Talk:Aryan invasion theory/Archive1

Is this paragraph NPOV:

Some of the opponents of the theory have (perhaps inadvertently) considerably weakened their case by means of particularly objectionable conduct. Their claims are remarkably clouded by their frequent use of argumentum ad hominem (notably against Frederick Max Müller and Prof. Romila Thapar), and a considerable tendency to adopt paranoid rather than scholarly arguments. RickK 22:59 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

response by the author of the paragraph:

While it may seem to an uninformed observer (as I imagine you, Mr. RickK, to be) that the corresponding paragraph in the current version is biased, it is actually a fact that many well established historians have been subjected to 'flame', hate mail, effigy burning and other attacks of an academically unjustifiable nature in recent years, solely because they have chosen to defend the AIT.

You may wish to search the web for Prof. Romila Thapar, for example, to see that this is a fact. I am unable to provide a "reciprocal" case, to be "fair", since the defenders of AIT have not chosen to use similar tactics against their rivals.

While the mention of attacks against just one side of the debate may seem to be unfair, do you think it is still the case, given the above?

If so, I welcome you to remove the offending paragraph, or to change it as you see fit. (I am personally not too keen on the paragraph, but thought I might provide some flavor of the current controversy)

Thanks.

I would disagree... though no doubt there is plenty of bile devoted to Romila Thapar, to highlight this in particular (e.g. effigy-burning and so on) is to stain the reputation of opponents of the theory, not all of whom engage in such behavior, and some of whom are serious scholars; the paragraph is thus an example of the logical fallacy guilt by association. Graft 03:49 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

response by the author of the paragraph:

I *did not* highlight effigy burning etc in the article (only in my response), but only the fallacious tactics being used by *some of them* to further the opposition (and which, in fact seems to have had greater effect in popularising it in a *political* and populist way, compared to the attempts of the more level headed partisans of the opposition at scholarly persuasion).

Note that, I only criticise *some* of the opponents, for having succumbed to such objectionable conduct. It is of course possible to modify it in a way to emphasise that this definitely does not mean *all*.

In a discussion of the *politics* of the debate, (as opposed to the scholarly debate itself, which I see as being discussed before the section titled politics, and to end there), it is not too unreasonable to detail the mistakes in argument used to further the political debate. As long as it does not appear in the main text of the article comparing the two different view points in the scholarly angle, it does not, as such, seem to constitute a guilt by association. What is being attempted is not a statement on the debate itself, but of some of the ways in which it has gone in the wrong direction, on a different plane (the political).

As I hinted before, it would be a welcome effort if someone could come up with an example of similar victimisation of the attackers of the theory. However, I would doubt its success.

Let me reiterate that I have no objection to removing the paragraph entirely. (I welcome the objectors to do so, if they are unconvinced, since I personally will not). However, it seems that the rather murky turn the controversy has taken in populist circles, needs to be indicated somehow to give a true picture of things, especially to prevent a new reader of this article from getting the impression that all resources he is likely to come across on this topic are acceptable on a scholastic level.

End of response

philology

I'm not a linguist, but the examples chosen in the article to show the connection between modern-day Hindi and some Western languages are weak, to say the least. Sugar/azucar/sucre/Zucker etc., for example, is a modern word brought west through Arabic, reaching Europe much later. You could marshal the same sort of evidence to show the common origins of Chinese and Western languages [tea, the, cha, etc.] As for "path," it strikes me as a fluke and nothing but.

There are better examples, which someone else can provide, to show the common Indo-European roots of Sanskrit, Greek, German, Latin, Russian, etc. While I would not eliminate the current text, I would rewrite it asap. Fascinating article otherwise.

