Lies with Long Legs - Prodosh Aich - E-Book

Lies with Long Legs E-Book

Prodosh Aich

0,0

Beschreibung

In his painstakingly long academic journey through mountains of source material available in Europe, Prof Prodosh Aich establishes that the entire understanding of India developed by self-claimed scholars from West is erroneous, since the initial attempt to comprehend ancient India through the Vedas was itself faulty. He questions the validity of the works of the famous western scholars who translated the Vedic literature into English, German and Italian. A vast majority of them did not even set foot on the Indian soil and those who came here did not learn the ancient languages in an organised manner, even though translation needs an equal command of both languages. Since neither the Vedic language nor the Sanskrit were spoken languages since ages, it was all the more difficult for them to develop language skills required for translation. Colonialist Imperial England had prepared a concerted design to establish the superiority of blond-blue eyed-white-Christian culture over other cultures that they opted to define as "primitive", particularly in case of India. Prof Aich uses juxtaposition to drive home a point and leaves judgement to readers. He frames a question and then answers it by using the primary source material. The book is bound to trigger an academic debate in the West also and would go a long way to establish once for all that the much-trumpeted and self-championed discipline of Indology in the West has in fact been based on falsehood. It must have been a design that none of the scholars so far bothered to use the existing material, so abundantly available, which could have helped to unravel the truth about the colonial powers and imperial administration and bureaucracy. Scholars after scholars, even after the end of colonial empire, have continued to overlook the material that would have removed the well-laid myths about Indian society, polity and culture.

Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:

Android
iOS
von Legimi
zertifizierten E-Readern

Seitenzahl: 913

Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:

Android
iOS
Bewertungen
0,0
0
0
0
0
0
Mehr Informationen
Mehr Informationen
Legimi prüft nicht, ob Rezensionen von Nutzern stammen, die den betreffenden Titel tatsächlich gekauft oder gelesen/gehört haben. Wir entfernen aber gefälschte Rezensionen.



Lies with Long Legs

To this bookContentsThe ImpetusPrologue: We are, what we knowWhat is happening to us?Who paved the way for the “epochal discoverer”#Who is this William Jones?Calcutta – Sir William's EldoradoAll trails lead to CalcuttaTreading in Sir William’s stepsEpilogue: An era of brainwashing

To this book

Our daily life is organised by “information”. World wide. A continuously increasing flow of „information“ leading to more and more consolidated social and political order. „Information“ is brought to us not only through the so-called print and electronic media, but also by our environment, by the family, by educational institutions, etc. extensively. But, where does information come from, where is it produced, who puts it into circulation, what are the channels, how fast does it reach us from its source? Can we really find out? Is it important to know all the facts?

These are the reasons, these are the backgrounds that made our search for answers to our rather harmless questions so difficult, so complicated: who the “Aryans” are, the “Indogermans” and the “Indoeuropeans”? Who they are, since when has their existence been known, how has it become known that they existed, who discovered them, and how, why and for what purpose? But we have made progress in our search. With the help of our unusual questions. And as it seems, we have banged on the Pandora’s box and it is open now.”

Prodosh Aich was born in Calcutta in 1933. High School and studies in philosophy in India. Studies in ethnology, philosophy and sociology at the University of Cologne. University teacher and publicist Taught sociology at Cologne (Germany), Rajasthan (Jaipur, India) and Oldenburg (Germany) universities. Besides books he has published many papers in Readers and learned journals, made radio features and documentary films, in all around 100 titles and participated in radio and television talk-shows. He is still an Indian though he lives for a longer period in Germany than most Germans.

“Lies with long legs” is the 9th book by Prodosh Aich. “Coloured amongst whites” (1962), “The Indian university (1971), “Social Work” (1972), “As further decline is threatened ...” (1973), “How democratic is local politics in cities?” (1977), “Chances and boundaries of “project-study” (1978), “City-Hall Plunderers” (1986). “The Thorns on a righteous Path“ (2000)

The publication of “The Indian University” and “City-Hall Plunderers” were sabotaged. “The Thorns on a righteous Path“ includes "The Indian University" and narrates the tale of this dispute as a documentary which went on for thirty years.

Contents

To this book

The Impetus

Prologue: We are, what we know

What is happening to us?

Who paved the way for the “epochal discoverer”

Who is this William Jones?

Calcutta – Sir William's Eldorado

All trails lead to Calcutta

Treading in Sir William’s steps

Epilogue: An era of brainwashing

The Impetus

The Faculty of Social Sciences of the Oldenburg University offered, in the winter-term 1996/1997, a seminar on “Might, media and manipulation: The invention of ‘Indogermans’, ‘Indoeuropeans’, ‘Aryans’ as an exemplary case-study.” It is a project of “learning by doing research”, i.e. to start with open questions without prefixing a project plan and not depending on any prefabricated theory.

No one could have anticipated that the seminar would carry on right to the beginning of the winter-term 2000/2001. It was always on the students’ demand, though with some students dropping out and others coming in, the extensions became necessary. The newcomers had to work through the backlog of collected materials, protocols of the sessions, their evaluation, also in terms of time required, and then to develop new facets of further research.

When more than 35 students wished to participate in the seminar it was time for rethinking. A seminar of “learning by doing research” needs a manageable size of between 5 to 15 participants. So in the first session of the term a detailed report was presented on what had already been done and what the open questions were. Thereafter only five participants were left. They decided to evaluate the results achieved so far and to prepare an interim report before proceeding to further research work. In the process of the evaluation, only two participants remained at work. And these were not to undergo any more university-examinations.

They added new materials to fill up the gaps to get a comprehensive view of what had been accomplished. In this process the realisation came that many of the questions would not have arisen at all without the students’ participation. The author thanks all of them and is deeply grateful.

This book is also theirs.

