ancient india – Brown Pundits

Browncast – Episode 9: Conversation on Indo-Aryan linguistics

The latest BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

The conversation was between Brown Pundits’ contributors Razib, Zach and Slapstik on the evolution of Sanskrit and Indo-Aryan more generally within the Indian subcontinent. The conversation started off from thoughts on the origin of Sanskrit from Proto-Indo-Aryan, the language of the feudal elite of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (or BMAC).

We spoke of the broad swathe of time from (roughly) 1500-500 BCE wherein this elite planted themselves across the breadth of the Indo-Gangetic plains south of the Himalayas (cf. hima-vanta > himavata). The peculiarities of the obstinately oral culture led to phenomenal developments in grammar (vyAkaraNa) to preserve the fidelity of speech. We also briefly covered some peculiarities of development of prkRta-s which show influence of Dravidian speech, the Indo-Aryan nature of Dardic languages and some comments on Iranic languages.

One of the important questions raised by Zach was on the parallel development of Mitanni-Aryan. Specifically why doesn’t its existence prove an outward diffusion of Indo-Aryan dialects? While I did not want to de-rail the conversation in the podcast with a technical argument (based on the RUKI rule), I think this point does deserve some supplementary explanation here. The basic argument can be set out as follows:

Retroflexes in earliest Vedic were almost always phonemic (pUrNa), and it is well established within IA linguistics that retroflexion existed before the loss of voiced sibilants /z/, /ź/ and /Z/ in proto-Vedic. So, we have PIE *misdhom (salary, reward) > *mizdhom (IIr, voiced sibilant) > *miźdhom (IIr, via satem RUKI sound law) > *miZDham (Proto-Vedic, using sibilant-dental consonant saMdhi)
We also know that Proto-Dravidian lacked sibilants and replaced the phonemic voiced-sibilants by their approximants /y/ or /w/, which later merged with the preceding vowel. So, the effect of Dravidian substratum on proto-Vedic *miZDham is given by: *miZDham > *mi(y)Dham > mIDham, and mIDham is attested in Rg Veda as meaning reward or prize of a contest.
The same word (meaning payment) is also attested in Mitanni-Aryan as miśta, which seems to be easily derivable from IIr *miźdhom via simple de-voicing of /ź/ and de-aspiration of /dh/. There’s no known rule or precedent of deriving miśta from IA mIDham. Even using the latter-day example of Romany languages, the aspirated retroflex /Dh/ should be approximated by /r/, which is clearly not the case here.

Therefore, the simplest explanation of miśta in Mitanni-Aryan and its cognate mIDha in Vedic is that both terms are derivable using known sound laws from the older Indo-Iranian version of the word, as opposed to one from the other. The same argument also shows how retroflexion existed in oldest Vedic and that the simplest explanation of lack of voiced sibilants in Vedic is the substrate effect of Proto-Dravidian.

For readers more interested in this topic, I would suggest The Horse, The Wheel and Language by David Anthony on the archaeological evidence of steppe Indo-European culture. The book is very strong on archaeology, but it gets some of the linguistics’ arguments wrong. On linguistics itself, Cardona and Jain’s Indo-Aryan Linguistics remains the go-to text. Note that this book is more technical, but very rewarding.

How to avoid offending people?

Please watch the last three minutes of:

How to avoid very unexpectedly offending people when we don’t want to? How to have dialogue with people, ask them questions and get feedback from others without suddenly massively angering them?

This has nothing to do with Saira Roa’s actual opinions or high resolution fully integrated philosophy of philosophies. She seems to be a sweet loving person. Her perspective is unique and I would have loved to better understand it.

I have met many people from childhood who are suddenly and very unexpectedly massively triggered and angered. Often they will start accusing others of nazism, fascism, racism, bigotry, prejudice, sectarianism or some other related charge. In many cases immediately walk away. Many junior high school, high school, undergraduate and graduate level teachers at institutions I attended were this way. Some students were also this way, but truth be told teachers were far more likely to exhibit these symptoms than students. And a lot of the time, I and many others didn’t understand why this happened. Saira Roa is very middle of the road representative of very large numbers of people I have met (teachers and non teacher adults), (in the west or in India) and I am not picking on her. Rather I am asking how to avoid causing a massive firestorm when we don’t want to create one. In this case, Sargon didn’t want to anger her, but rather was very curious to better understand what she believes and why she believes what she believes.

