On further reading, I find that more difficulties emerge. In addition to above, one also has to explain
Edited by Venkytalks - 18-Jan-2013 at 05:53
On reading up about the newer thought process regarding Indus Valey civilization from Harappa.com and the papers posted online by Kenoyer, Farmer and others, not too much emerges. I have never had any doubt in my mind that modern Hinduism is derived most prodominantly from IVC. The intervening decades have only fleshed out the details.
1. The Ghandara Grave bronze age Indo Aryan culture of 1500 to 500 BC in the Swat valley
2. Cemetery H culture from 1700 to 1300 BC in Punjab and surrounding areas
3. Ochre coloured pottery (copper hoard) bronze age culture of 1900 to 1100 BC in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh
4. The black and red ware early iron age culture of 1200 to 900 BC in Punjab
5. Painted gray ware iron age culture of 1100 to 600 BC in Punjab and UP
Which brings us to recorded history of 500 BC.
My readings into oral tradition were quite illuminating.
http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol8/veda.htm
It is clear that when small children start chanting at a young age of 7 and keep it up all their lives, there is better transmission than with writing (with each copying of a text, errors get introduced).Since the children chant all their lives without understanding it, it is only a living book. Writing down of Veda was perhaps not when writing was invented in 300 BC (or 250BC if Ashoka invened it) but much later in 500-700 AD.
Some things are still not clear and we need to see the British accounts for this - how much text is committed to one group? How many groups of chanting people are needed to memorise the enormously voluminous Hindu literature? What is the total number of people we are talking about?
How does something like this even start? Nowhere else in the world except in Avesta do we see this. How were the Rig Veda composed in the first place - did one Brahmin compose one poem at a time and make his student memorise it and then move on to the next poem - and each generation keeps on adding - and as population increases, more and more schools get formed - and they all spend their time chanting the rhymes daily, which keep getting more and more?
And what about recompilation - how do you recompile something in people's memory? Do they form a special school of new 7 year olds, put a group of teachers each of whom knows a chant in a certain way - and mix them up, so that the new group of children grow up knowing a completely new set of chants - which then gets passed on?
I am speechless - (pun intended).
Although my ancestors did this, and I know since I have been told since birth that they did this, it is still not credible - especially when one sees the volumes (around 1/10th of the transmitted texts) in www.sacred-texts.org
What possible conditions would engender the start of something which sounds straight out of Star Trek?
For one, there would have to be peace for a very long time.
Strangely, this seems to be true - despite the fact that India has been repeatedly invaded multiple times from 300 BC onwards, from 1900 BC to 300 BC there has been no record of any invasion except by the Rig Vedic people themselves.
Second, The Brahmins would have to be left alone.
We know that the main activity of the Vedic people was to wage war against each other but by common consent, they would leave the Brahmins alone. Strangely again, we know this was the prevailing practice - not just till 300 BC but probably for much after that as well - until the Muslim invasion when we know that the universities were destroyed.
What would be the nucleus of starting this - did the earliest priests chant a few verses telling of the earliest of their memories - their students learnt this blindly - and then it just got out of hand and grew by addition until it reached this massive size over a 1000 years?
From age 7 to 17 a person chants, then he gets married and has his own children. That means 6 generations per century and 60 generations per millenium.
Let us assume a million lines in the whole of the Veda, Brahmana, Upanishads, Aranyaka, Sutras and early versions of the Jayam and Ramayana. That means 16000 lines of verse per generation has to be added. Assuming we have 100 schools, that means each teacher has to compose about 160 lines of verse.
Thats not impossible. But I would have to see how many lines are actually there.
Bhagavad Gita has about 700 slokas. That is tough enough to memorize. Rig Veda has 10500 slokas, Mahabharata has 80,000 slokas. Sama veda 1875, Satapatha brahmana is prose and fills 5 volumes - Say 50,000 lines. Ramayana has 24000 verses. Including all the 19 brahmanas, 18+18 puranas and 36 sutras, we would be well in excess of a million lines.
Even if only the Vedas (15000), 10 of the Brahmanas (100,000), 10 Upanishads, 5 of the 8 Aranyakas (50,000) and 10 of the sutras (100,000) and early versions of the Jayam and Ramayana (20,000) were composed and transmitted orally and the rest had the benefit of writing for composition, we are still talking about some 300,000 lines.
Thats about 50 slokas per teacher per school needs composition assuming 100 schools.
Would every teacher be able to compose? Would every child have memory and ability to memorise? If an extra-ordinary and creative teacher arises, how quickly would he be able to transmit his composition to a school of Brahmin boys - what are his limits with only oral transmission and without writing? Were there big universities where the composition and special arrangements for large scale transmisison available?
We need data on population - how much population was there in Punjab and UP between 1200 and 600 BC? How many villages - how many schools per 100 villages? What percentage of population was Brahmin, what percentage could be teachable, what percentage capable of composition (since blind chanting and composition are very different skills). What about effects of disease, famine, war, floods and other disruption - we need to calculate attrition rates also.
In the meantime, we still havent worked out the need for such schools to start in the absence of empire like Achemenid empire - so that a greater memory impels this sort of oral transmission. Is there was a great past, then it is not recorded in the writings or the memory of these people. There is no story of an Atlantis or a paradise lost, no memory of exile.
Possible sites of past empire are
1. Sintashta: Driven out by Mongols
2. BMAC: Driven out by Andronovo
3. Mitanni: Driven out by Assyrians
4. Swat valley: no driving out needed - they just come down and conquer the Cemetery H people.
Now the BMAC is an urban culture. They are not pastoral. They show long development from neolithic to chalcolithic to Bronze age. If they were driven out, then why would they not make fresh cities in Punjab? And why would they change their way of life to pastoralism? From where would they get their iron? Sintashta, Mitanni and Swat at least are Indo European language speaking and are likely to be pastoral tribals.
Iron use is also a particularly difficult problem. From 1200 BC, almost simultaneously, everybody started using iron - from Europe to Africa to south India - including the Black and red and painted gray ware people. It is just like agriculture in 4000 BC - it just started at the same time everywhere. Diffusion theory for iron is particularly weak because iron working began in UP and Karnataka by 1600 to 1200 BC, much before the Vedic period. But there are no cities, or population centers and no good archeological records. So do we assume that the Cemetry H and copper hoard people were more advanced and started iron usage - and the Vedic people adopted it from them? Were there connections between these 2 people?
If there are connections, then the "peace for 1000 years" theory breaks down. It is inconceivable that such a people would not get mentioned in Rig Veda. It is not conceivable that they live in peace for 1000 years. It is not conceivable that the Vedic people won every conflict. At some time, they have to face defeat - it doesnt happen otherwise. And if they face defeat, I doubt that their peaceful Brahmin schools would remain undisturbed.
Either we have to doubt the dating system. Or we have some very major pieces missing in our puzzle.
Again, we need population estimates of the local and Vedic populations to get anywhere.
Edited by Venkytalks - 18-Jan-2013 at 05:53
On reading up about the newer thought process regarding Indus Valey civilization from Harappa.com and the papers posted online by Kenoyer, Farmer and others, not too much emerges. I have never had any doubt in my mind that modern Hinduism is derived most prodominantly from IVC. The intervening decades have only fleshed out the details.
1. There is no doubt now that the Saraswati is the Ghaggar Hakra which carried most of the Sutlej and other small tributaries from Himachal into the Arabian sea and that much of the Yamuna water also wandered in the same direction via the Drishtadvati channels went into the Rann. And that the shifting monsoon, reduced water flow and other geological events caused a drying up of the Saraswati system. Whether this is the rig vedic saraswati system is an entirely different thing - all we can say is that Ghaggar Hakra was the center of IVC.
2. Evidence of Post Harappan continuum in the same direction as Harappan culture without writing or a complex mercantile class is accumulating. Cemetery H, Copper hoard and other Deccan cultures and possibly even the Red/black and painted gray ware could have been remnants of the IVC.
3. The lack of any evidence of standing army, large scale weapons manufacture or history of conflict with mesopotamia is puzzling as it was earlier. A recent paper of cranial injuries in skulls in excess of what is found in other cultures notwithstanding, the culture of these people is still peculiar. Most peculiar of all is the absence of temple building. DEspite the ability of these people to make large brick structures, there are no temples - unless the Kushan stupa hides a temple and the great bath was a temple tank. There are also no large baked clay statues, which goes againt temple.
4. Most likely, these people worshipped in a way similar to many North Indian communities - the household puja. Small clay images of dieties are worshipped and sometimes thrown away after the ritual. Lighting of diyas to these images, common with most households all over India, is likely.
5. The seals, writing and their function remains mysterious. Linguistic writing seems to have been ruled out by now. Heraldry of important families, seals of ownership or numerical writing system seem to be still being considered.
6. Linkage to fertility cult like religious system are still proliferating. Mother godesses, linga like objects, possibility of ritual sex, including around the Great bath like Mesopotamian cultures and South Indian temple traditions seem to be most preponderant.
7. The linkage of seal imagery with religion is still tenuous. Numerous animals, proto shiva like images, Zebu and Unicorn images might all be explainable with heraldry and not religion. The fish symbols on the seals and their linkage to female and male images is also a little fanciful. Simple explanations are more likely to be true than complex ones - these ancient people are not likely to think with the same complexity as modern humans - most papers on the Mittanni Hittite treaty, IVC seals etc seem too complex for a simple evolution. Until we know that the seals were used for, we cannot guess the meaning of the images. SInce most of them seem reated to merchant trading activities, and the export of these items - trade related symbols i.e. haraldry of merchant class people and numerical systems of describing the item and their numbers seems most likely. So a typical seal might say - Unicorn seal (commones) = largest trader of the IVC, Item of expost = whatever it is, and quantity = numerical system. It is also quite possible that the IVC was a slave society where people were also owned by big families. So the same family might put its seal on an urn and also tie the same it around their own slave - with some description of status. In all probablity, some such explanation is what will come out ultimately.
8. THe IVC people were very populous. This characteristic makes them similar to the modern Indian and is at variance with the 1800 to 600 BC period and requires explanation. Population of cities like Harappa and MD is around 30,000 to 50,000 and if we add the smaller cities, numbering in the hundreds it must have been huge. Say 5 cities with 30,000 = 150,000, 100 cities with 10,000 = 1 million, 500 cities with 5000 = 2.5 million and then small agricultural villages = 2.5 million.
9. So a total of 5 million people. That is really huge, much more than what I expected and this requires explanation as to just how much they could have dwindled. If we look at agriculture, India is fertile and most villages are rain fed and can generate crops without irrigation. Even if the big mercantile cities collapsed for whatever reason, the village agriculturist can continue to survive. It is silly to say you cannot clear forest with copper tools because normally slash and burn method is used to create extra land for cultivation even now, no woodcutter goes to chop down the forest in tribal India. In India fertile land is abundant. So if people faced water scarcity - and as demonstrated, moved upstream into the Punjab as demonstrated on archeological records, - then they can continue to move into UP if the land became drier and water was a problem. UP and Bihar are still fertile rainfed lands even today. IVC people had wells. In UP if you dig 10 feet you hit water. Why would their population numbering so large a number dwindle so much? And why are larger urbal settlements so few in the north - if so many people lived, they must have some larger settlements. This is inexplicable and perhaps we need to look for such evidence in UP - beneath the alluvial deposits, other cities are bound to be there. And most likely they lie beneath he same towns which exist today.
10. We need population estimates from 1800 to 600 BC. How many lived in the painted gray/black-red/copper hoard and cemetrty H? And why did the population remain less in this period? One possibility is small pox. Nobody knows where it originated. Earliest small pox victim is around 1000 BC in an Egyptian mummy. Was it circulating before 1000 BC in Asia or Africa? Maybe in 1900 BC, one of the IVC merchants brought back small pox and since people in IVC would be encountering it for the first time, it would decimate the population. It can explain the person lying dead in the Mohenjodaro alley - and the room full of bodies - even the last of the people would have died as the survivors run away scared totouch the body. It can explain three fourths of a population dying within a few years of first contact. Now the other possibility that small pox arose in India I dont like so much - because it would create a resistant pool and less of devastation than a new arrival. Still - a sudden introduction from anywhere in the world - South India, Arabia, Africa, Mesopotamia, Egypt - anywhere would be enough to devastate IVC. With the added problem of drying up, population would dwindle to vanishing point, some 5-10% of what it was before. It happened in Machu Pichu to the Incas. Happened in Japan, happened in Europe. Why not IVC. It can also explain the low populations since. We know India was an endemic country for small pox. Maybe it killed a lot and prevented urbanization - because wherever population increases, small pox visits its devastation. So isolated communities can survive small pox better - an example of how a disease can influence population settlement. Small pox will strike one village and kill half the children, but next village survives intact because of isolation. Then in another round, another village is visited. And so on. Most villages would pray to Sheetal Mata - the Godess of small pox. Maybe thats what prevented urbanization in India.
11. Contrary to what I expected, iron smelting seems to have developed in non Aryan India among diverse settlements in Bengal, Mysore, Bihar and Deccan from 1200 to 800BC. So the Aryans did not have a technological edge - it might have been the reverse. The IVC were more advanced, the locals during Vedic times are more advanced - but these superior people, technologically more advanced, are never described in the Vedas and Brahmanas. We need to look for them there because if the Vedic people met them, they would be there in the later Vedic literature.
12. About the Vedic people, their first contact with urbanised life in Pataliputra and Rajagriha has proved fatal - as soon a cities form again in India, the Vedic people go into terminal decline. New religions emerge, the Kings change their religion. This shows that prior contact with large cities would also have been quite difficult for these people, but not impossible to withstand.
13. If we look at the Acheminids, they were able to build their own empire and after its decline, they continue to live in Iran and pursue their religion with oral traditions. Iran of course has never been a populous country - its existing large population is also of recent birth in the last 50 years. Still, the Avesta was preserved and transmitted even during persecution by the Muslims, by escaping to India. So Avesta oral tradition continued despite the presence of urbanisation, contact with other religions, and the presence of writing.
14. The Mitanni during their contact with urbanisation and writing, seem to have preserved their identity, if the Hittite Mittanni treaty is anything to go by. We dont know if they had an oral tradition. We dont know if they survived their overthrow by Assyrians.
The last I read on these subjects about 20 years ago, there was no internet. There were a few books in libraries - and finding Griffith's translation in the public library was a rare finding. Now it has become so much easier - and every question from a wandering mind finds serious answers even from simple sources like the first hit - Wikepedia.
From Wikepedea on Mitanni
Wasashatta
Despite Assyrian strength, Shattuara's son Wasashatta attempted to rebel. He sought Hittite help, but that kingdom was preoccupied with internal struggles, possibly connected with the usurpation of Hattusili III, who had driven his nephew Urhi-Teshup into exile. The Hittites took Wasashatta's money but did not help, as Adad-nirari's inscriptions gleefully note.
The Assyrians expanded further, and conquered the royal city of Taidu, and took Washshukannu, Amasakku, Kahat, Shuru[disambiguation needed], Nabula, Hurra[disambiguation needed]and Shuduhu as well. They conquered Irridu, destroyed it utterly and sowed salt over it. The wife, sons and daughters of Wasashatta were taken to Ashur, together with much booty and other prisoners. As Wasashatta himself is not mentioned, he must have escaped capture. There are letters of Wasashatta in the Hittite archives. Some scholars think he became ruler of a reduced Mitanni state called Shubria.
While Adad-nirari I conquered the Mitanni heartland between the Balikh and the Khabur from the Hittites, he does not seem to have crossed the Euphrates, and Carchemishremained part of the Hittite kingdom. With his victory over Mitanni, Adad-nirari claimed the title of Great King (sharru rabû) in letters to the Hittite rulers.
Shupria (Shubria) or Arme-Shupria (Akkadian: Armani-Subartu from the 3rd millennium BC) was a Proto-Armeniankingdom, known from Assyrian sources beginning in the 13th century BC, located in the Armenian Highland, to the southwest ofLake Van, bordering on Ararat proper. Scholars have linked the district in the area called Arme or Armani, to the nameArmenia.[1][2]
Weidner interpreted textual evidence to indicate that after the Proto-Armenian (Hurrian) king Shattuara of Mitanni was defeated by Adad-nirari I of Assyria in the early 13th century BC, he then became ruler of a reduced vassal state known as Shubria orSubartu.[3] The name Subartu (Sumerian: Shubur) for the region is attested much earlier, from the time of the earliest Mesopotamian records (mid 3rd millennium BC).
Together with Armani-Subartu (Hurri-Mitanni), Hayasa-Azzi and other Indo-European populations of the region such as the Nairifell under Kingdom of Ararat rule in the 9th century BC, and their descendants (according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia) later contributed to the ethnogenesis of the early Armenians.[4]
Shupria is mentioned in the letter of Esarhaddon to the god Assur. Esarhaddon undertook an expedition against Shupria in 674, subjugating it.
Shattuara II
In the reign of Shalmaneser I (1270s–1240s) King Shattuara of Mitanni, a son or nephew of Wasahatta, rebelled against the Assyrian yoke with the help of the Hittites and the nomadic Ahlamu (Arameans) around 1250 BC. His army was well prepared; they had occupied all the mountain passes and waterholes, so that the Assyrian army suffered from thirst during their advance.
Nevertheless, Shalmaneser I won a crushing victory for Assyria over the Hittites and Mitanni. He claims to have slain 14,400 men; the rest were blinded and carried away. His inscriptions mention the conquest of nine fortified temples; 180 Hurrian cities were "turned into rubble mounds", and Shalmaneser "…slaughtered like sheep the armies of the Hittites and the Ahlamu his allies…". The cities from Taidu to Irridu were captured, as well as all of mount Kashiar to Eluhat and the fortresses of Sudu and Harranu to Carchemish on the Euphrates. Another inscription mentions the construction of a temple to the Assyrian god Adad/Hadad in Kahat, a city of Mitanni that must have been occupied as well.
So if some of the Mitanni became the Armenians and the rest were butchered large scale, the possibility of them being the Vedic people is virtually ruled out. It is unlikely that their priesthood would survive such a catastrophy. So we have to look elsewhere for the origin of the Vedic people and the initial hypothesis is incorrect.
15. If we look at the Vedic people in 500 to 200 BC, the start of writing has coincided with an amazing enlargement of the literature. The oral tradition prior to Brahmi has mainly Vedic themes whereas after Brahmi, the local Indian Gods are predominant. Vedic Gods are specifically denigrated and the primacy of every local God is attested by some passage in a Purana saying that he defeated Indra and Brahma and both of them are subjected to severe humiliation in the stories.
16. It is possible that the Vedic Brahmins were chanting away in their oral tradition - this being their main characteristic separating them from the locals. And then when the Kings become Budhist, they lose power. When writing emerges, they take advantage of it and use their chanting techniques in a new way - now they are no longer restricted in their powers of composition - they can use writing to compose new stories in profusion, and then quickly train up their chanting armies and pass them on to their oral tradition. So they can write the Mahabharata by enlarging the previous Bharata by orders of magnitude - not possible before writing developed. And the same with the Puranas and Ramayana. This would help them to gain favour with the people and new Kings who were no more praying to the Vedic Gods because the local religion and people had triumphed as soon as cities came into being again.
17. Another possibility is that the people were already praying to the non Vedic Gods, but the oral tradition could not catch up with these changes because there was no writing. Hence the Vedic literature still predominated over the literature of the local Gods. Local legends in proto form would have been already circulating. So once writing became available, what little had been composed in the epics and puranas which had been increasing for a while could be subjected to a more massive ramp up of capacity of composition. Hence the explosion in the 200 BC period.
18.The Brahmins would have wanted to keep their relevance after the Kings became Budhist. Being already learned and having their chanting armies, they were better placed than the Budhists who were dependent on writing - the Brahmins could outpace them in writing up stories and committing them to memory and mass producing priests who could fan out and spread their religion. Since they were essentially more interested in maintaining control than spreading their own religion, they could adopt every local diety and make it heir own. Hence if locals in Bengal preferred Durga, they could chant up the Devi Mahatmyam. If the locals in South India preferred Murugan, they could chant up the Skanda puranam. If the locals of Mathura preferred Krishna, they could change the Vedic character of the Krishna of the Jayam into another person entirely and write up the Vishnu Purana and numerous passages in the Epics. If people wanted Linga worship, they could write up a Shiva puranam. Whereas the Budhists and Jainists were forced to make people change their religion - not so easy if your King is not a Budhist. In which case, it is inescapable that most of the people of India were Hindu and it remained strong enough to withstand Muslim invasion and forced conversions.
19. The next question is - if the Brahmins used their abilities in this predatory fashion to capture the local religions, was it an organised conspiracy or did it just happen? Was it a local decision of a Brahmin to cater to the needs of his local population or was it a major policy change in the large Brahminical centers to chant up a few massive Puranas and Epics? Taxila and Nalanda had become Budhist. To my mind, the activity of large scale story manufacturing has to have royal sanction and support of a large group of priests with one mind. Only if the King supports is such an enterprise possible. The current Ramayana is having one metre, composed in a same style as a much older story, and yet the interpolations of local Gods occurs systematically. This does not have the sense of slow changes occurring over centuries, it seems like an organised activity. Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita is a mish mash of three different texts, occurring with systematic interpolations of two different philosophies over a more ancient core - of KArma Yoga and then Bhakti philosophies (at least following AL Basham). This indicates an interpolation occurring initially as an Upanishad, and then a more systematic Bhakti interpolation coinciding with turning the Krishna of the MB into the local God Krishna. And this is done in an organised way all over the whole of the MB. Once the Ramayana and Jayam are transformed, the other Puranas follow suit, to dot the i and cross the t left undone initially - and they follow very quickly as well, over maybe 400 years and being mostly ready by 500 AD.
20. And the Sunga dynasty was just such a dynasty as to support this type of sctivity. Coming after the Ashokan empire, the original Kingly religion of praying to Vedic Gods was largely dead except in the priests who were still keeping up the chants. So any non-Budhist King who prayed to any of the local Gods would find it easy to coopt the Brahmins into composing such stories as to glorify his own God. Pushyamitra Shunga is reviled for the persecution of Budhists, although many scholars doubt the level of persecution - lack of suport can have a more disastrous consequence than active persecution and royal patronage to Hindu local practices can more effectively destroy Budhism than persecution which only encourages a more determined resistance - especially if active genocides like what the Muslims undertook is ruled out as a form of persecution (Pushyamitra being accused of genocide notwithstanding). The northern borders were also under turmoil after Greek, Kushan, Parthian and other invasions. Hence the Brahmins of the north and Punjab are likely to have migrated east and having large bodies of new Brahmins coming in would help in Epic composition. The sculptures are however restricted to the Stupas and Yakshinis seem predominant. Temple worship doesnt seem to have started. Since the Mathura temples are not yet excavated, we dont know if temples to Krishna existed in this early times in Mathura. If the Sanchi Stupa can be built in Madhya Pradesh so early, there is no technological limit against a temple in Mathura. If so, the temple priests of Mathura definitely could have been the ones to compose the Vaishnavite interpolations of the MB and Ramayana and most of the other Vishnu and Krishna related Puranas. They might have migrated east under the Greek and other central asian tribes to the Sunga empire and flourished there propagating a non Vedic version of Hinduism. However the absence of temple building activity and the fact that Pushyamitra Sunga himself was a Brahmin means that he is likely to have persisted in the fire worship traditions of the Vedas. The progress of the Mathura School of art in Sunga period is also related to Budhist sculpture than Hindu art.
