CHRONOLOGY 19. Lack of agreement of the autochthonous theory with the historical evidence: dating of kings and teachers Turning, presently, to the evidence preserved in the texts themselves and in history as well as archaeology, it might be useful to deal first with an item that has captured the imagination of scholars east and west for at least a century, that is, the various lists of early kings (and also of Vedic teachers). Advocates of the autochthonous theory stress that the traditional lists of Indian kings (in the mahAbhArata, rAmAyaNa, purANas) go back to the fourth millennium BCE and even earlier. However, even during the formative period of the great Epic at c. 300 BCE, Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the Maurya court at Patna, reported to have heard of a traditional list of 153 kings that covered 6042 years.[N.170] This would, of course, lead back well beyond the traditional beginning of the kaliyuga at 3102 BCE (cf. Witzel 1990). The latter date, however, is due only to back-calculation, based on the alignment of all then known(!) five planets, that was carried out by vArAhamihira in the 6th cent. CE (Kochhar 1999). In other words, all dates based on a beginning of the kaliyuga in 3102 are worthless. The royal lists rest, as almost everywhere in traditional cultures, on Bardic traditions.[N.171] In India, they derive from lists orally transmitted and constantly reshaped by the sUta bards according to local conditions and personal preference (Parry and Lord, 1930 sqq.)[N.172] The eager efforts made by many Indian scholars of various backgrounds to rescue these lists as representing actual historical facts[N.173] therefore are ultimately futile.[N.174] The only early purANic kings we can substantiate are those listed in the Vedas as these texts, once composed, could no longer be changed. The process is exceptionally clear in the development of the tale of the Great Battle (dAzarAjJa, RV 7.18, see Witzel 1995). In the RV this is fought between the bharata chieftain sudAs on the one side, and the pUru chief with his nine 'royal' allies on the other. It took place on the paruSNI in central Panjab. The mahAbhArata battle, however, is fought between the kaurava (of bharata descent) and the pANDava, both of the new kuru tribe, near the sarasvatI in kurukSetra (modern Haryana). Because of the extremely careful oral method of RV preservation we can take the RV report as a sort of tape recording of contemporary news, news that is of course biased by contemporary political considerations and the mentality of the victor. However, already the Middle Vedic texts indicate a gradual shift in the non-Rgvedic and non-specialized, more popular traditions: there is a general confusion of the characters and the location involved, leading to that of the well known mahAbhArata personages and localities (details in Witzel, 1995). All of this does not inspire a great deal of credibility in the ''facts'' reported by the Epic and purANic texts (Pargiter 1913, Morton Smith 1973, Talageri 1993, 2000).[N.175] These texts have clearly lifted (parts of) lineages, fragment by fragment, from the Vedas and have supplied the rest (Soehnen 1986) --from hypothetical, otherwise unknown traditions-- or, as can be seen in the case of the mahAbhArata,[N.176] from poetical imagination. Similarly, the idea that the Vedas contain reliable lists of teachers rests on typically weak foundations. First of all, the various of vaMza lists at the end of ZB 10, ZB 14 = BAU 2, BAU 6, JUB 4, KA 15, cf. ChU 8.15, etc.) do not agree with each other. Second, they trace the line of teachers back to the gods, to prajApati. Yet even if we neglect this small detail and take only the later parts of these lists at face value (Morton Smith 1966), we do not know when to place them in time, as the absolute dates of the teachers are totally unknown, except for some overlaps with chiefs and kings known from the Vedic texts, as tentatively worked out by Morton Smith (1973). Any historical reconstruction based on such lists must then start with assumptions, and even the usual average number of 20 or 30 years attributed to a generation does not work for teacher/student relationships, e.g., mahidAsa aitareya supposedly lived for 116 years and can have had many generations of students, just like any modern academic teacher. In addition, the vaMza lists mention that certain Veda students had several teachers. In fact, yAjJavalkya, whom the ZB sometimes pictures as an old man, could have had students throughout his life, and of various ages. All of this makes the use of the vaMza lists for reliable dating almost impossible. Again, the general question, asked several times already, has to be put here as well: if the traditional Bardic data are unreliable in traditional societies everywhere around the world, why should the same kind of data, shaped and reshaped by the later Vedic texts, the Epics and the purANas, be a full and true account of South Asian prehistory? As in the cases listed above (and further below), this amounts to very special pleading, in fact again to another unmotivated exemption of India from the generally accepted procedures of the sciences, and of scholarship in general. The genealogical data also do not readily fit into the combined, general picture as provided by the texts and by other disciplines such as archaeology, to which we will turn now. ARCHAEOLOGY 20. Archaeology and texts Archaeology strives to discover, but cannot establish all the major factors that make up a certain civilization, as this science is limited to physical remains, from buildings and art to pottery, plants and human bones. As long as archaeologists cannot find readable inscriptions and texts along with their findings, the interpretation of the spiritual background and much of the society of the culture in question remains tentative.[N.177] The Mayas, e.g., were regarded as exceptionally peaceful people until their texts could be read. We cannot yet read the Indus inscriptions, and we do not yet have access to the archaeological remains, if indeed preserved, of the Rgvedic period. Many of the archaeological interpretations thus remain tentative, and by their very nature, they tend to shift with each new major discovery. In the sequel, some of the archaeological and textual data are compared with what the autochthonous theories make of such evidence. It must be pointed out that autochthonists frequently rely on the dicta of recent archaeologists who stress that there was no major cultural break in South Asia from 6500 BCE well into the prehistorical period. However, archaeological evidence -- extremely important as it is -- forms just one facet of several of a given culture, and in many respects only of its the most materialistic aspects. It must agree with what the other sciences supply on information about the period in question. In other words, where is the archaeologist that can tell us what the famous Indus "ziva" or "pazupati" seal really signifies? We will return to this question below. 21. RV and the Indus civilization: horses and chariots The autochthonous theory asserts a rather early date for the RV (pre-Indus civilization, at 2600 or 5000 BCE). Indeed, the RV does not know of the Indus towns, of international commerce, of the Indus script, of the Indus staple food, wheat, nor of the late-Indus cereal, rice (see below 23). However, all of that is only evidence ex silentio, while the rich Rgvedic materials dealing with the domesticated horse, the horse-drawn chariot, or chariot races do not fit at all with such early dates for the RV[N.178] (see immediately below) and rather put it after c. 2000 BCE. The closely related older Avestan texts, too,[N.179] point to a pastoralist, copper/bronze culture with use of horse and chariot, quite similar to that of the RV. Clearly, the use of the horse drawn chariot in sport and war during the RV period was mainly, but not exclusively, a noblemen's occupation. In the autochthonous theory, the ''relative absence of horse bones'' in the Indus civilization[N.180] is therefore explained away by the auxiliary assumption that the horse was only occasionally imported for the nobility, who nevertheless were regarded as very good horse trainers. This overlooks the fact that riding, too, is attested in the RV and that is clearly linked to groups socially situated below the nobility (Falk 1995). However, not one clear example of horse bones exists in the Indus excavations[N.181] and elsewhere in North India before c. 1700 BCE (Meadow 1997, 1998). Even Bokonyi (1997), who sought to identify some horse remains in the Indus civilization, states that ''horses reached the Indian subcontinent in an already domesticated form coming from the Inner Asiatic horse domestication centers.'' Indeed, well recorded and stratified finds of horse figures and later on, of horse bones first occur in the Kachi valley on the border of Sindh/E. Baluchistan (c. 1700 BCE), when the Indus civilization already had disintegrated. Some supposed early finds of horses elsewhere are those of equid bones and teeth at Surkotada[N.182] (in Cutch, W. Gujarat) from the late Harappan period,[N.183] which belong to hemiones (Equus hemionus khur, the onager or half-ass), not to true horses (Equus caballus, see Meadow and Patel, 1997, Meadow 1998). Other claims, such as the invented one of an indigenous Rgvedic 17-ribbed Sivalensis horse,[N.184] are totally unsubstantiated, or they are from unclear stratigraphies and/or have not been documented well enough[N.185] as to allow a clear distinction between horse, hemione or donkey; still others are simply too late.[N.186] At any rate, depictions of horses are altogether absent during the Indus period.[N.187] Some of the earliest uses of the domesticated horse had been reported from the Copper Age site of Dereivka on the Dnyepr River (for riding, c. 4200-3800 BCE, now withdrawn)[N.188] and similarly, from the Copper Age site of Botai in N. Kazakhstan (c. 3300-2900 BCE.)[N.189] Some of the first attested remnants of primitive spoke-wheeled chariots and horse burials occur at Sintashta on the Tobol-Ishim rivers, east of the Urals (2100-1800 BCE.)[N.190] From there, a clear trail (Hiebert 1995, 192 sqq.) leads towards the subcontinent: from a somewhat unclear picture in the BMAC (Parpola 1988: 285, 288) to Pirak (horse figurines, c. 1700 BCE (Jarrige 1979),[N.191] bones in Kachi from 1700 BCE, the Swat Valley at c. 1400 BCE (painted sherds, horse burials, Stacul 1987). In the subcontinent, the horse (along with the camel) first appears in the RV in literary context, and in Kachi in archaeological context at c. 1700 BCE. It is important to note that horse riding is not completely unknown to the RV; it is mentioned of the ''horsemen'', the Azvin (Coomaraswamy 1941). It seems to have been common among the lower classes both among gods (azvin, marut) and humans (Falk 1995) and may have been used for herding purposes while the nobility preferred chariots for sport and war. Without a proper saddle and stirrups, invented much later, warfare from horseback was not yet practical. However, just as clearly attested in Near Eastern documents of the second millennium BCE, chariots were used in warfare on favorable terrain (but certainly not while crossing mountainous territory!);[N.192] and, the texts frequently refer to their use in sport. Horse riding is not important in the RV, and it is, so far, not found at all in the Indus civilization. If the horse had been an important animal of the Indus elite, one would also expect it in art - just as in Pirak or Swat, e.g., on the Indus seals. It does not show. The occasional occurrence of horse riding in the RV and still earlier in the Ukraine (Anthony 1991, 1997, Falk 1995) cannot, of course, prove a date of the RV at 4000 BCE as early practices easily appear in later texts (see also 28-30). The use of the horse-drawn chariot in the RV at that early time is archaeologically impossible: even the heavy, oxen- drawn wagon evolved only in the late 4th millennium (first attested in Mesopotamia), and the chariot itself was developed only around 2000 BCE in the Ukraine/Ural area (and/or in Mesopotamia, Littauer and Crouwel 1996). The sudden appearance in South Asia of the (domesticated) horse and of the chariot remain clear indicators either of IIr/IA presence, or of their cultural influence on unknown, neighboring pastoralists who first brought the horse into S. Asia, -- in that case similar to what happened at the same time in Mesopotamia in the case of the Kassites and, somewhat less probable, the Mitanni.[N.193] Autochthonists such as Sethna (1980, 1981, 1992) or Rajaram (2000) want to find horses and chariots in Indus inscriptions. However, this relies on interpretation of unknown symbols[N.194] and, in the case of Rajaram, even on actual fraud (Witzel and Farmer 2000). The original argument used by Sethna (1981) to date the Vedas before the Indus civilization, in autochthonous circles usually referred to as 'seminal,' 'clinching', etc., is the absence of the Indus commodity, cotton, in Vedic texts down to the sUtras where kArpAsa 'made of cotton' is first attested. He wonders how the Vedic Indians would not have used cotton in the hot Indian climate. However, the texts regularly refer to woolen and flaxen garments. Wool is of course used in the cold Panjab winter. Absence of a word, such as 'rice' (see 23), in sacred (hieratic) texts does not prove its non-occurrence. With the same justification he could maintain that Vedic Indians did not yet fart since the non-hieratic, vulgar pardati is attested only in post-Vedic texts. The Iranians, again, have maintained the ancient custom (Avestan pard, IE *pRd) -- or did they learn it only after they left India? 22. Absence of towns in the RV The absence of towns and the occurrence of ruins (armaka, vailasthAna, cf. Falk 1981) in the RV poses another problem for the autochthonous theory. The urban Indus civilization disintegrated around 1900 BCE and the population reverted to village level settlements while expanding eastwards into Haryana/W. Uttar Pradesh (even with some smaller towns, Shaffer 1999). A later Vedic text (PB 25.10) tells of these ruins especially those located in the sarasvatI (= Ghaggar-Hakra) region (cf. Burrow 1963, Rau 1983, Falk 1981). TB 2.4.6.8 actually says that inhabitants (of which areas?) had moved on (Falk 1981), and AB 3.45, one of the oldest brAhmaNa texts, speaks of the long wildernesses (dIrgha araNya) in the west as opposed to a more settled east (Witzel 1987). This reflects reality: there are only a few iron age (PGW) time settlements in the sarasvatI/Hakra area (Mughal 1997). TB may reflect some memory of the post-Harappan period,[N.195] when a considerable segment of the Indus population shifted eastwards after the loss of waters of the Ghaggar-Hakra to the Yamuna and Beas (Shaffer and Lichtenstein, 1995:138, Mughal 1997, Shaffer 1999). Some advocates of the autochthonous theory (Bh. Singh 1995) want to find in the references of the RV, with its large 1000-pillared houses, 100/1000-doored houses, etc. a reference to the Indus cities. Apart from the fact that 100-pillared houses have not yet been found in the Harappan civilization, such Rgvedic expressions are part and parcel of the traditional poetical hyperbole, where '100' or '1000' just mean 'many', and, amusingly, such expressions occur only in mythological contexts (sahasradvAr 7.88.5; sahasrasthUna 5.62.6 (made of copper/bronze and gold, 5.62.7), 2.41.5; zatadura 1.51.3, 10.99.3). Who would deny the gods houses that are 100-1000 times bigger and better than human ones? Or, Indra his 1000 testicles? (6.46.3, 8.19.32). Occasionally, we even meet with metal forts -- but again only in myth. The same applies to 'boats with a hundred oars', RV 1.116.5. 'Ocean going' ships refer to the ships that travel through the (night time) sky, such as that of Bhujyu (RV 1.112.6, 116.3-5, 117.14, 119.4, etc., cf. the Avestan pAuruua at Y 5.61, Oettinger 1988). All such items occur in comparisons or in mythology. In sum, all of this 'evidence' for RV Indus cities and oceanic trade (Frawley, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh, etc.)[N.196] is made of so many 'cities of the Gandharva', gandharvanagara, or 'fata morganas'. It is based on imaginary and erroneous RV interpretation, -- in short, on bad Vedic philology. Further, if the RV is older than 2600 BCE or even of 5000 BCE, how does it only know of pur, simple mud wall and palisade forts (Rau 1976, 1983, 1997), and not of the large, brick-built human houses, villages and cities of the Indus civilization? Note also that even in later Vedic texts, grAma does not mean ''village'' but only ''wagon train (on the move), temporary settlement" (Rau 1997). In short, the Indus cities are never mentioned; we only find, sometimes even named, ruins[N.197] and their potsherds (kapAla). Since an early, pre-Indus date of the RV is to be excluded on other, internal grounds (horses, chariots), these ruins as well as those on the sarasvatI (PB) may refer to those of the Indus civilization. However, both the Veda and the Avesta know of bricks: Ved. iSTakA (VS/TS), Avest. is'tiia, -is'tuua (cf. Tochar. izcem, Burushaski diS.c.i'k). The similarity (but not, identity!) in sound allows to establish an isolated common IIr. root *is't, an early loan-word that is supported by the divergent forms of the Tocharian and Burushaski words. The source, (an) unknown Central Asian language(s), with **is't/is'ts', will be that of the Bactro-Margiana Archaeological complex (see Witzel 1999a,b) with its brick buildings and town-like settlements (of 2100 BCE). An Indus origin is unlikely, as the widely spread, slightly divergent form of the word in O. Iranian, Tocharian and Burushaski points to Central Asia, not the Indus. 23. Absence of wheat and rice in the RV The RV also does not mention the staple of the Indus civilization, wheat, found in the area since the seventh millennium BCE. It appears only later on, in Middle Vedic texts (godhUma, MS 1.2.8+). The form of the word is of clear Near/Middle Eastern origin (Hittite kant, O.Egypt. xnd, Avestan gantuma), but it has been influenced by popular etymology (Skt. go-dhUma ''cow smoke''). It echoes, in its initial syllable, the Dravidian word for 'wheat' (Kannada gOdi, Tamil kOti) and its Pamir/Near Eastern antecedents, such as Bur. gur 'barley', 'wheat, wheat colored'.[N.198] Just as in the much later case of tea/chai, the path of its spread is clear: Near Eastern *kant /Pre-Iran. *gantum has entered via the northern Iranian trade route (Media-Turkmenistan-Margiana/Bactria-Aratta/Sistan) and has resulted in Avest. gantuma and the later Iranian forms: M.Pers. gandum, Pashto g'an@m < *gandUma?, Yigdha gondum, etc. (Berger 1959: 40 sq, EWA II 498). It has been crossed with the PKartv., PEC *GOle, Burushaski/ Drav. form beginning with g(h)o- (for details see Witzel 1999a,b). Instead of wheat, the Rgvedic people --and their gods -- ate barley (yava), but not yet rice which had already made its appearance in this region during the late Indus civilization (Kenoyer 1998). However, as is well known, ritual always is more conservative real life behavior, and the RV reflects ritual and is exclusively ritual poetry. The word for ''rice'' is of local S. Asian origin (Witzel 1999a,b) and ultimately perhaps Austric (note Benedict's Austro-Tai *boR[a]ts). Just like wheat, rice is not yet found in the Rgveda, no doubt because this is a hieratic text that lists only the traditional food (also of the gods), barley. Talageri 2000: 124 sqq. has misunderstood my reference (Witzel 1987: 176) to the absence of tigers and of domesticated rice in the RV --mostly grown, apart from the Himalayan regions, well east of Delhi throughout history -- by misconstruing a relative clause. (The matter is clearly indicated, however, in Witzel 1995: 101-2). Amusingly, he has therefore excoriated me for saying that there were no tigers in the Panjab then. (The absence of the tiger in the RV is more complex than that of rice and is in need of special attention; it may be due to an early conflation of the IIr/IA words for 'tiger', 'lion' and, maybe even 'panther'). In post-Rgvedic times (AV, YV), however, vrIhi is already the favorite food and an offering to the gods, though the gods themselves are still said to grow barley on the sarasvatI (AV 6.30.1). The evidence of the cereals and culinary habits thus exactly fits the pattern of immigration: The speakers of Indo-Aryan (just as the Indo-Europeans: *yewo 'the (food) grass')[N.199] knew only barley and very gradually took over wheat and rice inside S. Asia. If the RV had been composed in the Panjab in (pre-)Indus times, it certainly would contain a few notices on the staple food of this area, wheat. It is not found. 