Chapter 9 (Appendix 2)
Michael Witzel - An Examination of Western Vedic Scholarship
The question of the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages is a purely academic subject, although discourse on the subject, particularly in India, has been highly politicized.
We have already examined, in Appendix I, the various aspects of this politicization.
But while the most vocal and extremist supporters of the theory (that the Indoaryan languages spoken in most parts of India were originally brought into South Asia by invaders or immigrants in the second millennium BC) are undoubtedly politically motivated, the theory is generally accepted by most academic scholars as well, purely on the ground that it represents the general consensus in the international academic world.
The question, therefore, is: how far can we rely on the objectivity and sincerity of world scholarship?
We have, in our earlier book, presented a new theory which answers the problem of the original Indo-European homeland more effectively than the generally accepted theory. In this present book, we have shown that the Rigveda confirms our theory with evidence which, at least so far as the literary aspect of the debate is concerned, is practically unanswer-able.
A true scholarship would examine, and then either accept or reject, with good reason, any new theory which challenges a generally accepted theory admitted to be full of sharp anomalies.
However, this has not been the attitude of world scholarship towards our earlier book.
The general attitude has been as follows: there is a school of crank scholarship in India which is out to prove, by hook or by crook, that India was the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages; and the writers of this school deserve to be firmly put in their place.
And the best method of doing this is by tarring all scholars who support, or even appear to support, an Indian homeland theory, with one brush; and then pointing out particularly untenable propositions made by one or the other of the scholars so branded together, to prove that all the scholars so named belong to one single school of irrational scholarship.
Thus, Bernard Sergent, a French scholar, in his book Genèse de l’Inde (Bibliothèque Scientifique Payot, Paris, 1997) has the following (roughly translated into English by us) to say about these scholars:
‘Thus D.K. Chakrabarti, George Feuerstein, Klaus Klostermaier, Richard Thompson, David Frawley, Jim Shaffer, Koenraad Elst, Paramesh Choudhury, Navaratna S. Rajaram, K.D. Sethna, S.R. Rao, Bhagwan Singh, Subhash Kak, Shrikant Talageri’ It can be seen that the case is argued mainly from a nationalist Indian viewpoint, relayed also by some westerners. Above (p.155) we have been able to evaluate manipulations indulged in by one of these scholars, J. Shaffer, in order to arrive at his above conclusions: he simply argues that it is not necessary to take into account any linguistic data! Rajaram arrives at the same conclusion: Linguistics is not a science since it does not lead to the same conclusions as his own’ On this subject, Bryant (1996, 8 and 11) remarks that what he calls the ‘Indigenous School’ ignores all the linguistic literature, in particular those which draw attention (by decisively demonstrating the existence) to a substratum, and only use linguistics when it happens to benefit them. As for Choudhury, he is the author of a work entitled Indian Origin of the Chinese Nation (well, let’s see!), and of another entitled The India We Have Lost: Did India Colonise and Civilise Sumeria, Egypt, Greece and Europe?: Self-service is the best service! Nationalism, obviously, has no limits. In any case, these authors battle to make their beautiful ‘discovery’ triumph through the organisation of conferences in the United States, sending panels to other conferences, etc.This ‘struggle’ shows up the ideological nature of this exercise: a student of science does not need to impose his ideas through propaganda, he has arguments to furnish.’^(1)
It may be noted that a whole range of scholars, Western and Indian, are clubbed together, and then two specific points are elaborated: N.S. Rajaram’s disdain for linguistics, and Paramesh Choudhury’s fantastic scenarios (clearly modelled on the writings of P.N. Oak). The inference is that these two points characterize the writings of all the scholars concerned!
Let us see how far they apply to our own earlier book:
N.S. Rajaram has been a friendly supporter of the theory outlined by us in our earlier book. But he has equally been a critic of our failure to share his disdain for linguistics. Referring to our book, he specifically states:‘One can have some reservations about his excessive reliance on linguistics, and his acceptance of Dravidian languages (which did not exist much before the Christian era) as constituting a separate language family.’^(2)
Paramesh Choudhury’s theories about the origins of the Chinese, Sumerians and Egyptians in India can have no relevance whatsoever to our theory about the origins of the Indo-European languages in India. No Western scholar will accept that the Indians, Chinese, Sumerians and Egyptians had a common origin in one particular land; but surely they do accept that the different Indo-European languages did have a common origin in one particular land. So how does the location of the Indo-European homeland in India fall into the same category as the location in India of a fantasy homeland of the Chinese, Sumerians and Egyptians?
Sergent’s last thrust represents the unkindest cut in this whole smear campaign. It is not we who have avoided debate. It is these Western scholars who have chosen to conduct a spit-and-run campaign from a safe distance, while restricting their criticism of our theory (elaborated by us in our earlier book) to name-calling and label-sticking rather than to demolition of our arguments.
We would certainly have loved to joust with Sergent. However, the restraints of language prevent us from doing so. His book is in French, which is Greek to us. So we must turn to scholars more amenable to our scrutiny.
To go deeper into the unacademic attitude of Western scholarship, we will examine the writings of one particular American scholar, Michael Witzel (whom we have had occasion to refer to many times within our present volume).
We will examine, in particular, the papers presented by him during a conference on Archaeological and Linguistic Approaches to Ethnicity in Ancient South Asia, held in Toronto (Canada), 4th-6th October 1991.
This conference was held in 1991, well before the publication of our earlier book in 1993; but the papers presented at this conference were published later, in a volume entitled The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia - Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, edited by George Erdosy and published by Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York, in 1995.
The particular paper by Witzel which we will examine in detail is Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and polities.^(3)In the course of our examination, we will also quote from another paper by Witzel, Early Indian history: linguistic and textual parametres⁴, included in the same volume; and, occasionally, from another paper by Witzel, On the Localisation of Vedic Texts and Schools⁵, published in a separate volume.
There are two basic reasons why we will be examining Michael Witzel’s papers:
1. The volume containing the above papers also contains critical references to our earlier book in its footnotes to both the editorial preface as well as the papers by Michael Witzel. These references cast strong aspersions on the scholarly value of our earlier book.
It is therefore, necessary to examine, in return, the scholarly value of Witzel’s own writings.
2. Our present book contains a complete and logical historical analysis of the Rigveda. Michael Witzel’s papers also purport to present a logical historical analysis of the Rigveda, and, what is more, his basic approach very closely parallels our own, as we shall see presently.
However, the conclusions he arrives at are diametrically opposed to our own: to him the Rigveda gives evidence of a migration of the Vedic Aryans from Afghanistan to India. Clearly, one of the two analyses has to be wrong. But, which one?
To arrive at an answer to this question, again, it is necessary to examine Witzel’s writings in detail.
We will examine Witzel’s writings under the following heads:
I. Scientific Evaluation of Rival Theories.
II. Basically Sound Approach to the Rigveda.
III. Witzel’s Theory, Evidence and Conclusions.
IV. Careless Misinterpretations.
V. The Chronology and Geography of the MaNDalas.
VI. Geographical Misrepresentations
VII. Violation of Basic Principles.
I
SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION OF RIVAL THEORIES
One of the tests of true scholarship is the treatment of rival theories. There are two possible ways in which one, as a propounder or protagonist of a theory, can deal with a rival theory:
The first is to ignore the rival theory and behave as if it does not exist, and to go on propounding one’s own theory in isolation.
The second is to examine the rival theory and to show how that theory is logically wrong, and one’s own theory, by contrast, is correct.
Erdosy and Witzel, however, follow a third course altogether: they refer to the rival theory and condemn the propounders of that theory in very strong terms, without bothering to examine the theory or justify this condemnation.
The rival theory, and there is only one, is the theory of an Indian homeland.
Erdosy, in his editorial preface, describes the political implications of the Aryan invasion theory in India, and refers to ‘spirited opposition which has intensified recently - cf. Biswas 1990; Choudhury 1993; Telagiri 1993. Unfortunately, political motivations (usually associated with Hindu revivalism, ironic in view of Tilak’s theory of an Arctic home) renders this opposition devoid of scholarly value.Assertions of the indigenous origin of Indo-Aryan languages and an insistence on a long chronology for Vedic and even Epic literature are only a few of the most prominent tenets of this emerging lunatic fringe.’^(6)
Witzel, referring to Biswas (1990:44): ‘The ulterior political motive of this ‘scientific piece’ is obvious. Cf. Choudhury 1993; Telagiri 1993, etc.’^(7)
And: ’there are also pronounced and definite South Asian biases to hold us back:’ the contrary view that stresses the Indian home of the Indo-Aryans. Even Indo-Iranians, not to mention all Indo-Europeans (!), are increasingly located in South Asia, whence they are held to have migrated westward, a clearly erroneous view that has nevertheless found its way into even otherwise respectable scholarly publications (eg. Biswas, quoted above, in Ray and Mukherjee, 1990)‘Such speculations further cloud the scientific evaluation of textual sources, and can only be regarded as examples of Hindu exegetical or apologetic religious writing, even if they do not always come with the requisite label warning us of their real intentions.’^(8)
The footnote to the phrase ’erroneous view’ above, clarifies: ‘More recently propagated by Choudhury (1993), whose books also include The Indian Origins of the Chinese Nation, and Telagiri (1993).’^(9)
It may be noted that in all the three references, our earlier book is firmly categorised together with the books by Paramesh Choudhury, and Choudhury’s theory about the Indian origins of the Chinese is stressed and highlighted.
And the irony of the whole exercise is that it is very clear that the scholars concerned (George Erdosy and Michael Witzel) have not only not read our earlier book, but they have probably not even seen an actual copy of the book which they condemn so categorically.
The references to our book consistently misspell the name as Telagiri instead of Talageri, and the bibliography^(10) even gives the initials as S.K. Telagiri instead of S.G. Talageri.
What is more, the bibliography lists our book as follows: ‘Telagiri S.K., 1993. Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism, Delhi, Aditya Prakashan.’^(11)
Now it so happens that our earlier book was published in two editions: the one published by Aditya Prakashan was entitled The Aryan Invasion Theory: A Reappraisal, and the one published by Voice of India was entitled Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism.
The confusion between the title and the name of the publisher originally occured in Shri Girilal Jain’s review of the book which was published in The Times of India dated 17.6.93; but, in that case, the confusion was explainable: the Voice of India edition was already printed and read by Shri Jain, and formed the basis of his review, the Aditya Prakashan edition was still in print and it was to be the official edition, and Shri Girilal Jain was clearly not aware that the book still under print was to have a different title.
In the case of Erdosy and Witzel, this confusion can have no explanation, other than that their acquaintance with our book is a second-hand or third-hand one, based on some third party’s comments on Shri Girilal Jain’s review.
And it is on such acquaintance that these scholars have condemned our book in strong terms, decided that it is ‘devoid of scholarly value’, and consigned it to the ’lunatic fringe’.
Clearly this strong condemnation of a book, unread and unseen by them, is both unacademic and unethical.
It must be noted that:
1. The theory propounded in our book, that India was the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages, is not a crank theory, comparable, say, to a theory that the earth is flat, or that the sun moves round the earth. It is not a theory so contrary to all scientific norms and facts that it can be condemned without trial.
