Revision C on 3 May 2001

Note: All ‘Notes’ and ‘References’ are located at the end of the article.

Contents:

1.0 Background

2.0 The Literary ‘Evidence’

3.0 A Critique of the ‘Direct’ evidence for AMT

4.0 Arguments and Counter-Arguments

5.0 Cover Ups?

6.0 Discussion

7.0 Epilogue

8.0 The Aftermath

Notes, References, Revision Log

1.0 Background

The Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), rooted (to a great extent) on the white supremacist and colonialist paradigms of the 19^th century, states that sometime in the second millennium BCE, hordes of Indo-Europeans descended from somewhere in Central Asia and subjugated the black skinned, stub nosed, Dravidian speaking natives of India through a military conquest and thereby, occupied entire North India, Pakistan, Bangladesh in course of time. The Indus Valley Culture (IVC), straddling over an area of 800,000 square kilometers, is supposed to be the Dravidian civilization that was overwhelmed by these ‘fair-skinned, blonde, blue-eyed, sharp-nosed’ invaders. In the process, the Dravidian inhabitants were supposedly pushed to the southern parts of peninsular India. As decades of research has failed to yield a shred of archaeological [Ref. 1,2], anthropological [Ref. 3,], genetic and literary [Ref. 4,5] evidence, and the linguistic evidence in support of AIT is also tenuous at the most [Ref.5,6,7], Indologists (who are largely linguists and philologists outside India) have proposed a new model called the ‘Aryan Migration Theory’ (AMT).

This model, as of yet, is rather confused and seems to be just a euphemistic nomenclature for AIT [See Note 1]. I say so because AMT still incorporates notions like the military use of ‘thundering chariots’ as ‘Vedic tanks’ by the ‘migrating’ Aryans, the scare caused by neighing horses of Aryans to the IVC inhabitants [see Notes 2-4], and the reduction of the native Indian population to serfdom [See Note 5] for rice cultivation through elite domination. In AMT, the ‘migrating’ groups are still postulated to resemble the (relatively fairer) present day Iranians and Afghans, and the Aryan migrations are explained with the examples of later ‘migrations’ (in reality, clear cut invasions) of Huns, Shakas etc. to India. [see Note 6]

While the only large scale migration attested archaeologically in the relevant time frame is that from the Indus basin to the more easterly Gangetic basin and to greater Gujarat, and there is no clear cut evidence for any other one way migration into India from outside in the time period in question, literary evidence is now being searched from ‘inside the Vedic texts’ to buttress the case of AMT.

The present article reviews one such attempt by Professor Michael Witzel, the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at the Harvard University. Witzel was born in and studied at Germany, and has thereafter worked in Nepal, Netherlands and in other countries.

When the AIT was accepted as gospel truth, the invasionists (= proponents of AIT) mis-interpreted passage after passage, verse after verse of the Vedic texts to ‘prove’ their notions of the Aryan Invasion of India. This becomes amply clear when one reads the translations of or annotations on the Rigveda by Griffith, Keith, Oldenberg, Macdonell and so many other old and new Western scholars as well as their followers in India. Critiques of these invasionist translations started appearing simultaneously in India in the writings of Dayanand Sarasvati, Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekanda, Suryakanta, Bhagavad Datta, Ramagopal Shastri and many others but were ignored by the adherents of the ‘scholarly consensus’. However, the AIT has become unfashionable now, and even certain Western Indologists like Hans Heinrich Hock (an eminent linguist) have come to acknowledge that the earlier invasionist interpretations of the Rigveda were in error [Ref. 9] and that the Rigveda does not allude to any invasions from Central Asia to India.

In his rather long article on the ‘textual evidence’ from the Vedic texts, Witzel has produced a mere solitary passage as proof of the AMT thesis [Ref. 11, pg. 320-321]. I quote the relevant passage:

Taking a look at the data relating to the immigration of the Indo-Aryans into South Asia, one is stuck by the number of vague reminiscences of foreign localities and tribes in the Rgveda, in spite repeated assertions to the contrary in the secondary literature. Then, there is the following direct statement contained in (the admittedly much later) BSS (=Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra) 18.44:397.9 sqq which has once again been overlooked, not having been translated yet: “Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru Panchala and the Kasi-Videha. This is the Ayava (migration). (His other people) stayed at home. His people are the Gandhari, Parsu and Aratta. This is the Amavasava (group)” (Witzel 1989a: 235).

The reference (Witzel 1989a: 235) at the end is to an earlier article by Witzel, which is in publication that is rather difficult to obtain [Ref. 14]. We will come back to this publication later. In a footnote, Witzel also reproduces the original Sanskrit passage from the text in question.

That the above passage from a Vedic text is the sole ‘direct’ evidence for the AMT is clarified by Witzel later [Ref. 11, pg, 321]:

“Indirect references to the immigration of Indo-Aryan speakers include reminiscences of Iran….”

In an on-line review of Erdosy’s volume, Elst [Ref. 4] took issue with Witzel on the precise translation of the Sanskrit passage. He stated:

This passage consists of two halves in parallel, and it is unlikely that in such a construction, the subject of the second half would remain unexpressed, and that terms containing contrastive information (like "migration" as opposed to the alleged non-migration of the other group) would remain unexpressed, all left for future scholars to fill in. It is more likely that a non-contrastive term representing a subject indicated in both statements, is left unexpressed in the second: that exactly is the case with the verb pravavrâja "he went", meaning "Ayu went" and "Amavasu went". Amavasu is the subject of the second statement, but Witzel spirits the subject away, leaving the statement subject-less, and turns it into a verb, "amâ vasu", "stayed at home". In fact, the meaning of the sentence is really quite straightforward, and doesn't require supposing a lot of unexpressed subjects: "Ayu went east, his is the Yamuna-Ganga region", while "Amavasu went west, his is Afghanistan, Parshu and West Panjab". Though the then location of "Parshu" (Persia?) is hard to decide, it is definitely a western country, along with the two others named, western from the viewpoint of a people settled near the Saraswati river in what is now Haryana. Far from attesting an eastward movement into India, this text actually speaks of a westward movement towards Central Asia, coupled with a symmetrical eastward movement from India's demographic centre around the Saraswati basin towards the Ganga basin.

Elst further commented:

The fact that a world-class specialist has to content himself with a late text like the BSS, and that he has to twist its meaning this much in order to get an invasionist story out of it, suggests that harvesting invasionist information in the oldest literature is very difficult indeed. Witzel claims (op.cit., p.320) that: "Taking a look at the data relating to the immigration of Indo-Aryans into South Asia, one is struck by a number of vague reminiscences of foreign localities and tribes in the Rgveda, in spite [of] repeated assertions to the contrary in the secondary literature." But after this promising start, he fails to quote even a single one of those "vague reminiscences".

If Elst’s critique is correct, the solitary direct literary evidence cited by Witzel for the AMT gets annulled. Note also that many other conclusions of this article have been questioned by Talageri in a recent book [Ref. 13] as well.

"The passage (from Baudha_yana S'rautasu_tra), part of a version of the Puruuravas and Urva'sii legend concerns two children that Urva'sii bore and which were to attain their full life span, in contrast with the previous ones she had put away. On p. 397, line 8, the text says: saayu.m caamaavasu.m ca janayaa.m cakaara 'she bore Saayu and Amaavasu.' Clearly, the following text concerns these two sons, and not one of them along with some vague people. Grammatical points also speak against Witzel's interpretation. First, if amaavasus is taken as amaa 'at home' followed by a form of vas, this causes problems: the imperfect third plural of vas (present vasati vasata.h vasanti etc.) would be avasan; the third plural aorist would be avaatsu.h. I have not had the chance to check Witzel's article again directly, so I cannot say what he says about a purported verb form (a)vasu.h. It is possible, however, that Elst has misunderstood Witzel and that the latter did not mean vasu as a verb form per se. Instead, he may have taken amaa-vasu.h as the nominative singular of a compound amaa-vasu- meaning literally 'stay-at-home', with -vas-u- being a derivate in -u- from -vas. In this case, there is still what Elst points out: an abrupt elliptic syntax that is a mismatch with the earlier mention of Amaavasu along with Aayu. Further, tasya can only be genitive singular and, in accordance with usual Vedic (and later) syntax, should have as antecedent the closest earlier nominal: if we take the text as referring to Amaavasu, all is in order: tasya (sc. Amaavaso.h). Finally, the taddhitaanta derivates aayava and aamaavasava then are correctly parallels to the terms aayu and amaavasu. In sum, everything fits grammatically and thematically if we straightforwardly view the text as concerning the wanderings of two sons of Urva'sii and the people associated with them. There is certainly no good way of having this refer to a people that remained in the west."

Cardona’s clarification should have lain to rest the controversy and Witzel ought to have withdrawn his translation of the passage. However, the whole matter took a new turn. I raised the issue of the translation of the passage on the Indology List [see Note 8] with Witzel on February 11, 2000 but received no response.

Dr. Elst, you may recall the note you had penned on Dr. Witzel's interpretation of the Baudha_yana Su_tra (refs. to Ama_vasu and Anu) which appeared in the same monograph. (I recall Dr. Witzel mentioning that he will be correcting the errors in that article in another paper).

In response [Ref. 20], Witzel confused the issue by stating that his article, as published in Erdosy’s volume, had numerous errors due to the negligence of the editor and that he had already acknowledged the same in a footnote in his subsequent publication. (For the relevant footnote in question, refer Note 9 below). We will show later (in section 5.0), that Witzel’s explanation is misleading because the footnote does not apply to Witzel’s translation of the passage.

Witzel also stated that the translation of the relevant passage of the Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra was not a simple matter, and clarified that:

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 anti immigration/trickling in stance (who speaks of "invasion" these days?)

My translation, as it reads, is wrong in the *translation* 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.

The passage in question is:

prAG AyuH pravavrAja.
tasyaite Kuru-PaJcAlAH KAzi-VidehA ity. etad Ayavam.
pratyaG amAvasus.
tasyaite GAndhArayas Parzavo 'raTTA ity. etad AmAvasyavam.

Note the condescending tone. Witzel further stated that in a forthcoming publication, the translation/explanation would be slightly modified as:

...Finally, a neglected (and untranslated) passage from a Brahmana time text, BSS 18.44:397.9 sqq., actually speaks of a migration from the Afghani borderlan of Gandhaara and Parshu (=mod. Pashto) to Haryana/Uttar Pradesh and to Bihar "Aayu went (ay/i : pra-vraj) eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancala and the Kashi-Videha. This is the Aayava (group). Amaavasu (stayed at home, amaa vas) in the West. His (people) are the Gandhari, Parshu and Aratta. This is the Aamaavasyava (group)."

It is clear that this modified translation cum explanation still draws the same conclusion viz. migrations from Afghan border into northern India, as is clear from the above citations.

There are several objections to the above interpretations of the passage. First, the ‘play with names and Nirukta like interpretation as verbs’ explanation is rendered void by the Hindu textual tradition. As I pointed out on that very list [Ref. 21], the following verses (loose paraphrase given) from the Puranas would require that if Ayu and Amavasu were to be interpreted in a Nirukta like manner, the names of all their siblings would have to be interpreted likewise.

Brahma Purana 8.11-13:

The seven sons of Aila Pururavas were on a par with the sons of Devas.
These noble princes born in celestial regions were Ayu, Amavasu, Visvayu,
Srutayu, Dridhayu, Vanayu and Bhuvayu. These too were sons of Urvashi.
Amavasu’s successor was Bhima, an imperial king.

Brahma Purana 9.1:

Ayu had 5 sons who were mighty heroes,
Born of the daughter of Svarabhanu named Prabha.
They became kings…

These verses actually occur in several other texts like the Harivamsa Purana, the Vayu Purana and so on and therefore might go to an ancient common source. It must be pointed out however that some scholars, including Witzel, reject the use of Puranas for constructing the socio-political history of the Vedic period. This view is not, however, accepted by all. For instance, Talageri differs [Ref. 5], even while offering primacy to Vedic testimony.

Kalyanaraman also found more faults with Witzel’s explanation on the list on grounds of Sanskrit grammar and syntax [Ref. 22]. He questioned the translation of ‘aayavam’ as ‘migration’ and quoted the Puranas and works on them to substantiate my statement [Ref. 23]. Further, he cited Rigveda IV.7.4 [Ref. 24] to this effect.

The controversy took a further turn at the July 28-30, 2000 conference of the World Association of Vedic Studies (WAVES), which was attended by Drs. Hock, Cardona, Kalyanaraman, Elst and several other prominent Indologists (but not by Witzel). There, the aforementioned passage once again came up for discussion. Dr. Kalyanaraman reported [Ref. 25]:

Prof. Hock specifically referred to Prof. Witzel's reliance on RV 2.11.18 cd to read that the Dasyu were left in the North as the A_rya moved from west to east. He said the word used should have been 'uttara' which can indicate 'north or left'. He also noted that the reference to crossing of rivers does not say anything about geography. The reference to narrow and difficult passages twice a year could be simply local movements. Thus, Prof. Witzel has not made his case.

My jottings on the R.ca 2.11.18 and comments on Prof. Witzel's observations are at http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/dasyu.htm In my view, Prof. Witzel's reading of the r.ca is totally wrong. In fact, the r.ca uses the word 'savya' (i.e. left) and the word has also a lexical meaning, 'south'. Where, pray, is the reference to the 'north' in the r.ca? IF a movement of people has to be read, the r.ca emphatically states that the Dasyu were left behind on the 'left' i.e. to the south (savya). Note: the r.ca uses the word 'savya' and not 'uttara'. This misinterpretation together with the misinterpretation of BS'S 18.44; 397.9 sqq has led Prof. Witzel to wrongly surmise 'migration' (a_yava) and also to wrongly surmise 'movement from west to east'. There are mountains in the present-day India in the region where the r.cas had their epicenter.

Cardona elaborated on his earlier critique of Witzel’s translation on the Indian Civilization list [Ref. 26] and informed the following about his forthcoming publication relevant to the issue:

….summary of the arguments concerning this passage, with additional evidence from Vedic texts concerning the syntax in question, appears in the General Introduction to the volume 'The Indo-Aryan Languages', now in press (Curzon Publishers)..

There was no response by Witzel to all these exchanges on the Indian Civilization list for reasons best known to him.

On the Indology list however, the discussion erupted, albeit briefly. There, Witzel gave a different explanation [Ref. 27]:

Yes, I readily admit to: misplacing a parenthesis by *one word* in a translation of BSS 18.44. That's about the extent of it.

As we shall see later, this is again a misleading explanation.

Meanwhile, Dr. Elst, in a private email to several interested parties including myself, also recalled his discussion with Professor Hock at the WAVES 2000 conference wherein the latter reiterated his position that the Indo-European (IE) homeland might never be found conclusively at all with the meager evidence that we have in hand. Elst also stated that [Ref. 28]:

Trained textual scholars have confirmed that Witzel was mistaken in seeing an Aryan invasion reference in Baudhayana, and that in fact all the Sanskrit text passages so far mustered as proof for the Aryan invasion don't contain such proof at all (I think this does not misrepresent Hans Hock's paper read at the WAVES conference in Hoboken NJ last month).

