaded, partly violated and raped, partly adopted and adapted, by the attempts of later commentators to force Tamil ideology into the procrustean mould of the Brahminic-Sanskritic models."

"As Wheeler pointed out long ago, Harappan civilization is the most spatially extensive of all the early civilizations we know."

"The sequence ensures that the text on the neolithic tool found in Tamil Nadu is not only in the Indus script but also in the Harappan language. I may add this is the archeological discovery of the century in Tamil Nadu."

"Iravatham Mahadevan, specializing in the Indus script and early Tamil, is an example of a scholar who became co-opted to serve as an academic sepoy for Western manipulations.... In 1970, while he was a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow, Mahadevan came out with a hypothesis that the Harappan script is ‘a language which resembles South Dravidian (including Telugu) in general and Old Tamil in particular’. This was music to the ears of those fanning the flames of Dravidian separatism. It supplied social and political theories of India’s divided identities by claiming ‘amazingly close parallelisms between the hierarchical structure of proto-Indian and the old Tamil polities’. He theorized that the Mahabharata was a story of class-war between a priestly oligarchy and common people in Harappan civilization – a gift to Indian Marxists looking for class-conflict wherever possible."

"We cannot explain the development of the whole of this great literature if we assume as late a date as round about 1200 BC or 1500 BC as its starting-point."

"...We shall probably have to date the beginning of this development to about 2000 or 2500 BC"

"I, for my part, do not understand why some Western scholars are so anxious to make the hymns of the Rgveda and the civilisation which is reflected in them so very much later than the Babylonian and Egyptian culture."

"“Since more than 2000 years the poem of Rama has remained alive in India, and it continues to live in all strata and classes of folk. High and low, princes and peasants, landlords and artisans, princesses and shepherdesses, are well versed with the characters and stories of the great epic.”"

"As Maurice Winternitz ... notes about the Vajrasûchî, a text attributed to the Brahmin-born monk Ashvaghosha: 'This work refutes the Brahmanical caste system very cuttingly. The author (...) seeks to prove from the Brahmanical texts themselves, by quotations from the Veda, the Mahâbhârata and the law book of Manu, how frail the claims of the Brahman caste are.'"

"From the mystical doctrines of the Upanishads, one current of thought may be traced to the mysticism of Persian Sufism, to the mystic, theosophic logos doctrine of the Neo-Platonics and the Alexandrian Christian Mystics, Eckhart and Tauler, and finally to the philosophy of the great German mystic of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer.""

"Almost a century ago, Winternitz ([1907] 1962) was refreshingly forthright about the lack of agreement regarding even the approximate date of the Veda: "It is a fact, and a fact which it is truly painful to admit, that the opinions of the best scholars differ, not to the extent of centuries, but to the extent of thousands of years, with regard to the age of the Rg Veda. Some lay down the year 1000 B.C. as the earliest limit for the Rg Vedic hymns, while others consider them to have originated between 3000 and 2500 B.C." (253)."

"As Winternitz ([1907] 1962) points out, "it is at the fixing on these purely arbitrary dates that the untenable part of Max Muller's calculations begins" (255)."

"Winternitz (1907), too, felt that since "all the external evidence fails, we are compelled to rely on the evidence out of the history of Indian literature itself, for the age of the Veda. . . . We cannot, however, explain the development of the whole of this great literature, if we assume as late a date as round about 1200 or 1500 B.C. as its starting point. We shall probably have to date the beginning of this development about 2000 or 2500 B.C." (310)."

"It became a habit already censured by W. D. Whitney, to say that Max Muller had proved 1200-1000 B.C. as the date of the Rg Veda. It was only timidly that a few scholars, like L. von Schroeder ventured to go as far back as 1500 or even 2000 B.C. And when all at once, H. Jacobi attempted to date Vedic literature back to the third millenary B.C. on the grounds of astrological calculations, scholars raised a great outcry at such heretical procedure... Strange to say it has been quite forgotten on what a precarious footing stood the "opinion prevailing hitherto," which was so zealously defended. Max Muller himself did not really wish to say more than that such an interval at least must be assumed. . . . He always considered his date of 1200- 1000 B.C. only as a terminus ad quern."

"Winternitz (1907), too, hastened to note that "Max Muller himself did not really wish to say more than that such an interval at least must be assumed. . . . He always considered his date of 1200- 1000 B.C. only as a terminus ad quern" (293)."

"We cannot, however, explain the development of the whole of this great literature, if we assume as late a date as round about 1200 or 1500 B.C. as its starting point. We shall probably have to date the beginning of this development about 2000 or 2500 B.C... The more prudent course, however, is to steer clear of any fixed dates..."

"It is remarkable however how strong the power of suggestion is even in science. Max Muller's hypothetical and purely arbitrary determination of the Vedic epochs in the course of years, received more and more the dignity and the character of a scientifically proven fact, without any new arguments or actual proofs having been added."

"Oral tradition, too, presupposes longer intervals of time than would be necessary, had these texts been written down. Generations of pupils and teachers must have passed away before all the existing and the many lost texts had taken definite shape in the Vedic schools, On linguistic, literary and cultural grounds we must therefore assume that many centuries elapsed between the period of the earliest hymns and the final compilation of the hymns into a Samhita or “collection”, for the Rigveda-Samhita after denotes only the close of a period long, past, and again between the Rigveda-Samhita and the other Samhitas and Brahmanas, The Brahmanas themselves, with their numerous schools and branch schools, with their endless lists of teachers and the numerous references to teachers of antiquity, require a period of several centuries for their origin, This literature itself, as well as the spread of the brahmanical culture, theological knowledge, and not least, the priestly supremacy which went hand in hand with it, must have taken centuries, When we come to the Upanisads, we see that they too, belong to different periods of time, that they too pre-suppose generations of teachers and a long tradition."

"“… The passage [Śat. Br. II.1,2,3. …] in which we read that the Pleiades “do not swerve from the East” should probably not be interpreted as meaning that they rose “due east” (which would have been the case in the third millenary B.C., and would point to a knowledge of the vernal equinox): the correct interpretation is more likely that they remain visible in the eastern region for a considerable time – during several hours – every night, which was the case about 1100 B.C. [I am indebted for this explanation to Professor A. Prey, the astronomer of our University, who informed me that, in about 1100 B.C. the Pleiades rose approximately 13º to the north of the east point, approaching nearer and nearer the east line, and crossing it as late as 2 h 11 m after their rise, at a height of 29º, when seen from a place situated at 25º North latitude. They thus remain almost due east long enough to serve as a convenient basis for orientation. This interpretation of the passage is proved to be the correct one, by Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra 27,5 (cf. W. Caland, Uber das rituelle Sūtra des Baudhāyana, Leipzig 1903, pp. 37 ff.), where it is prescribed that the supporting beams of a hut on the place of sacrifice shall face east, and that this direction shall be fixed after the Pleiades appear, as the latter “do not depart from the eastern region.” It is true that, about 2100 B.C. or about 3100 B.C., the Pleiades touched the east line earlier, but they proceeded southwards so rapidly that they were not suitable for orientation.] …”."

"As regards the kinship of the languages, it is quite impossible to state definite chronological limits within which languages change. Some languages change very rapidly , others remain more or less unaltered for a long period. It is true that hieratic languages, like those of the Vedic hymns and the Avesta, can remain unaltered much longer than spoken languages."

"Wintemitz refers to A.C. Woolner as rightly commenting on Max Muller's supposition of 1200 B.C. for the Rigveda's beginning: " As far as any philological estimates go , 2000 B.C. remains quite as possible as 1200 B.C. for the earliest mantra.""

"The archaism of the Gāthās would incline us to situate Zarathuštra in the very beginning of the first millennium BCE, if not even earlier."

"Since the classical Greeks already, it has been common to date Zarathuštra to the 6th century BC, hardly a few generations before the Persian wars. In popular literature, this date is still given, but scholars have now settled for an earlier date: “The archaism of the Gāthās would incline us to situate Zarathuštra in the very beginning of the first millennium BCE, if not even earlier.” (Varenne 2006) But how much earlier? According to leading scholar SkjaervØ, “Zoroastrianism (…) originated some four millennia ago”."

""A lot of scholars maintain that no belief in transmigration had existed before the Upaniṣads. However, Killingley presented evidence that shows that the topics of the pañcāgnividyā and deva-/pitṛyāna [two concepts in the Upaniṣads] have their antecedents in the earlier Brahminic texts. He claims that theories of karma and rebirth are made up of several ideas already present in Vedic thought. Also Tull shows that the conceptual framework of the Upaniṣadic idea of transmigration had been established already in the Brāhmaṇas with their idea of sacrifice during which the sacrificer symbolically experiences death and rebirth during his journey to heaven. Oberlies goes even further back and tries to reconstruct a possible Rgvedic belief according to which the dead came back to earth to be reborn in their progeny. We can put this belief into broader conceptual frames as it is very close to the beliefs characteristic of 'small scale' or 'tribal' societies. Obeyesekere maintains that the belief in rebirth after death is quite widespread and varies in different cultures. Contrary to the mature Upanisadic form of the rebirth eschatology, the rebirth eschatologies characteristic of small scale societies are not linked to ethical causation. Obeyesekere believes that the kṣatriyas in the Upaniṣads who expound their views about transmigration implicitly are in discussion with traditions that 'seem to believe that after death one can be reborn in the human world or in a subhuman one'" (p.183-84)."

"Like many other scholars, Obeyesekere maintains that we lack evidence for such a belief before the Upaniṣads but he thinks that the preserved texts do not necessarily represent the whole religious situation in ancient India. 'It is true' - he says - 'that there is no way to trace the history of the theory of rebirth backward, but there is a methodological way out by examining how it might have originated' Then Obeyesekere creates - what he calls 'a theoretical possible model' to explain the problem. My paper will support this model with textual evidence. I would like to show that there are at least three stanzas in the Ṛgveda (RV) from which the belief in rebirth can be reconstructed. The argument is based not only on the philological data. but also on the consistency of the whole reconstruction and its power to explain many unclear issues, concerning both the interpretation of some Ṛgvedic Stanzas and the development of the concept of rebirth. I may add that I had managed to find the evidence supporting my argument before I became acquainted with Obeyesekere's book."

"Greek was nothing more than Sanskrit turned topsy-turvy."

"The fact, however, that he (Pythagoras) derived his doctrines from an Indian source is very generally admitted. Under the name of Mythraic, the faith of Buddha had also a wide extension."

"We will study India with its philosophy and its myths, its literature, its laws and its language. Nay It is more than India it IS a page of the origin of the world that we will attempt to decipher."

"[The Bhagavad Gita was] "probably the most beautiful book which has ever come from the hand of man.""

"At that very time, however, now about forty years ago, a new start was made, which has given to Sanskrit scholarship an entirely new character. The chief author of that movement was Burnouf, then professor at the Collège de France in Paris, an excellent scholar, but at the same time a man of wide views and true historical instincts, and the last man to waste his life on mere Nalas and Sakuntalâs. Being brought up in the old traditions of the classical school in France (his father was the author of the well-known Greek Grammar), then for a time a promising young barrister, with influential friends such as Guizot, Thiers, Mignet, Villemain, at his side, and with a brilliant future before him, he was not likely to spend his life on pretty Sanskrit ditties. What he wanted when he threw himself on Sanskrit was history, human history, world-history, and with an unerring grasp he laid hold of Vedic literature and Buddhist literature, as the two stepping-stones in the slough of Indian literature."

