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At the outset, it must be underlined that the Vedic texts excel among other early texts of other cultures in that they are 'tape recordings' of this … - Michael Witzel
" "At the outset, it must be underlined that the Vedic texts excel among other early texts of other cultures in that they are 'tape recordings' of this archaic period. They were not allowed to be changed: not one word, not a syllable, not even a tonal accent. If this sounds unbelievable, it may be pointed out that they even preserve special cases of main clause and secondary clause intonation, items that have even escaped the sharp ears of early Indian grammarians. These texts are therefore better than any manuscript, and as good―if not better―than any contemporary inscription" (WITZEL 1999a:3).
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About Michael Witzel
Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist and academic. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50-80). He is an author on Indian sacred texts and Indian history, and a critic of the "Indigenous Aryans" theory and of right-wing Hindu activists. In 2005, he attracted the scorn of Hindu activists when he opposed their attempts to influence USA school curricula in the California textbook controversy over Hindu history.
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E.J.M. Witzel
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Additional quotes by 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.
During the Vedic period, there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanization of the North Indian hydronomy. . . . Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, cultural expansion, or. ... the substitution of indigenous names by Sanskrit ones, was from early on powerful enough to replace the local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. The development is especially surprising in the area of the Indus civilization. One would expect, just as in the Near East or in Europe, a survival of older river names and adoption of them by the IA newcomers upon entering the territories of the people(s) of the Indus civilization and its successor cultures.... "such names tend to be very archaic in many parts of the world and they often reflect the languages spoken before the influx of later populations" (368-369). ... "by and large, only Sanskritic river names seem to survive" in the Northwest (370). [In the Kuruksetra area,] "all names are unique and new formations, mostly of IA coinage" (377). ...[in] "the 'homeland' of the Rgvedic Indians, the Northwest "we find "most Rgvedic river names . . . are Indo-Aryan, with the possible exception of the Kubha, Satrudri, and perhaps the Sindhu" (373). [These latter, according to Witzel (1999)] "prove a local non-IA substrate.
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Other evidence, from Mitanni and neo-Hittite sources, indicates that the names of Mitanni kings were traditionally Indo-Aryan, even though the Mitanni belonged to the Hurrian-speaking peoples. We therefore surmise that the Mitanni once lived close to an early Indo-Aryan group, that had perhaps taken a dominant position over the pre-Mitanni population, and then became quickly acculturated as Hurrian speakers.
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