P.N.Oak (1917-2007): the lone fighter, etymologist, and historian

[yogesh saxena]

P.N.Oak (1917-2007): the lone fighter, etymologist, and historian
By Prof. Shrinivas Tilak Dec 9 2007 *
I landed in Mumbai in the night of Tuesday, Dec 4. When I opened the
papers
on Wednesday morning (Dec 5) there were reports of P. N. Oak's death
on
Tuesday at the age of 91. I was looking forward to meet with him to
discuss
a write-up I had prepared about him (see below). I had known Oak for
many
decades and had last met him in February 2007 at his residence to
present
him with my latest book *Understanding karma in light of Paul
Ricoeur's
philosophical anthropology and hermeneutics* . He then looked as he
always
did: tall, slim, and ramrod straight. He was sharp, alert, and moved
his 90
year old frame gracefully with the agility of a leopard. As usual, he
alternated between etymologies of proper names and place names from
all over
the world and their Sanskrit equivalents and the history of India.
After an
hour or so I got up to say adieu and told him I would be back in
December.
The grand-daughter of my sister had accompanied me. She requested Oak
to
pose with me for a picture which he did gladly.

P.N.Oak: the lone fighter, etymologist, and historian

There are no final answers to our questions about humanity's past. In
world
history, all "conclusions" must be tentative. Yet, accounts of the
past
construed by Western historians usually come neatly packed in western
cultural and sociological paradigms. But the nagging question diligent
seekers of truth about the past ask remains, "Is world history written
from
a Christian or Islamic perspective alone credible?" The fact is,
world's
distant past is pre-Christian and pre-Islamic. Though it remains
unknowable,
scattered evidence of an older world (that is periodically reported in
world
media) tends to arouse the speculative impulse of a historian like
India's
P.N. Oak who believed that our world's origins go back to its Vedic
heritage.

Oak, the lone fighter

Born in 1917 in Indore (Madhya Pradesh, India), Purushottam Nagesh Oak
was
educated in Pune (Fergusson and Law College) and trained as a lawyer.
When
World War II began Oak enlisted in the Indian army. But when the
legendary
Subhas Chandra Bose gave a call to rise against the British raj, Oak
threw
himself (body and soul) into the Azad Hind Sena (Indian National Army
= INA)
started by Bose. For some time he acted as a private assistant (PA) to
Bose
and was later stationed in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh Ville), where he
worked
on the Azad Hind Radio as a broadcaster. When Japan lost the war and
Bose
himself was killed in a plane crash, the stranded INA soldiers were
left to
their own devices all across South-East Asia. Oak decided to walk back
to
India alone across the hostile and inaccessible mountainous terrain
between
Burma (Myanmar) and India.

My first memories of meeting Oak go back fifty years to May 1957. I
had just
graduated from a high school in Pune and had gone to Delhi with my
three
sisters to spend the summer with our father who worked in the Railway
Board.
Our mother had passed away in 1946 and we therefore attended a
boarding
school for boys and girls in Pune. A lonely widower, my father took to
studying astrology as a hobby when he met Oak who used to supplement
his
income by writing astrology columns for a variety of magazines and
newspapers. Since he had no secure government job and a large family
to
feed, Oak was forced to try his hand at a variety of jobs including a
reporter for the Statesman and the Hindustan Times. For many years he
was
employed as information officer with the United States Information
Service
(USIS) at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. During the 1960s Oak often
used to
come to meet our father to discuss issues in astrology over a morning
cup of
tea. We used to take that opportunity to pump him about the legendary
Bose
and the exploits of the INA.

But the lone fighter in Oak was now pre-occupied with something else.
Having
done his part in the struggle for India's political independence, he
became
a one-man brigade of an independent historian who had taken upon
himself the
thankless task of rescuing India's history which, he insisted, was
hijacked
by invaders from medieval times on.