This particular unexpected firestorm was set off when Sargon says to Saira Roa that some blacks were complicit in the slavery of other blacks. My questions about this is two fold:

Is there some way Sargon could have made a similar point without massively angering Saira Roa and causing her to end the interview?
Why did this statement elicit this reaction in the first place?

Saira Roa has a Hindu name. When the east (and large parts of Europe for that matter) was (were) conquered by Islamists (note that most muslims are not Islamists and today’s muslims are in no way responsible for the actions of their great ancestors), almost all eastern universities, libraries, temples, spiritual centers, scientific institutions etc. were destroyed. Much of the non muslim population was converted into slaves. Because of this, many Asian nonmuslims get emotional when the subject of slavery is mentioned. Could this be where part of Saira Roa’s feelings come from?

Most Asians (Indians included) and Africans initially welcomed Europeans as a way to drive Islamists out. Europeans as a quid pro quo of sorts banned slavery across Asia and Africa. This was deeply popular among nonmuslims and seen as sectarian Islamaphobia by many Islamists. [Obviously after this initial period, Africans and Asians wanted European colonizers to let them to be independent.] Perhaps Saira Rao thinks that the people who owned slaves on the African continent and sold them to South America, Central America, Mexico, Caribbean, North America, North Africa, East Africa, Europe, Asia were not really Africans but Islamist occupiers? Perhaps her definition of “African” or “black” is only nonmuslims with substantial sub-saharan African DNA haploid admixture? Therefore, “blacks” by her definition were not complicit in the slavery of other blacks and the exporting of black slaves around the world? I am not saying this is true. But rather could this be what she believes?

[Obviously some historians might posit the hypothesis that even if the large majority or vast majority of people who owned African slaves were muslim, at least some African slaves were owned by nonmuslims with substantial sub-saharan African DNA haploid admixture too. But perhaps Saira Roa disagrees with this.]

Are there other possible reasons for why she was so offended?

Can everyone reading please explain this to me in the comment section below? What advise does everyone have for how to avoid deeply angering or offending people in general? Thanks to everyone in advance.

Are Haryana Jats the closest living descendents of our Vedic forefathers ?

Recently, there was a paper on some communities of Northwestern India such as Rors, Jats, Kambojs, Gujjars & Khatris. The primary focus of the paper was the community of cattle herders from Haryana known as Rors.

This is part 1 of my review of the paper. In part 2 I shall focus on whether the evidence furnished in the paper proves a steppe migration into South Asia.

Let me first quote the abstract in full :-

The Indus Valley has been the backdrop for several historic and prehistoric population movements between South Asia and West Eurasia. However, the genetic structure of present-day populations from Northwest India is poorly characterized. Here we report new genomewide genotype data for 45 modern individuals from four Northwest Indian populations, including the Ror, whose long-term occupation of the region can be traced back to the early Vedic scriptures. Our results suggest that although the genetic architecture of most Northwest Indian populations fits well on the broader North-South Indian genetic cline, culturally distinct groups such as the Ror stand out by being genetically more akin to populations living west of India; such populations include prehistorical and early historical ancient individuals from the Swat Valley near the Indus Valley. We argue that this affinity is more likely a result of genetic continuity since the Bronze Age migrations from the Steppe Belt than a result of recent admixture. The observed patterns of genetic relationships both with modern and ancient West Eurasians suggest that the Ror can be used as a proxy for a population descended from the Ancestral North Indian (ANI) population. Collectively, our results show that the Indus Valley populations are characterized by considerable genetic heterogeneity that has persisted over thousands of years.

Pay attention to the bolded part. As per the pre-print by Narasimhan et al, the ANI is the likely population that spread Steppe ancestry and hence Indo-Aryan ancestry among South Asians by mixing with the ASI group. Now this paper on Rors says that Rors (by corollary the Jats) are the population most identical to this hypothetical ANI population. Please note – It is not Brahmins but a herder group from Haryana, which is the vert heartland of Vedic India. This is very significant because it clearly establishes the veracity of our Vedic tradition.

Let us look at this in more detail.

The ancestors of Rors and Jats from Haryana spread the Vedic civilization

As many of you here might be aware, the Vedic homeland was situated on the banks of the river Saraswati in a region which encompassed today’s Haryana and Western UP from where it eventually spread further into Northern India, principally in the Gangetic plains and beyond.

In terms of genetics therefore, one may argue that if there is a genetic signature of the Vedic people, it should be found most strongly in the original Vedic homeland and gradually reduce as one moves away from this homeland. Ofcourse, the caveat would be, that unless the modern people residing in the Vedic homeland had come to completely replace the original inhabitants of Haryana who spread the Vedic culture.

The ancient DNA research has now shown that in terms of autosomal ancestry, there is link between the modern presence of Indo-European speakers across Eurasia and the ‘steppe’ ancestry component.

In South Asia it is argued, that the ‘steppe’ component is highest among the Brahmins and decreases as one moves down the caste heirarchy and this is said to be one of the principal evidences of movement of steppe people into South Asia having spread the Indo-European language and culture. Infact, the recent Narasimhan et al paper, even went so far as to suggest,

Although the enrichment for Steppe ancestry is not found in the southern Indian groups, the Steppe enrichment in the northern groups is striking as Brahmins and Bhumihars are among the traditional custodians of texts written in early Sanskrit. A possible explanation is that the influx of Steppe_MLBA ancestry into South Asia in the mid-2nd millennium BCE created a meta-population of groups with different proportions of Steppe ancestry, with ones having relatively more Steppe ancestry having a central role in spreading early Vedic culture.

However, it has already been known since many years that the population having the highest ‘steppe’ ancestry in South Asia are not the Brahmins but the Jats, more specifically, the Haryanvi Jats. This was also noted by Razib in one of his earlier blogs.

The present study focuses on this elevated steppe related component in Jats and more specifically in a related group from Haryana known as the Rors. It is titled, ” The Genetic Ancestry of Modern Indus Valley Populations from Northwest India “. This study has the advantage that it incorporates the aDNA data from the Narasimhan et al and other recent papers.

The following is the admixture graph from the study,

As can be seen in the selected enlarged portion of the graph, the ‘steppe’ like light blue component, which is highest in some of the Northern European groups closest to the steppe, like the Latvians, Lithuanians, Russians etc., is far higher in Rors than it is in the Brahmins or any other South Asian group.

As per the authors themselves,

Outgroup f3 analysis in the form of (PNWI, X; Yoruba) showed that the Ror (and Jat) have distinct, high genetic similarity to modern Europeans (Figures 1C, 1D, and S5), far higher than the similarity observed in other NWI populations, such as the Gujjar (Figures 1D and S5). Among an extended set of South Asians, this pattern was repeated only in the Pathan population from Pakistan (Figure S5).

And,

Refined IBD analysis highlights the general trend whereby the sharing of IBD segments declines as one moves along the cline from PNWI and NI_IE toward Dravidian and Indian Austroasiatic (IN_AA) groups (Figure 2A). Strikingly, among all PNWI groups studied, the Ror demonstrate the highest number of IBD segments shared with Europeans and Central Asians, whereas the Gujjar share a higher number of IBD segments with local Indian Indo-Europeans and Dravidians than do other PNWI groups (Figure 2A).

In CHROMOPAINTER analysis, as expected, the Ror (and Jat) exhibited a significantly higher number of chunks received from Europeans than do other NWI populations studied (t test, p value < 0.01).

They also state further,

A higher level of European ancestry in the Ror and Jat compared to other South Asians (Figures 1, 2, S2, S5, and S13 and Tables S5–S8) makes these two populations outliers within the broader Northwest South Asian landscape. This could be indicative of either a possible recent gene flow from a population related to Europe or to ancient West-Eurasian-related influx, which would agree with previous studies on adaptation, wherein the Ror and Jat have stood out for their high frequency of the lactase persistence allele (LCT-13910T) and the light-skin-color gene variant (SLC24A5).

