Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

74
The Rigveda and the Avesta: the final evidence
The single most significant unresolved
problem in the study of World History today is
the problem of the geographical location of the
Original Homeland of the Indo-European family
of languages. This is because this is the most important
family of languages in the
world in terms of the number of
xxxviii, 379p.,
primary as well as secondary
bibl., ind., 23cm.
speakers, as also in terms of
geographical spread, ethnic diversity,
and political and economic
clout. This family of languages
has twelve branches (two of them,
Anatolian and Tocharian, now long extinct): the
extant branches, from west to east, are Germanic,
Celtic, Italic, Baltic, Slavic, Albanian,
Greek, Armenian, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan. The
question of where exactly the original homeland
of this diverse family was located has been a
hotly debated issue among linguists, historians
and archaeologists, and, especially in India ,
where the issue has acquired deep political overtones,
also among politically inclined writers of
every brand.
In his two earlier books, The Aryan
Invasion Theory: A Reappraisal (1993) and
The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000),
the author of this book put forward the hypothesis,
backed by detailed arguments, data and
evidence, that this Original Homeland lay in the
northern parts of India, and that the other
ISBN 9788177420852
Rs.750 (hb), Rs. 350(pb)
Book-Review
by Shrikant G. Talageri
branches of Indo-European languages spread
out from India to their respective historical habitats.
In this book, he presents the final case with
conclusive new evidence based on an unassailable
interpretation of old but hitherto universally
misinterpreted data. The result is
a hypothesis which critics will find
it extremely difficult, if not impossible,
to counter and disprove.
The two highlights of this
book are as follows. One, the
establishment of the Relative
Chronology of the Rigveda vis-à-vis the Avesta
and the Mitanni inscriptions, and of the Geography
of the Rigveda ; followed by a detailed analysis
of the Internal Chronology of the (different
parts of) the Rigveda ; and, finally, the first steps
in the establishment of the Absolute Chronology
of the Rigveda in terms of the actual point of
time BCE when the hymns of the text were composed.
And, two, the presentation of a linguistic
hypothesis which shows finally and conclusively
that the Indian Homeland hypothesis is the only
hypothesis which explains all the linguistic problems
which arise in the course of the quest for
the Original Homeland.
All this has important and far-reaching
implications, not only in resolving the academic
question of the location of the Indo-European
Homeland, and not only in resolving the question
of the linguistic identity of the Harappan or
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna