To: Cronos
Compare the babe in the bulrushes story to the story of Karna in the Mahabharat - he was born to his mother before marriage, a great shame, so she placed him in a basket or other small boatlike thing in the river, so he could be found by others. The Mahabharat describes the Kurukshetra War, which occured more than 3,000 BC.
To: little jeremiah
The Mahabharat
Oh, now you're talking about some seriously ancient stuff. The Mahabharat is supposed to be dated back to, as you correctly point out, before 3000 B.C.
I would disagree with the idea of the Aryan invasion of India, because that's was just Max Mueller's theory, with no proof at all. The bodies found in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (Indus valley cities) are not war victims (this was proven) but buried as we'd expect peopel to be buried during peace times. Most likely there was some ecological disaster and the peoples moved further east to the Ganges and southern India which had more plentiful lakes. The Aryans most likely would have originated in Central Asia-north easter Iran-north western India. The war Gods and their battles may very well have been two related families fighting each other.
Hey, wait a minute, remember what I was saying about the two families of gods (the aesir and the Vanir in the Nordic tales, the Asuras/Ahuras and the Devas/Daevas in the Indic-Irani tales)? Compare this with the sotry in the Mahabharat which deals with two related families fueding, in fact cousins fighting. Since most of the myths are ancient peoples ways of keeping history alive, could it not be conjectured (yes conjecture, no real way of proving it) that around 4000 to 3000 B.C. (or most likely a lot earlier), the Aryans split into two families who warred with each other -- this would explain the stories in the Vedas about Indra, the war god destroying the land of hte Dasyus (Iranic peoples).
The two families would have been elevated to gods. Then later on, the different worshipper had a sectarian war and moved east/west to india/iran. A more primitive group could have moved north west to become the Germanic/Slavic/Celtic/Italic peoples of Europe. THe primitve group would have venerated both families while the more advanced would have considered one family greater.
The Aryans would have moved into Dravidian cities in the Indus valley like how the SEmitic peoples moved into Sumerian cities -- not really by war, but just that the Dravidians.Sumerians were city folk and the Aryans/SEmites were nomads. When the cities could not sustain their people, the people left them and probably intermingled with the Aryans adopting their languages, leaving only the Brahuis to be dravidic speaking people in Baluchistan.
The Central Asian origin of the Aryans makes sense to me, with their later traces being erased by the movements of Turkic peoples into Central Asia.
A very good example of the intermingling of language groups is found in Afghanistan where the Hazaras (literlly thousanders) are Mongol like, supposed descendents of Genghis Khan's hordes, while the Tajik are Irani, the Pashtuns Indic and the Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kazakhs are Turkic.
97 posted on
12/29/2003 1:00:32 AM PST by
Cronos
(W2004!)
To: Cronos
And of course, Alexander did leave folks over there, so they would be Greek blood in the tajiks and Pashtuns (witness some folks with Grey-green eyes and the inter-tribal warfares).
98 posted on
12/29/2003 1:01:50 AM PST by
Cronos
(W2004!)
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