"The multiplicity of the manifestations of the Indian genius as well as their fundamental unity gives India the right to figure on the first rank in the history of civilized nations. Her civilization, spontaneous and original, unrolls itself in a continuous time across at least thirty centuries, without interruption, Without deviation."

"The Mahabharata is not only the largest, but also the grandest of all epics, as it contains throughout a lively teaching of morals under a glorious garment of poetry."

"From Persia to the Chinese Sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to the islands of Java and Borneo, from Oceania to Socotra, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales and her civilization. She has left indelible imprints on one-fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries."

"From Persia to the Chinese Sea, 'from the icy regions of Siberia to the islands of Java and Borneo, from Oceania to Socotra, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales and her civilization."

"She has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim in universal history the rank that ignorance has refused her for a long time and to hold her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity."

"Despite the advanced state of civilization evident in the earliest Aryan tongues, [and] despite other scientific evidence, old biblical prejudices and presumptuous enthusiasm caused people to believe that they had discovered the birth of language if not the creation of man. . . . They therefore declared that primitive Aryan was monosyllabic and consisted exclusively of roots. Monsieur de Saussure’s theory of disyllabic roots, useful as it is for explaining previously obscure forms, has today foundered on this unshakable prejudice.’"

"I venture to suggest that the inhabitants of this country would do well if they were to assume the ancient, honorable, and national name ofBharata, remembering that India has become famous as Bharatvarsa, the land of the Bharats."

"Richard Garbe, in his Indische Reiseskizzen of 1889, made sure to preface his criticism of missionary operations with the following disclaimer: “In order to protect myself against the charge of expressing anti-clerical views, I note that I would greet a mass conversion of the Indian population to Christianity joyfully and would see it as the foundation for progress and prosperity.”"

"Garbe’s important synthetic treatment Indien und das Christentum, published in 1914 after many more years of scholarly debate, opened by stating the author’s hopes that the volume would be helpful to missionaries in India, “for those who seek to exert influence on the religious life of the educated Hindus can, in my opinion, link (their work] with nothing better than with the elements that already have found their way from Christianity into the teaching of the Hindu sects.’””"

"In Kapila's doctrine, for the first time in the history of the world, the complete independence and freedom of the human mind, its full confidence in its own powers, were exhibited."

"In the present day, the blood of the Hindus is without a doubt only Aryan to the smallest degree, and even the Brahman families have been starkly contaminated with barbarian blood."

"Uncounted millions have drawn from it comfort and joy. In it they have found an end to perplexity, a clear, if difficult, road to salvation."

"As a religion, Hinduism has set side by side in peaceful coexistence every shade of belief ranging from the most pnmitive sort of animism to a highly sophisticated philosophical monism, and with this has gone a corresponding range of worship of practice extending from the simplest disease spirits to the most concentrated meditation designed to produce knowledge of abstract impersonal reality."

"Truth is for Hinduism an indivisible treasure; spiritual immediacy IS widely distributed, the mystic path is open to everyone. In its purest forms, this religion becomes a type of wisdom., that wisdom which impressed the ancient Greeks when they visited India and which could be of some fruitfulness again for our blase cultures. It IS as wisdom that we should like to define Hinduism rather than by the equivocal term spirituality."

"Vedic thought moves on several different planes, each fact being susceptible of more than one interpretation."

"Renou found that the `Rgveda “develops a web of symbols in which language has been bent to subtle processes of a mythico-ritual imagination. Almost all Indian works have an esoteric side, the Rig-Veda more than any other” (Renou & Filliozat, [1947] 1985: 275)."

"‘More important is the Sarasvatī, the true lifeline of Vedic geography, whose trace is assumed to be found in the Sarsutī, located between the Satlaj and the Jamnā. With the Indus and its five tributaries, it forms the Veda’s “seven rivers”.’"

"What the Gita is finally is inseparable from its many contextual environments, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, scholarly and popular, corporate and personal, secular and sacred - contextual environments that have emerged in an on-going historical process and will continue to emerge as that historical process unfolds."

"Valmlki's Ramayan is the central document of Indian culture. The book and its message express in an aesthetically pleasing and emotionally moving form what must be seen as the most powerfully hegemonic discourse of the brahmanical and kshatriya elites of India's epic age. It continues to be the basic and the founding statement of social and political order in India even today. Greek epics like Homer's Iliad are the books of a lost civilization for today's Westerners."

"Indians conducted far more elaborate speculations than the Westerners of antiquity and the Middle Ages with respect to the theory of numbers, the analysis of psychological phenomena, and the study of linguistic structures. The Indians are highly rationalistic, insofar as their ideal is to recognize eternal laws concerning past, present, and future. The thought represented by Tertullian's aphorism, "credo quia absurdum," or "I believe because it is absurd," had no receptivity in India. The Indians are, at the same time, logical since they generally have a tendency to sublimate their thinking to the universal; they are at once logical and rationalistic. On the contrary, many religions of the West are irrational and illogical, and this is acknowledged by the Westerners themselves. For example, Schweitzer, a pious and most devoted Christian, says, "Compared to the logical religions of Asia, the gospel of Jesus is illogical.""

"Without Indian influence Japanese culture would not be what it is today."

"India is culturally, Mother of Japan. For centuries it has, in her own characteristic way, been exercising her influence on the thought and culture of Japan."

"In his India days, Rajneesh was a voracious reader, and he is known to have devoured all of Gurdjieff’s and Ouspensky’s books. In fact, Gurdjieff seems to have served him as a kind of role model in his interaction with devotees."

"The Aitareya-Aranyaka, which is more than three thousand years old, clearly refers to writing. Several Upanishads describe various aspects of the alphabet... Panini himself mentions a number of grammatical works prior to his date."

"Contrary to popular scholarly opinion, the genealogies found in the Puranas, which list over a hundred and twenty kings in one Vedic dynasty alone, fit into the new model of ancient Indian history. The Puranic records are far more trustworthy than has hitherto been assumed. They are the distillate of countless generations of remembered knowledge, especially knowledge concerning the vicissitudes of royal houses. They date back to the third millennium B.C.E. and earlier. Greek accounts point to the existence of Indian royal lists (perhaps coinciding with those of the Puranas) that are reported to go back to the seventh millennium B.C.E."

"In the past couple of centuries, these ideas and other India-derived notions have inspired many great schol­ars, scientists, and literary figures: Hegel, Fichte, Schlegel, Goethe, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Shelley, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Thoreau, Emerson, Tennyson, Yeats, A. E. Russell, Edwin Arnold, E. M. Forster, Blavatsky, Romain Rolland, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, C. F. von Weizsäcker, Robert Oppenheimer, David Bohm, and others."

"The view that Hinduism as a religion, or the Hindus as a people, lack a sense of history has been expressed so often as to have become a cliché. Even when scholars have tried to take a more sophisticated as opposed to a clichéd view, the effect has often been to reinforce it."

"The Bhagavad Gītā comes to us from sacred India. Its verses of ancient wisdom on the mysteries of human existence speak to us today as if they had just been spoken. The Bhagavad Gītā is one of the most loved works among the collections of scriptural texts found within the Hindu traditions. It also stands out among the holy books of the major world religions, for its flowing Sanskrit verses present a uniquely vivid portrait of the intimacy between humanity and divinity. Indeed, this divine intimacy is revealed in the form of a dialogue that takes the soul on an inward journey culminating in the ultimate state of yoga, in which souls unite with the heart of God."

"As the historian P. T. Srinivasan Iyengar pertinently noted in 1926, A careful study of the Vedas...reveals the fact that Vedic culture is so redolent of the Indian soil and of the Indian atmosphere that the idea of the non-Indian origin of that culture is absurd."

"The Aryas do not refer to any foreign country as their original home, do not refer to themselves as coming from beyond India, do not name any place in India after the names of places in their original land as conquerors and colonizers always do, but speak of themselves exactly as sons of the soil would do. If they had been foreign invaders, it would have been humanly impossible for all memory of such invasion to have been utterly obliterated from memory in such a short time as represents the differences between the Vedic and Avestan dialects. (79-80)"

"One solitary word anasa applied to the Dasyu has been quoted by ... Max Muller . . . among numerous writers, to prove that the Dasyus were a flat nosed people, and that, therefore, by contrast, the Aryas were straight-nosed. Indian commentators have explained this word to mean an-asa, mouthless, devoid of fair speech. . . . to hang such a weight of inference as the invasion and conquest of India by the straight nosed Aryans on the solitary word anasa does certainly seem not a very reasonable procedure. (6) The only other trace of racial reference in the Vedic hymns is the occurrence of two words, one krishna in seven passages and the other asikini in two passages. One of the meanings of these two words is "black," but in all the passages, the words have been interpreted as referring to black demons, black clouds, a demon whose name was Krishna, or the powers of darkness. Hence to take this as evidence to prove that the invading Aryans were fair-complexioned as they referred to their demon foes or perhaps human enemies as black is again to stretch many points in behalf of a preconceived theory. (6-7) The word . . . Arya occurs about 33 times [in the Rgveda]. . . . the word Dasa occurs about 50 times and Dasyu about 70 times. . . . The word Arya occurs 22 times in hymns to Indra and six times in hymns to Agni, and Ddsa 50 times in hymns to Indra and twice in hymns to Agni, and Dasyu 50 times in hymns to Indra and 9 times in hymns to Agni. The constant association of these words with Indra clearly proves that Arya meant a worshipper of Indra (and Agni). . . . The Aryas offered oblations to Indra. . . . The Dasyus or Dasas were those who were opposed to the Indra Agni cult and are explicitly described thus in those passages where human Dasyus are clearly meant. They are avtata without (the Arya) rites, anyavrata of different rites, ayajavdna, non-sacrificers, abrahma without prayers, also not having Brahmana priests, anrichah without Riks, brahmadvisha, haters of prayers to Brahmanas, and anindra without Indra, despisers of Indra. They pour no milky draughts, they heat no cauldron. They give no gifts to the Brahmana. . . . Their worship was but enchantment, sorcery, unlike the sacred law of fire-worship, wiles and magic. In all this we hear but the echo of a war of rite with rite, cult with cult and not one of race with race."

"Probably the first settlers arrived in the region around 1750–1600 BC and their numbers grew steadily during the following centuries. We would expect this early Vedic period to come to an end around 1500 BC and the first compilation of the Rigveda Sayhita, i.e. Majjals II–VII, to be made during the next two or three centuries."

"Even respected archaeologists of the old school of thought, such as Raymond and Bridget Allchin, now admit that the arrival of Indo-Aryans in Northwest India is "scarcely attested in the archaeological record, presumably because their material culture and life-style were already virtually indistinguishable from those of the existing population.""

"Their [the Aryans] presence should therefore be in evidence archaeologically… But as yet it is scarcely attested in the archaeological record presumably because their material culture and lifestyle were already indistinguishable from those of the existing population."

"These three contexts suggest that fire-rituals formed a part of the religious life of the town, at a civic, domestic and popular level... They are highly suggestive of an Indo-Iranian, if not more specifically Indo-Aryan, element in the culture of the period covered by these excavations."

"The Allchins, in their archeological capacity, have consistently emphasized the continuity that links the residues of the Indus civilization with those of the later classical India in the Ganges basin and further south. Furthermore, they repeatedly emphasized that archeology provides no clear evidence of any mass movement of peoples from Central Asia into northern India. So why do they continue to pay deference to the “racist” notions of nineteenth-century philologists in this way? (Incidentally, there is no “general agreement that the Indo- Iranian languages . . . were originally spoken in the steppes of Eurasia”)"

"In order to account for this fact, we are bound to assume that the language of the original population of the towns of Central Asia, where Indo-Iranians must have arrived in the second millennium BCE, on the one hand, and the language spoken in the Punjab, the homeland of the Indo-Aryans, on the other, were intimately related."

"I use the term substratum to refer to any donor language, without implying sociological differences in its status, so that 'substratum' may refer to an adstratum or even superstratum."

"Another problem is how to account for Indo-Iranian isolates which have been borrowed into Uralic [...which form part of...] the new vocabulary, which most probably was acquired by the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia."

"In the case of Indo-Iranian, there may have been early differentiation between the Indo-Aryan and Iranian branches, especially if we assume that the Iranian loss of aspiration in voiced aspirated stops was a dialectal feature which Iranian shared with Balto-Slavic and Germanic (cf. Kortlandt 1978:115). Nevertheless, Proto-Indo-Iranian for a long time remained a dialectal unity, possibly even up to the moment when the Indo-Aryans crossed the Hindu Kush mountain range and lost contact with the Iranians."

"Starting with the assumption that loanwords reflect change in environment and way of life, we get the following picture of the new country of the Indo-Iranians. The landscape must have been quite similar to that of their original homeland, as there are no new terms for plants or landscape. The new animals like camel, donkey and tortoise show that the new land was situated more to the South […] This picture, which is drawn on exclusively linguistic arguments, is a strong confirmation of the traditional theory that the Indo-Iranians came from the north. […] as we have seen above, there are reasons to believe that the Indo-Aryans formed the vanguard of the Indo-Iranian movement and were the first to come into contact with the original inhabitants of the Central Asian towns. […] the Iranians […] were pushing from behind."

"Nothing is more unsatisfactory than to attempt to define Indo-European society on the assumption that the Indo-Europeans knew only what can be ascribed to them on con- clusive evidence. Ex hypothesi, there were great dispersals of peoples from the original home, and those who wondered away were unquestionably constantly intermingling with other peoples . . . and it is not to be wondered at that in new surroundings new words were employed; still less can it be a matter of surprise that peoples which ceased to be in contact with natural features soon dropped the names which had become use- less."

"...the Vedic index. This book is an encyclopedia of historical and sociological knowledge extracted by study of the Vedic texts. It is based on a thorough review of Orientalist research, including especially the work of German Orientalists, but it is at the same time very much a British reading of the Vedic texts and the Orientalist interpretation of them."

"It is certain ... that the Rigveda offers no assistance in determining the mode in which the Vedic Aryans entered India., .. If, as may be the case, the Aryan invaders of India entered by the western passes of the Hindu Kush and proceeded thence through the Punjab to the east, still that advance is not reflected in the Rigveda, the bulk at least of which seems to have been composed rather in the country round the Sarasvati river, south of the modern Ambala."

"By taking the linguistic evidence too literally one could conclude that the original Indo-European speakers knew butter, but not milk; snow and feet but not rain or hands!"

"Dasyu, a word of some- what doubtful origin, is in many passages of the Rigveda clearly applied to superhuman enemies... Dasa, like Dasyu, sometimes denotes enemies of a demoniac character in the Rigveda."

"The same terms are applied indifferently to the human enemies of the Aryans and to the fiends, and no criterion exists by which references to real foes can be distinguished in every case from allusions to demoniacal powers." "Individual Dasas" whom Keith picks out as human examples "are Ilibica, Dhuni and Chumuri, Pipru, Varchin , and Cambara, though the last at least has been transformed by the imagination of the singers into demoniac proportions"."

"We learn from the Vedic Index: "In some passages the Panis definitely appear as mythological figures , demons who withhold the cows or waters of heaven ... It is difficult to be certain who a Pani was. It is, however, hardly necessary to do more than regard the Panis generally as non-worshippers of the gods favoured by the singers; the term is wide enough to cover either the aborigines or hostile Aryan tribes as well as demons. ""

"The word seems beyond doubt to be connected with the root seen in the Greek pernemi, and the sense in which it was used by the poets must have been something like 'niggard'. The demons are niggards because they withhold from the Aryan the water of the clouds: the aborigines are niggards because they refuse the gods their due, perhaps also because they do not surrender their wealth to the Aryans without a struggle. The term may also be applied to any foe as an opprobrious epithet, and there is no passage in the Sarnhita which will not yield an adequate meaning with one or other of these uses. But it has been deemed by one high authority?" to reveal to us a closer connexion of India and Iran than has yet suggested itself: in the Dasas Hillebrandt sees the Dahae, in the Panis the Parnians, and he locates the struggles of Divodasa against them in Arachosia. Support for this view he finds in the record of Divodasa's conflicts with Brisaya and the Paravatas, with whose names he compares that of the Satrap Barsentes [of Alexander's time] and the people Paruetae of Gedrosia or Aria [in the same period]. Similarly he suggests that the Srifijaya people, who wereconnected like Divodasa with the Bharadvaja family, should be located in Iran, and he finds in the Sarasvati, which formed the scene of Divodasa's exploits , not the Indian stream but the Iranian Harahvaiti. Thus the sixth book of the Rigveda would carry us far west from the scenes of the third and seventh which must definitely be located in India. But the hypothesis rests on .too weak a foundation to be accepted as even plausible"

"The Sarasvatī comes between the Jumna and the Sutlej, the position of the modern Sarsūti . . . There are strong reasons to accept the identification of the later and the earlier Sarasvatī throughout [the Rig Veda]."

"The Indo-European homeland need not be identical to the area of horse domestication, but should be connected to it. The ways in which names and technical knowledge . . . spread should be explored."

"The lack of a clear Proto-Indo-European word for 'donkey‘, given the presence of domesticated donkeys throughout most of the territory where horses were domesticated and where the Indo-European tribes must have lived, can be explained by assuming that *ekhwos was originally used with the meaning 'donkey‘ as well as 'wild horse; horse‘. ...[the PIE speakers lived in] Central and Eastern Asia, where paleozoological data show that the domesticated donkey is a recent introduction."

"Indeed Ivanov (1999), who has undertaken by far the most comprehensive study of the cognate terms for horse in Indo-European as well as the adjacent languages of Northern Caucasian and Hurrian, points out that "the Indo-European homeland need not be identical to the area of horse domestication, but should be connected to it. The ways in which names and technical knowledge . . . spread should be explored"."

"If horseback riding really did began at the turn of the IV mil. B.C. before the dispersal of Proto-Indo-European, it did not leave traces in the vocabulary of the later dialects. . . . Thus it cannot be proven that this type of ancient . . . horseback riding had originally been connected with Indo-Europeans."

"As Elizarenkova (1992) notes, "either one comes to know things due to archaeological findings and in this case their names and purpose may remain unknown, or only the names of the things are known from the texts, but the things themselves, as well as their purpose, are unknown" (129)."

"“An essential characteristic of the vocabulary of this text is polysemy,” argues Tatyana J. Elizarenkova (1995: 285), who notes that double references create “serious obstacles for our comprehension of the text [...] In a large group of Vedic words this polysemy acquires a symbolic character.”"

"As a philologist, I lack the archaeological knowledge to tackle the problem in all its aspects."

"Sir Mortimer's theory is sustained by no literary evidence, it must rest entirely on archaeological facts and their interpretations."

"In Old Iranian, Proto-Aryan s has become h. In old Persian an ethnic name Daha- is attested, also as a proper noun in the administrative tablets found at Persepolis; the masculine plural is used as the name of a province of the Persian empire, placed before the similarly used name of the Sakas in a Persepolis inscription of Xerxes (h 26). In the Greek sources Herodotus (1,125) is the first to mention the people called Daoi, as a nomadic tribe of the Persians. More accurate information on them , however, is delivered by Alexander's historians. According to Q. Curtius Rufus (8,3) and Ptolemy's Geography (6 ,10,2) , the Dahas lived on the lower course of the river Margos (modern Murghab) or.. in the northern steppe area of Margiana. Pomponius Mela (3,42), based on Eratosthenes, tells that the great bend of the river Oxus towards the northwest begins near the Dahas (juxta Dahas), Tacitus (Ann. 11,10) places the Dahae on the northern border of Areia, mentioning the river Sindes (modern Tejend) as the border. These placements agree neatly with that of Namazga V culture of Margiana and Bactria [in greater Iran]."

"The Greek form of the name, Parnos«: (from Iranian * Parna-) , corresponds to Sanskrit Pani-, if it is assumed to be a "Prakritic" development of the reduced grade form *Pmi-, The full grade seems to be found in the name Parnaya- attested as an enemy of the king (Divodasa) Atithigva in Rlgveda] Slamhira] 1,53,8 and 10,48,8. These names may go back to the same Aryan verbal root as the name of the Dasa king Pipru, namely pr- (present piparti, pr1)ati) 'to bring over, rescue, protect, excel, be able'. The ar:r• variation reflects a dialectal difference within Indo-Iranian. Some other proper names of the Dasa chiefs are also clearly of Aryan origin, for example Varcin- 'possessed of (vital) power' (ct. ~S varcas = Avestan varscan 'vital power')."

"The etymologies of the names used by the Rgvedic Aryans of their enemies thus speak for their above suggested identification with the carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran, and for the proposal that these were speakers of an Aryan language."

"The fire-altars of Kalibangan and Lothal are so far without parallels at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Indeed, it has been asked [by Raymond and Bridget Allchin]: "Fire- worship being considered a distinctly Indo-Aryan trait, do these {ritual hearths of Kalibangan] carry with them an indication of an Indo-Aryan presence even from so early a date?" This hypothesis new seems quite plausible to me, if "Indo-Aryan" here is understood to refer to carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran, who had become quickly absorbed into the Indus Civilization, culturally and linguistically. It is supported further by the cylinder shape of the famous Kalibangan seal showing a Durga-like goddess of war, who is associated with the tiger. The goddess on the Kalibangan cylinder seal is said to be similar in style, especially the headdress, to one depicted on a cylinder seal from Shahdad [in Kerman on the desert of Lut in Iran, a major centre of the Bronze Age cultural tradition]. Seated lions attend to a goddess of fertility on a metal flag found at Shahdad."

"Other such Dasa demons are 'the loud-shouting Dasa with six eyes and three heads', a boar ivaraha) whom Trita slew with his metal-tipped inspired speech (RS 10,99,6), Urana with 99 arms and Arbuda (RS 2,14,4), and the Dasa Vyarnsa who wounded Indra and struck off both of his jaws, before Indra smashed his head with the weapon (RS 4,18,9; 1,101,2). The Dasa dragon (ahi) , from whom Indra wrests the waters (2,11 ,2), has a counterpart in the A vestan aii! dahako."

