Shrikant G. Talageri Quotes

Totally undaunted, Witzel repeats these points again in his review article in 2001! Is it really surprising if “Occasionally …. T. lapses into ‘a bored yawn’ (p. 344)”?

The above provides the most perfect illustration of Witzel’s mode of academic(?) discussion: he does not raise points because he believes in them and wants to get them either clarified or accepted; he raises them only to heckle and raise a din, like a speaker in a political harangue or a schoolboy in a school slanging match between two rival groups, where the same accusation is repeated again and again with a deaf ear turned to the response or clarification.

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.

All this can mean one of only two things: either the Anukramani ascriptions are genuine; or else they have been concocted with incredible efficiency and coordination: this would involve great skill not only in concocting ascriptions for new hymns, to make them fit into the pattern, but also in changing older Anukramani ascriptions where a descendant of a Rishi composer from a later (as per my chronology) Mandala figured as a composer in an earlier (as per my chronology) Mandala, and in extrapolating references from within the hymns of an earlier (as per my chronology) Mandala which referred to a Rishi composer from a later (as per my chronology) Mandala!

That is, none of the Rishi ascriptions (either for an allegedly “original” hymn or an allegedly “interpolated” hymn) shows a contrary order: i.e. if Mandala A has a hymn ascribed to an ancestor of a Rishi composer from Mandala B, we do not find another case where Mandala B has a hymn ascribed to an ancestor of a Rishi composer from Mandala B. And the references within the hymns follow suit: no hymn from Mandala A refers to a Rishi composer from Mandala B (for example, the three Early Mandalas do not contain a single reference to a Rishi composer from the Middle or Late Mandalas, the Bhrgu hymns being a special case apart).

To begin with...: “a) Each Mandala (or upam). contains hymns ascribed to the descendants of earlier mandalas (or upam.s), or the ancestors of later mandalas (or upam.s). b) Each Mandala (or upam.) contains references to composers from earlier or contemporaneous mandalas (or upam.s)” And “in not one of these respects do we find the allegedly ‘concocted’ Anukramani ascriptions …. differing from the allegedly ‘original’ ascriptions”.

To sum up, Oldenberg’s principles do not affect my analysis at all. His principles are undoubtedly important, but not in demarcating “original” hymns from “interpolated” ones: as we saw, hymn 6.45, which is a late “interpolated” hymn as per (Witzel’s interpretation of) Oldenberg’s principles, proves to be linguistically very archaic, and hymns 6.3,24,25,28, which are similarly “original” hymns, abound in late words. Oldenberg’s (or rather, Witzel’s) numer(olog)ical division therefore cuts across another division which could be established on the basis of linguistic analysis. And both these divisions become irrelevant when the data in these hymns is examined from a historico-geographical point of view, since all the hymns in any given Mandala are historically and geographically homogenous. .... Therefore, neither Oldenberg’s numerical principles, nor linguistic strata discernible in the hymns, can negate the fact that the RV we have today is, for all practical purposes, the “original” RV, and my historical analysis is an “invincible” analysis of the emphatically right Rigveda text.

“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”.

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!

The reader is struck by Witzel’s repeated disparaging remarks against the Puranas and their utility in the derivation of Indian history. Scholars who have read Witzel’s publications in detail inform me that there is nothing in them that betrays even a faint understanding and first-hand knowledge of this genre of literature on his part. Thus, Witzel’s repeated attempts to downgrade Puranas as a valid source of history (which, albeit should be used with caution) merely reflect his attempt to hide his own ignorance.

But Witzel, desperate to send my present book hurtling to its “doom” (to the fate he fondly and wishfully assumes overtook my “heavily criticized earlier effort”) finds a persistent “purANic mindset” in my book which reminds him of “the popular comic books, Amar Chitra Katha” (§8)! Well, we find a Biblical mindset in his depiction of Vasistha (Moses) leading an exodus of the Bharatas (Jews) from Iran (Egypt), across the mountains of Afghanistan (Sinai), and finally entering, occupying and transforming the face of the Punjab (Palestine).

Witzel rejects my etymology (one of the few etymologies actually proposed by me) of the word purusha (man) from Puru on the direct analogy of manusha (man) from Manu (p.147 OF MY BOOK) and pontificates:

In general the only criterion Witzel has in accepting any analysis is that “the results should be close to those found in Witzel 1995, 1999” (§7) – except, of course, where Witzel has reason to believe that something “found in Witzel 1995, 1999” (or any other year) is now inconvenient to his position and fits in with his “opponent’s” position, in which case “results should be close to those convenient to Witzel today”!

To paraphrase himself: “give Witzel one archaeological site, and he will produce a comprehensive dictionary, complete with etymological analysis, of its language”.

It is difficult to believe that Witzel is serious in his incredible assertions [about the Sarasvati river]... And when other verses do refer to a river of that name, this river may be “anywhere” from Arachosia to the “night time sky”: anything but the Haryana river – the sky is the limit! In his 1995 papers, he locates the Sarasvati in hymn 6.61 squarely in Kurukshetra in his “Geographical Data” (WITZEL 1995b: 343,349) as well as in his descriptions of Mandala 6: “W/NW, Panjab, Sarasvati, Ganga” (WITZEL 1995b: 318, 320). And nowhere in those papers does he suggest anything contrary!