Shrikant G. Talageri Quotes

As we saw, there is a large class of personal names and name-elements common to the Late Books and hymns of the Rigveda (386 hymns in the Late Books of the Rigveda and 8 Late hymns in the earlier Books), and to the Avesta (the bulk of the names, right from the name of the first composer of the Avesta, and the names of his closest associates), the Mitanni (including every common name element known), and the Kassites (the only known name). These names and name-elements are fundamental to all four groups, but completely absent in the Early and Middle Books of the Rigveda (apart from the 8 Late hymns mentioned earlier). And all these names and name-elements are very common in post-Rigvedic texts.

Supporting Christian missionaries is an article of faith for secularism in India. When the secularist-leftist magazine Tehelka, in one of its early issues, carried detailed reports about the heavily funded and militarily organized subversive activities of foreign missionaries in India, there was a sharp reaction from prominent leftist and secularist personalities who wrote floods of letters to the magazine expressing shock at the publication of such reports in a secularist-leftist magazine, and accusing it of having betrayed secularism. Ever since, Tehelka is in the forefront of “reports” indicting “communal” Hindu organisations for harassing Christian missionaries and neo-Christian converts. ... Furthermore, it is also a fact that Christian converts from the tribals manage to corner most of the seats reserved for the tribals to the disadvantage of non-Christian tribals: there is a detailed report on this, with facts and figures, by S K Kaul, former Deputy Commissioner, Commission for the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, entitled “Christian converts corner the lion’s share of Reservation quota in services for Vanavasis”, in the Organiser, Republic Day Special, 1989.

“What you require is not old interpolation-theories, but a new EXTRAPOLATION theory to explain just why those Mandalas which I have designated as Early contain no references to western rivers, places and animals; to later technological innovations like ‘spokes’; to composer-personalities from those Mandalas which I have designated as later ones, etc. etc. Perhaps, some OIT conspirator, in the eighteenth or nineteenth century AD managed to delete all such references from the collective memories of reciters all over India, and from every existing manuscript, even going ‘to each Pandit’s house, in the jungles of Orissa, etc’ and ‘forging their palm leaves???’. It is you who will find yourself in need of ‘conspiracy theories’ in order to counter my analysis”.

Finally, in the same above summary, he advises all scholars studying the Indo-European question (or perhaps any historical question involving India) to suppress facts and self-censor their own studies and conclusions so as not to provide any quotable material favorable to any “Indian nationalist” agenda: “Indo-Europeanists must exercise caution, lest they unwittingly support ideologically motivated agendas”

Here, again, a case of what Max Muller called “special pleading”: now Witzel claims not only to be able to identify “non-Indoaryan” loanwords in Vedic, he can also identify the exact regions from which these “loanwords” were borrowed: we have Punjab loan words, U.P. loan words, Bactria-Margiana loan words…! Witzel knows, with scientific exactitude that “loanwords”, from imaginary “substrate languages”, which are found in both Vedic and Iranian are definitely from Central Asia, and not from the Punjab or U.P., and, equally, that “loanwords” found only in Vedic are from the Punjab or U.P. – not, of course, because his theory suggests these locations, but because he has found actual inscriptions from pre-RV eras, in one or more non-Indo-Iranian languages, from the respective areas, where these words are actually recorded!

Among other things, these “Piltdown men of ancient India” must also have been in telepathic communication with me to find out which concoctions, changes and extrapolations would best suit my theory! .... The question is: did the alleged concocters of the Rishi ascriptions of the Anukramanis, in an allegedly post-RV period, sit down and examine all the above factors and then deliberately decide to concoct the Rishi ascriptions as per one system in the other Family Mandalas, and as per another system in Mandala 5 and the non-family Mandalas? ... Obviously, except for those with an irresistible passion for conspiracy theories, the only conclusion is that the Rishi ascriptions in the Anukramanis are perfectly genuine, and hence absolutely valid in any historical analysis of the text.