“In South Asia, relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan place-names survive in the North; however, many more in central and southern India. Indo-Aryan place-na… - Michael Witzel

By contrast, the Pürus, who along with the Bharatas appeared on the scene later, began to use the designation “Five Peoples” immediately: as dis­cussed above, they probably regarded themselves as being located at the centre. In the later books the tribes mentioned include both the older “Five Peoples” as well as the newcomers, namely the Pürus and the Bharatas.

“I have read Elst’s criticism of my 1995 BSS translation. This is one of the “very” few cases where he is right indeed in his stringent immigration/trickling in stance (who speaks of “invasion” these days?) My translation, as it reads, is wrong in the “translations” of “amaavasus.” (Interpretation is quite another thing, see below. The whole passage plays with names and their Nirukta-like interpretation as verbs). My paper in Erdosy, Ancient Indo-Aryans, where this was published, is full of printing and some other mistakes; I did not see the proof and could not correct it before it was published. The BSS translation as printed is a mixture of translation and interpretation. I have already corrected it in a paper (still in press) which has been given to some friends long ago.”25

“[…] the Vedas were composed orally and they always were and still are, to some extent, oral literature. They must be regarded as tape recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and usually without the change of a single word.” (WITZEL 1997b:258).