India Unvarnished

Murad:

Only you can write a `brief essay` posing some questions that each merit more than one book in answer.

Your findings and conclusions based on responses to these questions would be illuminating. I would be interested in reading them.

rgds

t

Murad,

You are attempting to write as an expert. It will be appropriate if you start writing your references with each of your articles. I agree that we should not try to undue glorify the past. But here I again sense an attempt to de-glorify and redefine the past.

Way you have organized your questions also indicate a prejudice in your thinking. Here are some examples

26. ``Is the history of the Mahabharata equally uncertain?``

(You are already sure that Ramayana is other uncertain thing!)

38. Was there no Sanatan Dharma or pure Hindu philosophy?

(What is a pure philosophy?)

39. Why is there so much violence in the Puranic myths? Has this affected future generations in India?

( Will you also go into the extent of violence in Bible and Quran and how they affected future generations?)

32. Is practised Hinduism a religion of the Puranas?

33. Was the Vishnu of the Puranas different from the Vishnu of the Vedas?

34. Was Shiv just a tribal deity till raised to the status of a god in the Puranas?

35. Was Ganesh too a creation of the Puranas?

(All of these questions seem to originate from your belief that their has to be a single prophet or book that should be followed to the letter! Am I wrong here?)

58. Why have Muslims become so intolerant today and why has fundamentalism caused so much disruption in the world?

(That earlier muslims were very tolerant? What happened to original inhabitants of Madina and Mecca?)

Will read your article with great interest.

References for India Unvarnished.


Main sources.

Aggarwal, Vasudeva S The Heritage of Indian Art
Allchin, Raymond & Bridget - The Birth of Indian Civilisation
Anderson & Damle - The Brotherhood in Saffron
Ardrey. Robert - The African Genesis, The Social Contract.
Armstrong, Karen - A History of God
Baig. M.R.A - The Muslim Dilemma In India.
Barth. A - The religions of India.
Basham, A.L. - The Wonder that was India.
Bhargava, M.L. - The Geography of the Rigveda.
Boronowsky - The Ascent of Man.
Burger, Julian - First Peoples.
Campbell, Joseph - The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
Chaitanya, Krishna - Betrayal of Krishna
Chaudhuri, Nirad - Hinduism, The Continent of Circe.
Dahiya B.S - Jats, the ancient rulers
Chatwick, Bruce - Nomads and other essays.
Dawson, John - Classical dictionary of Mythology and religion.
Daya Krishna - Indian Philosophy
Debroy, Bibek - The 18 Puranas
Du Ry, Carel J - Art of the Ancient near and mid east
Dutt, R,C. - History of Civilisation in ancient India.
Elwin Verrier - The Baiga
Embree, Ainslie - Sources of Indian Tradition.
Frazer James George - The Golden Bough
Frykenburg R.E. - Delhi through the Ages.
Griffith, Ralph - Hymns of the Rigveda.
Harvard Oriental series: - Vedas and other Sriptures.
Hoffer, Eric - The True Believer.
Ions, Veronica - Indian Mythology.
Jain, Girilal - The Hindu Phenomenon.
Jayakar, Pupul - The Earth Mother.
Keller, Warner - The Bible as History
Ketkar, S.V - History of Caste in India.
Kinsley David - Hindu Goddesses
Kosambi, D.D. - An intro to the study of Indian History, Culture and civilisation of ancient India.
Kulke & Rothermund - A History of India.
Lal, P - Ramayana of Valmiki
Lannoy, Richard - The speaking tree.
Larousse - Encyclopedia of Mythology.
Mahajan V.D. - Sultanate of Delhi.
Max Mueller - Sacred books of the East.
Mujumdar, R.C. - Ancient India.
Nehru, J.N. - Discovery of India.
Oak, P.N. - Some blunders of Indian Hist research
Panikkar. K.M - Hinduism and the modern world.
Piggott. Stuart - Prehistoric India.
Pratt. James Bisset. - India and its Faiths
Radhakrishnan, S - Indian Religions.
Reade, Winwood - The Martyrdom of man.
Richards John F - The Mughal Empire
Richman Paula - Many Ramayanas
Sastri Nilakant - A History of South India.
Schwartz, J. H. - What the bones tell us.
Seth, Pepita. - Initiation of a temple Velichapadu. IIC Quarterly.
Sinari, Ramakant. - The structure of Indian thought.
Spear, Percival. - A History of India .
Stavrianos, L.S. - A Global History
Talageri, S.G. - Aryan Invasion theory and Indian nationalism.
Thapar, Romila. - A History of India, Past and Prejudice. Recent perspectives of early Indian History.
Tokaray, Sergei. - History of religion.
Toynbee, A.L. - A study of History.
Trautmann, Thomas R - Aryans and British India
Upadhyaya, B.S. - Ancient World.
Vettam, Manu. - Puranic encyclopedia.
Vishvanathan, Susan. - Legends of St Thomas...IIC Quarterly.
Zakaria, Rafiq. - Mohammed and the Quran.
BBC and Discovery TV channels

Chowk Staff#3

When references are given, they are given against specific points.

Author is attempting to write an authoritative article that covers a very large canvass. Just publishing a list of books available in a library is not giving references. My advise is that he should add reference numbers at appropriate place that should lead to specific pages in the referenced material.

Regards

An unemotional examination of your mother`s love for you:

1. Is your mom the best mom in the world?

2. On what basis do you say she is the best mom in the world? Document the number of kisses and hugs, hot chappatis and daily effort, understanding smiles and every encouraging word and philosophy. The realism and objectivity behind your love for your mom and hers for you will be decided by us on that basis.

3. How does your neighbour Ramu`s mom compare, btw, on the above points? Do you think she is a better mom that yours, think unemotionally, now. Don`t be influenced by all those latenight stories or endless coaxings to get you to eat right.

4. Did your mom come with the right pedigree and birth certificate, is she legimately all she claims to be to you?

5. I am asking these questions `without any attempt to condemn, praise or pass judgement on them`, only to get to the bottom of mothers love, so important since its such a great motive force in this world, its benignness nothwithstanding.

In summary, a spurious attempt to fudge the boundary between the `objectivity` of historical facts and the subjectivity of religious belief, as if the first is important to justify the other. Religion is a connection between an individual and his own God, not the documentation of an Aryan or British invasion.

Sadhana

Re: Murad

Welcome to Chowk!

History has been always subjective. Its interpretations have been subjective and such, no nation`s history can be objectivly penned.

India is an experience; it is not an academic task to be conceptualized within an essay format! Indian history has been noble, infuriating, irritating, sad, pathetic, tragic and above all, too human.

The object of history is enliven the past with a sense of life and revive the echos of its former glories to make us understand its forgotten passions and not to itemize its experinces into a sterile lesson!

Still, more than the article, thank you for pointing the way to some interesting sources!

Ciao!

Murad,

While you are engaged in this task of explaining ``unvarnished India`` to us, please also make effort to counter the arguments presented by other scholars. One of such referenc eis given below

http://www.ignca.nic.in/nl_01102.htm

Faalsey used to grow in our house in Lucknow. Never in enough quantity though. For that we relied on the guy selling it door to door shouting ``faalsey hai kale kale..``

Thinking of other things we don`t get here, what about the good amrood (guavas)? I haven`t seen any since I came to the US, and I miss the juicy, unripe amrood like crazy! Also ``hare`` chane (or boot chane), which my whole family would eat sitting in the verandah in the hot winter sun.

-narain

PS: This must have been a really well written piece. Even Temporal could find no mistakes in it ;)

PPS: Its good to talk food and not Kashmir once in a while. Its sad though that the author has not yet aparked the onslaught he was anticipating. Maybe somebody wants to remedy that?

About the section on ancient history:

Just a regurgitation of tired old rot that was constructed by colonial indology and swallowed by the marxist `eminences` of ICHR (the history `establishment` in India.)

{Aryans came to India in 1200 BC and Dravidian in 3000 BC}

Keep your eyes and ears firmly shut and imagine that the following points do not exist -

1. The date, 1200BC, for the coming of `Aryans` to India was proposed by Max Mueller at a time when there was no science, and no archaeology worth the name in India. The main base for this chronology was the old testament! (World created in 4004BC, great flood of Noah in 2200BC, give some time for different tribes to be generated, so upper limit about 1800BC. All the vedas, brahmans, aranyakas, upanishads known at the time of Buddha, so give 200 years for each level of scriptures, goes back to 1200 BC, lower limit. Why to give the b`ards upper limit, give them the lower!) That is the type of science that generated the AIT. Of course later `linguistic` arguments were forwarded, but all those `proofs` that these arguments put forward, could be substituted with alternate hypotheses.

