"Rewriting Indian History" Topic

"India's history was mostly written on the basis of archaeological and linguistic discoveries made by the British in colonial times, or by historians employed by the English, such as Max Mueller. But the British, who were the Masters in India, had a vested interest to show that Indian civilisation was not as ancient and as great as it was earlier thought. For, up to the 18th century, philosophers and thinkers in Europe, such as Voltaire, Hegel and even as late as Nietzsche, kept referring to Indian philosophy and science, as the mother of all philosophies and sciences.

This is why the British established a two-pronged strategy: first to postdate most of Indian history, such as the creation of the Vedas, for instance, which was brought down to 1200 BC, from a much more ancient date; and two, to show that whatever was good in India –Sanskrit, philosophy, architecture, literature – came from the West, via the Aryan invasion. For this purpose, consciously, or unconsciously, a number of "discoveries" were made, such as the finding of skeletons by Mortimer Wheeler in Mohenja-Daro, which prompted him to hastily conclude that Aryans had "massacred" Dravidians, while invading India, so as to establish these myths of Indian history which have endured till today and have been unfortunately blindly adopted by Indian historians and taught to Indian children…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I can't say too much about Indian history, but if this guy's as accurate in things Indian as he seems to be about things non-Indian in the first few pages, give this book a pass.

I did study some Sanskrit, once upon a time, and claiming that it wasn't imported into India during the Bronze Age is a little crazy. The structure and vocabulary are just too parallel to Greek and Latin. It is impossible to derive them both from Sanskrit, the vowels preclude that, but rather it must be the case that they all three come from a common source.

At least this isn't the website claiming that the ancient Indians had aircraft that were used in warfare…

But they did, goragrad, aircraft given to them by ancient aliens, I'm sure the History Channel covers this in one of their alien shows.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand