5 ms·

The Rigveda is not 5000yrs old, but rather is closer to 3900 years old, at most. This is based on linguistic evidence, as well as geographic and biological name

The Rigveda is not 5000yrs old, but rather is closer to 3900 years old, at most. This is based on linguistic evidence, as well as geographic and biological names in the Rigveda

adictator 5y ago
The same linguistic, geological & climatological evidence points to the RigVeda being at least 24000 years old. Please refer to extensive research done in the last decade or so. Nilesh Oak et al.
naruvimama 5y ago
The reason for the number 3900, is that most British historian who were the authority were Christians. They refused to accept any civilizational could be older than 4000 years because of the great flood. So often they tried to fit the evidence into their narrative. As we know today very many civilizations can be dated to much further in time.
- Ar-Curunir 5y ago
  No, it is based on both linguistic and archaeological evidence. For example, read The Horse, The Wheel, and Language, which corroborates these two kinds of evidence Fwiw I’m Hindu.
  - srean 5y ago
    Friendly, good faith hint: dont fall in to the trap of feeding trolls. Take a look at comment history to see what I mean.
    - chakkepolja 5y ago
      I know these people are hard to convince, just writing factual evidence so that outsiders don't believe all the stuff these people write.
    - naruvimama 5y ago
      Please keep to my comment above. Character assassination based on your subjective psychoanalysis is not a polite thing to do on a public forum.
  - naruvimama 5y ago
    Just because it is in a book doesn't mean it is true. 'The Horse, The Wheel, and Language' - those are slim evidences made to fit a narrative. The narrative clearly starts with negating the out of India theory instead to favour a Central Asia/European roots. But really what kind of evidence do we have for the existence of a sophisticated culture in Germany that predates Harappa.
    - chakkepolja 5y ago
      Out of India theory is fringe at best. I don't know why Indian nationalists take a root at pontic Caspian steppes as an attack against antiquity of our culture. It doesn't take anything away from us. They were not Europeans or something. They didn't attack and invade the indigenous mostly mixed with them. Before them there were migrations from zagros mountains etc.. > Central Asia/European roots. They are not the same. > But really what kind of evidence do we have for the existence of a sophisticated culture in Germany that predates Harappa. You clearly have not read the book. It's not Germany, it's Pontic Caspian steppes, approximately in modern day Ukraine if I recall correctly.
      - srean 5y ago
        Ha! If you go by one of the revered figures, eminent scholar, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the pure Hindu people come from the land of the North pole. Fly in the ointment, there hasn't been any land at the North pole for quite some time. Why the choice ? perhaps to help themselves to some notion of exceptionalism, uniqueness, so on and so forth. I get it, everyone wants to feel a little special, it gets dangerous when that becomes a sizeable political force. More so, if they feel they have not been given their rightful due and/or humiliated. Wish there was a moral analogue of "now now dont be hurt, yes baby you are so very special, have a candy bar" in the international arena. I am ethnically Hindu but an athiest (which, by the way, does not disqualify me from being a Hindu)
      - naruvimama 5y ago
        Colonial theories especially when it flies in the face of observed evidence should not be trusted. There is a strong reason to believe it is biased. Let them produce physical evidence of cultural artifacts that predates and connects those found all accross the Indian subcontinent. We can then discuss out of India vs Aryan invassion theory.
- chakkepolja 5y ago
  Bruh. Read up on Indo European migrations. Not to belittle Rg Veda, but modern archeologists agree with GP. One thousand years doesn't take anything away from it though.
- KorematsuFred 5y ago
  The 3900 number is mostly spread by a single researcher at Harvard who is quoted and self-quoted and cited by his own students somehow making his shoddy research some kind of "fact". Anyone trying to question this basically gets shunned from any conference this gentleman will be involved in and labelled as "revisionist". It is incredible that Wikipedia too just quotes this single individual on hundreds of pages somehow giving him and his claims credibility. His claims have been refuted by many using plethora of evidence but his citation cartel will simply dismiss it by attacking the authors instead of their research.
KorematsuFred 5y ago
I do not want to start a flamewar but Indians should most certainly come out of the shoddy colonial scholarship and their control over Indology. Horse, Early British researchers claimed Harrapans (aroun 3500 BC) did not know horses and since Vedas rely so much on horses, clearly Vedas were much later inventions. This theory was repeated so many times that a lot of people assume this to be true. It gets quoted again and again. In reality this is as false as Trump's claim of re-election victory. The oldest domesticated horse bones in India were found in Rajasthan around 4500 BCE. However the white researchers have not bothered at all to revise any of their theories despite new evidence. There are over 15 different instances of domesticated horse bones ranging from 2500 BCE to 3000 BCE have been found. Please read Srikant Talegari's paper on the topic. Linguistic evidence: This is actually pretty lame evidence to begin with and can very easily be repudiated. Early white christian researchers believed that Aryans invaded India killing native people (to justify why British rule of India) and they claimed these Aryans came from Russia 3000 BCE. How did they arrive at this conclusion ? Linguistics shows that all 12 branches of Indo-European languages were together sometime around 3000 BCE. It was not clear when, but the "south russia" claim is completely random and unsubstantiated. During these times Avesta, the holy book of Zorostrasians was the only non Hindu text that would talk about Vedic culture but it was orally transmitted and hence had not physical artifacts. Much much later, Mittani treaty was discovered in Syria which was around 1500 BCE old which clearly indentified itself as Indo-Iranian. So many western scholars took this as contemporary of Rigveda without analyzing both books in details. Rigveda which has 10 books is generally classified as core and non-core. It is unanimous opinion that core is much older than non-core. It turns out Mittani shares a lot of words and linguistic traits with the non-core where as nearly none with the old core. Mittani's own languages is a "residue" of old vedic languages which they picked up centuries earlier. Hence some of the researchers think that Rigveda predates Mittani by significant amount of time. Note: I am not emotionally involved in any of the dates, other that pure academic curiosity I think it is irrelevant if it s 3900 years old or 5000 years old. The only point I am trying to make is that Rigveda dating is not a "settled" matter as some claim and we will see more interesting research in future. Reas Srikant's paper here: https://www.amazon.com/Rigveda-Historical-Analysis-Shrikant-Talageri/dp/8177421492 https://www.amazon.com/Rigveda-Historical-Analysis-Shrikant-...
- 5y ago

The Rigveda is not 5000yrs old, but rather is closer to 3900 years old, at most. This is based on linguistic evidence, as well as geographic and biological names in the Rigveda

adictator 5y ago

The same linguistic, geological & climatological evidence points to the RigVeda being at least 24000 years old. Please refer to extensive research done in the last decade or so. Nilesh Oak et al.

naruvimama 5y ago

The reason for the number 3900, is that most British historian who were the authority were Christians. They refused to accept any civilizational could be older than 4000 years because of the great flood. So often they tried to fit the evidence into their narrative. As we know today very many civilizations can be dated to much further in time.

Ar-Curunir 5y ago
No, it is based on both linguistic and archaeological evidence. For example, read The Horse, The Wheel, and Language, which corroborates these two kinds of evidence Fwiw I’m Hindu.
- srean 5y ago
  Friendly, good faith hint: dont fall in to the trap of feeding trolls. Take a look at comment history to see what I mean.
  - chakkepolja 5y ago
    I know these people are hard to convince, just writing factual evidence so that outsiders don't believe all the stuff these people write.
  - naruvimama 5y ago
    Please keep to my comment above. Character assassination based on your subjective psychoanalysis is not a polite thing to do on a public forum.
- naruvimama 5y ago
  Just because it is in a book doesn't mean it is true. 'The Horse, The Wheel, and Language' - those are slim evidences made to fit a narrative. The narrative clearly starts with negating the out of India theory instead to favour a Central Asia/European roots. But really what kind of evidence do we have for the existence of a sophisticated culture in Germany that predates Harappa.
  - chakkepolja 5y ago
    Out of India theory is fringe at best. I don't know why Indian nationalists take a root at pontic Caspian steppes as an attack against antiquity of our culture. It doesn't take anything away from us. They were not Europeans or something. They didn't attack and invade the indigenous mostly mixed with them. Before them there were migrations from zagros mountains etc.. > Central Asia/European roots. They are not the same. > But really what kind of evidence do we have for the existence of a sophisticated culture in Germany that predates Harappa. You clearly have not read the book. It's not Germany, it's Pontic Caspian steppes, approximately in modern day Ukraine if I recall correctly.
    - srean 5y ago
      Ha! If you go by one of the revered figures, eminent scholar, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the pure Hindu people come from the land of the North pole. Fly in the ointment, there hasn't been any land at the North pole for quite some time. Why the choice ? perhaps to help themselves to some notion of exceptionalism, uniqueness, so on and so forth. I get it, everyone wants to feel a little special, it gets dangerous when that becomes a sizeable political force. More so, if they feel they have not been given their rightful due and/or humiliated. Wish there was a moral analogue of "now now dont be hurt, yes baby you are so very special, have a candy bar" in the international arena. I am ethnically Hindu but an athiest (which, by the way, does not disqualify me from being a Hindu)
    - naruvimama 5y ago
      Colonial theories especially when it flies in the face of observed evidence should not be trusted. There is a strong reason to believe it is biased. Let them produce physical evidence of cultural artifacts that predates and connects those found all accross the Indian subcontinent. We can then discuss out of India vs Aryan invassion theory.
chakkepolja 5y ago
Bruh. Read up on Indo European migrations. Not to belittle Rg Veda, but modern archeologists agree with GP. One thousand years doesn't take anything away from it though.
KorematsuFred 5y ago
The 3900 number is mostly spread by a single researcher at Harvard who is quoted and self-quoted and cited by his own students somehow making his shoddy research some kind of "fact". Anyone trying to question this basically gets shunned from any conference this gentleman will be involved in and labelled as "revisionist". It is incredible that Wikipedia too just quotes this single individual on hundreds of pages somehow giving him and his claims credibility. His claims have been refuted by many using plethora of evidence but his citation cartel will simply dismiss it by attacking the authors instead of their research.

KorematsuFred 5y ago

I do not want to start a flamewar but Indians should most certainly come out of the shoddy colonial scholarship and their control over Indology. Horse, Early British researchers claimed Harrapans (aroun 3500 BC) did not know horses and since Vedas rely so much on horses, clearly Vedas were much later inventions. This theory was repeated so many times that a lot of people assume this to be true. It gets quoted again and again. In reality this is as false as Trump's claim of re-election victory. The oldest domesticated horse bones in India were found in Rajasthan around 4500 BCE. However the white researchers have not bothered at all to revise any of their theories despite new evidence. There are over 15 different instances of domesticated horse bones ranging from 2500 BCE to 3000 BCE have been found. Please read Srikant Talegari's paper on the topic. Linguistic evidence: This is actually pretty lame evidence to begin with and can very easily be repudiated. Early white christian researchers believed that Aryans invaded India killing native people (to justify why British rule of India) and they claimed these Aryans came from Russia 3000 BCE. How did they arrive at this conclusion ? Linguistics shows that all 12 branches of Indo-European languages were together sometime around 3000 BCE. It was not clear when, but the "south russia" claim is completely random and unsubstantiated. During these times Avesta, the holy book of Zorostrasians was the only non Hindu text that would talk about Vedic culture but it was orally transmitted and hence had not physical artifacts. Much much later, Mittani treaty was discovered in Syria which was around 1500 BCE old which clearly indentified itself as Indo-Iranian. So many western scholars took this as contemporary of Rigveda without analyzing both books in details. Rigveda which has 10 books is generally classified as core and non-core. It is unanimous opinion that core is much older than non-core. It turns out Mittani shares a lot of words and linguistic traits with the non-core where as nearly none with the old core. Mittani's own languages is a "residue" of old vedic languages which they picked up centuries earlier. Hence some of the researchers think that Rigveda predates Mittani by significant amount of time. Note: I am not emotionally involved in any of the dates, other that pure academic curiosity I think it is irrelevant if it s 3900 years old or 5000 years old. The only point I am trying to make is that Rigveda dating is not a "settled" matter as some claim and we will see more interesting research in future. Reas Srikant's paper here: https://www.amazon.com/Rigveda-Historical-Analysis-Shrikant-Talageri/dp/8177421492 https://www.amazon.com/Rigveda-Historical-Analysis-Shrikant-...

5y ago