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Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
A search for India's true history by Pramod Kumar
A search for India's true history
By Pramod Kumar
International conference on Indian history, civilisation and geopolitics.
"Indians are being cheated of their true history. The time has come to write an authentic and unbiased history of India free from ideological or colonial biases,” said former Union Minister Dr Subramanian Swamy while giving a call to reorient the policy of the Indian state to purge from history books’ false chronology of ancient India and myths such as Aryan invasion and racial divide of north and south Indians. Dr Swamy was addressing the valedictory session of a three-day international history conference in New Delhi on January 11. The conference was organised on Indian history, civilisation and geopolitics by the US-based Indic Studies Foundation and the Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana (ABISY) at Indian International Centre from January 9 to January 11. Apart from historical themes, the conference also discussed India’s modern geo-political landscape and strategic affairs. More than 100 distinguished scholars and historians from India, Greece, Belarus, US, UK, France, Sri Lanka, Nepal, etc. participated in the conference. The scholars challenged many aspects of ancient Indian history as it is taught today and exposed various myths that have been presented as facts by the Raj historians of the 19th century.
The Indic Studies Foundation seeks to propagate a more accurate approach based on reason and rationality for the study and dissemination of the Indian civilizational ethos in the world, particularly to the USA and India. The ABISY is dedicated to researching and writing Indian history spanning the last 5000 years. Major projects undertaken by it include determining the exact date of the Mahabharata as the sheet anchor of ancient Indian history, researches into kaalaganana (time-reckoninig) in Hindu traditions and researches into the now-lost Saraswati river.
Dr Swamy further said willful distortions in writing Indian history have been occurring solely due to state support and patronage since the British times until today. “The British rulers wrote our history to divide and rule us. But what is the excuse of Indian governments after Independence to continue with the same policy?”, he asked. He said myths spread by biased historians have overtaken Indian history while actual events and places in our history have been declared myths! “Not long ago, the Saraswati river, the submerged city of Dwarka and Ram Sethu were ridiculed as myths. But their reality has been proved by archaeology and satellite imagery,” he added.
Lashing out at colonial historians for creating a vicious myth that women were discriminated against in ancient India, noted scholar Dr S Ram Mohan said scriptures such as Manu Smriti accorded a very high status to women and deprived sections. Quoting dozens of slokas from the three major code books of Hindus to prove the exalted and enlightened status women enjoyed in ancient India, Dr Mohan, who is also Additional Member (Finance), Railway Board, said: “Women had no rights in ancient India is a vicious myth spread by colonial historians. The reality is that all the three ancient code books of Hindus—Manu Smriti, Narad Smriti and Yajnavalkya Smriti—have a common theme of social welfare and an egalitarian society, with a very high status assigned to women and the deprived sections.” He said all three Smritis have recommended lenient penalties for women compared to men and have prescribed death penalty for rape of a woman under police custody. Such kind of enlightened status of women was not found anywhere else in the world during the ancient times,” he added.
Dr BB Lal, former Director General of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), said in a paper presented at the conference on first day that there is absolutely no proof that the Vedas were written in around 1200 BC and that the invading Aryans massacred the people of the Indus Valley. Unfortunately, these malicious distortions are still being taught in our schools as facts, he said. Stating that new distortions in Indian history are being created even today, he said it is the duty of Indian historians to set these distortions right through cogent evidence and sustainable arguments. Though the perception and mindset of historians play a dominant role in history writing, it is important for Indians to identify and challenge the distortions that have been deliberately introduced into their historical narrative over the centuries, he said.
Prof. Shivaji Singh, former Head of Department, Ancient History, Gorakhpur University, and president of ABISY, rejected the oft-repeated charge that Indians have no sense of history. “Ancient Indians had a robust historical tradition that originated in the Rig Vedic times and continued to develop and proliferate till the end of the medieval period. This tradition has created a rich and huge mass of historical literature that is unparalleled in the world,” he said. He explained that the indigenous Indian sense of history is unique because its main purpose is man’s self-fulfillment and self-realisation instead of vague objective such as furtherance of freedom, rationalism and individualism that are prevalent in the West. “You have to understand that the Indian sense of history is grounded in Indian culture and it should not be judged by the yardstick of how the Westerners write their history,” he added.
According to Kosla Vepa, executive director of Indic Studies Foundation, the objective of the conference was to decolonise various aspects of ancient Indian history and its chronology which were deliberately distorted and misdated during the British Raj with a view to causing confusion and a sense of inferiority among Indians. The conference aimed to contribute towards correcting this mangled historical narrative of the Indian civilisation. “Much of the ancient Indian history taught to our youth today has absolutely no basis in fact and is not supported by modern research. This is causing terrible cultural damage to our society and has to be set right urgently by taking a more rational view of the past,” he added. He also spoke about the demeaning condescension that many Western historians have bestowed upon India. “Books on Indian history sold abroad deliberately neglect our ancient history so as to minimise and sideline its contributions. At the same time, they try to whitewash the horrors that the British rule inflicted on India, such as the large-scale famines triggered by colonial policies. Changing the content of the textbooks worldwide and especially in the West to correct these distortions should be our goal,” he added.
Speaking at the conference on second day, Prof. Narahari Achar said most of the previous attempts at astronomical dating of the famous epic made the critical error of equating the Sanskrit word graha with a planet. “However, graha actually meant not only a planet but an heavenly object moving through the sky that can ‘grasp’ such as a comet or asteroid. Once we understand this, all apparent confusion and contradiction in the planetary positions given in the Mahabharata disappears. Though the epic has been variously dated from 5000 BC to 1000 BC by historians, this is for the first time that a scholar has taken into account the movement of planets excluding the comets to reproduce by simulation the astronomical references given in the Mahabharata. The year 3067 BCE arrived at by this method is consistent with the Hindu tradition and correlates perfectly with the time references given in Rigveda and Puranas for the epic,” he added.
Internationally acclaimed mathematician and philosopher Prof. CK Raju revealed that calculus was an Indian invention that was transmitted by Jesuit priests to Europe from Cochin in the second half of 16th century. “Indian infinite series has been known to British scholars since at least 1832, but no scholar tried to establish the connection with the calculus attributed to Newton and Leibnitz. When the Europeans received the Indian calculus, they couldn’t understand it properly because the Indian philosophy of mathematics is different from the Western philosophy of mathematics. It took them about 300 years to fully comprehend its working. The calculus was used by Newton to develop his laws of physics,” he added.
Previous Page (35/38) - Next Page (37/38)
By Pramod Kumar
International conference on Indian history, civilisation and geopolitics.
"Indians are being cheated of their true history. The time has come to write an authentic and unbiased history of India free from ideological or colonial biases,” said former Union Minister Dr Subramanian Swamy while giving a call to reorient the policy of the Indian state to purge from history books’ false chronology of ancient India and myths such as Aryan invasion and racial divide of north and south Indians. Dr Swamy was addressing the valedictory session of a three-day international history conference in New Delhi on January 11. The conference was organised on Indian history, civilisation and geopolitics by the US-based Indic Studies Foundation and the Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana (ABISY) at Indian International Centre from January 9 to January 11. Apart from historical themes, the conference also discussed India’s modern geo-political landscape and strategic affairs. More than 100 distinguished scholars and historians from India, Greece, Belarus, US, UK, France, Sri Lanka, Nepal, etc. participated in the conference. The scholars challenged many aspects of ancient Indian history as it is taught today and exposed various myths that have been presented as facts by the Raj historians of the 19th century.
The Indic Studies Foundation seeks to propagate a more accurate approach based on reason and rationality for the study and dissemination of the Indian civilizational ethos in the world, particularly to the USA and India. The ABISY is dedicated to researching and writing Indian history spanning the last 5000 years. Major projects undertaken by it include determining the exact date of the Mahabharata as the sheet anchor of ancient Indian history, researches into kaalaganana (time-reckoninig) in Hindu traditions and researches into the now-lost Saraswati river.
Dr Swamy further said willful distortions in writing Indian history have been occurring solely due to state support and patronage since the British times until today. “The British rulers wrote our history to divide and rule us. But what is the excuse of Indian governments after Independence to continue with the same policy?”, he asked. He said myths spread by biased historians have overtaken Indian history while actual events and places in our history have been declared myths! “Not long ago, the Saraswati river, the submerged city of Dwarka and Ram Sethu were ridiculed as myths. But their reality has been proved by archaeology and satellite imagery,” he added.
Lashing out at colonial historians for creating a vicious myth that women were discriminated against in ancient India, noted scholar Dr S Ram Mohan said scriptures such as Manu Smriti accorded a very high status to women and deprived sections. Quoting dozens of slokas from the three major code books of Hindus to prove the exalted and enlightened status women enjoyed in ancient India, Dr Mohan, who is also Additional Member (Finance), Railway Board, said: “Women had no rights in ancient India is a vicious myth spread by colonial historians. The reality is that all the three ancient code books of Hindus—Manu Smriti, Narad Smriti and Yajnavalkya Smriti—have a common theme of social welfare and an egalitarian society, with a very high status assigned to women and the deprived sections.” He said all three Smritis have recommended lenient penalties for women compared to men and have prescribed death penalty for rape of a woman under police custody. Such kind of enlightened status of women was not found anywhere else in the world during the ancient times,” he added.
Dr BB Lal, former Director General of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), said in a paper presented at the conference on first day that there is absolutely no proof that the Vedas were written in around 1200 BC and that the invading Aryans massacred the people of the Indus Valley. Unfortunately, these malicious distortions are still being taught in our schools as facts, he said. Stating that new distortions in Indian history are being created even today, he said it is the duty of Indian historians to set these distortions right through cogent evidence and sustainable arguments. Though the perception and mindset of historians play a dominant role in history writing, it is important for Indians to identify and challenge the distortions that have been deliberately introduced into their historical narrative over the centuries, he said.
Prof. Shivaji Singh, former Head of Department, Ancient History, Gorakhpur University, and president of ABISY, rejected the oft-repeated charge that Indians have no sense of history. “Ancient Indians had a robust historical tradition that originated in the Rig Vedic times and continued to develop and proliferate till the end of the medieval period. This tradition has created a rich and huge mass of historical literature that is unparalleled in the world,” he said. He explained that the indigenous Indian sense of history is unique because its main purpose is man’s self-fulfillment and self-realisation instead of vague objective such as furtherance of freedom, rationalism and individualism that are prevalent in the West. “You have to understand that the Indian sense of history is grounded in Indian culture and it should not be judged by the yardstick of how the Westerners write their history,” he added.
According to Kosla Vepa, executive director of Indic Studies Foundation, the objective of the conference was to decolonise various aspects of ancient Indian history and its chronology which were deliberately distorted and misdated during the British Raj with a view to causing confusion and a sense of inferiority among Indians. The conference aimed to contribute towards correcting this mangled historical narrative of the Indian civilisation. “Much of the ancient Indian history taught to our youth today has absolutely no basis in fact and is not supported by modern research. This is causing terrible cultural damage to our society and has to be set right urgently by taking a more rational view of the past,” he added. He also spoke about the demeaning condescension that many Western historians have bestowed upon India. “Books on Indian history sold abroad deliberately neglect our ancient history so as to minimise and sideline its contributions. At the same time, they try to whitewash the horrors that the British rule inflicted on India, such as the large-scale famines triggered by colonial policies. Changing the content of the textbooks worldwide and especially in the West to correct these distortions should be our goal,” he added.
Speaking at the conference on second day, Prof. Narahari Achar said most of the previous attempts at astronomical dating of the famous epic made the critical error of equating the Sanskrit word graha with a planet. “However, graha actually meant not only a planet but an heavenly object moving through the sky that can ‘grasp’ such as a comet or asteroid. Once we understand this, all apparent confusion and contradiction in the planetary positions given in the Mahabharata disappears. Though the epic has been variously dated from 5000 BC to 1000 BC by historians, this is for the first time that a scholar has taken into account the movement of planets excluding the comets to reproduce by simulation the astronomical references given in the Mahabharata. The year 3067 BCE arrived at by this method is consistent with the Hindu tradition and correlates perfectly with the time references given in Rigveda and Puranas for the epic,” he added.
Internationally acclaimed mathematician and philosopher Prof. CK Raju revealed that calculus was an Indian invention that was transmitted by Jesuit priests to Europe from Cochin in the second half of 16th century. “Indian infinite series has been known to British scholars since at least 1832, but no scholar tried to establish the connection with the calculus attributed to Newton and Leibnitz. When the Europeans received the Indian calculus, they couldn’t understand it properly because the Indian philosophy of mathematics is different from the Western philosophy of mathematics. It took them about 300 years to fully comprehend its working. The calculus was used by Newton to develop his laws of physics,” he added.
Previous Page (35/38) - Next Page (37/38)
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Reply to Prof Witzel,
I am posting this response in my blog, sinc the moderators of the Indo Euerasian yahoo group will not afford me the right of rebuttal at their site. What are they afraid of ?
It is interesting that the notion that 6 people with a science background should turn their attention to history in a land of 1 billion , should be a cause for such derisiveness and scorn on the part of the Professor of Sanskrit from Harvard
Apparently it is not permitted for even 6 people out of a billion , over a sixty year period to claim some degree of scholarship in the field after spending their lifetime studying it. So much so that, even when such a low number as 6*10**-9 is involved, ( a number that will not register as a statistically significant quantity and is below the 6 Sigma number used by engineers to define a process with an incidence of errors that is for all practical purposes, is equal to 0), Prof Witzel feels compelled to remark that it is just a hop step and a jump away from saying anybody can become a historian. He also ignores the fact that each of the six brings impressive credentials to the task, and that if anything such a small number in fact indicates how hard it is to be taken seriously as a Historian of India, especially if one is not an Occidental
The more important point to make is that if we use Prof Witzel’s criterion almost every occidental historian (and philologist of India in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century) should have disqualified himself, from writing or commenting on India. Almost all the original sanskritists were self taught, with very little independent verification of their credentials. That includes Franz Bopp and Bernouff. Max Mueller never got his PhD degree( it is in fact doubtful whether he completed the course requirements for a Masters) and his ability to converse or understand a single sentence of spoken Sanskrit was abysmal. One suspects he never went to India, and subject himself to a debate with a Sanskrit pundit because he knew that the resulting ignominy would expose him for what he truly was , a charlatan claiming expertise in a language, in which his mastery was sophomoric at best. In fact it was Schopenauer who had the perspicacity to say that the much vaunted sanskrit knowledge of these so called Sanskritists was worse than the knowledge of a high school graduate in Latin.
It is the civilizational historians like Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant that have taken the contrarian viewpoint. The rest have been content to make the assumption that The European is naturally superior and therefore everything he says should be accepted without questioning. The entire dialog between India and the occident has been one long circular argument, where Michael Witzel of Harvard maintains that i do not have the right to be taken seriously because I am a Hindutva. There are several assumptions that are implicit in such a stereotyping
1. I am a member of an unspeakably evil or senseless group of people called Hindutva, every member of which is beyond the pale of human civilization, simply because he is a Hindutva
2. That therefore. I forfeit the right to have an informed opinion.
3. That No Indian has the right to become a historian unless he is anointed as such by an occidental and that conversely every Occidental has the right to call himself a historian of India , simply because he spends a couple of years in the subcontinent. Most British Historians of India have had no formal training in History much less Indian History. No occidental has challenged the credentials of the host of British and occidental writers from Sir James Mills to Sir William Jones ,Vincent Smith,Sir Penderel Moon or Frank Pargiter, none of whom were Professional historians but the very same Occidental has the absolute hubris to judge whether I possess the credential to write about my own civilization
Alas, I am challenged more frequently by Indians than I am by Occidentals , who (the Indics) are horrifed that i dare to question the conventional wisdom as propounded by a member of the conquering race .
--- In Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com, Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> For your weekend amusement, though the repeated insistence on
> "rewriting" of Indian history is really ... boring:
>
> See:
> "US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa" says it all...
>
> Like our long time friends mathematician Rajaram, bank employees Dr.
> K. and Talageri, electric engineering Prof. S. Kak, medical
> technician V. Agarwal (M.Sc.), astrologers like David Fawley
> ("Vamedeva") etc. etc. Likewise, K. Vepa: he has a PhD of the
> University of Waterloo in Engineering Sciences & applied mechanics,
> studied there 1968 � 1972.
>
> *Anybody* in the Indian orbit can turn historian overnight, at the
> drop of a hat.
> Preferably, after retirement...
>
> Yesterday a conference on this topic has begun in Delhi:
> 39258>
>
> tiny URL:
>
> Interestingly, even IER/Westerner-baiter Sandhya Jain (rabid
> columnist in the chauvinistic paper, the Organizer), had to comment:
> "NONE of the persons mentioned is a historian!"
>
> Sure, it is a *political* event that she should actually welcome :^)
>
> ----------
> Quote :
>
>
> International meet on Indian history
>
> Statesman News Service
>
> NEW DELHI, Jan. 7: A three-day international conference on Indian
> history, civilization and geopolitics is set to begin here on Friday.
> The executive director of the Indic Studies Foundation, Dr Kosla Vepa,
> said the aim of the conference was "to decolonise various aspects of
> ancient Indian history and its chronology which were deliberately
> distorted and mis-dated during the British Raj with a view to causing
> confusion and a sense of inferiority among Indians".
>
> He said the conference is expected to be a landmark event in the
> interpretation of ancient Indian history since the "current version of
> history is not accurate and distorted. There is need to rewrite the
> history of India. History as we see it".
>
> The US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa said the conference
> "aims at increasing awareness of strategic thinking in India and to
> show that a strategic approach based on long-term objectives is
> essential to ensure a safe and secure future for the ancient Indian
> civilisation and lead it to still greater heights".
>
> Dr Vepa who has been studying history for over a decade now said it
> was a forensic science and depends on numerous other subjects and was
> not just the study of dates or mere guess work. Asked whether
> institutions like Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and
> NCERT have been invited for the conference, he said: "They have not
> given their consent to attending it." However, historians and scholars
> who are expected to attend the conference include Mr Bharat Karnad, Mr
> Kanwal Sibal, Mr Uday Bhaskar, Mr JS Rajput and Mr Vikram Sood.
>
> ---------------
>
> Quote from Vepa's web site vepa>: "The Indic Studies Foundation, based in the San Francisco Bay
> Area, seeks to propagate a more accurate and rational approach to the
> study and dissemination of the Indian Civilizational ethos in the world"
>
> and: "I have prepared educational materials and calendars for
> dissemination to schools in India and the US." Remember the CA
> schoolbook case? After failed attempts to rewrite history there,
> this has been their new front...
>
> Onward, Hindutva soldiers!
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
It is interesting that the notion that 6 people with a science background should turn their attention to history in a land of 1 billion , should be a cause for such derisiveness and scorn on the part of the Professor of Sanskrit from Harvard
Apparently it is not permitted for even 6 people out of a billion , over a sixty year period to claim some degree of scholarship in the field after spending their lifetime studying it. So much so that, even when such a low number as 6*10**-9 is involved, ( a number that will not register as a statistically significant quantity and is below the 6 Sigma number used by engineers to define a process with an incidence of errors that is for all practical purposes, is equal to 0), Prof Witzel feels compelled to remark that it is just a hop step and a jump away from saying anybody can become a historian. He also ignores the fact that each of the six brings impressive credentials to the task, and that if anything such a small number in fact indicates how hard it is to be taken seriously as a Historian of India, especially if one is not an Occidental
The more important point to make is that if we use Prof Witzel’s criterion almost every occidental historian (and philologist of India in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century) should have disqualified himself, from writing or commenting on India. Almost all the original sanskritists were self taught, with very little independent verification of their credentials. That includes Franz Bopp and Bernouff. Max Mueller never got his PhD degree( it is in fact doubtful whether he completed the course requirements for a Masters) and his ability to converse or understand a single sentence of spoken Sanskrit was abysmal. One suspects he never went to India, and subject himself to a debate with a Sanskrit pundit because he knew that the resulting ignominy would expose him for what he truly was , a charlatan claiming expertise in a language, in which his mastery was sophomoric at best. In fact it was Schopenauer who had the perspicacity to say that the much vaunted sanskrit knowledge of these so called Sanskritists was worse than the knowledge of a high school graduate in Latin.
It is the civilizational historians like Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant that have taken the contrarian viewpoint. The rest have been content to make the assumption that The European is naturally superior and therefore everything he says should be accepted without questioning. The entire dialog between India and the occident has been one long circular argument, where Michael Witzel of Harvard maintains that i do not have the right to be taken seriously because I am a Hindutva. There are several assumptions that are implicit in such a stereotyping
1. I am a member of an unspeakably evil or senseless group of people called Hindutva, every member of which is beyond the pale of human civilization, simply because he is a Hindutva
2. That therefore. I forfeit the right to have an informed opinion.
3. That No Indian has the right to become a historian unless he is anointed as such by an occidental and that conversely every Occidental has the right to call himself a historian of India , simply because he spends a couple of years in the subcontinent. Most British Historians of India have had no formal training in History much less Indian History. No occidental has challenged the credentials of the host of British and occidental writers from Sir James Mills to Sir William Jones ,Vincent Smith,Sir Penderel Moon or Frank Pargiter, none of whom were Professional historians but the very same Occidental has the absolute hubris to judge whether I possess the credential to write about my own civilization
Alas, I am challenged more frequently by Indians than I am by Occidentals , who (the Indics) are horrifed that i dare to question the conventional wisdom as propounded by a member of the conquering race .
--- In Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com, Michael Witzel
>
> For your weekend amusement, though the repeated insistence on
> "rewriting" of Indian history is really ... boring:
>
> See:
> "US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa" says it all...
>
> Like our long time friends mathematician Rajaram, bank employees Dr.
> K. and Talageri, electric engineering Prof. S. Kak, medical
> technician V. Agarwal (M.Sc.), astrologers like David Fawley
> ("Vamedeva") etc. etc. Likewise, K. Vepa: he has a PhD of the
> University of Waterloo in Engineering Sciences & applied mechanics,
> studied there 1968 � 1972.
