Electric Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS) 7-3 (2001) pp.

(1-93)
Autochthonous Aryans?
The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts.
Michael Witzel
Harvard University
INTRODUCTION
1. Terminology
2. Texts
3. Dates
4. Indo-Aryans in the RV
5. Irano-Aryans in the Avesta
6. The Indo-Iranians
7. An ''Aryan'' Race?
8. Immigration
9. Remembrance of immigration
10. Linguistic and cultural acculturation
THE AUTOCHTHONOUS ARYAN THEORY
11. The ''Aryan Invasion'' and the "Out of India" theories
LANGUAGE
12. Vedic, Iranian and Indo-European
13. Absence of Indian influences in Indo-Iranian
14. Date of Indo-Aryan innovations
15. Absence of retroflexes in Iranian
16. Absence of 'Indian' words in Iranian
17. Indo-European words in Indo-Iranian; Indo-European archaisms vs. Indian innovations
18. Absence of Indian influence in Mitanni Indo-Aryan
Summary: Linguistics
CHRONOLOGY
19. Lack of agreement of the autochthonous theory with the historical evidence: dating of kings and teachers
ARCHAEOLOGY
20. Archaeology and texts
21. RV and the Indus civilization: horses and chariots
22. Absence of towns in the RV
(2) Michael WITZEL
23. Absence of wheat and rice in the RV
24. RV class society and the Indus civilization
25. The Sarasvat and dating of the RV and the Brhmaas
26. Harappan fire rituals?
27. Cultural continuity: pottery and the Indus script
VEDIC TEXTS AND SCIENCE
28. The ''astronomical code of the RV''
29. Astronomy: the equinoxes in B
30. Astronomy: Jyotia Vedga and the solstices
31. Geometry: ulba Stras
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
32. The autochthonous theory
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE 'TRADITIONAL' IMMIGRATION THEORY
The
*
''Aryan question'' is concerned with the immigration of a population speaking an archaic Indo-European
language, Vedic Sanskrit, who celebrate their gods and chieftains in the poems of the oldest Indian literature, the
gveda, and who subsequently spread their language, religion, ritual and social organization throughout the
subcontinent. Who were the 'Aryans'? What was their spiritual and material culture and their outlook on life?
Did they ever enter the Indian subcontinent from the outside? Or did this people develop indigenously in the
Greater Panjab? This, the 'Aryan' question, has kept minds -- and politicians -- busy for the past 200 years; it has
been used and misused in many ways. And, its discussion has become a cottage industry in India during recent
years. In this paper, it will be attempted to present the prcs and ccntras for the (non-)occurrence of a movement of
an 'Aryan' population and its consequences. First, a summary of the traditional 'western' theory, then the recent
Indian counter-theories; this is followed by an evaluation of its merits; the paper concludes with some
deliberations on the special kind of 'discourse' that informs and drives the present autochthonous trend.
1. Terminology
At the outset, it has to be underlined that the term rya (whence, Aryan) is the self-designation of the ancient
Iranians and of those Indian groups speaking Vedic Sanskrit and other Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) languages and
dialects. Both peoples called themselves and their language arya or arya: The Persian King Darius (519 BCE )
was the first who wrote in ariya and a Late Vedic text, Kautaki rayaka 8.9, defines the Vedic area as that where
arya vac "rya speech"(i.e. Vedic Sanskrit) is heard. The ancient Eastern Iranians, too, called themselves a
i
riia:
their assumed mythical 'homeland',
1
a
i
riianm vajah, is described in the Avesta (Vdvdd 1); and the name of
the country, Iran, is derived from this word as well. Speakers of Aryan (i.e. of the IIr. languages) occupied, e.g. in
*
A first, shorter version of this paper was written in 1997 and was to be published that year in a special issue of a science
journal in India; this has mysteriously not materialized and was in fact abandoned in 1999; this paper has been constantly
updated in light of recent indigenist discussions; it has been revised now (Dec. 2000), especially in the linguistic section, as
H. Hock's discussion (1999) of "Out of India" scenarios has relieved me of a detailed treatment of several such theories
(Misra 1992).
1
On this question see now Witzel 2000; see below 9, end.
Autochthonous Aryans? (3)
the first millennium BCE, the vast area between Rumania and Mongolia, between the Urals and the Vindhya,
and between N. Iraq/Syria and the Eastern fringes of N. India. They comprised the following, culturally quite
diverse groups.
(a) North Iranians: Scythians in the vast steppes of the Ukraine and eastwards of it (surviving
as the modern Ossete in the Caucasus), the Saka of Xinjiang (Khotanese and Tumshuq, mod. Sariqoli)
and western Central Asia, the Saka tigraxauda (the "pointed cap" Saka)and the Saka haumavarga (''the
Soma pressing Saka'');
(b) West Iranians: the ancient Medes (Mada of Rai and Azerbaijan), the mod. Kurds, Baluchis,
and Persians (ancient Parsa of Frs) as well as the Tajik;
(c) E. Iranians in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan: speakers of Avestan,
Bactrian, mod. Pashto, the mod. Pamir languages, Sogdian (mod. Yaghnobi), and Choresmian;
(d) The recently islamized Kafiri/Nuristani group in N.E. Afghanistan with the still non-
Islamic Kalash in the Chitral valley of Pakistan; to this day they have preserved many old traits, such as
the c. 2000 BCE pronunciation of '10' (duc) and the old IIr. deity YamaRaja(Imr);
(e) The speakers of Indo-Aryan: from Afghanistan eastwards into the Panjab, and then into the
north Indian plains. By the time of the Buddha, the IA languages had spread all over the northern half
of the subcontinent and had displaced almost completely the previously spoken languages of the area.
Linguists have used the term rya from early on in the 19th cent. to designate the speakers of most Northern
Indian as well as of all Iranian languages and to indicate the reconstructed language underlying both Old
Iranian and Vedic Sanskrit. Nowadays this well-reconstructed language is usually called Indo-Iranian (IIr.),
while its Indic branch is called (Old) Indo-Aryan (IA). An independent third branch is represented by the Kafiri
or Nuristani of N.E. Afghanistan. All these languages belong to the IIr. branch of the Eastern (or Satem) group
of the Indo-Euroepan (IE) languages which differs from the phonetically more conservative western IE by a
number of inncvaticns. The IE languages (which, confusingly, sometimes were also called ''Aryan'') included, in
ancient times, the vast group of tongues from Old Icelandic to Tocharian (in Xinjiang, China), from Old
Prussian (Baltic) to Old Greek and Hittite, and from Old Irish and Latin to Vedic Sanskrit.
However, the use of the word rya or Aryan to designate the speakers of all Indo-European (IE) lan-
guages or as the designation of a particular "race" is an aberration of many writers of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries and should be avoided. At least from Neolithic times onwards, language had little to do with "race";
language alsc cuts across ethnic groups and cultures,
2
and had little to do with ancient states or with nationhood,
as the use of Aramaic in the Persian empire, Latin in Medieval Europe and Persian in much of the Near East and
in medieval India may indicate.
It is clear that in the India of the oldest Vedic text, the gveda (RV), arya was a cultural term (Kuiper
1955, 1991, R. Thapar 1968, Southworth 1979, 1995) indicating the speakers of Vedic Sanskrit and the bearers of
Vedic culture and Vedic ritual; itsimply meant 'noble' by the time of the Buddha and of the early Sanskrit drama.
It is also clear that the poets (r;i, brahman, vipra, kavi) of the gveda and their aristocratic patrons regarded
themselves and their followers as arya/arya. (Thieme 1938).
In the sequel, I will carefully distinguish between the following usages: first, the arya/ariya/a
i
riia
languages, which I will call by their technical name, Indc-Iranian (IIr).
3
When referring to their Indian sub-
branch, I will use Indc-Aryan (IA, or Old IA). However, the tribes speaking Vedic Sanskrit and adhering to Vedic
culture, I will call Indc-Aryan or rya.(In common parlance in India, however, Aryan is used both to refer to IA
language as well as to the pecple speaking it and belonging to the sphere of Vedic culture, or even to an Aryan
'"race'").
2
See, however, such early and clear statements against an "Aryan race" as those by M. Mller 1888, H. Hirt 1907: 6-7, Franz
Boas 1910 [1966].
3
Confusingly, linguists sometimes use "Aryan" as a shortcut designation of IIr. because both Iranians and Indo-Aryans call
themselves and their language arya/arya (see below).
(4) Michael WITZEL
2. Texts
Since most of our evidence on the ancient 'Aryans' comes from the texts and from the linguistic and
cultural data contained in them, it is necessary to give an outline what kind of texts we have for the early period.
For India, we have the Vedas, a large collection of texts, orally composed and orally transmitted well into
this millennium. Tradition has taken care to ensure, with various techniques, that the wording and even tone
accents, long lost from popular speech, have been preserved perfectly, almost like a tape recording. This includes
several special ways of recitation, the Padapha (word-for-word recitation) and several complicated extensions
and modifications (vikrti).
4
They contain mainly religious texts: hymns addressed to the gods (RV), other mantras in verse or prose
(YV, SV, AV Sahits) which are used in the solemn Vedic (rauta) ritual and the ''theological'' explanations
(Brhmaas and Ka YV Sahits), composed in the expository prose of the ritual, and the Mantras used
therein. The Upaniads contain (along with some late RV and AV hymns) early speculation and philosophy,
and the ritual is summed up in systematic form in the Stras dealing with the solemn ritual (rauta-S.), the
domestic ritual (Ghya-S.) and proper rya behavior (Dharma-Stras). The traditional division of the Four
Vedas into four ruti levels of Sahit, Brhmaa, rayaka and Upaniad and the ensuing Smti level (with the
Stras), is somewhat misleading as far as the development of the texts are concerned. For, the Vedic texts show a
clear linguistic development, just as any other living language; we can distinguish at least five clearly separate
levels of Vedic (Witzel 1989):
1. gvedic (with many hymns of RV 10 as a late addition);
2. 'Mantra language' (AV, SV as far as differing from RV, YV Mantras, RV Khila);
3. Prose of the Ka Yajurveda Sahits (MS, KS/KpS, TS);
4. Brhmaa language, where the late (and mainly S.-E.) level includes the rayakas and the early
Upaniads but also the early Stras such as BS;
5. Stra language which gradually gives way to Epic/Classical Sanskrit.
This distinction is important as it represents, apart from a relative chronology based on quotations, the only
inner-textual way to establish a dating of these texts.
The Iranians have a set-up of texts quite similar to that of the Vedas (though this is little observed).
However, only about a quarter of the original Avesta has been preserved after Iran became an Islamic country in
the 7th c. CE. The 5 long G (with 17 individual Gs = Yasna 28-53) are the RV-like poems of Zarautra
himself; the contemporaneous ritual text embedded among the Gs, the Yasna Haptah
i
ti, is a YV-like
collection of Mantras used for fire worship.
The rest of the Avestan texts is post-Zoroastrian: some sections of Y 19.9-14, Y 20-21 are like a Brhmaa
passage; the Yat pick up themes of RV style praise of certain gods (Mira, Viiu, etc.), while the Nirangistn is of
rautastra style, the late Vdvdd reads like a Ghya/Dharmastra, and the Nighau list of the Nirukta has its
echo in the Farhang--im. Importantly, the whole Avesta has come down to us (just like the one surviving
version of the RV) in Padapha fashion, with most of the sandhis dissolved. The list of genres and of the ordering
of texts indicates how close both traditions really are, even after the reforms of Zarautra.
However, in spite of being geographically closer to the Mesopotamian cultures with datable historical infor-
mation, the Avestan texts are as elusive to absolute dating as the Vedic ones. Mesopotamia (or early China)
simply do not figure in these texts.
3. Dates
An approximation to an absolute dating of Vedic texts, however, can be reached by the following
considerations:
5
4
Staal 1983: I 683-6, with special reference to techniques of memorization; Staal 1986, 1989.
5
Max Mller had come to a similar chronology, but --long before the prehistory and archaeological past of S.Asia was
known at all-- one based on internal evidence and some speculation, a fact he often underlined even late in his career. This is
Autochthonous Aryans? (5)
(1.) The gveda whose geographical horizon is limited to the Panjab and its surroundings does not yet
know of iron but only of the hard metal copper/bronze (W. Rau 1974, 1983; ayas= Avest. aiiah 'copper/bronze').
Since iron is only found later on in Vedic texts (it is called, just as in Drav. cir-umpu), the ''black metal'' (yama,
kr;na ayas) and as makes its appearance in S. Asia only by c. 1200 or 1000 BCE,
6
the RV must be earlier than
that.
7
The RV also does not know of large cities such as that of the Indus civilization but only of ruins (armaka,
Falk 1981) and of small forts (pur, Rau 1976). Therefore, it must be later than the disintegration of the Indus
cities in the Panjab, at c. 1900 BCE A good, possible date ad quem would be that of the Mitanni documents of N.
Iraq/Syria of c. 1400 BCE that mention the gvedic gods and some other Old IA words (however, in a form
slightly preceding that of the RV).
8

(2.) The Mantra language texts (AV etc.) whose geographical horizon stretches from Bactria (Balhika) to
Aga (NW Bengal) mention iron for the first time and therefore should be contemporaneous or slightly rather
later than 1200/1000 BCE.
(3.) The YV Sahit prose texts have a narrow horizon focusing on Haryana, U.P. and the Chambal
area; they and (4a.) the early Br. texts seem to overlap in geographical spread and cultural inventory with the
archaeologically attested Painted Gray Ware culture, an elite pottery ware of the nobility, and may therefore be
dated after c. 1200 BCE (until c. 800 BCE).
(4b.) The end of the Vedic period is marked by the spread of the Vedic culture of the confederate Kuru-
Pacla state of Haryana/U.P. (but generally, nctof its people) eastwards into Bihar (B, late AB, etc.) and by a
sudden widening of the geographical horizon to an area from Gandhra to Andhra (Witzel 1989). This is, again,
matched by the sudden emergence of the NBP luxury ware (700-300 BCE, Kennedy 1995: 229) and the
emergence of the first eastern kingdoms such as Kosala (but not yet of Magadha, that still is off limits to
Brahmins). The early Upaniads precede the date of the Buddha, now considered to be around 400 BCE (Bechert
1982, 1991 sqq.), of Mahvra, and of the re-emergence of cities around 450 BCE (Erdosy 1988). In short, the
period of the four Vedas seems to fall roughly between c. 1500 BCE
9
and c. 500 BCE. (For other and quite
divergent dates and considerations, see below 11 sqq).
Old Iranian texts
Dating the Avestan texts is equally difficult. Internal evidence (Skjaerv 1995) of the older Avestan texts
(Gs/Yasna Haptahiti) points to a copper/bronze (aiiah) culture quite similar to that of the RV. The younger
nowadays misrepresented by the autochthonists, especially Rajaram (1995), who accuses Mller to have invented this
chronology to fit in with Bishop Usher's biblical calculations!
6
This date obviously depends on Archaeology. While dates for iron had been creeping up over the last few decades, there is
a recent re-evaluation of the Iron Age, see Possehl 1999b, and Agrawal & Kharakwal (in press). Apparently, the introduction
of iron in India differs as per region but is close to 1000 BCE. Occasional finds of meteoric iron and its use of course predate
that of regularly produced, smelted iron.
7
For indigenous dates which place the RV thousands of years earlier, see below 11 sqq. Similarly, Talageri (2000, cf. below
n. 84, 87, 140, 173, 175, 216) who purports to have based his historical analysis of the RV only on the text itself, betrays a
Puric mentality and inadvertently introduces such traditional data (see below, and Witzel 2001). His analysis is based on
an inappropriate RV text, the late version compiled and redacted by kalya in the later Brhmaa period. This includes
various additions and changes made by centuries of orthoepic diaskeuasis. Such a procedure must lead to wrong results,
according to the old computer adage: garbage in, garbage cut. In order to reach an understanding of the actual gvedic
period, one has to take as one's basis a secure text without additions, as established by Oldenberg already in 1888. Talageri's
500 pp. book is dealt with in detail elsewhere (Witzel 2001); it suffices to point out this basic flaw here. (Interestingly, he
quotes and approves, five years later, my 1995 approach but proceeds to turn it on its head, using the dubious methods
detailed above, and below n. 40 etc.)
8
See below 18, on vaana [vaana], -az- > e. The reasons for the older forms in Mitanni IA seems to be that the Mitanni,
who had been in contact with speakers of pre-OIA before the RV, have preserved these archaic forms.
9
Maximally, but unlikely, 1900 BCE, the time of the disintegration of the Indus civilization. The exact date of IA influx and
incursion is still unsettled but must be pre-iron age (1200, or even 1000/900 BCE, see Possehl and Gullapalli 1999).
(6) Michael WITZEL
texts might to some extent overlap with the expansion eastwards of the Median realm (c. 700-550 BCE), while
parts of the Vdvdd were probably composed only in the post-Alexandrian, Arsacide kingdom. An indication of
the date of younger Avestan dialects is the name of Bactria, is Y.Av. Bx, which corresponds to AV balhika; this
would indicate a Y.Av. dialect at the time of the AV, c. 1200/1000 BCE (Witzel 1980). Zarautra who spoke Old
Avestan should be dated well before this time. Current estimates range from the 14th to the 7th c. BCE. An early
date is confirmed by linguistic arguments: The name of Ahuramazd appears, in O.Av. as mazdaahura(or ahura
mazda), but in Y.Av. as ahura mazda, and in Old Persian (519 BCE) already as one word, A
[h]
uramazda, with a
new grammatical inflexion. The long history of the word points to an early date of Zarautra and his Gs.
10
4. Indo-Aryans in the RV
A short characterization of the early Indo-Aryans based on the text of the RV can be attempted as follows.
The Indo-Aryans (arya) spoke a variety IIr., Vedic Sanskrit, and produced a large volume of orally composed and
orally transmitted literature.
They form a patri-linear society with an incipient class (varna) structure (nobles, priest/poets, the
'people'), organized in exogamic clans (gctra), tribes and occasional tribal unions (Anu-Druhyu, Yadu-Turvaa,
Pru-Bharata, the Ten Kings' coalition of RV 7.18, the Bharata-Sjaya, etc.) The tribes are lead by chieftains
(rajan), and occasional Great Chieftains, elected from the high nobility, and often from the same family. The
tribes constantly fight with each other and with the with the non-IA dasyu, mostly about ''free space'' (lcka,
grazing land), cattle, and water rights: the rya are primarily half-nomadic cattle-herders (horses, cows, sheep,
goats), with a little agriculture on the side (of barley, yava). In sport and in warfare they use horse-drawn
chariots (ratha) on even ground and the vipatha (AV+) for rough off-track travel.
Their religion has a complicated pantheon: some gods of nature (the wind god Vayu, the male fire deity
Agni, and the female deities of water pah, father heaven/mother earth Dyauh Pita/Prthiv [Mata], the goddess of
dawn, U;as etc.). These deities, however, are not simple forces of nature but have a complex character and their
own mythology. They are part of a larger system which includes the moral gods of 'law and order': the ditya
such as Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, and sometimes even Indra, the prototypical IA warrior; they keep the
cosmic and human realms functioning and in order. All deities, however, are subservient to the abstract, but
active positive 'force of truth' (Rta, similar to though not identical with the later Hindu concept of Dharma),
which pervades the universe and all actions of the gods and humans. The gods are depicted as engaging in
constant and yearly contest with their --originally also divine-- adversaries, the Asura, a contest which the gods
always win, until next time.
11
Zarautra used this particular old IIr. concept to establish his dualistic religion
of a fight between the forces of good and evil.
All gods, in the Veda especially Indra and Agni, are worshipped in elaborate rituals (e.g. the complicated
New Year Scma sacrifice). The rituals follow the course of the year and are celebrated with the help of many
priests; they are of a more public nature than the simple domestic (grhya) rituals or rites of passage. In these
rituals, the gods are invited, in pja-like fashion, to the offering ground, are seated on grass next to the sacred fires,
fed with meat or grain cakes and with the sacred drink of Scma (and also, the alcoholic Sura), are entertained by
well-trained, bard-like poets (brahman, r;i, vipra). These compose hymns (skta), after long concentration (dh)
but often also on the spot, meant to invite the gods and to praise the nobility (danastuti), that is the patrons of the
ritual. In the few philosophical hymns of the RV the poets speculate about the origin of the universe, the gods,
and the humans, the forces that keep the world moving (rta,yaja,raddha, or poetic speech, vac).
The rites of passage are less visible in the RV (except for marriage and death); it is clear, however, that a
period of training in traditional knowledge (veda 'knowledge'), interspersed with periods of roaming the
10
For details, and for the transfer of Zoroastrianism into the Persis, see K. Hoffmann 1992.
11
Elst 1999: 207, along with many other Indian writers, curiously takes the Asuras as real life enemies of the Vedic Aryans;
he then turns this conflict into one between the Iranian and Vedic peoples, with their different kinds of worship, and makes
the "Kashmir-based nava (= Iranian) people fight "against the Paurava/Vedic heartland in Sapta Saindhavah";
consequently, he claims, the Iranians also changed the meaning of deva 'god' to daeuua 'demon'... (All these are outdated
views that were prominent around the turn of the 19th/20th century).
Autochthonous Aryans? (7)
countryside in search of a start capital of cattle (gavi;ti) as vrata/vratya (Falk 1986), is followed by the full
admission to adult society and marriage. However, there is no varnarama system yet.
5. Irano-Aryans in the Avesta
Like the gvedic society, with its three rya classes (RV 10.90), the Avestan texts, especially the later
Y.Av., know of three classes, the priests, noblemen, and the ''farmers'', for by then agriculture has become more
important. However, just like the RV, the Y.Av. also knows of an artisan class (corresponding to the gvedic
dra). The O.Av. texts, however, still indicate a half-nomadic cattle-based tribal culture with small tribal units
(airiiaman) occupying a larger territory (daxiiu). The younger texts, have a clear view of all of Eastern Iran:
Choresmia, Sogdia, Bactria, Margiana, Arachosia, the Helmand valley, Xnnta (Gorgn), Raa (Rai), Varna
(Bannu, NWFP), ''The Seven Rivers'' (Greater Panjab, see Witzel 2000). Even in the fairly late list of V. 1, the west
(Persis and maybe even Media) are conspicuously absent. Many of these tribal areas/incipient states reappear as
Persian provinces (dah
a
yu), but Parsa is not called so as it not a ''foreign (dasyu) territory''.
Some definite historical information exists about the W. Iranians (Persians, Medes) as they were close
neighbors of the Mesopotamian civilizations. They are first mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions at 835 BCE as the
27 Paruwa tribes and the Medes (c. 744/727 BCE). Thus, the W. Iranian appear early in the first millennium,
while the E. Iranians can be dated only with reference to the Veda and to the early Iranian empires.
The Zoroastrian reform of the Old IIr. religion had erroneously been regarded, around the turn of the
19th/20th c., as caused by a split between the two peoples. This is still echoed nowadays in some writings but the
situation is much more complex. Early IIr. religion focused on the contrast between the devaand the asura: IIr
*daiua, Av. dauua, OP. daiva :: IIr. *asura, Av. ahura, OP. a
[h]
ura-(mazda). In the RV both groups are regarded as
are 'gods' --probably due to their equal status in the New Year contests -- and only in the post-gvedic texts, the
Asura have definitely become demon-like. Of the major Asura (or, ditya) Varua, sometimes called Asura and
medhira/medha in the RV
12
appears in the Avesta as Ahura mazda (cf.Ahura and Mira, Y. 17.10), Mitra as
Mira, Aryaman as A
i
riiaman, Bhaga as Baa, Vivasvant (Mrtda) as Vvahuuant, and Mrtda's brother
Indra as the demon Indara.
While Zarautra kept Ahura Mazd as (sole and supreme) deity, the Ahura, all other IIr. deva (Av.
dauua) are relegated to the ranks of demons, e.g. Indara, Gandara (Gandharva), Nhaiiia (Nsatya =
Avin). A few devas and asuras were retained, apparently after Zarautra, as divine helpers of the Lord: Mira,
A
i
riiaman, tar (standing in for Agni), Haoma (Soma) etc. The old state of contest between the deva and asura
was amalgamated with the another old opposition, that of between Rta (Av. A;a) and Druh (Av. Druj), Active
Truth and Deceit. The Ahura(s) are the champions of Truth, the Dauuas those of Deceit. The righteous must
choose between Aa and Druj, between Ahuramazd and the Dauuas, and will be rewarded in Ahura Mazd's
heaven. -- Many of the old IIr. rituals are, however, continued in Zoroastrianism as well: there is a daily fire
ritual (text in Yasna Haptahiti), a Soma (hacma) ritual, even animal sacrifice.
6. The Indo-Iranians
The preceding sketch indicates the very close relationship between the two peoples calling themselves
Arya. Not only are their languages so closely related that their oldest attested forms might often be taken as
dialects of the same language, but their society, their rituals, their religion and their traditional poetry resemble
each other so closely that it has always been regarded as certain that the Vedic Indo-Aryans, the Iranians and the
Kafiri (Nuristani) are but offshoots of one group speaking IIr., a few hundred years before the RV and the Old
Avestan texts.
The IIr. language, as a branch of Eastern IE, shares many peculiarities with other E. IE. languages such
as Balto-Slavic: in sounds (*k'>/. Latin equus 'horse', O.Irish ech, Toch. yuk, yakwe :: Lithuanian av(fem.),
12
RV 1.25.20; cf. also RV 7.87.4, 7.66.8 .
(8) Michael WITZEL
IIrac'ua > E.Ir. aspa, Vedic ava), but also in vocabulary (Sanskrit dina 'day', O. Slav. din
i
:: Lat. dies, cf. Schrader
1890: 312), and perhaps even in mythology: Ved. Bhaga ''God 'Share' '', Iran. (Med.) baga 'god', Sogd. baa 'Lord,
Sir', O. Slav. bcg
u
'god' (though probably from N. Iranian *baga), Skt. Parjanya, Lith. Perkunas, O. Slav. Perun
u
(Schrader 1890: 414). Iranian and Vedic are so close that frequently whole sentences can be reconstructed: IIr.
tam mitram yaj'amadhai > Ved. tam mitram yajamahe, Avest. tm mirm yazama
i
de. (For more on Central
and North Asian connections, see below 12.1, 12.2., 12.6).
An IIr. parent language and large parts of the IIr. spiritual and material culture can be reconstructed by
carefully using the method of linguistic palaeontology.
13
A very brief summary of IIr. would then include:
These tribes spoke the IIr. language, had a common archaic poetry (e.g. tri;tubh-like poems), with many
common expressions such as 'nondecaying fame'. They had the same type of priests and rituals (Ved. hctr.Avest.
zactar, scma . hacma), the same set of gods and a similar mythology: Yama (Yima) and Manu descend from
Vivasvant (Vvahuuant). Some of these deities are IIr. innovations (the Asura / ditya), others go back to IE
times (agni,Latin ignis; hutam,Greekkhutcn 'sacrificial libation' :: Engl. gcd).
IIr. society had a patriarchal, exogamic system of three classes, with tribal chieftains, and a priest/poet
class. They were semi-nomadic cattle (pau.fu) herders, constantly in search for water and open pastures (uru
gavyti . vc
u
ru.gaciiaciti), and with just a little agriculture (yava : yauuan). At the New Year rituals they engaged
in chariot races (ratha/raa 'chariot', rathe;tha . raaeta- 'charioteer'), and other sports (mu;tihan), and speech
contests (Kuiper 1960).
Their society was governed by set of strict moral principles, including adherence to truth (satya.haiiia),
oaths (touching or drinking water, kcam pa) and other oral agreements between individuals (arya-man . a
i
riia-
man, especially for marriage and guest friendship) and between tribes (mitra . mira) which regulated water
rights and pasture.
In sum, all the linguistic and textual data mentioned so far link the Indo-Aryans of the gvedic Panjab
with languages spoken in areas to the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, even if local South Asian elements
already figure prominently in the RV.
7. An "Aryan" Race?
This close resemblance in language, customs and beliefs does not, of course, imply or involve, nor does it
solve the question of who exactly the people(s) were that called themselves Arya/rya, whom they included, or
even how they looked. The question of physical appearance or 'race'
14
is of the least importance in describing the
early rya, but since race has always been injected into the discussion,
15
a few words are in order.
The combination of a specific language with any 'racial' type is not maintained by linguists. At this late,
post-Meso-/Neolithic stage in human development, language no longer has any very clcse relation to 'race'. Even
13
Generally, against its use, Zimmer (1990) and cf. Cowgill (1986: 66-68); but note its usefulness (12.6), in the discussion
of plants and animals.
14
For many decades now, a discredited term which is too vague to describe the great degree of variation among humans
and not a valid indicator of anthropological and genetic distinctions between various human populations; see Cavalli-Sforza
1995.
15
Some writers are still confused by the racist terminology of the 'blond, blue-eyed Aryan'. As Cavalli-Sforza (1994) has
shown, such physical characteristics are local adaptations to a northern climate (e.g., prominent in the non-IE speaking
Finns). Elst (1999: 230) strangely concludes from such data that the home of IE "lay further to the southeast," [in N. India]
and that the Panjab "was already an area of first colonialization, bringing people of a new and whiter physical type [=
Panjabis] into the expanding Aryan [= IE!] speech community which was originally darker". Patajali, Mahbhya [2.2.6:
411:16 sqq.] with a reference to pingala- and kapila-kea 'golden/tawny haired' Brahmins is discussed as well. -- For those
who still stress outward appearance ('race') it may be instructive to look at the photos of a well known actor (turned from
'white' > 'black') or a female of mixed "African-American and Native American" ancestry, who after a little make up,
convincingly appears as 'Caucasian', Black, East Asian, etc. (Stringer and McKie 1996: 172-3).
Autochthonous Aryans? (9)
the early Indo-Europeans were a quite mixed lot, as has been stressed for decades.
16
Recently developed methods
of genetic testing (mtDNA, non-recombinant Y chromosome) have and will shed further light on this (Cavalli-
Sforza 1994, 1955, Kivisild 1999, Semino 2000, Underhill 2000, Bamshad 2001, etc.). It must be pointed out that
genetic evidence, though still in its infancy, is often superior to (even multi-variate) palaeontological evidence as
it more specific than distinguishing types reflected in osteology, based on the simple phenotype adaptation to
living conditions. Genetic evidence frequently allows to pinpoint (sub-)branches in the cladistic tree at a
particular point in time and space.
In the present context, however, it is nct important to find out what the outward appearance (''race'')of
the those speaking Indo-Aryan languages was, but how they lived, worshipped, thought, and especially what kind
of poetical texts they composed. The rest is interpretation, but it is already the interpretation of the gvedic Purua
hymn (RV 10.90) with its four classes, varna (''colors''), which seem to be related to the traditional colors of the
three IE classes, white-red-blue/green. (Puhvel 1987, cf. now also Hock 1999: 155). The term is attested since RV
2.12.4, etc. The RV often makes a distinction between light : darkness, good : evil, between rya : Dasyu. In many
cases this is just a cultural distinction, defining the boundaries between 'Us' and the 'Others' (Witzel 1995).
17
However, many scholars of the past two centuries automatically assumed that the immigrating Indo-Aryans
(coming from somewhere to the North of India/Iran) were light-skinned people. All such terms are relative, yet,
the Kashmirian author Kemendra (11th c.) speaks of a Bengali student in Kashmir as a 'black skeleton,
monkeying about' and the cult of lighter skin still is undeniable, as a look at Indian marriage advertisements will
indicate.
Such 'racial' characterizations tell us little about the look of contemporary people, and as indicated above,
this is not important for our investigations.
18
The speakers of (pre-)Old Indo-Aryan (pre-Vedic) might have
been quite a diverse group from the very beginning, and even if many of the original immigrant bands might
ratherhave looked more like Kashmiris or Afghanis and not at all like their various European linguistic
relatives or the 'typical' North Indian
19
of today. Again, outward appearance, whatever it might have been, is of
ncccnsequence for our studies.
So far archaeology and palaeontlogy, based on multi-variate analysis of skeletal features, have not found
a new wave of immigration into the subcontinent after 4500 BCE (a separation between the Neolithic and
Chalcolithic populations of Mehrgarh), and up to 800 BCE: ''Aryan bones'' have not been discovered (Kennedy
1995: 49-54, 2000), not even of the Gandhra Grave culture which is usually believed to have been IA.
20
There are
16
Curiously, Elst 1999: 174 sq., elaborates on this well known fact by stressing that the European Pre-Kurgan population has
come from the East, and considers it "one of the reasonable hypotheses" that they came from India. Reasonable? India has
always functioned --apart from being a stepping stone the very early migration of Homo Sapiens from Africa to (S.)E. Asia
and Australia in c. 50,000-40,000 BCE-- as a culdesac.
17
Elst 1999: 209 discusses the designation of the 'Others' in the RV as 'black' by simply pointing to the richness of
metaphors in Sanskrit. See rather Witzel 1995 and Hock 1999; Elst's discussion of varna (1999: 210) lacks the old IE aspect of
attributing color to the three classes (Puhvel 1987); he rather combines them with the much later Indian concept of the
colors of sattva, rajas, and tamas!
18
The point is merely mentioned here in passing as some writers still use such characterizations frequently and as they
attach importance to such sentences as the preceding one from Kashmir which simply express regional racism. Others,
usually 'autochthonously' minded writers have frequently attacked, preferably on the internet, my earlier statements (1995)
which were made precisely in the same spirit as the ones here. At any rate, what kind of outward appearance would one
expect from northwestern immigrants? That of Bengalis or Tamils, or rather that of Afghanis?
19
The term a-nas, which occurs just once in the gveda, was originally translated as 'mouthless' by Grassmann etc. (see
below, n. 230), but has later on been understood by MacDonell-Keith etc. as 'noseless, snub-nosed'; see now Hock (1999)
and cf. the speculations and elaborations of Elst (1999: 208).
20
He summarizes the results presented by Hemphill, Lukacs and Kennedy, Biological adaptations and affinities of the
Bronze Age Harappans, in: Harappa Excavations 1986-1990, edited by R. Meadow; see now Kennedy 2000. -- Apparently, the
distinction is between early 2nd millennium skeleta and samples from populations dated to after 800 BCE (late Bronze age
and early Iron age of Sarai Khola). Given the difference in time, this may not mean much. Note also that the calibration of
radiocarbon dates in the Eighties was inconsistent, and that around 800 BCE the amount of C
14
in the atmosphere started
(10) Michael WITZEL
of course minor differences between the various areas of the northwestern subcontinent (such as Sarai Khola :
Harappa, or even Harappa: Mohenjo Daro). Anyhow, the genetic and therefore, skeletal contribution of the
various IA bands and tribes may have been relatively negligible (cf. n. 21,23). However, a single excavation can
change the picture. Even the large invading force of the Huns was not attested in European archaeology until
some graves were found in Hungary some two decades ago.
21
The cemeteries (if any at all in gvedic times) of
the small, semi-sedentary pastoral IA groups were composed, according to the texts, of 3-6 yard high grave
mounds; they are not likely to be found easily in the alluvium of the constantly shifting rivers of the Panjab.
22
Once genetic testing will have provided us with more samples of the (few not cremated) skeletal remains
from contemporary burials and of modern populations we may be in a better position to judge the phsyical
character of previous and modern populations. This will become apparent even more, once not just mtDNA
(inherited by females) but also the male Y chromosome (some of it likely that of immigrating tribesmen) will
have been studied.
23
Only then we will be able to tell which particular strains, corresponding to which
neighboring areas,
24
were present in the Northwest of the subcontinent at that time.
25
In the end, to be absolutely clear, what ccunts is the Indo-Aryan culture, their social system, their texts,
their rituals, and the frame of mind they brought into the subcontinent. These items are treated at some length
dropping. Ordinary radiocarbon dates for the period 800 - 400 BC, have highly unpredictable uncalibrated values. A new
investigation is in order. -- Similarly about the continuity of Indian populations, Kenoyer (as quoted by Elst 1999: 236; --
Elst, however, then lapses into an altogether inappropriate political discussion of what Kenoyer might have thought, or not,
about present Indian politics and the BJP! It is a mystery why such political items constantly get introduced into discussions
of archaeological and literary facts).
21
This point, already mentioned in Witzel 1995, is deliberately(?) misunderstood by indigenists and Out of India
proponents (usually, on the internet). It does not matter that the Huns' intrusion was an actual invasicn (and not a trickling
in) by a group of horse riding nomads: they left as little genetic imprint in the European subcontinent as the immigrating IA
bands and tribes did in the Indian subcontinent. In so far, both types of incursions can be compared well, in spite of the loud
protests of the autochthonists who like to brand such statements as 'invasionist'; however, see below n. 23.
22
RV 10.16.14, etc. speaks of burial, cremation, exposing bodies on trees and of 'throwing' dead bodies away.
23
While preliminary mtDNA data taken from present day populations do not show much variation -- mtDNA is restricted
to the (frequently more sedentary) female lineage only -- there are indications already that the study of the male-only Y
chromosome will revolutionize our thinking. In any immigration scenario, the Y chromosome obviously is of more interest.
The matter has been discussed at length at the Third Rcund Table cn Ethncgenesis cf Scuth and Central Asia at Harvard
University, May 12-14, 2000, see: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sanskrit/RoundTableSchedule.html. Just as in Bamshad et al.
(2001), there are clear indications of several incursions, after c. 50,000 BCE, of bearers of different types of Y chromosome
polymorphisms from Western Asia, terminating in South Asia or proceeding further eastwards. Several of them do not
correspond to, and go beyond, the seven Principal Components of Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994: 135-8). The impact of
immigrants, however, can have been relatively minimal. See for example Cavalli-Sforza about the immigrant Magyars
(Hungarians). They now lcck just like their neighbors, as these late, 9th cent. CE, horse riding invaders left only a minimal
trace in the larger Danubian gene pool (quoted by Elst 1999: 224, from an interview of Cavalli-Sforza in Ie Ncuvel
Observateur of 1/23/1992); see now Semino 2000: 1158 for lack of "Uralic genes" in Hungary. Nevertheless, the Magyars, just
like Indo-Aryan speakers, imposed or transmitted, under certain social conditions, their language to the local population,
and the Magyars also retained their own religion until they turned to the local religion, Christianity, around 1000 CE.
24
It is a fallacy to compare various Brahmin groups of India in order to establish a common older type. Brahmins, just like
other groups, have intermarried with local people, otherwise how would some Newar Brahmins have 'Mongoloid'
characteristics, or how would Brahmins of various parts of India have more in common with local populations than with
their 'brethren', e.g. in the northwest? Studies based on just one area and a few markers only, such as E. Andhra (Bamshad
2001) do not help much (cf. also Elst 1999: 214, 217). Early acculturation processes (especially when following the model of
Ehret, 1988) may have resulted in the inclusion of many local elements into the Brhmaa class, cf. Kuiper 1955, 1991, 2000,
Witzel 1989, 1995, 1997, 1999a,b.
25
Note the difficulty of obtaining ccntempcrary DNA materials due to the (telling!) transition to cremation in the early
post-Indus period (Cemetery H at Harappa and in Cholistan).
Autochthonous Aryans? (11)
below; in addition, we have to take into account the facts from archaeology, human palaeontology, genetics,
history of technology, and incidental features from astronomy to zoology.
26
8. Immigration
Immigration, however, has often been denied in India especially during the past two decades, and more
recently also by some western archaeologists. How likely is an immigration scenario on the basis of comparable
cases from Indian and non-Indian history? Leaving aside the prehistoric migrations starting with the move of
Homo Sapiens 'Out of Africa' some 50,000 years ago, we actually dc kncw that one group after the other has
entered the Indian subcontinent, as immigrants or as invaders, in historical times. They include tribal groups
such as the Saka, the Yue Ji (Tukhara), Kushana, Abhra, Gurjara as well as large armies, such as those of
Darius' Persians, of Alexander's and the Bactrian Greeks in the first mill. BCE, of both the Chinese via Tibet,
Ladakh and Nepal, and the Arabs into Sindh in the 7-8th c. CE; further the Ahom Tai in Assam, and the Huns,
Turks, Moghuls, Iranians, and Afghans via the northwestern passes in the first and second mill. CE. In addition,
small-scale semi-annual transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and Baluchi
highlands continue to this day (Witzel 1995: 322, 2000). Why, then, should all immigration, or even mere
transhumance trickling in, be excluded in the single case of the Indo-Aryans, especially when the linguistic
evidence, below 10 sqq., so clearly speaks for it? Just one "Afghan" Indo-Aryan tribe that did not return to the
highlands but stayed in their Panjab winter quarters in spring was needed to set off a wave of acculturation in the
plains, by transmitting its 'status kit' (Ehret) to its neighbors.
27
The vehement denial of any such possibility (see
below 11 sqq) is simply unreasonable, given the frequency of movements, large and small, into South Asia via
the northwestern corridors.
The important, clinching factor ( 10) to decide the question is the following: the Indo-Aryans, as
described in the RV, represent something definitely new in the subcontinent. Both their spiritual and much of
their material culture are new; these and their language link them to the areas west and northwest of the
subcontinent, and to some extent beyond, to the Ural area and to S. Russia/Ukraine. The obvious conclusion
should be that these new elements scmehcw came from the outside.
It is indeed historically attested that the Paruma (Persians) moved from northwestern to southwestern
Iran, but this is limited to a relatively small area only. More important are the 'Mitanni' Indo-Aryans in N. Iraq
and Syria (c. 1460-1330 BCE), who clearly show IA, nct Iranian influences (aika 'one' instead of Iranian aiva),
and the Kassites who, as a first wave, preceded them in Mesopotamia. They dislodged the local Akkadian kings for
several centuries, c. 1677-1152 BCE, and they have preserved names such as uriia (Ved. Srya) or Abirat(t)a
26
Cf. Witzel 1995. Many of such data have been summed up and cogently discussed by Kochhar 1999; however, not all of
his results (e.g. the restriction of the RV habitat to S. Afghanistan) can be sustained.
27
Actually, even this is, strictly speaking, not necessary. The constant interaction of "Afghan" highlanders and Indus plain
agriculturists could have set off the process. A further opening was created when, after the collapse of the Indus Civilization,
many of its people moved eastwards, thus leaving much of the Indus plains free for IA style cattle breeding. A few
agricultural communities (especially along the rivers) nevertheless continued, something that the substrate agricultural
vocabulary of the RV clearly indicates (Kuiper 1991, Witzel 1999a,b). In an acculturation scenario the actual (small) number
of people (often used a 'clinching' argument by autochthonists) that set off the wave of adaptations does not matter: it is
enough that the 'status kit' (Ehret) of the innovative group (the pastoralist Indo-Aryans) was copied by some neighboring
populations, and then spread further. -- Hock (forthc.) seems to have misunderstood me (1995: 322) when I mention
transhumance movements. He thinks that this weakens my case. On the contrary, such constant, repetitive movements
strengthen the case for close contact with the plains and eventual acculturation, a fact well known from nomad studies
elsewhere. (Note also the take-over model: nomads, such as Arabs, Turks that were in close contact with sedentary
populations and who eventually usurped power in their host societies).
(12) Michael WITZEL
(Abhiratha).
28
All these groups that are in various ways culturally related to the IIr.s are intrusive in their
respective areas of settlement. The same may be assumed as far as the Greater Panjab is concerned.
For, the massive cultural changes in the subcontinent could not have spcntanecusly developed locally in
the Panjab, even assuming an amalgamation (why, by whom, how?) of various components that had been there
befcre. Instead, it easier to assume that a new element actually brought in new items such as the domesticated
horse and the horse-drawn chariot (21), and IE/IA style poetry, religion and ritual. Also, it is not very likely
and, indeed, not visible that leaders of the Indus civilization or rather their 'Panjabi' village level successors
planned and executed such a universal shift of the cultural paradigm themselves. A massive, if gradual
introduction of (some, if not all) IA traits seems the only viable conclusion (see below, on Ehret's model).
The denial of immigration into the area of an already existing culture has recently been proposed by
some archaeologists as well; they posit a purely local, indigenous development of cultures, e.g. by the British
archaeologist Lord Renfrew (1987)
29
and by some Americans such as Shaffer (1984, 1999) who think that new
languages were introduced by way of trade and by taking over of new models of society.
If there was immigration, who then were the indigenous inhabitants of the subcontinent? They can in
fact still be traced in the substrates of the RV and of modern languages: an unknown Indo-Gangetic language has
supplied the c. 40% of the agricultural terminology in Hindi (typical already for the RV, Kuiper 1955, 1991). A
clear hint is provided by Nahal, a small IA language spoken on the Tapti River, NW of Ellichpur in Madhya
Pradesh. At successively "lower" levels of Nahali vocabulary, 36% are of Kurku (Munda) and 9% of Dravidian
origin, while the oldest level, some 24%, do not have any cognates (Kuiper 1962: 50, 1966: 96-192, but see now
Mcther Tcngue II-III, 1996-7) and belong to the oldest language traceable in India (Witzel 1999a,b). Clearly,
Munda, Dravidian and IA are consecutive(?) overlays on pre-existing languages. Again, such a scenario is met
with in many other areas of the world.
9. Remembrance of immigration
It has frequently been denied
30
that the RV contains any memory or information about the former
homeland(s) of the Indo-Aryans. It is, indeed, typical for immigrant peoples to forget about their original
homeland after a number of generations (e.g., the European Gypsies claim to have come, not from India, but
from Egypt and Biblical Ur in S. Iraq), and to retain only the vaguest notion about a foreign origin. Or, they
construct prestigious lines of descent (Virgil in his Aeneid makes the Romans descendants of the heroes of
Troy).
31
However, in the RV there are quite a few vague reminiscences of former habitats, that is, of the Bactria-
Margiana area, situated to the north of Iran and Afghanistan, and even from further afield.
Such a connection can be detected in the retention by the Iranians of IIr./IA river names (Witzel 1987,
1999, Hintze 1998) and in the many references in the RV to mountains and mountain passes.
32
The mythical
28
Others are more problematic. Elst (1999: 183) has the IA gods Inda-Bugash, but this collocation is not listed in Balkan
(1954). We find the Maruts, perhaps Bhaga (as buga!).-- Himalaya (Rajaram & Frawley 1997: 123) is a phantom, as it refers
to the Kassite female deity umaliya, see Balkan (1954). Incidentally, note that [Kikkuli's] manual on horse training in not at
all "written in virtually pure Sanskrit" (Rajaram and Frawley 1997: 123). From what tertiary sources did they derive these
innovative insights? -- Curiously, Elst (1999: 184) lets the Kassites immigrate, without any evidence (but probably following
Rajaram & Frawley 1997: 124), "from Sindh to S. Mesopotamia" as a "conquering aristocracy" in a "planned invasion," after
the "desiccation of the Sarasvati area in 2000 BCE." Actually, the Kassite language is neither Indo-Aryan, nor Sumerian,
Elamite, Akkadian or Hurrite. It is belongs to altogether unknown language group; for details see Balkan 1954.
29
For other areas of Eurasia; -- in the case of South Asia, however, he thinks of elite dominance achieved through Indo-
Aryan immigration.
30
See Hock, forthc. (lecture at the July 2000 meeting of the World Association of Vedic Studies at Hoboken, NJ, kindly
made available to me by the author).
31
The Gypsies claim to be from Egypt or from Ur, that is biblical S. Iraq, the Afghanis from Palestine (see below).
32
Necessarily, in the (north-)west. Who, in all seriousness, would claim IA immigration via the difficult western
Himalayan/Pamir trails or, worse, from South of the Vindhyas? (The Vindhyas, incidentally, are not even mentioned in
Autochthonous Aryans? (13)
IIr. river *Ras corresponds in name to the Vedic Rasa (RV, JB), the E.Ir. (Avest.) Raqha, and the N.Ir. *Raha that is
preserved in Greek as Rha and designates the R. Volga.
33
Further, there are the (Grk.) Sindci people on the R.
Kuban, north of the Caucasus, and there is the (Grk.) Sinds, the R. Murghab/Tedzhen on the borders of Iran,
Afghanistan and Turkmenistan (Tacitus, Annales X.10). It divides the (Lat.) Dahae (Ved. Dasa/Dasa) from the
(Lat.) Arii (Humbach 1991), -- a statement that almost looks as if it was taken from the RV. Both Sindci and
Sinds preserve, with their s-, a pre-Iranian form of the name (details in Witzel 1999)
34
that reminds of Vedic
Sindhu and Iran. Hindu, the border river of Iran and India and of the habitable world in general (Witzel 1984).
Another N. Iranian tribe, the (Lat.) Dahae, (Grk.) Daai, occurs in Vedic asDasacrDasa. Related forms
are Skt. dasa "slave", the Avest. tribe of the Dqha (next to the Airiia), (N.)Iran. (a demon, Ai) Daha-ka, cf. Ved.
dasaAhu(Witzel 1995, Hock 1999), and the Uralic loan word (Vogul. Mansi) tas 'stranger', as well as IE > PGrk.
*dcselc- > Mycenean Grk. dcerc, Grk. dculcs "slave"; note further: Ved. das-yu 'enemy, foreigner', OIr. *dah-yu,
O.P. dah
a
yu'province', Avest. daiqhu- "foreign country, enemy".
35
Apparently, foreign or conquered territory
was regarded as that of the enemy and caught enemies became slaves. Conversely, one of the many loan words
from IA in Finno-Ugrian is the Finnish word for slaves, captured in raids into Southern territory, Orja,
"Aryans",
36
confirming that the North Iranians, just like the Scythian Alan (the mod. Ossetes) called themselves
'Arya' as well.
Vedic literature). Immigration or large scale movement by armies via the often difficult high passes of the Himalayas has
been extremely rare, and is attested apparently only in the case of some Saka at the beginning of our era, of the Turkish
adventurer Haidar into Kashmir in the early 15th cent., of a Chinese army into U.P. in the early 7th c. CE, called in to help
Harsha's successor, see n. 37. -- Individual Vedic passages, including those used in my 1995 paper -- in general, this is merely
a first brief outline of method and a first summary of a longer study to follow,-- certainly can be discussed or challenged,
which is always welcome. For one such case, see below n. 46. -- Hock (forthc.) has now challenged my interpretation
(actually merely anaside,inparentheses , Witzel 1995: 324) of another passage, RV 2.11.18, where I took savyatah "on the left"
as meaning 'north'. This statement was based on a previous detailed study of the designations for the directions of the sky
(Witzel 1972) that was ignored by Hock (who, ironically, then proceeds to tell readers virtually the same IE facts as given in
more detail in Witzel 1972). In that early paper, I pointed out cases where 'right' = south, and where 'left' (savya, even
uttara!) mean 'north' in IE languages. In that sense, my apparently enigmatic statement: "Vedic poets faced the east - their
presumed goal -- in contemplating the world." Hock seems to have misunderstood the passage: the "presumed goal" of
course refers to the immigration theory, "contemplation" to the Vedic (and IE) world view. -- While this passage by nc
means is a proof for an eastward immigration of the Indo-Aryans and certainly was not presented as one, it fits in the general
scheme of movement, for which I presented an initial account and cumulative evidence in my 1995 paper. And that is why it
was quoted. In short, a lot ado about nothing. Of course, this singular sentence (as discussed by Hock in his forthc. paper, at
a conference) has again be used to advantage by some fervent adversaries of the immigration theory, as always on the
internet, to "prove" that the immigration (their "invasion") thecryassuch is wrong.
33
We cannct rely at all on a connection between rip- and the Rhipaen (Ural) mountains, as mentioned by Bongard-Levin
(quoted in Witzel 1995). Since my casual reference to his paper has been repeatedly discussed (and misinterpreted) on the
internet (and by Talageri 2000: 96, 467, in 'psychological' fashion!), I underline, again, that the similarity between Greek
Rhip- and Ved. rip- is accidental, and that RV rip- 'deceit' has nothing to do with the Ural Mountains.
34
The Sindhu = O.P. Ha
n
du, Avest. Hndu, if with P. Thieme, from sidh 'to divide', does indeeddivide not only the Vedic
and Iranian territories, but it also is the boundary (cf. Avest. zraiiah vcuruka;a) between the settled world and the Beyond;
however, in several Indian languages (incl. Burushaski sinda, Werchikwar dial. sende < Shina : sin?) it simply seems to
indicate 'river', perhaps a secondary development. A. Hintze (1998) has shown early take-over of IA geographical terms into
Iranian; note also that the mythical central mountain, us.hndauua 'emerging from the river/ocean [Vcuruka;a]' (see Witzel
2000, 1984) presupposes an IIr word *sindhu 'boundary of the inhabited world, big stream, ocean'.
35
Elst (1999: 206), neglecting or misrepresenting the linguistic arguments, takes the Dsa/Daha as "the Vedic people's
white-skinned Iranians cousins" (sic! ) while most of the Dasyu, Dsa of the RV clearly are Indian tribes of the Greater
Panjab. Rather, he takes, against the Greek, Iranian and Indian evidence quoted above, the specialized North Iranian
(Khotanese) meaning 'man' as the criginal meaning of the word.
36
Parpola 1988; cf. also Harmatta, in Dani 1992: 357-378, Rdei 1986, 1988.
(14) Michael WITZEL
Another N. Iranian tribe were the (Grk.) Parnci, Ir. *Parna. They have for long been connected with
another traditional enemy of the Aryans, the Pani(RV+). Their Vara-like forts with their sturdy cow stables have
been compared with the impressive forts of the Bactria-Margiana (BMAC) and the eastern Ural Sintashta
cultures (Parpola 1988, Witzel 2000), while similar ones are still found today in the Hindukush. The RV regards
the cattle-rich Pani, with their walled forts (pur, Rau 1976, Elizarenkova 1995), as the traditional, albeit
intentionally semi-mythical enemies. A gvedic myth locates the primordial cows in a cave (Vala, cf. Avest.
Vara) on an island (JB) in the Rasa, where they were guarded by the demoniac Panis. Against the background
sketched above, this myth looks like a semi-historical 'update' (but still, a myth) involving the great/mythical
border river, past foes of the BMAC area, and contemporaneous, very real enemies of the Greater Panjab.
Further traces of an Iranian connection can be seen in the hydronomical evidence discussed above and
in the many references in the RV to mountains and mountain passes.
37
Also, the retention and adaptation by the
Iranians of earlier pre-gvedic river names points to an earlier IA settlement in Afghanistan (Sarasvat
Harax
v
ait / Arachcsia, Sarayu Hariiu-/Har = Herat R., Gcmat Gomal R., Sindhu Hindu/Hndu, etc.,
Witzel 1999, cf. Hintze 1998). One of the semi-demonic enemies in the (Afghani) mountains is ambara, son of
Kulitara, with his many fortresses (pur, cf. above on Hindukush forts).
Such names (studied at least since Brunnhofer 1910, Hillebrandt 1913; now Parpola 1988, Witzel 1999)
retain pre-Old Iranian forms and they clearly lead back into Central Asia and Greater Iran. They also retain
some vague reminiscences of former enemies (*Parna, Dsa, ambara) and of place names (Ras, Sinds,
Sarasvat,
38
Sarayu, Gomat, Sindhu), all aligned along the expected route of immigration intc the
subcontinent,
39
from the northern steppes (such as those of the Volga/Urals) via Margiana/Bactria to
Herat/Arachosia and E. Afghanistan (Gomal R.)
40
Then, there are the many instances in the RV which speak
about actual transhumance movement of tribes through mountain passes and into the land of the 'seven rivers'
(Witzel 1995) that were more open to extensive pastoralism after the decline of the Indus civilization.
41
Individuals such as the great i Vasiha and his clan (RV 7.33.1-3), and whole tribes such as the Bharata and
37
The little used Himalayan route of immigration is to be excluded (only some Saka and medieval Turks are known to have
used it). The RV does not contain strong reminiscences of Xinjiang or W. Tibet, with the only possible exclusion of the Ras
RV 10.75, cf. however Staal 1990 (and a forthc. paper). -- For the Afghani highland areas, see now Witzel 2000, with
references to some non-IA reminiscences in Avestan texts.
38
Elst (199: 167) brings up the indigenist contention of a 'sea-going' Sarasvat -- for this see below 26 and n. 202, 206.
Note, however: while the Iranian Haraait does not flow to the 'sea' but into a lake or rather, series of lakes (the Hamun) --
Elst and others autochthonists generally neglect the meaning of the word samudra in the Veda (see Klaus 1986)-- both
rivers end in inland desert deltas of terminal lakes (Hamun) viz. the Sarasvat inland delta near Ft. Derawar; see 25.
39
Elst (1999: 166) excoriates me for not supplying data of reminiscences that are in fact well known (Parpola 1988, etc.) and
that are actually mentioned in Witzel 1995: 321, 103, 109 sq. -- In addition, he reverses such data to make them fit an
unlikely emigration of the Indo-Europeans from India (see below). In the same context, Elst (1999: 168 sq.) misrepresents, in
a discussion of Staal's theories of the directions in the Agnicayana, the meaning of Indo-Iranian directions of the sky.
Avestan paurva (correctly, pacuruua) does not mean 'south' (Elst) but 'east', see Witzel 1972.
40
Elst (1999: 171) excoriates me for not noticing that Iranian connections in the RV are restricted to the 'late' 8th Maala
and that are, in his view, nct found in the oldest parts of the RV. This is a fallacy: see above on the rivers Ras, Sarasvat,
Sarayu, Gomat, Sindhu and persons such as the (half-mythical) mountain chieftain ambara who are prominent in the cld
books 4-6. In this context, Elst brings up and relies on the conclusions of Talageri (2000) whose "survey of the relative
chronology of all Rg-Vedic kings and poets has been based exclusively on the internal textual evidence, and yields a
completely consistent chronology" and whose "main finding is that the geographical gradient of Vedic Aryan culture in its
Rg-vedic stage is from east to west..." This view is based on a fallacy as well: Talageri, in spite of claiming to use only RV-
internal evidence, uses the post-gvedic Anukramas as the basis of his theory and even surrepetitiously injects Puric
notions (see 7, n.178, Witzel 2001).
41
See Witzel 1995. Individual passages can and should certainly be discussed. However, Hock (forthc.) goes to far in
denying any value to allusions and descriptions referring to immigration as found in the RV: against the background of
strong linguistic and (so far, sporadic) archaeological evidence, they serve as suppcrting materials and additional evidence; cf.
n. 26 sq., above.
Autochthonous Aryans? (15)
Ikvku (JB 3.237-8 : Caland 204), are described as crossing the Sindhu. (Incidentally, nowhere in the Vedas do
we hear of a westwardmovement, as some 'Out of India' proponents would have it nowadays).
42
The early YV Sahits (KS 26.2, MS 4.7.9), however, continue to report such movements intc the
subcontinent. They state that the Kurus move eastwards or scuthwards victoriously, and TB 1.8.4.1 adds in-
formation about raiding expeditions of the Kuru-Paclas intc the east (no longer practiced by the time of B
5.5.2.3-5). The YV Sahits clearly belong to the post-copper/bronze age period, as they know of the use of iron. In
other words, we hear about eastward/southward raids and movements of Vedic tribes towards Bihar and the
Vindhya at about/after c. 1000 BCE; the same middle Vedic texts actually speak of the necessity to constantly
watch one's back (Rau 1957).
Finally, in the same vein, there also is a so far neglected passage from a late Vedic text in Brhmaa style,
BS 18.44: 397.9 sqq. It plays on the etymologies of ay/i 'to go' and amavas 'to stay at home', and actually seems to
speak, once we apply Brhmaa style logic and (etymological) argumentation style,
43
of a migration from the
Afghani borderland of Gandhra and Paru (mod. Pashto) to Haryana/Uttar Pradesh and Bihar: pran yuh
pravavraja. tasyaite Kuru-Pacalah Kai-Videha ity. etad yavam. pratyan Amavasus. tasyaite Gandharayas
-
Paravc
44
'ratta ity. etad mavasyavam. "yu went (ay/i) eastwards. His (people) are the (well-known) Kuru-
Pacla and the Ki-Videha. That is the yava (group). Amvasu (stayed at home,
45
ama vas) in the West. His
(people) are the (well-known) Gndhri, Paru and Ara. That is the mvasyava (group)."
46
42
They rely on one mistranslated statement in the Puras (see Witzel 2001, and below n. 86), composed and collected
several thousand years after the fact. On the unreliability of the Puric accounts see 19, and Shnen 1986.
43
Witzel 1979, 1986, Wezler 1996.
44
The Sandhi in gandharayasparavc is problematic. The MSS are corrupt and differ very much from each other. However,
Paru must be intended; it is attested since RV 8.6.46, a book that has western (Iranian) leanings (Witzel 1999), cf. OP Parsa
'Persian' < *parsva < *parc'ua. The Aratta (with various spellings, ratta, Aratta), are a western people as well, like the
Gandhra and other 'outsiders' (Bahka, B 1.7.8.3, Mbh 8.2030). One may compare the old Mesopotamian name Aratta,
indicating a distant eastern country from where Lapis Lazuli is brought (Witzel 1980); it seems to refer to Arachosia, which
is just north of the Chagai Hills that produce Lapis (just as the more famous Badakhshan, north of the Hindukush); see now
Possehl 1996b and P. Steinkeller 1998. -- Elst 1999: 184 wants to understand this ancient Sumerian term as a Prkt word,
from a-ra;tra, again inventing an early Prkt before 2000 BCE, which simply is linguistically impossible (see n.167, on
Mitanni satta) and which also does not fit the non-IIr. linguistic picture of 3rd millennium Greater Iran (see 17).
45
Alternatively, echoing the first sentence: "Amvasu (went) westwards." See discussion in the next note.
46
This passage, quoted in an earlier publications (1989, excerpted and --unfortunately-- simply computer-copied in 1995),
was not correctly translated as printed in 1989/1995. It has elicited lively, if not emotive and abusive internet discussions,
even alleging "fabrication of evidence" (see also Elst 1999: 164, who misattributes to me "the desire to counter the increasing
skepticism regarding the Aryan invasion theory" as reason for writing my paper), -- all of this in spite of repeated on-line
clarifications over the years and general apologies (Witzel 1997: 262 n.21). -- Retrospectively, I should have printed the full
explanation in that footnote, but I was sure then that I could do so in the earlier version of this very paper, slated for print
in 1997).
What had occurred was that I had unfortunately misplaced a parenthesis in the original publication of 1989 devoted not to
the Aryan migration but to OIA dialects (and simply copied in my 1995 paper, a short summary of RV history), -- i.e. I
printed: "(His other people) stayed at home in the West" instead of: (His other people stayed) at home in the West" or
better "Amvasu (stayed at home) in the West." In this way I had unfortunately intermingled translation and interpretation
in these two summary style papers, without any further discussion, -- which set me up for such on-line criticisms as that of
recent adversaries who deduce (e.g., amusingly, in the Indian right wing journal, The Organiser) that I do not even know the
rudiments of Pinean grammar. (Of course, I teach, in first year Sanskrit, the past tense of ama - vas as amavasan, not
amavasuh, a 'mistake' some critics rhetorically accuse me of, in spite of hundreds of correct translations of such past tenses!)
Or worse, they accuse me of "fabricating evidence" for the invasion theory.
However, the passage plays, in the usual Brhmaa style, with these names and their Nirukta-like interpretations and
etymologies. They are based (apart from yu : ayu; 'full life span'), on the names of the two sons of Purravas, Amvasyu :
amavas 'to dwell at home', as opposed to yu : ay/i 'to go', contrasting the 'stay home' peoples in the west (mavasyavah.
(16) Michael WITZEL
The last account is quite different in tone and content from the well known tale of Videgha Mthava (B
1.4.10-18), which is nct a 'history of the settlement of Bihar' but a myth about the importation of Kuru crthcpraxy
and Brahmanism
47
into N. Bihar. (Witzel 1989, 1995, 1997). Such tales of authorization, empowerment and
justification of rule, spiritual authority and social set-up (the Videgha or the unaepa legends)
48
have to be
carefully separated from the rather unintenticnal mentioning of little understood, dim memories of earlier
homelands, notions which are fading already in the RV itself. However, these tales are perpetuated for several
hundred years as far as movements further into the subcontinent are concerned.
All these data cannot be just accidental or due to the imagination of gvedic and Brhmaa authors who
looked for a prestigious origin of their lineage, tribe or culture: why should they look outwards to the 'barbaric'
countries of Central Asia/Iran/Afghanistan?
49
The center of the world was, even according to the later parts of
the RV (3.53), on the Sarasvat in Haryana. This attitude continued to be the norm in the Brhmaa period, and it
is vaguely remembered in the Pli canon; it clearly referred to even in the Manu-Smti (ch. 2). The northwest,
denigrated by the AV (5.22, PS 12.1-2), and depicted in Nirukta 2.2, cf. 3.18 and in Patajali's Mahbhya (ed.
Kielhorn, I p. 9) as occupied by Avestan speakers of the Kamboja land in S.E. Afghanistan (Witzel 1980: 92), is
regarded as non-arya.
Rather, the data mentioned above seem to reflect very dim memories of people and places much further
west than the Panjab. Or, if one still wants to be even more cautious, one may say that the texts preserve some
little or no longer understood words and phrases that point to Central Asia. In other words, there is no reason to
dismiss this kind of evidence that involves a number of bands and tribes who spoke a language closely allied with
Iranian, Slavic, etc., who followed customs, beliefs and rituals, and used a poetic tradition all of which go back to
Indo-European sources. Just because a theory involving an initial IA immigraticn, or even a gradual trickling in of
Gandhara, Paru, Aratta) with those (yavah. Kuru-Pacala, Kai-Videha) who went /went forth (ay/i + pra vraj) eastwards,
as the text clearly says. --
A note of caution may be added: The missing verb in the collocation pratyan Amavasus allows, of course, suppletion of
pravavraja. If one follows that line of argument, one group (the yavah) 'went east', the other one (the mavasyavah) 'went
west', both from an unknown central area, to the west of the Kuru lands. The Kuruketra area is excluded as the Kurus went
eastwards (i.e. toward it!), apparently from somewhere in the Panjab, (e.g., from the Paru, the place of the Ten Kings'
Battle, RV 7.18).
While the syntax may speak for the second possibility, the inherent etymological and stylistic possibilities render bcth
interpretations given above somewhat ambiguous. -- Whatever interpretation one chooses, this evidence for movements
inside the subcontinent (or from its northeastern borders, in Afghanistan) changes little about the bulk of evidence
assembled from linguistics and from the RV itself that points to an outside origin of Vedic Sanskrit and its initial speakers.
In other words, the weight given by some the internet to their point that a different interpretation of this passage would
remove (all) evidence for an immigration/trickling in of speakers of Indo-Aryan is, at a minimum overblown, and in fact just
a rhetorical ploy. This passage is of course just cne, and a late one at that, speaking of tribal movements. Therefore, Elst's
overblown summary (1999: 165) "The fact that a world-class specialist has to content himself with a late text... and that has
to twist its meaning this much in order to get an invasionist story out of it..." is just rhetorics. The passage in question is just
one point in the whole scheme of immigration and acculturation, a fact that Elst does not take into account here. ---
The Gandhri clearly are located in E. Afghanistan/N. Pakistan, the Paru in Afghanistan and the Ara seem to represent the
Arachosians (cf. Witzel 1980); note the Mesopot. Aratta, the land of Lapis Lazuli (cf. Possehl 1996b, Steinkeller 1998).
47
The Paru and Ara are not known to be orthoprax, the Gandhri may be so, if we apply Upaniadic notices, such as
BU 3.3., cf. Witzel 1987.
48
The adoption of the eastern tribes (Pura etc.) legend by Vivmitra in the unaepa legend (AB 7.13 sqq.) clearly
reflects this policy. The raa (BS 18.13) appear next to other peoples outside the Kuru orthoprax orbit: Gandhara,
Sauvra, Karaskara, Kalinga; some of these and others in eastern and southern India are still regarded as 'outsiders' in late
Vedic texts (AB 7.18); for earlier 'outsiders' such as the Balhika, Ki, Aga see AV 5.22, PS 12.1-2. and not the constant
criticism of the "Panjabis", from the Brhmaa texts onwards.
49
An emigration westwards, as imagined by Out-of-India proponents, is excluded by a variety of arguments, discussed
below, see 12.2 sqq.
Autochthonous Aryans? (17)
some bands and tribes is disliked now, regarded as historically tainted or as 'politically incorrect', this does not
discredit the actual data.
50
The Iranian textual materials on immigration are even more meager but they provide similar indirect
reminiscences (Raha, dah
a
yu/daiqhu, Hndu/H
a
ndu, Parna, Daha, etc.). These texts make, like the RV, a clear
difference between the Arya and their enemies, e.g. ana
i
rii daqhauu 'the non-Arya lands' (Yt 18.2 etc.) some of
whose people, doubtless war captives, are described as concubines in the houses of the Mazd worshippers (Geiger
1882: 176). The opposition between A
i
riia..Tra..Sa
i
rima..Saina..Dqha
51
(Yt. 13.143-5) is remarkable, though
all these tribes are already described as having Zoroastrians among them.
A
i
riianm Vajah, the first country in the list of Iranian countries (V.1) has usually been understood as
the 'original' (northern, e.g. Choresmian) home of all A
i
riia (a term indicating only the Eastern Iranians, Witzel
2000) However, this "best of all places and settlements" has ten winter months and only two cool summer
months; such a description does not correspond to the hot summers of Choresmia etc., but refers to the climate of
the mountain pastures with their numerous 'Aryan springs', that is central Afghanistan. This is an area right in
the center of all the 'Iranian' lands of the Avesta, a region typical for transhumance pastoralism, which is
nowadays inhabited, in part, by the Moghol descendants of the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. This so-
called "homeland of the Aryans" thus occupies, for the Avesta, a central position: for the contemporary East
Iranians it is the central xaniraa region ('the one having particular pleasures of its own'), similar to that of
madhyadea, "the Middle Country" of Manu. A
i
riianm Vajah is certainly not located inside India (Misra 1992:
39, Elst 1999: 197 sq., Talageri 2000), nor does it have any bearing on the original home of all Iranians,
52
or even
of the speakers of Indo-Iranian (Witzel 2000).
10. Acculturation: linguistic and cultural
While there are some such vague reminiscences of an immigration and of older homelands, it must be
underlined that even the earliest RV hymns clearly reflect South Asian realities, in other words, they were already
composed in the Greater Panjab. However, they also include many non-Sanskritic words and names. There are
those of non-Aryan ''foreigners'' (Kkata, Pramaganda, etc.,) and demons (ambara, Cumuri, etc.) but also those
of noblemen and chiefs (Balbtha, Brbu) and occasionally of poets (Kava;a, Kanva, Agastya, Kayapa). All these
50
Curiously, Elst (1999: 172), after constantly propagating Out of India theories, makes a half-hearted turn: "perhaps such
an invasion from a non-Indian homeland into India took place at a much earlier date, so that is was forgotten by the time of
the composition of the Rg-Veda." When should Elst's hypothetical immigration have taken place, at the time of the African
Exodus, 50,000 BCE? Or with the arrival of wheat in the last 10,000 years, from the Near East (Ved. gcdhma < gant-uma <
N. Eastern **xand ?
51
In Vedic this would be: Arya, Tura/Tra, arima, (y)ena, Dasa.
52
Leaving aside various incorrect details (e.g., 'writing' of the Gs by Zoroaster; Ara Mainiiu < Agiras!), Elst's (and
also Talageri's) identification of A
i
riianm Vajah as Kashmir is entirely gratuitous (Witzel 2000). -- Elst (1999: 196) even
makes the Croats (Hrvat) descend from the Iranian Haraait (a feature now often repeated on the internet), while it is a well
known fact of IE linguistics that Slavic retains IE s (but, Iran. harah < IIr saras < IE *seles). Of course, nothing is ever heard
of a movement of the Arachosians towards Croatia... (and there are no connections with the Alans, who moved westwards
from the steppes with the Vandals). -- Elst generally assumes, with Talageri, an emigration of the Iranians ("nava") from
Kashmir into the Punjab and hence to Iran, just because the Vdvdd mentions the Hapta Hndu lands; he conveniently
neglects that according to this text, the Panjab is one of the least desirable lands (15th out 16, being "too hot", see Witzel
2000). Hock (forthc.) discusses these assumptions of Elst and his predecessors (Talageri, Bhargava) in some detail, and
states, correctly, that the Vdevdd cannot be used to show an emigration Out of India (Elst's "obviously Kashmir").
However, Hock proceeds to use the text as a possible testimony for an immigration intc India, including the old but wrong
assertion that A
i
riianm Vajah could be Choresmia. This entirely overlooks the ancient Indian and Iranian schemes of
organization of territories (summed up in Witzel 2000). The text simply has an anti-clockwise description of the (east)
Iranian (Airiia) lands.
(18) Michael WITZEL
non-IA words do not have a Vedic or IE background (see below), something that can be determined by purely
linguistic means; such words are neither pcssible in Vedic nor in IIr or Indo-European in general (Mayrhofer
1986:95, Szemernyi 1970 : 90sqq.); this is a point almost universally neglected by the advocates of the
autochthonous theory ( 11 sqq).
The appearance of such names among the groups belonging to the Indo-Aryans indicates, that arya/arya
doesnctmean a particular ''people'' or even a particular 'racial' group but all those who had joined the tribes
speaking Vedic Sanskrit and adhering to their cultural norms (such as ritual, poetry, etc.) -- as has been
underlined for decades (Kuiper 1955, 1991, Southworth 1979, 1995, Thapar 1968, Witzel 1995). The Others such
as the Kkata (RV 3.53), who inhabit the greater Panjab tcgether with the rya, are even declared ''not to be fit to
deal with cows.'' They form the amorphous group of the Dasyu ''the foreigner, the enemy.'' While the arya
frequently fight among themselves, their main enemy are the dasyu who are portrayed in typical half-mythical
fashion as ''foreign devils'' and demons.
In short, the gvedic evidence does not supports a clear-cut division between the various
tribes/populations of those originally external, non-South Asian (i.e. Indo-Aryan) and of autochthonous
nature, but it distinguishes between arya and dasyu, it alsodoes nct allow for a happy co-existence
(Kalyanaraman 1999) between speakers of Vedic IA (the 'cultural' arya) and those who oppose them (Kkata, and
the other dasyu). While it was a matter of (tribal) choice to which cultural group one belonged and which model
of society and religion one followed, this choice had serious consequences for one's status and, ultimately, for the
cultural survival of one's group.
This picture, clearly visible in the middle and later strata of the gveda (books 3, 7, 2, 8; 1, 10), is
supported by the evidence from the older books (4-6). There must have been a long period of acculturation
between the local population and the ''original'' immigrants speaking Indo-Aryan. Indeed, the bulk of the RV
represents only some 5 generations of chieftains (and some 5 generations of poets, Witzel 1987, 1995; Talageri's
claims (2000) of some two thousand years of RV composition are fantastic, see Witzel 2001). These sets of five
generations are rather late within the framework of the RV; the famous chieftain of the Bharata, Suds, is one of
the latest mentioned. On the other hand, a number of tribal federations (Anu-Druhyu, Yadu-Turvaa, etc.)
preceded that of the Pru and the Bharata who were dominant in the middle RV period (Witzel 1995, 1997). It is
during the long period of initial acculturation that some of the linguistic (and cultural) features (Kuiper 1991,
1955) of the early (pre-)gvedic period must have evolved. They include new grammatical formations such as
the absolutives in -tva, tv (based on the archaic suffix -tu, as in gatva)
53
and its correspondent form in -ya for
verbs with preverbs (sam-gamya) (Tikkanen 1987). This split in absolutive formation corresponds, e.g., to
Dravidian verbal structure, but absolutives are nct found in Iranian. Significantly, Vasiha the self-proclaimed
immigrant author of much of book 7, avoids them. The speakers of Indo-Aryan and the local population must
therefore have interacted on a bilingual basis for a long period, befcre the composition of the present RV hymns
with their highly hieratic, poetical speech (Kuiper 1991, and 2000).
54
An absolute date for this extended period
can be inferred from the linguistic peculiarities of Mitanni-IA (c. 1400 BCE) that slightly predate those of the
extant RV. Constant contact and bilingualism between speakers of OIA and of the local language(s) of the
Greater Panjab produced such calques as the absolutives, or the use of iti, and perhaps even the rapid change to
some Prakrit-like forms (jycti;,muhur, etc., which have been disputed as such, see Kuiper 1991:2, 27 sqq., 79; 2000,
aan de Wiel 2000).
Local influence is indeed what the non-IE part of RV vocabulary suggests, by Kuiper's count some 380
words or about 3.8% of the vocabulary of the RV (Kuiper 1991, 1995: 261). Such local substrate words can easily
be identified because of their isolation within the IE-derived IA vocabulary, i.e. they always do not have Iranian,
Slavic, etc. counterparts. Frequently, their sounds and syllable structure are non-IE as well. This is a point so far
53
This calque was formed on the basis of the old Indo-European stem -tu which then became fossile (-tv , tum, tave, etc.),
see Kuiper 1967.
54
The RV is, by and large, a composition of poets of the Pru and Bharata, and not of some earlier IA tribes already living
in the Panjab (Witzel 1995). -- Such types of linguistic relationship are, of course, different from a genetic relationship that
some adherents of the autochthonous theory suppose (see below). Cf. also Deshpande's essay on Sanskrit in his
Samskrtasubcdhin.
Autochthonous Aryans? (19)
completely neglected or simply derided,
55
even when the evidence stares into their faces, by the advocates of the
autochthonous theory (with the --only very partial-- exception of Elst 1999, Talageri 1993, 2000).
56
Since the very concept of a substrate is often misunderstood (see the discussion by Bryant 1999), a brief
characterization is in order (Witzel, forthc. b). Most words in early Vedic that do not conform to IE/IIr word
structure (including sounds, root structure and word formation) and have no clear IE/IIr etymology must
belong to a preceding language, a non-IA substrate; some of them, however, are loans from a neighboring non-IA
language (adstrate, the favored position by those indigenists who recognize that they actually have a problem, see
e.g. Lal 1997). It is, however, important to underline that it is the factor of phonetic and grammatical structure
that does not fit -- in these cases the IE/IIr/IA one of Vedic Sanskrit. Not just etymology (which may remain
unsolvable in many cases
57
and is, in others, not even necessary),
58
but all the structural features are of equal
importance here.
59
A word that superficially looks IE/IA, such as Kcsala, is simply disqualified linguistically by its -s- (pace
the out of hand dismissal by Talageri 2000: 248, 299); or, words such as knaa, kkata, pramaganda, balbtha,
brsayacan by no means be explained in terms of IE: (1) there are no IE/IA roots such as kn,kk,
60
mag,balb, brs
as only roots of the format {(s)(C) (R) e (R) (C/s)} are allowed
61
and (2) the sound b is very rare in IE; (3)
suffixes such as -a-, -t, -an-d/-a-nd-, -bth-/-b-th- are not found in IE/IA; (4) only;(but nots) is allowed in
Vedic after i,u,r,k. In addition, these words do not have any cogent IE/IA etymologies.
62
The use of such formal, structural categories immediately allows to detect many words as being non-IE,
and as originally non-IA. Just as for IE and IA, similar structural rules exist Drav. and for Munda. The basic
Dravidian word structure (in the sequel = long or short vowel) is (C)(C), and suffixes have the structure: -C,
-C, -CC, -CCC; after a root -C the vowels -a-,-i-, or -u are inserted, thus C-a-C etc., CC-a-C etc..; and with
base final -C-u, CC-a-C-u (Krishnamurti, forthc. 2001). While the present Munda word structure includes
55
Rajaram 1995: 219 "unproven conjectures", and similar statements. He regards comparative linguistics as 'unscientific', --
strange, for a science that can make predicticns ! Yet, Rajaram is a scientist, an engineer and mathematician by training.
56
Surprisingly, Talageri (1993: 205) finds that "the overwhelming majority of Sanskrit names for Indian plants and animals
are derived from Sanskrit and Indo-European (Bryant 1999: 74), even such structurally unfit words as atavi, kapi, bja etc.
(see discussion below). Even a brief look into KEWA, EWA (Mayrhofer's "unclear" etc.) would have convinced him of the
opposite -- but he simply does not use such basic handbooks. In addition, he regards linguistic arguments as 'hairsplitting'
(2000: 248, 299), or as 'a linguistic ploy'.
57
Especially when the underlying language is not one of the known ones -- IA, Proto-Drav., Proto-Munda, Proto-
Burushaski, etc. but one of the unknown Gangetic languages (such as Masica's "Language X", see Masica 1979) or my own
proposal for the Panjab-based prefixing Para-Munda language (Witzel 1999 a,b); cf. Bryant 1999: 73.
58
In the heavily Anglicized Massachusetts area, for example, one does not need to know the local native American language
to notice that place names such as Massatcit, Massachusetts, \achusetts, Mcntachusetts, Cchasset, Nepcnset , Mattapcisett,
Mattapan, Mashpee,Chiccpee, Nantucket, Pawtucket are related and without English etymology.
59
The problem is entirely misunderstood by those (quoted by Bryant 1999: 72) who merely delight in pointing out the
differences in etymological proposals by IE, Drav., or Munda proponents. That does not discredit the linguistic (or even the
etymological) method, as these branches of linguistics are not yet as developed as IE/IA. Even when the linguistic method
will have been refined in the non-IA languages of S. Asia, there always will be some difference in opinion in thcse cases that
actually allcw multiple interpretation, that is after one has applied the structural rules of IA/IE, Drav., Munda, described
below; for details see Witzel forthc. b).
60
With the exception of the onomatopoetic *kikin 'magpie', Skt. kiki- inkikidvi (EWA I 349), *mag/meg does not exist in IE.
61
C = consonant, M = voiced/mediae, T = unvoiced/tenues, R = resonants = y/w/r/l; not allowed are the types RCe- or
Rse- (Skt. rka, usa, etc.), and the types: *bed,bhet,tebh,pep,teurk/tekt (Skt. *bad, bhat, tabh, tcrk). See Mayrhofer 1986:
95, Szemernyi 1970: 90 sqq.
62
In short: (S) (T) (R) e (R) (T/S) where T = all occlusives, R = resonant; forbidden are: M - M (*bed), M - T (*bhet), T - M
(*tebh), same occl. in one root, such as: no *pep (exc. *ses), final 2 occl. or final 2 sonants, no: *tewrk, tekt; - but s-Teigh
etc. are allowed. -- In spite of these rules, it does not mean that IA etymologies have not been attempted, see KEWA, EWA,
often working with supposed Prakritisms, as in the improbable case of Maganda < mrgada 'deer eater'.
(20) Michael WITZEL
(Pinnow 1959: 449 sqq.) CC, CC, CC, CC, VVC, CCC, CCCC, the oldest word structure was:
(C)(C), C-CC, CC-CC, CC-C, CC-CC-C. Clearly, both Drav. and Munda words are frequently
enough quite different from IE ones with: (prefix) + (C)(R)e(R)(C) + (suffix + ending). While Drav. and Munda
share CC, CCC, Munda words can often be distinguished, as C- in C-Cc is a prefix, something that does
not exist in Drav.; and while CCc may exist in IE/IA (even with a prefix C-), normally, CC- will be the IA
root and -C a suffix.
A comparison of these data frequently allows to narrow down the origin of a word,
63
though this has
not generally been done in practice (Witzel, forthc. b). IA etymologies are now discussed at a high level of
sophistication, with a complete explanation of all of their constituent parts, of related roots and of suffixes
employed. However, the Dravidian dictionaries DED/DEDR still consist only of lists of related words without
further explanation; a Munda etymological dictionary still is only in the planning and collection stage, not to
speak of Burushaski and other languages of the subcontinent.
Instead, etymological discussions deal, by and large, with vague similarities of ancient Vedic, old
Dravidian and modern Munda words which, to quote (pseudc-)Voltaire: etymologies, "where consonants count
little and vowels nothing." How complex it is to establish a proper etymology actually can be checked by taking a
look at K. Hoffmann's and E. Tichy's 36 rules of procedure (Hoffmann 1992).
In sum, there are clear and decisive rules in place that allow to narrow down, and in many instances
even to determine the origin of Vedic words. Throwing up one's hands in post-modern despair (Bryant 1999), and
certainly, the haughty, non-technical dismissal (Talageri 2000) are misguided.
The range of the non-Indo-Aryan words of the RV is perhaps even more interesting than their number.
They include names for local plants and animals,
64
and also a large number of terms for agriculture -- precisely
those terms which are not expected in the vocabulary of the largely pastoralist Indo-Aryans who left the tedious
job of the ploughman (kinaa) and farming in general (tilvila, phala, pippala, khala, langala, etc.) to the local
people. Instead, they preserved only a few general IE terms, such as yava'barley, grain',kr;'to scratch, plough',sa
'to sow',sta'furrow',sra'plough' (see however, EWA II 733 for the problematics of the root sa). Some local river
names, always a very resistant part of the vocabulary, were preserved as well.
65
In sum, an early wave of acculturation of the immigrant speakers of Old IA (Vedic) and the local
population has seriously influenced even the IA poetic language and many other aspects of their traditional IIr.
culture, religion and ritual. This ''Indianization'' of the Indo-Aryans began even befcre our extant RV texts
(Kuiper 1967, 1991). A certain amount of codification of this process can be detected with the formulation, in the
Purua hymn (RV 10.90), of the system of the fcur classes (varna) instead of the more common IE three, which
system has been called, by P. Mus, ''the first constitution of India''.
63
This should eliminate the doubt of those indigenists (cf. Bryant 1999: 80) who simply reject the notion of an unknown
language or language family as source for the local loan words, language(s) that have subsequently been lost. After all,
Sumerian, Elamite, Etruscan etc. belong to such isolated language families and these language(s) (families) have disappeared
without descendants. Such deliberations, however, do not deter linguistic amateurs such as Talageri (1993: 200) who speaks
of "a twilight zone of purely hypcthetical non-existent languages." How many languages disappear in India per decade now?
