See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/05/rethinking-indian-historical-linguistics.html Rethinking Indian historical linguistics
Ref.: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/05/indian-historical-linguistics to the article mentioned in Prof. Nicholas Kazanas' response.
Kalyanaraman
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicholas Kazanas
Date: Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: Please comment on this article in Economist about Sanskrit (and PIE)
Dear Friends,
I have read the piece "Setting the record straight". The title is misleading for it sets the record crooked!
By and large the article expresses many truths well known to all. In fact, at the start one wonders why it was written at all. However, in the last paragraphs one sees that the apparent humdrum objectivity masked the purpose to promote a specific political/religious viewpoint and/or perpetuate the long moribund myth of the Aryan Invasion, now termed "immigration". For here we see an open attack on those who seek to establish a correct view of Indian Protohistory.
"Linguists know, based on reams of research, that a form of PIE, the language, did arrive in India from elsewhere becoming Sanskrit over time" the writer avers and emphasises the fact that it was the language and not people that arrived. With admirable insouciance he does not bother to tell us how these reams of research explain the arrival of an entire (highly complex) language without people who spoke it (perhaps like pollen on winds?), the date of 1700 BCE, the sanskritisation of that huge area (Land of the Seven Rivers) in N-W India and Pakistan of today, the settlement in a terrain that was desiccated while the native Harappans were moving or had moved eastward – and other similar mysteries.
Now, undoubtedly there are some, perhaps many, writers, Indian and others, who claim that Sanskrit is utterly pure and perfect, that all languages derive from it, that the Vedas are millions of years old and other similar notions. Such claims are no more non-sensical or unsupportable than the one the writer puts forth as proven and established fact.
Despite the broad sweeps through history and the multifarious references to many languages, our writer remains at a very superficial level of scholarship parroting second- and third-hand opinions from the mainstream murky morass. There is no "ironclad scholarship in Indo-European linguistics": it has cracks and gushes everywhere as the scholars disagree about most aspects – some of which are flagrantly false. For details see N. Kazanas 2009 Indoaryan Origins and other Vedic Issues, Aditya Prakashan; also Collapse of the AIT and prevalence of Indigenism in http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/default_en.asp . Here I can only mention a few aspects in brief. Eg that PIE has been "reconstructed", when nobody knows that this reconstruction is the PIE(!); that linguistic change was regular or uniform even in the selfsame linguistic environment, when IE languages changed manifestly in very different ways; that there were several laryngeals, when only Hittite had sounds so described; that Hittite is the oldest branch and closest to the PIE, when it does not have the IE words for the eight closest of human relationships (brother, daughter, father, husband, mother etc), all present in Sanskrit and Avestan (Old Persian) and partly present in all the other branches; that Avestan is older than Sanskrit; that the isoglosses indicate as the IE homeland the southern Russian Steppe; and so on: all these are untrue! Yes, there is a large body of mainstream scholars holding passionately these notions, just as there was an immoveable conviction in all scholars up until the end of the 16th cent that the earth was at the centre of the solar system or just as today many die-hard leftists continue to claim that communism – despite its abysmal failure everywhere – will save the world.
The issue at stake is the alleged entry of Sanskrit (or Old Indoaryan) c. 1700 BCE. Not only dispassionate linguistic, literary and archaeological studies, but also all genetic researches since 2003, show clearly that there has been no significant entry of non-indigenous people into that area after 10000 and before 600 BCE - at least not large enough to leave its mark on the indigenous culture or on the DNA of the native people.
Again see for more details http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/default_en.asp .
Ιf more is needed, let me know. N. Kazanas.
Witzel misquoted a vedic ritual text to justify his continued reliance on Aryan Migration into India theories. This has been effectively refuted by Vishal Agarwal in the following article:
Ref.: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/05/indian-historical-linguistics to the article mentioned in Prof. Nicholas Kazanas' response.
Kalyanaraman
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicholas Kazanas
Date: Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: Please comment on this article in Economist about Sanskrit (and PIE)
Dear Friends,
I have read the piece "Setting the record straight". The title is misleading for it sets the record crooked!
By and large the article expresses many truths well known to all. In fact, at the start one wonders why it was written at all. However, in the last paragraphs one sees that the apparent humdrum objectivity masked the purpose to promote a specific political/religious viewpoint and/or perpetuate the long moribund myth of the Aryan Invasion, now termed "immigration". For here we see an open attack on those who seek to establish a correct view of Indian Protohistory.
"Linguists know, based on reams of research, that a form of PIE, the language, did arrive in India from elsewhere becoming Sanskrit over time" the writer avers and emphasises the fact that it was the language and not people that arrived. With admirable insouciance he does not bother to tell us how these reams of research explain the arrival of an entire (highly complex) language without people who spoke it (perhaps like pollen on winds?), the date of 1700 BCE, the sanskritisation of that huge area (Land of the Seven Rivers) in N-W India and Pakistan of today, the settlement in a terrain that was desiccated while the native Harappans were moving or had moved eastward – and other similar mysteries.
Now, undoubtedly there are some, perhaps many, writers, Indian and others, who claim that Sanskrit is utterly pure and perfect, that all languages derive from it, that the Vedas are millions of years old and other similar notions. Such claims are no more non-sensical or unsupportable than the one the writer puts forth as proven and established fact.
