aryan invasion - fact or fiction?

DISCOVERY OF DRAVIDIAN AS THE COMMON SOURCE OF INDO-EUROPEAN

an outline of the pertinent points in this article would be appreciated
(having trouble deciphering it)

;)

DISCOVERY OF DRAVIDIAN AS THE COMMON SOURCE OF INDO-EUROPEAN



The circumstances of the advent of Dravidian speakers in India are shrouded in mystery. There are vague linguistic and cultural ties with the Urals and with the Mediterranean area". There is also speculation that original Dravidians were a mix of Mediterraneans and Armenoids who moved towards India in the 4th millenium BC. "Along their route, these immigrants may have possibly come into an intimate, prolonged contact with the Ural-altaic speakers, thus explaining the striking affinities between Dravidian and Ural-Altaic language groups."[Encyclopædia Britannica Vol 22, Page 716 1989 Edition]

finno-ugric vs dravidian


So far the most ambitious, the most promising, and most convincing hypothesis is that of Uralian and Altaic relationship with Dravidian. Not only linguistic but anthropological, ethnographic, archeological and general historic considerations may point toward this direction. The hypothesis under the term "Scythian" was first proposed by Caldwell in 1856, and more serious attempts to support it and to develop it further were made by F.O. Schroder, T. Burrow, and K.Menges. Complete lexical evidences, plus the Keltiminar Culture (next to Aral Sea) of Khorezm points to the same important contacts between the "Ural-Altaian"and Dravidian peoples."

altaic vs dravidian
 
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Originally posted by EvilPoet
spookz: Very interesting stuff imo, thanks for
posting it.

If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me a little
more about Gover and Bishop Caldwell? I am
not familiar with either of them so any info
would be greatly appreciated. :)
Click to expand...

All this brings us back to politics as the main contributor to the Aryan-Dravidian divide including linguistics. The originator of the Dravidian language theory was Bishop Caldwell, the author of the highly influential Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages (1856, 1875). He placed Dravidian languages in what he called the Scythian Language Family. When another linguist (Gover) criticized Caldwell for his unsound theories about the Scythian family and Dravidian languages, it drew the following response: "It would have been well, if Mr. Gover had made himself sure of perfectly apprehending Dr. Caldwell's Scythic theory before regarding its refutation ... as not only of considerable moment from a philological point of view but of vast moral and political importance."

By 'moral and political' he obviously meant Christian missionary and British colonial interests. To the disgrace of Indian education authorities and secularist scholars, this is still the version of history taught in Indian schools.



as in personal history? google turns up nothing relevant. (its the library for you)

as to their roles in colonial india..... caldwell appears to be establishing the antiquity of the dravidian languages which did not sit too well with gover and the brits who asserted the primacy of indo aryan language. the "scythian language family" refers to a connection b/w altaic (hungarian..) and dravidian languages. gover wrote a book " The Unanticipated Legacy of Robert Caldwell and the Dravidian ... ".
i would like to know what this legacy is

apologies for the paucity of info, but i too, am learning as i post

;)
 
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Originally posted by spookz
as in personal history? google turns up
nothing relevant. (its the library for you)
Click to expand...
Funny you should bring up the library, I have
some books that need to be returned and was
planning on going next week.

As far as paucity goes, better a paucity of info
then none at all. Thanks again spookz. :)
 
A bit off topic but ...

I Thought these excerpts might be of interest:

"For something like half their history, there are few written
records we can usefully turn to in following the Gypsies' trail.
Then once historical references do begin to accumulate, they
invariably come from outsiders, and may have been written in
ignorance, prejudice and incomprehension.
'The true history of the Gypsy race is in the study of their
language', declared one great scholar. Indubitably, the study of
Romani can reveal a great deal about the origin and evolution of
the language itself. How far that can be equated with the origin
and evolution of Romani-speakers is a more speculative matter,
and the equivalence cannot be taken for granted. None the less,
in seeking to fill the initial void, we now have to turn to
philological analysis, in order to test how far linguistic inference
can make good what history has failed to record."


"A number of the languages spoken on the Indian subcontinent
do not belong to the Indo-European family. The most important of
these are Dravidian tongues of southern and central India and Sri
Lanka (e.g. Telugu and Tamil), which are survivors from the
India into which the Aryan newcomers advanced. There have
been suggestions that Romani may have branched off from the
main Indo-Aryan migration before it entered the subcontinent.
However, Sanskrit contains lexical borrowings from Dravidian,
which once extended much further north, and few of these are
found in Romani. It follows that the separation between Romani
and other Indo-Aryan tongues occurred within Indian territory."

