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Author: Asko Parpola Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190226935 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.
Author: Asko Parpola Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190226935 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.
Author: Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar Publisher: ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Illustrations: 20 B/w Illustrations and 8 Maps Description: Book: The Aryans: Myth And Archaeology The Aryan problem is probably the most controversial in human history. Numerous scholars have attempted to trace the homeland of Vedic Aryans but no solutions is in sight in spite of the vast mass of literature. However, archaeological evidence of great significance has recently become available which throws a flood of light on the problem as it corroborates to a considerable extent the literary testimony and is even supported by that of the human skeletal biology. It has therefore become possible to locate the original homeland of the Aryan, the period of their migrations, the data of the composition of Rgveda, the flowering of the Vedic culture and finally their diaspora in different directions, not only in India but beyond its frontiers. The study thus represents a unique blend of the archaeological, literary and anthropological evidence. About Author : M.K. Dhavalikar was formerly Professor of Archaeology and Director, Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute, Pune. He has carried out several excavations in different parts of the country and his publications include: Cultural Imperialism: Indus Civilization in Western India (1994), Indian Protohistory (1997), Historical Archaeology of India (1999), Environment and Culture: A Historical Perspective (2002), and Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology, Vol. III (in press), besides excavation reports. Contents : List of Figures Preface Abbreviations Elusive Aryans Culture of the Rgveda Archaeological Traces of the Aryans Ancestros of Vedic Aryans Aryan Diaspora Bibliography Index The Aryan problem is probably the most controversial in human history. Numerous scholars have attempted to trace the homeland of Vedic Aryans but no solutions is in sight in spite of the vast mass of literature. However, archaeological evidence of great significance has recently become available which throws a flood of light on the problem as it corroborates to a considerable extent the literary testimony and is even supported by that of the human skeletal biology. It has therefore become possible to locate the original homeland of the Aryan, the period of their migrations, the data of the composition of Rgveda, the flowering of the Vedic culture and finally their diaspora in different directions, not only in India but beyond its frontiers. The study thus represents a unique blend of the archaeological, literary and anthropological evidence. About Author : M.K. Dhavalikar was formerly Professor of Archaeology and Director, Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute, Pune. He has carried out several excavations in different parts of the country and his publications include: Cultural Imperialism: Indus Civilization in Western India (1994), Indian Protohistory (1997), Historical Archaeology of India (1999), Environment and Culture: A Historical Perspective (2002), and Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology, Vol. III (in press), besides excavation reports. Contents : List of Figures Preface Abbreviations Elusive Aryans Culture of the Rgveda Archaeological Traces of the Aryans Ancestros of Vedic Aryans Aryan Diaspora Bibliography Index
Author: Malati J. Shendge Publisher: Abhinav Publications ISBN: 8170170648 Category : Languages : en Pages : 477
Book Description
Myth and mysticism have reigned supreme in Rgvedic interpretation for more than two millennia and a half. Even now, it cannot be said to be free of these. This study aims at completing the process of rational inquiry in Rgveda begun two centuries ago. It leaves behind myths and mystic experiences, simultaneously drawing the line between fact and fancy, which has eluded the scholars. Two types of evidence - literary and archaeological - have been used. Literary evidence ranges from Rgveda to the Brahmanas. The Archaeological material covers pre-Harappan , Harappan and post-Harappan levels. Through the interdisciplinary approach consisting of linguistic, anthropological and symbolical analysis of the material, the study emphasizes a consistently rational attitude to the study of Rgveda. In fact, as the study amply demonstrates, the fresh air of reason may change our understanding of Rgveda and also of ancient Indian history. Rgvedic hymns from this viewpoint may probably prove to be a valuable source of information of the historical events, which led to the downfall of the pre-Aryan Indus civilization. This is correlated to the archaeological material available on the Harappan sites. This is the first investigation of its kind and the conclusions of the study are no less original. Besides establishing the rationality of the Rgvedic narratives, it shows the events and their agents to be historical in the light of available archaeological material. The theory and the approach hold out a promise and may transform our understanding of these ancient compositions from myth to history.