The Rors and Jats also have higher frequencies of Lactase persistence and light skin color gene variant which makes the case of their more recent ancestry sharing, compared to other South Asians, with Northern Europeans or steppe groups stronger.

Also,

We also report that, relative to other South Asians, the Ror group has high shared drift with the EHG and Steppe_EMBA groups, higher allele sharing with the Steppe_MLBA group, and higher affinity with the Iron Age (prehistorical) and early historical first South Asian ancient sources (Figures S6A, S6B, S7, S8A, S8D, and S9 and Tables S9 and S16).

Finally the authors argue that the Rors are the best proxy for the ANI ancestry in South Asians,

In summary, we demonstrate a higher proportion of genomic sharing between PNWI populations and ancient EHG and Steppe-related populations than we observe in other South Asians.We report that the Ror are the modern population that is closest to the first prehistorical and early historical South Asian ancient samples near the Indus Valley, and they also harbor the highest Steppe-related, EHG, and Neolithic Anatolian ancestry. However, compared to other adjoining groups, the Ror show less affinity with the Neolithic Iranians. The Ror population can plausibly be used as an alternative proxy for ANI in future demographic modeling of South Asian populations.

The bar graph below explains it very well, where it can be seen that the proportion of the steppe orange component is higher among Rors and Jats than either the Pathans, the Brahmins or any other South Asian group.

The admixture proportions as per the qpAdm given in the Supplementary Table 11 and it is instructive to observe that the steppe_emba proportion for Rors is estimated at 57 % of total ancestry while for Jats it is 61 %. The same proportions for Brahmins from UP, Gujarat & Bengal are 46 %, 45 % & 44 % respectively. Even for Pashtuns from Afghanistan it is 52 % and for Kalash it is 58 %. Only the Yaghnobis and Pamiris from Central Asia are estimated to have a higher proportion of steppe_EMBA at 62 % & 67 % respectively.

Before moving forward it is necessary to point out that the light blue component observed in the admixture graph which is highest among the Northern Europeans is not the same as the steppe_EMBA or steppe_MLBA ancestry. Steppe_EMBA & Steppe_MLBA are an amalgation of the light blue, the dark blue (Anatolian-Farmer related) and the light green (Iran_N/CHG) components you see in the admixture graphs. So while the light blue component which peaks in Northern Europe is significantly less among South Asians, the light green component which correlates well with Iran Neolithic type ancestry, peaks in South Asia but it present at a lot less proportion among the northern Europeans.

Infact, the authors even stress that,

The Ror and Jat peoples stand out for having the highest proportion of Steppe_ MLBA ancestry (- 63%). The proportion of Steppe ancestry in the Ror is similar to that observed in present day Northern Europeans.

Therefore, the predominance of the light blue component in Northern Europeans is not alone an indication that their ‘steppe’ ancestry is far higher than among South Asians.

Now, if steppe-related ancestry correlates with presence and spread of Indo-European languages, the above data clearly implies that the highest steppe-related and therefore IE ancestry among South Asians is among the Jats & Rors, significantly higher than in other NW groups as well as Brahmins and Kshatriyas. Jats and Rors sampled for the study, live in Haryana & Western UP, which is the Vedic homeland.

It therefore supports the ancient Indian tradition according to which the region of Haryana & Western UP was the homeland of the Vedic people from where they spread out across Northern India. It can therefore be argued perfectly well, that the Brahmins and Kshatriyas in other regions have higher proportion of ‘steppe’ ancestry than the lower classes around them precisely because they have greater percentage of their ancestry derived from the ‘steppe’ rich people from the Vedic homeland. It has long been an argument that the ‘steppe’ ancestry in higher among the Brahmins and Kshatriyas than the lower castes across all regions of India and that this was evidence of IE culture spreading in South Asia with the ‘steppe’ ancestry. But the example of Jats and Rors in Haryana puts to doubt all such claims. Instead, we can argue that the higher ‘steppe’ related ancestry in Upper Castes across India is a function of them having a greater portion of their ancestry from their Vedic forefathers who lived in Haryana & Western UP, just as is suggested by the Vedic tradition.