Source:
The Gypsies
by Angus Fraser
 
Gypsies: From the Indus to the Mediterranean

From Europe I follow the roads of the Roma into the orient: to Armenia and Iran where the Sassanids once ruled, and before them the Achaemenids. From here the road leads to another land where the Indus-river flows to the land where the Kushans once held sway. (From Leksa Manus's poem The Roads of the Roma)

The Romanies are a people living in Europe and elsewhere who, it is generally believed, originate from India. Most of them still speak one of the many dialects of the Romani language. In the past, many, though not all, were nomadic, travelling with their families with carts and tents, and later with caravans. They were not only nomads with cattle but did a variety of jobs. Others have been settled in the same place for centuries. Since the end of the Second World War in 1945 most governments in Europe have been trying to get the nomadic Romanies to settle down.

On many occasions I have been asked by Romanies about their early history and I have had to reply that there was nothing easily available which told the story [in full]. Now, there is.

When the Romanies first came to Europe they still preserved a vague memory of an Indian homeland. One of the outriders who came to Spain in advance of the main companies of migrants called himself Count Thomas of Sabba in India while in Italy the fact that they came from India was recorded by a local historian. In spite of this, many other theories were bandied around concerning the origin of the newcomers and even today we cannot be sure of the circumstances of the Romanies' departure from India.

In western Europe the Romanies stood out as different. All the early chroniclers drew attention to the blackness of the newcomers, at a time when there were few black faces to be seen and, as Henriette Asseo writes in the Preface, many fantastic theories were put forward. In eastern Europe no-one seems to have taken much interest in where the Romanies came from, or - if they did - no record of the discussion has survived.

My own hypothesis is that the Romany people formed outside, rather than inside, India; that Indian immigrants from various tribes intermarried and intermixed in Persia forming into a people there with the name Dom (or Rom), and that a larger number of them then moved into Europe and their descendants are the Romany Gypsies of today.

In this new/Romani edition I therefore reprint my survey of the various groups who emigrated westwards from India. The original source for my work is M.J. de Goeje's lecture in Amsterdam in 1875 the text of which is hard to find and not easy to follow when found. I have gone back to his original Arabic and Persian sources. The general reader might like to leave the rest of this introduction for later study and start with Chapter One.

The companies that arrived in Western Europe in the 14th century said they had come from Little Egypt - an area in Greece - and this became confused with Egypt itself. The migration of the Gypsies became confused with that of the Israelites.

With the Indian connection forgotten, historians and geographers strove for three centuries to reconstruct another origin. Most tried to fit the tribe into what was then considered as the history of the world contained in the first book of Moses, Genesis.

One story saw the first Gypsy as the son of Eve, from her mating with Adam after his death. The fact that such a person's offspring would not have survived the flood was conveniently ignored.

Agrippa wrote in 1530: Those people (the Gypsies) coming from a region lying between Egypt and Ethiopia, descendants of Chus, son of Ham son of Noah, still bear the mark of the curse of their progenitor.

Yet others have seen in Tubal Cain and his half-brother the ancestors of the Gypsies. As the Book of Genesis puts it (chapter iv verses 19-22): Lamech took unto him two wives and the name of the one was Adah and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bore Jubal. He was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah she also bore Tubal Cain, a instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.

Another theory which is still believed by many today is that the Romanies are descended from Abraham's children by his second wife, Keturah. She bore him six children Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbah and Shuah (Gen xxv 1,2). Their descendants later accompanied the Israelites when they left Egypt for the Old Testament says: and a mixed multitude went up also with the Children of Israel. (Exodus xii.38)

Other stories said the Romanies were descendants of a prehistoric people, or a race of Jews who later became mixed with Christian vagabonds. In the Turkish-occupied Balkans the story was told that the first Gypsy was born from a union between a brother Chen and his sister Guin, hence the Turkish name for the Romanies, Cingene.

Yet others did not believe that the Romanies existed at all as an ethnic group. They were ordinary citizens who had darkened their skin with walnut oil. Archbishop Cajanus issued an order that Gypsies must not blacken their children's faces.

It was not until around 1780 that a number of scholars discovered that the Romani language was closely related to North Indian languages such as Punjabi and Hindi. Following this discovery they naturally assumed that the Gypsies had migrated from India, and the ground for speculation was narrowed. The German Heinrich Grellman, in a much translated and widely circulated book, established that the Romanies were an ethnic group.