A special acknowledgement is due to Aldo Stowasser. He is one of the two who have completed this project. He joined the seminar in the winter-term 1997/98, at the age of 71. He was born in Fiume, Italy (the town’s name was changed into Rijeka in 1974, as it became part of Yugoslavia, (since 1992 Croatia) and grew up in a multi-lingual environment (Italian, German and Croatian). He enjoyed a substantial humanistic and general education, over which he still has command. In his youth he has attended classes of philosophy for two terms and of law for two more terms at the University of Rome. He can look back to a long life experience in several European countries and to a career in branches as different as travel trade and banking. He is inquisitive and keen to gain new knowledge. Soon he was confronted with “absurdities” of scientific materials and of scientific achievements praised in biographies. He was determined to find out about things, engaged in patient and obstinate research, delivered numerous comprehensive contributions. He is still a polyglot. All translations from the original Latin, Italian and French, as well as a large number of those from English sources are his work. He co-operated in the correction of the manuscript of this book until it actually went into printing.

The methods adopted in this research have been described and substantiated in the Prologue. We do apologise for any obstacle or abridgement which might be found in the report on our journey to the primary sources. In the course of each of the necessary steps we have been startled by the fact that our seemingly simple questions have led to countless corollary questions. Besides, the source-texts are not free from contradictions. We had to read many such texts more than twice. We have marked many of those obstacles by signs. These are exclamation marks, interrogation marks and short comments put in brackets. Many words we have put in inverted commas. These are expressions, terms on which we had to reflect more than twice. This is why we apologise..

We have often wondered why the questions in this book have not been raised earlier by others or by us. Had we been tied up as an integrated part in the establishment called “University” we might not have accomplished this search and research. As we have already indicated, we don’t have to undergo “exams” anymore. And we are beyond the strain of ‘publish or pack up’.

Dr. Gisela Aich has kindly read the manuscript critically at all phases.

Prodosh Aich

Prologue: We are, what we know

We gain knowledge from what knowledgeable people tell us. We readily accept a story if it is consistent, if it does not create a feeling of unease and if it doesn’t contradict our experience and our knowledge stored so far. We save it as an addition, and we increase our knowledge a little. We are inclined to accept stories from afar innocently, even if an inner assessment is due; assuming that our memories are functioning well. We just don’t have the time to look out for “sublime” contradictions. We are accustomed to this process. Mostly, we don’t care about who the narrator is, how he got the story, how he earns his living, who is harmed by the story, who gains and so forth.

We wanted to know about “Aryans”, “Indogermans” and “Indoeuropeans”. And we find many stories. Who doesn’t know them? Most learned people know these stories found in “references”, in “standard books of history” and more detailed in specialised books: The “Aryans”, the grazing nomads, lived in the steppes between the Caspian Sea and the contemporary Chinese western boundary; in “pre-historic” age. How does one define “pre-historic”?

Well! Those grazing nomads had domesticated horses and cows for use in their daily life as the first people in history around 6000 years ago. They discovered copper, iron and other precious metals. They invented bronze and steel. They were well to do. Their population increased. They expanded their “Lebensraum”. Whose living space did they invade? We won’t know. Who is to tell us? Is it important to know? Did they perhaps occupy Lebensraum” of animals only? An earlier “age of discoveries” eventually? Nothing is known yet. If our type of questions were as important, we would have found answers in the end. Are we perhaps on a wrong track?

Some of these grazing nomadic people with cows, horses, copper, iron, bronze and steel emigrated. To the west and to the south. The circumstances of this expansion of “Lebensraum” are either veiled in “early or pre-history” or even buried. We can imagine why they didn’t go into the inhospitable northern regions, into the cold, if some of them really did emigrate. But why did they not expand their “Lebensraum” also eastwards? No one tells us. No one has asked as yet.

But there seems to be no doubt about “expansion” of “Lebensraum” of these people. Naturally, as “cultured” people they had a common language. So the language wandered with them too. Some of these “Aryan wanderers” reached Northwest India. The Hindukush was the only pass through the Himalayan massif. How could these nomads from the Turkmenian steppe find this single pass? Wandering in from an area thousands of kilometres away? Should we be detained by such “useless” questions? Isn’t it enough that that they did find the pass? Otherwise they would not have arrived in India. Did they really arrive? Anyway. They were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed, and obviously “dynamic” as well. Otherwise they could not have made this long journey.

They settled down in Northwest India. They brought their language with them. Quite logically. This was Sanskrit. But without scripts. They invented the device of writing in India only. Had they brought a script with them, we would have found it in their original native land. However, the Sanskrit script was found nowhere. Therefore it is deduced that the need to store their knowledge for future generations in writing was first felt in Northwest India. And they accomplished the job nicely. How long does it usually take for a cultural community to devise a script? “Philologists” or “Comparative Linguists” do not tell us anything about that. We must be content with the fact that “Aryans” from central Asia moving around discovered the Hindukush pass, drove out the inhabitants from this hospitable Northwest India to the South, settled down, acquired new knowledge, invented a script for writing and produced a huge amount of highly sophisticated literature. We naturally won’t know where the initial inhabitants of the North forced the inhabitants of the South to go after they had been forced out from the North. Is it important to know all this?

So far, so good. In the most ancient parts of this literature these “New Indians” called themselves “Aryans”; so we are told. We shall yet have to identify the “historian” who told us these stories for the first time. No one can tell us, however, why should only those grazing Nomads in India call themselves “Aryans” but not their brothers, sisters and cousins elsewhere in Western Europe and/or the ones who remained at home? Why not? Shouldn’t we know?

Let us take it as a fact for the time being. We are assured that the “New Indians” called themselves “Aryans” and the language they brought with them was “Sanskrit”. Up to now Sanskrit has been universally regarded as the best arranged language. As Sanskrit has been found nowhere else, it is logically assumed that the nomadic “Aryans” in central Asia must have spoken a simpler version of Sanskrit. So we are told. This simple form, the early Sanskrit, Sanskrit in its childhood so to say, is called “Protosanskrit”. Well and good. Those ‘Aryans” wandering towards the West also had to take along the same “Protosanskrit” Doesn’t it sound absolutely logical? Well, it didn’t keep its initial form. The language and culture of the “Aryans” did change with time and through encounters with other languages and cultures in different continents. But the “kinship” naturally remained in regard to language and other things. So we are told. A convincing story.