Moreover, Mueller himself withdrew this time frame in the later part of his life.

2. In all the extensive ancient literature that the ancient Indian civilization has generated, there is not one, repeat NOT ONE line that talks about any `Aryan Invasion`. There is not a single phrase that talks about any other homeland except the area occupied by present India/Pakistan. Colonialists tried to get some phrases out by mistranslating, but that has been convincingly belied. Doesn`t it surprise you that a literature that described the geography of the land in such a great detail, completely, absolutely forgot a homeland of only a few centuries past?

3. The river Sarasvati, of vedas (Ambitame, Naditame, Devitame : Great mother, great river, great devi) has been rediscovered, using satellite remote sensing techniques. Its dried channel is known by the name Ghaggar in India and Hakra in Pakistan. Geological studies indicate that the river dried up at about 1900BC, exactly at the time the Harappan culture ended. Of 2400 harappan sites, 1600 are on this channel, compared to only about 100 on Indus. The drying up of the river is continuously recorded in ancient Indian books. From the great river flowing from snow-clad mountains to the sea in Rgveda, it becomes a much reduced river in the time of Upanishads, and at the time of Mahabharata, it is not even able to reach the sea. And at the time of the later Puranas, it is lost in the sands. We still have the tradition of Sarasvati being one of our great river which is `Antah-Salila` (flowing underground). And they have recently got this `antah-salila` Sarasvati back!. Right there in the middle of the great Thar desert, they have found water at less than 30 feet depth along Ghaggar. The radio dating of this water using tritium analysis shows that this water is almost 4000 years old. So, for 4000 years, this water has not been replenished. Now, vedas could not have been written after Sarasvati dried up, and they could not have been written other than on the banks of Sarasvati. And there was a civilization very much on the banks of Sarasvati right then. What does that tell you?

4. Recently, Krishna`s Dwarka has been found, buried under the sea, exactly as described in Mahabharata. With Dwarka and course of Sarasvati known, the pilgrimage of Balaram from Dwarka to Mathura along Sarasvati can be convincingly explained.

5. As more and more objects are found from the Harappan civilization, it becomes more and more clear that there is a strong sense of continuity between that culture and the supposedly `Aryan` culture of the first millenium BC. Archaeologists have been shouting for years now that they can find no break at any point except that the civilization shifted over from Sarasvati to Ganga and Indus valleys.

6. A genetic mapping and bone analysis of people in Harappa and modern Indian populations show that the basic population of India has not changed for at least 10000 years. There have been no massive invasions, either of `Aryans` or of `Dravidians`.

7. The Aryan Invasion Theories of other countries have been completely discarded. Supposedly `Aryan` towns have been found in Greece, Anatolia, Egypt etc, which predate the so called `Aryan Invasion` period by a couple of millenia. So, why should Aryans reach India so late? And reaching so late, how did they build such an extensive civilization, with its literature so quickly, in a few centuries?

8. Then there is a matter of Occam`s Razor. If you have many explanations, chose the simplest one. Here we have a civilization great in area (The Indus-Sarasvati or Harappa civilization) with many towns and villages, well planned, neat. It must have taken a quite advanced sociopolitical structure to build it. But where is the literature? Where are the traditions?

Then there is another civilization, with extensive literature, traditions, culture, spirituality (The vedic civilization). But there is no archaeological remains! If they came from somewhere else, there must be very extensive archaeological remains there. Where is that place?

Now, if you give this problem to a scientist and tell that both the civilizations lay claim to the same time and space, it wont take him/her a minute to decide that they were one and same! If someone tells they were different, there have to be very very convincing reasons for that. So, where are the reasons?

In fact no ancient India book defines `Arya` as a racial term. It was used to mean a noble person, or a person supposed to be fair, just, honest etc. An Arya could easily become Anarya and vice versa. Ravana was the son of a rishi, a brahmin, but he became a rakshasa, an Anarya. Dasas and Dasyus were called Anarya, but they were not another race. They were tribes from Iran and though the Indian and Iranian tribes fought, they also had frequent intermarriages and many Anarya or Asur kings became great Arya kings. As far as Dravidians are concerned, the most ancient Sangam literature of B.C. period clearly shows the prevalence of vedic practices there, which you could have easily found if you just wanted. The north and south Indian cultures were not competetive, but they freely borrowed from each other. They were complimentary. In fact, Tamil tradition tells of rishi Agastya inventing the Tamil script. A lot of concepts in Indian culture came from Dravidian origins. Of curse I agree that humans may have originated in Africa and came to India at some time in past. But there is no proof that it all happened in last 5000 years, and there were two separate races that migrated at two distinct times. Rather, the boundaries were always porous and people continued to immigrate and emigrate, as they do today, but India even in 3000 BC, was as it is today, a melting pot with numerous influences, but a strong indigenous culture.



And it is about time the rot generated by the colonialists goes to its right destination: the junkbins of history.

No simple answeres, we can only guess from dearth of contradictory evidence, the scientists have been collecting for last few centuries (especially since Darwins theory).

Though scientists suspects homo sapiens sapiens began their journey out of Africa about 50 thousand years ago, but they also have found mining tools in Pennsylvania and Swaziland that dates back to 100,000. Scientists have also found modern human skulls in Brazil dating 100,000.

Archeology is full of discrepencies that cannot be easily explained. For example, scientists say that red Indians came to America over twelve thousand years ago through a bridge connecting America with Alaska that went under water twelve thousand years ago, but there are very similarties between Indian civilizations like Aztec, Mayan and Eastern civilization that cannot be just coincident.

There is no scarcity of theories on alternative history of humanity from professional archeologists and hobbyiest. Some authors like Zecharia Sitchin, Alan Alford Graham Hancock and Erin Von Deniken have theories about human contact with aliens. Some says humans were genetically enhanced to create slave race for mining operations. And old gods of indians and egyptian, and other civilizations were aliens.

satish #9:

Very convincing arguments. A lot of times,I wonder why they taught the AIT in school, as if it was a well established fact of history. Colonial residue, I guess.

Anyways, why do u think is that

1. on an average the upper castes are fairer than the dalits, in any given region of India ?

2. on an average the North Indians are fairer than the South Indians?

3. a lot of South Indian Brahmins are extremely light complexioned, very much in contrast to the other castes there?

Thanks.

Satyavadi

Chowk Staff:

Can you put the number of interacts against each of the question that the author raises in the body of his article. Now, we have to go to the question and then its interacts. If you put the number of interacts (with possibly a direct link to the interacts) it would save readers several mouseclicks.

Thanks.

While you are at it, you might want to put a date against the interacts in the list that one finds on the right-hand side; it would tell readers whether there is anything new.

satyavadi #: 11

Anyways, why do u think is that

Your three questions --

1. on an average the upper castes are fairer than the dalits, in any given region of India ?

2. on an average the North Indians are fairer than the South Indians?

3. a lot of South Indian Brahmins are extremely light complexioned, very much in contrast to the other castes there?

- Skin color is due to Melanin, a pigment. It protects skin from Sun. People who had to work in sun slowly got adapted to that and Melanin content grew in those people. You must have seen only city people of north India or Brahmin/business man etc who don`t have to work in open. Farm workers in north India are also very dark. South Indian Brahmin were also traditionally not involved much in farming and outdoor vocations. That is reason behind their color remaining fair.

If they stay in sun for few years, they will also turn brown.

friend #13:

``- Skin color is due to Melanin, a pigment. It protects skin from Sun. People who had to work in sun slowly got adapted to that and Melanin content grew in those people. You must have seen only city people of north India or Brahmin/business man etc who don`t have to work in open. Farm workers in north India are also very dark. South Indian Brahmin were also traditionally not involved much in farming and outdoor vocations. That is reason behind their color remaining fair.

If they stay in sun for few years, they will also turn brown.``

Melanin does determine skin color. But the amount of melanin in a person is not solely determined by his exposure to sun. The most, excessive exposure to sun can do is, make a person`s skin a shade or two darker and the original color returns, once the exposure comes back to ``normal``.

But the amount of melanin in the skin that a person is born with is determined by his GENES.

So sun-exposure could be only marginally responsible for the darker complexion of a certain group of people.

Like,a white man will only be tanned by too much exposure to sunlight. Whites orginally from Europe, have been living in South Africa for like four centuries, and despite all the heat and some genetic mixing with blacks there, are still very much white, like their European cousins.

I understand, that this analogy is not entirely appropriate. But, it does have some significance.

If all the Indians belong to the same or very similar gene-pool or a mixture of several of them, then the difference between the complexions shouldnt be this pronounced. Specially when you compare the upper castes with the lowest ones, the dalits, the difference in average complexion IS striking.

Now, you could argue that around 3000 years of difference in environment (as far as exposure to sun is considered) could cause genetic alterations in the respective communities. Then my questions are:

1. IS 3000 years a long enough period to cause such genetic differences.

2. Also, can we assume that during this entire period and specially from the begining of this 3000 year period- when the caste related occupations were not so well-defined; all the people belonging to a particular group have been involved in distinct and mutually exclusive occupations, which caused significant differences in their exposure to sun.

If this is accepted as true, even then what explains the striking difference in complexion of the Brahmins of the South from the other castes there. There sure would have been other castes in

the South (like for e.g. traders) who didnt have to toil in the sun, like the farmers for e.g. Their exposure to sun, was probably not significantly more than that of the Brahmins. Then why this enormous difference?

3. In North India, there are a lot of upper and middle caste farming communities (Patels in Gujarat in e.g.). Even fo these communities, though they are darker than the Brahmins on an average, the complexion seems to be much fairer than the lowests on the rung, the Dalits, the former untouchables. What caused that?

4. Castes involved in similar occupations in the North and South are equivalent. And still there is some difference, in the complexion. Why?

5. The population of Punjab and Sindh is quite fairer and better built than the rest of the North Indians. What does that say?

Though, I think its easier to expalin this difference. Its due to more exposure to invaders and settlers from Arabia, Central Asia and Europe- mostly the Greeks.

Anyways, thanks in advance.

Satyavadi

Skin Color:

Well Many Indians look like Mexicans. We should see if we are related. (Can only laugh at the thought). Seriously, In my family, there are both dark and fair people. Surprisingly, one of my cousins was fair as a child. After 7-8yrs. when I saw him, he was dark. I could not believe it. I asked, he said he has to move so much in the sun. May be my memory was wrong but I don`t think so. My cousin sister did not show those changes. Even the southern Europeans and northern europeans skin color is different enough. Some Indians if left in cold countries enough, will look like southern europeans but not Northern Europeans. On a web page I read, an American judge said about Indian ``It is so disconcerting to see a dark white man``.

Objectivity:

``Many Indians have a strange craving for unqualified praise and flattery about everything that is Indian``.. This itself shows the objectivity with which this is being done. I am not saying the above is wrong or right, just saying that an objective study will not make that assumption. That is such a subjective observation. It needs comparision of Indians with others to see if they have a ``strange`` craving or ``normal craving``. If the others also had this ``normal`` craving the history is distorted in the first place.

I might be wrong, but the people who visit chowk and their postings, does not show me enough knowlegde about India to be objective about it. (One said I.S.Johar when I asked did he know about ``johar``, women burning themselves to save.) This does not mean all are ignorant.

Second choosing chowk for objective study of Indian History is only laughable. Hey but I would be glad to be proven wrong. You need to be in university or someother place.

It is surprising that, it is assumed that the current theory is right. Why not pose theory like, ``Civilization begun in India and then spread to west``. I know people will laugh at it, but it shows that the question you ask is in a way, is the assumptions and bias you are starting with.

I don`t know the credentials of the author, but it is surprising that he has not included the recent excavations.

It is again foolish to discuss history with people like me. It is like the rocket scientists trying to discuss how to build rocket in chowk.com. He can convince me of almost anything.

I will be glad to find myself wrong, but I doubt I will be wrong.

Vijay

I think,as writer is asserting, that books written in olden times have more myth, and some truth and cannot be taken at face value.

Scientific enquiry is based on facts which can either substantiate or refute a claim.

As far as races are concerned, there are definitely North of Pakistan people who look more Greek than Asian. Tall height,blue eyes some crooked nose etc. Then there is probably some Arab, Persian Infuence on Punjab, Sind and Baluchistan. There are also some remnants of African trade.

As far as Brahmin, I have seen a few. I agree that they are fair colored, but not as heavily built. Then there is South Indians, short dark complexion with good wit.

Depending upon the tracing back and intermarriages, we can probably trace human heritage from an Adam and Eve of science. But how much common and how much different will depend upon how far we want to go back.

Oldest archeological record in Pakistan are probably from Moenjodaro where a great civilization existed probably 5000 years back, I think at the Indus valley.

At the same time there was also a great civilization in Babel (Current Iraq) and Egypt.

Since it is a high school thing, we read, trade among these with ships.

A couple of points out of the million that could be made.

The author, Mr. Murad Ali Baig, lists Allchin & Allchin, ``Origins of a Civilization`` as one of the references. Is he aware that the Allchins contradict him on a whole host of things, including India`s Paleolithic and Neolithic ages, the rise of urbanism, the dates for inhabitation and civilization of southern India, and so on ?

Next, about skin color, the effect of climate, etc., on the various ``races`` of mankind, here are quotes and paraphrases from a relatively modern book ``The Language of Genes`` , Steve Jones, who is the editor of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and is a professor of genetics in London.

``Another beauty -- and an important weakness -- of the theory of evolution by natural selection is that with a little imagination it is possible to come up with an explanation of anything.``

``There are several theories as to why humans evolved light skins as they migrated to the dismal climates of the north. None is completely satisfactory....``

``[Skin] cancer has probably not produced the global trend in color. First, it is rare even in whites, with only about one case per ten thousand people per year. More important, skin cancer is mainly a disease of the old. This means that those who die from it have already passed on their genes, including those for the color of their skin.``

[ The Vitamin D deficiency disease rickets, its prevalence as evidenced by ancient graves, and the advantage of fair skin in synthesizing vitamin D as a factor is discussed. ]

``Why black skin is common in the tropics is less clear. [Excessive Vitamin D production and toxicity is ruled out.] The black skins of tropical peoples may help in coping with vitamin destruction [in sunlight]. Another possibility is that the dark pigment prevents ultraviolet from destroying antibodies in the blood as it circulates through the skin. Yet another is ...

...

As usual, it is easy to make up stories about how selection may have favored certain genes, but none can be taken very seriously without more experiments to see which might be true.``

``Other patterns might also be due to climate. The woolly hair of Africans is said to act as an evaporating surface for sweat to cool the head down. The long fine noses of peoples from the Middle East may help to moisten the desert air before it reaches the lungs and the narrow eyes of Chinese to protect against the icy winds of the Asian plains. All this is guesswork.``

* * * * *

Please, all, remember that the archaelogy of India and the evolution of mankind are two among many subjects in which the answers that are likely to stand the test of time are not yet in.

-arun gupta

satyavadi #14

Average doesn`t mean that every member of set has to be exactly average. There are variations in every group.

You have already answered part of your query when you say that color is also genetic. With a preference for white color, people tried to do be selective about choosing whiter mates. Naturally, groups who could do that more successfully were the one who occupied higher strata of society.

A reverse process also happened. People who were darker (or shell not having good looks) were pushed to lower jobs. (If is well known that even in todays interview process, a well looking person has advantage.)

``Hindu`` culture ocupied a very large area. Hence localised features and color pattern also developed and contributed to variety. This is not to say that migrations didn`t happen. Gandhar and Central Asia (Hunas, Kushans) were also inhabited by people who subscribed to basic principles of ``Hinduism``. These groups also intermingled.

Regards

``WHO WERE INDIA`S ORIGINAL PEOPLE?``

Would Mr Baig care to counter the following?

[ Following summary is taken from Dr Subhash Kak`s article at http://www.sulekha.com/cgi-bin/comments.cgi?art_url=skak_indology#10]

-----

I add new biological evidence that suggests that the Indian stock has lived in the peninsula for at least 50,000 years.

T. Kivisild et. al., Deep common ancestry of Indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages, Current Biology, Vol 9, No 22, pp 1331-134, 1999.

