Revelations from the Rig Veda
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Many of you know that i began researching the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) formally about 10 months ago. I am happy to say i have made reasonable progress – my first paper (written jointly with Priya Raju & NK Sreedhar) countering FSW’s arguments is going to be published shortly. My paper on the Bangle Hypothesis has been selected for the Classical Tamil Conference set to happen in June 2010 in Coimbatore.
Rig Veda
I had already showed how the Rig Veda couldn’t have been written by the IVC people. Over time, I realized that the Rig Veda (RV) is a veritable treasure trove to divine the Real History of India. I started looking at who the Vedic people called as demons or enemies and any references to gods of the enemy people.
Kuyava
Interestingly, I found the term Kuyavan, who is a Dasa, who is killed by Indra. There are 6 occurrences of the Dravidian word Kuyava – RV.I.103.8, RV.I.104.3, RV.I.174.7, RV.IV.18.8, RV.VII.19.2, RV.II.1.104.3.
It turns out that, i am the first researcher [Iravatham Mahadevan Sir has acknowledged this] to tie the RV demon Kuyava to the Dravidian word (DEDR 1762) , which means potter, obviously a very important profession for the IVC people. Therefore, if one Dravidian person was identified as a Dasa (an enemy) by the RV people, it is likely there is more to it than meets the eye.
Alongside one of the mentions of Kuyava, there is a mention of Kuyava’s wives – Anjasi and Kulisi. I was breaking my head on what these names could mean and i stumbled upon Kulici – a type of pot [well connected to the potter Kuyavan). Yes, we could question how a type of pot could have become a name of Kuyava’s wife. However, if the Vedic people could take Kuyava, the name of a profession, as a name of a person, then this is also possible, right? Given that the term Kuyava is found in the earliest sections of the RV, the error could be due to their unfamiliarity with the Dravidians, as they may have just arrived into the Indus Region.
I haven’t yet figured out what Anjasi is? Is it also a type of pot?
Namuci
Namuci is the next demon name that got my attention. Namuci was some type of chieftain, not an ordinary enemy. Indra vanquishes him after a lot of difficulty (per the RV). After chasing several deadends, i pursued an idea Priya Raju gave me – is it connected to Padayachi, Pethachi etc. ? The suffix achi is usually used to denote affection – ammucci, appucci, acchan (father in malayalam), or to denote respect – pethachi, padayachi. When i looked at the etymology of ucci it struck a chord – it means head, summit etc. This means Namuci could be Nam + Ucci = where Nam = Our and Ucci = Head – in other words, Chief.
Susna Deva & Mura Deva
RV talks in a derogatory fashion about 2 native gods – Susna Deva and Mura Deva. Several scholars have translated Susna Deva to Phallic God and Mura Deva has been translated as Foolish God (because Mura is an alt. form of Muda which means foolish in Sanskrit).
I was not convinced about these translations. So i started digging into it and I found that in one of the references to Susna, RV talks about the Horn – Sringa in Sanskrit means Horn. Interestingly, Sringara in Sanskrit means passion. That the Horn is a phallic symbol is quite obvious from this. Now we all know who the Phallic God is right? – Shiva. I am not yet able to find out what is the old Dravidian name for Shiva, because Shiva seems to be from Sanskrit.
That the Muradeva could be Muruga was postulated by the Bandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI, Pune in their Annals Volume XXIV from 1943). Again i wasn’t convinced and dug deeper. Interestingly, in one of the references to Muradeva, the RV says the god has bent neck. If you look at Mahadevan Signs #47 & #48 [2nd sign from the right in this pic], which are thought to be symbols of Murugan, you can see the bent neck. The word Muruku in tamil has the meaning of crooked or twisted as well.
Epilog
As you can see, RV is filled with many clues as to the true nature of the peoples, the Vedic people conquered/merged with/assimilated – whatever is your favorite term. What do you all think? Do you agree with me? Do you have any thoughts/ideas that can help me?
Disclaimer – many of what i have said here needs to be taken as a hypothesis and not as a scientific proof. As in the Bangle Hypothesis, which i converted into a scientific 5 page paper, i will be converting this post also into a scientific paper.
Sukumar,
I mentioned about kaali, because that is the background i came from. We can take this as mutual sharing of cultural background.
I am seeing some fundamental assumptions which may need a review here. I am listing some of those.
/** According to my research there were only 3 gods in the IVC – Sun (Shiva – dont know the original name), Earth (Mother Goddess, again dont know the old name) and Moon (Muruka, likely to be the original name).
**/
I dont know how you came to this conclusion. I hope, you might have heard about “Naatukkal” worship. This is what earlier people of tamilnadu, including my community, practiced. i.e. to install a rough stone, and worship them. No statues, No symbols, & No scultpures. In many of our community kula temples, the kaali devi is made up of just clay, and in few areas, its just an ordinary stone, that exists as the main deity. These structures cannot last for long, to remain as proof.
In all probability, IVC should have had many such cultures, for which there could not have any proof. Even the pre-christian paganic cultures had so many gods, which explains a similar possibility of diverse cultures in IVC.
Also, the idols and temples started appearing only after budhists started making statues of Buddha. Prior to that, no such big temples were built.
/** Therefore, just because of the fact that Dravidians in the IVC and Vedic people were enemies doesn’t mean, their enmity will continue for 2,000 years. Hope you are able to understand this?
**/
So we can conclude that both Vedic Culture & IVC culture co-existed during sangam age, without destroying each other. 🙂
/** On the Paripatal – marai porul could have simply meant hidden meaning or profound meaning or something like that. How do you know it meant Vedas?
**/
If marai porul is NOT vedas, then what exactly it is. There are many references in tamil literature where anthanar denotes learned men.. i.e those who had learnt vedas. I would like to know if you have any references where the word “anthanar” is used to denote priests either in sangam literature or in later tamil literature, .
/** By the way, please stick to the subject matter of this post. Paripatal is not connected to this post. **/
Paripadal was first referred by you in the following comment to quote about dravidian gods.. I used the same to quote on Vedic Gods 🙂 .. i think, its still relevant to interpretation of the post..
http://www.sastwingees.org/2010/04/11/revelations-from-the-rig-veda/comment-page-1/#comment-14833
On Archeo-Astronomy:
————————–
I would like to have few points regarding archeo-astronomy which i mentioned in my earlier comments. In our ithihasa, there are lot of astronomical mentions, about position of stars, planets etc during important events. Eg: pattabishakam of Sri Rama, birth of Sri-Krishna etc. These details are carried along with the ithihasa for all these years.
Archeo-astronomy tries to decode the dates by reconstructing the exact date in the past, where all the planets& stars could have been as mentioned in the ithihasa ..
So far, there is no valid reasons, why archeo-astronomy is rejected. If this field is recognized, then we have to relook in to many of the official historical dates, like the dating of RV etc.
Hello Everyone,
It is nice to see so many viewpoints. But let us not argue from our own belief systems and cultural roots only. Many previous attempts to study IVC have suffered from inherent biases one way or the other. In this day and age let us not be prisoners to such biases.
It is always fascinating to read centuries old poems and text to get an idea of what existed then – not only objects and places but also thoughts and ideas. Like the bible the vedas throw a lot of light on ancient thinking and living. But the boundaries and languages then and what we have now are very very different. That is why it is open for interpretation in the course of time.
Almost everyone in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran can lay claim to IVC as their roots and they may be right in some way. Let us objectively analyze all points of view before rushing to conclusions.
I love the debate but not the conclusions with well entrenched beliefs.
Prem
The term IVC is itself under debate. It is also a well entrenched belief. You see a century of white man’s theories have led to people calling the entire civilization as IVC. Notwithstanding the discovery of the River Saraswati and culminating with the Congress government finally admitting it in parliament. Notwithstanding the fire pits so typical of Vedic practices in sites such as Dholavira.
There has been an opinion that Mohanjedaro may have been a place inhabited by the tantric beliefs. You know the Shivalinga is the first most important of the symbologies of the Tantric school. Vignana Bhairava Tantra, the first tantric text, is said to be five thousand years old ! It was a statement made by Osho. So, it is a possibility.
Tantra was an offshoot of Vedas. If this is digested well, then the other pieces of the timeline jigsaw puzzle will fall in place. Especially Atharva Vedic practices led to emanation of Tantra. These are all well known facts.
//Like the bible the vedas throw a lot of light on ancient thinking and living//
This is a comparison that can be very dangerous at times. It is like the strategic American way of dealing with India. That strategy put into practice is this ” Equate India with Pakistan in every account “. We know how much on the receiving end we have been due to this policy.
Bible says creation started in 4004 BC. Vedas say creation is without beginning. Bible says time is linear. Vedas say time is cyclic. Vedas lay rules for entire mankind to emulate. Bible has rules for Israelites alone. Bible says God is love. Vedas say God is just. Bible contains names, histories and therefore history specific and therefor limited by time. Vedic samhitas have no names or history and therefore timeless.
The Sindhu Saraswati Civilization is just a concentrated pot of diverse cultures which had Vedas as their core thread. However much the western historians try to mask this fundamental fact, the truth is coming out every passing day.
Thanks Padma. We need to do some more research on why rooster is called murga in Hindi and then determine if it is a loan word. At this time, it is an interesting hypothesis.
Senthil,
1. I have not made an assumption. I have done some research and i base it on that. You are welcome to do your own research and figure things for yourself. I have said this many times before – modern day practices/rituals cannot that easily be connected to IVC’s practices. the reason being the differences in space and time. However, there are some aspects of tamil culture mentioned in the Sangam literature, which can possibly be connected to IVC – again very difficult to prove. Therefore, current day practices in your village cannot be used as proof but can be used to generate hypotheses.
2. The fact that the Vedic and Dravidian cultures may have lived in harmony in the Sangam age has got nothing to do with the IVC. Rig Veda, one of the foremost religious documents we have clearly articulates the enmity with the local people. We don’t need more proof than that. Especially, we don’t have to look 2,000 year later documents to ascertain whether there was enmity in the Vedic times!
3. The problem is, there are several instances of you picking some arbitrary line in a comment i have written and arguing with me on that, without ever bothering to comment on the main body of the post. This paripatal instance is the Nth time it is happening on this blog. As far as i am concerned, in my research, Paripatal’s interpretations have been doctored. And it appears from Venkat’s comments, whole sections have been added to suit the Thirumaal=Vishnu interpretation. If you believe that Paripatal is an Aryan document and the Thirumaal present in Paripatal is Vishnu, please feel free to hold that opinion.
4. Archeo Astronomy per se is not wrong. The problem is, people pickup some shloka from some document, try to interpret it as a rare astronomical event and then use Archeo Astronomy to find a date for that rare astronomical event. The problem lies in the first step – the identification of the rare astronomical event. I hope you can understand the distinction i am making. If this doesn’t suit you, and you feel the way Archeo Astronomy is applied is correct and RV is dated to whatever date that you like, that is fine, please feel free to hold that opinion.
Hope that helps?
Prem,
you make a great point about ideology. However, we as Indians find it very hard to shake off our ideologies especially when it concerns the Vedas and Aryan/Dravidian concepts. Therefore, it is unlikely a subject matter of the type i included in the post can be discussed in an unbiased manner. It doesn’t happen even in the Academic community, so it is not surprising it doesn’t happen in a non-academic community like ours on this blog.
I am not a researcher but a seeker. Here are some things to study and correlate:
Genetics
With the DNA sequenced it should be possible to track the movement of civilization. It is surmised that humans evolved from the southern hemisphere and moved north and spread – from Southern Africa. May be even from South America and Australasia (there is even this Gondwana theory which says all these landmasses were together and later split). It will be interesting to test the theory of movement of natives in India from south to north instead of presuming the movement was always from north to south. May be it was a bit of both.
Races
The fascinating aspect of Devas & Asuras is something to deeply analyze. The description of Devas as fair and tall and Asuras as dark and stocky leads to speculation of Aryans (Devas) and Dravidians (Asuras). The Asuras’ benefactor was Shiva. Not just Shiva but also Rama, Krishna & Draupadi are described as dark skinned. Interesting isn’t it?
Linguistics
This is always contentious as everybody seeks to term that their language was there first. But it should be possible and some scholars have traced the development of languages as civilization spread. This is not to find out which language came first but to study the adaptation and transformation of names and words. For this I think we should also study languages from Egypt, Iran and Afghanistan and not just stick to Tamil & Sanskrit.