Including Nahali, fairly close to Talageri's home. They all will be pretty "hypothetical" in a decade or so unless they are
recorded now (see Mcther Tcngue II-III, 1996-97): a useful, but largely neglected field of study by those who engage in
endless AIT/OIT discussions, and could do useful work in the linguistic/cultural history of India instead. Especially, as
'tribals' have been and to some extent still are off limits for non-Indian researchers.
64
Cf. the discussion by Bryant 1999: 75. It is precisely these local words that are of importance if the Indo-Aryans would
have been autochthonous to the Greater Panjab. But, such plants and animal names are 'foreign', non-IE/IA (see Witzel
1999a,b). -- It is quite different problem (Bryant 1999: 76) that many plant names in IE do not have a clear etymon. Bryant
overlooks that they are IE, IA in structure and as such, inherited from PIE into IA. Worse, Talageri simply does not
understand how a language develops over time, from pre-PIE to PIE to IIr, to IA (1993: 206) when he thinks that such words
simply were colloquial or slang words. That, of course, fits nicely with his view that 'rare' words in Skt. may have a colloquial
origins as well. Allremainwithinthefcld!
65
Details in Witzel 1999a, cf. Bryant 1999: 78. Significantly, there is a cluster of non-IA names in eastern Panjab and
Haryana (including the local name of the Sarasvat, Vi<am>bal/!), where the successor cultures of the Indus Civilization
continued for a long time.
Autochthonous Aryans? (21)
On the Iranian side, however, one has observed, so far, very little of linguistic and other acculturation
(Skjaerv 1995). It would indeed be surprising, how little O.Pers. and the other Iranian languages seem to have
been affected by the preceding (substrate) languages of great cultures such as those of the BMAC area, Shahr-i
Sokhta, Mundigak, Yahya Tepe and Elam, all of which amounts to nothing that would be comparable to the
influx of Dravidian, Munda or other local words into gvedic Sanskrit. However, this is an erroneous
impression, due to the surprising neglect by Iranists of etymological studies of Old Iranian (not to speak of
Middle Iranian where we even do not have comprehensive dictionaries). There are, indeed, quite a number of
words that are foreign even in Indo-Iranian (Witzel 1995, 1999 a,b, Lubotsky, forthc.)
66
and there is a host of
unstudied Iranian words taken from the various local substrates (Witzel 1999 a,b, forthc. b).
While we can observe the changes common to all Iranian languages (s>h,p,t,k-consonant >f,,x-
cons., etc.), even Y. Avestan often seems quite archaic, both in grammar and also in vocabulary, while Vedic
seems to have progressed much more, towards Epic and Classical Sanskrit (loss of injunctive, moods of the
perfect, aorist etc.). Iranian, for whatever reasons and in spite of the influx of local words, simply was less affected
by the substrate than Vedic Sanskrit. This feature is of extreme importance in evaluating the linguistic materials
that speak for the immigration of speakers of Old Indo-Aryan into the subcontinent.
While the intrusive traits of Indo-Aryan language, poetics, large parts of IA religion, ritual and some
aspects of IA material culture are transparent, the obvious continuity of local cultures in South Asia, as seen in
archaeology, is another matter. Yet, the question to be asked, is: how much of the culture of semi-sedentary
tribes on the move (Scythians, Huns, Turks, Mongols) would indeed be visible in the archaeological record? The
remnants of the Huns, for example, have been found only recently in some Hungarian graves; otherwise we
would only know about them from the extensive literary and historical record. To put it facetiously, the Huns
have been in Europe only for some 20 years.
67
Secondly, the constantly shifting river courses in the Panjab may
have obscured many of the shallow remnants of the Indo-Aryan settlements: temporary, rather rickety resting
places (armaka, Rau 1983), not big brick buildings.
Thirdly, the Indo-Aryans are known, from their own texts, to employ the services of the local popu-
lations for agriculture (RV, Kuiper 1955, 1991; for washing (Witzel 1986), and especially for pottery (Rau 1983):
only sacred vessels are made by Brahmins in the most archaic fashion, without the use of a wheel (as is still done
in the Hindukush!) Such Vedic pottery, always executed in the same traditional manner, is therefore undatable
simply by style, even if found. Everyday vessels, on the other hand, were made by low class (dra) workmen (see
below 24). Continuity of local styles thus is to be expected apricri. However, when traditional style pottery with
traditional paintings, such as in the early post-Indus Cemetery H culture, appears tcgether with a new burial
style, that is cremation or exposition and subsequent deposition of the bones in urns, and with a new motif
painted on them, i.e. a small human, a 'soul', drawn inside a traditionally painted peacock, then all of this draws
our attention. The bird-soul motif seems to reflect Vedic beliefs about the souls of the ancestors moving about in
the form of birds (Vats 1940, Witzel 1984, Falk 1986). While this assemblage seems to indicate early
acculturation, more data would be necessary in order to turn the still little known Cemetery H culture in
Harappa and Cholistan into one that would definitely reflect Indo-Aryan presence.
Presence of Indo-Aryan speakers would rather be indicated by the introduction of their specialty, the
horse drawn chariots with spoked wheels, horse furnishings, etc. When such items are found, there is a good
chance that this represents Indo-Aryans, but alternative scenarios cannot be excluded: tribes that were influenced
and/or pushed forward in front of them, such as the Mitanni and Kassites in Mesopotamia and the Hyksos in
Egypt; or, simply, neighboring local tribes that early on adopted Indo-Aryan material culture.
66
Bryant's proposal (1999: 77) that the non-IE loanwords in Iranian must come from the Proto-IIr that was spoken in
Eastern Iran before the Iranians moved in cannot be substantiated. The individual P-Iran. and P-IA forms of such loans
often differ from each other (Witzel 1999a, b, Lubotsky, forthc.) which is typical for repeated loans from a third source.
However, he thinks that there are no local loan words in Iranian from the pre-IE languages; nevertheless see Witzel 1999a,b.
67
Similarly, the Huns in India are only known from historical records and from the survival of their name as (Hara-)Hna
in the Mahbhrata or Hn in some Rajasthani clans.
(22) Michael WITZEL
Ideally, an ''Aryan'' archaeological site would include the remnants of horses and chariots, horse
furnishings, a Vedic ritual site with three fire places nearby (preferably west of a river), a rather primitive
settlement pattern with bamboo huts, implements made of stone and copper (bronze), some gold and silver
ornaments, but with lccalpottery, evidence of food that includes barley, milk products, meat of cattle, sheep and
goat, and of some wild animals. However, this particular archaeological set (or part of it) has not yet been
discovered, unless we think of the Swat Valley finds, c. 1400 BCE. Swat is an area known in the RV 8.19.37 as
Indo-Aryan territory, Suvstu ''good ground,'' however, with sponsors of sacrifice that bear strange names.
Vayiyu,Prayiyu.
68
In sum, we have to look out for a 'Leitfosssil', clear indicators of Indo-Aryan culture such as the chariot
and Vedic ritual sites. The obvious continuity of pottery styles, taken alone, tells little. Some archaeologists such
as Shaffer simply restrict themselves to report the findings of archaeology and intenticnally neglect all the
linguistic and spiritual data of the texts; in fact, some denounce them as 'linguistic tyranny' (Shaffer 1984).
While this procedure may be perfectly in order for someone who simply wants to do archaeology, this approach is
not sufficient to approach the early history of the subcontinent. All aspects of material and spiritual culture, of
linguistics as well as genetics, have to be taken into account.
Advocates of the autochthonous theory, however, also maintain that there is not any evidence of de-
mcgraphic discontinuity in archaeological remains during the period from 4500 to 800 BCE,
69
and that an
influx of foreign populations is not visible in the archaeological record. The remnants of the Harappans, the
Harappan Cemetery H people etc., all are physically very close to each other, while the people of Mohenjo Daro
stand somewhat apart. In other words: 'Aryan bones' have not been found. (Kennedy 1995, 2000, cf. Meadow
1991, 1997,1998).
The revisionists and indigenists overlook, however, that such refutations of an immigration by 'racially'
determined Indo-Aryans still depend on the old, 19th century idea of a massive invasicn of outsiders who would
have left a definite mark on the genetic set-up of the local Panjab population. In fact, we do not presently know
how large this particular influx of linguistically attested outsiders was. It can have been relatively small, if we
apply Ehret's model (1988, derived from Africa, cf. Diakonoff 1985) which stresses the csmcsis (or a 'billiard ball',
or Mallory's Kulturkugel) effect of cultural transmission.
Ehret (1988) underlines the relative ease with which ethnicity and language shift in small societies, due
to the cultural/economic/military chcices made by the local population in question. The intruding/influencing
group bringing new traits may initially be small and the features it contributes can be fewer in number than
those of the pre-existing local culture. The newly formed, combined ethnic group may then initiate a recurrent,
expansicnist process of ethnic and language shift. The material record of such shifts is visible only insofar as new
prestige equipment or animals (the "status kit", with new, intrusive vocabulary!) are concerned. This is especially
so if pottery -- normally culture-specific -- continues to be made by local specialists of a class-based society.
Similarly, Anthony (1995): "Language shift can be understood best as a social strategy through which
individuals and groups compete for positions of prestige, power, and domestic security... What is important,
then, is not just dominance, but vertical social mobility and a linkage between language and access to positions
of prestige and power... A relatively small immigrant elite population can encourage widespread language shift
among numerically dominant indigenes in a non-state or pre-state context if the elite employs a specific
combination of encouragements and punishments. Ethnohistorical cases ... demonstrate that small elite groups
have successfully imposed their languages in non-state situations."
Furthermore, even when direct evidence for immigration and concurrent language takeover is absent,
the texts often allow such deductions, as has been well articulated by W. von Soden (1985: 12, my transl.) with
regard to the much better known history of Mesopotamia: "The study of languages and the comparison of
language provide better possibilities for conclusions with regard to migrations in prehistoric times. New
languages never are successful without the immigration of another group of people [different from the local one].
Influences of [such] other languages can be determined in vocabulary and certain grammatical formations. The
68
One may also think of part of the assemblage of the Cemetery H culture of the Panjab (see above, n. 25).
69
J. Lukacs asserts unequivocally that no significant population changes took place in the centuries prior to 800 BC; see now
Kennedy 1995, 2000.
Autochthonous Aryans? (23)
older languages of an area, even when they are no longer spoken, continue to influence the younger languages as
substrates, not in the least in their sound system; new, dominant classes influence the language of the conquered
as superstrates in many ways. In the early period, the influences of substrates and superstrates are always
discernible only to a certain degree."
Similar things could be said about Ancient Greece, but that would lead to far here. As will be seen below,
the three descriptions given just now fit the Indus/Vedic evidence perfectly.
THE AUTOCHTHONOUS ARYAN THEORY
11. The ''Aryan Invasion'' and the "Out of India" theories
The preceding sketch presupposes that groups speaking Old IA (Vedic) were an intrusive element in the
North-West of the subcontinent. Since language is of crucial importance for this argument, it needs to be
addressed here in great detail. However, the revisionists and autochthonists have almost completely overlooked
this type of evidence, or they have outrightly denied it. Recently, some have begun to pay attention (see discussion
by Bryant 1999, cf. also Elst 1999), however, still in an unprofessional manner (Talageri 1993, 2000).
70
Unfortunately, this was in large measure even true for the apparently lone Indo-European scholar in India, S.S.
Misra
71
(1992).
Any immigration scenario is strenuously denied by two groups of Indian scholars: first, the revisionists,
who genuinely try to reconsider the writing of ancient Indian history which they believe was very much the
creation of 19th century British political ideology, and second, the autochthonists who try to show (or who
simply believe in) an indigenous origin of the 'Aryans' in the subcontinent. Of course, one can find various
combinations of these two strands in any person's writing (see Bryant 1999).
72
The theories of advocates of an autochthonous origin of the Indo-Aryans (always called "Aryans")
range from (1) a mild version, insisting on the origin of the gvedic Indo-Aryans in the Panjab, the
''autochthonous'' or indigenous school (Aurobindo, Waradpande 1993, S. Kak 1994a, etc., see Elst 1999: 119,
Talageri 2000: 406 sqq, Lal 1997: 281 sqq.), (2) a more stringent but increasingly popular ''Out of India'' school
(S.S. Misra, Talageri, Frawley, Elst, etc.) which views the Iranians and even all Indo-Europeans emigrating from
the Panjab, to the (3) most intense version, which has all languages of the world derived from Sanskrit: the
''Devabh school'', which is mostly -but not solely- restricted to traditional Pandits.
73
(For summaries see
Hock 1999, Talageri 2000.)
70
Talageri, though mentioning --unlike other OIT advocates-- the value of linguistics (2000: 415), merely lists some words
and compares them as look-alikes, in Nirukta fashion. Data are listed and discussed without any apparent linguistic
background and with lack of any critical, linguistic faculty. Elst is better prepared philologically and linguistically, yet still
lacks linguistic sophistication; his linguistic evaluation (1999: 118 sqq, 137) is lacuneous and misses much of what is
discussed in this paper; this lack is substituted for by a lot of gratuitous speculation of when and how the hypcthetical Indian
Indo-Europeans could have emigrated from India.
71
No doubt due to his complete (self-imposed?) scholarly isolation at Benares. His (lone?) trip to an international meeting
in Dushanbe, duly noted in his introduction his 1992 book, provided him with some contacts, -- unfortunately not the best
ones, see his rather uncritical use of Harmatta's materials (below 12.2, n.97).
72
Bryant (1999) reports that he found, already in 1994-5, that a majority of Indian scholars "had rejected the Aryan
invasion/migration completely, or were open to reconsider it."
73
For one such case see below, n. 235. -- The opposite is seen in deriving Skt. from Arabic in a book published in Pakistan:
Mazhar 1982.
(24) Michael WITZEL
In these views,
74
though often for quite different reasons, any immigration or trickling in (nearly
always called ''invasion'') of the (Indo-)Aryans into the subcontinent is suspect or simply denied: The rya of the
RV are supposed to be just another tribe or group of tribes that always have been resident in India, next to the
Dravidians, Mundas, etc. The theory of an immigration of IA speaking rya (''Aryan invasion'') is seen as a
means of British policy to justify their own intrusion into India and their subsequent colonial rule: in both cases,
a 'white race' was seen as subduing the local darker-colored population.
The irony of this line of reasoning is that the British themselves have been subject to numerous IE
immigrations and invasions (Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Danish, and Normans -- and now
Caribbeans and South Asians). Even more ironically, there is a strong non-Indo-European substratum in
English which has left such common words as sheep.
75
The "Proto-Anglo-Saxons", and in fact all of Europe,
have been subject to the same kind of Indo-European "invasions". Europeans and Indians alike could thus
complain, for example with M. Gimbutas (1991, 1994), about the domination of a "peaceful matriarchal agri-
cultural community" by half-barbaric, patriarchal, semi-nomadic and warlike invaders. However, this is not an
issue in Europe (e.g., my own, predominantly Basque genes do not protest loudly against having been subjected
to an IE language and culture several millennia ago), while religious and nationalistic attitudes in India have
made such "invasions" the issue in recent years. European Indologists, and American or Japanese even less, do
not have an axe to grind, here and now. Even less so, after the recent genetic discoveries that link all present
humans to a fairly recent origin and all non-Africans to an even more recent emigration by some 10,000 people
Out of Africa, 50,000 years ago: the problem of an "Aryan invasion" into India is as relevant or irrelevant to
Indologists as a Bantu "invasion" of central, east and southern Africa, or an Austronesian immigration into the
Pacific or a Na-Dene one into North America.
11.1. Procedure
Like all scientific theories, however, the theory of an immigration into South Asia by speakers of IA has
to be constantly and thoroughly (re-)investigated, and it has to be established whether (all) aspects of it and/or
the theory itself are correct or not. But this must be done on the basis of hard facts, not, due to a dislike of earlier
historical writing, by a selective use of or by twisting of facts, or simply by sophistic argumentation (see below, on
current use of long-refuted propositions). It also has to be done independently both from the present climate in
India, and from the present western post-modern/deconstructionist fashion of seeing political motives behind all
texts; both attitudes are not conducive in this kind of investigation.
Scholars of the 19th/20 cent. obviously did not have the present discussion in mind when they wrote.
The best ones among them may have come to certain conclusions quite independently of their 'ideological'
background. At any rate, the better scholars of the 19th century were not colonialists or racists. They all were,
however, limited to some extent by the general zeitgeistof the period, but so are present day scholars. We, too, must
constantly strive to overcome this bias (Witzel 1999d), and we also must not to follow one current trend or
momentary fashion after another. We can only approach a solution by patiently investigating the pros and
74
The list of such internet and printed publications waxes greatly, by the month. There now exists a closely knit, self-
adulatory group, members of which often write conjointly and/or copy from each other. Quite boringly, they also churn out
long identical passages, in book after book, sometimes paragraph by paragraph, all copied in cottage industry fashion from
earlier books and papers; the whole scene has become one virtually indistinguishable hotchpotch. A 'canonical' list would
include, among others: Choudhury 1993, Elst 1999, Danino 1996, Feuerstein, Kak, and Frawley 1995, Frawley 1994, Kak
1994, Klostermaier (in Rajaram and Frawley 1997), Misra 1992, Rajaram 1993, 1995, Rajaram and Frawley 1995, 1997,
Rajaram and Jha 2000, Sethna 1980, 1981, 1989, 1992, Talageri 1993, 2000. Among them, Choudhury stands somewhat apart
by his extreme chauvinism. -- These and many others frequent the internet with letters and statements ranging from
scholarly opinions and prepublications to inane accusations and blatant politics and hate speech; such ephemeral 'sources'
are not listed here; I have, however, been collecting them as they will form interesting source material for a study of the
landscape of (expatriate) Indian mind of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
75
For place names see also Szemernyi (1970), and Vennemann 1994, and the new (IA) substrate theories in Lubotsky
(forthc.).
Autochthonous Aryans? (25)
contras of the various points that have been made -- or still are to be made. Scholarship is an cngcing dialectical
process.
One should avoid, therefore, to revert to long-refuted propositions. Natural scientists, other than
historians, do not seriously discuss pre-Copernican or pre-Darwinian systems any longer. In the subsequent
sections, all too frequently old and long given up positions are brought up and juxtaposed to recent ones in order
to show 'contradictions' in what is called 'the western approach'. This is improper procedure. In the same way, one
should also not confound the autochthonous theories of the past two centuries (Dayanand Sarasvati, etc.) with
the present wave of indigenism, and one cannot, therefore, accuse the present autochthonous and 'Out of India'
movement for contradictions with the older position of Tilak of an original Arctic home of the Aryans, (even
though it has been repeated quite recently in Ganapati's SV-translation (1982) where the 'Aryans' are portrayed
as having lived "on the Polar circle").
In the natural sciences and in scholarship at large, old conclusions are constantly reviewed on the basis
of new evidence. But such new evidence has to fit in with the general framewcrk established by the many,
completely unrelated observations in the various branches of scholarship; otherwise a particular theory is revised
or discarded. For example, when certain irregularities in the course of the planets were noticed, it did not mean
that post-Renaissance astronomy was wrong but that this observation was due to the mass of another planet,
Pluto, that was correctly predicted and, then, actually discovered in the early 20th century. But, the opposite
procedure, deducing a "paradigm shift" based on isolated facts, is quite common in the contemporary effort to
rewrite Indian (pre-)history.
Unfortunately, thus, the subsequent discussion is studded with examples that explain away older
theories and even hard scientific facts with the help of new, auxiliary, ad hcc assumpticns. All of which are then
used to insist that we are due for a "paradigm shift". Consequently, it will unfortunately take much more space
even to merely describe and then to evaluate the arguments of the autochthonous school(s) than to describe the
older, general consensus. All too frequently, we have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, and have to restate, and
sometimes even to prove, well-known and well-tested principles and facts: this includes those of comparative
linguistics (summaries by Hock 1986, Anttila 1989, Szemernyi 1970, 1996, Beekes 1995), comparative epic
studies (Parry 1930, 1971, Lord 1991), of S. Asian archaeology (Allchin 1995, Kenoyer 1998, Possehl 1999), Indus
epigraphy (Possehl 1996), of zoology and botany (Meadow 1997,1998), or the evidence contained in the texts, as
established by philology over the past two centuries (Witzel 1997).
11.2. Evidence
For the subsequent discussion, is also very important that each single item be scrutinized well before it is
brought forward. At present, we can observe a cult of 'science' in India, --I have even seen 'scientific tax forms.'
However, this is part of an inclusivistic belief system that encapsulates, in facile fashion, older mythical and
religious ideas (Witzel 1986, 1992, 1998). Further, in spite of the stress on the 'hard sciences', all too frequently
'scientific facts' are quoted which, on closer observation, are not hard facts at all. For example, an unsuspecting
reader may take for granted that "LANDSAT photos show the drying up of the Sarasvat river in 1900 BCE"
(Kak 1994, cf. S.P. Gupta 1995). But LANDSAT or aerial photos cannot by themselves indicate historical dates.
(For an update, with much more cautious claims by scientists, see now Radhakrishnan and Merh 1999). Or,
some selected linguistic data, such as a suppcsed (but demonstrably wrong!) change from an older ava- 'horse'
(as in Skt.)to Latin equu-s (S.S. Misra 1992), are used to indicate an Iranian and IE emigration from India. This
does not only contradict standard (IE and non-IE) linguistic knowledge (see now Hock 1999). It also neglects a
whole range of further ccntradictcry evidence, e.g. the host of local, non-IA loan words in Vedic Skt. that are
missing in the supposedly 'emigrating' languages such as Iranian, Slavic, etc. (Witzel 1999 a,b; for details, below
13 sqq.)
Other inconsistencies derive from the evidence of the texts. If the RV is to be located in the Panjab, and
supposedly to be dated well before the suppcsed 1900 BCE drying up of the Sarasvat, at 4-5000 BCE (Kak 1994,
Misra 1992), the text should nct contain evidence of the domesticated horse (not found in the subcontinent before
c. 1700 BCE, see Meadow 1997,1998, Anreiter 1998: 675 sqq.), of the horse drawn chariot (developed only about
2000 BCE in S. Russia, Anthony and Vinogradov 1995, or Mesopotamia), of well developed copper/bronze
technology, etc. If the Brhmaas are suppcsedly to be dated about 1900 BCE (Kak 1994), they should nct contain
(26) Michael WITZEL
evidence of the use of iron which makes it appearance in India only at the end of the millennium, about 1200
BCE at the earliest (Chakrabarti 1979, 1992, see now Possehl-Gullapalli 1999 for a much later date of c. 1000/900
BCE). The list could be prolonged, and some of these items will be discussed below ( 11 sqq.)
11.3. Proof
In short, the facts adduced from the various sciences that have been operating independently from each
other and independently from the present 'Aryan' question -- in most cases actually without any knowledge of
the Aryan discussion, -- must match, before a certain theory can be accepted. If the linguistic, textual,
archaeological, anthropological, geological, etc. facts contradict each other, the theory is in serious difficulty. All
exceptions have to be explained, and well within plausible range; if they cannot, the theory does not hold. It never
is proper working procedure that such inconsistencies are explained away by ad hcc assumptions and new
theories, in other words, by special pleading. Occam's razor applies. We can no longer maintain, for example, that
the earth is flat and then explain away the evidence of aerial or space photos by assuming, e.g., some effect of light
refraction in the upper strata of the atmosphere, or worse, by using one conspiracy theory or the other.
11.4. The term "invasion"
To begin, in any discussion of the 'Aryan problem', one has to stress vehemently that the ''invasion
model'' which was still prominent in the work of archaeologists such as Wheeler (1966: "Indra stands accused"),
has been supplanted by much more sophisticated models
76
over the past few decades (see Kuiper 1955 sqq., Witzel
1995, Thapar 1968). It must also be underlined that this development has nct occurred because Indologists were
reacting, as is now frequently alleged, to current Indian criticism of the older theory.
77
Rather, philologists first,
and archaeologists somewhat later, noticed certain inconsistencies in the older theory and tried to find new
explanations, thereby discovering new facts and proposing a new version of the immigration theories.
For some decades already, linguists and philologists such as Kuiper 1955, 1991, Emeneau 1956,
Southworth 1979, archaeologists such as Allchin 1982, 1995, and historians such as R. Thapar 1968, have
maintained that the Indo-Aryans and the older local inhabitants ('Dravidians', 'Mundas', etc.) have mutually
interacted from early on, that many of them were in fact frequently bilingual, and that even the RV already bears
witness to that. They also think, whether explicitly following Ehret's model (1988, cf. Diakonoff 1985) or not, of
smaller infiltrating groups (Witzel 1989: 249, 1995, Allchin 1995), not of mass migrations or military invasions.
However, linguists and philologists still maintain, and for good reasons, that scme IA speaking groups actually
entered from the outside, via some of the (north)western corridors of the subcontinent.
The autochthonous theory, however, maintains that there has not been any influx at all, of Indo-Aryans
or of other people from outside, conveniently forgetting that most humans have emigrated out of Africa only
50,000 years ago. On the contrary, some of its adherents simply reverse the 'colonial' invasion theory, with post-
colonial one-up-manship, as an emigraticn from India (the 'Out of India Theory, OIT). Its advocates like to
utilize some of the arguments of current archaeology, for example those of J. Shaffer (1984, 1995, 1999). He
stresses indigenous cultural continuity from c. 7000 BCE well into the semi-historic times of the first
76
The recent denigration of this shift by some OIT-ers such as Elst is entirely disingenuous; he insists on calling any
migration or 'trickling in' an "invasion". However, immigration / trickling in and acculturation (which works both ways,
from newcomer to indigenous, and from indigenous to newcomer!) is something entirely different from a (military)
invasion, or from overpowering and/or from eradicating the local population. -- Incidentally, I have it on good oral
authority that the idea of Indra destroying the 'fortification walls' of the Indus towns was created by V.S. Agrawal who
served as cicerone in Wheeler's time and that Wheeler merely overheard him and simply picked up the idea.
77
To mention a personal experience: when I related some of the materials that went into this paper to a well-known scholar
of the older generation some three years ago (that is, someone who has considerably advanced our understanding of the
Indo-Iranian and IA question) this scholar was simply unaware of the present discussion, and in fact, could not believe what
he heard.
Autochthonous Aryans? (27)
millennium, as is evident according to the present state of archaeology. Consequently, he protests the ''linguistic
tyranny'' of earlier models. This is a much too narrow, purely archaeological view that neglects many other
aspects, such as all of spiritual and some of material culture, but it is grist on the mills of the autochthonists.
To get, finally, to some concrete, be it necessarily often torturous, detail: opponents of the theory of an IA
immigration or trickling in, whether revisionists, indigenists, or OIT adherents must especially explain the
following linguistic, textual, archaeological, geographical, astronomical, and other scientific data ( 12-31) to
become credible.
11.5. Linguistics
As has been mentioned above, linguistic data have generally been neglected by advocates of the
autochthonous theory. The only exception so far is a thin book by the Indian linguist S.S. Misra (1992) which
bristles with inaccuracies and mistakes (see below) and some, though incomplete discussion by Elst (1999).
78
Others such as Rajaram (1995: 144, 217) or Waradpande (1993), though completely lacking linguistic expertise,
simply reject linguistics as "pseudo-science" with "none of the checks and balances of a real science". They simply
overlook the fact that a good theory predicts, as has occurred in IE linguistics several times (i.e., in predicting pre-
Greek *k
w
or the IE laryngeals, see below 12.1). On the other hand one may still consult, with profit, the solid
discussion of early Sanskrit by Bh. Ghosh (1937).
The linguistic evidence, available since the earliest forms of Sanskrit (gvedic OIA), is crucial, as the
materials transmitted by language obviously point to the culture of its speakers and also to their original and
subsequent physical surroundings. Language has, just as history, its own 'archaeology'; the various subsequent
historical 'layers' of a particular language can be uncovered when painstakingly using well-developed linguistic
procedures.
Language study, however, is not something that can be carried out by amateurs, even though a
'everyone can do' attitude is widespread. This is especially pervasive when it comes to etymology and the (often
assumed) origin and the (frequently lacking) history of individual words. Here, total amateurism is the rule.
"Oakish" etymologies, such as England from anguli 'finger', or abad from bath(Gupt 1990) have a long tradition
both in occidental as well as in Indian culture. Plato's Kratylos propounds the same kind of unscientific
explanations as Yska does in his Nirukta. This has been tradition ever since the Brhmaa texts (Rudra from rud
'to cry', putra from the nonexistent word *put 'hell', bhairava from bh-rav-vam, etc.) A look into any recent or
contemporary book on Indian history or literature will bring to light many examples: Assyria from asura, Syria
from sura, Phoenicians from Pani, Hittites (Khet) from Katha, Mitanni from Maitrayanya, etc. (Bhagavad Datta
repr. 1974, Surya Kanta 1943, Gupt 1990, etc.).
In the South Asian context, cross-family comparison (Dravidian and IA, IA and Arabic, etc.) is es-
pecially widespread and usually completely wrong, as such comparisons are simply based on overt similarities
between words. In comparative linguistics, however, it is not similarity that counts but the regularity of (albeit
outwardly, non-intuitive) sound correspondences, for example Vedic vinava'horse' : Avest. -sp- : O.Pers. -s- :
Lith. -sw-, Latin -qu- [kw] : Gothic -h
v
- OHG -h-, O.Irish -ch-, Gaul. -p-, Toch. -k/kw- < IE k'w, an equation
repeated in many other words; or, to quote one of the most hackneyed, non-intuitive examples: the correct
equation, sound by sound, of Skt. dva(u), Latin duc = Armenian erku < IE *dw(u).
Since language and (the necessarily closely connected) spiritual culture are crucial for any theory of an
influx of speakers of OIA into the subcontinent --whatever form this influx might have taken initially-- the
linguistic evidence will be dealt with in detail in the following sections. Unfortunately, since the linguistic ideas
and 'arguments' of the autochthonists are far off the accepted norms and procedures, a discussion of their
proposals and beliefs does not only take up much space but must be convoluted and torturous; in addition, it must
78
Elst, though not without philological and linguistic training (Ph.D. Leuven, Belgium), is quite lacuneous in his
interpretations and does not discuss the fine linguistic details, see below and n. 70. In his "Update" (Elst 1999), he delights in
speculating about an Indian Urheimat of IE and a subsequent emigration, with 'Indian' invasions of Europe, all while
neglecting that linguistic data speak against it, see Hock 1999 and 12.3 sqq.
(28) Michael WITZEL
be, in its very nature, often very technical. (The non-linguistically inclined reader may therefore prefer to jump to
the concluding sections of 18).
12. Vedic, Iranian and Indo-European
It is undeniable and has indeed hardly been denied even by most stalwart advocates of the au-
tochthonous theory, that Vedic Sanskrit is closely related to Old Iranian and the other IE languages.
79
However,
this relationship is explained in a manner markedly differing from the standard IE theories, that is by an
emigraticn westwards of the Iranians and the other Indo-Europeans frcm the Panjab (see below).
Vedic Sanskrit is indeed so closely related to Old Iranian that both often look more like two dialects than
two separate languages (e.g. tam mitram yajamahe . tm mirm yazamaide 'we worship Mitra').Any Avestan
speaker staying for a few weeks in the Panjab would have been able to speak Vedic well and --with some more
difficulty - vice versa. However, that does not necessitate at all that the Old Iranian dialects were introduced to
into Iran from the east, from India, as the autochthonist would have it. As will be seen below ( 12 sqq.), there are
a number of features of Old Iranian (such as lack of typical South Asian substrate words, 13 sqq.) which
actually exclude an Indian origin. Such data have not been discussed yet by the autochthonists.
The comparison of the many common features found in Vedic Indo-Aryan and Old Iranian have led to
the reconstruction of a common 'mother' tongue, Indo-Iranian, spoken (at least) around 2000 BCE, by a group of
people that shared a common spiritual and material culture (see 4-5). Beyond that, the comparison of Indo-
Iranian and other IE languages has allowed similar reconstructions for all IE languages from Iceland and
Ireland to Xinjiang (Tocharian) and from the Baltic Sea (Lithuanian etc.) to Turkey (Hittite) and the Panjab
(Vedic IA). This theory was first developed in the early 19th century and has been tested extensively. If there were
still need of proof, one may point to the many predicticns the theory has made, especially after its more developed
form had emerged, about 1870 CE, with the establishment of regular sound correspondences (Iautgesetze) by the
Leipzig }unggrammatiker school. Such cases include the rather old prediction of early Greek/pre-Greek *k
w
which
was discovered in writing when Mycenean Greek was deciphered in 1952, or the prediction by the young F. de
Saussure more than a century ago (1879), of a set of unknown sounds. These were later called laryngeals (h
1
,h
2
,
h
3
). They have disappeared in all known IE languages but have affected their surroundings in typical, to a large
extent even then predictable ways. When Hittite finally was read in 1916, h
2
was still found written (in words
such as pehur = Gk.pr = Engl. fire).
Yet, some revisionists and indigenists even call into question the theories and well-tested methods of
comparative linguistics. Some of them clearly do so because of a considerable lack of understanding of the
principles at work (Waradpande 1989, Kak 1994a, Talageri 2000, etc.; discussion in Bryant 1999, cf. Elst 1999). In
addition, they make use of the expected scholarly differences of opinion between linguists to show the whole
"theory of (IE) linguistics" does not work or is an "unproved theory" (Rajaram 1995: 144, 217), thereby
neglecting such well known facts as: (a) that any science progresses and that certain opinions of the 19th cent.
cannot be juxtaposed to those of the 20th, and (b) that in any contemporary field of science
80
there is a certain
range of generally agreed facts but also a certain range of difference of opinion, such as between traditionalists,
radical skeptics,
81
and those proposing new solutions to old or recently noticed problems. In short, there always
are conflicting interpretations of the materials at hand that are discussed in dialectical fashion. Some
79
Though Talageri (2000) even refuses the link of Vedic with Iranian.
80
Note for example, in the present context, the discussion among scientists about the varicus palaeo-channels of the
Sarasvat (Sarsuti-Ghaggar-Hakra), in Radhakrishnan and Merh (1999), or the first appearance of the horse in South Asia
(Meadow 1998).
81
Such absolute skepticism, though, is always welcome as a hermeneutic tool; but, it has to be relativized: one may maintain
that linguistic palaeontology does not work (S. Zimmer 1990), but how is it that IE words for plants and animals consistently
point to a temperate climate and to a time frame before the use of iron, chariots, etc.? The few apparent inconsistencies can
be explained (e.g., doubtful etymologies for the 'elephant', etc. see below n.127, 149).
Autochthonous Aryans? (29)
interpretations are merely possible, others probable, and still others have actually been proved and have
subsequently been shown to be correct. In present day genetics, for example, some still hold that the recently
developed theory of an origin of all humans from one or from a small group of African ancestors is not valid as it
involves misinterpretation of statistical data and the wrong type of computer models. However, nobody has
claimed that genetic investigation as such is invalid, as has been done with regard to comparative linguistics by
autochthonists on and off, or who say that it remains an 'unproved theory at best'. Unfortunately for this view,
historical linguistics, just like any good science, has made a number of predicticns that later on, with the
discovery of new materials, have been shown to be correct (see above).
12.1. The Misra case
Worse, the recent book of an Indian linguist, S.S. Misra (1992), is even a step back beyond what is
demonstrable and, strangely for a linguist, often beyond the hard facts, i.e. his denial of PIE laryngeals as
precursors of the actually written Hittite laryngeal sounds (Misra 1974, 1992). He simply rewrites, on an ad hcc
basis, much of IE (and general) linguistics. The discussion and explanation of his examples (e.g., his supposed IE
* > k', a > e, c, a etc.) would have to be quite technical and is not pursued here in detail. (It has now been
discussed by Hock, 1999). It is however, obvious even to an uninitiated observer that forms such as Skt. cakara
(instead of *kakara) must rely on the palatalizing effect of an e-like sound in ca-; cf. the Romance development
from c [k] as seen in old loan-words, German Kaiser, Greek kaisar(whence Urdu kaisar),to Romancec[t],as
seenin Ital.Cesareor even to [s] as inEngl.Cesar, cf. also the separate development Vulgar Latin caballus 'horse'
> Irench cheval, etc.,again before -e-. These changes are a feature known from many languages. Why should it
only have been different for pre-gvedic (and pre-Old Iranian, in other worlds, for Indo-Iranian) as Misra
maintains? A case of special pleading.
The whole matter of Misra's IE reconstructions has been discussed adequately by H.H. Hock (1999) and
there is no need to go into further details here. In sum, Misra's ad hoc rules do not make for a new system,
82
they
are, in fact, a throwback, a regression to the early stages of IE comparative linguistics when strict rules of sound
correspondences (Iautgesetze) had not yet been established by the Leipzig }unggrammnatiker School of c. 1870.
His dating of the RV, based on this "new" reconstruction, simply rests on the similarity of his "early 19th
cent." Proto-IE (looking altogether like Sanskrit) with reconstructed Proto-Finno-Ugric (Uralic) forms, for
which he accepts the guess of Uralic linguists, a date of 5000 BCE. That guess is not any better than the various
guesses for PIE, at 3000 or 4500 BCE. Misra's whole system rests on guesswork and on demonstrably faulty
reconstructions.
It simply is uncontested among linguists of any persuasion that the remarkable grammatically regular
features of Proto-IE (underlying, e.g., the differences in the present tense formation of Sanskrit, German, French
asti,ist,est..santi,sind,scnt,< IEh
1
es-ti..h
1
s-cnti) are part and parcel of the parent language, the original PIE.
This was at first confined to an unknown area in a temperate (not a tropical!) climate.
83
This scenario is in stark
contrast to the certainty with which autochthonist place the homeland of IE inside South Asia or even inside
certain parts of India (Misra 1992), even more precisely in the Gangetic basin (Talageri 1993, 2000), not exactly
82
It might be summed up as follows. If his rules were correct, we would expect Skt. ava 'horse' to correspond to Latin
equu-s , but then how could ka 'who' to correspond to Latin qui-s? How could as well as k turn into Latin qu (and how does
the - u- come about)? Skt. k usually corresponds to c [k] in Latin, as in kalaa, Lat. calix; kacate, L. cing; krnatti , cf. L. cratis,
crassus ; kavi, L. cave; kpa, L. cpa; kupyati , L. cupi; kak;a, L. ccxa, kravi;, L. crucr , etc. On the other hand, Skt.
corresponds to a palatal k' which appears also asc[k]in Latin. How would the early Latin speakers have 'decided' which
sound to 'choose'? --- Again, if IE *a>e,c,a, how could the early Latin speakers 'decide' to turn the initial a- and final a of
ava into e-and -u respectively? Worse, if Skt. agni 'fire' corresponds to Latin igni-s, why does a turn to i ? Or how can Skt.
avrtta-/ajata correspond to Latin invert-/ ignctu-? Misra has not explained such cases and has provided only some ad hcc
rules to show the closeness of IE and Skt. -- However, all these developments have been explained by IE linguistics, for more
than a century, in a coherent way (IE = Latin e,c,a> Skt. a; IE > vowel n > Skt. a, Lat. in, etc.).
83
Archaeologists have proposed as area of the domestication of the horse and the (later) development of the horse drawn
chariot, in the Ukraine and the plains west and east of the Urals. From there, a trail of evidence leads to Pirak (c. 1700 BC),
the Swat valley (c. 1400 BC), -- and, of course, to the RV (textual evidence, see 8).
(30) Michael WITZEL
unexpectedly,
84
in their own home land, India. (For this familiar 'principle' used in deciding the Urheimat, see
Witzel 2000, and below).
On the other hand, the autochthonous school maintains that the very assumptions at the basis of the
genealogical, family tree model of the Indo-European language family, deride it (cf. Elst 1999: 119, see discussion
by Bryant 1999), or contest it just for the Indian linguistic area (see below). This is quite old news: various models
have been proposed and tested for the development from Proto-Indo-European to the individual languages: the
''family tree'' model (A. Schleicher's Stammbaumthecrie, 1861-2), a theory of dialectal waves of innovation
emanating from a certain center (Joh. Schmidt's \ellenthecrie, 1872). Further, socio-linguistic theories include
the development of Proto-Indo-European as a sort of camp language (another Urdu, so to speak), a new Pidgin,
based on diverse original languages that eventually spread beyond its own rather limited boundaries, for example
with the introduction of horse-based pastoralism (Anthony and Vinogradov 1995, Kuz'mina 1994, etc.).
Some advocates of the autochthonous theory (Kak 1994, Talageri 1993, 2000, Elst 1999: 159) use rather
simplistic linguistic models, such as the suggestion that population increase, trade, the emergence of
agriculture,
85
and large-scale political integration led to the extinction of certain languages and to a transfer of
other languages across ethnic groups. However, all such factors have been considered over the past two hundred
years or so; none of them, in isolation, nor a combination of all of them, lead to the surprising spread of Indo-
European languages inside and outside the subcontinent. In fact, most of the factors just mentioned were nct
present during the early Vedic period which saw the introduction and spread of IA all over the Greater Panjab.
Autochthonists further neglect that language replacement, such as visible during the Vedic period,
depends on a range of various socio-linguistic factors and not simply on the presence of nomads, increasing
population density, etc. Rather, the situation differs from case to case, and the important factors for any particular
replacement must be demonstrated. For example, Renfrew's (1987) model of a very gradual spread of IE from
Anatolia, along with agriculture, has not generally been accepted. If this agriculturally induced spread had taken
place, I would be writing this paper in a descendent language of the non-IE Hattic of Turkey, and not in IE
English. In the case of early India, the change from the language(s) of the urbanized Indus civilization to that of
the pastoralist Indo-Aryans must be explained. It certainly cannot be done (see below) by positioning the
homeland of the 'non-tropical' IE language inside India (Talageri 1993, 2000, Elst 1999: 118 sqq.) and make its
speakers emigrate, across the Indus area, towards Iran and Europe.
12.2 Language and 'Out of India' theories
Thecretically, a scenario of IE emigration from the Panjab is of course possible, --- the direction of the
spread of languages and linguistic innovations cannot easily be determined, unless we have written materials
(preferably inscriptions). However, some linguistic observations such as the distribution of languages, dialect
features, substrate languages, linguistic palaeontology, etc. allow to argue against the Out of India scenarios.
The Out of India theorists such as Elst (1999:122, 124 etc.), Talageri (1993, 2000) envision an IE
homeland in South Asia, to be more precise, in the Gangetic basin. Talageri simply assumes, without any
linguistic (or archaeological, palaeontological) sources and proof, that in "prehistoric times the distribution of
84
The unspoken "principle" of locating the (IE) homeland: "the homeland is at, or clcsetc the homeland of the author of the
book in question..." (Witzel, 2000). -- Talageri claims to have based his study of the RV only on RV materials, but introduces
late Vedic and Puric concepts (see below 12.2, Witzel 2001); not surprisingly, then, the outcome is a Gangetic homeland.
