Academics From France

"Which components of the reconstructed Indo-European proto-culture can be used as evidence of a steppic location?... two arguments are generally singled out by the proponents of the steppic theory: the case of the horse and that of the chariot. The domesticated horse, on the one hand, and the chariot on the other, are supposedly well-attested in the shared vocabulary and are particularly valorized in the earliest Indo-European mythologies, where the sacrifice of a horse is the ultimate royal sacrifice... The most common root for the horse is certainly found in a significant number of Indo-European languages... Its absence in Slavic is all the more surprising since the historical “cradle” of the Slavs is often said to be located in the North Pontic Steppes, or close by, precisely where the earliest domestication of the horse is reputed to have occurred."

"This controversial scholar, the first translator of Darwin and by extension the first promoter of “social Darwinism” in France, stated in her preface to the Origine des espèces that the most courageous “races” had overcome the others since “man, having become the stronger, could impose himself on the mate that pleased him most; and hence woman, who had nothing to do but please and submit, became more and more beautiful, in accordance with man’s ideal, man who himself became even stronger, having only to fight, command, and protect.” Thus we see the “reckless and blind” error of Christianity and democracy which scorned natural selection: “while all care, all devotions of love and pity are considered to be owed to the deposed and degenerate representatives of the species, there is nothing to encourage the development of the emerging force or to propagate merit, talent and virtue.”"

"While such reactions were foreseeable, I was nonetheless taken aback by their scale and by the use of certain language which I consider unacceptable. I was thus described as a “negationist” on the pretext that I had denied the existence of the original People. In French, this term is generally reserved for those who deny the reality of the Holocaust. While the process of twisting the meaning of words is typical of extreme right-wing rhetoric, it is nonetheless obscene when it concerns the very real assassination of six million human beings."

"For a long time it was supposed that Semites, Aryans and Mongols may have shared a common birthplace somewhere on top of a mountain, from whence the three races then dispersed and quickly turned their backs on each other, in accordance with the story of the “tri-color” descendants of Noah’s three sons; this is simply the invention of a myth which, unlike its ancient counterparts, does not even have the merit of symbolizing history. It amounts to a retelling and a renewing of the tale of the Earthly Paradise, with less poeticism and even less common sense."

"All Europeans came from the Orient. This truth, which is confirmed by the evidence of physiology and of linguistics, no longer needs special proof."

"The trace of the ancient riverbed was recently found, still quite recognizable, and was followed far to the west. [This discovery] confirmed the correctness of the tradition."

"Whether I am destined to fulfil it. Human life is brief, and its necessities often painful; the number of days we are granted is rarely sufficient to the realization of the projects nurtured by our mind with the greatest love."

"The Sarasvatī river is ‘the one which the hymns mention most frequently, whose name they utter with the highest praise and predilection’. It was also ‘the first river wholly belonging to the Veda’s historical arena’... He then noted the existence of today’s stream called ‘Sarsuti, . . . a rather insignificant river . . . which rises at the foot of the last steep slopes overlooking the plain [that is, the Shivaliks] in the rather narrow corridor between the Djemna [Yamuna] and the Satledj [Sutlej].’... ‘The ancient designation of Sarasvatī very much appears to have embraced, apart from the chief watercourse flowing far to the west, the totality of the streams flowing down from the mountain close to each other before they unite in a single bed.’... ‘its course then extended through the now arid and waterless plains extending between the Satlej and the gulf of Kotch...‘This positive recognition of the locale is crucially important for a full understanding of Vedic geography."

"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."

"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."