However, Witzel, retorted laconically that Hock was wrong if he really said so.

The diversity of the numerous mutually incompatible explanations given by Witzel to account for his (mis-)translation (and ‘interpretation’) of the passage from the Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra leaves one wondering- which is the correct explanation? Is the mistranslation due to editorial slips on part of Erdosy, the misplacement of a bracket, the ‘nirukta like use’ of words on the passage or is it simply a case of mistranslation?

The issue becomes serious when one considers the reference “(Witzel 1989a: 235)” in the original paper in Erdosy. The earlier publication referred [Ref. 14] to by Witzel is actually difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, I was able to get hold of a copy and found the following on pg. 325 of Witzel’s article of the text:

In the case of ancient N. India, we do not know anything about the immigration of various tribes and clans, except for a few elusive remarks in the RV (= Rigveda), SB (= Shatapatha Brahmana) or BSS ( = Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra). This text retains at 18.44 :397.9 sqq. The most pregnant memory, perhaps, of an immigration of the Indo-Aryans into Northern India and of their split into two groups: pran Ayuh pravavraja. Tasyaite Kuru-Pancalah Kasi-Videha ity. Etad Ayavam pravrajam. Pratyan amavasus. Tasyaite Gandharvarayas Parsavo ‘ratta ity. Etad Amavasavam. “Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-Pancala and the Kasi Videha. This is the Ayava migration. (His other people) stayed at home in the West. His people are the Gandhari, Parsu and Aratta. This is the Amavasava (group)”. [see Note 10]

Witzel further comments:

…the text makes a differentiation between the peoples of the Panjab and the territories West of it on one hand, and the “properly Vedic” tribes of Madhyadesa and the adjacent country East of it.

Witzel then brings in a discussion on Eastern Vratyas and I leave it to the reader to refer the original article by Witzel for further details. The edition of the Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra referenced by Witzel is the one by W. Caland [Ref. 30]

However, the following observations can indeed be made safely when the above citation from Witzel’s 1989 article is compared with that in Erdosy’s book:

· The translation in the 1995 Erdosy volume is identical to Witzel’s translation in his earlier publication of 1989. Therefore, the translation in Erdosy’s 1995 volume is entirely Witzel’s since Erdosy was nowhere in the picture in the 1989 volume published from Paris. Hence, Witzel’s attempt to confuse the issue by attributing the error to Erdosy’s editorial slips is of no consequence to this specific case. Erdosy’s carelessness might have resulted in other errors in Witzel’s article, but not this one. It was therefore, extremely unethical on the part of Witzel to blame a professional colleague in a public forum for a fault which was purely his own.

· The ‘revised’ translation and interpretation of the passage by Witzel is not significantly different from the one in Erdosy’s book in so far as its implications for the Aryan Migration Theory are concerned.

· Witzel has highlighted the centrality of the Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra passage both in his 1989 publication (‘The most pregnant memory, perhaps, of an immigration of the Indo-Aryans into Northern India and of their split into two groups.’) and also in his 1995 article (see section 2.0 above). Understandably then, the non-tenability of Witzel’s translation of the passage actually deprives the AMT of its primary textual evidence.

· Internet lists such as the Indology List and the Indian Civilization list, are much more affordable and accessible to scholars and to non-professional Indologists than the expensive volume by Erdosy (even its Indian reprint) and (especially) the volume published in 1989 from Paris. Unfortunately, although Witzel referred to his 1989 article in Erdosy’s volume, he has completely refrained from doing so in his numerous replies on the issue on the Internet. While I do not want to impute a deliberate effort at concealment on the part of Witzel (in his hope that readers will not check the original sources) here, the omission did potentially mislead 100’s of readers, who read merely the false accusations against Erdosy and also numerous other misleading statements made by Witzel. Without checking the book published in 1989 personally, one can only blame Erdosy for distorting Witzel’s actual translation.

· No where in his two translations/interpretations of the passage does Witzel indicate the ‘nirukta like interpretations as verbs’- which seems only a later ploy to defend his stance. Nor does Witzel indicate the difficulty in translating this passage in his articles- an argument that he has brought up only later.

· Nor does one understand Witzel’s self-defense that he had merely misplaced a bracket. I suggest that readers try relocating a parenthesis in his statement at other places in his translation and see if that makes any significant difference. If Witzel had erred in the placement of the parenthesis in Erdosy’s article (so not an editorial slip of Erdosy!), he committed the same mistake in his earlier article as well. In any case, how does the misplacement of a parenthesis explain his clear conclusion on the implications of this passage for the AMT?