"The hymns specify by name individual Aryan kings and their Dasa or Dasyu foes , with genealogies. Thus Indra helped Divodasa Atithigva, the king of the Trtsus, in , vanquishing Dasa Sambara, who is mentioned about twenty times in the Rgveda. Divodasa's descendant was king Sudas, most famous for the battle of ten kings (RS 7,18 & 33 & 83). Sudas fought against Dasas as well as Aryans: RS 7,83,1 " ... Slay both the Dasa enemies and the Aryan: protect Sudas with your aid, a Indra and Varuna." Similarly Indra aided Rjisvan, son of Vidathin, to conquer Dasa Pipru, whose name occurs eleven times . .Dabhiti pressed Soma for Indra and was aided by the god, who sent to sleep 30,000 Dasas (RS 4,30,2) and bound a thousand Dasyus with cords (~S 2,13,9), so that the Dasas Cumuri and Dhuni were overcome and their castles destroyed (~S 6,18,8). Other probably historical enemies of the Aryans who are called Dasa and mentioned by name are Varcin, whose 100,000 warriors were slain by Indra; Drbhika and Rudhikra (E-S 2,14,3 & 5); Anarsani and Srbinda (~S 8,32,3); Arsasana (~S 1,130,8; 2,20,6); and Ilibisa (E-S 1,33,12). What an important role the struggles with their enemies played in the lives of the Aryans at this period is illustrated also by the names of some of their own kings: the son of Purukutsa was called Trasadasyu "one who makes the Dasyus tremble""

"The word pani means dealer, trafficker, from pan (also pan, d. Tamil pan , Greek ponos, labour) .... " A footnote to pan reads:"Sayana takes pan in Veda - to praise, but in one place he admits the sense of vyavahara, dealing. Action seems to me to be its sense in most passages. From pan in the sense of action we have the earlier names of the organs of action, pani, hand, foot or hoof, Lat. penis, d. also piiyu."

"At this time Assyria was trading with Cappadocia and importing tin from the east. The source of this tin may have been in central and northern Afghanistan (Kandahar and Badakshan), whence the Harappans and the Bactrians appear also to have obtained their supplies… On the other hand, from the 18th century B.C. onwards, north Syrian seals show such a typically Central Asian motif as the two-humped Bactrian camel, which is depicted in the BMAC seals several times…These cultural contacts between the Syro-Hittite world and the BMAC do not prove that the hypothetical Aryan authors of the BMAC came from the west, as suggested by Sarianidi (1993b, 1994), but rather foreshadow the takeover of power in Syria by the Mitanni Aryans and support their Central Asian origin.”"

"While virtually no object of clearly West Asiatic origin has been discovered in the Greater Indus Valley, dozens of seals bearing the Indus script have been found in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, along with Harappan weights and jewelry. Cuneiform texts also speak of sea trade with foreign countries, and there is nowadays wide agreement that the most distant of these countries, Meluhha, was the Greater Indus Valley."

"Sanskrit Dāsa- as an ethnic name thus has an exact counterpart in Avestan Dåŋha-, which stands for *Dāha-. The corresponding Old Persian ethnic name is Daha-. The plural form Dahā is included among the subjects of the Great King in the “empire list” of Xerxes, immediately before the two kinds of Sakā. Herodotus (1,125) includes the Dā´ai / Dā´oi (intervocalic h is omitted in Greek) among the nomadic tribes of the Persians. According to Q. Curtius Rufus (8,3), the Dahae lived on the lower course of the river Margus (modern Murghab) in Margiana, where they are also located in Ptolemy’s Geography (6,10,2). Eratosthenes, quoted by Pomponius Mela (3,42), notes that the great bend of the Oxus towards the northwest begins near the Dahae. Tacitus (Annales 11,10) places the Dahae on the border river (Sindes, modern Tejend) between Areia and Margiana."

"To conclude, the culture and proper names of the Mitanni Indo-Aryans were dominated by the horse and the chariot. Indeed, the Mitanni Indo-Aryans seem to have been the prime motors in the introduction of chariotry into the West Asian warfare around 1500 bce."

"The picture we derive from Parpola is of a traffic to and fro of cultural modes—continued from a fairly long past and across sufficiently wide areas—against a common religious background of various shades. It is a picture of contacts and exchanges. . . . none of them necessarily bespeak large-scale movements of population."

"Parpola's account has received criticisms from various other quarters. Sarianidi (1993b) notes: It should be indicated that the available direct archaeological data contradict the theory, suggested long ago, concerning the intensive penetration of the steppe Andronovo-type tribes into traditional agricultural areas. Direct archaeological data from Bactria and Margiana show without any shade of doubt that Andronovo tribes penetrated to a minimum extent into Bactria and Margianian oases, not exceeding the limits of normal contacts so natural for tribes with different economical structures, living in the borderlands of steppe and agricultural oases."

"A. Parpola is an abundant writer, but not very rational."

"Perhaps it may be asked—is there then no limit? Can we equally go back to 3000 or even 4000 BCE? ... The highest possible date for the Vedic deities, and of many elements of Vedic culture, not to speak of possible reminiscences of older periods, is a very different matter."

"It is certain, as S. B. Dikshit and B. G. Tilak have amply emphasized, that it is only thus that one can interpret the statement of SB. In spite of the systematic doubt from Thibaut, Whitney . . . and other authors, who have refused to accept a conclusion arrived at by Dikshit and Tilak, the ancient dates attributed to some Vedic texts, referring to the Pleiads [Krttika], and not only the text of the SB, but also the Buddhist lists . . . point to a real determination of the vernal equinox and of the movement of the Sun through Pleiads."

"As these dosas, and especially the association between the gall and the fire, are already known in the Vedic literature, the tridosa theory cannot have been borrowed in India from Plato. On the contrary, as during the Persian domination of Greek Asian countries and a part of India, scientific intercourse has been easy, an influence of the Ayurvedic theories on those described by Plato is quite probable. In any way, we have several direct references in the Hippocratic Collection to the borrowing of some Indian drugs and Indian medicinal formulas in Greece. In the period of the expansion of Indian culture toward Central Asia and China, and toward Indo-China and Indonesia beyond the seas, Indian Ayurvedic medicine has been one of the main matters of export, along with astronomy, religions, and arts."

"Bühler (1894), utilizing evidence from ancient Jain and Buddhist sources, found it inconceivable that "the ancient Indians raced through the so-called Chandas, Mantra and Brahmana periods at a furiously fast pace" (246)."

"Hindus have a greater respect for the spoken word than do people in the West. Not only every word in a mantra, but practically every sound and every word in the language is called akshara in Sanskrit, which means "the indestructible." Akshara is also a name for God. A true mantra should be sung not spoken. Indian scriptures call Brahma the Creator "the first singer." Our world is said to have sprung from the mantra he sang. In the West, these ideas are probably utterly foreIgn, and yet there are traces of similar teachings.""

"Barring any new discoveries, neither internal evidence from the Veda, nor archaeological evidence, nor linguistic substrata alone can make the turning point in any given hypothesis. This situation should be the most persuasive case of all for scholars to allow the questions to unite them in interdependence, rather than suspicions to divide them in monistic theory-making. It is far too early for scholars to begin taking positions and constructing scenarios as if they were truths."

"For hundreds of years before Buddha's time, movements were in progress in Indian thought which prepared the way for Buddhism."

"On February 16, 1918 I went to Suratagadha* [Suratgarh] again, to make from there a tour to the west and explore the ancient theris,† which my travellers had referred us being found in large numbers all along the dry bed of the Ghagghar. This river, locally known under the name of Hakaro or Sotara, but commonly referred to as the nali ‘canal,’ or dariyava ‘sea,’ irrigated in ancient times all the northern part of what now forms the territory of the Bikaner State, from Bhatanera [Bhatnir]—the modern Hanumanagadha [Hanumangarh] to Vijnora [Bijnor, close to the international border], and thence running across the territory of Bahawalpur, went to join the Indus."

"From the vestiges of antiquity which are still abundantly scattered along its bed, it is clear that the Ghagghar once bathed with its waters a florid and prosperous region. Now the bed is dry, and like an immense road of glaring whiteness, crosses a scene of desolation, which is only broken here and there by a small village built of mud, or a field of rape-seed. Otherwise the river bed is barren, a clean sheet of argil, slippery and impracticable to the camel in the rains, hard and intersected by cracks during the rest of the year, and on both its banks and sometimes even in the middle the ancient theris raise their heads all red with fragments of bricks and pottery."

"The Aryan invasion of India is recorded in no written document, and it cannot yet be traced archaeologically, but it is nevertheless firmly established as a historical fact on the basis of comparative philology."

"Burrow, whose The Sanskrit Language (1973) is still the authority in this field, says: "Vedic is a language which in most respects is more archaic and less altered from original Indo-European than any other member of the family" (34); he also states that root nouns, "very much in decline in the earliest recorded Indo-European languages", are preserved better in Sanskrit, and later adds, "Chiefly owing to its antiquity the Sanskrit language is more readily analysable, and its roots more easily separable from accretionary elements than… any other IE language" (123, 289)."

"“… in the case of Indo-European it is certain that there was no such unitary language which can be reached by means of comparison. It woul be easy to produce, more or less ad infinitum [,] a list of forms like Skt nabhi-, Gk omphalos ‘navel’, which although inherited directly from the primitive IE period, and radically related [,] are irreducible to a single original. In fact detailed comparison makes it clear that the Indo- European that we can reach by this means was already deeply split up into a series of varying dialects.”"

"The Aryans appear in Mitanni from 1500 BC as the ruling dynasty, which means that they must have entered the country as conquerors."

"In addition, in his The Sanskrit Language T. Burrow finds a few traces of the Sanskrit language among the documents of the Kassite dynasty of Babylon: “In a list of names of gods with Babylonian equivalents we find a sun-god Suriyas (rendered Samas) which must clearly be identified with Skt Surya. In addition, Maruttas the war-god (rendered En-Urta) has been compared with Skt Marut … Among the kings of this dynasty one has a name which can be interpreted as Aryan: Abhirattas: abhi-ratha – ‘facing chariots in battle’.”"

"The geographical horizon of the Avesta is almost exclusively eastern Iranian, but it does have some references which indicate the presence of Proto Indoaryans in northern central Iran, bringing them within striking distance of the Near East. These are the references which occur from time to time in the Avesta to the Mazanian daevas. The adjective in question (mdzainya-) is derived from *mdzana-, the name of a coun try which happens not to occur as such in the Avesta, but whose location is indicated by the fact that it has always been known to be connected with the country later known as Mazandaran, i.e. the territory between the southern shore of the Caspian sea and the Alburz mountain range. In the later tradition this figures prominently as a region hostile to the Iranians and as a notorious home of Devs. The presence of daevas in Mazana indicates the presence of daeva-worshippers, and since we have seen that the daeva-worshippers were the Proto-Indoaryans, we can conclude that the Avestan references to Mazanian daevas indicate their presence also in this region."

"It is now generally agreed by most authorities on the subject that the Aryan linguistic vestiges in the Near East are to be connected specifically with Indo- Aryan, and not with the Iranian, and also that they do not represent a third, independent group, and are not to be ahscribed to the hypothetically reconstructed Proto-Aryan."

"As T. Burrow puts it in his book The Sanskrit Language (Delhi ed. 2001: Motilal Banarsidass, p.4): The relations between the ancient Iranian and the language of the Vedas is so close that it is not possible satisfactorily to study one without the other. Grammatically the differences are very small; the chief differentiation in the earliest period lies in certain characteristic and well-defined phonetic changes which have affected Iranian on the one hand and Indo-Iranian on the other. It is quite possible to find verses in the oldest portion of the Avesta, which simply by phonetic substitutions according to established laws can be turned into intelligible Sanskrit. The greater part of the vocabulary is held in common and a large list could be provided of the words shared between the two which are absent from the rest of the Indo-European."

"For Gonda, “chariot drives and other races have often the function of regenerating the productive forces in nature,” while the gods “are described as driving swift horses [10.92.6 ...,] as approaching the sacrificers in their chariots [1.84.18, 7.2.5]” (Gonda 1965: 72, 98)."

"Gonda (1975: 65–67) emphasized the “inspired vision of the universal order” expressed in the hymns, in which a “rsi seeks, or enters into contact with, divinity or transcendent reality.”"

"[The Aryan invasion] is not reflected in the [Rig-Vedic] hymns."

"In all times and among many peoples there have ... been men, who were aware of the reality of "visions" and intuitions, of inspirations and sudden thoughts and ideas, men who understood that besides the purely sensuous impression a thought, a flash of intuition, in short know- ledge, may come to the human mind, as it were spon- taneously, at least without any conscious activity of the organ of sensory perception and which leaves an impres- sion of great reality; men who know that the "doors of the mind may be opened" (RV. 9,10,6). Often also the source of this knowledge is divine. The god Agni, the guest among men and his guru, is explicitly called a dhiirii rtasya (RV. 1,67,7), i.e. "stream or 'fountain' of transcendental truth", the inventor of brilliant speech (2,9 ,4 sukrasya vacaso manotii) , who brings the light of the vibrations of inspiration (3 ,10 ,5 vipiim jyotimsi bibhrat). He opens the thoughts of the poets (4,11,2), his are the origins of the specialgifts of the seers (4,11,3), and in 6,9 we find an elaborate description of the relation between the god - who is the light of the world as well as the internal light illumining poets and sages - and the poet who by devout concentration upon the god experiences the inspiration as an ecstasy."

"Besides the uncertain date of the Avesta, the cases of cultural, stylistic and lexicographical parallelism between texts of this description do not necessarily point to simultaneity."

"Many places in the Vedic literature attest to what may be called a pre-scientific interest in and study of the world, and to attempts at systematizing the knowledge resulting from this study. Much attention is paid to chronology and the calendar... astronomy, cosmology, and cosmogony. This scientific concern is wholly determined by man's ritual and religious interests and constitutes an integral part of one and the same harmonious view of life and the world. This does not, however, exclude the occurrence of references to a certain knowledge of anatomy, embryology, and medical practice. Nor did some linguistic facts—as far as they were utilizable for ritual purposes—escape the authors' notice."

"This also shows that Smith is not as great an imperialist as he is occasionally made out to be. In fact, on close reading, it is impossible to characterise Elphinstone and Smith as imperialist and anti-India historians. This cannot be said about E J Rapson, a Cambridge University Sanskrit professor, the editor of the ancient Indian history volume in the Cambridge History of India series, and the author of brief book, Ancient India, meant for the Indian Civil Service candidates. To Rapson there never was any originality in ancient Indian history, which was also a collection of histories of many separate countries. It is against characters like Rapson that Indian scholars of ancient India wielded their pens."

"Their oldest literature supplies no certain indication that they still retained the recollection of their former home; and we may reasonably conclude therefore that the invasion which brought them into India took place at a date considerably earlier."

"Modern scholars, then, sought a method for containing Sanskrit’s potential to activate its cultural politics, by subjecting the study of Sanskrit to scholarly protocols which were antithetical to the language’s genius and charisma. They opted for a decidedly unromantic array of curatorial and antiquarian forms of scholarship: philologizing, cataloguing, typologizing, organizing into chronologies, and so on; eminently useful practices, no doubt, but none of them glamorous."

"This spreading of light is a frequent motif in Rgvedic hymns. The motif is worked out by the poets on two different levels, the human, and the super-human. On the human level it is the succour Indra lends to his adorants (the drya or dryavarm) in their combats against the non-vedic dasa-or dasyu tribes. On the super- human level, Indra’s (and the Aryan’s adversaries are evil-doing, demonical beings like Susna, Pipru, Vrtra, Vala, Sambara or the above-mentioned Arsasana. They also are called dasa or dasyu, their symbol is darkness, night, the depth, the lowest region of the world."

"Here, too, light is the antithesis to darkness. Soma, after all, is often called ‘shining golden, white, bright, goldencoloured {sukla- varnay or ‘bringer of light’."

"Considering context and construction of the verses the term cited ‘dark skin’ should not merely be taken as a reference to the complexion of certain non-vedic people but as a quantity of its own, a symbolic expression for the darkness, the embodiment of the forces impairing the well-being of the Aryan tribes. As such, it fits into a complex of mythological motifs centered on the polarity of evil and good which plays an important role in the world-view of the Vedic tribes. Criterion for the qualification of a phenomenon as good was the relation to .society, religion and cult of the Vedic Aryan. As good the Rgvedic hymns classify the light, bright, goldencolourcd, the sun, heaven and large space, well-being and security, the right (religio-rnoral) norms and behaviour [suvrala), the arya or aryavarna Indra. Soma and their adoration by sacrificing to them, to the sphere of evil belong darkness, the night, the black colour, the unbelieving and non-sacrificing (to Indra and Soma) people, the dilsa, the dasyu, a bad or no vrata at all {apa- anya or avrata), the ‘black skin’, the depth, danger, narrowness. It was already in the middle of the former century that Christian Lassen qualified the opposition of arya and dasyu or dasa as a contrast between different religions expressed by the age-old symbolism of black opposed to white and not as a contrast of dark- complexioned to white coloured men."

"Krsna tvac as a metaphor for darkness in the RV yet is no abstract idea, but in the minds of Rgvedic man a real part of the world, of the cosmological scheme. The poets describe it eventually as a cloth a cover which could spread over the earth. Darkness is related to the ‘depth’, the lowest region of the trinominal concept of the world-structure, being at the same time the home of the waters. Two verses give a vivid picture of this. In RV 4. 13. 4 the poet adresses Surya who drove away the nig'ht ...Definitely the verse means the night, the “black cloth” lying over the earth, not the symbolical darkness. But in the minds of the poets the bounds between real and symbolic darkness were fluent, as RV 4. 17. 14 — 15 suggests... If at the three above cited passages krsna tvac is translated with ‘dark cloth, dark cover’ but not with ‘dark skin’ in the sense of ‘dark complexion’ it fits better into the habits of thinking of the Rgvedic poets, than the rather trivial translation current up till now. Assumedly the Rgvedic hymns are mythological poetry not in the first line depicting real events but out of these events creating myths — myths as models for reality. The fight against enemies dominating the life of the Aryan immigrants, this theme presented itself to be an excellent (and necessary) subject for mythologization."

"There are a whole series of standard opinions in the Indological literature, which are regarded as expressions of proven research results and are adopted in this capacity from one book to another to this day, without anyone believing that they need to be checked again against the source material and/or in the context of newer research and hypotheses. One of these standard opinions is the view that the population that the Arya encountered when they immigrated to India was radically different from them, especially in terms of their external appearance. They were dark-skinned and flat-nosed and spoke a different language - so says the Rgveda."

"It is a victory of light, of the sun, of wide space over darkness, narrowness or distress, which is equated or compared with the victory of day over night. Light, sunbeams or fire are also the means by which Indra overcomes evil and its representations, and again the boundary between the human and the supernatural sphere is quite fluid. The ancient symbolism of black and white also serves to depict the all-dominating polarity of good and evil, light and darkness. Bright, golden, shiny, white is everything that symbolizes light, that brings it to power or is otherwise connected to it: the sun, the soma drops, the day, Indra's dun horses, etc. m. Bright, shining, white is accordingly the color of those on whose side and for whose benefit Indra fights ."

"However, if one looks at the passages more closely, the context and sentence or verse construction also allow for a different interpretation, especially since tvac - more on this below - is used much more frequently in the meaning "fur, blanket" than in the meaning "(human) skin"."

"One does more justice to the way of thinking of the poets of the Rgveda and the nature of this text if one places the term krsnä tvac in RV 1.130.8 in the context of the ideas of the "skin" or the "black skin" that are common elsewhere and thus assigns it to the vocabulary of Rgvedic mythology, especially since the equation of the Dasyu and Dasa with the non-Aryan population of northwest India can be doubted with good reason."

"And so a gap is definitely apparent: there is a lack of a scientific history of the term “Aryan” that would illuminate the entire breadth of meaning that the term has been given since its inception, and it is the classical Indologists familiar with the field of research who are in demand here."

"The poet in this hymn supplies Indra to give support to those who drive away the evil and spread the light throughout the World (i.e. to the Aryan.) This spreading of light is a frequent motif in Rgvedic hymns ... Here, too, light is the antithesis to darkness. Soma, after all, is often called ‘shining golden, white, bright, goldencoloured {suklavarna) or ‘bringer of light’... (By the way, only at this place dasyu and krsna tvac really occur together in one sentence)."

"If one compares the fate and acceptance of Johannes Hertel's "Aryan research" with what was said above about Zimmer and Schroeder, one can hardly find a better illustration of the complicated situation that an Indologist who was interested in Aryan antiquity could get into with the gradual institutionalization of the National Socialist idea and the seizure of political power by the NSDAP. While Heinrich Zimmer's scientific work is still highly valued today and Leopold von Schroeder is also respected as a Veda researcher, the judgment on Johannes Hertel with regard to his "Aryan research" is, to put it mildly, somewhat uncertain."

"In spite of his copious studies on the Mahābhārata, however, Lassen’s work was not especially innovative: once laid down, his basic views on the epic remained unchanged for nearly a quarter century. Later studies amplified and provided additional “ethnographic” evidence for views he had already articulated in his 1837 article, but they did not in any way question or otherwise critically illuminate the basis for these views. Regardless, Lassen’s pedantic, self-assured tone and the confidence with which he put forth speculative assertions about ancient India as established fact greatly impressed a generation of scholars. Albrecht Weber, Theodor Goldstücker, and Adolf Holtzmann Jr. all accepted his reconstructions of ancient Indian history and ethnography."

"There is little doubt that Lassen was one of the foremost theoreticians of race of the nineteenth century, responsible in large part for supplying the “historical” data that led to the creation of the “Āryan” race concept. This makes the present-day enthusiasm for him even more puzzling."

"The key role played by Lassen in the development of modern ideas of race is not a matter of dispute, but what is less often noted is the central role the Mahābhārata played in his reconstructions of ancient Indian history. If the racism of Gobineau is unimaginable without Lassen’s researches, it is equally true that Lassen’s researches are unimaginable without the Mahābhārata."