Despite the broad sweeps through history and the multifarious references to many languages, our writer remains at a very superficial level of scholarship parroting second- and third-hand opinions from the mainstream murky morass. There is no "ironclad scholarship in Indo-European linguistics": it has cracks and gushes everywhere as the scholars disagree about most aspects – some of which are flagrantly false. For details see N. Kazanas 2009 Indoaryan Origins and other Vedic Issues, Aditya Prakashan; also Collapse of the AIT and prevalence of Indigenism in http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/default_en.asp . Here I can only mention a few aspects in brief. Eg that PIE has been "reconstructed", when nobody knows that this reconstruction is the PIE(!); that linguistic change was regular or uniform even in the selfsame linguistic environment, when IE languages changed manifestly in very different ways; that there were several laryngeals, when only Hittite had sounds so described; that Hittite is the oldest branch and closest to the PIE, when it does not have the IE words for the eight closest of human relationships (brother, daughter, father, husband, mother etc), all present in Sanskrit and Avestan (Old Persian) and partly present in all the other branches; that Avestan is older than Sanskrit; that the isoglosses indicate as the IE homeland the southern Russian Steppe; and so on: all these are untrue! Yes, there is a large body of mainstream scholars holding passionately these notions, just as there was an immoveable conviction in all scholars up until the end of the 16th cent that the earth was at the centre of the solar system or just as today many die-hard leftists continue to claim that communism – despite its abysmal failure everywhere – will save the world.
The issue at stake is the alleged entry of Sanskrit (or Old Indoaryan) c. 1700 BCE. Not only dispassionate linguistic, literary and archaeological studies, but also all genetic researches since 2003, show clearly that there has been no significant entry of non-indigenous people into that area after 10000 and before 600 BCE - at least not large enough to leave its mark on the indigenous culture or on the DNA of the native people.
Again see for more details http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/default_en.asp .
Ιf more is needed, let me know. N. Kazanas.
Witzel misquoted a vedic ritual text to justify his continued reliance on Aryan Migration into India theories. This has been effectively refuted by Vishal Agarwal in the following article:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/142504686/On-Perceiving-Aryan-Migrations-in-Vedic-Ritual-Texts-By-Vishal-Agarwal-Puratattva-Bulletin-of-the-Indian-Archaeolgical-Society-New-Delhi-No-36
Source: http://www.eshiusa.org/Articles/VedicEvidenceforAMT-Puratattva.pdf
Now, linguists seem to veer round to the possibility that India was a linguistic area, sprachbund. This may explain why Manu states: 10.43 mukhabāahurūpajjānaam yā loke jātayo bahih mlecchavācaś cāryavācas te sarve dasyuvah smṛtāh ‘Those born in the world, those who employ arya speech and those who employ mleccha speech – both are remembered as dasyu’), languages are classified as Mleccha vācas and Arya vācas ( that is, lingua franca and literary Sanskrit). Monier Williams dictionary notes: mleccha vāc (opp. To ārya vāc);mlecchaakhya ‘called mleccha’, copper; mlecchana ‘the act of speaking confusedly or barbarously, Dhaatup.; mlecchita = mlishta (Paan. 7.2.18); mlecchitaka ‘speaking in a foreign jargon (unintelligible to others).
Mleccha languages were viewed by Patanjali as apaśabdas which could not be employed during ādhyātmika duties. Apaśabda use on other occasions was acceptable in the linguistic world of Patanjali. (Madhav Deshpande, 1993, Sandkrit and Prakrit, p. 32). For Patanjali, mleccha is apaśabda, ‘corrupt speech’, maybe a reference to the use of Prakrits or of prakritised Sanskrit. Correct use of words was emphasized – by using eteṣshām for performing shraddha ceremony for pitṛtrayi (father, grandfather and great-grandfather, male line); but the feminine form etāsām when performing the shraddha ceremony for mātṛtrayi (mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, female line).
In Jaina records, mleccha are Dasyu. In Jaina geography, karmabhumi has six parts: one khanda was peopled by noble, meritorious good people; the other five were mleccha khandas, peopled by the rest of the inhabitants of the karmabhumi.
Of course, Vidura speaks to Yudhishthira in mleccha language (mleccha vaacaa, 1.135.6b).
In Mudrarakshasa, Chandragupta’s foil is Malayaketu, a mleccha. The arya-mleccha opposition is insignificant in the play and virtually nonexistent in the rest of the Indian tradition on Chandragupta (Robert E. Goodwin, 1998, The playworld of Sanskrit drama, p.114)
Kumarila Bhatta (6th cent.), in his commentary, Tantra Vaarttika, clearly notes Arya, mleccha and Dravida usages, refers to ‘the countries inhabited by the Mlecchas being innumerable’, (TV, 1.111.6). loc. cit. Kapil Kapoor, Language, linguistics and literature, the Indian perspective, p. 51 http://tinyurl.com/na7wer
Mleccha – people
Mlecchas were present everywhere; Aryans and mlecchas alike drink water from the various rivers of Bharatavarsha (6.10.12).
Mahabharata notes: From Yadu were born the Yadavas, TurvasuS sons are the Yavanas, Druhyu’s sons are the Bhojas, Anu’s are the mleccha jaatis. (1.80.26-27). Mleccha teachers are mentioned (Mlecchaacaaryaah, 12.4.8c. Yudhishthira notes that mlecchas also engage in fasting (13.109.1b). [In Tamil texts Mullaippaattu, 41-46. pp. 214-18; 'Silappadhikaram V. pp, 9 12, the term Yavana is rendered Sonagar by the earlier and mleccha by the later Commentator.]
Samudragupta conquered Kashmir and Afghanistan which were mleccha countries at that time and enlarged his empire (VR Ramachandra Dikshitar, 1993, The Gupta polity, p.199)
People born from the tail of the celestial cow Nandini, kept by Vasishtha. Mahabharata:
1. Mlecchas sent Vishvamitra flying in terror
2. Bhimasena defeated the mlecchas living in the coastal regions and took several valuable diamonds as tax
3. Mlecchas living in the coastal area were once defeated by Sahadeva of Pandavas
4. Nakula also once defeated the mlecchas
5. Bhagadatta was the king of mlecchas
6. Bhagadatta accompanied by mlecchas living on the coasts attended the Rajasuya of Yudhishthira
7. Mlecchas will be born on earth at the beginning of Pralaya
8. Kalki, incarnation of Vishnu will destroy the mlecchas
9. Karna during his campaign conquered many mleccha countries
10. A place of habitation in Bharat is called mleccha
11. Anga, a mleccha warrior was killed in battle by Bhimasena
12. Once mlecchas attacked Arjuna with arrows. Arjuna killed the hairy soldiers
13. Satyaki killed many mleccha soldiers in the great war
14. Nakula killed Anga, a mleccha king
15. Arjuna had to face a great army of mlecchas to protect the yaagaashva
16. The wealth that remained in the Yaagashaalaa of Yudhishthira after the distribution of gifts to Brahmins was taken away by the mlecchas
17. Mlecchas droved angered elephants on to the army of the Pandavas.
Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Puranas, 2001, by Parmeshwaranand
http://tinyurl.com/n5n3de
[quote] Exploring Identity and the Other in Ancient India
Mleccha (and its equivalent milakkha) are usually translated as foreigner or barbarian. A translation which is inadequate in so many ways but not least because it implies that it was a word used by Indians to describe non-Indians. In fact it is a term used by some writers who lived in certain parts of India to describe people native to what we think of as India but who lacked some important criteria the writer felt defined his cultural identity (language, religion, geographical location, ancestry etc.). Most often it was used by Brahmanical writers to describe those outside of the aryavarta… Parsher begins with a discussion of the etymology of Mleccha. As the earliest reference occurs in the Satapatha Brahmana, which is part of an oral tradition dating to before 500 BC, scholars have usually looked for various origins in the bronze age societies of the first and second millennium BCE...
In fact in early texts it is clear that mleccha status was defined largely in terms of language (either the inability to use Sanskrit, or the inability to use it correctly). Language was central to identity in ancient India, as evidence by the process of Sanskritization in the early centuries AD, the importance of the Grammarians from Panini onwards. Readers interested in this aspect should also consult the very good collection of essays by Madhav M Deshpande, Sanskrit & Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues (Mohilal Banarsidass, 1993)…
Arthasastra suggests that mleccha would make valuable mercenaries, in fact it prescribes their use for a number of activities (assassination, espionage, poisoning) which might be considered beneath arya. This is a not entirely positive view, but it is a pragmatic one. The epics, which Parsher takes as generally later in tone, also portray the mleccha as valuable mercenaries. On the other hand, the Dharmasastra literature generally takes a theoretical (but not consistent) view of non-contact with the mleccha, and the Mudraraksasa a similar position, portraying Malayaketu as depending on mleccha mercenaries in contrast to Chandragupta. If the sources are taken in this order, they suggest a shift towards a rhetoric (if not reality) of mleccha exclusion… The assertion that 'aboriginals were apparently ostracized because of their backwardness and repulsive habits'… Parasher vacilitates '... they were all listed together as mlecchas. This is not difficult to understand and can be explained by the fact that to the brahmin writers these people were all outside the varnasramadharma' (p. 214). [unquote] Source: About: Aloka Parasher,1991, Mlecchas in Early India Munishiram Manorharlal.
http://www.kushan.org/reviews/mlecchas.htm
A milakkhu (Pali) is disconnected from vāc and does not speak Vedic; he spoke Prakrt. " na āryā mlecchanti bhāṣā bhir māyayā na caranty uta: aryas do not speak with crude dialects like mlecchas, nor do they behave with duplicity (MBh. 2.53.8). a dear friend of Vidura who was a professional excavator is sent by Vidura to help the Pāṇḍavas in confinement; this friend of Vidura has a conversation with Yudhisthira, the eldest Pāṇḍava: "kṛṣṇapakṣe caturdasyām ṛtāv asya purocanah, bhavanasya tava dvāri pradāsyati hutāsanam, mātrā saha pradagdhavyāh Pāṇḍavāh puruṣ arṣabhāh, iti vyavasitam pārtha dhārtaā ṣṭrrāsya me śrutam, kiñcic ca vidurenkoto mleccha-vācāsi Pāṇḍava, tyayā ca tat tathety uktam etad visvāsa kāraṇam: on the fourteenth evening of the dark fortnight, Purocana will put fire in the door of your house. ‘The Pandavas are leaders of the people, and they are to be burned to death with their mother.’ This, Pārtha (Yudhiṣṭ ira), is the determined plan of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s son, as I have heard it. When you were leaving the city, Vidura spoke a few words to you in the dialect of the mlecchas, and you replied to him, ‘So be it’. I say this to gain your trust.(MBh. 1.135.4-6). This passage shows that there were two Aryans distinguished by language and ethnicity, Yudhis.t.ra and Vidura. Both are aryas, who could speak mlecchas’ language; Dhr.tara_s.t.ra and his people are NOT aryas only because of their behaviour.