Early in the twentieth century the compiler of a comprehensive grammar and dictionary of the Gypsies of Wales - John Sampson - had a simple explanation for the arrival of the Romanies in Europe. This was based on a comparison of the phonetics of Romani and Indian languages. According to Sampson, a company of the caste known as Dom left India, and spent some time in Persia and the borders of the Mediterranean (the "D" is a particular d with the tongue turned upwards typical of Indian languages). The Dom settled there and are known as Dom to this day. The company then moved in to Armenia. Again some settled and these are known as Lom (or Bosha) - the initial D of their name changing to L under the influence of Armenian. The rest moved into Europe where the D became R (still with the tongue turned up!) and later a gutteral sound and these are the Rom or Romanies of Europe.

There was much discussion amongst John Sampson and his colleagues in the Gypsy Lore Society on which part of the Indian sub-continent the Romanies had occupied before leaving for the west. At times the debate was quite heated, but there was little opposition to the "Dom theory" itself.

After 1945 doubts were expressed concerning Sampson's derivation of the name Rom. Other etymologies than Indian Dom were proposed such as Ramta (wandering). Very recently Dr. Ian Hancock of Texas has shed doubt on the Dom-Lom-Rom link.

In recent years a new interpretation of all the documentation has emerged, the so-called Rajput theory, first put forward in the writings of the Latvian Romany Dr. Jan Kochanowski and the Indian linguist W. R. Rishi. Rishi describes how Prithviraj Chauhan organised a confederation of Rajput clans to fight the Muslim invader, Muhammed Ghori. In 1192 the Rajputs were defeated and, as Rishi writes: Prithviraj's defeated army split up into three groups. The third group, which called themselves Romane Chave (the sons of Rama), set off across Afghanistan towards Europe. These Rajput emigrants were joined by men and women from many other population groups that had been attached to the army, such as blacksmiths, astrologers and musicians, as well as some bear leaders and potters.

In the most up-to-date version of this viewpoint, as presented by Dr. Hancock, himself of Romany origin, the emigrants were not defeated soldiers but a victorious army. He also places the emigration some hundred years earlier. He writes that the Kshtatriyya warrior caste did not in fact fight but organised other people to fight for them. So, the rulers of India assembled troops from different ethnic groups to fight the Muslim invaders, in particular the army of Mahmud of Ghazni. In 1015 Mahmud's soldiers were defeated and retreated to the west followed by the victorious Indian troops - the early Roma - who eventually crossed over into south-eastern Europe about the year 1300.

Other theories have emerged. Ronald Lee/Derek Tipler (?) held that the Romanies formed as a nation outside India, then immigrated to India and finally emigrated from there. Robert Moreau has an unusual theory - that the Romany people emerged from a mixture of different tribes held as slaves by Tamburlaine in an internment camp near Samarkand. In Montenegro until recently people thought that their local Gypsies were the descendants of a Serbian warrior named Vuk Brankovic.

A very recent political movement, that of the so-called Egyptians of the Balkans, has a different explanation. They claim that four centuries before Christ, their ancestors emigrated from Egypt to Greece and founded a region called Little Egypt. From there they migrated to Macedonia and Kosovo. They do not speak Romani and see themselves as a different group from the Romanies who live in the same regions.

If there is any truth in this story, then we need to at least consider whether the nomadic groups which came to western Europe in the 15th century were Egyptians or Romanies. They said they came from Little Egypt and we have no record of their speech. They may have been driven back to the east by harsh legislation at the end of the century and succeeded by industrial nomads of Indian origin.


Denial of the Indian Origin

Finally a small group of sceptic academics in western Europe have returned to mediaeval ideas and reject the idea of an Indian homeland and see Gypsies as Europeans who were socially excluded. Most of them conveniently ignore the existence of both the Romani language, which in most countries is preserved as a fully fledged language with its own grammar and sound system, and the massive Romany communities in eastern Europe.

The Dutchman Wim Willems accepts at least that Gypsies exist: "The history of the persecution of persons and groups . . . labelled [as Gypsies], continuing as it does in the present, is already in itself sufficient to establish the reality of their existence beyond denial." However, he claims that at the end of the eighteenth century a widely read writer called Grellman "constructed a Gypsy identity which previously had not existed as such."

In Holland, too, Luc Lucassen suggests that the emergence as a group of the Kalderash, Lovara, Ursari and Sinti clans in the period 1400-1900 is more a result of their being labelled as being different than because they actually are different from the general population. In one of his books he looks at three groups of nomads who arrived in the Netherlands towards the end of the 19th century and claimed that they were called Gypsies (Zigeuners) by the authorities not because they were Gypsies but because they resembled nomads called Gypsies who had come to Holland in the fifteenth century. The groups were Bosnian and Piedmontese animal trainers, and the Coppersmith Kalderash. The last named visited other countries and in England contemporary scholars took the trouble to record their language which was clearly Romani.