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It's a bit pointless having an edit war over "At this time few historians accept the theory" vs "At this time most historians accept the theory". Is there any survey of historians that would give hard figures either way? If not, where does the information come from, given that this article has no external links at all? Would it be possible to list a few historians that support and oppose the theory? ( 13:09, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I doubt there's a survey as such, but the evidence for the majority view is simply overwhelming and leaves little doubt, being disputed only by varieties of Indian nationalists. Of course, the NPOV way to say this is going to be something like "At this time few historians accept the theory", unless there's a better way to put it. Thus, I think Graft's edit is a mistake. -- VV 22:17, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well, I'll admit most of what I've read is written by Hindutvadis, but I find a lot of their challenges credible and well-reasoned, and I don't think the "evidence for the majority view" leaves little doubt. Also I'm not so certain that it's the majority view any longer, but there I'm stepping off the map. At any rate, I really don't think it adds that much to this article, and we'd do much better just to lay out the arguments. Now... if you could point me to some good reading for the "majority view", i'm eager to consume it. Graft 03:01, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Good reading would probably be any book on the subject. The most straightforward evidence is probably linguistic: Sanskrit is Indo-European; Tamil, etc., are Dravidian, and pockets of Dravidian languages survive in northern parts of India. Sanskrit's extremely close link to Avestan and thus modern Farsi is beyond dispute, and the IE link to Greek, German, etc., is well established. In addition, the Hindu gods and beliefs often have direct one-to-one relationships to the Greek and Roman gods, and, more locally, there are whole sections of the Avesta which are nearly word-for-word identical to the Vedas. And so on and so forth. All this is totally irreconcilable with an ancient continuous Indian civilization (unless you go further and propose an Indian origin, which can't be resolved with the two-family situation, and is wholly implausible anyway for other reasons, some in the next paragraph).

In addition, there is a mass of other evidence, covering such things as pottery styles, horse domestication, urbanized vs. nomadic cultures, and so on, which can be traced out of India. All of these point to external sources for Vedic culture, and in fact the Andronovo culture is probably the root of the Indo-Iranian language/culture group. Furthermore, recent molecular studies (on human DNA) confirm the migration occurred. Opposition to this theory should be seen for what it is: a transparent attempt to invent a fictitious infinite past for India's civilization by partisan nationalists. Scraps of evidence can be found, just as they could be for any other wild theory if one looks enough; I'm sure I could come up with "evidence" that the United States is an ancient civilization, and that England was one of her colonies until the "oppressive" Brits invented the reverse story.

Anyway, I don't want to belabor this. But I strongly object to the changes you've made. The way the article reads, AIT is just some random theory proposed in the 19th century, when in fact it is the consensus view of experts in history, linguistics, archaeology, and genetics, backed up by an enormous amount of evidence. -- VV 06:03, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

First, let me be clear that I'm entirely open-minded about this, and I don't have an opinion one way or the other (although considerable interest), and I've defended this article in both directions in the past. However, I'm simply ignorant of current theory... I'll visit a library and read some more on this today.

Anyhow, whatever evidence has since accumulated, I have little doubt about the dubious colonial origins of the theory, although again my reading list might be to blame. And there are plenty of political forces machinating in the opposite direction, desiring to keep the theory alive and kicking. This is why I maintain my skepticism. Graft 15:06, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Having doubts is fine, but don't confuse your doubts with the historical consensus. Decades of painstaking research by scholars across numerous fields, many with probably next to zero interest in politics, should not be airily dismissed as "colonial origins"; the cliched boogeyman of evil, scheming whites all working together is a cheap attack with no merit. I am not aware of any "political forces machinating", unless you count as "political" defending historical truth against crackpot theories by upstart nationalist movements. Why would there be, anyway? All peoples came from somewhere; it's just a matter of where and when. We happen to have figured it out in this case, and the answer is just not the simplest possible (one continuous civilization). (Cf. the discovery that Dorian Greek civilization owes little to Mycenaean Greece.) -- VV 23:04, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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To User:203.197.16.5: please read Wikipedia:NPOV to see how we can resolve the current editing conflicts related to this article. Just editing the article to U-turn it to reflect your point of view is unlikely to help. If you believe your opinions reflect the opinions of a majority of historians, please present evidence here to show that that is the case. -- The Anome 14:42, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Dear 203.197.16.5: Please do not simply interpolate comments into the article. Instead attribute opinions, for example by saying: "opponents of the theory say X", or "supporters of the the theory say Y". Doing this is going to make it less likely that people will keep on reverting your contributions. Again, please read Wikipedia:NPOV for a guide to how to edit contentious articles.

Also, if you are going to change the article radically, please discuss it here, and present your arguments here first. -- The Anome 09:07, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Summarizing the argument

Just to summarise, here are 203.197.16.5's points, with ad hominem attacks removed, extracted by diffing the versions of the articles. "the article" below refers to the version of the article that 203.197.16.5 edits, and other users keep reverting to. -- The Anome 09:28, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

• the article states that this theory is believed by a majority of historians
  • 203.197.16.5 states that this theory is not believed by a majority of historians

• article states that: North Indian languages derived from Sanskrit are part of the Indo-European family of languages; the languages of south India belong to a different linguistic family, the Dravidian languages, with Tamil, a very distinct language in its own right, (with literature and tradition at least as ancient as Sanskrit, and disjoint from the Vedic), as the probable root of linguistic evolution.
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: the earliest Tamil literature dates to 5th century BCE, while Vedic text date back to at least 2000-3000 BCE

• article states that: "While Dravidian languages are primarily confined to the south of India, there is a striking exception: the Brahui, which is spoken in the Indus Valley area, indicating that Dravidian languages were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit."
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: Sure, and as millions of Indians now speak English - maybe Britishers were the original inhabitants of India! Don't you see that such evidence is highly circumstantial? Isn't it equally possible that some small gorup of people form South-India migrated & settled at that place sometime last 4 thousand years? Also, as illustrated by English speaking Indians or Spanish speaking south-Americans, isn't it possible to transfer a language without transfering the culture/population?

• article states that: "Another major argument against identifying the Indus Valley civilization with a continuous, indigenous Vedic civilization is that the society described in the Vedas is primarily a pastoral one, whereas the Indus Valley civilization was heavily urbanized. Few of the elements of such an urban civilization (e.g., temple structures, sewage systems) are described in the Vedas."
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: Not so, Vedas do mention 'Purs' i.e. Walled cities. Also, the geography described in Vedas is quite vast as it encompasses much of the Indus-Saraswati-Ganga basin, which makes it unlikely that vedic people were a bunch of small disjointed tribes.

• article states that: the importance of the tiger in the Indus Valley civilization and its absence in the Vedic texts
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: Vedas as well as the epics frequently mention Vyaghra i.e. Tiger as different from Simha i.e. Lion

• article states that: Attempts to translate the script into some form of Sanskrit have been notable failures
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: 'notable failures' are in fact the only reasonably successful attempts towards the decipherment of the script

• article states that: Proponents say that the identification of the Saraswati with the Hakra would lead to inconsistencies, and that the Saraswati is very probably a particular river in Afghanistan
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: RgVeda's 10th mandala mentions east to west order of Indian rivers - Saraswati comes after Yamuna and before Sutlej - so it cant be any Afgani river. Also, the Vedas mention the river Saraswati to be 'falling into the sea', which is unlikely if it were a river in Afganistan. In fact, Saraswati is mentioned(even invoked as mother goddess) about 60-70 times in the RgVeda, which is much higher than vedic references to Indus.

• article states that: there are many South Indians who have adopted the 'Dravidian' identity as a matter of ethnic pride.
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: South Indians have no affinity for AIT i.e. aryan invasion theory. Communists-e.g.the infamous JNU, pro-muslim political parties, and western-funded christian organisations are the only ones who oppose indigenousness of vedic culture

• article states that: the Aryan Invasion theory indicates that the Indian caste system was probably originally a means of social engineering by the Aryans to establish and maintain a superior position compared to the Dravidians in Indian society
  • 203.197.16.5 states that: Rgveda clearly links Varna to Karma and not to birth, how come this issue can even arise.

Edit war

I am willing to stop changing the original article for a while. However, the doubts raised here should be addressed so that the article is brought closer to NPOV. As for the 'evidence' on my above comments; wherever i refer to vedic texts, i can provide references to corresponding mandala-sutra by next month - i would be visiting my hometown where i have the authorative Sanskrit verions.

You may refer to this online-book for some insights: http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/

-- Astavakra

Thanks for that, Astavakra.

I am happy with the way this is going: can people on both sides present their arguments here, with cites if possible. I hope that all concerned will then be able to work towards NPOV statements of the arguments of both sides here, then merge them into the article.

If we can't agree, I suggest asking User:Ed Poor to mediate -- he has been very effective in helping opposing parties to together on other contentious articles. -- The Anome 23:31, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)