Melakkha, island-dwellers
According to the great epic, Mlecchas lived on islands: "sa sarvān mleccha nṛpatin sāgara dvīpa vāsinah, aram āhāryām āsa ratnāni vividhāni ca, andana aguru vastrāṇi maṇi muktam anuttamam, kāñcanam rajatam vajram vidrumam ca mahā dhanam: (Bhima) arranged for all the mleccha kings, who dwell on the ocean islands, to bring varieties of gems, sandalwood, aloe, garments, and incomparable jewels and pearls, gold, silver, diamonds, and extremely valuable coral… great wealth." (MBh. 2.27.25-26).
A series of articles and counters had appeared in the Journal of the Economic and social history of the Orient, Vol.XXI, Pt.II, Elizabeth C.L. During Caspers and A. Govindankutty countering R.Thapar's dravidian hypothesis for the locations of Meluhha, Dilmun and Makan; Thapar's A Possible identification of Meluhha, Dilmun, and Makan appeared in the journal Vol. XVIII, Part I locating these on India's west coast. Bh. Krishnamurthy defended Thapar on linguistic grounds in Vol. XXVI, Pt. II: *mel-u-kku =3D highland, west; *teLmaN (=3D pure earth) ~ dilmun; *makant =3D male child (Skt. vi_ra =3D male offspring. [cf. K. Karttunen (1989). India in Early Greek Literature. Helsinki, Finnish Oriental Society. Studia Orientalia. Vol. 65. 293 pages. ISBN 951-9380-10-8, pp. 11 ff et passim. Asko Parpola (1975a). Isolation and tentative interpretation of a toponym in the Harappan inscriptions. Le dechiffrement des ecritures et des langues. Colloque du XXXIXe congres des orientalistes, Paris Juillet 1973. Paris, Le dechiffrement des ecritures et des langues. Colloque du XXXIXe congres des orientalistes, Paris Juillet 1973. 121-143 and Asko Parpola (1975b). "India's Name in Early Foreign Sources." Sri Venkateswara University Oriental Journal, Tirupati, 18: 9-19.]
Meluhha trade was first mentioned by Sargon of Akkad (Mesopotamia 2370 B.C.) who stated that boats from Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha came to the quay of Akkad (Hirsch, H., 1963, Die Inschriften der Konige Von Agade, Afo, 20, pp. 37-38; Leemans, W.F., 1960,Foreign Trade in the Old Babylonian Period, p. 164; Oppenheim, A.L., 1954, The seafaring merchants of Ur, JAOS, 74, pp. 6-17). The Mesopotamian imports from Meluhha were: woods, copper (ayas), gold, silver, carnelian, cotton. Gudea sent expeditions in 2200 B.C. to Makkan and Meluhha in search of hard wood. Seal impression with the cotton cloth from Umma (Scheil, V., 1925, Un Nouvea Sceau Hindou Pseudo-Sumerian, RA, 22/3, pp. 55-56) and cotton cloth piece stuck to the base of a silver vase from Mohenjodaro (Wheeler, R.E.M., 1965, Indus Civilization) are indicative evidence. Babylonian and Greek names for cotton were: sind, sindon. This is an apparent reference to the cotton produced in the black cotton soils of Sind and Gujarat.
Milakku, Meluhha and copper
Copper-smelting had to occur on the outskirts of a village. Hence, the semantic equivalence of milakkha as copper. Mleccha in Pali is milakkha or milakkhu to describe those who dwell on the outskirts of a village. (Shendge, Malati, 1977, The civilized demons: the Harappans in Rigveda, Rigveda, Abhinav Publications).
"Gordon Childe refers to the 'relatively large amount of social labour' expended in the extraction and distribution of copper and tin', the possession of which, in the form of bronze weaponry, 'consolidated the positions of war-chiefs and conquering aristocracies' (Childe 1941: 133)... With the publication of J.D. Muhly's monumental Copper and Tin in 1973 (Muhly 1973: 155-535; cf. 1976: 77-136) an enormous amount of data on copper previously scattered throughout the scholarly literature became easily accessible... cuneiform texts consistently distinguish refined (urudu-luh-ha) [cf. loha = red, later metal (Skt.)] from unrefined copper (urudu) strongly suggests that it was matte (impure mixture of copper and copper sulphide) and not refined copper that was often imported into the country. Old Assyrian texts concerned with the import of copper from Anatolia distinguish urudu from urudu-sig, the latter term appearing when written phonetically as dammuqum, 'fine, good' (CAD D: 180, s.v. dummuqu), and this suggests that it is not just 'fine quality' but actually 'refined' copper that is in question... TIN. In antiquity tin (Sum. nagga/[AN.NA], Akk.annaku) was important, not in its own right, but as an additive to copper in the production of the alloy bronze (Sum. sabar, Akk. siparru) (Joannes 1993: 97-8)... In some cases, ancient recipes call for a ratio of tin to copper as high as 1: 6 or 16.6 per cent, while other texts speak of a 1:8 ratio or 12.5 per cent (Joannes 1993: 104)... 'there is little or no tin bronze' in Western Asia before c. 3000 B.C. (Muhly 1977: 76; cf. Muhly 1983:9). The presence of at least four tin-bronzes in the Early Dynastic I period... Y-Cemetery at Kish signals the first appearance of tin-bronze in southern Mesopotamia... arsenical copper continued in use at sites like Tepe Gawra, Fara, Kheit Qasim and Ur (Muhly 1993: 129). By the time of the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Early Dynastic IIIa), according to M.Muller-Karpe, 'tin-bronze had become the dominant alloy' (Muller-Karpe 1991: 111) in Southern Mesopotamia... Gudea of Lagash says he received tin from Meluhha... and in the Old Babylonian period it was imported to Mari from Elam...
Abhidhāna Cintāmaṇi of Hemachandra states that mleccha and mleccha-mukha are two of the twelve names forcopper: tāmram (IV.105-6: tāmram mlecchamukham śulvam raktam dvaṣṭamudumbaram; mlecchaśāvarabhedākhyam markatāsyam kanīyasam; brahmavarddhanam variṣṭham sīsantu sīsapatrakam). Theragāthā in Pali refers to a banner which was dyed the colour of copper: milakkhurajanam (The Thera and Theragāthā PTS, verse 965: milakkhurajanam rattam garahantā sakam dhajam; tithiyānam dhajam keci dhāressanty avadātakam; K.R.Norman, tr., Theragāthā : Finding fault with their own banner which is dyed the colour of copper, some will wear the white banner of sectarians).[cf. Asko and Simo Parpola, On the relationship of the Sumerian Toponym Meluhha and Sanskrit Mleccha, Studia Orientalia, vol. 46, 1975, pp. 205-38).
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/sarasvati/html/vedictech.htm
An excellent introduction to the introduction of writing system by Meluhha traders is provided by Massimo Vidale:
[quote] In Mesopotamia and in the Gulf, the immigrant Indus families maintained and trasmitted their language, the writing system and system of weights of the motherland (known in Mesopotamia as the “Dilmunite” standard) as strategic tools of trade. Their official symbol of the gaur might have stressed, together with the condition of living in a foreign world, an ideal connection with the motherland. Nonetheless, they gradually adopted the use of foreign languages and introduced minor changes in the writing system for tackling with new, rapidy evolving linguistic needs. [unquote] Massimo Vidale, 2004, “Growing in a Foreign World. For a History of the “Meluhha Villages” in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millennium BC” http://www.scribd.com/doc/2566221/meluhhanvillage
Two great inventions of 4th millennium BCE: alloying and writing
The artisans of the bronze age not only mined for precious minerals but also experimented with alloying of minerals to attain hard metals for tools and weapons. Matching this invention of alloying was the invention of the writing system known as ’Indus script’ during ca. 4th millennium BCE.
The writing system of smiths and mine-workers reported on their repertoire of minerals and furnaces used to create surplus goods for long-distance trade between Meluhha and Mesopotamia. http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/mlecchitavikalpa
The writing system is called, ‘mlecchita vikalpa’ that is, cryptography, an alternative mode of representing mleccha language words. The phrase ‘mlecchita vikalpa’ is used as one of the 64 arts to be learnt by youth in Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra. The technique used is hieroglyphs, read rebus. Hence, the appearance of many pictorial motifs in over 400 glyptic signs and over 100 pictorial motifs in the corpus of inscriptions.
Kalyanaraman
20 May 2013
Source: http://www.eshiusa.org/Articles/VedicEvidenceforAMT-Puratattva.pdf
On Perceiving Aryan Migrations in Vedic Ritual Texts: By Vishal Agarwal
Puratattva (Bulletin of the Indian Archaeolgical Society), New Delhi, No.
36, 2005-06, pp. 155-165 by kalyan974696
Now, linguists seem to veer round to the possibility that India was a linguistic area, sprachbund. This may explain why Manu states: 10.43 mukhabāahurūpajjānaam yā loke jātayo bahih mlecchavācaś cāryavācas te sarve dasyuvah smṛtāh ‘Those born in the world, those who employ arya speech and those who employ mleccha speech – both are remembered as dasyu’), languages are classified as Mleccha vācas and Arya vācas ( that is, lingua franca and literary Sanskrit). Monier Williams dictionary notes: mleccha vāc (opp. To ārya vāc);mlecchaakhya ‘called mleccha’, copper; mlecchana ‘the act of speaking confusedly or barbarously, Dhaatup.; mlecchita = mlishta (Paan. 7.2.18); mlecchitaka ‘speaking in a foreign jargon (unintelligible to others).
Mleccha languages were viewed by Patanjali as apaśabdas which could not be employed during ādhyātmika duties. Apaśabda use on other occasions was acceptable in the linguistic world of Patanjali. (Madhav Deshpande, 1993, Sandkrit and Prakrit, p. 32). For Patanjali, mleccha is apaśabda, ‘corrupt speech’, maybe a reference to the use of Prakrits or of prakritised Sanskrit. Correct use of words was emphasized – by using eteṣshām for performing shraddha ceremony for pitṛtrayi (father, grandfather and great-grandfather, male line); but the feminine form etāsām when performing the shraddha ceremony for mātṛtrayi (mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, female line).
