Sunday 24 January 2010

Signs of the Transition



http://nalandainternational.org/IndusConference/indusconference.htm

One of the signs of the advent of a ‘new Indology’ is a recent international conference held on 21-22 February 2009, at the Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles) entitled “The Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilizations: A Reappraisal” (link and image above), with some of the most important names of the Indian archaeology from India and the USA: S.R. Rao, R.S. Bisht, Kenoyer and Shaffer. Moreover, there was an expert of the question of the Aryan invasion like E. Bryant and also a Greek scholar, Kazanas, one of the few Westerners criticizing the invasion theory and the official chronology of the Vedas.

What is particularly interesting in this conference is its opening to positions regarded as heretical by the academic establishment (also in the US); then it gives some hope for an authentic debate and for the Great Transition which various hints suggest as being underway: from the old paradigm to a new one, no more based on the aprioristic theory of the Aryan invasion or migration into India.

(On the base of this conference a volume is going to be published on the Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization, where also a contribution of mine - dealing with a new chronology of the Rigveda and a comparison between archaeology and Indian historical tradition - has been unexpectedly invited; it is already completed and accepted, now waiting for the editing)

One of the driving forces of the Transition is surely Koenraad Elst, Belgian scholar who has written, inter alia, Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate, a book which I found in the library of the “Scuola Normale Superiore” of Pisa six years ago, and which opened to me a new world in the field of South Asia, leading to a real conversion from the ‘invasionism’ to a new perspective. He has a blog where I found also the recension of the last book of Talageri, (http://koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-book-about-great-book.html) one of the most militant authors of the new Indian wave of ‘indigenism’ or OIT (Out of India Theory, in the synthetic label dear to Elst), that is the theory supporting the Indian origin of all the Indo-European peoples. I bought the book and read it (almost totally…) and it is really more sophisticate than the previous ones, but similar to his The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (Delhi 2000). One of the pros of Talageri is his systematic method, and his results in the comparison of Rigveda and Avesta are quite remarkable, but I do not agree with all his views (particularly the identity Anu-Iranians and Druhyu-Europeans). Anyway, his engagement in the research of the historical truth as an outsider (he has no academic training) should be taken into account by a new Indology.

2 comments:


  1. sujayrao2000 (signed in using yahoo)

    INDUS SCRIPT WAS TRUE WRITING.

    Please find my two papers below and circulate amongst the skeptics, particularly!

    To state the obvious, the Indus script was a logo-syllabic script and a lost corpus did exist.

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/46387240/Sujay-Indus-Scr

    Published in the ICFAI journal of history and culture, January 2011.

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/111707419/Sujay-Indus-Re

    Published in International journal of philosophy and journal sciences , November 2012.

    I am also introducing logo-syllabic thesis B in this paper.

    ...

    The paper is very self-explanatory!

    does anybody still beg to differ?

    Sujay Rao Mandavilli.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Demise of the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus myths

    I am publishing my sixth research paper directly online as it is an extension of my previous papers. Kindly read pages 4 to 18 as it contains a detailed discussion of the term ‘Aryan’. This paper shows why the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus theories are not tenable.

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/136268397/The-demise-of-the-Dravidian-Vedic-and-Paramunda-Indus-myths

    Methods to reconstruct the languages of the Harappans were presented in the present and previous papers. We hope other scholars take up the exercise of reconstructing the languages of the Indus Valley civilization!

    The older papers were written taking the assumptions of the 19th century school of Indology as a base and working backwards. These may appear to be outdated now (at the end of our very long journey). However, the fundamentals are still correct.

    Part one

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/27103044/Sujay-NPAP-Part-One

    Part Two very,very important!

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/27105677/Sujay-Npap-Part-Two

    (These comprise the complete and comprehensive solution to the Aryan problem)

    for those who have trouble reading part two in the above link use the link below:

    part two
    http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25865304/SUJAY-NPAP-Part-Two




    Literacy in pre-Buddhist India (before 600 BC)

    Literacy in pre-Buddhist India (before 600 BC)

    Please find my collection of papers on literacy in Pre-Buddhist India

    Before mature phase of Indus valley civilization (before 2600 BC)

    - There are some potters marks but none qualify as full writing

    Indus valley civilization (2600 BC to 1900 BC)

    1. The reconfirmation and reinforcement of the Indus script thesis (very logical and self explanatory paper)



    http://www.scribd.com/doc/46387240/Sujay-Indus-Script-Final-Version-Final-Final

    2. The reintroduction of the lost manuscript hypothesis (the case for this thesis has obviously become much stronger in the recent past)



    http://www.scribd.com/doc/111707419/Sujay-Indus-Reintroducing-Lost-Manuscript-Hypothesis

    Post-Harappan India (1600 BC to 600 BC)

    1. Literacy in post-Harappan india (obviously literacy in post-Harappan India existed in certain pockets & were limited to very small sections of society- alphabetic scripts were brought from West Asia and the Indus script also continued – this a very logical and self-explanatory paper and anyone can cross-verify the conclusions)

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/127306265/Sujay-Post-Harappan-Literacy-and-origin-of-Brahmi

    Sujay Rao Mandavilli



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