Aryan Invasion of India Shown for an Arrogant Colonial Myth

P.S. By the way, Arindam, I am posting this again under new header
because I forgot to mention this book I'm reading by a highly reputed
German scholar of Hinduism, Klaus K. Klostermaier, who studied in
India, and by whom I am informed, after all these years of being
misinformed, concerning what is now, against considerable odds in
academe, being revealed as the Nineteenth Century *myth* of an "Aryan
invasion" of India.

Klostermaier exposes this damnable old nonsense as having been never
anything more than a substance of pure speculation based on an
arrogant (if not racist) Colonial prejudice that the greatness of
India could have arisen by no other means than that it had come as the
result of some mythical so-called, "Aryan-European" migration into
India. It must have been an invasion of racial stock which was the
same as had given rise to Greece and Rome. How else to explain the
greatness of India, other than it was the greatness of somebody other
than the Indians?

How else! The case that he makes to establish that Hindu culture was
the production of none other than the indigenous people of India is
backed by a strength of archeological research and dating of
astronomical events from the Vedas which indicate that they are much
older than the date previously given circa 1,500, and that the Rgveda
may go back so far as to 4,500 B.C., giving reason to reveal India for
the original cradle of Civilization that had in error been attributed
to Mesopotamia.

But of course, you've always known this, which is only now news to me,
because why should I know anything more than I did in '68 when I
graduated from college?


On Jul 7, 6:53 am, Arindam Banerjee <adda1....DeleteThis@bigpond.com> wrote:

> Note the semantics - Vedantas or Veda-anta. The Vedantas (philosophy)
> begin where the Vedas (mystery) end. Thus while the Vedas are
> sufficient, the Vedantas are necessary as supplements. Knowledge of
> the Puranas combine the two romantically, and as a consequence they
> provide infallible insights into the subtlest workings of Nature and
> man's place in it.

Intriguing that you should have been thinking along lines of the
"romantic" here in relation to religion, as it was no more than 8
hours previous to my finding this post from you that I was having this
to say (if you can bear with an enormous amount of preliminary
verbosity) . . .

"There is no way on earth that man can ever think his way toward any
Close Encounter, as it were, of the Divine Kind. Any hope of getting
at it by thought can be no less obtuse than to be piling up, a la
Spielberg, huge heaps of dirt, grass and brush on a dining room table.
Just such a profanation would it be: dirty heaps of abstract analyses
on the altar of the divine.

Or paradoxically it would be much to the contrary, if only for the
Dreyfus film character because what he does is quite beyond any mere
potentiality of thought; his act is a meditation; a highly reverent
sort of non-verbal yoga of mud-pie mandala making from the sand and
dirt of his wife's flower bed; an appropriately concrete, wordless
sort of Zen rock garden art that worked to express what had otherwise
been impossibly inexpressible. In the East, this has long been
understood, how that thought is the first barrier to be removed from
the path toward the mysteries of supra-mundane experience.

This does not by any means make the oriental religious/philosophical
traditions anti-intellectual because once the limitations of thought
are admitted and recognized, learning of a far higher sort can begin,
as a finer use for the mind stands to be uncovered--and not at all
after the fashion of Hannibal Lechter, as he would 'uncover' it; at
table with a good Chardonnay and the fava beans.

No! We of the West have always been wrong to think that thought is
the finest activity that the human mind can engage. No gargantuan
mental struggle with the metaphysics of a Kant or Heidegger has ever
been higher nor finer than listening to great music, enjoying the
romance of great love, being made witness to the ecstatic expression
of great art."

> As I comprehend, the mature Hindu is a spirit
> among loving and kindly spirits, manifesting themselves as various
> aspects of Nature (Sun, Wind, Fire, Earth, Stars).

My comment that I'd hoped to have time to make on that will have to
wait, alas, for a new rising of the sun as I see by my handy clock on
the quick launch bar that it's nearly half-past midnight. It pertains,
in short, to something that I saw in the faces of some "loving and
kindly spirits" that had manifested themselves to me one morning
early, circa 1970, through a waning flame of LSD that had been all
night engulfing the tissues of my brain--very costly Mephistophelian
bargain that, by the way, where billions of brain cells are exchanged
for "knowledge". And what's worse? For most everyone but myself, the
knowledge can never be anything other than suspect. It is simply such
that I may say in reply to your comment that I *know* just what you
are talking about, having once had at great hazard, the opportunity to
glimpse it, and be astonished to the point of . . . well, never mind.

> The evil and the
> harshness of the world is the result of its being a break or change
> from Heaven, the perfection of which is our natural place and our goal
> while alive. The more spiritual a society, less the evil and
> harshness of the world.

Well of course on that we couldn't be more thoroughly agreed.

>
> I am in no position to talk about Hindu scripture. I need to master
> Sanskrit, and that should take me at least 5-10 years. Then I have to
> spend several years in deep cogitation. Hopefully when I am 80+ I may
> be recognised as a master.

I once had an acid trip in which I hallucinated that I was recognized
as Barbara Streisand being applauded for a curtain call; it was such a
masterful feeling, of standing at the very cosmic center of the
universe, loved and adored by all the devas, gandharvas, apsaras, the
stage hands and especially the guy up there manning the big baby blue
spot.

Damn! that was something, so fleeting as it was, couldn't have lasted
longer than about five seconds, before I was falling through the realm
of Wrathful Deities, crashing through membranes of hell after hell,
until . . . never mind.

> I have read the writings of the Dalai Lama, when he was a very young
> man. I was deeply impressed by his clear and precise writing style. I
> found that book in the library of my father's uncle, Sir U N
> Brahmachari, around 1973. I was most struck by his views on the
> Chinese, who had expelled him. What was remarkable is how much he
> admired the true Chinese culture. Indeed, that book made me have a
> very positive view of Buddhism, which lasted till you know when.

Well, no one knows the transitory nature of things better than a
Buddhist, nor would any better understand the necessity of walking
according to the Dharma which would seem to choose you: that is the
Middle Way, and if it means remaining on the grandly flowered, incense
misted path of the Hindu, that cannot be contrary to the Buddhas.

>
> Plain fact is, that prior to their becoming non-violent Buddhists 1000
> years ago, the Tibetans (a very tough people, even tougher than the
> Mongols) beat the hell out of the Chinese or anyone. So what is
> better - beating up your neighbours or getting beaten up by them?

Again, as the Great Soul Gandhi walked his middle road, he found a
most astonishing way to beat up his British neighbors by way of
getting beaten up by them--so . . . was it not Gautama Buddha who once
said, "Different strokes for different folks?"
--
JM
http://whosenose.blogspot.com
http://jesusexegesis.blogspot.com-

On Jul 9, 5:28 am, "Just Me" <jpd... RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:
> P.S. By the way, Arindam, I am posting this again under new header because I
> forgot to mention this book I'm reading by a highly reputed German scholar
> of Hinduism, Klaus K. Klostermaier, who studied in India, and by whom I am
> informed, after all these years of being misinformed, concerning what is
> now, against considerable odds in academe, being revealed as the Nineteenth
> Century *myth* of an "Aryan invasion" of India.

Heh-heh, we had to learn that is school, and thanks to Usenet and
Internet that has been unlearnt by most Hindus who were taught that
way (and whose children are *still* being taught that way). However,
genuine Hindus had always known it to be complete rubbish, and a
potential embarrassment for European scholarship. Swami Vivekananda
denounced it as bunkum in the late 19th century, though most
unfortunately he also expressed admiration for its originator, Max
Mueller (impressed by the man's learning and piety).


> Klostermaier exposes this damnable old nonsense as having been never
> anything more than a substance of pure speculation based on an arrogant (if
> not racist) Colonial prejudice that the greatness of India could have arisen
> by no other means than that it had come as the result of some mythical
> so-called, "Aryan-European" migration into India. It must have been an
> invasion of racial stock which was the same as had given rise to Greece and
> Rome. How else to explain the greatness of India, other than it was the
> greatness of somebody other than the Indians?

It was not just colonial prejudice, though of course racism and
colonial thinking had a great deal to do with its acceptance as fact.
In those days the theory of evolution was in its infancy, and the
Christians (going by the timings contained in the Bible to date the
origin of all existence) strongly and fully believed the world was
created in 4000 BC. However, the Christians soon found out that
Hindus did not believe in that timeline at all. They had dynasties
going a long long way back. So a great deal of effort (Max Mueller is
a "hero" here) was made at showing that Hindu scholars (brahmins) were
liars and scoundrels or at best unthinking blind copiers and followers
of tradition, and that the powerful Europeans were right in whatever
they said! To dovetail with their world-view, the Christian
scholarship essentially zoomed down the Indian history to make it
start from about 1500 BC, when the European Aryans conquered the dark
tribes of India. Well, lies do have a very harmful effect, and this
lie was one of the direct psychological reasons behind the world wars
- especially #2. Even today, the malign effect of this theory appears
in the complete neglect and indifference to the Indian scholarship -
malignant impostors of Indian origin, such as the much-boosted
Rushdie, are hailed as genuine Indian writers! Thus, the whole of
Indian literature and thinking is effectively ignored or diverted as
useless.

> How else! The case he makes is to establish what ought otherwise to have
> been obvious, that Hindu culture is the production of the indigenous people
> of India--and nothing else! This is backed by a strength of archeological
> research and dating of astronomical events from the Vedas which indicate
> that they are much older than the date previously given circa 1,500, and
> that the Rgveda may go back so far as to 4,500 B.C., giving reason to reveal
> India for the original cradle of Civilization from which an Indian racial
> stock, the "Aryan" went forth north and eastward into Asia, Mesopotamia and
> Europe carrying linguistic characteristics which later evolved in the Indian
> subcontinent as Sanskrit; Greek and Latin around Mediterranean Europe.

I believe that over history and prehistory people have been coming to
India from outside, and also going out. It was always a two-way
process. A spiritual culture does not greatly value architecture -
but it does value language, literature and music; morality, ritual and
behaviour. In such abstract matters, Indians have never had any peer
among any nation. Unfortunately, this did make Indians appear rather
snooty to others, and this is a lack indeed that needs mending.

> As the "Negro" race evolved from Australo-Melanesian racial stock out of
> Indonesia and Africa, the "Aryan" arose of the Hindu peoples of the Indian
> subcontinent. In Mesopotamia, the racial strains mixed to produce the
> Semitic stock, and the great civilizations of Egypt, Babylon, and
> Israel/Judea.  Some Aryan/Indian tribes wandered northwest rather than due
> west into the steppes of Russia to become the Slavic, "Caucasian" stock
> which migrated into Scandinavia and Northern Europe, while others went due
> north through Tibet to become the great civilization of China--and that's
> all she wrote.
>
> But this is of course my take on it, which though it seems implied by the
> facts revealed in Klostermaier's  writing, is not made explicit.
>
> No doubt you, Arindam have long been hip to the butt-backwardness of  the
> "Indo-European" Aryan myth, which is only now news to me--because why should
> I know anything more than I did in '68 when I graduated from college?

Indeed. Well, better late than never! If you want to read more,
google for "Kak".

> On Jul 7, 6:53 am, Arindam Banerjee <adda1... RemoveThis @bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > Note the semantics - Vedantas or Veda-anta.  The Vedantas (philosophy)
> > begin where the Vedas (mystery) end.  Thus while the Vedas are
> > sufficient, the Vedantas are necessary as supplements.  Knowledge of
> > the Puranas combine the two romantically, and as a consequence they
> > provide infallible insights into the subtlest workings of Nature and
> > man's place in it.
>
> Intriguing that you should have been thinking along lines of the "romantic"
> here in relation to religion, as it was no more than 8 hours previous to my
> finding this post from you that I was having this to say (if you can bear
> with an enormous amount of preliminary verbosity) . . .

In the spiritual sense, it is romance, and only romance, that is
real. What appears real (material, subject to sense perceptions) is
unreal, for it changes, lives and dies - most evidently, our own
bodies. While we certainly need to take care of our bodies, we should
not in the spiritual sense be overly concerned with their well-being.
Spirituality will be the best way to keep bodies healthy and sound.
Romance conquers time, by capturing minds. Thus the concept of
shunyata, in the romantic Hindu perspective, makes sense in
considering the real world as effectively shunya, or nought. Take the
inverse of it, zero that is, as shunya, or the complete implosion of
all existence into and all-encompassing nothingness. This is not
negation, nor hiding away, nor dealing with contradictions. This is a
world-view, that reconciles understanding of the world and its ways
(scientific or otherwise) with the serenity obtained with the Grace of
the Divine.