It is supposed to be sufficiently established that there is a close kinship between Sanskrit, the language of the Northwest-Indian “Aryans” on the one hand and Greek, Latin, Germanic and Celtic languages on the other hand. The family of the “Indoeuropeans”. So to speak. And who has discovered and established this kinship? Not those “Aryans” who passed through the Hindukush and created the world-wide known literature like Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras, and so forth and allegedly called themselves “Aryans” in their literature. No! None of them, not in any of their writings, not even once has it been indicated that at some period in central Asia their “Lebensraum” became so congested that a lot of their brothers, sisters, cousins set out on a search for new space to live and emigrated in the end. No! The “Sanskrit-Aryans” did not remember anything else, so it is told, than that they were “Aryans”. An absolute “black out” on all other things. The remote cousins and relatives belonging to the “Abendland” (Occident) claimed the kinship rather late, only while they were engaged in robbing and killing in the “Morgenland” (Orient). They were robbing India indiscriminately; carrying away whatever was not riveted and nailed, occupying the country for enduring exploitation. But they blessed also their remote cousins and relatives first with “language kinship” and then the “Linguistics”. This branch of “science” has also invented the term “language family”, but only in the 19th century AD, to be more exact, between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 20th century.

Terms like “family” and “kinship” however, even when they are designed in the context of languages, develop their intrinsic dynamics. The “occidental” inventiveness was at that period quite effective. The distant cousins from the “occident” deduced consequently that if their languages were from a common origin, then they belonged also to the same family, then there was a “blood relationship” as well; even if this had remained in oblivion for centuries. This was how the “Aryan race” was added to the “Aryan language” hardly fifty years later. And we have also been blessed with further branches of “science”: Ethnology, anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis, and so forth.

In the 1995 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica we can read about these inventions: “During the 19th century there arose a notion – propagated most assiduously by the Comte de Gobineau and later by his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain – of an ‘Aryan race,’ those who spoke Indo-European languages, who were considered to be responsible for all the progress that mankind had made and who were also morally superior to ‘Semites,’ ‘yellows,’ and ‘blacks’. The Nordic, or Germanic, peoples came to be regarded as the purest ‘Aryans’. This notion, which had been repudiated by anthropologists by the second quarter of the 20th century, was seized upon by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and made the basis of the German government policy of exterminating Jews, Gypsies, and other ‘non-Aryans’.”

The second half of the 20th century has proved, however, that this rejection of the “Aryan theory” by anthropologists didn’t have any effect. Shouldn’t the anthropologists, historians, indologists, political scientists and social scientists of this culture have known from their own professional experience that a bare rejection rather confirms? Shouldn’t they have known as “makers” of a “media society” that “denials” rather amplify the refuted statement? What anthropologists or representatives of other new disciplines have undertaken after it was established that the rejection of the theory about the alleged superiority of the Aryan race had had no effect whatsoever?

In 1990 the second revised edition of the biography of German indologists was handed over from the “Max Mueller Bhawan (House)” in New Delhi. The German Institute for Culture in foreign countries is called ”Goethe Institute”. But in India quite interestingly it is called “Max Mueller House”, named after Friedrich Maximilian Mueller. We shall deal with him in detail later. An impressive number of 130 German indologists have been referred to who are known through their publications on the “early history” of India. The youngest one in this “gallery of ancestral portraits” was born in 1931. There are younger indologists, of course, and a lot of young persons are engaged in “research” on this topic in Germany and elsewhere. Many books have been printed; the “Aryan race” lives on and is still going strong.

Helmuth von Glasenapp (1891-1963) wrote a lot in large editions about religion and philosophy. Here we quote from his book, first published in 1963, from “an unabridged paperback edition”, printed in 1997 as a 6th edition: The five world religions. (He did not include Judaism!) Under the heading “The historical development” we read on page 29: “The old city Prayāga (i. e.sacrificial site),which the Muhammadans renamed Allâhâbâd (Allah’s residence) and as such familiar to us, happens to be the holiest place of India because both the holy rivers Ganges and Yamunā join here. That is symbolic for Hinduism: as it is according to its essential spirit also a merger point of two big evolutional streams, though emerging from different origins, merging to a new unit: one of these streams is Aryanism that penetrated from the north four millenniums ago to India and reshaped it to a large extent in linguistic and cultural respect, the other stream is represented by the indigenous element already before the Aryan immigration and has been maintaining its characteristic until today. The origin of Indian culture goes back to the creative synthesis of these two components; through them the Indian religion received its distinct mark, unique in the world.“

Is it not pretty, light, smooth, convincing and sellable in style? Under the heading “The pre-Aryan period” we read on page 31: “The oldest history of India is to us still today a book with seven seals. Ethnographers accept that the oldest inhabitants of the Indian continent, which then did not have its contemporary appearance, were Negroid, standing to their tribal comrades in Africa and Melanesia in spatial and genetic connection. These are supposed to have been forced away by Europides coming from the north to the south and into remote fields and to have been absorbed by degrees so that they are not to be found today anymore in a pure state. Under the Europides, who, moving in several waves, took their residence in the wide country, ancestors of the delicate brown peoples which, with its inherent variety of aspects, had its seat in India talking in Dravidian languages in the south represented the most developed type. ... Fifty years ago (that is around 1913) the prevailing view was still that it were the Aryans who brought a higher culture and religion to India and that the pre Aryan inhabitants of the continent of Ganges, however, had been primitives lacking in culture. This view changed entirely through the great archaeological discoveries made since the years 1921/1922 in the Indus area. In Mohenjo Daro (in the region of Sindh) and in Harappa (in Punjab) the ruins of large cities were then laid open. The spacious buildings, artistic tools and form-beautiful sculptures found there betray a state of culture that was highly superior to that of the Aryans living only in villages that had no developed technique and art yet. This so-called Indus culture shows a striking similarity with the simultaneously existing Near East culture, on the other hand it bears again so individual traits, however, that it can not be considered as a simple subsidiary of the latter and is therefore to be taken as an independent link of the international world culture of the 3rd millennium. ... While some researchers are holding the Induspeople for Indogermans that belonged not to the Aryan branch, but to an older group of this language-family, most accept that they were ancestors of Dravidians and as such to be rather related to the Sumerians and pre-indogerman Mediterranean peoples.”

Isn’t it delightfully narrated? Why didn’t Helmuth von Glasenapp come to the obvious conclusion that the results of excavation led to a thorough collapse of existing theories in “history”? Unfortunately we can not ask him anymore. But we can continue our reading in “The vedic period” on page 32: “Those Aryans who immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC, were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work.”

We must apologise for the long quotation. As earlier mentioned, we are quoting from a large paperback edition. It has a pretentious appendix: “Comparative survey over teachings and customs of the Five Religions”, “Comparative chronological table”, “Regarding the pronunciation of words in Asiatic languages”, “List of the abbreviations”, “Section-wise Literature and Index of names”. A pure “scientific” book at its best. We refrain here from a subject-wise criticism. We ask simply: what were the sources of Helmuth von Glasenapp’s stories, which he tells us in this apparently pretentious book?

So we looked at the bibliography. The first chapter “History of Religion, General Theology” has three sections. The oldest mentioned source for “Overall views” goes back to 1920, for “References” to 1956 and for “Sources” to 1908. The next chapter: "Brahmanism and Hinduism” has two sections for reasons we fail to understand. “References” and “Overall views” are put together. The oldest source referred to here is from 1891 and in “Sources” from 1912. A critical review of sources doesn’t occur. Was every printed word sacrosanct for Helmuth von Glasenapp? What would be the benefit of a critical review of sources?

Isn’t it rather depressing to note what is being sold as science? How does it look like in other “scientific” books? We have not yet been able to identify a different “science-culture”. Therefore, before we go into stories, we have decided to put a few simple questions: who is the narrator, how does he earn his living, who supports his story-telling, who is benefited by his stories and what were his sources. The result of this practice is even more depressing. But first things first. We haven’t been able to detect a single primary source in Helmuth von Glasenapp’s book. But he knew all about human races and their ranking. During the “Tausendjähriges Reich” under Hitler he did not suffer any setback to his career.

Knowing the modern-science-culture as manifested in the book by Helmuth von Glasenapp we are not amazed to note that sources have been referred to in the latest edition of the book, which were first published after 1963, that is after his death. Of course not real sources, but newly printed products. In “notes” we are informed that “a number of other publications, mainly of recent dates, that could be suitable for further studies of the five great religions have been made available”. We would have liked to know, which “spirit” has selected ‘a number of other publications’ and whether this “spirit” has also fumbled in the text. To make the book more sellable, of course!

In one of the “standard history books” in Germany, History of India: from Indus Culture to Today by Hermann Kulke and Dietmer Rothermund, 2nd expanded and revised edition, Beck, Munich 1998, first edition 1982, the same story reads on pages 44-45 as follows: “The second millennium BC witnessed, after the fall of Indus Culture, another important event of the early history of India, when groups of central Asiatic nomads migrated through the Hindukush pass to Northwest India, who called themselves ‘Arya’ in their writings. In 1786 William Jones, the founder of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, discovered close linguistic affinity between Sanskrit, the language of Aryas, and Greek, Latin, and the Germanic and Celtic languages. This epochal finding laid the foundation stone for exploration of the Indo-European family of languages, to which according to our contemporary knowledge more languages belong to than Jones had assumed in the beginning. Since the late 19th century more and more researchers came to the conviction, that the origin of this Indo-European family of languages was to be searched for in the spread of the East European and central Asiatic steppe (We include William Jones in our list for later scrutiny).

The important findings of the early Linguists about the close linguistic affinity within the Indo-European family of languages were however overshadowed increasingly by racial-nationalistic ideologies, in which the origin of one’s own nation was postulated in a mystic-Aryan race. This applies particularly to German nationalistic historians since the 19th century and recently also to nationalistic historians of India. This development led to devastating results in Europe and also resulted recently in India to vehement quarrels between historians and to heavy communal riots. It appears therefore to be appropriate in the context of the early Indian history, to speak of ‘Aryas’ in the German language, to distinguish the mythical primary race of Indo-Europeans of Northwest India more clearly from the ideological construct ‘Arier’ of recent times.”

This quotation is even more cynical than the one circulated in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, isn’t it? Are these “historians” not clandestinely trying to escape the moral responsibility for their so-called scientific doings? Even today they talk about ‘the Indo-European family of languages', but do not tell us which languages are not to be assigned to this family. They act as if all those problems created during the „Tausendjähriges Reich“ had been over for them since long. But do they really believe that it will work if they just spell the term “Aryans” differently? Should it now concern the Indian historians only? Can one be more hypocritical?

So, the immigrating “Aryans” bring the “Aryan” language “Protosanskrit” along with them to Northwest India. Then they refine their language to Sanskrit, devise the Sanskrit script and produce and deliver an abundance of great literature to the world. The “modern historians” specialised on this period and on this area are busy with their dating of events. What else could be more important than to determine precise dates when each and every writing was first published and to dispute on such issues “scientifically” with colleagues in the same field?

Since the emergence of Jainism and Buddhism about 2,600 years ago the history of India is well documented. During that period Sanskrit was no longer spoken. The literature on metaphysics, on science, on history, the books (Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras) and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were, however, already known in the 7th century BC. So the “modern scientists” concluded precisely that this abundance of Sanskrit literature emerged before the 7th century BC only. So far, so good. The conquest and/or immigration is, however, dated around the 15th century BC. How was this dating determined? We add this question to our list of notes to be dealt with later. The ancient Sanskrit literature could accordingly by no means be older than the invasion and/or immigration of the “Aryans”, with Sanskrit as their language.