>
> *Anybody* in the Indian orbit can turn historian overnight, at the
> drop of a hat.
> Preferably, after retirement...
>
> Yesterday a conference on this topic has begun in Delhi:
>
>
> tiny URL:
>
> Interestingly, even IER/Westerner-baiter Sandhya Jain (rabid
> columnist in the chauvinistic paper, the Organizer), had to comment:
> "NONE of the persons mentioned is a historian!"
>
> Sure, it is a *political* event that she should actually welcome :^)
>
> ----------
> Quote :
>
>
> International meet on Indian history
>
> Statesman News Service
>
> NEW DELHI, Jan. 7: A three-day international conference on Indian
> history, civilization and geopolitics is set to begin here on Friday.
> The executive director of the Indic Studies Foundation, Dr Kosla Vepa,
> said the aim of the conference was "to decolonise various aspects of
> ancient Indian history and its chronology which were deliberately
> distorted and mis-dated during the British Raj with a view to causing
> confusion and a sense of inferiority among Indians".
>
> He said the conference is expected to be a landmark event in the
> interpretation of ancient Indian history since the "current version of
> history is not accurate and distorted. There is need to rewrite the
> history of India. History as we see it".
>
> The US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa said the conference
> "aims at increasing awareness of strategic thinking in India and to
> show that a strategic approach based on long-term objectives is
> essential to ensure a safe and secure future for the ancient Indian
> civilisation and lead it to still greater heights".
>
> Dr Vepa who has been studying history for over a decade now said it
> was a forensic science and depends on numerous other subjects and was
> not just the study of dates or mere guess work. Asked whether
> institutions like Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and
> NCERT have been invited for the conference, he said: "They have not
> given their consent to attending it." However, historians and scholars
> who are expected to attend the conference include Mr Bharat Karnad, Mr
> Kanwal Sibal, Mr Uday Bhaskar, Mr JS Rajput and Mr Vikram Sood.
>
> ---------------
>
> Quote from Vepa's web site
> Area, seeks to propagate a more accurate and rational approach to the
> study and dissemination of the Indian Civilizational ethos in the world"
>
> and: "I have prepared educational materials and calendars for
> dissemination to schools in India and the US." Remember the CA
> schoolbook case? After failed attempts to rewrite history there,
> this has been their new front...
>
> Onward, Hindutva soldiers!
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Occidntal is held to a much less rigorous standard of scholarship
It is interesting that the notion that 6 people with a science background should turn their attention to history in a land of 1 billion , should be a cause for such derisiveness and scorn on the part of the Professor of Sanskrit from Harvard
Apparently it is not permitted for even 6 people out of a billion , over a sixty year period to claim some degree of scholarship in the field after spending their lifetime studying it. So much so that, even when such a low number as 6*10**-9 is involved, ( a number that will not register as a statistically significant quantity and is below the 6 Sigma number used by engineers to define a process with an incidence of errors that is for all practical purposes, is equal to 0), Prof Witzel feels compelled to remark that it is just a hop step and a jump away from saying anybody can become a historian. He also ignores the fact that each of the six brings impressive credentials to the task, and that if anything such a small number in fact indicates how hard it is to be taken seriously as a Historian of India, especially if one is not an Occidental
The more important point to make is that if we use Prof Witzel’s criterion almost every occidental historian (and philologist of India in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century should have disqualified himself, from writing or commenting on India. Almost all the original sanskritists were self taught, with very little independent verification of their credentials. That includes Franz Bopp and Bernouff. Max Mueller never got his PhD degree( it is in fact doubtful whether he completed the course requirements for a Masters and his ability to converse or understand a single sentence of spoken Sanskrit was abysmal. One suspects he never went to India, and subject himself to a debate with a Sanskrit pundit because he knew that the resulting ignominy would expose him for what he truly was , a charlatan claiming expertise in a language, in which his mastery was sophomoric at best.
It is the civilizational historians like Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant that have taken the contrarian viewpoint. The rest have been content to make the assumption that The European is naturally superior and therefore everything he says should be accepted without questioning. The entire dialog between India and the occident has been one long circular argument, where Michael Witzel of Harvard maintains that i do not have the right to be taken seriously because I am a Hindutva. There are several assumptions that are implicit in such a stereotyping
1. I am a member of an unspeakably evil or senseless group of people called Hindutva, every member of which is beyond the pale of human civilization, simply because he is a Hindutva
2. That therefore. I forfeit the right to have an informed opinion.
3. That No Indian has the right to become a historian unless he is anointed as such by an occidental and that conversely every Occidental has the right to call himself a historian of India , simply because he spends a couple of years in the subcontinent. Most British Historians of India have had no formal training in History much less Indian History. No occidental has challenged the credentials of the host of British and occidental writers from Sir James MIlls to Sir William Jones ,Vincent Smith, or Frank Pargiter, none of whom were Professional historians but the very same Occidental has the absolute hubris to judge whether I possess the credential to write about my own civilization
Alas, I am challenged more frequently by Indians than I am by Occidentals , who (the Indics) are horrifed that i dare to question the conventional wisdom as propounded by a member of the conquering race .
