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anyone follow this debate? 19th century German nationalism vs. 21st century Hindu nationalism

don't know if its a myth or not, likely just a complex reality subject to multiple interpretations

seems uncontroversial that just as India suffered several invasions from Central Asia throughout the past 2000 years, it likely did in ancient times. The linguistic ties and between Sanskrit and European languages are difficult to refute and the similarities in deities are compelling

Quote:The Name of the King of the Gods: As we have noted several times, the oldest form of the name of the Norse King of the gods is Gwoden, and this is essentially identical with Gadhin, one of the names of the Indian King of the gods, Indra. It is also the same as that of the Welsh wizard, Gwydion

http://www.zianet.com/docdavey/norsemyth.htm

Its bullshit. First of all "Gwoden" is a transcription from the runic alphabet (elder "futhark"). We do not know how it phonetically sounded, and have no way of knowing. On top of that, the god with the name(s) Woden/Gwoden/Wotan/Oden/Odin is first attested from the late migration period (400-500 AD) at the earliest (and then only pictorally). The name itself is only attested from much later.

it may be BS, its easy to come up with all kinds of links between ancient stories. but if Woden is documented at 400-500 AD among a wide range of Germanic tribes, which prior to that had no written records, its unlikely the god had been spread recently before in some evangelical wave.

The wikipedia entry under Indra says (& contradicts my other quote as it links Indra to Thor / Perkunas etc)

"If Indra as a deity is cognate to other Indo-European gods, either thunder gods such as Thor, Perun, and Zeus, or gods of intoxicating drinks such as Dionysos. The name of Indra is also mentioned among the gods of the Mitanni, an Indo-Aryan Hurrian speaking people who ruled northern Syria from ca.1500BC-1300BC.[2]
Janda (1998:221) suggests that the Proto-Indo-European (or Graeco-Aryan) predecessor of Indra had the epitheta *trigw-welumos "smasher of the enclosure" (of Vritra, Vala) and diye-snūtyos "impeller of streams" (the liberated rivers, corresponding to Vedic apam ajas "agitator of the waters"), which resulted in the Greek gods Triptolemos and Dionysos.
It was once supposed that Vedic Indra corresponds to Verethragna of the Zoroastrian Avesta. This idea was based primarily on the fact that the noun verethragna- corresponds to Vedic vrtrahan-, which is predominantly an epithet of Indra. The supposition that Indra corresponds to Verethragna is now controversial. While both vritra- and verethra- derive from the same root "to cover", the word verethra- is today understood to mean "obstacle". Thus, verethragna- is now understood to reflect "smiter of resistance".
Vritra does not appear in either the Avesta or in 9th-12th century books of Zoroastrian tradition. Since the name 'Indra' appears in Zoroastrian texts as that of an arch-demon opposing Truth (Vd. 10.9; Dk. 9.3; Gbd. 27.6, 34.27), it may be supposed that Verethragna was a way of reintroducing him in a favorable light."

Heh. We actually have a pretty good idea about what the people who inhabited northern Europe believed in before they began to venerate the deities now known to us as the "nordic gods/Aesir" (from burials, petroglyphs etc.). They do not resemble each other which suggests, that the worship of Woden/Odin etc. and the other nordic gods happened as a consequence of societal change and not as a consequence of acculturation from "Aryans" who supposedly invaded some time in pre-history.

It does appear that there is no genetic evidence for the classical "Aryan Invasion"
there are no marked genetic differences among castes and most of the genetic similarities between Indians and Europeans trace back to the original expansion out of africa about 70K years ago

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/5/26

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifac...ebate.html

Indeed. If there really was an "Aryan Invasion" some time in pre-History, it has left no real certifiable trace. Which of course makes the question of whether it happened or not unproveable and thus scientifically moot. But one can of course always argue a hypothetical "what if?" just for fun :cool:

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(05-16-2010, 04:04 AM)JDR Dragoon Wrote: [ -> ]Indeed. If there really was an "Aryan Invasion" some time in pre-History, it has left no real certifiable trace. Which of course makes the question of whether it happened or not unproveable and thus scientifically moot. But one can of course always argue a hypothetical "what if?" just for fun :cool:

Actually there is quite a lot of evidence both linguistic and genetic for an invasion/migration of Indo-Europeans into India. Most Indian populations show a mixture of Indo-European (IE) and Dravidian haplotypes with a higher percentage of IE in the North. This fits very well with the language map in contemporary India.



also see:

Reich et al. Reconstructing Indian population history. Nature 461, 489-494

and the language map (IE language ares are colored in)

Probably. But there is very little verifiable evidence that suggests an "Aryan Invasion" of Eurasia in general, which supposedly decisively re-shaped the religious and linguistic landscape of these areas. Which is what the original link suggested.

I wonder how much genetic evidence exists for the known invasions from central Asia beginning with Persia and culminating with the Mughals?

"there are no marked genetic differences among castes and most of the genetic similarities between Indians and Europeans trace back to the original expansion out of africa about 70K years ago"

There is really no incontrovertible genetic evidence that humans migrated out of Africa 70k years ago or even if they ever migrated out of Africa at all. The whole notion of human origins is very completely problematical, ethereal and most importantly; highly politicized. It's possible to interpret "genetic evidence" any which way to supports one's theory about the course of history. If we turned the whole thing around, and found that is was politically advantageous to do so, we could find a multitude of 'genetic evidence" that humans originated in Tierra del Fuego and migrated out of there some 100k years ago, and bye the way, there is much archeological evidence that humans were in South America 100k years ago which is rejected of course because it would throw the current accepted model out of whack and good Lord (a pun) might even give some credence to the crazy Creationists and we all know how dangerous those people are! jonny