Michael Witzel

"“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."