Você está na página 1de 11

Fanciful Ideas of Dr. Nicholas Kazanas!

Indigenous Aryan Theorists now-a-days are becoming inveterate adherents of the


claims those cannot be substantiated even on the basis of common logic. The
paper of Kazanas Rigveda is pre-Harappan (June 2006) 1 too is no exception, as
Kazanas too seems to harp Indigenous Aryan lore while substantially stretching
back the date of Rig Veda to claim Vedic authorship over Indus-Ghaggar
Civilization (IGC) to which, now-a-days, Vedicists blatantly have started calling
Indus-Sarasvati Civilization.
Anyway, let us have a look at the Kazanass arguments and what the realities are.
Claim 1)- Horses and Chariots: Kazanas claim that IGC knew horse and spokewheeled chariots. He confirms that the horses in their wild state were present in
India from c 17000 and the domesticated horse was present during mature
Harappan times. Also he claims, citing S. Piggot, the sophisticated type of vehicles
with one or two pair of wheels with their axels were found in Indus and Rhine by
around 3000. BB Lal have presented the terracotta wheels from Lothal, Banavali
and Rakhigarhi etc. those show the painted lines emanating from hubs that might
indicate spokes.
So far, if above is considered, we have to agree that the people of IGC could have
known the horses and wheeled vehicles. IGC people were expert traders and had
come across many civilizations of those times with whom they traded. Even if
there were no indigenous horses in Indus regions they could have imported them
from other places if found useful.
So, in a way, horse-chariot issue cannot become the foundation to prove the
movements of so-called IEs or making them responsible for introducing horses to
India. Rather horse-chariot issue is overrated.
What Kazanas suggests further is more interesting. He claims that the only real-life
vehicle mentioned in Rig Veda is pulled by oxen and not horses. AMT theory
proposes that the chariots too were introduced by migrating IEs to India. To refute
this claim, Kazanas asserts that there are no remains of chariots in India from 1500
onwards till 700 BC. He alludes from this, to refute claims of AIT/AMT, that the
supposed invaders, this would mean, the IE didnt bring chariots with them!
Though this is true, Kazanas intentions are otherwise. He wants to prove that
though RV knew chariots, it did not know the spoked- wheels since spokes were

invention of about second millennium BC. He claims that the ara word for
spoke in RV is later interpolation or alternatively originally ara could have meant
something else other than spokes.
Here, we must consider few facts. Vedic Ratha could have been even a simple
bullock cart or wagon, sometimes drawn by the horses as per need. Oxen werent
unknown to the Vedic tribes, hence to move heavy loads bulls too could have been
used alternatively to pull carts or wagons. World civilizations have used different
animal, available in their regions, to draw the carts or chariots. There is nothing
special about horses and chariots, whether spoke-wheeled or not, to make some
group of the people superior over others. It also is but natural that the solid wheels
gradually would have been replaced with spoked wheels for making them lighter.
However, till recently solid-wheel carts too were in vogue in India. If Rig Vedic
Ratha just meant cart and not the chariot, as some indigenous Aryan Theorists
claim, it will just prove that the Rig Veda had no vocabulary to denote carts or else
they could not differentiate between the chariots and carts.
Which tribe or civilization first invented spoked wheel cannot be proved
conclusively! David Anthony admits that there is no proof where originally the
wheel was invented and wool was brought in use for cloth! 2 Hence building some
theory on pre-conceived notions could prove to be dangerous to draw any
conclusion.
The only intention, it seems, Kazanas wants to discard the previous ideas about the
swifter horse-drawn spoked-wheel chariots of the Vedic people, as mentioned in
the RV, to take back period of the RV to pre-Harappan era, when spoke-wheeled
vehicles were yet to be invented! However, he knows he is playing on a flimsy
ground and do not hesitate to admit that, The spoked wheel poses, in fact, no
problem for dating the RV. There are other more clearcut types of evidence.
And what are those proofs?
Claim 2)- Kazanas claim that many features of the Harappan culture are absent
from RV and hence RV must be pre-Harappan! For example, he states, RV doesnt
know of fired bricks, urbanization, cotton etc. those were common features of IGC.
He claims that the pur of RV doesnt mean necessarily town or fort. He asserts,
This is a very general misconception. In the RV pur never means anything other
than an occult, magical, esoteric defense or stronghold which is not created nor
ever destroyed by humans.