Oak began his historical odyssey with the hypothesis that (1) India's
history has been thoroughly distorted by invaders to such an extent
that
Indians today suffer from cultural amnesia; (2) Indians have forgotten
their
own glorious tradition preserved in the epics and *pur�ņas* which
are as
good a source of history as modern historical documents; (3) In
post-independence India secular and Marxist historians have drained
Indian
history of its Aryan and Vedic content and context; (4) The emphasis
in
today's historiography is on secularism and on appeasement of
minorities of
all sorts: cultural, linguistic, regional or religious; (5) In
producing
"idealized versions" of the past, India's Vedic heritage has been
distorted
beyond recognition; and (6) In fabricating history to serve
contemporary
goals of a secular society, historians of modern India have robbed
India of
its authentic past.

In 1964 Oak established the "Institute for Rewriting Indian History"
in
Delhi to provide corrections to what he insisted were the biased
versions of
India's history written by its invaders, colonizers, and modern
secular
historians. The institute made no pretence at writing history in the
sense
implied in the works of western or westernized historians in India.
The
academic historian and the professional scholar are bound by firm
rules of
evidence. Assertions must be supported by verifiable facts.
Speculation can
go only so far. Though historical writing may be a part of literature,
its
professional practitioners avoid anything that might be exposed as
mere
fiction. Oak rather relied on a historiography that is more akin to
the
traditional Indian ways of recording history where the line between
"myth"
and "history" is not clearly drawn.

Oak, the etymologist

Oak claimed that the mother civilization, from which all world
civilizations
grew, was centred in India. Humanity came to be divided into two major
groups: *devas* (progeny of Aditi, wife of Kaśyapa) and
*d�navas/daityas* (progeny of Diti, another wife of Kaśyapa). While
Indians trace their origin
to Aditi and *devas*, populations of Europe and Egypt are the
descendants of
Diti and therefore are called *daityas*. The Greeks accordingly were
known
as Danao in Latin. Denmark, Danube, and Don are clearly derivatives of
*d*�*
nava*.

The Iranians and Mesopotamians are *daityas* too. Russia is derived
from *Å—ÅŸiya
(*Rushiya = land of the *Å—ÅŸis*--sages). The Mayas of Central and
South
America are the followers of demon Maya who escaped to P�t�la (the
land
beneath India) by the western seas. The Caspian Sea takes its name
from the
sage Kaśyapa and the Samarkanda region from the sage śrī
M�rkaņdeya.
Palestine is derived from Pulastin, another Vedic sage. Cyprus is a
mal
pronunciation of the Sanskrit term śivaprastha signifying a centre of
śaiva
worship.

Oak argued that the so-called Indo-European groups of languages are
local
variations and/or mal pronunciations of Sanskrit. In support of the
claim he
advanced, Oak made liberal use of the discipline of etymology, which
goes
back to *Nighantu.* A key concern in the Vedic texts (including the
UpaniÅŸads) is to uncover the hidden correspondences that obtain among
the
sacrificial ritual (yajna), the cosmos, the social world, and the
microcosm
of the human body. These correspondences (also known as counterparts =
*
bandhu*; equivalences = *sampad*; and secret connections =
*upaniÅŸads*) have
cognitive value: they reveal knowledge which is not directly evident.
A
striking example of the knowledge that one can recover through
meditation is
to be found in the *bandhus* stated directly in propositional form in
the
five great statements (*mah�v�kyas*) in the Upanişads: I am
*brahman* (*
bandhu* between I and *brahman*); that thou are (*bandhu* between that
and
thou) etc.

The science of etymology is also based, in large part, on the phonetic
similarities or resemblance (*bandhu*) between words and the things
they
designate. Resemblances between words are evidence of a direct
connection
between the 'word' and the 'world.' Sanskritist Patrick Olivelle
cautions us
in this context that Y�ska, S�yaņa, and others in that long line
should not
be dismissed as 'folk' etymologists too unsophisticated to know the
true
etymologies of the words they explain. Rather, they proceed on the
assumption that the surface forms of language provide clues to the
'deeper
and hidden connections' (see *The Early Upanishads, New York: OUP,
1998:
25). *

With Johannes Bronkhorst, another Sanskritist, one may accept that
such
etymologies may not be historical or truly etymological. But they
nevertheless express and enrich meaning (see "Etymology and magic:
Yaska's
Nirukta, Plato's Cratylus, and the Riddle of Semantic Etymologies, "
*Numen*48 (2001): 147-203). Like poetry, fictitious etymologies are
designed to
substitute for the absence of a natural or empirical connection
between
language and reality. Poetry is not necessarily expressive of reality
but
rhetoric. It builds on appearances of similarities or resemblances
between
words.

Victor Turner's discussion of fictitious etymologies used by Ndembu to
explain their rituals as an important part of the 'inside view' or
'emic
explanation' would also relevant in trying to understand Oak's
reliance on
etymology. Turner counsels us to pause and reflect before using
*etic*arguments to dismiss such devices deployed emically. Fictitious
etymology,
like homonymy, is a device whereby the semantic wealth of a word or
symbol
is augmented (see *Revelation and Divination in Dnembu Riual*. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press 1975).

Even though most of the etymologies suggested by Oak will not stand
academic
scrutiny, each must examined carefully before rejecting it. His effort
should not be summarily dismissed as mere Oakisms.

Oak, the historian

The objective of Oak's Institute for Rewriting Indian History was
subsequently expanded and extended to inform the world that Vedic
culture
and Sanskrit language have been humanity's divine heritage until
monotheistic religions came to dominate the world and control its
written
history. Oak's *magnum opus* is *World Vedic Heritage*, a huge tome
(1375
pages, 150 pictures and illustrations; price Rs 400) wherein he
cogently
documents principal arguments and evidence gathered by Oak and other
members
of the institute. The institute also publishes an annual research
journal.

In writing *World Vedic Heritage* Oak was concerned with recreating,
what he
strongly believed, the vanished history of the world which began with
the
Aryans: their successes, failures, and ultimate fate. It is a
spellbinding
history of the world narrated by a master storyteller. Though general
Indian
reader will be enchanted by it, most professional historians will be
greatly
annoyed. True, physical evidence of Aryan origins in India and their
migration beyond India is scarce but relevant archaeological finds
uncovered
in different parts of the world baffle historians and archaeologists.
In the
course of more than fifty years of research and on-site inspections
Oak
connected them to existing structures and constructions usually
associated
with the Indus Valley Civilization.

*World Vedic Heritage* relies on this germ of ancient history that
most
academics and scholars will not touch with a ten foot pole because
they
dread being laughed at by their peers. Oak could not prove his thesis
with a
body of solid evidence, but he did tell his fascinating tale
persuasively.
He cleverly made logical use of the scraps of evidence that do exist,
such
that the reader begins to feel that something like what Oak describes
could
have happened. In this, Oak drew on a living tradition of speculative
and
imaginative historiography going back to Vy�sa and V�lmiki where
myth,
fact, and fiction imperceptibly flow together. Yet he was graceful
enough to
acknowledge that some of his conclusions or accounts were founded on
conjecture and analogy. Like Vy�sa and other *pur�ņa* writers he
often deviated from the conditional into the indicative mood when hard
evidence was lacking.

Oak surmised that Vedic culture and Sanskrit (its medium of
expression) were
spread over vast areas of the ancient world--particularly Europe and
Asia.
Vedic culture only insisted that every person be a good, peaceful, and
helpful member of society. It did not interfere in the personal belief
system of individuals whether theist or atheist. A theist was free to
choose
whatever mode and form of worship. Religions of Egypt, Israel, and
Iran,
therefore, have several points of resemblance to the rites, beliefs,
and
mythology of the Vedic people (i.e. Aryans). European archaeologists
and
historians begin their theories with an untested and childlike
hypothesis
(based principally on Biblical accounts of genesis) that human
habitation
began only a few thousands years ago. Modern archaeological finds are
forcing them to push back their estimates of the antiquity of human
habitation by millions of years.

With this founding presupposition Oak built what he believed an
alternative
and more credible account of genesis of the ancient world. In an
article
published in his institute's *Annual Research Journal* (1997: 25) he
referred to the Scandinavian scholar Sten Konow who had argued (citing
the
famous French Indologist Sylvain Levi) that in the remote past there
existed
a widespread civilization comprising India and other continents and
islands
bordering on the seas around India's coasts. This may explain the
existence
of parallels in Europe to the Durg� Pūj�, which "takes us back to
the times
when Indian and European tribes were one people with a common language
and
common religious conceptions" (Oak 1997: 25).