I may finally add that there is a closely related group based on close fst distances and similar admixture proportions that likely descends from the core group that was responsible for the spread of this ancestry into the Caucasus and the steppe. This group consists of Rors, Jats, Kalash, Pashtun, Pathan, Tajik & Pamiri. They have broadly similar levels of Iran_N (15 to 30 %), Steppe_EMBA (49 to 67 %) & Onge (15 to 25 %) as per the qpAdm modelling in table S11. Fst distances also indicate that they are quite closely related. For example, the Fst distance between Rors and Pamiris (0.0069), Pashtuns (0.0057) & Tajiks (0.0058) is similar to Fst distances of Rors with neighbouring groups like Kamboj (0.0088), Gujjar (0.0064), Khatri (0.0056), Brahmins (0.0052) & Kshatriyas (0.0062). Considering the fact that Rors (& perhaps Jats) haven’t probably admixed with Pamiris, Tajiks or Pashtuns since millenia, their Fst distances would have been even less initially. The other Indus Valley modern populations are also not very far off in terms of Fst distances with each other but the above groups seem to form a subset among them.

https://i.imgur.com/TrNPI1r.jpg

It is conceivable that an ancestral group related to these populations with similar levels of ancestry proportions as exhibited by them (but perhaps with lowel levels of AASI – since BMAC has only 5 % in comparison to Pamiris who have 15 %), spread out from North India to Central Asia and those from Central Asia venturing further towards Caucasus and from there onto the steppe.

Tony Joseph’s Early Indians

My review of Tony Joseph’s new book, Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From, is now up at India Today.

In general, I liked the book, and have only minor quibbles with Joseph’s reportage of the genetic results. He has very particular interpretations of results on some questions, but his core audience of Indians will be focused on this, not the minutiae of D-statistics. For example, it seems to me that he gave a great deal of emphasis to the aboriginal heritage of South Asians in quantity and impact. This is a defensible stance, but it’s not a necessary one dictated by the results from the data.

The non-genetic assertions I had less background on, and so did some literature review by following Joseph’s copious citations. In these “fuzzier” fields it is harder to establish a consensus from what I can see (the number of opinions of linguists on any topic seems to equal the number of linguists!). The downside is certain conclusions are not there yet. The upside is there is still scholarship that will be done.

Overall, get Early Indians. But read with some caution and use it as a sourcebook for follow-up queries.

Some thoughts on Ain-i Akbari

I have been going through the Ain-i Akbari recently, the name traditionally given to the third volume of the Akbarnama, commissioned by the Emperor Akbar of the Moghal dynasty and written by his Grand Vizier, Abu’l Fadl Allami by around ~1600 CE. The third volume is by far the most personal account of India, its geography, culture and people by Abu’l Fadl – himself born and brought up in Agra in an immigrant family of Yemeni Arab origin.

There are two extracts from the Ain that I wanted to write about. One related to linguistics, esp. the interesting reaction of an erudite aristocrat of Yemeni Arab extraction when he first encounters saMskRta. And the second description of the movement of the cArvAka-s[*], the free-thinking atheistic strand of Indic culture that was ridiculed and suppressed even as similar movements arose in the West (esp Britain) just under a century later.

Abu’l Fadl pwnage is quite obvious from the above extract, and in fact it is the mark of a truly great man to acknowledge it for posterity. Fadl clearly admits the effort to grasp the complexity of Sanskrit phonetics, morphology, syntax and grammar. However, what’s interesting is that while his account of his intellectual labours is in first-person, he switches to the third when concluding that his prior view of Arabic grammar being peerless is now under question. It is almost as if he stopped short of personally admitting to the pwnage – a little bit of hurt pride maybe – and yet couldn’t stop himself from remarking on the sheer formalism of what he’d just been introduced to. Of course, anyone who knows anything about linguistics would readily admit that pANini‘s Classical Sanskrit grammar, which Fadl describes a mere sliver of above, remained the tour de force in Linguistics from around ~500 BCE to the late 19th century until Saussure.

