The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture

The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture PDF Author: Edwin Bryant
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195169476
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This work studies how Indian scholars have rejected the idea of an external origin of the Indo-Aryans, by questioning the logic assumptions and methods upon which the theory is based.

The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture

The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture PDF Author: Edwin Bryant
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195169476
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This work studies how Indian scholars have rejected the idea of an external origin of the Indo-Aryans, by questioning the logic assumptions and methods upon which the theory is based.

Indo-Aryan Thought and Culture and Their Bearing on Present Day Problems in India

Indo-Aryan Thought and Culture and Their Bearing on Present Day Problems in India PDF Author: Prabhakar S. Shilotri
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia

The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia PDF Author: George Erdosy
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110816431
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description


The Roots of Hinduism

The Roots of Hinduism PDF Author: Asko Parpola
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190226935
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India PDF Author: David Frawley
Publisher: South Asia Books
ISBN: 9788185990200
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Aryans, Jews, Brahmins

Aryans, Jews, Brahmins PDF Author: Dorothy M. Figueira
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791487830
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
In Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, Dorothy M. Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West's Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain "pure." As Figueira demonstrates, the history of the Aryan myth is also a history of reading, interpretation, and imaginative construction. Initially, the ideology of the Aryan was imposed upon absent or false texts. Over time, it involved strategies of constructing, evoking, or distorting the canon. Each construction of racial identity was concerned with key issues of reading: canonicity, textual accessibility, interpretive strategies of reading, and ideal readers. The book's cross-cultural investigation demonstrates how identities can be and are created from texts and illuminates an engrossing, often disturbing history that arose from these creations.

Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture

Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture PDF Author: J. P. Mallory
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9781884964985
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 890

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Book Description
The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture is a major new reference work that provides full, inclusive coverage of the major Indo-European language stocks, their origins, and the range of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. The Encyclopedia also includes numerous entries on archaeological cultures having some relationship to the origin and dispersal of Indo-European groups -- as well as entries on some of the major issues in Indo-European cultural studies.There are two kinds of entries in the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture: a) those that are devoted to archaeology, culture, or the various Indo -European languages; and b) those that are devoted to the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European words.Entries may be accessed either via the General Index or the List of Topics: Entries by Category where all individual reconstructed head-forms can also be found. Reference may also be made to the Language Indices.In order to make the book as accessible as possible to the non-specialist, the Editors have provided a list of Abbreviations and Definitions, which includes a number of definitions of specialist terms (primarily linguistic) with which readers may not be acquainted. As the writing systems of many Indo-European groups vary considerably in terms of phonological representation, there is also included a list of Phonetic Definitions.With more than 700 entries, written by specialists from around the world, the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture has become an essential reference text in this field.

Which of Us are Aryans?

Which of Us are Aryans? PDF Author: Romila Thapar
Publisher: Rupa Publications
ISBN: 9789388292382
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
The question of which of us is Aryan is one of the most contentious in India today. In this eye-opening book, scholars and experts critically examine the Aryan issue by analysing history, genetics, early Vedic scriptures, archaeology and linguistics to test and debunk various hypotheses, myths, facts and theories that are currently in vogue.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language PDF Author: David W. Anthony
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831105
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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Book Description
Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization. Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

The Luwians

The Luwians PDF Author: Craig Melchert
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047402146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
The Luwians played at least as important a role as the Hittites in the history of the Ancient Near East during the second and first millennia BCE, but for various reasons they have been overshadowed by and even confused with their more famous relatives and neighbours. Redressing this imbalance, the present volume by an international team of scholars offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art appraisal of the Luwians, the first of its kind in English. A brief introduction sets the context and confronts the problem of defining 'the Luwians'. Following chapters describe their prehistory, history, writing and language, religion, and material culture.