85
Elst 1999: 159 sq. stresses, like many other indigenists, that "India was the best place on earth for food production" and
that "a generous country like India must have had a large population," both unsubstantiated articles of faith. Note that the
Indus Valley has only gradually been settled, from the Baluchi/Afghani hills, and that the Gangetic plain remained very
sparsely settled for much longer. (Cf. also the negative description of the Panjab by E. Iranians, in Vdvdd, see n. 52). Elst's
imaginative description is compounded by repeating the nationalistic view that "the ancient Hindus colonized the world".
But India, by and large, always has been a cul de sac. Otherwise, autochthonists wonder why a 'large population' could take
over IA language(s) brought in by a few tribes. A few comparisons across history would have provided many and diverse
examples. For the dominance model: Norman French introduced by a few knights and their followers in Anglo-Saxon
England, or for a trade language: Swahili, starting out from the coast and by now covering most of E. Africa and the eastern
half of the Congo (incidentally, mostly spreading without Islamization).
Autochthonous Aryans? (31)
the languages in India may have been roughly the same as it is today: viz. the Dravidian languages being spoken
in the south, Austric in the east, the Andamanese languages in the Andaman Islands, the Burushaski language
in N. Kashmir, Sino-Tibetan languages in the Himalayan and far eastern border areas, and the Indo-European
languages certainly in more or less their present habitat in most of northern India" (1993: 407). The rest follows
logically: ..."a major part of the Indo-Europeans of southeastern Uttar Pradesh migrated to the west and settled
down in the northwestern areas --- Punjab, Kashmir and the further north-west, where they differentiated into
three groups: the Prus (in the Punjab), the Anus (in Kashmir) and the Druhyus (in northwestern and
Afghanistan)", (cf. Talageri 1993: 196, 212, 334, 344-5, 2000: 328, 263).
86
Of course, all of this is based on data
about peoples "clearly mentioned and described in the Puranas." Needless to say, this kind of writing prehistory
smacks of early 19th cent. writing of early European and Near Eastern history according to the Bible and
Herodotos, before the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts could be read. It is based on a naive reliance on
texts that were composed millennia after the facts, and that are the product of a lively Bardic tradition (L. Rocher
1986, Brockington 1998, Parry 1971, Lord 1991), influenced by Brahmanical redactors (Shnen 1986, Horsch
1966). In spite of what Pargiter (1913) and even Morton Smith (1973) have tried to establish --obviously,
without taking the later investigations into account-- we cannot write the history of archaic and ancient India
based on the legendary and late Epic and Puric accounts of the middle ages (Witzel 1990, 1995, 2001).
Talageri (1993: 407) continues his Puric tale as follows: "... major sections of Anus ... developed into
the various Iranian cultures. The Druhyus spread out into Europe in two installments." He actually kncws,
somehow, which IE group moved first and which later, and by which route: "the speakers of the proto-Germanic
dialect first migrated northwards and then westwards, and then later the speakers of the proto-Hellenic and
proto-Italo-Celtic dialects moved into Europe by a different, more southern, route. It is possible that the speakers
of proto-Baltic and proto-Slavonic (or proto-Balto-Slavonic) ... of proto-Illyrian and proto-Thraco-Phrygian ...
were Anus and not Druhyus, the Anus and Druhyus thus being, respectively, the speakers of proto- Satem and
proto-Kentum." (1993: 407-8).
Or slightly differently (2000: 263): "The two emigrations ... from an original homeland in India: ... The
first series of migrations, of the Druhyus, took place.... with major sections of Druhyus migrating northwards
from Afghanistan into Central Asia in different waves. From Central Asia many Druhyu tribes, in the course of
time, migrated westwards, reaching as far as western Europe. These migrations must have included the ancestors
of the following branches... a. Hittite. b. Tocharian. c. Italic. d. Celtic. e. Germanic. f. Baltic. g. Slavonic.
.... The second series of migrations of Anus and Druhyus, took place much later, in the Early Period of the
Rigveda, with various tribes migrating westwards from the Punjab into Afghanistan, many later on migrating
further westwards as far as West Asia and southwestern Europe. These migrations must have included the
ancestors of the following branches (which are mentioned in the Darja battle hymns): a. Iranian. b. Thraco-
Phrygian (Armenian). c. Illyrian (Albanian). d. Hellenic."
The strange or outdated terminology (Slavonic, etc. -- his source may be Misra's diction, see below --
Italo-Celtic, Kentum) indicates the limited linguistic background of the author sufficiently enough.
Nevertheless, we also can learn of the solution to the long-standing enigma of the Indus language (Parpola 1994,
Witzel 1999 a,b): "The Indus Valley culture was a mixed culture of Prus and Anus" (1993: 408). Nothing less,
perhaps, could be expected, as the book is self-described as: "This whole description is based on the most logical
and in many respects the cnly pcssible, interpretation of the facts... Any further research, and any new material
discovered on the subject, can only confirm this description... there is no possible way in which the location of the
86
It must be pointed out that all of this is based on one misrepresented passage from several Puras, given by Talageri
1993: 368 and 2000: 260 sq., typically, twice in untranslated form, which makes it easy to impute any meaning desired, in case
a "first historical emigration ... of the Druhyu into the areas to the north of Afghanistan (ie. into Central Asia and beyond)."
The passage is found with some variants, at Brahmda 2.74.11, Brahma 13.152, Harivaa 1841, Matsya 48.9, Vyu 99.11, cf.
also Viu 4.17.5, Bhgavata 9.23.15, see Kirfel 1927: 522: Pracetasah putraatam rajanah sarva eva te // Mlecchara;tradhipah
sarve udcm diam aritah, which means, of course, nct that these '100' kings conquered the 'northern countries' way beyond
the Hindukush or Himalayas, but that all these 100 kings, sons of Pracets (a descendant of a 'Druhyu'), kings of Mleccha
kingdoms, are 'adjacent' (arita) to the 'northern direction,' -- which since the Vedas and Pini has signified Greater
Gandhra. -- Elst (1999: 122) even weaves in the disputed Bangani evidence (Witzel 1999 a,b) that point to a western
(centum) IE remnant in the Himachal Pradesh Hills, like that of Tocharian in Xinjiang, W. China.
(32) Michael WITZEL
Original Homeland in the interior of northern India, so faithfully recorded in the Puranas and confirmed in the
Rigveda, can ever be disproved" (1993: 408). Luckily for us, the author names his two main sources: the Puras
and the gveda. The reliability of Puric and Epic sources is discussed below (19, Witzel 1990, 1995), and the
RV does not support his theory either (it simply does not know of, or refer to central and eastern Northern
India).
87
12.3. Emigration
In order to achieve his new U.P. homeland, Talageri has not only to rely on the Puras, he also has to
readthemintc his RV evidence, though pretending to use only the RV to interpret the RV (Talageri 2000) -- in fact
one of the basic requirements of philology (Witzel 1995, 1997). In casu, the single two appearances of }ahnav in
the RV at 1.116.19 and 3.56.6 are made out to refer to the Ganges. However, both passages clearly refer to a Jahnv
which translators and commentators (including Syaa) have taken as a tribal designation (cf., indeed, such an
'ancestral goddess' next to Hotr, Bhrat, I and Sarasvat at RV 2.1.11, etc.). It is, thus, by no means clear that
Jahnv refers to a river, and certainly not to the Ganges in particular (Witzel 2001). That is an Epic/Puric
conceit. Instead, it can simply be derived from the Jahnu clan. Yet, it is in this way that Talageri tries to
strengthen his case for a Gangetic homeland: the Ganges is otherwise only mentioned twice in the RV, once in a
late hymn directly (10.75.5), and once by a derived word, gangya (6.45.31, in a trca that could be an even later
addition to this additicnal hymn, which is too long to fit the order of the arrangement of the RV, see Oldenberg
1888). However, nothing in the RV points to knowledge of the Gangetic basin, or even of the lower Dob. The
medieval and modern Dob rivers Sarayu and Gomat
88
have sometimes been mentioned but the context of these
RV rivers is one of the western hills and mountains, in Afghanistan.
89
Talageri's identification of Jahnv with
Gag is clearly based on post-Vedic identifications;
90
the RV passages only speak about an ancient clan (deity)
which could have 'settled' anywhere.
91
The evidence set forth by Talageri is not conclusive even for the tribes of the RV, -- in fact the location of
the Yadu-Turvaa, Anu-Druhyu and Pru is not very clear for most of the gvedic period (Macdonell & Keith
1912).
92
One hardly does have to mention the features that would not agree with a 'tropical' PIE language in the
Gangetic Basin (see 12.6). As a curiosity, it might be added, however, that we certainly would expect tribal
names such as Druhyu (or Anu) in Europe, -- just as the Gypsies have carried their tribal/caste name Dcmba to
Europe, where they still call themselves Rcma. However, we do not find any IE tribe or people in Europe derived
from Ved. druh/ IE *dhreugh: there are no tribes called, e.g., German Trug, Be-truger, Engl. *Tray, Be-trayer -- we
only find spirits: 'ghost' and 'apparition' (Pokorny 1959: 276).
In passing, it should be mentioned that the Epic and Puric accounts of the western neighbors of India
are based on a view, already found in B and BS 18.13: 357.6 sqq, 18.44:397.8 sqq, that regards all tribes and
peoples outside the Center, the Kuru(-Pacla) realm, as 'outsiders' (bahkaB 1.7.3.8, udantya, mleccha, asurya).
They are characterized by their 'incorrect' speech and obnoxious behavior (B 9.3.1.24, Panjabis) and lack of
proper rauta ritual (B 13.5.4.19, Ki).
87
Talageri achieves such evidence by twisting the facts his way: see the discussion of Jahnv, n. 90, Witzel 2001.
88
Sarayu, then was not yet the mod. Sarju in U.P.; Gomat, that in PB 25.7.2 is already located in Vibhinduka land, i.e. is the
modern Gumti in U.P., Witzel 1987:193.
89
RV 5.53.9, the mythical river at the end of the world or high up in the Himalayas, the Rasa /Avest. Raqha, andthe Kubha
(Kabul R.), Krumu (Kurram), Sarayu (Herat R.); and 10.64.9: Sarasvat (=Haraxait, Helmand), Sarayu (Herat R.), Sindhu
(Indus); (see Witzel 1987, 1995, 1999; note that both lists are probably ordered anti-clockwise, Witzel, 2000).
90
Note Mbh 1.3722 etc., son of Ajamha, his daughter = Gag; -- Jhnv Mbh 3.8211; Jhnava PB 22.12; cf. Jahnu's
descendants at AB 7.18, vS 12.14, = 'Gag' at BhGt 10.31, Viu Pur. 398; cf. Macdonell-Keith, VedicIndex.
91
Note that the center of settlement in RV 3 is the eastern Panjab and the Sarasvat area of Haryana, see Witzel 1995: 320.
92
For example, settlement in Kashmir by any gvedic tribe is very doubtful, see Witzel 1994; in the later Brmaa period,
Uttara-Madra (however, not Uttara-Kuru) may refer to Kashmir .
Autochthonous Aryans? (33)
Consequently, both the Panjabis (Bahka) as well as the Benares (Kai) and S. Bihar (Anga) people are
denigrated by middle Vedic texts.
93
This attitude mellowed somewhat with regard to eastern North India (AB
7.18 where the Andhra, Pura, abara, Pulinda, etc. are included as Vivmitra's sons, Witzel 1997) but it
continued with respect to the west which was under constant and continuing threat of immigration, incursion
and actual invasion from the Afghan highlands (cf. Rau 1957: 14). In fact, the Panjabis have been regarded as
outsiders since the AV and B and Patajali's Mahbhya has preserved the oldest "Sikh joke", gaur bahkah 'the
Panjabi is an ox'. There is nothing new under the Indian sun.
There is, on the other hand, nothing particularly Indian about this attitude, it is reflected not only in
Manu's concept of madhyadea (> mod. Nepali mades 'lowlands'), but also in ancient and modern China (chung
kuc, 'the middle land'), and elsewhere. Ritual, world wide, often regards one's own location as the center of the
universe (or its navel/eye, cmatactehenua, in Polynesian).
The Epic and Puric accounts simply build on such Vedic precedents: the Panjabis are regarded as
'fallen rya', or in the words of BS, the Gandhri have emigrated [from the center].
94
This is "the view from the
center", Kuruketra, a view that was not yet present in gvedic times.
95
All of this is, incidentally, another
indication of the (post-g)Vedic attitude against 'outsiders', the Other. To regard the alleged, actually
mistranslated Puric story (contra Witzel 2001, cf. n. 42, 86) about an emigration from India as statement of
facts is as far-fetched and mythological as the Roman insistence of their descent from the heroes of Troy (Virgil's
Aeneid, see above 9), or as the many tales about the lost tribes of Israel (note that the Pashtos, in spite of the E.
Iranian language and pre-Muslim IIr culture, claimed to be one of them). It is completely anachronistic, and in
fact unscientific, to use such legends, concocted long after the fact, as indications of actual historical events. (The
Gypsies, who actually have emigrated from India, rather claim origins in S. Iraq or Egypt).
12.4. Linguistics and 'Emigration'.
In addition, Talageri's new book merely restates, with the addition of Epic-Puric legends, what S.S.
Misra had written before him in 1992, just as so much of present autochthonous writing is nothing more than a
cottage industry exploitation of a now popular trend. Misra's small book
96
of 110 pages, however, is a curious
collection of linguistic data spanning the Eurasian continent, from Tamil to Uralic (Finno-Ugric), and from IE,
Vedic and Mitanni Indo-Aryan to European Gypsy (Romani). All of this with an equally curious conclusion:
"the original home of the Proto-Indo-European speech community... was searched in Pamir, Caspian Sea etc. in
spite of the fact that the most original and orthodox Indo-European speech, Sanskrit, was spoken in India.... The
following ground may be assumed for dropping India. This was a nice place to live. People would not like to go to
places like Europe... On the other hand, there is definite evidence of spread of Aryans (or Indo-Europeans) in
different parts of Europe... A brief sketch may be.... The Greeks were invaders and came to Greece from outside...
there was a vast substratum of pre-Greek languages... the Celtic people came from outside to Europe... That the
Italic peoples were invaders is well-known... before the Hittite invasion to the area [Turkey] it was peopled by
another tribe called Hattic... the Hittite speakers might have gone there in very early days from an original home
(which was perhaps India)... The Slavonic people ... were invaders... at the expense of Finno-Ugrian and Baltic
languages... The Germanic speaking Indo-Europeans... coming from an outside world... the movement of
Iranians from India to Iran... The Finno-Ugrian contact with Indo-Aryans speaks of the movement of Vedic
Aryans from India to that area. Therefore it is likely that Pre-Vedic Aryans also might have gone out of India in
93
Witzel 1987,1989, 1997. However, the "north", Gandhra and Uttara-Madra, (Uttara-Kuru?) are always excluded, see
Witzel 1989: 101.
94
See discussion in 9, Nirukta, Patajali and the Kamboja language.
95
But see above 9 on the Sarasvat as political center in Suds' time.
96
The following account was written before I heard, at the beginning of Oct. 2000, of the author's demise. I am sorry that
he can no longer reply to the following points. However, as his book has been quoted in virtually every publication
propagating the autochthonous point of view, it is important to point out the facts which remain, even if de mcrtuis nihil
nisibene.
(34) Michael WITZEL
several waves. The migrations from India to the outside world might have taken the following order: The
Centum speakers... in several waves... Out of Satm speakers, Armenian first, the Albanian, next Baltic followed
by Slavonic. The Iranian people were the last to leave... based on the linguistic analysis or relative affinity with
Sanskrit. Similarly out of the Centum groups Greek might have left India last of all." (Misra 1992: 100 sqq.) A lot
of invasions into and all over Europe -- quite politically incorrect now, it might be added, -- but no "invasion",
not even an 'immigration" or a meager "trickling" intc India.
There is no need to belabor Misra's wording, such as 'orthodox' (which language is 'orthodox'?), strange
from the pen of a linguist. However, Misra's main thesis, emigration frcm India, has already been refuted, on
linguistic grounds, by Hock (1999, see below) and I can be relatively brief here; however, many ingredients and
conclusions of Misra's book are faulty as well. Since he is now quoted by OIT advocates as the major linguistic
authority who has provided proof for the OIT, these must be discussed and summed up.
12.5 Finno-Ugric data
Misra maintains (1992: 94) "the borrowed elements in the Uralic languages show borrowed gvedic
forms in 5000 BC." Unfortunately, his discussion is based on two wrong premises: Harmatta's list of IA/Iranian
loans in Uralic
97
and Misra's own 'unorthodox' but faulty reinterpretation of IIr and IA data.
To begin with, the date given by Misra to the RV "must be beyond 5000 BC" (1992) is based on the guess of
Finno-Ugric scholars for Proto-FU, a date just as good or bad as any given for PIE at 4500 or 3500 BCE. What is
of greater importance here is the exact form of IIr. that the various loan words in PFU have preserved. In addition
to Harmatta, some other scholars, not mentioned by Misra, have worked on this problem as well, most recently
Joki 1973, Rdei 1986, Katz (Habilschrift 1985).
Unfortunately, Harmatta has chosen to divide his materials into eleven stages, ranging from 4500 -
1000 BCE, with an arbitrary length for each period of 300 years. Worse, some of them have been placed at various
unlikely dates within that time frame, e.g., the development is>i,which is already E. IE (Slavic, IIr, etc.)has
been placed at 2000 BCE (asi!), that is 600 later than the related changes rs > r, ks > k, and the same
development appears again as PIIri>iat 1700 BCE. However, it is on this arrangement that Misra based his
conclusions. Though he corrects some of Harmatta's mistakes (such as misclassifying IIr forms as PIran.),
Misra makes things worse due to his clearly faulty, 19th cent. type reconstruction of IE (see Hock 1999): "most of
the loan words ... are in fact to be traced to Indo-Aryan. Of special importance is the borrowing traced to the
earliest period (5000 BCE), which is clearly Vedic Sanskrit" (1992: 24). This refers to words such as Harmatta's
FU *aja 'to drive, to hunt', *pcrc'as, pcras 'piglet', *cc'tara 'whip', *c'aka 'goat', *ere 'male', *reme 'strap', *meke
'honey bee', *mete 'honey' (from Harmatta's stages 1-7). Mcst of these are actually pre-IA as they retain c' > Ved.
, or instead of Ved. ;, or the IE vowels e,c instead of Common IIr and Ved. a.
98
His use of Harmatta's list and
that quoted from Burrow (1973: 23-27) and Abaev (1992: 27-32) suffer from the same methodological fault:
forms that easily can be derived from IIr, such as Mordw. purtscs, purts (reflecting IIr *parc'as [part
s
as]) are
declared by Misra as having come from the much later OIA (Vedic), in spite of their retaining the old
pronunciation c' [t
s
]; this is, in fact, still found in Nuristani, e.g. du.c. [dut
s
], < PIIr dac'a < PIE dek'm, but not
in the linguistically already ycunger, but historically speaking c. 3000 years older forms Ved. daa, OIran. dasa! In
short, this kind of combination produces a great, but confused and confusing scenario.
Most of the acceptable evidence derived from Harmatta's data
99
fall right into the Proto-IIr period. The
shibboleth is the development of PIE labiovelars to velars: k
w
,k
w
h, g
w
,g
w
h>k,kh,g,gh, something that is
97
Reprinted in Harmatta 1992: 360-367. Harmatta actually is an historian who, nevertheless, is called by Misra "one of the
leading Indo-Europeanists." His paper has been used by many indigenists who cannot judge these linguistic materials.
98
Misra, of course, denies the development IE e, c, a > IIr, Ved. a; this reversal to early 19th cent. linguistics is refuted by
Hock 1999.
99
Harmatta's list has no clear examples that date back to PIE. One may discuss PFU *mete 'honey' < PIE *medhu, but the
quality of the PFU vowels preserved in these words is open to doubt (see below). Further, the retaining of -w- in PFU *arwa
'present given to a guest' surprises as PIE *crg
w
ha- should have lost its labiovelar quality already by the time the word
Autochthonous Aryans? (35)
clearly seen in PFU *werkas 'wolf' < PIIr *vrka-s < PIE *wlk
w
c-s(Misra, of course, takes this word as RV
Sanskrit!). About the same time, the PIE *k',k'h,g',g'h developed to c',c'h,j',j'h. This development is clearly seen
in the majcrity of the loans into PFU, as in for example in *pcrc'as 'piglet', *c'aka 'goat', *aja 'to drive'. (Misra
derives these sounds from Skt. c,j, see Hock 1999). However, the PIIr affricates are represented in PFU in two
forms, either as expected by c' or in the younger (=Vedic) form, by
100
(late PIIr, not yet OIran. s, and
preserved in Vedic).
Some confusion is raised by the various representations of PIIr *a by PFU e,,c,a. This could, again,
point to the pre-PIIr period when the differences between e,c,aas inherited from PIE were still preserved. In fact,
-c- in these loan-words seems to be limited to initial syllables, while other syllables have -a- or -e-. The problem
will be treated at length elsewhere (Witzel, forthc. b)
101
.
The important result is, quite differently from that of Misra's Sanskrit-like loans into PFU, the follow-
ing: it was at the stage of PIIr (perhaps even at that of late PIE) but certainly not that of gvedic Sanskrit, that
PFU has taken over a substantial number of loan words ranging from plants and animals to customs, religion
and the economy.
102
12.6. Dating of RV
The last section has, of course, serious consequences for Misra's new dating of the RV, at 5000 BCE,
which is anyhow impossible due to internal contradictions (relating to the horse, chariot, etc., see below). As the
PFU loan-words point to pre-gvedic, PIIr. and even some (pre-)PIIr. forms, the RV must be considerable later
than the reconstructed PFU (at 5000 BCE). All of which fits in well with the 'traditional' date for this text, in the
2nd mill. BCE, roughly contemporary with Hittite, Mitanni IA, and early, Mycenean Greek texts inscribed on
tablets.
turned into IIr *argha. Note, however, that Mayrhofer, EWA 114, regards the PFU form as problematic (from *ara?, Finn.
arvc); Katz's Habilschrift was not available to me.
100
Parpola 1998, however, conflates the two stages and further conflates them with the representation of IE e/c/a by FU e,c,
a,etc.
101
These facts should be counterchecked by FU specialists who may be able to explain this phenomenon by vowel
harmony or by the peculiarities of PFU stress.
102
Conversely, there is apparently little FU in IE. Such one-sided relationships, however, are not uncommon as they follow
the predominant cultural flow. The reason for the early occurrence of word for bee (*meke) and honey (IE *medhu) may lie
elsewhere, in the usefulness of bee's wax to produce cire perdue metal products, which seem to be earlier in the Taiga
woodlands than in the steppes and even further south. In other words, we here have a reverse cultural flow, from the
woodlands into the steppes. -- It must be pointed out that the few words in PFU that still retain the nom. sg. masc. -s, such as
tarwas, martas, taivas, pcrcas, werkas (and, including the case of pakas 'god', with a typical, much later, Iran. semantic
development from IIr Bhaga-s, the (god) "Share", see below) do nct point to an earlier take-over than that of other words
without - s. For, there are words such as the presumably very early *arwa 'present', *jew, or *meke, where this has nct taken
place. -- However, the typical Iran. change s>h is not yet seen in Harmatta's material, and it may indeed be fairly late (c. 1000
BCE, see A. Hintze 1998). In short, some of the late words in the list may be of North Iranian (Scythian/Saka) origin. -- For
connections between IE and Altaic, see A. Rna-Tas 1988.
(36) Michael WITZEL
12.7. Mitanni data
Misra's use of the Mitanni Indo-Aryan materials is clearly faulty as well. They seem to fit in well (at
dates around 1400 BCE) with his theory of an early RV at 5000 BCE because he regards some of the Mitanni
words as representing post-Vedic, Middle Indo-Aryan developments. He assumes (repeated faithfully by Elst
1999:183) that there is MIA assimilation of clusters in Mit.satta < Ved. sapta'seven' (see n. 148), or replacement
of v- by b- as in biriya- < Ved. vrya(rather, to be read as priya-,see EWA I 139). However, such forms are due to
the exigencies of cuneiform writing and Hurrite pronunciation found in the Mitanni realm (for details, see below
18). In sum, Misra's data are based on his insufficient knowledge of near Eastern languages and their writing
systems.
However, it can even be shown that Mitanni IA words belong to a pre-Rgvedic stage of IA as they have
retained -zdh- > RV edh and ai > RV e, and even IIr. j'h > Ved. h (see below 15, 18). Thus, Misra's early "Middle
Indo-Aryan" at 1400 BCE simply evaporates, along with his early RV at 5000 BCE.
103
We are back to the
'traditional' dates.
12.8. Gypsy language
Though a detailed study of data from the Gypsy (Romany) language seems to be beyond the scope of the
present discussion, some words are necessary as Misra has used the example of Gypsy as support for his theory of
sound changes that affected the hypothetical IE emigrants from India when they entered the Near East and
Europe. No matter that the two movements, thousands of years apart, would refer to one of PIE and the other to
an MIA or ealry NIA language, and no matter that Romany is not as well studied as PIE. While it is clear that
"the Gypsy languages are of Indo-Aryan origin is no more controversial..." it is not correct to say that "the Gypsy
dialects present sufficient evidence which shows that Indo-Aryan a changed into a,e,c in European Gypsy..."
(Misra 1992)
First of all, the emigrant Gypsies, probably first attested as migrant musicians in records of the Sasanide
kingdom of Iran (at 420 CE), have retained a fairly old form of IA which looks, often enough, like MIA, for
example in the northwestern MIA retention of Cr (bhrata>phral 'brother'), or the present tense of 'to do' (karav,
karas, karal, etc.) Misra hinted at the reason why certain cases of MIA a have changed into Eur. Romani e,a,c :
their distribution seems to be based on occurrence of -a- in an originally open syllable (in MIA, OIA) whence > e,
or in a non-open syllable whence > a. However, this change is by no means universal even in European Romani.
Its archaic Balkan version (of Bulgaria, etc., which I know from personal experience) has kar-, karav etc.'to do'
(from karcmi, as quoted above). In short, Misra's data are again incomplete, faulty and misinterpreted.
Second, his contention that "Thus in a way the linguistic change in Gypsy, suggests a clear picture of an
assumption for a similar change in Proto-Indo-European stage, of Indo-European a (as shown by Sanskrit and
as reconstructed by Bopp, Sleicher [sic!] etc.) into dialectical a,e,c (as shown by Gk. etc.). Uptil now no evidence
to the contrary is available that Proto-Indo-European a,e,c (as reconstructed by Brugmann etc.) have merged in
India" (Misra 1992: 81) can easily be refuted by any Indo-Europeanist (Hock 1999). In Greek, for example, we do
not have a 'dialectal' change, whatever that may mean, of Misra's IE *a>e,a,c but a clearly regulated one, in the
case of laryngeals 1-3 > e,a,c.IE *h
1
esti > Gr. esti, Lat. est, but Ved. asti; h
2
ner->Greekanr,Ved.nr-, *h
2
enti > Gr.
anti, Lat. ante, Hitt. hanti(with written laryngeal!) but Ved. anti, *h
3
cnkcs > Gr. cnkcs, Lat. uncus, but Ved. anku-;a
(Rix 1976: 68 sqq.). Not to speak of the well-established correspondences of PIE *e, c, a in the various IE
languages, which Misra simply denies on insufficient grounds (for details, see Hock 1999).
In sum, Misra's contention that "Gypsy languages show a repetition of the linguistic change, which
occurred in a remote history of Indo-European, when the original groups, speakers of various historical lan-
guages, left their original homeland (India) and travelled to Europe... (1992: 82), ... the borrowed elements in the
Uralic languages show borrowed gvedic forms in 5000 BC... the date of RV must be beyond 5000 BC..." (1992:
103
This is not to say that even the RV has a few forms, such as the -disputed- jycti; < dycti; (aan de Wiel 2000); however
Mitanni does not have any such developments, see below (18).
Autochthonous Aryans? (37)
94) is based on insufficient materials, faulty interpretations and idiosyncratic conclusions that are at odds with
anyone else's in the field.
104
12.9 Contra: IE dialect clusters
Returning to the question of an IE homeland inside India, we can easily observe where IE innovations
seem to cluster, right from the time of the common PIE language. For example, the famous Satem innovations
all are limited to the IE languages in the east of the IE settlement area, with the exception of the (western-type)
Centum language Tocharian, which actually is the easternmost IE language, in China (Xinjiang; to which add
the Bangani substrate). Clearly, the older Centum block has been split by the Satem innovations (not
withstanding that the speakers of Tocharians might have moved further east after the split). Such clustering
indicates that Indo-Iranian is a southeastern extension of eastern (Satem) IE and that Vedic is the easternmost
one of these. For a recent summary, see H.H. Hock (1986: 452, 1999). From this, as well as from a number of
earlier studies, it is obvious that the 'dialectal features' in the arrangements of (P)IE languages indicate a general
expansion of IE westwards and eastwards from an unknown center, somewhere close to the geographical center of
the pre-colonial expansion of IE languages over Siberia, the Americas, etc.
The actual spread of IE across Eurasia points in the same direction. It has been well observed in various
parts of the world that a settlement close to each other of related languages indicates their original habitat while a
(geographically) wide spread of one of a (sub)family points to recent expansion. One can observe this with Bantu
which covers all of Central, East and South Africa while its parent group, Niger-Congo, has a very dense
arrangement of diverse languages in West Africa.
105
Or, even more recently, the large array of English dialects
in England, and the very few but large variants outside England (N. America, Australia, etc.) clearly point to
England as the place of origin.
In the case of IE, the application of this principle would indicate an original settlement of the ancestor
language somewhere in (S)E. Europe; it must not be overlooked, however, that many early IE languages have
disappeared since (Thracian, Dacian in the Balkans, Hittite, Luwian, etc. in Anatolia, and probably some
languages in S. Russia/Ukraine as well, areas that were subsequently settled by Scythians and other (Turkic)
steppe peoples, and finally by Slavs. The center may therefore have been situated somewhere between Greek,
Hittite, Armenian in the South and Slavic, Iranian (Scythian, Saka, etc.) in the north, in other words, in the
Greater Ukraine. This area is also at the fault line between the western Centum and eastern Satem languages and
of certain syntactic features of IE (Hock 1999: 15).
All such observations make an Indian homeland of PIE a priori unlikely. Hock (1999) has adduced
further reasons why this cannot be the case: all dialectal differences in PIE would have been exported, at various
periods, and would exactly have reconstituted themselves geographically, all over Europe and the Near East, in
104
Some other topics of this nature will be taken up below (13 sqq.) The following passage, however, does not need any
comment: "In ancient times in India such r;is were very powerful. They were great teachers, researchers, philosophers and
scientists. If Agastya had some power he might have helped in bringing down the abnormal height of the Vindhya mountains
which created a lack of contact of North and South. Thus a least this is much likely that due to some factor the height of the
Vindhya mountains became abnormally high, so that the path for contact of North and South was blocked and due to the
growth of population the people in the North had to spread, naturally farther North. They used the routes like the Khyber
pass and left it and lost all contact and were finally lost to their people ... as a result the Aryans had to go outside to North-
West through the Himalayan passes and this consequently was responsible for the spread of Indo-European language family
to the outside world." (Misra 1992: 70) Is this linguistics, prehistory, a 'scientific' Mah-Bhrata? Or just a reverse version of
O. Rosenberg'sMythcftheTwentiethCentury?
105
The same applies to Austronesian, with a very close grouping in Taiwan (and then in S.E. Asia), but subsequently, with
the wider spread of just one subfamily, Polynesian, all across the Pacific. -- The center of Slavic languages would be in or
near the northern Carpathian mountains, indeed close to the actual homeland of the Slavic speaking tribes. That of all
Romance languages would lead to central Italy, in other words, to Rome. -- Elst 1999: 126 sq. points, as 'proof' for his Indian
Urheimat of IE, to some asymmetric expansions which are found as well, as in the (easily explainable) case of Australia, with
Arnhemland as the center and with the rest of the continent as the area of a more recent expansion.
(38) Michael WITZEL
the same geographical relationship as originally found in the hypothetical Indian homeland. This certainly
needs very special pleading, and simply falls prey to Occam's razor.
106
12.10 Other 'Out of India' theories: Sprachbund
Another new and equally misleading linguistic scenario has recently been created by writers such as
Aiyar (1975), Waradpande (1993) and scientists such as S. Kak (1994a), or always on the internet, S.
Kalyanaraman (1999). They contend that two of the major language families of South Asia, Indo-Aryan (i.e. IE)
and Dravidian are not (very) different from each other. Both would rather represent two forms of an old South
Asian Proto-language, which they call, variously, a Prkt or just the Indian Bronze Age language.
Again, the idea is not exactly new. A fore-runner is, quite unexpectedly and already at the beginning of
the past century, Aurobindo
107
(cf. Talageri 2000). With the then usual conflation of outward appearance or
'race', ethnicity, and language (note: Hirt 1907), he found that his native people, the Bengalis, and the inhabitants
of his new home, Ponchicherry (where he went into exile, evading the British), were not so different after all.
More recently, some Indian scholars have expressed the (ultimately correct) feeling of an All-Indian
cultural unity in terms of language as well (Aurobindo, etc., cf. Bryant 1999). Swaminatha Aiyar's analyses (1975,
quoted, with approval by Misra 1992: 73-78, and adopted) of common features between Aryan and Dravidian are
a case in point:
"...from a linguistic point of view also, Dravidian is more comparable to Indo-Aryan than to any other
language family in the world... But Dravidian may be the first to have been separated and went north.
Next the centum people separated and left through the Himalayan passes to Caspian or Pamir and then
to Europe etc. The satem speakers left after that, batch by batch. The last batch might have been the
Iranians."
The first part of the quote confuses descent (genetic relationship) of languages with secondary mutual influences
of neighboring languages (S. Asian linguistic region, Sprachbund).
The very idea of a "pan-Indian Prkt" is, of course, a ccntradictic in se. As any beginner in linguistics
should know, Prakrt always refers to an Indo-Aryan language, Middle Indo-Aryan to be precise. The
designation 'common South Asian Proto-language' or, worse, "Prkt", when used for Archaic Tamil, is
imaginary and confusing, just as a Dravidian Proto-Vedic, P-Hindi, or a Mundic P-Bengali would be.
The issue at hand is whether there ever was such a thing as a common S. Asian or Indian "Prakrit".
Kalyanaraman, Kak (1994a), or Misra (1992) simply (or handily) confuse the relatively new concept of a South
Asian linguistic area (Sprachbund) with the 'genetic' relationship of the languages involved.
This idea was developed early in the 20th century when linguists where surprised that several disparate
languages in the Balkans shared so many features. These include Rumanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian,
Greek and Albanian. Now, these are all Indo-European languages and thus have the same starting point,
though Bulgarian has an old Turkish (Bulgar, different from modern Turkish) and an IE Thracian substrate.
But they come from four quite different sub-families: Rumanian from the Western IE Vulgar Latin, Bulgarian,
Macedonian and Serbian from the Eastern IE Southern Slavic, Greek from the Western IE Old Greek, and finally
106
Elst (1999) includes a long chapter on links of IE with other language families, with a curious mixture of correct and
incorrect data; wrong are, e.g., p. 141: Ved. parau 'axe' is not the same as Mesop. pilakku 'spindle' (see EWA II: 87); on p.
145 there is the linguistically surprising statement that, because Drav. and Munda are attested later than Vedic, there is no
reason to assume a borrowing from these languages into Vedic, -- as if they did not have Proto-forms. -- Elst pays special
attention to links with Austronesian (p. 152 sqq.) as this would push the Urheimat of IE into S. Asia, or even into S. China
and S.E. Asia; this is followed by a curious speculation of a Manu who would have led the Indo-Europeans upstream on the
Ganges towards the Panjab, ending with (p. 157) "India as a major demographic growth centre from which IE spread to the
north and west and Austronesian to the southeast as far as Polynesia". The only redeeming feature here is that he concludes
(p. 158) "it is too early to say that linguistics has proven an Indian origin for the IE family."
107
Aurobindo felt that not only the people but also the original connection between the Sanskrit and Tamil tongues to be
far closer and more extensive than is usually supposed and that they may have been two divergent families derived from one
"lost primitive tongue".
Autochthonous Aryans? (39)
Albanian from the vague Illyrian/Dalmatian (etc.) subfamily. As such, they are much more different from each
other than even modern Iranian and Indo-Aryan.
However, they have stayed together for a long time, and have had intermingled settlements (Albanian
near Athens, Rumanian-type Romance speech in Bulgaria, etc.) for 1500-2000 years. Consequently, bilingual
speakers have influenced each other considerably, especially in syntax and by mutual loan words. Yet, there still
is no "new Balkan language" or a "Balkan language family" in sight. The basic vocabulary of these 6 languages
still is very different and most of their grammatical formantia as well.
The same applies to S. Asia, where the idea of a linguistic area was pioneered by Emeneau (1956), Kuiper
(1967). But here, the starting point is unlike that of the Balkans: S. Asia has at least 3 different large language
families:
108
IE, Drav., Munda, which have nothing in common, neither in basic vocabulary nor in word
structure nor in grammatical formantia. The situation is not unlike that in modern Europe, with Uralic
(Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, etc.), Basque, Altaic (mod. Turkish), and the rest (= IE). For details on the
South Asian Sprachbund or linguistic area or convergence area, it is useful to consult Hock (1986: 491-512)
though it is largely devoted to syntax. It is clear that, over the past few millennia, the three language families of S.
Asia have converged to a large degree, including phonetics (retroflexes, see 15), word formation (Munda
changed from a monosyllabic language with prefixes into a polysyllabic one working with suffixes) and syntax
(spread of absolutives, see Tikkanen 1987, or sentence structure preferring SOV arrangements, see Hock 1986).
The spread of such convergent items has been taken by some (Kak 1994) as a sign that the various S.
Asian languages are underway to form a new language family. This is overstating the matter by not just a little
margin. It has not happened in the Balkans. Or, English, with its large share of Romance (French) vocabulary
and some grammatical features (calques such as mcrebeautiful.plusbeaux), has not joined the circle of Romance
languages, nor have French and Anglo-Saxon, or the other converging (Western) European languages coalesced
into a new "(Western) European" family.
As has been mentioned above, the proponents of a 'common' South Asian Proto-language / 'Prkt' and
a "new S. Asian language family in statu nascendi" confuse the outcome of a long stay together and original
"genetic descent". Tamil speakers do not use Hindi words in their basic vocabulary, nor do Bengali speakers use
Santali words, nor Kashmiri speakers Burushaski words, nor Nepali speakers Tibetan words, and vice versa. And,
the various grammars involved still are far apart from each other, in spite of all the converge features evoked
above. To state things differently simply is bad linguistics and special pleading, as already seen several times in
the case of the Out-of-India theorists.
12.11. Emigration and linguistic features
In order to approach and evaluate place and time of the hypcthetical (OIT)Indo-European home in
South Asia (or that of the even less likely common S. Asian Proto-language) and of the hypcthetical emigration
of the Iranian and other IE speakersfrom India, one has to look for terms that are cldin PIE. For example, PIE
*gwcu- 'cow', *dyeu- 'heaven', and their archaic acc. forms gwm, dym, with PIE dissimilation of -w-, should
have existed already in a hypothetical IE Panjab. However, these PIE forms are reflected in the various old IE
languages (with their subsequent individual phonetic innovations): Ved. gam 'cow',Hom.Grk. bcun/bn,Ved.
dyam 'heaven',Grk. zn, etc. (EWA I 479, 752). In any autochthonous theory, this archaic dissimilation would
either be due to pre-split PIE dialects inside India (refuted by Hock 1999, above) or to a subsequent individual
development of the same traits outside India, after the IE languages would have left the subcontinent. Such an a
priori unlikely scenario, however, is rendered altogether impossible as the subsequent eastern (Satem)
developments (g
w
->g in 'cow') are restricted to a dialect ccntinuum of eastern IE (where a dissimilation *gum >
*gm was no longer possible). Other such unique Satem and IIr cases involve *kw>k, *k'>c',then,ke>c>
ca; the change *e> is early in IIr. as it is seen in the cakara, jagama type palatalization, as well as that of *c>a
in Brugmann cases (cf. Hock 1999); finally IIr. *>Ved./Avest.a. Clearly, several long term developments are
involved. Just like the supposed (OIT) individual innovations in dyam and gam, such eastern IE developments
108
Nostratic, or Greenberg's just off the press Eur-Asiatic, are another matter, but even these new theories still do not turn
Drav. and IE into Meso-/Neolithic neighbors inside India.
(40) Michael WITZEL
(Hock 1986: 451 sq.) would have to be re-impcrts from their focus in E. Europe/Central Asia into India, -- all
convoluted cases of very special pleading.
The first traces of IE languages are attested with Hittite around 2000/1600 BCE in Anatolia, Mycenean
Greek at c. 1400/1200 in Crete, Mitanni-IA. in N. Iraq at 1380 BCE. All PIE and IIr terms and forms must
precede this date by a large margin as even archaic languages such as Vedic and Hittite are separated from each
other by many innovative developments. The date of the dispersal of the earliest, W. IE languages (including
Tocharian, eastwards) must be early in the 3rd mill. BCE or still earlier.
But, in the autochthonous scenario of an emigration out of India, the Centum languages (Celtic,
Germanic, Latin, Greek, etc.), then the Satem languages (Slavic, etc.), would have followed each other by a time
span of at least a few hundred years, and Iranian would have been the last to emigrate from India as it is closest to
Vedic; it should have left well before c. 1000 BCE, when W. Iranian is first found on the eastern borders of
Mesopotamia.
109
These dates allow to set the claims of the autochthonous school (Talageri 1993, 2000) into a distinct
relief, especially when such early dates as 5000 BCE (based on a loan word link with Finno-Ugrian) are claimed
for the RV (S.S. Misra 1992). While this is impossible on text-internal, cultural grounds, their hypcthetical cld RV
would have the comparatively mcdern form of Old Indo-Aryan that would, nevertheless, precede that of the very
archaic Hittite by a margin of some 3000 years. We know, of course, that Vedic is not earlier than Hittite but
clearly later, i.e. lower in the cladistic scheme that is popularly called the 'family tree': it is later than Eastern IE
(Satem innovations, RUKI, cf. Hock 1986, 1999), laterthan Proto-Indo-Iranian (e,a>,k'>c',c>a in open
syllables, with c>a in all other syllables), and even later than Pre-Vedic (c'>,or zd(h) and j'> Ved. h, which
still preserved as []<j'h in Mitanni IA at 1400 BCE, see below 18). In short, all of the above indicates that
neither time nor space would agree with a OIT scenario.
Another major obstacle against the emigration theory is that even the closest relative of Vedic, the
hypcthetical emigrant Old Iranian language, misses all Indo-Aryan innovations (see below 13-17). Any ar-
gument militating against this must use the special pleading that all Vedic innovations happened only after the
emigration of the Iranians out of India; this is, however, impossible in cases such as rat/raj-, ;cdaa, vcdhar-, sede
and others such as the absolutive.
