A Muslim Indian is kind of annoyed that I say “Muslims in the subcontinent are descended from Hindus.” By this, I mean 99% of the ancestry.
Of course, it can be hard to see the impact of Iranian ancestry. I’m going to look more closely to update my estimate.
I recently got contacted by a British research group. They sample thousands of Bangladeshis, and unlike the Pakistanis, they saw no internal structure aside from some individuals who seem to be a Tibeto-Burman tribal people. Like I said: the Bangladeshis might be called Hindus by Pakistanis, but the Pakistanis marry like they’re Hindus, the Bangladeshis don’t.
Referring to recent mtDNA paper. I am K1a. My Y DNA is H.
K1a is anatolian farmer associated. Wonder if that was with steppe, Iran HG related, or neither. It isn’t particularly known to be part of either.
I know a couple of Hajji Firuz copper age K1a samples which will not accept Yamnaya or even Samara HG on global25 no matter how hard you try as long as there are Ganj Dareh and Barcin neolithic inputs. To know definitively you will need to look for your specific mutations and compare them to ancients to see what plausible line they could belong to.
*Personal
@thewarlock Hey,I have seen you on majority of threads.I am very curious about this whole Brown world.
Can we have a contact on any social media platform.This isnt right place,Greetings to razib sir for providing amazing genetics work.
K1a is an interesting one. My guess is it arrived with Iranian Hunter Gatherers as it is distributed in the Middle East and Europe.
As for the topic of Muslims. Razib is correct, we are mainly descended from local people of the Indian Subcontinent depending on the area where we originate from. Also Pakistanis are much more flexible these days in marrying outside their tribes and castes. But caste is still strong in Pakistan in general. It’s so strong that many still marry within their families, cousin marriages are common etc.
It could have, but the spread looks more Anatolian originated to me. There was supposedly some input from Anatolia to southern Iran 14,000 years ago, but that is not based on ancient DNA so it could be wrong. As time went on, the Indus region displayed more cultural imagery from the middle east, so if it was a middle eastern spread then that relatively recent copper age route is possible.
There is trace ancestry though from outside in Pakistan. Also in certain regions of the subcontinent like Awadh and Hyderabad there are communities with established links from Iran and Yemen. But overall yes, mostly similar to other locals.
I’m surprised by your comments on caste in Pakistan vs Bangladesh. For some reason I would have expected the opposite. Is the practice simply because of social interactions amongst similar people? Ie if say a jat were to marry a chamar – would it be looked down on by the broader family and community?
I hope more Pakistanis and Bangladeshis comment here – would be interesting to hear their take as well.
Here is an article for people who believe Aurabgzeb’s revisionist history by Truschke: https://scroll.in/article/856178/aurangzeb-was-a-bigot-not-just-by-our-standards-but-by-those-of-his-predecessors-and-peers. When even scroll, an extreme leftist paper, comes out against you, it shows how much of a bigot she, aka “historian”, is. I remember that @Razib particularly admires the work of Truschke, calling the lived memory of Hindus wrong. I hope he can give a nuanced critique of the leftist article.
remember that @Razib particularly admires the work of Truschke, calling the lived memory of Hindus wrong. I hope he can give a nuanced critique of the leftist article.
if you fucking mischaracterize me like that again I WILL BAN YOUR FUCKING ASS
if you respond to this comment (anyone) i WILL BAN YOUR FUCKING ASS.
this is not a forum to make shit up about me. if you do so, i will destroy your ability to comment here.
and yes, if anyone responds or alludes to this comment, i will IP ban you. this is not a debate. i am stating something clearly here about the juvenile trolling you people take for granted elsewhere. this won’t pass muster if i notice it.
thewarlock is right, K1a is Anatolian farmer associated. It isn’t associated with ancient Iran.
K1a probably literally originated in Anatolia.
thewarlock, there are multiple ways you could have gotten K1a as an Indian.
The second wave from Near East to Southcentral Asia brought some Anatolian ancestry. But it didn’t impact India.
The wave of Aryans into Southcentral Asia had Anatolian farmer ancestry from Europe.
Check your K1a subclade. It might reveal which one it is from.
@Razib
Often it is claimed that the ethnic Japanese don’t have any West Eurasian ancestry.
But as the Japanese have a lot of Jomon admixture, shouldn’t they have at least around 0.1-3% West Eurasian ancestry as a
full genome analysis(Funadomari Jōmon study) of a 3,800-year-old Jomon person found ~14% European/West Asian related ancestry and ~86% East Asian related ancestry?
Or is it that most Jomons and Ainus don’t have any West Eurasian ancestry?
full genome analysis(Funadomari Jōmon study) of a 3,800-year-old Jomon person found ~14% European/West Asian related ancestry and ~86% East Asian related ancestry?
two things
1) jomon studies are weird and the models don’t fit their ancestry well
2) the west eurasian might simply be because the east asian training set doesn’t fit them well. doesn’t mean they are west eurasian
i assume there is SOME west eurasian tho. it looks like west<->east gene flow in eurasia did happen in the pleistocene
Do most other studies on modern ethnic Japanese reveal any West Eurasian admixture?
Or is it that maybe some individuals have minor West Eurasian admixture but average people don’t have any?
The west Eurasian ancestors of ANE may have something to do with it. An interest connection to this: there are unfired clay hearths in Aurignacian Greece, then there are the ceramic figures in dolni vestonice and sometime after than there is pottery in China. The ceramics needed for the pottery in China could have been spread by this group. Salkhit has ancestry from this group. It isn’t the direct route, instead the ancestry which brought the culture of clay working to those places could have split into 2 or more branches which resulted in this.
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/chinapakistans-all-weather-multi-role-fighter-jf-17-turns-out-to-be-failure/amp-11614999689626.html
China-Pakistan’s all-weather multi-role fighter JF-17 turns out to be failure
https://m.economictimes.com/tech/information-tech/haryana-job-reservation-law-may-trigger-it-exodus-from-gurugram/amp_articleshow/81321676.cms
Haryana job reservation law may trigger IT exodus from Gurugram
Noida and Greater Noida is grateful; with remote work available and improved connectivity by expressways and trains, UP has all the reasons to develop. We just had a new 4G tower installed in our village (not town, not city – a proper village), now internet is much better + 18 hours electricity ? ? .
UP ke maje hi maje hai.
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-supertest-students-russia-india-china.amp
Supertest evaluates performance of engineering students in Russia, U.S., India, China
https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/in-poll-year-cong-govt-in-punjab-launches-gau-bhalaai-camps-7216468/lite/
In poll year, Cong govt in Punjab launches ‘Gau Bhalaai’ camps
The move has set off a political war of words with BJP claiming that Congress was trying to gain mileage in name of cows ahead of state polls and the Shiromani Akali Dal questioning the poor state of the gaushalas.
https://theprint.in/india/education/how-iit-nit-graduates-as-faculty-in-colleges-in-low-income-ne-states-script-success-story/616906/
How IIT, NIT graduates as faculty in colleges in low-income, NE states script success
Our college (in Pune) was given funds under TEQIP. That money helped us repair the decaying infrastructure. Plus we got good air conditioned labs and decent computers (with network storage!!!) (This was way back in early 2010s).
It was renewed as TEQIP 2. Now the article mentions 3rd version of TEQIP.
Catuspadi’s at Sinauli
I hope that you have viewed the documentary on Sinauli that was streamed on Discovery Plus. It was quite exhaustive with very good production values and digital reconstructions of some of the artifacts. I have a link to the show but I am not sure if it is legit so I am going to refrain from posting it here.
There was a considerable level of interpretation and information from the ASI people that did not make it to the print media. I also do not know if they have published these findings in archaeological journals yet. They at least mentioned one artifact that is not yet fully analysed – I guess they are waiting on that one before releasing a paper. Generally findings will make their way to the Indian Journal of Archaeology (IJArch) – so keep your eyes open.
The Catuspadi – This is an artifact that is shown to the viewer. Background – the term Catuspadi itself means “quadruped” or “four-legged”. It has been used in the context of disparate items such as verse meters, ashramas etc. In this case, it specifically refers to a four legged funerary box. The funeral boxes holding the remains at Sinauli were all four-legged and overlaid with copper sheets.
The lead excavator, SK Manjul, is very specific that this has Vedic linkage. In the 10th Mandala of the Rgveda, the 13th hymn specifically refers to the Catuspadi. Other commentaries proclaim that a man climbs onto the Catuspadi after having passed the four Ashramas of life (Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha, Sanyasi). The 10th Mandala is the youngest of the New Books – the language itself is very much different from the Old Books and is universally acknowledged as a late addition.
The Mandala 10, Hymn 13 verse was always known as a funerary hymn and an object that meets the compound definition (ala German) in a necropolis cannot be a mere coincidence.The Griffith translation is very non-specific. I am looking for the Jamison Brereton translation of Book 10, Hymn 13. If anybody has it can you post it here? The Sanskrit intonation is below –
http://vedicheritage.gov.in/samhitas/rigveda/shakala-samhita/rigveda-shakala-samhita-mandal-10-sukta-013/
One of the Catuspadi’s has been preserved and lifted out of the site and moved to a lab for forensic analysis. This is one of the better preserved Catuspadi’s. It is also the one where two chariots were found. This particular box was also lengthier than the others and the team suspected it held more than just the remains. They did an in-situ X-ray analysis but the copper sheets had too much of a scattering effect apparently. Manjul promises the viewers that there is something *important* inside.
@Ugra or @Razib – Do you know if there is going to be dna coming from the sanauli burials?
Also what’s the general opinion on how these will come back? Like are we expecting these to be high in steppe with steppe ydna markers and IVC or IHG mtdna? What’s everyone’s opinion? It looks like the first burial in India that has both steppe and harappan markers to my untrained eye.
Given how long its taking, my fear is they’re going to fck up the samples and we won’t get any results. I hope I’m wrong.
@Mohan
Niraj Rai has indicated that something will be released in 2021. In the documentary though, he talks about horse aDNA and indicates Tibetan breeds. If Sinauli yields equid DNA, it will shake a lot of trees.
It would send some shockwaves too if Sanauli came back as maybe like 50-100% steppe sintashta, hirisplex coming back with light hair and eyes – that would be a hell of a shockwave. If the ancient indo aryans were phenotypically anything like the kalash, nuristanis, and pamiris, its not out of the question.
If we are seeing ~22% sintashta in Swat samples and most of those are 1200bce to historical, then Sanauli should come back 50-100% for the 1900bce timeline to make sense for a back-migration from the Ganga-Yamuna doab westwards into Punjab and north into Swat.
If on the other hand you get chariot, weapon burials and equine dna with no steppe on the buried individuals – that would be a hell of a shockwave too. But I suspect if that was the case, they’d have already released all the data way long ago.
Just like the rakhigarhi sample they’re slow playing the whole thing because the data so far probably doesn’t fit the OIT model. Hope I’m wrong.
That whatever the results may be will be spun in a politically correct way is not in question. As long as they do their basic jobs honestly, those of us who don’t care about the politics of it will be able to see through the surface explanations. I suspect (though I could be wrong) these things take time because the quality of the samples aren’t very good, requiring multiple repeated experiments, lots of false positives (and negatives), and sometimes going around in circles. Like in any other experimental scientific field.
I, for one, would like some results that give a fillip to OIT. Until now, it has remained a somewhat subterranean theory, created and maintained by certain committed people (many of whom are ideologues) and propagated far and wide among the vast number of low-information Indians on the internet who like what this theory conveys but who don’t have the time or inclination to question and research. But if something emerges that seems to indicate that OIT is as plausible as AIT, it will force the OIT proponents to think about the problem globally: for example, not just attempting to show how OIT is consistent with Indian texts and myths but also with Greek texts and myths and timelines, and Celtic and Nordic mythologies and timelines.
@Mohan @Numinous
You guys put a new line of thought in my head. Discovery of Steppes or Sintashta components in Sinauli aDNA is going to create a slippery slope of uncontrollable consequences. I look forward to that timeline.
Linguistically we would have to inflict a severe hole to Ringe’s and Anthony’s models of the migration. If the Aryas were already in the interior of North India in 2000 BCE, then the split between Iranian and Indo (per AIT) gets pushed back by a minimum of 500 years (more like 800). So around 2600 BCE. But at this time, at least one of the centum languages still resided in the homeland. This is quite a big falsification! Other isoglosses also do not work out.
I tink the reason for the delay is something mundane and bureaucratic. And there was already some talk that the aDNA was similar to Rakhigarhi (no Steppes).
@Ugra
This is why you should check out the recent Asko Parpola paper (its available to download from here https://journal.fi/store/article/view/98032)
His theory is that there are multiple waves of indo-aryans coming in and that the sinauli “chariots” or bull drawn carts as he calls them are the first wave of arrivals before the sintashta even invent the horse drawn chariot. He feels that a later wave with the horse drawn chariot eventually arrive and subsume this earlier group.
It would be fascinating if that were the case. Really the aDNA would answer a lot of these questions. But if there is no steppe DNA in these burials and there is equine DNA that would be shocking and upend everything – however as I mentioned before its highly unlikely that’s the case otherwise they would have published that long ago.
I suspect these samples will show somewhere between 50-100% steppe sintashta MLBA. These are likely the same people who filtered through the BMAC cities and this is where they ended up. And then back migrated into Punjab and up into Swat. What I wonder is whether a later wave or aryans did arrive with the horse chariot but burial practices had changed to cremation by then which is maybe why we don’t find chariot burials in India.
@Mohan
I have read that Parpola paper and written a critique on the BP Reddit page.
Parpola hasn’t fully assimilated the archaeological context. There are three stratigraphic layers at Sinauli. All the chariots and artifacts are from the newest layer. The oldest layer is 2400 BCE. These Aryas were very very early indeed! I mean this invalidates all linguistic models of AMT.
Witzel has stayed firm. He does not accept that Sinauli has anything to do with Aryans. It’s quite clear to him that if Sinauli is proven Aryan, then we throw a century of linguistic scholarship into the bin.
Parpola is caught in no man’s land. Neither OIT or AIT.
Ugra:
Thinking about the 2000s BC is not very helpful. If you check out Razib’s latest substack post on the settling of Italy, IE speakers were moving into Central Europe by around 3000BC or not too long after. And there seems to be a clear genetic connection between them and the Yamnaya people who lived in the western steppes (not even Kazakstan, but like Ukraine) perhaps a 1000 years before that. For OIT to work, the centum-speakers must have migrated out of India at least a 1000 years before that (and I’m being very generous here; they didn’t have horses or chariots then, right?) So ballpark, the Out-of-India events must have happened, say, between 5500BC and 5000BC? Here is where your theorizing and evidence-mustering ought to begin.
Of course, if you don’t believe the Yamnaya were the IE-spreaders into Europe, then these timelines don’t matter. The Anatolian theory would make more sense then.
@Numinous
Are you a liberal arts graduate? From your arguments, it does not seem like you know how science works. In science, presenting evidence that contradicts a theory and shows it be false is as valid and in some ways more important than looking for confirmatory evidence.
Few examples: Copernicus became famous for demonstrating that the universe does not revolve around Earth. Similarly, contradictory evidence surfaced when Newton’s gravitational theory predictions for stars trajectory were shown to be false. Or when the speed of light, no matter from which direction it was measured, came out to be constant contradicting newtonian physics. In none of these examples, scientists proposed a different theory.
In the same way, if contradictions surface in AMT, which you also have admitted, means that the theory is wrong. Then explanations that Aryans came before IVC formed, or OIT become more credible.
@fulto:
You don’t even seem to know what “evidence” means. You also seem to lack comprehension skills (misunderstanding completely what question is being asked, what is being assumed for fact, and what is being assumed hypothetically for the sake of argument).
Didn’t you get an earful from Razib the other day? Had no effect on you? Perhaps you should refrain from commenting until you get a little older and more mature? If you consider yourself to be a scientific person, and if you are at all representative of science graduates these days, then God help us all.
On my daily run in the park near my house today, I joined a group of six presumably north-eastern folks for a game of football.
Talking to them later, I found out that one of them was from Afghanistan and the rest were from Bhutan. I could honestly not tell him apart at all.
While I know that there are Tajiks and Uzbeks in Afghanistan and they can look plenty East Asian, the general perception of Afghans in India is that they are Pasthuns with their looks ranging between Yusuf Pathan and Feroze Khan. So that was a good reality check for me.
He would be Hazara. Hazaras look pretty East Asian and they are in significant numbers in Afghanistan
I’ve met Pashtuns from Pakistan who also resembled SE Asians, but on the taller side – like 5’10”.
https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2021/03/05/tashnuva-anan-becomes-bangladesh-s-first-transgender-news-anchor
Desis seem to have much greater tolerance for trannies than gays (speaking of those living in South Asia, not the liberal diaspora). Is this a correct observation and if so, any theories as to why?
Judging by your comment, I wouldn’t think so. The term “trannies” is very demeaning. Please refrain from using dehumanizing language like that.
this is true in iran and the muslim world. the argument is that ‘traditional’ cultures tolerate transsexuality because it preserves traditional social norms/expectations. homosexuality subverts them, at least open homosexual identity and subculture.
“the Bangladeshis might be called Hindus by Pakistanis..”
we hear a lot about what pakistanis think of bangladeshis, like how they are quasi-hindus, or how they are somehow on a lower racial pedestal, and such. someday it will be interesting to know what bangladeshis think of pakistanis.
good-looking women
shitty food
uncultured (because they don’t know tagore)
low emotional self-control
good muslims, but somewhat fake about it too
Do bengalis eat haleem? I am of the assumption that it is a catch-all term for S Asian Muslim-centric cuisine
i googled it. i don’t think so
Bengali sweets are probably much better than Pakistani or Indian. But Pakistani food varieties are a level above.. perhaps I’m biased because I’m a meat lover but Pakistani versions of the same shared dishes are much better.
s qureishi, why would you suggest that meat loving would sway someone towards preferring pakistani food? I’ve been to pakistan and eaten widely, I find that even bengali hindus handle meat more deftly than your typical punjabi or sindhi muslim. e.g. kosha mangsho > karahi gosht
I had to google Kosha Mangsho and then realized looking at it that this is just another version of Mutton or Chicken Qorma, the only difference being the specific use of mustard oil which is common in Bengali cuisine instead of butter. We do eat Qorma or any yoghurt based gravy dish with Sheermal, which in my opinion is much tastier than eating it with Naan or Chapaati. What I am talking about in general is that there is not only a lot of meat variety in Pakistani dishes but a lot of fusion in daily cuisine as well, which translates to what you eat on a daily basis. Beef Nihari and Chapli Kababs are regularly eaten in breakfast in Pakistan, I prefer it better than any Indian or Western breakfast.
kosha mangsho isn’t a type of korma, and at any rate it was just single example. Don’t see how pakistan has more variety of meat, seeing as they don’t consume nearly as much pork, fish or game. Halal severely restricts the range of meat one can enjoy. Moreover, marinating everything in yoghurt and bunao-ing everything in the same ginger-garlic-onion-tomato and garam masala dulls the appreciation of the different meats. Pakistani vegetarian food is probably underrated if anything, like punjabis, they make great chole-rajma and dal preparations.