This brings me to the second extract from the Ain in question, namely the description of the cArvAka-s or nAstika school. To me this passage more than anything else contains the germ of the eventual Moghal ruin. It is amazing and ironic how a fairly erudite gentleman, maybe one of the best educated of his times, could dismiss some of the core ideals of what became known as the European Enlightenment as “unenlightened”. Of course, as it turned out, Isaac Newton, born a mere 50 years after this was written, published the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in the same decade as the English Bill of Rights was passed by the Parliament. A process directly leading to three centuries of unprecedented economic and political growth of Western Europe and to the utter humiliation of the descendants of these same Moghal aristocrats at their hands.

Edit: Since sarpamaugdheya (as “snake charmer” will be known by me henceforth) below questioned whether the original Farsi by Abu’l Fadl speaks of his update of priors in third person, I looked into the original text. And here it is in all its majesty, where the underscored portion states:

پیشتر از آنکه بدین زبان لخت آشنا شود چنان می دانست که ضابطه لغت عرب بیهمتا باشد

Note the third-person verb in “midânest keh zabt-e lughat-e arabi bihamta bâshid”, i.e. he knew/considered the system of grammar of arabic as peerless.

[*] The word literally means sweet (cAri) talker (vAka, cf. Latin vocem).

Post Modernism (c)

Camille Paglia says (as Jordan Peterson nods along) that Post Modernism is a rejection of:

1960s radicalism (few radicals have gone to graduate school)
India, Hinduism, consciousness, psychedelics
genuine multiculturalism
the body and sensory experience

What are everyone’s thoughts on the psychological basis of Post Modernism?

Post Modernism (b)

Post Modernism (a)

Intellectual Dark Web (a)

Intellectual Dark Web

Hinduttva (a)

This is a follow up to:

Kushal Mehra is one of Hinduism’s and atheism’s greatest thought leaders and scholars. Kushal does not identify as Hinduttva and describes himself as non left. However he is deeply respected by Hinduttva people and knows many of her leaders. He is a Hindu Atheist. Of the 10 ancient Darshanas (or sights or views or philosophies) of Hinduism he follows Chaarvaaka. [Other philosophies include Buddhism, Jainism, Samkhya/Yoga, Purva Mimaamsaa/Uttara Mimaamsaa, Nyaaya/Vaisheshika, Ajivika]

Ali and Armin are two heroes of the world’s 1.6 billion muslim heritage global community. I am only 4 minutes into the above video but intend to watch and comment on it.

Edit:

Adding Saurav’s comment from another thread:

This is to address some of the comments here about hinduism/vedanta/enlightenment etc made here, twiter and the other article about Hindutava by Annan.

I am frequently surprised by how much difference there is in “web” hindutva/hinduism (including this blog) and on the ground Hinduism/Hindutva. Let us be very very clear the ethnicity and traditions from which on the ground hindutva is driven. It isnt driven by high level intellectualism which has been professed here/ twitter etc. Its driven on the ground by Hindu conformists/ conservatives of North Indian stock. There is nothing problematic about it. But let us be at least honest about it. In India because every “hindu” community is so large that they feel what they profess is real “Hinduism”. I have met Bengali “hindu” and Tam Brahm who possess no electoral power back in their own state go on and on teaching others about Hindutva/Hinduism. The hindutva world does not run for better or for worse on Tukaram/ Adi Shankracharya/ Vivekanda/Charvaka. Had it been then Arya Samaj would have been bigger than RSS. It runs on Ram /Hanuman and for females(Durga). It projects masculinity(again not a value judgement) and not on “enlightenment” values/intellectualism. Its not run by hindu “free thinkers” like the ones we find over the internet. The web space is not projecting the real face (positive or negative) of the movement on how its conducted on the ground. Please lets separate what we want and our own projection over the movement and our analysis on what the movement really is. The day some other “Hindu” movement (led by Slapstick Teasari and Annan) becomes bigger than the current one i will happily accept that.

What are everyone’s thoughts?

Hinduttva

Global alliances and wheels within wheels

Hinduttva

This is a follow up to Global alliances and wheels within wheels:

What is Hinduttva? Is it Hindu + Tattva (Hindu quality)? Or is it something else? I still have no idea. Three of the four panelists in this discussion are widely ridiculed and vilified by self described “liberals”, “secularists” and “progressives” as hard right, bigoted, prejudiced, sectarian, Hindu extremist and Nazi:

Pavan Varma, Former MP Rajya Sabha and Author
Prof. Makarand Paranjape, Professor & Poet at JNU
David Frawley, Vedic Scholar
Sadia Dehlvi, Columnist & Writer

46 minutes 26 seconds in: “the problem in India is that we have thought phobia as Sri Aurobindo said in his letter to barendra in 1920; hundred years later I am at a university and I find that people have an incapacity to think clearly, because they immediately reduce every debate to a political position”

Is this the reason for the cries of “Nazism”, “racism” and so forth? Is this partly a difficult to reconcile debate about freedom of art and thought. If so, how can this issue be resolved? Eastern philosophy (Arya Varsha plus Bon plus Toaism) is based on freedom of art and thought. Without freedom of art and thought, there is no eastern philosophy.

Did the panelists say anything else that is controversial or offensive? Is their Sarva Dharma [all religions are authentically divine and true, all paths lead to the same goal, all is love], their celebration and eulogization of pluralism, diversity and universalism the problem? If that is the problem, what does “secularism” mean? What should “secularism” mean?

For example why do so many self described “liberals”, “secularists”, “progressives” and “leftists” find videos such as this so offensive?

Note, I am not criticizing anyone. I can’t criticizing them because I have no idea what they believe and why. I am thoroughly confused.

Recently there was a world Hindu conference keynoted by the Dalai Lama. It had many Jain, Sikh, Buddhist and Hindu delegations from all around the world and was not an “Indian” or “nationalist” affair. [Does anyone know if Sufi and Shiite delegations participated?] In addition to the Dalai Lama, many other Mahayana Buddhist delegations came. Along with delegations from many different Latin American, European, African and Asian countries. [Lebanon for example has had a Hindu community that is over 3,000 years old. They believe that they date from 4400 years back when they helped construct and operate the Baalbek temple. Similarly, there are ancient Hindu communities throughout the world.]

Note that Tibetan Buddhists (Vajrapani Mahayana Buddhists) in particular have been members of Hindu Akharas for thousands of years and have significant influence on intra-Hindu affairs. Maybe because Tibet was close enough to India for the Tibetan Buddhists to send delegates to meetings. By extension this applies to all Mahayana Buddhists. But the ones in China and Japan were too far to be more than intermittently involved in day to day affairs in India. But they were involved:

Japanese Buddhists were significant stakeholders in the Khmer empire Hindu establishment and Angkor Wat. The beginning of this video on Angkor Wat describes deep continual involvement of Japanese Buddhists in Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Hindu affairs going back to the sixth century AD.

I generally avoid Desi conferences because they usually don’t have a spiritual or religious focus. Many use it for business networking, tech networking and partner networking (“romance” for home-gamers). But I don’t know about the World Hindu Congress this year.

Many prominent Indian Americans and Tulsi Gabbard distanced themselves from it:

“However, to quote Representative Tulsi Gabbard — the first Hindu elected to U.S. Congress — it was a “partisan Indian political event.” Neither was the WHC merely a benign political event. It was, rather, a platform for modern India’s most extreme sociopolitical figures and organisations to propagate their supremacist ideology, Hindutva, which is a form of religious nationalism.”

Activists challenge World Hindu Congress over links to global fascism

Political speakers from the U.S. establishment who were invited to speak at the WHC ran the gamut from left to right. Several progressive Democrats who had been invited to attend the conference eventually backed out after being targeted by an AJA letter-writing campaign.

“Do I think all attendees were Hindu Nationalists?” AJA organizer Ashwin Khobragade asked. “No, I think that many of the attendees are looking to use their faith as a platform to give back to their communities.” There were many community service organization that also attended the gathering.

At the same time, those in AJA believe it is imperative to push back against what it identifies as a move to co-opt well-meaning organizations into a fascist agenda. “We wouldn’t want people with social justice values sitting down with people who are like Richard Spencer,” Khobragade explained.