In other words, Misra's scheme (and that of all others who assume such early dates for the RV and an IE
emigration out of India, such as Talageri 1993, 2000, Elst 1999) are not only badly deliberated but are plainly
impossible: PIE, while still in the Panjab, would nct yet have developed all the traits found in non-OIA languages
(Satem etc.), while their close neighbor, the 'old' RV, would already have gone through all Satem, IIr, Pre-Vedic
and RV innovations 7000 years ago, -- an unlikely scenario, to say the least. And, as such,
110
gvedic OIA would
have exercised early influences on the rather distant Uralic languages in S. Russia/Urals/W. Siberia, while the
non-IA neighbors of Uralic (Iranian, Baltic, etc.) would nct. All of this is obviously impossible on grounds of
space and time. Misra etal. have not thought through their idiosyncratic and ad hoc scenarios.
111
To do so is not
cur job, but that of the proponent(s) of the new theory. They should have done their homework.
12.12. Emigration and culture
The matter can still further be elucidated by observing some cultural features: according to the au-
tochthonous theories the various IE peoples ("Anu, Druhyu" of Talageri 1993, 2000) and their languages
109
However, Iranian has some pre-RV features, while it misses all Indian innovations, all of which makes a late emigration
impossible, see 17.
110
Which, pace Misra, point to loans made during the Indo-Iranian and Iranian periods, not in the Vedic period, see above.
111
In fact, most of the autochthonists have not even started to learn the linguistic 'trade', and simply reject linguistics out of
hand, as mentioned above.
Autochthonous Aryans? (41)
hypothetically left India (around 5000/4000 BCE). If put to a test by archaeology and linguistics, these
'emigrations' would rather have to be set at the following latest possible dates.
112
3000/2500 W.IE leave while possessing:
ayas 'copper/bronze' > Lat. aes
'copper, bronze', etc.; but:
no chariot yet: Lat. rcta 'wheel',
Grk. kuklc-'wheel',Toch.kukl,
kckale'wagon', etc.; note Grk.
new formation harma(t)- 'chariot'
(Pokorny 1959: 58);
yet, all parts of the heavy, solid
wheel wagon are IE: ak;a, ara
nabha 'nave'; Germ. Rad/Lat.rcta,
drawn by oxen (uk;an); --
domesticated horse h
1
ek'wc>
Lat.equus,O.Ir.ech,Toch. yuk,
yakwe, used for riding
2500/2000 E. IE leave have satem characteristics
(h
1
ek'wc, O.Lith.av),
but still no chariots:
Lith. ratas 'wheel, circle'
by 2000 IIr. unity new : ratha > 'chariot' from
Volga/Ural/N.Caucasus area; and
cakra 'wheel, chariot' -- but how
and when did it (and the domesticated
horse) enter India?
Innovative ditya gods with
artificial formations (Arya-man
= Avest. Airiia-man, etc.)
1500/1000 Iran. move with chariot, dityas, but keep
old grammar, ntr. pl. + sg. verb, etc.
c. 1000 W. Iranians are attested on the eastern
borders of Mesopotamia
According to this list, again, all Vedic linguistic innovations (with the RV set at 5000/4000 BCE), and some E.
Indo-European ones such as the IIr. chariot, would have happened befcre the supposed emigration of the
Iranians from India! This is archaeologically impossible, unless one uses the auxiliary, equally unlikely hy-
pothesis that some IIr.s left India before 2000 BCE and reimpcrted the chariot into India (Elst 1999). All such
arguments need very special pleading. Occam's Razor applies.
112
Note that the following list can be read both in the new, autochthonous/indigenous way, that is of leaving India, or in
the 'traditional' IE way, of leaving a S.E. European/C. Asian homeland.
(42) Michael WITZEL
12.13. Emigration & nature
While, thecretically again, a scenario of IE emigration from the Panjab is possible, this claim, too,
contradicts all we know about IE material culture (e.g., horse, wagon, and the late chariot) and climate-based
vocabulary (willow, birch, fir, oak, snow, wolf, beaver, salmon, etc.), all of which traditionally have been used to
indicate a temperate IE homeland with cold winters, somewhere in E. Europe-C. Asia, (Geiger 1871: 133 sqq.,
Schrader 1890: 271, Hirt 1907: 622, Friedrich 1970, Mallory 1989: 114 sqq.), -- that is, an area that included at
least scme (riverine?) tree cover.
Even if we take into account that the Panjab has cool winters with some frost and that the adjoining
Afghani and Himalayan mountains have a long winter season, the IE evidence does not bear out a South Asian
or Indian homeland. The only true IE tree found in S. Asia is the birch (bhrja),
113
and some argument can be
made for the willow ("willow" > Ved. vetasa 'cane, reed', see n.146), maybe the fir (ptu),
114
and the aspen
(varana?).
115
But why are all the other IE trees those of a colder climate non-existent in Indian texts, even when
even the neighboring Iranians have some of them, e.g. in the eastern Afghani mountains (fir,
116
oak,
117
willow,
118
poplar
119
)?
Or rather, to follow the autochthonous line: how did the IE tree names belonging to a cooler climate ever
get out of India where these trees do nct exist? One would have to use the auxiliary assumption that such trees
were only found in the colder climate of the Himalayas and Pamirs, thus were part of the local South Asian
vocabulary, and that they would then have been taken along, in the westward movement of the emigrants.
But, even this special pleading does not work: some of these temperate IE trees are nct found in the S.
Asian mountains. But, they still have good Iranian and IE names, all with proper IE word formation (see above).
Interestingly, these words have not always been formed from the same stem, which reflects normal (P)IE
linguistic variation and is not due to ccmpletely new, individual, local formation in one or the other IE language.
Rather, the PIE variations in the name of the beech,
120
fir (and resin), and oak (see above) use the same roots
113
Only the birch tree is found all the way from India to Europe: bhrja 'betula utilis' (KS+); note that the Indian birch
differs slightly from the European one. We have: Iran. Pamir dial. furz, Shugni vawzn<barzn; Osset. brs(); Lith. beras,
Serbo-Croat. breza; German Birke, Engl. birch, etc.
114
The fir tree is found as Grk. pttus, Lat. pnus <ptsn-, Skt. ptu-daru KS+ 'a fir, Pinus deodora' (ptudru AV, putudru
TS+, ptudaru KauS), Dardic *ptsa? 'fir' CDIAL 8236, EWA II 137. Note also the word for 'resin' which is closely related to
trees such as the fir: Lat. bitmen, OHG quit 'glue', Ved. (Stras) jatu 'lac, rubber', N.Pers., ad 'rubber' , Pashtoawla 'resin'
< IE g
w
etu, EWA I 565.
115
Breton. gwern 'alder', Alban. ver 'Pcpulus alba', Armen. geran 'plank, board', varana 'Crataeva Roxburghii'; "unclear"
EWA II 513; -- note also Thieme (1954: 16) sphya 'belonging to the asp tree', but cf. Pokorny 1959: 55, EWA II 779.
116
The Kashmir Valley now has: deodar (Cedrus deodara), pine (yar, Pinus excelsa and chl, Pinus longifolia), fir, yew
(Taxus baccata), elm, cypress, plane tree (Platanus orientalis), poplar, lime tree, wild chestnut, willow, maple, hawthorn,
many fruit trees, and at high altitudes: birch, alder, juniper and rhododendron. -- Note that none of the local words for these
plants, except for the birch, exists west of the subcontinent, or in autochthonous parlance, was 'exported' westwards.
117
Skt. Parjanya, Lith. Perkunas, O. Slav. Perun
u,
etc.
118
Avest. vati, OHG wda, Grk. itea, Lat. vitex, Lith. il-vitis; cf. also: OHG felawa 'willow', Grk. heltk, Ossetic frw, farwe
'alder'.
119
See above for 'aspen'.
120
As for the distribution of the word, see Bartholomae 1898, Henning 1963, Lane 1967, summary by Cowgill 1986: 86 sq.
Note the famous Greek adaptation of the word used for the temperate climate tree, the 'beech' > the mediterranean Grk.
phgcs 'oak'; while Lat. fagus 'beech', Germ. Buche, OHG buchha > Slav. buky, and the Bukcvina region retain the older
meaning; contrast Russ. bcz
u
'elder tree', Alban. bunge, Gr. phgcs > 'oak', and note that Kurd. bz 'elm' < wyg 'elm' is not
derived from the 'beech' word. The word for 'beech' is not found in S.Asia, though the tree itself was historically found much
further east during the Atlanticum than Thieme thought (1954: 16), that is further east than the famous 'beech line' (running
from Knigsberg to Odessa). Elst (1999: 130), while not mentioning the climatic factors, disposes of the beech argument
wholesale.
Autochthonous Aryans? (43)
and several of the available PIE suffixes. In other words, these cool climate, temperate trees and their names are
already PIE.
If the indigenous theory of an emigration out of India would apply, these tree names should have taken
cne or twc typical "Indian" PIE (dialect) forms and spread westwards, such as is the case with the two loans from
Chinese, chai or tea. The opposite is the case. The individual IE languages have the same PIE word, or they have
slightly innovated within the usual PIE parameters of ablaut and suffixes.
In short, whatever way one turns the evidence, all of the above points to some original IE tree names of
the temperate zone exported southwards. Some of them therefore exhibit a change in meaning; others are an
application of an old, temperate zone name to newly encountered plants, such as 'willow' > 'reed, cane'. Again,
this change in meaning indicates the path of the migration, from the temperate zone intc India.
If we carry out the countercheck, and search for Indian plant names in the west, such as lotus, bamboo,
Indian trees (avattha,bilva,jambu, etc.), we come up with nothing. Such names are not to be found, also not in a
new meaning, such as in a hypothetical case: *'fig tree' > *'large tree with hanging twigs', *'willow'.
121
The lack is
significant as the opposite case, import into S. Asia, is indeed found. Again, this points to an intrcducticn of the IA
language into India, not an export 'OutcfIndia'.
The same kind of scenario is found with the typical PIE animals that belong to a temperate climate.
While some of them such as the wolf or bear occur in South Asia as well, albeit in slightly different species (such
as the S. Asian black bear), others are found, just as some of the tree names, only in new, adapted meanings. For
example, the beaver is not found inside S. Asia. It occurs, however, even now in Central Asia, its bones have been
found in areas as far south as N. Syria and in mummified form in Egypt, and it is attested in the Avesta (bari <
babhri < IE bhebhr-) when speaking of the dress ('made up of 30 beaver skins') of the Iranian counterpart of the
river Goddess Sarasvat, Arduu Sr Anhit: Yt 5.129 "the female beaver is most beautiful, as it is most furry:
the beaver is a water animal" (yaf asti bari srata yaa yaf asti gacn.tma, bari bauuaiti upap).
122
Avestan
bari- is related to the descriptive term, IE bhebhru "brown, beaver" which is widely attested: O.Engl. bebr,becfcr,
Lat. fiber, Lith. bbrus, Russ. bcbr,bebr-(Pokorny 1959: 136). The respective word in Vedic, babhru(-ka), however,
means 'brown, mongoose' (Nenninger 1993). While the mongoose is not a water animal, some Indian types of
mongooses vaguely look like a beaver, and clearly, the IE/IIr term for 'beaver' has been used, inside South Asia, to
designate the newly encountered animal, the mongoose. This occurs today in the subcontinent, but in Greater
Iran only in its southeastern-most corner, in Baluchistan. Interestingly, N.Pers. bebr < Phl. bawrak, Avest. bari
'beaver' is a cat-like, tail-less animal whose skins are used (Horn 1893: 42); the beaver, though previously
attested as far south as Syria and Egypt, is no(t longer) found in Iran; note also N.Pers. bibar 'mouse'.
The opposite direction of the spread of the word, 'out of India', is not likely as it is not Ved. babhru (or
Avest. bari)thatspread westwards (following S.S. Misra 1992) but their original (and traditional) IE source,
bhebhru. Such a hypothetical export would again have to suppose subsequent individual sound changes that
mysteriously result in the various attested IE forms that cannot occur if one starts from Ved. babhru. It is
unlikely, thus, that the original word,bhebhrusignified the mongoose.
123
Other S. Asian animal names are not
'exported' either. Occam's razor applies: all things being equal, it is easier to assume import into S.Asia, along
with the other animal names of the temperate zone.
The case of the salmon may be added and briefly discussed in this context. It has often been used to define
the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans, into the Fifties of the 20th century, by taking the present
distribution of the salmon for granted (rivers flowing into the Baltic, Polar Sea, Thieme 1951).
124
However,
121
The only exception from this evidence are certain later cultural loans, plants such as 'cotton' or 'mustard.'
122
Differently, Oettinger, Habilschrift 1985 (unpunbl.).
123
For Elst (1999: 130,132) this is not a problem as he lets the IE first settle in India and name the mongoose a 'brown one.'
Then, when emigrating westward, each IE language would mysteriously have transferred this designation individually to the
beaver, and always in the later, post-PIE form, as per individual subfamily or language in question. Occam applies.
Derivation of the 'beaver' words from Skt. babhru is of course linguistically impossible.
124
Bartholomae, Indcgermanische Icrschungen 9, 1888, 272, Eilers & Mayrhofer 1962, Henning 1963, Lane 1967, see
summary by Cowgill 1986: 68.
(44) Michael WITZEL
another type of salmon is also found in the rivers flowing into the Caspian Sea. The word in question is attested
in Osset. lsg 'salmon' (Salmc trutta caspius, perhaps a kind of trout), Russian lcscs
u
, Lith. laia, lais, Germ.
Iachs, Toch. B.laks'fish', Iran. raxa 'dark colored'> N.Pers. rax 'red-white',Ved. lak;a 'lacquer, red resin'.
Again, the direction from 'salmon' > 'fish', > 'red-colored/lacquer' is more likely than the opposite one,
(especially when we also include Thieme's suggestion that Ved. lak;a 'wager' (in the dicing game using 150 nuts)
is derived from 'salmon swarm', note also Class. Skt. lak;a '100,000', see (EWA II 472, 477, EWA III, 83, 96-97,
Pokorny 1959: 653).
All such evidence is not favorable for an emigration scenario. Rather, Occam's razor applies, again: PIE
has a number of temperate/cold climate plants and animals which never existed in South Asia but which can be
reconstructed for all/most of PIE; their names follow IE rules of word formation (root structure, suffixes etc.) and
exhibit the typical formational possibilities of IE (ablaut, exchange of various suffixes). A few of them that
designate flora and fauna actually occurring inside S. Asia have been retained in Vedic (wolf, birch, etc.), others
have gained new meanings suitable for the animals or plants of a tropical climate ('willow' > 'reed', 'beaver' >
'mongoose').
Interestingly, the autochthonous counter-argument
125
relating to trcpical plants and animals does not
work either. If we suppose a South Asian homeland of PIE, we should be able to indicate at least a few terms that
have been exported (north)westwards. This is not the case. Designations for typical Indian plants and animals
that should be found in Indo-European and especially in Iranian, do not even appear in Iran, not to speak of C.
Asia or Europe. Words such as those for animals, plants, and trees just do not make it westwards.
126
Nor do we
find retained names for newly encountered plants/animals, although at least some of them are actually still
fcund in Iran: the lion (see Old Pers. sculptures at Behistun, Iran. er (Horn 1893: 178); the tiger, Iran. bebr
(Horn 1983: 42) that is still found in the Elburz and Kopeh Dagh and as late as the Seventies around the Aral
Lake; the lotus (again seen on Behistun sculptures), etc. Other words that have occasionally been used for the
autochthonous argument, such as kapi 'monkey', simha 'lion' or ibha 'elephant' are rather dubious cases.
127
Ved. ibha (RV) does not even seem to indicate 'elephant' but 'household of a chief' (details in EWA I 194);
i-bha'elephant' is attested only in Epic/Class. Skt. (EWA III 28), and the combination with Grk. ele-pha(nt-), Lat.
ebur,Gothic ulbandus'camel' suffers from lack of proper sound correspondences. The word for monkey, Ved. kapi,
is represented in Europe by another form which is not directly related by regular sound correspondences either:
Grk. kbcs, kpcs, (cf. also Hebr. qf, Akkad. uqpu, iqpu, aqpu, Coptic sapi, O. Egypt.gfj) :: Germanic apan-,
aban > Engl. ape with an unexplained loss of initial k-. The change in initial consonant is typical for
transmissions of lcan wcrds from an unknown source, and cannot be used as proof of an original PIE word
kap/kap.
128
Similar relationships are seen in the word for 'apple': Celt. *abal-, O.Ir. ubul, Crimean Gothic apel,
125
Elst (1999: 129 sqq.), simply denies the possibility of IE linguistic palaeontology and quotes an outspoken, always skeptic
S. Zimmer (1990) as his crown witness. It is precipitous to dismiss carefully applied linguistic paleontology completely
(which according to Zimmer is "approaching its inevitable end -- with a negative result, of course"); cf. n. 81.
126
Excluded are, of course, the real exports from India such as rice, cotton, beryl, etc., see Witzel 1999a,b.
127
They have been employed, by Ivanov-Gramkrelidze (1984, I 443), with a completely different result, as proof that the IE
homeland was in Anatolia/Armenia. However, the irregular correspondences seen in kapi : Engl.ape; i-bha.ele-phant-,orls.
lecn, etc. are typical for loan words, not for original, inherited PIE vocabulary. Cf. Elst 1999: 131 sq., who even uses words
such as prdaku 'panther' which clearly are loans (Witzel 1999 a,b). The attested use of prdaku for 'panther' and 'snake' as
indicating closeness to the original designation is not only linguistically impossible (loanwords!) but also cognitively light-
weight: animals similar in appearance (spots!) are named by the same word. Classical Sanskrit is full of them. The argument
that some animal names in Skt. still are etymologically transparent can also be made for those of the "Druhyu emigrants", the
Engl. bear, Dutchbruin, etc. -- Even matsya 'fish' is derived by Elst from mad 'wet' (EWA II 298 "hardly likely"), in spite of
Avestan massia, Pers. mah < IIr *matya; it belongs, according to Mayrhofer EWA II, 1986: 298, not to a word for 'wet', but to
*mad(a)s 'food'. All of this demonstrates Elst's lack of linguistic sophistication. Just as (other parts of) his books, even such
seemingly straightforward sections have to be checked and re-checked.
128
Elst (1999: 131), taking his cue from Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1984 (= 1995), takes these shaky etymologies for granted
and concludes that IE came from a tropical area. He adds (199: 131-2) a few very unlikely comparisons on his own: Latin
Autochthonous Aryans? (45)
OHG apful, O.Norse apal-dr, Lith. cbuclas, etc., O.Ch.Slav. abl
u
kc, including Basque, Caucasus and Bur.
relations (Berger 1959).
Finally, it must be considered that, generally, the IE plants and animals are those of the temperate
climate and include the otter, beaver, wolf, bear, lynx, elk, red deer, hare, hedgehog, mouse; birch, willow, elm, ash,
oak, (by and large, also the beech
129
); juniper, poplar, apple, maple, alder, hazel, nut, linden, hornbeam, and
cherry (Mallory 1989: 114-116). Some of them are found in South Asia, and their designations have been used
for the local form of the animal or plant (such bear rk;a, wolf vrka, otter udra, birch bhrja, etc.) But most of them
are nct found in India and their designations have either been adapted (as is the case with the beaver > mongoose
babhru), or they have simply nct been used any longer.
According to the autochthonous theory, these non-Indian plant and animal names would have to be
new words that were coined only when the various IE tribes had already emigrated out of India. However, all of
them are proper IE names, with IE roots and suffixes and with proper IE word formation. It would require extra-
ordinary special pleading to assume that they all were created independently by the emigrant IE tribes, at different
times, on different paths, but always from the same IE roots and (often) with the same suffixes: how could these
'emigrants' know or remember exactly which roots/suffixes to choose on encountering a new plant or animal?
Rather, as usual by now with all such arguments, Occam's razor applies, and the opposite assumption carries: IE
words of the flora and fauna of the temperate zone were adapted to a tropical climate wherever possible. We see
immigration into, instead of emigration 'out of India'.
In the sequel, some of the individual linguistic proposals of the 'Out of India' theory, and the and
sometimes rather technical arguments that speak for and against it will be discussed.
13. Absence of Indian influences in Indo-Iranian
When compared to Eastern IE or to the rest of IE, Avestan and Old Persian share many innovations
with Vedic, which was the initial reason to set up this group of languages as a separate branch of IE, IIr. Just as
in biology (taxonomy, the human pedigree, genetics, etc.) or in manuscript study (setting up of a stemma), the
occurrence of common innovations always indicates that the innovative group has split off from the core group,
and obviously is to be dated later than the core.
For example, Vedic ah-am ''I''= Avestan az-m, az-om O.Pers. ad-am have added the additional
morpheme IIr. -am (as in ay-am, iy-am); it was transferred to the rest of the pronouns: tvam, vayam, yyam as
well. This feature is not found in other IE languages: Lat., Greek eg, Gothicik (Engl. I), O.Slavic az
u
, jaz
u
; it
clearly separates IIr. from the other E. and W. IE languages.
While Iranian, at first sight, seems to be more innovative than OIA in its phonology (s>h,kh>x;p,t,k
-consonant >f,,x-cons., etc.), it frequently is also more archaic than Vedic. It lacks the many innovations
that characterize Vedic, for example the absolutives in -tva, -ya, ntr. pl. in -ani, the perf. jaga-u, or the
normalization in g- of the present stems beginning in j/g-. IE g
w
m-sk'e-ti > IIr. *ja-ca-ti > Avest. jasa
i
ti :: Vedic
gacchati. (Note that j is retained only in traditional names such as }amad-agni and in the perfect, ja-gam-a, etc.)
Importantly, Iranian it misses the generalization of the already gvedic e-perfects, derived from IIr. *sazdai
(Avest. hazde) > Vedic sede with many analogical formations such as mene. Since sound changes are not random
and develop in linear fashion, these innovations must have occurred well after Vedic had separated from late
IIr./pre-Iranian, thus : IE --> E. IE -> IIr --> Vedic, or Iranian.
The advocates of the autochthonous theory, however, would have the Vedic innovations occur in the
Panjab only after the Iranian speakers had left the subcontinent, while retaining some very archaic features.
(Talageri 2000, against all linguistic evidence, even denies close relationship of both groups). Some other in-
lec(n) from Skt. rav 'ho howl', mayra 'peacock' from ma to bleat, gaja 'elephant from garj 'to trumpet'; prdaku (cf. Witzel
1999) which designates both panther and panther snake (note, Lubotsky 1999, lecture at the 2nd Ved. workshop at Kyoto)
as referring to primcrdial formations in IE -- as if animal designations were not easily transferred!
129
See summary by Cowgill 1986:86 sq.
(46) Michael WITZEL
novations found both in India and Iran would have occurred earlier than that while both groups still lived in the
Panjab; still others (found in E. IE, such as in Slavic) would have occurred at a still earlier, third level, again in
the Panjab, while languages of the fourth level (including Greek, Latin, Germanic, etc.) would have left the
subcontinent even before this.
While all of this is possible in a purely thecretical scenario, there are a number of arguments that render
it impossible. Some of them have been listed by Hock (1999, see above). Others include such items as the
temperate, non-tropical core vocabulary of IE, early IE loans from Semitic somewhere in the Near East (**wVjn-,
IE wcin- 'wine', cf. J. Nichols 1997: 143), or on a more typological level, the intermediate position of IE between
the Uralic and Kartvelian (W. Caucasian) language families (Nichols 1997, 1998). As far as the Satem language
IIr is concerned, one can add the early close links of IIr (and, later, early Iranian) with Uralic in S. Russia and in
the Ural and W. Siberian regions, and the new terminology coined for the horse-drawn chariot (ratha/raa), first
introduced in the S. Russia/Ural area. This list, which could be extended, clearly points to the areas north of the
Near East, and strongly militates against the assumption of an Indian homeland of OIA, IIr, and, worse, of IE
(see below).
How can the autochthonous theory then deal with archaisms found in Iranian that are nct found in
Vedic? Such archaisms ought to have been preserved in Vedic; they must have been forgotten (just like the tree
names mentioned above) all over the subcontinent when the Iranians suppcsedly left it. Such collective amnesia,
and in addition, one restricted just to certain archaic items does not make for a good case. It is, again, one of very
special pleading.
It should also be mentioned in passing, that if the Iranians emigrated from India, why we do not find
''Indian bones'' of this massive emigration in Iran and beyond? Indian skeletons are, as Kennedy informs us
(1995), remarkably different from Near Eastern ones.
130
Again, indigenists would have to argue that only that
section of the Panjab population left westwards which had basically 'non-Indian' physical characteristics, very
special pleading indeed. To adopt an OIT stance precisely mirroring the Indo-Aryan immigration theory based
on 'trickling in' is not possible as this 'trickling out' would comprise all subfamilies of IE, from Tocharian to
Celtic, and would constitute a much more massive emigration.
The IE theory can explain the materials found in the various languages much more satisfactorily: the
Iranian languages simply miss the Indianizaticn of IE, just as the very conservative Old Icelandic or Lithuanian
escaped the 'Christianization' and 'Europeanization' for a long time.
14. Date of Indo-Aryan innovations
As has been mentioned, the linguistic innovations of Vedic Sanskrit are supposed by autochthonists to
have taken place only after the Iranians (and other Indo-Europeans) had left the subcontinent (Elst 1999:
122,124 sqq). It is difficult to argue against this kind of assumption on general linguistic grounds as language
changes cannot easily be tied to certain areas, unless there is evidence from inscriptions and clearly localizable
texts. However, the distribution of IE dialect features mentioned above (Hock 1999) makes IE innovations after
an Iranian/IE exodus from India unlikely;
131
for, even though the old Satem innovations include Vedic, they
exclude Latin, Greek, Tocharian, etc.
130
Small, transient and migrating bands and groups such as the Indo-Aryans or even the larger ones such as the Huns are
not easily traced; and, will we ever will find archaeological traces of the well attested emigration of a small group such as
that of the Gypsies? -- Linguistics (see above, n.23) and genetics, however, clinch the case: the Bulgarian Gypsies, for
example, have the typical Indian mtDNA (M type) and Y chromosomes but are only to some 30% Indian; for the rest they
have acquired European genes. This is the exact reversal of the general Indian situation, with some 25% of W./C. Asian genes
(7). -- Autochthonists will have a hard time to explain how these Indian emigrants 'selected' their genes on emigration
from India, and 'export' only the 30% proper Indian ones... In short, the same impossible scenario as in the assumed earlier
'export' of Indian linguistic features westwards by the IE = "Druhyu" emigrants (see above, 12.2 ).
131
Elst had not seen this paper by the time he wrote his 1999 book; he supplies a lot of completely unsubstantiated
speculation instead, of how the Indo-Europeans could have left the subcontinent to settle in Central Asia and Europe, (see
1999: 126 sq.).
Autochthonous Aryans? (47)
Further, a good indicator is found in IE plant and animal names (''willow'', etc.) and especially in the
word for the horse drawn chariot, Sanskrit ratha, O.Iran. raa. This word is attested in the oldest IIr texts, in the
RV and in the Avesta, also with the secondary formation Ved. rathin-, O.Av. ra 'the one who has a chariot,
charioteer'. Even more tellingly, it appears in the inherited, archaic compound, with a locative case ending in its
first member, RV rathe-;tha, Avest. raa-ta- 'charioteer' (cf. also savye;tha 'warrior').
As the autochthonous theory would have the RV at c. 5000 or, according to some, before the start of the
Indus civilization at 2600 BCE, the Iranians or other Indo-Europeans should have expcrted the chariot from S.
Asia at that time. But the chariot is first found in a rather archaic form ('proto-chariot'), betraying its origin in a
ox-drawn wagon (anas, weg'h-c- > wagcn, veh-icle), at c. 2000 BCE, in Russia and at Sintashta, W. and E. of the
Urals. As its invention is comparatively late, the western IE languages retain, not surprisingly, the older
meaning of the IE word, *rcth
2
c-''wheel'' (Lat. rcta, Germ. Rad 'wheel'); they simply have moved away, before this
development took place, from the original central IE region (such as the Ukraine) westwards into Europe.
132
The indigenist counter-argument could maintain that the newly introduced chariot spread quickly from
the Near East or Central Asia all over the Iranian and Indian world, with its IIr name, *ratha. It would thus
belong only to a secondary historical level (after that of the earlier "Panjab Indo-Europeans"). This argument,
however, would run into a number of difficulties: for, strangely, the word in its new meaning of 'chariot' never
reached the neighboring Proto-Slavic tribes, nor the other European 'emigrants' (Grk. has harma/harmatcs,
Latin currus, curriculum, rcta) on the western side of Eurasia while it is known to the close neighbors, the
(Northern) Iranians. Worse, the word and the object are found already in the RV (suppcsedly a text of pre-Indus
age, 2600 or c. 5000 BCE!), well befcre its invention.
133
In short, multiple insurmountable contradictions
emerge.
The word cakra 'wheel' may be a much older adaptation from Sumerian gil-gul 'wheel' and
GI
gtgir
'wagon,' to IE k
w
e-k
w
l-c- > IIr. cakra (or, it is derived from a common origin, Littauer and Crouwel 1996).
However, the newly specialized meaning ratha ''chariot'' is restricted to IIr.; its archaeological attestation puts
PIIr, again, close to the Urals. -- On the other hand, there are common PIE words for the cart or four-wheeled
wagon (anas) and its constituent parts, such as and ak;a 'axle', ara 'spoke, pin', nabhya 'nave', yuga 'yoke', rami,
raana 'reins', etc.; for details see EWA, s.v. They are much older, PIE, as they refer to the more primitive
technology of solid wheel wagons and carts that was developed in Mesopotamian in the late 4th millennium.
In sum, if according to the autochthonous theory, the Iranians had emigrated westwards well before the
RV (2600/5000 BCE), how could both the Indians (in the Panjab) and Iranians (from the Ukraine to Xinjiang)
have a common word for the horse drawn chariot as well as a rather ancient word for the charioteer? Both words
must have been present at the time of the Indo-Iranian parent language. As the linguistic evidence shows, the
technical innovation was already Indo-Iranian (note Proto-IIr. *th that regularly developed to > Ir. , asin
OIran. raa), and it must have happened at the place of its invention, in the plains near the IIr. River Rasa
(Volga), certainly not in the Panjab.
Consequently, the occurrence of ratha/raa in IIr. at c. 2000 BCE shows that its impcrt was carried out,
along with many other IIr. items of culture and religion, from the S. Russian/Central Asian steppes intc the
subcontinent, and not vice versa. This is cne cf the few clear cases where we can align linguistic inncvaticn with
inncvaticn in material culture, pcetics and myth, and even with archaeclcgical and histcrical
134
attestaticn.
Therefore, we have to take it very seriously. Anyone of the various revisionist or autochthonous dating schemes
132
Change of meaning ''wheel(s)'' > ''chariot'' (parsprctctc) is a common occurrence in linguistic experience.
133
There have been efforts, always on the internet, to push back the dates of chariots and spoked wheels (also implied by
Talageri's 2000 years of composition for the RV, see Witzel 2001), to dilute the difference between chariots and carts/ four-
wheeled wagons, to find horses all over India well before the accepted date of c. 1700 BCE; there even has been the truly
asinine proposition to change the meaning of Skt. ava 'horse' (Equus caballus )and to include under this word the
ass/donkey (gardabha, rasabha, khara, etc., Equus asinus ) and the half-ass (Equus hemicnus khur). Here as elsewhere, it is
useless to enter a discussion, as such views are based, all too often, on lack of expertise in the very subjects such sites proffer
to discuss. On the internet, everyone is his/her own 'expert'.
134
See now however, M.A. Littauer and J.H. Crouwel 1996 for a Near Eastern origin.
(48) Michael WITZEL
that circumvent this innovation in technology and language dealing with the horse drawn, spoke-wheeled
chariot at c. 2000 BCE is doomed to failure.
Other (theoretically) possible scenarios such as an import, along with that of the horse (see below), from
some (N.) Iranians near the Urals into the area of the Indo-Aryans who had suppcsedly remained stationary in
the Panjab, run counter to the archaic formation of the words concerned (rathe;tha, savye;tha) and the clearly
secondary, inherited form in Iranian (raa-), and would amount, again, to very special pleading.
Likewise, the many linguistic archaisms in Old Iranian cannot readily be explained by a supposed
Iranian emigration from India. The Old Avestan of Zarautra frequently is more archaic than the RV and
therefore too archaic to have moved out of India after the composition of the RV (suppcsedly, before 2600/5000
BCE). For example, the Avestan combination within a sentence of neuter plural nouns with the singular of the
verb is hardly retained even in the other older IE languages. Conversely, something not found in Iranian, i.e. the
gvedic perfect forms jabharacrmene, are a local IA inncvaticn. All of this points to separation of Proto-Iran. and
Proto-OIA at some time befcre the RV. Also, it cannot have happened inside S. Asia as the Avesta lacks all those
typically S. Asian words that are local loans into Vedic (16; Witzel 1999a,b). Incidentally, the lack of S. Asian
substrate words in Iranian (cf. Bryant 1999) also explains why the archaic Iranian traits cannot have been
preserved in the Panjab, side by side with the RV, before the suppcsed Iranian move westwards.
135
One can only conclude that Proto-Iranian (> Avestan, O.Persian) split off from IIr and thus, from pre-
Old IA. (> Vedic, Mitanni IA, etc.) at an early date, and definitely so while spoken cutside the Panjab. Because of
the early split, Old Iranian preserved some archaic features, while also developing innovations on its own (Iran.
x < IIr kh, h < s,etc.). In sum, Proto-Iranian never was spoken in the Panjab.
Or, to give another example, according to the autochthonous theory, Proto-Ir. would have to had to leave
the Panjab before the Vedic dialects of the RV took over (or developed) the so-called retroflex (mrdhanya)
consonants.
15. Absence of retroflexes in Iranian
While the feature of retroflexion (t,th,d,dh,;,n) is sporadically found also in some other parts of the
world (Hock 1986), such as in Scandinavia or Australia (innovative in both cases), it is typical for S. Asia when
compared to its neighboring regions, that is Iran, West/Central Asia, the Himalayas, S.E. Asia.
136
In the autochthonous scenarios discussed above, the hypothetical emigrants from India would have lost
the S. Asian ''bending back of their tongues'' as soon as they crossed the Khyber or Bolan Passes: not even Old
Iranian (East Iran. Avestan) has these sounds.
137
But, conversely, the Baluchi, who originally were a W.
Iranian tribe, have acquired retroflexion -- just in scme of their dialects -- only after their arrival on the borders
on the subcontinent, early in the second millennium CE (Hoffmann 1941, cf. Hock 1996, Hamp 1996). The same
happened to other late, incoming groups such as Parachi, Ormuri (from W. Iran) that are found in E.
Afghanistan, and also to some local Iranian Pamir languages such as Wakhi. Clearly, retroflexion affects those
mcving intc the E. Iranian borderland/Indus plain. Importantly, the most widespread appearance of retroflexes is
among the cluster of Hindukush/Pamir languages, that is the languages surrounding these mountains in the
east (Nuristani/Kafiri, Burushaski, Dardic and the rest of these northernmost IA languages) as well as in the
north (some of the Iranian Pamir languages: Wakhi, Yigdha, Sanglechi, Ishkashmi, Khotanese Saka), as
detailed by Tikkanen (in Parpola 1994: 166). Retroflexes may also have belonged to a part of the Central Asian/
Afghanistan substrate of the RV (Witzel 1999a,b). Retroflexion clearly is a northwestern regional feature that
still is strongest and most varied in this area.
135
Any other scenario would amount to very special pleading, again: One can hardly maintain that the Vedic 'Panjabis'
received these local loans only after the Iranians had left.
136
The map in Parpola 1994 includes Tibetan, but this development is late, and typical for the Lhasa dialect. However,
Khotanese Saka, just north of the Pamirs, has retroflexes.
137
This has indeed happened to the Gypsies: in Turkey, N. Africa, Europe.
Autochthonous Aryans? (49)
Had retroflexion indeed been present in the pre-Iranian or the Proto-Iranian coeval with the (g)Vedic
period, its effects should be visible in Old Iranian, at least in Avestan
138
which was spoken in East Iran, that
means in part on the territory of modern Pashto (which has retroflexes indeed).
Cases such as IIrwaj'h-tar> Av. vatar, but > Ved. vcdhar- are clear enough and present perhaps the
best testimony for the several stages of conditioned reflexes in the development from IE to Vedic: a change from
Ved. vcdhar- --> Avestan vatar- is plainly impossible in any version of phonetics, as also vcdhar- --> IE
*wek'h-tcr- (as in Latin vec-tcr). missing consonants as in vc-dhar- do not suddenly (re-)emerge out of the blue
in other languages, and nota bene: nct as a phonetically changed -- in Iranian, as -k- in Latin,or as -k- in
Gaulish Vectur-ius, or as-g-as in Engl. wagcn; rather, with the IE theory, they all stem from < IE weg'h-tcr-
(neglected by Misra 1992).
The case of vcdhar- is pre-conditioned by the development of IE k',g' > IIr c',j', which changed to Proto-
Iran. and Pre-Vedic , , then to early Vedic retroflex ;, .., which cnly then could influence the following
consonant (of the -tar suffix), as to deliver the retroflex 'suffix' -dhar-. At this stage, the same retrograde Sandhi
as seen in budh-ta > buddha took place (.h.-da > ..dha), and cnly then, the voiced sibilant .. disappeared,
normally (as in lih: li..dha > ldha) with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel; but, in the particular
environment of vcdhar (a..>c, just as az>e) represented by c + retroflex consonant (-tar suffix), in short:
IE *weg'
h
-ter > IIr * vaj'
h
tar- > pre-Ved. *va..har-
139
> Ved. vohar-
> pre-Iran. *vatar- > Avest. vatar-
In sum, the well-known rules of IE sound changes explain the development from the root vah (IE *weg'h)
without problem, while an OIT theory would have great difficulty to get from vcdhar- to any Avestan, Latin,
English, etc., forms.
Again, it is important to stress that retroflexes have not occurred in (Old) Iranian, which has kept the
older sound sequences. In addition, these changes allow a relative and even an absolute dating: *adh > cdh is
parallel to sazd->sed, i.e. both are post-Indo-Iranian and even post-Mitanni; as pointed out above, Mitanni OIA
keeps the sequence azd. In other words, gvedic is younger than the Mitanni words preserved at c. 1450-1350 BCE.
At any rate, RV -ed- is definitely younger than the Mitanni forms because the IIr form sazdai > Ved. sede (3 sg.
perf., cf. Avestan hazde) 'he has sat' has already spawned a number of analogical formations in the RV which are
nct conditioned by -azd-. These are found even in the older sections of the RV: yam>yem.yemuh 4.2.14, pac>
pec.pece 4.18.13 etc.
140
In all the cases detailed above, the retroflex is a late, i.e. a Vedic inncvaticn that is not shared by Iranian
and the other IE languages. In short, the innovation is rather lcw dcwn on the 'family pedigree', in cladistics. Any
biologist would classify a similar development in biological materials as a clear indicator of a late development,
as an inncvaticn, -- in case, one that separates IA from the rest of IIr and IE. In other words, Vedic Sanskrit does
nct represent the oldest form of IE as autochthonists often claim.
The adherents of the autochthonous theory would again have to take recourse to special pleading,
arguing that retroflexion occurred only after the Iranians had suppcsedly left (i.e., well before the RV, at 4-5000 or
2600 BCE), or while they were living in some area of the Panjab untouched by this phenomenon. This individual
argument is, again, not a pricri impossible. But, it is not admissible on other grounds, such as the occurrence of
local loan words in Vedic. These have been taken from the Panjab substrate (Witzel 1999a,b) that has
138
Interestingly, the c. 1000 year old Indian Parsi pronunciation and recitation in Zoroastrian ritual(!) of Avestan, while
clearly Indianizing, as in xara > [k;atra], has not yet developed retroflexes.
139
Note that this stage, minus the Indian retroflexion, is still preserved in Mitanni IA vash-ana- [vh-ana].
140
Other examples for the ccnditicned OIA development of retroflexes examples include : k'>c'>, andg'>j'>j as seen
in: IEwik'-s>IIr wic'-> Av.v/> Ved. vit 'people, settlement', but> Latinvc-u-s,Germanicvik- (as in Viking), etc.;
IEreg'-s> IIrraj'>rat,> Lat.rx,Celtic-rix,Germanic-rik,etc.;cf. alsoAvest.xuua: Ved. ;a;,Lat.sex, Germanicsehs,
Grk. heks-etc.
(50) Michael WITZEL
unconditioned retroflexes (such as in vana, vna, etc.), and these substrate words are, again, missing in
Iranian.
141
Retroflexion in Vedic must have been a regional feature, acquired, just as it was by the Pashtos and the
more recently arrived the W. Iranian Baluchis, at the time of immigration.
In sum, retroflexion affects all those moving into the E. Iranian borderland, the Indus plain and the
subcontinent. but this does not work vice versa: those who move out of India, sooner or later, loose it. However, if
this would be taken as proof of OIT, it does not work at all: this particular development does nct help to explain
words such as Ved. vcdhar- which cannot turn into Iran. vatar-, Latinvectcr,etc.
142
The same conclusion can
be reached when studying local Panjab loanwords in the RV.
16. Absence of 'Indian' words in Iranian
As has been underlined several times, the hypcthetical emigrants from the subcontinent would have
taken with them a host of ''Indian'' words -- as the Gypsies (Roma, Sinti) indeed have done. But, we do not find
any typical Old Indian words beyond S. Asia, neither in the closely related in Old Iranian, nor in E. or W. IE,
except for the usual words of culture (\anderwcrter) such as some recent imports into English (crange, tea/chai,
or curry, punch, veranda, bungalcw), or the older ones of the type rice, beryl, hemp, etc.
143
One would expect
'emigrant' Indian words such as those for lion (simha), tiger (vyaghraAV+,prdakuAV+,ardlaMS-, pundarka
lex.),
144
elephant (gaja Manu+ ibha RV?, kujara Mbh.+), leopard (dvpin AV+,Ep., citra-ka, etc.lex.), lotus
(padma, kamala, pundarka), bamboo (venu), or some local Indian trees (avattha, am, bilva, jambu), even if
some of them would have been preserved, not for the original item, but for a similar one (e.g. English [red]
squirrel > N. American [gray] squirrel). Instead of Indian words we find, e.g., for simha 'lion' new formations :
Iran. er, Grk. ls, Lat. le(n) (cf. Witzel 1999a,b), and similarly, Gr./Latin ones for 'tiger', 'lotus'. Many of them
come from a Mediterranean/Near Eastern substrate, but not as expected in any OIT scenario, from the S. Asian
one visible in Vedic.
In sum, no typical Indian designation for plants or animals made it beyond the Khyber/Bolan passes.
The only clear exception would be the birch tree, whose IE name bhrg'hc- is found all the way from India
145
to
Europe: Ved. bhrjaKS+, Ir. Pamir dial. furz, Shugni vawzn<barzn; Osset. brs(); Lith. beras, Serbo-Croat.
breza; German Birke, Engl. birch, etc. (cf. 12.6, n.113). The other 'European' trees that are found in the northwest
of the subcontinent, and beyond up to Russia/Urals, are absent from Sanskrit vocabulary.