In fact, far from being contrary to scientific norms, our theory, on the testimony of the very book under discussion, is at least as scientifically probable as their own theory:
Erdosy in his preface, tells us that on this subject there is a great ‘disciplinary divide’ between two disciplines involved in a study of the past,’^(12)ie. between Linguistics and Archaeology; and that the idea that the Aryans were intruders into South Asia ‘has recently been challenged by archaeologists who - alongwith linguists - are best qualified to evaluate its validity.’^(13)
Further, while the book pits Witzel’s linguistic arguments against the arguments of the archaeologists and anthropologists, his linguistic arguments (as we have already seen in our chapter on The Indo-European Homeland) turn out to be self-defeating. He sets out to demonstrate ’the evidence of place-names, above all hydronomy’^(14) against the claims of the archaeologists, and ends up all but admitting that the evidence in fact supports their claims.
2. The theory of an Indian homeland is the only rival theory pertinent to the subject of their conference and their book (The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia), and it is, in fact, the only rival theory referred to by Erdosy and Witzel.
And this rival theory has been in the running ever since the debate started on the subject two centuries ago. And it is not an old and abandoned theory, either.In the words of Erdosy and Witzel, it represents also an ’emerging’^(15) viewpoint which is being ‘increasingly’^(16) propounded in recent times, and represents ‘a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship’.^(17)
In these circumstances, the condemnation of our book, unread and unseen, cannot be justified on any ground.
The scholars, however, do seek to justify it on the ground that ‘political motivation’ renders this opposition devoid of scholarly value.’^(18)
This, again, is neither academic nor ethical. Books and theories cannot be condemned, unread and unseen, solely on the basis of one’s perceptions about the motivations behind them.
And, on this principle, Witzel’s papers themselves are ‘devoid of scholarly value’, since he is also ‘motivated’ by the desire to counter the Indian homeland theory.Erdosy testifies that ’the principal concern’ of scholars (like Witzel) studying South Asian linguistics is to find ’evidence for the external origins - and likely arrival in the 2^(nd) millennium BC - of Indo-Aryan languages’^(19); and Witzel himself admits that his historical analysis of the Rigveda is motivated by the desire to counter ‘recent attempts (Biswas 1990, Shaffer 1984) to deny that any movement of Indo-European into South Asia has occured.’^(20)
However, we will not condemn Witzel’s writings on grounds of ‘motivation’. We will examine them in detail and leave it to the readers to judge their ‘scholarly value’.
Witzel, as we shall see, starts out with a basically sound approach, but follows it up with a careless attitude towards the source materials and a system of analysis based on deliberate misinterpretations, and ends up with conclusions contradictory to the facts cited by himself.
We have already examined parts of Witzel’s writings in other parts of this present book. Here, we will examine only his analysis and interpretation of the Rigvedic source materials, and the conclusions that he arrives at from this exercise. And the only quotations that we will cite against him will be his own.
II
BASICALLY SOUND APPROACH TO THE RIGVEDA
Witzel’s basic approach to the Rigveda closely parallels our own.
He recognizes the unique importance of the Rigveda: ‘apart from archaeology, our principal source for the early period must be. the Rigveda’’^(21)
He notes that the evidence of the Rigveda is as solid as the evidence of actual inscriptions: ‘Right from the beginning, in Rgvedic times, elaborate steps were taken to insure the exact reproduction of the words of the ancient poets. As a result, the Rgveda still has the exact same wording in such distant regions as Kashmir, Kerala and Orissa, and even the long-extinct musical accents have been preserved. Vedic transmission is thus superior to that of the Hebrew or Greek Bible, or the Greek, Latin and Chinese classics. We can actually regard present-day Rgveda-recitation as a tape recording of what was first composed and recited some 3000 years ago. In addition, unlike the constantly reformulated Epics and PurANas, the Vedic texts contain contemporary materials.They can serve as snapshots of the political and cultural situation of the particular period and area in which they were composed’ As they are contemporary, and faithfully preserved, these texts are equivalent to inscriptions.’^(22)
And he stresses the authority of the information in the Rigveda over the actual or assumed information available in later texts, and deprecates the use of these texts in arriving at conclusions which would appear to contradict the information in the Rigveda:’there has been a constant misuse of Vedic sources and some historical and pseudo-historical materials, not only by nationalist politicians, but also by archaeologists and historians. Most serious is the acceptance of much later materials as authoritative sources for the Vedic period.’^(23)His reference is not only to the PurANas and Epics, but also to the Vedic literature which constitutes the ‘bulk of the post-Rgvedic texts’, since ’the later Vedic texts contain stanzas and prose’ of a later period.’^(24)
He concedes that the historical material in the Rigveda does not consist of clear narrations, but of historical allusions: ’there is no ’logical’ development describing successive actions or the story of a myth, only disjointed allusions to facts well known to contemporary listeners’Thus the myths, the ritual and certainly the contemporary history have to be pieced together from stray references, and these, too, were addressed to people who knew the events well.’^(25)
But he feels that scholars have been misled by this into refraining from proper utilisation of the rich historical material in the Rigveda: ’the generally held view (is) that everything that can be gathered from a study of the text has already been said. The general attitude seems to be: the immigration of the Indo-Aryans is a fact that can frequently be noticed in the Rgveda; there are some rare glimpses of political history, with approximately 30 small tribes known from the text; a few names of kings can be discovered, such as Trasadasyu, DivodAsa or the famous SudAs of the 10 kings battle (RV 7.18), a sort of precursor to the MahAbhArata.But all of this is too sketchy to allow us much more than a glimpse at what actually happened in that period. One of the aims of this paper is to show that this impression is erroneous, and to give an idea of the wide range of information that can be extracted.’^(26)
Witzel therefore sets out to ‘demonstrate the richness of the available information (in the Rigveda) which has generally been overlooked by both historians and archaeologists.’^(27)
Witzel realizes that for any ‘detailed analysis of the historical content of the Rigveda.’^(28) the first requirement is a reconstruction of the ‘geographical and chronological framework’^(29) of the text.
Hence: ‘In order to lay a firm basis for such an investigation, one has to establish’ a few key parametres. In particular, we need the following grids of reference:A) The structure of the Rgveda itself, with its relative order of hymns that are already divided into ‘books’’ B) The relationship of the various tribes and clans to the books of the Rgveda… C) The authors of the hymns’ D) Geographical features, especially rivers and mountains.’^(30) All this is to be ‘combined with a chronological grid established on the strength of a few pedigrees of chiefs and poets available from the hymns’ eventually’it should be possible to construct a multi-axial grid with variables of time, space and social situation. Once that grid is plotted (and the various points support rather than contradict each other) we may begin the writing of Rgvedic history.’^(31)
Thus, Witzel starts out with a basic approach which is unexceptionable.
III
WITZEL’S THEORY, EVIDENCE AND CONCLUSIONS
Witzel’s theory about the Aryan invasion is that ’the actual movement of Indo-Iranian speakers must have involved a succession of waves,’^(32)and that all the historical Indoaryans and Iranians, ie. ’the speakers of Rgvedic and post-Rgvedic Skt., of Median and Persian, and of the various Avestan dialects are representatives of some of the later waves that entered the Indo-Aryan area.’^(33)
Thus, Witzel’s theory involves the old division of the Aryan invasion into two waves: an older wave of pre-Vedic Aryans, and a later wave of Vedic Aryans.
The pre-Vedic Aryans, according to him, were the four tribes, the Yadus, TurvaSas, Anus and Druhyus:‘By the time of composition of most Rgvedic hymns, the Yadu-TurvaSa and the Anu-Druhyu had already been well-established in the Punjab’They retain only the dimmest recollection of their move into South Asia.’^(34) These tribes ‘do not figure much in the Rgveda.’^(35)
The Vedic Aryans proper were ’the PUru, and their subtribe theBharata, who play a major role in most books ;’^(36) and it is ’the PUru to whom (and to their dominant successors, the Bharata) the Rgveda really belongs.’^(37)
But even here, Witzel sees two waves of invasion after the earlier settlement of the four tribes in the Punjab: ‘The next wave is represented by the PUru, although their movement into the subcontinent had also become a done deed by the time most Vedic hymns were composed.The PUru are thus included among the ‘Five Peoples’ whom they initially dominated. Finally, the PUru contained a subtribe, the Bharatas, who were the latest intruders and who thoroughly disturbed the status quo.’^(38)
All these different tribes, in different waves, came into the Punjab from the northwest, according to Witzel: ‘Their previous home is, thus, clearly the mountainous country of Afghanistan to the west (especially along the Harax^(v)aiti-Helmand and Haroiiu-Herat rivers corresponding to the Vedic SarasvatI and Sarayu).’^(39)
The Rigveda was composed by the priests of the PUrus and the Bharatas, and ‘most of Rgveda was composed as the PUru and the Bharata were moving into the Panjab. Portions composed before the PUru assumed a central role in the Panjab (in about three generations) were subsequently recast in their style.’^(40) [Here, incidentally, Witzel suggests a phenomenon roughly similar to that suggested by scholars like Pargiter and Shendge, who visualise parts of the Rigveda being already in existence in the Punjab before the arrival of the Vedic Aryans, and being revised and incorporated by the Vedic Aryans into their text. But while these parts, according to Pargiter and Shendge, were originally composed by non-Aryans in their non-Aryan language, Witzel sees them composed by non-Vedic Aryans belonging to an earlier wave of invasions.]
The corpus of the Rigveda was thus, according to Witzel, ‘composed primarily by the PUrus and Bharatas, and spans the story of their immigration.’^(41)
And here we come to the crux of Witzel’s endeavour: Witzel’s main purpose in analysing the Rigveda is to reconstruct a chronological and geographical framework out of the data in the Rigveda, which will corroborate his theory of the migration of Aryans from Afghanistan into the Punjab.
And the chronological and geographical picture he reconstructs from this data places the six Family MaNDalas in the following order: II, IV, V, VI, III, VII. Among the non-family MaNDalas, he counts MaNDala VIII among the early MaNDalas, probably after MaNDala IV or MaNDala VI, but definitely before MaNDalas III and VII.
According to him, MaNDala II, which he refers to repeatedly as ’the old book 2’^(42) is the oldest MaNDala in the Rigveda.This MaNDala ‘focuses on the Northwest, in the mountains and in the passes leading into South Asia from Afghanistan.’^(43)During this period, the Vedic Aryans were still ‘fighting their way through the NW mountains passes’^(44), and had not yet entered India proper.
The subsequent MaNDalas record ’the story of the immigration: the initial stages (beginning with their stay still on the western side of the Sindhu) in books 4, 5, 6 and 8, and the final stage ( including the defection of the PUrus and the victory of the Bharatas in the battle of the ten kings) in books 3 and 7.’^(45)
MaNDala IV, which Witzel refers to as ’the comparatively old book 4’,^(46)represents the commencement of their movement into India, but ‘still places the Bharatas on the far western side of the Sindhu.’^(47)
Witzel’s geographical picture of the Rigveda, with the MaNDalas arranged in his chronological order, is as tabulated in the chart on the next page.
Witzel thus concludes that he has established the immigration of the Aryans into India on the basis of an analysis of the Rigveda.
We will now proceed to examine his analysis and his conclusions.
IV
CARELESS MISINTERPRETATIONS
The very first point that must be noted about Witzel’s work is his grossly careless attitude towards the basic facts about the source material in the Rigveda, manifested mainly in the form of wrong sweeping statements or identifications.
At the very beginning Witzel assures us that his analysis is based on ‘a few key parametres’ based on ’the following grids of reference: A) The structure of the Rgveda itself, with its relative order of hymns that are already divided into books’ B) The relationship of the various tribes and clans to the books of the Rgveda’ C) The authors of the hymns’D) Geographical features, especially rivers’ and mountains’ E) This information can then be combined in a grid of places, poets and tribes’ F) Finally this grid can be combined with a chronological grid established on the strength of a few pedigrees of chiefs and poets available from the hymns.’^(48)