Shrikant Talageri

"Witzel’s criticism of my book contains only two “substantial” objections: the issue of an allegedly “original” vs. an allegedly “interpolated” (present day) RV, and the issue of the Anukramanis as allegedly “late” and “unreliable”."

"It is difficult to believe that Witzel is serious in his incredible assertions [about the Sarasvati river]... And when other verses do refer to a river of that name, this river may be “anywhere” from Arachosia to the “night time sky”: anything but the Haryana river – the sky is the limit! In his 1995 papers, he locates the Sarasvati in hymn 6.61 squarely in Kurukshetra in his “Geographical Data” (WITZEL 1995b: 343,349) as well as in his descriptions of Mandala 6: “W/NW, Panjab, Sarasvati, Ganga” (WITZEL 1995b: 318, 320). And nowhere in those papers does he suggest anything contrary!"

"To paraphrase himself: “give Witzel one archaeological site, and he will produce a comprehensive dictionary, complete with etymological analysis, of its language”."

"In general the only criterion Witzel has in accepting any analysis is that “the results should be close to those found in Witzel 1995, 1999” (§7) – except, of course, where Witzel has reason to believe that something “found in Witzel 1995, 1999” (or any other year) is now inconvenient to his position and fits in with his “opponent’s” position, in which case “results should be close to those convenient to Witzel today”!"

"Witzel rejects my etymology (one of the few etymologies actually proposed by me) of the word purusha (man) from Puru on the direct analogy of manusha (man) from Manu (p.147 OF MY BOOK) and pontificates:"

"But Witzel, desperate to send my present book hurtling to its “doom” (to the fate he fondly and wishfully assumes overtook my “heavily criticized earlier effort”) finds a persistent “purANic mindset” in my book which reminds him of “the popular comic books, Amar Chitra Katha” (§8)! Well, we find a Biblical mindset in his depiction of Vasistha (Moses) leading an exodus of the Bharatas (Jews) from Iran (Egypt), across the mountains of Afghanistan (Sinai), and finally entering, occupying and transforming the face of the Punjab (Palestine)."

"The reader is struck by Witzel’s repeated disparaging remarks against the Puranas and their utility in the derivation of Indian history. Scholars who have read Witzel’s publications in detail inform me that there is nothing in them that betrays even a faint understanding and first-hand knowledge of this genre of literature on his part. Thus, Witzel’s repeated attempts to downgrade Puranas as a valid source of history (which, albeit should be used with caution) merely reflect his attempt to hide his own ignorance."

"Here, again, a case of what Max Muller called “special pleading”: now Witzel claims not only to be able to identify “non-Indoaryan” loanwords in Vedic, he can also identify the exact regions from which these “loanwords” were borrowed: we have Punjab loan words, U.P. loan words, Bactria-Margiana loan words…! Witzel knows, with scientific exactitude that “loanwords”, from imaginary “substrate languages”, which are found in both Vedic and Iranian are definitely from Central Asia, and not from the Punjab or U.P., and, equally, that “loanwords” found only in Vedic are from the Punjab or U.P. – not, of course, because his theory suggests these locations, but because he has found actual inscriptions from pre-RV eras, in one or more non-Indo-Iranian languages, from the respective areas, where these words are actually recorded!"

"“What you require is not old interpolation-theories, but a new EXTRAPOLATION theory to explain just why those Mandalas which I have designated as Early contain no references to western rivers, places and animals; to later technological innovations like ‘spokes’; to composer-personalities from those Mandalas which I have designated as later ones, etc. etc. Perhaps, some OIT conspirator, in the eighteenth or nineteenth century AD managed to delete all such references from the collective memories of reciters all over India, and from every existing manuscript, even going ‘to each Pandit’s house, in the jungles of Orissa, etc’ and ‘forging their palm leaves???’. It is you who will find yourself in need of ‘conspiracy theories’ in order to counter my analysis”."

"To sum up, Oldenberg’s principles do not affect my analysis at all. His principles are undoubtedly important, but not in demarcating “original” hymns from “interpolated” ones: as we saw, hymn 6.45, which is a late “interpolated” hymn as per (Witzel’s interpretation of) Oldenberg’s principles, proves to be linguistically very archaic, and hymns 6.3,24,25,28, which are similarly “original” hymns, abound in late words. Oldenberg’s (or rather, Witzel’s) numer(olog)ical division therefore cuts across another division which could be established on the basis of linguistic analysis. And both these divisions become irrelevant when the data in these hymns is examined from a historico-geographical point of view, since all the hymns in any given Mandala are historically and geographically homogenous. .... Therefore, neither Oldenberg’s numerical principles, nor linguistic strata discernible in the hymns, can negate the fact that the RV we have today is, for all practical purposes, the “original” RV, and my historical analysis is an “invincible” analysis of the emphatically right Rigveda text."

