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Michael Witzel
61 quotes
“The river Yavyavati is mentioned once in the RV; it has been identified with the Zhob in E. Afghanistan. At PB 25.7.2, however, nothing points to such a W. localisation. The persons connected with it are known to have stayed in the Vibhinduka country, a part of the Kuru-PañcAla land.” [....] “A dolphin lying on the sands, dried out by the North wind, could refer to the Gangetic dolphin, as in fact it does at 1.176...”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: India and the Ancient World: History, Trade and Culture Before A.D. 650 edited by Gilbert Pollet (Paper by Michael Witzel), Department Oriëntalistiek Leuven, 1987.
“India possesses, it is true, a class of texts that proclaims to be a history of the subcontinent, the Puranas. …..Nevertheless, they have been used uncritically, e.g., by some historians such as R. Thapar, and by modern archaeologists as materials to establish their identifications of particular pre-historic cultures.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1990. On Indian Historical Writing. pp. 1-57 in ‘Nihon Minami Ajia Gakkai: Hatsubai Tokyo Daigaku Shuppanaki. Tokyo
“Poets such as Śamyu Bārhapatasya 6.45.1, some early Kaṇvas (in book 8) [belong to the] Early Ṛgvedic level.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 1997b: The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu. Witzel, Michael. in ―Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts, ed. by M.Witzel, Cambridge 1997 (being the proceedings of the I…
“[…] the Vedas were composed orally and they always were and still are, to some extent, oral literature. They must be regarded as tape recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and usually without the change of a single word.” (WITZEL 1997b:258).”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 1997b: The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu. Witzel, Michael. in “Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts”, ed. by M.Witzel, Cambridge 1997 (being the proceedings of the …
“At the outset, it must be underlined that the Vedic texts excel among other early texts of other cultures in that they are 'tape recordings' of this archaic period. They were not allowed to be changed: not one word, not a syllable, not even a tonal accent. If this sounds unbelievable, it may be pointed out that they even preserve special cases of main clause and secondary clause intonation, items that have even escaped the sharp ears of early Indian grammarians. These texts are therefore better than any manuscript, and as good―if not better―than any contemporary inscription" (WITZEL 1999a:3).”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 1999a: Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages. Witzel, Michael. in MOTHER TONGUE, Special Issue, 1999.
“I would not care, eg, if the IA-s could be shown to emerge from the proto-Masai culture of E-Africa.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prof Witzel’s reply to Subhramanya on 24/5/1998: as quoted and attributed by Nicholas Kazanas, The AIT and scholarship, 2001
“In Europe, river names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C. (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe)... “in northern India rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on" (WITZEL 1995a:104-105).”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 1995a: Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters. Witzel. Michael. pp. 85-125 in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin, 1995.
“Something of this fear of the horse and of the thundering chariot, the "tank" of the 2nd millennium B.C. is transparent in the famous horse 'Dadhikra' of the Puru king Trasadasya ("Tremble enemy" in RV 4.38.8) ……..The first appearance of thundering chariots must have stricken the local population with terror similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and the Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“apart from archaeology, our principal source for the early period must be. the Rigveda…”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since the SarasvatI, which dries up progressively after the mid 2nd millennium BC is still described as a mighty river in the Rigveda, the earliest hymns in the latter must have been composed by C.1500 BC. (p. 98)”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“in contrast to its close relatives in Iran (Avestan, Old Persian), Vedic Sanskrit is already an Indian language”. (p 108)”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In South Asia, relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan place-names survive in the North; however, many more in central and southern India. Indo-Aryan place-names are generally not very old, since the towns themselves are relatively late.” (p 104)”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A better case for the early linguistic and ethnic history of South Asia can be made by investigating the names of rivers. In Europe river-names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 BC (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe). It would be fascinating to gain a similar vantage point for the prehistory of South Asia.” (p 104-5)”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“in northern India, rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on.” (p 105)”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Between the arrival of the Aryans ... and the formation of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda a much longer period must have elapsed than is normally thought.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Other evidence, from Mitanni and neo-Hittite sources, indicates that the names of Mitanni kings were traditionally Indo-Aryan, even though the Mitanni belonged to the Hurrian-speaking peoples. We therefore surmise that the Mitanni once lived close to an early Indo-Aryan group, that had perhaps taken a dominant position over the pre-Mitanni population, and then became quickly acculturated as Hurrian speakers.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters. Witzel. Michael. pp. 85-125 in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin, 1995. (WITZEL 1995:110).
