Lies with Long Legs

Lies with Long Legs

1  To this book

2  Contents

3  The Impetus

4  Prologue: We are, what we know

5  What is happening to us?

6  Who paved the way for the “epochal discoverer”

7  #Who is this William Jones?

8  Calcutta – Sir William's Eldorado

9  All trails lead to Calcutta

10  Treading in Sir William’s steps

11  Epilogue: An era of brainwashing

To this book

Our daily life is organised by “information”. World wide. A continuously increasing flow of „information“ leading to more and more consolidated social and political order. „Information“ is brought to us not only through the so-called print and electronic media, but also by our environment, by the family, by educational institutions, etc. extensively. But, where does information come from, where is it produced, who puts it into circulation, what are the channels, how fast does it reach us from its source? Can we really find out? Is it important to know all the facts?

These are the reasons, these are the backgrounds that made our search for answers to our rather harmless questions so difficult, so complicated: who the “Aryans” are, the “Indogermans” and the “Indoeuropeans”? Who they are, since when has their existence been known, how has it become known that they existed, who discovered them, and how, why and for what purpose? But we have made progress in our search. With the help of our unusual questions. And as it seems, we have banged on the Pandora’s box and it is open now.”

Prodosh Aich was born in Calcutta in 1933. High School and studies in philosophy in India. Studies in ethnology, philosophy and sociology at the University of Cologne. University teacher and publicist Taught sociology at Cologne (Germany), Rajasthan (Jaipur, India) and Oldenburg (Germany) universities. Besides books he has published many papers in Readers and learned journals, made radio features and documentary films, in all around 100 titles and participated in radio and television talk-shows. He is still an Indian though he lives for a longer period in Germany than most Germans.

“Lies with long legs” is the 9^th book by Prodosh Aich. “Coloured amongst whites” (1962), “The Indian university (1971), “Social Work” (1972), “As further decline is threatened ...” (1973), “How democratic is local politics in cities?” (1977), “Chances and boundaries of “project-study” (1978), “City-Hall Plunderers” (1986). “The Thorns on a righteous Path“ (2000)

The publication of “The Indian University” and “City-Hall Plunderers” were sabotaged. “The Thorns on a righteous Path“ includes "The Indian University" and narrates the tale of this dispute as a documentary which went on for thirty years.

Contents

To this book

The Impetus

Prologue: We are, what we know

What is happening to us?

Who paved the way for the “epochal discoverer”

Who is this William Jones?

Calcutta – Sir William's Eldorado

All trails lead to Calcutta

Treading in Sir William’s steps

Epilogue: An era of brainwashing

The Impetus

The Faculty of Social Sciences of the Oldenburg University offered, in the winter-term 1996/1997, a seminar on “Might, media and manipulation: The invention of ‘Indogermans’, ‘Indoeuropeans’, ‘Aryans’ as an exemplary case-study.” It is a project of “learning by doing research”, i.e. to start with open questions without prefixing a project plan and not depending on any prefabricated theory.

No one could have anticipated that the seminar would carry on right to the beginning of the winter-term 2000/2001. It was always on the students’ demand, though with some students dropping out and others coming in, the extensions became necessary. The newcomers had to work through the backlog of collected materials, protocols of the sessions, their evaluation, also in terms of time required, and then to develop new facets of further research.

When more than 35 students wished to participate in the seminar it was time for rethinking. A seminar of “learning by doing research” needs a manageable size of between 5 to 15 participants. So in the first session of the term a detailed report was presented on what had already been done and what the open questions were. Thereafter only five participants were left. They decided to evaluate the results achieved so far and to prepare an interim report before proceeding to further research work. In the process of the evaluation, only two participants remained at work. And these were not to undergo any more university-examinations.

They added new materials to fill up the gaps to get a comprehensive view of what had been accomplished. In this process the realisation came that many of the questions would not have arisen at all without the students’ participation. The author thanks all of them and is deeply grateful.

This book is also theirs.

A special acknowledgement is due to Aldo Stowasser. He is one of the two who have completed this project. He joined the seminar in the winter-term 1997/98, at the age of 71. He was born in Fiume, Italy (the town’s name was changed into Rijeka in 1974, as it became part of Yugoslavia, (since 1992 Croatia) and grew up in a multi-lingual environment (Italian, German and Croatian). He enjoyed a substantial humanistic and general education, over which he still has command. In his youth he has attended classes of philosophy for two terms and of law for two more terms at the University of Rome. He can look back to a long life experience in several European countries and to a career in branches as different as travel trade and banking. He is inquisitive and keen to gain new knowledge. Soon he was confronted with “absurdities” of scientific materials and of scientific achievements praised in biographies. He was determined to find out about things, engaged in patient and obstinate research, delivered numerous comprehensive contributions. He is still a polyglot. All translations from the original Latin, Italian and French, as well as a large number of those from English sources are his work. He co-operated in the correction of the manuscript of this book until it actually went into printing.

The methods adopted in this research have been described and substantiated in the Prologue. We do apologise for any obstacle or abridgement which might be found in the report on our journey to the primary sources. In the course of each of the necessary steps we have been startled by the fact that our seemingly simple questions have led to countless corollary questions. Besides, the source-texts are not free from contradictions. We had to read many such texts more than twice. We have marked many of those obstacles by signs. These are exclamation marks, interrogation marks and short comments put in brackets. Many words we have put in inverted commas. These are expressions, terms on which we had to reflect more than twice. This is why we apologise..

We have often wondered why the questions in this book have not been raised earlier by others or by us. Had we been tied up as an integrated part in the establishment called “University” we might not have accomplished this search and research. As we have already indicated, we don’t have to undergo “exams” anymore. And we are beyond the strain of ‘publish or pack up’.

Dr. Gisela Aich has kindly read the manuscript critically at all phases.

Prodosh Aich

Prologue: We are, what we know

We gain knowledge from what knowledgeable people tell us. We readily accept a story if it is consistent, if it does not create a feeling of unease and if it doesn’t contradict our experience and our knowledge stored so far. We save it as an addition, and we increase our knowledge a little. We are inclined to accept stories from afar innocently, even if an inner assessment is due; assuming that our memories are functioning well. We just don’t have the time to look out for “sublime” contradictions. We are accustomed to this process. Mostly, we don’t care about who the narrator is, how he got the story, how he earns his living, who is harmed by the story, who gains and so forth.

We wanted to know about “Aryans”, “Indogermans” and “Indoeuropeans”. And we find many stories. Who doesn’t know them? Most learned people know these stories found in “references”, in “standard books of history” and more detailed in specialised books: The “Aryans”, the grazing nomads, lived in the steppes between the Caspian Sea and the contemporary Chinese western boundary; in “pre-historic” age. How does one define “pre-historic”?

Well! Those grazing nomads had domesticated horses and cows for use in their daily life as the first people in history around 6000 years ago. They discovered copper, iron and other precious metals. They invented bronze and steel. They were well to do. Their population increased. They expanded their “Lebensraum”. Whose living space did they invade? We won’t know. Who is to tell us? Is it important to know? Did they perhaps occupy Lebensraum” of animals only? An earlier “age of discoveries” eventually? Nothing is known yet. If our type of questions were as important, we would have found answers in the end. Are we perhaps on a wrong track?

Some of these grazing nomadic people with cows, horses, copper, iron, bronze and steel emigrated. To the west and to the south. The circumstances of this expansion of “Lebensraum” are either veiled in “early or pre-history” or even buried. We can imagine why they didn’t go into the inhospitable northern regions, into the cold, if some of them really did emigrate. But why did they not expand their “Lebensraum” also eastwards? No one tells us. No one has asked as yet.

But there seems to be no doubt about “expansion” of “Lebensraum” of these people. Naturally, as “cultured” people they had a common language. So the language wandered with them too. Some of these “Aryan wanderers” reached Northwest India. The Hindukush was the only pass through the Himalayan massif. How could these nomads from the Turkmenian steppe find this single pass? Wandering in from an area thousands of kilometres away? Should we be detained by such “useless” questions? Isn’t it enough that that they did find the pass? Otherwise they would not have arrived in India. Did they really arrive? Anyway. They were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed, and obviously “dynamic” as well. Otherwise they could not have made this long journey.

They settled down in Northwest India. They brought their language with them. Quite logically. This was Sanskrit. But without scripts. They invented the device of writing in India only. Had they brought a script with them, we would have found it in their original native land. However, the Sanskrit script was found nowhere. Therefore it is deduced that the need to store their knowledge for future generations in writing was first felt in Northwest India. And they accomplished the job nicely. How long does it usually take for a cultural community to devise a script? “Philologists” or “Comparative Linguists” do not tell us anything about that. We must be content with the fact that “Aryans” from central Asia moving around discovered the Hindukush pass, drove out the inhabitants from this hospitable Northwest India to the South, settled down, acquired new knowledge, invented a script for writing and produced a huge amount of highly sophisticated literature. We naturally won’t know where the initial inhabitants of the North forced the inhabitants of the South to go after they had been forced out from the North. Is it important to know all this?

So far, so good. In the most ancient parts of this literature these “New Indians” called themselves “Aryans”; so we are told. We shall yet have to identify the “historian” who told us these stories for the first time. No one can tell us, however, why should only those grazing Nomads in India call themselves “Aryans” but not their brothers, sisters and cousins elsewhere in Western Europe and/or the ones who remained at home? Why not? Shouldn’t we know?

Let us take it as a fact for the time being. We are assured that the “New Indians” called themselves “Aryans” and the language they brought with them was “Sanskrit”. Up to now Sanskrit has been universally regarded as the best arranged language. As Sanskrit has been found nowhere else, it is logically assumed that the nomadic “Aryans” in central Asia must have spoken a simpler version of Sanskrit. So we are told. This simple form, the early Sanskrit, Sanskrit in its childhood so to say, is called “Protosanskrit”. Well and good. Those ‘Aryans” wandering towards the West also had to take along the same “Protosanskrit” Doesn’t it sound absolutely logical? Well, it didn’t keep its initial form. The language and culture of the “Aryans” did change with time and through encounters with other languages and cultures in different continents. But the “kinship” naturally remained in regard to language and other things. So we are told. A convincing story.

It is supposed to be sufficiently established that there is a close kinship between Sanskrit, the language of the Northwest-Indian “Aryans” on the one hand and Greek, Latin, Germanic and Celtic languages on the other hand. The family of the “Indoeuropeans”. So to speak. And who has discovered and established this kinship? Not those “Aryans” who passed through the Hindukush and created the world-wide known literature like Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras, and so forth and allegedly called themselves “Aryans” in their literature. No! None of them, not in any of their writings, not even once has it been indicated that at some period in central Asia their “Lebensraum” became so congested that a lot of their brothers, sisters, cousins set out on a search for new space to live and emigrated in the end. No! The “Sanskrit-Aryans” did not remember anything else, so it is told, than that they were “Aryans”. An absolute “black out” on all other things. The remote cousins and relatives belonging to the “Abendland” (Occident) claimed the kinship rather late, only while they were engaged in robbing and killing in the “Morgenland” (Orient). They were robbing India indiscriminately; carrying away whatever was not riveted and nailed, occupying the country for enduring exploitation. But they blessed also their remote cousins and relatives first with “language kinship” and then the “Linguistics”. This branch of “science” has also invented the term “language family”, but only in the 19^th century AD, to be more exact, between the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 20^th century.

