From: narayana@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Kuram T Narayana)
Subject: Re: On Indian Civilization being the oldest..
Keywords: Aryan, Dravidian, Tamil
Organization: Penn State Computer Science
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 15:26:20 GMT

In article <Bxxy0D.KMK@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> selvakum@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (C.R.Selvakumar - Electrical Engineering) writes:
>
>
>In article <Bxo02t.9ED@cs.psu.edu>, narayana@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Kuram T Narayana) writes:
>
>       [ I had replied to the first half of this article by Narayana
>          and here I am replying to the second half. i had not deleted
>          any parts of Narayana's article to preserve the context. ]
>> 
>> 
>> Do me another favour. You claimed that during prehistoric times, the
>                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Dravidonoids (meaning aboriginals; don't assume that other races
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> are subscribing to your claims or notions) festivals having Rathass
>                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> and so on. Can you show me a simple artifact recording through physical
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> evidence of such a  thing. 
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>         First, *please* try to quote me accurately. I don't think I
>         claimed that dravidianoids used rathas in festivals in
>         PREHISTORIC times. ( can you please indicate in which article

You seem to have a convenient memory lapse. Look through the article 
in which you in response to Rohit Parikh's post that Tamil peoms described
that Rathas were being used in festivals in olden times and  people extensively
used to participate in those festivals. This claim was made with respect to 
prehistoric  times. Now If you are now trying to amend the same to 
200 B.C. onwords, then it is quite possible that they may have used the same. 
Civilizational development in the north was too advanced at that time.
The Mauryas were rulers upto the south, and during this period the
Sathavahanas were ruling the deccan. The sathavahan kingdoms were 
very advanced and were on par with thise of the North. Even in terms of
sea-faring, the Sathavahnas traded with SE Asia and were infact the first 
to bring the Aryan civilizational element into the SE Asia, particularly
Combodia. Any prehistory book on Combodia will give you the details. 

There is a fundamental problem that we face with your posts. When an argument
is presented that cannot be hypothesis tested, then I tend to
ignore that argument; meaning it is crap. Let me give you a simple example
of what that crappy argument has been. You have quoted an ancient poem 
(you did not give any date to it), where some X persion wrote about the
tuft of some Y who was more ancient (apparantly) than X. You quoted this
out of literature.

This is how I study material. The woman in question came up with an abstraction.
It can be a tufty person or any damn object. The woman came from the 
civilization of aboriginals (say). There is another civilization called Vedic
(say) that has also given an identical description. This may be real person
whose description is given or may be an abstraction. 

Abstraction in civilizations has been an integral process. Unfortunately 
dating of civilizations based on abstraction  is a difficult thing. 
If A and B are two civilizations, and O is an abstract object, in order to
claim that B's abstraction of O should hold, you should show the following.

A and B are independent civilizations; none came into contact with the other.
Then B's abstraction of the object is original. Even then you cannot
claim that a prehistoric find matching the description of O is that from the 
civilization B. The reason is that B itself may be a later civilization. 
If A and B are contemporary civilizations, then there is certianly a
dispute about the find. In such a case, you have to show by additional
methods that do not draw upon the abstraction alone. Note that the keyword
is INDEPENDENT.


What happens if civilizations A and B are not Independent. In this case,
the vedic and aboriginal civilizations came into contact with one another.
In order to claim that the object O derives from the aboriginal abstraction,
you have to show that aboriginal civilization was more developed than 
that of the vedic, and further you should show that the abstraction of
O in the vedic civilization is derived from (or influenced by) the 
abstraction of the same object in the aboriginals. By all accounts
of the dating of rg veda, and by the bard tradition (passing down literature
from generation to generation orally), the abstraction of the object O
(in this case the find) is much earlier than the rg veda or atleast that
of rg veda. You have not at all shown that the aboriginal thought was
more developed than the Aryan thought of that time. 

That is the reason why I ignored many of your arguments, because they 
do not show an argumentational ethic.   If you had thought carefully
and had not got carried by your own emotions (hatred towards anything aryan),
you would have seen the meaning of the "gross".

Secondly you come about and question our honesty in hearing the truth. In
addition you blabbar about Sanscritic Brahmins having written their version 
of history. That is offensive to our intellect. 

You claimed that vedas = racist.  You do not acknowledge that Varnasrama
Dharma is distinct from the present day caste system. You think the 
present day caste system is racist (which I don't), and hence vedas
are racist and vedanthists are racist. That is the reason why in stead
of confining yourself, you brought in the abscure notion of Girish
Bonde being a part of some organization which has no relevance
what so ever. You called him racist by implication. All your posts
have been racist. That  is the reason why you were appropriately
reprimanded.

(prior to doing that I responded in a post what is a cultural anaylsis
and is a race based analysis of history. I told you that the notion
of Arayavarta is cultural not racist, and Arayna is cultural. In the
same post I warned you that you posts have racist overtones.) 

If you are able to conduct a discussion in a manner where we can 
academically understand the issues, that is fine with me. But 
if you want to swing in the SCT culture into the discussions with me,
no I will not be a party to it.

...kt

Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil