psuedo-science Uncertain ancestries

UNCERTAIN ANCESTRIES
- Who are the Indians?
Writing on the wall - Ashok V. Desai

There are many similarities between Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages like Greek and Latin. But the similarity does not extend to the people who speak them. Europeans are taller and fairer, and often have blue eyes and blonde hair, whereas Indians generally stick to brown eyes and black hair. These facts have caused confusion, and generated copious academic and pseudo-scholarly literature.

According to Christian mythology, every human and animal is descended from those whom Noah accommodated in his boat at the time of the great flood. Thus, humans are all descended from Noah’s three sons. His family lived on the mountain of Ararat in Armenia. It spoke the same language. But after the Tower of Babel was built, verbose debate broke out, and different languages emerged. Thus Père Coeurdoux, a French priest, stated in 1768: “The Samskroutam language is that of the ancient Brahmes; they came to India from Caucasia. Of the sons of Japhet, some spoke Samskroutam.” The linguistic similarities were noticed even earlier. Soon after Vasco Da Gama discovered the Cape route to India. Filippo Sassetti, an Italian Jesuit priest who was in Goa in the 1580s, noted that the terms in Sanskrit and in Mediterranean languages for six, seven, eight and nine, God, snakes, etc were similar. Some held that Sanskrit was the original language whence all others emerged. In the 19th century, philologists formulated rules of linguistic evolution, which went against that notion. But even if Sanskrit was not the mother of all languages, it was believed to be the oldest surviving daughter of the original Indo-European language.

The 19th century saw the beginnings of anthropology. One of its first conceptual categories was race: Caucasian, negroid, mongoloid, etc. Strangely, anthropologists did not specify a race for Indians. They were dark like negroes, but did not have their curly hair or broad noses. Some British colonials referred to Indians as niggers; but this was not a commonly accepted classification. But whatever they were, Indians were not regarded as Caucasian once India was colonized. So the question arose: how did these un-Aryan people have their scriptures in an ancient Aryan language?

The answer in the 19th century was that Sanskrit was the language of Aryans who came to India from Iran, Afghanistan or central Asia, and that they intermarried with local Dravidian and Munda people until the present mixture emerged. The geography of languages fitted the theory. Northerners spoke Aryan languages, southerners Dravidian languages, and Mundas were scattered towards the east. A few Dravid and Munda words were found in Sanskrit, which seemed to support the story of migration.

When did the Aryans come to India? Evidently before the Vedas were written. No references to European or central Asian flora and fauna are found in the Vedas. So they were written in India; the Aryans must have come to India before they composed their Sanskrit literature. Max Müller, professor of Sanskrit in Oxford in the second half of the 19th century, found a reference to one Katyayana Vararuchi in Kathasaritsagara, the Ocean of Stories. He was supposed to have been made prime minister by King Nanda. Nanda ruled before the Mauryas. So Max Müller placed him in 350-300 BC. He assumed this was the same Katyayana who had written some sutras. So he assigned them to 600-200 BC. The sutras refer to parts of Vedic texts called Brahmanas, so the latter must have been written before the former; he assigned them to 800-600 BC. Brahmanas were preceded by certain mantras, and mantras by chhandas.

Max Müller gave each a period of 200 years, and so came to 1200-1000 BC for the earliest parts of Vedic literature. He thought that 200 years was too short, but one had to start somewhere. Later, he himself said that it was impossible to determine the date of the Vedas. But it did not matter; Western scholars adopted Max Müller’s dates as definitive.

Meanwhile, Sir Alexander Cunningham, while wandering across Punjab and Sind, came across Harappa and Mohenjo Daro in 1853. His discoveries were forgotten till the 1920s, when Sir John Marshall excavated Mohenjo Daro. He had found an urban civilization; it did not fit with the Vedas, which hardly mention cities. Indus seals found in Mesopotamia, which placed the Indus civilization in 2000-1500 BC at the latest. The (still undeciphered) script of the Indus seals was unrelated to Devanagari, and ruled out the civilization as having been Aryan. If the Aryans came to India, crossed the Indus valley and wrote the Vedas in 1200-1000 BC, they must have crossed the path of the Indus people. On the basis of 37 skeletons he found in the citadel of Mohenjo Daro, Sir John concluded that the city had been overrun by Aryan hordes. Later examination showed that only one of the 37 could have met a violent death. If Aryans had destroyed the Indus civilization, they should have left substantial evidence of destruction and death. It has not been found yet, so the story of invasion remains unproved.

The Indus civilization was so called because Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, the first sites discovered, were in the Indus valley. With Partition, Indian archaeologists lost the Indus valley sites. They had to find something else to do, so they started excavating sites in India. They found plenty of Indus valley sites; Lothal in Gujarat and Dholera in Kutch are the best known.

Vedic literature talks of Saptasindhu, the seven rivers. Five are the rivers of Punjab — Beas, Sutlej, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum. Indus is the sixth; where is the seventh? The Vedas called it Saraswati, but it has disappeared meanwhile. C.F. Oldham made a guess in 1893 that a dry riverbed called Ghaggar or Hakra running through Bikaner and Bahawalpur was once the Saraswati about which the Vedic writers waxed so lyrical. Satellite imagery has revealed that both the Sutlej and the Jumna once flowed into the Ghaggar; they would have made it a substantial river. Both changed course and left Ghaggar dry. Sir Aurel Stein found many Harappan and post-Harappan sites along its course. In Pakistan, Rafique Mughal has found 414 sites from 4000-2000 BC along the Hakra. Potsherds known as Painted Grey Ware, found in the bed of the Ghaggar, are dated to 1000 BC, so the river must have dried up before then. These dates place the Vedas much before 1000 BC. And if they are older, their composers must have coincided with or preceded the Harappans.

The Vedas show no awareness of any region outside India; but there is outside literature that bears close resemblance to them. The oldest part of Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrians, is called yasna; it consists of five gathas whose language is close to Sanskrit. It mentions Hapta Hendu, Harahvaiti and Harayu. Then there is a 14th-century BC treaty between a Hittite and a Mitanni king (Turkish and Iraqi in modern parlance) which mentions the gods Indara, Mitras, and Uruvanass, who could be Indra, Mitra and Varuna. Edwin Bryant tells us all this in his The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture (Oxford, 2003), but does not answer in the end who Indians are.

On April 3, 1941, a man claiming to be an Italian diplomat arrived in Berlin, demanding to meet with Ernst Woermann, Germany’s undersecretary of state. Woermann listened carefully to the man’s plans, which sought to create a government in exile and launch a military strike against a shared enemy. The government the diplomat planned would be Indian, and the target would be British India.

“Orlando Mazzotta” was in fact Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian leftist radical nationalist and former president of the Indian National Congress. Just a few months earlier Bose had escaped from Calcutta with the help of German and Italian officials. One of India’s national icons, practically on par with Gandhi, Bose eventually became a hero of the anticolonial resistance, establishing the Indian National Army and recruiting thousands to fight imperial power.


Despite the strategic benefits of partnering with Bose, the Nazis did not know what to do with him, and the rebel’s irrepressible radicalism only further complicated their overlapping aims. Very little has been published on Bose’s activities in Nazi Germany and his overtures to fascist regimes. Romain Hayes is the first to focus exclusively on Bose’s interactions with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, making extensive use of German, Indian, and British sources, including memoranda, notes, minutes, reports, telegrams, letters, and broadcasts. He also draws on rare materials from recently released German archives. Hayes ultimately reveals lesser known aspects of Nazi foreign policy and challenges Ghandi-centric portrayals of the Indian independence movement.

 October, 2011
Cloth, 224 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-70234-8
$30.00

Subhas Chandra Bose In Nazi Germany: Politics, Intelligence, and Propaganda 1941-43

Romain Hayes

A union made of unwieldy states - Views - livemint.com

A union made of unwieldy states - Views - livemint.com

Yourfamily.com - finding ancestors and lost relatives

tamilsantham's Channel - YouTube

tamilsantham's Channel - YouTube

France's 'Untouchable' awarded grand prix at Tokyo film festival | Kyodo News

France's 'Untouchable' awarded grand prix at Tokyo film festival

TOKYO, Oct. 30, Kyodo

French film ''Untouchable,'' directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, was awarded Sunday the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix, the top prize at the 24th Tokyo International Film Festival.

The Special Jury Prize was given to the Japanese production ''The Woodsman and the Rain'' directed by Shuichi Okita. The award presentation ceremony on the festival's final day was held at Roppongi Hills in Tokyo.

The French production is a comedy drama based on a true story of a rich man paralyzed from the neck down in an accident and a young black man chosen as his caregiver.

The Japanese movie is about an improbable friendship between a woodsman who lives in the mountains and the rookie young director who along with a crew arrives in the mountains to shoot a zombie film.

Ruben Oestlund was given the Best Director award for his ''Play,'' while Glenn Close in ''Albert Nobbs'' was chosen Best Actress, and Francois Cluzet and Omar Sy in ''Uncouthcable'' shared the Best Actor award.

Best Artistic Contribution went to ''Kora'' and ''Detachment.'' The Audience Award was given to ''When Pigs Have Wings.''

==Kyodo

Mumbai eve-teasing murders accused identified | Firstpost

Mumbai eve-teasing murders accused identified

Nov 16, 2011

Mumbai: An identification parade of four accused in the murder of two youths who resisted eve-teasing in suburban Amboli was today conducted in a city jail in which the eyewitnesses recognised the attackers, police said.

“An identification parade was today conducted in the Arthur Road jail when the 12 eyewitnesses identified the four accused saying they were the ones who killed the youths,” said VD Bhoite, senior inspector of DN Nagar police station.

Victims of mindless violence. PTI

The victims’ friends and people standing at the spot were among the witnesses present in the jail today, police said.

On 20 October, Reuben Fernandez (28) and Keenan Santos (25) were attacked by a group of four after the duo objected to their acts of indecent behaviour against girls with whom they had gone on an outing. Keenan died on the spot, while Fernandez died in a hospital after a few days.

Santos and Fernandez, along with five others, including three girls, had gone to a restaurant to have dinner and watch a cricket match on a giant screen put up there. After a while, they came out of the restaurant and were standing near a pan-shop when the incident had occurred.

“An executive magistrate was present during the parade. The result was positive as the witnesses have identified all the accused and this will strengthen our case, which is already watertight. The report by the executive magistrate will be now compiled and sent to court concerned,” said deputy commissioner of police Pratap Dighavkar.

The accused have been charged under sections 302 (murder), 354 (insulting the modesty of woman) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC.

“When I went to identify them, they had no guilt at all … no remorse at all,” said Priyanka Fernandes, Keenan’s girlfriend.

Conversation: Stephen Mitchell, Author of the New Translation of Homer's 'The Iliad' | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS

Conversation: Stephen Mitchell, Author of the New Translation of Homer's 'The Iliad' | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS

Watch Conversation: Stephen Mitchell's 'The Iliad' by Homer on PBS. See more from PBS NEWSHOUR.

The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See (part 1 of 8) - YouTube

The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See (part 1 of 8) - YouTube

Dr. Kiki's Science Hour 84 | TWiT.TV

Dr. Kiki's Science Hour 84 | TWiT.TV

Now, Cambridge to study ancient Sanskrit texts | Firstpost

Now, Cambridge to study ancient Sanskrit texts

Nov 8, 2011

London: A major exercise in ‘linguistic archaeology’ has set out to complete a comprehensive survey of Cambridge University South Asian manuscript collection, which includes the oldest dated and illustrated Sanskrit manuscript
known worldwide.

Written on now-fragile birch bark, palm leaf and paper, the 2,000 manuscripts in the collection at the University Library express centuries-old South Asian thinking on religion, philosophy, astronomy, grammar, law and poetry.

The project, which is led by Sanskrit-specialists Dr Vincenzo Vergiani and Dr Eivind Kahrs, will study and catalogue each of the manuscripts, placing them in their broader historical context, a university release said.

In the 1870s, Dr Daniel Wright, surgeon of the British Residency in Kathmandu, rescued the now-priceless cultural and historical artefacts from a disused temple, where they had survived largely by chance. Reuters

Most of the holdings will also be digitised by the library and made available through the library’s new online digital library. “In a world that seems increasingly small, every artefact documenting the history of ancient civilisations has become part of a global heritage to be carefully preserved and
studied,” explained Dr Vergiani, who is in the University’s Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

“Among such artefacts, manuscripts occupy a distinctive place – they speak to us with the actual words of long-gone men and women, bringing their beliefs, ideas and sensibilities to life”. He added: “One reason this collection is so important is because of the age of many of the manuscripts.

“In the heat and humidity of India, materials deteriorate quickly and manuscripts needed to be copied again and again. As a result, many of the early Indian texts no longer exist”. Some of the oldest holdings of the Library’s South Asian collection were discovered not in India but in Nepal, where the climate is more temperate.

In the 1870s, Dr Daniel Wright, surgeon of the British Residency in Kathmandu, rescued the now-priceless cultural and historical artefacts from a disused temple, where they had survived largely by chance.

An early catalogue of part of the collection in 1883 found among its treasures a 10th-century Buddhist Sanskrit manuscript from India – the oldest dated and illustrated Sanskrit manuscript known worldwide.

More than half of the collection is in Sanskrit, a language that has dominated the literary culture of pre-modern South Asia for almost three millennia.

Its earliest attestations are found in the Vedic hymns (texts that are still central to Hinduism), dating from the end of the second millennium BC. “The word Sanskrit means refined or perfected. From a very early stage, its speakers were obsessed with handing down their sacred texts intact,” said Vergiani.

“Out of this developed an attention to how the language works. A grammatical tradition arose that produced, around the 4th century BC, the work of Panini, an amazing intellectual achievement and arguably the beginning of linguistics worldwide, which made the language constant, stable and transmissible”. It is this robustness that Vergiani believes explains how the language became so prevalent across South Asia – a situation that has been likened to the spread of Latin across Europe.

“It was used by religious figures and royalty, scholars and scientists, administrators and artists. Well into modern times, Sanskritic culture was very much alive throughout India, and the language is still used by a number of intellectuals and religious figures today”.

The widespread use of Sanskrit as the language of power and communication across South Asia makes the collection at the Library so significant.

The manuscripts, written in centuries that spanned momentous political and economic change, are an invaluable and untapped source for understanding the pre-colonial past of South Asia, and therefore its present. By combining traditional philological methods with advanced information technology, the project will make these extraordinary documents available in new ways, helping to further research on the intellectual traditions, religious
cults, literature and political ideas of South Asia.

PTI

Justice Karnan

Madras HC judge claims victimization - The Times of India

NEW DELHI/CHENNAI: A serving judge of the Madras high court has claimed to being victimized on caste grounds, accusing his brother judges of trying to put him down and subjecting him to humiliation for taking up litigations in an independent manner.

Justice C S Karnan has petitioned the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and sought an inquiry. While he has not mentioned caste as the reason for alleged prejudice against him, the judge's decision to approach the dalit watchdog has seen the commission view the case as one of caste discrimination.

Sources said NCSC chairman P L Punia has written to Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia urging him to look into the matter. When contacted, Punia refused to dwell on details, saying the aggrieved judge was a dalit and the complaint was being treated with all seriousness.

Justice Karnan, in his three-page letter to NCSC, said his independent way of dealing with petitions had annoyed brother judges.

He claimed colleagues humiliated him by deliberately pointing their shoes at him at a social function and by crushing a name plate carrying his name.

Justice Karnan even alleged that lawyers backed by judges tried to instigate him in the court premises and an investigation of their telephone call records could be carried out to prove their involvement.

When contacted, Justice Karnan told TOI that he was ready for a "public inquiry" to prove his allegations of harassment and discrimination. Justice Karnan, who has been in the eye of a storm over some of his rulings, said he would use the inquiry to disprove allegations against him as well.

In his petition, the judge said, "... at one of the marriage celebrations in Chennai where one of my brother judges, who was seated to the right side of me, crossed over his leg deliberately touching mine and on the second occasion at the Republic Day celebrations, the same judge again seated next to me and slyly removed the name slip which was attached to the arm of my chair with a string and stuck it to the bottom of his right leg where it got crumpled."

Attempts to instigate are repeatedly mentioned by Justice Karnan. "On another public occasion when we brother judges congregated once again for a public celebration, one of the brother judges behind the row of mine kept on shaking my chair repeatedly with the intention to annoy me," he said.

According to Justice Karnan, his refusal to be part of a group or coordinated consultations on cases was not liked by some judges who expected him to conform to the unwritten code. He said the objective behind such behaviour was to "reduce (his) role to subjugation".

His decision not to kowtow to expectations in court proceedings led to his sidelining. He said he had been deprived of participating in (events) in his native district of Cuddalore as special guest while he had also been denied participation in the National Judicial Academy except once when he had just joined the HC.

In a serious charge, the judge said 70 lawyers "encouraged and financed" by a few judges would assemble on the fifth floor of the HC during court hours in an inebriated state and would try to instigate him, and some of them would even gather in the corridor outside his room with the same objective.

Justice Karnan, talking to TOI, referred to canards and allegations against him. He said, "Just because I hail from a humble background, they cannot target me. I rose to this level due to sheer hard work and merit. During a felicitation after my elevation to the high court, lawyers offered me a crown. I have been living up to their expectations. Now, my reputation is in tatters. As a public servant receiving salary from public exchequer, I owe an explanation to people. I am ready for a public inquiry."