Spirit_Warrior
Active Member
Well I had a feeling I wasn't going to be able to convey the thought without offending (or it at least being taken the wrong way). My point was not to say that this is a conspiracy with which you are working. Rather, I was merely stating the way you are painting a picture feels as though you are. We are bouncing from time period to time period. Over here you talk about Atlantis, and over there you talk about Gandhi. In one stream of thought you explain the Shankarcharya math, in the next you will discuss Ancient Egyptians.
My friend, I understand this is complex. I understand that you have compiled much knowledge on this subject. But I need to walk before I can run with you.
Hehe, I think very much like an Indian. Your frustration is again because of the different categorical framework we are using when thinking and writing. You want to be narrow, just focused on one point, sort of the trees for the forest approach. I want to be broad, and cover several related points, sort of forest for the trees approach. It sort of reminds me(look I am doing it again!) of how Western people react to Bollywood movies for the first time -- Bollywood movies can be extremely frustrating because they mix everything comedy, drama, suspense, action, melodrama, thriller, music, dance and include every emotional tone and will often have sides stories, stories within stories(this is based on Indian theory of atheistic) and Western people are use to single genre, with a single tone -- so horror will be horror, there will be no comedy. In Indian movies there can be both comedy and horror.
I think your reaction to my way of writing conveys a similar frustration. You are not the first to tell me this by the way, my professors have pointed it out. I just cant zero in and focus on just one area -- I need to look at several different areas and how they relate to one another.
Allow me to be cheeky but I think the Indian categorical framework is far closer to how we really think --- the mind thinks by association. The Western way is reductionist which is an artificial way of looking at things. Now, before I go into another crazy tangent, I will tell you how I think the points I made are related:
Mentioning the racism of early indologists: To let you know the climate in which AIT/AMT was produced, what were the motivations, the underlying assumptions and how the theory was used
Gandhi: I mentioned Gandhi only in reference to Winston Churchill's comment on the Bengal Famines. This was to give you an idea of the Nazi-like hatred the British colonialists had against India. Now, with all due respect, we do not take anything the Nazi's said and theories about Jews as valid today, so why the double standards with what the colonial scholars theories about Indians. I think this is where you betray some discomfort, and it is not just you, but it is a sentiment I have heard from many English on British were as bad as the Nazis to the Indians.
Egypt connection: I mentioned this to give you an idea of the faulty scholarship that was prevalent, they were already imposing invasion narratives on India even before William Jones discovered the Aryan connection. They were of the opinion that Indian people were not capable of developing their own civilisation without the help of foreign invaders. This is an internalised narrative today when you study Indian history, even in India, Indian history is portrayed through invasions, even the idea of 'India' is a controversial topic. The history books in India used in academic study are written by Marxist Historians.
Atlantis: You took this completely the wrong way, and I think you still are even after my clarification. I never said Atlantis existed and we should take Plato's Timeus or Ramayana as proof it existed. I said they 'had the same story' to show that the Greeks(Yavanas - Ionians) actually share the same mythology, because they were once originally in India before they migrated later. The period before 800BCE is a dark age in Greek history, but we know the early Greeks migrated into Greece and started Greek civilisation. This is why the Greeks share the same myths with India. This is why the Sanskrit texts mention the Greeks were a Mleccha tribe IN INDIA in 3000BCE and they left from India westwards. This is why Panini mentions Yavanas as being in India. It is all consistent if you drop this idea of arrival of Aryans in India in 1500BCE and accept are indigenous to India.
Sankarcharya Maths: I mentioned this to give you an obvious example of institutional racism. It is understandable the Indians could possibly forget their history during the dark ages of 2000BCE to 1000BCE and any history prior to 1000BCE could in fact be mythology. Granted. However, that they would forget their most recent history too, as recent as 700CE. They would keep records of their first pontiff as being born in 500BCE when he was fact born in 700CE? And their enemies Buddhists, Jains and rival schools of Advaita would not notice that? Absolutely absurd. This is institutionalised racism. It would be the equivalent of Indians invading England and declaring the battle of Hastings was fought in the 19th century century not 1066, and all of the records of England are myth and the English forgot. The fact that I have repeated point several times now and you have not responded to it also betrays discomfort.
A theory should have two features for it to be a good theory. It should 1)Have explanatory power and 2)It should be parsimonious. AIT/AMT has neither of these features. It does not explain all the historical data we have from various areas astronomy(like the Kaliyuga calendar) geology(Saraswati river) All textual records kept by Indians and records kept by Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians and archaeology. In fact rather than explaining them, AIT/AMT tries to explain everything away by multiplying assumption which create bizarre absurdities.
In comparison Indigenous Aryan theory has both explanatory power and is parsimonious. It agrees with the astronomical data, the geological data, the textual data and the archaeological data.
I will respond to the rest of your post later.
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