"These myths were steeped in erudition, informed by profound knowledge of Hebrew and Sanskrit, fortified by comparative study of linguistic data, mythology, and religion, and shaped by the effort to relate linguistic structures, forms of thought, and features of civilization. Yet they were also myths, fantasies of the social imagination, at every level. The com­ parative philology of the most ancient languages was a quest for origins, an attempt to return to a privileged moment in time when God, man, and natural forces still lived in mutual transparency. This plunge into the distant past in search of "roots" went hand in hand with a never forgotten faith in a meaningful history, whose course, guided by the Providence of the one God, could be understood only in the light of Christian revelation. As scholars established the disciplines of Semitic and Indo-European studies, they also invented the mythical figures of the Hebrew and the Aryan, a providential pair which, by revealing to the people of the Christianized West the secret of their identity, also bestowed upon them the patent of nobility that justified their spiritual, religious, and political domination of the world. 5-6"

"Each Indian looks for God in his own way and worships one or several of the millions of deities who are the supposed reincarnation or expression of God, a Spirit or a Force. This has never led to a religious war. There have been communal clashes, but India has never had to face religious wars or crusades save those that were thrust on it from outside. The multiple revelation of the East has proved to be in many ways more advantageous than the single revelation of the West."

"You cannot be a Hindu fundamentalist. It does not mean anything .. .The concept of fundamentalism does not exist in Hinduism."

"The teaching of the great Indian thinkers could spiritually enrich the European soul. In the course of its history, the European civilization has lost most of its spiritual values. It can no longer recover them though it still realizes their necessity. For the best of men cannot exist simply on the ideal of "efficiency of work" in the American way. In the condition III which the West finds itself, it is easier for us to go and search for truths in the India, than to come back to the few values we have left in the course of the development of our civilization."

"To return now to the Ancient Model. After the 1780s, the intensification of racism and the new belief in the central importance of ‘ethnicity’ as a principle of historical explanation became critical for perceptions of Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians were increasingly detached from the noble Caucasians, and their ‘black’ and African nature was more and more emphasized. Thus the idea that they were the cultural ancestors of the Greeks – the epitome and pure childhood of Europe – became unbearable. There was also a new crisis between Egyptian mythology and Christianity with the works of Dupuis, which represented the ideological or theological counterpart of the French Revolution’s attack on European social order. It is only with this background that one can make sense of the tormented career of Champollion during the years of reaction between 1815 and 1830. Although Champollion was an avowed revolutionary and an enthusiastic Bonapartist, one of his earliest discoveries discredited some of the theories of Dupuis’s supporters, and he and his decipherment were therefore welcomed by the Church and the Restoration nobility. On the other hand, his championing of Egypt over Greece combined with his political beliefs to infuriate Hellenist and Indianist scholars, who continued to do all they could to block his academic career."

"May any Muslims who happen to read these lines forgive my plain speaking. For them the Koran is the book of Allah and I respect their faith. But I do not share it and I do not wish to fall back, as many orientalists have done, on equivocal phrases to disguise my real meaning. This may perhaps be of assistance in remaining on good terms with individuals and governments professing Islam; but I have no wish to deceive anyone. Muslims have every right not to read the book or to acquaint themselves with the ideas of a non-Muslim, but if they do so, they must expect to find things put forward there which are blasphemous to them. It is evident that I do not believe that the Koran is the book of Allah."

"The history of Christ on the contrary, is nothing but a tiresome legend, having the same character of sadness and dryness, which is the attribute of the legends of the Indians, in which we find only bigots, penitents and Brahmins, living in holy meditation. Their God Vishnu, who became man (or flesh) in Chrisnu, has a great many traits in common with Christ. There are certain vagaries to be met with little Chrisnu, very similar to those, which are attributed to the childhood of Christ in the gospel: when grown he rises from the dead like Christ."

"De Santillana, by contrast, had a completely different view of him: Dupuis’s work contains practically everything that has been found out since on Archaic astronomy. He had only the Classical sources to work with, practically no correct Oriental texts, and about other parts of the world only the occasional reports of travellers … with these insufficient instruments, he worked out what seems to elude modern researchers. His knowledge of the pre-Sokratics is far more extensive than what can be derived from Hermann Diels, that bible of current scholarship, yet it remains this side of wrong guesses. His Origine may be judged extreme, but it is sound, coherent and impressive."

"As the great 20th-century historian of science Giorgio de Santillana has pointed out, it is not accidental that Dupuis is so little known today. His beliefs continue to form a coherent challenge to both Christianity and the myth of Greece as a cultural beginning; thus he and his work had to be buried. Dupuis was a brilliant scientist and the inventor of semaphore, and was also active in politics during the French Revolution. His great reputation as a scholar and his dedication to moderate revolutionary principles made him a natural choice for director of cultural events during the Directory from 1795 to 1799, and he became president of the legislative body during the Consulate under Napoleon that followed."

"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”.’"

"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 Bhagavad Gita was] "probably the most beautiful book which has ever come from the hand of man.""

"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."

"Peut-être les moines qu’on appelle « gyrovagues » exaltaient-ils particulièrement notre condition d’étranger éternel : marchant sans cesse de monastère en monastère, sans être fixé – ils n’ont pas tous disparu ; il en reste, paraît-il, quelques-uns encore sur le mont Athos : ils marchent leur vie durant sur les sentiers étroits des montagnes, tournant en rond, s’endormant à la chute du jour dans l’endroit où leurs pieds les a portés ; ils passent leur vie à marmonner des prières en marchant tout le jour, sans destination ni but, ici ou là, au hasard du croisement des sentiers, à tourner, retourner, ils marchent sans aller nulle part, illustrant par l’éternel cheminement leur état d’étrangers définitifs au monde d’ici-bas."

"Mais marcher, cela fait imprégnation. Marcher interminablement, faire passer par les pores de sa peau la hauteur des montagnes quand on s’y affronte très longtemps, respirer des heures durant la forme des collines en les dévalant longuement. Le corps devient pétri de la terre qu’il foule. Et progressivement, ainsi, il n’est plus dans le paysage : il est le paysage. Ce n’est pas forcément dissolution, comme si le marcheur s’évanouissait et en devenait une simple inflexion, une ligne supplémentaire. Parce qu’en lui soudain ce rapport s’illumine. C’est comme un instant qui éclate. Feu brusque : le temps s’enflamme. Là, le sentiment d’éternité, c’est tout à coup cette vibration des présences. L’éternité, ici, comme étincelle."

"La première éternité qu’on rencontre est celle des pierres, du mouvement des plaines, des lignes d’horizon : tout cela résiste. ... Je suis face à cette montagne, je marche au milieu des grands arbres et je pense : ils sont là. Ils sont là, ils ne m’ont pas attendu, là depuis toujours. Ils m’ont indéfiniment devancé, ils continueront bien après moi."

"Mais surtout, c’est la dissipation encore de notre langage. ... Dans le silence de la marche, quand on finit par perdre l’usage des mots ... dans ce silence, on écoute mieux alors, parce qu’on écoute enfin ce qui n’a aucune vocation à être retraduit, recodé, reformaté."

"On ne fait rien en marchant, rien que marcher. Mais de n’avoir rien à faire que marcher permet de retrouver le pur sentiment d’être, de redécouvrir la simple joie d’exister, celle qui fait toute l’enfance. Ainsi la marche, en nous délestant, en nous arrachant à l’obsession du faire, nous permet d’à nouveau rencontrer cette éternité enfantine. Je veux dire que marcher, c’est un jeu d’enfant. S’émerveiller du jour qu’il fait, de l’éclat du soleil, de la grandeur des arbres, du bleu du ciel. Je n’ai besoin pour cela d’aucune expérience, d’aucune compétence."

"Il y a le silence des petits matins. Il faut partir très tôt en automne quand l’étape est longue. Tout est violet dehors, la lumière rampe sous les feuilles jaunes et rouges. C’est un silence attentif. On marche doucement au milieu des grands arbres sombres, encore enveloppés d’une légère nuit bleue. On a presque peur de réveiller. Tout chuchote faiblement."

"Il y a le silence des marches dures des après-midi d’été, sur des parois de montagne, des sentiers de cailloux, à découvert sous un soleil sans concession. Silence éclatant, minéral, accablant. On entend juste le léger crissement des pierres. Silence implacable, définitif, comme une mort transparente. Le ciel est d’un bleu parfaitement détaché. Et on avance les yeux baissés, en se rassurant par un marmonnement sourd parfois. Le ciel sans nuages, le calcaire des roches sont d’une présence pleine : silence dont rien ne dépasse. Silence comble, immobilité vibrante, tendue comme un arc."

"Il y a le silence des marches dans la neige. Silence des pas étouffés sous un ciel blanc. Tout autour rien ne bouge. Les choses et le temps sont pris dans la glace. Immobilité sourde, tout est arrêté. Tout est uni, feutré. C’est un silence de mise en veille, de parenthèse cotonneuse, blanche, suspendue."

"On n’est jamais personne pour les collines et les grandes frondaisons. On n’est plus ni un rôle, ni un statut, pas même un personnage, mais un corps, un corps qui ressent la pointe des cailloux sur les chemins, la caresse des hautes herbes et la fraîcheur du vent. Quand on marche, le monde n’a plus ni présent, ni futur. Il n’y a plus que le cycle des matins et des soirs. Toujours à faire la même chose tout le jour : marcher."

"On entrevoit bien dans les randonnées longues, cette liberté toute de renoncement. Quand on marche depuis longtemps, il arrive un moment où on ne sait plus trop combien d’heures se sont déjà écoulées, ni combien il en faudra encore pour parvenir au terme, on sent sur ses épaules le poids du strict nécessaire, on se dit que c’est bien assez – si vraiment il faut davantage pour insister dans l’existence – et on sent qu’on pourrait continuer ainsi des jours, des siècles. C’est à peine alors si l’on sait où on va et pourquoi, cela ne compte pas plus que mon passé ou l’heure qu’il est. Et on se sent libre, parce que, dès qu’il s’agit de se rappeler les signes anciens de notre engagement dans l’enfer – nom, âge, profession, carrière –, tout, absolument, apparaît dérisoire, minuscule, fantomatique."

"D’abord, il y a la liberté suspensive offerte par la marche, ne serait-ce qu’une simple promenade : se délester du fardeau des soucis, oublier un temps ses affaires. On choisit de ne pas emporter son bureau avec soi : on sort, on flâne, on pense à autre chose. Avec la randonnée longue de plusieurs jours, s’accentue le mouvement de déprise : on échappe aux contraintes du travail, on se libère du carcan des habitudes."

"Mais être seul alors, vraiment seul cette fois : un. Mais d’abord, on n’est jamais tout à fait seul. Comme écrivait Thoreau : « Je restai tout le matin en bonne compagnie, jusqu’à ce que quelqu’un vienne me rendre visite » (c’était la compagnie des arbres, du soleil, des cailloux). Au fond, c’est de rencontrer l’autre, souvent, qui nous ramène à la solitude. La conversation mène à parler de soi et de ses différences. Et doucement, l’autre nous renvoie à nous-mêmes dans notre histoire et notre identité, ce qui veut dire les incompréhensions et les mensonges. Comme si cela existait."

"Dernière chose : on n’est pas seul enfin parce que, dès qu’on marche, on est aussitôt deux. Surtout après avoir marché longtemps. Je veux dire qu’il y a toujours, même seul, ce dialogue entre le corps et l’âme."

"La marche, on n’a rien trouvé de mieux pour aller plus lentement. Pour marcher, il faut d’abord deux jambes. Le reste est vain. Aller plus vite ? Alors, ne marchez pas, faites autre chose : roulez, glissez, volez. Ne marchez pas. Et puis, marchant, il n’y a qu’une performance qui compte : l’intensité du ciel, l’éclat des paysages. Marcher n’est pas un sport. Mais une fois debout, l’homme ne tient pas en place."