Now, for time being, let us consider that the RV did not know towns or fortified
cities or forts as the term pur might denote. But how does it prove RV to be preHarappan? There were several civilizations even during the beginning of Common
Era those did not reside in the towns. Every civilization has its own peculiar
lifestyles depending on their psychological moulds and therefore the preferred
ways to lead the life. Tarkateertha Laxmanshatri Joshi has stated that even during
Brahmana era, Vedic people showed dislike towards urban life and preferred to
delve in the villages. 3 It does not mean that the other contemporary societies too
led the life in same fashion!
RV indeed knew the towns having as much as hundred gates those were destroyed
by Indra. (RV 10.99.3). These could be exaggerated descriptions, but certainly
these wouldnt have come out of sheer imagination of the Vedic seers. Rather the
struggle of the Vedic people seems to be with the people those delved in the purs
but it is not indicated anywhere that the Vedic people too resided in some kind of
purs.
What we just can deduce that the Vedic peoples lifestyle preferred village-like tiny
settlements to reside rather than urban centers. Purs of Vedic era and their region
may not have been as big as of Harappans, but the Vedic people certainly knew to
differentiate the pur (urban centers) from Vish (rural settlement). RV knows purs
but not similar to the urban centers of IGC. The purs of RV are made of the stones,
not of the bricks like of IGC. This is simply because they never were part of the
IGC.
Had they been the part of it, when pre-Harappan people gradually started building
the architectural monuments, the process of urbanization would certainly reflect
somewhere in RV or post RV literature. The technological advancements that
feature the IGC too would find mention here and there. IGC didnt form as a
sudden event but was a gradual process through constant development through
technological advancement. But Vedic literature is silent on these major
advancements that the IGC people achieved!
Apart from this, waning of IGC that too continued for several hundred years till its
final collapse, too, finds no slightest mention in RV or post Vedic literature.
Decline of a civilization, to the people those were part of it, must have been a
socio-psychological setback because of the unfortunate, inevitable, forced changes
exerted on them. This change too nowhere reflects in the Vedic literature. The
dramatic change IGC underwent after gradual climatic changes, from urban centers
to rural settlements, couldnt have been that easy to face and accommodate with.
But it is completely absent from any of the Vedic literature.

Imagining pur as magical, esoteric defense, Kazanas wants to deny the


knowledge of the surroundings of the Vedic seers, no matter how poetically and
mythically they might have portrayed it. Pur couldnt have been imaginary
settlements of the demons but the physical existences, where enemies of the Vedic
people resided to which they mythologized in poetic style. However, RV is not
talking anywhere about the purs of IGC those arose over the time and were
abandoned after fateful climatic changes and dwindled economy.
Here, too, Kazanas lacks in proving RV being pre-Harappan or of the era of preurbanization!
Claim 3)- Kazanas suggests that after about 1900 BC many cities were abandoned
by the IGC people. Had IEs immigrated to India during that phase there would be
mention of the ruined cities. Kazanas is right in this suggestion to counter
migration theorists.
But he falls in his own trap here too! Had Vedic people been part of the IGC,
waning of Ghaggar, due to the climatic changes, they too would have suffered
drastically.
Collapse of one established prosperous socioeconomic system leads to find new
ways for survival. This strife too is absent from the Vedic literature.
Rather from pre-Harappan times till its disintegration, about 2000 years, the
gradual rise of IGC to the peak and thence onward its slowdown nowhere is to be
traced in any Vedic literature. The people those recorded even the small skirmishes
with the enemy tribes couldnt have failed to note and record the rise and fall of the
IGC, had they been part of it!
What Kazanas further want to imply from the facts that the fired bricks, cotton,
rice etc. came to be known to the Vedic people only during the Brahmana and Sutra
period, which was, to Kazanas, contemporary to Harappan times. But he forgets
that the fired bricks are mentioned in Brahmanas only in respect with the fire
altars, not in regards with brick-paved streets, and great baths and city walls.
Rather Brahmana and Sutra literature too is devoid of any of the Harappan feature.
Kazanas further wants to extract wishful meaning from the bovine seal and
perforated vessel, finds of IGC, to connect them with the Brahmana period. From
the above finds he wants to connect them with the vague descriptions of some
artifacts mentioned in Brahmana, Yajur and Atharva veda to prove Post Vedic
literature and IGC contemporaneous!

If same art is applied, some or other Vedic description of the objects can be, no
matter how forcibly, identified with the finds from any civilization to make Vedic
people founders of it. What one may need is to draw any meaning and deny any

meaning or if goes contrary to the theory, at all, simply call it interpolation!

Kazanas plays with the word Dvaya too of Atharva Veda and connects it with
the motif on a seal, of two headed Bovine-like (Actually similar to the Unicorn)
animal and Pipal tree growing out of it! However, the motif in question is not of
the two headed animal at all but the unicorn-like long necked animal-heads set
artistically to form an aesthetic design, representing a mirror image of a onehorned animal-neck and tree. The wonder Kazanas make is that he claims this
motif could be symbol of OM!
Interestingly the seals, a major feature of IGC, dont find any mention at all in RV
or post RV literature. Kazanas claim that some IGC features are present in post RV
literature, such as bricks, rice etc. However, if post-RV literature is not only
contemporary but of the people those were part of it, why would, at the least,
disappearance of these vital features from that literature?
The fact is, post-RV literature is of the time when seal making had seized to be in
the IGC for technological shifts and end of the foreign trade with Mesopotamia and
other civilizations for many reasons, such as global climatic changes and political
upheavals. Since it remained no longer the practice of the civilization, there
naturally wouldnt have been any mention in the post Vedic literature. Rather
Rigveda shows its geography being south Afghanistan, not IGC.
Hence fixing age of the Brahmanas and other post- RV literature contemporary to
the mature IGC period is not correct. Rather it suggests that the Brahmana era is of
the far later times, about 1000 BC or even later, when the IGC was flourishing in
new forms maintaining inherent traits of the past and had coped up with the
changed climatic conditions!
This is why, even if RV is considered to be pre-Harappan creation, it doesnt prove
at all that the Vedic Aryans were present in Indus region at that point of time and
even later as none of the IGC progress and later setbacks reflect anyway in that
literature.
Claim 4)- Further, Kazanas use astronomical references, just like Tilak and Jacoby
had used, to substantiate his claim that the RV can be older than the 3000 BC.
Satapatha Brahmana makes a reference that the Krittikas (Pleiades) do not swerve
from the east. The verse of SB goes like this, And again, they do not move away
from the eastern quarter, whilst the other asterisms do move from the eastern
quarter. Thus his (two fires) are established in the eastern quarter: for this reason
he may set up his fires under the Krittiks. (SB 2.1.2.3, Trans.: Julius Eggeling,
1892.)

Based on this information the time of Brahmana is calculated to be about 2500 BC


or as early as 3000 BC. The debate over Krittika rather is unwarranted. The
chronology of Vedeic literature is assumed that the Brahmana era begins after RV
period is problematic in itself. Brahmanas contain even pre-Vedic mythologies.
Purpose of Brahmana literature was to organize the sacrificial practices; hence the
composition of RV and Brahmanas could have been almost simultaneous. The
knowledge of Krittika being stationary towards East could be the memories from
the remote past and thus preserved and revered for the sacrificial purposes.
Composition of the RV and related works couldnt have been sudden event like a
big bang. Let us not forget here the Zoroastrian religion too was reformation of
ancient cult. Vedic religion too had roots in the remote past, no matter in what
form. RV mostly preserves the memories of the past while recording contemporary
victories, strife and struggles. The life that Rig Vedic people led finds no match
with any peaceful society. This life, in all possibility they couldnt have led had
they been part of the IGC (3200 BC till 1700 BC) because this era is entirely
absent from the Vedic literature.
The knowledge of the stars and their movements to the mankind could go far back
in the human history for their constant observations. Interestingly, meaning of
Nakshatra in Arabic, Chinese and Sanskrit is one and the same.place to halt for
night. Vedic was not an isolated society to not to have come across the knowledge
gathered from other sources and shared their independent innovations! This
knowledge too is of no help to determine Vedic people being ever the part of IGC.
However, arriving at an authentic date based on astronomical references has been
challenged. Roshan Dalal states, In ancient times, the Nakshatras were related to
the Moon and not the Sun and the vernal equinoxes were unknown. 4
For a moment, even if astronomical data is used to decide on the date of RV or
Brahmanas, how does it help to claim the Vedic Aryans presence in IGC? The
inference that Kazanas wants to derive, thus becomes problematic.
Claim 5)- Like all indigenous Aryan Theorist, Kazanas too broach Sarasvati issue..
He states that the Ghaggar (Sarasvati) flowed down to the ocean before 3200 BC.
In support, he refers Francfort (1992), stating, Francfort has been just as certain of
a date 3600-3800 in his survey of 1992.
But the reality is, Francfort states in the same book that, In fact we now know,
thanks to the fieldwork of the Indo-French expedition, when proto-historic people

settled in this area no large perennial river had flown there for a long time. (p.
91)
Bryant quotes Francfort for his earlier expedition in Ghaggar channels , The team
included a strong geo-archaeological element that concluded that the actual large
paleo courses of the river have been dry since the early Holocene period or even
earlier (Francfort 1985, 260). Ironically, the findings of the French team have
served to reinforce the mythico-religious tradition of Vedic origins. Rajaram's
reaction (1995) to the team's much earlier date assigned to the perennial river is
that this can only mean that the great Sarasvati that flowed from the mountain to
the sea must belong to a much earlier epoch, to a date well before 3000 bce. 5
Early Holocene period would mean about 12000 to 10,000 years ago. Francfort is
clear in his observations and conclusions. Still Kazanas seem to twist the facts.
Rajarams remarks, as quoted by Bryant, makes it clear that how the attempts are
made to connect anyhow Ghaggar with Sarasvati and stretching back the RV era
substantially before Harappan era to claim IGC! Unfortunately Kazanas too is no
exception.
CONCLUSION:
Kazanas does not prove beyond doubt that the IGC features are reflected anywhere
in Brahmanas or other post-Vedic literature and that the era of RV was preHarappan. Vedic people coming across cotton, fired bricks for altars does not make
them part of the IGC; it only does prove that the later composers of the Vedic
literature had come across those features only in post-Harappan era, in far later
times. The IGC was then already shaped up in Gangetic plains taking new forms
based on the foundation of the waned IGC when Vedic adherents came across it.
Ignorance of cotton, rice etc. to RV can only be attributed to the fact that the
regions Vedic people had occupied didnt grow cotton but produced wool from the
ships, to be used for cloths. The Vedic river Parusni derives its name from the
flocks of wool. (Parus - flocks, Urna- Wool would mean flocks of the wool.)
This river cannot be equated with Ravi but some river from Gandhar region. 6 RV
is well aware of the woolen cloth, not cotton.
However, in absence of any proof that would indicate mass migration in India at
any time since +7000 BC, it only can be derived that the Vedic tradition traveled to
India by some faithful Vedic preachers those continued compositions of the postVedic literature while spreading out the religion. By that time IGC had lost its past

glory, urban centers had shifted towards Gangetic plains, the situation which is
well reflected in Brahmanas and later literature.
Kazanas attempts to stretch back Rig Vedic period substantially only because it
doesnt know any of the Harappan features is thus becomes untenable!
References:
1) Rigveda is pre-Harappan by Nicholas kazanas. June 2006. Online available at
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41692083?
sid=21105802145531&uid=4&uid=70&uid=3738256&uid=2129&uid=2
2) The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian
Steppes Shaped the modern world, by David W. Anthony, Pub.: Princeton University
Press, 2007, p. 34 and 59-77)
3) Vedic Sanskruticha Vikas. by Tarkateertha Laxmanshastri Joshi, Pub.:
Pradnyapathashala Mandal, third edition, 1996, p. 35.
4) The Vedas: An Introduction to Hinduisms Sacred Texts, By Roshen Dalal, pub.:
Penguin, 2014.
5) The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate, by
Edwin Bryant, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 167-68.
6) Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, Volume 1, By Arthur Anthony Macdonell &
Arthur Berriedale Keith, Indian edition, pub. Motilal Banarasidas Publishers Pvt.
Ltd.,1995, p. 499-500.
(Also read Origins of the Vedic Religion and Indus-Ghaggar Civilisation by Sanjay
Sonawani, Prajakta Prakashan, 2015.)

Fanciful Ideas of Dr. Nicholas Kazanas!


OIT Theorists, to prove the Vedic Aryans were indigenous, wants to
substantially stretch back the age of Rigveda to make Vedics
authors of the Indus civilization. Dr. kazanas is one of them. Let us
check whether the claims have any substantial ground to prove
Indigenous Aryan Theory.

Você também pode gostar