Yay�ti was one of the mightiest kings of ancient India whose progeny
eventually peopled many western regions. Pharaohs of Egypt, for
instance,
are the Pauravas, i.e. descendants of Puru, the youngest son of
Yay�ti. Jews
are Yudus, the progeny of Yadu who was Yay�ti's eldest son. Modern
Druids
are descendants of Yay�ti's third son--Druhyu. Yay�ti's two other
sons--Anu
and Turvasu, respectively settled Anatolia and the area north of the
Black
Sea.

Pending solid corroborating evidence, Oak's thesis and books based on
it
must be construed as "fiction," but it is fiction with a ring of
truth.
There is, for instance, evidence to suggest that ancient Indians were
excellent seafarers and travelled far more widely than European and
Muslim
historians of India had led us to believe.

Two international conferences held in Vilnius (capital of Lithuania)
on June
22-23, 1998 broadly supported Oak's basic thesis that in the ancient
world
Sanskrit was an important link language. World Pagan Conference and
World
Congress of Ethnic Religions were held simultaneously in Vilnius and
coincided with the annual summer solstice festival locally known as
Rasa.
The dominant themes of these conferences (one universal religion
underlying
a variety of religious expressions and tolerance of religious
plurality)
have been, as Oak ceaselessly points out, the hallmark of the Vedic
culture.

India has had close linguistic and cultural ties with Lithuanian (and
perhaps European) language, history, and tradition. These two
conferences
are testimony to growing awareness in the world that (1) India is the
homeland of one universal and eternal religion (*san�tana dharma*)
and (2)
Sanskrit and *sanskŗti*, through which *san�tana dharma* is
expressed, have
served (can do so now) a bridge to world cultures and religions.

Formerly a Baltic republic of the Soviet Union, Lithuania today is an
independent country. The people of Lithuania speak the oldest
surviving
Indo-European language, which closely resembles ancient Sanskrit. It
continues to have, for instance, seven declensions (*vibhaktis* ). The
words
for god, day, and son in Lithuanian are *dieva, diena, sunus (deva,
dina,
sunu* in Sanskrit). Lithuanian language has preserved until the
present day
the complex phonetic system of the Indo-European speech (*Encyclopedia
Britannica* 1980 edition; curiously though, the 1992 edition has
dropped any
reference to this similarity of Lithuanian with Sanskrit).

Scholars now recognize that Sanskrit can be employed as a tool of
research
in the comparative study of the past history and mythology of Europe
and
Asia. It can also contribute significantly to the cross-cultural study
of
world religions and cultures. Not surprisingly, the University of
Vilnius
has a large Department of Sanskrit. Lithuania was the last stronghold
in
Europe of nature religion and a syncretistic, tolerant cultural
tradition
before being Christianized in the fourteenth century. Subsequently, as
indeed elsewhere, Lithuanians were divided into Christians (saved
ones) and
Pagans (doomed ones). Over the centuries vigorous efforts were made to
obliterate all pre-Christian religious traditions in Europe and
elsewhere
where Christianity came to prevail.

The fact nevertheless remains that Pagan religions did foster harmony
between the natural and human. Paganism discounted the artificial
division
of our world into "believers" of this or that organized religion and
those
others who are pejoratively dismissed as non-believers ("pagans,"
"kafirs,"
"mleccha" etc). Pagan worldview rejects those military and political
authorities who, in the name of organized religions, subjugate and
enslave
those who profess natural spiritual practices.

Such an outlook shares much in common with modern liberal trends
sweeping
across the world. It is therefore not surprising that there is a
renewed
interest in and revival of Pagan religion in the world today.
Particularly
in Europe people are eager to rediscover their lost cultures and
traditions.
They are thirsty and hungry for the spiritual lore that disappeared
with the
advent of monotheistic religions. In Modern Lithuania it has given
rise to
the "Romuva Movement."

