Questions posed to Iravatham mahadevan and Asko Parpola.
Iravatham Mahadevan and Asko Parpola have to answer many questions without mincing words, which are pointed out as follows:
1. The expression, “Vedic scholar-turned-Dravidianist” proves the change in ideology that is not good for any scholar of his stature. IM has already brought Michael Witzel, the Rig Vedic Pundit last year here in Chennai and he talked differently. Of course, IM prevented native Pundits to question and test his Sanskrit capabilities. He was struggling to repeat few words mentioned by one of the audience.
2. That he has academic credentials “to prove that the Indus Civilisation was pre-Aryan and that its writing encoded a Dravidian language”, makes no credentials, as researchers have such qualifications and acumen in their steadfast work carried on for years. Scholars respect scholars till they are biased with other motives.
3. “Even though the Indus script remains undeciphered, as Professor Parpola readily admits, his theoretical groundwork on the Dravidian character of the Indus Civilisation and the script, and the fact of Aryan immigration into India after the decline of the Indus Civilisation, have been accepted by most scholars in the world“. Acceptance or non-acceptance of any hypothesis, theory etc., cannot be a criteria for coming to any final conclusion in a research plan, particularly, where the script remains undeciphered.
4. “When the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu’s award is given to me for a Dravidian solution of the Indus enigma, this award will inevitably be interpreted by many people as politically motivated”. Definitely, because, he has been known for his extremist views, racist bias and linguistic fanaticism and all couched with anti-Hindu, anti-Sanskrit, anti-Hindi, anti-north, anti-Brahmin and so on. Moreover, award for Dravidian solution of the Indus enigma, reminds the the world war period, where the racists scholars used to be honoured in the same way by the racist regimes, because any other solution means no award!
5. “Nevertheless, I am ready to fight for the truth, and in my opinion, the Tamils are entitled to some pride for having preserved so well the linguistic heritage of the Indus Civilisation”. Why some pride, they have “full / more” pride, whether they preserve or not the linguistic heritage of the Indus civilization. In fact, the queation is whether the Indus cicilization had any preserved linguistic heritage of the Tamils conclusively, instead of taking few seals and giving convenient interpretation.
6. “At the same time, it must not be forgotten that though their language has shifted in the course of millennia, people of North India too are to a large extent descended from the Harappan people, and have also preserved cultural heritage of the same civilisation.” Had both people descended from the same lineage, where is the question of linguistic heritage preserved by one group of people and cultural heritage by other group? His theory that “Aryan immigration into India after the decline of the Indus Civilisation” shows after the decline of the Indus civilization, the Dravidians moved to north and then came down to south. Aryans came thereafter and moved in the same way.
7. When Aryans immigrated after the decline of Indus-Dravidian civilization, there was no “Aryan invasion”. Karunanidhi would not accept such academic exercise.
8 . The time gap between the two historical processes has to be specified and explained. The peak period of IVC has been c.2250-1950 BCE. The Sangam period starts from c.300 BCE. Why then, the “Dravidian speaking people” took nearly two millinea to shift from IVC to north and north to South?
9. Why they should have taken such a long period to compose Sangam literature only at Tamizhagam insyead of IVC or north India? It is also surprising that they could not develop any script during those 2000 years!
10. The earliest Tamil inscriptions date from the Mauryan Era. That Asoka should copy from the Persians and start indscribing on the stones so that Indians could read at different parts of India in the same language or in their languages! And the intelligent Dravidian speaking people / immigrant Tamils from the IVC should wait for Asoka and start copying his script to write in Tamil only from that particular period!
11. As the IV Dravidian speakers had been the expert makers of the seals, why they should wait for 2000 years to copy script from Asoka? Does it make sound?
12. Asoka and even Kharavela, whose territories were threatened with the “confederation of Dravidian kings” could write many lines, how is that the Dravidian speaking people could leave only few-line inscriptions, broken ones etc?
Vedaprakash
20-06-2010
Tags: anti-Brahmin, anti-Hindi, anti-Hindu, anti-north, anti-Sanskrit, Aryan immigration, Aryans, Asko Parpola, Classical Tamil Award, Dravidian leader, Dravidian solution, Dravidians, Eurocentric approach, Historiography, Indology, Indus script, Iravatham Mahadevan, IVC, Karunanidhi, Linguistics, M. Karunanidhi, Michael witzel, philology, Race, Racialism, racism, Rigveda, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, World Classical Tamil Conference
ontogeny-phylogeny-epigenetics 
March 23, 2011 at 8:36 pm |
horrible post.. errors errors..spelling n stuff, both
March 24, 2011 at 8:09 am |
Point out specifically!
July 13, 2011 at 6:43 am |
Your post reek of racist thoughts against Tamil. Completly biased artice. What qualifications do you have to criticize the most renowned epigrapher like this, It is like pot calling the Kettle black.
August 22, 2012 at 8:28 am |
We were at the place and asked specific questions.
It is the duty of the researcher to clarify the points raised after the presentation of paper.