"Il y a le silence des forêts. Les bouquets d’arbres forment autour de nous des murs mouvants, incertains. On marche sur des chemins tracés, des bandes de terre étroites qui serpentent. On perd vite l’orientation. Le silence alors est frémissant, inquiet."

"Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant."

"It remains quite clear, however, that Indic and Iranian developed from different Indo-European dialects, whose period of common development was not long enough to effect total fusion."

"The question of identifying archaeological remains of Indo-European populations in Central Asia has been one of the main questions that has occupied a number of linguists and historians for many years [...] when written records are not available, a reconstructed time-space framework is generally used to substantiate the reconstruction with some relevant illustrative material. The linguistic attributes are mapped onto archaeological correlates: artifacts are selected, like the chariot, as well as ecofacts, like agriculture, or whole archaeological cultures (material assemblages). The archaeological correlates become some sort of labels or tags that one may employ in order to trace the supposed Indo-European populations. But, in fact, very little of the illustrative archaeological material actually exhibits specific Indo-European or Indo-Iranian traits; a question therefore arises: what is the relevance of archaeological material if any sort of assemblage present at the expected or supposed time/space spot can function as the tag of a linguistic group?"

"Recent hypotheses connecting the Oxus civilization with the Indo- Iranians or the Indo-Aryans are of two kinds: the first consider the Oxus civilization as an emanation of the Indo-Iranians / Indo-Aryans (Sarianidi, Hiebert); the second hold that newcomers from the steppes succeeded the Oxus civilization (Kuzmina) or took possession of it (Parpola, Mallory). This wide uncertainty, which may appear surprising, is due to the fact that no trace of invasion is noticed on the ground, no cultural transformation is marked by the presence of archaeological material whose origin could be attributed to peripheral regions. Expressions like “elite dominance” or “infiltration,” despite their great evocative power, are nothing but rhetorical devices. They do not manage to mask our present inability to account for a supposed historical phenomenon. [...] In neither of the two regions, steppes and oases, do we find an archaeological material that could be indisputably attributed to Indo-Iranians, Indo- Aryans, or Iranians."

"Consequently, in current migratory hypotheses, in the same way that the Oxus Civilization disappears upon contact with India, the culture of the Andronovo steppes vanishes upon contact with the Oxus Civilization and never crosses towards the south the line which extends from Kopet Dagh to Pamir-Karakorum, which poses serious problems for historically translating the Indo-Aryans towards the South."

"Apart from the time-space expectations, there is not much in the archaeological material that could be taken as tags for tracing the Indo- Iranians/ Indo-Aryans [...] no one of these archaeological correlates is beyond question [...] Briefly, not only have they nothing strictly Indo-European or Indo- Iranian or Indo-Aryan in them, but if we look closely at them in their general cultural context, they appear to be selected isolated traits not always compatible with each other [...and] are attested in various cultural contexts, not all necessarily Indo-European... [the whole process is based on] the simple linguistic space-time argument for locating the speakers, in which case a study of the archaeological record is useless since anything goes [...] there is no factual evidence apart from the linguistically reconstructed time-space predictions [...] There is no point in trying to illustrate ethno-linguistic theories by irrelevant or uninterpretable archaeological material.... [the material culture cited] proves nothing about the language of their owners. Otherwise we would have to admit that the Bronze Age Chinese were Indo-European."

"In short, apart from the time-space expectations, there is nothing in the archaeological material that could be taken as tags for tracing the Indo-Iranians/Indo-Aryans."

"Francfort (1989) stresses this point: "Nothing allows us to dismiss the possibility that the Andronovians of Tazabagjab are the Indo-Iranians as much as the fact that they vanish on the fringes of sedentary Central Asia and do not appear as the ephemeral invaders of India at the feet of the Hindu Kush" (453)."

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