Lucassen further claims that "English anthropologists and sociologists reject the notion that Gypsies are a separate race of people." He is referring particularly to the anthropologist Judith Okeley who worked as a site warden in Hertfordshire, England and whose early works are based on the families she met there. They seem to have intermarried considerably with native English and, as a result, were not particularly Indian looking. They also did not speak Romani but a variety of English with Romani words. On the basis of this Dr. Okeley decided that all English and Welsh Gypsies are of local origin. Their grandparents perhaps somehow had learnt Romani when during a visit to the continent of Europe they met some Indian merchants. They managed to learn this complex language which has more case endings than Latin and a subjunctive verb during these contacts. Judith Okeley writes: "It may be the case that groups of so-called 'Egyptians' were composed of largely disenfranchised and indigenous persons. In this case they may have adopted an exotic nomenclature, parts of a second secret 'language' - either a creole or pidgin which had crossed many national frontiers of Europe; and exploited certain occupations such as fortune telling and entertainment which were consistent with a magical mysterious nomenclature."

When Dr. Okeley was later confronted with dark-faced Bosnian asylum seekers in London she was not shaken in her ideas and wrote: Although Mr. X was dark his wife might have been white.

Finally, I should at least mention the French writer of the volume Tsiganes in the Que saisje series, and the linguist Paul Wexler who maintains that Romani is a European language, in spite of its large basic vocabulary of Indian origin.

The vast majority of scholars, however, adhere to the theory of the Indian origin of the Romanies. In these pages I will show how a large number of different people migrated from India westwards, through Persia and on to the shores of the Mediterranean. It was once supposed that the Romanies of Europe belonged to one group in India and moved as a unit westwards. My own belief is that the Indian immigrants from various tribes intermarried and intermixed in Persia forming into a people there, with the name Dom or Rom and that a large number of them then moved into Europe and their descendants are the Romany Gypsies of today. Donald Kenrick

language

holocaust
 
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gypsies in india

interestingly enough, very little mention is made of the gypsies that still live in india.


LOHAR - Itinerant blacksmiths who used to be great warriors making their own weapons. Legend has it they originated in Chittorgarh but were defeated in the siege of that city in 1308. They then became nomadic. They are most famous for their beautiful wagons, the only Gypsy tribe today in India who still have their wagons. Many of the other tribes/castes listed below followed the Lohars on foot or with just a donkey or mule. In 1322 the first Gypsies were documented in Eastern Europe.

DOM – one of the few original Dravidian tribes of India, these people became nomadic after the invasion of the Aryans around 1,500 B.C. Although the Dom once had forts and were famous for their cavalry, they were designated as the lowest caste under the Aryans and became wandering dancers and musicians. Most of the following tribes are sub-caste of the Dom.

BAWARI - known as a nomadic, predatory tribe, the Bawari still to this day make signs on houses, gates, or alongside the road that can only be read by their own tribe informing them of conditions in the area. Many of these same signs were used by the European Gypsies up to the 1950s.

BADU - a small tribe in Kashmir who tamed and led bears. In the last century their dress was the most similar to the European Gypsies.

MEOS - famed cattle rustlers whose activities and customs closely resembled the Indian Gypsies who settled in England.

BERIA - a sub-caste of the Dom, this is the tribe whose women read palms and tell fortunes.

GOPAL - nomadic tent dwellers who earn their living as wrestlers in local fairs. Many European Romany were famous as wrestlers and their descendants today can always be found in Olympic wrestling teams.

BANSBERIA - famous in India as pole vaulters over animals in village fairs. The first bullfighters on foot in Spain were reputed to be Gypsies who also pole vaulted over charging bulls in the bullring.

KANJAR - one of the more despicable tribes of India because they prostitute their women. Their name has become synonymous for "pimp".

SANSI - closely related to the Kanjar, the Sansi were one of the most famous criminal tribes of India during the colonization by the British.

GANDHILA - one of the lowest castes of India, they are well known as itinerant sharpeners of scissors and knives, a profession followed by many European Gypsies.

BILOCH - camp followers of the Lohar who transported their supplies. They are reputed to have a Persian origin.

KIKAN - famous horse breeders whose origins can be traced back to Iran, this tribe arrived with the invading Islamic armies in the 11th century. Known for their predatory ways, they were expelled from the Lahore area in the 12th century and then joined other nomadic, criminal tribes before leaving India almost en mass with Lohars in the 14th century. The Kikans brought to India the story of Abraham. According to them, Sarah, Abraham's wife, was a Kikan. In many European countries, Gypsies are called Tsikans.

http://www.paulpolansky.nstemp.com/gypsies.htm

http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/people/lambani.htm
 
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lifestyle

The largest group of Gypsies in India are the Lambadi (or Gormati) Gypsies. Other groups living there include the Tamil Nomads, the Indian Gypsies, the Kanjari, and the Baiga. Although these Gypsy groups are spread throughout India, most of them are concentrated in such areas as Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Utter Pradesh, Madras, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh. The Arhagar Gypsies also live in neighboring Pakistan.

