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Who Invented Trigonometry?

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Topic: Who Invented Trigonometry?
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Who Invented Trigonometry?
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 09:41

I'm not that fond of Trigonometry but want to know this question.

Who Invented Trigonometry?

For those of you who do not know what Trigonometry looks like.....here are some pictures.




Replies:
Posted By: hugoestr
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 10:43
Trig was not invented, but discovered.

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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 10:47

Originally posted by hugoestr

Trig was not invented, but discovered.

By whom and where?

 



Posted By: Anujkhamar
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 12:51
Greeks claim the word trigonometry comes from the ancient greek word trigonon (3 angles).

Indians claim the word came from a word in sanskrit.

It sprung up all over the world at around the same period in Mesopotamia, India and Egypt, which are all responsible for developing different ideas of it. No one person can be said to have discovered it, however many have developed it over time. For more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigonometry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigonometry


Posted By: Leonardo
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 13:00

It's impossible to name a single person. Some theorems that we now call "trigonometry" can be found in the works of ancient mathematicians of the hellenist period (Euclid, Aristarcus, Archimedes and others) and perhaps also in some "mathematical" tablets written by ancient Mesopotamians.

It's generally accepted by historians that the first person who wrote trigonometrical tables was the famous astronomer Hipparcus. His table of the "chords" survives in the Almagest, the famous work of the astronomer Ptolomeus (who lived centuries after Hipparchus). Ancient Indian mathematicians are generally recognized as the first who introduced what we now call "sine function". The Arabs then spread this novelty in the islamic world and also in Europe.



Posted By: Jhuntadu
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2006 at 18:47

So is it true that Pythagoras discovered what we know as Pythagoras theorem.



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HAPPY ALL FOOL'S DAY


Posted By: Leonardo
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 02:26
Originally posted by Jhuntadu

So is it true that Pythagoras discovered what we know as Pythagoras theorem.

 

Well, there are two ways one can think at Mathematics: the first considers Maths as a logical system based on axioms/postulates and theorems, the second as a set of practical/pragmatic knowledges on the properties of numbers and figures.

In western countries, following the model of The Elements of Euclid, geometry is teached (or perhaps was teached for centuries   ) as a logical system of theorems deduced from a set of axioms (the axioms of euclidean geometry), and so only here we can talk properly of "Pythagoras' theorem".

It's well known that a practical knowledge of what we call "Pythagoras' theorem" was shared by ancient Mesopotamians, ancient Indians and also ancient Chinese, but before their contact with models based on ancient Greek sources (mediated by the Arabs) they never developped a fully logical and coherent system of theorems based on axioms.

So we can conclude that before ancient Greek mathematicians there was a notable knowledge of properties of triangles but there were not "theorems" of any sort.



Posted By: Anujkhamar
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 04:31
I am curious to know whether if it was the other way round would the Greeks still claim "pythagoras's theorem"


Posted By: Leonardo
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 04:43

Originally posted by Anujkhamar

I am curious to know whether if it was the other way round would the Greeks still claim "pythagoras's formula"

A formula is not a theorem

 

 



Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 06:01
Originally posted by Leonardo

Originally posted by Anujkhamar

I am curious to know whether if it was the other way round would the Greeks still claim "pythagoras's formula"

A formula is not a theorem

& both...a theorem & it's inverse are correct/true?



Posted By: Anujkhamar
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 06:19
sorry typo

edited

to elborate imagine this scenario:

Ancient Greeks, such as Pythagoras, had the practical knowledge of Phythagorus's theorem. Aryabhatta then used "a logical system of theorems deduced from a set of axioms".

The chances are, it would still be known as "Pythagoras's theorem" and the Greeks would argue that as they had the practical knowledge it should be known as theirs. Then western philosophers would back their claim.

It's funny how the human mind works


Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 08:18

Originally posted by hugoestr

Trig was not invented, but discovered.

So the question my dear comrades,ladies and gentlemen still remains a question?If I had a million dollars I would have turned it into a million dollar question,if I was sure about the existence of my soul....I would have sold it in order to find the correct answer.

Who Invented/Discovered TRIGONOMETRY and when?

Herez a poem to lighten your mood....

Trigonometry

Trigonometry began
When Sine and Cos and Tan
[The latter, a perfect gentleman]
Agreed to work in a Triangle.

Now Sine was cross with Cos
Because she got into a tangle
With Cosec the Smart Alec,
Who had a special angle

For flirty Cotangent
[Also known as Cot]
Whose reputation
[Or shall we say, computation? ]
Was certainly not

Above board, like Tangent
[Also known as Tan,
Who, I repeat, was a perfect gentleman]

Cross-fighting in the Triangle,
They drew an obtuse angle;
And slowly by degrees
Sine began to freeze

Till one fine day,
Cosec ran away
With Cotangent...
Which left a place vacant
For the incorrigible Secant,
Who fought and fell out with Tangent

In short,
Thanks to Cosec and Cot,
Trigonometry
Had to be abandoned.

Tan Pratonix

and the link to the poem is here ----------------->

http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asppoet=138033&poem=2505277 - http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asppoet=138033&poem=2 505277

and the question is still waiting for it's mate?



Posted By: Leonardo
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 08:23

Originally posted by Anujkhamar

sorry typo

edited

to elborate imagine this scenario:

Ancient Greeks, such as Pythagoras, had the practical knowledge of Phythagorus's theorem. Aryabhatta then used "a logical system of theorems deduced from a set of axioms".

The chances are, it would still be known as "Pythagoras's theorem" and the Greeks would argue that as they had the practical knowledge it should be known as theirs. Then western philosophers would back their claim.

It's funny how the human mind works

 

Yes, it's funny and I partly agree with you

You probably know that Pythagoras is a semilegendary figure. No one historian really believes that the "historical" Pythagoras demonstrated the theorem that brings his name, at least not in the sense that we use following Aristoteles and Euclid.

"Pythagoras theorem" is only a conventional term, probably introduced by the philosopher Proclus, who lived centuries after Pythagoras, indicating the proposition 47 of the Book I of the Elements of Euclid (300 B.C.): "In right-angled triangles the square on the side opposite the right angle equals the sum of the squares on the sides containing the right angle".

You are right, at the time of Pythagoras the Greeks had only practical knowledge on geometry, the same that they inherited from other more ancient civilizations (Mesopotamians, Egyptians, maybe also Indians), but at the time of Euclid the hellenistic world developped what we still today call "mathematics" in the modern sense: a fully logical-deductive system based on axioms and theorems. Other civilizations, who came after inherited from hellenistic world this kind of maths (the Arabs for example).



Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 08:26
Originally posted by Leonardo

Yes, it's funny and I partly agree with you

You probably know that Pythagoras is a semilegendary figure. No one historian really believes that the "historical" Pythagoras demonstrated the theorem that brings his name, at least not in the sense that we use following Aristoteles and Euclid.

I agree fully with you Leonardo.Now let's see what our Greek friends have to say on this question.Would you like to invite them to this question.You live in their vicinity.



Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 08:38

Hi Leonardo I didn't mean the actual Greeks.Alpha to Omega of western civilization.Anyone who is interested in this topic is welcome.I believe in open discussions.



Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2006 at 21:43

Did Pythagoras discover the Pythagoras Theorem.

Kindly take a look at this article.

The statement of the Theorem was discovered on a Babylonian tablet circa 1900-1600 B.C. Whether Pythagoras (c.560-c.480 B.C.) or someone else from his School was the first to discover its proof can't be claimed with any degree of credibility. Euclid's (c 300 B.C.) Elements furnish the first and, later, the standard reference in Geometry. In fact Euclid supplied two very different proofs: the Proposition I.47 (First Book, Proposition 47) and VI.31. The Theorem is reversible which means that a triangle whose sides satisfy a2 + b2 = c2 is necessarily right angled. Euclid was the first (I.48) to mention and prove this fact.

http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/index.shtml - http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/index.shtml

Any comments?



Posted By: Aurelia
Date Posted: 04-Apr-2006 at 09:26
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/mainpage.htm - Themes > http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sciences/mainpage.htm - Science > http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sciences/Mathematics/mainpage.htm - Mathematics > http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sciences/Mathematics/Trigonometry/mainpage.htm - Trigonometry > History

The history of trigonometry goes back to the earliest recorded mathematics in Egypt and Babylon. The Babylonians established the measurement of angles in degrees, minutes, and seconds. Not until the time of the Greeks, however, did any considerable amount of trigonometry exist. In the 2nd century BC the astronomer Hipparchus compiled a trigonometric table for solving triangles. Starting with 71 and going up to 180 by steps of 71, the table gave for each angle the length of the chord subtending that angle in a circle of a fixed radius r. Such a table is equivalent to a sine table. The value that Hipparchus used for r is not certain, but 300 years later the astronomer Ptolemy used r = 60 because the Hellenistic Greeks had adopted the Babylonian base-60 (sexagesimal) numeration system.
In his great astronomical handbook, The Almagest, Ptolemy provided a table of chords for steps of 1, from 0 to 180, that is accurate to 1/3600 of a unit. He also explained his method for constructing his table of chords, and in the course of the book he gave many examples of how to use the table to find unknown parts of triangles from known parts. Ptolemy provided what is now known as Menelaus's theorem for solving spherical triangles, as well, and for several centuries his trigonometry was the primary introduction to the subject for any astronomer. At perhaps the same time as Ptolemy, however, Indian astronomers had developed a trigonometric system based on the sine function rather than the chord function of the Greeks. This sine function, unlike the modern one, was not a ratio but simply the length of the side opposite the angle in a right triangle of fixed hypotenuse. The Indians used various values for the hypotenuse.
Late in the 8th century, Muslim astronomers inherited both the Greek and the Indian traditions, but they seem to have preferred the sine function. By the end of the 10th century they had completed the sine and the five other functions and had discovered and proved several basic theorems of trigonometry for both plane and spherical triangles. Several mathematicians suggested using r = 1 instead of r = 60; this exactly produces the modern values of the trigonometric functions. The Muslims also introduced the polar triangle for spherical triangles. All of these discoveries were applied both for astronomical purposes and as an aid in astronomical time-keeping and in finding the direction of Mecca for the five daily prayers required by Muslim law. Muslim scientists also produced tables of great precision. For example, their tables of the sine and tangent, constructed for steps of 1/60 of a degree, were accurate for better than one part in 700 million. Finally, the great astronomer Nasir ad-Din at- Tusi wrote the Book of the Transversal Figure, which was the first treatment of plane and spherical trigonometry as independent mathematical Science.
The Latin West became acquainted with Muslim trigonometry through translations of Arabic astronomy handbooks, beginning in the 12th century. The first major Western work on the subject was written by the German astronomer and mathematician Johann Mller, known as Regiomontanus. In the next century the German astronomer Georges Joachim, known as Rheticus introduced the modern conception of trigonometric functions as ratios instead of as the lengths of certain lines. The French mathematician Franois Vite introduced the polar triangle into spherical trigonometry, and stated the multiple-angle formulas for sin(nq) and cos(nq) in terms of the powers of sin(q) and cos(q).
Trigonometric calculations were greatly aided by the Scottish mathematician John Napier, who invented logarithms early in the 17th century. He also invented some memory aids for ten laws for solving spherical triangles, and some proportions (called Napier's analogies) for solving oblique spherical triangles.
Almost exactly one half century after Napier's publication of his logarithms, Isaac Newton invented the differential and integral calculus. One of the foundations of this work was Newton's representation of many functions as infinite series in the powers of x. Thus Newton found the series sin(x) and similar series for cos(x) and tan(x). With the invention of calculus, the trigonometric functions were taken over into analysis, where they still play important roles in both pure and applied mathematics.
Finally, in the 18th century the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler defined the trigonometric functions in terms of complex numbers (see Number). This made the whole subject of trigonometry just one of the many applications of complex numbers, and showed that the basic laws of trigonometry were simply consequences of the arithmetic of these numbers."

-from http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sciences/Mathematics/Trigonometry/history/History%20.html - http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sciences/Mathematics/Tri gonometry/history/History%20.html

     


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2012 at 17:11
This is incredibly interesting;

History topic: Pythagoras's theorem in Babylonian mathematics


Pythagoras's theorem in Babylonian mathematics

In this article we examine four Babylonian tablets which all have some connection with Pythagoras's theorem. Certainly the Babylonians were familiar with Pythagoras's theorem. A translation of a Babylonian tablet which is preserved in the British museum goes as follows:-

4 is the length and 5 the diagonal. What is the breadth ?
Its size is not known.
4 times 4 is 16.
5 times 5 is 25.
You take 16 from 25 and there remains 9.
What times what shall I take in order to get 9 ?
3 times 3 is 9.
3 is the breadth.

All the tablets we wish to consider in detail come from roughly the same period, namely that of the Old Babylonian Empire which flourished in Mesopotamia between 1900 BC and 1600 BC.


Here is a map of the region where the Babylonian civilisation flourished.

The article Babylonian mathematics gives some background to how the civilisation came about and the mathematical background which they inherited.

The four tablets which interest us here we will call the Yale tablet YBC 7289, Plimpton 322 (shown below), the Susa tablet, and the Tell Dhibayi tablet. Let us say a little about these tablets before describing the mathematics which they contain.

The Yale tablet YBC 7289 which we describe is one of a large collection of tablets held in the Yale Babylonian collection of Yale University. It consists of a tablet on which a diagram appears. The diagram is a square of side 30 with the diagonals drawn in. The tablet and its significance was first discussed in [5] and recently in [18].


Plimpton 322 is the tablet numbered 322 in the collection of G A Plimpton housed in Columbia University.

You can see from the picture that the top left hand corner of the tablet is damaged as and there is a large chip out of the tablet around the middle of the right hand side. Its date is not known accurately but it is put at between 1800 BC and 1650 BC. It is thought to be only part of a larger tablet, the remainder of which has been destroyed, and at first it was thought, as many such tablets are, to be a record of commercial transactions. However in [5] Neugebauer and Sachs gave a new interpretation and since then it has been the subject of a huge amount of interest.

The Susa tablet was discovered at the present town of Shush in the Khuzistan region of Iran. The town is about 350 km from the ancient city of Babylon. W K Loftus identified this as an important archaeological site as early as 1850 but excavations were not carried out until much later. The particular tablet which interests us here investigates how to calculate the radius of a circle through the vertices of an isosceles triangle.

Finally the Tell Dhibayi tablet was one of about 500 tablets found near Baghdad by archaeologists in 1962. Most relate to the administration of an ancient city which flourished in the time of Ibalpiel II of Eshunna and date from around 1750. The particular tablet which concerns us is not one relating to administration but one which presents a geometrical problem which asks for the dimensions of a rectangle whose area and diagonal are known.

Before looking at the mathematics contained in these four tablets we should say a little about their significance in understanding the scope of Babylonian mathematics. Firstly we should be careful not to read into early mathematics ideas which we can see clearly today yet which were never in the mind of the author. Conversely we must be careful not to underestimate the significance of the mathematics just because it has been produced by mathematicians who thought very differently from today's mathematicians. As a final comment on what these four tablets tell us of Babylonian mathematics we must be careful to realise that almost all of the mathematical achievements of the Babylonians, even if they were all recorded on clay tablets, will have been lost and even if these four may be seen as especially important among those surviving they may not represent the best of Babylonian mathematics.

There is no problem understanding what the Yale tablet YBC 7289 is about.


Here is a Diagram of Yale tablet

It has on it a diagram of a square with 30 on one side, the diagonals are drawn in and near the centre is written 1,24,51,10 and 42,25,35. Of course these numbers are written in Babylonian numerals to base 60. See our article on Babylonian numerals. Now the Babylonian numbers are always ambiguous and no indication occurs as to where the integer part ends and the fractional part begins. Assuming that the first number is 1; 24,51,10 then converting this to a decimal gives 1.414212963 while √2 = 1.414213562. Calculating 30 × [ 1;24,51,10 ] gives 42;25,35 which is the second number. The diagonal of a square of side 30 is found by multiplying 30 by the approximation to √2.