"To begin with...: “a) Each Mandala (or upam). contains hymns ascribed to the descendants of earlier mandalas (or upam.s), or the ancestors of later mandalas (or upam.s). b) Each Mandala (or upam.) contains references to composers from earlier or contemporaneous mandalas (or upam.s)” And “in not one of these respects do we find the allegedly ‘concocted’ Anukramani ascriptions …. differing from the allegedly ‘original’ ascriptions”."

"That is, none of the Rishi ascriptions (either for an allegedly “original” hymn or an allegedly “interpolated” hymn) shows a contrary order: i.e. if Mandala A has a hymn ascribed to an ancestor of a Rishi composer from Mandala B, we do not find another case where Mandala B has a hymn ascribed to an ancestor of a Rishi composer from Mandala B. And the references within the hymns follow suit: no hymn from Mandala A refers to a Rishi composer from Mandala B (for example, the three Early Mandalas do not contain a single reference to a Rishi composer from the Middle or Late Mandalas, the Bhrgu hymns being a special case apart)."

"All this can mean one of only two things: either the Anukramani ascriptions are genuine; or else they have been concocted with incredible efficiency and coordination: this would involve great skill not only in concocting ascriptions for new hymns, to make them fit into the pattern, but also in changing older Anukramani ascriptions where a descendant of a Rishi composer from a later (as per my chronology) Mandala figured as a composer in an earlier (as per my chronology) Mandala, and in extrapolating references from within the hymns of an earlier (as per my chronology) Mandala which referred to a Rishi composer from a later (as per my chronology) Mandala!"

"Among other things, these “Piltdown men of ancient India” must also have been in telepathic communication with me to find out which concoctions, changes and extrapolations would best suit my theory! .... The question is: did the alleged concocters of the Rishi ascriptions of the Anukramanis, in an allegedly post-RV period, sit down and examine all the above factors and then deliberately decide to concoct the Rishi ascriptions as per one system in the other Family Mandalas, and as per another system in Mandala 5 and the non-family Mandalas? ... Obviously, except for those with an irresistible passion for conspiracy theories, the only conclusion is that the Rishi ascriptions in the Anukramanis are perfectly genuine, and hence absolutely valid in any historical analysis of the text."

"The above provides the most perfect illustration of Witzel’s mode of academic(?) discussion: he does not raise points because he believes in them and wants to get them either clarified or accepted; he raises them only to heckle and raise a din, like a speaker in a political harangue or a schoolboy in a school slanging match between two rival groups, where the same accusation is repeated again and again with a deaf ear turned to the response or clarification."

"Totally undaunted, Witzel repeats these points again in his review article in 2001! Is it really surprising if “Occasionally …. T. lapses into ‘a bored yawn’ (p. 344)”?"

"To see some really “inconsistent statements” and “cavalier” establishment of “divisions” of the composer families of the RV, the reader should read Witzel’s 1995 papers, where Witzel shows himself to be completely and (as his present statements show) irretrievably lost at sea (see pp. 446-449 OF MY BOOK): there, at one point, he “wants to limit the clans involved in the composition of the Rgvedic hymns” to only three families, the Vishvamitras, the Atris and the Angirases (in the third of which, he includes all the other Rishis); and, at another point, his broom sweeps all the Rishis in Mandala 8 into two “divisions”, the Kanva and the Angiras. At another, he counts the Vishvamitras in the Bhrgu family, and then goes on (in the absence of even the faintest hint to this effect anywhere in the RV, or even in any subsequent text) to place Vishvamitra at the head of the coalition against Sudas in the Dasharajna battle (not to mention minor(?) slip-ups like treating the Shaunakas as non-Bhargavas, and Ghora as a son or descendant of Kanva)!"

"Therefore, until Witzel can produce a new set of Anukramanis, which can be proved to be older than the existing Anukramanis, and which contains distinctly different data (different from the data common to all the existing Anukramanis) which produces a completely different chronological and geographical picture to the one produced by me in my book – but one at least as coherent, complete and integrated as mine – my analysis stands unchallenged and (as Witzel is so fond of repeating) “invincible”."

"It is clear, from his complete dependence on abuse, innuendo, misleading statements and lies in his “review article”, that Witzel has no logical argument to offer against my theory, analysis and conclusions. .... Far from launching a crusade against 19th century colonialism (Witzel’s review article is a typical specimen of how a crusading article sounds), I in fact point out at some length why I cannot subscribe to any view which holds the 19th century “colonial” scholars more than superficially guilty for the AIT or its present-day ramifications."

"As we can see, Witzel is not writing a review article of my book: he is writing a “review article” of an imaginary book – a book he imagines would be written by an OIT proponent on the basis of principles which Witzel imagines Hindutva represents – and “exposing” the “underlying political agenda” behind this book by letting the imaginary ‘“facts speak for themselves”! ... What stands exposed, by Witzel’s slanderous statements about the political agenda “underlying” my book, is Witzel’s own political agenda and the blatantly dishonest nature of his “review article”."

"After chapter 9 (etc) of my book, his unfruitful “offer”, and our rather acrimonious e-mail debate, and now this “review article” that he was compelled to write as a natural sequel to all this, Witzel cannot easily admit that he finds my analysis and conclusions acceptable.... 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…”"

"At another point, Witzel writes: “Talageri also views as interpolations the vAlakhilya hymns of 8.49-59 (although these are, in fact, included and analyzed in zAkalya’s padapATha)” (§1). Is it, to begin with, Witzel’s contention that if a hymn or verse is “included and analyzed in Shakalya’s padapatha”, it automatically means that the hymn or verse in question is not an interpolation? All scholars are in agreement that the Valakhilya hymns are later than the other hymns in Mandala 8, and were inserted later into the middle of the Mandala in the Shakalya Samhita."

"Witzel is apparently secure in his knowledge that (as he put it in his e-mail letter of 3 August 2000): “Nothing of all this is of any importance to our daily life. Nobody cares, neither in the University, nor outside, what we write on such matters.” This leaves him free to indulge himself to the utmost without bothering about his academic reputation."

"Further, Witzel writes about the word Druhyu: “This word means, literally, ‘the ones who seek to cheat’. Non-linguist as he is, T. missed a great chance for a ‘socio-ethnic’ study based on an etymology!” Witzel, “linguist” as he is, is mistaken in the idea that this is the primary meaning of the word: the word had a positive meaning which became negative particularly in the Vedic and Iranian languages. In any case, why should Witzel imagine that I would want to conduct a “socio-ethnic study”? And to what purpose: to show that the enemies of the Vedic Aryans were “cheaters”? Witzel has clearly not understood my book: neither the general tone of my historical study, nor the specific points made by me in this regard..."

"“Indian culture being the greatest and richest is not a narrow or chauvinistic idea; it is a demonstrable fact. It would be chauvinistic if it acquired an imperialist tinge: that other cultures are inferior and Indian culture must dominate over or replace them. In fact, I am opposed to even internal cultural imperialism. The idea that Vedic or Sanskrit culture represents Indian culture and that other cultures within India are its subcultures and must be incorporated into it, is wrong…. all other cultures native to this land: the culture of the Andaman islanders, the Nagas, the Mundas, the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, etc. are all Indian in their own right. They don’t have to be – and should not be – Sanskritised to make them Indian”."

"The primary concern of Hindu Nationalist socio-economic ideology should be to evolve an ideal model of economic development: one which benefits all sections of society, but which gives particular importance to the concerns and interests of the poorer, weaker and more vulnerable sections; and which does everything to encourage initiative and activity among all sections, but does not give unfair leeway to the rich and the powerful to loot the public, or to loot public funds.... To sum up: we must evolve a nationalist socio-economic ideology which will try to (1) make India a rich, prosperous, peaceful and happy nation; and (2) see that, basically, for every Indian, regardless of race, religion, caste, sex, profession, or any other mark of identity, India truly becomes a land “where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high”, in every sense of the term. The primary guiding principle should be sarve bhavantu sukhinah, sarve santu niramayah, sarve bhadrani pashyantu, ma kashchid duhkha bhag bhavet: “may all be contented and happy, may all be free of pain and disease, may all ever see auspicious times, may no-one be unhappy”."