In Jaina records, mleccha are Dasyu. In Jaina geography, karmabhumi has six parts: one khanda was peopled by noble, meritorious good people; the other five were mleccha khandas, peopled by the rest of the inhabitants of the karmabhumi.
Of course, Vidura speaks to Yudhishthira in mleccha language (mleccha vaacaa, 1.135.6b).
In Mudrarakshasa, Chandragupta’s foil is Malayaketu, a mleccha. The arya-mleccha opposition is insignificant in the play and virtually nonexistent in the rest of the Indian tradition on Chandragupta (Robert E. Goodwin, 1998, The playworld of Sanskrit drama, p.114)
Kumarila Bhatta (6th cent.), in his commentary, Tantra Vaarttika, clearly notes Arya, mleccha and Dravida usages, refers to ‘the countries inhabited by the Mlecchas being innumerable’, (TV, 1.111.6). loc. cit. Kapil Kapoor, Language, linguistics and literature, the Indian perspective, p. 51 http://tinyurl.com/na7wer
Mleccha – people
Mlecchas were present everywhere; Aryans and mlecchas alike drink water from the various rivers of Bharatavarsha (6.10.12).
Mahabharata notes: From Yadu were born the Yadavas, TurvasuS sons are the Yavanas, Druhyu’s sons are the Bhojas, Anu’s are the mleccha jaatis. (1.80.26-27). Mleccha teachers are mentioned (Mlecchaacaaryaah, 12.4.8c. Yudhishthira notes that mlecchas also engage in fasting (13.109.1b). [In Tamil texts Mullaippaattu, 41-46. pp. 214-18; 'Silappadhikaram V. pp, 9 12, the term Yavana is rendered Sonagar by the earlier and mleccha by the later Commentator.]
Samudragupta conquered Kashmir and Afghanistan which were mleccha countries at that time and enlarged his empire (VR Ramachandra Dikshitar, 1993, The Gupta polity, p.199)
People born from the tail of the celestial cow Nandini, kept by Vasishtha. Mahabharata:
1. Mlecchas sent Vishvamitra flying in terror
2. Bhimasena defeated the mlecchas living in the coastal regions and took several valuable diamonds as tax
3. Mlecchas living in the coastal area were once defeated by Sahadeva of Pandavas
4. Nakula also once defeated the mlecchas
5. Bhagadatta was the king of mlecchas
6. Bhagadatta accompanied by mlecchas living on the coasts attended the Rajasuya of Yudhishthira
7. Mlecchas will be born on earth at the beginning of Pralaya
8. Kalki, incarnation of Vishnu will destroy the mlecchas
9. Karna during his campaign conquered many mleccha countries
10. A place of habitation in Bharat is called mleccha
11. Anga, a mleccha warrior was killed in battle by Bhimasena
12. Once mlecchas attacked Arjuna with arrows. Arjuna killed the hairy soldiers
13. Satyaki killed many mleccha soldiers in the great war
14. Nakula killed Anga, a mleccha king
15. Arjuna had to face a great army of mlecchas to protect the yaagaashva
16. The wealth that remained in the Yaagashaalaa of Yudhishthira after the distribution of gifts to Brahmins was taken away by the mlecchas
17. Mlecchas droved angered elephants on to the army of the Pandavas.
Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Puranas, 2001, by Parmeshwaranand
http://tinyurl.com/n5n3de
[quote] Exploring Identity and the Other in Ancient India
Mleccha (and its equivalent milakkha) are usually translated as foreigner or barbarian. A translation which is inadequate in so many ways but not least because it implies that it was a word used by Indians to describe non-Indians. In fact it is a term used by some writers who lived in certain parts of India to describe people native to what we think of as India but who lacked some important criteria the writer felt defined his cultural identity (language, religion, geographical location, ancestry etc.). Most often it was used by Brahmanical writers to describe those outside of the aryavarta… Parsher begins with a discussion of the etymology of Mleccha. As the earliest reference occurs in the Satapatha Brahmana, which is part of an oral tradition dating to before 500 BC, scholars have usually looked for various origins in the bronze age societies of the first and second millennium BCE...
In fact in early texts it is clear that mleccha status was defined largely in terms of language (either the inability to use Sanskrit, or the inability to use it correctly). Language was central to identity in ancient India, as evidence by the process of Sanskritization in the early centuries AD, the importance of the Grammarians from Panini onwards. Readers interested in this aspect should also consult the very good collection of essays by Madhav M Deshpande, Sanskrit & Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues (Mohilal Banarsidass, 1993)…
Arthasastra suggests that mleccha would make valuable mercenaries, in fact it prescribes their use for a number of activities (assassination, espionage, poisoning) which might be considered beneath arya. This is a not entirely positive view, but it is a pragmatic one. The epics, which Parsher takes as generally later in tone, also portray the mleccha as valuable mercenaries. On the other hand, the Dharmasastra literature generally takes a theoretical (but not consistent) view of non-contact with the mleccha, and the Mudraraksasa a similar position, portraying Malayaketu as depending on mleccha mercenaries in contrast to Chandragupta. If the sources are taken in this order, they suggest a shift towards a rhetoric (if not reality) of mleccha exclusion… The assertion that 'aboriginals were apparently ostracized because of their backwardness and repulsive habits'… Parasher vacilitates '... they were all listed together as mlecchas. This is not difficult to understand and can be explained by the fact that to the brahmin writers these people were all outside the varnasramadharma' (p. 214). [unquote] Source: About: Aloka Parasher,1991, Mlecchas in Early India Munishiram Manorharlal.