The summary is take verbatim from this paper:

``The first and the most profound layer of overlap between the

western-Eurasian and the Indian mtDNA lineage relates to haplotype U, a complex mtDNA lineage cluster with an estimated age of 51,000-67,000 years. We calculated the coalescence age essentially as described (ref 15,17) and estimate the split between the Indian and western-Eurasian U2 lineage as 53,000 +/- 4,000 years before present``.

``Typical western-Eurasian mtDNA lineage found in India belongs to haplogroups H,I,J, T,X and to subclass U1,U4, U5 and K haplogroup U. Frequencies of these lineages in Indian populations are more than an order of magnitude lower than in Europe:5.2% versus 70%. This finding might be explained by gene flow. Neverthless, we note that the frequency of these mtDNA haplotypes reveals neither a strong north-south, nor language-based gradient; they are found in both among Hindi speakers from Uttar Pradesh (6%) and Dravidians of Andhra pradesh (4%). Assuming that they are largely of western-Eurasian origin, we may ask when their spread started. We obtained divergence time of 9300 +/- 3000 years. This is an average over an unknown number of various founders and therefore, does not tell us whether there were one or many migration waves, or whether there was a continuous long-lasting gradual admixture. Their low frequency but still general spread all over India plus the estimated time scale, does not support a recent massive Indo-Aryan invasion, at least as far as maternally inherited genetic lineage are concerned. Furthermore, the spread of these western-Eurasian-specific mtDNA clusters also among Dravidic-speaking populations of India lends credence to the suggested linguistic connection between Elamite and Dravidian populations``.

``The supposed Aryan invasion of India 3000-4000 years before present therefore did not make a major splash in the Indian gene pool. This is especialy counter-indicated by the presence of equal, though very low, frequencies of the western Eurasian mtDNA types in both southern and northern india. Thus, the `Caucasoid` features of south Asians (Indians) may best be considered `pre-caucasoid` -that is, part of diverse north or north east western Eurasian and southern Asian populations over 50,000 years ago``.

----

RE: Friend # 19

Thanks Friend, I have been looking for such a study for a very long time. Although, it follows scientific method but the results drawn are still speculative and inconclusive. Based on this common gene data, can we also draw the following two conclusions:

1. There is one common ancestor (plz dont drag religion into it)

2. The migration may be reverse i.e people from sub-continent migrated towards West-it is equally debatable.

We should also keep in mind that at present a good number of anthropologists are working on a common ancestor that originated in Africa. It might be of real interest to readers that ``genetic archeologists`` (I just invented this term) have found common genetic material between African and Europeon population. That also supports conclusion#1. (or does it?)

Since this is chowk, and there are many who seem to be mysitifeid about Kargil - here is an article by M. ILYAS KHAN in the Herald (this is part II)

excerpted in Indian Express

The previous part told us about the mysterious body bags coming down from the mountain tops, and the problem the elite faced in the Nothern Areas.

Why, o why cannot the govt public acknowldge these braves young human beings! But then for our elite these young men are not human beings they are animals (like that young goon who let his dog on a ten year old girl afew days back), and for the muj they are just cannon fodder.

What a pity - a pity really for the elite do not value human life if it is not one of theirs.

00000000000000000000000000

When Kargil cover-up failed, Pak showered money to douse the anger

August 12: Scrambling for damage control, regime doled out compensation to grieving

widows spinning off changes in local customs -- causing more anguish

At first, the Pakistan regime crudely tried to cover up the deaths of Pak soldiers in

Kargil, as highlighted in yesterday`s report. But when the body bags started piling up in

the Northern Areas, a damage-control exercise began: compensation was showered to

douse the anger of martyrs` families. And, in the process, triggering off an economy of

divide where war widows fought with their in-laws and families were split. The future

is grim for the martyrs families, says the concluding part of a report by M. ILYAS KHAN

in the Herald. Excerpts:

On June 26, 1999, political activists (in the Northern Areas) raised slogans against the

manner in which the Kargil operation was being handled. At least a dozen leaders were

later jailed on sedition charges. More trouble broke out in Skardu where militants of

Al-Badar Mujahideen started arriving in late May to act, according to locals, as decoys.

These militants forcefully occupied a house in July to establish their office, leading to an

exchange of gunfire between them and the local people.

To prevent further public outbursts, top state dignitaries started making whirlwind tours

of the Northern Areas (NA) and extravagant rewards were bestowed on the martyrs

and their families. The elevation of the paramilitary Northern Light Infantry (NLI) to the

status of a regular Pakistan Army regiment with all benefits and privileges, and the

bestowal of over 40 medals of courage on NLI personnel (the largest number ever won

by a single infantry regiment in Pakistan), appear to have partially appeased injured

pride.

Monetary rewards seemed to have played a significant role. Each bereaved family

received 500,000 rupees out of the prime minister`s package, 60,000 rupees from the

GHQ (through corps commander Pindi), and 30,000 rupees announced by Chief

Executive General Pervez Musharraf. In addition, each family has received anywhere

between 200,000 and 400,000 rupees. ``The government has washed all my wounds,``

says Guizari of village Damasu, the young widow of Sepoy Saboor Khan of 11-NLI who

has two children. She received 900,000 rupees, and may soon marry her brother-in-law.

But in the neighbouring Bejayot village, the widow of Sepoy Hazrat Qabool of 4-NLI

has refused to remarry. She has already received 900,000 rupees in compensation and

expects to receive a further 300,000. She has two sons and two daughters, and says she

will spend her life raising them.

Not all widows are as lucky. In village Manich (Yasin subdivision), the widow of Sepoy

Mohammad Isa (4-NLI), being issueless after three years of marriage, had to leave her

husband`s house in keeping with local tradition. This has given rise to disputes over the

distribution of compensation money between Isa and her parents. A more instructive

case is that of Havaldar Major Lalak Jan (12-NLI) the recepient of the

Nishan-e-Haider. Having lost his first wife in childbirth, he remarried five months

before his martyrdom. After his death, there were rumours that Lalak Jan`s elder brother,

Gul Sambar Khan, a Havaldar in 30-AK Regiment, had been given 9.6 million rupees as

compensation by the government. The widow kicked up a fuss and, when told that it was

not true, refused to believe her brother-in-law and went away to her parents` house.

Subsequently, Gul Sambar Khan apparently prevented the authorities from issuing the

prime minister`s reward of 500,000 rupees in the widow`s name, as is generally done.

He also prevented the settlement of Lalak Jan`s pension in his widow`s name. The

dispute is still pending.

``These disputes have become the order of the day,`` says Zarawar Khan, Lalak Jan`s

cousin and the general secretary of the Al-Madad Welfare Organisation, founded by

Lalak Jan three years ago. ``The widows are taking off to their parents` houses along

with their children and the compensation money, abandoning the parents of the martyrs

who, in some cases, are too poor and weak to fend for themselves.``

Contrary to the orthodox Muslim society in Pakistan, local NA customs encourage an

issueless widow to remarry at once, and do not prevent young widows with children from

remarrying if they so desire. But the Kargil rewards have changed all that. ``The war

widows are not remarrying because they will have to forego the pension, and because

they will only get a widower as their match, something which they may not like with all

the wealth they now possess,`` says Zarawar Khan. ``Even their parents would rather

keep the rich daughter home than encourage her to remarry. This is corrupting our riwaj

(custom).``

This came to the fore during the Haj season this year when the war widows of Kargil

were offered a free Haj package. While the policy required them to be accompanied by a

mehram from the husband`s family, widows attempted to fake the identification

documents of their own brothers and fathers to get them on board. ``We caught dozens

of cases of fake identity in Ghizer alone, while many of them were helped by conniving

officials to slip by,`` says a senior district administration official.

However, when the glitter of the new-found money rubs off, another set of

disappointments lies in store for these families. The war affectees may not get the

houses they were promised by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The present

government has already revoked that promise, offering instead a plot and 200,000 rupees

in cash. None of the families has received any of these benefits, and they are likely to

wait a long time before enough plots can be spared for them.

Second, they may end up chasing shadows in their bid to get the martyrs` children into

proper schools. The children were promised free education, boarding and food at NLI

schools with the condition that they cleared the primary classes at home. While more

than 1,000 children of the martyrs are yet to complete primary school, children past the

primary stage are reported to have been denied admission in some NLI schools.

