Nikos Kazanas Quotes

Subsequently I taught the AIT with the South Russian Steppe as the locus of dispersal of the Indo-Europeans (IE hereafter) for 18 years and I wrote a Course of Sanskrit (in Md Greek) in which I actually concocted fictitious passages about the Aryans invading with chariots and subduing the natives who thought it prudent to accept them and cooperate! In 1987, I began to wonder about the AIT. In the same year I went to India and collected much material which took a few years to sort out and digest, since I had little acquaintance with Indian archaeology and early history. What became abundantly clear in the early 1990s (and filled me with incredulity) was the fact that there was no evidence whatever for any invasion (which by that time was becoming “migration”).

It could be argued that the IAs developed their complex but secure system of oral transmission while on the move. ... But, if that were so, what would the IAs (or Indo- Iranians, since they were one people, according to the AIT) be transmitting and thus preserving? Their sacred RV was composed in the Saptasindhu. If they had developed their superb system while on the move, then they would have at least a few tales of their adventurous trekking and these would have been embodied in the hymns of the RV.

Furthermore, if W had examined his last reference with only a fraction of the assiduity he uses to witch-hunt New-Age/Hindutva/Right-wing people he would have noticed... If we reject every ancient source (even if not Indian) because it does not suit our theory, we may as well end the pretence of discussion.

The Aryans, even according to the AIT, moved not into a vacuum but a region thickly populated by a people who may have been on the decline and moving eastward but who were also more numerous, more advanced in urbanized civilization and literate. Now, would the immigrants be in a position to give new names and would the natives accept them for their rivers? … I doubt it. When thousands of Greeks were forced out of Turkey in the early 1920s and immigrated into the Greek islands and the mainland, they formed new communities and often gave to these the names of their former habitats (eg New Ionia, New Smyrna, New Halkidona etc). This is as far as their “nostalgia” went. They did not rechristen nearby mountains, plains or rivers, but accepted the existing geographical nomenclature.

I start with some literary evidence. RV 4.1.13 & 4. 2.16 the Angirases declare that their ancestors made sacrifices “here” atra, ie in Saptasindhu. 3.53.11 Sudās fought enemies prāk ‘east’, apāk ‘west’ and udāk ‘north’ only, but not south. So we have no Indoaryans coming from the north and driving natives southward. The movement here is from east westward (apāk) and from south northword (udāk)! M6.61.9,12: Sarasvatī, the Rivergoddess, spread all five tribes beyond the other seven sister-rivers as the sun spreads out the days – again, days and sunlight from the east! 7.6.3 Agni turned the unholy Dasyus from east to west –pūrvaś cakāra áparām! Notice – NOT SOUTH (avāk or nyāk).

Neither the AIT, nor the invasionists’ or non-invasionists’ views, nor IE reconstructions, nor philological, archeological etc pursuits, hold much interest for me. What essentially concerns me is the subject of Ethics (in Scholarship and daily life) because this will determine how we meet death. Everything else in the world can be avoided, hoodwinked etc, but not death. Ethics also infuses communal life with the quality of excellence.

I have seriously changed my mind on this subject; I have no axe to grind, as it were, no position or reputation to maintain; I can and shall change my mind again if strong and sufficient evidence emerges. Prof Witzel raises many points for discussion - some useful, some wasteful - but offers no evidence other than conjecture. Conjecture or hypothesis is not admissible as evidence in any impartial Court of Law.

That most mainstream philologists will react unfavourably to this thesis I take for granted. I know well in myself the force of habit and of attachment to deep-rooted notions that reacts more through emotional outbursts than cool rationality. I repeat that the issue of origins, of when and how, is one not for philologists but for archaeologists and experts in related fields. We owe it, other than to the peoples of India who, I think, have long been wronged (by their own faults no less than foreign influences), to truth itself, which is the primary concern of all of us, to consider this thesis without prejudice.

In this study Witzel talks of a peaceful immigration but also uses the terms "battles" and "campaigns" (324), "initial conquest" (326) and "frequent warfare" (339) thus indicating that beneath the lipservice to "migration" (which became fashionable) lurks the notion of invasion.

And in case these academics wonder, yes, I would allow a dissenting view if I edited a Journal: I am not afraid of truth and I have no position, no reputation and no income to maintain.

Frankly, his strident obsession with New-Age/Hindutva/Right-wing recalls right-winger MacCarthy who thought he saw in every closet conspiring communists, or left-winger Stalin hounding Jews, Gypsies, dissidents, revisionists and other “enemies of the State”.

First, it is the function of scholarship to establish and promote true knowledge so that our life be regulated by this – not prejudices, partisan views (even patriotic but false) or pet theories. Second, Indian (proto-)history must be restored and revalued in a correct time-frame.

Such were the motives of the mainstream pundits who were also pillars of the Church: to preserve their own power. Why today all this feverish fight against the indigenists? I don’t believe it is racist as many Indians think, nor any noble motive to keep Indological studies “scholarly”as W claims, though neither need be ruled out altogether. I think it is mainly the most shameful of all motives – to be on top and keep control of others. As soon as a Head of Dept or Professor feels strong (and rich) enough, they launch a Journal (with other people’s money) to promote their own pet theories, acquire kudos, confound opposition and control thinking thus perpetuating their own power and all the advantages this entails. And to this referred E Leach in a quotation I gave fully in AS ¨ 19, very end, which W presented in a truncated form omitting the sentences saying that IE scholars did not scrap their theories because “vested interests and academic posts were involved”. I added “They still are”. And W ought to know because like Leach he has been up to his ears in the game for many years. (Sweeping the dirt under the doormat will not make it disappear.)

The odd thing about this story is that the heliocentric view was known in Europe long before Copernicus but, for various reasons, was totally ignored by the "established" dogma... All this time all kinds of absurdities were written about the heavens, the celestial spheres, the Empyrean and so on, which constituted the “established” view. And all the time the real knowledge was there and all those schoolmen, could, with some practical observation and sensible application of Mathematics, have found out that the Ptolemaic system was not true. But they did not: they preferred to argue about such weighty matters as how many angles could sit on the point of a pin. And when the proofs were presented to them in black and white, hard and irrefutable mathematical demonstrations, they still rejected them preferring the comforts of the ‘‘established” dogma. Theology (and Church interests) decided what was acceptable, not Mathematics.

Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo were ‘revisionists’ in rejecting the geocentric system of Ptolemy (which held sway for some 1500 years) and, against an oppressive and repressive mainstream opinion (and officialdom), reinstated—with improvements—the heliocentric system of Aristarchos of Samos (3rd cent BCE).