http://www.kushan.org/reviews/mlecchas.htm
A milakkhu (Pali) is disconnected from vāc and does not speak Vedic; he spoke Prakrt. " na āryā mlecchanti bhāṣā bhir māyayā na caranty uta: aryas do not speak with crude dialects like mlecchas, nor do they behave with duplicity (MBh. 2.53.8). a dear friend of Vidura who was a professional excavator is sent by Vidura to help the Pāṇḍavas in confinement; this friend of Vidura has a conversation with Yudhisthira, the eldest Pāṇḍava: "kṛṣṇapakṣe caturdasyām ṛtāv asya purocanah, bhavanasya tava dvāri pradāsyati hutāsanam, mātrā saha pradagdhavyāh Pāṇḍavāh puruṣ arṣabhāh, iti vyavasitam pārtha dhārtaā ṣṭrrāsya me śrutam, kiñcic ca vidurenkoto mleccha-vācāsi Pāṇḍava, tyayā ca tat tathety uktam etad visvāsa kāraṇam: on the fourteenth evening of the dark fortnight, Purocana will put fire in the door of your house. ‘The Pandavas are leaders of the people, and they are to be burned to death with their mother.’ This, Pārtha (Yudhiṣṭ ira), is the determined plan of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s son, as I have heard it. When you were leaving the city, Vidura spoke a few words to you in the dialect of the mlecchas, and you replied to him, ‘So be it’. I say this to gain your trust.(MBh. 1.135.4-6). This passage shows that there were two Aryans distinguished by language and ethnicity, Yudhis.t.ra and Vidura. Both are aryas, who could speak mlecchas’ language; Dhr.tara_s.t.ra and his people are NOT aryas only because of their behaviour.
Melakkha, island-dwellers
According to the great epic, Mlecchas lived on islands: "sa sarvān mleccha nṛpatin sāgara dvīpa vāsinah, aram āhāryām āsa ratnāni vividhāni ca, andana aguru vastrāṇi maṇi muktam anuttamam, kāñcanam rajatam vajram vidrumam ca mahā dhanam: (Bhima) arranged for all the mleccha kings, who dwell on the ocean islands, to bring varieties of gems, sandalwood, aloe, garments, and incomparable jewels and pearls, gold, silver, diamonds, and extremely valuable coral… great wealth." (MBh. 2.27.25-26).
A series of articles and counters had appeared in the Journal of the Economic and social history of the Orient, Vol.XXI, Pt.II, Elizabeth C.L. During Caspers and A. Govindankutty countering R.Thapar's dravidian hypothesis for the locations of Meluhha, Dilmun and Makan; Thapar's A Possible identification of Meluhha, Dilmun, and Makan appeared in the journal Vol. XVIII, Part I locating these on India's west coast. Bh. Krishnamurthy defended Thapar on linguistic grounds in Vol. XXVI, Pt. II: *mel-u-kku =3D highland, west; *teLmaN (=3D pure earth) ~ dilmun; *makant =3D male child (Skt. vi_ra =3D male offspring. [cf. K. Karttunen (1989). India in Early Greek Literature. Helsinki, Finnish Oriental Society. Studia Orientalia. Vol. 65. 293 pages. ISBN 951-9380-10-8, pp. 11 ff et passim. Asko Parpola (1975a). Isolation and tentative interpretation of a toponym in the Harappan inscriptions. Le dechiffrement des ecritures et des langues. Colloque du XXXIXe congres des orientalistes, Paris Juillet 1973. Paris, Le dechiffrement des ecritures et des langues. Colloque du XXXIXe congres des orientalistes, Paris Juillet 1973. 121-143 and Asko Parpola (1975b). "India's Name in Early Foreign Sources." Sri Venkateswara University Oriental Journal, Tirupati, 18: 9-19.]
Meluhha trade was first mentioned by Sargon of Akkad (Mesopotamia 2370 B.C.) who stated that boats from Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha came to the quay of Akkad (Hirsch, H., 1963, Die Inschriften der Konige Von Agade, Afo, 20, pp. 37-38; Leemans, W.F., 1960,Foreign Trade in the Old Babylonian Period, p. 164; Oppenheim, A.L., 1954, The seafaring merchants of Ur, JAOS, 74, pp. 6-17). The Mesopotamian imports from Meluhha were: woods, copper (ayas), gold, silver, carnelian, cotton. Gudea sent expeditions in 2200 B.C. to Makkan and Meluhha in search of hard wood. Seal impression with the cotton cloth from Umma (Scheil, V., 1925, Un Nouvea Sceau Hindou Pseudo-Sumerian, RA, 22/3, pp. 55-56) and cotton cloth piece stuck to the base of a silver vase from Mohenjodaro (Wheeler, R.E.M., 1965, Indus Civilization) are indicative evidence. Babylonian and Greek names for cotton were: sind, sindon. This is an apparent reference to the cotton produced in the black cotton soils of Sind and Gujarat.
