Top 15 Michael Witzel Quotes

Chicken and still later exports from India are absent in common Laurasan ritual.

Elst disingenuously insists on calling any migration or even a ‘trickling in’ an ‘invasion’. However, immigration/trickling in and acculturation are entirely different from a (military) invasion, or from overpowering and/or eradicating the local population.... For Elst, however, ‘the ancient Hindus colonized the world’ while India, in reality, by and large, has been a cul de sac.

The IAs, as described in the RV, represent something definitely new in the subcontinent […] The obvious conclusion should be that these new elements somehow came from the outside.

“It must be underlined that just like an ancient inscription, these words have not changed since the composition of these hymns c.1500 BCE, as the RV has been transmitted almost without any change […] The modern oral recitation of the RV is a tape recording of c.1700-1200 BCE.” (WITZEL 2000a:§8).

Apparently, Dravidian speakers began influencing the Panjab only at this moment in time. Consequently, all linguistic and cultural deliberations based on the early presence of the Drav. in the area of speakers of IA, are void or they have to be reinvestigated. ... In short, the Panjab is an area of a Pre-rigvedic, largely Para-Munda substrate that apparently overlays a still older local level. Since no traces of the supposedly Dravidian language of the Indus civilization (Parpola 1994) are visible in the early RV (see below), the people who spoke this language must either have disappeared without a trace, or, more likely, the language of the Panjab was Para-Munda already during the Indus period (2600- 1900 BCE). Therefore, the most commonly used language among the languages of the Indus people, at least of those in the Panjab, must have been Para-Munda or a western form of Austro-Asiatic.... In short, even if Drav. had been the traders' language, it remains unexplainable why Drav. influence is only seen in the middle and late RV as well as later one (AV+). The reason cannot be, as van Driem (1999, appendix p. 2, quoting agreement with Parpola) supposes, that the oldest RV hymns were still "composed in more northerly areas, perhaps as far north as modern Afghanistan." (Parpola forthc.) On the contrary, even the oldest books of the RV (4-6) contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab...

None of the archaeologically identified post-Harappan cultures so far found, from Cemetery H, Sarai Kala III, the early Gandhara and Gomal Grave Cultures, does make a good fit for the culture of the speakers of Vedic […] At the present moment, we can only state that linguistic and textual studies confirm the presence of an outside, Indo-Aryan speaking element, whose language and spiritual culture has definitely been introduced, along with the horse and the spoked wheel chariot, via the BMAC area into northwestern South Asia. However, much of present-day Archaeology denies that. To put it in the words of Shaffer (1999:245) ‘A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan’ people into South Asia is not described by the archaeological record’ […] [But] the importation of their spiritual and material culture must be explained. So far, clear archaeological evidence has just not been found"

In general, the books of RV level I (RV 4-6) are thoroughly South Asian and have reference to local climate, trees and animals. We therefore have to take them seriously at their word, and cannot claim that they belong just to Afghanistan.

Even now, however, three RV periods can be established, as follows: 1. early Ṛgvedic period: c.1700-1450 BCE: RV books 4, 5, 6. 2. middle, main Ṛgvedic period : c.1450-1300 BCE: books 3, 7, 8.1-47, 8.60-66 and 1.51-191, most probably also 2; prominent: Pūru chieftain Trasadasyu and Bharata chieftain Sudās and their ancestors, and 3. late Ṛgvedic period: c.1300-1200 BCE: books 1.1-50, 8.48-59 (the late Vālakhilya hymns), 8.67-103, large sections of 9, and finally 10.1-84, 10.85- 191; emergence of the Kuru tribe, fully developed by the time of Parīkṣit a descendant of Trasadasyu... With Indo-Aryan settlement mainly in Gandhāra/Panjab, but occasionally extending upto Yamunā/Gangā, e.g. Atri poem 5.52.17; the relatively old poem 6.45.13 [sic] has gāngya [...] Even the oldest books of the RV (4-6) contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab: note the rivers Sindhu 4.54.6, 4.55.3, 5.53.9 ̳Indus‘; Asiknī 4.17.5 ̳Chenab‘; Paru ṣṇ ī 4.22.3. 5.52.9 'Ravi‘; Vipāś 4.30.11 (Vibali) 'Beas‘; Yamunā 5.52.17; Gangā 6.45.31 with gāngya 'belonging to the Ganges‘ [...] G. van Driem and A. Parpola (1999) believe that these oldest hymns were still composed in Afghanistan [...]. This is, however, not the case as these books contain references to the major rivers of the Panjab, even the Ganges (see above).

“The language of the RV is an archaic form of Indo-European. Its 1028 hymns are addressed to the gods and most of them are used in ritual. They were orally composed and strictly preserved by exact repetition through by rote learning, until today. It must be underlined that the Vedic texts are ‘tape recordings’ of this archaic period. Not one word, not a syllable, not even a tonal accent were allowed to be changed. The texts are therefore better than any manuscript, and as good as any well preserved contemporary inscription. We can therefore rely on the Vedic texts as contemporary sources for names of persons, places, rivers (WITZEL 1999c)” (WITZEL 2006:64-65).

The so-called ‘invasion’ of IA speakers is not (yet) visible in the archaeology.

Other writers in Kazanas’ class, including D. Frawley, K. Elst, and N. S. Rajaram, have already caused significant damage to linguistics, philology, Indology, archaeology, and history.... In the fundamentalist/nationalistic circles from, which Kazanas draws support – despite his pretense of political naivete.

This word [Druhyu] means, literally, ‘the ones who seek to cheat’. Non-linguist as he is, Talageri missed a great chance for a ‘socio-ethnic’ study based on an etymology!

“I have also since changed my opinion, based on new evidence, about the relative date of the bulk of RV2 which I would now include in the mid-level texts”.

Not only the language, but also the culture of the newly arrived elite was appropriated, including the 'Vedic Tank' the horse drawn chariot.

Given the scholarly inclinations among the expatriate communities in North America we may expect a slew of new interpretations, in fact, a whole new cottage industry. Their impact will appear especially on the internet.