"what is generally understood by the term Hindutva: an ideology for the defence of Hindu society and civilisation. As the word defence indicates, the first premise is that Hindu society and civilisation are under attack […] Hindu civilisation is the one civilisation whose inner greatness and resilience enabled it to withstand centuries of Christian and Islamic imperialist attack. It is in fact the last major bastion of the pre-Christian civilisations of the world. For that very reason, Hindu society is today the single major target of all these Imperialisms, which are backed by powerful international forces".... Hindus must be educated, on the one hand, about Hindu civilisation and its rich heritage .... and, on the other, about the forces out to destroy this civilisation, about the textual sources, ideologies, histories, strategies and present activities of these forces, and about the Hindu struggles against these forces and the Hindu heroes involved in these struggles. It is also necessary to alert Hindus to the inner weaknesses which make Hindu society susceptible to these forces, the dangers of Secularism, the self-alienation among the Hindu elites and ruling classes and their indifference to, and contempt for, their own culture and civilisation, the breakdown of the defence mechanism of Hindu society, the perversion of certain Hindu values like tolerance, universalism and humanism, and the abandonment of certain other Hindu values like self-respect, rationalism and capacity for objective analysis"....n the past, much evil, injustice and damage has been done in the name of religion; but even more evil, injustice and damage has been done, and is being done even now on an ever-increasing scale, in the name of progress and development. As a result of many of the half-baked, ill-thought of, or plainly mercenary, things which take place in the name of progress and development, the world not only becomes vastly poorer of large parts of its rich heritage, which is lost forever, but it often has to pay a heavy price for it (the lethal effects of deforestation, industrial pollution, and mega-urbanisation, for example, are already apparent; and will become so clear in the days to come, that even the most determined opponent of social and environmental concerns will be compelled to note them; by when, of course, it will be too late, since some things become irreversible after a point of time), and the results, even otherwise, are often pathetic, tragic and depressing"....the ultimate basis of any ideology must be Truth, and the ultimate aim Justice. And, all issues of Justice can be broadly classified under two heads: Cultural Justice and Socio-Economic Justice. But, the fact is that vested interests, throughout history, have always conspired to place these two categories in mutually antagonistic slots.... It is time for Hindutva to break out of this vicious circle, and to start representing Right against Wrong, rather than Right against Left."

"But, at the same time, in spite of all the inegalitarianism and injustice which permeates the laws and the stories which illustrate the application of these laws, there is a thread of basic humanitarianism which runs through the gamut of Indian civilisation, which makes India appropriately qualified to show the path to the rest of the world at this crucial juncture in human history - not on the basis of Hindu precedents, but on the basis of this basic humanitarianism developed to its full potential."

"An analytical examination of just the three following assertions by Michael Witzel provides us with a great many examples of this exercise in deception:...Thus there is a regular AIT methodology by which every geographical name or word found in, or missing in, the Rigveda is to be interpreted: every eastern word found in the text is to be treated as indicative of a new area with which the Rigvedic Aryans are newly becoming familiar, and every eastern word not found as indicative of an eastern area not yet known to the immigrating Aryans; every western word found is to be treated as indicative of an area associated with the early days of the Aryan immigrations, and every western word not found as indicative of an area already old and forgotten by the immigrating Aryans"

"The importance of the Sarasvatī in Indian historical studies has multiplied manifold since archaeological analyses of the Ghaggar-Hakra river bed, combined with detailed satellite imagery of the course of the ancient (now dried up) river, conclusively showed that it had almost dried up by the mid-second millennium BCE itself, and that, long before that, it was a mighty river, mightier than the Indus, and that an overwhelming majority of the archaeological sites of the Harappan cities are located on the banks of the Sarasvatī rather than of the Indus. This has lethal implications for the AIT, which requires an Aryan invasion around 1500 BCE after the decline of the Harappan civilization, since it shows that the Vedic Aryans, who lived ―on both banks (Rigveda VII.96.2) of a mighty Sarasvatī in full powerful flow, must have been inhabitants of the region long before 1500 BCE and in fact may be identical with the indigenous Harappans. Therefore, there is now a desperate salvage operation on, in powerful leftist and "secularist" political circles in India, to put a complete full stop to any further official research on the Sarasvatī (including archaeological and geological investigations), and to launch an all-out Goebbelsian campaign through a captive media to deny that there ever was a Vedic Sarasvatī river in existence in India: the river named in the Rigveda was either completely mythical, or it was the river in Afghanistan, but it definitely was not identical with the Ghaggar-Hakra!"