Milakku, Meluhha and copper
Copper-smelting had to occur on the outskirts of a village. Hence, the semantic equivalence of milakkha as copper. Mleccha in Pali is milakkha or milakkhu to describe those who dwell on the outskirts of a village. (Shendge, Malati, 1977, The civilized demons: the Harappans in Rigveda, Rigveda, Abhinav Publications).
"Gordon Childe refers to the 'relatively large amount of social labour' expended in the extraction and distribution of copper and tin', the possession of which, in the form of bronze weaponry, 'consolidated the positions of war-chiefs and conquering aristocracies' (Childe 1941: 133)... With the publication of J.D. Muhly's monumental Copper and Tin in 1973 (Muhly 1973: 155-535; cf. 1976: 77-136) an enormous amount of data on copper previously scattered throughout the scholarly literature became easily accessible... cuneiform texts consistently distinguish refined (urudu-luh-ha) [cf. loha = red, later metal (Skt.)] from unrefined copper (urudu) strongly suggests that it was matte (impure mixture of copper and copper sulphide) and not refined copper that was often imported into the country. Old Assyrian texts concerned with the import of copper from Anatolia distinguish urudu from urudu-sig, the latter term appearing when written phonetically as dammuqum, 'fine, good' (CAD D: 180, s.v. dummuqu), and this suggests that it is not just 'fine quality' but actually 'refined' copper that is in question... TIN. In antiquity tin (Sum. nagga/[AN.NA], Akk.annaku) was important, not in its own right, but as an additive to copper in the production of the alloy bronze (Sum. sabar, Akk. siparru) (Joannes 1993: 97-8)... In some cases, ancient recipes call for a ratio of tin to copper as high as 1: 6 or 16.6 per cent, while other texts speak of a 1:8 ratio or 12.5 per cent (Joannes 1993: 104)... 'there is little or no tin bronze' in Western Asia before c. 3000 B.C. (Muhly 1977: 76; cf. Muhly 1983:9). The presence of at least four tin-bronzes in the Early Dynastic I period... Y-Cemetery at Kish signals the first appearance of tin-bronze in southern Mesopotamia... arsenical copper continued in use at sites like Tepe Gawra, Fara, Kheit Qasim and Ur (Muhly 1993: 129). By the time of the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Early Dynastic IIIa), according to M.Muller-Karpe, 'tin-bronze had become the dominant alloy' (Muller-Karpe 1991: 111) in Southern Mesopotamia... Gudea of Lagash says he received tin from Meluhha... and in the Old Babylonian period it was imported to Mari from Elam...
Abhidhāna Cintāmaṇi of Hemachandra states that mleccha and mleccha-mukha are two of the twelve names forcopper: tāmram (IV.105-6: tāmram mlecchamukham śulvam raktam dvaṣṭamudumbaram; mlecchaśāvarabhedākhyam markatāsyam kanīyasam; brahmavarddhanam variṣṭham sīsantu sīsapatrakam). Theragāthā in Pali refers to a banner which was dyed the colour of copper: milakkhurajanam (The Thera and Theragāthā PTS, verse 965: milakkhurajanam rattam garahantā sakam dhajam; tithiyānam dhajam keci dhāressanty avadātakam; K.R.Norman, tr., Theragāthā : Finding fault with their own banner which is dyed the colour of copper, some will wear the white banner of sectarians).[cf. Asko and Simo Parpola, On the relationship of the Sumerian Toponym Meluhha and Sanskrit Mleccha, Studia Orientalia, vol. 46, 1975, pp. 205-38).
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/sarasvati/html/vedictech.htm
An excellent introduction to the introduction of writing system by Meluhha traders is provided by Massimo Vidale:
[quote] In Mesopotamia and in the Gulf, the immigrant Indus families maintained and trasmitted their language, the writing system and system of weights of the motherland (known in Mesopotamia as the “Dilmunite” standard) as strategic tools of trade. Their official symbol of the gaur might have stressed, together with the condition of living in a foreign world, an ideal connection with the motherland. Nonetheless, they gradually adopted the use of foreign languages and introduced minor changes in the writing system for tackling with new, rapidy evolving linguistic needs. [unquote] Massimo Vidale, 2004, “Growing in a Foreign World. For a History of the “Meluhha Villages” in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millennium BC” http://www.scribd.com/doc/2566221/meluhhanvillage
Two great inventions of 4th millennium BCE: alloying and writing
The artisans of the bronze age not only mined for precious minerals but also experimented with alloying of minerals to attain hard metals for tools and weapons. Matching this invention of alloying was the invention of the writing system known as ’Indus script’ during ca. 4th millennium BCE.
The writing system of smiths and mine-workers reported on their repertoire of minerals and furnaces used to create surplus goods for long-distance trade between Meluhha and Mesopotamia. http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/mlecchitavikalpa
The writing system is called, ‘mlecchita vikalpa’ that is, cryptography, an alternative mode of representing mleccha language words. The phrase ‘mlecchita vikalpa’ is used as one of the 64 arts to be learnt by youth in Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra. The technique used is hieroglyphs, read rebus. Hence, the appearance of many pictorial motifs in over 400 glyptic signs and over 100 pictorial motifs in the corpus of inscriptions.
Kalyanaraman
20 May 2013