"The comprehensive picture of ancient Indian civilization that he was able to give meant that the Indians were now finally and "fully accepted" into the circle of ancient cultural peoples that were significant for the history of mankind and, as such, could be included in historical comparisons. The expansion of the historical-geographical horizon that Lassen's four volumes made possible was a very important step in the process of overcoming the old biblical view of history - after all, just twenty years earlier, like for Peter von Bohlen in his History of the Ancient World, only the old biblically relevant cultures of Egypt, Israel, Persia, Greece and Rome had been considered the roots of human culture."

"It was already in the middle of the former century that Christian Lassen qualified the opposition of arya and dasyu or dasa as a contrast between different religions expressed by the age-old symbolism of black opposed to white and not as a contrast of darkcomplexioned to white coloured men."

"Of Christian Lassen, it was said as early as 1890 [Oldenberg 1890:27] that “the sagacity of philological thought is wanting in him”. Need we say more?"

"The result of this inquiry, which is presented here, is that Arja in part in itself, in part in forms derived from it, is proven to be the ancient, indigenous, honorable designation of the Iranian peoples and lands in its widest extension, as it also [designates] the three higher Indian casts and the Brahmanical constitution and the Sanskrit rhetoric of the Indian lands. It shows us the sense in which we are to differentiate the Aryan Indians from the rest. For the name seems not to apply to other peoples of the Indogerman family.’"

"It is thus one of the ironies of history that a method that was to become such a core component of the methodological self-understanding of the textual sciences {Textwissenschaften) within the university not only had a theological origin but also was essentially theological: in spite of the name historical-critical method, what Semler was interested in was not history, but to identify that part of scripture that could be considered the pure Word of God."

"Although German scholars claimed to take a scientific approach to the epic, their interpretations were at best tangential and at worst irrelevant to the text at hand. No German interpreter in a period extending one hundred years (i.e., if we take Lassen’s 1837 article on the Mahābhārata as the starting point and Hauer’s 1937 book on the Bhagavadgītā as the end point) had succeeded in presenting a coherent, philosophically illuminating interpretation of the Mahābhārata. The histories they presented of the epic existed nowhere else outside their own minds."

"In any case, this superficial glance at Sangam literature makes it clear at the very least that, in the words of John R. Marr, “these poems show that the synthesis between Tamil culture and what may loosely be termed Aryan culture was already far advanced.”"

"By separating the meaning of the Vedic varana from the classical one, Roth allowed himself to be led to believe that the elephant was still foreign to the songs of the Rigveda. If this statement were correct, the Vedic Indians would not have been Indians at all, for the elephant is inseparable from India. But as shown, it is erroneous; in addition to hastin and varana, athari and apsas could also be identified as Vedic words for "elephant". A further joint examination of the words ibha and ibhya has also shown us... that ibha also means nothing other than what it means in classical Sanskrit, namely "elephant". ... Not only ibha, but also ibhya has exactly the same meaning as in classical Sanskrit, and Sayana got it right because he was familiar with Indian views."

"The translations by Grassmann and Ludwig show once again quite strikingly the errors that an exegesis that wants to see in the Veda something other than a purely Indian monument and that does not take Indian views into account must lead to. ... Here, verse 1 says that the gods determined that the place where a man who makes a sacrifice is to be found is the east. Such a man, the text says directly, is the east, but verse 4 says that in the west is a miser who lets nothing come of it and a rich man who gives no gifts. ... "In the west are the ill-wishers whose horses are badly harnessed; in the east are those who are here for giving, who give a variety of gifts," i.e. the misers who have given bad horses are to be in the extreme west, the region of the sunset, thus of darkness and therefore of raksas, while the generous are to be in the east, the region of the sunrise, thus in the eternal light, which is what 10, 107,2 says. So 7,6,3 is to be translated quite literally: "He (Agni), the Eastern One, has made those who do not make sacrifices into Westerners," i.e. he, the bright one, has plunged them into deep darkness."

"Alas! that Scottish maid should sing The combat where her lover fell! That Scottish Bard should wake the string, The triumph of our foes to tell!"

"In Vishnu’s lotus-foot alone Confide! His power shall ne’er decay, When tumbles every earthly throne, And mortal glory fades away."

"The... glimpses we have...of Hindus slain for disputing with Muhammadans , of general prohibitions against processions, worship and ablutions and of other intolerant measures, of idols mutilated, of temples razed, of forcible conversions and marriages, of proscriptions and confiscations, of murders and massacres, and of the sensibility and drunkenness of the tyrants who enjoined them, show us that this picture is not overcharged."

"If we were ever to succeed in determining the oldest cultural stage of the Indian race . . . and to dissolve away almost by means of a chemical process all influences of . . . Brahmanism . . . we would find conditions before us only a little different from those described by Tacitus as unique to the ancient Germans. But even in its contemporary ruined form the Mahābhārata often delivers us the best commentary on Germania. Here we read of the passion for gambling of the Germans, of how they wagered possessions and property, wife and child, [and] finally even themselves: extremo ac novissimo iactu de liberate contendunt [sic]."

"[A] sign of ancient brutality . . . common to both the Mahābhārata and the Nibelungenliede [is that] the blood of the slain foe is drunk. As he had already sworn at the game, Bhīmasena drinks the blood of Duḥ çāsana who is slain by him and calls out: never did I drink so sweet (this is even better than wine, it is said in the Nibelungenlied). This trait was too horrific to the later redactors; with lamentable sophistry they present the state of affairs as though Bhīmasena never really drank the blood, it reached his lips and not his throat and then he spat it out again."

"Holtzmann Jr. saw himself as taking up arms on behalf of a lost antiquity. As was typical of the Romantic age, he valued the old merely because it was old."

"As was true of Romanticism in general, Holtzmann activated an ideal of the past as an element of a critique of modernity itself. This made his work, for all its restorative tendencies, thoroughly modern. If Lassen was the founder of German Mahābhārata studies, Holtzmann Jr. can, with justification, be called the father of modern Mahābhārata studies."

"Oldenberg was well aware of the Christian, medievalizing aspects of Holtzmann’s work. He accurately diagnosed Holtzmann’s work as having, “full of enthusiasm for the newly discovered idea of Indo-Germanic tradition, seen Germanic tribes in the Indians.”"

"We may, therefore, still entertain the hope that the regeneration of Hinduism will proceed from these schools, provided that they possess the energy to refuse any compromise with sectarian worship, which has brought Hinduism into contempt and ridicule. The means which they possess for combating that enemy is as simple as it is irresistible; a proper instruction of the growing generation in its ancient literature, an instruction, however wholly different from that now constituting the education of a Hindu youth; to whom reading the Veda is jabbering thoughtlessly the words of the verse, or intoning it to the melody of a teacher as ignorant as himself of its sense; who, by studying grammer, understands cramming his memory with some grammatical forms, without any notion as to the linguistic laws that regulate them; who believes that he can master philosophy or science by sticking to the textbook of one school and disregarding its connexion with all the rest of the literature. That such a method and such a division of labour do not benefit the mind is amply evidenced by the crippled results which they have brought to light. The instruction which India requires, though adapted to her peculiar wants—religious, scientific, and political—must be based on that system which has invigorated the European mind; which, free from the restrictions of rank or caste, tends to impart to it independence of thought and solidity of character."

"In the worst days of Roman Catholicism, when the multitude professing that religion was steeped in ignorance and its worship was no better than idolatry, there was still a considerable portion of its priesthood fully acquainted with the text-book of Christianity. It was no doubt, with its priests a question of policy whether their flock should be admitted to the knowledge which they possessed, and restored to a purer faith; but that they had the power to work that change is borne out by the history of Protestantism."

"The inspired network of the hymnic portion of the three Vedas, called the Yajur-, Sâma-, and Atharva- Veda, is apparently closer drawn than that of the other writings just named: but now that it is laid open before the investigating mind of modern Europe and India; now that the spell is broken which made the study of the Veda consist of intonating its verses to the melody of the Guru, and mechanically committing them to memory; now that native and European industry has given us in print not merely the obscure words of the hymns, but also the commentaries which lead us to their inner meaning, no Hindu can shrink from the duty of examining the grounds on which the inspiration of these three Vedas rests.”)"

"The whole foundation of Mueller's date [for the Rigveda] rests on the authority of Somadeva, the author of 'an Ocean of (or rather for) the River of Stories' who narrated his tales in the twelfth century after Christ. Somadeva, I am satisfied, would not be a little surprised to learn that 'a European point of view" raises a 'ghost story' of his to the dignity of an historical document. Neither is there a single reason to account for his allotting 200 years to the first of his periods, nor for his doubling this amount of time in the case of the Sutra period."

"The noted sanskritist Aklujkar (Professor at British Columbia, Canada) does not consider the mainstream chronology incontestable and writes “only relative chronology has been well argued for”(1996: 66)."

"The period between the arrival of the Indo-Aryan in the Indian subcontinent and the composition of the oldest Vedic hymns must have been much longer than was previously thought."

"The historians of [India] have been noticed down to a period when new actors appear upon the stage; when a more stirring and eventful era of India's History commences; and when the full light of European truth and discernment begins to shed its beams upon the obscurity of the past, and to relieve us from the necessity of appealing to the Native Chroniclers of the time, who are, for the most, dull, prejudiced, ignorant, and superficial… there is no Native Indian Historian; and few have even approached to so high a standard…of philosophy…we search in vain for any sign or symptom…[The history we write of India] will make our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantages accruing to them under the mildness and and equity of our rule."

"We reiterate that there is no indication in the Rigveda of the Arya‘s memory of any ancestral home, and by extension, of migrations. Given the pains taken to create a distinct identity for themselves, it would be surprising if the Aryas neglected such an obvious emotive bond in reinforcing their group cohesion. Thus their silence on the subject of migrations is taken here to indicate that by the time of composition of the Rigveda, any memory of migrations, should they have taken place at all, had been erased from their consciousness."

"[Burrow] suggests that Saraswati was a proto-Indoaryan term, originally applied to the present Haraxvaiti when the proto-Indoaryans still lived in northeastern Iran.... It would be just as plausible to assume that Saraswati was a Sanskrit term indigenous to India and was later imported by the speakers of Avestan into Iran. The fact that the Zend Avesta is aware of areas outside the Iranian plateau while the Rigveda is ignorant of anything west of the Indus basin would certainly support such an assertion."

"As for Burrow‘s thesis that some place names reflect the names of geographical features to the west, and thus preserve an ancestral home, they once again rather rely on an assumption of Arya migrations than prove it. [...] His cited equivalence of Sanskrit Saraswati and Avestan Haraxvaiti is a case in point. Burrow accepts that it is the latter term that is borrowed, undergoing the usual change of s- > h in the process, but suggests that Saraswati was a proto-Indoaryan term, originally applied to the present Haraxvaiti when the proto-Indoaryans still lived in northeastern Iran, then it was brought into India at the time of the migrations, while its original bearer had its name modified by the speakers of Avestan who assumed control of the areas vacated by proto-Indoaryans. It would be just as plausible to assume that Saraswati was a Sanskrit term indigenous to India and was later imported by the speakers of Avestan into Iran. The fact that the Zend Avesta is aware of areas outside the Iranian plateau while the Rigveda is ignorant of anything west of the Indus basin would certainly support such an assertion."

"Evidence for the characterization of Dasas and Dasyus as black is tenuous in the extreme.... Even apparently clear indications of historical struggles between dark aborigines and Arya conquerors turn out to be misleading.... [The Dasas and Dasyus] appear to be demonic rather than human enemies.... It is a cosmic struggle which is described in detailed accounts that are consistent with one another.”"

"Arya and Dasa were only horizontal divisions, denoting groups of people living in their separate territories in north-western India... [dasyus were only] a segment of Dasas...[the term paṇi was used for people who were] rich and niggardly [and possibly] usurers, [and that the group of paṇis] cross-cuts the otherwise horizontal stratification of non-Aryas, [...] and may denote either an occupation or simply a set of values attributable to anyone."

"Erdosy testifies that “the principal concern” of scholars (like Witzel) studying South Asian linguistics is to find “evidence for the external origins - and likely arrival in the 2nd millennium BC - of Indo-Aryan languages”;"

"George Erdosy, a Canadian scholar, is refreshingly perceptive: Even apparently clear indications of historical struggles between dark aborigines and Arya conquerors turn out to be misleading…. [The Dasas and Dasyus] appear to be demonic rather than human enemies…. It is a cosmic Struggle which is described in detailed accounts that are consistent with one another."

"Erdosy (1995a), who is prepared to find "some support" for small-scale migrations associated with the intrusive BMAC elements noted earlier, nonetheless states: "Several cultural traits with good Vedic and Avestan parallels have been found widely distributed between the southern Urals, Central Asia and the Indo-Iranian borderlands. However, even allowing for the uncertain chronology of Central Asian sites, few of these traits show the northwest-southeast gradient in chronology predicted by our linguistic models." Rather, in the manner of other traits commonly associated with the "Aryans" within South Asia, "they originate in different places at different times and circulate widely, undoubtedly through the extensive interaction networks built up in the mid-3rd to early 2nd millennia B.C." The main point is that "it is impossible, thus, to regard the widespread distribution of certain beliefs and rituals, which came to be adopted by Indo-Iranian speakers, as evidence of population movements" (12)."

"[the idea of an Aryan invasion of India in the second millennium BCE] has recently been challenged by archaeologists, who ― along with linguists ― are best qualified to evaluate its validity. Lack of convincing material (or osteological) traces left behind by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the possibility of explaining cultural change without reference to external factors and ― above all ― an altered world-view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship.... [the perspective offered by archaeology], "that of material culture […] is in direct conflict with the findings of the other discipline claiming a key to the solution of the ‘Aryan Problem’, linguistics" ...Archaeologists and anthropologists... [like] Jim G. Shaffer and Diane A. Lichtenstein, who “stress the indigenous development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onwards, and downplay the role of language in the formation of (pre-modern) ethnic identities”; J. Mark Kenoyer, who “stresses that the cultural history of South Asia in the 2nd millinnium B.C. may be explained without reference to external agents”, and Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, who concludes “that while discontinuities in physical types have certainly been found in South Asia, they are dated to the 5th/4th, and to the 1st millennium BC, respectively, too early and too late to have any connection with ‘Aryans’.”"

"The idea has recently been challenged by archaeologists, who ― along with linguists ― are best qualified to evaluate its validity. Lack of convincing material (or osteological) traces left behind by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the possibility of explaining cultural change without reference to external factors and ― above all ― an altered world-view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship...."

"[the perspective offered by archaeology], "that of material culture […] is in direct conflict with the findings of the other discipline claiming a key to the solution of the ‘Aryan Problem’, linguistics" ...Archaeologists and anthropologists... [like] Jim G. Shaffer and Diane A. Lichtenstein, who “stress the indigenous development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onwards, and downplay the role of language in the formation of (pre-modern) ethnic identities”; J. Mark Kenoyer, who “stresses that the cultural history of South Asia in the 2nd millinnium B.C. may be explained without reference to external agents”, and Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, who concludes “that while discontinuities in physical types have certainly been found in South Asia, they are dated to the 5th/4th, and to the 1st millennium BC, respectively, too early and too late to have any connection with ‘Aryans’.”"

"For example, Erdosy (1995) noted that cremation was pretty common in 2000 BCE Balochistan (Penano Ghundai II, Mughal Ghundai III, Dabar Kot, Mehi, Sutkagen-dor) but very rare in Central Asia: “If anything, on present evidence, cremations appear to have originated in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands and spread northwest (and southeast) thence, against the grain of postulated movements of Indo-Aryan speakers”."

"Indeed, if one accepts that the migrations of Indo-Aryan speakers into South Asia already entered the realm of mythology at the time of the Rgvedic hymns, and that the latter were composed from ca. the 15th century B.C. onwards, the chronology suggested by the archaeological evidence already makes perfect sense."

"The traditional view, that iron was brought into the subcontinent by invading 'Aryans' (Banerjee 1965), is wrong on two counts: there is no evidence of any knowledge of iron in the earliest Vedic texts (Pleiner 1971), where ayas stands either for copper or for metals in general, and the idea that the aryas of the Rigveda were invaders has become just as questionable. Wheeler's assertion that iron only spread to India with the eastward extension of Achaemenid rule (Wheeler 1962) is even more untenable in the face of radiocarbon dates from early iron-bearing levels."

"The alternative thesis (Chakrabarti 1977), that iron smelting was developed in the subcontinent, rests on two principal arguments. First, iron ore is found across the length and the breadth of India, outside alluvial plains, in quantities that were certainly viable for exploitation by the primitive methods observable even in this century (Ball 1881; Elwin 1942). Ample opportunities thus existed for experimentation, although given the complexity or iron smelting this is not a conclusive point. The second argument, that the earliest evidence for iron comes from the peninsula and not from the northwest, is much more persuasive, even if better examples than quoted by Chakrabarti can be adduced in support of it. Briefly, while the dating of Phase II of Nagda (the earliest iron bearing level) depends on ceramic analogies, and the stratigraphy of Ahar (another site which is claimed to have produced evidence for iron) is hopelessly muddled, the testimony of radiocarbon dates is instructive."

"Iron Age levels have yielded dates of 2970 + 105 bp (TF-570) 1255, 1240, 1221 cal. BC and 2820 + 100 bp (TF-573) 993 cal. BC from Hallur, and 2905 + 105 bp (TF-326) 1096 cal. BC and 3130 + 105 bp (TF-324) 1420 cal. BC from Eran. They are not only earlier than any date from the Ganga valley (which dates fall between 2700-2500 bp) but are also earlier than the dates from Pirak in the northwest, with the exception of an anomalous reading of 2970 + 140 (Ly-1643) 1255, 1240, 1221 cal. BC. Since the process of diffusion from the west should produce rather the opposite pattern, a strong case can be made for an indigenous origin of ion smelting, although it could do with further support given the complexity of this industrial process which by common consent renders multiple centers of innovation unlikely."

"Post-cremation burials have been discovered ... distributed among strata of all periods [at Mohenjo Daro.]"

"It is absurd to suppose that the elaborate royal genealogies were all merely figments of imagination or a tissue of falsehoods."

"That age [of the Rigveda] is not known with even an approximate degree of certainty."

"They alone contain something like a continuous historical narrative, and it is absurd to suppose that the elaborate royal genealogies were all merely figments of imagination or a tissue of falsehoods."

"We may join to their statements Pusalker's comment on the claims staked for several potteries that they belong to the supposed Vedic Aryan invaders: "There is... no positive evidence to connect the Vedic Aryans with the excavated Cultures subsequent to those of the Indus Valley... So far archaeological excavation has yielded nothing of the nature of sacrificial implements or other ritual paraphernalia that can definitely be called Aryan and associated with the Vedic Aryans, though it must be admitted that the Painted Grey Ware culture has been found at all excavated sites connected with the Bharata War. ""

"The words Panik or Vanik, Panya and Vipani, found in Sanskrit, suggest that the Panis were merchants par excellence of the Rigvedic age [even though] greedy like the wolf, niggardly, of cruel speech."

"The scene of traditional history opens in India [and it comprises] the whole of Northern India extending in the east upto Orissa... [There is a] total absence of extraterritorial memory in the Rig Veda... It really cannot be proved that the Vedic Aryans retained any memory of their extra-Indian associations."

"Without such an understanding, we could often end up blaming the Vedic poets for indulging in hopelessly mixed metaphors (after Bergaigne (1936: 61), who complained of “the cacophony of the [hymns’] discordant metaphors”): what is this “ship” in which the A‹vins are invoked to take the supplicants to the “far shore”, while at the same time they are asked to keep their chariot yoked and ready to cross? (1.46.7–8) Are they supposed to load their chariot onto a ferry, perhaps? But it is, says the hymn, the “ship of our prayers” (1.46.7) (or hymns or beliefs), and the only way to the yonder shore is the “path of the truth” again (1.46.11)."

"Nevertheless, since the beginning of the 19th century, Westerners have agreed to place the habitat of the p-i-e-speaking people(s) in central or eastern Europe, more rarely in Scandinavia, in any case not in Iran, nor in India... European historians, who all considered it proven that the existence of languages of indo-european origin in India resulted from a movement of peoples from the North, could be content to draw large arrows on the maps representing the archaeologically empty territories where they had necessarily passed before crossing the Hindu-Kush barrier and penetrating into North-West India. It now appears that these territories were populated, urbanized and linked together by a complex network of commercial and cultural relations. Archaeologists then find themselves faced with the classic problem of having to correlate a material culture and a language."

"The sacrifice of horses, in fact, is in no way specific to Vedic India: only the ritual of this sacrifice is, very different from that of the funerary ritual of Sintashta. The Indian aśvamedha is in no way a funeral ritual. Likewise, that the i-e name (?) of the chariot (ratha) is only attested in the i-ir languages does not mean that it is an i-ir invention, because, like so many others words, its equivalent may have disappeared from other languages i-e and because having a word to designate the war chariot does not mean that they invented it."

"The dates (2200–1500 BCE) and location of the Andronovo culture are consistent with the attribution of this culture to the undivided Indo-Iranians. But we will notice that the traces attested today stop in Bactria... No Andronovian burial has yet been found south of the Oxus.... They are very thin: a few shards. It should therefore be assumed that the Indo-Iranians, Proto-Iranians or Proto-Indo-Aryans got rid of this culture just as they entered Iran and India. The hypothesis is possible since, to arrive in these territories, they had necessarily crossed sedentary zones belonging to the Oxus civilization, whose material culture was much superior. The curious thing is that they seem not to have borrowed anything from the latter either. Furthermore, one of the markers of the Scythian civilization and – for the majority of archaeologists – of the p-i-e and i-ir habitat in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC is the existence of tombs covered with a tumulus (known as kurgan/ kurgan)... So in Sintashta. However, this type of burial was considered an abomination both in Vedic India and in Mazdaean Iran. Clearly, it is very difficult to find a marker for the i-ir group."

"A. Parpola is an abundant writer, but not very rational."

