Facts and Common Misconceptions

• No, haplogroups are not the same as haplotypes.
• Yes, all people living today fall into one of 18 main Y-DNA haplogroups on their paternal line, and one of 26 main mtDNA haplogroups on their maternal line.
• No, haplogroups will not show if you are related to someone (unless you count distant relationships from thousands of years ago).
• Yes, once you know your haplogroup, you will be able to view how your haplogroup migrated out of Africa and retrace their migration routes.
• No, haplogroups will not add people to your family tree or allow you to trace your surname (that’s the job of STR haplotypes).
• No, haplogroups will not tell you precise migration routes, it will show a broad migration route and population distribution.
• No, if you and someone else belong to the same haplogroup, it does not mean that you are closely related.
• Yes, once you know your haplogroup, you can often fine tune your branch of the haplogroup tree through subclade testing.
• No, you cannot confirm your haplogroup through STR testing or HVR1 testing.  A Y-DNA STR test and HVR1 test will often allow you to predict your haplogroup, but only a SNP backbone test will confirm the prediction.
• No, SNP backbone testing will not give you information about sub-clades.  It will confirm your haplogroup.  Once your haplogroup has been confirmed, a subclade panel test for your particular haplogroup will trace your subclade. 
• Yes, STR testing can give predictions for haplogroups and even some sub-clades, but the backbone test can only confirm the haplogroup, not the sub-clade.
• Yes, subclades are determined through SNP subclade testing (once your haplogroup has been confirmed)
• No, your haplogroup will not tell you if you are Welsh or Irish.  It will not tell you your ethnicity.  Although there are associations between ethnic groups and haplogroups, you must remember that haplogroups represent deep ancestry, tracing events from tens of thousands of years ago.  It does not tell you what your ancestors have been up to over the last few hundred years (that’s the job of Y-DNA STR markers, and applications such as Surname Projects, which will be the topic of another blog). 
• Yes, all people living in the world today are connected in the human phylogenetic tree.  Just like how all people belong to a certain blood group i.e. A, B, AB, O which can be determined through testing, all people also belong to a certain haplogroup which is unique to their ancestry, and their haplogroup type can be determined through genetic genealogy testing. 

From Genebase.com

Vedic Origins of the Europeans: The Children of Danu

By David Frawley
(link)

Many ancient European peoples, particularly the Celts and Germans, regarded themselves as children of Danu, with Danu meaning the Mother Goddess, who was also, like Sarasvati in the Rig Veda, a river Goddess. The Celts called themselves “Tuatha De Danaan”, while the Germans had a similar name. Ancient European river names like the Danube and various rivers called Don in Russia, Scotland, England and France reflect this. The Danube which flows to the Black Sea is their most important river and could reflect their eastern origins.

In fact, the term Danu or Danava (the plural of Danu) appears to form the substratum of Indo-European identity at the base of the Hellenic, Illyro-Venetic, Italo-Celtic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic elements. The northern Greeks were also called Danuni. Therefore, the European Aryans could probably all be called Danavas.

According to Roman sources, Tacitus in his Annals and Histories, the Germans claimed to be descendants of the Mannus, the son of Tuisto. Tuisto relates to Vedic Tvasthar, the Vedic father-creator Sky God, who is also a name for the father of Manu (RV X.17.1-2). This makes the Rig Vedic people also descendants of Manu, the son of Tvashtar.

In the Rig Veda, Tvashtar appears as the father of Indra, who fashions his thunderbolt (vajra) for him (RV X.48.3). Yet Indra is sometimes at odds with Tvashtar because is compelled to surpass him (RV III.48.3-4). Elsewhere Tvashtar’s son is Vishvarupa or Vritra, whom Indra kills, cutting off his three heads (RV X.8.8-9), (TS II.4.12, II.5.1). Indra slays the dragon, Vritra, who lays at the foot of the mountain withholding the waters, and releases the seven rivers to flow into the sea. In several instances, Vritra is called Danava, the son of the Goddess Danu who is connected to the sea (RV I.32.9; II.11.10; III.30.8; V.30.4; V.32).

In the Brahmanas Vishvarupa/Vritra is the son of Danu and Danayu, the names of his mother and father (SB I.6.3.1, 8, 9). Clearly Vritra is Vishvarupa, the son of the God Tvashtar and the Goddess Danu. Danava also means a serpent or a dragon (RV V.32.1-2), which is not only a symbol of wisdom but of power and both Vedic and ancient European lore have their good and bad dragons or serpents.

In this curious story both Indra and Vritra appear ultimately as brothers because both are sons of Tvashtar. We must also note that Tvashtar fashions the thunderbolt for Indra to slay Vritra (RV I.88.5). Indra and Vritra represent the forces of expansion and contraction or the dualities inherent in each one of us. They are both inherent in Tvashtar and represent the two sides of the Creator or of creation as knowledge and ignorance. As Vritra is also the son of Tvashtar and Danu, Indra must ultimately be a son of Danu as well. Both the Vedic Aryans and the Proto-European Aryans are sons of Tvashtar, who was sometimes not the supreme God but a demiurge that they must go beyond.

The Danavas in the Puranas (VaP II.7) are the sons of the Rishi Kashyapa, who there assumes the role of Tvashtar as the main father creator. Kashyapa is a great rishi connected to the Himalayas. He is the eighth or central Aditya (Sun God) that does not leave Mount Meru (Taittiriya Aranyaka I.7.20), the fabled world mountain. Kashyapa is associated with Kashmir (Kashyapa Mira or Kashyapa’s lake) and other Himalayan regions (the Vedic lands of Sharyanavat and Arjika, RV IX.113.1-2), which connects the Danavas to the northwest. The Caspian Sea may be named after him as well. The Proto-Europeans, therefore, are the sons of Tvashtar or Kashyapa and Danu, through their son Manu. They are both Manavas and Danavas, as also Aryas.

In the Rig Veda, Danu like Dasyu refers to inimical people and is generally a term of denigration (RV I.32.9; III.30.8; V.30.4; V.32.1, 4, 7; X.120.6). The Danavas or descendants of Danu are generally enemies of the Vedic people and their Gods. Therefore, just as the Deva-Asura or Arya-Dasyu split is reflected in the split between the Vedic Hindus and the Persians, one can propose that the Deva-Danava split reflects another division in the Vedic people, including that between the Proto-Indian Aryans and the Proto-European Aryans. In this process the term Danu was adopted by the Proto-Europeans and became denigrated by later Vedic people.

We should also remember that in the Puranas (VaP II.7), as in the Vedas the term Danavas refer to a broad group of peoples, many inimical, but others friendly, as well as various mythical demons. In the Rig Veda, the Danavas are called amanusha or unhuman (RV II.11.10) as opposed to human, Manusha. The Europeans had similar negative beings like the Greek Titans or Celtic Formorii who correspond more to the mythical side of the Danavas as powers of darkness, the underworld or the undersea region like the Vedic Asuras and Rakshasas. Such mythical Danavas can hardly be reduced to the Proto-European Aryans or to any single group of people.

The Celtic scholar Peter Ellis notes, “Irish epic contains many episodes of the struggle between the Children of Domnu, representing darkness and evil, and the Children of Danu, representing light and good. Moreover, the Children of Domnu are never completely overcome or eradicated from the world. Symbolically, they are the world. The conflict is between the ‘waters of heaven’ and the ‘world.’” The same thing could be said of the Vedic wars of Devas and Danavas or the Puranic/Brahmana wars of Devas and Asuras.

The Good Danavas (Sudanavas)

The Maruts in the Puranas (VaP II.6.90-135) are called the sons of Diti, a wife of Kashyapa, who is sometimes equated with Danu. Her children are called the Daityas which term we have found also connected to the Persians, as the name of the river in their original homeland (Vendidad Fargard I.3). While meant to be enemies of Indra, the Maruts came to be his companions and were great Gods in their own right, often referring to the Vedic rishis and yogis. As wind Gods they had control of Prana and other siddhis (occult powers). They are also the sons of Rudra-Shiva called Rudras, much like the Shaivite Yogis of later times. They were great sages (RV VI.49.11), men (manava) with tongues of fire and eyes of the Sun (RV I.89.7). They were free to travel all over the world and were not obstructed by mountains, rivers or seas (RV V.54.9; V.55.9).

The Rig Veda contains many instances where Danu has a positive meaning indicating abundance or even standing for divine in general. Danucitra, meaning the richness of light, occurs a few times (RV I.174.7; V.59.8). The Maruts are called Jira-danu or plural Jira-danava or quick to give or perhaps fast Danus or fast Gods (RV V.54.9). This term Jiradanu occurs elsewhere as the gift of the Maruts in the last line of most of the hymns of Agastya (RV I.165-169, 171-178, 180-186, 189, 190). Mitra and Varuna are said to be Sripra-danu or easy to give and their many gifts, danuni, are praised (RV VIII.25.5-6). The Ashvins are called lords of Danuna, Danunaspati (RV VIII.8.16). Soma is also called Danuda and Danupinva, giving Danu or overflowing with Danu (RV IX.97.23), connecting Danu with water or with rivers.

The Maruts are typically called Sudanavas, good to give or good (Su) Danus (RV I.85.10; I.172.1-3; II.34.8; V.41.16; V.52.5; V.53.6; VI.66.5; VIII.20.18, 23). Similarly, the Vishvedevas or universal gods are called Sudanavas (RV VIII.83.6, 8, 9), as are the Adityas (RV VIII.67.16), the Ashvins (RV I.117.10, 24) and Vishnu (RV VIII.24.12). The term also occurs in a hymn to Sarasavati (RV VII.96.4), where Sarasvati is called the friend or companion of the Maruts (Marutsakha; RV 96.2). Most importantly, there is a Goddess called Sudanu Devi (RV V.41.18), which is probably another name for the mother of the Maruts. The Maruts in particular or the Gods in general would therefore be the sons of Sudanu or Sudanavas. This suggests that perhaps Danu, like Asura, was earlier a positive word and meant divine. There was not only a bad Danu but a good or Sudanu. In the Rig Veda the references to the Sudanavas are much more than those to Danava as an inimical term.

The Maruts are called Sumaya (RV I.88.1), having a good (Su) or divine power of Maya, which stands for magical power, or Mayina (RV V.58.2), possessed of Maya power. Danu is probably, in some respects, a synonym of Maya, a power of abundance but also of illusion. Like the root Ma, the root Da means “to divide” or “to measure”. Maya is the power of the Danavas (RV II.11.10). The Danavas, particularly Ahi-Vritra, are portrayed as serpents (RV V.32.8), particularly the serpent who dwells at the foot of the mountain holding back the heavenly waters, whom Indra must slay in order to release the waters. Maya itself is the serpent power.

The Maruts as wind gods are powers of lightning, which in Vedic as in most ancient thought was considered to be a serpent or a dragon. The Maruts are the good serpents, shining bright like serpents (RV I.171.2). The Maruts help Indra in slaying Vritra and are his main friends and companions. Indra is called Marutvan, or possessed of the Maruts. Their leader is Vishnu (RV V.87), who is called Evaya-Marut. With Rudra (Shiva) as their father and Prishni (Shakti) as their mother, they reflect all the Gods of later Hinduism. As Shiva’s sons they are connected with Skanda, Ganesha and Hanuman.

Perhaps these Sudanavas or good Danus are the Maruts, who in their travels guided and led many peoples including the Celts and other European followers of Danu. As the sons of Rudra, we note various Rudra like figures such as Cernunos among the Celts, who like Rudra is the lord of the animals and is portrayed in a yoga posture, as on the Gundestrop Cauldron. If the Maruts were responsible for spreading Vedic culture, as I have proposed, they could have called their children, the children of Danu, in a positive sense. We could also argue that the Sudanavas were the Maruts, Druids and other Rishi classes, while the peoples they ruled over, particularly the unruly Kshatriyas or warrior classes could become Danavas in the negative sense when they refused to accept spiritual guidance.

We know from both Celtic and Vedic texts that the early Aryans, like other ancient people, were always fighting with each other in various local conflicts, particularly for supremacy in their particular region. This led to various divisions and migrations through the centuries, which we cannot always take in a major way, just as the warring princes of India or Ireland remained part of the same culture and continued to intermarry with one another. Therefore, whatever early conflict might have existed between the Proto-European Aryans and those in the interior of India, was just part of various clashes between the different princely families that occurred within these same groups as well. It was forgotten over time.

The European Aryans had Gods like Zeus, Thor and Jupiter that serve as the counterparts of Indra as the God of heaven, the God of the rains, the thunderbolt and the lightning. Therefore, we cannot read the divide between the Rig Vedic Aryans and the Danavas as a rejection of the God Indra by the Proto-Europeans. In addition, the Proto-European Aryans continue to use the term Deva as divine as in Latin Deus and Greek Theos, unlike the Persians who make Asura mean divine and Deva mean demon. They also know Manu, which the Persians seem to have forgotten and only mention Yima (Yama). Unlike the Persians, who developed an aniconic (anti-image) and almost monotheistic tradition, the Proto-European Aryans maintained a pluralistic tradition, using images, and worshipping many Gods and Goddesses, like the Vedic. This suggests that their division from the Rig Vedic people occurred long before that of the Persians or Iranians, and that they took a larger and older form of the Vedic religion with them.

Migrations Out of India or Central Asia

We have noted Danu or Danava as a term for an inimical people or even an anti-god, like Deva and Asura, probably reflects some split in the Aryan peoples. This could be the conflict the Purus, the main Rig Vedic people located on the Sarasvati river near Delhi, and the Druhyus, who were located in the northwest by Afganistan, who fought quite early in the Rig Vedic period.

Certainly we can only equate the Proto-Europeans with the northwest of India or greater India that extends into Afghanistan and Central Asia. If they can be connected to any group among the five Vedic peoples it must be the Druhyus.

However, we do find Druhyu kingdoms continuing for some time in India and giving names to regions like Gandhara (Afghanistan) and Aratta (Panjab) connected more with Iranian or Scythian people. Yet, we do note a connection between the Scythians and the Celts, whose Druid priests connect themselves with the Scythians at an early period. The Scythians also maintained a trade from India to Europe that continued for many centuries. In this regard the Proto-Europeans could have been a derivation of Aryan India by migration, cultural diffusion, or what is more likely, a combination of both.

Though the Druhyus and Proto-Europeans may be connected, it is difficult to confirm, particularly as the Europeans were a very different ethnic type (Nordic and Alpine) than most of the Indians and Iranians, who were of the Mediterranean branch of the Caucasian race.

However, it is possible that European ethnic types were living in ancient Afghanistan or Central Asia, even Kashmir, where we do find some of these types even today. The evidence of the Tokharians suggests this. The Tokharians (Tusharas) were a people speaking an Indo-European language closer to the European (a kentum-based language), and also demonstrate Nordic or Alpine, blond and red-haired ethnic traits. They lived in the Tarim Basin of western China that dominated the region to the Muslim invasion up to the eighth century AD, by which time they had become Buddhists. They may be related to the European featured mummies found in that area dating back to 1500 BCE. They were also present in Western China around Langchou in the early centuries BCE. The Tokharian language is possibly related to the Celtic and Italic branches, just as their physical features resemble northern Europeans. The Tarim Basin region was later regarded as the land of the Uttara Kurus and as a land of the gods. So such groups were not always censured as barbarians at the borders but were sometimes honored as highly advanced and spiritual.

The evidence does not show an Aryan invasion/migration into India in ancient times, certainly not after the Harappan era (c. 3000 BCE) and probably not before. No genetic or skeletal or other hard evidence has been found to prove this. Similarly, we do not find evidence of migration of interior Indic peoples West, the dark-skinned people that were prominent on the subcontinent to the northwest. But if the same ethnic types as the Europeans were present in Western China, Afghanistan or in northwest Iran, like the Fergana Valley (Sogdia), such a migration west would be possible, particularly given their familiarity with horses. In this case the commonality of Indo-European languages would not rest upon a common ethnicity with the interior Indo-Aryans but on a common ethnicity with peripheral Aryans on the northwest of India.

It is also possible that the European people derived their Aryan culture from the influence of Vedic peoples, probably mainly Druhyus but also Scythians (who might themselves be Druhyus), who migrated to Central Asia and brought their culture to larger groups of Europeans already living in Europe and Central Asia. The Europeans could have picked up an Aryan influence indirectly from the contact with various rishis, princes or merchants, without any significant genetic or familial linkage with Indic peoples. Or some combination may have existed. Such peoples with more Vedic cultures like the Celts could derive mainly from migration, while those others like the Germans might derive mainly from cultural diffusion. In any case, various means of Aryanization existed that can explain the spread of Vedic culture from the Himalayas to Europe, of which actual migration of people from the interior of India need not be the only or even primary factor.

We do note the names of rivers like the Don, Dneiper, Dneister, Donets and Danube to the north of the Black are largely cognate with Danu. This could reflect such a movement of peoples from West or Central Asia, including migrants originally from regions of greater India and Iran. At the end of the Ice Age, as Europe became warmer, it became a suitable land for agriculture. This would have made it a desirable place of migration for people from the east and the south, which were flooded or became jungles.

European and Iranian Peoples of Central Asia and Europe: Sycthians and Turanians

The northern Iranian peoples, called Turanians or Scythians, dominated the steppes of Central Asia from Mongolia to Eastern Europe. By the early centuries BC they had set up kingdoms from the Danube in the West to the Altai Mountains in the East. They were the main enemies of the Persians. Unlike the Persians, their religions had more Devic elements and affinities to the Vedic with a greater emphasis on Devas, Sun worship, drinking of Soma and a greater variety of deities like the Vedic. We could call these Turanians or Scythians the main Proto-European Aryans. Some would identify them with the original Slavic peoples as well, who were likely always the largest and dominant Indo-European group in Europe.

Curiously in the early centuries AD we find the Scythians entering into north India and creating some kingdoms there, with both Hindu and Buddhist influence. It is possible that such contacts with India were transmitted to Central Asia and West, much as from previous Vedic eras.

It is probable that the Danavas, Scythians and Turanians were largely the same group of people with Vedic affinities and connections to Vedic culture through various kings, rishis, traders and movements of both people and cultures. Later the Turks came into Central Asia and displaced the Scythian peoples driving them south and west.

Western Indo-European scholarship is obsessed with these eastern Scythian and other possible European elements. Some like Parpola even see the Vedic peoples of the Rig Veda as a migration of the Scythians into India. However, these Central Asian Vedic people were just one branch of a greater Vedic people that included several branches within India itself.

Much of the search for a Proto-Indo-European language or PIE could be more correctly regarded as a search for the proto-European people. What has been reconstructed through it is more the homeland of the Danava-Druhyu branch of the Vedic people after their dispersal from India rather than all the Indo-European speakers. It is at best only a recontruction of the western branch of the Vedic peoples and even that in a limited and distorted manner.

Therefore, we need not stop short with reconstructing Scythian and Central Asian Aryan culture, we must take it into India itself, where other Vedic branches existed using many of the same cultural forms like Fire worship, Sun worship, the sacred plant or Soma cult, the cult of the sacred cow and horse, symbols like the sacred tree and swastika, worship of rivers as Goddesses. The philosophical, medical and astronomical knowledge that we find in European peoples like the Celts and the Greeks also mirrors that of India such as we find in the Upanishads, Ayurvedic medicine and Vedic astrology.

Parsis show closer affinity to low caste Mahars and tribal Madia Gonds than South and Central Asian groups

Population affinities of Parsis in the Indian subcontinent

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology doi:10.1002/oa.1123

Manjari Jonnalagadda et al.

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to document changes in frequencies of dental morphology traits and understand phenetic affinities of Parsis, who migrated to the Indian subcontinent around the 8th century. Despite successfully integrating themselves into the Indian society, they have retained their ethnicity and distinct cultural practices. This study was conceived as a result of an excavation at the site of Sanjan, Gujarat which, as per historical records, is believed to be the first town in the Indian subcontinent with a large Parsi settlement thereby facilitating a diachronic comparison between the ancestral and extant Parsi groups. We compared and analysed dental traits between the two groups expecting a very close relationship between them owing to their ancestor-descendent relationship. Eleven discrete dental traits were selected and scored using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASUDAS). Frequency changes were assessed by comparing trait frequencies; whereas phenetic affinity between Parsis was assessed by statistically comparing them with 13 populations using Smith's mean measure of divergence (MMD) statistic. Comparison of dental trait frequencies between Sanjan and extant Parsi samples show significant differences in incisor morphology, Carabelli cusp and Hypocone development. Trait frequencies, MMD values and 2D multidimensional scaling (MDS) plot indicate that extant Parsis and Sanjan samples are distantly separated from each other. Extant Parsis show closer affinity to low caste Mahars and tribal Madia Gonds than South and Central Asian groups. Sanjan is distant from all other groups including extant Parsis. It is likely that genetic drift accentuated by their small numbers and strict endogamy has resulted in divergence of Parsi groups. Similarly, their convergence with Maharashtran groups indicates admixture of Parsis with local groups, which supports earlier conducted mtDNA studies.

Link

Genographic Project Censorship

Got home last night, switched on my computer, went through my email and later on logged onto Facebook to check out who's 'poking' who. I happen to be a 'fan' of the Genographic Project on Facebook and noticed a post by them about a museum exhibit at the  San Diego Museum of Man that's being set up. I have a special interest in the Genographic Project since I had a DNA test done through the organization.

The Genographic Project tests your DNA for a fee and sends you a report on your 'deep ancestry' based on which Haplogroup you belong to. I'm sure that my DNA results from them were accurate enough, but the report that accompanied my results is based purely on speculation and unproven hypotheses of human migration. For instance, the 'story' of Haplogroup R(I belong to a 'sub-clade' of haplogroup R) is modelled to fit with the Aryan Invasion Theory - a racist 19th century colonial theory with no scientific backing. After doing further research I realised that their reports are highly biased towards a Eurocentric view of human history.

A couple of months ago the Genographic Project aired a program called 'The Human Family Tree'. In this program they sampled the DNA of random people of different ethnicities in the neighborhood of Queens, New York. Of course, their politically correct motto was that we all came from Africa in the very distant past, but I noticed that racial stereotypes were being used to portray people of different ethnicities. A Pakistani taxi driver, Thai waitress and restaurant owner, a Black body builder and a Greek(European) mayor of that neighborhood in Queens were a few of the subjects in that show. If that is not stereotyping then what is?

I posted a comment on their Facebook fan page about their incorrect portrayal of racial stereotypes on that show and mentioned that Spencer Wells(director of the Genographic Project) should just stick to his job as a geneticist and refrain from racial stereotyping. The comment was promptly removed even though it was not in the least bit offensive to anyone.

Aryan Invasion — History or Politics? - By Dr. N.S. Rajaram

The evidence of science now points to two basic conclusions: first, there was no Aryan invasion, and second, the Rigvedic people were already established in India no later than 4000 BCE. How are we then to account for the continued presence of the Aryan invasion version of history in history books and encyclopedias even today? 

Some of the results - like Jha's decipherment of the Indus script - are relatively recent, and it is probably unrealistic to expect history books to reflect all the latest findings. But unfortunately, influential Indian historians and educators continue to resist all revisions and hold on to this racist creation - the Aryan invasion theory. Though there is now a tendency to treat the Aryan-Dravidian division as a linguistic phenomenon, its roots are decidedly racial and political, as we shall soon discover. 

Speaking of the Aryan invasion theory, it would probably be an oversimplification to say: "Germans invented it, British used it," but not by much. The concept of the Aryans as a race and the associated idea of the 'Aryan nation' were very much a part of the ideology of German nationalism. For reasons known only to them, Indian educational authorities have continued to propagate this obsolete fiction that degrades and divides her people. They have allowed their political biases and career interests to take precedence over the education of children. They continue to propagate a version that has no scientific basis.


Read full article(link)

The Cradle that is India - Subhash Kak

Ideas about early Indian history continue to play an important role in political ideology of contemporary India. On the one side are the Left and Dravidian parties, which believe that invading Aryans from the northwest pushed the Dravidians to south India and India's caste divisions are a consequence of that encounter. Even the development of Hinduism is seen through this anthropological lens. This view is essentially that of colonial historians which was developed over a hundred years ago.


On the other side are the nationalist parties, which believe that the Aryan languages are native to India. These groups cite the early astronomical dates in the Vedas, noting these texts are rooted firmly in the Indian geographical region. But Leftist scholars consider such evidence suspect, politically motivated, and chauvinistic.
In recent years, the work of archaeologists and historians of science concluded that there is no material evidence for any large scale migrations into India over the period of 4500 to 800 BC, implicitly supporting the traditional view of Indian history. The Left has responded by conceding that there were probably no invasions; rather, there were many small scale migrations by Aryans who, through a process of cultural dominance, imposed their language on north Indians.


The drama of text-book revisions, both during the NDA and the current UPA governments, is essentially a struggle to impose one or the other of these viewpoints. In any other country, such a fight would have fought in the pages of academic journals; but in India, where the government decides what history is, it is a political matter.


Now, in an important book titled The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey out of Africa (New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2003), the prominent Oxford University scholar Stephen Oppenheimer has synthesised the available genetic evidence together with climatology and archaeology with conclusions which have bearing on the debate about the early population of India. This work has received great attention in the West, and it will also interest Indians tremendously.


Much of Oppenheimer's theory is based on recent advances in studies of mitochondrial DNA, inherited through the mother, and Y chromosomes, inherited by males from the father. Oppenheimer makes the case that whereas Africa is the cradle of all mankind; India is the cradle of all non-African peoples. Man left Africa approximately 90,000 years ago, heading east along the Indian Ocean, and established settlements in India. It was only during a break in glacial activity 50,000 years ago, when deserts turned into grasslands, that people left India and headed northwest into the Russian steppes and on into Eastern Europe, as well as northeast through China and over the now submerged Bering Strait into the Americas.


In their migration to India, African people carried the mitochondrial DNA strain L3 and Y chromosome line M168 across south Red Sea across the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. On the maternal side the mtDNA strain L3 split into two daughters which Oppenheimer labels Nasreen and Manju. While Manju was definitely born in India the birthplace of Nasreen is tentatively placed by him in southern Iran or Baluchistan. One Indian Manju subclan in India is as old as 73,000 years, whereas European man goes back to less than 50,000 years.
Considering the paternal side, Oppenheimer sees M168 as having three sons, of whom Seth was the most important one. Seth, in turn, had five sons which are named by him as Jahangir, H, I, G and Krishna. Krishna, born in India, is the ancestor of the peoples of East Asia, Central Asia, Oceania and West Eurasia (through the M17 mutation). This is what Oppenheimer says about M17:

South Asia is logically the ultimate origin of M17 and his ancestors; and sure enough we find highest rates and greatest diversity of the M17 line in Pakistan, India, and eastern Iran, and low rates in the Caucasus. M17 is not only more diverse in South Asia than in Central Asia but diversity characterizes its presence in isolated tribal groups in the south, thus undermining any theory of M17 as a marker of a 'male Aryan Invasion of India.'

Study of the geographical distribution and the diversity of genetic branches and stems again suggests that Ruslan, along with his son M17, arose early in South Asia, somewhere near India, and subsequently spread not only south-east to Australia but also north, directly to Central Asia, before splitting east and west into Europe and East Asia.


Oppenheimer argues that the Eurocentric view of ancient history is also incorrect. For example, Europeans didn't invent art, because the Australian aborigines developed their own unique artistic culture in complete isolation. Indian rock art is also extremely ancient, going back to over 40,000 BC, so perhaps art as a part of culture had arisen in Africa itself. Similarly, agriculture didn't arise in the Fertile Crescent; Southeast Asia had already domesticated many plants by that time.


Oppenheimer concludes with two extraordinary conclusions: 'First, that the Europeans' genetic homeland was originally in South Asia in the Pakistan/Gulf region over 50,000 years ago; and second, that the Europeans' ancestors followed at least two widely separated routes to arrive, ultimately, in the same cold but rich garden. The earliest of these routes was the Fertile Crescent. The second early route from South Asia to Europe may have been up the Indus into Kashmir and on to Central Asia, where perhaps more than 40,000 years ago hunters first started bringing down game as large as mammoths.'


This synthesis of genetic evidence makes it possible to understand the divide between the north and the south Indian languages. It appears that the Dravidian languages are more ancient, and the Aryan languages evolved in India over thousands of years before migrations took them to central Asia and westward to Europe. The proto-Dravidian languages had also, through the ocean route, reached northeast Asia, explaining the connections between the Dravidian family and the Korean and the Japanese.


Perhaps this new understanding will encourage Indian politicians to get away from the polemics of who the original inhabitants of India are, since that should not matter one way or the other in the governance of the country. Indian politics has long been plagued by the Aryan invasion narrative, which was created by English scholars of the 19th century; it is fitting that another Englishman, Stephen Oppenheimer, should announce its demise.


(Link)

More Aryan Invasion Rubbish

I came across some typical crap coming from an American newspaper about the Aryan invasion through my RSS feed today(newsfeed, not the political party). A 1999 article was quoted to start off yet another pointless debate on the Aryan Invasion Theory on a forum. The signature of the person who started this topic says a lot about the mentality of people who buy into the Aryan Invasion Theory-  "Let's keep America beautiful by getting rid of niggers, spics, kikes, queers, and feminists!"

Defenders of the theory conveniently forget that haplogroup R1a1, which is most often associated with the Aryan Invasion, is prevalent amongst tribes as well as lower castes of India in very high frequencies and not restricted to the upper castes by any means. The age,diversity, variance and frequency of R1a is highest in South Asia - with the age and variance amongst tribals being higher than in upper castes, almost proving that the origin of Y-DNA haplogroup R1a1 is RIGHT HERE IN INDIA. The direct correlation of haplogroup R1a1 and R2(high/low freq and variance in the same areas across the country) further suggests that they cohabited throughout, and coincidence can almost be ruled out (R2 is exceedingly rare, whereas R1a1 is present in high frequencies in Europe). Indian society evolved from tribal groups over millennia. I won't even get into the fact that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence of any kind of invasion at the time the so called white Aryans "took the women and set up the caste system in India". Since '99 however, the Aryan Invasion Theory has almost totally lost ground due to research in many fields, including genetics. The current trend is to manipulate and model studies on Indo-European languages to suit arrogant western beliefs that 'Proto-Indo-European', the supposed precursor of all IE languages, originated in Europe or Central Asia. South Asia is always totally sidelined in these western studies even though it is a known fact that Sanskrit is still the most advanced language on earth and is still used in India. Why the obsession with Central Asia being the homeland of mankind outside Africa and the Middle East? It's was and still is quite an inhospitable place whereas South Asia was and is a country rich in resources - perfect for human habitation.

Aryan Invasion Theory supporters are alive and kicking till this day, flogging this dead horse regardless of countless studies disproving the theory. Many Indians themselves subscribe to AIT, maybe they love the idea of being partly European(it's common knowledge that most Indians look up to whites and white skin), however distant and  despite present day racist European supporters of this theory referring to ALL Indians as mongrels and half breeds who are literally 'bastards' - descendants of rape victims of the white invaders - not just North Indian 'Aryans'. All I can say is that I feel sorry for the low self esteem of these Indians. There are also many South Indians who love to support this theory because of their age old hatred of North Indians and possible inferiority complex due to their generally darker skin color(check out 'fair and lovely' sales in the south). The Brits also inferred that  since North Indian 'Aryans' are outsiders that stole the land and enslaved the local 'Dravidians' besides pushing them down south, they have every right to do the same. Also, after the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, the very same proponents of the Aryan Invasion Theory(AIT) had to change their story overnight from the Aryans being a noble and intelligent lot, to them being savages that destroyed the Indus Valley Civilization(IVC), LATER settling down and writing the Vedas and inventing Sanskrit. Oh yes, and of course they quickly added that the IVC was 'Dravidian' - thereby giving South Indians yet another reason to hate the North.

It's time Indians woke up and realize that this is just a very outdated, racist and divisive idea instilled till this day in the minds of the gullible. In fact it is still being taught in schools all over India as fact, when it was always just a THEORY. AIT is a sham. Both South Indians, who believe they have been victimized by the North, and North Indians who believe they are superior due to alleged white European ancestry are losers at the end of the day. Neither of these things are true.  It's only the racist white man that will have the last laugh if Indians go on being deluded and continue being subservient to the west, buying hook line and sinker any horseshit that is fed to them.

Updated list of R2 frequency

http://sites.google.com/site/r2dnainfo/R2-Home/r2-dna/r2-frequency/r2-frequencies-worldwide

Neo-Colonial Captive Minds By Devan Nair (former President of Singapore)

Devan Nair, former President of Singapore, has sent the following message to be posted to the ECIT egroup. As an intellectual, a follower of Sri Aurobindo, and student of the recent re-evaluation of the Aryan-Invasion Theory, his message is very interesting to ponder.

The age of colonialism may be over, but not that of neo-colonial Captive minds in India as elsewhere in the former colonial territories. Nations struggled for and won political liberation from imperialist thralldom. But their tertiary institutions of higher learning hardly ever (with rare indigenous exceptions) displayed any compelling urge to free themselves from the restrictive, eurocentric disciplinary paradigms inherited from western universities, or to delve into their own unique native spiritual, cultural and intellectual resources that, even if not altogether annulled, were rendered more or less otiose. And it was precisely from the corridors of domestic academia that the dangerous and divisive infection of captive minds spreads to all fields of the public life of a once subject nation.

India is a prime example of a once great civilization with an Incredibly rich spiritual, literary, artistic, cultural and intellectual heritage, not to speak of production, manufacturing and medical expertise; a heritage that Indian academic and political leaders honor more in the breach than in the observance. Nationalist rhetoric and ritual genuflection, with an eye on the voting predilections of a volatile electorate, are the best the politicians seem capable of. Most worrisome of all is that the infection has affected the perceptions and self-appraisal of large sections of the Indian national collectivity itself, despite the intuitive pronouncements of great spiritual leaders of the Indian renaissance like Dayananda Saraswati, Vivekananda
and Sri Aurobindo.

In the highly praiseworthy cause of countering and arresting Trends inimical to India's right development as a member of a global Community of nations, I am confident that your work is of crucial importance, not only for Indian and international practitioners of Indian insights (as in Auroville), but also for the Indian social/political/national collectivity itself. I am sure you will agree that our aim should be, not to denounce everything western, as there is much of great value in western achievements, particularly in the vital fields of modern science and technology, which are today inseparably part and parcel of the global heritage of mankind. On the contrary, your goal is to counter the threat to genuine globalization posed by the tendency in certain western academic quarters to denigrate eastern traditions, and to shamelessly appropriate, using different terminology and without due acknowledgement, the work of Indian pioneers in the important field, for instance, of the psychology of consciousness, and to present such clearly dishonest efforts as original western discoveries. That is intellectually dishonest, which deserves to be exposed and dissolved in the blinding glare of broad daylight. A genuinely global community of nations can and should only proceed on the basis of honest scholarship. Unmasking self-serving dishonesty in some areas of western or eastern scholarship is a service towards expediting the irreversible evolutionary process towards a genuinely united humanity.

To give just one illuminating illustration, we might mention the Nearly universal and quite uncritical acceptance by both Indian politicians and the generality of national and international academics, of the 19th Century myth of the "Aryan invasion of Dravidian India" and of the arbitrary classification of the population into Aryan and Dravidian ethnic types. The damage inflicted on the political perceptions of the population poses a threat to the very integrity of India as a unique political and cultural entity. Witness the two most dominant political parties of Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the ANNA DMK (the 'D' standing for 'Dravida'). They swallowed hook, line and sinker the shallow, ill-researched "findings" of 19th Century European Indologists. Even India's present national anthem perpetuates the Aryan/Dravidian divide by referring to 'Dravida'. It was a wrong-headed decision to discard the original national anthem "Vande Mataram" ('Salutation to the Mother' Ð for the land of Bharatmata was originally conceived, not as a merely secular/geographical abstraction, but as Mother India Herself). It was the mantric potency of "Vande Mataram" that ignited the fiery beginnings (1905-1910) of the Indian aspiration for complete independence from British rule after Lord Curzon's partition of Bengal. And the man who picked it out from Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's classic Bengali novel 'Anandamath' was no less a leader than Sri Aurobindo himself. To the surprise and consternation of the British Viceroy and his officials, thousand-throated cries of "Vande Mataram" rent the skies of India during the inspiring beginnings in those dramatic years of the national independence struggle.

And what of the real intentions of these 19th Century western Gentlemen still so greatly revered by several leading Indian academics? In a marvelous book "THE INVASION THAT NEVER WAS" by Michael Danino/Sujata Nahar, published by THE MOTHER'S INSTITUTE OF RESEARCH in Delhi (1996), the best known icon of 19th Century Indology Max Muller was effectively demolished in his own words; hoisted on his own petard, as it were. I quote directly from Michael Danino: "Even the celebrated Max Muller (whose research work, interestingly, was commissioned and generously paid for by the East India Company after he had been engaged by Macaulay), wrote to his wife ((ref. Friedrich Max Muller, Life and Letters, Vol.1; London: Longmans, 1902, p328): 'This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda, will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion and to show them what The root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has Sprung from it during the last three thousand years." So? The seemingly "impartial" scholar was in truth a Macaulayite tool for the accomplishment of grandiose imperial aims.

This plan misfired largely due to the great Indian savants (not academics, mind you!). The first to dispute the Aryan myth was Dayananda Saraswati. He rejected out of hand the whole 19th Century European view of the Veda. Here Michael Danino quotes Sri Aurobindo: "Dayananda seized justly on the Veda as India's Rock of Ages. In the matter of Vedic interpretation I am convinced that whatever may be the final complete interpretation, Dayananda will be honored as the first discoverer of the right clues." (ref: Sri Aurobindo, Centenary Edition 1972, Vol. 17, p. 334). Danino continues: "By the same token, Dayananda forcefully opposed the Christian missionaries' vilification of India's ancient culture, and engaged in public debates with some of them (with maulanas too), especially in Punjab where a wave of conversions had taken place."

Danino proceeds to quote: "Dayananda's performance in public debates not only stopped further conversions, but also gave birth to a new movement, 'shuddhi' (purification) of those who had been enticed away from Hindu society ...... It sent a wave of consternation through the missionary circles and restored Hindu confidence. In days to come, the missionaries became more and more reluctant to meet Dayananda in open forums."

Writes Danino: "With Vivekananda's deep knowledge not only of Hindu scriptures but of Western history and religions, he was quick to see the gaps in the Aryan edifice." In a lecture in USA, Vivekananda remarked scornfully: "And what your European Pandits say about the Aryans swooping down from some foreign land snatching away the land of aborigines and settling in India by exterminating them is all pure nonsense, foolish talk. Strange that our Indian scholars too say 'Amen' to them.... And all these monstrous lies are being taught to our boys." (Vivekananda Complete Works, Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1963; Vol. V, p. 534-535).

Danino goes on to write that in another lecture, this time in India, Vivekananda was in a more humorous mood, but mercilessly to the point: "Our [European] archaeologist dreams of India being full of dark-eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryans came from, the Lord knows where. According to some, they came from Central Tibet, others will have it that they came from Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that the Aryans were all red-haired ....... If the writer happens to be a black-haired man, the Aryans were all black-haired. Of late, there was an attempt to prove that the Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes.... Some say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their habitations! As for the truth of these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryan came from anywhere outside India, and in ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it ends. And the theory that the Shudra caste were all non-Aryans ..... is equally illogical and equally irrational..... The whole of India is Aryan, nothing else...... And the more you go on fighting and quarrelling about all trivialities such as 'Dravidian' and 'Aryan,' and the question of Brahmins and non-Brahmins and all that, the further you are from that accumulation of energy and power which is going to make the future India." (Vivekananda Lectures from Colombo to Almora; Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1992; p. 222, 230).

Coming to Sri Aurobindo's immense contribution, Danino writes: "A systematic refutation of the Aryan invasion theory had to wait until Sri Aurobindo. In 1910, after he had worked for a decade to awaken the spirit of independence in India, and spent a year in prison, he learned that the British had finally decided to deport him under new draconian laws (they regarded him as 'the most dangerous man we have to deal with at present"); leaving Bengal he sought refuge in Pondicherry, then a French possession. There, soon afterwards, he took up his study of the Veda....While reading the Sanskrit text, he also came to question the European scholars' view of the Veda which, 'like the majority of educated Indians,' he had so far 'passively accepted without examination.' (ref. Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, Centenary Edition, vol. 10, p. 33-34). He soon realized that 'If the modern interpretation stands, the Vedas are no doubt of high interest to the philologist, the anthropologist and the historian; but poetically and spiritually they are null and worthless. Its reputation for spiritual knowledge and deep religious wealth is the most imposing and baseless hoax that has ever been worked upon the imagination of a whole people throughout many millenniums. Is this, then, the last word about the Veda? Or is it not rather the culmination of a long increasing and ever progressing error?'" (Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, April 1985, p 27).

Danino: "With his usual keenness of vision, Sri Aurobindo wrote: 'In India we have fallen during the last few centuries into a fixed habit of unquestioning deference to authority....... We are ready to accept all European theories, the theory of an 'Aryan' colonization of a
Dravidian India, the theory of Nature-worship and henotheism of the Vedic Rishis...... as if these hazardous speculations were on a par in authority and certainty with the law of gravitation and the theory of evolution.' (ref: Ibid., p 41). 'So great is the force of attractive generalizations and widely popularized errors that all the world goes on perpetuating the blunder talking of the Indo-Aryan races, claiming or disclaiming Aryan kinship and building on that basis of falsehood the most far-reaching political, social or pseudo-scientific conclusions.'" (Sri Aurobindo, the Origins of Aryan Speech, in The Secret of the Veda, op.cit., p. 193).

"How prophetic', writes Danino, "if we consider that this was written some twenty year before the growth of Nazism with its claims to 'Aryan kinship'! In his Secret of the Veda, which started appearing from 1914, Sri Aurobindo called on his fellow countrymen not to be 'haunted by the unfortunate misconstruction of the Veda which European scholarship has imposed on the modern mind.'" (The Secret of the Veda, op. cit., p 193).

Danino continues: "Taking a straight look at the original text, with no preconception, no a priori theory, Sri Aurobindo observed, 'it did not take long to see that the Vedic indications of a racial division between Aryans and Dasyus and the identification of the latter with the indigenous Indians were of a far flimsier character than I had supposed.'" (ref: Ibid., p 36). 'This division was "a conjecture supported only by other conjectures ...... a myth of the philologists". (ref: Ibid., p 40). "Sri Aurobindo added. 'The indications in the Veda on which this theory of a recent Aryan invasion is built, are very scanty in quantity and uncertain in their significance. There is no actual mention of such an invasion'" (ref: Ibid., p. 24). "Above
all, he wanted the Indians to develop their own independent judgment: 'A time must come when the Indian mind will shake off the darkness that has fallen upon it, cease to think or hold opinions at second and third rank and reassert its right to judge and enquire in a perfect freedom into the meaning of its own Scriptures. When that day comes, we shall ..... question many established philological myths; the legend, for instance, of an Aryan invasion of India from the north, the artificial and inimical distinction of Aryan and Dravidian which an erroneous philology has driven like a wedge into the unity of the homogeneous Indo-Afghan race ....(India's Rebirth, Paris: Institut de Recherches Evolutives, 1993 , p 91-92) '".

Continues Danino: "Some eighty years later, we know that the 'wedge', driven now not only by scholars but also by politicians, has only gone absurdly deeper. Yet Sri Aurobindo's study of Tamil, which he did with the help of Subramania Bharati (the national poet of Tamil Nadu), led him to discover that the 'original connection between the Sanskrit and Tamil tongues' was 'far closer and more extensive than is usually supposed' and that they were 'two divergent families derived from one lost primitive tongue'". (Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, op. cit., p 36). "The division between Indo-European and Dravidian languages had collapsed: 'My first study of Tamil words had brought me to what seemed a clue to the very origins and structure of the ancient Sanskrit tongue.'" (ref: Ibid., p 46).

"Sri Aurobindo's study, however, led him to far more momentous results, for he recovered the long lost symbolism of the Veda, and brought to light the Rishis' extraordinary experience." These results, however, are of far greater value to living practitioners of Indian Yoga, than to academics, and recourse must be had to the major portion of Sri Aurobindo's "Secret of the Veda" for that purpose.

I make no apologies for continuing with quotes from Danina, for The good reason that they cannot be improved upon. He next writes: "The Question we should now ask is: Are our latter day historians, who still swear by Marx or Max Muller, or both, and often have a poor knowledge of Sanskrit and India's traditions, better equipped than a Swami Vivekananda or a Sri Aurobindo, with their depth of understanding and erudition, to tell us what the meaning of the Veda is and the conclusions we are to draw from it?...Yet it is not as if there were no scholars in India to agree with these great seers. We will cite here only two of these striking examples of genuine but ignored Indian scholarship.

"Some ten years after the serialization of the Sri Aurobindo's 'Secret of the Veda', R. Swaminatha Aiyar, a Tamil administrator, linguist and mathematician, carried out extensive research on the so-called Dravidian languages, but not 'without previously disposing of a large number of misconceptions and untenable theories about Dravidian languages and Dravidian culture, which have come into existence since the publication of Bishop Caldwell's 'Dravidian Grammar'. (Ref: R. Swaminatha Aiyar, Dravidian Theories (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1987). "After a thorough scrutiny of the grammar and roots of these languages, his conclusions confirmed Sri Aurobindo's own findings on the deep connection between Tamil and Sanskrit. Swaminatha Aiyar found most Dravidian verb forms of 'Indo-Aryan origin,' and that 'the basic portion of Dravidian vocabularies consists of words of Indo-Aryan origin though ..... these words have been greatly corrupted and are very difficult of recognition.' As N.S. Rajaram, also a mathematician and linguist from South India, remarks in a recent study, 'Dravidian languages are strongly inflected like Sanskrit, and cases and declensions
are also quite similar.... In some ways these so-called Dravidian languages have preserved ancient forms and usages from Sanskrit better than North Indian languages like Hindi.'" (N.S. Rajaram, The Politics of History, op. cit., p 175).

To continue with Danino. "B.R. Ambedkar is our second example. Known in India chiefly for his campaign in support of the lower castes (he himself was a Harijan) and his work on the Indian Constitution, it is often overlooked that in order to find out the truth of the European
Theories about Aryans and non-Aryans, high and low caste, he did precisely what Sri Aurobindo exhorted Indians to do: he went to the source, and studied the Veda for himself, with an open mind. His conclusions are unequivocal, though regrettably they are largely ignored by those who profess to follow his lead and who more often than not make a strident use of the very theories he sought to demolish: 'The theory of invasion is an invention. This invention is necessary because of a gratuitous assumption that the Indo-Germanic people are the purest of the modern representatives of the original Aryan race. The theory is based on nothing but pleasing assumptions, and inferences based on such assumptions. The theory is a perversion of scientific investigation. It is not allowed to evolve out of facts. On the contrary, the theory is preconceived and facts are selected to prove it. It falls to the ground at every point.' (ref: B. R. Ambedkar, quoted by D.B. Thengadi in The Perspective [Sahitya Sindhu Prakashan]).

My conclusions are:

1. The Vedas do not know any such race as the Aryan race.
2. There is no evidence in the Vedas of any invasion of India by the Aryan race and it having conquered the Dasas and Dasyus supposed to be the natives of India.
3. There is no evidence to show that the distinction between Aryans, Dasas and Dasyus was a racial distinction.
4. The Vedas do not support the contention that the Aryans were different in colour from the Dasas and Dasyus.....If anthropometry is a science which can be depended upon to determine the race of a people..... (then its) measurements establish that the Brahmins and the Untouchables belong to the same race. From this it follows that if the Brahmins are Aryans the Untouchables are also Aryans. If the Brahmins are Dravidians, the Untouchables are also Dravidians.....' (B. R. Ambedkar, 'Writings and Speeches' [Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1986-1990], Vol. 7, p. 85 and 302-303, quoted in Koenraad Elst's Indigneous Indians, Agastya to Ambedkar, op. cit., p.410-411).

Danino completes this particular chapter of his book, thus: "Despite these remarkable protests, none listened; we Indians have long had the inexplicable habit of accepting change only if comes to us from the West. Yet in recent years, some voices have begun to be heard, both in the West and in India, asserting that the time has come to chuck out this worm-eaten theory once and for all. The cumulative evidence from all scientific branches of knowledge, especially archaeology, has become simply too overwhelming to be ignored, except for historians with dubious motives."

Voila! as the French would say. I have done my bit of 'nishkama karma' (desireless action) for your more than worthwhile cause in respect of at least the demolition of the fictitious Aryan/Dravidian divide Indian politicians and a good number of India's leading academics continue to subscribe to. There is no such thing as an "immortal bubble". This bubble too will one day burst for good and be seen no more.

You have other challenges to meet head on, by way of dissemination Of your objectives to opinion in India itself, but also among the Indian diaspora in the West, particularly in the USA. In the psychological field, as in the study of yet another speculative discipline like Indology, Ken Wilber and his undoubted intellect may be safely left to the attention of formidable Indian and non-Indian practitioners of Indian spiritual practices (these, incidentally, are not speculative, but experiential disciplines in which seekers consciously ascend and descend what Sri Aurobindo called the "ladder of consciousness"). Don Salmon, for instance, is himself a master in the same field as Wilber. But he also possesses an additional SOMETHING ELSE of one who devotedly treads the path of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Be assured that Mr. Wilber will by no means arrive at the stature of an Avatar. No barefaced plagiarist of ideas and conceptions ever did.

Warm regards and best wishes,

C. V. Devan Nair

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Peculiar Renderings of 'Chief Living Races of Mankind' from a 1907 British Encyclopedia