Agree with Quereshi, though i still cant get around eating meat for breakfast. Its just too heavy for me.
Pakistani vegetarian dishes are not underrated, they are not rated at all because they are mostly not good and rely on too much oil (as a substitute of meat). Most Pakistanis would not eat vegetarian in a restaurant unless its to fit in a budget, and if they do, they would prefer the Indian versions. In all my years of living in Pakistan, I seriously have never gone out with anyone, sat down, and ordered vegetarian. Indians do vegetarian better.
Anyway, if you want to try meat varieties that use no or little ginger/garlic/youghurt, you can try a lot of Pasthun dishes in Pakistan, especially the BBQs and Kababs, that sometimes only use Onion water and black salt to flavor it’s meats (see Charsi Tikka / or Charsi Karahi)
As someone who grew up close to the Chapli Kabab heartland of Northwest Pakistan, I totally disagree that Pakistanis eat Chapli Kabab for breakfast. I’ve never seen a Kababi in operation early in the morning. Nihari is eaten for breakfast yes but only in densely populated inner city areas. Cooking Nihari requires expertise and good Nihari joints sell out before most people wake up. A standard breakfast for most people would be egg with Paratha or Naan Cholay. Meat consumption for breakfast is not the norm.
Surely there is a meat-eating obsession in Pakistan and eating out means eating meat. But I highly doubt that Pakistanis do meat better than Indians or
Bengalis. There is hardly any culinary innovation and its also an economy in crisis so most restaurants stick to tried and tested classics and shy away from any funkiness that might mean losses. High-end restaurants might innovate but that doesn’t represent what most Pakistanis eat in restaurants. And at least in the north, “meat” increasingly now only means one meat and that is Chicken. Mutton is just too expensive and people don’t like Beef. I would go as far as to say that Beef eating is actually frowned upon.
I disagree about their food. I find it very good. As a matter of fact, if you watch a lot of cooking and travel shows on YouTube about South Asian foods, it seems that the street food culture of Pakistani is much better than the street food culture of India (I don’t remember them ever showing B’desh, Nepal, or SL). My only gripe about their food is that it’s a bit oily, but they don’t view this as a setback, sort of like Italians not viewing adding oil to a dish as being excessive.
In general, I HATE 95% of the SA restaurants that I’ve been to, but there’s a good Pakistani restaurant in town that serves Haleem and Nihari, and it’s very very good. Plus, these chefs seem to employ so many syncretic cooking methods and techniques. The way that they shape a naan bread ball is very European.
This is the vaccination picture as of March 6th in South Asia- from Bloomberg website. Anyone more knowledgeable on differential vaccination drive in different countries?
Country Doses Administered Doses per 100 people
Bangladesh 3,578,813 2.15
India 19,040,175 1.39
Nepal 383,398 1.35
Pakistan 72,882 0.04
Sri Lanka 196,163 0.9
Any idea when they’ll publish the data?
If UK based, majority samples likely to Sylheti. The TB shifted ones may be Khasi like individuals who have become assimilated into Bengali Muslim culture over the past two hundred years
Comedian Raided By FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force After Jewish Organization Takes Offense to His Jokes
Paul N. Miller, a 32-year-old Romani entertainer who uses the moniker “GypsyCrusader,” was snatched from his home in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida ostensibly over committing a gun offense three years ago.
Neighbors expressed that they were more terrorized by the brutality of the FBI’s militarized arrest, which included tossing flashbangs into his room, than at Miller’s behavior, which was described as low key.
https://www.unz.com/estriker/comedian-raided-by-fbi-joint-terrorism-task-force-after-jewish-organization-takes-offense-to-his-jokes/
https://www.quora.com/Do-people-correctly-assume-what-your-ethnicity-is-based-on-your-appearance/answer/Aakarsh-Rauniyar?ch=10&share=ff952304&srid=u6vS8
Just lol at post and comments. Classic S Asia
https://www.google.com/amp/s/swarajyamag.com/amp/story/ideas%252Fdid-their-guru-tegh-bahadur-save-our-hindu-dharma
Did THEIR Guru Tegh Bahadur Save OUR Hindu Dharma?
A detailed analysis busting the false notion that the Sikh Gurus differentiated their faith from Hinduism.
For the Gurus, there was no ‘theirs’ and ‘ours’.
Hey Razib, I was wondering what is your take on Genetiker’s work. In particular what he has posted about the Chinchirros, and whether both Eurasians (West and East) came from Vedic Adivasi people. Im not that astute when it comes to genetics as you. I have posted his two works here:
https://genetiker.wordpress.com/2018/02/10/higher-resolution-k-11-analysis-of-the-european-admixture-in-chinchorro-dna/
https://genetiker.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/more-analyses-of-the-tianyuan-genome/
I would very much like to know the validity of these claims.
https://theprint.in/india/treasury-bench-more-serious-in-attending-ls-than-opposition-rahul-has-only-56-attendance/617288/
Treasury bench more serious in attending LS than opposition, Rahul has only 56% attendance
https://theprint.in/opinion/haryana-local-job-quota-to-make-industry-efficient-curb-labour-absenteeism-dushyant-chautala/617009/
Haryana local job quota to make industry efficient, curb labour absenteeism: Dushyant Chautala
Genuine question: Do christians, Muslims and Jews experience this…
Actual Hindus unanimously profess to a particular beliefs on surveys etc.
But a non-Hindu academic says no this is incorrect Hindus believe in something more morally reprehensible / stupid.
And then the academics view that Hindus believe in morally reprehensible things continues to be taught into everyone as what Hindus believe?
Then this idea from the academic that Hindus believe in morally reprehensible things is then used by some people to justify xenophobia against Hindus.
sumit, not disagreeing, but could you share an example? would a possible one be about caste or ritual impurity of menstruating women, which might be a custom of a subset of hindus (and may even straddle religions), but although we hindus are not taught that this has anything to do with our faith, yet academics discuss this as if it were the sine non qua. I feel like hindus are in a damned if do/don’t situation. whenever it comes to taking blame for anything, the big tent definition of hinduism gets invoked, e.g. sikh-muslim partition violence is only thought of as hindu-muslim. But when sikhs do something admirable, we must invoke a distinction. Then again, within india, elite trans-regional hindus do the same. When its convenent we are a majority 80%+ community that must be reckoned with, and when its convenient the vegetarian savarna communities reserve the right to discriminate against deviations from their own orthopraxy, and perhaps even deem the majority as quasi-hindu.
@grimit:
The Rutgers audrey truschke controversy is one example.
The California textbook controversy is another.
Religion is all made up anyways, shouldn’t the adherents have the right to decide what they believe?
Also a lot of the interpretation tends to be uncharitable all the negative stuff becomes “Hindu religion” and all the positive stuff becomes “Indian culture”
Are other religions treated in this manner? I think maybe Christianity is treated similarly unfairly in western academia I am not sure. But people in the west are several orders of magnitude more familiar with Christianity than Hinduism and have a nuanced understanding so the critiques can be taken in an appropriate context.
For eg. Everyone knows the Old Testament is not taken literally by Christians.
People don’t know jack shit about the Hindu religious traditions.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMFUAqbltO8/?igshid=zesnw2o5cb39
Fucked up shit
With new OCI notification, India has ended its experiment with dual citizenship
The notification introduces a series of restrictions that dramatically curtails the rights and liberties of OCIs in India.
In a stunning development for Overseas Citizens of India, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification on March 4 dramatically altering the compact between OCIs and the Indian state. This notification, which is issued under Section 7B of the Citizenship Act, 1955, supersedes three earlier notifications issued on April 11, 2005, January 5, 2007, and January 5, 2009, which laid down the rights of the OCIs.
Apart from humiliating and illegally classifying OCIs as “foreign nationals”, the new notification introduces a series of new restrictions that dramatically curtails the rights and liberties of OCIs in India. These restrictions include a requirement for OCIs to secure a special permit to undertake “any research”, to undertake any “missionary” or “Tablighi” or “journalistic activities” or to visit any area in India notified as “protected”, “restricted” or “prohibited”.
In addition, the notification now equates OCIs to “foreign nationals” in respect of “all other economic, financial and educational fields” for the purposes of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 2003 although past circulars by the Reserve Bank of India under FEMA will hold ground. This reverses the position that has held for the last 16 years wherein OCIs were equated to Non-Resident Indians rather than “foreign nationals” for the purposes of their economic, financial and educational rights.
The link to the article.
https://scroll.in/global/988721/with-new-oci-notification-india-has-ended-its-experiment-with-dual-citizenship
Thanks for letting us know
“Apart from humiliating and illegally classifying OCIs as “foreign nationals”
OCI by definition are foreign nationals. LOL
I dont get it. Most of Indian liberal press first castigate OCIs as Modi todies who show up in his rallies, and then they also show this fake sympathy for them as if they are some prosecuted class.
@Ugra
As usual, you dump on readers a whole lot of cryptic references which look like a compendium of recent sound scholarship but are, in the ultimate analysis, sourced from Out-of-India internet writers à la Talageri, comme d’habitude. Take the case of Ugra’s recent post repeating ad nauseam that the four-legged burial coffins excavated at Sanauli by Dr. Manjul find mention in the RV as “catuṣpadī” (‘four-legged; a quadruped’). Ugra does not disclose to us his source for this piece of information, but I have made some research and have discovered it is the following article from the Hindutva magazine Swarajya:
https://swarajyamag.com/heritage/the-sinauli-chariots-an-analysis
Let me also make clear that the author of that article, one Jijith Nadumuri Ravi, manages a pro-OIT web platform, called “Ancient Voice”, at
http://ancientvoice.wikidot.com/
In his post Ugra also asks if someone has got Jamison and Brereton’s translation of RV X.13.3 as Griffith’s translation would be, according to him (Ugra), “very non-specific” about the hypothesized mention of burial coffins in this verse. Here it is:
“I have mounted along the five steps of the mount, and I go along
following the four-footed (track/verse/speech) [that is, the catuṣpadī] according to commandment.
With (just) a syllable I make a counterpart to it [=Speech?].
Upon the navel of truth I purify (it) completely.”
From Jamison and Brereton’s commentary to RV X.13:
“The only other Rgvedic occurrence of the adjective “four-footed” [catuṣpadī] is in I.164.41, where it modifies the noun gaurī “buffalo cow” referring to Speech, which is regularly said to consist of four parts. Thus in our view this pāda refers both to ritual action (following the four wheel-ruts of the carts) and ritual speech (the four-pāda verse), and ritual speech in particular calls to mind Speech in general.”
No mention whatsoever, anywhere but in the aforesaid Swarajya amateurish article, of “four-legged burial coffins” in connection with this verse from the RV. This is how OIT pseudo-scholarship goes.
What @Francesco Brighenti does not tell:
From Jamison et al.
“””
But why, one may well ask, is this bit of Yama’s history found in a hymn dedicated to the soma carts? It is probably more productive to ask why a hymn to the soma carts is found in this Yama cycle (X.10–19), positioned right before the funeral hymns, especially X.14 dedicated to Yama. First, remember that the Atharvaveda repetitions of the first four verses of this hymn are found in the collection of funeral verses, so to the compilers of the Atharvaveda they must have seemed appropriate to a funeral context. Note, moreover, that the carts themselves are called “twins” (yamé) in verse 2, paired with verse 4 around the omphalos verse 3; “twins” of course calls to mind the twin couple Yama and Yamī. The pairing of the two carts also reminds us of the two divergent paths, one leading to the gods (devayā́ na), one to the ancestors or forefathers (pitr ̥ yā́ na); the latter is the one that the dead follow to the world where Yama presides.
“”
Also, for anyone interested, here is an ASI study (Purātattva Issue 36, 2006) that connects Rig Veda and Sanauli burial (Pg. 176) http://ignca.nic.in/Asi_data/88670.pdf. Since the find of chariots, the connection has only become stronger.
@Tpot
Thank you very much for posting this edition of the journal. It clears up the supposed location of the habitation area of Sinauli. And also confirms that the Yamuna was flowing close to Sinauli 4k years ago – today it is 6 kms to the West.
@Francesco Brighenti @ Tpot
Thanks for providing the Jamison Brereton passages. It is quite clear that translations in the absence of knowledge of material culture is very widely off the mark.