"The sacrifice of horses, in fact, is in no way specific to Vedic India: only the ritual of this sacrifice is, very different from that of the funerary ritual of Sintashta. The Indian aśvamedha is in no way a funeral ritual."

"No trace either of the skillful turned pottery of the Oxus civilization: the vases used by the Vedic priests are made of wood or unturned ceramic. The black ceramics from Swat attributed to the Āryas, the gray ceramics (PGW, Painted Gray Ware), which Indian archaeologists consider as the best marker of their presence in the Indus and Ganges valleys, do not in any way recall what is found in Togolok or Gonur."

"In short, the Iranians perhaps (if they did not penetrate into Iran through the Caucasus), the Proto-Indo-Aryans certainly crossed the territories of the Oxus civilization without having left any traces and, it seems, without having been influenced by this sedentary and proto-urban civilization."

"Unfortunately, E. E. Kuzmina, whose archaeological knowledge is very vast, uses Indian sources in very outdated translations and knows neither how to criticize them nor how to scale them over time: Indian civilization is not immutable."

"It is perhaps worth emphasizing that the enormous academic literature devoted in Europe, over the past one hundred and fifty years, to the Indo-European question, even disregarding pan-Germanist and Nazi rantings, often contains preconceptions and paralogisms which are equivalent to those of Indian semi-scientists. Among the Western scholars who take part today in the debates on the Indo-Europeans, I know some whose erudition is not enough to compensate for the falsity of mind and others whose outdated erudition serves to perpetuate theses the lightness or impossibility of which they have been shown a hundred times."

"But it is clear that, on this point, my attitude owes a lot to acquired habits and to the fact that, for one hundred and fifty years, hundreds of European and American scientists, sometimes very brilliant, have established as a principle of interpretation of all the facts that PIE was, geographically speaking, a European language. I have no doubt that such an effort would make it possible to reinterpret all the data in a sense compatible with the thesis of the Indian origin of the PIE. The resulting diagram would undoubtedly be more complex than the diagram traditionally taught in Europe, but we know that the simplest interpretations are not necessarily those which best reflect the reality of the facts."

"This is not the place to dwell on these debates, as important as they are. We will find a good overview in the very well informed and very balanced book by Edwin Bryant which, moreover, demonstrates that, all things considered, no scientific argument allows us to choose between the theses of Indian or extra-Indian origin of the Āryas and, consequently, of the Indo-Europeans... To anyone who doubts the fact that the commonly accepted opinion in the West on the origin of i-e language peoples is based primarily on an intuition that is difficult to demonstrate, I would recommend reading E. Bryant's book. We can clearly see that the debate resurfaces from generation to generation."

"Although the river below the confluence [with the Ghaggar] is marked in our maps as Gaggar, it was formerly the Saraswatī; that name is still known amongst the people."

"The first person who attempted to correlate the textual descriptions of Sarasvati with empirical paleogeology was C. F. Oldham, in 1874. He surmised that "the waters of the Sarasvati [are] continuous with the dry bed of a great river [Hakra], which, as local legends assert, once flowed through the desert to the sea"."

"(the Rig Veda in one of its hymns clearly places the river) ‘between the Yamuna and the Satudri [Sutlej] which is its present position’. ... ‘it was formerly [known as] the Saraswatī; that name is still known amongst the people . . .’ Its ancient course is contiguous with the dry bed of a great river which, as local legends assert, once flowed through the desert to the sea. In confirmation of these traditions, the channel referred to, which is called Hakra or Sotra, can be traced through the Bikanir and Bhawulpur [Bahawalpur] States into Sind, and thence onwards to the Rann of Kach. The existence of this river at no very remote period, and the truth of the legends which assert the ancient fertility of the lands through which it flowed, are attested by the ruins which everywhere overspread what is now an arid sandy waste. Throughout this tract are scattered mounds, marking the sites of cities and towns. And there are strongholds still remaining, in a very decayed state, which were places of importance at the time of the early Mahommedan invasions. Amongst these ruins are found not only the huge bricks used by the Hindus in the remote past, but others of a much later make. All this seems to show that the country must have been fertile for a long period . . . Freshwater shells, exactly similar to those now seen in the Panjab rivers, are to be found in this old riverbed and upon its banks... ... ‘great changes in the course of the Sutlej have occurred in comparatively recent times. Indeed, only a century ago [that is, in the late eighteenth century], the river deserted its bed under the fort of Ludiana, which is five miles from its present course’... the ‘old riverbed generally known as Narra. This channel, which bears also the names of Hakra or Sagara, Wahind, and Dahan, is to be traced onward to the Rann of Kach59 . . . The name Hakra . . . is also applied to the Narra, as far as the Rann of Kach, so that the whole channel is known by this name, from Bhatnair [Hanumangarh] to the sea’...."

"the Sutlej ‘flowed southwards from the Himalāya . . . and onwards, through Sind, to the sea’—until, for some reason, a prince-turned-ascetic named Puran, a hero of many Punjabi legends, cursed the river to leave its bed and move westward. ‘The stream, in consequence, changed its course more and more towards the west, until, six hundred and fifty years ago, it entered the Beas valley . . .’, which would take us to the thirteenth century CE; but leaving aside the date, the consequence was ‘a terrible drought and famine in the country on the banks of the Hakra, where [large] numbers of men and cattle perished. The survivors then migrated to the banks of the Indus, and the country has ever since been desert’... ‘the traditions of all the tribes bordering upon it [the Rann of Kachchh] agree that this expanse of salt and sand was once an estuary’... The course of the ‘lost river’ has now been traced from the Himalaya to the Rann of Kach . . . We have also seen that the Vedic description of the waters of the Saraswatī flowing onward to the ocean, and that given in the Mahabharata, of the sacred river losing itself in the sands, were probably both of them correct at the periods to which they referred."

"It seems to be a general rule that a people which invaded a foreign country, to some degree adopted the pronunciation of its new home, partly as a result of the influence of climate, and partly also on account of the intermixture with the old inhabitants. This has also generally been supposed to have been the case in India. Thus there has been a long discussion as to whether the Aryans have adopted the cerebral letters from the Dravidas or have developed them independently. Good reasons have been adduced for both suppositions, and the question has not as yet been decided. The Indo-European languages do not seem to have possessed those letters. They had a series of dentals which were not, however, pronounced as pure dentals by putting the tongue between the teeth, but probably as alveolars, the tongue being pressed against the root of the upper teeth [as, for instance, in pronouncing the English -t- and -d-]. It is a well known fact that these sounds have in India partly become dentals and partly cerebrals. The cerebrals are in most cases derived from compound letters where the old dentals were preceded by an -l-. Similar changes also occur in other Indo-European languages, and it is therefore quite possible that the Indo-Aryan cerebrals have been developed quite independently. The cerebral letters, however, form an essential feature of the Dravidian phonology , and it therefore seems probable that Dravidian influence has been at work and at least given strength to a tendency which can, it is true , have taken its origin among the Aryans themselves."

"He had to learn to sing, readily and accurately, all the tunes that were used in the many distinct Soma-sacrifices, and he had also to know which strophes were required for each sacrifice and in what order they were sung. Therefore, that the young priest might master all the tunes thoroughly and have any one at command at any moment, each was connected with a single stanza of the right metre, and the teacher made his pupils sing it over and over again, until tune and stanza were firmly imprinted, in indissoluble association, in the memory."

"While The Mitanni documents, the Old Persian documents and the Asokan edicts, coming from inscriptions as they do, are frozen in time, that is not the case with the Rgveda or the Avestan texts. These have been subject to a long oral tradition before they were codified, and the texts available to us represent a state of affairs at the end of this long oral transmission, rather than at the starting point of their creation.... the time gap between the composers of the hymns and the collectors, editors and collators was quite large. This gap must have been quite enough to lead to a kind of homogenisation."

"Normally, looking at the Ramayana story externally, we would be tempted to call the Vanaras and Raksasas Anaryas. However, the Ramayana depicts situations where members of these societies use the term 'Arya' to refer to each other."

"There was a branch of Indo-Aryan which, like the parent Indo-European, had retained the distinction between r and l, [and that this branch entered India] before the migrations of the standard Indo-Aryan branch... Where did they come from? Did they reach India via Iran? If so, did they leave any trace of themselves in Iran? Were the speakers of the r-and-l dialect of pre-Vedic Indo-Aryan a totally different branch from the Indo- Iranian? These are difficult questions. [...] Anyway, one would still have to assume the entry of r-and-l dialects of Indo-Aryan into India before the arrival of the Ṛgvedic Aryans to account for the fact that r-and-l dialects in India were more easterly in relation to the Ṛgvedic dialect."

"At intermediate points along the way, individual verses and entire hymns were inserted into the RV collection."

"The formation of the ṛksamhita [....] appears to have been carried out in three stages. First, the ‗clan books‘ 2-7 were collected and ordered [....] At a later stage, Books 1 and 8 were added to the case like book ends. It was likely at this stage that Book 9 was added as well. Lastly, the heterogenous material in Book 10 was appended to the entire collection."

"the pavamāna collection consists primarily of late authors, those from Books 1, 5, 8 and in a limited number of cases, 10."

"We need not rely exclusively on the Anukramaṇī to affirm that there were important interactions between the priestly groups represented in Books 1, 5 and 8. As Oldenberg [1888b:213-215] has shown, evidence from the hymns themselves supports this conclusion."

"the clan book composers, except those from Book 5, are not well represented among the pavamāna composers of Book 9."

"These circles are represented by the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa authors from Books 1, 5 and 8, as well as by descendants of these authors."

"The connections of Book 5 with Books 1 and 8 and not with the other clan books (2-4, 6-7) is interesting, since it seems to belong to the core RV collection (Oldenberg [1888a]; Witzel [1997])."

"the breakdown of the strict separation of the ritual poetry of different clans and the preservation of that poetry together in a single collection began with the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa poets of Books 1, 5 and 8."

"German orientalists, A.W. Schlegel claimed in 1819, were not suited to be missionaries or colonizers: “... on the other hand, they are all the more ideally suited to appreciate the world-historical, philological and philosophical insights the study of Indian monuments can offer. For the kinds of research that sharpen the eye for these sorts of perspectives on the unknown, prehistorical world are already deeply rooted in Germany, and foreign scholars cannot even imagine many of the concepts which the Germans already thoroughly comprehend.’"

"Peter von Bohlen claimed in 1835, the historian of the Orient must treat all people equally: ‘... he must learn to regard the wonders, which belong to the very spirit of the ancient legends, as an inviolable national inheritance, neither setting them aside by forced interpretations, nor proscribing them as the offspring of pure imagination or intentional deception, but simply endeavoring to discover the original nucleus of fact... .”” Moreover, he continued, the historical critic must strive, “unbiased by preconceived opinion, fully to understand and fairly to estimate the individual character of every people, according to their own standard of perfection, their peculiar turn of thought and their mode of action... .”"

"H. Kern in his book Over het woord Zarathushtra (1867) states, “the Bactrian (i.e. Avestan) is so (greatly) related to the Old- Indian language (Vedic), and in particular, that of the Vedas, that without exaggeration it can be called a dialect thereof.”"