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Read more closely. Many of the geographical locations contained in the earliest Vedas are IN PERSIA, not INDIA.

I was watching the program INDIA on PBS last evening, and in the second section they got into the Vedas and reminded me of much of the scholarly anaysis that's gone into them. That was one of the items.

THere's still dispute about when they were written down. At the moment the common belief is they were converted from an oral tradition to writing entirely in India some time BC. At the same time, there's a less commonly held belief that they were rendered in writing, but kept secret as written documents, for several centuries.

This is roughly the same sort of idea frequently advanced with regards to the oldest works in the Bible. They were supposedly kept orally for many centuries until writing came along.

Turns out, of course, that writing was already in existence in the very place the original Vedic civilization and Hebrew culture came from ~~ Upper Mesopotamia!

I suspect both the Vedas and the background materials of the Pentatuch were maintained in written form at the earliest possible times ~ many centuries before the claim that they were written down.

I am aware that Indian scholars are presently in the throes of a rejection of the Aryans as having anything to do with Indian religious tradition and are willing to claim the Vedas are 100% an Indian production.

Fine, but other evidence points to foreign origin.

Many of the geographical locations contained in the earliest Vedas are IN PERSIA, not INDIA.

Examples? The Vedas refer to the land of the 5 rivers, to the mystical Saraswati river etc. -- all topographically in the Indian continent

THere's still dispute about when they were written down. At the moment the common belief is they were converted from an oral tradition to writing entirely in India some time BC. At the same time, there's a less commonly held belief that they were rendered in writing, but kept secret as written documents, for several centuries.

True, the exact time is in dispute, but they definitely date from before Christ and before Gautam Buddha (300 BC). The dates are assumed to be at around the late Harappan era (1700 BC and earlier).

About them being oral first, yes that must be true for parts, but not all the vedas. Definitely not the Atharva, I would guess but the others like the Rig and Ayur must have been oral initially, yes

Turns out, of course, that writing was already in existence in the very place the original Vedic civilization and Hebrew culture came from ~~ Upper Mesopotamia!

A non-sequitor. The Mayans had a different form of writing as did the Chinese and as did the Harappan civilisation. Their language / scripts aren't related to Sumerian/Akkadian as is evidenced in their non-cuneiform characters. You can see the linkages between the Sumerian cuneiforms and Elamite and Akkadian and even Hittite writings, but not with indic writings

Secondly, the mythologies of the indo-europeans differs considerably from the Sumerian (Enuma Ellish) or Semitic mythos -- and that is highly evident when you compare the Enuma Ellish, Egyptian Mythology and the Vedas. The later tie-ups like the Phoenician/Greek and the later influence of Zoroaster on Semitic religions is a later development.

Vedic civilisation did not centre around cities like the Sumerian and that stands out in the mythos of the Vedas as well.

Indian scholars aren't rejecting that the Aryans had anything to do with the Vedas because that's silly -- the northern 70% of India is aryan. Hinduism evolved from Vedic Hinduism and it's worship of the Devas under Indra to the influences of Buddhism (ahimsa) to move away from yagnas to a more Brahmanical form, to deeply embrace Dravidian beliefs in Vishnu and primarily Shiva.

on the Contrary, India scholars are of the belief that the Vedic and Aryanic civilisations originate from northern India -- the Punjab and Gangetic plains and then moved to the north-west.