--- In Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com, Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> For your weekend amusement, though the repeated insistence on
> "rewriting" of Indian history is really ... boring:
>
> See:
> "US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa" says it all...
>
> Like our long time friends mathematician Rajaram, bank employees Dr.
> K. and Talageri, electric engineering Prof. S. Kak, medical
> technician V. Agarwal (M.Sc.), astrologers like David Fawley
> ("Vamedeva") etc. etc. Likewise, K. Vepa: he has a PhD of the
> University of Waterloo in Engineering Sciences & applied mechanics,
> studied there 1968 � 1972.
>
> *Anybody* in the Indian orbit can turn historian overnight, at the
> drop of a hat.
> Preferably, after retirement...
>
> Yesterday a conference on this topic has begun in Delhi:
> 39258>
>
> tiny URL:
>
> Interestingly, even IER/Westerner-baiter Sandhya Jain (rabid
> columnist in the chauvinistic paper, the Organizer), had to comment:
> "NONE of the persons mentioned is a historian!"
>
> Sure, it is a *political* event that she should actually welcome :^)
>
> ----------
> Quote :
>
>
> International meet on Indian history
>
> Statesman News Service
>
> NEW DELHI, Jan. 7: A three-day international conference on Indian
> history, civilization and geopolitics is set to begin here on Friday.
> The executive director of the Indic Studies Foundation, Dr Kosla Vepa,
> said the aim of the conference was "to decolonise various aspects of
> ancient Indian history and its chronology which were deliberately
> distorted and mis-dated during the British Raj with a view to causing
> confusion and a sense of inferiority among Indians".
>
> He said the conference is expected to be a landmark event in the
> interpretation of ancient Indian history since the "current version of
> history is not accurate and distorted. There is need to rewrite the
> history of India. History as we see it".
>
> The US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa said the conference
> "aims at increasing awareness of strategic thinking in India and to
> show that a strategic approach based on long-term objectives is
> essential to ensure a safe and secure future for the ancient Indian
> civilisation and lead it to still greater heights".
>
> Dr Vepa who has been studying history for over a decade now said it
> was a forensic science and depends on numerous other subjects and was
> not just the study of dates or mere guess work. Asked whether
> institutions like Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and
> NCERT have been invited for the conference, he said: "They have not
> given their consent to attending it." However, historians and scholars
> who are expected to attend the conference include Mr Bharat Karnad, Mr
> Kanwal Sibal, Mr Uday Bhaskar, Mr JS Rajput and Mr Vikram Sood.
>
> ---------------
>
> Quote from Vepa's web site vepa>: "The Indic Studies Foundation, based in the San Francisco Bay
> Area, seeks to propagate a more accurate and rational approach to the
> study and dissemination of the Indian Civilizational ethos in the world"
>
> and: "I have prepared educational materials and calendars for
> dissemination to schools in India and the US." Remember the CA
> schoolbook case? After failed attempts to rewrite history there,
> this has been their new front...
>
> Onward, Hindutva soldiers!
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
Apparently it is not permitted for even 6 people out of a billion , over a sixty year period to claim some degree of scholarship in the field after spending their lifetime studying it. So much so that, even when such a low number as 6*10**-9 is involved, ( a number that will not register as a statistically significant quantity and is below the 6 Sigma number used by engineers to define a process with an incidence of errors that is for all practical purposes, is equal to 0), Prof Witzel feels compelled to remark that it is just a hop step and a jump away from saying anybody can become a historian. He also ignores the fact that each of the six brings impressive credentials to the task, and that if anything such a small number in fact indicates how hard it is to be taken seriously as a Historian of India, especially if one is not an Occidental
The more important point to make is that if we use Prof Witzel’s criterion almost every occidental historian (and philologist of India in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century should have disqualified himself, from writing or commenting on India. Almost all the original sanskritists were self taught, with very little independent verification of their credentials. That includes Franz Bopp and Bernouff. Max Mueller never got his PhD degree( it is in fact doubtful whether he completed the course requirements for a Masters and his ability to converse or understand a single sentence of spoken Sanskrit was abysmal. One suspects he never went to India, and subject himself to a debate with a Sanskrit pundit because he knew that the resulting ignominy would expose him for what he truly was , a charlatan claiming expertise in a language, in which his mastery was sophomoric at best.
It is the civilizational historians like Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant that have taken the contrarian viewpoint. The rest have been content to make the assumption that The European is naturally superior and therefore everything he says should be accepted without questioning. The entire dialog between India and the occident has been one long circular argument, where Michael Witzel of Harvard maintains that i do not have the right to be taken seriously because I am a Hindutva. There are several assumptions that are implicit in such a stereotyping
1. I am a member of an unspeakably evil or senseless group of people called Hindutva, every member of which is beyond the pale of human civilization, simply because he is a Hindutva
2. That therefore. I forfeit the right to have an informed opinion.
3. That No Indian has the right to become a historian unless he is anointed as such by an occidental and that conversely every Occidental has the right to call himself a historian of India , simply because he spends a couple of years in the subcontinent. Most British Historians of India have had no formal training in History much less Indian History. No occidental has challenged the credentials of the host of British and occidental writers from Sir James MIlls to Sir William Jones ,Vincent Smith, or Frank Pargiter, none of whom were Professional historians but the very same Occidental has the absolute hubris to judge whether I possess the credential to write about my own civilization
Alas, I am challenged more frequently by Indians than I am by Occidentals , who (the Indics) are horrifed that i dare to question the conventional wisdom as propounded by a member of the conquering race .
--- In Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com, Michael Witzel
>
> For your weekend amusement, though the repeated insistence on
> "rewriting" of Indian history is really ... boring:
>
> See:
> "US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa" says it all...
>
> Like our long time friends mathematician Rajaram, bank employees Dr.
> K. and Talageri, electric engineering Prof. S. Kak, medical
> technician V. Agarwal (M.Sc.), astrologers like David Fawley
> ("Vamedeva") etc. etc. Likewise, K. Vepa: he has a PhD of the
> University of Waterloo in Engineering Sciences & applied mechanics,
> studied there 1968 � 1972.
>
> *Anybody* in the Indian orbit can turn historian overnight, at the
> drop of a hat.
> Preferably, after retirement...
>
> Yesterday a conference on this topic has begun in Delhi:
>
>
> tiny URL:
>
> Interestingly, even IER/Westerner-baiter Sandhya Jain (rabid
> columnist in the chauvinistic paper, the Organizer), had to comment:
> "NONE of the persons mentioned is a historian!"
>
> Sure, it is a *political* event that she should actually welcome :^)
>
> ----------
> Quote :
>
>
> International meet on Indian history
>
> Statesman News Service
>
> NEW DELHI, Jan. 7: A three-day international conference on Indian
> history, civilization and geopolitics is set to begin here on Friday.
> The executive director of the Indic Studies Foundation, Dr Kosla Vepa,
> said the aim of the conference was "to decolonise various aspects of
> ancient Indian history and its chronology which were deliberately
> distorted and mis-dated during the British Raj with a view to causing
> confusion and a sense of inferiority among Indians".
>
> He said the conference is expected to be a landmark event in the
> interpretation of ancient Indian history since the "current version of
> history is not accurate and distorted. There is need to rewrite the
> history of India. History as we see it".
>
> The US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa said the conference
> "aims at increasing awareness of strategic thinking in India and to
> show that a strategic approach based on long-term objectives is
> essential to ensure a safe and secure future for the ancient Indian
> civilisation and lead it to still greater heights".
>
> Dr Vepa who has been studying history for over a decade now said it
> was a forensic science and depends on numerous other subjects and was
> not just the study of dates or mere guess work. Asked whether
> institutions like Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and
> NCERT have been invited for the conference, he said: "They have not
> given their consent to attending it." However, historians and scholars
> who are expected to attend the conference include Mr Bharat Karnad, Mr
> Kanwal Sibal, Mr Uday Bhaskar, Mr JS Rajput and Mr Vikram Sood.
>
> ---------------
>
> Quote from Vepa's web site
> Area, seeks to propagate a more accurate and rational approach to the
> study and dissemination of the Indian Civilizational ethos in the world"
>
> and: "I have prepared educational materials and calendars for
> dissemination to schools in India and the US." Remember the CA
> schoolbook case? After failed attempts to rewrite history there,
> this has been their new front...
>
> Onward, Hindutva soldiers!
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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