Town Planning
The remarkable aspect of IVC was the structured town planning. There are of course contention here of whether Dravidians did that or whether the Aryans did that. It will be interesting to study the excavations in all the directions from IVC (not just to the east and south of IVC) to study the trend of towns/cities in the region.
Prem,
All those areas you have mentioned and more are being researched and tons of material is available. If you are really interested in this field, you could find the material right on the internet.
Thanks Sukumar. But I don’t see these aspects used to corraborate key points in this debate.
///And it appears from Venkat’s comments, whole sections have been added to suit the Thirumaal=Vishnu interpretation////
Sukumar,
I am referring to the internet archive of Paripadal as I do not have a printed book yet. Like I did for the Vedic mantras, I can send commentaries from the ‘accepted’ portion too. Time is a constraint and even if I do to prove that Hinduism was a seamless entity whether belonging to Aryan or Dravidian tribes, whether ParipAdal or ThirukkuRaL , what guarantee is there that you will accept that ?
You may simply say ‘I disagree and let us move on’ :)-
Prem,
My research focus is the Indus Valley Civilization. I have done enough research to convince myself that the approach i am taking is scientifically correct. I am sure you know the approach i am taking from the posts i have written. As we have seen in the comments, there are people who disagree with my approach and inferences both in this blog as well as in the research community. I don’t think i can convince them that my approach and inferences are correct. I don’t think that is necessary for my research work to proceed.
As for you, you may want to read the research material on the internet and make up your own mind.
Venkat,
Thanks for your offer. I disagree with the accepted interpretations of Paripatal as well as the interpretations of the Rig Veda which you quoted in your previous comment. You are not going to convince me on these topics. Please move on.
As expected Sukumar. Facing criticisms and living with contradictions don’t come so easily. You have so nicely summed it up all when you said, ” You are not going to convince me “. A discussion is a share. I never tried to convince you but just put up my views. When you acknowledged that my attempt was to convince you, I realized you were on a sticky wicket.
As also expected, you could not send a suitable reply to my posts but satisfied yourself with lateral jabs that were too plain excuses.
////Please move on////
Yes, I am moving. But knowing your itch for a last laugh, I will leave it just here to help you have one.
Bye
Venkat
Great Hypothesis Sukumar.
I think you are right about Kuvayan.Infact I could be wrong about this but Kuvayan sounds so similar to Kuruvan,Murugan as the story goes took the form of Kuravan to marry Valli who was a Kuarathi again Kurathi and Kulachi sound really similar ,so Kuvayan could be the orgin of Valli thirumanan myth.
Anjasi means not dark in Sanskrit i guess.It could be loan word from a Dravidian word .I am trying to shoot an arrow in dark but she could be the daughter of Indra (Devyani) who married murugan.This myth of murugan marrying a daugther of Indra could be later incorporation.
Karthik,
Sorry i missed this comment. Both Kuyavan and Kuravan are separate words. Why would they mistakenly call Kuravan and Kuyavan?
As i explained, we cannot look for Sanskrit meanings of Loan names. Anjasi most likely is a dravidian word. Could it be the later Devyani? That is an interesting guess.
Sukumar,
/** Archeo Astronomy per se is not wrong. The problem is, people pickup some shloka from some document, try to interpret it as a rare astronomical event and then use Archeo Astronomy to find a date for that rare astronomical event.
**/
Although there are many who have produced articles on Archeo-astronomy in india, i would quote R.N.Iyengar’s version, which dates mahabharatha to 1493 BC or 2109 BC, and his paper was published in “Indian Journal of History of Science”, the link which is given below.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6178143/Archaeoastronomical-Dating-of-Mahabharata-by-RNIyengar-2003-IJHS
These are NOT some sloka from some document. R.N. Iyengar has made specific references to events in Mahabharatha.
/** The problem lies in the first step – the identification of the rare astronomical event. **/
With reference to the above document of R.N Iyengar, i would like to know where does the problem arise, when the source and the astronomical events are clearly mentioned.
/** I hope you can understand the distinction i am making. If this doesn’t suit you, and you feel the way Archeo Astronomy is applied is correct and RV is dated to whatever date that you like, that is fine, please feel free to hold that opinion.