This shows a nice understanding of Pythagoras's theorem. However, even more significant is the question how the Babylonians found this remarkably good approximation to √2. Several authors, for example see [2] and [4], conjecture that the Babylonians used a method equivalent to Heron's method. The suggestion is that they started with a guess, say x. They then found e = x2 - 2 which is the error. Then

(x - e/2x)2 = x2 - e + (e/2x)2 = 2 + (e/2x)2

and they had a better approximation since if e is small then (e/2x)2 will be very small. Continuing the process with this better approximation to √2 yieds a still better approximation and so on. In fact as Joseph points out in [4], one needs only two steps of the algorithm if one starts with x = 1 to obtain the approximation 1;24,51,10.

This is certainly possible and the Babylonians' understanding of quadratics adds some weight to the claim. However there is no evidence of the algorithm being used in any other cases and its use here must remain no more than a fairly remote possibility. May I [EFR] suggest an alternative. The Babylonians produced tables of squares, in fact their whole understanding of multiplication was built round squares, so perhaps a more obvious approach for them would have been to make two guesses, one high and one low say a and b. Take their average (a + b)/2 and square it. If the square is greater than 2 then replace b by this better bound, while if the square is less than 2 then replace a by (a + b)/2. Continue with the algorithm.

Now this certainly takes many more steps to reach the sexagesimal approximation 1;24,51,10. In fact starting with a = 1 and b = 2 it takes 19 steps as the table below shows:


step decimal sexagesimal

1 1.500000000 1;29,59,59
2 1.250000000 1;14,59,59
3 1.375000000 1;22,29,59
4 1.437500000 1;26,14,59
5 1.406250000 1;24,22,29
6 1.421875000 1;25,18,44
7 1.414062500 1;24,50,37
8 1.417968750 1;25, 4,41
9 1.416015625 1;24,57,39
10 1.415039063 1;24,54, 8
11 1.414550781 1;24,52,22
12 1.414306641 1;24,51;30
13 1.414184570 1;24,51; 3
14 1.414245605 1;24,51;17
15 1.414215088 1;24,51;10
16 1.414199829 1;24,51; 7
17 1.414207458 1;24,51; 8
18 1.414211273 1;24,51; 9
19 1.414213181 1;24,51;10


However, the Babylonians were not frightened of computing and they may have been prepared to continue this straightforward calculation until the answer was correct to the third sexagesimal place.


Next we look again at Plimpton 322

The tablet has four columns with 15 rows. The last column is the simplest to understand for it gives the row number and so contains 1, 2, 3, ... , 15. The remarkable fact which Neugebauer and Sachs pointed out in [5] is that in every row the square of the number c in column 3 minus the square of the number b in column 2 is a perfect square, say h.

c2 - b2 = h2

So the table is a list of Pythagorean integer triples. Now this is not quite true since Neugebauer and Sachs believe that the scribe made four transcription errors, two in each column and this interpretation is required to make the rule work. The errors are readily seen to be genuine errors, however, for example 8,1 has been copied by the scribe as 9,1.

The first column is harder to understand, particularly since damage to the tablet means that part of it is missing. However, using the above notation, it is seen that the first column is just (c/h)2. Now so far so good, but if one were writing down Pythagorean triples one would find much easier ones than those which appear in the table. For example the Pythagorean triple 3, 4 , 5 does not appear neither does 5, 12, 13 and in fact the smallest Pythagorean triple which does appear is 45, 60, 75 (15 times 3, 4 , 5). Also the rows do not appear in any logical order except that the numbers in column 1 decrease regularly. The puzzle then is how the numbers were found and why are these particular Pythagorean triples are given in the table.

Several historians (see for example [2]) have suggested that column 1 is connected with the secant function. However, as Joseph comments [4]:-

This interpretation is a trifle fanciful.

Zeeman has made a fascinating observation. He has pointed out that if the Babylonians used the formulas h = 2mnb = m2-n2c = m2+n2 to generate Pythagorean triples then there are exactly 16 triples satisfying n ≤ 60, 30° ≤ t ≤ 45°, and tan2t = h2/b2 having a finite sexagesimal expansion (which is equivalent to mnb having 2, 3, and 5 as their only prime divisors). Now 15 of the 16 Pythagorean triples satisfying Zeeman's conditions appear in Plimpton 322. Is it the earliest known mathematical classification theorem? Although I cannot believe that Zeeman has it quite right, I do feel that his explanation must be on the right track.

To give a fair discussion of Plimpton 322 we should add that not all historians agree that this tablet concerns Pythagorean triples. For example Exarchakos, in [17], claims that the tablet is connected with the solution of quadratic equations and has nothing to do with Pythagorean triples:-

... we prove that in this tablet there is no evidence whatsoever that the Babylonians knew the Pythagorean theorem and the Pythagorean triads.

I feel that the arguments are weak, particularly since there are numerous tablets which show that the Babylonians of this period had a good understanding of Pythagoras's theorem. Other authors, although accepting that Plimpton 322 is a collection of Pythagorean triples, have argued that they had, as Viola writes in [31], a practical use in giving a:-

... general method for the approximate computation of areas of triangles.

The Susa tablet sets out a problem about an isosceles triangle with sides 50, 50 and 60. The problem is to find the radius of the circle through the three vertices.


Here is a Diagram of Susa tablet

Here we have labelled the triangle ABC and the centre of the circle is O. The perpendicular AD is drawn from A to meet the side BC. Now the triangle ABD is a right angled triangle so, using Pythagoras's theorem AD2 =AB2 - BD2, so AD = 40. Let the radius of the circle by x. Then AO = OB = x and OD = 40 - x. Using Pythagoras's theorem again on the triangle OBD we have

x2 = OD2 + DB2.

So

x2 = (40-x)2 + 302

giving x2 = 402 - 80x + x2 + 302

and so 80x = 2500 or, in sexagesimal, x = 31;15.

Finally consider the problem from the Tell Dhibayi tablet. It asks for the sides of a rectangle whose area is 0;45 and whose diagonal is 1;15. Now this to us is quite an easy exercise in solving equations. If the sides are xywe have xy = 0.75 and x2 + y2 = (1.25)2. We would substitute y = 0.75/x into the second equation to obtain a quadratic in x2 which is easily solved. This however is not the method of solution given by the Babylonians and really that is not surprising since it rests heavily on our algebraic understanding of equations. The way the Tell Dhibayi tablet solves the problem is, I would suggest, actually much more interesting than the modern method.

Here is the method from the Tell Dhibayi tablet. We preserve the modern notation x and y as each step for clarity but we do the calculations in sexagesimal notation (as of course does the tablet).

Compute 2xy = 1;30.

Subtract from x2 + y2 = 1;33,45 to get x2 + y2 - 2xy = 0;3,45.

Take the square root to obtain x - y = 0;15.

Divide by 2 to get (x - y)/2 = 0;7,30.

Divide x2 + y2 - 2xy = 0;3,45 by 4 to get x2/4 + y2/4 - xy/2 = 0;0,56,15.

Add xy = 0;45 to get x2/4 + y2/4 + xy/2 = 0;45,56,15.

Take the square root to obtain (x + y)/2 = 0;52,30.

Add (x + y)/2 = 0;52,30 to (x - y)/2 = 0;7,30 to get x = 1.

Subtract (x - y)/2 = 0;7,30 from (x + y)/2 = 0;52,30 to get y = 0;45.

Hence the rectangle has sides x = 1 and y = 0;45.

Is this not a beautiful piece of mathematics! Remember that it is 3750 years old. We should be grateful to the Babylonians for recording this little masterpiece on tablets of clay for us to appreciate today.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PrintHT/Babylonian_Pythagoras.html - http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PrintHT/Babylonian_Pythagoras.html



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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: Ron
Date Posted: 29-Mar-2013 at 13:57
Dear Jhuntadu,
In Plato's book 'Meno' we can see an exact copy of the the second figure from the left on the cuneiform geometrical tablet you are showing us. I'm trying to find a connexion between the two. Can you tell me the name of the tablet and/or where I can find information especially about the texts written above and below? 
Thanks,
Ron.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 29-Mar-2013 at 18:09
Ron, the post you are responding to is 7 years old.  That member hasn't been active in years.  But possibly someone else can help.

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"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 30-Mar-2013 at 02:32
Creator&God!Rests just have unveiled Divine secrets of it's creation!Big smileHi Ron!Welcome aboard!


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2013 at 03:54
This is an old controversy. Trigonometry as a science began with the ancient Greeks. The Babylonian attempt was not a scientific theorem with a logical proof to back it up. The word trigonometry derives definitely from Greek. Trigono = triangle. Tri = three. gono comes from gonia = angle.  Metry = to measure. Metron = meter.  It's 100% Greek. The word hasn't changed over the last 3000 years. It's exactly the same in both ancient and modern Greek.

^ "The Beginnings of Trigonometry". Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~cherlin/History/Papers2000/hunt.html

Let me quote from the above source:

"The ancient Greeks transformed trigonometry into an ordered science. Astronomy was the driving force behind advancements in trigonometry. Most of the early advancements in trigonometry were in spherical trigonometry mostly because of its application to astronomy. The three main figures that we know of in the development of Greek trigonometry are Hipparchus, Menelaus, and Ptolomy. There were likely other contributors but over time their works have been loss and their names have been forgotten.

"Even if he did not invent it, Hipparchus is the first person of whose systematic use of trigonometry we have documentary evidence." (Heath 257) Some historians go as far as to say that he invented trigonometry. "



-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 02-Apr-2013 at 19:18
Pythagoras was known to have visited Egypt to access Alexandria's library. Perhaps his theorem was based on an older Egyptian text (useful system for building pyramids)

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Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains!


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 03-Apr-2013 at 03:11
Originally posted by Nick1986

Pythagoras was known to have visited Egypt to access Alexandria's library. Perhaps his theorem was based on an older Egyptian text (useful system for building pyramids)

Maybe, but then again, everyone is based upon earlier findings, to some extent. Wink
The Greek alphabet is based upon the Phoenician, the Phoenician is based upon earlier Proto-Canaanite etc.

However, the end result matters the most: 21 or 22 letters of the English alphabet are found in the Euboean Greek alphabet, NOT in the Phoenician or the Proto-Canaanite scripts. Additionally, the first alphabet ever, to include both vowels and consonants was the Greek, not the Phoenician.



-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 04-Apr-2013 at 19:23
In practical terms: which civilisations had the greatest need for trigonometry? Egypt was one of the first to quarry and carve blocks of stone, in addition to building structures large enough to require ramps and pulleys.


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Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains!


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 05-Apr-2013 at 08:46
I would like to know where the "slide rule" came from.

-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 05-Apr-2013 at 09:40
Originally posted by red clay

I would like to know where the "slide rule" came from.



Easy enough. If you could remember that one the Geography prof I had as an a ugrad loved ya. .Bill (William) Oughtred(tho there are other claimants).

Now why was it important to impress the old duffer and lover of the study of land etc...because...

a. He had served with Merrills Marauders in the WW2. And lived to tell the tale.


b. He was a advisor to our Vets Club.


c. He taught fundamentals of military surveying and the fracking thing was used constantly in determination of calculs.


d. I took every class he taught and got a double minoe as a result.

And because the ole codger. May he RIP..... told the fracking DIA, I was good to go for a SECRET Clearance, upon commissioning; when they went snooping around checking my background.

Ya would have liked him...he took no shit and was liberal in social politics but as hard lined as a conservative mofo, on defense as they ever made.

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"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

S. T. Friedman


Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'



Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 01:56
Trigonometry began with the circle of 360 degrees.

That is the most fundamental element of trigonometry. To solve this question, we need to find who first conceived of this. Egyptians? Sumerians? Vedic people ?


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 07:33
We don't know who invented it. It doesn't matter anyway. All that matters is who advanced it! The ancient Greeks did a phenomenal job and the Indians continued, many centuries later.

-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 07:43
Hardly....

The circle of 360 degrees was invented around 5500 years back. I was waiting for someone to find some Sumerian evidence. Nothing such exists. I knew that already.

It was invented by a Rig Vedic philosopher called "Dirgatamas". Check out wiki. 

It is clear that the Babylonians adopted this system- because they could have used any other circle, say a circle of 60 degrees or 120 or 720. NO ! They simply chose the same Indian system. Later the Greeks adopted it from Babylonians.


Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 16:39
TRiGoNo=triangle=Romantic&Far away resurrection is embodied by attentive Triangle.
Romantic&Dreamy&Far away resurrection embodies attentive Triangle.Bermudas triangle?!?Big smile


Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 13-Jun-2013 at 23:39
God is bigest inventor people!We are copy&paste machines.Smile


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 00:12
Originally posted by medenaywe

TRiGoNo=triangle=Romantic&Far away resurrection is embodied by attentive Triangle.
Romantic&Dreamy&Far away resurrection embodies attentive Triangle.Bermudas triangle?!?Big smile



Sanskrit Tri-gona is triangle . 

Trigonometry
is modified form of sanskrit word "tri(three)+kon(angle)+miti(perimeter)



So what would you bet on? Is the word Greek or Sanskrit?


Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 00:53
It is female triangle,Surya Vajra,not sanskrit one.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 01:17
http://www.quia.com/files/quia/users/tcsyoung/funny-calculus-cartoon.gif


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 14-Jun-2013 at 04:29
This should be of interest, coming from a period many centuries before the Rigveda. Also from the same period these same people had the circle divided into 360. These people used the sexagesimal system they got from the Sumerians. Follow the link to read of its connection with trigonometry, and Pythagorean theory.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Ybc7289-bw.jpg - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Ybc7289-bw.jpg  


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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 04:38
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

This should be of interest, coming from a period many centuries before the Rigveda.


It is sad that the Vedic people has not left us such archaeological specimens except for the well planned Saraswathy cities. But they have left us the largest literature in human history. And they are replete with all forms of advanced thinking ,reasoning and Mathematical analysis.

Here Alani, you of all people, assume that the Rig Veda was composed around 1500 BC. On what grounds? Because Max Mueller says so?  The Rig Veda is neolithic . It does not have much of the technology described in the other vedas and found in the IVC. It also says that the Saraswathy river flows "from the mountain to the ocean" . Satellite and ground water analysis data shows that the River stopped doing this around 3200 BC. Most importantly, one particular solar Eclipse mentioned by the Philosopher Atri in Mandala 5(HYMN XL. 5. ) has been calculated to  have occurred around 4600 BC.

On the other hand , the 1500 BC dating cannot be maintained by any branch of science. It was never established with proof in the first place.


This outrageous colonial tactic has devastated Indian history. Most of the dates of ancient Bharatha scholars are mere guess work invented to squeeze them into this little 1500 BC date.

For example, Aryabhatta was arbitrarily determined to have lived in 500 CE without any hard evidence, when he has categorically stated himself in his Aryabhattiya that he was born 337 years after Kali Yuga began.

Baudhayana is guessed to have lived in 800 BCE, while the rigorous Mathematical analysis of Sidenberg places him before 2000 BCE. Dr. Abraham Seidenberg, a professor of mathematics at University of California at Berkley proved that the Greek, Indian and Babylonian Mathematics had a common origin and that it is most probably a tradition of Algebraic Geometry. Greeks did not make headway other than in Geometry. Babylonians were proficient in Algebra. The only Tradition on Earth where Algebra and Geometry were interwoven for a practical application was in Vedic India, the Sulva Sutra tradition --for Fire alter construction.Baudhayana was the first to explicitly state the Pythagorean theorem=

The Vedanga Jyotisha was guessed to have been written around 300 BC, but a clear astronomical reference in it puts it to exactly the 16 th century BCE---The very century Mueller gives for Rig Veda.

Witzel ( without any evidence whatsoever) brilliantly guesses that the Shatapatha Brahmana of the Yajur Veda dates to 600 BC. Dozens of astronomical and geological references pins the text between 2900 and 2400 BC.

I have explained all this in a new topic I started. But I did not receive any responses. It was depressing
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33784

Rig Veda is definitely older than 3200 BC. If not, you have to explain away the facts I stated .

Circle of 360 degrees in the Rig Veda


http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/origins-zodiac.html

 The number 360 and its related numbers like 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 108, 432 and 720 occur commonly in Vedic symbolism. It is in the hymns of the great Rishi Dirghatamas (RV I.140 – 164) that we have the clearest such references.

Dirghatamas is one of the most famous Rig Vedic Rishis. He was the reputed purohit or chief priest of King Bharata (Aitareya Brahmana VIII.23), one of the earliest kings of the land, from which India as Bharata (the traditional name of the country) was named.


R I.164.48. Twelve are its fellies. The wheel is one. It has three naves. Who has understood it?

        It are held together like spokes the 360, both moving and non-moving.


This perhaps the clearest verse that refers to the zodiac of twelve signs and three hundred and sixty degrees. The same verse also occurs in Atharva Veda (X.8.4).


Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Also from the same period these same people had the circle divided into 360. These people used the sexagesimal system they got from the Sumerians. Follow the link to read of its connection with trigonometry, and Pythagorean theory.



While the rudiments of the Sexagesimal system is seen in the Rig Veda, and while it has most clearly been exemplified by Aryabhatta, it was the Sumerians who used it for practical applications considerably and used it more seriously

Indians moved on and developed the modern Decimal system with fixed value numerals.

But there is no evidence that the Babylonian tablets influenced the modern world.


History of the Pythagorean theorem

The fire alter construction manual of the Shatapatha Brahmana is the starting point of the sttested history of Mathematics. It contains clear evidence of the use of the Pythagorean triples and 3  close values of Pi along with Algebra and Geometry and much more.

Infact Baudhayana was a commentator of the mathematical portions of this text. Its no surprise that he was the first Mathematician to state the Baudhayana theorem (wrongly called as Pythagoras , no text of whose exists or probably ever existed)

Astronomical evidence proves beyond all reasonably doubt that the SB was composed around 2900 BC( when the Pleiades was in the East as recorded). 

The writers of the Shatapatha Brahmana knew this knowledge. The theorem and its converse were stated precisely by Baudhayanain his Sulba Sutras. We have to realise that the authors of the Sutras incorporated into their books all that was known earlier in addition to their own findings and Baudhayana’s Sulba Sutra the earliest known book on mathematics is no exception.

The word akshnaya occurring in several places of the Taittiriya Samhita,
Krishna Yajur Veda, 5.2.10, 5.2.7, 5.3.5, 6.2.8, 6.3.10 etc., is the hypotenuse of a right
angled triangle or the diagonal of a square or rectangle or trapezium. Shatapatha
Brahmana (3.5.1 to 6) gives a method for constructing a isosceles trapezium
shaped firealtar with parallel sides being 24 and 30 and the height or distance
between the parallel sides being 36. Of course, the description is given in linear
prose without resort to figures.

There is another evidence to support the idea that the authors of Shatapatha Brahmana knew the Pythagorean theorem for integers. As Dutta has noted, the verse 13.8.1.5 suggests that a particular type of altar named paitrki vedi whose corners point to th e four directions must be half the area of the regular square vedi whose four sides point to the four directions. Clearly the Shatapatha Brahmana must have known about the solution to the problem they noted. The Paitrki vedi square is constructed from the regular vedi squares by joining themid points of adjacent sides. The fact that this altar has half the area of the regular square is a clear indication of their knowledge of the Pythagorean triple.The construction of the Paitrki vedi from the regular ved is indicated in Baudhayana Sulba Sutras 3.11

http://www.nandanmenon.com/Mathematics.pdf

http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0301078.pdf


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 12:23
Surya, it's commonly accepted that the datiing of 1500 BC is arbitrary.  You can dispute the age a little more gently eh?  There isn't any adversarial attitude coming from anyone here, lighten up.

-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 12:29
BTW, I don't know who invented Trig. but without Trig. tables you couldn't use a "Slide Rule".  And considering that most of our more spectacular advances were done on a Slide Rule [pre computer]  I think the question of who invented the Slide Rule, is more interesting.
 


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 15-Jun-2013 at 14:52
SuryaVajra, hopefully you can help me out here. I've been scouting about, looking for references for earlier dates suggested for the Rigveda, like you've been talking about, but I keep on coming up with outcries from those all too happy to tell the world how these Indian neolithic origins for the Rigveda claim are fabrications by Hindu nationalists, and are not backed up by any serious scholars. SuryaVajra, can you help to clear this up for me by naming your reputable scholarly sources for those claims you shared with us?  

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 00:35
Originally posted by red clay

Surya, it's commonly accepted that the datiing of 1500 BC is arbitrary.  You can dispute the age a little more gently eh?  There isn't any adversarial attitude coming from anyone here, lighten up.


I must admit Red, this topic always makes me on the offensive. Only recently have I understood that the ball is not in my court. Therefore I am to be on the defensive .This enlightenment must help me lighten up. Big smileBig smile

The Argumentum ad Populum

Red, if the common opinion is true, it must not be that difficult to furnish an evidence in support of it.

I argue that the dating is wrong solely because there is not a single evidence to sustain it.

I dont need any of the advanced astronomical, archaeological or geological evidences(which i foolishly use very often)  to dismantle the "1500 BC" origin of Vedic civilization.

All I need is a ludicrously foolish argument by Max Mueller .

Max Mueller argued that " The world was created in 4004 BC. Thus the Vedas cannot be older than 1500 BC"

Dont believe me? Read his own book.Here you have it...

(Scanned pages from various works of Max Muller)

http://www.sabha.info/books/ScienceLang2/4000YearsSoEarlyPeriodPg286.html - 4000 years ago is very early period in history of the world

http://www.sabha.info/books/ContribSciMythV1/History6000YrsPg234.html - Entire human history consists of past 6000 years (or Lord God made us 6000 years back)

http://www.sabha.info/books/LifeLetters1/Bunsen28Aug1853Vol1Pg152.html - Vedas composed in 1000 BCE, but it need not be proved

http://www.sabha.info/books/LifeLetters1/Darwin3Jan1875Vol1Pg503.html - Muller to Darwin: Evolution not reflected in language, so it is wrong!


Tell me Red, how reliable is the opinion of a pseudo Scholar like Mueller?

Who is worse, Mueller or the foolish modern scholarship which blindly follows him?


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 00:56
Very interesting, SuryaVajra. If by your own standards people are being foolish, and are being so because they are blindly following that which has no solid evidence, then you must then submit your own solid evidence supporting that which you have put forward, which others have claimed to be from the imaginations of political zealots. Do you have solid evidence?  

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 01:10
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

SuryaVajra, hopefully you can help me out here. I've been scouting about, looking for references for earlier dates suggested for the Rigveda, like you've been talking about, but I keep on coming up with outcries from those all too happy to tell the world how these Indian neolithic origins for the Rigveda claim are fabrications by Hindu nationalists, and are not backed up by any serious scholars. SuryaVajra, can you help to clear this up for me by naming your reputable scholarly sources for those claims you shared with us?  



LOL Hindu nationalists.

I know Alani, I know. Thats the same response I get most of the time.

I understand your difficulty. What Indian scholars say will always receive the same crushing response. Its a grave injustice, one that Western scholars will not tolerate if they are called "Christian nationalists"(which was what Max Mueller and William jones was)

But the fact it , many Western scholars argue the same thing--Koenrald Elst, Nicolas Kazanas, Michael Danilo etc.

Kazanas is my Guru . Most of my knowledge in this area is all thanks to him.

He has presented the case in most objective terms in his famous paper "'A new date for the Rgveda'"

http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/rie.pdf

More papers are available at his official site

http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/indology_en.asp


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 01:56
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

SuryaVajra, hopefully you can help me out here. I've been scouting about, looking for references for earlier dates suggested for the Rigveda, like you've been talking about, but I keep on coming up with outcries from those all too happy to tell the world how these Indian neolithic origins for the Rigveda claim are fabrications by Hindu nationalists, and are not backed up by any serious scholars. SuryaVajra, can you help to clear this up for me by naming your reputable scholarly sources for those claims you shared with us?  



LOL Hindu nationalists.

I know Alani, I know. Thats the same response I get most of the time.

I understand your difficulty. What Indian scholars say will always receive the same crushing response. Its a grave injustice, one that Western scholars will not tolerate if they are called "Christian nationalists"(which was what Max Mueller and William jones was)

But the fact it , many Western scholars argue the same thing--Koenrald Elst, Nicolas Kazanas, Michael Danilo etc.

Kazanas is my Guru . Most of my knowledge in this area is all thanks to him.

He has presented the case in most objective terms in his famous paper "'A new date for the Rgveda'"

http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/rie.pdf

More papers are available at his official site

http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/en/indology_en.asp
I've taken a cursory look at " A new date for the Rgveda " and will be looking at it much more closely after some sleep. I did however read the section near the end stating how the RV seems to be no more than 3100 BC, with earlier suggestions being somewhat far fetched. At this point then the Sumerians look to have had the knowledge many centuries before.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 02:17
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising


 I did however read the section near the end stating how the RV seems to be no more than 3100 BC, with earlier suggestions being somewhat far fetched. At this point then the Sumerians look to have had the knowledge many centuries before.



Linguistic and archaeological evidence only proves that RV is older than the IVC. The paper I quoted only deals with these.

And Alani.....we are presently concerned with only why the 1500 BC date is wrong.

But astronomical and Literary evidence shows that some portions of it are as old as 4600 BC.

So the Rig Veda is a stratified text. Its composition spans a period 4600--3200 BC

Brick technology began only around 4000 BC at Amri in India( now in Pakistan).

 Astronomical evidence is irrefutable. It cannot be challenged. Its pure Mathematics.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 09:44
I was actually trying to agree with you on the 1500 bc dating.  It is a date sort of picked out of the air.  Mainly because there isn't solid material evidence that it's older.  It's probably much older, but the problem exists due to the question of when it was written down from oral tradition. 
 
And your wasting your time worrying about folks like Mueller.  Young Earth Creationists are the fuzz on the fringe.  They are religion based, not science.  They have it that the Bible states the earth is 6,000 years old. 
 
However, this just underlines what I was speaking of in an earlier post.  Both the Bible and the Rig Veda were written by many over a period of several thousand years. Compiled from oral traditions. Dating something like this is difficult, and without solid evidence of age becomes open to interpretation by anyone with an agenda.
 
BTW- I'd check that "brick Technology" thing.  Your getting into my territory now. Big smile If your referring to Kiln fired bricks instead of sun dried, the Neolithic cultures in China and Korea were way ahead of you on that.
Archeaoastronomy itself cannot be disputed, however it's interpretation can be.  And if the dating is anomalously old, just out right ignored.  Example- There are standing stones in the Northeast of the US with astronomical alignments pointing to 3,800bce.  Big Archaeological Investigation, many papers written? No, it is quietly ignored.  Too many questions involved that no one has the answers to.
 
 


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 10:23
Originally posted by red clay

 
BTW- I'd check that "brick Technology" thing.  Your getting into my territory now. Big smile If your referring to Kiln fired bricks instead of sun dried, the Neolithic cultures in China and Korea were way ahead of you on that.



 In India, fried brick technology began in the Pre harappan sites of Rehman Dheri ,Amri, kot Diji , Balakot etc. These flourished between 4000 and 3400 BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehman_Dheri

It must have first been invented in China, if you have found it to be so. Are the Chinese sites older?

But Mud baked bricks are the first . These were invented in  India and Mesopotamia between 7500 and 7000 BC.

Merhgarh(250 acres) is the largest neolithic site(7000-5500 BC). It may qualify to be called a city. It was built with mud bricks.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/84/Neolithic_mehrgarh.jpg/285px-Neolithic_mehrgarh.jpg

Originally posted by red clay

Big Archaeological Investigation, many papers written? No, it is quietly ignored.  Too many questions involved that no one has the answers to.


You are right, if you are talking about references to stellar positions. They can have varying degrees of accuracy. The reference in the Shatapatha Brahmana dates betwen 2900 and 2400 BCE.

But references to eclipses and stellar positions simultaneously, such as the one found in the fifth book of the Rig Veda and the dozens in the Mahabharata can be and has been pinned down the exact year and even the day
 
There can be no challenge to these specific references.

Many historians have no formal training in Mathematics . Perhaps thats why they dont appreciate these.



Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 10:36
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising


 I did however read the section near the end stating how the RV seems to be no more than 3100 BC, with earlier suggestions being somewhat far fetched. At this point then the Sumerians look to have had the knowledge many centuries before.



Linguistic and archaeological evidence only proves that RV is older than the IVC. The paper I quoted only deals with these.

And Alani.....we are presently concerned with only why the 1500 BC date is wrong.

But astronomical and Literary evidence shows that some portions of it are as old as 4600 BC.

So the Rig Veda is a stratified text. Its composition spans a period 4600--3200 BC

Brick technology began only around 4000 BC at Amri in India( now in Pakistan).

 Astronomical evidence is irrefutable. It cannot be challenged. Its pure Mathematics.

I have had time to read and evaluate the evidence you've put forward in the form of . "A new date for the Rgveda", and scrutinized, by the use of logic, in what has been said in the piece. On evidence used to support claims I have looked for it necessarily being accurate. In those terms things can be broken down as being based on logic, or fallacious logic. What I have found is "evidence" of those trying to squeeze what they think they have found to make a supposition. The aging and use of Sanskrit on its own calls into question the viability of earlier dates for the RV, and by extension the geometric and algebraic works, we are talking about on this thread, with it. Trying to put forward an oral tradition for geometric and algebraic notation is hardly going to cut it. Had there been any evidence at all involving these elements in the proto-writing known as Indus script, it would have stood out, and unless I've missed something, there doesn't seem to be any of that. What we do find is talk of things which seem to be missing which shouldn't, which suggests to me that there's a very good chance of literary manipulation(hardly an unknown element in historical terms), and/or the likelihood of a semi-nomadic existence(which is hit on in seasonal terms). OK on top of this, and this is my opinion alone, this could also indicate work from elsewhere being transferred and being geographically and historically updated, also not unknown in literary work. I think, before I try to second guess things I might have missed, SuryaVajra, I'd better ask your opinion on those things which you have put forward. How many of those things could potentially have alternative explanations to them in your opinion, using logic to look at them?   


-------------
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 10:42
By the way Red,

That underwater ruins in Dwarka provided evidence and examples of fried bricks.

Dwarka has , by Electron spin resonance dating at Oxford university(Incase Indian universities may be accused of Nationalism) , been fixed at 9500 BP (7500 BCE)

In order to substantiate the findings detailed sampling was carried out. Since the sea condition was very rough and the water turbid and brown, sampling was carried out in areas where side scan images show excellent results. The samples were collected by utilizing a grab sampler, dredger, gravity corer and vibro corer. Large numbers of samples were carefully collected, systematically numbered and properly preserved. The artifacts collected included a variety of pottery pieces, Mesolithic stone tools, a few Paleolithic macro stone tools, beads made of semiprecious stones, brick pieces, hearth material, wattle and daub structure materials, corals, perfectly holed stones, fossilized human remains and human teeth.

Here the hunting and gathering way of life was replaced by organised food production. Holed stones which appeared in the late paleolithic became prominent in the Mesolithic. These holed stones appear to have been used as weights in digging sticks and as net sinkers by the fishing folks. In general a sedentary form of living heralded the beginning of other associated cultural artifacts like pottery, living in well-built houses like wattle and clay, or of sun dried and fired bricks.

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/cambay.html


I must be annoying for people.

I am getting embarrassed myself, having so much to claim for Bharatavarsh.
Embarrassed 


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 11:00
Just thought I would interject this, mainly to really confuse things.  There is a japanese Archaeologist who has been doing work on the West Coast of Peru.  He's working on Mud Brick pyramids that date to approx. 7200 bce.  Others working in Peru and Bolivia have found several sites that were originally thought to be natural mounds and are Mud Brick constructions that have been seriously effected by erosion.  Dating has been slow, but all evidence points to the same timeline.
 
Another observation, the figurines that show up on the map you showed in an earlier post are deffinately Jomon Culture.  The Jomon had ceramic technology that pre dates almost everyone.  Some fragments have been dated to 16,000 bce.  I've never considered a transfer of knowledge from an earlier Indian Civ. but I guess it's possible.
Considering Jomon decorative styles were very distinctive, as was their handling of clay in general, it shouldn't be hard to establish at least a stylistic connection.
 
A side note.  The very early dates we throw around now, would have been looked at as fringe 10 years ago.  A lot of attitudes have been readjusted since the discovery of Gobekli Tepe.  Even mainstream stalwarts such as Betty Meggars of the Smithsonian are starting to look at the likely hood of contact with the Americas, all do to the apparent influence on Ceramics in the Americas by an outside culture.  Most likely Japanese in origin.
 
 


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 11:14
Awh crap.

The provenance of the twin metropolis of Dwarka has not been pushed beyond 13,000 BP.
Ceramic in India cannot be older than that.

Sometimes history makes no sense.

I really dont want to believe in the flood myth. But sometimes, no other explanation suits

Questions that haunt me...

1. Why did the advanced Dwarka get replaced by the primitive Mehrgarh of Mud ?

2. Why is the flood myth incredibly similar in Egypt,Israel, India and Mesopotamia?




Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 11:29
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

By the way Red,

That underwater ruins in Dwarka provided evidence and examples of fried bricks.

Dwarka has , by Electron spin resonance dating at Oxford university(Incase Indian universities may be accused of Nationalism) , been fixed at 9500 BP (7500 BCE)

In order to substantiate the findings detailed sampling was carried out. Since the sea condition was very rough and the water turbid and brown, sampling was carried out in areas where side scan images show excellent results. The samples were collected by utilizing a grab sampler, dredger, gravity corer and vibro corer. Large numbers of samples were carefully collected, systematically numbered and properly preserved. The artifacts collected included a variety of pottery pieces, Mesolithic stone tools, a few Paleolithic macro stone tools, beads made of semiprecious stones, brick pieces, hearth material, wattle and daub structure materials, corals, perfectly holed stones, fossilized human remains and human teeth.

Here the hunting and gathering way of life was replaced by organised food production. Holed stones which appeared in the late paleolithic became prominent in the Mesolithic. These holed stones appear to have been used as weights in digging sticks and as net sinkers by the fishing folks. In general a sedentary form of living heralded the beginning of other associated cultural artifacts like pottery, living in well-built houses like wattle and clay, or of sun dried and fired bricks.

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/cambay.html


I must be annoying for people.

I am getting embarrassed myself, having so much to claim for Bharatavarsh.
Embarrassed 
 
 
And I'm having a lot of fun making water balloons to throw on some of your claims.  Not that your wrong, I'm just giving you some alternatives to think on.
 
In your last post you mention they found "brick Pieces" in Dwarka.  About 2 miles from my home are several NA occupation sites.  Actually my home sits on an NA site.
There are many "brick pieces" to be found there.  I, like everyone else assumed they were exactly that, brick pieces left from the early colonial period.  Closer examination showed that they weren't "brick".
They had been fired, yes.  However they are in actuality stacking cookies, used to stabilize pottery in it's firing stage.  It took about a year for this to settle in my mind, but considering I've made and used a few thousand of these myself, I'm embarrased by not spotting them right off.
The samples I've found are mostly from clay that has shell temper added to it.  Colonial brickmakers didn't bother to temper their clay.  Also they all are similar in size and shape. All having at least one side that has been flattened.  In otherwords, don't be so quick to judge things like this, a little more time and much more investigation is required.
 
  


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 11:33
Now I cant tell can I?

I haven't even been to Gujrat.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 11:36
http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/nQZFS9Hij0M/mqdefault.jpg

A sample dredged out from Dwarka.

Can you make out whats what?


Now, I found that Dwarka was cursed by a bunch of Philosophers when the naughty young princes played a prank on them LOLLOLLOL

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6MUp16lfcdM/TRQbufpqxZI/AAAAAAAAA4M/6hQpJ2zsXzg/s1600/KA1_168.302120420_std.jpg


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 12:14
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising


Trying to put forward an oral tradition for geometric and algebraic notation is hardly going to cut it. Had there been any evidence at all involving these elements in the proto-writing known as Indus script, it would have stood out, and unless I've missed something, there doesn't seem to be any of that.


As you know, the script has not been deciphered.It may probably never be.

Unless a text with atleast 27 continuous characters is discovered, not even the best code breaking computers can do it. 

The Vedic altars had an astronomical basis. In the basic scheme, the circle represented the earth, while the square represented the heavens or the deity. But the altar or the temple, as a representation of the dynamism of the universe, required a breaking of the symmetry of the square. As seen clearly in the agnicayana and other altar constructions, this was done in a variety ofways. Although the main altar might be square or its derivative, the overall sacred area was taken to be a departure from this shape. In particular, the temples of the goddess were drawn on a rectangular plan. The dynamism is expressed by a doubling of the square to a rectangle or the ratio 1:2, where the garbhagrha is built in the geometrical centre.The constructions of the Harappan period appear to be according to the same principles. The dynamic ratio of 1:2:4 is the most commonly encoun-tered size of rooms of houses, in the overall plan of houses and the construc-tion of large public buildings. This ratio is also re ected in the overall planof the large walled sector at Mohenjo-Daro called the \citadel mound".If the Harappan iconography expresses the ideas of the original Purana,we are quite close to the traditional chronology of Indian history

http://gaurang.org/indian_phil/indian-chronology-subhash-kak.pdf



Would it satisfy your curiosity, if I showed that the Mathematics involved in the Town planning in the Saraswathy cities obeys the mathematics of the Sulva Sutras which Sidenberg has dated to 2600 BC and is exactly as described in the Arthashastra and other texts?
The town planning in later India has unbelievable similarities .


  
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

OK on top of this, and this is my opinion alone, this could also indicate work from elsewhere being transferred and being geographically and historically updated, also not unknown in literary work.


The problem with the opinion is ....The Rig Veda does not know of any land outside of India. Talageris analysis has shown that the oldest Rig Vedic book was written deep inside India, East of Punjab.

No plant or animal or River or place name in Rig Veda is foreign to India. Not even mythology crosses the Himalayas.

 
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

I think, before I try to second guess things I might have missed, SuryaVajra, I'd better ask your opinion on those things which you have put forward. How many of those things could potentially have alternative explanations to them in your opinion, using logic to look at them?


Well, only the Brick issue is doubtful.

The Sanskrit word is Istika. Even today, my native language uses the same word .

Yet the Rig Veda does not mention the word even once. Mud Bricks were known in India since 7500 BCE.

Silver, fire alters, Iron etc fit well into the puzzle . They are not found in a neolithic society. India knew them since 4000--3500 BCE.
 

My earlier posts with Red discusses the Brick Issue.

It escapes me.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 17:36

My post also involves one of the problems involved with dating any site.  This valley has been occupied for 12,000 years.  Preservation of strata just doesn't exist here.  Consequently you will find extremely old, mixed with the relatively young.  Pottery in this area is relatively recent, but still pre-woodland.  Late Transitional Archaic people were the first known pottery makers here, and only my guess, but were gone by the time the Lenni arrived.   But a pottery fragment can be found next to a Broad Spear type point of the type used by Early Archaic folks, 8-10,000 ybp.

Whoever excavates Dwarka will be running into the same issue, made more extreme by it being underwater.
BTW, is Dwarka the site Hancock found? Or is that something else? 
 
 


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 19:38
Surya, I can argue the Mathmatics as well.  In the last 5-10 years there have been many examples found of "advanced mathmatics" in places and times that are inexplicable.  There are Neolithic cultures that had knowledge of the concepts of Pi and right triangles, and recently Gobekli Tepe has blown your claims right out of the water.
As a naturalist, I don't find this surprising, nature itself is comprised of complex math.  And having been raised by a Physicist, I find it even less surprising.
 
And Surya, you can dance around a subject better than most everyone that's ever been here.


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 22:49
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising


Trying to put forward an oral tradition for geometric and algebraic notation is hardly going to cut it. Had there been any evidence at all involving these elements in the proto-writing known as Indus script, it would have stood out, and unless I've missed something, there doesn't seem to be any of that.


As you know, the script has not been deciphered.It may probably never be.

Unless a text with atleast 27 continuous characters is discovered, not even the best code breaking computers can do it. 

The Vedic altars had an astronomical basis. In the basic scheme, the circle represented the earth, while the square represented the heavens or the deity. But the altar or the temple, as a representation of the dynamism of the universe, required a breaking of the symmetry of the square. As seen clearly in the agnicayana and other altar constructions, this was done in a variety ofways. Although the main altar might be square or its derivative, the overall sacred area was taken to be a departure from this shape. In particular, the temples of the goddess were drawn on a rectangular plan. The dynamism is expressed by a doubling of the square to a rectangle or the ratio 1:2, where the garbhagrha is built in the geometrical centre.The constructions of the Harappan period appear to be according to the same principles. The dynamic ratio of 1:2:4 is the most commonly encoun-tered size of rooms of houses, in the overall plan of houses and the construc-tion of large public buildings. This ratio is also re ected in the overall planof the large walled sector at Mohenjo-Daro called the \citadel mound".If the Harappan iconography expresses the ideas of the original Purana,we are quite close to the traditional chronology of Indian history

http://gaurang.org/indian_phil/indian-chronology-subhash-kak.pdf



Would it satisfy your curiosity, if I showed that the Mathematics involved in the Town planning in the Saraswathy cities obeys the mathematics of the Sulva Sutras which Sidenberg has dated to 2600 BC and is exactly as described in the Arthashastra and other texts?
The town planning in later India has unbelievable similarities .

Get ready for something very very coool.

http://www.iisc.ernet.in/prasthu/pages/PP_data/dholavira.pdf 
I think I'm going to need your help on what you're trying to put over here, SuryaVajra. It could be my very poor education causing me problems here, and stopping me seeing what should be right in front of my eyes.

-------------
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 22:57
Originally posted by red clay

Surya, I can argue the Mathmatics as well.  In the last 5-10 years there have been many examples found of "advanced mathmatics" in places and times that are inexplicable.  There are Neolithic cultures that had knowledge of the concepts of Pi and right triangles, and recently Gobekli Tepe has blown your claims right out of the water.


Blown which claim out of water?

Gobekli Tepe involves Geometry . That does not mean they knew the advanced theoretical concept of Pi. It Involves fractions and the people behind Gobekli clearly did not have that ability to deal with fractions, let alone a mathematical notation that could pull that off.

Sorry red, you have excelled me with this Pi Claim.

Pi is inherent in Geometry, its manifestation out of Geometry does not prove that the people behind that geometry was aware of this manifestation.

2900 BCE-- Fire alter construction in the Shatapatah Brahmana gives 3 different values for pi

2700 BCE--Egyptians used an approximate value of 3 in their constructions.

2500 BCE--Baudhayana was the first recorded Mathematician to investigate Pi.He calculated 3.088. The Greek word Pi might come from its Sanskrit definition “Paridhi Vyas Anuvat”(Circumference diameter ratio)

2650 BCE or 400 AD--Aryabhatta recognizes that Pi is irrational. He found it as 3.1416

1400 AD--Madhava calculates Pi correct to 14 decimal places using calculus.

1700 AD-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_Lambert - Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1761 proved axiomatically that π is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number - irrational .



This is the History of Pi, with the significant events only. 


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 23:02
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

 
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

OK on top of this, and this is my opinion alone, this could also indicate work from elsewhere being transferred and being geographically and historically updated, also not unknown in literary work.


The problem with the opinion is ....The Rig Veda does not know of any land outside of India. Talageris analysis has shown that the oldest Rig Vedic book was written deep inside India, East of Punjab.

No plant or animal or River or place name in Rig Veda is foreign to India. Not even mythology crosses the Himalayas.
Are you suggesting that all of these works have been written in one particular area? If so what proof of this is there? I only ask as extensive works over time have a tendency to be written in many areas. Is the evidence consistent with this happening? If not then the likelihood that the evidence of the full disclosure is somewhat lacking, and it can't be automatically presumed to vigorous enough. 

-------------
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2013 at 23:14
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

I think, before I try to second guess things I might have missed, SuryaVajra, I'd better ask your opinion on those things which you have put forward. How many of those things could potentially have alternative explanations to them in your opinion, using logic to look at them?


Well, only the Brick issue is doubtful.

The Sanskrit word is Istika. Even today, my native language uses the same word .

Yet the Rig Veda does not mention the word even once. Mud Bricks were known in India since 7500 BCE.

Silver, fire alters, Iron etc fit well into the puzzle . They are not found in a neolithic society. India knew them since 4000--3500 BCE.
 

My earlier posts with Red discusses the Brick Issue.

It escapes me.
The thing is for me that many, if not most of the claims follow that if one part of the literary says, or might mean something, then it must follow that you get this meaning or that meaning. The truth is that a good few, if not almost all of them could have potentially different meanings, and because of this leaves the vast majority of the claims are not firm enough to stand up to scientific scrutiny.  

-------------
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 17-Jun-2013 at 04:24
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

Hardly....

The circle of 360 degrees was invented around 5500 years back. I was waiting for someone to find some Sumerian evidence. Nothing such exists. I knew that already.

It was invented by a Rig Vedic philosopher called "Dirgatamas". Check out wiki. 

It is clear that the Babylonians adopted this system- because they could have used any other circle, say a circle of 60 degrees or 120 or 720. NO ! They simply chose the same Indian system. Later the Greeks adopted it from Babylonians.

Show us some scientific academic sourses then. 


-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 17-Jun-2013 at 04:33
Originally posted by SuryaVajra

Originally posted by medenaywe

TRiGoNo=triangle=Romantic&Far away resurrection is embodied by attentive Triangle.
Romantic&Dreamy&Far away resurrection embodies attentive Triangle.Bermudas triangle?!?Big smile



Sanskrit Tri-gona is triangle . 

Trigonometry
is modified form of sanskrit word "tri(three)+kon(angle)+miti(perimeter)



So what would you bet on? Is the word Greek or Sanskrit?

Trigonometry comes from ancient Greek tri = three,  gono (gonia) = angle,  metry = metro = to measure, calculate. That is the official etymology. Since Greek was written down (attested) 1000 years before Sanskrit, it is most likely that the Indians copied that from the Greeks who had already influenced India with the Alexandrian campaign. 

Let's say the truth, once and for all. Sanskrit's oldest surviving readable inscriptions do not date before 300-400 BC. Linear B Greek script dates back to 1400 BC and it is deciphered. The roots of those words (like trigonometry) were attested in Greek, 1 millenium earlier. 

The same applies to Rig Veda, which was an oral tradition that was never written down before 300 BC, since the Indians had not developed a script before 300-400 BC.

Indus Valley Civilization writing remains a mystery and although it dates back to 2500 BC it is of no use to us. We don't even know if it is related to Sanskrit or not.

Leaving speculations aside, the oldest readable written Indo-european language is Greek (since 1400 BC). Words that are similar to trigonometry, like geometry, first appeard in Greek texts, not in Indian. 


-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 17-Jun-2013 at 04:50
^ "The Beginnings of Trigonometry". Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~cherlin/History/Papers2000/hunt.html

"The ancient Greeks transformed trigonometry into an ordered science. Astronomy was the driving force behind advancements in trigonometry. Most of the early advancements in trigonometry were in spherical trigonometry mostly because of its application to astronomy. The three main figures that we know of in the development of Greek trigonometry are Hipparchus, Menelaus, and Ptolomy. There were likely other contributors but over time their works have been loss and their names have been forgotten.

"Even if he did not invent it, Hipparchus is the first person of whose systematic use of trigonometry we have documentary evidence." (Heath 257) Some historians go as far as to say that he invented trigonometry. Not much is known about the life of Hipp archus. It is believed that he was born at Nicaea in Bithynia. (Sarton 285) The town of Nicaea is now called Iznik and is situated in northwestern Turkey. Founded in the 4th century BC, Nicaea lies on the eastern shore of Lake Iznik. He is one of the g reatest astronomers of all time. "


-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 17-Jun-2013 at 09:24
Surya wrote- Gobekli Tepe involves Geometry . That does not mean they knew the advanced theoretical concept of Pi. It Involves fractions and the people behind Gobekli clearly did not have that ability to deal with fractions, let alone a mathematical notation that could pull that off.

 
Now your just winging it.  Your sounding like a Hindu Nationalist.  No one but the Indians could have done such and such.
Balogney! 
Give me some evidence , sources.
 
Surya, there is nothing clear about Gobekli.  We are speaking of a civ. that existed 12-15,000 ybp.
They accomplished things that could not have been done without advanced math.
 
Surya, there are sites all over the Northeast US, and europe that date to 3800 - 4000 bce, Megalithic structures, standing stones, circles.  All with astronomical alignments.  None of this could have been done without knowledge of advanced math.
 