24 RV class society and the Indus civilization The autochthonous theory maintains that the Rgvedic Indo-Aryans were living in complex society, with mention of cities and numerous professions.[N.200] This, again, is careless philology: The 'complex society' of the RV is none other than the (Dume'zilian) three class society of the Indo-Iranians, consisting of nobility (rAjanya, later: kSatriya), poet/priests (brahma'n, RSi, vipra, kavi; Rtvij, hotR, purohita, etc., later: brAhmaNa), and 'the people' (viz, later: vaizya). Very few occupations are mentioned in the RV, which is typical for a society of self-sufficient pastoralists. There are a few artisans such as the carpenter (takSan), smith (dhmAtR, karmAra), chariot-builder (rathakAra, attested only AV+). It is also clear that the Rgvedic Arya employed some sections of the local populations, i.e. the lower class, called zUdra since RV 10.90, for agriculture (ploughman kInAza, RV, see Kuiper 1991, Witzel 1999a,b), and probably for washing (AV+, Witzel 1986), and especially for pottery (kulAla MS+, cf. W. Rau 1983). Sacred vessels were made by Brahmins in the most archaic fashion, without the use of a potter's wheel (as is still done for everyday vessels in the Hindukush!) and without change in style; such pottery is therefore undatable by style (without thermo-luminescence methods), if ever found. Vedic everyday, household vessels were made in local style by zUdra workmen. (Note, e.g., the continuation of Indus style motives in the Cemetery H culture -- but with new cultural traits, that is, cremation and urn burial along with urn paintings expressing the Vedic belief in a homunculus 'soul', sketched inside the peacock (Vats 1940, Schmidt 1980, Witzel 1984, Falk 1986). All these are occupations are such that no member of the three Arya classes would voluntarily undertake, as proud pastoralists. As has briefly been discussed above, I neglect here all further discussions of a 'complicated class system, castes, foreign trade, elaborate palaces', and the like, as they are all based on bad Rgvedic philology. Typically, such assertions are made, while quoting Sanskrit sources from the RV (Bhagavan Singh 1995, Frawley forthc., etc.), without translation or without philological discussion, so that everyone is free to understand what one likes to see in these passages. A Rgvedic 'boat with 100 oars' is not a kind of Spanish galley but clearly belongs to the realm of the gods, to mythology, -- and to modern, autochthonous myth making. 25. The sarasvatI and dating of the RV and the brAhmaNas The disappearance of the sarasvatI,[N.201] the modern Sarsuti-Ghaggar-Hakra river and dry river bed in the desert on both sides of the present Indian/Pakistani border, is often used by autochthonists as a means of dating the RV. It is well known from brAhmaNa texts that the sarasvatI then disappeared in the desert (PB 25.10, JB 2.297 : Caland 156 ). Landsat pictures (Yash Pal 1984) are interpreted by some as showing the drying up of this ancient river at various dates in the third millennium; Kak insists on 1900 BCE, Kalyanaraman (1999: 2) on 1900-1500 BCE (in 1999) now: 1700/1300 BCE).[N.202] However, Landsat or aerial photos by themselves cannot determine the date of ancient river courses; local geological and archaeological investigations on the ground are necessary. They still have not yet been carried out sufficiently, though the Hakra area has been surveyed archaeologically on the Pakistani side by M.R. Mughal (1997), and geological data are now also available in some more detail for the Indian side (Radhakrishnan & Merh 1999, S.P. Gupta 1995). They establish several palaeo-channels for this river, that easily changed course, like all Panjab rivers flowing on these flat alluvial plains. Which one of these courses would fit the Indus period and which one the Rgvedic period still needs to be sorted out. Choosing an arbitrary date of 1900 or 1400 BCE is useless in order to fix the RV (well) before this date. The upper course of the Ghaggar, however, is not dry even today, as some scholars state; it is still known as the small river Sarsuti. Also, it has been long known, and is easily visible on many maps, that the lower, dry bed of the Sarsuti (Ghaggar) continues well beyond the Pakistani border as Hakra (Wilhelmy 1969, Witzel 1984, 1987), and it seems to continue further south as the Nara channel in Sindh, finally emptying into the Rann of Cutch (Oldham 1886, Raverty 1892, Witzel 1994). However, there is a playa next to the long gap in the lower course of the Hakra river and the Indus, covered by sand dunes near Fort Derawar, east of Khanpur, Pakistan. If the sarasvatI indeed ended there in an inland delta (Possehl 1997), the Nara channel would rather represent the lower course of the Sutlej (or be a branch of the Indus). It must be underlined that a considerable segment of the Harappan population shifted eastwards from the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra the post-Harappan period and built new settlements[N.203] in the Eastern Panjab and Haryana/UP. Shaffer and Lichtenstein (1995:138) attribute this in part to the loss of waters of the Ghaggar-Hakra to the Yamuna and Beas (Mughal 1997). The basic literary facts, however, are the following: the sarasvatI is well known and highly praised in the RV as a great stream. Once it is called the only river flowing from the mountains to the samudra (RV 7.95.2). Samudra indicates a large body of water (Klaus 1986), either the terrestrial ocean, or a mythological ocean (at the end of the world or in the night sky, Witzel 1984, cf. RV 7.6.7!), or a terminal lake, or just a ''confluence of rivers'' (RV 6.72.3).[N.204] Given the semi-mythical nature of the sarasvatI, as goddess and as mythical river in the sky or on earth, the RV passages are not always clear enough to decide which one is intended in each particular instance (Witzel 1984). However, the brAhmaNa texts (JB 2.297, PB 25.10) clearly state that the sarasvatI disappears or ''dives under'' in the desert at a place called vinazana / upamajjana. (Later texts such as the purANas mythologize that it flows underground from there up to the confluence of the yamunA and gaGgA at prayAga/Allahabad, something that is based on an old, general Eurasian concept, see Witzel 1984). The sarasvatI region, the post-Rgvedic kurukSetra, comprises the land between the sarasvatI (mod. Sarsuti, Ghaggar) and the dRSadvatI (mod. Chautang) to its east. It does not include the lower sarasvatI (mod. Hakra) which is occasionally referred to as parisaraka, parisrAvatI (VAdhB 4.75), parINah (PB 25.13.1) 'the area surrounded (by the sarasvatI)' (Witzel 1984), a wording that clearly indicates delta-like configurations (playa), with terminal lake(s) (samudra). In the dry bed of the Hakra many potsherds (kapAla) used in ritual could be found (PB 25.10); they belonged to the given up settlements (arma, armaka, Falk 1981) of the late Harappan and post-Harappan period (cf. above, TB 2.4.6.8). Indeed, the dry bed of the Ghaggar-Hakra still is lined with Harappan sites (and cluttered with millions of kapAla sherds, Mughal 1997). But many of these settlements are situated on the actual flood plain of the Ghaggar-Hakra, which speaks against an enormous river during the Harappan (or the supposed 'pre-Harappan Rgvedic') period. In fact, the estimates of archaeologists on the exact date of the drying up of much of the SarasvatI differ considerably. Mughal proposes that the Hakra was a perennial river in the 4th and early 3rd millennium BCE and that it had dried up about the end of the second.[N.205] Other dates range from 2500-2200 BCE to 2200-1700 BCE, and Francfort (1985 sqq.) thinks of a much earlier period. It is now supposed that the sarasvatI lost the mass of its water volume to the nearby yamunA due to tectonic upheaval (Yash Pal 1984; Radhakrishnan and Mehr 1999). Even then, the old sarasvatI-Sutlej can never have been larger than the Indus, the only other river that is highly praised in the RV. The question thus is, why the sarasvatI actually is praised that much? RV 7.95.2, a hymn of the middle Rgvedic period, indeed speaks of the sarasvatI flowing to the samudra. However, this is not unambiguous, due to the various meanings of the word. Even then, the sarasvatI may never have been as mighty a contemporary river as the RV wants to make us believe, because, as is well known, RV style is generally quite hyperbolic. In book 7, the RSi vasiSTha, an immigrant from west of the Indus, praises the local sarasvatI area of his patron sudAs after the victory in the Ten Kings' Battle. Whether the immigrant vasiSTha was from the Iranian area of haraxvaitI (= sarasvatI, Arachosia) or not, he may have echoed the praise of the ancient sarasvatI, that is the local S. Avestan haraxvaitI or the Milky Way (Witzel 1984), or he may just have spoken in the hyperbolic style of the RV. These textual data do not inspire confidence in the categorically stated autochthonous theory that the RV proves a mighty sarasvatI, flowing from the Himalayan mountains to the Indian ocean. However, a neglected contemporary piece of evidence from the middle RV period, believed to have been composed by vizvAmitra, the opponent of vasiSTha, is found in RV 3.33. Based on internal RV evidence, this hymn describes a situation of only a few moths or years before RV 7.95.2 (with the sarasvatI 'flowing from the mountains to the samudra', whatever its meaning!). The RV books 3 (vizvAmitra) and 7 (vasiSTha) both represent a relatively late time frame among some five known generations of the Rgvedic chieftains of the Middle RV period, chiefs that belong to the noble bharata and pUru lineages. The autochthonous theory overlooks that RV 3.33[N.206] already speaks of a necessarily smaller sarasvatI: the sudAs hymn 3.33 refers to the confluence of the Beas and Sutlej (vipAz, zutudrI).