Author: Namit Arora Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited ISBN: 9353052874 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 381
Book Description
What do we really know about the Aryan migration theory and why is that debate so hot? Why did the people of Khajuraho carve erotic scenes on their temple walls? What did the monks at Nalanda eat for dinner? Did our ideals of beauty ever prefer dark skin? Indian civilization is an idea, a reality, an enigma. In this riveting book, Namit Arora takes us on an unforgettable journey through 5000 years of history, reimagining in rich detail the social and cultural moorings of Indians through the ages. Drawing on credible sources, he discovers what inspired and shaped them: their political upheavals and rivalries, customs and vocations, and a variety of unusual festivals. Arora makes a stop at six iconic places -- the Harappan city of Dholavira, the Ikshvaku capital at Nagarjunakonda, the Buddhist centre of learning at Nalanda, enigmatic Khajuraho, Vijayanagar at Hampi, and historic Varanasi -- enlivening the narrative with vivid descriptions, local stories and evocative photographs. Punctuating this are chronicles of famous travellers who visited India -- including Megasthenes, Xuanzang, Alberuni and Marco Polo -- whose dramatic and idiosyncratic tales conceal surprising insights about our land. In lucid, elegant prose, Arora explores the exciting churn of ideas, beliefs and values of our ancestors through millennia -- some continue to shape modern India, while others have been lost forever. An original, deeply engaging and extensively researched work, Indians illuminates a range of histories coursing through our veins.
Author: Ram Sharan Sharma Publisher: Orient Blackswan ISBN: 9788125006312 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 120
Book Description
Who were the Aryans? Where did they come from? Did they always live in India? The Aryan problem has been attracting fresh attention in academic, social and political arenas. This book identifies the main traits of Aryan culture and follows the spread of their cultural markers. Using the latest archaeological evidence and the earliest known Indo-European inscriptions on the social and economic features of Aryan society, the distinguished historian, R. S. Sharma, throws fresh light on the current debate on whether or not the Aryans were the indigenous inhabitants of India. This book is essential reading for those interested in the history of India and its culture.
Author: Jack Stornoway Publisher: Digital Ink Productions ISBN: 1989604366 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 197
Book Description
The current conventional Harappan and Indo-European timelines are impossible. Believing in them means endorsing the idea the Harappan, arguably the largest civilization of the Bronze Age lagged thousand years technically behind the minor nations that surrounded them. Likewise, it means their major trading partners, the Sumerians, Elamites, and Akkadians were all technology backwards, compared to the minor nations of India, Central Asia, and even the middle of the Sahara, which all were smelting iron long before iron smelting was adopted by the major powers. DNA has now proven that the population of northern India was the same in 2400 BC as it is today, which, in the conventional timelines means the Vedas would have had to have been written in the Indus Valley Civilization, yet, the Harappans mainly used boats to travel the rivers of India, and there is no evidence of horses or horse burials in the Indus Valley Civilization. So why did horses get mentioned so much in the Vedas? Why write major hymns about hurrying animals you don't have? Why didn't they mention boats, which they basically lived in? The fact is that Indo-Europeans have lived in India and Pakistan since at least 2400 BC, yet, there are no traces of Indo-European words in the languages of Mesopotamia until around 1500 BC according to the Conventional Mesopotamian Timeline, when Mesopotamians adopted Indo-Aryan terms for horses and chariots, even though they'd had both horses and chariots since 2400 BC, again according to the conventional timelines. Meanwhile, their other major trading partner, Egypt, did not have access to horses or chariots until around 1600 BC? These cultures trades everything from rock and metals to food and timber, but no one thought to import horses, even though there were over land trade routes? They trades everything from gods to the designs for buildings, and even the underlying concepts of writing, yet no one thought the wheel might be useful? The existence of massive Harappan-like cities both on land and under submerged coasts, all of which have been carbon dated to thousands of years before the Conventional Harappan Timeline, prove that the random guess-work of the earliest Indologists in the 1920s just isn't right. So, why with all the modern techniques and evidence, both in South Asia, and through Central Asia all the way into Eastern Europe, do we cling to their random guess-work? Simply put, the timelines of the Harappans and Indo-Europeans cannot be adjusted, without forcing a correction on the conventional timelines of Mesopotamia and Egypt as well. Unfortunately, the timelines of Egypt and Sumer are the two pillars that ancient history is built around. As the early Sumerians were trading with the early Egyptians, Assyriologists have been forced to synchronize the Mesopotamian timeline with the preposterous timeline used by Egyptologists. While this means that most of Sumerian history has to be ignored, is also affects the timelines of all other Eurasian cultures in contact with the Mesopotamian. The Harappan civilization of ancient India was trading with the Sumerians throughout its history and went into decline around the end of the Sumero-Akkadian dynastic period, which means the entire Harappan civilization is forced to correlate with the short Conventional Mesopotamian Timeline. This forced the entire Harappan timeline into a period of 2000 years, even though some of the archaeological sites in Pakistan and India have been carbon-dated back to over 8000 BC. These broken timelines then fan out further pulling the Minoans and Greeks, Iranians, and Chinese into this confusing mess.
Author: Asko Parpola
Author: Asko Parpola
Author: Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar
Author: Bhagavāna Siṃha
Author: Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar
Author: Malati J. Shendge
Author: George Erdosy
Author: Edwin Francis Bryant
Author: Namit Arora
Author: Ram Sharan Sharma
Author: Jack Stornoway