"Witzel‘s location of the Sarasvatī in Book 2 in Afghanistan is not an honest one: he does it only because he wants a Rigvedic Book which refers only to western rivers, in order to show the Vedic Aryans ―fighting their way through the NW mountain passes in their alleged movement from west to east, and Book 2 is his only option, since the name of only this one river is mentioned in the whole of this Book, and it is a name which can be manipulated from east to west by creating a dual entity (thanks to the existence of a Sarasvatī, the Avestan Harahvaiti, in Afghanistan)."

"But Jahnāvī is typically a Rigvedic form of the post-Vedic Jāhnavī, and it does not require any "Epic/Purāṇic concepts" to recognize it as the name of a river: a river is a geographical feature, not a mythological entity whose identity is based on traditional historical or mythological texts. On the other hand, Witzel‘s claim that ―Jahnāvī was the wife or a female relation of Jahnu or otherwise connected to him or his clan is definitely based on Epic/Purāṇic concepts: no person named Jahnu is mentioned anywhere in the Rigveda,...Jahnu himself is an Epic/Purāṇic figure...Not only does Witzel accept this Epic/Purāṇic person as the source of the Rigvedic word Jahnāvī, he even visualizes, in the manner of the Amar Chitrakatha comic books, a mysterious lady named Jahnāvī, "the wife or a female relation of Jahnu or otherwise connected to him or his clan", whose very existence is completely unknown to the whole of Vedic and Epic/Purāṇic literature and Indian tradition, but who is apparently so very important in the Rigveda that she is mentioned twice (how many other ladies are mentioned twice in the Rigveda outside of references to people aided by the Aśvins?) in special references, which are worded so peculiarly (what, after all, unless she was a symbol of the motherland, like the present-day Bhāratmātā, has this lady to do with an ―ancient home), that they can be more conveniently and logically translated as references to a river!"

"Note what Witzel is writing shortly before reading TALAGERI 2000:....But immediately after reading the analysis of the Rigveda in TALAGERI 2000, there is a magical transformation in Witzel‘s attitude:...The fact is that writing in historical subjects has become a front for pursuing political agendas or personal ego-trips. Before the year 2000, also, Witzel was an AIT writer; but this was not his main battlefront. It had genuinely never occurred to him, any more than it could have occurred to any other AIT writer, that there could be a serious and fundamental threat to the AIT model on which the analysis of the ancient history of South Asia, and of the Vedic texts, had so far been based. Therefore, they could indulge in academic quibbling on other minor points within the AIT framework....But, after the publication of TALAGERI 2000, priorities changed rapidly: it became necessary to close AIT ranks in a holy crusade against the new case and the new evidence for the OIT. The identity of the Harappan language could wait ― or could be pursued separately in different articles; after all, Witzel has a limitless capacity for writing mutually contradictory things, sometimes on the very same page, without causing the slightest dent in the faith and loyalty of his admirers ― what was important now was to rapidly drag the Vedic Aryans of the early period all the way back from the area of the Gangā to the safety of Afghanistan. Hence, all the post-2000 assertions and conclusions about the Gangā! Clearly, such writing can not be called scholarly writing under any circumstance, and one must be very, very careful indeed before placing the slightest credence in the views, interpretations and conclusions of such writers, howsoever high a position they may hold in the academic world."

"In my earlier book on the Rigveda, I examined the Rigvedic data in detail, and showed that the chronological order of the ten Books of the RV is: 6,3,7,4,2,5,8,9,10, with different parts of Book 1 covering the periods of all but the three earliest Books. I also showed in systematic detail that Family Books 6, 3 and 7 belong to the Early period, Family Books 4 and 2 to the Middle period, and the rest (Book 5 among the Family Books, and all the other, ie. non-family, Books, 8, 9 and 10, and most of Book 1) belong to the Late period"

"What is important, at this point, is to make it very, very clear, at the outset itself, that this level of chronological information, simply classifying the Books into "earlier" (2-4, 6-7), and "later" (5, 1, 8-10), officially accepted by the western scholars themselves, is sufficient (without going into further chronological details) to irrefutably establish the two conclusions that we arrived at in our chapters on the Relative Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda..."