[N.207] This means that the Beas had already captured the Sutlej away from the sarasvatI, dwarfing its water supply.[N.208] While the Sutlej is fed by Himalayan glaciers, the Sarsuti is but a small local river depending on rain water. In sum, the middle and later RV (books 3, 7 and the late book, 10.75) already depict the present day situation, with the sarasvatI having lost most of its water to the Sutlej (and even earlier, much of it also to the yamunA). It was no longer the large river it might have been before the early Rgvedic period. The Rgvedic evidence, supposing the Indologists' 'traditional' date of the text at c. 1500-1000 BCE, also agrees remarkably well with the new evidence from Bahawalpur/Cholistan (Mughal 1997) which indicates that the area along the lower Hakra (sarasvatI) was abandoned by its people who moved eastwards after c. 1400 BCE. The area was not settled again until well into the iron age, with the introduction of the Painted Gray Ware culture (PGW) in the area at c. 800 BCE. At that time, we indeed hear of sparse settlements in the west (AB 3.45). This also agrees with the scenario developed earlier (Witzel 1995): an early immigration (c. 1700 BCE - 1450 BCE) of the yadu-turvaza, anu-druhyu in to the Panjab, when there possibly still was a somewhat ''larger sarasvatI'' (Mughal 1997, with details), followed by the immigration of the bharata tribe (from across the Indus, JB 3.237-8 : Caland 204) only after the major part of the sarasvatI waters had been captured by the Beas (and, before, a large part of it by the yamunA). This scenario, consistent with the geological, archaeological and textual evidence is in striking contrast to that of the autochthonous theory. The area around the sarasvatI also was not, as (some of) the autochthonous theorists maintain, the center of Vedic culture or of the whole of the Indus civilization, at least not during the whole span of this civilization. As Possehl (1997) shows, the clusters of settlement gradually moved eastwards, from Baluchistan/Sindh to Haryana (Possehl 1997), and this movement continued (Lichtenstein and Shaffer, 1999) into Haryana/U.P. even after the end of the Indus civilization in c. 1900 BCE. (Even then, the sarasvatI area is not specially favored). During the RV period, there was no clear political, cultural center, either; the diverse, 30-50 tribes and clans were spread out over all of the Panjab, and there was no central authority. The situation in the Indus period was equally diffuse, with at least five major cities: Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, Ganweriwala, Rakhigarhi, Dholavira in Cutch.[N.209] Even during its heyday, thus, there were several concentrations but no central area. It cannot be assumed that because there are many (c. 400) Indus settlements in the Ghaggar-Hakra are, this indicates the center of the Indus civilization. Rather, this concentration is due to something very obvious --though not mentioned by advocates of a renamed "Indus-SarasvatI civilization"-- that is, to the fact that the lower sarasvatI area is "fossil": it has not changed, since the Indus period, in geomorphology, it has hardly ever been settled since by more than a few people, and, most importantly, it has neither received new alluvium nor has it been subject to ploughing. The area around the upper sarasvatI, the later kurukSetra, instead of being of central importance all through the older RV, is singled out only in the middle and later parts of the RV, in books 3, 7 (and 1, 10 etc.) as the 'best place on earth' (RV 3.53.11, Witzel 1995), as this had become the territory of the victorious bharata tribe under sudAs (and, it may be added, also one of the major settlement areas of the post-Indus culture). According to the autochthonous theory, the sarasvatI dried out by 1900/1500 BCE, and the brAhmaNas which mention its disappearance must therefore be dated about that time. All of this does not fit the internal evidence, is based on bad philology and shows, once again, the rather ad hoc, selective methods used by advocates of the autochthonous theory. For, the first appearance of iron, the 'black metal' (kRSNa/zyAma ayas) in S. Asia, well known to the brAhmaNa style texts, is only at c. 1200 BCE (Chakrabarti 1979, 1992, Rau 1974, 1983, cf. now, however, Possehl-Gullapalli who point to 1000 BCE). But, iron is already found in texts much earlier than the brAhmaNas (i.e. AV, and in the YV saMhitAs: MS, KS, TS; however, not yet in the RV). This fact is frequently misunderstood by historians and archaeologists who simply quote the older RV translations that render ayas by 'iron' while it means 'copper' or maybe, also 'bronze' (Rau 1974, 1983). It was only in the post-RV period that copper was called loha 'the red (metal)' (VS 18.13, TS 4.7.5.1, ZB 2.6.4.5, 13.2.2.18, etc.), often in opposition to the 'black metal'. To date brAhmaNa texts at 1900 BCE (see below on astronomy, 28-30) is simply impossible. At the bottom of the sudden popularity of the sarasvatI is of course the nationalistic wish to have the "center of the Harappan Civilization" within the boundaries of India, along a "Vedic" river the sarasvatI -- as if such recent boundaries played any role in 2600-1900 BCE! Unfortunately for such chauvinists, neither are the majority of the 'sarasvatI' sites along the Ghaggar in India, but along the Hakra in Pakistan. Nor does the name 'sarasvatI' apply for the period in qustion. The old designation of the Sarsuti-Ghaggar-Hakra, later renamed as the Vedic sarasvatI, seems to have been the substrate name *Vis'ampa/z' or Vipa/z' (Witzel 1999). 26. Harappan fire rituals? B. B. Lal and others claim to have discovered fire altars in the early and later stages (at least 2200 BCE, B.K. Thapar 1975) of the Harappan site of Kalibangan (Lal 1984, 1997: 121-124), and similarly, at Lothal. Some of these fire places are in a domestic and some in a public context: the latter are aligned on a raised platform in a row of seven, facing East, and near a well and bath pavements suggesting ceremonial(?) bathing. Some archaeologists, even including some who accept a version of the immigration theory such as R. Allchin, regard them as similar to, or identical with, the seven dhiSNya hearths of the post-Rgvedic, 'classical' zrauta ritual. However, it should have raised some suspicion that 'fire rituals' are now detected at every other copper/bronze or even Neolithic site in northern and western India. The amusing denouement is evident in Lal 1997:121, (plate XXXA) itself: "within the altar stood a stele made of clay". This kind of "stele" is still found today in modern fire places of the area -- it serves as a prop for the cooking pot. What is indeed visible at Kalibangan (photos in Allchin 1982, Lal 1997: plate XXXIIIA, cf. Banawali pl. XXXVIA)? There are seven(?) fire places, three(?) destroyed by later construction. They are closely aligned next to each other and face a brick wall. Nothing of this, including the nearby brick-built bathing places, fits any recorded Vedic ritual, neither that of the RV nor of the later (zrauta) ritual. The RV knows only of 1-3 fires, and in zrauta ritual we find the three fires arranged in a typical, somewhat irregular, triangular fashion. The seven dhiSNya fire altars of the complicated post-Rgvedic soma ritual are additional fires, which are placed east of the three main fires on the trapezoid mahAvedi platform (Staal 1983). This feature, however, is not met with at Kalibangan either. It also does not fit the Vedic evidence, but that of a regular kitchen, that animal bones are found in some of the supposed fire altars. Further, Vedic fire altars are not apsidal as the fire places at Kalibangan and Banawali. At best, these are independent and untypical precursors, in a non-Vedic context, that were adapted into the later zrauta ritual as the soma dhiSNyas. However, this is entirely impossible to prove. Such proof would have to come from a study of the (so far hypothetical) interrelations between certain features of the Indus religion and the zrauta ritual. The matter underlines how careful archaeologists should be in drawing conclusions about religion and ritual when interpreting material remains. In short, the Kalibangan hearths do not represent Vedic ritual as we know it from the large array of Vedic texts. They may be nothing more than a community kitchen.[N.210] 27. Cultural continuity: pottery and the Indus script Advocates of the autochthonous theory also underline that the lack of dramatic change in the material culture of northern South Asia indicates an unbroken tradition that can be traced back to c. 7000 BCE without any intrusive culture found during this period.[N.211] Archaeologists such as J. Shaffer and M. Kenoyer stress this remarkable continuity as well. Shaffer (1995, 1999) summarizes: ''The shift by Harappans [in the late/post-Indus period] is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium BC.'' The advocates of the autochthonous theory therefore conveniently conclude that there has been no "Aryan invasion." However, as has been discussed above (8-10) the Vedic texts themselves speak of various types of transhumance and migration movements. On the other hand, there is, indeed, some degree of continuity from the late Indus civilization, that was carried over into the early Gangetic tradition. One clear example is the continuity of weights (Kenoyer 1995: 224, 1998). Many other cultural traits (such as pottery) have been carried over in the same fashion. This, of course, also tends to explain why the "Vedic" (or IA) tradition is so little visible in the archaeological record so far. We still are looking, in the Greater Panjab, for the ''smoking gun'' of the horse, horse furnishings, the spoke-wheeled chariot, Vedic ritual implements, etc. However, at least on the fringes of the subcontinent, in the Kachi Plain of E. Baluchistan/Sindh and in the Gandhara Grave Culture of Swat, we find some indications, by mid-second millennium BCE, in the first horses of South Asia, and horse sacrifice (Allchin 1995, Dani 1992). However, if one would again try to think through the autochthonous theory that stresses the strong continuity in Indian cultural development from c. 7000 BCE onwards, and would suppose, with them, that the RV preceded the Indus Civilization, one is faced by a paradox: how is possible that Rgvedic features such as horse races, preponderance of cattle raising, non-use of wheat (and rice), lack of permanent settlements, complicated soma rituals without temples, cremation burial, etc. all of which hypothetically disappear completely during the Harappan period and re-emerge in the post-Rgvedic YV saMhitA, brAhmaNa and upaniSadic periods of the Gangetic epoch? This is yet another strange non sequitur which does not fit in with established cultural and textual sequences. In sum, the assertion that the RV is older than the Indus civilization does not work: there were no horse-drawn chariots yet at the beginning of the Indus period (2600 BCE) in the Greater Panjab or anywhere else, but they emerge only around 2000 BCE in the Ural area and in Mesopotamia. Continuity of the Indus script The autochthonous theory maintains that the brahmI script of Asoka (3rd c. BCE is derived from the Indus script (Rajaram and Jha 2000). However, this is a complex logographic script with at some 400 (Parpola 1994), or rather some 600 signs (Wells 1998), many of which are used only in certain sign combinations, typical for logographic scripts such as Chinese or Japanese. The very number of signs makes an interpretation as alphabetic or syllabary script impossible.[N.212] Some of them were probably used as rebus symbols, just as is the case with all early logographic scripts from Egypt to China: the sounds of one word were used to indicate another one with same or similar pronunciation but with a different meaning, such as pair/pear//bear/to bear/bare, two/too//to/do, their/there/they're, etc. Unlike the Indus script with its logograms, the brahmI script, on the other hand, is a real alphabetical script (on phonemic principles) with only one quasi-syllabary feature: as in devanAgarI, short -a remains unexpressed. In the North-West of the subcontinent, brahmI had a predecessor, the kharoSThI script. Both go back, directly or indirectly, to the Aramaic script (Falk 1993, Salomon 1995), which was widely used in the Persian empire, and even by Asoka, in Afghanistan. kharoSThI, and brahmI even more so, have been adjusted extremely well to represent the Indian sound system, certainly under the influence of traditional Brahmin phonetic science. If the autochthonous theory were right, the descent of brahmI from the Indus script would resemble that of the early Semitic alphabets from Hieroglyphic Egyptian. However, in the case of Egyptian we know the pronunciation of the Hieroglyphic logographs, while no accepted decipherment has emerged in more than half a century of study of the Indus script (Parpola 1994, Possehl 1996).[N.213] Given the c. 600 signs of the Indus script, it is of course very easy to find similarities in the 50-odd, very regularly shaped, geometrical signs of the brahmI script (ka is a simple +, Tha is: o, etc.). Even if there indeed was an initial carry-over of remnants of the Indus script into the post-Indus period (Kenoyer 1995: 224) there is no sign of any continuity of the use of the script before the first inscriptions in brahmI in the middle of the third c. BCE.[N.214] The script simply vanished, like the Maya script, when its practical use for administration and/or business disappeared (Allchin 1995, Possehl 1996). In addition, writing and script are not mentioned in the Vedic and early Buddhist texts (v. Hinueber 1989). Typically, pANini, probably a subject of the Persians in gandhAra, has two foreign names, the Persian name of 'script' dipi (Pers. dipi [dhipi] < Elamite tip/tup) as well as its regular development in East Iranian (lipi), from which the Skt. and Pkt. terminology is derived. In short, just as in many other areas of S. Asian culture, the disappearance of writing is witness to the large gap between the well-organized urban civilization of the Indus culture at c. 1900 BCE, its village-like local successor cultures in E. Panjab/Haryana etc., the subsequent superimposition/adaptation of pastoral Vedic culture, and finally, the newly emerging Gangetic urban culture of pre-Mauryan times in the 5th century BCE. VEDIC TEXTS AND SCIENCE 28. The ''astronomical code of the RV'' One of the most arresting claims of the autochthonous theory is that of an astronomical code in the organization of hymns of the RV (Kak 1994), which he believes to establish a tradition of sophisticated observational astronomy going back to events of 3000 or 4000 BCE[N.215], a few millennia after the Aryans' hypothetical arrival in the seventh millennium BCE (Kak 1994: 20-22); or more specifically, that certain combinations of numbers enumerating the syllables, verses and hymns in the Rgveda coincide with numbers indicating the periods of planetary motions. However, to begin with, Kak's discovery is derived from the traditional ordering of the hymns and verses of the RV, a schematic one of the post-Rgvedic period most probably executed in the kuru realm of the Eastern Panjab/Haryana at c. 1200/1000 BCE (Witzel 1997, 2001); it was canonized a few hundred years later by an Easterner, zAkalya, during the late brAhmaNa period (roughly, 700-500 BCE) -- and that is the version Kak uses!) Other versions of the RV differ slightly; even a text contemporary with zAkalya, ZB, says that the purUravas hymn (RV 10.95) had 15 verses while our RV has 18. Which size and ordering of the text to follow, then? The real question, of course, is: why should anybody order one's texts according to some astronomical patterns? Rather, what kind of method would present itself to a people with a strong, well-trained memory but without the use of script? One could think, for example, of a strictly metrical pattern (as is indeed used in the soma hymns of RV 9 or the Avestan gAthAs), or one according to the use of the hymns in ritual (as is used by the yajurveda). None of the two is the one followed in the bulk of the RV. Instead, as has been well known for more than a hundred years (Oldenberg 1888), and indeed since Vedic times(!), the RV is organized in three levels: according to authors, i.e. poets' clans (the 'family books', RV 2-7, and 8), deities (hymns to Agni, Indra, then others), and according to meter (hymns with longer meters come first). The core 'books' of the RV (2-7) are arranged from short books to long ones, and, conversely, inside each book according to a descending order numbers of hymns per deity, and numbers of verses per hymn. All of this is not mentioned by Kak; for details on the exact scheme and the -- only apparent -- disturbances[N.216] in it, see Oldenberg (1888, Witzel 1997). In sum, if one knows -- just as modern practice still prescribes-- the author, the deity and the meter, one knows where a hymn is to be found inside the core section (RV 2-7) of the RV collection. This is a simple but very effective method in an oral tradition without script. Interestingly, Kak joins this theory with observations about the piling up of bricks of the agnicayana altars. It certainly cannot be doubted that the altar is identified, in the typical fashion of the post-Rgvedic brAhmaNa texts, with prajApati, the divine sponsor of the ritual and the year, and that some calculations are connected with that. However, there was no agnicayana yet at the time of the RV. Even the mantra collections used for this ritual are late and form a third layer in the collections of the post-Rgvedic yajurveda saMhitA texts; the same it true for the discussion of the ritual in the brAhmaNa style texts. Any combination of the numbers of bricks in the agnicayana with the order and number of hymns and mantras of the RV therefore is not cogent, to begin with. To find astronomical reasons behind this arrangement requires extra-ordinary ingenuity on the part of the original, contemporary composers and arrangers of the RV -- or the decipherer, S. Kak. That they should constitute an original Rgvedic ''astronomical code'', -- based on the post-Rgvedic(!) arrangement of the RV-saMhitA and the later, post-Rgvedic(!) construction of the agnicayana fire-altars -- is simply impossible. It also does not help the scheme that the knowledge of this code is said to have disappeared very shortly after the composition of the texts. Further, Kak's scheme suffers, even if one takes its rather involved numerical schemes for granted, from inconsistency, such as the arbitrary use of multiplication factors that deliver the desired results for the various courses of the planets (which are