> "There is no way on earth that man can ever think his way toward any Close
> Encounter, as it were, of the Divine Kind. Any hope of getting at it by
> thought can be no less obtuse than to be piling up, a la Spielberg, huge
> heaps of dirt, grass and brush on a dining room table. Just such a
> profanation would it be: dirty heaps of abstract analyses on the altar of
> the divine.
>
> Or paradoxically it would be much to the contrary, if only for the Dreyfus
> film character because what he does is quite beyond any mere potentiality of
> thought; his act is a meditation; a highly reverent sort of non-verbal yoga
> of mud-pie mandala making from the sand and dirt of his wife's flower bed;
> an appropriately concrete, wordless sort of Zen rock garden art that worked
> to express what had otherwise been impossibly inexpressible. In the East,
> this has long been understood, how that thought is the first barrier to be
> removed from the path toward the mysteries of supra-mundane experience.
>
> This does not by any means make the oriental religious/philosophical
> traditions anti-intellectual because once the limitations of thought are
> admitted and recognized, learning of a far higher sort can begin, as a finer
> use for the mind stands to be uncovered--and not at all after the fashion of
> Hannibal Lechter, as he would 'uncover' it; at table with a good Chardonnay
> and the fava beans.
>
> No! We of the West have always been wrong to think that thought is the
> finest activity that the human mind can engage. No gargantuan mental
> struggle with the metaphysics of a Kant or Heidegger has ever been higher
> nor finer than listening to great music, enjoying the romance of great love,
> being made witness to the ecstatic expression of great art."
>
> > As I comprehend, the mature Hindu is a spirit
> > among loving and kindly spirits, manifesting themselves as various
> > aspects of Nature (Sun, Wind, Fire, Earth, Stars).
>
> My comment that I'd hoped to have time to make on that will have to wait,
> alas, for a new rising of the sun as I see by my handy clock on the quick
> launch bar that it's nearly half-past midnight. It pertains, in short, to
> something that I saw in the faces of some "loving and kindly spirits" that
> had manifested themselves to me one morning early, circa 1970, through a
> waning flame of LSD that had been all night engulfing the tissues of my
> brain--very costly Mephistophelian bargain that, by the way, where billions
> of brain cells are exchanged for "knowledge". And what's worse? For most
> everyone but myself, the knowledge can never be anything other than suspect.
> It is simply such that I may say in reply to your comment that I *know* just
> what you are talking about, having once had at great hazard, the opportunity
> to glimpse it, and be astonished to the point of . . . well, never mind.
>
> > The evil and the
> > harshness of the world is the result of its being a break or change
> > from Heaven, the perfection of which is our natural place and our goal
> > while alive.  The more spiritual a society, less the evil and
> > harshness of the world.
>
> Well of course on that we couldn't be more thoroughly agreed.
>
>
>
> > I am in no position to talk about Hindu scripture.  I need to master
> > Sanskrit, and that should take me at least 5-10 years.  Then I have to
> > spend several years in deep cogitation.  Hopefully when I am 80+ I may
> > be recognised as a master.
>
> I once had an acid trip in which I hallucinated that I was recognized as
> Barbara Streisand being applauded for a curtain call; it was such a
> masterful feeling, of standing at the very cosmic center of the universe,
> loved and adored by all the devas, gandharvas, apsaras, the stage hands and
> especially the guy up there manning the big baby blue spot.
>
> Damn! that was something, so fleeting as it was, couldn't have lasted longer
> than about five seconds, before I was falling through the realm of Wrathful
> Deities, crashing through membranes of hell after hell, until . . . never
> mind.
>
> > I have read the writings of the Dalai Lama, when he was a very young
> > man.  I was deeply impressed by his clear and precise writing style. I
> > found that book in the library of my father's uncle, Sir U N
> > Brahmachari, around 1973.  I was most struck by his views on the
> > Chinese, who had expelled him.  What was remarkable is how much he
> > admired the true Chinese culture.  Indeed, that book made me have a
> > very positive view of Buddhism, which lasted till you know when.
>
> Well, no one knows the transitory nature of things better than a Buddhist,
> nor would any better understand the necessity of walking according to the
> Dharma which would seem to choose you: that is the Middle Way, and if it
> means remaining on the grandly flowered, incense misted path of the Hindu,
> that cannot be contrary to the Buddhas.
>
>
>
> > Plain fact is, that prior to their becoming non-violent Buddhists 1000
> > years ago, the Tibetans (a very tough people, even tougher than the
> > Mongols) beat the hell out of the Chinese or anyone.  So what is
> > better - beating up your neighbours or getting beaten up by them?
>
> Again, as the Great Soul Gandhi walked his middle road, he found a most
> astonishing way to beat up his British neighbors by way of getting beaten up
> by them--so . . . was it not Gautama Buddha who once said, "Different
> strokes for different folks?"
> --
> JMhttp://whosenose.blogspot.comhttp://jesusexegesis.blogspot.com-
>
> --
>
> .............................................................
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