Rigveda is established as the oldest of the four Vedas because it doesn’t mention the other three Vedas. It is also supposed to be the oldest of all Sanskrit scripts composed around 1200 BC. We cannot see how “scientific” fixing of the dates of these books could particularly enlighten us. We won’t pass judgement on that. We only wonder why we are so totally unable to comprehend the stories told by the “modern historians” and indologists about the origin of Sanskrit literature. It would be unfair not to mention here that there is dissent about the dating acrobatics among these “scientists” as well as among different “scientific” disciplines.

It is agreed by all “modern scientists” that something like an “Aryan invasion” or an “Aryan immigration” must have taken place in India. How else would Sanskrit have found its way to India? A brilliant logic, no doubt. Where else should Sanskrit have come from? Do we find Sanskrit elsewhere? We do not know. No one can tell us. But one fact is striking indeed: the inventors of the theory of the “Aryan invasion” and/or of the “Aryan immigration” resemble the “Aryans” in their physiognomy. Is it only by coincidence? We won’t know. The diligent diggers, the archaeologists have yet to find evidence of an “Aryan conquest”, however. On the contrary. Their finding shocked the “Aryan-looking-scientists” for a while but could not shatter the whole theory. Because the archaeologists are principally unable to disprove the immigration of a language. Immigration of a language does not leave behind archaeological evidence, does it? No one can deny the presence of Sanskrit in India. Does it not brilliantly prove that the “Aryans” did at least immigrate into India?

And, as already mentioned, the “Aryans” were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. So they would have been able to conquer Northwest India with ease if they had faced resistance. There was no doubt about the presence of the “Aryans” in India. Every simpleton who visits India can obviously see the “Nordic race” in Northwest India. In the south on the other hand the people are of short stature, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. “Scientists” imaging the “Aryans” are obsessed in describing this physical appearance. They were, as said, tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. People with these features are of course superior to others. Does the scientists’ obsession not actually indicate an urgent desire to identify themselves with these “Aryans”? Is this desire rather an indication of “Ich-Stärke” (ego-strength) or of “Ich-Schwäche” (ego-weakness)?

Naturally the “race”, allegedly inferior to the “Aryans”, had also a name. They were “Dravidians”. Unfortunately we have not come across such an exceptional “scholar” having the “qualities” of a Friedrich Maximilian Mueller, who could have told us whether they also did call themselves “Dravidians” in their early literature. Did the “Dravidians” have “early writings”? Did they have literature at all? We do not know. We do however wonder how the dynamic, self-conscious and clever “Aryans” obviously never compared themselves with the “Dravidians” in order to develop their own “we-consciousness”. There is no reference whatsoever to “Dravidians”, to “two races” or to “race” in any ancient Sanskrit script.

Shouldn’t this lacuna have been noticed by the “modern scientists” and been reflected upon? Anyway. We are not yet through with the stories we are told. The “Aryans”, having either invaded India or immigrated into India, displaced the “Dravidians” to the South, settled down, developed their “Protosanskrit” almost to perfection, devised a script, produced literature of high cultural value, brought this culture to the pushed out “Dravidians” and spread the “Aryan” culture over entire India. Helmuth von Glasenapp gave clear indication that the “Dravidians” too are not indigenous people (Ureinwohner) of India. They immigrated in the “earliest early period” from ‚Africa and Melanesia' to India. We won’t comment on this. We just take a note of this version of the earliest history of India. But we have many questions. It need not be specially mentioned that we don’t find answers to our questions in the “modern-scientific-literature”. It is even worse. Most of these questions have not even been raised yet.

What was the numerical ratio, for example, when the “Aryans” conquering and/or immigrating displaced the “Dravidians” to the South? Is it within the realm of the imagination of these scientists that the more unfavourable the ratio of the conquerors or of the immigrants to the inhabitants was, the more difficult and more improbable it would have been to drive them from the North to the South? The “Aryans” could not have passed the Hindukush in masses. Which routes could they have taken from the steppe to the south? How were the conditions of the routes? Did they encounter human beings on their way? Which ones? How much did they roam around until they discovered the only pass, the Hindukush?

What is known about their logistics? What were the prerequisites of logistic considerations for these grazing nomads in the central-Asiatic steppe? Were there any? Did these “historians” ever study a map of this area? Even if we accepted the story of “population explosion” in these nomadic societies, how should they have been able to keep their direction in an imponderable, incalculable terrain? Can one imagine how it should have functioned? If this proposition is accepted, we should find the central–Asiatic nomads all around. As generally known this is not the case. And don’t the nomads generally look at the ground or straight ahead? Doesn’t directional orientation in unknown, imponderable, incalculable terrain presuppose knowledge about the movements of the celestial bodies? How could the grazing nomads have developed skills in astronomy?

And what Helmuth von Glasenapp has told? Under the heading “The vedic period” on page 32? “ Those Aryans who immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC, were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work.”

Instead of asking at least a few of the many obvious questions, the “Glasenapps” describe how different the physical characteristics of those the two races, “Aryans” and “Dravidians”, were. As already said, the “Aryans” were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed and the “Dravidians” were of short stature, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. Would it actually have been possible that the “Dravidians” were inferior to the “Aryans” due to the differences of their physical features and were therefore conquered? In spite of a vast majority of “Dravidian” people? Which question is more relevant, the numerical ratios or physical features? And how could those “modern scientists” determine the appearance of people of those “two races” who lived 3500 years ago? Is there any comprehensible method for that? Can there be a method to that purpose?

Obviously the designers of the “theory of two races” and their descendants do not only sympathise with the “Aryans”, but they also admire them and identify themselves with “Aryans” and their assumed physical attributes. It goes with it that these features rank higher and their evaluation is also internalised. These designers projected their own physical appearance to the assumed superior “Aryans” and developed with it a common “we-consciousness” vis-à-vis the “others”, whoever these others might have been. There are just the “others”. And the “others” were by no means tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. What is not wished to be, cannot be.