"But this, besides being seemingly "possible" (by straining the credulity of even the most credulous and partisan reader to the utmost limit) only in respect of a very few names, would not help in explaining the almost complete absence of Western geographical data in the Early Books. Therefore, Witzel also tries to transfer eastern geographical data to the west,.... or by creating dual entities (eg. an Eastern Haryana-Sarasvatī, as well as a Western Afghan-Sarasvatī, both referred to in the Rigveda, with Witzel being the only person possessing the key to distinguish which Sarasvatī is being referred to in which verse."

"As we saw, there is a large class of personal names and name-elements common to the Late Books and hymns of the Rigveda (386 hymns in the Late Books of the Rigveda and 8 Late hymns in the earlier Books), and to the Avesta (the bulk of the names, right from the name of the first composer of the Avesta, and the names of his closest associates), the Mitanni (including every common name element known), and the Kassites (the only known name). These names and name-elements are fundamental to all four groups, but completely absent in the Early and Middle Books of the Rigveda (apart from the 8 Late hymns mentioned earlier). And all these names and name-elements are very common in post-Rigvedic texts."

"Witzel frequently refers to the references to armaka, "ruins", in the RV, as evidence that the RV is later to the desolation of the Indus cities... In any case, the word armaka, so frequently referred to in the post-RV literature, is found in the RV only in one late hymn in a Late Book: in I.133.3. The Early and Middle Books, and even much of the Late Books, are totally ignorant about these ruins."

"The first and foremost point is that the people of the Harappan areas, who were allegedly speaking a totally unrelated (to Indo-European) language, or languages, Munda, Dravidian, proto- Burushaski or Language X, completely abandoned that language, or those languages, and switched over to speaking Indo-European (specifically "Indo-Aryan") languages. And this switchover was so total that not a trace remains of the original language (except stray words in Vedic or later Indo-Aryan, which are alleged by certain linguists to be substrate words from those languages, but which, by their nature, would appear, if anything, more to be non-basic adstrate words adopted from neighbour or visitor languages: for example, a word which appears to be undoubtedly of Dravidian origin, the Vedic word kā ṇ a, "one- eyed", from Dravidian ka ṇ , "eye"). This situation is unique, extraordinary and unparalleled in more ways than one: the linguistic transformation was allegedly so complete that even the names of places and rivers in the area were so completely Indo-Europeanized or "Aryanized" that not a trace remains, even in the oldest hymns, of any alleged earlier "non-Aryan" names. ...Therefore, the transformation that is alleged to have taken place in the Harappan areas was absolutely total. It is alleged to have left almost no traces whatsoever of the original "belief, mythology and language", or of the original "complex of material and spiritual culture", other than "complex" clues that scholars like Witzel, and his predecessors and colleagues in the AIT cottage industry, have occasionally managed to dig out for our benefit."

"The totality of the alleged transformation itself is clearly unparalleled and unprecedented, and in every way contrary to the normal: Witzel himself, see above, repeatedly describes different aspects of it as "surprising", "relatively rare" and against what "one would have expected" in such cases. The case becomes impossible when we consider all the aspects together: (a) the transformation was total, (b) the people who brought about this transformation were illiterate, pastoral nomadic tribes "on the move" who "trickled" into the area in miniscule numbers, (c) the people who were transformed were the inhabitants of the most densely populated urban civilization of the time, covering a larger area, and having a relatively longer continuity without much change, than any other contemporary civilization, (d) the change took place within a few hundred years, and (e) it left absolutely no traces in the archaeological record, either of the conflicts and struggles involved or the necessarily resultant changes in ethnic and material composition of the areas after the transformation. It requires extraordinary "special pleading" to advocate such a case."

"What is particularly notable in this special pleading is that it asks us to believe in a combination of abnormal phenomena and lack of evidence. Thus, for example, we could have accepted, in principle, that the river names of the Harappan areas (in an AIT scenario) may have been "Indo-Aryanised", if transformation of river names were the norm in such cases, even in the absence of evidence in this case of any earlier names. But it is not the norm: as Witzel points out, the names of most European rivers, to this day, ―reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations [and] are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C. Again, we would have had to accept that such a transformation took place here, even if it went contrary to the norm, if earlier "non-Indo-Aryan" names of these rivers were on record at least in the texts. But there is not the faintest clue, even in the oldest hymns, that any such names ever existed. This pleading therefore goes both against the norm as well as against the available evidence."