So while the setting is possible, the need is there - but likelihood is still 50-50.
21. Thus, either the Vaishnavite interpolations came later on and so the dates of the MB and Ramayana have to move further to after 50BC in the post Sunga period. Or the Mathura hypothesis above might be true. If we move down the line to Vasudeva Kanva who succeded the Sungas, we are reaching the right name at least! Again a Brahmin, there is not much detail available. Certainly made no changes to the Sunga rule. And after him come the Satavahanas of the South, which completely changes the equation and also pushes up right up to the 25 AD period. Since all we know of Kanvas is from the Puranas, we need not assume any change from Sungas in this period. Which means 225 to 25 BC is ruled by a single line of similar Kings. In architecture we have only Buddhist advances. What about in the literature? That is the question.
22. After them the Satavahanas ruled for 200 years of peace in the north, while the northwest was in great turmoil under the Shaka, Yavana and Pehlava invasions. They were non-iconic and patronised both Hindus and the Budhists, (like the Sunga and the Kanvas). Did any of the local Southern religions migrate north during this time? That would have caused a lot of churning and might be the catalyst needed to write the Epics in enlarged version.
23. This recast of the Epics also could not have come from the north/west. The Afghan and surrounding Pakistan was under the Greeks, then the Parthians and then Shakas (Scythians displaced by the Yuezhei (Kushans) who in turn were displaced by the Xiongnu in 200 BC. Shakas and Kushans were both Indo European speaking from the Andronovo culture, ruling Rajasthan and Punjab resp. But all were Buddhist. The Kambojas were Iranians of Avestan type, supposedly mentioned in Brahmana literature also - which would require examination of the Vedas.
24. So the Sunga period remains the most likely time for the recast of the Epics, unless we push it all the way up into Gupta period. Either the current dating of the Epics and Puranas to be between 200 BC and 200 AD is correct - or it is wrong and we have to think of them as being written as late as Gupta period. This would require that we evaluate the Epics and the Puranas also along with the Veda.
25. If we reach as late as Gupta period, we need to look no further. They were Vaishya or at least not Brahmins like Sungas and Kanvas (who might object to large scale recast of their scriptures). They are devotees of Vishnu. They are undoubted temple builders and built Deogir which is not just a Vishnu temple but also has dashavatara carved on it. They were patrons of art and all forms of scholarly activity. If we say that the Epics were enlarged in their time and Vaishnavite bhakti philosophy was interpolated, nobody will disbelieve it. Everyone anyway believes that Puranas were written in Gupta period. Only problem is that it makes for a very late enlargement and recast - from 250 to 500 AD. And by 750 AD we already have so many commentaries on it including Shankara's on Gita. So unless we nuance it and say one enlargement in 200 BC and another in 300 AD - which leads to its own problems of commentaries and commentaries on commentaries in the case of Gita.
26. So the evidence for large scale expansion is definite for Puranas being written in Gupta period. But for the Epics and Gita, there is doubt - it could be 200 BC or 300 AD. So if we are going to look for evidence within the Rigveda, the Brahmanas, the Upanishads and the Sutras, we need to look for interpolations which are post Buddha, from Sunga period and then of Gupta period. That would help us date the different parts of the Veda.
27. So to summarise, we need to look for
a. Whether the earliest memories of Rig Veda are from Sintashta period. Since they were an innovative people who invented light weight horse chariots, horse domestication, copper working and compound bow - why not that they invented chanting as a method of text transmission as well?
b. Whether the Dasyus forts could have been the BMAC? Mittanni is ruled out. So is IVC because it died of natural causes. Only other possibility is the Cemetery H culture people - who didnt have much of a fort anyway since it left no archeological remains.
c. Where the long period of isolation, predicated by no change for millenia in the oral tradition - either from 2000 to 600 BC or 1200 to 600 BC depending on the dating - was spent. Is there evidence for multiple way stations i.e. in the BMAC then Oxus then Helmand then Swat valley and then north India.
d. Connections between the Avestans of 1100 BC and the Rig Vedic people - are they of similar origin who split? Any way station in Iran/Baluchistan is possible or not for Vedic people?
e. A late arrival into North India around 800 BC. If so, where were they before - from Afghanistan or from Iran/Baluchistan?