``The martyrs have departed, but life goes on with all its simplicity, hardships, cunning

and deception,`` says Nawaz Khan Naji, chairman of the the Balawaristan National

Front. ``One only hopes that the lives of their children will not be treated as casually by

the rulers as were those of the martyrs.``

In reply to Satyavadi :

If all the Indians belong to the same or very similar gene-pool or a mixture of several of them, then the difference between the complexions shouldnt be this pronounced.

Answer : this hypothesis is not necessarily correct. Quoting a few sentences from Steve Jones again (reference is in earlier post) :

``Although genetics is all about inheritance, inheritance is certainly not all about genetics. Nearly all inherited characters more complicated than a single change in the DNA involve gene and environment acting together. It is impossible to sort them into convenient compartments``.

--

One recent published example is that the body adapts to starvation in ways that would leave one more prone to a disease like diabetes. Such adaptations affect babies in the womb -- a purely environmental and not genetic change. These adaptations can be thus inherited -- studies of survivors of Hitler`s death camps and their children and grandchildren seems to suggest that the grandchildren suffer the effects of grandmother having starved.

--

Back to Jones :

[If human groups have descended from a series of distinct ancestors] and ``the genes which change people`s appearance really do represent the remnants of this history, then the races of the world should be distinct from one another in a large sample of their genes and not just those for skin color.``

``Are the trends in skin color -- resulting, as they do, from changes in less than ten genes -- accompanied in parallel trends in the hundred thousand functional genes which make up a human being ?``

``Hundreds of different genes -- for blood groups, enyzmes and inherited variants on the surfaces of cells -- have been mapped...the trends in skin color are not accompanied by those in other genes. Instead, the patterns of variation in each system (be it blood group, enzyme or cell-surface antigen are largely independent``.

``We would have a very different view of the human race if we diagnosed it from blood groups, with an unlikely alliance between the Armenians and the Nigerians, who could jointly despise the B-free people of Australia and Peru.``

``If after a global disaster, only one group, the Albanians, the Papuans or the Senegalese, survived, most of the world`s biological diversity [in humans] would be preserved.``

-arun gupta

#17 macgupta

Mac, as to why people in the tropics have dark skin, the reason seems obvious to me. The pigment absorbs and dissipates the light energy. Without it we would burn to a crisp.

Urstruly #: 20

I am neither a historian nor a micro-biologist. Hence my observations may not be entirely correct. Best I know is that Mitochondrial DNA studies did indicate that first Human originated from Africa and should have originated from one source.

Migrations may have been in multiple directions. Murad Baig has given chronology of migration of civilization. I found that laughable. Does that mean that civilisations can not develop in parallel at two distant places? In that case, no Maya or Inca civilizations should have existed!!

regards

Urstruly #: 20

I am neither a historian nor a micro-biologist. Hence my observations may not be entirely correct. Best I know is that Mitochondrial DNA studies did indicate that first Human originated from Africa and should have originated from one source.

Migrations may have been in multiple directions. Murad Baig has given chronology of migration of civilization. I found that laughable. Does that mean that civilisations can not develop in parallel at two distant places? In that case, no Maya or Inca civilizations should have existed!!

regards

RE: Friend #20

That leaves us with more questions than answers. I think main culprit is our undue reliance on Darwin`s Theories of Evolution (and Natural Selection); we are being too un-scientific by not exploring other options. In my opinion it is as dogmatic as any other religion minus God. Probably the last part is the only reason for its popularity among scientific circles because it somehow manages to subtract God out of a very dogmatic interpretation of the reason of our existence. But there is always a ``missing link`` that gets in the way.

An article appeared in the NYTimes(now in archives)
The Human Family Tree: 10 Adams and 18 Eves
by Nicholas Wade
May 2 2000

I`m not sure it was in the same article, but it was mentioned that groups of people from disparate geographical locations could now investigate whether they were indeed `related` or common descendents of one of these `few` ancestors.

In one interesting example, genetic information was extracted from a 7000-9000 year-old human body which had been found in England, and the locals were tested for genetic linkages. Believe it or not, one local man was found who was related to that many-thousand-year-old ancestor.

Sadhana

Murad,

In your quest of unvarnishing India, please don`t forget to provide your source of Information about ``recent convert to Hinduism`` Mihirakula.

Please be specific and don`t list the catalog of Delhi Public Library.

Regards

friend #18

``Average doesn`t mean that every member of set has to be exactly average``

I never implied that. Wonder why you got that impression.

I raised my querries, since in your previous post, you seemed to say, that it was only the occupations that people were involved in that caused the difference. Though now you acknowledge intermingling of different races. I guess, my question is, IS the complexion difference mostly due to occupations and conseqeunt sun-exposure over hundreds of years OR is it because of different blood and genes? I am not arguing for any of the above, just trying to know your opinion.

friend #19:

this post was particularly interesting. It does suggest that the north indians and south indians or aryans and dravidians are not as distinct as they are made to be, by the AIT.

What is the pre-dominant opinion among scholars of South-Asian anthropology? Is AIT, still the pre-dominant theory? Atleast the textbooks before 10 years taught it as gospel truth. Dont know if they have covered alternate theories too, in the modified syllabi.

macgupta #21:

Your post did provide some interesting insights. Was really surprised by that claim about the grandchildren of holocaust survivors. I always thought genetic alterations (mutations) were very slow, and took hundreds if not thousands of years (in the true Darwinian fashion) to produce any singificant changes in any speices.

I am not a genetics or anthropology buff and I dont know the credentials of this Mr. Jones. But, usually there are always conflicting opinions among scholars, and the pre-dominant one is the accepted ``best plausible truth`` for that time period. Does Jones` fall in that category?

Urstruly:

#26:

``it is as dogmatic as any other religion minus God. Probably the last part is the only reason for its popularity among scientific circles because it somehow manages to subtract God out of a very dogmatic interpretation of the reason of our existence. But there is always a ``missing link`` that gets in the way.``

A lot of times, I feel the same way. But then, more than hundred an fifty years after Darwin propounded that theory, there is still no plausible, respectably accepted alternative (or is there?). So, seems like that theory is not entirely without its merits.

Many of these questions have been answered at the site:

http://hindutwa.com

Dear Reader,

Here is an extract from a site where many of the questions asked by Mr. Murad Ali Baig have been answered:

http://hindutwa.com

HINDU HISTORY *

- A Search for Our Present in History

______________________

by Sudheer Birodkar

______________________________________________

This site has been selected by Encyclopedia Britannica ``as one of the best on the Internet, when reviewed for quality,

accuracy of content, presentation and usability``.

________________________________________________

The intriguing title of this book represents a novel approach to the study of present society looked upon as a result of history.

This approach `stands on its head` the conventional approach to the study of history which begins with the dim past and comes to the present

as a conclusion. Our approach starts with social institutions and practices of the contemporary age and traces their origin and development

to the historic past. With this approach the reader does not feel lost on the opening page of a history book. He is not confronted with a

society in which lived his ancestors two or three thousand years ago. He begins with the society surrounding him, which is of his immediate

concern. This method of interpreting the present and past should establish an intimate rapport between a citizen of today and the heritage

bequeathed to him by earlier generations. In our lifestyle, customs, traditions, beliefs; our history is reflected but it is normally beyond our

perception. It would be a fascinating and enlightening experience to trace the origins of things we see and do today in the bygone ages.

As students of Indian history and Indian Culture, can we answer questions like:

1) What did ancient Indians contribute to modern global civilization?

2) Is it true that zero originated as a philosophical concept in ancient India?

3) Did ancient Indians discover the heliocentric theory of gravitation nearly three thousand years before Copernicus and Galileo ?

4) Is it true that Ancient Indians invented the decimal numerals?

5) In the field of medicine did they develop the herbal system of medication?

6) Did they also evolve the system of of physio-theraphy ?

7) Do we know that in the field of production they are credited with the manufacture of crystal sugar and the extraction of sandalwood oil.

They also have to their credit the discovery and application of lac and camphor. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the English words for

these products are derived from Sanskrit - the language of ancient India.

8) Do we know that Ancient Indians also excelled in the fine-arts like Music, Dance, Painting, Dramatics and literature.

9) Do we know how Ancient Indians dressed. What did they wear?

10)What sort of Jewellery, cosmetics, did they use?

11)What kind of food did they eat?

12)How did they get educated? What kind of schools existed in ancient India ?

13)What did they worship? What kind of Religious beliefs did they have?

14)What did they do for fun? What games did they play?

15)How were ancient Indians governed?

16)What kind of pets did they have?

17) What were the abstracts and unusuals, which caught the interest of ancient Indians?

18) What was the Caste System of ancient Indians like?

19) Why have Indians always attached more importance to Non-violence (Ahimsa) than any other people?

20) How did vegetarianism become nearly an all pervading attitude in India from ancient times?

21) How is it that the cow (Gomata) and bull (Nandi) have come to acquire an exalted place in our religious pantheon?

22) How was the practice of charity (Dana) elevated to the status of a religious offering?

23) Why do we propitiate the elementals, especially fire ( in Yagna ) to usher in prosperity?

24) How did our insistence on performing events such as marriage, thread ceremony, opening ceremony, etc., at a certain auspicious time

(Muhurta) come into being?

25) How did the practice of observing fast (Upavasa) originate and what could be the motive behind fasting and other practices like walking

over hot coals, puncturing parts of one`s body or tonsuring one`s head?

26) What purpose did the ideas like Moksha and Nirvana (release from the cycle of re-birth) serve in Indian society and how did they come

into being?

27) What is the forgotten meaning behind our religious symbols like Swastika and Omkar?

28) What does the vermilion mark that we traditionally apply on our forehead (Tilaka) and our method of greeting each other with folded

hands (Namaskara) signify?

29) How did we come to look upon the saffron colour as sacred?

30) What do we know about the social origins of festivals like Navaratri, Diwali or Holi, that we celebrate with faith and fervour?

31) Why had secularism, commonly understood as religious tolerance (Sarva dharma samabhava) normally been part of Indian polity in

ancient times as in post-independence India?

32) Why do we attach overwhelming importance to ideas like fate (Daiva) and re-birth (Punarjanma)?

33) Why do we explain away disqualifications arising out of birth in a particular caste and other misfortunes with the doctrine of deeds in

past life (Karma)?

34) Why do we frown upon a person who marries outside his caste?

35) How did this endogamy (Sajatiya Vivaha) originate?

36) Why has occupational stratification crystallized with birth in a particular caste only in Indian Society?

37) How did one section of Indian society acquire the hereditary status of noble born (Dvija) and another as low born (Shudra)?

38) Why do some of us still consider the mere touch of members of some castes as polluting?

39) How did our attitudes of untouchability and unapproachability originate?

40) Why did we follow, till recently, practices like dowry (Daheja), Widow burning (Sati) and child marriage (Bal-Vivaha)?

41) What reason lies behind our concept of Satyuga (age of righteousness) which we believe existed in some time past and will return at the

end of the existing dark age (Kaliyuga)?

The list could be endless. The author has attempted to present facts and hypotheses about these various issues by beginning from the present

period and tracing into the past, the evolution of these social attitudes which today continue to be a part of an average Indian`s temperament.

Awareness of the origins of our social attitudes also acquires added importance as compared to issues of the contemporary age like

inflation, unemployment, corruption, the global arms race, etc. This is so because, contemporary issues are always in focus. The majority of

us are quite familiar with them as these issues are products of our age and the media keeps us well informed about-developments taking

place. Added to this, these issues are not bound up with religion, tradition or culture and hence are always open to public debate.

On the contrary much is unknown to us about our attitudes that arise from socio-religious traditions inherited from the past. Their having

originated in the hazy past alongwith the sanctity that is attached to most of them, results in our being ignorant of the real meaning behind

attitudes that contribute significantly to the shaping of our temperament.

ORIGIN OF THE CAT-ASTROPHE

An anecdote would illustrate the birth of a belief from a practice that began in a simple utilitarian manner.

This is the story of a pious God-fearing king from ancient India. To earn the praise of the lords of Heaven this king annually organised mass

feeding of Sadhus, Sanyasis (hermits) and Brahmins (priests). Countless number of learned Brahmins, Sadhus and Sanyasis used to

converge on his palace to partake in the gastronomical delights and bestow their blessings on the generous king.

On one such occasion it so happened that when the holy assemblage was being served Kheer (the Indian porridge) one of the royal pet cats

ran into the unfortunate steward who tripped and measured his length on the floor, spilling the bubbling stew on their holiness`.

The helpless steward was at the receiving end of their curses, but the enlightened king pacified them and after performing ablutions on them

to wash off the offending stains, he decreed that henceforth before the commencement of the great feast all cats in the palace ground should

be herded together and tied to a Stake, to prevent any such untoward incident in future.

The mass feeding continued undisturbed year after year and so did the practice of tying up to a stake, the feline members of the royal habitat

who came to be looked upon as portending misfortune. With the passing of years the old king was no more, but his son was no less pious

than him and so also was the grandson. Generation after generation scrupulously adhered to this practice of tying up the feline population

followed by the grand feast. No feast could begin unless tying up `ceremony` had been duly completed. The two practices came to be

looked upon as essential for earning the praise of the lords of Heaven.

Then one year came a severe famine. Rivers went dry, fields were barren and the kingdom`s people started migrating to better places. Came

the day for the annual event but there were hardly any Brahmins left to do justice to the meagre rations that remained in the royal larder.

After consulting his Chaplain the reigning king decided to temporarily suspend the second practice of hosting the grand luncheon. But as

advised by the learned chaplain, the king decided to solemnly honour the first practice of tying up a few feline `beasts of doom` and earn

whatever praise the lords of heaven could bestow. But there were no cats to be found in the famine-struck kingdom. So the King ordered

that a few cats be obtained from the neighbouring kingdom for the tieing-up ceremony to be duly performed on the auspicious day!

It was a bad time for the country and the famine continued for many consecutive years during which period, the Reigning king passed away

and was succeded by his youthful son. The youthful King also scrupulously adhered to the practice of annually tying up all cats to earn the

lord`s praise, as he had seen his father perform it. The country finally recovered from the dry spell and happier days were back. With

prosperity having returned, the old generation advisers recalled the practice of giving the annual feast and the king wanted to re-institute that

practice after seeking the royal chaplain`s blessings. But the royal chaplain had seen how his power over the king had increased in absence

of other Brahmins who would otherwise hover around the king.

Keeping this in mind, the wily chaplain advised the king against re-instituting the mass feeding because, he said, the terrible famine was a

result of divine wrath on the practice of feeding idle members of society which had been observed since countless generations.

The chaplain convinced the king by telling him that the country obtained deliverance from the divine wrath only because the Gods saw that

this practice had been done away with for the last few years. The chaplain argued that it was enough to continue the annual event of tying up

the inauspicious feline harbingers of catastrophes and earning the praise of the lords of heaven.

Thus convinced, the king ordained that henceforth in his kingdom all feline creatures were to be herded together and tied up on the day the

grand feast used to be observed. This was to be the sacred duty of every citizen, as the future of the kingdom depended on the lord`s

blessings which could not be obtained if the `holy` practice of tying up all cats was not followed. Non-observance of the practice was made

a punishable offence. From that year onwards, the grand feast was forgotten but the ceremony of tying cats took root.

And ages later neither the king remained nor his kingdom, but this `holy` ritual that defied rationale built up the belief of cats being the vehicles

of ill omen. A belief which has withstood the test of time.

A reading of the Panchantantra, Hitopadesha, Katha-Sarit-Sagara and the Jatakas, our national collections of similar anecdotes would bring

out many instances of how most of our rituals and beliefs originated from simple worldly actions of our forebears.

Indian history is replete with such beliefs end rituals which had a sound reason for coming into being but later they were continued to be

observed despite the fact that the reason did not hold true any more. Our daily life also abounds with innumerable rituals the meaning of

which is lost in history. We follow them out of reverence. But can reverence help us in understanding the roots of our culture, or for that do

we need an attitude of inquiry ?

An inquisitive and fertile mind can pose incisive questions and strive for convincing answers. In this book; HINDU HISTORY - A Search

for Our Present in History, a modest attempt has been made to accomplish this.

The language used in this book is a simple one, as the author hopes to reach to a wide readership. No specialised knowledge is called for to

understand what is being told. And as the social attitudes and customs which are being discussed form part of our present-day lives, no

lengthy introduction is necessary . All that is hoped from the reader is a dispassionate approach in understanding the process of evolution of

attitudes, traditions and beliefs which have been handed down to us by our forebears. For this it would do well to bear in mind our

sagacious adage:

Asatoma Sad Gamaya

Tamasoma Jyotir Gamaya

( Lead me from falsehoods to truth

and from ignorance to enlightenment )

__________

*Note on the terms `Indian` and `Hindu`

The terms `Hindu` and `Indian` are synonymous. This is so as the word Hindu is a corruption of the word Sindhu (river) by the Persians.

They converted the letter `S` to `H` as the letter `S` was missing in the ancient Persian script. The Persians called the Sindhu as Hindu and all

those living beyond the river as `Hindus`. When the Greeks under Alekshendra (Alexander), invaded north-western India, they further

corrupted the Persian term `Hindu` to `Indus` which was further corrupted by the Romans to give us the present English term `Indian`. The

Chinese also corrupted the Persian term to derived their terms `Indu` and `Hsin Tu` for Indians. Thus the terms Hindu and Indian have a

common origin and hence philologically are synonymous.

Sudheer Birodkar

sudheerbirodkar@yahoo.com

RE: SudheerB

Mr. Sudheer I checked your site but I couldnt get past your definition of word OM. After reading your definition several times I didnt understand what were you trying to say?

Murad, what an ambitious undertaking. I am still making my way through your article. Just wanted to tell you it is really interesting though. *goes back to reading *

In reply to Satyavadi : the changes that grandchildren of Holocaust survivors underwent is not genetic. It is a purely environmental effect, and presumably will fade away with the passing of generations. The point was to illustrate that while genetics is all about inheritance, inheritance is not all about genetics.

Steve Jones is a currently active scientist, and his book cautions that the field is advancing so fast that current findings may be soon out of date.

Regarding skin color, if I remember correctly, the genetics shows that one gene turns on melanin production, a second gene inhibits it, a third gene inhibits the effects of the second gene, and so on. If you ask how such a mechanism evolved, the answer seems to be that skin pigmentation turned off and on several times during human evolution.

-arun gupta

I am sorry I was out of town after I put my previous post so couldnot take part in the discussion earlier. But most of the things I wanted to say have been said already by others. In any case, here is what I think.

It is not tough to explain the difference in skin colors. It is true that statistically speaking, north Indians are fairer than south Indians. But once again, the difference is not much. It looks so only because we Indians have made a fetish of fairness. If we see the complete spectrum of skin colors, from very fair nordics and russians to very dark central africans, then the `fair` northerners and `dark` southerners, both come somewhere in the middle. It all depends on how much melanin your skin creates, in order to beat the sunlight. As melanin creation is a genetic trait, it takes time to change, but it is reasonable to believe that in a few hundred generations, natural selection takes over and the skin color changes. Add to it the natural wandering tendencies of humand and you may be sure that the most you can think of is a broad statistical distribution of skin colors around the world; nothing like the cut and dried `racial groups` so popular with colonialists and racists.

For example, Italians and Spanish have a much darker color than Nordics or Scots, and they rarely have blue eyes, but no one thinks of them as another race. If you plot the distance between the poles and equator and make a corresponding change in the statistical average skin color for every mile, you will find that the north and south Indians have more or less the expected colors. You dont have to import them from anywhere to explain that.

The statistics are much poorer in the case of casts. My experience has been that almost all the castes in extreme north of India and in Pakistan are fair, and again my experience has been that most of south Indian upper castes are dark too. I come from a Brahmin family of UP/Bihar and my relatives have skin colors ranging from very dark to very fair. The other people of my ancestral village also have more or less the same color. The only difference is the people who work in fields in sun, they are invariable very dark.

Basically I feel that people see what they want to see, or what they have been taught to see.

One more point, the author seems to believe that civilization in India started only at the advent of Dravidians, from somewhere, around 3000 BC. I wish he`d read about the Mehergarh site, where a continuous township has been dug dating back all the way from 6500 BC.

I have no problem with the fact that we all may have originated somewhere in Africa. My proble is why all the invasions/migrations had to occur within last 4000 years? When there are ample proofs that human civilization existed in some form or other in many parts of the world all the way back to 50000BC or even earlier. I think we are fighting a battle with the last remnants of biblical time-scales (You know, world originated 4004BC, one fine morning in late October, Noah`s flood in 2200BC, etc.)and how do you explain the continuous presence of Australlian aborigins on the continent of Australlia for 40000 years at least? But again, for colonialists, they are not human, are they? And only what the colonialists taught us can ever be true!

Urstruly#: 33

That site attempts to explain different aspects of Hindusim. `Om` is one of the key symbols associated with Hinduism. That is why that site started with an explanation of that symbol.

Sudheer #32

Welcome to Chowk. Why don`t you contribute an article on this site. I believe that editors will welcome publishing that.

Regards

Differences in build are more related to childhood nutrition and health than to genetics. For example, the average Japanese height has increased by ten centimeters from 1900 to 1980, without any new genes. The average young Japanese is now as tall on the average as the young European.

-arun gupta

Differences in build are more related to childhood nutrition, health and living conditions than to genetics. For example, the average Japanese height has increased by ten centimeters from 1900 to 1980, without any new genes. The average young Japanese is now as tall on the average as the young European.

-arun gupta

Check this site on Ancient India, Indian history, mythology, culture, religion etc.

Kamat`s Potpourri

http://www.kamat.com

Discover India, Discover yourself

RE: Friend# 38

That still does not answer my question. May be I was not specific enough. I think Sudheer is trying to imply that the words OM, Omnipresent, the English phrase ``alpha and omega``, the Christian term Amen and the Muslim term Aamin are all equivalent in meaning. It is also my understanding that all of the above terms mean ``Omnipresent``; or does it? I am really doubtfull about Amen and Aamin. One can also draw a conclusion that English, Arabic, Greek and Roman languages borrowed the word from Sanskrit or vice versa. Is he also trying to imply that the ideologies behind those words were also ``exchanged``. So my question again is that what is he trying to say?

Sudheer:
I give you a head start. My next question will be about THAT Meteor.

The two questions next to that might be the definition of the terms ``Humanism`` and ``Rationalism``.

Pakistani chowksters and our very own Jay and Rsaxena are conspicuous by their absence :)

Satyavadi

Macgupta and Satish::

Thanks for your posts. I am learning a lot from them.

Regards,

Satyavadi

Satish::

Your post was very informative.

Are you implying that there is no racial difference between the North Indians and South Indians, that the whole Aryan-Dravidian is entirely without basis ? If yes, do you attribute the AIT, atleast in part, to the colonial historian`s hidden (unrelated to his profession) agenda?

Thanks.

Satyavadi

I`m posting under the individual sub-threads now, and no further here.

-arun

Satish McGupta, satyavadi and all chowksters

I think our debate is drifting towards the famous and still raging debate of nature Vs nurture. Having taken a few courses in psychology, I am aware that the modern psychologists have finally reached a general consensus about this issue at least on the matter of intelligence. It is believed that while genetics of a person determines his ``quota``(limits to which one can go) of intelligence, it is his environment(includes all the social, personal interactions and upbringing) that determines the actual utilisation of this quota.

Now comming to the questions, I think most of the questions can be answered if this hypothesis is assumed to be true with respect to the other traits of human beings too. Take height of Japanese Vs Europeans for example. Assume both are separate and well defined races with different genetic strains. Say that the ordained quota by genetics in case of Europeans is 8 ft while it is 7 feet for the Japanese. A century earlier, Europeans by virtue of superior health care and nutrition were able to utilise 6/8 of their quota so that their avg height was 6 ft. While Japanese could utilise only 5/7 of their quota owing to malnutrition so that the avg height was 5 ft. Since quality nutrition took a jump in Japan their quota utilisation improved consummating in increased avg height of Japanese. Similarly the avg height of Europeans will also increase but by less amount because change in nutrition quality was less.

Note nutrition here refers to all the external factors affecting height and the terms Europeans and Japanese to refer to different races. Similar kinds of explanation can be forwarded with respect to skin color and the other human traits too.

However I should warn that the generalisation of this theory has not been completely substantiated and the thing that it explains certain phenomena does not guarantee that this is the sole reason ie Cause and effect relationship.

Cheers

``Who were the Aryans? Were they a race, a tribe, a language or just an adjective?

by Murad Baig



There is considerable evidence that several tribes speaking Indo European languages originated in the Caucasian area around the Caspian Sea, south of Russia. They streamed south between 1800 and 1300 BC and there is clear historical records that many of their tribes like the Hittites and Kassites entered Turkey and destroyed Syria in 1732 BC.``

What are those clear historical records? Author implies that within 800 years (before Budhha was born) these tribes created a large civilisation in India that could influence Laos, China and Vietnam where till date variations of Ramayana are part of folklore. Must have been very active people !!!

Arun#: 46

Posting on separate thread is a big waste of time. Why don`t you post all the replies here itself? Navigation is so painful.

Regards

PS: Logic presented by author is so childish. I doubt if it was his photograph at the end.

my post #27
Sorry for the long post.

An article appeared in the NYTimes(now in archives, available for $2.50)
The Human Family Tree: 10 Adams and 18 Eves
by Nicholas Wade
May 2 2000

The original article had a great graphic showing various waves of migration, but which was not archived, but here are excerpts from the article:

``...The human genome is turning out to be a rich new archive for historians and prehistorians, one whose range extends from recent times to the dawn of human existence...``

``...A new history of Britain and Ireland by Norman Davies, ``The Isles,`` (Oxford University Press) begins with an account of Cheddar man, an 8,980 year-old skeleton from which mitochondrial DNA was recently extracted. The DNA turned out to match that of Adrian Targett, a teacher in a Cheddar Village school, proving a genetic continuity that, despite numerous invasions, had endured through nine millenniums.

Unlike the DNA test used in forensic cases, which is designed to identify individuals, DNA analysis that seeks to reach back in time usually focuses on lineages, not individuals. From patterns in the DNA data, biologists can often estimate the sizes of ancient populations and even the approximate dates when one group of people split from another.

Though DNA can bear on historical questions, often by acting as a long-range paternity test, its most spectacular use has been in prehistory, where it has added a new dimension to the bare framework provided by archaeology.

The most detailed human family tree so far available is one constructed over many years by Dr. Douglas C. Wallace and his colleagues at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. Dr. Wallace`s tree is based on mitochondrial DNA, tiny rings of genetic material that are bequeathed only by the egg cell and thus through the maternal line. A counterpart tree for men, based on analysis of the Y chromosome, has been prepared by Dr. Peter A. Underhill and Dr. Peter J. Oefner of Stanford University...``

``...Population geneticists believe that the ancestral human population was very small -- a mere 2,000 breeding individuals, according to a calculation published last December. But the family tree based on human mitochondrial DNA does not trace back to the thousand women in this ancestral population. The tree is rooted in a single individual, the mitochondrial Eve, because all the other lineages fell extinct.

The same is true of the Y chromosome tree, a consequence of the fact that in each generation some men will have no children, or only daughters, so the number of different Y chromosomes may steadily diminish, even if the population stays the same size.

This ancestral human population lived somewhere in Africa, geneticists believe, and started to split up some time after 144,000 years ago, give or take 10,000 years, the inferred time at which both the mitochondrial and Y chromosome trees make their first branches.

Mitochondria, which live inside human cells but outside the nucleus, escape the shuffling of genes that occurs between generations and are passed unchanged from mother to children. In principle, all people should have the same string of DNA letters in their mitochondria. In practice, mitochondrial DNA has steadily accumulated changes over the centuries because of copying errors and radiation damage....``

``...Because women were steadily spreading across the globe when many of these changes occurred, some changes are found only in particular regions and continents. Dr. Wallace discovered that almost all American Indians have mitochondria that belong to lineages he named A, B, C and D. Europeans belong to a different set of lineages, which he designated H through K and T through X. The split between the two main branches in the European tree suggests that modern humans reached Europe 39,000 to 51,000 years ago, Dr. Wallace calculates, a time that corresponds with the archaeological date of at least 35,000 years ago.

In Asia there is an ancestral lineage known as M, with descendant branches E, F and G as well as the A through D lineages also found in the Americas.

In Africa there is a single main lineage, known as L, which is divided into three branches. L3, the youngest branch, is common in East Africa and is believed to be the source of both the Asian and European lineages.

Dr. Wallace`s mitochondrial DNA lineages are known technically as ``haplogroups`` but more colloquially as ``daughters of Eve,`` because all are branches of the trunk that stems from the mitochondrial Eve.

The Y chromosome tree has not yet been published by the Stanford researchers, but in a book that came out in March, ``Genes, People and Languages,`` a colleague at the university, Dr. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, sketched a preview of the findings.

The tree is rooted in a single Y chromosomal Adam, and has 10 principal branches, Dr. Cavalli-Sforza reports. Of these sons of Adam, the first three (designated I, II and III) are found almost exclusively in Africa. Son III`s lineage migrated to Asia and begat sons IV-X, who spread through the rest of the world -- to the Sea of Japan (son IV), northern India (son V) and the South Caspian (sons VI and IX)...``

``...Dr. Wallace has recently been exploring the root of the mitochondrial tree. In an article published in March in The American Journal of Human Genetics, he and colleagues identify the Vasikela Kung of the northwestern Kalahari desert in southern Africa as the population that lies nearest to the root of the human mitochondrial DNA tree. Another population that seems almost equally old is that of the Biaka pygmies of Central Africa. Both peoples live in isolated regions, which may be why their mitochondrial DNA seems little changed from that of the ancestral population. ``We are looking at the beginning of what we would call Homo sapiens,`` Dr. Wallace said....``

``... Many of the biologists who are reconstructing the human past certainly believe their work has a value that transcends genetics. Although their lineage trees are based on genetic differences, most of these differences lie in the regions of DNA that do not code for genes and have no effect on the body. ``We are all Africans at the Y chromosome level and we are really all brothers,`` Dr. Underhill said...``

``... Whether or not genetic prehistory is suitable material for a modern origin myth, it is about to be made available to a wider public. Last month a company called Oxford Ancestors set up business with the offer to tell customers which of the seven daughters of Eve they are descended from. (Almost all Europeans belong to only seven of the nine mitochondrial lineages found in Europe). The test (see www.oxfordancestors.com) requires sending in a sample of cells brushed from the inside of the cheek. For a mere $180, anyone of European ancestry can establish the start of a genealogy far senior to Charlemagne`s.

The company`s founder is Dr. Bryan Sykes, a human geneticist at the University of Oxford in England. On the reasonable basis that the founders of Dr. Wallace`s mitochondrial DNA lineages were real women, Dr. Sykes gave them names and sketched in details of their likely dates and origin. Thus people found to belong to haplogroup U will be told they are descended from Ursula, who lived about 45,000 years ago in Northern Greece. Ancestor of the X`s is Xenia, who lived 25,000 years ago in the Caucasus mountains....``

``...He is now working on tests to identify other lineages around the world, including 14 in Africa, and 16 in Eurasia and the Americas. ``I don`t think this stuff should be confined to academics,`` he said....``

(End excerpts)

PS: The accompanying graphic clearly showed at least 2 distinct waves of migration into the Indian subcontinent(refer para on 10 Adams above)

#51
PS: re general comment on ``two waves of migration`` into the subcontinent. The timing of these is likely to be many thousand years earlier so unsuitable for purposes of proving or disproving AIT.

RE: Kafir # 47

Dear Kafir,
It is true that Sikhs in the beginning were against neither Hindus nor Muslims. But if you have studied the life of Guru Nanak (1469-1539), I think it is safe to assume that he was initially a reformer of the Hindu religion and not a Muslim reformer. When he sensed the skepticism of Mughals he presented himself belonging to neither religion. It is also true that he tried to bring three religious entities closer to each other, that were, Hindus, Muslims, and newly converted Muslims.

Although Mughals were skeptical about the Sikhs from the beginning but the alleged persecution of Sikhs was limited to the leadership until the fifth Guru, Guru Arjan Dev (1563-1606) who was considered the real threat towards the Empire when he imposed on Sikhs his religious injunction that they must give 1/10 of their income to the Gordawara. That was considered a threat, and rightly so, because of the importance of Punjab in two matters; first it was the most important source of revenue, and second it was the gateway to the invaders from the North, so any hostile political entity there was un-acceptable. So it can be argued that the persecution of Sikhs was basically motivated by economics, political and defense purposes rather than religious ones. As long as Sikhs remained a religious entity they remained acceptable to some extent but as soon as they tried to turn themselves into a parallel political and economic entity they had to face the consequences from the rivalry. This version of history is also supported by the fact of the persecution of the second last Guru, Guru Gobind Singh who established Sikh Nationalism based on Sikh theocracy and militancy