Terms like “family” and “kinship” however, even when they are designed in the context of languages, develop their intrinsic dynamics. The “occidental” inventiveness was at that period quite effective. The distant cousins from the “occident” deduced consequently that if their languages were from a common origin, then they belonged also to the same family, then there was a “blood relationship” as well; even if this had remained in oblivion for centuries. This was how the “Aryan race” was added to the “Aryan language” hardly fifty years later. And we have also been blessed with further branches of “science”: Ethnology, anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis, and so forth.

In the 1995 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica we can read about these inventions: “During the 19th century there arose a notion – propagated most assiduously by the Comte de Gobineau and later by his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain – of an ‘Aryan race,’ those who spoke Indo-European languages, who were considered to be responsible for all the progress that mankind had made and who were also morally superior to ‘Semites,’ ‘yellows,’ and ‘blacks’. The Nordic, or Germanic, peoples came to be regarded as the purest ‘Aryans’. This notion, which had been repudiated by anthropologists by the second quarter of the 20th century, was seized upon by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and made the basis of the German government policy of exterminating Jews, Gypsies, and other ‘non-Aryans’.”

The second half of the 20th century has proved, however, that this rejection of the “Aryan theory” by anthropologists didn’t have any effect. Shouldn’t the anthropologists, historians, indologists, political scientists and social scientists of this culture have known from their own professional experience that a bare rejection rather confirms? Shouldn’t they have known as “makers” of a “media society” that “denials” rather amplify the refuted statement? What anthropologists or representatives of other new disciplines have undertaken after it was established that the rejection of the theory about the alleged superiority of the Aryan race had had no effect whatsoever?

In 1990 the second revised edition of the biography of German indologists was handed over from the “Max Mueller Bhawan (House)” in New Delhi. The German Institute for Culture in foreign countries is called ”Goethe Institute”. But in India quite interestingly it is called “Max Mueller House”, named after Friedrich Maximilian Mueller. We shall deal with him in detail later. An impressive number of 130 German indologists have been referred to who are known through their publications on the “early history” of India. The youngest one in this “gallery of ancestral portraits” was born in 1931. There are younger indologists, of course, and a lot of young persons are engaged in “research” on this topic in Germany and elsewhere. Many books have been printed; the “Aryan race” lives on and is still going strong.

Helmuth von Glasenapp (1891-1963) wrote a lot in large editions about religion and philosophy. Here we quote from his book, first published in 1963, from “an unabridged paperback edition”, printed in 1997 as a 6th edition: The five world religions. (He did not include Judaism!) Under the heading “The historical development” we read on page 29: “The old city Prayāga (i. e. sacrificial site), which the Muhammadans renamed Allâhâbâd (Allah’s residence) and as such familiar to us, happens to be the holiest place of India because both the holy rivers Ganges and Yamunā join here. That is symbolic for Hinduism: as it is according to its essential spirit also a merger point of two big evolutional streams, though emerging from different origins, merging to a new unit: one of these streams is Aryanism that penetrated from the north four millenniums ago to India and reshaped it to a large extent in linguistic and cultural respect, the other stream is represented by the indigenous element already before the Aryan immigration and has been maintaining its characteristic until today. The origin of Indian culture goes back to the creative synthesis of these two components; through them the Indian religion received its distinct mark, unique in the world.“