· Interestingly, while the article in Erdosy’s volume says that the Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra is admittedly a late text, the revised version of Witzel contains a different (albeit correct) emphasis by specifying that it is a passage from the Brahmana period. The Baudhayana Shrauta Sutra is considered very close to the Brahmana texts in time by scholarly consensus and the relevant sections are of the form of an Anvakhyana Brahmana. Nevertheless, Witzel should have still prefixed the word ‘late’ to the word ‘Brahmana’ in his revised translation). Was this the result of Elst’s critique that Witzel has been able to produce only one passage from a late Vedic text to substantiate his AMT paradigms? Second, while Indologists often reject even the Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda as texts that are too late to study the immigration/invasion of Aryans into India, is it appropriate to use an even much later Kalpasutra text for this purpose?

Despite 150 years of research by legions of Indologists, the picture of pre-Buddhist India is largely hazy and therefore adherence to dogmas conforming to one’s pet theories is not desirable. It is clear that the pioneering attempt to retrofit literary evidence from the Vedic texts into the Aryan Migration model has ended in a fiasco. The attempt is reminiscent of earlier efforts of proving the AIT from the Vedic texts- with the difference that the attempt to seek evidence for AMT in the Vedic texts is even more desperate.

To be charitable to Dr. Witzel, let us assume that he was right and Cardona, Hock, Elst, Kalyanaraman are all in error. Does that still entitle him to make false, misleading and defamatory statements?

While even Michael Witzel, the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at the Harvard University, is entitled to make elementary mistakes in the translation of Sanskrit passages, it was not appropriate for him to have made misleading statements made not once, but many times, and in front of more than 600 specialists in the field. On the possible cause for the same, I leave it to the reader to use his own judgment for arriving at a decision on this matter after consulting Witzel’s writings and also the evidence presented here. Elst’s relevant comment [Ref 31] is however, certainly not out of place here:

…The same is true of Michael Witzel's "Piltdown translation" of the Ayu/Amavasu passage of the Baudhayana Shrautasutra ("debunked", in Farmer's parlance, on p.164-5 of my Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate and on my website). It is so obviously wrong that one wonders how a student of Sanskrit, let alone a Harvard professor of Sanskrit, could put his name under it. And yet, Witzel being just a human being, I accept that he was subject to the over-eagerness which made him see what he hoped to see…..

In a recent publication [Ref. 32], Witzel and co-author Steve Farmer pontificate, lashing out at one of their opponents:

The historical fantasies of writers like Rajaram must be exposed for what they are: propaganda issuing from the ugliest corners of the pre-scientific mind. The fact that many of the most unbelievable of these fantasies are the product of highly trained engineers should give Indian educational planners deep concern.

Much of Rajaram’s training in engineering has been in the United States, contrary to the authors’ implied assumption! As a new parent, I get concerned about our education system when an American academician indulges in the inappropriate behavior that we have just discussed in this article – and all the more because he is a Professor at the Harvard University.

Indology is one of the few areas of specialization in which several 19th century colonial and racist paradigms are still accepted as gospel truth [Ref. 33, 34]. Understandably then, specialists in other areas like geology, archaeology, anthropology, archaeo-metallurgy and even scientists/physicists (and members of other professions) who are ardent students of Indological topics have often challenged the sacred dogmas of Indology. Some Indologists, largely linguists and philologists, have hit back, often in the most distasteful manner. For instance, in their recent publication [Ref. 32], Witzel (as well as his co-author) lampoons the people who have critiqued his (and those of others holding similar opinions) writings in the most condescending manner:

Ironically many those expressing anti-migration views are migrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N. S. Rajaram. S. Kak, and S. Kalyanaraman, who ship their ideas to India from the U.S. shores. They find allies in a broader assortment of home grown nationalists including university professors, bank employees, and politicians (S. S. Misra, S. Talageri, K. D. Sethna, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh, M. Shendge, Bh. Gidwani, P. Chaudhuri, A. Shourie, S. R. Goel). They have gained a small or vocal following in the west among “New Age” writers or researchers outside mainstream scholarship, including D. Frawley, G. Feuerstein, K. Klostermaier, and K. Elst. Whole publishing firms, such as the Voice of India, and Aditya Prakashan, are devoted to propagating their ideas.

Witzel is not the only Indologist who demonizes those that question the dogmas of Indology. In his hit list above, Frawley (a Hindu), Elst (a secular humanist) and Klostermaier (an ordained Catholic priest and a celebrated Professor Emeritus at a mainstream University of Canada) are not ‘New Agers’, S. Kalyanaraman lives very much in India, while S. S. Misra, M. Shendge, K. D. Sethna (born a Parsi), A. Shourie and S. R. Goel (has a graduate degree in History) are definitely not ‘nationalists’ in the parochial sense of the word. S. P. Gupta is an archaeologist, Bh. Gidwani is a novel writer, M. Shendge is an Indologist, K. Elst has a doctoral degree in Indology, Bh. Singh is said to have been a Marxist and Misra is a renowned mainstream Sanskritist/linguist. Aditya Prakashan is an old publishing house that has brought out dozens of books that have nothing to do with ‘propagating their ideas’. In fact, some of the above (eg. Arun Shourie, S. R. Goel) have not even written anything significant on AIT or related matters. Nevertheless, this example shows the extent to which some academicians can stoop to lampoon those who disagree with them - or with their Marxist colleagues in India (as is the case with Shourie and Goel, who have criticized Marxist Indologists in India).