These groups, as well as other Gypsies around the world, are linked linguistically. All of the Gypsy languages belong to the North Indo-Aryan language family. When Gypsies began traveling from India to different regions of Europe hundreds of years ago, different dialects of their language (Romany) emerged. Each dialect became classified by the region in which a particular group settled.

What Are Their Lives Like?
Most Indian Gypsies have olive skin, dark hair, and brown eyes. Many believe they are descendants of the Rajputs of medieval India. These were a people who had been expelled from their homeland by Muslim invaders. They were used as grain-carriers and weapon-makers for Muslim troops. The Rajputs wandered throughout India and beyond, as a destitute, ignored, and misunderstood people. Their only valuables were the tools used in their specialized professions. Today, their descendants, the Gypsies, are widespread throughout India. They have maintained a mystical lifestyle that keeps them somewhat socially separate from their surrounding communities.

Not only do the Indian Gypsies usually have more than one occupation, but they also use additional skills to supplement their incomes. Some specialize in making such items as broomsticks, iron tools, and needles. They may also repair tool or work with stone. Other Gypsies are Hindus who believe that one does not have to work for a living, but may gain income by "religious begging." They sing songs and wear special make-up while begging in the name of a specific deity. Acrobats, magicians, tricksters, story-tellers, fortune-tellers, and the like may also polish cattle horns or work as blacksmiths. Some groups have even developed the art of tattooing. Nevertheless, these various occupations are used only when the region's people have a need for them. A Gypsy will change occupations and activities, adapting to a changing society's needs, because they depend on the people in that society for their livelihood. A Gypsy will only settle down when he cannot adapt to the needs of the region. Some of these "settled" Gypsies now live as farmers.

While some Gypsies travel throughout the year, others travel only part of the year, returning to their home camps periodically. Some live in houses similar to those of the region, but many use their wagons or bull carts as dwelling places, and some live in mobile homes. Few travel by foot or on horseback, since they cannot afford such "luxuries."

Typically, Gypsies have very unclean living habits. Sanitation and good hygiene are rarely practiced. Indian Gypsies believe that babies are to be born "into the lap of mother earth." For this reason, a woman will have her baby while lying on a rug on the ground. Children are often poorly cared for; their hair hangs loosely and shoes are seldom worn.


i cant resist posting this link!
 
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gypsies in america

So you thought all of your ancestors were blue eyed blonds from northern Europe, did you? Maybe you thought all Europeans were thus? Herein you will find just a smidgen of the ethnic diversity contained within these North American shores, and perhaps you will find clues to your elusive ancestor or family member.

We have more ethnic diversity from the Colonial Era than you may have realized. There were Roma, or Gypsies as they are more commonly called by non-Gypsies, in the Americas along with the very earliest settlers. There are legends of the Portuguese "dumping" Gypsies at what is now Port Royal, SC, before the English came. This may be the origin of the Melungeons (who are probably not Roma, but may be.). Roma and Irish Travellers have been discriminated against to the point that they keep to themselves. Roma, or Gypsies, are from India, migrating to, and through, Europe in the Middle Ages. We here provide a gathering place for Gypsies and Irish Travellers in all of the Americas, for those of us with known or suspected blood connections, and for the so called "Free Moors of SC." If you check the Ellis Island link below, be warned that there is no ethnic group in these records for Roma or Gypsy. None of the few thatI can identify are flagged in any way. We welcome oral tradition! We welcome submissions from all of the Americas. I here emphasize the Americas because European Roma are generally well represented on the web sites mentioned herein (e.g. Patrin web site - off site).

Some of us have known or suspected bloodlines from Gypsies (Roma), Romanichals (English Roma), and Irish Travellers. In my family, our elusive (German Roma) ancestor was stated to be an (American) "Indian," perhaps because this was thought more "acceptable." Our main line in my family is (German) Herron, and the wagon in the upper right is an English Heron family wagon. Roma and Irish Travellers generally only marry within themselves, or, outsiders are brought into the Roma or Traveller family and made a part of it. Nonetheless, for various reasons, some of us have Roma bloodlines, and we often learn of them by accident. Often these lines result from Roma who find themselves isolated by disease or accident, and merge into the Gadjo background. We would otherwise be characterized as Gadjo - non-Gypsies, and are ignorant of this part of our heritage.