"What adds to the force of the archaeological evidence (of continuity in material and ethnic culture) is the fact that there is considerable acceptable archaeological, as also hydronomic, evidence, for the Indo-European intrusions, in the case of the earliest habitats of most of the other Indo-European branches,...So here, more than in any of the other cases, we should have found massive and unambiguous evidence of the "Indo-Aryan" intrusions, if they ever took place. The total absence of any indications in the material remains of the area, of such a cataclysmic transformation, constitutes massive evidence for the rejection of the very idea that such a transformation took place at all."

"Witzel is finally compelled to fall back on open pleading as follows: "any archaeologist should know from experience that the unexpected occurs and that one has to look at the right place". In other words, "there is no archaeological evidence, true. But it must be there somewhere, it is just that no-one has found it as yet; it is only just waiting to be found"! As if some yet-to-be-discovered sites could provide the archaeological and anthropological evidence, for a total transformation which affected the entire region, which is missing in all the discovered sites from the same region. This is the sort of wishful appeal-to-faith pleading that Indians are (not unjustly) accused of resorting to when their ideas of ancient India are out of tune with the material evidence:... By Witzel‘s logic, even the claim of many Indians that ancient India had aeroplanes should not be dismissed simply because aeroplanes have not yet been found in any archaeological record!"

"But it is time this state of affairs came to an end and accountability is brought into the AIT-vs.-OIT debate. AIT scholars can not be allowed to get away with this kind of compartmentalized discussions any more, where they can postulate any theory or situation to answer the objection, or the uncomfortable fact which cannot be swept under the carpet, that is before them at the moment, even when this theory or postulated situation sharply contradicts, or is totally incompatible with, what they postulate in other contexts."

"The Harappan civilization is situated deep within Indo-European ("Indo-Aryan") territory. The closest non-Indo-European families are at some distance:... There is no linguistic, archaeological or anthropological evidence indicating that the Harappan civilization was supplanted by a linguistically different race of people: on the contrary, archaeologists and anthropologists insist on continuity in the anthropological situation from Harappan times well into post- Vedic times. In these circumstances, the Harappan civilization should have been assumed to be Indo-European until proved otherwise. However, in gross violation of normal scholarly practice, it has been assumed to be non-Indo-European."

"So we have scholars accepting two different paradigms, both of which complement each other and should therefore have been treated as two parts of a whole: on the one hand, a widespread network of archaeological sites of a vast, highly-developed civilization (the Harappan civilization) lasting over thousands of years, which has allegedly left no literary records at all although it had a writing system; and, on the other, a full-fledged developed culture and civilization (the Vedic civilization) which has left a vast and detailed body of organized literature (unparalleled by any other known civilization of the same period) although it had no system of writing at all, but which has left absolutely no archaeological traces behind, both located in more or less the very same area! [This contradiction was first pointed out by David Frawley]."

"The "equine argument" is one of the most hypocritical arguments in the AIT armory, since the crux of the argument seems to be as follows: "the equine archaeological data does not provide material evidence for an OIT, therefore the OIT stands automatically disqualified. The equine archaeological data does not provide any material evidence whatsoever for an AIT either; but this does not disqualify the AIT, as the AIT does not require this evidence since the AIT is beyond doubt or question"."

"There is no direct ethnic connection between the identities of different peoples of the Rigvedic period and the identities of actual different peoples living in present-day India, or indeed in the world today. (TALAGERI 2008:363)"

"”Nor is there any group, caste or community in India which can be directly identified ethnically with the Purus: neither the inhabitants (or particular castes from among them) of present-day Haryana, U.P. or Punjab, nor the different Brahmin groups, found in every part of India, which claim direct descent from the different families of rsis of the Rigveda….In short, the history of Vedic times is just that: the history of Vedic times. It has to do with the history of civilizations and language families, and must be recognized as such; but it does not have anything whatsoever to do with relations between different ethnic, caste or communal groups of the present day. The biases and conflicts of ancient times are the biases and conflicts of ancient peoples with whom present day peoples have no direct connections” (TALAGERI 2008:365-6)."

"“The evidence of the Avestan meters confirms to the hilt the conclusions compelled by the evidence of the Avestan names: namely, (...) that the Early and Middle Books of the Rigveda precede the period of composition of the Avesta”. (Talageri 2009:80)"