Re: Fw: [Indo-Eurasia] End of Weekend Lunacy-- Rajaram's response to Witzel

[Navaratna Rajaram]

September 18, 2012

 

    So Witzel is coming out of the woodwork-- seemingly recovered from the Subramanian Swamy fiasco of a year ago.

 

    My talk at Boston U yesterday went very well. My essage was-- forget labels like Aryan, Dravidian, etc and just look what the ancients have left behind in archaeology, literature and what science us in terms of natural history and genetics and build a new account disregarding old myths (like Aryan, Dravidian, etc) presented as 'theories'.

 

   This is the book that I am currently working on that I have called The Genes of Time. Witzel and his ilk are still stuck in the nineteenth century. Let them wallow in their discredited past.

 

   As far as my MIT talk (April 2010) he refers to he as usual misrepresents the facts. My comment on Vedanta and physics (which was not the topic but came up incidentally), was so terrible that MIT and University of Manchester and Indian Institute of Science later invited me to give full fledged talks on it, and OUP asked me for a book proposal! I have spoken on the subject at least half a dozen times in the two years hence worldwide.

 

   But why bother. Witzel and his cohorts are living in the dustbin of history but don't want to face the truth. So, let us just move forward.

 

N.S. Rajaram

 

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 7:11 PM, S. Kalyanaraman <kaly...@gmail.com> wrote:

-----Original Message----- From: Michael Witzel
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 6:09 PM
To: Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Michael Witzel
Subject: Re: [Indo-Eurasia] End of Weekend Lunacy

Well, Steve, it is useless to go to such meetings, loss of time. -- Rajaram just shows his teflon face and all criticism peels off it.

I went to a similar one at MIT a few years ago, organized just like the Boston one by some Hindu student group (not by MIT or BU !). Objecting to some of his points his surrogates starting attacking me (and some of my students). It is all online somewhere on Youtube. One of them even showed us the finger… an Incisive  argument, indeed.

Last time around, I went to have some fun over the weekend, and we did have our fun. At that time he went into high physiscs -- not well appreciated by MIT students, of course.

This time, the usual nonsense on the Indus (Harappan) civilization which they prefer to call "Sarasvati", long before this minor monsoon-fed river was ever named so. The Harappan civilization (2600-1900 BCE) of course has *no* overlaps with the ensuing Vedic civilization (c.1500-500 BCE), except in some aspects of the *lower* tradition, such as some pottery patterns, hair style, low level ghosts, etc. None on the putative Harappan High gods occur in the Veda (the so-called Shiva Pashupati on some 'seals' can be just one manifestation of the widespread Northern Eurasian, Stone Age "Lord of the animals"). etc  etc.

No need to belabor this.

Hindutva is very much splintered these days, and the majority of a new generation could not care less about the Indus-Sarasvati nonsense.

We can emulate the old adage, slightly amended:

"A scientific truth does not triumph be convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Cheers,
Michael

*****

Origin and Growth of Vedic Civilization: Ice Age to the end of Sarasvatii

Recent findings in natural history and genetics, along with proper readings of the Vedas have made it possible to identify the Harappans as belonging to the late Vedic Age. Harappan civilization was the twilight of the Vedic Age and broke up due to ecological degradation including the drying up of the Sarasvati River. This resolves the paradox of the Aryan theory of invasion and allows us to trace the origins of the Vedic civilization to the maritime world of the end of the last Ice Age. The presentation will highlight the close connections between natural history, Vedic literature and Harappan symbolism. It will show that Harappan archaeology represents the material remains of the culture and civilization that created the Vedic literature. Join us for an academic dialogue about the early history of the Vedic Aryans and recent archeological findings that shed light on the Indus Valley civilization around Harappa.

Starts
7:00pm on Monday, September 17th 2012

Location
Metcalf Science and Engineering Center (SCI) (117)

More Info
https://www.facebook.com/events/282614861843786/

============
Michael Witzel
wit...@fas.harvard.edu
<www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm>
Wales Prof. of Sanskrit &
Director of Graduate Studies,
Dept. of South Asian Studies, Harvard University
1 Bow Street,
Cambridge MA 02138, USA

phone: 1- 617 - 495 3295, 496 8570, fax 617 - 496 8571;
my direct line:  617- 496 2990

------------------------------------

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