not even attested in Vedic texts, see M. Yano, forthc.) In fact, references to astronomical data in the RV are generally very vague, and limited, as in other ancient cultures, to a few facts of direct observation by the naked eye (Pingree 1973, 1981, Witzel 1972, 1984, 1986, Plofker 1996, Yano forthc.). More details could be added. To mention just the most elaborate one, K. Plofker's (1996) discussion of Kak's attempt in the section ''Probabilistic Validation'' (1994: 106-107). This section intends to prove that the presence of planetary period numbers in the Rgvedic hymn number combinations (containing 461 distinct integers ranging from 43 to 1017), derived from all ten books of the RV, cannot be coincidental. As Plofker shows, "the set of values generated from sums of a given set of numbers is generally not uniformly distributed over the interval it spans; as a rule, there will be a few very small sums and a few very large ones, but most will cluster about the middle of the interval. In this example, out of the 461 hymn combination numbers, no fewer than 320 fall within the range 301--800 containing most of the planetary period constants. This, combined with the fact that Dr. Kak (by his own account; p. 105) permits errors of at least pm 1 in his matching of numbers, means that the high proportion of matches has no statistical significance whatever." This mathematical demonstration would not even have been necessary because of the derived, secondary nature of hymn numbers in zAkalya's redaction of the RV (see above). Or, in the same vein, when it is alleged by Kak that the combined number of hymns in the fourth, sixth, eighth, and ninth books of the RV was chosen to be 339 because that number is roughly equivalent to ''the number of disks of the sun or the moon to measure the path across the sky... [or] sun-steps'' (Kak 1994: 100, accepted by Elst 1999: 110), one must immediately note, not only that RV 9 is a late book (Oldenberg 1888, Proferes 1999), but that these books have the following additional hymns (Oldenberg 1888): 4.57-58; 6.74-75; 8.96-101, 9.112-113, not to mention quite a few additional hymns inside these very books. This simple observation renders Kak's whole scheme numerically impossible. In short, the whole matter boils down to over-interpretation of some facts that are internally inconsistent.[N.217] Non licet. 29. Astronomy: the equinoxes in ZB Vedic astronomy has been discussed[N.218] since Weber (1860), Thibaut (1885), Tilak (1893), Jacobi, Oldenberg and Whitney[N.219] -- all of them writing well before the discovery of the Indus civilization, at a time when nothing of Indian prehistory was known before the supposedly firm date of the Buddha.[N.220] Some passages in the ZB have been under discussion since then that seem to refer to the equinoxes, and would indicate the date of observation of these celestial phenomena. ZB 2.1.2.3 seems to say that the spring equinox is in the asterism kRttikA: kRttikAsv agnI AdadhIta ... etA ha vai prAcyai dizo na cyavante / sarvANi ha vA anyAni nakSatrANi prAcyai dizaz cyavante. ... saptarSIn u ha sma vai pura rkSA ity AcakSate. ''One should found one's fires under the (moon house of the) kRttikAs... These, they do not deviate from the eastern direction. All other moon houses, they deviate from the eastern direction... Formerly, one called the saptarSis 'the Bears'.'' This statement, if taken for a literal description of the 'immobile' position of the Pleiades, is possible only for the third millennium, at c. 2300 BCE (Kak even has 2950 BCE, cf. Elst 1999: 96)off today's position due to precession (for details see Achar, EJVS 5.2, 1999). The basic question is, of course, whether such astronomical references in Vedic texts must be taken at face value, i.e. literally. The above passage is followed by a set of other ones which allow setting up the fires at other times, most of which are motivated and justified, like this one, by inherent brAhmaNa texts' concerns and logic. Further, astronomical observations in the Vedic texts are of a more general nature, and are clearly based on what is easily observable with the naked eye over the course of a few years (Pingree 1973, 1981 Plofker 1996, Yano forthc., Witzel 1972, 1984, 1999c). If one takes this conclusion as one's baseline, some statements in the Babylonian text MUL.APIN are of interest. The text is probably to be dated in the late second millennium (Pingree 1998), thus earlier than ZB but much closer to it than the supposed date of the kRttikA observation in the third millennium. MUL.APIN says more or less what ZB does in the section under discussion, namely that the Pleiades are in the east and that Ursa Maior is in the north. And that would be the end of the whole question. However, even if one admits that the sentences quoted above refer to contemporary observation and have been transmitted as such over several millennia, a serious problem remains: the advocates of the autochthonous theory, unwittingly, commit the rather common but no less serious mistake of dating a text according to a single early fact mentioned in it. But, one cannot, and in fact nobody does date the RV, just because Indra occasionally still has a stone weapon, to the (late) stone age. Texts contain reminiscences and archaic words and concepts; we can only date them by their latest, not their earliest datable features. Or, to put it somewhat facetiously, if I write ''looking at my digital clock I saw that the sun rose at 6:00 a.m.,'' then my sentence cannot be dated, because of the unconscious, but unscientific use of ''to rise'', to the period before the revolutionary book of Copernicus (1507 AD), but only to the present computer age. If ZB 2.1.2.3 (and also the neglected passage in BZS 27.5)[N.221] indeed would indicate the spring equinox in kRttikA, then this may very well be a popular or learned remembrance of times long past, for the same passage of ZB also remembers that the Great Wagon/Big Dipper (ursa maior) was "formerly" called ''the bears''. This is an old Indo-European expression (Greek, Latin, etc.). The name RkSAH indeed occurs once in the RV and this is copied in TA, ZB (Witzel 1999c), before the asterism acquired its well-known name ''the Seven RSi'' (sapta rSayaH, cf. Avest. haptO iriNga = *sapta liGgA(ni), cf. now Plofker, EJVS 6-2, 2000). In addition, we simply cannot date the ZB in the third millennium BCE, as it has strong evidence of iron which emerged in India only by 1200/1000 BCE, and as ZB is very close in its cultural, economic, socio-political, and philosophical development to the time of the Buddha, who lived around the middle of the first mill. BCE. As seen many times by now, the advocates of the autochthonous theories take one --in case, a rather dubious-- datum and use it to reinterpret Vedic linguistic, textual, ritual history while they neglect all the other contradictory data derived from comparative astronomy, archaeology, textual study, etc. This does not achieve a 'paradigm shift', not even special pleading, but simply is faulty reasoning. 30: The jyotiSa vedAGga and the solstices Another favorite item brought forward for an early date of the Vedic texts has been the date assigned to the jyotiSa of lagaDha, a vedAGga text attached to the Rgveda tradition (a later version exists in the yajurveda tradition as well). Since this is an appendix to the Veda, virtually all other Vedic texts must predate it. Its date, however, hinges on that assigned to the solstice as described in this text. The basic question is the same as in the case of the kRttikA equinox: whether the description as given in the jyotiSa is also the date of the text in which it is transmitted. Again, this would mean to date the text according to its earliest item. However, the astronomy involved here is not as straightforward as it usually is made out to be. T. K. S. Sastry (1985:13) and R. Kochhar (1999) think of an early date, between 1370 and 1150 BCE, as the winter solstice is described to be in zraviSThA/dhaniSThA nakSatra. Pingree's (1973: 10) estimate is c. 1180 BCE. While Sastry believes that the text preserves a tradition dating back to that period, Pingree (1973: 10) stresses that it is unknown where lagaDha would have exactly placed the boundaries of the nakSatra dhaniSThA, and what was his exact determination of the longitude of the Sun. Any mistake in the exact position of the beginning of a nakSatra as well as the rough jyotiSa intercalation-cycle based on the inexact length of the year as 365 days (instead of c. 365 1/4) makes all such back-calculations prone to error by centuries. Further, lagaDha puts the winter solstice on the new moon of mAgha at the heliacal rising of dhaniSThA, which post-dates the establishment of the calendrical scheme with amAnta months. This is late Vedic, at best. In TS 7. 4. 8 and KB 4.4, the beginning of the year is on a full-moon night, and the months are pUrNimAnta. KB 19.2-3, however, already has amAnta months, the year beginning sometimes preceded by an intercalary month (as in the Babylonian calendar of MUL.APIN). This is just one of the several reasons why Pingree (1973: 3, 1987, 1998) introduces Babylonian astronomy and thinks that the astronomy of the Rk recension of the jyotiSa "was formulated in the fifth or fourth century BC on the basis of information about originally-Mesopotamian methods and parameters transmitted to India during the Achaemenid occupation of the Indus Valley between ca. 513 and 326 BC." This would produce a fairly low date post quem for the section of KB in question; however, the transfer of such ideas can also have followed other methods and routes. Sastry (1985: 15) agrees as far as the date of the jyotiSa text itself is concerned and adds the observation that its astronomical system is the same as that taught in the gargasaMhitA, which Pingree (1987: 295) places in the 5th or 4th centuries BCE. However, one of its constituent parts, the Yuga PurANa, which mentions the post-Alexandrian Greeks, was dated by Mitchiner (1986: 82) only to the end of the last century BCE. Further indication for a late date of the jyotiSa is that the language of the text is post-Vedic, which lets Sastry assume that it was redacted by someone belonging "the last centuries BC" (1985: 12). However, it must be added and stressed that the text is actually composed in late Epic language. It has not been noticed that it does not only have the typical long compounds, but also those with tat- as first part, and many metrical 'space fillers' such as tu, caiva, tathA, tathaiva ca, eva ca, api ca, which must necessarily be part of the very composition. The particle vai occurs once, however not, as usual in Vedic, in second position of a sentence or pAda but at the end of a pAda (along with eva ca!). This agrees with late Epic practice, as seen in Mbh. 12 and RAm. 1 and 7 (Witzel, in prep.). In short, only if one is convinced that lagaDha intended the solstice to be exactly at alpha Delphini of dhaniSThA, one can date his observations back to the late second millennium. Since that cannot be shown beyond doubt, since the composition of the text is in Late Epic language, and since its contents have clear resemblances to Babylonian works, the text must belong to a late period, to the last centuries BCE. In sum, if one were to take seriously the autochthonous dates of the jyotiSa at 1400 BCE, (and, accordingly that of the ZB, or even that of the BZS, at 2900 BCE)[N.222], and if one would re-arrange the dates of Vedic literature accordingly, one would have the further, considerable difficulty of explaining, e.g., the use of iron and chariots at 2900 BCE, or the date of the later parts of ZB at c. 1500 BCE, while they fit in with the cultural and political climate just before the emergence of the Magadha realm and the Buddha around 500/400 BCE. 31. Geometry: Zulba sUtras. The case of the geometry of the late Vedic zulba sUtras is of a similar nature. The advocates of the autochthonous theory maintain, with A. Seidenberg (1962, 1978, 1983),[N.223] that the geometry of the fire altars in the zatapatha brAhmaNa and some earlier (translated) texts such as taittirIya saMhitA, precedes the early geometry of Greece and Mesopotamia, and that it can be dated prior to 1700 BCE (cf. Elst 1999: 99). Seidenberg has reached this conclusion by a comparison of the geometry of the Pythagoreans with that of the Vedic texts and some Babylonian sources. The latter have the full system in place at that early date, but their prehistory is not visible in existent Mesopotamian sources. Due to some differences in the three systems (such as algebraic vs. geometric procedures), Seidenberg (1983: 121) excludes mutual borrowing. Rather, he assumes a common source of the three systems that is older than 1700 BCE, and then tries to find echoes of it in pre-brAhmaNa texts, even at RV 1.67.10, etc. (which is much too vague about the building of fire altars to allow proof), all without the use of bricks. Staal (1999) has recently expanded on this problem, using my discussion of the common, non-Indo-Iranian words for 'brick' in Avestan, Old Persian and Vedic (from *is't-) and has assumed that the common source may well have been in the BMAC area (see 22) . Be that as it may, it is not a priori necessary that the similarities and identities in mathematical procedure must go back to one common source. To paraphrase A. Michaels (1978: 52 sqq., cf. 1983), who has carried out an in-depth study of the zulba sUtras and their geometry: Vedic sacred geometry is autochthonous, and analogies between various cultures are not enough to prove actual historical exchange between them. The burden of proof always is with the one who proposes such an exchange. (This has not been supplied, pace Elst 1999: 99 sq.). In addition, Michaels distinguishes between sacred geometry in general and its form transmitted in the zulba sUtras. This is not always distinguished well (also not by Seidenberg), especially when one simply identifies the theoretical knowledge of the zulba sUtras with the more empirical knowledge and practice of the brAhmaNas and zrauta sUtras. However, it is likely that the Zzulba sUtras as such originated at the same time as the elaborate description of the ritual and that these texts were all integral parts of the ritual sUtras (kalpasUtra). Michaels goes on to show (1978: 139 sq.) that the magical ideas of Vedic ritual, together with certain practical (artisan's) faculties, lead to the specific form of Vedic sacred geometry, which is basically a logic-free, elementary geometry. However, its various pre-scientific practices, or schemes of action, were transformed into general and theoretical sentences. These could, in turn, always be checked for truth and could be proved by the various practical schemes of action that were used in Vedic ritual with its pre-scientific norms of identity. Michaels also stresses that the connection between magical ideas and artisan's practice was from the beginning only accessible to a small circle of specialists, the ones knowledgeable in "measuring art"; its influence therefore is only visible insofar as it leads to a specialization of a portion of the complete Vedic ritual, again reserved for specialists. While it has been quite clear for more than a hundred years that these sUtra texts contain the knowledge of basic geometry (Seidenberg 1983, Michaels 1978), including Pythagoras' theorem, it is now claimed that altar constructions were used to represent astronomical knowledge (Kak 1994) in the RV. However, even the post-Rgvedic texts say only that the three ritual fires represent the earth, sun and moon, and that the offering priests walk about in space. The complicated post-Rgvedic brick pilings on the mahAvedi represent a bird (zyena) that will take the sponsor of the ritual to heaven (e.g., the year as eagle ZB 12.2.3.7). There is no indication of any typical brAhmaNa style speculation that goes beyond an identification of the sponsor of the ritual with the creator god prajApati and the year (with its 360(!) days, 10,800 muhUrta, at ZB 12.3.2.5; zAGkhAyana AraNyaka 7.20, etc. (cf. 22, 26). Complicated astronomy is absent. If there is any surprising factor here, it is the ability of the Vedic priests to work with such large numbers while they belonged to a civilization that did not use the script or written numbers (though the priests occasionally use twigs to represent very complicated schemes, such as the order of certain repetitions of sAmans). However, the piling of fire altars made of thousand(s) of bricks belongs to the post-Rgvedic period (pace Seidenberg 1983: 123-4), and even then, occurs only in comparatively late YV material, as has been pointed out above: the cayana is much later than the soma and other rituals of the YV saMhitAs; it can at best be dated to the beginning of the iron age (if we take tura kAvaSeya as one of its originators, see Proferes 1999). If there indeed is any older, local tradition is hidden behind all of this, it may go back local, to non-Vedic (Indus?) sources. But that remains, for the time being, pure speculation. SUMMARY OF RESULTS 32. Summary: The autochthonous theory The autochthonous theory, in its various forms, leaves us with multiple internal contradictions and open questions as far as time frame, cultural content, archaeological, zoological, astronomical, mathematical, linguistic and textual data are concerned. If such contradictions are noticed at all by the revisionist and indigenist writers they are explained away by new, auxiliary assumptions and theories, -- that is, by special pleading, and often by extra-ordinarily special pleading. In short, all things being equal, the new, disjointed theory falls prey to Occam's razor.[N.224] If we would in fact assemble all of the autochthonous ''evidence'' (as has been attempted here in brief form) and think it through, torturous as it may prove to be, we would have to rewrite not only Indian history, but also many sections of archaeology, historical linguistics, Vedic literature, historical geography, zoology, botany, astronomy, etc. To apply the new "theory" consistently would amount to a "paradigm shift" in all these fields of study. But biologists, for example, would not be amused. In other words, should there be special rules in all these sciences only as far as evidence from South Asia is concerned? Either science is universal, or we may begin to write new regional or national accounts, in fact new mythologies that include some observations of nature and the sciences. Are we ready for a "Mythos of the Twenty-First century," written by a Mr. japAgiri or sevatIparvat? Certainly, a revisiting of old theories should be carried out if the new evidence is strong and unambiguous. But the observations made by revisionists and indigenists do not add up to a complete, self-contained theory that is in agreement with the other, independently developed fields of knowledge. Instead, it is rigged with lacunae and internal contradictions and it frequently clashes with the established sciences. These features make the autochthonous theory particularly unfavorable as a replacement of earlier explanations.