Then, writing on the Indology list on 5 April 2001, Witzel said:

I have repeatedly dealt with that dead horse, also in INDOLOGY. The matter is, in short, a mistranslation (it should have been a paraphrase), based on misplacing one parenthesis. How happy people are in having found one wrong translation in nearly 30 years of publications!

(Incidentally, the Baudh. SrautaSutra passage in question cannot prove or disprove an “Aryan immigration” – and that was not my aim either. I used it as additional evidence. The matter is complex, and can be found discussed, in margin, in the forthcoming issue of EJVS, 7-3, in footnotes 44-46.)

This is yet another explanation from Michael Witzel, repeating the same old misleading remarks nevertheless.

First, his point that he merely used the passage as an ‘additional evidence’ is meaningless, because he does present this passage as the solitary direct literary evidence for AMT, and one that has the most pregnant memory of the AMT. Nor can Witzel dismiss this webpage on the grounds that I have tried to refute his thesis of AMT in toto by referring to his mistranslation. In fact, this webpage DID NOT attempt to do so. The scope of this webpage was MERELY to examine the direct literary evidence found by Witzel in support of AMT. This should be clear from the title of this webpage also, which specifically has the word ‘Literary’. Moreover, the importance and centrality that Witzel has given to this ‘evidence’ has in-fact not been missed by others, who have then used it as an important proof of AMT. In a lecture [Ref. 36] delivered on 11 October 1999 at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), Marxist historian Romila Thapar said:

…and later on, the Srauta Sutra of Baudhayana refers to the Parasus and the arattas who stayed behind and others who moved eastwards to the middle Ganges valley and the places equivalent such as the Kasi, the Videhas and the Kuru Pancalas, and so on. In fact, when one looks for them, there are evidence for migration.

Another Marxist historian of India, Ram Sharan Sharma considers this passage as an important piece of evidence in favor of the AMT. He writes, quoting the very words of Witzel [Ref. 37; pg. 87-89] –

More importantly, Witzel produces a passage from the Baudhayana Srautasutra which contains ‘the most explicit statement of immigration into the Subcontinent’. This passage contains a dialogue between Pururava and Urvasi which refers to horses, chariot parts, 100 houses and 100 jars of ghee. Towards the end, it speaks of the birth of their sons Ayu and Amavasu, who were asked by their sons to go out. ‘Ayu went eastward. His people are the Kuru-Pancalas and the Kasi-Videhas. This is the Ayava kin group. Amavasu stayed in the west. His people are the Gandharas, the Parsavas and the Arattas. This is the Amavasava kin group.’

Sharma is so confident of the ‘evidence’ of the AMT produced by Witzel that he even goes to the extent of co-relating these two groups with various pottery types attested in the archaeological record. He says [ibid:89]-

Perhaps members of the Amasava kin group used grey pottery and those of the Ayava kin group used Painted Grey Ware and Northern Black Polished Ware. Possibly the former spoke the r- only dialect of the Indo-Aryan language of the north, and the latter spoke its r- and –l dialect in the north eastern part of north India.

In his chapter on the conclusions of his book, Sharma [ibid:99] finally adds:

Some later Vedic texts clearly speak of a migration from the west.

This obviously refers to Baudhayana Srautasutra 18.44. Therefore it is futile for Witzel use phrases like ‘additional evidence’ in order to deny the importance that he gave to this (mis)translated passage himself.

Second, Witzel now seems to admit that he could have mistranslated the passage, although it is unclear how calling it a ‘paraphrase’ could bail him out. I have reproduced his ‘revised’ translation above and it still speaks of one-way migration from the West. Anyways, partial admission of his error should now absolve Erdosy of any wrong editing. Incidentally, a book [Ref. 38] containing a collection of articles on Old Indo-Iranian studies has been published from Germany, in the memory of late Dr. Johanna Narten. In this book, Witzel has contributed an article titled “The Home of Aryans” (pp. 283-338) wherein he has tried to place the Aryans even further west, in the ‘greater Ural region’ (pp. 283-286). In the same book, the relevant passage (Baudhayana Srautasutra 18.44) has been studied closely and has been translated into German by Toshifumi Goto [Ref. 39]. The translation of Goto goes totally against that of Witzel [pp. 102-103] and clearly refers to migration to the west as well as to the east, just as Elst did. Consequently, Witzel now has no choice but to accept his own ‘paraphrase’ or ‘translation’ as wrong. However, if we are to infer from his latest message on the Indology list, we could expect some other innovative explanation such as - ‘the matter is complex’, ‘the manuscripts have textual variants’, ‘text is corrupt’ or ‘this is not the only evidence’ and so on.

Third, this mistranslation is found not only in Witzel:1995 and Witzel:1989, but in a third and an even earlier publication [Ref. 40; pg. 202] dating back to 1987 wherein he says:

The other passage tells the origin of two groups of Aryans, the Amavasu “who stayed at home” and who include the Gandhari, the Parsu and Aratta, and that of the Ayava “who moved eastwards”: the Kuru-Pancalas and the Kasi-Videhas.

