Talk:Dasa

message: Blck refers to doing it the "goddess" organic way, by going full circle in darkness.
Enemy refers to fleeing from God and entering Goddess Garden.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.225.70.121 (talk) 08:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that supposed to be a reference to Kali-Maa?  In the Samkhya system of philosophy, "male energy" refers to "spirit" and "female energy" refers to "matter". Hokie Tech (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black is Goddess country 

message: There is some evidence that the inhabitants of the Bactria and Margiana Archaeological Complex (referred to in the Rgveda as "Dasas") were goddess worshipers.  The following quote comes from page 370 of the book The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia:
The word tripura has important religious implications. I shall only briefly deal with the religion of the BMAC, which I have examined elsewhere (Parpola 1988: 251-264; also Parpola 1992, 1993, in press). There is widespread evidence for the worship of a goddess connected with lions (for a new BMAC seal with this motif see Sarianidi 1993c), ultimately going back to the traditions of the ancient Near East. Connections with the later Indian worship of Durga, the goddess of victory and fertility escorted by a lion or tiger, the protectress of the stronghold (Durga), are suggested by several things. The ground plan of the Dashly-3 “palace” is strikingly similar to the Tantric mandala (Brentjes 1981; Brentjes 1986: 234; Brentjes 1987: 128f.), the ritual “palace” of the god or goddess in the Hindu cult. A Bactrian seal depicting copulating pairs, both human and animal, reminds one of the orgies associated with the principal festival of the goddess. Wine is associated with the cult of the goddess and may have been enjoyed from the fabulous drinking cups made from silver and gold found in Bactria and Baluchistan, for viticulture is an integral part of the BMAC (Miller 1993: 151, 154). Durga is worshipped in eastern India as Tripura, a name which connects her with the strongholds of the Dasas. Of course, the Sakta tradition of eastern India is far removed from Bactria and the Dasas both temporally and geographically. But the distance between these two traditions can be bridged by means of Vedic and Epic evidence relating to Vratya religion and archaeologically by the strong resemblance between the antennae-hilted swords from BMAC sites in Bactria and the Gangetic Copper Hoards (c. 1700-1500 BC). The linguistic data associated with the Dasas also link them with the easternmost branch of Middle Indo-Aryan, the Magadhi Prakrit. The age-and-area principle of anthropology suggests that the earliest wave of Indo-Aryans was the first to reach the other end of the Subcontinent. 
Hokie Tech (talk) 23:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goddess Worshipers 

message: Is Parpola a reliable source? His writings seem to have received critical pastings, eg: here and here. - Sitush (talk) 09:30, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: If you think what Bryant said is a "critical pasting" I suspect you are rather over-sensitive. Yes, there are many problem with Parpola's model, which have been much discussed. The same sould be said of Renfrew's. But that does not affect the fact that he is a reliable source in Wikipedia's sense. Paul B (talk) 10:17, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I was referring more to the first review but, yes, Bryant is pasting him also. Parpola is reliable in the sense of his academic qualifications, just as much as David Irving and Koenraad Elst, but we usually exercise great care when using sources such as these and certainly do not give them massive amounts of weight. I find it interesting that Parpola was honoured by the political showcase that was the 2010 WCTC. - Sitush (talk) 10:28, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Comparisons to Irving and Elst are completely preposterous, as well as being incorrect (neither ever had a professorship). Parpola is a highly distinguished scholar. He has never been accused of falsifying sources or twisting evidence to promote a political agenda. Even the very book you quote refers to his attempted synthesis as a "gigantic effort" and a "gigantic work". Giving a Dravidian language scholar an award at the World Classical Tamil Conference is hardly evidence of anything political. The fact that many scholars disagree with aspects of Parpola's theories does not make him fringe or unreliable. If you really want to raise this as an issue of reliability you should leave a message the Reliable sources discussion board. Paul B (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Now who is over-reacting? I didn't compare them but rather just pointed out that having academic qualifications is not the be-all, end-all of things. Parpola's seems to me to be an extreme minority viewpoint. He is reliable as far as RSN is concerned, of course, but weight is relevant. - Sitush (talk) 15:51, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Extreme minority viewpoint for what? Parpola tried to link to together masses and masses of linguistic and archaeological evidence. The fact that some aspects of his massive synthesis may be problematic or obsolete does not discredit the overall model. I had assumed we are talking about the 1988 book, which is what Bryant commented on, but I am now guessing you are referring to The Coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the Cultural and Ethnic Identity of the Dasas, which Renfrew's review is about (don't forget he has his own agenda). Is this about the words quoted in the article translating a passage from the RV as "which in their wombs hid the black people"? This seems to be from The Coming of the Aryans to Iran and India, but its source is not cited. In fact Parpola believed that Dasa referred to non-Vedic Indo-Europeans, probably Indo-Iranians. He didn't believe they were "black" in thr modern racial sense. He does make some comments on alleged skin-colour difference in the book, which he correlates to indigenous versus invasive groups, but I don't remember that particular phrase, and don't have the book with me, so I don't know what he was proposing by that translation. Some of the authors quoted here who are doing the "refutations" are the truly unreliable sources. Paul B (talk) 21:36, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Whoa Whoa Whoa! Attacking Renfrew are we? Suggesting that Renfrew has his own agenda. Let me remind you that Renfrew isn't a fringe scholar with an agenda, and his Anatolian hypothesis, even considering its glaring inaccuracies, is one of the major Indo European urheimat hypotheses. Parpola is an established scholar but you have to be aware that many of his views tend to condense around controversial viewpoints, like the extremely whimsical Elamo Dravidian linguistic hypothesis which mainstream scholars probably would not agree with. He also believes in the Dravidian association of not only the Indus Valley Civilization but also places like the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex. Most Indology scholars would probably suggest an unknown linguistic affiliation for the Indus civilization. Actually Renfrew has done nothing on the level Gimbutas did with trying to establish a pseudolinguistic connection between Basque and Pictish or trying to project a goddess worshiping utopia in pre Indo European Europe. I have to say that this almost borders on whimsically inventive propaganda. Although, for the record, the Kurgan hypothesis is still better than the Anatolian hypothesis.Grathmy (talk) 23:37, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read the background to the exchange? No one is "attacking" Renfrew. Of course he has his own agenda. That's just fact. Do you understand that this is about a review written by Renfrew of Parpola, one which Sitush was using to claim that Parpola's book is fringe. Pointing out that Renfrew is not an objective independent critic was relevant to that point. Your assertions about Gimbutas have no relevance to my points or the contents of this page. You seems to be arguing against some imaginary opponent who thinks Renfrew is a goddess-worship aficionado. Paul B (talk) 14:18, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  You misconstrued what I said in its entirety and are erecting your own strawman when you suggest that I think that you think Renfrew is a goddess worshipping afficionado. Clearly you should have been the one reading my response because I very clearly read your exchanges. I only stated what I stated to demonstrate that Renfrew was not as extreme as some of his opponents like Gimbutas whose Kurgan argument is accepted widely by certain parts of the academia despite containing heavy loads of affiliated quackery (aka Old European proto civilization and MOTHER-GODDESS-MANIA). The way in which you suggest that Renfrew has his own agenda and that the "authors doing the refutations were unreliable" seems to me quite reasonably as an invective remark against a mild scholar who made some very solid objective points against Parpola's perceived notions which he [Parpola] took very little effort to justify with actual scientific proof. Renfrew was just pointing out, "again in an objective manner" that Parpola makes unjustified leaps and assumptions when identifying different cultures of antiquity with the Aryans and Dasas without himself [Parpola] being a scholar in the specific area of Central Asian archaeology. Renfrew made no attempts in his review to push his own viewpoints about his own hypothesis as you call it. The fact is pointing out that Renfrew himself isn't an objective independent scholar seems to be taking unwarranted and presumptuous assessments of a scholar as opposed to his specific scholarly work. So read the actual review before making an assessment of Renfrew because I assure you that the actual review has almost nothing to do with Renfrew's personal beliefs about the Indo European language dispersal.Grathmy (talk) 19:00, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parpola reliability? 