 


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 17-Jun-2013 at 14:54
Here we have school example,why different languages had been invented by alpha units:to control &rule the people making them enemies!First they had invented religion upon the Land&Earth they
lived on,than they separated them in countries with different languages.SmileAliens are among us!
Surya's rhetoric is well know on Balkans:Superior&Inferior "nations" are all around.But according last civil wars,same people were pushed to kill among themselves till alphas made $
robbing them.Ouch 


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 09:43
Originally posted by red clay


Your sounding like a Hindu Nationalist.  No one but the Indians could have done such and such.


The aspersion is more acrid than you intended. I believe I have not failed to back up any of my claims. I did not deserve the spank.Shocked

And a correction, not even the Indians could deal with serious fractions till the era of the Bakhshali manuscript. I will extend on this later in this post under the title of Precession.  
 
 
 
Originally posted by red clay

Surya, there is nothing clear about Gobekli.  We are speaking of a civ. that existed 12-15,000 ybp.



Aren't you belying the uncertainty of your own assertion , which I don't quite understand myself, with your admission in blue?

Wouldn't a little more space for doubt be propitious?

Originally posted by red clay

They accomplished things that could not have been done without advanced math.
 


Red, what part of their accomplishment was impossible without Math ( Specifically "advanced" math)

I have no objection to the fact that Gobekli has astronomical alignment.
I have no objection to the fact that a lost of ancient structures have the same
I have no objection to your claim that some are older than Vedic examples on land.

The only thing I object to is your assumption that "astronomy entails advanced math".

Let me explain , my battle hardened friend, with an example from my own Vedic culture.

Precession of the Equinoxes 

Red, the most impressive discovery in Astronomy by any ancient people, is the discovery of the complex phenomenon of precession by the Vedic astronomers. Its a feat even by modern standards

They did not have any instruments. They relied on naked eye observation. So did the builders of the Megaliths , the Egyptians and the Sumerians.

Naked Eye has its limitations.

But does their accomplishment mean that they had a proportionate proficiency in mathematics?
NO.

The Vedic astronomers simply did not have the mathematical notations to denote their knowledge.

Then how did they preserve their knowledge?

They ensured that by encoding their science in the fire alter construction, and by creating an oral tradition to preserve the Vedas meticulously, they could both preserve and prevent the lapse of it into unworthy hands.

This is possibly what other people like the builders of Gobekli intended. --They could not mathematically reproduce their knowledge.
Read these for more
http://www.cs.okstate.edu/~subhashk/AstroCodeRgveda.pdf
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ch23.htm

The Sumerians did not know how to solve 5/4. They knew, however that 5/4= 1/4 x 5.  See how tedious even a minor sum gets.

They did not have the decimal system , the numerals and the Zero (position system) we enjoy today. You totally neglect the irreplaceable importance and application of these towering inventions when you attribute undue abilities, out of your love of anything old, to the ancients.

That, my friend, is what I object to . That alone. 




Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 11:19
The Maya, the Aztecs and the Inca, all had knowledge of Precession.  I do not neglect those "towering inventions".  I just don't belive they, "vedic authors" invented them.  They are part of the "natural code".  The complex system upon which all nature, and that includes us, is built.
 
You, on the other hand are hopelessly caught up with "Indo Centrism".  It's clouding your ability to see beyond it.
BTW- What would you say if I told you I have Marine fossils that show natural structures that have the exact form of numerals.  Ever wonder where the symbology for our numerals came from?
 
Discovery or re discovery is not inventing.  It's recognising and understanding something that was always there.  And learning how to make use of it.
 
 


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 11:23
Originally posted by TITAN_


Trigonometry comes from ancient Greek tri = three,  gono (gonia) = angle,  metry = metro = to measure, calculate. That is the official etymology. Since Greek was written down (attested) 1000 years before Sanskrit, it is most likely that the Indians copied that from the Greeks who had already influenced India with the Alexandrian campaign.

LOLLOL

Titan,you have restricted your opinion into a dry but over worded nutshell : "Solely because Sanskrit attestation is late it is likely that the overwhelming Sanskrit loan words in Greek was actually copied by Indians after Alexander "

Do you realize the seriousness of your accusation? Personally I find it very interesting. The most interesting yet from IE.

No scholar I know has ever argued that Sanskrit is younger than 1500 BCE, the colonial date of the first sanskrit text. Slowly this date is swelling past 3500 BCE. I do not think the mere fact that  attestation was late in any way gnaws at the antiquity of Sanskrit, which remains the oldest recorded language on Earth.

Indian influence on Greek far predates Alexander and was in no way direct. It happened through the Indo Aryan influence on Babylon which was direct . The influence is best seen in Astronomy (The zodiac, 360 degrees , solar calender, etc to name a few) and Philosophy( Vedantic ideals permeate especially (but not limited to)Platonic philosophy which further imbibed the same through the Gnostics and grew into Neo platonism later)

Originally posted by TITAN_


Let's say the truth, once and for all. Sanskrit's oldest surviving readable inscriptions do not date before 300-400 BC. Linear B Greek script dates back to 1400 BC and it is deciphered. The roots of those words (like trigonometry) were attested in Greek, 1 millenium earlier.

This does not imply that Trigonometry is Greek. "Tri"(Three) Kona(angle) are Sanskrit words dating back to the Rig Vedic (3500 BCE) and Sulva Sutra era (2700 BCE).

Please catch up Titan. Its exhausting to have to repeat my posts. These dates have been dealt with in an earlier post. 

Originally posted by TITAN_


The same applies to Rig Veda, which was an oral tradition that was never written down before 300 BC, since the Indians had not developed a script before 300-400 BC.

.

Leave that at that. Lets temporarily accept your proposition that linguistic antiquity is determined exclusively by attestation. Even then your claim that Greek is older cannot stand . Sanskrit attestation is older.

The oldest Sanskrit word attested is in Kassite inscriptions.The Kassite conquerors of Mesopotamia (c. 1700 BCE) had a Sun god Surias, perhaps also Marut and may be even Bhaga (bugas), as also a personal name Abirattas (Abhiratha).


The Mitanni, who ruled northern Iraq and Syria around the 15th century BCE, spoke Hurrite, a non-Indo-European language unrelated to Vedic Sanskrit. But their kings and other members of the ruling class bore names which were corrupted versions of Vedic names: Mittaratti (Mitratithi), Dewatti (Devatithi), Subandu (Subandhu), Indarota (Indrota), Biriamasda (Priyamedha), to mention a few. In a treaty with Hittites, they invoked Vedic gods Mitra, Varuna, Indra and Nasatyas (Asvins). A Mitanni manual on training of chariot horses by Kikkuli has words like aika (eka, one), tera (tri, three), panza (panch, five), satta (sapta, seven) na (nava, nine), vartana (vartana, turn round in the horse race). Another one has words like Babru (babhru, brown), parita (palita (grey), pinkara (pingala, red) and so on. Many centuries must have elapsed between the entry of their Vedic ancestors into West Asia and this loss of language with just a super-stratum of Vedic words.


http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=322

Titan, please note the last sentence. The Mittani and Hittite inscriptions is clearly Indo Aryan Sanskrit--but obviously remnant and broken sanskrit. This is in conformity with the generally accepted fact that Vedic people entered the middle East much before 2000 BC. So their Sanskrit was overwhelmed by outside influences.

Their presence also explains how Vedic science and Philosophy influenced the Levant, and eventually Greece. This does not mean Vedic contacts with Greece was solely post Alexandrian. Trade contacts were profuse. There were Indian trading colonies in Alexandria. Pythagoras is said to have visited India. Socrates' biographer Lesubius says he was taught by a Gymnosophist ( Jain philosopher) from India. (Just to name a few examples)

Originally posted by TITAN_


Leaving speculations aside, the oldest readable written Indo-european language is Greek (since 1400 BC). Words that are similar to trigonometry, like geometry, first appeard in Greek texts, not in Indian. 


Brahmi inscriptions have been found with Sanskrit words dating back to 600 BCE in South India.

A substantial number of scholars hold that the Brahmi script evolved from the Indus script (due to the strong morphological similarities)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Indus_Script_and_Brahmi_Script.gif


The oldest Indus script dates back to 3300 BC in the Ravi Phase of Harappa.

http://www.nationmaster.com/wikimir/images/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/Pakistan-pottery.png/250px-Pakistan-pottery.png


Intermediate script between the two have been discovered in Bet Dwarka dating back to 1450 BCE.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_brIyg5OdFyg/SS_-LuFSXxI/AAAAAAAACNU/jNGMbj1SbRU/s320/2h1.jpg



Conclusion :

So there is a strong possibility that both the origins of Indian language and Script are much older than that of Greek.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 12:14
Originally posted by red clay

The Maya, the Aztecs and the Inca, all had knowledge of Precession.  I do not neglect those "towering inventions".  I just don't belive they, "vedic authors" invented them.  They are part of the "natural code".  The complex system upon which all nature, and that includes us, is built.
 


Red, you are once again assuming that independent rediscovery bothers me. It does not. It is not a concern to our present point who did it and when . ( The Vedics did it first and I gave you links to two different scholars . Not considering them is  within your choice)

What we began arguing about is how astronomy does not necessarily entail advanced mathematics.

I condescended and showed this flaw of scientific history within the Vedic culture.

Yet I regret my intention still being perceived as Indocentric.

Originally posted by red clay

You, on the other hand are hopelessly caught up with "Indo Centrism".  It's clouding your ability to see beyond it.


Where you or any one else ever showed me the light beyond, I have never refused to look.

My fault is I know more of India than I know of the beyond. That does not make me blind.

 
Originally posted by red clay

Discovery or re discovery is not inventing.  It's recognising and understanding something that was always there.  And learning how to make use of it.


That there is Vedanta.

We dont learn anything.

We merely interpret and discover what already exists.

Which is why the Vedic Rishis calls reality as "Knowledge absolute" .




Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 12:35
Originally posted by TITAN_

^ "The Beginnings of Trigonometry". Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~cherlin/History/Papers2000/hunt.html

"The ancient Greeks transformed trigonometry into an ordered science. Astronomy was the driving force behind advancements in trigonometry. Most of the early advancements in trigonometry were in spherical trigonometry mostly because of its application to astronomy. The three main figures that we know of in the development of Greek trigonometry are Hipparchus, Menelaus, and Ptolomy. There were likely other contributors but over time their works have been loss and their names have been forgotten.

"Even if he did not invent it, Hipparchus is the first person of whose systematic use of trigonometry we have documentary evidence." (Heath 257) Some historians go as far as to say that he invented trigonometry. Not much is known about the life of Hipp archus. It is believed that he was born at Nicaea in Bithynia. (Sarton 285) The town of Nicaea is now called Iznik and is situated in northwestern Turkey. Founded in the 4th century BC, Nicaea lies on the eastern shore of Lake Iznik. He is one of the g reatest astronomers of all time. "



I have a few questions I wish you would answer.

What original text or its copy survives of Hipparchus ?
On what preceding work did Hipparchus draw?
Can you show me just one solution in Greek script of Hipparchus solving the sine function for any angle but 90?Or atleast state approximately in your own words?
The sources for Hipparchus and other Greeks you mention are tertiary sources . (third person description of a second hand account)and rare secondary sources. Why are they considered reliable ?

Please dont think I am challenging you. This is an honest doubt on my part. I have read many essays of C.K Raju and am right now of the opinion that most of the Greek history is Eurocentric exaggeration.

I would only be glad if you would remove this doubt. I can show you a sample of one of the papers I recently read. ....Please dont think I fully agree with the contents....

An example might make matters clearer. Thus, the stock history of astronomy today mentions
“Claudius Ptolemy”, and then moves on to Copernicus and his glorious heliocentric revolution. This history began during the Crusades, when the church wanted the knowledge in Arabic libraries, and did not know how to justify translations from the “heathen” with whom it was engaged in a religious war, and whose books it had hitherto burnt. The simple way out was a bald lie: all that knowledge was attributed to the Greeks.

In fact, the Greeks did not know elementary arithmetic, their numerical notation did not permit
algorithms to multiply and divide, so they could hardly have done mathematical astronomy. Till the time of Plato the Greeks were such a terribly superstitious lot that they regarded astronomy as a crime to be punished with death. (As Plato’s Apology points out, this was the crime on grounds of which a death penalty was demanded of both Anaxagoras and Socrates.) Nevertheless, we are expected to believe that Claudius Ptolemy suddenly appeared with 13 decimal-place (7 th sexagesimal-place) precision, acknowledging no predecessor except Hipparchus. The Greek astronomical tradition then disappeared with equal suddenness without a trace in the Greek and Roman calendars, which remained inaccurate as ever. That Greeks could never manage even the easier aspects of astronomy, like the length of the year, is clear from the non-textual evidence of their shabby calendars. While the Romans laughed at that calendar, and reformed it, the (“corrected”) Roman calendar was almost as awful, and the length of the year in it did not agree even with the Almagest length of the year (itself far inferior to the contemporary figure in India), despite repeated attempts at calendar reform. These reforms were necessitated, since the Council of Nicea, by the church attempts to fix the date of Easter correctly. The Julian calendar reformed the Greek, but remained hopelsssly unscientific (as the Gregorian still is). The wrong length of the year in it for centuries proves the Greeks and Romans never had any access to any advanced astronomy! (Hence, the long-standing confusion about the dates of Easter; they have just celebrated Easter in Palestine in May.) Thus, the Almagest was obviously absent, at the supposed time of Claudius Ptolemy, and could not be located in the Roman empire for centuries, despite the entire might of the state. Hence the Almagest obviously comes from a later time.

In fact, the Almagest is clearly an accretive text (e.g. the current pole star heads its star list, so it is later than the 9thc. which is the earliest date the current pole star was the star closest to north). Such accretion is natural for any scientific text in practical use. The text started in Egyptian times (hence“Ptolemy”). It incorporated knowledge of Indian astronomy and arithmetic algorithms from both Jundishapur and Baghdad, followed by Persian and Arabic contributions to astronomy. All of this is attributed today to one fictitious superman Claudius Ptolemy for whose existence there is no evidence,who, as in a fairy tale, had no predecessors on whose work he built, and no practical reason for doing that sort of precise astronomy. The date of this fictitious Ptolemy is fixed by reference to four so-calledobservations. It is bad practice to use isolated passages from an accretive text to date it, but those passages are especially useless for the Almagest , for the so-called observations in it have clearly been back-calculated.Harvard historians (and their Indian allies) point out these bad practices only in the case of Indian history, never in the case of Greek history. Such double standards are the hallmark of racism, and they are needed to support the false history which comes to us from the church.




Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 12:44
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

The thing is for me that many, if not most of the claims follow that if one part of the literary says, or might mean something, then it must follow that you get this meaning or that meaning. The truth is that a good few, if not almost all of them could have potentially different meanings, and because of this leaves the vast majority of the claims are not firm enough to stand up to scientific scrutiny.  


Alani, Please...

I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say
.....

Are you holding back something? You can ask me whatever you want, even if you think It may be silly..

Is it the brick issue?

It can be resolved if we agree that Istika refers only to fried bricks.

Also I read somewhere that you doubted if there were corruptions and interpolations.
NO. Nothing such has been detected. Which is why the undying Vedic oral tradition is  a "UNESCO intangible heritage of mankind"

Even today there are thousands who can recite the Samhitas of the Vedas by rote.

They learn it so meticulously that no word is lost or added.They use advanced mnemonics and metrical sciences to do this. These were invented by the ancient Vedic Arya themselfs .

This has been going on in an unbroken chain for the past 6000 years atleast.

Children learning Vedic recital at Brahmaswom Madom,
http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00476/14_tvtr_thomas_issa_476915g.jpg


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 13:10
Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Are you suggesting that all of these works have been written in one particular area? If so what proof of this is there? I only ask as extensive works over time have a tendency to be written in many areas. Is the evidence consistent with this happening? If not then the likelihood that the evidence of the full disclosure is somewhat lacking, and it can't be automatically presumed to vigorous enough. 


No Alani. The chronological order of Rig Veda starts East of the Saraswathy river. The latest part of the Rig Veda is West of the river.

The Rigveda consists of ten MaNDalas or Books.  And, excepting likely interpolations, these MaNDalas represent different epochs of history.  The arrangement of these MaNDalas in their chronological order is the first step towards an understanding of Rigvedic history.  Regarding the chronology of these MaNDalas, only two facts are generally recognised:

1. The six Family MaNDalas II-VII form the oldest core of the Rigveda.

2. The two serially last MaNDalas of the Rigveda, IX and X, are also the chronologically last MaNDalas in that order.

The main criteria which will help us in establishing the chronological order of the MaNDalas are:

1. The interrelationships among the composers of the hymns.
2. The internal references to composers in other MaNDalas.
3. The internal references to kings and RSis in the hymns.  We will examine the whole subject under the following heads:

I.    Interrelationships among Composers.
II.   Family Structure and the System of Ascriptions.
III.  References to Composers.
IV. References to Kings and RSis
V. The Structure and Formation of the Rigveda.

The following chapter of Talageris book works to establish chronology by a deep analysis.

http://voiceofdharma.org/books/rig/ch3.htm





Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 13:25
Which is why the Vedic Rishis calls reality as "Knowledge absolute" .

Which is why they are wrong, there are no absolutes in Nature.
 
Surya, this is a prime example of what I was complaining about in posts involving Indian history.  You steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the achievements of other cultures.  You have the general attitude of "Yes but". " Yes but we did it first" No, you didn't.
 
You have ignored nearly every question or example I have presented.  I don't dance well, so I am no longer involved with this thread.
 
When you wake up and realize that India wasn't then or is not now the center of the Universe, you let me know.
 
  


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 13:39
Originally posted by red clay

Which is why the Vedic Rishis calls reality as "Knowledge absolute" .

Which is why they are wrong, there are no absolutes in Nature.
 
Surya, this is a prime example of what I was complaining about in posts involving Indian history.  You stedfastly refuse to acknowledge the achievements of other cultures.  You have the gneral attitude of "Yes but". " Yes but we did it first" No, you didn't.
 



Yes Red, there is an absolute.

Its called consciousness.Evolution seems to want to make it more and more manifest. Science does not yet even have a definition for it. Whether the objective universe or the subjective consciousness is more significant, no one may ever know. Vedic Rishis held that "it has no exterior , no interior" (Upanishads)

How can I not acknowledge well attested facts Red?

What I dont acknowledge is that other cultures did specific things before it was done in India .

And I do that only if I find that the corresponding Vedic text is of a date earlier than that of the other culture.

There is a vital difference between what I actually do and what you accuse me of doing.It is not my fault that some of the inventions are older in India.

I did acknowledge the following--Ceramic, Geometry(Gobekli) & fried bricks( both since underwater excavation is yet to be done ), astronomy (Megaliths)etc etc . These, as of now, seem to have been accomplished by older cultures.




Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 18-Jun-2013 at 17:29
I repeat, there are no absolutes in Nature.
 
Something to consider-
 
There is evidence all over the Pacific Rim, of a much older Civ. that's been lost to time.  Sites such as Puma Punku, in Peru and Machu Pichu.  At Machu, the Inca built their city on top of a much older site, built by this " unknown" Civ.
There is the "face in the mountain" at Machu.  It is exactly like the "face" that is found in Fiji and other places around the Rim.
The Yanaguni Monument is 200 ft below sea level now, the last time it was above the water is approx 12,000 ybp.  There is evidence of other structures around it.  Most of Nan Madol is under water. I could go on for awhile listing other sites.  Dwarka is just one of them.
 
The Legends in many areas of the Rim tell of an entire Civ. that was submerged at the end of the Ice Age, approx. the same time Dwarka went under.  It's not out of the question that this Civ. was the Mother Culture of the Pacific cultures. Including India.  But nothing about it is mentioned in any of the Vedic writings.  So if the vedas are of such extreme age, how come?
 
BTW, pigs were not introduced until the European Explorers.  What the Polynesians brought was actually more important, the Chicken. 
The Chicken conquered the World.Wink 
 
 


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 06:43
Too many issues have been raised. Too many optimistic nationalistic supremacy-driven claims have been made.

I am still waiting for academic sources that show that Sanskrit was ever written before 300-400 BC.

The Brahmi script is no older than 400 BC. 

Especially regarding Rig Veda, I have TOO MANY sources to prove that they were never written down before 300 BC (including encyclopedia Britannica) if you challenge me any further. 

Hipparchus' texts were written again and again in order to be preserved. You can't find the originals because they obviously could not survived unless they were in burnt clay tablets!

Any serious source I have encountered insists that Sanskrit was not written down before the era I mention. 


"The Mittani and Hittite inscriptions is clearly Indo Aryan Sanskrit".

Not at all. Hittites had nothing to do with Indians. The Hittites were closer to the Greeks and exhanged letters too back in 1500 BC. That is wrong.

Then you mention something about 2700 BC reference of trigonometry. Your sourses are dot com not dot edu.

IF you want a serious debate, use dot edu sources only.

I have too many sources that insist that the Indians learnt from the Greeks, not the other way around, back in the ages of the Indo-Bactrian hellenistic kingdoms. Perhaps you should read Megasthenes' Indica. 

Before the 4th century BC, there was no attested contact between Greeks and Indians.

Again, nationalistic pride and supremacy have nothing to do with academic, scientific consensus regarding ancient history that happened and not ancient history that could/should/would have happened.


-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 06:54
So we have history on one hand, and speculative supremacy on the other.

History = istoria is a Greek word and it means to know! Therefore, history included only written, deciphered, readable records. Anything that predates that is pre-history (=before the age of readable writing).

Therefore, to talk about the IVC script is a prehistorical debate. It is meaningless to talk about a language we can't even read and to which 1000 different "interpretations" have been given.

The Indians, according to verified scientific information, used their script to write down in Sanskrit, after 500 BC. 

One of the oldest surviving readable Indian records are the edicts of Ashoka,  back in the 3rd century BC.  One of the oldest readable attested surviving records in Greek are they clay tablets of the Minoan and Mycaenean palaces that were actually made circa 1300-1400 BC.

Attestation vs speculation. Guess who wins....

There is no single Sanskrit record back in 1700 BC. That language is no Sanskrit. 




-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 06:57
http://historum.com/asian-history/23396-greco-buddhism-unknown-influence-contribution-greeks.html - http://historum.com/asian-history/23396-greco-buddhism-unknown-influence-contribution-greeks.html

""Yona" is a Pali word used in ancient India to designate Greek speakers. Its equivalent in Sanskrit, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil is the word "Yavana". "Yona" and Yavana are both transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (Homer Iāones, older *Iāwones), who were probably the first Greeks to be known in the East. In Telugu another word "Yavanika", means drama stage, an invention brought by Hellenistic people. "Yunani", likewise, means medicine from Greeks.
The Yavanas are mentioned in the Buddhist discourse of the Middle Length Sayings, in which the Buddha mentions to the Brahman Assalayana the existence of the Kamboja and Yavana people who have only two castes, master or slave. The direct identification of the word "Yavana" with the Greeks at such an early time (6th-5th century) can be doubted however.[1]
Direct identification of these words with the Greeks include:
The mention of the "Yona king Antiochus" in the Edicts of Ashoka (280 BCE)
The mention of the "Yona king Antialcidas" in the Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha (110 BCE)
King Menander and his bodyguard of "500 Yonas" in the Milinda Panha.
The description of Greek astrology and Greek terminology in the Yavanajataka ("Sayings of the Yavanas") (150 CE).
The mention of "Alexandria, the city of the Yonas" in the Mahavamsa, Chapter 29 (4th century CE).
Although the association with eastern Greeks seems to have been quite precise and systematic until the beginning of our era (other foreigners had their own descriptor, such as Sakas, Pahlavas, Kambojas etc...), these terms came to designate more generally "Europeans" and later "foreigners" in the following centuries."

http://historum.com/asian-history/24096-greek-influence-india.html



-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 07:07
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C4%81hm%C4%AB_script

 "It appears that no use of any script to write an Indo-Aryan languages occurred before the reign of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, despite the evident example of Aramaic. Megasthenes, an ambassador to the Mauryan court only a quarter century before Ashoka, noted explicitly that the Indians "have no knowledge of written letters". This might be explained by the cultural importance at the time (and indeed to some extent today) of oral literature for history and Hindu scripture.
There have been claims that fragments of Brāhmī epigraphy found in Tamil Nadu[13] and Sri Lanka date as far back as the 5th or 6th century BCE,[14] which have been taken as evidence for an early spread of Buddhism.[4] However, evidence for pre-Mauryan Brahmi inscriptions remains inconclusive, restricted to pottery fragments with possible individual glyphs. The earliest complete inscriptions remain the 3rd-century-BCE Ashokan texts. Many early post-Ashokan remains show regional variation thought to have developed after a period of unity across India during the Ashokan period."

Megasthenes was a Greek ambassador that travel around in India extensively and probably described Sri Lanka, as well.  He knew what he was talking about, describing 3rd BC India.





-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 08:04


-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 12:55
Originally posted by TITAN_

Too many issues have been raised. Too many optimistic nationalistic supremacy-driven claims have been made.


Thank you for acknowledging my optimism Titan. I make it a point to hold a smile in defeat and victory alike. Big smile

Oh titan, isn't there a hell lot of issues with our subject matter for the nonce?

Should you really take all that pain to diagnose my intentions and to measure my nationalistic pulses? When you could rather utilize the time to try and disprove my whims and fancies?

Funny, you are sure that my posts are mere supremacist claims , yet you have not dared to quote any of them. Why is that>? Atleast for the pleasure of exposing their silliness , your impartiality should have chosen just one for your victim......JUST ONE Tongue

Originally posted by TITAN_

I am still waiting for academic sources that show that Sanskrit was ever written before 300-400 BC.


Sorry Titan, you seem to be blissfully unaware that the Mittani and Hittites were Indo Aryan, as all scholars of following agree. They were certainly not Greek.

And "Indo Aryan" refers to anyone who speaks Sanskrit, specifically Vedic sanskrit, which is older than the classical sanskrit which came be be when Panini the Great invented grammer proper and applied it to the Vedic speech

If you challege this, you incur the burden of proof.

Do you really want to put yourself through all of that?


Originally posted by TITAN_

The Brahmi script is no older than 400 BC.


You hurt my feelings Titan.
You dont trust me.

CryCryCry

Well, take the shock then Angry.  The oldest Brahmi examples come not from India, but from Sri Lanka

The oldest samples are from SL. These inscriptions dating from 600-500 BC was on remnants of pottery discovered at Anuradhapura. These inscriptions whenever adequately complete to be linguistically diagnostic, is in Indo-Aryan Prakrit.

That means its development in India must be much older than that.

Want a sciency paper old bud?
http://ratnawalli.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Robin-Coningham-Passage-to-India...-Anuradhapura-and-the-Early-Use-of-the-Brahmi-Script.pdf

Originally posted by TITAN_

Especially regarding Rig Veda, I have TOO MANY sources to prove that they were never written down before 300 BC (including encyclopedia Britannica) if you challenge me any further.


Oh that darned feeling of empathy consumes me again !

Why , oh why, do you have this propensity for non primary sources?

Almost all of your references are Wikipedia. Wiki says that Wiki says this. Brittanica says that too.

Wikipedia rule: No primary sources. You must use only secondary (or tertiary) sources.Wikipedia and other such resources are thus third hand accounts.

Not every one can study that deep, I agree. Do you know how I overcome that shortcoming?
I keep track of my favorite scholars, their books and papers and their websites. So my sources are not static. They keep evolving. Mistakes are easily sieved. 


I can show you a hundred contradicting pages on the Indo Aryan issue in Wiki
.

Hope this changes your outlook on sources

Originally posted by TITAN_

Not at all. Hittites had nothing to do with Indians. The Hittites were closer to the Greeks and exhanged letters too back in 1500 BC. That is wrong.


"Exchanged letters"   LOLLOLLOLLOLLOL

Nice one Titan, you are quite the man of wit.

Well I am afraid ,however, that I'll have to disagree.

Hittites worshiped Vedic Gods . Noone else on Earth but Indians did that.
 Yep, not even Greeks. (through Greek gods are clearly related to Vedic )

They originally spoke sanskrit. Again, only Indians did that.

Dont think I will allow you to take this in a circleDead. I already showed you that Sanskrit words( Surya, Bhaga, Maruts etc) are attested in Kassite records dating back to 1800 BC.

You are going to have to accept that my boy.

I wish to continue a healthy discussion. Thus I provide you with a list of attested Mittani/Hittie/kassite Indo Aryan words.

Note that I dont have to to this.....this is a generally accepted fact.

Sanskrit Names in West Asia

Over fifty years ago, Roger T. O'Callaghan and W.F. Albright published in Analecta Orientalia of Rome a list of 81 names (13 from the Mitanni, 23 from the Nuzi, and 45 from the Syrian documents) with Indic etymologies. Out of this list, Dumont provided the etymology of 45 names in the much more readily available Journal of the American Oriental Society of 1947.

A few of these names with the Sanskrit cognates in parentheses are:

  • Abirata (Abhirata, pleased, contented)
  • Aitagama (Etagama, with the gait of an antelope)
  • Aitara (the son of Itarā)
  • Artamanyu (Ṛtamanyu, revering the divine Law)
  • Ardzawīya (Ārjavīya, straight, honest)
  • Bīrasēna (Vīrasena, possessing an army of heroes)
  • Biridāšwa (Bṛhadāsva, possessing great horse)
  • Bardašwa (Vārddhāśva, the son of Vṛddhāśva)
  • Bāyawa (Vāyava, the son of Vāyu)
  • Bīryašura (Vīryaśūra, the hero of valour)
  • Bīryawādza (Vīryavāja, owning the prize of valour)
  • Bīryasauma (Vīryasoma, the moon-god of valour)
  • Bīrya (Vīrya, valour)
  • Indarota (Indrota, upheld by Indra)
  • Kalmašūra (Karmaśūra, the hero of action)
  • Purdāya (Purudāya, giving much)
  • Ručmanya (Rucimanya, revering light)
  • Satuara (Satvara, swift)
  • Šaimašūra (Kṣemaśūra, the hero of security)
  • Subandu (Subandhu, being good kinsmen)
  • Sumāla (having beautiful garlands)
  • Sumīda (Sumīḍha, bountiful)
  • Swardāta (Svardāta, given by heaven)
  • Tsitriyara (Citrya-rai, having distinguished property)
  • Urudīti (Urudīti, having wide splendour)
  • Warasama (Varasama, equal to the best)
  • Wāsasatta (Vāsasāpta, possessing seven dwellings)
  • Wasdāta (Vasudāta, given by the Vasus)
  • Yamiuta (Yamyūta, favoured by Yamin)

Analyzing the names, Dumont concludes that the names are clearly Indic and not Iranian.

http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/akhena.pdf

Originally posted by TITAN_


Hipparchus' texts were written again and again in order to be preserved. You can't find the originals because they obviously could not survived unless they were in burnt clay tablets!


Now now Titan, please stick to the format. You have merely made an empty statement.

I am more than willing to accept what you say, provided you kindly answer my questions in as simple words as you choose. Why did you ignore them, though it seems you are confident?

Please reexamine them .

You dont have to show me the solution in Greek . I see that may be asking too much of a non professional (not denying that I too am one)

Please answer the rest.

Originally posted by SuryaVajra



What original text or its copy survives of Hipparchus ?
On what preceding work did Hipparchus draw?
Can you show me just one solution in Greek script of Hipparchus solving the sine function for any angle but 90?Or atleast state approximately in your own words?
The sources for Hipparchus and other Greeks you mention are tertiary sources . (third person description of a second hand account)and rare secondary sources. Why are they considered reliable ?



Originally posted by TITAN_

Any serious source I have encountered insists that Sanskrit was not written down before the era I mention.


My friend, I yearn to understand what source in your ken is Serious. Wacko

Okay Titan, I dont want to distress you . You are so bent on establishing that Sanskrit was written down only in 300 BC that everything I say is ignored. You can keep your belief. I wont protest it.

After all what are buddies for eh?Embarrassed

But Titan.....why do you presume that attestation means entirely epigraphical exemplification >?

Literary or archaeological evidences for the existence of a language also qualify the same for attestation. ---As in the case of the Vedas.


Originally posted by TITAN_

Then you mention something about 2700 BC reference of trigonometry. Your sourses are dot com not dot edu.IF you want a serious debate, use dot edu sources only.


I already told you my sources. It does pain to see you disparage them when you have not yet cared to refute them.

If anyone needs a change of source its you Titan. The "Pedias"--wikipedia and others--are good starting points but not ideal ending points


Originally posted by TITAN_

I have too many sources that insist that the Indians learnt from the Greeks, not the other way around, back in the ages of the Indo-Bactrian hellenistic kingdoms. 


Why am I not impressed ?

Because all the sources you allude to , without exception, presuppose :

1. That the Rig Veda was composed in 1500 BC
2. That "Aryans" invaded/migrated into India in the centuries preceding.
3. That No Indian text is older than this disastrous nail of a date.
4. That India was a closed system before Alexander.
5. That people will always succumb to the colonial versions of history.


I have already shown, in most simple terms, that the 1500 BC date is downright foolish and untenable.
I have provided evidences and quoted scholars for dating the Rig Veda to 4000--3500 BCE.

If you dont enjoy this, if you wish to challenge this, you are welcome.

But you must  (kindly ofcourse) quote and disprove the contents of the following posts of mine.

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10496&PID=694668#694668

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10496&PID=694672#694672

Would you do that Titan? It would be saving a lot of energy for me to not have to repeat my arguments indefinitely for every single confabulation.

Originally posted by TITAN_

Perhaps you should read Megasthenes' Indica.


LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOL

No Titan, I had rather read the worst of the tons of other literature available .

This is a serious blunder on your part.
Megasthenes' Indica does not exist. Only broken references to it are extant.

Why should such a silly text evoke any response from serious scholars?

It has very little value. Colonial historians completely Ignored the Puranic literature and based Indian history on this most unworthy text. They did this to make Indian Civilization look contemporaneous to Greek.

This has done untold damage to Indian history. You wouldn't understand.It might take decades to repair these virulent mistakes.  Not yet.

Even the fragmentary remains of the Indica  is replete with bull crap. It does not mention Kautilya, the most important Indian then. It says stories of mythical animals and tribal people with such large ears that they could wrap themselves up like blankets . All this mixed with precise description of widths of roads? Its a mixture of fact and fable, history and hearsay.

Soon, we will need to face the question : Should Bharatha history be written based on the tens of thousands of historical pages of the Vedas, the Puranas, the Itihasas, the Sutras, the Shastras and the Vedangas ---Or should it be based on the fragment of the Indica


Originally posted by TITAN_

Before the 4th century BC, there was no attested contact between Greeks and Indians.


I already provided you with two examples from Greek literature showing this contact.

Kindly quote and refute them

The Vedic influence on Greek Philosophy is neatly explained by Kazanas in his papers. Please visit OMILOS MELETON

Originally posted by TITAN_

Again, nationalistic pride and supremacy have nothing to do with academic, scientific consensus regarding ancient history that happened and not ancient history that could/should/would have happened.


Cry
Ah well,

It must always come down to this , doesn't it?

At the culmination of an earnest debate, sometimes( usually), the disillusioned opponent must end up hurling abuses. Sometimes, as now, not even one exchange of posts would have passed before the dirty addiction takes charge. 

Worse still, the opponent has not fielded even one interesting point in his long tirade against the poor fellow. Just plain denial.

Even worse, the opponent has not even quoted me once. I should take strong offense at the haughtiness of this dishonor .But I let it pass.

Even worse, the opponent pretends he has high standards of proof as he dismisses a contrary opinion expressed in very friendly terms as the mere flatulence of nationalist pride.





Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 12:59
Originally posted by TITAN_

So we have history on one hand, and speculative supremacy on the other.

History = istoria is a Greek word and it means to know! Therefore, history included only written, deciphered, readable records. Anything that predates that is pre-history (=before the age of readable writing).

Therefore, to talk about the IVC script is a prehistorical debate. It is meaningless to talk about a language we can't even read and to which 1000 different "interpretations" have been given.

The Indians, according to verified scientific information, used their script to write down in Sanskrit, after 500 BC. 

One of the oldest surviving readable Indian records are the edicts of Ashoka,  back in the 3rd century BC.  One of the oldest readable attested surviving records in Greek are they clay tablets of the Minoan and Mycaenean palaces that were actually made circa 1300-1400 BC.

Attestation vs speculation. Guess who wins....

There is no single Sanskrit record back in 1700 BC. That language is no Sanskrit. 



I dont see anything relevant here.

You have posted many irrelevant facts and some superstitions .

I am more than willing to discuss them.---LATER.

 But please stick to the topic FOR NOW.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 13:04
Originally posted by TITAN_

http://historum.com/asian-history/23396-greco-buddhism-unknown-influence-contribution-greeks.html - http://historum.com/asian-history/23396-greco-buddhism-unknown-influence-contribution-greeks.html

""Yona" is a Pali word used in ancient India to designate Greek speakers. Its equivalent in Sanskrit, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil is the word "Yavana". "Yona" and Yavana are both transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (Homer Iāones, older *Iāwones), who were probably the first Greeks to be known in the East. In Telugu another word "Yavanika", means drama stage, an invention brought by Hellenistic people. "Yunani", likewise, means medicine from Greeks.
The Yavanas are mentioned in the Buddhist discourse of the Middle Length Sayings, in which the Buddha mentions to the Brahman Assalayana the existence of the Kamboja and Yavana people who have only two castes, master or slave. The direct identification of the word "Yavana" with the Greeks at such an early time (6th-5th century) can be doubted however.[1]


If you would be kind enough to tell me how this may in any way enrich the present discussion, it would be appreciated.

I wouldn't call it spam--an attempt to divert attention from the highlights of the debate. Shocked

Rather a mere routine check up exercise for the indispensably wonted shift+ c and shift + v


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 20-Jun-2013 at 04:49
OK this is really funny. Kassites and Hittites belong to the huge family called Proto-Indo-Europeans, which pretty much contains everyone from the Celts to the Northern Indians.  

You present ZERO proof that the Kassites or the Hittites were ancestors of the Indians who spoke Sanskrit back in 600 BC.

Again, since you have difficulty in reading, the Rig Veda was probably ORALLY composed back in the second millenium BC. That means nothing. It wasn't written down  till 300 BC, at best. 

The Rig Veda we know of today, has additions and alterations...

"Rigveda, ( Sanskrit: “The Knowledge of Verses”)  also spelled Ṛgveda ,  the oldest of the sacred books of Hinduism, composed in an ancient form of Sanskrit about 1500 bce, in what is now the Punjab region of India and Pakistan. It consists of a collection of 1,028 poems grouped into 10 “circles” (mandalas). It is generally agreed that the first and last books were created later than the middle books. The Rigveda was preserved orally before it was written down about 300 bce."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/503627/Rigveda

Yep, there was no script for the Indians before that. 

No matter what you say, in order to support your blatant nationalistic agenda, The Indians never wrote down anything before 300-400 BCE since the oldest script they ever used to write Classical Sanskrit was the Brahmi script.

Your fantasies about 500-600 BCE are not accepted by the international community, I am sorry.

Your rediculous attempt to use Hittite and Kassite records in order to prove that Sanskrit is even older, only attempts to prove that IVC and ancient Indian civilizations in general were borrowed and not indigenous.

In reality, civilization to the Indian subcontinent was brought by Proto-Indo-Europeans from Caucasus. It was the same tribes that migrated to Greece and the rest of Europe.

Of course, the so-called Indo-Aryan languages are only a small branch and you can't really claim that your ancestors were.... Hittites! This is no scholarship, I am sorry. 

Indian records that we can read begin with Ashoka's Age. Any earlier records were fragmented and contain no valuable information about Indian history or culture, whatsoever. 

Anything else is wishfull thinking of chauvinists who are not satisfied with their nation's history. 

Even Panini's age is debatable. Nationalists say he lived before 500-600 BC while....... more academic sources place him circa 400 BC. Obviously those speculations are not supported by hard evidence. 

Everything we know and it actually comes from Indian records, dates back to circa 300 BC. 

Mesopotamian civilizations that you boast of, are not part of your history. The Babylonians, Hittites, Sumerians etc. only influenced you, they were not "Indo-Aryans" or anything else funny.
They were distinct civilizations, that flourished before IVC.

IVC script is not older than 2500 BCE, while Egyptian and Sumerian writing scripts exist since 3000 BCE.

Of course your nationalistic sources place IVC script back to 3300 BC or even back to 4000 BCE, only to make the rest of the international academic community laugh at them.

In the real word, the undeciphered IVC script was in use from 2500 to 1900 BCE.









-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 20-Jun-2013 at 04:55
Moreover, books like Vedic influence on Greek philosophy are purely fiction-driven novels with zero academic proof.

The academic consensus suggests that contact between Greece and India did not happen before the Macedonian campaign, and as I showed even Sanskrit theatre and Buddhist statues were heavily influenced by the Greeks.

In fact, Buddha himself was never represented as a human being in any form of art (statues, sculptures etc.) before the ancient Indo-Greek kingdom rose, in the 2nd century BC, just north of India. 

It is beyond any reasonable doubt that the human representation of Buddha is an ancient Greek achievement. The ancient Greek influence on India is well documented and cannot be questioned.




-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 20-Jun-2013 at 05:06
Trying to downplay Megasthenes is a huge error..... I love exposing lies. Indica has survived to a large extent!

http://www.sdstate.edu/projectsouthasia/upload/Megasthene-Indika.pdf - http://www.sdstate.edu/projectsouthasia/upload/Megasthene-Indika.pdf

Megasthenes shows what ancient India really was.... That is supported by archaeological evidence.
Writing almost did not exist at all back in the 3rd century BC!

56 pages full of narration regarding ancient India. Read it before you expose yourself more.

I challenge you to find an ancient Indian record, that describes India so extensively, and that was actually written in the same period of time!




-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 20-Jun-2013 at 05:33
Regarding the Hittites, they were culturally alien to ancient Indians. Their kingdom covered modern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon and just like the ancient Persians, they were foreign and alien to Indian language and culture. Because they had to deal with the Mitani people, it doesn't mean they were close. The Hittite language "Nesite" is not related to Sanskrit at all. 

" Hittite lacks several grammatical features exhibited by other "old" Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit, Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Persian, and Avestan. Notably, Hittite does not have the IE gender system opposing masculine-feminine; instead it has a rudimentary noun class system based on an older animate-inanimate opposition."    Coulson 1986, p. xiii

"According to Craig Melchert, the current tendency is to suppose that Proto-Indo-European evolved, and that the "prehistoric speakers" of Anatolian became isolated "from the rest of the PIE speech community, so as not to share in some common innovations."[4] Hittite, as well as its Anatolian cousins, split off from Proto-Indo-European at an early stage, thereby preserving archaisms that were later lost in the other Indo-European languages.[5]
Hittite is one of the Anatolian languages. It is known from cuneiform tablets and inscriptions erected by the Hittite kings. The script formerly known as "Hieroglyphic Hittite" has been changed to Hieroglyphic Luwian. The Anatolian branch also includes Cuneiform Luwian, Hieroglyphic Luwian, Palaic, Lycian, Milyan, Lydian, Carian, Pisidian, and Sidetic."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesite

Hittite language is not a parent to Sanskrit.





http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/slides/07ie/IElanguagesmap.jpg



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/IndoEuropeanTree.svg

Hittite comes from the Anatolian branch
Vedic Sanskrit from the Indo-Iranian branch
Hellenic = Greek from the...... Hellenic branch.

These are distinct branches.




-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 22-Jun-2013 at 08:06

One could ask why I do this, even though its clear its a complete waste of time, even though the opponent seems mentally incapable, in his fixed mentality, to even consider anything I say, even though his posts are hopelessly reiterations and a determined droning on in slightly varying words of his previous fallacious lines of reasoning ,even though he has indulged in unseemly attacks on me ,  even though he refuses to quote me, even though he fails to affirm anything he says with proofs, even though he seems unable to differentiate his own opinions and what is normally understood as proof, even though I learn nothing useful from him.....

Well, because I am havin a vacation after a month of exams and have plenty of time.
Wink

Originally posted by TITAN_

OK this is really funny. Kassites and Hittites belong to the huge family called Proto-Indo-Europeans, which pretty much contains everyone from the Celts to the Northern Indians.  



Why dont you do yourself a favour> ? Just read my last post. You can see the 45 Sanskrit words and their clear corruptions in Mittani/hittites.

On what lines can it be stated that the Hittites were PIE? They are thousands of years past the PIE era. Any man in his senses can see that they are only a remnant of what was once pure Vedic

The sentence in pink shows how inept and unread Titan is in this subject.

PIE is the supposed language spoken in the Urmheit. It does not include every one from the "Celts to North Indians". There were no "Celts" back in those days.

Gosh, even I am beginning to get bored with such impossible blunders

Originally posted by TITAN_

You present ZERO proof that the Kassites or the Hittites were ancestors of the Indians who spoke Sanskrit back in 600 BC.

What outstanding abilities of comprehension !

Why would I provide proofs for something that I dont agree with, something that never once occurred to me?

The Hittites were an Indian tribe that left India between 2500 BC and 2000 BC.  Just like the Vedic texts say.

Just like what Archaeological findings agree with .

Now I could go on to trouble you with genetic data. I could talk of the progressive drop in the frequencies of  R1A1 as you move away from India towards Europe through the middle east.



But lets make it a little more interesting.

It is a Genetically established fact that the Bos Indicus originated in India and was domesticated in The indus valley.




We find the Indian Zebu species appearing in the Middle East and Europe around 2000 BCE. The same time that Indo Aryans arrived there.  Many sites all over the middle east have provided evidence of the Zebu since 2000 BCE.

IT WAS THE HITTITES/MITTANI WHO BROUGHT THE INDIAN ZEBU TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND PARTS OF EUROPE.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE IF THEY DID NOT COME FROM INDIA?

HOW CAN ARYANS MIGRATE TO INDIA AND THE ZEBU TO THE WEST? --Migrations in opposite directions?

Are Indians the ancestors of the Hittites or vice versa?

Date palms from Baluchistan reached Sumer already in the 4th millennium BC, also Indian sesame became part of Sumerian agriculture, and zebu (Bos indicus) appears in Mesopotamian archaeology, in  the northern part particularly during the 2nd millennium BC (see http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3284/is_292_76/ai_n28928371/pg_4/?tag=content;col1 - here ), when and where we have the impressive appearance of the Indo-Aryan rulers of Mitanni.

In this context, we can also cite a http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/1/1.long - study by Chen et al. of 2010 about the origins of the zebu, affirming that "both the I1 and I2 haplogroups within the northern part of the Indian subcontinent is consistent with an origin for all domestic zebu in this area. For haplogroup I1, genetic diversity was highest within the Indus Valley among the three hypothesized domestication centers (Indus Valley, Ganges, and South India). These data support the Indus Valley as the most likely center of origin for the I1 haplogroup and a primary center of zebu domestication." In Harappan sites, remains of Bos indicus are very rich, and also images of its bull are frequent on the seals, like here on the right, and its presence is already attested from the first period of Mehrgarh, as confirmed by Jarrige in an http://archaeology.up.nic.in/doc/mn_jfj.pdf - article from Pragdhara 18: "Osteological studies as well as clay figurines indicate that zebu cattle (Bos indicus) is well attested in Period I and became most probably the dominant form. Mehrgarh provides us therefore with a clear evidence of an indigenous domestication of the South Asian zebu."


The local zebu cattle were crossed with Dutch and Swiss Brown bulls and some Simmentals and the best crosses were bred inter se." (see http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/ah759e/AH759E08.htm - here ). So, from this FAO site we learn that in the steppes around the Syr Darya, in present Uzbekistan, there is traditionally a 'local zebu cattle'. But from the cited http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/1/1.long - study on the origins of zebu we learn that zebu is present in a great part of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan), and also in Oman (an area in close commercial relation with the Indus Valley) and Turkey, besides Iraq.

 Bos indicus has crossed the Channel and reached Jersey Island and Great Britain in the DNA of Jersey cattle... A study by Cymbron, reports:

In the present study, B. indicus influence in Europe was measured systematically using PAAs. These were found at low frequencies in some European breeds ( http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/272/1574/1837.full#F3 - figure 3 ). The average frequency of B. indicus PAAs is higher in Mediterranean breeds (6.7%) than in the rest of Europe (5.1% without outliers). Within the Mediterranean, the average frequencies of B. indicus PAAs in Italy is the highest (8.1%). The Greek Sykia breed is intermediate (6.3%) and the average frequency in Portugal is 5.4%. The highest absolute values are found in two Italian breeds: Maremanna (8.1%) and Modicana (10.8%). Interestingly, a percentage of individuals of the Modicana breed have bifid processes in the last thoracic vertebrae, traditionally considered a B. indicus anatomical characteristic

http://new-indology.blogspot.in/2012/04/wonderful-adventures-of-bos-indicus.html

Originally posted by TITAN_

Again, since you have difficulty in reading, the Rig Veda was probably ORALLY composed back in the second millenium BC. That means nothing. It wasn't written down  till 300 BC, at best.