Is it not pretty, light, smooth, convincing and sellable in style? Under the heading “The pre-Aryan period” we read on page 31: “The oldest history of India is to us still today a book with seven seals. Ethnographers accept that the oldest inhabitants of the Indian continent, which then did not have its contemporary appearance, were Negroid, standing to their tribal comrades in Africa and Melanesia in spatial and genetic connection. These are supposed to have been forced away by Europides coming from the north to the south and into remote fields and to have been absorbed by degrees so that they are not to be found today anymore in a pure state. Under the Europides, who, moving in several waves, took their residence in the wide country, ancestors of the delicate brown peoples which, with its inherent variety of aspects, had its seat in India talking in Dravidian languages in the south represented the most developed type. ... Fifty years ago (that is around 1913) the prevailing view was still that it were the Aryans who brought a higher culture and religion to India and that the pre Aryan inhabitants of the continent of Ganges, however, had been primitives lacking in culture. This view changed entirely through the great archaeological discoveries made since the years 1921/1922 in the Indus area. In Mohenjo Daro (in the region of Sindh) and in Harappa (in Punjab) the ruins of large cities were then laid open. The spacious buildings, artistic tools and form-beautiful sculptures found there betray a state of culture that was highly superior to that of the Aryans living only in villages that had no developed technique and art yet. This so-called Indus culture shows a striking similarity with the simultaneously existing Near East culture, on the other hand it bears again so individual traits, however, that it can not be considered as a simple subsidiary of the latter and is therefore to be taken as an independent link of the international world culture of the 3rd millennium. ... While some researchers are holding the Induspeople for Indogermans that belonged not to the Aryan branch, but to an older group of this language-family, most accept that they were ancestors of Dravidians and as such to be rather related to the Sumerians and pre-indogerman Mediterranean peoples.”

Isn’t it delightfully narrated? Why didn’t Helmuth von Glasenapp come to the obvious conclusion that the results of excavation led to a thorough collapse of existing theories in “history”? Unfortunately we can not ask him anymore. But we can continue our reading in “The vedic period” on page 32: “Those Aryans who immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC, were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work.”

We must apologise for the long quotation. As earlier mentioned, we are quoting from a large paperback edition. It has a pretentious appendix: “Comparative survey over teachings and customs of the Five Religions”, “Comparative chronological table”, “Regarding the pronunciation of words in Asiatic languages”, “List of the abbreviations”, “Section-wise Literature and Index of names”. A pure “scientific” book at its best. We refrain here from a subject-wise criticism. We ask simply: what were the sources of Helmuth von Glasenapp’s stories, which he tells us in this apparently pretentious book?

So we looked at the bibliography. The first chapter “History of Religion, General Theology” has three sections. The oldest mentioned source for “Overall views” goes back to 1920, for “References” to 1956 and for “Sources” to 1908. The next chapter: "Brahmanism and Hinduism” has two sections for reasons we fail to understand. “References” and “Overall views” are put together. The oldest source referred to here is from 1891 and in “Sources” from 1912. A critical review of sources doesn’t occur. Was every printed word sacrosanct for Helmuth von Glasenapp? What would be the benefit of a critical review of sources?

Isn’t it rather depressing to note what is being sold as science? How does it look like in other “scientific” books? We have not yet been able to identify a different “science-culture”. Therefore, before we go into stories, we have decided to put a few simple questions: who is the narrator, how does he earn his living, who supports his story-telling, who is benefited by his stories and what were his sources. The result of this practice is even more depressing. But first things first. We haven’t been able to detect a single primary source in Helmuth von Glasenapp’s book. But he knew all about human races and their ranking. During the “Tausendjähriges Reich” under Hitler he did not suffer any setback to his career.

Knowing the modern-science-culture as manifested in the book by Helmuth von Glasenapp we are not amazed to note that sources have been referred to in the latest edition of the book, which were first published after 1963, that is after his death. Of course not real sources, but newly printed products. In “notes” we are informed that “a number of other publications, mainly of recent dates, that could be suitable for further studies of the five great religions have been made available”. We would have liked to know, which “spirit” has selected ‘a number of other publications’ and whether this “spirit” has also fumbled in the text. To make the book more sellable, of course!

In one of the “standard history books” in Germany, History of India: from Indus Culture to Today by Hermann Kulke and Dietmer Rothermund, 2nd expanded and revised edition, Beck, Munich 1998, first edition 1982, the same story reads on pages 44-45 as follows: “The second millennium BC witnessed, after the fall of Indus Culture, another important event of the early history of India, when groups of central Asiatic nomads migrated through the Hindukush pass to Northwest India, who called themselves ‘Arya’ in their writings. In 1786 William Jones, the founder of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, discovered close linguistic affinity between Sanskrit, the language of Aryas, and Greek, Latin, and the Germanic and Celtic languages. This epochal finding laid the foundation stone for exploration of the Indo-European family of languages, to which according to our contemporary knowledge more languages belong to than Jones had assumed in the beginning. Since the late 19th century more and more researchers came to the conviction, that the origin of this Indo-European family of languages was to be searched for in the spread of the East European and central Asiatic steppe (We include William Jones in our list for later scrutiny).

The important findings of the early Linguists about the close linguistic affinity within the Indo-European family of languages were however overshadowed increasingly by racial-nationalistic ideologies, in which the origin of one’s own nation was postulated in a mystic-Aryan race. This applies particularly to German nationalistic historians since the 19th century and recently also to nationalistic historians of India. This development led to devastating results in Europe and also resulted recently in India to vehement quarrels between historians and to heavy communal riots. It appears therefore to be appropriate in the context of the early Indian history, to speak of ‘Aryas’ in the German language, to distinguish the mythical primary race of Indo-Europeans of Northwest India more clearly from the ideological construct ‘Arier’ of recent times.”

This quotation is even more cynical than the one circulated in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, isn’t it? Are these “historians” not clandestinely trying to escape the moral responsibility for their so-called scientific doings? Even today they talk about ‘the Indo-European family of languages', but do not tell us which languages are not to be assigned to this family. They act as if all those problems created during the „Tausendjähriges Reich“ had been over for them since long. But do they really believe that it will work if they just spell the term “Aryans” differently? Should it now concern the Indian historians only? Can one be more hypocritical?

So, the immigrating “Aryans” bring the “Aryan” language “Protosanskrit” along with them to Northwest India. Then they refine their language to Sanskrit, devise the Sanskrit script and produce and deliver an abundance of great literature to the world. The “modern historians” specialised on this period and on this area are busy with their dating of events. What else could be more important than to determine precise dates when each and every writing was first published and to dispute on such issues “scientifically” with colleagues in the same field?

Since the emergence of Jainism and Buddhism about 2,600 years ago the history of India is well documented. During that period Sanskrit was no longer spoken. The literature on metaphysics, on science, on history, the books (Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras) and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were, however, already known in the 7th century BC. So the “modern scientists” concluded precisely that this abundance of Sanskrit literature emerged before the 7th century BC only. So far, so good. The conquest and/or immigration is, however, dated around the 15th century BC. How was this dating determined? We add this question to our list of notes to be dealt with later. The ancient Sanskrit literature could accordingly by no means be older than the invasion and/or immigration of the “Aryans”, with Sanskrit as their language.

Rigveda is established as the oldest of the four Vedas because it doesn’t mention the other three Vedas. It is also supposed to be the oldest of all Sanskrit scripts composed around 1200 BC. We cannot see how “scientific” fixing of the dates of these books could particularly enlighten us. We won’t pass judgement on that. We only wonder why we are so totally unable to comprehend the stories told by the “modern historians” and indologists about the origin of Sanskrit literature. It would be unfair not to mention here that there is dissent about the dating acrobatics among these “scientists” as well as among different “scientific” disciplines.

It is agreed by all “modern scientists” that something like an “Aryan invasion” or an “Aryan immigration” must have taken place in India. How else would Sanskrit have found its way to India? A brilliant logic, no doubt. Where else should Sanskrit have come from? Do we find Sanskrit elsewhere? We do not know. No one can tell us. But one fact is striking indeed: the inventors of the theory of the “Aryan invasion” and/or of the “Aryan immigration” resemble the “Aryans” in their physiognomy. Is it only by coincidence? We won’t know. The diligent diggers, the archaeologists have yet to find evidence of an “Aryan conquest”, however. On the contrary. Their finding shocked the “Aryan-looking-scientists” for a while but could not shatter the whole theory. Because the archaeologists are principally unable to disprove the immigration of a language. Immigration of a language does not leave behind archaeological evidence, does it? No one can deny the presence of Sanskrit in India. Does it not brilliantly prove that the “Aryans” did at least immigrate into India?