This mood of optimism and perspective was also evident at the World
Congress
of Ethnic Religions held in London in 1998. Representatives of
different
ethnic religions (non-missionary religions that have no ambition to
reduce
local religions to one dominant world religion) endorsed the pagan
worldviews that there is not just the absolute one God and the
absolutely
profane plural world, as in monotheism. There is both sacredness and
profaneness within the world, as there is both oneness and plurality
within
the divine. Like Paganism, ethnic religions see themselves as a
culture of
truth, an exploration, and an experience, not as a belief in a fixed
set of
dogmas or creed.

Delegates expressed opposition to the worship of a "jealous and
wrathful
god" who exhorts his followers to force or induce non believers to
give up
their ways of worship. God cannot be partisan or jealous because such
a
depiction sows discord and violence amongst different groups and
factions.
Truth is, god and nature are not jealous. Is the sun jealous? Does the
moon
betray jealousy? The rivers, stars, forests, fields, lakes, oceans are
all
manifestations of god who showers beneficence upon all. God/Goddess is
absolutely free of jealousy or favour.

Thus interpreted, "pagan" worldview shares much in common with Vedic
culture
in general and with *san�tana dharma* in particular. In his various
writings
Oak speculated that "pagan" was a corrupt form of *bhagav�n*. This
claim
received some support in the papers read by Rajinder Singh, Surinder
Paul
Attri, and Arwind Ghosh who represented India at Vilnius explaining
the
Hindu perspective on the central theme of the conference "unity in
diversity." They shared the thoughts and points of views of the
religions of
India on the means of restoring in the modern world sacredness of all
life
and divinity of nature.

Oak's work is comparable in many respects to Canadian writer Farley
Mowat
who has put forth a theory (developed in his latest book *The
Farfarers*)
that Albans (ancient inhabitants of northern British Isles) explored
and
even settled North America fifteen centuries ago. Formidable seafarers
and
traders in walrus tusks and hides, Albans reached, according to Mowat,
western Newfoundland in search of their hunt centuries ago. Some of
them
settled there and were eventually absorbed by the indigenous people of
North
America.

Like Mowat, Oak made good and sensible use of the odd clues and the
evidence
that fifty years of personal investigation and study gave him.The two
volumes of his *World Vedic Heritage* will no doubt provoke
controversy, as
Oak's works always do, but academic historians must not simply ignore
him.
They must take up his challenge and engage him [his writings now] in a
scholarly debate.

Oak [and Godbole] on the Taj Mahal

Back in 1965 Oak put forward a theory that the Taj Mahal was not a
mausoleum
built by Shahjahan but a Rajput Palace. In 1968 he found supporting
evidence
to that effect in Shahjahan's official chronicle Badshahnama and in
1974 he
came across a letter by Aurangzeb written in 1652 (the year when Taj
Mahal
is supposed to have been just completed) complaining that the Taj
Mahal was
leaking all over.

In 1978 Oak's book *The Taj Mahal is a Temple Palace* came out which
V. S.
Godbole (an engineer working for the London Underground in UK and also
a
researcher in Indian history and in the thought of V.D. Savarkar) read
and
found thought provoking . Over the next two years Godbole went through
the
relevant references provided by Oak and was convinced of Oak's
assertion. In
1981 Godbole's research went deeper and he began to ask "Were the
British
scholars just a neutral third party who were either (1) misled by the
prolonged misuse of Hindu buildings as Mosques and Tombs or (2) were
not
cunning enough to see through chauvinistic Muslim claims? Or (3) did
they
know the truth about Taj Mahal and other monuments all along but had,
for
political reasons, hid the truth?"

By the end of 1981 Godbole had prepared an eighty page dossier on the
subject and placed his findings in a chronological order. He was
surprised
at the findings. There was indeed a British conspiracy of suppression
of
truth about Taj Mahal and other monuments over the last two hundred
years.
The main personalities involved either knew each other and/or referred
to
works of each other. With time new information came to light which
confirmed
Godbole's findings. In his painstakingly done research now published
as a
book "Taj Mahal: The Great British Conspiracy," Godbole makes the
following
points (admirably summarized in B. Shantanu's Blog Hindu Dharma News
Letter
# 5):

(1) Architect: On the question of who planned the Taj Mahal, there is
very
little agreement amongst various writers and travelers. Even the
origin of
the person (whether he was Farsi, Indian, Italian) is disputed. The
name
that comes up most frequently though is that of Ustad Isa: For
Godbole, it
is certainly a fabrication because there is no mention of him prior to
the
19th century.