146
141
To justify this, the autochthonous theory must further assume that the people of the substrate moved into the IA /IE
Panjab only after the Iranians and IE had left. A string of secondary assumptions. Occam's razor applies.
142
The Gypsies eventually lost the retroflexes (but when?).
143
See Witzel 1999a,b for details: karpasa cotton, etc.
144
Note that the tiger, N.Pers. bebr, is found in the N. Iranian mountains from the Elburz to the Kopeh Dagh even today,
and the last specimen in the Aral Lake area is reported to have been shot in the Seventies.
145
The reason for its survival in South Asia (Panjabi bhcj, etc.) may have been the economical and common ritual use of
birch bark, e.g. for amulets.
146
Perhaps with the exception of the willow (Lat. vitex, etc., see above, n.118)which itis found, along with the poplar, in
the riverine forests all over the steppe (Schrader 1890: 440, 275). It is attested in E. Iran where it growsprominently: Avest.
vati,Pashtovala<vaitiya; but it is not found in Vedic/Skt., unless it is retained in veta-sa ''reed, ratan, Calamus'', with the
expected change in meaning "willow > reed". The poplar and the beech (Lat. fagus etc.) are not attested in Skt.: both trees are
not found in S. Asia during the pre-Indus period, even though the beech was then found much further east (N. Caucasus,
etc.) than the famous "beech line" (Knigsberg/Kaliningrad-Odessa). On the other hand, the oak, though found in various
forms in Afghanistan, is nct attested in Skt., perhaps with the exception of the inherited name of the weather god, Parjanya,
who is often linked with the oak in various IE mythologies, see EWA s.v.; for example, Lithuanian Perkunas , O.Slavic Perun
u,
Lat. querquus, etc., see Pokorny, p. 822; for Class. Skt. parkat 'ficus inferiora' see EWA II 192 ~ Ved. plak;a.
Autochthonous Aryans? (51)
This situation has been well explained by the assumption of IE linguists that these
European/Caucasus/Ural tree names were remembered (sometimes, in the Central Asian steppes and deserts,
only in old sayings or in poetry?) down to the very doorsteps of South Asia in Afghanistan, or were applied to
similar items, but were utterly forgotten in the tropical S. Asia as there were no similar trees to which these IE
names could be applied. One apparent exception, vetasa, can easily be explained by a transfer of meaning, from
the very pliable (Afghan) 'willow' twigs to the equally pliable 'reed, cane' (see above).
147
The autochthonous theory again must introduce the improbable auxiliary assumption that all such
wcrds have been forgotten inside the subcontinent after, or even as soon as, the Iranians (and other Indo-
Europeans) suppcsedly had crossed the Suleiman Range and the Khyber/Bolan passes into Afghanistan and Iran.
However, many if not most S. Asian plant and animal names have clear, non-IE local origins; in other
words, they are loan words from the local S. Asian languages
148
(e.g., RV mayra 'peacock', vrhi 'rice', etc.).
Others are new formations, built on the basis of IE words, e.g. 'elephant': hastin(- mrga)RV 1.64.7, 4.16.13 etc.,
'the (wild animal) with the hand, the elephant', used for words such as Late Ved. gaja,B 14.4.1.24 matanga, Epic
naga, RV(?) ibha.
149
Or 'tiger', vyaghra < 'who tears apart?' (KEWA III 274), 'who smells scents by opening [his
jaws]'(?) EWA II 593, for VS ardla, pundarka (lex.),(note also N.Pers.bebr). These new formations must have
been introduced when the immigrating speakers of Indo-Aryan (again, nct the Iranians!) were first faced with
them in the Greater Panjab. Indigenists (Talageri 2000, Elst 1999, etc.) denounce such cases as just one more of
the common substitutions based on poetic or descriptive formations, or as dialect designations which can happen
at any stage in the history of a language (e.g. Vulgar Latin caballus > French cheval, etc. for older equus). However,
such critics once again overlook the wider complex, the complete absence of criginal IE/IA words for S. Asian
plants/animals built with clear IE rccts and/or wcrd structure. The absence of IE/IA words for local plants and
animals clearly militates against any assumption that Pre-IA, Proto-IIr or PIE was the lccal language of the
Panjab or of Uttar Pradesh during (pre-)Harappan times.
This also agrees with the fact that most of the S. Asian loan words in the gveda, excluding some Central
Asian imports, are nct found in Iran and beyond.
150
These words include Kuiper's (1991) c. 380 'foreign words'
in the RV. Again, not all of them could have been lost as soon as thehypcthetical IE or Iranian emigrants crossed
over into Iran and beyond. One would at least expect a few of them in the 'emigrant' languages. Such Indian
words should have survived in the west and could have acquired a new meaning, such as British Engl. ccrn
'wheat' > 'maize' in America. The Gypsies, after all, have kept a large IA vocabulary alive, over the past 1500 years
or so, during their wanderings all over the Near East, North Africa and Europe (e.g., phral 'brother', pani 'water',
karal 'he does').
147
Friedrich (1970) has pointed out that most IE tree names are nor explainable by IE etymologies (except for the birch tree
< 'shining', cf. Bryant 1999). Following the autochthonous line, one could therefore assume that such (supposedly non-IE)
names have been borrowed/spread from India. However, IE tree names such as 'beech, oak', etc. have true IE word structure:
their roots follow the IE pattern (see above 10), and the suffixes employed are IE as well. In other words, these tree names
are IE. That there are isolated roots of tree names is not strange. After all, many basic words, such as 'eye' and 'hand',
(Pokorny 1959: 775, 447) are isolated in IE, i.e. these roots are not employed outside their narrow realm as (root) nouns
other than in clearly derived, secondary ways. Most other basic IE words are related to verbs and therefore have a much
wider application in word formation. Yet, no one has ever suggested that a words such as 'eye' is nct IE. In addition, many
tree names will go back to pre-IE times when their roots still might have had a clear onomastic meaning; these pre-IE words
subsequently were automatically changed to fit the IE root structure.
148
Indigenists decry the very ccncept of substrates, see Elst (1999), --much as they now begin to decry the various historical
levels established in genetics, based on the analysis of the male only Y chromosome-- as this would necessarily indicate that
Vedic had not been present in NW India since times immemorial.
149
Ved. ibha is of dubious meaning and etymology (Oldenberg 1909-12). At least 2 of the 4 cases in the RV do not refer to
'elephant' but rather to the 'retinue train' or the 'court' of a chieftain. The meaning 'elephant' is attested only in Class. Skt.
(Manu+), Pli, see EWA I 194; cf. nevertheless O.Egypt. ',abw, EWA III 28. -- Gamkrelizde and Ivanov link ibha with Latin
ele-phant -, etc. but this requires special, otherwise unattested phonetic correspondences such as ele-..i-, etc.
150
Some of them are of Central Asian origin, see Witzel 1999, Lubotsky forth.
(52) Michael WITZEL
No amount of special pleading will convince an independent (linguistic) observer of a scenario that
relies on the total loss of all typical S. Asian words in Iranian and all the other 'emigrant' Indo-European lan-
guages. Again, Occam's razor requires to scrap the theory of an 'Aryan' or, worse, an Indo-European emigration
from the Panjab to the West.
17. IE words in Indo-Iranian; IE Archaisms vs. Indian innovations
Conversely, and not unexpectedly by now, typical IIr. words indicating a temperate climate, and with IE
root and suffix structure, such as 'wolf' (vrka. Avest. vhrka; cf. Lith. vilkas, O.Slav. vl'k
u
, Alban. ulk, Grk. lukcs,
Lat. lupus, Gothic wulfs< *wlk
w
cs), 'snow/winter' (hima.Avest.zim/ziiam,Grk.xin'snow',-khimcs,Lat. hiems,
Gaul.Giamcn-,Armen.jiun'snow',etc.), 'birch tree' (bhrja, Pamir Dial. furz, Osset. brs(),etc. are found in E.
Europe, Greater Iran and on the northwestern borders of the subcontinent (Kashmir). However, neither snow
nor birch are typical for the Panjab or Indian plains. It is, again, thecretically possible that these words belonged
to the supposed original IE/IA vocabulary of the northwestern Himalayas and therefore could have been
transported westward by a hypcthetical IE westward emigration. But, this scenario is contradicted by the evidence
of the last section dealing with all the other IE 'cold climate' words that have not been preserved in India, not even
in the Northwest or in the Himalayas. Therefore, words such as those for 'wolf' and 'snow' rather indicate
linguistic memories of a colder climate than an export of words to Iran and Europe, such as that for the high
altitude Kashmirian birch tree.
More importantly, typical Indian grammatical and lexical inncvaticns are not found among the other
Indo-European languages. While some, stemming from the IIr period, are met with in Old Iranian (pronoun
ah-am'I',Avest.azm,Nom.Pl.avasa-as,Avest.aspqh,etc.), the typicalIndian innovations found already in the
RV (jabhara for jahara, sede/mene, absolutives, etc.) are not. The first type of innovation is attributed to the
common source language, i.e. Indo-Iranian rather than OIA influencing the neighboring Old Iranian.
151
It
would be against all rules of (IE and non-IE) comparative linguistics to assume that such late, (low-level, in
term of family tree or cladistics) developments should nct apply just in the single case of Indo-Aryan, and to
assume, instead, early innovation inside India (avas-as,ratha,babhru'mongoose',etc.) that would have selectively
been exported to Iran (of course, minus all typical Indian RV innovations!), innovations that would nct have been
carried out in the rest of the Indo-European languages: just too many auxiliary assumptions!
The autochthonous theory would, again, have to assume that all such Indian innovations would have
been carried out afterthespeakerscfIranian(and/crallctherIndc-Eurcpeanlanguages)hadleftthesubccntinent,
which is contradicted by absence of typical Indian words in other Indo-European languages and in Iranian, and
by the absence further west of Indo-Iranian innovations such as the chariot (*ratha). Occam's razor applies
again.
To go into some further detail, the many archaisms in Old Iranian cannot readily be explained by an
Iranian emigration from India: First of all when and where should this have happened? SW and Central
Southern Iran was occupied by the Elamians, the western parts were settled by W. Iranians only after c. 1000 BCE
(cf. Hintze 1998) and were settled by non-IE peoples before. About E. Iran/Afghanistan we have only stray
Mesopotamian, copious archaeological and a few isolated Vedic sources. They point to non-IE settlements as well:
in S. Iran, Elamian up to Bampur, Meluhhan east of it in Baluchistan/Sindh, and Arattan north of it in Sistan,
while the northern fringe was occupied by the Bactria-Margiana substratum that is visible in Indo-Iranian
(Witzel 1999a,b).
If the Iranians had moved out from the Panjab at an ''early date'', they would have missed, the suppcsed
'Panjab innovation' of the use of the (domesticated) horse (already Indo-European: Latin equus, etc.), and
especially the later one of the horse-drawn chariot (IIr. ratha). If, on the other hand, they had moved out a little
later, say, after the Mitanni Indo-Aryans, all of this would have come too late to account for the non-appearance
151
E.g., a comparison between the 1st pl. English (weare), German (wir sind), Dutch (wij zijn), shows that Engl. are must be
a late internal innovation due to analogy with the 2nd plural form, and the equivalent of 3rd pl. sind/zijn is alsc substituted
by are, while1st pl .sind/zijn itself comes from the 3rd plural:siesind/zijn.
Autochthonous Aryans? (53)
of Iranian tribes in the RV which has only some (pre-)Iranian looking names (Witzel 1999), camels (RV 8) and
some Afghani rivers (Gomat in the Suleiman Range, Sarayu in Herat, Sarasvat in Arachosia). We cannot make
the Iranians move from India to Iran, say, at 5000 or 2600 BCE, then to introduce the innovation of horse
pastoralism (not present in the subcontinent then!), and then let them take part, at c. 2000 BCE, in the innovation
of the alreadyIIr horse drawn chariot (*ratha, 12.6, 21).
In addition, Old Iranian in general is too archaic to have moved out of India after the composition of the
RV: while Old Avestan (of Zarautra) has, to be sure, many forms which correspond to gvedic ones, much of
his language is even more archaic: as has been mentioned, the retention of the use of neuter plural with singular
of the verb is something that has elsewhere been retained in Hittite; the old nom. pl. masc. in -as= Avest. -as-,-a-
is found in the RV next to the innovation devas-as; an archaism in the perfect stem which appears in the RV such
as babhr- (Avest. bar-)next to the new formation RV jabhr-; archaisms in names such as }amad-agni (= Avest.
jimaf) next to the innovative RV gamad, etc.
All of this points to a time of separation of IA and Iranian befcre the RV and thus, not inside India. The
hypothetical argument that these traits were preserved in the Panjab side by side with the RV does not hold, for
Iranian does not show any typical Indian elements (see above).
152
If the Iranians had indeed left the Panjab before the RV, serious chronological difficulties would arise,
whether we were to accept the autochthonous theory of the RV well before the Indus civ. (2600/5000 BCE) or
whether we accept the traditional Indologist's dating of the RV sometime in the 2nd mill. BCE. In all these cases,
Iranian is far too archaic to have been a clcseneighbor, in the Panjab, of the gvedic dialects. Further, it lacks any
indication of Indian influence on its grammar and vocabulary (see above).
One can only conclude that Old Iranian, including Avestan, split off from (Proto-)Old Indo-Aryan
(Vedic, etc.) at an early date, preserved some archaic features while developing innovations on its own (s>h, kh>
x,j'n>sn, etc.) and that it was never in early close contact with the Panjab and its substrate languages. Such close
contact would also have effected the one typical phonetical development that the Iranians actually 'escaped'
befcre the Vedic dialects of the RV adopted or developed it, the retroflex sounds (see above 15).
18. Absence of Indian influence in Mitanni-Indo-Aryan
The same scenario as discussed so far is indicated by the IA loan words in the Hurrite language of the
Mitanni realm in northern Iraq/Syria (c. 1460-1330 BCE). Again, if there was an (early) emigration out of India
by (Vedic) Indo-Aryans it would be surprising that even the Mitanni documents do not show typical Scuth Asian
influence.
153
Rather, is obvious that the remnants of early IA in Mitanni belong to a pre-gvedic stage of IA, as is seen
in the preservation of IIr -zdh- > Ved. -edh-, in Priyamazdha (Bi-ir-ia-ma-a-da
154
) : Ved. priyamedha : Avest.
-mazda.Thesetexts also still have IIr ai > Ved. e (aika : ekain aikavartana). Another early item is the retention of
IIr. j'h > Ved. h in vaana()aya 'of the race track' = [vahanasya]cf. Ved.vahana-(EWA II 536,Diakonoff 1971:
80,Hock 1999: 2); they also share the gvedic (and Avestan) preference for r (pinkara for pingala, parita for
palita). Importantly, Mitanni-IA has no trace of retroflexion.
How could all of this be possible if one supposes an emigration from India, in some cases (Misra 1992)
even after the supposed date of the RV (5000 BCE)? The RV is, after all, a text that already has all these features.
152
An auxiliary theory, e.g. of a strong local (Dravidian, etc.) influence on the RV cnly, as opposed to Iranian --while still in
India-- is implausible; the same applies to Drav. influence after the Iranians suppcsedly left: all of this would require an
altogether new theory, constructed out of the blue, of a push towards the northwest by Dravidian.
153
Brentjes' pointing to the peacock motive in Mitanni times art is a very weak argument (for detailed criticism, see
Schmidt 1980: 45 sq.) We know that even the Sumerians imported many items from India (Possehl 1996). Further, the
peacock motif is attested in Mesopotamia well before the Mitannis. For a list of Mitanni-IA words, cf. now E\A III,
Appendix.
154
Mayrhofer 1979: 47; in Palestine, cf. Priya-ava. bi-ir-ia-a-u-va.
(54) Michael WITZEL
The Mitanni loan words (Mayrhofer 1979, EWA III 569 sqq.) from Pre-Vedic OIA share the typical IIr
innovations, such as the new Asura gods Varua (EWA II 515 a-ru-na, u-ru-wa-na, not found in Iran) and
Mitra (Avest. Mira, Mitanni mi-it-ra), and Indra (Mit. in-da-ra/in-tar, Avest. Indra)
155
who is marginalized in
Iran, and the Nsatya (na-a-ti-ya-an-na = Avin, Avest. Nqhaiiia).
156
These innovations also include the
new the concept of Rta (Iran. Arta, in very late Avest. pronunciation = a;a), contained in names such as
Artasmara (ar-ta-a-u-ma-ra), Artadhman (ar-ta-ta-a-ma),
157
and perhaps also the newly introduced ritual
drink, sauma, IIr *sauma (Ved. scma, Avest. hacma, EWA II 749). The Mitanni sources show extensive use of the
domesticated horse (auua, cf. names for horse colors
158
), the chariot (ratta) and chariot racing (a-i-ka-, ti-e-
ra-, pa-an-za-, a-at-ta-, na-a-[w]a-wa-ar-ta-an-na [aika-, tri-, panca-, satta- (see n.160), nava-vartana],
turatta/tuierattaRVtve;aratha).
To see in these names a post-RV form of OIA, a Prakrit (Misra 1992, Elst 1999:183),
159
is therefore
misguided and based on insufficient knowledge of near Eastern languages. Misra's 'Prktic influences' in
Mitanni IA are due to the peculiarities of the cuneiform writing system and to the Mitanni form of the Hurrite
language. It has been asserted for long that satta in satta-vartana 'seven turns' has been influenced by Hurrite
inti 'seven' (J. Friedrich 1940, cf. Cowgill 1986: 23, Diakonoff 1971: 81; this is under discussion again,
160
but
clearly a Hurrite development); however, the words starting with b- such as bi- did not receive their b- from a
MIA pronunciation of vi,
161
as Misra maintains, but are due to the fact that Mitanni does not allow initial v-
(Diakonoff 1971: 30, 45). In sum, the Mitanni IA words are not Prakritic but (pre-)gvedic.
On the other hand, the Mitanni texts clearly indicate typical OIA (Vedic) linguistic innovation: aika-
vartana (a-i-ka-ua-ar-ta-an-na)
162
instead of Ir. aiva- or general IE *cinc- > aina-), and yet, the vocabulary
does not yet show signs of typical ScuthAsian influence: for example, there is no retroflexation in mani-nnu, Avest.
maini, Elam O.P. *bara-mani, and Latin mcnle. But retroflexation is precisely what is found once OIA enters
South Asia: RV mani 'jewel'.
163
Finally Mitanni IA has no typical South Asian loan words such as ani 'lynch
pin'.
155
Mayrhofer 1979: 53: in-tar-u-da, en-dar-u-ta (Palestine, 15th cent. BC); cf. Cowgill 1986: 23.
156
Via Mitanni, perhaps also Hitt. Agni (Akni, cf. Avest. datani), Mayrhofer 1979: 36, 51: a-ak-ni-i.
157
The lineage includes Bar-sa-ta-tar, Sauattar (Sa-u-ta-a-tar, sa-u-sa-ta (at)-tar), Artad(h)ama (Ar-ta-ta-a-ma),
Sattarna II, Artasmara (Ar-ta-a-u-ma-ra), Turatta (Tu-u-rat-ta, Tu-i-e-rat-ta, Tu-u-e-rat-ta. Tvai;aratha), KUR-ti-u-
az-za, Mayrhofer 1979: 54 sqq., cf. Cowgill 1986: 23.
158
Kikkuli bapru-nnu. Ved.babhru,binkara-nnu : Ved. pingala, baritta-nnu : Ved. palita, with gvedic -r- instead of later
-l-, Mayrhofer 1979: 32, 52-3, cf. Cowgill 1986: 23.
159
Elst sees here, of course, a confirmation of his belief that the RV is of hoary pre-Indus vintage. Thus, he can expect post-
gvedic Prkt forms in 1400 BCE. While some MIA forms may be sought in the RV, their status is constantly questioned
and further reduced. The latest form that has come under attack is jycti; < *dyaut-is, see C. aan de Wiel 2000.
160
"E. Laroche, in his Glcssaire de la langue hcurrite, lists the word ittanna from the Kikkuli text and comments: "... "sept",
d'aprs l'indo-arien atta-wartanna. - Forme de inti/a??" S.v. inti
2
he says: "Mais inti "sept" doit encore tre spar... de
itta." He also lists a word ittaa (long a) from two (Hittite?) Kizzuwadna texts." (pers. comm. by Bjarte Kaldhol, Nov. 5,
2000).
161
Incidentally, it would be eastern MIA, such as Mgadh (which, however, does not agree with the extreme Rhotacism of
Mitanni-IA but has l everywhere!), as western North India has retained v- , see Masica 1991: 99 sq.
162
Thus also Cowgill 1986: 23. Note that Ved. has eva'only'<aiva = O.Iran. aiva 'one', and that only MIr. has vak 'one',
but this is due to the commonplace MIr. suffix -ka; Next to the usual [tri-, paca-, sapta-, nava-vartana]; and racing terms
such as : ua-aan-na 'race track', also with genitive in: -na-i-ia!, and perhaps
L
a-a-u-u-a-n-ni, 'horse trainer',
Diakonoff 1971: 81, Mayrhofer 1979: 52;.

163
Mayrhofer 1979: 53; cf. RV mani , Av. ma
i
ni , Elam. O.P. bara-mani, Latin mcnle, etc.; cf. also Varua as Uruna, and
Ved. sthna, Av. stna/stuna, O.P. stna, Sakastuna.
Autochthonous Aryans? (55)
In sum, Mitanni-IA is older than the RV, cannot have come from the Panjab but must have been spoken
in the north-eastern border areas of Mesopotamia where it influenced the Hurrite language of the Mitanni that
belongs, just like its later relative Urartu, to the Caucasus group of languages.
Indeed, some of the rather indirect IA influx into the Near East may have been earlier than the one
visible in Mitanni. The Kassite conquerors of Mesopotamia (c. 1677-1152 BCE) have a sun god uriia,
164
perhaps also the Marut and maybe even Bhaga (Buga?), as well as the personal name Abirat(t)a (Abhiratha);
but otherwise, the vocabulary of their largely unknown language hardly shows any IA influence, not even in
their many designations for the horse and horse names
165
(Balkan 1954).
166
If one now thinks through the implications of the autochthonous theory again, the ancestors of the
Mitanni Indo-Aryans would have left India very early indeed (well before their favorite date of the RV, 2600/5000
BCE, and well before 1900 BCE, the suppcsed date of the Brhmaa texts, Kak 1994). They would have done so
with the gvedic dialect features (ai>e,zdh>edh) nct yet in place, and without any of the alleged MIA forms of
Misra (satta, etc.), but with the typical OIA and IIr terms for horses and chariot racing (befcre their invention
and introduction into South Asia)! They would have lingered somewhere in N.W. Iran to emerge around 1400
BCE as Hurrianized Mitanni-IA, with some remnant IA words and some terms of IA religion. But they would
have done so withcut any of the local South Asian innovations
167
(no retroflex in mani-,no-edh-,-h-,etc.) that
are already found in the RV, and also withcut any particularly Indian words (lion, tiger, peacock, lotus, lynch pin
ani) all of which would have been 'selectively' forgotten while only typical IA and IE words were remembered. In
short, a string of contradictions and improbabilities. Occam's razor applies again.
Similarly, the Parna (Gr. Parnci, Ved. Pani) and Dasa/Dsa ~ Avest. (Ai) Dahaka, ~Ved.dasaAhu, Lat.
Dahi, Grk. Daai, Avest.Dqha (:: Airiia, cf. Dahae :: Arii), would have escaped their Panjab IA enemies (RV Dasa,
Dasyu, Pai :: ari,Arya,rya) northwards in order to settle at the northern fringes of Iran well before the time of
the RV, e.g., as the Parna, still withcut retroflexion and accompanying loss of -r-. Unfortunately for the
autochthonous theory, these N. Ir. tribes occur already in the RV, significantly nct as real life but as mythical
enemies, and now with retroflexion. Significantly, all while the same authors who composed the RV hymns are
supposed by the indigenist and revisionist writers not to remember anything beyond the Panjab. Again, multiple
contradictions: Occam's razor applies.
***
Summary : Linguistics
In sum, all of the linguistic data and the multitude of possible autochthonous scenarios based on them
lead to the same kinds of culsdesac or Hclzwege.
164
Explained as sun god, "ama", Mayrhofer 1979: 32; cf. also thewar god Marutta Marut-, and king Abiratta
Abhiratha, for details seeBalkan 1954: 8.
165
Note, however, timira = Ved. timira- 'dark', cf. Balkan 1954: 29, also 1954: 27 laggatakka = lakta?
166
Some early IA immigrants that according to Harmatta (1992: 374) seem to be recorded in a tablet of the Dynasty of
Agade, at the end of the third millennium BCE, c. 2300-2100 BCE: A-ri-si(<sa')-en = Arisaina and Sa-um-si( <sa')-en =
Saumasena, are wrcng interpretations of Hurrian words: "Hurrian names in -en (not -sen) are common in earlier periods.
Arien means "The brother gave", and aumen (probably pronounced Tsacm-then) is made from a root sa- plus the verbal
suffix -um/-cm plus -en, an abbreviated form of enni, "brother". These names from Samarra were published by Thureau-
Dangin in RA IX 1-4. See Gelb et al., Nuzi perscnal names, Chicago 1963, p. 255" (personal comm. by Bjarte Kaldhol, Nov. 6,
2000). On = [] see Diakonoff 1971: 46. -- Harmatta (1992: 374) wrongly took these names as a sign of an early Indo-
Aryan spread towards Mesopotamia.
167
Some of the so-called MIA features of Mitanni-Indo-Aryan are due to the writing system (in-da-ra, etc.); satta is
questionable as well: a-at-ta is influenced by the Mitanni term, as a-ap-ta would be possible in this writing system; S.S.
Misra, however, has found linguistic features common to MIA (Middle Indo-Aryan) and even NIA: assimilation (sapta >
satta); anaptyxis (Indra>Indara); initial v>b ( virya>birya), read, however, Priya! -- K. Norman erroneously pointed to pt
>tt(see discussion of satta), labialization of a>u after v (*avasani>auanni ), see however, Mayrhofer 1979: 52.
(56) Michael WITZEL
There is nc evidence at all for the development of IE, IIr, and even of pre-OIA/Vedic inside the sub-
continent. It is contradicted, among other items, by the Iranian and Mitanni evidence. An emigraticn of the
Iranians and other Indo-Europeans
168
from the subcontinent, as supposed by adherents of the autochthonous
theories, is excluded by the linguistic evidence at large.
To maintain an Indian homeland of IE, IIr, and Pre-OIA requires multiple special pleading of a sort
and magnitude that no biologist, astronomer or physicist would tolerate. Simply put, whyshculdweallcwspecial,
linguistic pleading just in the case cf India? There is nothing in the development of human language in India that
intrinsically differs from the rest of the world. Occam's razor applies.
So far, most of the linguistic evidence presented in the previous sections has been neglected by advocates
of the autochthonous theory,
169
and if it has been marshaled at all, it has been done so ad hcc, even by the lone,
autochthonously minded Indian historical linguist, S.S. Misra. His rewriting of IE linguistics remains incidental
and idiosyncratic, and it results in multiple contradictions, just as the rest of the theory. The autochthonists must
do a lot of homework and try to contradict the linguistic data discussed above (detailed in 13-18) before they
can hope to have any impact on linguistic discussions.
Conversely, the data derived from linguistic study are consistent throughout: they clearly indicate that
an Eastern IE language, the Vedic branch of IIr, has been Indianized and has grammatically inncvated after its
arrival in the Panjab, while Iranian has escaped this influence as it did not enter the subcontinent then. Exactly
how the IA language and the IA spiritual and material culture of the archaeologically still little traced Indo-Aryan
speaking tribes was introduced, that is still an open and very much debated question. It can be traced securely, so
far, only in the evidence coming from the texts (horses, chariots, religion, ritual, poetics, etc.) and from the
features of the language itself that have been discussed here at length. Possibly, genetic evidence, especially that
deriving from studies of the male Y chromosome, may add to the picture in the near future.
In the sequel, the evidence from texts, archaeology, and some natural ("hard") sciences will be adduced.
This is perhaps the right place to point out that these fields of scholarship proceed in their own fashion and with
various methodologies, and that the data obtained from all these fields have their own characteristics. It is not
always the case, for example, that evidence from archaeology can flawlessly be matched with linguistic or genetic
data. The nature of evidence in these fields often is too disparate. Some scholars (such as the archaeologist
Shaffer) actually refuse to take into account anything that is outside archaeology, especially the "tyrannical"
linguistics. This is of course not quite true, as palaeontology is tacitly accepted. Second, it must be pointed out that
many of these fields, such as archaeology, provide "hard" evidence, but then interpret their data in various ways,
just as it occurs in the other humanities. The same is true also, e.g. for studies of palaeo-climate. The distinction
between the 'hard sciences' and the humanities is not as strict as is often made out.
Nevertheless, we should keep looking for overlaps in evidence and draw our own, often preliminary
conclusions, -- preliminary as several if not all of the fields involved are in constant development.
CHRONOLOGY
19. Lack of agreement of the autochthonous theory with the historical evidence: dating of kings & teachers
Turning, presently, to the evidence preserved in the texts themselves and in history as well as ar-
chaeology, it might be useful to deal first with an item that has captured the imagination of scholars east and
west for at least a century, that is, the various lists of early kings (and also of Vedic teachers).
Advocates of the autochthonous theory stress that the traditional lists of Indian kings (in the
Mahbhrata, Rmyaa, Puras) go back to the fourth millennium BCE and even earlier. However, even
168
The much later emigration of the Gypsies and some others into Central Asia are of course excluded here.
169
With the (partial) exception of Elst (1999), and Talageri (2000) for which see above.
Autochthonous Aryans? (57)
during the formative period of the great Epic at c. 300 BCE, Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the Maurya
court at Patna, reported to have heard of a traditional list of 153 kings that covered 6042 years.
170
This would, of
course, lead back well beyond the traditional beginning of the Kaliyuga at 3102 BCE (cf. Witzel 1990). The latter
date, however, is due only to back-calculation, based on the alignment of all then known(!) five planets, that was
carried out by Vrhamihira in the 6th cent. CE (Kochhar 1999). In other words, all dates based on a beginning of
the Kaliyuga in 3102 are wcrthless.
The royal lists rest, as almost everywhere in traditional cultures, on Bardic traditions.
171
In India, they
derive from lists orally transmitted and constantly reshaped by the Sta bards according to local conditions and
personal preference (Parry and Lord, 1930 sqq.)
172
The eager efforts made by many Indian scholars of various
backgrounds to rescue these lists as representing actual historical facts
173
therefore are ultimately futile.
174
The
only early Puric kings we can substantiate are those listed in the Vedas as these texts, once composed, could no
longer be changed.
The process is exceptionally clear in the development of the tale of the Great Battle (daaraja, RV 7.18, see
Witzel 1995). In the RV this is fought between the Bharata chieftain Suds on the one side, and the Pru chief
with his nine 'royal' allies on the other. It took place on the Paru in central Panjab. The Mahbhrata battle,
however, is fought between the Kaurava (of Bharata descent) and the Pava, both of the new Kuru tribe, near
the Sarasvat in Kuruketra (modern Haryana).
Because of the extremely careful oral method of RV preservation we can take the RV report as a sort of
tape recording of contemporary news, news that is of course biased by contemporary political considerations and
the mentality of the victor. However, already the Middle Vedic texts indicate a gradual shift in the non-gvedic
and non-specialized, more popular traditions: there is a general confusion of the characters and the location
involved, leading to that of the well known Mahbhrata personages and localities (details in Witzel, 1995). All of
170
Megasthenes, the Seleucid ambassador to Candragupta (Sandrokottos) Maurya's court, at c. 300 BCE (Arrianos, Indika
9.9). -- All of this is called "entirely plausible" by Elst (1999: 192); however, there even is 6776 BCE as another starting point,
according to Pliny, Naturalis Histcria 6.59 and Arrianos. Elst strangely comments "even for that early pre-Vedic period,
there is no hint of immigration". In short, according to Elst (and Talageri 2000) we get Indian "kings" in the Gangetic plains
of the 7th millennium BCE, when this area was populated by a few hunter and gatherer tribes! These 'monarchs' would
indeed be the first kings on the planet (Witzel 2001). Elst is not aware of the common (Indian, etc.) tendency to put
contemporary lineages one before another when setting up long range 'historical' records (Witzel 1990). See also next note.
171
See the lists in the Torah, Homers' list of ships, Polynesian lists of chieftains, and so on. Iistenwissenschaft is one of the
oldest 'sciences' in the world, cf. the Babylonian evidence in Z.J. Smith (1982) and Assmann (1987).
172
Where we can check such Bardic traditions with the help of historical records, e.g. in the Germanic epic, they tend to
telescope, rework the historical data; for example, they confound Ermanric, the king of the Goths in the Ukraine at the time
of the Huns' invasion, with his grandson Theoderic, king of the Goths in Italy.
173
The latest example is Talageri (1993, 2000) who builds a whole imaginative prehistory of S. Asia on such 'data': with an
early emigration of the Druhyu branch of the Aryans to Iran and Europe in the 5th millennium BCE, including such fantastic
etymologies and identifications as Bhalnas = Baloch (who appear on the scene only after 1000 CE!), Bhgu = Phrygians,
Madra = Mede (Mda), Druhyu = Druids, Alna = Hellenic people, imyu = Sirmios (Albanians), etc. -- These are Oakish
cases where even Elst (1999: 192 sq.) does not always follow him.
174
The arguments used to justify the historicity of the Puras (Elst 1999) are easily dismissed. While we can expect names
of a similar sort in the older lists --some of them are also found in the Vedas (after all, names within a family often begin or
end in the same way),-- they cannot be used to substantiate the actual existence of ccmplete Puric lists during Vedic times.
See 19. -- Elst's further argument that early Puric dynasties are not those of the northwest but of Bihar, Utkala etc.
equally does not hold. It is clear that the beginnings of the lists, even in the Mbh and Rm., were reformulated to fit local
demands: a western (Bharata) one for the Mbh and an eastern (Ikvku) one for the Kosala area. (Witzel, in prep.)
Agreement between the Epics, Puras, Buddhist and Jaina texts does not vouch for a 'hoary' age of such lists, just for a
common perception at the time these texts were composed, i.e. after 500 BCE. Only the Vedas are older, and they contain
just small fragmentary sections of the later (enlarged, altered) Puric lists. The influence of politics of empire (Nanda,
Maurya, Gupta) and of local politics (or the wish by local kings to forge such a link to a well established lineage) should not
be underestimated.
(58) Michael WITZEL
this does not inspire a great deal of credibility in the ''facts'' reported by the Epic and Puric texts (Pargiter 1913,
Morton Smith 1973, Talageri 1993, 2000).
175
These texts have clearly lifted (parts of) lineages, fragment by
fragment, from the Vedas and have supplied the rest (Shnen 1986) --from hypothetical, otherwise unknown
traditions-- or, as can be seen in the case of the Mahbhrata,
176
from poetical imagination.
Similarly, the idea that the Vedas contain reliable lists of teachers rests on typically weak foundations.
First of all, the various of Vaa lists at the end of B 10, B 14 = BU 2, BU 6, JUB 4, KA 15, cf. ChU 8.15, etc.)
do not agree with each other. Second, they trace the line of teachers back to the gods, to Prajpati. Yet even if we
neglect this small detail and take only the later parts of these lists at face value (Morton Smith 1966), we do not
know when to place them in time, as the absolute dates of the teachers are totally unknown, except for some
overlaps with chiefs and kings known from the Vedic texts, as tentatively worked out by Morton Smith (1973).
Any historical reconstruction based on such lists must then start with assumptions, and even the usual
average number of 20 or 30 years attributed to a generation does not work for teacher/student relationships, e.g.,
Mahidsa Aitareya supposedly lived for 116 years and can have had many generations of students, just like any
modern academic teacher. In addition, the Vaa lists mention that certain Veda students had several teachers.
In fact, Yjavalkya, whom the B sometimes pictures as an old man, could have had students throughout his
life, and of various ages. All of this makes the use of the Vaa lists for reliable dating almost impossible.
Again, the general question, asked several times already, has to be put here as well: if the traditional
Bardic data are unreliable in traditional societies everywhere around the world, why should the same kind of
data, shaped and reshaped by the later Vedic texts, the Epics and the Puras, be a full and true account of South
Asian prehistory? As in the cases listed above (and further below), this amounts to very special pleading, in fact
again to another unmotivated exemption of India from the generally accepted procedures of the sciences, and of
scholarship in general.
The genealogical data also do not readily fit into the combined, general picture as provided by the texts
and by other disciplines such as archaeology, to which we will turn now.
ARCHAEOLOGY
20. Archaeology and texts
Archaeology strives to discover, but cannot establish all the major factors that make up a certain civi-
lization, as this science is limited to physical remains, from buildings and art to pottery, plants and human
bones. As long as archaeologists cannot find readable inscriptions and texts along with their findings, the
interpretation of the spiritual background and much of the society of the culture in question remains tenta-
tive.
177
The Mayas, e.g., were regarded as exceptionally peaceful people until their texts could be read. We cannot
yet read the Indus inscriptions, and we do not yet have access to the archaeological remains, if indeed preserved, of
the gvedic period. Many of the archaeological interpretations thus remain tentative, and by their very nature,
they tend to shift with each new major discovery.
In the sequel, some of the archaeological and textual data are compared with what the autochthonous
theories make of such evidence. It must be pointed out that autochthonists frequently rely on the dicta of recent
archaeologists who stress that there was no major cultural break in South Asia from 6500 BCE well into the
prehistorical period. However, archaeological evidence -- extremely important as it is -- forms just cne facet of
175
Talageri turns things around and finds justification of the Puric data in the Vedas, and thus a spread of the Lunar
dynasty from Kosala (Prayga) westwards. Strangely enough, these Pru dynasties later on again spread eastwards (as is clear
from the Vedas anyhow!) -- All of this is faithfully repeated by Elst (1999: 191). If this is not a pcst-factum justification, a
retrcfit as indigenist like to call such constructions, of the originally despised Ikvku lineage (JB 1.338 = Caland 115, see a
first try at amelioration in AB 7, Witzel 1989), -- then what? (Discussion already in Witzel 1995).
176
Especially clear with the introduction of the 'non-Vedic' Pavas (Witzel, in prep.).
177
Recently, it has been tested in Papua-New Guinea what the material remains of some five different linguistic
communities belonging to one particular area would look like. After a deterioration of a few years, the archaeologists dug
them up, and found -- "the same (material) culture"! So much for the often used or alleged overlap of language and culture.
Autochthonous Aryans? (59)
several of a given culture, and in many respects only of its the most materialistic aspects. It must agree with what
the other sciences supply on information about the period in question. In other words, where is the archaeologist
that can tell us what the famous Indus "iva" or "Paupati" seal really signifies? We will return to this question
below.
21. RV and the Indus civilization: horses and chariots
The autochthonous theory asserts a rather early date for the RV (pre-Indus civilization, at 2600 or 5000
BCE). Indeed, the RV does not know of the Indus towns, of international commerce, of the Indus script, of the
Indus staple food, wheat, nor of the late-Indus cereal, rice (see below 23). However, all of that is only evidence ex
silentic, while the rich gvedic materials dealing with the domesticated horse, the horse-drawn chariot, or chariot
races do not fit at all with such early dates for the RV
178
(see immediately below) and rather put it after c. 2000
BCE. The closely related older Avestan texts, too,
179
point to a pastoralist, copper/bronze culture with use of horse
and chariot, quite similar to that of the RV.
Clearly, the use of the horse drawn chariot in sport and war during the RV period was mainly, but not
exclusively, a noblemen's occupation. In the autochthonous theory, the ''relative absence of horse bones'' in the
Indus civilization
180
is therefore explained away by the auxiliary assumption that the horse was only
occasionally imported for the nobility, who nevertheless were regarded as very good horse trainers. This
overlooks the fact that riding, too, is attested in the RV and that is clearly linked to groups socially situated below
the nobility (Falk 1995). However, not cne clear example of horse bones exists in the Indus excavations
181
and
elsewhere in North India before c. 1700 BCE (Meadow 1997, 1998). Even Bknyi (1997), who sought to identify
some horse remains in the Indus civilization, states that ''horses reached the Indian subcontinent in an already
domesticated form coming from the Inner Asiatic horse domestication centers.''
Indeed, well recorded and stratified finds of horse figures and later on, of horse bones first occur in the
Kachi valley on the border of Sindh/E. Baluchistan (c. 1700 BCE), when the Indus civilization already had
disintegrated. Some suppcsed early finds of horses elsewhere are those of equid bones and teeth at Surkotada
182
(in Cutch, W. Gujarat) from the late Harappan period,
183
which belong to hemiones (Equus hemicnus khur, the
onager or half-ass), not to true horses (Equus caballus, see Meadow and Patel, 1997, Meadow 1998). Other claims,
178
Similarly early dates are inherent in Talageri (2000). When tabled, the various family books in his reconstruction turn
out to be spread out over two thousand years, well before the invention of the horse-drawn chariot. In addition, the very
starting point of his book, on which his 'new chronology' of the RV books rests, is clearly wrong: as has been pointed out (n.
7, 84, 87, 140, 173, 175, 216), his investigation is based on the present kala 'edition' and arrangement of the RV, not on the
first collection ("Sahit", of the Kuru period) as established by Oldenberg (1888). How can one come even close to the
period of the RV authors if one accepts any hymn inserted during the long period of orthoepic diaskeuasis, with additional,
immeasurable influence by unknown teachers that existed between the first collection and the redaction by the late
Brhmaa scholar kalya (BU 3). - Talageri's ecstatic summary (2000) therefore is self-defeating: "Any further research,
and any new material discovered on the subject, can only confirm this description.... but there is no possible way in which
the location of the Original [IE] Homeland in the interior of northern India, so faithfully recorded in the Puranas and
confirmed in the Rigveda, can ever be disproved." Interestingly, he has taken his initial historiographical cues from Witzel
1995 (and even lauds the general approach) -- only to reverse himself completely as to include the usual indigenous
("Puric") agenda with chariots before their invention, IE emigration from Uttar Pradesh, etc. (Witzel 2001).
179
Summary by Skjaerv 1995:160, sq., 167 sq.
180
Elst (1999: 180) makes a lot out of this argument ex silentic but concludes "it is not as strong an argument against "Vedic
Harappa" as it once seemed to be"!
181
See R. Meadow and A. Patel 1997.
182
Bknyi 1997 finds it in Surkotada IA-B-C, (acc. to Sharma 1990: 382, from the Harappan period: 2300-1700 BCE, Joshi
1990: 17, 59 sqq.)
183
However, note that (according to Meadow/Patel 1997): ''Surkotada has dates that go into the second millennium, and
the date of the ''Harappan'' layers themselves is not at all that clear." Cf. Joshi 1990.
