linguists-from-india

"Historians like Sarkar, Dr Romesh Chandra Majumdar, Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade, Raghubir Singh, Hemchandra Raychaudhuri, Kashi Prasad Jayaswal, Devadatta Ramakrishna Bhandarkar, Govind Sakharam Sardesai and several contemporaries of theirs, many of whom shone in brilliance even under colonial rule, are in my view exemplars of what fact-based, dispassionate historians are."

"Shortly before the foreign invasions began from the 11th century onwards, the Hindu body politique was fast losing the two invaluable qualities of colonisation and proselytisation so indispensable for the self-preservation and continuance of a race or people and its culture. On the other hand, the new foreign invaders who were of Muslim religion were aggressive proselytisers, with the consequence that instead of Muslims being converted to Hinduism, many Hindus became Muhammadans. Hindu Society was now on its trial. Nevertheless, it wonderfully began to tide over this crisis by reclaiming most of the Hindus that were being converted to Muhammadanism. Śud'dhi movement in India began, not recently with the Arya Samajists re-converting the Muhammadan Malkana Rajputs, but in the tenth century."

"Mallory (1997), for example, who is otherwise noteworthy for his thorough and fair approach to all points of view, characterizes S. S. Misra's entire position by a sole tongue-in-cheek comment that he sees fit to extract from Misra's book: "India has not been rejected as a potential homeland of the Indo-Europeans (pace Misra 1992: 41) only because 'it is a nice place to live and people would not move outside it'!" (104). Misra has dedicated a lifetime to writing dozens of specialized books on Indo-European languages, and, while one may not agree with some of his arguments in his book on the Aryan problem (such as the primacy of Sanskrit), his observations regarding the Finno-Ugric loans, at least, do merit a less flippant characterization and a more solid response."

"Classical Sanskrit is often called Paninian Sanskrit. Western scholars are of the opinion that this is a continuation of Old Indo-Aryan in the MIA period. This is only partially true."

"Satya Swarup Misra (1992) ... argues that many of the linguistic features in the Anatolian documents are much later than Vedic but identical to the forms found in Middle Indo-Aryan.34 These were also noticed by Kenneth Norman (1985, 280).35 Hodge (1981) also draws attention to satta 'seven', which is the Prakrit form of Sanskrit sata, and remarks that the inscriptions show a Prakritic form of Sanskrit a thousand years before such forms are known in India itself on inscriptions. These observations fit comfortably with the proposal that the Near Eastern kings could have left the Indian subcontinent after the early Vedic period, bringing post-Vedic, Indo-Aryan linguistic forms with them. The most drastic corollary of such a claim, as Jacobi noted, would be a major reevaluation of the dating of the Rgveda, which must have considerably predated the appearance of the Near Eastern texts in 1600 B.C.E. if these do, indeed, represent a diachronically later, as opposed to a synchronically contemporaneous, or dialectal, form of Indo-Aryan."

"“The language of the tenth Maṇḍala represents a distinctly later stage of the Rigvedic language. Hiatus, which is frequent in the earlier Rigveda, is already in process of elimination here. Stressed i u cannot in sandhi be changed into y v in the earlier parts, but in the tenth Maṇḍala they can. The ending –āsas in nominative plural is half as frequent as –ās in the Rigveda taken as a whole, but its number of occurrences is disproportionately small in the tenth Maṇḍala . Absolutives in –tvāya occur only here. The stem rai- is inflected in one way in the first nine Maṇḍalas, and in another in the tenth, and in the inflexion of dyau-, too, the distribution of strong and weak forms is much more regular in the earlier Maṇḍalas. The Prakritic verbal stem kuru- appears only in the tenth Maṇḍala for the earlier kṛiṇu-. Many words appear for the first time in the tenth Maṇḍala or are shared by it only with the interpolated part of other Maṇḍalas. The old locative form pritsu, adjectives like girvaṇas and vicharṣani, and the substantive vīti do not occur at all in the tenth Maṇḍala , though in the earlier Maṇḍalas they are quite common. The particle sim, which is unknown in the Atharvaveda, occurs fifty times in the first nine Maṇḍalas but only once in the tenth. Words like ājya, kāla, lohita, vijaya, etc., occur for the first time in the tenth Maṇḍala, as also the root labh-. Words shared with the tenth Maṇḍala only by the interpolated parts of other Maṇḍalas, the Valakhilyas, and unmistakably late hymns, are loka (for earlier uloka which is a haplology for uruloka), mogha, visarga, gup- (a back-formation from gopa), etc. And words which occur mostly, though not exclusively, in the tenth Maṇḍala and these parts, are sarva, bhagavant, prāṇa, hridaya, etc. The archaic particle ī of pronominal origin, for which the Padapāṭha throughout wrongly reads īm, does not occur at all in the tenth Maṇḍala, and the particle īm, which is only less archaic than ī, occurs in it only about half a dozen times. Of forms like dakshi, adukshat , etc., which are. the results of the action of a pre-Vedic phonetic law, only one, namely dudukshan, occurs in the tenth Maṇḍala. It is unnecessary to dilate any further on the language of the Rigveda.” (pp.343-344)."

"“This also proves in a striking manner that the language of the earlier Mandalas was already in danger of being misunderstood when the hymns of the tenth Mandala were being composed.” (p.340)."

"The Rgveda clearly reflects the picture of a highly complex society in the full blaze of civilisation."

"If the forefathers of the Vedic Aryans were still in Cappadocia in the 14th century BC on their march towards India, there would be no time left for them to forget all their previous history before giving the final form to the Rigvedic hymns not later than 1000 BC."

"The language of the Rig-veda," he writes in one place, "is certainly no more different from that of the Avestan Gathas than is Old English from Old High German, and therefore they must be assigned to approximately the same age: and the relation between the language of the Gathas and that of Old Persian inscriptions of the sixth century B.C. cannot be better visualised than by comparing the former with Gothic and the latter with Old High German. Now, if the inscriptions of the Achaemenid emperors of Iran were composed in Old High German, what would be the date assigned to Ulfila's Bible? Surely something like 1000 B.C. This then would be the approximate date of the Gathas of the Avesta - with which the Rigveda in its present form must have been more or less contemporaneous."

"B.K. Ghosh informs us: " D asa princes like Sambara, Dhuni, Chumuri, Pipru and Varchin have been actuallymentioned by the Rigvedic poets, but it is significant that, as a rule , Indra himself has been made to combat them on his own initiative and not in course of rendering routine assistance to Aryan chiefs.""

"The Iranians had retained a distinct memory of the Indo-Iranian common home in their mythology but the Indo-Aryans... have nothing to say on the point. [... There is a ] distinctively Indian Rigvedic culture... a distinct product of the Indian soil."

"“On the whole ... the language of the first nine Mandalas must be regarded as homogeneous, inspite of traces of previous dialectal differences... With the tenth Mandala it is a different story. The language here has definitely changed.”"

"“On the whole, however, the language of the first nine Maṇḍalas must be regarded as homogeneous [….] With the tenth Maṇḍala it is a different story. The language here has definitely changed. The difference in language between the earlier Maṇḍalas and tenth would have appeared in its true proportions if the texts concerned had been written down at the time they were composed and handed down to us in that written form."

"The fact, however, is that the text tradition of the Rigveda was stabilized at a comparatively late date, and fixed in writing at a much later epoch. The result has been not unlike what would have happened if the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare were put in writing and printed for the first time in the twentieth century: in short, the text of the Rigveda as handed down to us is, in various details, not only different from what it actually was, but to some extent also screens the differences that mark off the languages of the earlier Maṇḍalas from that of the tenth.” (pp.340-341)."

"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."

"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."

"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)"

"I cannot let this book go no matter how many times I read it...it is as adorable as Lord Krishna."

"Perhaps the concept of shame applies to only women but not men. Maybe because she was a ‘prostitute’ she was able to write crude depictions of sex without shame. In that case, it surely must not suit the supposed learned men to depict conjugal pleasures in the same way?. (as a sarcastic retort to criticism of the original work and her 1910 edition containing sexual/erotic passages, believed to being unsuitable for women)"

"As it is not only written by a woman but by a woman who was born into the same community as mine, I intend to edit and publish it in a proper form."

"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."

"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."

"In conclusion, we can say that the Indonesian literati had access to all branches of Sanskrit learning and they put these disciplines to the best of use in the emergence of their own creative literature."

"MIA and NIA languages are not, strictly speaking, derived from the language of the Rigveda or from Classical Sanskrit […] these Aryans of the eastern tracts seem to be different from the Midland or Vedic Aryans in many respects―in religious observances, in many practices, in dialect […] these Aryans were distinct from those other Aryans of the West among whom the Vedic culture grew up, distinct in dialect, in religion and in practices... The morphology of Vedic […] retains most faithfully the inflections of primitive Indo-European."

"“Throughout the whole range of Urdu literature in its first phase… the atmosphere of this literature is provokingly un-Indian - it is that of Persia. Early Urdu poets never so much as mention the great physical features of India - its Himalayas, its rivers like the Ganges, the Jamuna, the Sindhu, the Godavari, etc; but of course mountains and streams of Persia, and rivers of Central Asia are always there. Indian flowers, Indian plants are unknown; only Persian flowers and plants which the poet could see only in a garden. There was a deliberate shutting of the eye to everything Indian, to everything not mentioned or treated in Persian poetry… A language and literature which came to base itself upon an ideology which denied on the Indian soil the very existence of India and Indian culture, could not but be met with a challenge from some of the Indian adherents of their national culture; and that challenge was in the form of highly Sanskritized Hindi’.”"

"The first Bengali with a scientific insight to attack the problems of the language was the poet Rabindranath Tagore; and it is flattering for the votaries of philology, to find in one who is the greatest writer in the language, and a great poet and seer for all time, a keen philologist as well, distinguished alike by an assiduous enquiry into the facts of the language as by a scholarly appreciation of the methods and findings of the modern Western philologist. The work of Rabindranath is in the shape of a few essays (now collected in one volume) on Bengali Phonetics, Bengali Onomatopoetics, and on the Bengali noun, and on other topics, the earliest of which appeared in the early nineties, and some fresh papers appeared only several years ago. These papers may be said to have shown to the Bengali enquiring into the problems of his language the proper lines of approaching them."