Mostly because of past and present persecutions and prejudice, despite that fact that they are nearly everywhere, Roma and Travellers prefer to remain anonymous and unrecognized, except to each other. They are your unsuspected neighbors. They are an unknown proud minority. These circumstances make it difficult for those with bloodlines to obtain information on their elusive ancestors. I shall try to keep this web site useful for Roma, Travellers, and non-Roma with known or suspected bloodlines. We mention the Melungeons, for clarity, and include the SC "Free Moors," who are not Roma, but otherwise have no web home.

Roma, or Gypsies, have clear origins in India, early characterized by Europeans as possessing dark skin and black hair. A thousand years of co-existence in Europe has resulted in some integration and today Roma may be found in all sizes, and with all shades of skin and hair. The Patrin web site (off site) has excellent information primarily from a European perspective.

Irish Travellers, on the other hand, while often characterized as "Gypsy" by Gadjo (non-Gypsies), are from Ireland, and are Celts, or perhaps pre-Celt, according to their ancient lore. They tend to be very fair of complexion. Travellers Rest (off site) is an excellent starting place. Here are some pictures of a Settlement of Irish Travellers.

Melungeons are of unkown origin, but apparently may very well have been in the Southeast before the first English settlers. Linda Griggs describes them as: "olive complected, dark eyed, dark skinned people living in Appalachia," in her article, WAYFARING STRANGER. Modern genetic studies suggest kinship with the Middle East.

Free Moors & Turks. South Carolina had significant ethnic diversity during colonial times. The "Free Moors" of SC had been sold into slavery in the Middle East, brought to north America as slaves from Africa, earned their freedom, and petitioned the legislature that they not be carried off again into slavery. The "Turks" of Sumter County were either pirates, or escaped from pirates, according to General Sumter. We are here slowly accumulating source documents on these people


http://foclark.tripod.com/gypsy/index.html
 
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Originally posted by spookz
this shit is really more human science
that e philosophy:)
Click to expand...
Perhaps it is a little of both mixed together.
Dunno. I will tell you one thing this stuff is,
it's complicated. :bugeye:
 
A gut feeling

I am not an archaeologist and not even am a student of History. My two post graduate degrees have nothing to do with history or archaelogy. But I have never found mental acceptance to the various theories of Aryan invasions into India right as they were drilled into from school days.
I hail from a village/town of coastal South India, once a seat of Buddhist learning (yet hardly explored).
One might dub it as gut feel on this scientific forum, but the truth remains that gut feels develop based on innumerable pieces of environmental observations gathered over time. The culture in my village is so intrinsic that it can never come through nomads, even it were a million years ago. The affinity to the soil is boundless- people would die but not leave the place. This kind of culture may never develop in nomads. One can only feel - not reason it. And if the people here were indeed settlers, why do they lack the violent killing instinct that the people of central asia possess?
One basic assumption that I never understand is why Indians have to be migrants at all- be it 5000 years or 50000 years back. A rich tropical climate, water, oceans - why could not man have moved all over the world from South India for that matter? - with the richest of mental evolution that even rustic people of this region seem to have.
As a culture that records whatever war happened- Ramayana or Mahabharata, is it possible that if ever such invasions ever happened, they would pass off without even a reference anywhere? Please be reminded that all history here is perpetuated on as folklore.
On the Aryan and Dravidian divide, is it not possible that the many differently evolved subraces separated by the mountain ranges had coexisted? For example, could the northern Rama have been helped by the southern race (that was seen as a monkey race for the difference in physical appearance) in defeating another southern subrace of Ravana?. Could such intermingling have allowed the mutual acceptance of Gods across the mountains? - Rama from north and Hanuman from south?
Remember that Rama and Ravana were both contenders at Sita's swayamvaram? And couldn't Vedas be a common source of knowledge for all the subraces? What would answer that both Rama and Krishna were dark skinned even in the North? Or was it that suras in the north fought with the asuras of the south? especially because the primary reason for killing the asuras was no more than following a different faith than Vaishnavism?
I strongly feel (again a gut) that there should be seats of independent civilization in South India which are not explored and unfortunately are not cared for either. If we have lost them, sad; but I hope some resolve on this will rewrite Indian history.
And kudos to David Frawley & spookz- you said it!

SrinivasAG
 
It all depends on how old the human civilization is in India. I think, Ramayan was set in Treta Yuga, which puts it about 2 million years ago. Modern science says we are only about 100,000 years old out of which civilization is only 15,000 years old. If we can find proof that civilized man existed for over 2 million years - the whole dynamics of settlement could change. The problem is over that time period, no artifacts could exist that had not been recycled.

If the undersea items were found to have re-enforced concrete or advanced materials that have been preserved, then it would be interesting.