message: Dasa#Tvac seems to be pure WP:SYNTH. - Sitush (talk) 10:43, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synthesis 

message: Regarding this edit , I don't think we want to say everything from Welch(Replace with: Barbara West) in the lead. Most of it doesn't fit. For instance, we know that dasi with the meaning of female servant occurs in the Rigveda. The demonologists would need to explain why the Rigvedic people chose to call their female servants demons. Also, using "Aryan" in two senses in the same sentence is too technical for the lead. - Kautilya3 (talk) 20:43, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, the identification of dasa and dasyu appears to be  19th century scholarship. We really don't know whether they were the same or different. Anyway, I am glad you are watching this page! - Kautilya3 (talk) 20:46, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: @Kautilya3: I struck out Welch, and added West above. Translating ancient Sanskrit into contemporary English is always a huge challenge. It is easy to remove the context of the original text, and inadvertently add our own prejudices/hate/love/contexts to it. It is OR to allege and presume, as you do above, that "Rigvedic people chose to call their female servants demons". They didn't to the best of my knowledge, but if you offer a WP:RS who states so, I will read it and get back to you. We need to stick with the sources, and not word it in a way that takes sides as that creates NPOV problem. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:20, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  The source is . For a quick read, you can see Slavery and Religion#Hindu society. (Unfortunately, the old version is pure OR. But let it be for a while. I don't mind.) - Kautilya3 (talk) 21:28, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: @Kautilya3: I see the discussion on page 34-35 of Sharma's 1958 book. It is an old source, speculating with similar sounding words (a tribe transliterated as Sodrai from Alexander era Greek records must be same as what existed 600 to 700 years earlier, or 10th to 8th-century BCE Sudra, he theorizes). We should rely on more recent RS, such as Barbara West's article from 2008. Meanwhile, even in Sharma's book, I don't see any support for the allegation "Rigvedic people chose to call their female servants demons". Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:49, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  The relevant pages for dasis and dasas (the latter occur rarely) are 24-26, according to my write-up in the slavery page. No demons is Sharma's book, of course. No evil either. - Kautilya3 (talk) 21:57, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Also page 20 for the dasa varna. It may be an old book, but it is certainly longer than the one page of West that you seem to rely on. - Kautilya3 (talk) 22:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

text: Please feel free to add other souces. I don't know them that well. (By the way, the online version of the RS Sharma book is from 1990. I didn't know there was a 1990 edition when I bought my copy. So, I give page numbers to both the editions when I can.) Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 23:41, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dasa in Rigveda 

message: I agree that Parpola actually doesn't state that the word Dasa would be from the BMAC language. I confused it with some other content in the book. It's strange that Parpola talks about BMAC forts of Dasas in Rigveda while he also says that the word Dasas might be Saka in origin. Then there is also this western Iranian branch, which also plays around in southern BMAC. It seems like he doesn't explain this little anomaly in the book. --ThaThinThaKiThaTha (talk) 19:53, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The book is really a WP:PRIMARY source, proposing lots of new theories. We have to be careful about how we use it. It is tempting to agree with Parpola that the Dasas and the BMAC people were the same. But that would be going too far, because there is no scholarly consensus about it yet. For now, it is just a theory. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:43, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  BMAC / Dasa