f. Any descriptions of the locals. Since we are thinking that the IVC had degenerated and that there was an extra-ordinary time period between 1900 BC and 500 AD when the local deities have become fully evolved, what was happening to the locals in the meantime? Were they Budhist, converted by the Indo-Greeks, Parthians and Kushans? If so how did their local religions survive? Or was their survival a late import from South India during Satavahana rule - that these Indus deities evolved in South India and then migrated north. That means evaluating the Sangam literature from 100 BC to 500 AD.
g. Is the post Budhist interpolations small or large in Vedas? While these could have happened any time, postulating a large interval between Budhism and the emergence of epic hinduism of 700 to 800 years means the Vedas evolved on their own without a support of the Brahmins finding other means of support from the local religions. Except for the Nanda, Sunga and Kanva periods, Vedic religion would have found a hostile audience among Ashoka, Indo Greeks, Shaka, Kushan as well as the locals who would have been following some forms of the IVC religion. This might find evidence in the form of describing periods of hardship, especially in the Brahmana literature. On the other hand, if the change happened by 200 AD then there would be less evidence of hardship.
h. Local descriptions of geography. While we know that Ghaggar Hakra and Drishtadvita had flow in IVC, there is not flow post 1700 BC at the latest. So what and where are the Sarasvati and Sindu? Are they Amu Daria? Helmand? What kind of animals find mention? There are tigers, gharials and rhinos in the IVC. Where are they appearing in the Vedas. In the Srauta sutras, rhino sacrifice is described. But we need to see if the Srautas are uniformly Indian or have a core which is from outside India.
i. Any evidence of small pox. I am beginning to consider this more and more important in Indian history.
j. The evidence from the Epics and earlier Puranas also need to be seen - that is if I am able to finish the Vedas in the first place!!!
I think that is enough preparation. Having gone through 2 textbooks, 5 papers on Harappa, my recollections from my previous reading and Wikepedia updates on those recollections, the more obvious things to look for are already in place.
Including ruling out the main hypothesis and the possibility that the predator theory could actually be small pox rather than human predators.
Onwards!
The reason for migration from the steppes is two fold - it is a dry and semi arid land which means not much agriculture is possible. So any prosperity causing increased population means the people have to displace others to gain land - and so they are always seeking to expand into other areas.
And the other reason is displacement - as one group becomes strong and expands territory, it displaces the adjacent group - which has no option except to displace their neighbour on the other side - so it sets off a domino effect.
Other reason is that any such effort at taking control of other's more fertile land needs a technological edge - since in numbers the steppe people can never be as numerous as the fertile plains.
1. So steppe people in Urals first had improved copper mining - which they supplied to the BMAC, making them rich enough to build Arkaim
2. They had horse domestication with the use of horse chariots - light narrow and manouverable - without stirrups it is easier to wage war from such mobile platforms.
3. They made compound bows - very small but still powerful, so it could be carried on chariot or horseback.
4. Parthians (Indo Aryan speakers from East Caspian area) were armoured cavalry riders carrying compound bow and used the "Parthian shot" - they would ride away, but while retreating, shoot the enemy while looking back - and they did this without stirrup.
5. Shakas (Eastern Scythians), Kushans and Hephthalites (Eastern Huns) were also Indo Aryan speaking and used similar techniques - but lightly armoured and fast moving. While the Shakas and the Kushans were probably of Caucasoid or mixed lightly with Mongoloid ethnicity, Huns were probably not - more of Mongoloid or mixed Caucasoid Mongoloid ethnicity.
6.Mongols (Xiongnu in 200 BC and the Mongol hordes under Ghengis) were non Aryan speaking, of Mongoloid Ethnicity and yet used the same tactics as the Scythians in horse riding - again without stirrup - and carved out the largest empire ever seen
While the early Indo Aryans (Medes, Persians, Parthians) can be seen as "improved" in the sense that they created great empires and stable kingdoms - none of the others can ever be seen as "improved"
One important thing in the psyche of the Indo Iranian branch of the Indo Europeans is a policy of tolerance. Darius the Great (Acheminids) and the Parthians left other people alone despite being great conquerors - leaving local administration under Satraps. The British (Also Indo European) did the same 2000 years later. Germans (also Indo European speaking) were famously not tolerant.
In north west India, the Kushans and Shakas (Like the Indo Greeks like Menander ) were generally tolerant and absorbed the local religion - Budhism and some elements of Brahminism. Taxila contunued to flourish despite the disruptions from 500 BC (When Darius the great occupied a small part of Pakistan) through the Alexandrine wars, the Parthian invasions, Kushan invasions, Shaka invasions - until the White Hun invasion around 500 AD when it was utterly and completely destroyed.
