Thanks, Francesco!

Since it is the weekend some fun (as an antidote to the US political
and economic scene) is in order:

I am aware, as you are, of the current Hindutva sport (or rather
cottage industry) of endlessly chewing out the crazy Indocentric
ideas of K.D. Sethna et Co.

Here a few links sent to me by an industrious rewriter of history,
linguistics etc. -- always uninvited, but thanks anyhow-- :

<http://www.ranajitpal.com/>

<http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2007/2007-12-39.html>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palibothra>

(Wikipedia has been hijacked, as usual; someone should do something
about it).

However, as far as Palimbothra/Pataliputra/Patna is concerned, the
antiquity-frenzy struck Hindutva rewriters do not mention the
excavations in the western outskirts of Patna (remember: the seven
cities of Delhi/Indraprastha!). Several decades ago a large pillared
hall has been excavated there which archaeologists want to link to
the Mauryas. Also, the rivers in the area have slightly shifted
course over the past few millennia which makes that location for
Pataliputra much more likely.

Good discussion of all of this in Schlingloff's older, smallish
monograph:

SCHLINGLOFF, D. 1969. Die altindische Stadt: eine vergleichende
Untersuchung. Wiesbaden: Steiner.

Incidentally, he also discusses a close correspondence in
measurements of the city's wall/towers given by Kautilya's
Arthasastra (early section, obviously) and the descriptions of
Megasthenes/Arrian. --- All of this from memory as I do not have
this booklet at home.

(In the margin, he also demolishes some other myths, such as the
Syenaciti ritual at the early iron age city of Kausambi (west of
Allahabad) : this is a collapsed wall, not the bricks of a Soma
cayana ritual: these guys need "Vedic" fire pits and ritual rituals
anywhere, from the Indus civilization to Kausambi!).

Perhaps we should have a serious discussion why the earth is flat?
(Also in Vedic sources).

Of course, the polyhistor S. Kak (former prof. of electric engineering,
Baton Rouge; now at Oklahoma State U.) will disagree: they knew it was a
spheroid. He has been crowing about his discoveries of advanced
scientific knowledge in the Vedas for decades...

Cheers,

Michael


PS> forgot to mention that O.v. Hinueber also discusses the 'rules'
by which the Greeks transposed Indian names into Greek pronunciation/
writing. Many are Prakrit ones (in 900 BCE??!). Note that Patali -
putra has become [-botra], as expected (why not --botta?) .


On Oct 4, 2008, at 7:37 PM, Francesco Brighenti wrote:

> Michael Witzel wrote:
>
>> As you surely know, or intend with your msg: Palimbothra and
>> Xandrames are the current darlings in Hindutva discussions, as
>> they want to push back the Mauryas to 900 BCE or even earlier
>> (with Buddha at 1900 BCE) -- with no Greek script, Ionic/Attic
>> dialects or Greek ambassadors of Alexander's successors to
>> N. India (all, by necessity, post-326 BCE anyhow) in sight...
>>
>> Antiquity frenzy: a typical weekend topic.
>
> You hit the mark, Michael! Indeed, in my favourite quarrel forum I
> am currently engaged in a multi-front confrontation with some
> exponents of a new wave of Indian self-styled "anti-Jonesian
> historians" whose main occupation consists in backdating the main
> events of Indian history many centuries (or even a millennium and
> more!) before the dates commonly assigned them by the scholars.
>
> Thus we get from them: the date of the Buddha at c. 1800 BCE;
> Kaniska rising to power at c. 1300 BCE; the Mauryas reigning in the
> early first millennium BCE; the grammarian Panini, and even the poet
> Kalidasa, living in the 8th century BCE; the first encounter of the
> Indians with the Greeks placed in the early first millennium BCE (or
> even during the Mycenaean period!) -- thus, paving the way for a
> generalized backdating of the Mahabharata and all the other Indic
> texts mentioning the Yavanas/Yonas (Greeks); etc. etc. etc.
>
> As regards the Mauryas specifically, the typical response provided
> by the exponents of this school of thought to override the
> objections you hint at above is that king Sandrokottus, mentioned by
> Megasthenes and by other classical authors, was not Chandragupta
> Maurya, but Chandragupta I of the Gupta dynasty instead. By thus
> backdating the Gupta dynasty of about six centuries (� la K.D.
> Sethna), these people feel free to fix the date of the Mauryan
> dynasty -- now fully released from the bonds imposed by its
> chronological subordination to datable Greek sources -- after their
> own wishful thinking.
>
> This said, my original question about the location of Megasthenes'
> Palimbothra, the capital of Sandrokottos' reign, concerned the
> claim, made by these "anti-Jonesian historians", that the so-called
> anchor sheet of Indian chronology -- the dating of the Maurya
> Empire, conventionally fixed at 322-185 BCE) -- only rests on Sir
> William Jones' "original sin", i.e. his allegedly flawed
> identification of Sandrokottos with Chandragupta Maurya and of
> Sandrokottos' capital Palimbothra with Pataliputra/Patna. I will now
> try to determine, thanks to the the books that you (Michael) and
> Prof. Aklujkar have kindly pointed me to, whether Jones'
> identifications still today represent the "last word" on this
> subject.
>
> Best wishes,
> Francesco
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
Michael Witzel
witzel@...
<www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm>

Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
1 Bow Street,
Cambridge MA 02138, USA

phone: 1- 617 - 495 3295 (voice & messages), 496 8570, fax 617 - 496
8571;
my direct line: 617- 496 2990