**/
Really, the distinction is not clear, as the problem you specified itself is countered. Secondly, its not about what i feel about archeo astronomy.. rather, i am pushing this to public debate, mainly for the reason for its potential to calculate the date of our ithihasa. So its not a matter of opinion, but a matter of accepting archeo-astronomy as one of the ways to find historic dates.
Please note that I am not rigid on dates. The dates may vary, and we can very well discuss/debate in a separate post. But pushing it as a personal opinion is what i am resisting here.
The exact reason why scientific community and other researchers outrightly reject archeo-astronomy is that it will completely negate all the existing academic proofs on dates on indian history.
The dates of RV, IVC and all other existing conclusions would have to be reviewed.
Senthil,
That is an interesting link you provided. As i pointed out already, it suffers from the same problem, interpreting a celestial event as a rare astronomical event and then proceeds to use archeo astronomy to find the date.
The main problem is, our ancient documents, mention astronomical events in the passing for example Mahabharata in this particular article’s case. So it is left to the people interpreting.
The other problem is, the dates from archeo-astronomy doesn’t correlate with other evidences from archaeology, linguistics etc. That is the main reason, scholars don’t accept archeo-astronomy dates that easily.
I will never have an objection to something that is scientifically proven. Unfortunately, the interpretation of the astronomical events from the scriptures/ancient documents is not done scientfically.
Sukumar,
I might have mentioned this to you before. In sanga ilakiyam days, it’s mentioned that people used their profession to introduce themselves to strangers and used their name only to people from their community or people they know. IVC folks might have used their profession to introduce themselves. I remember reading about it in High school tamil about sanga ilakiyam.
Hence, Kuyava makes sense as a name. I am not sure if RV folks made a mistake. It might be that it’s the only name they know for the person.
For folks who didn’t have a profession – my guess is that they would have used a certain characteristic about themselves to introduce themselves rather than by their name. We might want to think about Anjasi and Kulisi in that context.
NK,
Yes you did mention this to me. I am yet to find the reference to this from Sangam literature. But i actually believe your assertion to be correct. However, given that the community would have had names internally within the community, it points to lack of understanding of how the naming conventions worked for the vedic people. Even today, we call people by their ataimozhi which may be a vestige of this practice – it is not anbumani but maruthuvar ayya.
Sukumar,
/** The main problem is, our ancient documents, mention astronomical events in the passing for example Mahabharata in this particular article’s case. So it is left to the people interpreting.
**/
Ithihasa like mahabharatha is a story, and astronomical details are present only as a passing, in the form of astrological predictions. We know that astrology is a common practice in Hindu civilization that continues for thousands of years.
What i could find is outright rejection of the link i have given, without any substantiation.. I would like to have substantiated refutes of the article i have given, like how exactly the prediction of R.N Iyengar is unscientific or problematic ..
/** The other problem is, the dates from archeo-astronomy doesn’t correlate with other evidences from archaeology, linguistics etc. That is the main reason, scholars don’t accept archeo-astronomy dates that easily.
**/
The dates may not correlate from archeology.. but which date is wrong, is debatable.. In my view, the details that we get from the ithihasas are more lively and authentic, as it relies on celestial events that is cyclic, which means we can reproduce the same any number of years later. In the case of archeological evidence, we dont have this liveliness..
In western countries, they do use archeoastronomy to reproduce any mention of winter solstice, or equinoxes as a complementary to the mainstream history. (Pls refer http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/ ) .. here we have more detailed celestial events, which requires more research..
Senthil,
I don’t have the time to explain to you why the article you provided is inaccurate. If you carefully consider what i said about archaeo astronomy and then look at the article’s findings you will understand yourself.
Siva & parvati are dravidian god, siva means read that is sivapu or sembu, after the mirgated people so aryan got mingled with the dravidian they started following the dravidian form of worship, univerally you can find the stone,tree, nature , form of worship its dravidian form. Dravdian’s more advance people in all the areas which arayns followed. we can still find the lot of similarity worhip across the world .
I belongs to koiri community from East Utter Pradesh. Which has great association with Maurya, Shakya community. I our village language, when something gets twisted and gets bend we say it has got “MURUK” in our local language of bhojpuri around Ghazipur dist. I think your derived meaning is justified.
Thanks a lot Jai. that is very interesting that the word muruk still survives in the koiri language.