General comments from RV 1.1 to 1.174
Edited by Venkytalks - 20-Jan-2013 at 12:09
Being on iPad and proper editing being difficult, let me write here the general sense of the first chapter. Later I will go over the pasted extracts.
There is little doubt that these are the hymns of a pastoral animal raising people. Horse, cows and goats are the main cattle it seems. There are groups of hymns which are composed by different poets in groups. All have so far a generaL sense and don't seem to have interpolations from later addition.
The general geography seems to have two rivers called the saraswati and the sindu unless sindu is not a river. In which case so far there is only one river. So far there is no mention of agriculture. The wolf figures prominently and only deer, spotted deer and lion are mentioned so far. Lion of course is a general term and it has to be seen if it could be tiger.
The mention of wolves is interesting. Although wolves are present in India, the more likely cattle thief is tiger. Also leopard for calves. If the main predator for the cattle is wolves, then this is either at north west frontier of Pakistan or further West.
The mention of sea is also of note. Excluding the Arabian sea only other possibility is either the Aral sea or Caspian sea. And if only two Rivers were present, they could be the Oxus and the Syr darya. However this region gets quite cold in winter and so far there is no mention of the cold. The area is quite dry though which can explain the obsession with rain falling. If it were this far north, at least a few hymns saying protect me from the cold as I huddle in the chill of the night would be in order. So far there is none. Wolf however would be right at home and Lions were there in east Caspian Parthian and Iranian lands at these times.
An entirely Afghan locus is also unlikely being landlocked. So while the Helmand could be the fast flowing Saraswati river as described , the other sindu is not possible unless the people occupied the whole area from Helmand to the Indus. That would explain two rivers. And as the people shifter east later on, leaving the Helmand behind, the river Saraswati would have become either vanished or reidentified with the much smaller Ghaggar. Being again less fertile than Punjab proper, in west bank of Indus there would be more rain dependence. Also, describing the clouds as forts or as home of a serpent with whom Indra does battle would be more befitting a Monsoon cloud than a rain in Uzbekistan. Though I have no idea how it rains there in the steppes, it might be less impressive than Monsoon. Indian monsoon is of course a very close comparison to what is described repeated about Indra slaying Vritra. The sea and the boat journeys are also possible here.
Floods are possible in Oxus and Indus. But if the Vedic people were forced into migration from Oxus to Indus, it doesn't find mention so far. In fact, so far, there no sense of lost empire or previous glory or being forced to move by an invasion
The sense of the Indra descriptions seem to be general prayer and not descriptive of actual battle. So dasyu seems more a perpetual enemy of the Arya. There is no telling who it could be. Might be the next neighbouring tribe. It is unlikely to be the Indus people because there is no absorption of their culture so far. But it could be if later we find such evidence. It could be the neighbouring similar tribe. So Dasyu could be the Persians or Medes or Parthians in their ancient times. So it could be from 1500 BC to 500 BC at any time. Rescuing the cattle does seem to be metaphorical reference to rescuing from thirst, but it cannot be ruled out that There was actual cattle raiding. It would be the main reason for warfare, since the cattle were the main wealth required for marriage and for the King who would have a lot.
The reason for composition of the Veda is also clear. The King would ask for a big sacrifice before any battle and the priests would prepare in advance for this by composing the hymns. Any one group is only about 100 to 200 slokas and most have the same set of similar hymns to the same group so Gods, almost in sequence. And for this the Brahmin would get a lot of cows, so with taking the effort. And having once got some hymns composed, it would make sense to remember it for next time. Until another major occasion comes around and fresh hymns get composed, perhaps by a fresh group of priests. The tribe leader might keep getting shifter between different clans who would get their own priests in resulting in collection of more hymn groups.
Presence of a King means this was a bigger tribe now and in conflict with others.
Although there might be exaggeration of cattle numbers, it might still be that the King could call on thousands of warriors when needed. They might band together when faced with a common enemy or when unified by a common leader. Other times the clans might clash, or raid cattle. Especially if there was a bride price system of having your own stall of cattle, in which case the neighbouring clan would get raided by a group of young warriors. This also means each clan having its own group of priests who would chant the hymns before battle when bull would be sacrificed and after the battle the victors would sacrifice one of the raided cattle. That would explain multiple sets of similar groups of hymns which under any one King would get unified into a whole Rig Veda. With about three or four groups of hymns only until now, there is no need to worry that there are too many hymns.
The method of sacrifice at this early stage could be just a simple fire alter, chanting of hymns and poring of ghee. Even today, the homam is chanting from Veda only, nothing else is memorised. Method is passes on by instructions from one teacher to a younger priest. That would be enough.
Edited by Venkytalks - 20-Jan-2013 at 12:09
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