“[rice first appears in the Atharvaveda] unless the Ṛgvedic words (brahma-)-udana and puroḷāś mean a certain rice dish, as they do later on.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 1995:102
“It is interesting to note, however, that some of these [Rigvedic] names are found in Iranian forms closer to the older, Ṛgvedic home [Afghanistan!] of the Vedic tribes […] It seems that the Iranians simply changed the old Indo-Iranian names into their respective Iranian forms when they moved into the area, while the Vedic, Indo-Aryan speakers took some of these names with them eastwards, up to Bihar, in the typical fashion of people on the move.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The structure of the text has been more extensively studied, already by Bergaigne (1878-83) and Oldenberg in the 19th century. From the latter's Prolegomena (Oldenberg 1888), it appears that the Ṛgveda was composed and assembled in the following stages, beginning 'at the centre' with books 2-7" (WITZEL 1995b:309).”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[the SarasvatI is] “prominent in Book 7: it flows from the mountains to the sea (7.95.2) - which would put the battle of 10 kings prior to 1500 BC or so due to the now well-documented dessication of the SarasvatI”. (p. 335)”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“books 2 to 7 (usually referred to as the ‘family books’) … have been ordered according to the increasing number of hymns per book” ... “very important principle in their arrangement.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By contrast, the Pürus, who along with the Bharatas appeared on the scene later, began to use the designation “Five Peoples” immediately: as discussed above, they probably regarded themselves as being located at the centre. In the later books the tribes mentioned include both the older “Five Peoples” as well as the newcomers, namely the Pürus and the Bharatas.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We know very little about the Püru domination in the Panjab. It is only clear that they were the leaders in a coalition of Five Peoples, and some other tribes, against the Bharata chief Sudäs in the dasaräjna battle.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The entire book 7 is thus a snapshot o f history: the incursion o f the Bharata into the Panjab from across the Sindhu, and their battle with the “Five Peoples” and the Püru.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Theoretically, since Gartsamada Saunaka [the eponymous Rsi of Mandala II of the Rigveda] is made a Bhargava, he could be later than Book 6.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“all these geographical notes belonging to diverse hymns are attributed to one and the same poet, SyAvASva, which is indicative of the poet’s travels.” [about Mandala 5 of the RV]”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Book 5 [...] even knows, in a hymn not suspected as an addition, of the Yamunā.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Book 6, again, knows of the west (including the Yavyävatp) but once mentions even the Ganga in an unsuspicious hymn [a hymn not suspected to be an addition].”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]hile it would be easy to assume reference to skin colour, this would go against the spirit of the hymns: for Vedic poets, black always signifies evil, and any other meaning would be secondary in these contexts.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 3 .. (1995b, 325, fn).
“There is the following direct statement contained in the (admittedly much later) BSS, 18.44:397.9 sqq which has once again been over-looked, not having been translated yet: ‘Ayu went eastwards. His (people) are the Kuru-PañcAla and the KASI-Videha. This is the Ayava (migration). (His other people) stayed at home in the West. His people are the GAndhArI, ParSu and AraTTa. This is the AmAvasava (group)’.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Michael Witzel, Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and polities. in : The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity edited by George Erdosy (Papers by Michael Witzel and P. Oktor Skjærv…
“[Kurukṣetra] became the heartland of the Bharatas well into the Vedic period. It is here that 3.53.11 places the centre of the earth.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even a brief look at this list indicates that in northern India, by and large, only Sanskritic river names seem to survive.... [he notes that over 90% don't just look IA but] “are etymologically clear and generally have a meaning” [in Indo-Aryan]... [He attributes this unexpectedly large etymological transparency to] “the ever-increasing process of changing older names by popular etymology”. ... [Sindhu might be an] “Indo-Iranian coinage with the meaning ‘border river, ocean’ and fits Paul Thieme's etymology from the IE root *sidh, ‘to divide’”.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 500 BC wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Witzel, Michael. 1999a. “Aryan and Non-Aryan names in Vedic India. Data for the Linguistic Situation, c.1900–500 BC.” In Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia, edited by J. Bronkhorst and M. Deshpande, Harvard Oriental Seri…
“So far archaeology and palaeontology, based on multi-variate analysis of skeletal features, have not found a new wave of immigration into the subcontinent after 4500 BCE (a separation between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic populations of Mehrgarh), and up to 800 BCE.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2001. Autochthonous Aryans? EJVS 7-3, 1-93. quoted from Kazanas, N. (2002). Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 30(3-4), 275-334.
“Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N. S. Rajaram... who ship their ideas to India from U.S. shores.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Witzel, Michael and Steve Farmer. 2000. Horseplay in Harappa Frontline, 17(20), September 30-October 13.
“Given the scholarly inclinations among the expatriate communities in North America we may expect a slew of new interpretations, in fact, a whole new cottage industry. Their impact will appear especially on the internet.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Witzel, M. N. Jha and N.S. Rajaram, The deciphered Indus script. Methodology, readings, interpretation. (2000)
“Not only the language, but also the culture of the newly arrived elite was appropriated, including the 'Vedic Tank' the horse drawn chariot.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Posted in IndicTraditions Yahoogroup (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indictraditions/) on 11 December 2000, message # 2735 (also quoted in Vigil, 'Thus Spake Professor Michael Witzel A Harvard University Case Study in Pr…
“I have also since changed my opinion, based on new evidence, about the relative date of the bulk of RV2 which I would now include in the mid-level texts”.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL, Michael .2001. “WESTWARD HO! The Incredible Wanderlust of the Rgvedic Tribes Exposed by S. Talageri” in EJVS 7.2. Quoted in TALAGERI, Shrikant G. 2001. Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book.
“This word [Druhyu] means, literally, ‘the ones who seek to cheat’. Non-linguist as he is, Talageri missed a great chance for a ‘socio-ethnic’ study based on an etymology!”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Witzel writing about the word Druhyu. Michael Witzel’s Review Article titled “WESTWARD HO! The Incredible Wanderlust of the Rgvedic Tribes Exposed by S. Talageri”. Also quoted in Michael Witzel – An Examination of his R…
“Other writers in Kazanas’ class, including D. Frawley, K. Elst, and N. S. Rajaram, have already caused significant damage to linguistics, philology, Indology, archaeology, and history.... In the fundamentalist/nationalistic circles from, which Kazanas draws support – despite his pretense of political naivete.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ‘Ein Fremdling im Rgveda’ (Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 31, No.1-2: pp.107-185, 2003)
“The so-called ‘invasion’ of IA speakers is not (yet) visible in the archaeology.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Michael Witzel (2006): “Rama’s Realm: Indocentric Rewritings of Early South Asian History”, in Garrett Fagan (ed.), Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public, London …
“In general, the books of RV level I (RV 4-6) are thoroughly South Asian and have reference to local climate, trees and animals. We therefore have to take them seriously at their word, and cannot claim that they belong just to Afghanistan.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 2000: The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000. (WITZEL 2000a:§13). Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.
“It must be underlined that just like an ancient inscription, these words have not changed since the composition of these hymns c.1500 BCE, as the RV has been transmitted almost without any change […] The modern oral recitation of the RV is a tape recording of c.1700-1200 BCE.” (WITZEL 2000a:§8).”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 2000a: The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000.
“The IAs, as described in the RV, represent something definitely new in the subcontinent […] The obvious conclusion should be that these new elements somehow came from the outside.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Italics in the original. (WITZEL 2005:343) WITZEL 2005: Indocentrism: autochthonous visions of ancient India. Witzel, Michael. pp.341-404, in “The Indo-Aryan Controversy — Evidence and Inference in Indian history”, ed.E…
“Elst disingenuously insists on calling any migration or even a ‘trickling in’ an ‘invasion’. However, immigration/trickling in and acculturation are entirely different from a (military) invasion, or from overpowering and/or eradicating the local population.... For Elst, however, ‘the ancient Hindus colonized the world’ while India, in reality, by and large, has been a cul de sac.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Witzel, Michael in Bryant & Patton, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.
“[the Mitanni IA language] is attested by a number of OIA loan words in the non-IE Hurrite language of the Mit. realm of northern Iraq/Syria (c.1460-1330 BCE). The loans cover the semantic fields of horses, their colors, horse racing, and chariots, some important ‘Vedic‘ gods, and a large array of personal names adopted by the ruling class.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (WITZEL 2005:361).
“The Kassite conquerors of Mesopotamia (c.1677-1152 BCE) have a sun god Šuriiaš, perhaps also the Marut and maybe even Bhaga (Bugaš?), as well as the personal name Abirat(t)aš (Abhiratha); but otherwise the vocabulary of their largely unknown language hardly shows any IA influence, not even in their many designations for the horse and horse names.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (WITZEL 2005:362).
“Chicken and still later exports from India are absent in common Laurasan ritual.”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Witzel Michael. Origins of the World’s Myths (Oxford University Press 2013) (p.395)
“North-West India was a large "colonial" area, where the Indo-Iranian or early Vedic immigrant clans and tribes (including their poets) were struggling with each other and with more numerous local populations of non-Aryan descent which belonged to the post-Indus civilizations (c. 1900 B.C. and later).... The immigrating group(s) may have been relatively small one(s), such as Normans who came to England in 1066 and who nearly turned England into French speaking country- while they originally had been Scandinavians, speaking N. Germanic. This may supply a model for the Indo-Aryan immigration as well...…..However, the introduction of the horse and especially of the horse-drawn chariot was a powerful weapon in the hands of the Indo-Aryans. It must have helped to secure military and political dominance even if some of the local elite were indeed quick to introduce the new cattle-based economy and the weapon, the horse drawn chariot, - just as the Near Eastern peoples did on a much larger and planned scale. If they had resided and intermarried with the local population of the northern borderlands of Iran (the so called Bactro-Margiana Archaeological complex) for some centuries, the immigrating Indo-Aryan clans and tribes may originally have looked like Bactrians, Afghanis or Kashmiris, and must have been racially submerged quickly in the population of the Punjab, just like later immigrants whose staging area was in Bactria as well: the Saka, Kusana, Huns, etc……”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Witzel, Michael; Lubotsky, A; M. S. Oort, M. S. (Eds.); 1997; F. B. J. Kuiper- Selected Witings on Indian Linguistics and Philology; Rodopi; Amsterdam/Atlanta. Introduction by Witzel, quoted in What is the Aryan Migrati…
“Right from the beginning, in Ṛgvedic times, elaborate steps were taken to insure the exact reproduction of the words of the ancient poets. As a result, the Ṛgveda still has the exact same wording in such distant regions as Kashmir, Kerala and Orissa, and even the long-extinct musical accents have been preserved. Vedic transmission is thus superior to that of the Hebrew or Greek Bible, or the Greek, Latin and Chinese classics. We can actually regard present-day Ṛgveda recitation as a tape recording of what was composed and recited some 3000 years ago. In addition, unlike the constantly reformulated Epics and Purāṇas, the Vedic texts contain contemporary materials. They can serve as snapshots of the political and cultural situation of the particular period and area in which they were composed. […] as they are contemporary, and faithfully preserved, these texts are equivalent to inscriptions. […] they are immediate and unchanged evidence, a sort of oral history ― and sometimes autobiography ― of the period, frequently fixed and ‘taped’ immediately after the event by poetic formulation. These aspects of the Vedas have never been sufficiently stressed […]” (WITZEL 1995a:91).”
Michael Witzel (born 1943) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WITZEL 1995a: Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters. Witzel. Michael. pp. 85-125 in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin, 1995.
“River names in northern India are thus principally Sanskrit, with few indications of Dravidian, MuNDa or Tibeto-Burmese names. However, Kosala, with its uncharacteristic -s- after -o- may be Tibeto-Burmese (Sanskrit rules would demand KoSala or KoSala, a corrected form that is indeed adopted in the Epics).” ... To sum up, what does the evidence of hydronomy tell us? Clearly there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanisation in northern India; this has progressed much less in southern India and in the often inaccessible parts of central India. In the northwest there are only a few exceptions, such as the names of the rivers GangA, SutudrI and perhaps KubhA.” (p 106-7)”
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