If he is not clarifying or the organizers are not allowing, then, there is no meaning in any researcher presenting paper.
Here, what I have posted is response and not any article.
There is nothing racist in my writing.
In fact, I am trying to establish the relation of the Tamils in Indian context.
I have great regard for Sri Iravatham Mahadevan or any other scholar, but in those occasions, he behave autocratically.
February 11, 2012 at 8:22 pm |
really funny one… go read ur school books first…..
February 13, 2012 at 10:53 am |
OK, tell me about your school books first.
August 22, 2012 at 6:53 am |
Vedaprakash would have been happy if the award was given to Rajaram for his ‘horseplay’ in indus research!
August 22, 2012 at 8:18 am |
Here, at the time of posting, there is no question of award and therefore, your remarks are redundant.
Anyway, thank your for making this comments after two years!
Indians (Tamils) have to study about the presence of horses in India carefully.
For example, if “horses” were not there, how the Sangam poets were mentioning about them?
September 23, 2012 at 1:21 pm |
It is indeed sad that Indian intellegentia is so parasitic that it waits for others to do research and they are adept only in analysing others work. They are so obsessed with Aryan Dravidian theory that they cannot think otherwise. The classic case being Anuradhapuram engravings of Srilanka. One is astounded by its close resemblance to Indus valley Scripts. I am yet to find an article on that. Let us take the case of Srilanka. If we take the prehistoric evolution of Srilanka we have to rely only on Buddhistic chronicles. We start from Buddha’s Nirvana and Vijaya’s ascension. Mind you that Srilankan’s writing starts from Vijaya’s times. This is possible because unlike Vedas Buddhistic literature gives information on different kinds of writings. Further Srilanka has nuismatics from 2nd century BC onwards the notable being numerous fish symbols and boat with persons. Further a section of Srilanka still believes that it is the land of Ravana submerged in deep sea and places connected with Ramayana like Ashokavana and placeS WHERE Hanuman charred them. It is also firmly believed that Jain caves are there and pre Vijayan people were Nagas Yakshas and Rakshasas. The worship of Nagas and Yakshas were part of Jainism which is even now prevalent in South Tamilnadu. There has been frequent contact between Pandyas, Kerala and Srilanka and hence it can be safely argued that Pandyas originally belonged to Tabropane of Srilanka with fish symbol and the legend of lost continent of Kumari. This also explains the numerous Jain settlements in Pandya country. Interestingly in all the inscriptions of srilanka the donation of Cave as a general practice is noticed. Further wherever the word Dameda occurs it is not followed by pure Tamil word. The Jain/Buddhistic/Sanskrit literature does not at all refer to Tamil as a separate language and Mahabharata and Manu considered Dravidians as degraded Kshatriyas of Aryan clan residing at Krishna Godavari basin. Even now certain Brahmins are known as Dravidalu which is not a surname of NonBrahmins. Viewing Buddhism/Jainism from Srilankan angle both of them are urban. Then coming to Aryan angle though they use the word Aryan they cannot be Aryans since the patrons of Jainism were Kings and Merchants and there is no mention about Brahmins in class classification while in Buddhism like the Justice Party the role of Brahmins was restricted to temporal and not leadership. The most essential contradiction is that while Vedic stories centered around Chandravamshi the Jain/Buddhistic are Solar centric. While Vedas does not refer to Ramayana the latter includes it and Jainism refer to Krishna legend as Neminatha. The result is that there was deep animosity between Cholas and Srilanka only and not with reference to any other kingdom. The Jains with Prakrit would have been Indus valley people. The entire rural India including Tamilnadu are the real Aryans.a. Just as at present inspite of stiff anti Brahminism in Tamilnadu ordinary people crave for pan Indian acceptance by officiation of Brahmin priests. All the lower classes of Tamilnadu are propitiators of Agni and vouchsafing by placing the hand with burning camphor is common which only brings memory of Fire ordeal of Sita Draupathi’ birth and Dakshyani. Thus original Aryans were unlettered rural masses of India having love hate relationship with urban Jains/Buddhists and Brahmins were inhabitants of Himalayas worshipping Shiva and Vishnu and composed Vedic hymns for rural masses against materialistic urbanites and while pressed by Urbanites they descended to south hiding themselves creating a new language Tamil which was the initial home in Krishna Godavari basin and further deep south. The prevalence of Grihyasutras predominantly in South and performance of Vedic sacrifices by all Buddhist/Jain kings of Deccan testifies to this. This duplicity of faiths carried on by kings calling themselves as Brahmakshatriyas was despised as Kalbrahmar or Kalapirar in Tamil. This is supported by the fact that one of the early Pallava king had the name Kalbhatrar. Let us have a deep burial to Sindhu centrist research and taking Vedas as starting point but take Jain/Buddhistic scriptures as the starting point and have a holistic view from Srilanka to Afganistan.
May 6, 2013 at 5:47 am |
it is high time old shibboleths are abandoned
May 29, 2013 at 2:40 am |
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