In a tropical climate, life can go on for many thousand years, without much paradigm shift. May be it is time to start digging or diving in India....to find out exactly where the history leads to....
 
the celtic connection

The easiest of parallels to be drawn between the Celtic and Vedic peoples must be that of the Druids and the Brahmins. The Druids and the Brahmins were both the priests and philosophers of their respective cultures. Both orders of priests were the wise ones of their lands, the seers and teachers, to whom warriors and kings turned for counsel and advice. They were free to wander the lands, as many of India's holy men still do, and, according to Caesar's writings, the Druids were "held with great honour by the people".

One of the most striking comparisons to be found between the Celtic and Vedic pantheon is that of a Goddess named Danu and the myths surrounding her (also known in Celtic traditions as Don, Dana and possibly also Anu or Ana). A Goddess named Danu appears both in Celtic and Vedic mythology. She features heavily in Celtic mythology as the Mother Goddess (and a river Goddess). She is one of the most ancient known of all Celtic Goddesses, from whom the hierarchy of Gods received it's name of Tuatha De Danann, "Folk of the Goddess Danu". Whereas in Vedic mythology the Goddess Danu gives birth to the seven Danvanas, the dark ones of the ocean. Surrounding the Goddess Danu in each culture's mythology is a similar tale of battle, each of which I shall briefly relate now

Some of the most auspicious places of worship for the Celtic and Vedic peoples were rivers. As already mentioned the Celtic Goddess Danu is particularly associated with rivers, she was the "divine waters" falling from heaven. From these waters the great Celtic river, once known as Danuvius, presently known as the Danube, was created. Many rivers in Europe still owe their current name to their associations with the Goddess Danu, such as the Rhone. In both Celtic and Vedic cultures offerings were often placed in rivers and those of the Celts were especially elaborate. The Celts would often offer much of their riches and treasures, sometimes approximately 25% of a tribe's economy would be given to the Gods at any one time.

In the falling of the Danu river we find a parallel to the an India Goddess and the most holy of rivers in India today, the Ganges. In Puranic mythology the Goddess Ganga's fall to earth was broken by the matted locks of Shiva (known as Rudra in the Vedas), who then released her to fall on the earth. The river which is venerated in the Rig Veda is that of the Sarasvati. Like Danu and Ganga, Sarasvati is the name of a Goddess, as well as a river. However the Sarasvati river is thought to have dried up and it is from that time the Ganges has fulfilled her river role.

The Celtic Vedic Connection: Part 1


What the Indus Valley seals of the horned God suggest is that there is an undeniable connection between the horned God Pashupati and the horned God of the Celts, Cernunnos. This connection between the two is best illustrated by comparing a couple of the Indus Valley seals to the depiction of Cernunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron (dated between 4th - 1st Century BCE).

The Horned God in Indian & Europe


Webster’s Dictionary gives the etymology of the word "Dravidian" as stemming from the Sanskrit term Dravida, meaning the dark-skinned people of southern India. But from whence did the term Dravida come? Is it too far-fetched to surmise that it too came from the Indo-European roots dru and vid? Did both the terms "Druid" and "Dravidian" originally refer to priests and priestesses of the Horned God and the Great Goddess whom our Indo-European ancestors encountered in the course of their migrations - to all the wise ones who worshipped in no temple, but under the oak tree? Although the Indo-Europeans originally worshipped only male sky gods, like all nomadic polytheistic religious groups they eventually absorbed the aboriginal deities into their own beliefs. In my viewpoint, the linguistic and archaeological evidence all seemed to illustrate that the Indo-Europeans, in spite of their patriarchal bias toward male sky gods, were somewhat in awe both of the power of the Goddesses they confronted in their travels and of the priests and priestesses who presided at their rituals.

So here is one parallel between the Celtic mysteries and the Hindu tradition: The Indo-Europeans, traveling in opposite directions to two vastly different areas - India and Britain - found in both those areas a widespread cult which worshipped the Great Goddess and her consort, the Horned God. The aboriginal cults held their rites in oak groves and were presided over by a group of priestesses and priests who greatly impressed the invaders with their power and thus earned for themselves a title encompassing their reverence for the oak tree and their esoteric wisdom.

The Indo-Europeans may have been patriarchal, but they were impressed enough by the religion of the people they joined to absorb it into their own. In Britain, although sects worshipping male sky gods such as Mabon, Taranis, and Mac Lir certainly existed, the deities most highly honoured were Anu or Danu, the Triple Goddess, and Herne, the Horned God. In India, the sky gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra, Agni and Surya gradually fell from favor and were replaced in the esteem of the general populace by the cult of Shiva and Shakti, impersonal godheads rooted in the ancient tradition of the Great Goddess and her consort, the Horned God. Even today, the god Shiva is depicted with his forehead marked with the two horns of the crescent Moon.