Among the politicians who declined an invitation was Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, an icon of Bernie Sanders Democrats, who cited “ethical” concerns with “partisan Indian politicians” on the speakers list. Gabbard has been known to be an admirer of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been accused of being linked to the Gujarat genocide and Hindu nationalism more broadly. She has also come under scrutiny for other relationships with the far right and her support for the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, another progressive Democrat, also became the focus of AJA’s accountability letters. Unlike Chicago State Senator-elect Ram Villavam and Alderman Ameya Pawar, Krishnamoorthi has not disavowed the WHC. He has continued to insist that the gathering promotes “acceptance,” despite the links to the far right that protesters have elucidated.

Continue reading “Hinduttva”

Ancient India, archaeology, etc.

I think I have asked before, but I’m soliciting suggestions about a book on Indian prehistory, with a focus on the period between 10 and 2 thousand years ago. India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Subcontinent from c. 7000 BCE to CE 1200 looks decent, but I don’t have an ability to evaluate this stuff.

The reason is pretty simple. I’ve been asked to write a book chapter on the genetics of India. The draft is written, and I think we’re 80-90% done with the genetic “big picture.” The real work is going to be in synthesizing with archaeology. To be entirely frank I’m not sure how open Indian archaeologists are going to be to the new genetics, which is not stopping at any time in the near future. So I think perhaps I should see what I can snap together myself.

Anyway, suggestions appreciated. Though keep in mind that I don’t know much archaeology and don’t care that much about ancient village plans….

Post Modernism (b)

Please watch this short Joe Rogan [Intellectual Dark Web extraordinaire] interview clip. Only about 29% of US High School graduates meet the minimum academic, physical health and IQ requirements to join the US military. Note that if high school dropouts were added the percentage would drop markedly. Less than 10% of US High School graduates are qualified for many branches of the US military. Note that the physical fitness requirements to join the US military are a joke, to put it very politely. Is America in the words of Charles Murray “Coming Apart” across class lines? Physical health and exercise are strongly correlated with academic performance, career and business outcomes:

Figure 1.18a: Adult Obesity Rates by Age and Education Level, 2008

The interview discusses how health outcomes, exercise, sports (including formal JV and Varsity High School Sports) are declining rapidly among American children. Sadly this deterioration of physical health might be leading to an increasing percentage of people around the working in “Bullshit Jobs” that don’t add value to society:

What is worse they are forced to pretend to add value and lie, which contributes to growing depression and mental health challenges (an article series on this is planned):

Global workers in “Bullshit Jobs” are not allowed to take psychedelics either. [Eastern philosophy has discussed how psychedelics can deepen meditation to achieve deeper states of consciousness.]

In eastern philosophy for thousands of years it has been believed that physical health (Sharira Siddhi), mental health (Chitta Shuddhi), and intelligence (Buddhi) can be increased by exercise, stretching, breathing, meditation (which I believe simulates the effect of modern brain therapy), sound brain therapy (Naad or Mantra Yoga), and serving others. [My hope is that researchers vigorously test all these hypothesis with data:]

Intellectual Dark Web

This is why PM Modi of India is trying to offer Yoga classes in every school student in India:

Why is America not similarly pushing for sports, martial arts, dance, gymnastics, exercise, stretching, breathing, meditation (brain therapy), sound brain therapy and better nutrition among poor children and the children of the lower middle class? Is it because of fear of the post modernist mostly caucasion intelligentsia? Is it for fear of being accused of victim blaming, racism, bigotry, sectarianism, prejudice, Nazism, Fascism, hegemony, exploitation, oppression, imperialism, colonialism, patriarchy, male misogyny, hate? Does anyone have any ideas on how to encourage character and good behavior among children without being accused of peddling an oppressive meta narrative and universalist norm? There is incredible fear to discuss culture in America:

Is American culture sharply increasing crime?

It is possible that I am misunderstanding the zeitgeist and that there are other larger factors preventing American K-12 kids from eating healthy, exercising, meditating and listening to transcendent music?

If so, please let me know through your comments. This article, the fifth in the Post Modernist article series, is a plea for understanding rather than arguing a specific causation. Thanking all readers in advance for your insights and wisdom 🙂

Post Modernism (a)