(2) Time Taken and People Involved: Almost all the accounts quote
Tavernier
who says that the building took 20,000 people and was twenty-two years
in
the making. This account differs considerably from Manrique's (a
Portuguese
preacher) who was in India during the same time. He only noticed one
thousand people working there. Although Manrique's testimony is not
completely reliable either, the difference in numbers is too stark to
ignore. One way of resolving the contradiction would be to say that
twenty-two years were taken and 20,000 people were employed to build
the
original Taj Mahal; not by Shahjahan but by Raja Mansingh or someone
else.
Manrique saw one thousand people engaged in the "embellishment" and
other
suitable changes that were ordered by Shahjahan to (i) formally
complete the
acquisition of the property and (ii) to change the character of the
building
by including Islamic motifs and style (inscribing verses from the
Qu'ran on
it).

(3) Badshahnama: There are scant references to this official chronicle
of
Shah Jahan's reign in most accounts by historians or Indologists. It
makes
no mention of any grand building newly constructed by Shahjahan during
his
reign. One important passage in Badshahnama is ignored by the
mainstram
scholars and historians presumably because they are unable to verify
the
authenticity of the actual document itself. The passage in question
clearly
states that Shahjahan acquired Raja Mansingh's "manzil" (not "zamin"
i.e.
plot or tract of land as quoted by some scholars).
(4) Architecture: The architecture of the building, when examined in
detail
and without bias, clearly reveals a number of features that are
unmistakably
"Hindu."

(5) Unexplained structures and underground chambers: Other than long
corridors and rooms at several levels (actually, there are seven of
them!),
the Taj complex includes moorings for pleasure boats (what purpose
could
they conceivably have in a mausoleum?). Several photographs, drawings
and
reports about the Taj are either still classified or are untraceable.
No one
quite knows when was the last time (or indeed at all that the monument
was
"surveyed" by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) (In February
2007 I
attended a lecture on Taj Mahal by Godbole in Pune where he
emphatically
asserted that to date the Taj Mahal has not been properly surveyed).

(6) Missing evidence: No extant blueprints or scale models of the
building
have been found to date. There is no mention about these at all except
for a
"legend" of a wooden model that was supposedly built.

(7) Missing credits: The only signature on the tomb is that of the
calligrapher. Was he the only person of note or the only important
contributor to the structure? How is it that there is no mention of
the
designer or the architect or indeed even of Shahjahan? Is that
realistic if
a building of such grandeur was constructed from the scratch?
Continued
silence by the ASI and the Government of India does not inspire
confidence.

Many historians and academics are fearful of a backlash if the
building that
has been proudly trumpeted as representing the best of Islamic art may
turn
out to be Hindu. The challenge before us is how to balance historical
truth
and academic integrity with public peace and "communal harmony."

Oak on secularism

Oak documents one instance of a twisted logic behind a secularist
interpretation of history by an agency of a state ruled by a Marxist
government. In 1970, an issue of a magazine published by the
Directorate of
Information and Publicity of the West Bengal government carried a
photo of a
'mosque' in Murshidabad showing on its verandah badly mutilated images
of
Ganesa. The caption underneath the photo explains that the Muslim
Sultan who
commissioned the 'mosque' was so secular that to satisfy Hindu
sentiments he
had the 'mosque' decorated with the the images of Ganesa. At the same
time,
to respect the dicta of Islam, he had them badly mutilated! (see
P.N.Oak *World
Vedic Heritage *(2 vols). Delhi: Hindi Sahitya Sadan, 2003 1: 1163.

I have always found the mainstream Indologists' verdict on Purushottam
Nagesh Oak as a lunatic and his writings worthless (without seriously
examining his arguments) very troubling because it is uncivil,
unacademic,
and counterproductive to Indology.