After the construction of the “we-feeling” the individual features develop independently. We don’t have to remember the impressive meeting of Hitler and Mussolini in the movie “The great dictator” by Charles Chaplin, to understand the massive thrust behind the internalised value, for instance, that large is equal to great. The two dictators were sitting, as we all may recall, on swivel chairs and during their conversation continuously tried to sit higher than the other. Charles Chaplin took resort to this dramatically comic device in order to bring out that inferiority complex of dictators in general. Fortunately we were born later. We can observe on television or in magazines that celebrities with shorter stature are always presented from the frog’s eye view. We may not elaborate on the process of how camera people internalise this rule that celebrities should be tall. If they are not tall enough, why not make look tall?

We will leave it at the indication that every ”we-feeling” presupposes actual or pretended positive qualities which “the others”, of course, don’t possess. It does not matter at all whether scientists, publicists or journalists or others are concerned. Whether they write or not write something like, ‘in the context of the early Indian history it appears to be appropriate, to speak of ‘Aryas’ in the German language, to distinguish the mythical primary race of Indo-Europeans of Northwest India more clearly from the ideological construct ‘Arier’ of recent times’. The ascribed physical features and their valuations, which are imagined and internalised to assume magnificence and superiority, are reflected in their minds and emotions.

The massage to be transported is that the “short-statured” persons are not just “not tall”, but they are also “incalculable and mischievous”; dark-skinned people are in fact “shady customers”, not so frank and open as fair skinned people. And if they have dark eyes in addition, who would like to encounter them? Being citizens or not, who would seriously think about integrating them into the “we-group”? A culture, which has generated the consciousness of superiority of the „blond-blue-eyed-white“ people for centuries, must also be named accordingly, and we should not any longer accept that “experts on culture ” confuse us by inventing new labels for this culture. The “Aryans” could not have been Christians. Christianity emerged later. But who are the “Indo-Europeans”? Are they only the Christian descendants of the “Aryans” or also products of the blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian culture? Are they not more civilised than the “Indo-Aryans”? And a little superior too?

And superiority is not superiority if it is not constantly scrutinised and being evidenced. This can be observed when physical violence is used against those fellow-habitants in Europe, in “America”, in “Australia”, in "New Zealand", who obviously do not belong to the “blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian” culture. And in Germany, of course. Why do we have the public appeals of the celebrities against the infringements? Is it more than just “celebrating”? It should be added that all pioneers of this culture have not necessarily to be “blond-blue eyed-white-Christian”. We have not forgotten yet that Adolf Hitler or Josef Goebbels were the prototype of Nordic “Aryans” in Germany for a “thousand years”. There should not be any misunderstanding. We, the authors, also belong to this culture, although we lack those basic features; but we cannot extinguish the internalised “values” either.

But let’s get back to the original “Aryans” who are supposed to have instigated the whole affair. They were rather simpletons, who ‘were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work’, but nonetheless ‘immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC’. They just ‘were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen’. That was it. We wanted to know in which period all these things happened. But there is no concrete evidence. And what about the expansion of this culture up to the utmost southern part of this area? When did it happen? Since the time of Vardhamana, the first Mahavira of the Jainic teaching and Siddhartha Gautama, the later Buddha, the history of India is well documented. There is no evidence of any “Aryan” invasion, occupation and spreading of the culture into the diminished “land of the Dravidians” in the south of India. Apparently this must then have occurred in the period between the 15th and 7th century BC. Why it was not reported in the extensive literature of the “Sanskrit-Aryans”? There is not even the smallest reference.

Even if we bought the story of the “population explosion” among the grazing nomads, we should have to wonder about the section of population which would be ready for a collective emigration: The “well established” ones or the “inferior” ones? Let's consider this dichotomy of the entire population for a while. Which of these two parts would foster the common language better: the established ones or the inferior ones? Who is inclined to emigrate? If, therefore, the “Aryans” brought “Protosanskrit” to India, must we not assume that those remaining at home spoke the same “Protosanskrit”? If the “Aryans” abroad produced that abundance of Sanskrit literature, shouldn’t the same “breed” also have produced literature at home? May be not in abundance and in good quality? But some literature anyhow? Where is the literature of the “Aryans” at home? Where is their history? And why didn’t the other “Aryan” emigrants, the Greeks, the Romans, the Germans and the Celts, produce literature similar in quality to “Sanskrit literature”?

Then we would like to know how “modern historians” were able to acquire their knowledge. What were the sources of all these stories which are being ladled out even today? In that exemplary German “standard history book” of 1998 we get a hint about the quality of their sources on page 49: “The dating of the texts and the cultures that produced them was vigorously disputed for quite a long time also among western Indologists. Based on astronomical information the famous Indian freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak has published in his book «The Arctic Home in the Vedas» at the beginning of this century his belief that the origin of the Vedas was to be backdated to the 5th and 6th millennium BC. The German Indologist H. Jacobi came independently to similar conclusions and dated the beginning of the Vedic period in the middle of the 5th millennium. Mostly one followed, however, the dating set by the famous German Indologist Max Mueller who taught in Cambridge in the late 19th century. Setting out from the lifetime of the Buddha around 500 BC he dated the origin of the Upanishads in the centuries from 800 to 600 BC as the philosophy in them had originated before Buddha’s deeds. The Brahmana– and Mantra texts preceded these in the centuries from 1000 to 800 respectively from 1200 to 1000 BC. Today one dates the oldest Vedic text, that of Rigveda, into the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. Since the Vedas soon after this genesis as a divine manifestation were not allowed to be changed anymore and handed down to our contemporary time by priest families verbally in an unbelievably precise manner, they can now be considered, after their dating can be regarded as being fixed at least in specific centuries, as historical sources of first rank for the history of the vedic society in northern India.”

Isn’t it impressive, the sheer style of this writing? The section: “Immigration and Settlement of Aryas”, yes, in fact the whole book is written in the same impressive style. And it is so convincing! It has exemplary “scientific” quality. Each sentence, each paragraph is convincingly presented. The book, from the first to the last word, is a demonstration of the scientific quality of the “Humanities”. Who can still have doubts about its contents? The most important principle of this science is to convince others. No, not exactly, not to convince. The principle is to make believe. The weak points are, wherever possible, packed in insignificant portions. And the debatable points, which might lead to criticism, are touched on, signalling that those aspects have been recognised, but could not be dealt with in detail due to the lack of space. Right?

At the beginning of the “modern humanities”, we suppose, it was more difficult “to make others believe”. But today the means of manipulation are almost perfect. It is not that the scientists of our time have become cleverer and packed their messages slyly. No, that’s not the way. We are more and more losing our ability to recognise manipulations. This begins in the family. Applying the power principle. The main thing is first to assert oneself. It doesn’t matter by which means. Hypocrisy is the trump card. This principle of exercising power and applying hypocrisy continues to be practiced at school, on the job, in the subcultures and finally takes control of the entire culture. The mass media always play a major role. Nothing depends on the actual truth. Whatever is sold becomes truth. The logic is primitive but effective. The people wouldn’t buy it if it was not true, would they? Have we already forgotten the media report on the “Gulf war”, “Kosovo – air strikes” and “Afghanistan – crusade”? And the bombshells enriched with uranium?

We have to apologise because of these provocative sentences. We are particularly angry because we have long been victims of this manipulation. It will not make much sense if we describe our way to emancipation in all details. It would rather make sense to read the above paragraph once again. This paragraph is exemplary. Let us read it slowly, word by word, sentence by sentence: “The dating of the texts and the cultures that produced them was vigorously disputed for quite a long time also among western Indologists (What could be the purpose of ‘for quite long time also among western Indologists' in this connection? Is it important to know? Is it not more important to know why it ‘was vigorously disputed ... also among western Indologists’? Why? And what is the meaning of ‘also among western Indologists' in particular? And all these controversial items in one sentence? Why aren’t we informed in a simple way that: for a long time the dating was controversial among Indologists? And thereafter the issues of controversies? Was all this done just by mistake?).

“Based on astronomical information (Is the information correct or wrong?) the famous Indian freedom fighter (‘famous Indian freedom fighter’? What are we to be conditioned for now?) Bal Gangadhar Tilak has published in his book «The Arctic Home in the Vedas» at the beginning of this century his belief (‘belief’?) that the origin of the Vedas was to be backdated to the 5th and 6th millennium BC (Did Bal Gangadhar Tilak give some reasons also?). The German Indologist H. Jacobi came independently to similar conclusions and dated the beginning of the Vedic period in the middle of the 5th millennium.”

The ‘famous Indian freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak' is not easily available to us. However, ‘the German Indologist H. Jacobi' is. Hermann Jacobi (1850-1937) was a mathematician. He got his doctorate in 1872 on: De astrologiae Indicae ‚Hora' appellatae originibus. Translated, it means: About the origins of the term ‚Hora' in the Indian astrology. He worked with Jainic texts dealing with mathematical and calculational background. He was proficient in Prakrit and in Pali, both spoken versions of Sanskrit 2600 years ago in the eastern area in India, in the present state of Bihar. Up to his middle age he remained a mathematician and natural scientist. He also wrote a Prakrit–grammar. He contributed an article on the age of Vedas on the basis of astronomical calculations on the occasion of a commemorative volume for the indologist Rudolf von Roth, which then was published in 1908 also in the “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society”. In his published biography we cannot find any indications about his knowledge in Sanskrit. Having gained this background knowledge the next three sentences in our exemplary paragraph cast a different light.

“Mostly one followed, however, (why so?) the dating set by the famous German Indologist Max Mueller who taught in Cambridge in the late 19th century (Was he famous because he taught as a German in Cambridge, or did he teach in Cambridge because he was famous before? Did he become “the leader (of the indologist–pack”) because he was famous, or did he become famous because he had ascended to “the leader of the pack”? We would prefer to know instead how this indologist established the dating of the Vedas. Absolutely no indication. And what is more, there had never been a German Indologist ‘in Cambridge’ called Max Mueller. We continue in that paragraph.). Setting out from the lifetime of the Buddha around 500 BC he dated the origin of the Upanishads in the centuries from 800 to 600 BC as the philosophy in them had originated before Buddha’s deeds. These were preceded by the Brahmana– and Mantra texts in the centuries from 1000 to 800 respectively from 1200 to 1000 BC (Are these methodological indications or arguments? Instead they foist upon us the information that the famous German indologist Max Mueller could read these texts brilliantly, judge them and consequently deduce when these texts were written. Nothing like that in fact. We shall deal with Friedrich Maximilian Mueller, that is his full name, in detail giving special attention to his knowledge of Sanskrit in particular and to the knowledge of Sanskrit of the indologists in general. Now we can continue our reading.).

“Today one dates (just like that?) the oldest Vedic text, that of Rigveda, into the middle of the 2nd millennium of BC. Since the Vedas soon after this genesis (had there been anything before that?) as a divine manifestation (A divine manifestation is always related to a person. To whom was the Rigveda divinely manifested and by which God?) were not allowed to be changed anymore (how could it be ascertained?) and handed down to our contemporary time by priest families (priest families?) verbally in an unbelievably precise manner, they can now be considered, after their dating can be regarded as being fixed at least in specific centuries, as historical sources of first rank for in northern India (Is this sensible reasoning?).”

How does ‘the history of the vedic society‘ emerge? We also fail to comprehend the meaning and purpose of: ‘a divine manifestation’, ‘historical sources of first rank’ and ‘the history of the vedic society‘. Another aspect is striking in this exemplary paragraph. It applies adjectives and adverbs, positively and negatively loaded, as an instrument of manipulation, like: ‘vigorously disputed’, ‘for quite a long time’, ‘western Indologists’, ‘famous Indian freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak’, ‘the German Indologist’, ‘mostly one followed’, ‘the famous German Indologist Max Mueller’. We were not led astray by the thought as to whether this loading was intentional. We have frequently endured such fruitless disputes staged in order to keep away from essential discussions. Just to give an example, we all remember the quarrels about ‘tapped – records’ being “illegally” published in many “democratic” countries. Mostly the public disputes were focused on the legitimacy of the publication. The essential question remained in the dark: What in fact did honourable democratic political personalities tell their political friends, opponents and leading administrators? Why should it be kept away from the democratic public? A diversion of focus as a technique of manipulation.

Again we must apologise because we played a little mischief. In the beginning we talked about “Aryan conquerors”. Later we introduced “Aryan conquerors and/or immigrants” just like that. It was only done to get tuned into understanding the way we become victims of a common method of manipulation by the “historians”.

The second section of that standard history book, The history of India: from Indus culture to today by Hermann Kulke and Dietmer Rothermund, second expanded and revised edition, Beck, Munich 1998, first edition 1982, is titled: “Immigration and Settlement of Aryas”. Now, ‘immigration of Aryas’ is an event which was called ‘Conquest by the Aryans’ till the first quarter of the 20th century. Due to absolutely unavoidable interdisciplinary rivalries among “modern scientists”, the “historians” and indologists got involved into more than a dating conflict with the archaeologists. The archaeological finds refute the conquest theory in so far, as the so called war trophies as a proof of the defeat of “Dravidians” were unfortunately already there much earlier, before the “Aryans” were supposed to have had their “population explosion” in the central-Asiatic steppe and gone on their march to a new “Lebensraum”.

In fact, this should have not only led to the collapse of the theory of the Aryan conquest, but also of the theory which claims that India is a country of two or three races. But ‘mostly one followed’ the flexibility of the “historians” and indologists: If there was no conquest, then there must nevertheless have been immigration! By this twist the theory of the “superior Aryan race” was rescued. These “Indo-Europeans”, no, these “Aryan-Europeans”, were and are emotionally convinced of their own superiority. What would happen to them if the theory of the “Aryans” falls? It is beyond our imagination.

These manipulators of opinions know very well how deeply the racial consciousness is rooted in this “blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian” culture, which is still on the search for an innocent name. They are confident that even if they have to use the term “immigration” it will nonetheless automatically be converted in the mind of the members of this culture into “conquest”. And their confidence has no limits. They do not even feel that while writing a little more attention has to be paid to keep their innermost conviction about the superiority of the “Aryan-Europeans” under restrain, lest it be exposed by carelessness. Thus we can already read on page 50 of the 2nd section: “The victory of the Indo–Aryas over the indigenous population seems to have been as in the case of other conquering nations in the Near Orient, based considerably on their sophisticated two wheeled horse chariots (ratha). The spokes of their wheels were so valuable and sensitive that the chariots were carried occasionally on ox carts in order to spare them until the beginning of the battle. The land taking of the Aryas seems nevertheless to have been carried out only in a step-by-step manner and slowly. The reason for that might have lain indeed also in the width of the country and in the great number of hardly passable rivers.

Apart from the fact that these “historians” and indologists, who, in spite of the archaeological discoveries, let themselves be led by the “race superiority of the Aryans”, our attention is attracted by two other facts that are no less fatal. By insertions of simple Sanskrit words these “scientists” create the impression that they are proficient in Sanskrit. Whether this would correspond to facts, remains to be examined thoroughly. We will systematically track down how Sanskrit and “Vedic Sanskrit” or the one that is just being called Sanskrit came to Europe.

The second aspect is still more pathetic. We recall the part of the quotation: ‘The resistance of the indigenous population seems however to have carried more weight. As dark-skinned Dasa or Dasyu they are named in the texts again and again as the real adversaries of the conquerors.’ As already mentioned, in their tales these “historians” and indologists describe the “Aryans” as tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. As these physical characteristics are still positively evaluated and are in flesh and blood those of the members of this culture, we will also trace the time when these physical characteristics were applied to distinguish the quality of human beings and where this theory originated.

Finally, we apologise making a comment on “modern humanities” to reveal their treacherous arts. Since the third quarter of the last century archaeologists in India are laying open entire cities concealed under the earth for millenniums. These cities were planned with coherent settlements, straight roads, play grounds with stadium, efficient water management, public baths, drainage, artificial irrigation plants, channel systems, dry docks and so forth on banks of mighty rivers later dried up by drought. These cities didn’t have palaces and temples. An intensive discussion at least on one issue should have started. Is it conceivable that such a civilisation could exist without a language, without writing, without literature, without science, without philosophy? The answer is obvious. It is not conceivable. Where are those cultural achievements?

And what would happen if we had reasonable doubts about Sanskrit being the language of the ‘Aryans who immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC, were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work.’ What are we supposed to do then? What would have to be done?

What is happening to us?

We actually wanted to know more precisely about “Indogermans”, “Indoeuropeans” and “Aryans”. Who they are, since when has their existence been known, how has it become known that they really did exist, who discovered them, and how, why and for what purpose? Many (hi)stories are told, explanations given and general perspectives are offered, but all these appear to be questionable. They don’t correspond to so many things we observe in our environment and in our world. Therefore we have to put more questions. In the beginning our queries appeared to be simple. Obviously they are not. We have been in search of answers for more than the last five years. We do not find them. No, that would be incorrect. We do find answers, but they are hardly convincing. There are answers, but with lots of catches. The answers lead us immediately to more questions, time and again. It is, as if we had opened the Pandora’s Box with our simple straightforward questions, leading to a seemingly unending chain of questions.

A barrage of questions floods our minds. Much too many contexts still need to be explicated, both in the sphere of “high politics” today as also in the daily life of the common people. Intrigued, we find ourselves asking whether categorisations such as “Indo-Europeans” and “Aryans” are related to the oppression – indeed, the hunt – of foreigners (aliens) in affluent countries. Isn’t it necessary to look into the circumstances under which foreign people are hounded in the rich countries? Are only foreigners being hunted? All foreigners? What is “foreign”? How is it perceived? Where does the foreignness begin? How does a “foreign race” get defined? Can there be persecution of “foreign races" without the concept of “race” being made a basis for social categorisation? What is race? Who has invented “races” and when and in which context? How can “human races” be related to each other, compared and ranked? Again, many stories are told.