Shrikant G. Talageri Quotes

Witzel’s criticism of my book contains only two “substantial” objections: the issue of an allegedly “original” vs. an allegedly “interpolated” (present day) RV, and the issue of the Anukramanis as allegedly “late” and “unreliable”.

Readers will recall that in the 1830’s, when colonialism and European imperialism was gaining ground in Asia and Africa, a British administrator named Lord Macaulay had made a similar remark to the effect that the languages of India and Arabia have not produced any worthwhile literature in comparison with European languages. Witzel is merely echoing Macaulay’s Eurocentric and racist remarks with respect to the state of Vedic studies in India. While Macaulay’s prejudice can be blamed on the white-supremacist worldview of Imperialists and on the prevalent notions of his era of Colonialism, Witzel’s clearly sounds repugnant in this “post enlightenment” age.

But while he purports to present the latter, he studiously avoids dealing with the former with truly admirable consistency – a consistency he maintained with steadfast doggedness throughout our e-mail debate and which (I am told) he has been maintaining with equally steadfast doggedness throughout the course of Internet debates with other “Indian Superpatriots.”... Witzel, with characteristic disregard for the truth, claims that my criticism of his papers is based on my own views given in my first 5 chapters, and so it does not merit any reply! The readers must “see for themselves”: my criticism is not based on my views and criteria at all, but on glaring mistakes, contradictions and falsehoods in his own writings... Witzel clearly finds it impossible to defend his 1995 papers which stand totally discredited. Thus, his review already loses half the battle – and “battle” it is, as per the tone and tenor of his review, and his stated view that a “cultural war is in full swing” (§9, pg. 24). Indeed, Michael Witzel has now literally taken it upon himself to prove the advent of Aryan languages into India via the Aryan Invasion Theory or its softer versions. He has published numerous articles, the recent ones being replete with hysterical attacks, non-academic remarks and abuses against those who disagree with his views.

(Witzel's) review should logically have consisted of two parts: 1. A rebuttal of chapter 9 of my book (my critique of WITZEL 1995a, 1995b)... This chapter of my book shows Professor Witzel inventing evidence, suppressing inconvenient data, following an inconsistent methodology, retrofitting data into pre-conceived notions, contradicting himself again and again, and using misleading language. 2. A review of my own theory and conclusions.

My book was published in early 2000, and I sent a copy of it to Witzel (not in a nasty spirit, and certainly not in anticipation of bouquets, but only to facilitate a healthy dialogue, or, at the very least, as a matter of courtesy). Earlier, I had also sent a copy to another scholar at Harvard (with whom I had earlier established indirect and temporary contact). Within a month I received an e-mail letter from that scholar ...relating that there had been a discussion between Witzel and himself “about the possibility of Talageri coming to study with him (Witzel) in Harvard to do advanced study or a Ph.D.” Witzel, the scholar wrote, “is the Vedic scholar par excellence, and Shrikant could get proper training and academic credentials if he were to be accepted”. I was asked to “contact Michael Witzel directly”. There was a proviso – as discreetly phrased as the rest of the letter – “provided he is open-minded and flexible in his views, and does not show himself to be intransigent or predisposed to certain ideas”.

Witzel claims to arrive at his conclusions on the basis of a combination of a geographical grid and a chronological grid, but, as we have seen, he does not prepare a chronological grid at all: else, he would never place MaNDala II before MaNDala VI (when the very eponymous RSi of MaNDala II is a descendant of a composer, Sunahotra BhAradvAja, in MaNDala VI) or MaNDala VIII before MaNDala III (when the very eponymous RSi of MaNDala VIII is a descendant of a composer, Ghora ANgiras, in MaNDala III).

And, on this principle, Witzel’s papers themselves are “devoid of scholarly value”, since he is also “motivated” by the desire to counter the Indian homeland theory. Erdosy testifies that “the principal concern” of scholars (like Witzel) studying South Asian linguistics is to find “evidence for the external origins - and likely arrival in the 2nd millennium BC - of Indo-Aryan languages”; and Witzel himself admits that his historical analysis of the Rigveda is motivated by the desire to counter “recent attempts (Biswas 1990, Shaffer 1984) to deny that any movement of Indo-European into South Asia has occured.”

An academic debate on any subject should concentrate on the pros and cons of the arguments presented by the two (or more) opposing sides in the debate; it should be conducted in an open and sincere atmosphere; and the natural desire (not academically wrong in itself) to win the debate should not be allowed to overpower the academic desire to arrive at the truth... And an academic debate cannot be won by the simple expedient of name-calling and label-sticking, and consequent disqualification of the opposing side from even taking part in the debate.

In these circumstances, writers, particularly Indian ones, who stake claims for India only arouse his contempt. By and large, he would prefer to ignore this riff-raff; but when a few Western academicians also start saying the same things, it is time, in Witzel’s opinion, to put a stop to this nonsense.... In putting a stop to it, if Witzel finds that he has to stretch or bend the facts a little, or to ignore, suppress or distort them, it is all in the cause of “TRUTH”. A few in-convenient facts cannot be allowed to prevent the “TRUTH” from prevailing.... Clearly, this kind of attitude is not conducive to any “scientific evaluation” of anything. Nor is it conducive to any academic debate.

Witzel takes up two verses which clearly refer to eastern rivers, misinterprets them as references to the Indus, further misinterprets them as references to crossings of the Indus river from west to east, and then reconstructs an entire saga of the immigration of the Rigvedic Aryans into India on the basis of these misinterpretations. He even pinpoints the exact area “eastern Iran” from which specific immigrants, “the Bharatas and VasiSTha”110, led this historical exodus across the Indus.... Is “gross misrepresentation” an adequate word to describe this whole exercise?... His sole criterion in preparing a chronological arrangement is his own geographical grid prepared on the basis of deliberate misinterpretations of Rigvedic geography.

MaNDala III mentions KIkaTa in Bihar, the easternmost location named in the Rigveda. Witzel, naturally, finds such an eastern location difficult to swallow, and asserts that the KIkaTas are “still frequently misplaced in Magadha (McDonell and Keith, 1912, Schwartzberg, 1975) even though their territory is clearly described as being to the south of KurukSetra, in eastern Rajasthan or western Madhya Pradesh, and Magadha is beyond the geographical horizon of the Rigveda.”... Here, incidentally, Witzel indulges not just in manipulation, but in outright misrepresentation: nowhere are the KIkaTas described, clearly or otherwise, as being to the south of KurukSetra.

What Witzel actually does is as follows: he draws up a geographical picture for each MaNDala of the Rigveda; and then, on the principle “the more western the geography of a MaNDala, the older the MaNDala”, he prepares a chronological grid arranging the MaNDalas in such a way as to show a movement from west to east. “Pedigrees of chiefs and poets” play no role at all in this chronological grid!... What is more, even the geographical picture for each MaNDala, as drawn up by Witzel, is based on the manipulation and misinterpretation of geographical data, manipulated to show this movement.

How does Witzel get a chronological order so completely different from our own (which is VI, III, VII, IV, II, V, VIII)?.. The answer is very simple: although Witzel postulates the establishment of a chronological grid “on the strength of a few pedigrees of chiefs and poets available from the hymns,” he does not establish any such grid.

Sergent’s last thrust represents the unkindest cut in this whole smear campaign. It is not we who have avoided debate. It is these Western scholars who have chosen to conduct a spit-and-run campaign from a safe distance, while restricting their criticism of our theory (elaborated by us in our earlier book) to name-calling and label-sticking rather than to demolition of our arguments.

A true scholarship would examine, and then either accept or reject, with good reason, any new theory which challenges a generally accepted theory admitted to be full of sharp anomalies. However, this has not been the attitude of world scholarship towards our earlier book. The general attitude has been as follows: there is a school of crank scholarship in India which is out to prove, by hook or by crook, that India was the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages; and the writers of this school deserve to be firmly put in their place. And the best method of doing this is by tarring all scholars who support, or even appear to support, an Indian homeland theory, with one brush; and then pointing out particularly untenable propositions made by one or the other of the scholars so branded together, to prove that all the scholars so named belong to one single school of irrational scholarship.