There were other gods and goddesses which paralleled each other. The Dravidian war god is called the Murúgan; the Celtic war goddess the Morrigan. The Triple Goddess was not the only Trinity worshipped by the pagan Celts; there was also the Triple God, illustrated by the images of Merlin at different times of his life: as the young prophet, challenging the priests of King Vortigern; as the mature man serving King Arthur; and as the aged hermit, retreating into the forests with his consort, Nimuë. In India, the Triple Goddess was worshipped in the form of Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity; Saraswati, goddess of wisdom; and Parvati, goddess of strength. The Triple God took the form of the Trinity: Brahman, the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver; and Shiva, the Destroyer.

The basic philosophy behind both religions shows a great deal of similarity as well. The most popularly-studied tracts outlining Hindu philosophy (besides the Vedas, which are actually considered pre- or proto-Hindu, and the epic poems) are the Yoga Sutras and the Upanishads. All emphasize the oneness of all life forms in the Universe with the Absolute, the Ultimate Source of all. Pagan Celtic poetry, particularly the enigmatic Song of Taliesin, also emphasizes this oneness: "I am a wind of the Sun; I am a wave of the Sea; I am the Moon and the Stars; I am the Earth and all her creatures ... "

Celtic Gods, hindu Gods

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sumerian connection?

According to the story on clay tablets of the Sumerian Lu-dingir-ra (could be translated as 'God's man') who lived 4000 years ago, this is the answer to 'where they had come from?'

"We migrated to where we are living now thousands of years ago, but they were unable to write down from where because they did not know how to write then. Later on inquisitive scribes and the archivists in the royal palace studied the orally transmitted information in an attempt to find out about the past. Our people came to this land from a mountainous country to the northeast. But it is also said that some of them had come via sea from a land called Dilmun in the east. And the reason behind this migration is said to be the onset of an unexplained drought in their warm and rainy country. Great Enlil had some of us 'darkheads' settle here... According to the rumours and results of my research as to why we have called ourselves 'darkheads,' I found out that before our forefathers migrated here, blonde haired and blue eyed people were living next to their country. They may have adopted this name to separate themselves from their neighbours. I cannot visualize a person with blonde hair and blue eyes. And I don't think it would be nice. I haven't seen any person like that in my country."

This is what Lu-dingir-ra had written on a clay tablet

sumer
 
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Petroleum Found

Large petroleum reserves were discovered in the coastal South India last week, and these are said to cater to 60% of Indian total requirement.
Wonder if petroleum deposits indicate something about life millions of years ago!?
 
There is a long held belief in some quarters that like water, titanium, silica, iron, gold, diamond; petroleum is part of earth's natural resources and not from animal or plant life. Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen form petroleum and carbon is a natural element. There is no non-nuclear mechanism by which a life form can convert oxygen or hydrogen to carbon...
 
kmguru,

What about the scientific theory that petroleum comes from submerged forests, plant and animal life, after some transformations?
 
hi Km,
you posted:
<i>"It all depends on how old the human civilization is in India. I think, Ramayan was set in Treta Yuga, which puts it about 2 million years ago. Modern science says we are only about 100,000 years old out of which civilization is only 15,000 years old. If we can find proof that civilized man existed for over 2 million years - the whole dynamics of settlement could change. The problem is over that time period, no artifacts could exist that had not been recycled."</i>

I think finding of that Bridge is the biggest proof,isn it?oh,BTW the bridge's name is <b>Adams's Bridge</b>



bye!
 
Just as that bridge is under water, so is a large number of other possible sites such as Atlantis that is supposed to be between North America and Africa.

Going back 750 million years, who knows if life form starts, continues for a while and then disappears....just like specis disappear even now. It may be that the monkey people of Ramayana could be a different humanoid specis of the time too.

The only way to find out if such was the case is to survey the ocean that is close to any land and do some serious research. Unless one is looking for such items, normally it wont be noticed by anybody.

Speculated Map of Atlantis
xartPas.jpg
 
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The Problem off course is what is the probability of success? And how many companies can take time to invest moeny in such a job where Success rate is Undefined.
Take for instance Charlie or Bobby today decides to invest some money anywhere,say if he is feeling that he needs to put his black money somewhere...Then only he will invest it somewhere here,because he doesnt want anything in return...but big Businesses,nope i dont think so.

I think the knowhows of Vedas,The ancient artifacts which have solid proofs behind them have potential in them to destroy the world economies...

may be someday we will come out of our cliches and do what we feel for...


thanks...

bye!
 
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