(60) Michael WITZEL
such as the invented one of an indigenous gvedic 17-ribbed Sivalensis horse,
184
are totally unsubstantiated, or
they are from unclear stratigraphies and/or have not been documented well enough
185
as to allow a clear
distinction between horse, hemione or donkey; still others are simply too late.
186
At any rate, depictions of horses
are altogether absent during the Indus period.
187
Some of the earliest uses of the domesticated horse had been reported from the Copper Age site of
Dereivka on the Dnyepr River (for riding, c. 4200-3800 BCE, now withdrawn)
188
and similarly, from the
184
The latest folly (again, one created on the internet, this time by the proponent of an Austric 'theory' of IA origins) is that
of the long extinct early Indian horse, Equus sivalensis. This early horse in fact emerged c. 2.6 million years ago, overlapping,
in the Siwalik Hills, for a short period with the older (three-toed pre-horse) Hipparion (MacFadden 1992:139) that died out
soon afterwards. Many internet writers now connect the Sivalensis horse with the 17-ribbed gvedic horse and modern S.E.
Asian horses, however, without any evidence cited from archaeology, palaeontology or genetics. Fact is that horses (Equus
caballus) have 18 ribs on each side but this can individually vary with 17 on just one or on both sides. Such as is the case
(only 5 instead of 6 lumbar vertebrae) with some early horse finds in Egypt, from the mid-1st millennium BCE, horses that
all were imported from the Near East (and ultimately from the steppe zone). Clutton-Brock (1992: 83) writes: "It is generally
claimed that the Arab and the Przewalski horse [of Central Asia!] had only five lumbar vertebrae while all other horse
breeds have six. In fact the number is very variable but it is true that the Arab is more likely to have only five lumbar
vertebrae than other breeds of domestic horse (Stecher 1962)." Which only underlines that a domesticated, 17-ribbed horse
has been brought into the subcontinent from Central Asia (Bknyi 1997) -- just the opposite of what internet 'specialists'
(and by simple extension, that excellent source of scientific information, the New Delhi party journal, "The Organiser ") now
claim, -- always without a single scholarly source. It should also be noted that numeral symbolism may play a role in the RV
passage (1.162.18) mentioning the 17-ribbed horse, which is part of an additional hymn of a late RV book. The number of
gods is given in the RV as 33 or 33+1, which would correspond to the 34 ribs of the horse (later on identified with the
universe in BU 1); note further that the horse is speculatively in brought into connection with all the gods, many of them
mentioned by name (RV 1.162-3)..
185
In the Indus Valley, the horse ( Equus caballus I.) was first reported, of course without palaeontological checks, at
Mohenjo-Daro by Sewell (1931). -- Other spurious accounts: Bh. Nath 1962, Sharma 1974, 1993; similarly alleged for late
Mohenjo Daro and late Harappa, for Kalibangan and Rupar (Bhola Nath, see B.B. Lal 1997: 285); for Malvan, Gujarat
(Sharma 1990: 382); for Mohenjo Daro and in small numbers in rather recent levels, for Harappa from the late phase
(Bknyi 1997). Such strong assertions of 'archaeological' nature had even convinced R. Thapar (Social Scientist, Jan.-March
1996, p. 21). -- Elst 1999: 180 sqq. simply relies on these 'archaeological' data (and other writings) without questioning them
on the ground of palaeontology. He even adduces the cave paintings at Bhimbetka "perhaps 30,000 years old" (Klostermaier,
1989: 35) while such paintings are extremely difficult to date so far and cannot be relied on, at present, as a major piece of
evidence. In the end, while acknowledging the "paucity" (correctly: non-occurrence) of horse depictions and remains in the
Indus Civilization, Elst thinks that it is an explainable paucity... "so that everything remains possible."
186
For consideration are mentioned: from the Neolithic-chalcolithic levels of Hallur (1600 BC), early Jorwe (1400-1000
BC) and Late Jorwe (1000-700 BC), from the sites of Inamgaon in Maharashtra (Thomas 1988: 878, 883, Meadow & Patel,
1997). By this time, the domesticated horse was no longer rare (Thomas 1988: 878).-- Note that Thomas' material does not
have measurements of the bones.
187
For a fraudulous concoction of the picture of a horse on an Indus seal, see Rajaram and Jha (2000), exposed by Witzel
and Farmer (2000). Elst (1999), as usual, swallowed Rajaram's initial, bold assertion of Harappan horses, hook and sinker --
in this case even Rajaram's artist's depiction of the half-horse (that is a bull!), referring (Elst 1999: 182) to Rajaram's hardly
available book IrcmHarappatcAycdhya, Hyderabad 1997, see Frontline Nov. 24, 2000: 128 n.1. -- Recently, the picture of
an Indus hemione (with typical short, stiff mane) was put on the internet as that of a horse, along with two already debunked
horses (Frontline Oct./Nov. 2000) of the new species, to be called after its discoverer, Equus asinus (?) rajarami!
188
The skeleton has only an carbon reading of c. 3000 BC; it shows evidence of a hard bridle bit; but the horse is unlikely to
have been used for draught at this early period and was probably used for riding. This date has recently been withdrawn by
D. Anthony (Antiquity 2000: 75), but has been supplemented by other early evidence for riding at Botai. -- Note, for a later
period, that riding is a lower class occupation even in the RV, while the nobility drives chariots, see Falk, 1995, Anthony and
Brown 1991; Anthony 1991, Telegin 1995.
Autochthonous Aryans? (61)
Copper Age site of Botai in N. Kazakhstan (c. 3300-2900 BCE.)
189
Some of the first attested remnants of
primitive spoke-wheeled chariots and horse burials occur at Sintashta on the Tobol-Ishim rivers, east of the
Urals (2100-1800 BCE.)
190
From there, a clear trail (Hiebert 1995, 192 sqq.) leads towards the subcontinent:
from a somewhat unclear picture in the BMAC (Parpola 1988: 285, 288) to Pirak (horse figurines, c. 1700 BCE
(Jarrige 1979),
191
bones in Kachi from 1700 BCE, the Swat Valley at c. 1400 BCE (painted sherds, horse burials,
Stacul 1987).
In the subcontinent, the horse (along with the camel) first appears in the RV in literary context, and in
Kachi in archaeological context at c. 1700 BCE. It is important to note that horse riding is not completely
unknown to the RV; it is mentioned of the ''horsemen'', the Avin (Coomaraswamy 1941). It seems to have been
common among the lower classes both among gods (Avin, Marut) and humans (Falk 1995) and may have been
used for herding purposes while the nobility preferred chariots for sport and war. Without a proper saddle and
stirrups, invented much later, warfare from horseback was not yet practical. However, just as clearly attested in
Near Eastern documents of the second millennium BCE, chariots were used in warfare on favorable terrain (but
certainly not while crossing mountainous territory!);
192
and, the texts frequently refer to their use in sport.
Horse riding is not important in the RV, and it is, so far, not found at all in the Indus civilization. If the horse
had been an important animal of the Indus elite, one would also expect it in art - just as in Pirak or Swat, e.g., on
the Indus seals. It does not show.
The occasional occurrence of horse riding in the RV and still earlier in the Ukraine (Anthony 1991,
1997, Falk 1995) cannot, of course, prove a date of the RV at 4000 BCE as early practices easily appear in latertexts
(see also 28-30). The use of the horse-drawn chariot in the RV at that early time is archaeologically impossible:
even the heavy, oxen- drawn wagon evolved only in the late 4th millennium (first attested in Mesopotamia), and
the chariot itself was developed only around 2000 BCE in the Ukraine/Ural area (and/or in Mesopotamia,
Littauer and Crouwel 1996). The sudden appearance in South Asia of the (domesticated) horse and of the chariot
remain clear indicators either of IIr/IA presence, or of their cultural influence on unknown, neighboring
pastoralists who first brought the horse into S. Asia, -- in that case similar to what happened at the same time in
Mesopotamia in the case of the Kassites and, somewhat less probable, the Mitanni.
193
189
Zaibert 1993.
190
Anthony and Vinogradov 1995, Parpola 1995, Kuzmina 1994.
191
It is of course an open question whether the inhabitants of Pirak were IA or, e.g., Drav. speakers; see the discussion of
'horse' words in Witzel (1999a,b) as well as a discussion of the languages of Sindh and Baluchistan. -- The Drav. and
Mundas have their own words for the horse, and we can even assume different routes of the introduction of the horse (e.g.
via Tibet and the Himalayan belt).
192
Standard fare with autochthonists/Out of India advocates on the internet who continue to allege that I make "the Aryans
thunder down the Khyber pass on their chariots" or, worse, their "on their Aryan panzers"(sic!), while I have not printed any
such a folly anywhere. My crime was to have mentioned 'tanks' in a footnote (1995: 114 n. 74: "the thundering chariot, the
tank of the 2nd millennium B.C."). --- We know that the RV clearly refers to a rathavahana that was used to transport the
quick but fragile, lightweight (c. 30 kg) chariot over difficult terrain, just as we do with modern racing cars. Note also that
the wheels of such chariots would deform if left standing in assembled fashion; the chariots were disassembled and put
together when needed. All of this corresponds with what we know from accounts of the avoidance by or difficulty of the use
of chariots on uneven terrain from records of the ancient Near East and of Classical Antiquity. Nevertheless, the Veda also
knows of a vipatha '[chariot used for] pathless [land]', attested in AV. Apparently, the autochthonists have not considered at
all the role of horse-drawn chariots in sport and warfare of the Ancient Near East. Even a trip to the movies might help!
193
Elst 1999: 178 concludes his somewhat superficial discussion of the Indo-Europeans and the horse, surprisingly, with an
Out of India scenario: the Aryan 'emigrants' to Central Asia would have learned of the horse (he does not discuss the
chariot, a clear indicator of time and location at c. 2000 BCE). They would then have transmitted this knowledge, and the
actual animals, back home to India (while the RV supposedly does not know of Central Asia at all!) Occam's Razor applies. --
Again, I do not maintain, as some allege, that the Indo-Europeans were the 'sole masters' of horse riding and chariot driving.
They were one of the several peoples from the Ukraine to Mongolia that made use of the new technology. The exact source
and spread of this phenomenon is still under investigation by archaeologists. New technologies usually are taken over by
neighboring peoples within a short time span: note the case of the Lakota (Sioux) who took over --from the Spanish-- the
(62) Michael WITZEL
Autochthonists such as Sethna (1980, 1981, 1992) or Rajaram (2000) want to find horses and chariots
in Indus inscriptions. However, this relies on interpretation of unknown symbols
194
and, in the case of Rajaram,
even on actual fraud (Witzel and Farmer 2000). The original argument used by Sethna (1981) to date the Vedas
before the Indus civilization, in autochthonous circles usually referred to as 'seminal,' 'clinching', etc., is the
absence of the Indus commodity, cotton, in Vedic texts down to the Stras where karpasa 'made of cotton' is first
attested. He wonders how the Vedic Indians would not have used cotton in the hot Indian climate. However, the
texts regularly refer to woolen and flaxen garments. Wool is of course used in the cold Panjab winter. Absence of a
word, such as 'rice' (see 23), in sacred (hieratic) texts does not prove its non-occurrence. With the same
justification he could maintain that Vedic Indians did not yet fart since the non-hieratic, vulgar pardati is
attested only in post-Vedic texts. The Iranians, again, have maintained the ancient custom (Avestan pard, IE
prd) -- or did they learn it only after they left India?
22. Absence of towns in the RV
The absence of towns and the occurrence of ruins (armaka, vailasthana, cf. Falk 1981) in the RV poses
another problem for the autochthonous theory. The urban Indus civilization disintegrated around 1900 BCE and
the population reverted to village level settlements while expanding eastwards into Haryana/W. Uttar Pradesh
(even with some smaller towns, Shaffer 1999).
A later Vedictext (PB 25.10) tells of these ruins especially those located in the Sarasvat (= Ghaggar-
Hakra) region (cf. Burrow 1963, Rau 1983, Falk 1981). TB 2.4.6.8 actually says that inhabitants (of which areas?)
had moved on (Falk 1981), and AB 3.45, one of the oldest Brhmaa texts, speaks of the long wildernesses (drgha
aranya) in the west as opposed to a more settled east (Witzel 1987). This reflects reality: there are only a few iron
age (PGW) time settlements in the Sarasvat/Hakra area (Mughal 1997). TB may reflect some memory of the
post-Harappan period,
195
when a considerable segment of the Indus population shifted eastwards after the loss
of waters of the Ghaggar-Hakra to the Yamuna and Beas (Shaffer and Lichtenstein, 1995:138, Mughal 1997,
Shaffer 1999).
Some advocates of the autochthonous theory (Bh. Singh 1995) want to find in the references of the RV,
with its large 1000-pillared houses, 100/1000-doored houses, etc. a reference to the Indus cities. Apart from the
fact that 100-pillared houses have not yet been found in the Harappan civilization, such gvedic expressions are
part and parcel of the traditional poetical hyperbole, where '100' or '1000' just mean 'many', and, amusingly, such
expressions occur only in mythological contexts (sahasradvar7.88.5; sahasrasthna 5.62.6 (made of copper/bronze
and gold, 5.62.7), 2.41.5; atadura 1.51.3, 10.99.3). Who would deny the gods houses that are 100-1000 times
bigger and better than human ones? Or, Indra his 1000 testicles? (6.46.3, 8.19.32). Occasionally, we even meet
with metal forts -- but again only in myth. The same applies to 'boats with a hundred oars', RV 1.116.5. 'Ocean
going' ships refer to the ships that travel through the (night time) sky, such as that of Bhujyu (RV 1.112.6, 116.3-
5, 117.14, 119.4, etc., cf. the Avestan Puruua at Y 5.61, Oettinger 1988). All such items occur in comparisons or in
mythology. In sum, all of this 'evidence' for RV Indus cities and oceanic trade (Frawley, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh,
use of the horse and the rifle, a few hundred years ago, but remained Sioux in language and religion. But, just like the late-
comer in their new hunting culture, the bison (they had been agriculturalists before the Little Ice Age) the horse, too, made it
into their mythology!
194
The spoked chariot wheels that Sethna wants to find on the Indus seals turn out to be, in most cases, oblong -- resulting
in singularly bad transport for Indus merchants!
195
The question of post-Indus settlements that exceed the size of mere villages in Bahawalpur and the Panjab (Shaffer
1999) is in need of further attention: why is the RV silent about them? If iron is a late as it is said now (Possehl 1999), is the
RV, too, so late as nct to know these settlers any more, except for vague references such as those to the non-pastoral Kkaa
(RV 3.53)? Similar questions have to be asked about the overlap between the iron age PGW and the early YV texts (Witzel
1989).
Autochthonous Aryans? (63)
etc.)
196
is made of so many 'cities of the Gandharva', gandharvanagara, or 'fata morganas'. It is based on
imaginary and erroneous RV interpretation, -- in short, on bad Vedic philology.
Further, if the RV is older than 2600 BCE or even of 5000 BCE, how does it only know of pur, simple mud
wall and palisade forts (Rau 1976, 1983, 1997), and not of the large, brick-built human houses, villages and cities
of the Indus civilization? Note also that even in later Vedic texts, grama does not mean ''village'' but only ''wagon
train (on the move), temporary settlement" (Rau 1997).
In short, the Indus cities are never mentioned; we only find, sometimes even named, ruins
197
and their
potsherds (kapala). Since an early, pre-Indus date of the RV is to be excluded on other, internal grounds (horses,
chariots), these ruins as well as those on the Sarasvat (PB) may refer to those of the Indus civilization.
However, both the Veda and the Avesta know of bricks: Ved. i;taka (VS/TS), Avest. itiia, -ituua (cf.
Tochar. icem, Burushaski di;.c.tk). The similarity (but not, identity!) in sound allows to establish an isolated
common IIr. root *it, an early loan-word that is supported by the divergent forms of the Tocharian and
Burushaski words. The source, (an) unknown Central Asian language(s), with **it/it, will be that of the
Bactro-Margiana Archaeological complex (see Witzel 1999a,b) with its brick buildings and town-like settlements
(of 2100 BCE). An Indus origin is unlikely, as the widely spread, slightly divergent form of the word in O.
Iranian, Tocharian and Burushaski points to Central Asia, not the Indus.
23. Absence of wheat and rice in the RV
The RV also does not mention the staple of the Indus civilization, wheat, found in the area since the
seventh millennium BCE. It appears only later on, in Middle Vedic texts (gcdhma, MS 1.2.8+). The form of the
word is of clear Near/Middle Eastern origin (Hittite kant, O.Egypt. xnd, Avestan gantuma), but it has been
influenced by popular etymology (Skt. gc-dhma ''cow smoke''). It echoes, in its initial syllable, the Dravidian
word for 'wheat' (Kannada gdi, Tamil kti) and its Pamir/Near Eastern antecedents, such as Bur. gur 'barley',
'wheat, wheat colored'.
198
Just as in the much later case of tea/chai, the path of its spread is clear: Near Eastern *kant /Pre-Iran.
*gant um has entered via the northern Iranian trade route (Media-Turkmenistan-Margiana/Bactria-
Aratta/Sistan) and has resulted in Avest. gantuma and the later Iranian forms: M.Pers. gandum, Pashto anm <
gandma?, Yigdha gcndum, etc. (Berger 1959: 40 sq, EWA II 498). It has been crossed with the PKartv., PEC
*Gle,Burushaski/Drav. form beginning withg(h)c-(for details see Witzel 1999a,b).
Instead of wheat, the gvedic people --and their gods -- ate barley (yava), but not yet rice which had
already made its appearance in this region during the late Indus civilization (Kenoyer 1998). However, as is well
known, ritual always is more conservative real life behavior, and the RV reflects ritual and is exclusively ritual
poetry. The word for ''rice'' is of local S. Asian origin (Witzel 1999a,b) and ultimately perhaps Austric (note
Benedict's Austro-Tai bcR[a]ts). Just like wheat, rice is not yet found in the gveda, no doubt because this is a
hieratic text that lists only the traditional food (also of the gods), barley.
Talageri 2000: 124 sqq. has misunderstood my reference (Witzel 1987: 176) to the absence of tigers and of
domesticated rice in the RV --mostly grown, apart from the Himalayan regions, well east of Delhi throughout
history -- by misconstruing a relative clause. (The matter is clearly indicated, however, in Witzel 1995: 101-2).
Amusingly, he has therefore excoriated me for saying that there were no tigers in the Panjab then. (The absence
196
Gupta never translates the RV passages he quotes so that we can read into them whatever we want: a RV fort (pur) can
be a modern town or a village (pur), etc. Frawley translates, but in the manner criticized here (n. 38, 204). He believes that
his RV translations prove international trans-oceanic trade, but he never investigates what samudra or nau actually mean in
the Veda (for which see Klaus 1986, 1989, 1989a).
197
See Falk 1981 and place names such as PB 25.10.18 Sthlarmaka 'the large ruin' in Kuruketra,however, Hariyupya is a
river, not Harappa as has been maintained by some historians for decades (it would have become something like *Harcv,
Harc in modern Panjabi).
198
For the ultimate origin of the word, note also Bur. pl. gurin/guren < crum (Berger 1959: 43), gurgan 'winter wheat',
and the connection with Basque gari 'wheat' < Proto-East Caucasian *Gle 'wheat', etc., Witzel 1999b. Harmatta (EWA II
499) thinks of an Anatolian *ghcnd[], but cf. Klimov's Caucasian (Proto-Kartvelian) ghcmu.
(64) Michael WITZEL
of the tiger in the RV is more complex than that of rice and is in need of special attention; it may be due to an
early conflation of the IIr/IA words for 'tiger', 'lion' and, maybe even 'panther').
In post-gvedic times (AV, YV), however, vrhi is already the favorite food and an offering to the gods,
though the gods themselves are still said to grow barley on the Sarasvat (AV 6.30.1). The evidence of the cereals
and culinary habits thus exactly fits the pattern of immigration: The speakers of Indo-Aryan (just as the Indo-
Europeans: *yewc 'the (food) grass')
199
knew only barley and very gradually took over wheat and rice inside S.
Asia.
If the RV had been composed in the Panjab in (pre-)Indus times, it certainly would contain a few notices
on the staple food of this area, wheat. It is not found.
24 RV class society and the Indus civilization
The autochthonous theory maintains that the gvedic Indo-Aryans were living in complex society, with
mention of cities and numerous professions.
200
This, again, is careless philology: The 'complex society' of the RV
is none other than the (Dumzilian) three class society of the Indo-Iranians, consisting of nobility (rajanya, later:
k;atriya), poet/priests (brahman, r;i, vipra, kavi, rtvij, hctr, purchita, etc., later: brahmana), and ''the people'' (vi,
later: vaiya). Very few occupations are mentioned in the RV, which is typical for a society of self-sufficient
pastoralists. There are a few artisans such as the carpenter (tak;an), smith (dhmatr, karmara), chariot-builder
(rathakara, attested only AV-).
It is also clear that the gvedic rya employed some sections of the local populations, i.e. the lower class,
called dra since RV 10.90, for agriculture (ploughman knaa, RV, see Kuiper 1991, Witzel 1999a,b), and
probably for washing (AV+, Witzel 1986),and especially for pottery (kulala MS+, cf. W. Rau 1983). Sacred vessels
were made by Brahmins in the most archaic fashion, without the use of a potter's wheel (as is still done for
everyday vessels in the Hindukush!) and without change in style; such pottery is therefore undatable by style
(without thermo-luminescence methods), if ever found. Vedic everyday, household vessels were made in lccal
style by dra workmen. (Note, e.g., the continuation of Indus style motives in the Cemetery H culture -- but with
new cultural traits, that is, cremation and urn burial along with urn paintings expressing the Vedic belief in a
homunculus 'soul', sketched inside the peacock (Vats 1940, Schmidt 1980, Witzel 1984, Falk 1986). All these are
occupations are such that no member of the three rya classes would voluntarily undertake, as proud
pastoralists.
As has briefly been discussed above, I neglect here all further discussions of a 'complicated class system,
castes, foreign trade, elaborate palaces', and the like, as they are all based on bad gvedic philology. Typically, such
assertions are made, while quoting Sanskrit sources from the RV (Bhagavan Singh 1995, Frawley forthc., etc.),
without translation or without philological discussion, so that everyone is free to understand what one likes to see
in these passages. A gvedic 'boat with 100 oars' is not a kind of Spanish galley but clearly belongs to the realm of
the gods, to mythology, -- and to modern, autochthonous myth making.
25. The Sarasvat and dating of the RV and the Brhmaas
The disappearance of the Sarasvat,
201
the modern Sarsuti-Ghaggar-Hakra river and dry river bed in
the desert on both sides of the present Indian/Pakistani border, is often used by autochthonists as a means of
dating the RV. It is well known from Brhmaa texts that the Sarasvat then disappeared in the desert (PB 25.10,
JB 2.297 : Caland 156 ). Landsat pictures (Yash Pal 1984) are interpreted by some as showing the drying up of
this ancient river at various dates in the third millennium; Kak insists on 1900 BCE, Kalyanaraman (1999: 2) on
199
Avest. yauua, N.Pers. jav, cf. Osset. jew,yau 'millet'; for their Indo-European predecessors, note Hom. Greek zea, Lith.
jawai 'grain'; the word clearly is derived from *yu 'to graze', see now EWA s.v.
200
Bh. Singh 1995; especially 'detailed' in this respect, Malati Shendge 1977 (e.g., with the "Indus official" Rudra in charge
of mountain troops and house numbers!).
201
Yash Pal 1984, now Radhakrishnan and Merh 1999.
Autochthonous Aryans? (65)
1900-1500 BCE (in 1999) now: 1700/1300 BCE).
202
However, Landsat or aerial photos by themselves cannot
determine the date of ancient river courses; local geological and archaeological investigations on the ground are
necessary. They still have not yet been carried out sufficiently, though the Hakra area has been surveyed
archaeologically on the Pakistani side by M.R. Mughal (1997), and geological data are now also available in
some more detail for the Indian side (Radhakrishnan & Merh 1999, S.P. Gupta 1995). They establish several
palaeo-channels for this river, that easily changed course, like all Panjab rivers flowing on these flat alluvial
plains. Which one of these courses would fit the Indus period and which one the gvedic period still needs to be
sorted out. Choosing an arbitrary date of 1900 or 1400 BCE is useless in order to fix the RV (well) before this date.
The upper course of the Ghaggar, however, is not dry even today, as some scholars state; it is still known
as the small river Sarsuti. Also, it has been long known, and is easily visible on many maps, that the lower, dry
bed of the Sarsuti (Ghaggar) continues well beyond the Pakistani border as Hakra (Wilhelmy 1969, Witzel 1984,
1987), and it seems to continue further south as the Nara channel in Sindh, finally emptying into the Rann of
Cutch (Oldham 1886, Raverty 1892, Witzel 1994). However, there is a playa next to the long gap in the lower
course of the Hakra river and the Indus, covered by sand dunes near Fort Derawar, east of Khanpur, Pakistan. If
the Sarasvat indeed ended there in an inland delta (Possehl 1997), the Nara channel would rather represent the
lower course of the Sutlej (or be a branch of the Indus).
It must be underlined that a considerable segment of the Harappan population shifted eastwards from
the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra the post-Harappan period and built new settlements
203
in the Eastern Panjab
and Haryana/UP. Shaffer and Lichtenstein (1995:138) attribute this in part to the loss of waters of the Ghaggar-
Hakra to the Yamuna and Beas (Mughal 1997).
The basic literary facts, however, are the following: the Sarasvat is well known and highly praised in the
RV as a great stream. Once it is called the only river flowing from the mountains to the samudra (RV 7.95.2).
Samudra indicates a large body of water (Klaus 1986), either the terrestrial ocean, or a mythological ocean (at the
end of the world or in the night sky, Witzel 1984, cf. RV 7.6.7!), or a terminal lake, or just a ''confluence of rivers''
(RV 6.72.3).
204
Given the semi-mythical nature of the Sarasvat, as goddess and as mythical river in the sky or
on earth, the RV passages are not always clear enough to decide which one is intended in each particular instance
(Witzel 1984). However, the Brhmaa texts (JB 2.297, PB 25.10) clearly state that the Sarasvat disappears or
''dives under'' in the desert at a place called vinaana / upamajjana. (Later texts such as the Puras mythologize
that it flows underground from there up to the confluence of the Yamun and Gag at Prayga/Allahabad,
something that is based on an old, general Eurasian concept, see Witzel 1984).
The Sarasvat region, the post-gvedic Kuruk;etra, comprises the land between the Sarasvat (mod.
Sarsuti, Ghaggar) and the Dadvat (mod. Chautang) to its east. It does nct include the lower Sarasvat (mod.
Hakra) which is occasionally referred to as Parisaraka, Parisravat (VdhB 4.75), Parnah (PB 25.10@##) 'the area
surrounded (by the Sarasvat)' (Witzel 1984), a wording that clearly indicates delta-like configurations (playa),
with terminal lake(s) (samudra).
202
Elst (1999:137) makes this into "great catastrophe in about 2000 BC, when the Sarasvati river dried up and many of the
Harappan cities were abandoned... " [While the correct date(s) of the drying up of much of the "Sarasvat" has not yet been
determined!] "This catastrophe triggered migrations in all directions, to the Malabar coast, to India's interior, and east, to
West Asia by sea (the Kassite dynasty in Babylon in c. 1600 BCE venerated some of the Vedic gods), and to Central Asia". I
wonder where the evidence for such (e)migrations is to be found. The only archaeologically attested one is the move, by the
Indus people, eastwards into Haryana/Delhi area, by c. 1400 BCE, see Shaffer and Lichtenstein 1995, Shaffer 1999, see also
22.
203
Allchin et al. 1995: 37, with a typical development at Bhagawanpura, Haryana, that might reflect Indus/IA/PGW type
populations: many-roomed houses of brick of the post-urban period, then single-roomed circular huts of timber and
thatch, then many-roomed brick/pressed earth houses; the last two stages with increasing PGW.
204
The meaning of samudra must be established well; see, however, Klaus 1986. Note that RV 6.72.3 speaks even of the
(three or more!) samudras of the rivers, samudrani nadnam. Note also that the AV 11.5.6 has an uttara 'northern/upper'
ocean (Witzel 1984). Finally, compare also Avest. Y. 65 where the Iranian counterpart of the Sarasvat, Arduu, flows,
somewhat similar to the Sarasvat and the later Epic Gag, from a mountain, Hukairiia, to the "Lake" Vcurukaa, which
indicates the Milky Way (Witzel 1984), (and then further down to earth).
(66) Michael WITZEL
In the dry bed of the Hakra many potsherds (kapala) used in ritual could be found (PB 25.10); they
belonged to the given up settlements (arma, armaka, Falk 1981) of the late Harappan and post-Harappan period
(cf. above, TB 2.4.6.8). Indeed, the dry bed of the Ghaggar-Hakra still is lined with Harappan sites (and cluttered
with millions of kapala sherds, Mughal 1997). But many of these settlements are situated cn the actual flccd
plain of the Ghaggar-Hakra, which speaks against an enormous river during the Harappan (or the suppcsed 'pre-
Harappan gvedic') period. In fact, the estimates of archaeologists on the exact date of the drying up of much of
the Sarasvat differ considerably. Mughal proposes that the Hakra was a perennial river in the 4th and early 3rd
millennium BCE and that it had dried up about the end of the second.
205
Other dates range from 2500-2200 BCE
to 2200-1700 BCE, and Francfort (1985 sqq.) thinks of a much earlier period. It is now supposed that the
Sarasvat lost the mass of its water volume to the nearby Yamun due to tectonic upheaval (Yash Pal 1984;
Radhakrishnan and Mehr 1999). Even then, the cld Sarasvat-Sutlej can never have been larger than the Indus,
the only other river that is highly praised in the RV. The question thus is, why the Sarasvat actually is praised
that much?
RV 7.95.2, a hymn of the middle gvedic period, indeed speaks of the Sarasvat flowing to the samudra.
However, this is not unambiguous, due to the various meanings of the word. Even then, the Sarasvat may never
have been as mighty a contemporary river as the RV wants to make us believe, because, as is well known, RV style
is generally quite hyperbolic. In book 7, the i Vasiha, an immigrant from west of the Indus, praises the local
Sarasvat area of his patron Suds after the victory in the Ten Kings' Battle. Whether the immigrant Vasiha was
from the Iranian area of Haraxait (= Sarasvat, Arachosia) or not, he may have echoed the praise of the ancient
Sarasvat, that is the local S. Avestan Haraxait or the Milky Way (Witzel 1984), or he may just have spoken in
the hyperbolic style of the RV.
These textual data do not inspire confidence in the categorically stated autochthonous theory that the RV
prcves a mighty Sarasvat, flowing from the Himalayan mountains to the Indian ccean.
However, a neglected contemporary piece of evidence from the middle RV period, believed to have been
composed by Vivmitra, the opponent of Vasiha, is found in RV 3.33. Based on internal RV evidence, this
hymn describes a situation of cnly a few mcths cr years befcre RV 7.95.2 (with the Sarasvat 'flowing from the
mountains to the samudra', whatever its meaning!). The RV books 3 (Vivmitra) and 7 (Vasiha) both
represent a relatively late time frame among some five known generations of the gvedic chieftains of the Middle
RV period, chiefs that belong to the noble Bharata and Pru lineages. The autochthonous theory overlooks that
RV 3.33
206
already speaks of a necessarily smaller Sarasvat: the Suds hymn 3.33 refers to the ccnfluence of the
Beas and Sutlej (Vipa, utudr).
207
This means that the Beas had already captured the Sutlej away from the
Sarasvat, dwarfing its water supply.
208
While the Sutlej is fed by Himalayan glaciers, the Sarsuti is but a small
local river depending on rain water.
In sum, the middle and later RV (books 3, 7 and the late book, 10.75) already depict the present day
situation, with the Sarasvat having lost most of its water to the Sutlej (and even earlier, much of it also to the
Yamun). It was no longer the large river it might have been before theearlygvedic period.
The gvedic evidence, supposing the Indologists' 'traditional' date of the text at c. 1500-1000 BCE, also
agrees remarkably well with the new evidence from Bahawalpur/Cholistan (Mughal 1997) which indicates that
the area along the lower Hakra (Sarasvat) was abandoned by its people who moved eastwards after c. 1400 BCE.
The area was not settled again until well into the iron age, with the introduction of the Painted Gray Ware culture
(PGW) in the area at c. 800 BCE. At that time, we indeed hear of sparse settlements in the west (AB 3.45). This
also agrees with the scenario developed earlier (Witzel 1995): an early immigration (c. 1700 BCE - 1450 BCE) of
205
Possehl 1993: 85-94.
206
In the new autochthonous version of RV history (Talageri 2000) this is the oldest book of the RV, -- which would make
the Sarasvat, very much against the wishes of the indigenists, a small river in the early RV period! As usual, Occam's Razor
applies.
207
Differently from the map in Kenoyer (1995: 245) where the Sutlej, Sarasvat and Ur-Jumna still form cne river which
indeed flows from the Himalayas to the ocean (called Nara in Sindh).
208
While in the still later hymn, RV 10.75, the Vipa (Beas) is altogether missing and might have been substituted by the
utudr (Satlej), i.e. the joint Vip-utudr (unless the Beas, unlikely, is called Marudvrdha here).
Autochthonous Aryans? (67)
the Yadu-Turvaa, Anu-Druhyu in to the Panjab, when there possibly still was a somewhat ''larger Sarasvat''
(Mughal 1997, with details), followed by the immigration of the Bharata tribe (from across the Indus, JB 3.237-8 :
Caland 204) only after the major part of the Sarasvat waters had been captured by the Beas (and, before, a large
part of it by the Yamun). This scenario, consistent with the geological, archaeological and textual evidence is in
striking contrast to that of the autochthonous theory.
The area around the Sarasvat also was not, as (some of) the autochthonous theorists maintain, the
center of Vedic culture or of the whole of the Indus civilization, at least not during the whole span of this civi-
lization. As Possehl (1997) shows, the clusters of settlement gradually moved eastwards, from Baluchistan/Sindh
to Haryana (Possehl 1997), and this movement continued (Lichtenstein and Shaffer, 1999) into Haryana/U.P.
even after the end of the Indus civilization in c. 1900 BCE. (Even then, the Sarasvat area is not specially favored).
During the RV period, there was no clear political, cultural center, either; the diverse, 30-50 tribes and clans were
spread out over all of the Panjab, and there was no central authority. The situation in the Indus period was
equally diffuse, with at least five major cities: Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, Ganweriwala, Rakhigarhi, Dholavira in
Cutch.
209
Even during its heyday, thus, there were several concentrations but no central area. It cannot be
assumed that because there are many (c. 400) Indus settlements in the Ghaggar-Hakra are, this indicates the
center of the Indus civilization. Rather, this concentration is due to something very obvious --though not
mentioned by advocates of a renamed "Indus-Sarasvat civilization"-- that is, to the fact that the lower Sarasvat
area is "fossil": it has not changed, since the Indus period, in geomorphology, it has hardly ever been settled since
by more than a few people, and, most importantly, it has neither received new alluvium nor has it been subject to
ploughing.
The area around the upper Sarasvat, the later Kuruketra, instead of being of central importance all
through the older RV, is singled out only in the middle and laterparts of the RV, in books 3, 7 (and 1, 10 etc.) as
the 'best place on earth' (RV 3.53.11, Witzel 1995), as this had become the territory of the victorious Bharata tribe
under Suds (and, it may be added, also one of the major settlement areas of the post-Indus culture).
According to the autochthonous theory, the Sarasvat dried out by 1900/1500 BCE,and the Brhmaas
which mention its disappearance must therefore be dated about that time. All of this does not fit the internal
evidence, is based on bad philology and shows, once again, the rather adhcc, selective methods used by advocates
of the autochthonous theory. For, the first appearance of iron, the 'black metal' (kr;na/yama ayas) in S. Asia, well
known to the Brhmaa style texts, is only at c. 1200 BCE (Chakrabarti 1979, 1992, Rau 1974, 1983, cf. now,
however, Possehl-Gullapalli who point to 1000 BCE). But, iron is already found in texts much earlier than the
Brhmaas (i.e. AV, and in the YV Sahits: MS, KS, TS; however, not yet in the RV). This fact is frequently
misunderstood by historians and archaeologists who simply quote the older RV translations that render ayas by
'iron' while it means 'copper' or maybe, also 'bronze' (Rau 1974, 1983). It was only in the post-RV period that
copper was called lcha 'the red (metal)' (VS 18.13, TS 4.7.5.1, B 2.6.4.5, 13.2.2.18, etc.), often in opposition to the
'black metal'. To date Brhmaa texts at 1900 BCE (see below on astronomy, 28-30) is simply impossible.
At the bottom of the sudden popularity of the Sarasvat is of course the nationalistic wish to have the
"center of the Harappan Civilization" within the boundaries of India, along a "Vedic" river the Sarasvat -- as if
such recent boundaries played any role in 2600-1900 BCE! Unfortunately for such chauvinists, neither are the
majority of the 'Sarasvat' sites along the Ghaggar in India, but along the Hakra in Pakistan. Nor does the name
'Sarasvat' apply for the period in qustion. The old designation of the Sarsuti-Ghaggar-Hakra, later renamed as
the Vedic Sarasvat, seems to have been the substrate name Viampal/ cr Vipal/ (Witzel 1999).
26. Harappan fire rituals?
B. B. Lal and others claim to have discovered fire altars in the early and later stages (at least 2200 BCE,
B.K. Thapar 1975) of the Harappan site of Kalibangan (Lal 1984, 1997: 121-124), and similarly, at Lothal. Some
of these fire places are in a domestic and some in a public context: the latter are aligned on a raised platform in a
row of seven, facing East, and near a well and bath pavements suggesting ceremonial(?) bathing. Some
archaeologists, even including some who accept a version of the immigration theory such as R. Allchin, regard
209
For a full list of settlements see now Possehl (1999) and note the theory of a handful of separate Indus 'domains'.
(68) Michael WITZEL
them as similar to, or identical with, the seven dhi;nya hearths of the post-gvedic, 'classical' rauta ritual.
However, it should have raised some suspicion that 'fire rituals' are now detected at every other copper/bronze or
even Neolithic site in northern and western India.
The amusing denouement is evident in Lal 1997:121, (plate XXXA) itself: "within the altar stood a stele
made of clay". This kind of "stele" is still found today in modern fire places of the area -- it serves as a prop for the
cooking pot.
What is indeed visible at Kalibangan (photos in Allchin 1982, Lal 1997: plate XXXIIIA, cf. Banawali pl.
XXXVIA)? There are seven(?) fire places, three(?) destroyed by later construction. They are closely aligned next to
each other and face a brick wall. Nothing of this, including the nearby brick-built bathing places, fits any
recorded Vedic ritual, neither that of the RV nor of the later (rauta) ritual. The RV knows only of 1-3 fires, and in
rauta ritual we find the three fires arranged in a typical, somewhat irregular, triangular fashion. The seven
dhi;nya fire altars of the complicated pcst-gvedic Soma ritual are additicnal fires, which are placed east of the
three main fires on the trapezoid Mahvedi platform (Staal 1983). This feature, however, is not met with at
Kalibangan either. It also does not fit the Vedic evidence, but that of a regular kitchen, that animal bones are
found in some of the supposed fire altars. Further, Vedic fire altars are not apsidal as the fire places at Kalibangan
and Banawali. At best, these are independent and untypical precurscrs, in a ncn-Vedic context, that were adapted
into the later rauta ritual as the Soma dhi;nyas. However, this is entirely impossible to prove. Such proof would
have to come from a study of the (so far hypothetical) interrelations between certain features of the Indus religion
and the rauta ritual. The matter underlines how careful archaeologists should be in drawing conclusions about
religion and ritual when interpreting material remains.
In short, the Kalibangan hearths do nct represent Vedic ritual as we know it from the large array of
Vedic texts. They may be nothing more than a community kitchen.
210
27. Cultural continuity: pottery and the Indus script
Advocates of the autochthonous theory also underline that the lack of dramatic change in the material
culture of northern South Asia indicates an unbroken tradition that can be traced back to c. 7000 BCE without
any intrusive culture found during this period.
211
Archaeologists such as J. Shaffer and M. Kenoyer stress this
remarkable continuity as well. Shaffer (1995, 1999) summarizes: ''The shift by Harappans [in the late/post-Indus
period] is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia
before the first half of the first millennium BC.''
The advocates of the autochthonous theory therefore conveniently conclude that there has been no
"Aryan invasion." However, as has been discussed above (8-10) the Vedic texts themselves speak of various
types of transhumance and migration movements.
On the other hand, there is, indeed, some degree of continuity from the late Indus civilization, that was
carried over into the early Gangetic tradition. One clear example is the continuity of weights (Kenoyer 1995: 224,
1998). Many other cultural traits (such as pottery) have been carried over in the same fashion.
This, of course, also tends to explain why the "Vedic" (or IA) tradition is so little visible in the ar-
chaeclcgical record so far. We still are looking, in the Greater Panjab, for the ''smoking gun'' of the horse, horse
furnishings, the spoke-wheeled chariot, Vedic ritual implements, etc. However, at least on the fringes of the
subcontinent, in the Kachi Plain of E. Baluchistan/Sindh and in the Gandhara Grave Culture of Swat, we find
some indications, by mid-second millennium BCE, in the first horses of South Asia, and horse sacrifice (Allchin
1995, Dani 1992).
210
Thus Jami son and Wi tzel , (wri tten i n 1992 but sti l l i n press; however, see soon:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/vedichinduism.htm), and similarly now R. S. Sharma 1995.
211
Shaffer and Kenoyer argue for a continual, 'organic' archaeological evolution reflecting indigenous cultural
development from pre- to proto-historic periods without intrusions in the archaeological record from the northwest (or
anywhere else). However, recent excavations seem to indicate, for example, a strong BMAC influence in late-Harappan
(including several statues such as the so-called Priest-King), before its decay at 1900 BCE.
Autochthonous Aryans? (69)
However, if one would again try to think through the autochthonous theory that stresses the strong
continuity in Indian cultural development from c. 7000 BCE onwards, and would suppose, with them, that the
RV preceded the Indus Civilization, one is faced by a paradox: how is possible that gvedic features such as horse
races, preponderance of cattle raising, non-use of wheat (and rice), lack of permanent settlements, complicated
Soma rituals without temples, cremation burial, etc. all of which hypothetically disappear completely during the
Harappan period and re-emerge in the post-gvedic YV Sahit, Brhmaa and Upaniadic periods of the
Gangetic epoch? This is yet another strange ncn sequitur which does not fit in with established cultural and
textual sequences. In sum, the assertion that the RV is clder than the Indus civilization does not work: there were
no horse-drawn chariots yet at the beginning of the Indus period (2600 BCE) in the Greater Panjab or anywhere
else, but they emerge only around 2000 BCE in the Ural area and in Mesopotamia.