Thus, we see that Witzel has relied on his mistranslation in 3 of his publications that appeared over a period of 8 years. In reality, he has used this mistranslation in drawing conclusions in his other publications as well, but we will let the matter rest here. In conclusion then, Erdosy stands exonerated.

1. Please refer to my forthcoming webpage “What is the Aryan Migration Theory” at
 http://vishalagarwal.voiceofdharma.com/articles/indhistory/whatisamt.htm

2. "Something of this fear of the horse and of the thundering chariot, the "tank" of the 2nd millennium B.C. is transparent in the famous horse 'Dadhikra' of the Puru king Trasadasya ("Tremble enemy"" in RV 4.38.8) -- Pg. 114 of M. Witzel; Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters; in Erdosy, George (Ed); The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Walter de Gryuter; Berlin; 1995

3. "The first appearance of thundering chariots must have stricken the local population with terror similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and the Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards."-- ibid

4. " Not only the language, but also the culture of the newly arrived elite was appropriated, including the 'Vedic Tank' the horse drawn chariot"-- pg. 109, ibid

5." This tedious work, notably that of rice cultivation which first becomes visible in the Atharvaveda, was apparently carried out by the local population and not by the Aryan cattle herders themselves.” [Ref. 8; pg. xx.]

6. "The immigrating group(s) may have been relatively small one(s), such as the Normans who came to England in 1066 and who nearly turned England into a French speaking country......the immigrating clans may have looked like Bactrians, Afghanis or Kashmiris, and must have been racially submerged quickly in the population of the Punjab, just like the later immigrants whose staging area was in Bactria as well: the Saka, Kusana, Huns etc.- However, the introduction of the horse and especially of the horse drawn chariot was a powerful weapon in the hands of the Indo-Aryans. It must have helped to secure military and political dominance even if some of the local
elite were indeed quick to introduce the new cattle based economy and the weapon, the horse drawn chariot,- just as the Near Eastern peoples did on a much larger and planned scale". Michael Witzel on pg. xxii of F. B. J Kuiper: Selected Writings on Linguistics and Philology; Ed. by Witzel, Michael; Lubotsky, Alexander and Oort, M. S.; Rodipi; Atlanta/Amsterdam; 1997

7. In the original message, the word aayu was spelt incorrectly advertently as saayu. This error was pointed out by Dr. Cardona himself, and has therefore been incorporated in the citation in the present article.

8. The Indology List is available at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/indology.html It was founded by Dr. Dominik Wujastyk and due to his personal prejudices, Eurocentric, pan-Islamic, Dravidian Nationalist, Marxist and anti –Hindu messages are tolerated quite well. Any attempt to question the standard paradigms of mainstream Indology are suppressed and dubbed as ‘Hindutva’ or ‘Indian Nationalist’ and list members are often expelled. As of now, the list has 600 members from all over the world although it is not really representative due to the absence of archaeologists, many noted Indologists themselves, and representatives of ‘non-mainstream’ Indology. There is indeed however a preponderance of Dravidian Nationalists and there is even a pan-Islamist. Curiously, all the members expelled by Wujastyk so far have been Indians, although the list has a very good proportion of non-Indians. Due to continuous bickering among members, the list was closed down on 16 April 2001 and instead, a new, un-moderated last was started at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDOLOGY

9. The relevant Note reads: “I take this opportunity to apologize for the innumerable printing mistakes in my two papers in that volume; mistakes that seem to indicate that I even lost competence of my mother tongue, German. At my request, the text was rewritten and corrected by the volume editor but my corrections were, for most part, not carried out” in fn. 21, pg. 262 of Witzel, M.; The Vedic Cannon and its Political Milieu; in Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts (ed. Witzel, M.); Harvard University; Cambridge; 1997

10. The diacritical marks in the original publication could not be reproduced due to the limitations of my word processor. The omission does not affect the content and the conclusion of this article in any manner.

1. Schafer, Jim G., Lichtenstein, Diane A.; Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology; in ‘Aryan and Non Aryan in South Asia; Ed. by Bronkhorst, Johannes and Deshpande, Madhav M. (Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3); 1999

2. Schafer, Jim G., Lichtenstein, Diane A.; The Concepts of ‘Cultural Tradition” and “Palaeoethnicity” in South Asian Archaeology; in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia” ed. by Erdosy, George (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin); 1995

3. Kennedy, Kenneth A. R; Have Aryans been identified in the prehistoric skeletal record from South Asia? Biological anthropology and concepts of ancient races; in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia” ed. by Erdosy, George (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin); 1995

4. Elst, Koenraad; “The Vedic Corpus Provides No Evidence for the so-called Aryan Invasion of India”; 28 October 1998. Available on-line at http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/KoenraadElst/articles/vedicevidence.html

5. Talageri, Shrikant; Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism; Voice of India; New Delhi; 1993

6. Vaidya, Ramagopal Shastri; Veda mein Arya dasa yuddha sambandhi paschatya mata ka khandana; Ramalal Kapoor Trust; Sonepat (Haryana)—in Hindi

7. Bryant, Edwin F.; Linguistic substrata and the indigenous Aryan debate; ‘Aryan and Non Aryan in South Asia; Ed. by Bronkhorst, Johannes and Deshpande, Madhav M. (Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3); 1999

8. Witzel, M., Lubotsky, Alexander and Oort, M. S; F. B. J Kuiper: Selected Writings on Linguistics and Philology; Rodipi; Atlanta/Amsterdam; 1997

9. Hock, H. H.; Through a glass darkly: Modern “racial” interpretations; in ‘Aryan and Non Aryan in South Asia; Ed. by Bronkhorst, Johannes and Deshpande, Madhav M. (Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3); 1999

10. Witzel, M.; Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters; “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia” ed. by Erdosy, George (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin); 1995

11. Witzel, M.; Rgvedic History: Poets, Chieftains and Politics; in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia” ed. by Erdosy, George (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin); 1995

12. Witzel, M.; Aryan and non-Aryan names in Vedic India; in ‘Aryan and Non Aryan in South Asia; Ed. by Bronkhorst, Johannes and Deshpande, Madhav M. (Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 3); 1999

13. Talageri, Shrikant G.; The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis; Aditya Prakashan; New Delhi; 2000

14. Witzel, M; Tracing the Vedic Dialects; in Dialectes dans les literatures indo-aryennes; Publications de l’Institute de Civilization Indienne, Serie in-8, Fascicule 55, ed. by C. Caillat; Diffusion de Boccard; Paris; 1989

15. Elst, Koenraad; Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate; Aditya Prakashan; New Delhi; 1999

16. The website address of the Indian Civilization Discussion list is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiancivilization

18. Message no. 3 (dated April 11, 2000) in the public archives of the Sarasvati Discussion list. The website of the discussion list is http://sarasvati.listbot.com/

19. Dr. Kalyanaraman’s message on 15 July 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 451

20. Dr. Witzel’s response on 15 July 200 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 453

21. Vishal Agarwal’s message on 21 July 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 508

22. Dr. Kalyanaraman’s message on 17 July 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 454

23. Dr. Kalyanaraman’s message on 22 July 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 509

24. Dr. Kalyanaraman’s message on 22 July 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 510

25. Dr. Kalyanaraman’s message on 01 August 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 533

26. Dr. George Cardona’s message on 17 July 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 474

27. Dr. Witzel’s message on 14 August 2000 on the Indology List (See archives for August 2000 at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/indology.html )

28. Koenraad Elst’s private communication to me and about 10 others on 11 August 2000

29. The Home of the Aryans. Fs. J.Narten, ed. A.Hintze. See the list of Professor Witzel’s publications at his homepage at http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwbib.htm

30. Caland, W (ed.); Baudhayana-Srautasutra; Asiatic Society; Calcutta; 1904, 1907, 1913

31. Koenraad Elst’s message on 18 August 2000 on the Indian Civilization List as message no. 642

32. Witzel, M. and Farmer, S; Horseplay in Harappa; cover story in the Indian magazine ‘Frontline’ (issue of 13 October 2000). The article is available online at http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/RAJARAM/FRONTLINE.htm

Note that the magazine is often considered to have a Communist orientation.

33. Chakrabarti, Dilip; Colonial Indology–Sociopolitics of the Ancient Indian Past; Munshiram Manoharlal; New Delhi; 1997; 257 pp.

An online review of the book by Dr. D. P. Agrawal, a noted Indian archaeologist, is available at

http://www.picatype.com/dig/dm2/dm2aa06.htm

Also reviewed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 118.2 (April-June 1998) by Rosane Rocher

34. Kak, Subhash; Indology and Racism. Available online at http://www.infinityfoundation.com/ECITindologyframeset.html

35. Michael Witzel’s post on the Indology list on 5 April 2001. Available on-line at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0104&L=indology&P=R1715

36. Romila Thapar’s lecture titled “The Aryan Question Revisited” is available on-line at http://members.tripod.com/ascjnu/aryan.html

37. Sharma, Ram Sharan; Advent of the Aryans in India; Manohar; New Delhi; 1999

38. Tichy, Eva and Hintze, Almut; Anusantatyai; J. H. Roll; Germany; 2000

39. Tushifumi Goto; “Pururavas und Urvasi” aus dem neuntdecktem Vadhula-Anvakhyana (Ed. Y. Ikari); pp. 79-110 of Ref. 38 above

40. Witzel, Michael; On the Localisation of Vedic Texts and Schools; pp. 173-213 in “India and the Ancient World” ed. by Gilbert Pollet; Departement Orientalistiek; Keuven; 1987

(C) Vishal Agarwal

Revision Log: (Older revisions are available upon request)

Revision A: 08 October 2000- Website opened

Revision B: 10 October 2000- Typos and links corrected

Revision C: 3 May 2001 - Section 8 (The Aftermath) added. Bibliography/Notes revised slightly. Formatting changed. Other minor editing.