[N.225] A 'paradigm shift' can be maintained, as has been shown time and again in the preceding sections, only by using very special pleading. Occam's razor applies. If the model of a transhumance type immigration or trickling in of speakers of Old IA and subsequent acculturation (one last time, not an ''invasion''!) is to be replaced, then such a new model has not yet been found, and it has certainly not yet been shown to be probable by the revisionists and indigenists. The burden of proof squarely rests on the shoulders of the advocates of the new autochthonous theory. To sum up: even when neglecting individual quirks,[N.226] the various autochthonous proposals simply do not present a cogent picture. They almost completely neglect the linguistic evidence, and they run into serious chronological and geographical difficulties: they have horse drawn chariots in S. Asia before their actual invention, horses in S. Asia before their introduction from Central Asia, use of iron tools at 1900 BCE before its first use at c. 1200/1000 BCE. They have the Rgvedic sarasvatI flowing to the ocean while the RV indicates that it had already lost its main source of water supply and must have ended in a terminal lake (samudra). They must also distort the textual evidence of the RV to make it fit supposed Harappan fire rituals, the use of the script, a developed town civilization and its stratified society of traders and artisans, and international maritime trade. And, they must rewrite the literary history of the Vedas to fit in improbable dates for the composition of most of its texts so that they agree with supposed contemporary astronomical observations -- when everything else in these texts points to much later dates. Finally, they have the Old Indo-Aryan, or even the Indo-European Proto-language, developing in the Panjab or even further east in northern India while all non-IA[N.227] linguistic and historical evidence, including that of linguistic palaeontology, clearly points to areas further northwest and west. They maintain an Indian homeland for IE, while the expected early South Asian loan words are entirely missing in all non-IA IE languages, including even the neighboring Old Iranian, and while, conversely, such loans are already copious in Vedic and are traceable to S. Asian substrate sources. *** Curiously, even the alleged historical development of the Aryan ''invasion theory'' is not correct as usually stated.[N.228] It was not developed and formulated in the 19th century to show that the Vedas were composed before the 'Aryans' mixed with the indigenous 'races' and to underline that the British conquest was similar to the 'Aryan conquest'. In fact, the early period of IE linguistics did not have that concept at all; the home of the IE language was thought, in the typical Romantic fashion of the day, to be in India or in innermost Asia. The concept of the IE language family, though first formulated by two late 18th century British citizens (Lord Monboddo and William Jones, and in both cases not yet scientifically at all [N.229]), the IE and (Indo-)Aryan theory was not developed by British imperialists but by Danish and German scholars of the romanticism era, such as R. Rask and F. Bopp (1816); it was further developed in the later 19th c. by German linguists such as the Leipzig Junggrammatiker school whose members had no interest at all in British imperial designs (cf. Kennedy 1995, Trautmann 1999). The theory of an immigration into or invasion of S. Asia by speakers of IA, based on the familiar concept of the Hunnic and Germanic invasions of the Roman empire, and the idea of an IE 'race' emerged only later in the 19th century and they were not even generally accepted; for example the concept of an 'Aryan race' was rejected by the now-maligned Indologist Max Mueller (1888) or, at length, by the Indo-Europeanist H. Hirt (1907). In addition, already by the end of the 19th century there was a reaction against reading too much of IE linguistics and reconstructed IE culture into the RV: the Frenchman Bergaigne stressed the complicated nature of RV poetry and ritual, and the Germans Pischel and Geldner saw the RV as a sort of kAvya rather than the simple nature poetry of semi-nomadic pastoral tribals, a view fashionable in the first part of the 19th century. Max Mueller was actually called mokSamUla[ra] in his time because of the help he provided to the cause of Indian independence, all while working at Oxford in the midst of imperialistic Britain (Mueller 1883, 1970). He still saw the RV in the rather Romantic fashion of his youth, the first half of the 19th century, as 'primordial' poetry of nature, as some of our earliest texts; yet already for him, the Aryan concept had nothing to do with 'race' but all with language and its 'decay'.[N.230] If some British scholars used the evidence then available to cement the position of their empire, it was natural for them in their own, Victorian time, just as the use of the same data by, e.g., the champions of the Dravidian irredenta (Trautmann 1999), by those who followed the then fashionable 'race science' of the Frenchman de Gobineau and the British writer Hamilton, or by Dalit reformers and by the leaders of the Indian independence movement. However, the facts themselves remain, until (some of them) are shown to be based on incorrect data or conclusions. Present day non-Indian scholars, however, do no longer have any colonialist or 'Eurocentric' agendas and, anyhow, do not feel the need to defend 'traditional' western conclusions and theories of the 19th or 20th centuries.[N.231] Rather, if anything has been typical for the development of western thought during the past few centuries, it has been the constant change in intellectual approaches and fashions (see below) in methods and in conclusions; all were guided, of course, by the ongoing dialectical process. These many diverse concurrent developments are, as has been pointed out above, often neglected by revisionist and indigenist historians who frequently juxtapose, compare, or even equate the writings of the 19th with those of the 20th century. Present day "western scholarship," however, is very much aware of its own historical situation and theoretical position; yet, it is firmly rooted, (post-modernism by and large excluded) in the enlightenment tradition. *** Notwithstanding the internal social and political reasons for the clash between recent Indian historiography (now often termed 'Marxist') and the new wave of revisionist and nationalistic writing that culminates in the "Out of India Theory", it is its very emergence and relative popularity, as late as two generations after Indian independence, that must surprise. The 'revisionist project' certainly is not guided by the principles of critical theory but takes, time and again, recourse to pre-enlightenment beliefs in the authority of traditional religious texts such as the purANas. In the end, it belongs, as has been pointed out earlier,[N.232] to a different 'discourse' than that of historical and critical scholarship. In other words, it continues the writing of religious literature, under a contemporary, outwardly 'scientific' guise. Though the ones pursuing this project use dialectic methods quite effectively, they frequently also turn traditional Indian discussion methods and scholastic tricks to their advantage.[N.233] The revisionist and autochthonous project, then, should not be regarded as scholarly in the usual post-enlightenment sense of the word, but as an apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking aiming at proving the 'truth' of traditional texts and beliefs. Worse, it is, in many cases, not even scholastic scholarship at all but a political undertaking aiming at 'rewriting' history out of national pride or for the purpose of 'nation building'. If such writings are presented under a superficial veneer of objective scholarship they must be exposed as such,[N.234] at least in the context of critical post-enlightenment scholarship. Alternatively, they could simply not be taken seriously as historiography and could be neglected (which seems to be the favorite attitude of most scholars in Indology/Indian Studies). In both cases, however, they must be clearly understood and described as traditional, (semi-)religious writings. Therefore they should be regarded and used, not as scholarly contributions, but as objects for the study of the traditional mind, -- uncomfortable as this might be for some of their proponents, many of whom combine, in facile fashion, an education in science with a traditional mindset.[N.235] In view of this, it might not even seem necessary to 'decolonialize' the Indian mind (cf. Witzel 1999d). However, the dominance of English as the only true language of communication throughout the subcontinent, and the strong Euro-American influence (even in non-Whorfian models) that this automatically creates in the mindset of the English speaking elite, points in the other direction. This is reinforced by the persisting dominance of an antiquated British style curriculum. Some adjustments both to local South Asian conditions and, simultaneously, to the emerging global village certainly are in order. On the other hand, present autochthonously minded efforts are the wrong way to follow. Fifty years after Indian independence, it should not be regarded as a scholarly, but simply as a political undertaking to 'rewrite' history for the purpose of national pride or 'nation building'. We know to what such exercises have lead during the past century. If the present wave of apologetic, revisionist, and nationalistic writing should continue unabated, and if it should remain largely unobserved, unstudied and unchecked by post-enlightenment scholarship, future historians will look back at these excesses of the end of the 20th century and the beginning 21st in the same way as some now like to do with regard to the 19th century. And they will criticize the present generation of scholars for having looked the other way -- for whatever reasons. It remains for us to hope[N.236] that the resent spate of revisionist, autochthonous and chauvinistic writings will not lead to similar, real life consequences as those that we have witnessed during the 20th century. (continues with sections e- g) ======================================================== Michael Witzel Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages) home page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies: http://nautilus.shore.net/~india/ejvs/