Continuity of the Indus script
The autochthonous theory maintains that the Brahm script of Asoka (3rd c. BCE is derived from the
Indus script (Rajaram and Jha 2000). However, this is a complex logographic script with at some 400 (Parpola
1994), or rather some 600 signs (Wells 1998), many of which are used only in certain sign combinations, typical
for logographic scripts such as Chinese or Japanese. The very number of signs makes an interpretation as
alphabetic or syllabary script impossible.
212
Some of them were probably used as rebus symbols, just as is the
case with all early logographic scripts from Egypt to China: the sounds of one word were used to indicate another
one with same or similar pronunciation but with a different meaning, such as pair/pear//bear/tc bear/bare,
twc/tcc//tc/dc,their/there/they're,etc.
Unlike the Indus script with its logograms, the Brahm script, on the other hand, is a real alphabetical
script (on phonemic principles) with only one quasi-syllabary feature: as in Devangar, short -a remains
unexpressed. In the North-West of the subcontinent, Brahm had a predecessor, the Kharoh script. Both go
back, directly or indirectly, to the Aramaic script (Falk 1993, Salomon 1995), which was widely used in the
Persian empire, and even by Asoka, in Afghanistan. Kharoh, and Brahm even more so, have been adjusted
extremely well to represent the Indian sound system, certainly under the influence of traditional Brahmin
phonetic science.
If the autochthonous theory were right, the descent of Brahm from the Indus script would resemble
that of the early Semitic alphabets from Hieroglyphic Egyptian. However, in the case of Egyptian we know the
pronunciation of the Hieroglyphic logographs, while no accepted decipherment has emerged in more than half a
century of study of the Indus script (Parpola 1994, Possehl 1996).
213
Given the c. 600 signs of the Indus script, it
is of course very easy to find similarities in the 50-odd, very regularly shaped, geometrical signs of the Brahm
script (ka is a simple -, tha is: o, etc.). Even if there indeed was an initial carry-over of remnants of the Indus
script into the post-Indus period (Kenoyer 1995: 224) there is no sign of any ccntinuity of the use of the script
before the first inscriptions in Brahm in the middle of the third c. BCE.
214
The script simply vanished, like the
Maya script, when its practical use for administration and/or business disappeared (Allchin 1995, Possehl 1996).
In addition, writing and script are not mentioned in the Vedic and early Buddhist texts (v. Hinber 1989).
Typically, Pini, probably a subject of the Persians in Gandhra, has two fcreign names, the Persian name of
'script' dipi (Pers. dipi [ipi] < Elamite tip/tup) as well as its regular development in East Iranian (lipi), from
which the Skt. and Pkt. terminology is derived.
In short, just as in many other areas of S. Asian culture, the disappearance of writing is witness to the
large gap between the well-organized urban civilization of the Indus culture at c. 1900 BCE, its village-like local
212
For a survey see Possehl 1996; for the discussion of a recent, particularly blunt and fraudulous attempt (Rajaram and Jha
2000) see Witzel and Farmer in the Indian news journal, Ircntline, Oct. 13, 2000 and discussion in subsequent issues.
213
I leave aside the question of decipherment. There is a new attempt about once per month now, increasingly claiming that
the texts are in early Sanskrit. Non-Sanskritic ones include, e.g., R. Mathivanan 1995, Arun Pathak and N.K. Verma 1993;
both find continued use of the (unchanged!) Indus script, after a lapse of evidence spanning some 4000 years, but
exemplified by photos, on the house walls of the Austro-Asiatic Santals in S. Bihar.
214
Coningham 1995 maintains an early --improbable--date for Brahmi at c. 500 BCE for Sri Lanka. This single, early date
probably is due to unclear stratigraphy; the singular find of inscribed materials is situated barely below a much later level.
(70) Michael WITZEL
successor cultures in E. Panjab/Haryana etc., the subsequent superimposition/adaptation of pastoral Vedic
culture, and finally, the newly emerging Gangetic urban culture of pre-Mauryan times in the 5th century BCE.
VEDIC TEXTS AND SCIENCE
28. The ''astronomical code of the RV''
One of the most arresting claims of the autochthonous theory is that of an astronomical code in the
organization of hymns of the RV (Kak 1994), which he believes to establish a tradition of sophisticated obser-
vational astronomy going back to events of 3000 or 4000 BCE
215
, a few millennia after the Aryans' hypcthetical
arrival in the seventh millennium BCE (Kak 1994: 20-22); or more specifically, that certain combinations of
numbers enumerating the syllables, verses and hymns in the gveda coincide with numbers indicating the
periods of planetary motions.
However, to begin with, Kak's discovery is derived from the traditional ordering of the hymns and verses
of the RV, a schematic one of the post-gvedic period most probably executed in the Kuru realm of the Eastern
Panjab/Haryana at c. 1200/1000 BCE (Witzel 1997, 2001); it was canonized a few hundred years later by an
Easterner, kalya, during the late Brhmaa period (roughly, 700-500 BCE) -- and that is the version Kak uses!)
Other versions of the RV differ slightly; even a text contemporary with kalya, B, says that the Purravas hymn
(RV 10.95) had 15 verses while our RV has 18. Which size and ordering of the text to follow, then?
The real question, of course, is: why should anybody order one's texts according to some astronomical
patterns? Rather, what kind of method would present itself to a people with a strong, well-trained memory but
without the use of script? One could think, for example, of a strictly metrical pattern (as is indeed used in the
Soma hymns of RV 9 or the Avestan Gs), or one according to the use of the hymns in ritual (as is used by the
Yajurveda). None of the two is the one followed in the bulk of the RV. Instead, as has been well known for more
than a hundred years (Oldenberg 1888), and indeed since Vedic times(!), the RV is organized in three levels:
according to authors, i.e. poets' clans (the 'family books', RV 2-7, and 8), deities (hymns to Agni, Indra, then
others), and according to meter (hymns with longer meters come first). The core 'books' of the RV (2-7) are
arranged from short books to long ones, and, conversely, inside each book according to a descending order
numbers of hymns per deity, and numbers of verses per hymn. All of this is not mentioned by Kak; for details on
the exact scheme and the -- only apparent -- disturbances
216
in it, see Oldenberg (1888, Witzel 1997). In sum, if
one knows -- just as modern practice still prescribes-- the author, the deity and the meter, one knows where a
hymn is to be found inside the core section (RV 2-7) of the RV collection. This is a simple but very effective
method in an oral tradition without script.
Interestingly, Kak joins this theory with observations about the piling up of bricks of the Agnicayana
altars. It certainly cannot be doubted that the altar is identified, in the typical fashion of the post-gvedic
Brhmaa texts, with Prajpati, the divine sponsor of the ritual and the year, and that some calculations are
connected with that. However, there was no Agnicayana yet at the time of the RV. Even the Mantra collections
used for this ritual are late and form a third layer in the collections of the post-gvedic Yajurveda Sahit texts;
the same it true for the discussion of the ritual in the Brhmaa style texts. Any combination of the numbers of
bricks in the Agnicayana with the order and number of hymns and Mantras of the RV therefore is not cogent, to
begin with.
To find astronomical reasons behind this arrangement requires extra-ordinary ingenuity on the part of
the criginal, contemporary composers and arrangers of the RV -- or the decipherer, S. Kak. That they should
constitute an criginal gvedic ''astronomical code'', -- based on the post-gvedic(!) arrangement of the RV-
215
Cf. also the discussion by Elst 1999: 96 sqq.
216
Which greatly irks Talageri (2000) who simply relies on the superficial outward appearance of the present (kala) RV;
he is simply ignorant of the history of gvedic philology of the past 150 years and relies just on Griffith's outdated and
similar uncritical English translation of the late 19th century and on some Skt. word indexes of the RV (for details, Witzel
2001).
Autochthonous Aryans? (71)
Sahit and the later, post-gvedic(!) construction of the Agnicayana fire-altars -- is simply impossible. It also
does not help the scheme that the knowledge of this code is said to have disappeared very shortly after the
composition of the texts.
Further, Kak's scheme suffers, even if one takes its rather involved numerical schemes for granted, from
inconsistency, such as the arbitrary use of multiplication factors that deliver the desired results for the various
courses of the planets (which are not even attested in Vedic texts, see M. Yano, forthc.). In fact, references to
astronomical data in the RV are generally very vague, and limited, as in other ancient cultures, to a few facts of
direct observation by the naked eye (Pingree 1973, 1981, Witzel 1972, 1984, 1986, Plofker 1996, Yano forthc.).
More details could be added. To mention just the most elaborate one, K. Plofker's (1996) discussion of
Kak's attempt in the section ''Probabilistic Validation'' (1994: 106-107). This section intends to prove that the
presence of planetary period numbers in the gvedic hymn number combinations (containing 461 distinct
integers ranging from 43 to 1017), derived from all ten books of the RV, cannot be coincidental. As Plofker shows,
"the set of values generated from sums of a given set of numbers is generally nct uniformly distributed over the
interval it spans; as a rule, there will be a few very small sums and a few very large ones, but most will cluster
about the middle of the interval. In this example, out of the 461 hymn combination numbers, no fewer than 320
fall within the range 301--800 containing most of the planetary period constants. This, combined with the fact
that Dr. Kak (by his own account; p. 105) permits errors of at least pm1 in his matching of numbers, means that
the high proportion of matches has no statistical significance whatever."
This mathematical demonstration would not even have been necessary because of the derived, secondary
nature of hymn numbers in kalya's redaction of the RV (see above). Or, in the same vein, when it is alleged by
Kak that the combined number of hymns in the fourth, sixth, eighth, and ninth books of the RV was chosen to
be 339 because that number is roughly equivalent to ''the number of disks of the sun or the moon to measure the
path across the sky... [or] sun-steps'' (Kak 1994: 100, accepted by Elst 1999: 110), one must immediately note, not
only that RV 9 is a late book (Oldenberg 1888, Proferes 1999), but that these books have the following additicnal
hymns (Oldenberg 1888): 4.57-58; 6.74-75; 8.96-101, 9.112-113, not to mention quite a few additional hymns
inside these very books. This simple observation renders Kak's whole scheme numerically impossible.
In short, the whole matter boils down to over-interpretation of some facts that are internally inccn-
sistent.
217
Ncnlicet.
29. Astronomy: the equinoxes in B
Vedic astronomy has been discussed
218
since Weber (1860), Thibaut (1885), Tilak (1893), Jacobi,
Oldenberg and Whitney
219
-- all of them writing well before the discovery of the Indus civilization, at a time
when nothing of Indian prehistory was known before the supposedly firm date of the Buddha.
220
Some passages
in the B have been under discussion since then that seem to refer to the equinoxes, and would indicate the date of
observation of these celestial phenomena. B 2.1.2.3 seems to say that the spring equinox is in the asterism
Kttik: krttikasvagnadadhta...etahavaipracyaidicnacyavante|sarvanihavaanyaninak;atranipracyaidia
cyavante....saptar;nuhasmavaipurark;aityacak;ate.''One should found one's fires under the (moon house of
217
Note that similar claims have been made for the Bible and other ancient texts. As it has been said: select some significant
numbers relating, e.g. to the (19th c.) Washington monument, add some astronomical facts and --lo, behold-- unforeseen
relations of the monument with the earth, space and time emerge!
218
See the long list of late 19th and early 20th cent. discussions in L. Renou, Biblicgraphie vedique, Paris 1931, 158-163:
Weber 1860, Thibaut, IA 1885, p. 85 sqq., Oldenberg, ZDMG 48, 629 sqq, Jacobi 1893, 1894, ZDMG 49, 218 sqq., Oldenberg,
ZDMG 49, 470 sqq., Jacobi, ZDMG 50, 69-83, Tilak 1893, 1903, Whitney 1894, JAOS 6, 413 sqq.; JAOS 8, 85 sqq, etc. Cf. Elst
1999: 96 sqq.
219
Pingree does not find basic astronomical skills among the early Indo-Aryan because the texts do not specifically outline
such skills.
220
Autochthonists now date the Buddha to 1700 BCE or even 3139/8 BCE, and Candragupta Maurya (of c. 300 BCE) is
replaced by Candragupta, the Gupta king; these and similarly absurd dates are found in Elst 1999: 97.
(72) Michael WITZEL
the) Kttiks... These, they do not deviate from the eastern direction. All other moon houses, they deviate from the
eastern direction... Formerly, one called the Saptaris 'the Bears'.'' This statement, if taken for a literal description
of the 'immobile' position of the Pleiades, is possible only for the third millennium, at c. 2300 BCE (Kak even has
2950 BCE, cf. Elst 1999: 96). Then, the Pleiades were at the equinox point, some 60 degrees off today's position due
to precession (for details see Achar, E}VS 5.2, 1999).
The basic question is, of course, whether such astronomical references in Vedic texts must be taken at
face value, i.e. literally. The above passage is followed by a set of other ones which allow setting up the fires at cther
times, most of which are motivated and justified, like this one, by inherent Brhmaa texts' concerns and logic.
Further, astronomical observations in the Vedic texts are of a more general nature, and are clearly based on what
is easily observable with the naked eye over the course of a few years (Pingree 1973, 1981 Plofker 1996, Yano
forthc., Witzel 1972, 1984, 1999c). If one takes this conclusion as one's baseline, some statements in the
Babylonian text MUL.APIN are of interest. The text is probably to be dated in the late second millennium
(Pingree 1998), thus earlier than B but much closer to it than the supposed date of the Kttik observation in the
third millennium. MUL.APIN says more or less what B does in the section under discussion, namely that the
Pleiades are in the east and that Ursa Maior is in the north. And that would be the end of the whole question.
However, even if one admits that the sentences quoted above refer to ccntempcrary observation and have
been transmitted as such over several millennia, a serious problem remains: the advocates of the autochthonous
theory, unwittingly, commit the rather common but no less serious mistake of dating a text according to a single
early fact mentioned in it. But, one cannot, and in fact nobody does date the RV, just because Indra occasionally
still has a stone weapon, to the (late) stone age. Texts contain reminiscences and archaic words and concepts; we
can only date them by their latest, not their earliest datable features. Or, to put it somewhat facetiously, if I write
''looking at my digital clock I saw that the sun rose at 6:00 a.m.,'' then my sentence cannot be dated, because of the
unconscious, but unscientific use of ''to rise'', to the period before the revolutionary book of Copernicus (1507 AD),
but only to the present computer age.
If B 2.1.2.3 (and also the neglected passage in BS 27.5)
221
indeed would indicate the spring equinox in
Kttik, then this may very well be a popular or learned remembrance of times long past, for the same passage of
B also remembers that the Great Wagon/Big Dipper (ursa maicr) was "formerly" called ''the bears''. This is an
old Indo-European expression (Greek, Latin, etc.). The name Rk;ah indeed occurs once in the RV and this is
copied in T, B (Witzel 1999c), before the asterism acquired its well-known name ''the Seven i'' (sapta r;ayah,
cf. Avest.hapt
i
ringasaptalinga(ni), cf. now Plofker,E}VS6-2, 2000).
In addition, we simply cannot date the B in the third millennium BCE, as it has strong evidence of iron
which emerged in India only by 1200/1000 BCE, and as B is very close in its cultural, economic, socio-political,
and philosophical development to the time of the Buddha, who lived around the middle of the first mill. BCE.
As seen many times by now, the advocates of the autochthonous theories take one --in case, a rather
dubious-- datum and use it to reinterpret Vedic linguistic, textual, ritual history while they neglect all the cther
contradictory data derived from comparative astronomy, archaeology, textual study, etc. This does not achieve a
'paradigm shift', not even special pleading, but simply is faulty reasoning.
30: The Jyotia Vedga and the solstices
Another favorite item brought forward for an early date of the Vedic texts has been the date assigned to
the Jyotia of Lagaha, a Vedga text attached to the gveda tradition (a later version exists in the Yajurveda
tradition as well). Since this is an appendix to the Veda, virtually all other Vedic texts must predate it. Its date,
however, hinges on that assigned to the solstice as described in this text. The basic question is the same as in the
case of the Kttik equinox: whether the description as given in the Jyotia is also the date of the text in which it is
transmitted. Again, this would mean to date the text according to its earliest item.
However, the astronomy involved here is not as straightforward as it usually is made out to be. T. K. S.
Sastry (1985:13) and R. Kochhar (1999) think of an early date, between 1370 and 1150 BCE, as the winter solstice
is described to be in ravih/Dhanih nak;atra. Pingree's (1973: 10) estimate is c. 1180 BCE.
221
Note that B has the alternative dates Rohi, Mgara, Phalgun, Hasta, Citr, and BS also has "at the appearance" of
ravaa, Citr/Svat, all indicating various ritual concerns, see Witzel 1999c.
Autochthonous Aryans? (73)
While Sastry believes that the text preserves a tradition dating back to that period, Pingree (1973: 10)
stresses that it is unknown where Lagaha would have exactly placed the boundaries of the nak;atra Dhani,
and what was his exact determination of the longitude of the Sun. Any mistake in the exact position of the
beginning of a nak;atra as well as the rough Jyotia intercalation-cycle based on the inexact length of the year as
365 days (instead of c.365 1/4) makes all such back-calculations prone to error by centuries.
Further, Lagaha puts the winter solstice on the new moon of Mgha at the heliacal rising of
Dhanih, which post-dates the establishment of the calendrical scheme with amanta months. This is late Vedic,
at best. In TS 7. 4. 8 and KB 4.4, the beginning of the year is on a full-moon night, and the months are prnimanta.
KB 19.2-3, however, already has amanta months, the year beginning sometimes preceded by an intercalary
month (as in the Babylonian calendar of MUL.APIN). This is just one of the several reasons why Pingree (1973:
3, 1987, 1998) introduces Babylonian astronomy and thinks that the astronomy of the k recension of the Jyotia
"was formulated in the fifth or fourth century BC on the basis of information about originally-Mesopotamian
methods and parameters transmitted to India during the Achaemenid occupation of the Indus Valley between ca.
513 and 326 BC." This would produce a fairly low date pcst quem for the section of KB in question; however, the
transfer of such ideas can also have followed other methods and routes.
Sastry (1985: 15) agrees as far as the date of the Jyotia text itself is concerned and adds the observation
that its astronomical system is the same as that taught in the Gargasahit, which Pingree (1987: 295) places in
the 5th or 4th centuries BCE. However, one of its constituent parts, the Yuga Pura, which mentions the post-
Alexandrian Greeks, was dated by Mitchiner (1986: 82) only to the end of the last century BCE.
Further indication for a late date of the Jyotia is that the language of the text is post-Vedic, which lets
Sastry assume that it was redacted by someone belonging "the last centuries BC" (1985: 12). However, it must be
added and stressed that the text is actually ccmpcsed in late Epic language. It has not been noticed that it does not
only have the typical long compounds, but also those with tat- as first part, and many metrical 'space fillers' such
as tu,caiva,tatha,tathaivaca,evaca,apica,which must necessarily be part of the very composition. The particle
vai occurs once, however not, as usual in Vedic, in second position of a sentence or Pda but attheend of a Pda
(along with evaca!). This agrees with late Epic practice, as seen in Mbh. 12 and Rm. 1 and 7 (Witzel, in prep.).
In short, only if one is ccnvinced that Lagaha intended the solstice to be exactly at alpha Delphini of
Dhani, one can date his cbservaticns back to the late second millennium. Since that cannot be shown beyond
doubt, since the composition of the text is in Late Epic language, and since its contents have clear resemblances to
Babylonian works, the text must belong to a late period, to the last centuries BCE.
In sum, if one were to take seriously the autochthonous dates of the Jyotia at 1400 BCE, (and, ac-
cordingly that of the B, or even that of the BS, at 2900 BCE)
222
, and if one would re-arrange the dates of Vedic
literature accordingly, one would have the further, considerable difficulty of explaining, e.g., the use of iron and
222
The same applies, mutatis mutandis , to the Vedic references of a Magha solstice, see Elst 1999: 100, which, in his view,
would allow to place the [iron age] Brhmaa and Stra literature at 2300 BCE [long before the introduction of iron]. Other
alleged astronomical evidence such as the Svarbhnu myth in RV 5.40.5-9 (a late appendix to RV, see Oldenberg 1888!), has
been discussed already in the 19th century. Such references are much too vague to be used for dating (nevertheless see Elst
1999: 107). The same applies to the appendix hymn RV 8.93 which Elst (1999: 111 sqq.) wants to turn into a reference to the
heliacal rising of the sun in Vabha. The bull here is, as so often, just Indra. Further, RV 3.39.3 (Elst 1999: 113) refers to the
Mrta/Vivasvant myth, not to astronomy; RV 5.83.3 is a poetical image comparing thunder to lion's roar, and not the
Siha zodiacal sign. Apart from the fact that Elst has to demonstrate the use of the zodiac for the RV, this is poetry, not
astronomy. "It could not be clearer" (as Elst says -- but about the zodiac!) Again, RV 6.49.7 describes young women who are
'bright' (citra) not the asterism Spica in Virgo (cf. now also Hock, forthc.) Just as in the Gt, the one who looks for Krishna
everywhere will find him, in casu early astronomy in the RV; the same applies to S. Kak (1994). Elst's bold summary (1999:
117) is based on such shaky data: "the g-Veda was composed in the 4th millennium as... the Brahmanas and Sutras are
products of the High Harappan period towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC." That this "has been a growing challenge
to the AIT defenders for two centuries" is easily lead ad absurdum. -- The same fundamental mistake is committed by
Klostermaier (1998): "Texts like the Rigveda, the Shatapathabrahmana and others contain references to eclipses as well as to
sidereal markers of the beginning of seasons, which allow us by backward calculation, to determine the time of their
composition." For all such monolateral assertions, see discussion below, 32 .
(74) Michael WITZEL
chariots at 2900 BCE, or the date of the later parts of B at c. 1500 BCE, while they fit in with the cultural and
political climate just before the emergence of the Magadha realm and the Buddha around 500/400 BCE.
31. Geometry: ulba Stras.
The case of the geometry of the late Vedic ulba Stras is of a similar nature. The advocates of the
autochthonous theory maintain, with A. Seidenberg (1962, 1978, 1983),
223
that the geometry of the fire altars in
the atapatha Brhmaa and some earlier (translated) texts such as Taittirya Sahit, precedes the early
geometry of Greece and Mesopotamia, and that it can be dated prior to 1700 BCE (cf. Elst 1999: 99).
Seidenberg has reached this conclusion by a comparison of the geometry of the Pythagoreans with that
of the Vedic texts and some Babylonian sources. The latter have the full system in place at that early date, but
their prehistory is not visible in existent Mesopotamian sources. Due to some differences in the three systems
(such as algebraic vs. geometric procedures), Seidenberg (1983: 121) excludes mutual borrowing. Rather, he
assumes a common source of the three systems that is older than 1700 BCE, and then tries to find echoes of it in
pre-Brhmaa texts, even at RV 1.67.10, etc. (which is much too vague about the building of fire altars to allow
proof), all without the use of bricks. Staal (1999) has recently expanded on this problem, using my discussion of
the common, non-Indo-Iranian words for 'brick' in Avestan, Old Persian and Vedic (from it-) and has
assumed that the common source may well have been in the BMAC area (see 22) .
Be that as it may, it is not a pricri necessary that the similarities and identities in mathematical pro-
cedure must go back to one ccmmcn source. To paraphrase A. Michaels (1978: 52 sqq., cf. 1983), who has carried
out an in-depth study of the ulba Stras and their geometry: Vedic sacred geometry is autochthonous, and
analogies between various cultures are not enough to prove actual historical exchange between them. The burden
of proof always is with the one who proposes such an exchange. (This has not been supplied, pace Elst 1999: 99
sq.). In addition, Michaels distinguishes between sacred geometry in general and its form transmitted in the
ulba Stras. This is not always distinguished well (also not by Seidenberg), especially when one simply identifies
the thecretical knowledge of the ulba Stras with the more empirical knowledge and practice of the Brhmaas
and rauta Stras. However, it is likely that the ulba Stras as such originated at the same time as the elaborate
description of the ritual and that these texts were all integral parts of the ritual Stras (Kalpastra).
Michaels goes on to show (1978: 139 sq.) that the magical ideas of Vedic ritual, together with certain
practical (artisan's) faculties, lead to the specific form of Vedic sacred geometry, which is basically a logic-free,
elementary geometry. However, its various pre-scientific practices, or schemes of action, were transformed into
general and theoretical sentences. These could, in turn, always be checked for truth and could be proved by the
various practical schemes of action that were used in Vedic ritual with its pre-scientific norms of identity.
Michaels also stresses that the connection between magical ideas and artisan's practice was from the beginning
only accessible to a small circle of specialists, the ones knowledgeable in "measuring art"; its influence therefore is
only visible insofar as it leads to a specialization of a portion of the complete Vedic ritual, again reserved for
specialists.
While it has been quite clear for more than a hundred years that these Stra texts contain the knowledge
of basic geometry (Seidenberg 1983, Michaels 1978), including Pythagoras' theorem, it is now claimed that altar
constructions were used to represent astrcncmical knowledge (Kak 1994) in the RV. However, even the post-
gvedic texts say only that the three ritual fires represent the earth, sun and moon, and that the offering priests
walk about in space. The complicated post-gvedic brick pilings on the Mahvedi represent a bird (yena) that will
take the sponsor of the ritual to heaven (e.g., the year as eagle B 12.2.3.7). There is no indication of any typical
Brhmaa style speculation that goes beyond an identification of the sponsor of the ritual with the creator god
Prajpati and the year (with its 360(!) days, 10,800 muhrta, at B 12.3.2.5; khyana rayaka 7.20, etc. (cf.
22, 26). Complicated astronomy is absent.

223
Seidenberg insisted that the geometry of the ulba Stras must have been the origin of the Babylonian system and,
accordingly, he would date it no later than 1700 BCE. He neglects other possibilities such as a common origin or a common
origin in another area (see Staal 1999).
Autochthonous Aryans? (75)
If there is any surprising factor here, it is the ability of the Vedic priests to work with such large numbers
while they belonged to a civilization that did not use the script or written numbers (though the priests
occasionally use twigs to represent very complicated schemes, such as the order of certain repetitions of Smans).
However, the piling of fire altars made of thousand(s) of bricks belongs to the pcst-gvedic period (pace
Seidenberg 1983: 123-4), and even then, occurs only in comparatively late YV material, as has been pointed out
above: the Cayana is much later than the Soma and other rituals of the YV Sahits; it can at best be dated to the
beginning of the iron age (if we take Tura Kvaeya as one of its originators, see Proferes 1999).
If there indeed is any older, local tradition is hidden behind all of this, it may go back local, to non-Vedic
(Indus?) sources. But that remains, for the time being, pure speculation.
SUMMARY
32. Summary: The autochthonous theory
The autochthonous theory, in its various forms, leaves us with multiple internal contradictions and
open questions as far as time frame, cultural content, archaeological, zoological, astronomical, mathematical,
linguistic and textual data are concerned. If such contradictions are noticed at all by the revisionist and indigenist
writers they are explained away by new, auxiliary assumptions and theories, -- that is, by special pleading, and
often by extra-ordinarily special pleading. In short, all things being equal, the new, disjointed theory falls prey to
Occam's razor.
224
If we would in fact assemble all of the autochthonous ''evidence'' (as has been attempted here in brief
form) and think it through, torturous as it may prove to be, we would have to rewrite not only Indian history, but
also many sections of archaeology, historical linguistics, Vedic literature, historical geography, zoology, botany,
astronomy, etc. To apply the new "theory" consistently would amount to a "paradigm shift" in all these fields of
study. But biologists, for example, would not be amused.
In other words, should there be special rules in all these sciences only as far as evidence from South Asia
is concerned? Either science is universal, or we may begin to write new regional or national accounts, in fact new
mythologies that include scme observations of nature and the sciences. Are we ready for a "Mythos of the Twenty-
First century," written by a Mr. JapGiri or SevatParvat?
Certainly, a revisiting of old theories should be carried out if the new evidence is strong and unam-
biguous. But the observations made by revisionists and indigenists do not add up to a complete, self-contained
theory that is in agreement with the other, independently developed fields of knowledge. Instead, it is rigged with
lacunae and internal contradictions and it frequently clashes with the established sciences. These features make
the autochthonous theory particularly unfavorable as a replacement of earlier explanations.
225
A 'paradigm
shift' can be maintained, as has been shown time and again in the preceding sections, only by using very special
pleading. Occam's razor applies.
If the model of a transhumance type immigration or trickling in of speakers of Old IA and subsequent
acculturation (one last time, not an ''invasion''!) is to be replaced, then such a new model has not yet been found,
224
Incidentally, autochthonists always insist on the lack of archaeological, palaeontological etc. evidence or the IA
"invasion" (or immigration/trickling in) theory. However, it may be pointed out that none the Out of India theories are
substantiated by archaeology etc. either. The matter has not been raised yet, but it must be pointed out that just as there is
clear linguistic, textual and now genetic evidence but "no Aryan archaeology, no Aryan bones", there also is no
archaeological proof, but only historical, clear linguistic and now also genetic evidence for the cne clear emigration of an
Indian population westwards in historical times -- that of the Gypsies (Roma, Sinti etc.; there are one or two similar cases,
attested in later times, but on a much more limited scale, see Hock 1999).
225
Except, of course, if the aim is some 'superior', religious or political motive.
(76) Michael WITZEL
and it has certainly not yet been shown to be probable by the revisionists and indigenists. The burden of proof
squarely rests on the shoulders of the advocates of the new autochthonous theory.
To sum up: even when neglecting individual quirks,
226
the various autochthonous proposals simply do
not present a cogent picture. They almost completely neglect the linguistic evidence, and they run into serious
chronological and geographical difficulties: they have horse drawn chariots in S. Asia before their actual
invention, horses in S. Asia before their introduction from Central Asia, use of iron tools at 1900 BCE before its
first use at c. 1200/1000 BCE. They have the gvedic Sarasvat flowing to the ocean while the RV indicates that it
had already lost its main source of water supply and must have ended in a terminal lake (samudra).
They must also distort the textual evidence of the RV to make it fit supposed Harappan fire rituals, the
use of the script, a developed town civilization and its stratified society of traders and artisans, and international
maritime trade. And, they must rewrite the literary history of the Vedas to fit in improbable dates for the
composition of most of its texts so that they agree with suppcsed ccntempcrary astronomical observations -- when
everything else in these texts points to much later dates.
Finally, they have the Old Indo-Aryan, or even the Indo-European Proto-language, developing in the
Panjab or even further east in northern India while all non-IA
227
linguistic and historical evidence, including
that of linguistic palaeontology, clearly points to areas further northwest and west. They maintain an Indian
homeland for IE, while the expected early South Asian loan words are entirely missing in all non-IA IE
languages, including even the neighboring Old Iranian, and while, conversely, such loans are already copious in
Vedic and are traceable to S. Asian substrate sources.
***
Curiously, even the alleged historical development of the Aryan ''invasion theory'' is not correct as
usually stated.
228
It was nctdeveloped and formulated in the 19th century to show that the Vedas were composed
before the 'Aryans' mixed with the indigenous 'races' and to underline that the British conquest was similar to the
'Aryan conquest'. In fact, the early period of IE linguistics did not have that concept at all; the home of the IE
language was thought, in the typical Romantic fashion of the day, to be in India or in innermost Asia. The
concept of the IE language family, though first formulated by two late 18th century British citizens (Lord
Monboddo and William Jones, and in both cases not yet scientifically at all
229
), the IE and (Indo-)Aryan theory
was not developed by British imperialists but by Danish and German scholars of the romanticism era, such as R.
Rask and F. Bopp (1816); it was further developed in the later 19th c. by German linguists such as the Leipzig
}unggrammatiker school whose members had no interest at all in British imperial designs (cf. Kennedy 1995,
Trautmann 1999). The theory of an immigration into or invasion of S. Asia by speakers of IA, based on the
familiar concept of the Hunnic and Germanic invasions of the Roman empire, and the idea of an IE 'race'
emerged only later in the 19th century and they were not even generally accepted; for example the concept of an
226
Such as Kak's ''astronomical code'' that is based on a combination of gvedic brick pilings of the still ncn-existent
Agnicayana and the structure of the still ncn-existent complete RV collection. Note, that it is not questioned but favored by
Klostermaier (1998), Elst (1999) and other revisionists/indigenists.
227
Even that of Mitanni-IA, see above; excluding, of course, that of the comparatively late IA emigrants, the Gypsies.
228
The most blatant rewriting of 19th century (European) intellectual history (and much else!) has been carried out by the
mathematician (Ph.D. 1976) and electrical engineer (B.A. 1965) N.S. Rajaram (1993, 1995, etc.) who sees missionary and
colonialist designs all over Indology. Unfortunately, he had to rely on English summaries (of summaries) of 19th cent.
sources written in various European languages -- hardly a good starting point to write history. Even a cursory reading of his
many, repetitive books will indicate just one thing: a lot of fantasy. These books are nothing but a new mythclcgy of the 19th
century, written for and now increasingly accepted by (expatriate) Indians of the 21st century to shore up their claims to a
largely imagined, glorious but lost distant past.
229
It is usually not mentioned that W. Jones' formulation does include not only the languages belonging to the IE family,
such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin but also unrelated ones such Malay.
Autochthonous Aryans? (77)
'Aryan race' was rejected by the now-maligned Indologist Max Mller (1888) or, at length, by the Indo-
Europeanist H. Hirt (1907).
In addition, already by the end of the 19th century there was a reaction against reading too much of IE
linguistics and reconstructed IE culture into the RV: the Frenchman Bergaigne stressed the complicated nature of
RV poetry and ritual, and the Germans Pischel and Geldner saw the RV as a sort of Kvya rather than the simple
nature poetry of semi-nomadic pastoral tribals, a view fashionable in the first part of the 19th century. Max
Mller was actually called mck;amla[ra] in his time because of the help he provided to the cause of Indian
independence, all while working at Oxford in the midst of imperialistic Britain (Mller 1883, 1970). He still saw
the RV in the rather Romantic fashion of his youth, the first half of the 19th century, as 'primordial' poetry of
nature, as some of our earliest texts; yet already for him, the Aryan concept had nothing to do with 'race' but all
with language and its 'decay'.
230
If some British scholars used the evidence then available to cement the position
of their empire, it was natural for them in their own, Victorian time, just as the use of the same data by, e.g., the
champions of the Dravidian irredenta (Trautmann 1999), by those who followed the then fashionable 'race
science' of the Frenchman de Gobineau and the British writer Hamilton, or by Dalit reformers and by the leaders
of the Indian independence movement. However, the facts themselves remain, until (some of them) are shown to
be based on incorrect data or conclusions.
Present day non-Indian scholars, however, do no longer have any colonialist or 'Eurocentric' agendas
and, anyhow, do not feel the need to defend 'traditional' western conclusions and theories of the 19th or 20th
centuries.
231
Rather, if anything has been typical for the development of western thought during the past few
centuries, it has been the constant change in intellectual approaches and fashions (see below) in methods and in
conclusions; all were guided, of course, by the ongoing dialectical process. These many diverse concurrent
developments are, as has been pointed out above, often neglected by revisionist and indigenist historians who
frequently juxtapose, compare, or even equate the writings of the 19th with those of the 20th century. Present day
"western scholarship," however, is very much aware of its own historical situation and theoretical position; yet, it
is firmly rooted, (post-modernism by and large excluded) in the enlightenment tradition.
***
Notwithstanding the internal social and political reasons for the clash between recent Indian histori-
ography (now often termed 'Marxist') and the new wave of revisionist and nationalistic writing that culminates
in the "Out of India Theory", it is its very emergence and relative popularity, as late as two generations after
Indian independence, that must surprise. The 'revisionist project' certainly is not guided by the principles of
critical theory but takes, time and again, recourse to pre-enlightenment beliefs in the authority of traditional
religious texts such as the Puras. In the end, it belongs, as has been pointed out earlier,
232
to a different
'discourse' than that of historical and critical scholarship. In other words, it continues the writing of religious
literature, under a contemporary, cutwardly 'scientific' guise. Though the ones pursuing this project use dialectic
methods quite effectively, they frequently also turn traditional Indian discussion methods and scholastic tricks to
their advantage.
233
230
For example, the first translation and dictionary (1873) of the RV by the well-known German mathematician Grassmann
analyses anas-, (which occurs only cnce in the RV, at 5.29.10!), as 'ohne Mund, Antlitz' (without mouth, face, an-as);
however, the word was taken by later 19th century writers as an indication of a racial characteristic, 'noseless' ( a-nas), while
the passage in question clearly indicates the 'speechlessness' and unusual speech of the dasyu.
231
I have pointed to this (1995), when I discussed the various forms of argumentation that have to be avoided in writing
ancient Indian history; however, this point has largely been misunderstood or blatantly disregarded by adherents of
autochthonous or Out of India theories: in many web sites (and in Talageri 2000), these writers excoriate me for my critique
of present revisionist/autochthonous writings, but they do not even mention my criticism of past western or of certain
present archaeological and historical writings (often produced by "westerners").
232
Witzel 1995, 1999d.
233
See Caraka 3.83, Nyyastra 4.2.50, the method is used in Mahbhya, and still earlier in some Brahmodyas (Witzel
1987a, and forthc.)
(78) Michael WITZEL
The revisionist and autochthonous project, then, should not be regarded as schclarly in the usual post-
enlightenment sense of the word, but as an apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking aiming at proving the
'truth' of traditional texts and beliefs. Worse, it is, in many cases, not even scholastic scholarship at all but a
political undertaking aiming at 'rewriting' history out of national pride or for the purpose of 'nation building'.
If such writings are presented under a superficial veneer of objective scholarship they must be exposed as
such,
234
at least in the context of critical post-enlightenment scholarship. Alternatively, they could simply not
be taken seriously as historiography and could be neglected (which seems to be the favorite attitude of most
scholars in Indology/Indian Studies). In both cases, however, they must be clearly understccd and described as
traditional, (semi-)religious writings. Therefore they should be regarded and used, not as scholarly
contributions, but as cbjects fcr the study of the traditional mind, -- uncomfortable as this might be for some of
their proponents, many of whom combine, in facile fashion, an education in science with a traditional
mindset.
235
In view of this, it might not even seem necessary to 'decolonialize' the Indian mind (cf. Witzel 1999d).
However, the dominance of English as the only true language of communication throughout the subcontinent,
and the strong Euro-American influence (even in non-Whorfian models) that this automatically creates in the
mindset of the English speaking elite, points in the other direction. This is reinforced by the persisting dominance
of an antiquated British style curriculum. Some adjustments both to local South Asian conditions and,
simultaneously, to the emerging global village certainly are in order. On the other hand, present
autochthonously minded efforts are the wrong way to follow. Fifty years after Indian independence, it should not
be regarded as a schclarly, but simply as a political undertaking to 'rewrite' history for the purpose of national
pride or 'nation building'. We know to what such exercises have lead during the past century.
If the present wave of apologetic, revisionist, and nationalistic writing should continue unabated, and if
it should remain largely unobserved, unstudied and unchecked by post-enlightenment scholarship, future
historians will look back at these excesses of the end of the 20th century and the beginning 21st in the same way
as some now like to do with regard to the 19th century. And they will criticize the present generation of scholars
for having looked the other way -- for whatever reasons.
It remains for us to hope
236
that the resent spate of revisionist, autochthonous and chauvinistic
writings will not lead to similar, real life consequences as those that we have witnessed during the 20th century.
ABBREVIATIONS
The abbreviations for texts are the commonly used ones; other important ones include those listed below. Note:
for ready reference, the five historical levels of Vedic are indicated by numbers (1-5), followed by their geo-
graphical location, W: western North India = Panjab, Haryana, C: central North India = Uttar Pradesh, E: east-
ern North India = N. Bihar; S: southern N. India = between the Jamna/Ganges and the Vindhya mountains).
AA Austro-Asiatic
AB Aitareya Brhmaa (4, W & E)
Akkad. Akkadian
234
Such as N.S. Rajaram's (2000) case of fraud and fantasy in 'deciphering' the Indus seals, see Witzel & Farmer 2000.
235
If this is not believed, after the evidence presented throughout this paper, I may add a very recent experience: a visit from
a "type 3" (see above, n. 73) graduate in mechanical engineering who firmly held that the Vedas are 2 billion years old, are
vara's revelation, can only be understood after initiation (upanayana), are the sources all languages in the world and of all
sciences, etc., -- all of this internalized and integrated, without any problem, with his studies in the hard sciences.
236
A sign of hope is that recent interviews with Indian College students from all over the country seem to indicate that
they have no interest at all in this kind of debate. They are much more practically minded. ("The New Republic", Times of
India, Jan. 26., 2001)
Autochthonous Aryans? (79)
Armen. Armenian
AV Atharvaveda Sahit (2 C)
Av. Avestan
Avest. Avestan
AVP Atharvaveda Sahit, Paippalda version (2 W)
Beng. Bengali
Brah. Brahui
BS Baudhyana rautastra (4-5 C)
Bur. Burushaski
Drav. Dravidian
ep. Epic Sanskrit
EWA Mayrhofer 1956-76
Gr. Greek
Grk. Greek
GS Ghyastra(s) (5)
Hitt. Hittite
IA Indo-Aryan
IE Indo-European
IIr Indo-Iranian
Indo-Ar. Indo-Aryan
Iran. Iranian
JB Jaiminya Brhmaa (4 S)
Kan. Kannada, Canarese
Kazm. Kashmiri
KB Kautaki Brhmaa (4 C)
KEWA Mayrhofer 1986-96
Khot. Khotanese Saka
KS Kaha Sahit
KS Ktyyana rautastra (5 E)
Lith. Lithuanian
Mal. Malayalam
Mar. Marathi
Mbh. Mahbhrata
MIA Middle Indo-Aryan
MP. Middle Persian
MS Maitrya Sahit (2-3 W)
MT Mother Tongue
NP. New Persian
NIA New Indo-Aryan
Nir. Nirukta (5)
Nur. Nuristani (Kafiri)
OP. Old Persian
O.Pers. Old Persian
Osset. Ossetic
PIE Proto-IE
Pkt. Prakrit
PS Paippalda Sahit (2 W)
Rm. Rmyaa
RV gveda Sahit (1, Greater Panjab)
RVKh Rgveda Khila (2 W)
SaMh. Sahit(s)
khyana rayaka (4 C)
B atapatha Brhmaa (4 E)
S rautastra (5)
(80) Michael WITZEL
Skt. Sanskrit
Sum(er). Sumerian
S. Stra(s) (5)
SV Samaveda Sahit (2 W)
StII Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik
T Taittirya rayaka (4 C)
Tam. Tamil
Tel. Telugu
TB Tibeto-Burmese
Tib. Tibetan
Tib.-Burm. Tibeto-Burmese
Toch. Tocharian
TS Taittirya Sahit (2 C)
Up. Upaniad(s) (4)
V. Vdvdd (Vendidad)
VdhB Vdhla Brhmaa (Anvkhyna) (4 C)
Ved. Vedic
Ved. Index Macdonell - Keith 1912
VS Vjasaneyi Sahit (2 E)
Y Yasna
YV Yajurveda (-Sahit) (2)
ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlndischen Gesellschaft
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