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37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Wheat from the chaff, October 24, 2001
"Vedic Aryans" purports to be a "literary and scienific perspective" on the antiquity of classical Vedic civilization. The thesis is that Rig Vedic civilization arose sometime after the end of the last ice age (~12,000 BCE) and after the very ancient city of Mehgarh (6000BCE), declined ~3700 BCE, then was *followed* by the Indus River civilizations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro (3000 BCE). (Never mind that the oldest known settlement of Jerico does not appear in their chronology even though it is dated to 7000 BCE, nor that there is no known relationship between Harappan & Sanskrit languages.) While it is refreshing to read someone so thoroughly versed in ancient Sanskrit literature, especially the Puranas and various mathematical treatises, the emphasis throughout is on literary sources. And it is precisely the over-emphasis on literary sources that is the problem here. If Muller et al. were wrong in drawing up their time-tables based on undatable Vedic (and Biblical) chronologies, why should it be right to merely turn the tables by drawing up a different time-table based on some other chronology drawn from similarly undatable documents? That's just the same game played in reverse and susceptible to the same criticisms. Why not try something new? There are some strong and interesting points: varna did not originally mean "color," hence race, but referred instead to the guna predominant in a person's personality (as we know from the Gita and the Manu-smriti). Hence, Vedic battles between "Dark" (asuras) and "Light" (devas) did not refer to light-skinned Aryan invaders conquering dark-skinned native Dravidians but to the metaphoric struggle of good over evil. The authors are certainly correct in saying that this racial theory has prejudiced many discussions of ancient India and the relationship between the Indus River and the Vedic civilizations (see, for example, Joseph Campbell's surprising put-down of Dravidian culture in his "Masks of God: Oriental Mythology.") But one of downsides is the thorough thrashing of Max Muller (not to mention Tharpar, the Indian historian whom everyone love to hate), whose "ignorance of science [11]" prevented his understanding the mathematical treatises interpreted here, and who was not only "an agent of the British Empire [p. 10]" but "a Protestant missionary [6]." (Never mind that this demon single-handedly invented modern comparative philology or that his "Sacred Books of the East" introduced the whole of the modern world--India included--to our Vedic heritage.) Now if some Westerner were to base a chronology purely on textual evidence (for example, Bishop Usher, who dated Creation to 23 October 4004 BCE [p. 6] on the basis of Old Testament genealogies), we would likely consider him a fundamentalist kook out of touch with contemporary geology and scientific dating methods. But when done using Vedic source material, we are supposed to shrug off disbelief. Thus, despite numerous interesting highpoints--including the development of Tilak's thesis that sidereal precession is symbolically coded in the Vedas and allows astronomical dating--this work is, in motivation, a manifesto of contemporary Hindu fundamentalism that merely turns the tables on the old Aryan invasion arguments without offering either credible new data or substantially new ways of seeing things. All the while, they fail to heed Mallory's warning to not over-extrapolate from literary evidence. To their credit, they do not (like other authors) argue that Vedic culture dates back 4,320,000 years 'cause that's how long a yuga is & the Mahabharata says so. Yet the proselytizing and sometimes shrill tone contributes little to informed debate on the interesting and important topic of the origins of civilization. In my opinion, the problem here involves a misunderstanding of the Vedic revelation and an unconsious idealization of literality and historicity. That is, the Vedas aren't eternal because they were revealed to some Indian Aryan in Meghar or Kashi or Ayodhya in 6000 or 4000 or 2000 BCE, but because the knowledge is eternally accessible to the sincere spiritual seeker through the trance states and other yogic practices of ancient India. Isn't that what's truly important? Furthermore, as I indicated earlier, the book's overt political agenda distracts from the real issues. Rather than harping about how awful Muller and Tharpar are, why not tell readers that the seals from Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa have not yet been deciphered and that we still do not understand their language. Tell them that Mohnejo-Daro is now buried in a sea of silt and saline and cannot be further excavated without a huge investment of money, time and labor. Tell them that Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are in modern-day PAKISTAN and, rather than nuking Kashmir, these 2 countries should actively cooperate in uncovering the roots of their glorious past. Well, but that would be too overtly political... Overall, the book is about equally disappointing as Feuerstein et al's "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization" but with a more scholarly feel and with fewer (i.e., no) illustrations. For a broader view of Tilak's thesis, see de Santillana's superb "Hamlet's Mill" (Sidharth's "Celestial Key to the Vedas" has also gotten some good reviews). For similar books having a more balanced perspective, see Mallory's excellent "Origins of the Indo-Europeans," Bryant's "Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture" which promises to be far less partisan, and Time/Life's "Ancient India: Land of Mystery" which is sound historically and archaeologically.
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44 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compelling read, puts Thappar in the dustbin!, April 28, 1999
By A Customer
Rajaram and Frawley have produced an excellent, well researched set of arguments against the long (and now increasingly tenuous) view that "aryans" invaded India and destroyed the "dravidian" (i.e. Harappan-Saraswati) civilization. The authors have used their innate belief in the "Scientific Method" and their knowledge of Sanskrit literature (does Thappar know Sanskrit???) and Mathematics to tell a story full of insight. They make extensive use of the most contemporary results from research in Archeology, Geo Satellite imaging, Mathematics, and linguistics and combine these with a holistic approach to historical research. The result is a short, yet telling book, that sheds light on important inter-relationships between the ancient cultures of the Nile valley, Mesopotamia and India. The origins of a lot of humanity's culture are unfolded in the process! The mode of argument is, if anything, careful, methodical and devoid of arrogance. It is indeed refreshing to read History without the political baggage! Readers may wish to compare the output from established historians like Thappar, who has, in a career spanning 40 or more years has done little than to parrot the fallacies of Muller and other Eurocentric writers from the pre-scientific age. To think that such rubbish is still taught in Indian Schools! Even my 11 year old's class would not be allowed to buy into such unsubstantiated stuff as Thappar produces! Unlike Rajaram & Frawley, poor Romila Thappar, in her book, History of India Vol. 1, starts off by criticizing those who split Indian History into the Hindu, Mozlem and British eras, but then she spends the remaining pages making all types of communist inspired generalisations and accusations about the the "Bhramanical" caste system (who are these "Bhramans"??? and is there a Freudian condition for Thappar's fixation about caste?)whilst ignoring the 1000 year long systematic ethnic cleansing perpetrated by mozlem invaders! (Note the contrast, Thappar has few feelings and even less opinions on the so called divine injunctions agianst non-believers in semetic religions!) A revision of history is necessary, not only for Indians self awareness, but also to more cogently confront the injustices in other parts of the world today. Rajaram and Frawley lead the way as far as applying the scientific method to history is concerned - they dilligently look for evidence from multiple sources, re-visit original sources, avoid generalisations and prejudices and stick to evidence, analyse it, synthesize it and draw conclusions! The authors deserve credit for showing that one does not have to be a "Professional Historian" to do excellent, comprehensive research. It would seem that for good objective history, especially in the case of the Non-European world, one has to look to subject experts outside of university history departments! Does this explain the parlous state of history departments in Universities around the globe??? Bravo!
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14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The overall argument is excellent!, October 21, 1998
By A Customer
Indian history has been a hostage to West's own needs of self-defintion and justification for the empire. In his books, Rajaram has rightly raised fundamental questions about the assumptions underlying the colonial view of India. In this book he reviews the Vedic evidence and shows that there exists a much greater antiquity than hitherto assumed. One may not agree with all the arguments but the overall focus is correct.
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