The catuspadi is also mentioned in the Brahmanas as a bed that a man climbs into after the 4 Ashramas. Manjul’s speculations are on record.
The twin chariots buried at Sinauli in a single grave as a reference to Yama/Yami is something I missed. It’s quite neat!
@Francesco Brighenti – it’s time you started analysing the initial readings of Sinauli by the excavation team. They are quite professional, far more than Parpola who has not even travelled to Sinauli. Your frequent insinuations are becoming stale and dull witted.
R1a1 and Kshatriyas.
I was wondering about this: Given that Indo-Aryans were warriors and priests, how is that R1a1 is highest among Brahmins. Have there been studies about its prevalence among Kshatriyas?
Varna populations have shifted significantly in actual professional background over periods of just hundreds, let alone thousands, of years. Jati is a much more explanatory factor here in many respects.
For example, my maternal ancestors were Brahmins, but were a landowning rather than priestly caste since at least the colonial period.
The lesson to draw here is that even though the ‘Indo-Aryan’ (as you put it) populations may have had a sort of ‘warrior’-y or ‘priest’-y functions in the first few generations post-settlement (though the latter isn’t clear to me), they could have at any point in the thousands of years between then and now changed their social niche with regards to production while retaining components of their (likely largely endogamous) varna background.
As such, your question is mistaking the forest for the trees in a sense. Y-DNA haplogroups have correlations with certain cultural or social functions, but not others. The ‘warriors’ of 3-4 kya have relatively little to do with the warriors of 2 kya, genetically speaking.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/zeenews.india.com/india/india-s-biggest-kidney-dialysis-hospital-opened-at-balasahib-gurudwara-2346356.html/amp
India`s biggest Kidney Dialysis Hospital opened at Balasahib Gurudwara
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/indian-water-gun-manufacturers-giving-china-a-run-for-its-money-101615150282752-amp.html
Indian water gun manufacturers giving China a run for its money
https://hinduoncampus.medium.com/dear-president-jonathan-holloway-chancellor-nancy-cantor-senior-vice-president-anna-branch-and-a23d2b0beaef
Safe space culture gunning for Trushcke Tai next
Two can play the game
Bill Gates Wants To Release Genetically Modified Mosquitoes To Inject You With Vaccines
Flying Syringes is a phrase that is used to refer to a proposed project funded by Bill Gates to create genetically modified mosquitoes that inject vaccines into people when they bite them.
In 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $100,000 to Hiroyuki Matsuoka of Jichi Medical University in Japan to do research on genetically modified mosquitoes.
Professor Hiroyuki Matsuoka will attempt to design a mosquito that can produce and secrete a malaria vaccine protein into a host’s skin. The hope is that such mosquitoes could deliver protective vaccines against other infectious diseases as well.
If Matsuoka proves that his idea has merit, he will be eligible for an additional $1 million of funding. In fact, Bill Gates once did actually released a swarm of mosquitoes on unsuspecting crowd at a TED conference in 2009.
“There’s no reason only poor people should have the experience,” Bill Gates said, before adding that the mosquitoes were not infectious.
Bill Gates is also funding a project which aims to deliver an invisible quantum tattoo hidden in the coronavirus vaccine for storing your vaccination history.
The researchers showed that their new dye, which consists of nanocrystals called quantum dots, can remain for at least five years under the skin, where it emits near-infrared light that can be detected by a specially equipped smartphone.
However, according to a peer reviewed study published in a respected journal by the world’s most authoritative vaccine scientists, Bill Gates DTP vaccine killed 10 times more African girls than the disease itself.
On the other hand, we learned last year based on an intercepted human intelligence report that Bill Gates reportedly offered $10 million bribe for a forced vaccination program for Coronavirus to the Nigerian House of Representatives.
Indians should beware that the British led GAVI has managed to infiltrate INDIA’s healthcare policy-making thereby gaining a strategic position to dictate India’s response to coronavirus.
While the UK is GAVI’s largest funder, its implementation follows what is known as the” Gates approach”. Known as the Vaccine Cartel or Pharma Cartel by critics, its vaccines have been accused of causing at least 38 million premature deaths worldwide.
Even the so called “Swadeshi” Indian COVID-19 vaccine COVAXIN maker Bharat Biotech was backed since its inception by Bill Gates and the international pharma lobby.
Bill Gates’ agenda in India and his “obsession with vaccines” was exposed last year in a lengthy piece by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nephew of former American President John F. Kennedy.
I saw your recent posts and I have a question. In some of your older posts you made a pca plot of south asians against various west eurasian populations. Why does the south asian cline go from palliyar (ASI) to ukrainians/east europeans always? On the chart are also arabs/yemen jews, armenians, and iranians. It makes sense the cline would not go to arabs, but also not iranians/armenians? It seems like iranians have a totally different ancestry that is not shared with south asians, aside from the baloch. And north and south indians are on the same cline unless they have recent middle eastern ancestry (cochin jews, knanaya)
https://www.razib.com/wordpress/category/knanaya/
https://www.brownpundits.com/2020/07/08/the-jat-gene/
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2019/04/24/the-genetics-of-the-st-thomas-christians-part-2/
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2020/02/06/the-knanaya-of-kerala-do-seem-a-bit-more-near-eastern-than-other-st-thomas-christians/
German auto parts major Webasto to set up factory for sunroofs in India
https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/german-auto-parts-major-webasto-to-set-up-factory-for-sunroofs-in-india/amp_articleshow/81388533.cms
https://twitter.com/NeelanjanSircar/status/1368977217187835904
“A careful analytical case for a BJP sweep in West Bengal by
@sajjanjnu
.
He’s among the most talented academic field researchers & impartial, & he visited all 294 constituencies!
May 2 will tell us if he’s right or wrong, but you must take it seriously.”
@Ugra
“The catuspadi is also mentioned in the Brahmanas as a bed that a man climbs into after the 4 Ashramas. Manjul’s speculations are on record.”
The literary passage in question is not taken from the Brāhmaṇas but from the Mahābhārata (12.234.15), where the four-āśrama system is said to form a spiritual ladder (nihśreņi) of four steps (catuṣpadī) – namely, of four rungs – and by ascending it step by step (āruhya ‘having ascended’) man attains the realm of Brāhman:
“This ladder with four steps (in the shape of the four stages) ultimately leads to the state of the Brahman. When in this way, a man goes up this ladder from one state into the next higher state, he ultimately acquires greatness in the sphere of the Brahman.”
It is definitely not a matter here of “climbing into a BED,” and less so of climbing into a FOUR-LEGGED BURIAL COFFIN like the ones excavated at Sanauli!
As to the meaning of the term catuṣpadī in the RV, not a single scholar other than Manjul (if he really stated what you attribute to him) has ever claimed it means something different from ‘a verse or stanza made up of pādas’. It is a Vedic meter, not a burial coffin! But Manjul probably wanted to “demonstrate” there is a Vedic referent for the four-legged burial coffin he excavated at Sanauli, so he devised this absurd equation (catuṣpadī = a four-legged coffin).
What a pity! (But this is a nice try which will probably receive much attention from Hindutva circles.)
@Francesco Brighenti
You are probably expecting a sticker on the side of the box stating “Catuspadi here!” to get convinced. No evidence is straight-forward in BA archaeology. The translations were all done without any knowledge of material contexts. Even Jamison/Brereton did not get to view the relics of Sinauli.
I myself do not think that the Rgveda was composed in the era of Sinauli (2000-1900 BCE) but much earlier. That is very clear to me – because the goods in the graves include rice and there are copper swords (meter length) of the highest quality. Rgveda knows only barley, wheat (perhaps) and definitely no swords. It knows maces, clubs, arrows, knives but no swords.
But the 10th Mandala is the youngest of the New Books and so there might be a chance for a confluence. The word Catus is very clear. The word Padi has several meanings, all of which have something to do with the feet. Yes, it evolved to become a metaphor for the meter in stanzas. But the original literal meaning is to stand fast or be fixed Therefore in that funerary hymn, they are talking about a bier fixed to the earth in four places.
You can throw any number of translations as proof, but the new material evidence provides enough context to pause and re-assess. In this case, I am looking at points of parity (PoP) and you are looking at points of difference (PoD).
This was already clear from your earlier attempt to wash the chariots as oxcarts. Next you will be telling us the swords are actually rolling pins for dough.
https://openthemagazine.com/features/remote-controlled/
Pan haleem terrorism growing in East and south
@Ugra
“[In the Rigvedic compound catuspadi ‘four-footed’] the word catus [‘four’] is very clear. The word padi has several meanings, all of which have something to do with the feet. Yes, it evolved to become a metaphor for the meter in stanzas. But the original literal meaning is to stand fast or be fixed. Therefore in that funerary hymn, they are talking about a bier fixed to the earth in four places.”
You again got it wrong – the “original literal meaning” of pád- in the RV is not at all “to stand fast or be fixed,” but simply ‘foot’ (from Proto-Indo-European *ped- ‘foot’). The feminine in pad-ī, too, seems to be inherited (from PIE * ped-ih2). In Pāṇini’s Dhātupāṭha pad- ‘to stand fast or fixed’ (not attested in the RV) is varia lectio (i.e. variant reading) for bad- ‘to be firm or steady’ (see Monier-Williams). You no doubt have mistaken Pāṇini’s verbal root pad- for the noun pád- ‘foot’, which is an unrelated word. Have a good night.
How I restored Bapu’s bicycle with the help of local repairmen and ingenuity
https://amp.scroll.in/article/987211/how-i-restored-bapus-bicycle-with-the-help-of-local-repairmen-and-ingenuity
Apple could shift 10% of iPhone 12 production from China to India
https://www.google.com/amp/s/appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/08/apple-could-shift-10-of-iphone-12-production-from-china-to-india/amp/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/drdo-develops-technology-that-makes-indian-submarines-quieter-lethal-101615270359062-amp.html
DRDO develops AIP technology, Indian subs to be more silent and lethal
https://www.quora.com/How-is-it-for-a-Gujarati-girl-to-marry-a-white-guy/answer/Krishna-Sharma-2990?ch=10&share=94c7de0f&srid=u6vS8
Just lol
Pravin Sawhney: A Politicised Military is an Unprofessional Military
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdb95xY7d74&ab_channel=ForceMagazine
I have a question. What are the main theories regarding the identity of the languages spoken by the AASI (basal Indian hunter-gatherers) before the migration of West Asian agriculturalists (Iran_Neolithic) into the subcontinent? I feel as if this topic is not explored enough, too much attention is placed on the controversial Steppe migrants.
Unknown. Probably dead language by now (obviously literally but also in terms of directly relate successors). I think dravidian came from IVC. Austroastiac from the east. The aasi langauge is gone. Probanly its influences remain on modern tongues, nothing else.
Wouldn’t the Vedda-language spoken by the indigenous hunter-gatherer tribes of Sri Lanka be a good candidate for an AASI-linguistic descendent? The language they speak nowadays is a creole heavily influenced-by Sinhalese but the root may be linguistic-AASI.
What about Munda-languages or Nihali (language-isolate)? Would they be good candidates for linguistic-AASI descendants?
Probably similar to diversity seen in Australian aboriginal languages. Hunter gatherer groups move around a lot and many different communities can emerge which all develop language in isolation for long periods of time. Vedda is probably one of these languages that still survives.
And yes Dravidian almost certainly comes from Pakistan – most likely Balochistan where a dravidian language, Brahui, is still spoken in the exact area where the IVC civilization began.
Munda languages are Austroasiatic (related to Vietnamese and Cambodian): they came from the east maybe 3500 years ago, so whatever the original AASI peoples spoke it wasn’t anything related to the Munda langauges.
Re: putative languages spoken by the AASI, Vaclav Blazek published a pioneering article entitled “Was there an Australian substratum in Dravidian?” in Mother Tongue 11 (2006), pp. 275-294. Blazek’s main hypothesis is that the speakers of languages ancestral to “Common Australian” (the oldest reconstructible proto-language of Australia) left behind their linguistic footprints in the vocabularies of some language families and language isolates of South Asia before migrating to Southeast Asia, and from there to Australia, about 50,000 years BP. Such a linguistic hypothesis doesn’t entail a common genetic ancestry of Australian and Dravidian languages, but rather the possibility that a layer of words dating from the time of the migration of modern humans to Australia along the “Southern Route” may have survived in the Dravidian vocabulary. Blazek’s hypothesis does, of course, not amount to saying that Dravidian languages were spoken in South Asia 50,000 years ago. Proto-Dravidian speakers probably migrated into South Asia from the west (Iran / Central Asia) at a much later date. The immigrating Dravidians would have assimilated, both culturally and genetically, the (AASI?) indigenous speakers of some by now extinct South Asian language families that still preserved some lexical relics of languages spoken at ca. 50,000 years BP by modern human populations ancestral to Australian aborigines. The lexical sets studied by Blazek could have entered the Proto-Dravidian vocabulary after the speakers of the latter language migrated into South Asia. If Blazek is right, the alleged substrate words he lists in his paper (more than 70 sets) would represent one of the oldest – if not *the* oldest – linguistic substratum ever recorded across the world!
https://caravanmagazine.in/caste/cisco-haf-hindu-american-dalit-diaspora
Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
The Hindu American Foundation’s warped position on the Cisco caste-discrimination case
Yeah this is getting so warped. Very weird stuff. Feel bad for the aasi brothers, if they getting messed with even in America but cali state deciding what does and doesn’t constitute all of hinduism is also silly
Ugra: “It knows maces, clubs, arrows, knives but no swords”
That’s also the typical steppe kit so could be easily interpreted as providing support for AMT rather than your very early dating.
@Beatenup
There are three separate speculative propositions being assessed
1. Rgveda was composed in India
2. Incoming migration were the composers of the Rgveda
3. Composition happened in 1500 BCE
Presence of a copper sword in 2000 BCE in India limits the probability of all three propositions being true at the same time. Only one statement can be true if you agree that Sinauli is an example of the material culture of Aryas.
Of course, one could claim that Sinauli had nothing to do with Aryas. That sounds highly implausible given the location (Bharata country) and other artifacts (chariots).
Ugra,
I may have asked you this question before (I remember raising it in a thread), but why can’t the Rig Veda be an Indo-Aryan rendition of a much older set of poems and rituals that were developed in situ? So the religion and culture were continuations of the IVC but was just spoken in the new language that evolved from the “synthesis” of locals and invaders from the steppe?
@Numinous
It’s a fine theory but the burden of proof is upon the proposer! You are asking me to prove your theory.
According to me, Rgveda is not a potpourri. Like “Kahani tumhari, Dhun meri”. There are divisions in style and atmosphere but it was not a transference of memories from one set of people to another.
Sanskrit (even archaic) is a very precise language in terms of identifying the speaker’s position to the event or dialogue. Nobody thinks that Rgveda is a translation of events from another language. Sorry.
We both have theories, neither of which is proven. It’s not like I’m trying to debunk general relativity.
What exactly does the precision of Sanskrit have to do with the issue at hand? Care to elaborate?
Nobody thinks that Rgveda is a translation of events from another language.
Don’t use words like “Nobody” unless you can back it up. I think my translation theory is perfectly plausible. The burden I’m putting on you is not to prove it but to disprove it. (OIT-advocates put a similar burden on AIT advocates.)
For plausibility, look to the Latin and Greek Bibles; they don’t use the language of the early Christian evangelizers (Aramaic, I believe). They are also quite precise in their language. For that matter, so seems to be the King James Bible, written wholly in English.
@ Numinous
You are entitled to your own opinions. I am merely stating that Sayana, Griffith, Monier Williams, Aurobindo, Mallory, Possehl, Talageri, Muller and a lot more -none of them think that Rgveda involved a transference of memories or involved translations.
There is evidence of substratum – Witzel, Talageri, Staahl – all agree on that – of the order of less than 0.25% – some words indicate a non IE language.
The archaic Sanskrit in Rgveda is very much not nominative or accusative in several places. If you listen to a movie and the character says “the water is cold” while entering a river, you can clearly infer
that the action is ongoing.
This is why Witzel calls the Rgveda as having unparalleled fidelity. It is like listening to a movie. In some sequences, the composer is standing on the banks of Saraswati and proclaiming it’s greatness based on its width. The language is very clear – the composition is happening insitu. If you explained a movie you watched to another person, you will use different grammar.
I could say, “Pigs can fly” and expect some one to disprove me. But no-one will. It is just not worth the time.
@Ugra
It is pretty easy to disprove @Numinous’ assertions: Old Rig Veda has no foreign word. All the words have IE roots.
If Rig Veda had been a translation, it would have contained words from the translated language. This is simply not the case.
You seem to be using Witzel to support you when it’s convenient but then you attack him elsewhere when it suits you. Not what what I can do with that.
Anyway, I don’t really care what Witzel has to say about anything. I understand the case you are making, but it’s still unconvincing to me. Clearly, nobody can prove that the Rig Veda verses were never spoken in any language other than IA. All you can make are plausible conjectures. So did I, and I gave you a counter-example, which you conveniently ignored.
Never mind, we’ve reached an impasse here. But try to answer my question above on a different thread (about how you would like OIT to Yamnaya wanderings above). As I’ve emphasized before, if OIT can’t explain the folk wanderings of all the IE-speaking people (not just Indians), it’s never going to convince people outside your circle.
@Numinous,
Not getting into broader discussion, I thought of the same thing too but got stuck at two corollary issues:
1. Why isn’t original preserved but only the re-rendering in “new” IA language? If (pre-Aryan) religion was so particular about sound preservation, it seems strange that older sounds are not preserved rather than a new-comer language?
2. If sound preservation is an Aryan (or Indo-Iranian) thing, why does no other IE culture has something like Vedas? IE is present near just as many great civilizations as IVC and at near replacement levels of males. They should have had a stronger preservation of oral culture that at least Greeks or Romans or somebody should have alluded to by 300 BCE. So, how come the importance of Vedas (ie sound preservation in veneration of sky-God) became so critical only in Aryans?
If we know PIE homeland, perhaps we will get some clue about their love for some rivers and then understand this peculiarity better.
@Violet
Some of these thoughts were the original seeds of OIT – Exceptionalism. It’s rather intuitive not requiring logical excursions. It’s also a source of blind zones – leading many OIT’ers to downplay similarities with other IE cultures.
While the contents of Rgveda themselves have clear indications of semi-pastoralism – the fact that the faultless transmission of such a detailed work over extraordinary periods of time – indicates a sedentary society that had enough surplus to invest in elite endeavours.
Iranians come a close second with their Avestan corpus. The Islamisation in the last millennium has more or less buried elite support and propagation. A distant third are the Greeks – who have an enormous corpus of myths – but today are puzzled themselves over the context of these origins. Omar has published a new review of a book – just in time!
Indians- Iranians-Greeks, these are the only direct IE descendants of some ancient ethic that valued literary production and the means to immortalise the products through cultural transmission.