You need to give me proofs for saying Rig veda belongs to the second millenium BCE. I have already stated, quite strongly, why it belongs to 3500 BCE atleast.

Its clear you wont even care to see why I reject the 1500 BCE date. Its clear you have not even had a cursory look at my previous posts.

Well, suits you. If you choose to doze in the pseudo pleasures of ignorance.

Your assertion in blue

Its means everything for this debate Titan.

For one, it means that Sanskrit and the Vedas existed back then
It means the Vedic civilization existed.
It means Vedic science existed
It also means that writing was known to the authors of the Vedas. The sheer size of the Vedic literature and the proficiency in Grammer, Mathematics, Astronomy and logic exemplified therein is not possible without some form of a written annotation.



Originally posted by TITAN_

"Rigveda, ( Sanskrit: “The Knowledge of Verses”)  also spelled Ṛgveda ,  the oldest of the sacred books of Hinduism, composed in an ancient form of Sanskrit about 1500 bce, in what is now the Punjab region of India and Pakistan. It consists of a collection of 1,028 poems grouped into 10 “circles” (mandalas). It is generally agreed that the first and last books were created later than the middle books.

Did you suppose I did not know any of this?Confused

I asked you to prove that the Rig Veda was composed in 1500 BC.

You failed. You would rather keep spamming this topic with irrelevant facts.

Thats okay. It seems thats all you are equipped to do.


Originally posted by TITAN_

Yep, there was no script for the Indians before that.


Keep dreaming. Make it a point to ignore the inconvenient parts of my previous posts. They seriously might hurt you.


Originally posted by TITAN_

No matter what you say, in order to support your blatant nationalistic agenda, .

For your nasty mockery in blue : This is the last time I tolerate your insults . You are trying to imitate Red Clay.He is an administrator . You are a just a fellow member. You wont resort to such base tactics with perpetual impunity from the mods .Or so I believe. 

I will reply in fitting terms if you persist to bask in their absence.
And it wont be nice.


Originally posted by TITAN_

The Indians never wrote down anything before 300-400 BCE since the oldest script they ever used to write Classical Sanskrit was the Brahmi script

You know what my favorite definition of stupidity is?

Repeating the same things over and over again expecting a different result.

Sorry Titan, its not working.


Originally posted by TITAN_

Your fantasies about 500-600 BCE are not accepted by the international community, I am sorry.

You mean Wikipedia, right?


Originally posted by TITAN_

Of course, the so-called Indo-Aryan languages are only a small branch and you can't really claim that your ancestors were.... Hittites! This is no scholarship, I am sorry.

 

How is it inside that closed well of your understanding?

There are more Indo Aryan speakers than the European, Iranian and Central Asian speakers put together.(If thats your understanding of size). You do the counting

Sanskrit is older than anything of a language you know.It will remain so until you quote and disprove my previous posts to Alanidragon.  Its ramifications are of such intricacy that its catalog remains loose.

There are over 400. . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnologue - SIL Ethnologue lists 415 living "Languages of India" .Hundreds more with 100,000 ++speakers. Almost all of them have a profound influence of Sanskrit. Two dravidian languages  Malayalam and Telugu are the closest languages to Sanskrit in respect of vocabulary (75 and 60 % respectively) 

This does not fit your petty layman, asinine description  of this huge language sub group.


Originally posted by TITAN_

Anything else is wishfull thinking of chauvinists who are not satisfied with their nation's history.

Well, it is indeed my wishful thinking that trolls would eventually stop spamming.

History is not a source of satisfaction. Its an archive to have spun the yarns of the future.


Originally posted by TITAN_

Even Panini's age is debatable. Nationalists say he lived before 500-600 BC while....... more academic sources place him circa 400 BC. Obviously those speculations are not supported by hard evidence.

LOLBig smileBig smileBig smileBig smileLOL

Ironical. The academician in this forum is the only one not giving proofs.

Noone is bothered right now when Panini lived.Would you please stop trolling? He lived, as I can prove, before the era of the Vedanga Jyotisa(1500 BCE). Its fairly easy too. He is the border between Vedic and Classical sanskrit literature.

But Iam not going to do that. I am not letting you digress your way out of this mess you are creating


Originally posted by TITAN_

IVC script is not older than 2500 BCE, while Egyptian and Sumerian writing scripts exist since 3000 BCE.

The origins of all three belong to the same period.(3500-3300 BCE)

Your particular dislike of one of them is not going to validate the many mistakes of Wikipedia and your fantasies.

I already showed that the Ravi Phase and one of the lower layers of Harappa showed pottery engravings of three Indus script signs of 3300 BCE.


The origins of Indus writing can now be traced to the Ravi Phase (c. 3300-2800 BC) at Harappa. Some inscriptions were made on the bottom of the pottery before firing. Other inscriptions such as this one were made after firing. This inscription (c. 3300 BC) appears to be three plant symbols arranged to appear almost anthropomorphic. The trident looking projections on these symbols seem to set the foundation for later symbols… (Slide 124 Harappa.com) An Early Harappan: Ravi phase inscribed potsherd (H-1522A) contains a symbol which is comparable to the later evolved sign of Indus script. This phase is dated to c. 3700 -2800 BCE. If this is evidence of an Indus script inscription, Indus script could be chronologically dated as an early writing system, coterminous with the Late Uruk period (c. 3500-3100 BCE) in southern Metopotamia. This inscription can be called a ‘graphic expression using a symbol.

https://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/indus-writing


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 22-Jun-2013 at 08:22
Originally posted by TITAN_

Trying to downplay Megasthenes is a huge error..... I love exposing lies. Indica has survived to a large extent!

http://www.sdstate.edu/projectsouthasia/upload/Megasthene-Indika.pdf - http://www.sdstate.edu/projectsouthasia/upload/Megasthene-Indika.pdf

Megasthenes shows what ancient India really was.... That is supported by archaeological evidence.
Writing almost did not exist at all back in the 3rd century BC!

56 pages full of narration regarding ancient India. Read it before you expose yourself more.




Sorry mate, the ancient Greek references to megasthenes and the impardonable blunders and contradictions it poses classifies even the fragment as unreliable.

Ancient Greek historians , all of them of note, derided the naivety of Megasthenes.

"56 " pages of "accurate descriptions you say?

Now I know you aren't gonna read any of my posts. But I do this only for others who may read.

  1. Megasthenes has nowhere mentioned the word Maurya

  2. He makes absolutely no mention of a person called either Chanakya or Kautilya.

  3. Indian historians have recorded two Chandr aguptas, one of the Maurya dynasty and another of the Gupta dynasty. Both of them had a grandson called Ashoka. While the Mauryan Chandragupta' s son was called Bimbasara (sometimes Bindusara), The Gupta Chandragupta had a son called Samudragupta. Interestingly Megasthenese has written that Sandrakuttos had a son called Samdrakyptos, which is phonetically nearer to Samudragupta and not Bindusara.

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YQYkXyodBbI/Slc2LzxlhiI/AAAAAAAAACY/AK2pdS96EV8/s1600-h/Coins+of+Chandragupta+I.jpg">

  4. The king lists given by the Puranas say that 1500 years elapsed from the time of the Kurukshetra war to the beginning of the Nanda dynasty's rule. If one assumes the Nandas' period to be 5th century BCE, this would put the Bharatha war around 1900 BCE whereas the traditional view has always been 3100 BCE. This gives a difference of 1200 years which go unaccounted.

  5. Megasthanese himself says 137 generations of kings have come and gone between Krishna and Sandrakuttos, whereas the puranas give around 83 generations only between Jarasandha's son (Krishna's contemporary) to the Nandas of the Magadha kingdom.. Assuming an average of 20 to 25 years per generation, the difference of 54 generations would account for the gap of the 1200 years till the time of Alexander.
  1. The Chinese have always maintained that Buddhism came to China from India around 1100 -1200 BCE, whereas the western historians tend to put Buddha at 500 BCE

  2. According to the Greek accounts, Xandrammes was deposed by Sandrokottas and Sandrocyptus was the son of Sandrokottas. In the case of Chandragupta Maurya, he had opposed Dhanananda of the Nanda dynasty and the name of his son was Bindusara. Both these names, Dhanananda and Bindusara, have no phonetic similarity with the names Xandrammes and Sandrocyptus of the Greek accounts.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YQYkXyodBbI/Slc2LwqwivI/AAAAAAAAACQ/sdXmXY7he-c/s1600-h/GUPTA+PILLAR.jpg">

  1. Asoka's empire was bigger than that of Chandragupta Maurya and he had sent missionaries to the so-called Yavana countries. But both of them are not mentioned. Colebrook has pointed out that the Greek writers did not say anything about the Buddhist Bhikkus though that was the flourishing religion of that time with the royal patronage of Asoka. Roychaudhari also wonders why the Greek accounts are silent on Buddhism.

  1. The empire of Chandragupta was known as Magadha empire. It had a long history even at the time of Chandragupta Maurya. In Indian literature, this powerful empire is amply described by this name but it is absent in the Greek accounts. It is difficult to understand as to why Megasthanese did not use this name and instead used the word Prassi which has no equivalent or counterpart in Indian accounts.

  1. To decide as to whether Pataliputra was the capital of the Mauryas, Puranas is the only source. Puranas inform us that all the eight dynasties that ruled Magadha after the Mahabharata War had Girivraja as their capital. Mauryas are listed as one of the eight dynasties. The name Pataliputra is not even hinted at, anywhere in the Puranas.

No Concrete Proofs:
The Western scholars and their followers in India have been all along insisting on concrete evidence for ancient Indian chronology but they themselves have not been able as yet, to furnish any such evidence for the sheet anchor. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YQYkXyodBbI/Slc2LWfKDgI/AAAAAAAAACA/BElWu1nZ67U/s1600-h/samudra+Gupta+Coin.jpg">

All the evidence supplied so far is conjectural. No numismatic or inscriptional proof is available for the date. Same was the condition at the time of V. A. Smith. He had written, "Unfortunately, no monuments have been discovered which can be referred with certainty to tile period of Chandragupta Maurya and the archaeologist is unable to bring any tangible evidence afforded by excavations."

Pandit Bhagavaddatta seems to have studied the fragments of Megasthenes in more detail than those who decided the identity. On the basis of Megasthenes's statements, he has arrived at the following conclusions. "Yamuna was flowing through Palibotha i.e., Paribhadra, the capital of the Prassi kingdom. Palibothra was 200 miles from Prayaga on way to Mathura. The kshatriyas there were known as Prabhadrakas or Paribhadrakas. Their king was Chandraketu. The capital Paribhadra was near to Sindhu-Pulinda which is in Madhya Desha and is today termed as Kali-Sindha. The Karusha Sarovara was between Sindhu-Pulinda and Prayaga." He further states, "Pataliputra cannot be written as Palibothra in Greek because 'P', in Patali is written in Greek as English 'P', only ; then why 'P', in Putra is changed to 'B', in Greek? There is no instance where Sanskrit 'P', is changed to Greek 'B'." Putra cannot be Bothra.



Aelian gives his indebtednes to Megasthnes : "Megasthenes says that in India there are huge scorpions and they drive in their stingers. Snakes with wings go out at night and release their urine with with touch causes immediate putrefaction. Such is the things said by Megasthenes"

That ofcourse is only a sample of ancient stupidity.


Strabo says
Generally speaking, the men who hitherto have written on the affairs of India, were a set of liars. Deimachus holds the first place in the list, Megasthenes comes next, while Onesicritus and Nearchus, with others of the same class, manage to stammer out a few words [of truth]. Of this we became the more convinced whilst writing the history of Alexander. No faith whatever can be placed in Deimachus and Megasthenes. They coined the fables concerning men with ears large enough to sleep in, men without any mouths, without noses, with only one eye, with spider-legs, and with fingers bent backward. They renewed Homer's fable concerning the battles of the Cranes and Pygmies, and asserted the latter to be three spans high. They told of ants digging for gold, of Pans with wedge-shaped heads, of serpents swallowing down oxen and stags, horns and all; meantime, as Eratosthenes has observed, reciprocally accusing each other of falsehood."

Of course, Strabo is a historian unlike your Mega boy


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 22-Jun-2013 at 08:32
Originally posted by TITAN_


"According to Craig Melchert, the current tendency is to suppose that Proto-Indo-European evolved, and that the "prehistoric speakers" of Anatolian became isolated "from the rest of the PIE speech community, so as not to share in some common innovations."[4] Hittite, as well as its Anatolian cousins, split off from Proto-Indo-European at an early stage, thereby preserving archaisms that were later lost in the other Indo-European languages.[5]
Hittite is one of the Anatolian languages. It is known from cuneiform tablets and inscriptions erected by the Hittite kings. The script formerly known as "Hieroglyphic Hittite" has been changed to Hieroglyphic Luwian. The Anatolian branch also includes Cuneiform Luwian, Hieroglyphic Luwian, Palaic, Lycian, Milyan, Lydian, Carian, Pisidian, and Sidetic."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesite



I highly appretiate Craig Melchert throwing us his esteemed opinion.

But would you also ask him to further provide us with the evidences that led him to framing that opinion?


Appeal to Authority is only a silly logical fallacy .

I bet you didn't know that.


Posted By: SuryaVajra
Date Posted: 22-Jun-2013 at 08:51
Originally posted by TITAN_


I challenge you to find an ancient Indian record, that describes India so extensively, and that was actually written in the same period of time!



Challenge accepted. Lets just deal with the Puranas and the Arthashastra.

You really need to read the Arthashastra. Its preciseness is outstanding and unparalled.

It tells us everything about Indian society--The taxes, the names of officers, the standards units of measurements, crime and punishment, judicial system, names of weapons,construction of forts, science of warfare, names of swords, coins and denominations, state policy, purity standards of metals and alloys, family law..........

You name it..... its all there.

And guess what? It was written for the use of Kings .

All its critics are amazed by how such centralization was possible in such a period of history.

 Even the Greeks admitted that Indian history writers maintained a genealogy gaoing back to 6000 BCE.

They were referring to the Puranas ( meaning roughly "Tales of Old"). It gives the list of kings from about 6676 BCE.They are remarkably accurate. We cannot know of the really ancient monarchs but the ones of the historical era in this list has been extensively used by historians and are validated by external evidences. The Mauryas, the Guptas, the Shatavahanas etc all are included.

Here is a small sample from that list....

http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/4838/lunardynasty.jpg

 

Even the invasion of Semiramis is mentioned.


Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 22-Jun-2013 at 09:02
Surya, your rudeness and inability to express your opinions without insults has earned you some time off.
 
2 Weeks suspension.


-------------
"Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces".
Unknown.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 23-Jun-2013 at 11:30
I do not think I have to fully respond to posts that use sources such as "blogspots" or 6600 BC "proofs". I will only make a few points.


" Even the Greeks admitted that Indian history writers maintained a genealogy gaoing back to 6000 BCE. "   This is no scholarship, this is complete fantasy. There is no such piece of evidence.

The Hittites were neither an "Indian" tribe, nor had anything to do with the history and the languages of India. The most likely derived from the same region that gave birth to all Indo-european languages: Caucasus mountains... I already showed the classification of languages according to the academic consensus, not some weird blogspot.

The argument that some Hittite names sound like ...Vedic Sanskrit names, means nothing. I can find dozens of ancient Greek and Latin words that sound like Sanskrit words. The explanation is one and only: All those languages derive from the PIE language. Sanskrit didn't give birth to Hittite or Greek or Latin, neither the other way around. 




-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: TITAN_
Date Posted: 23-Jun-2013 at 12:10
Regarding Indian literature and mythology, the truth is no one knows how old the Rig Veda really is. The oral tradition could come from 1500 or 2000 BC.  We can only speculate. The same applies to the epics of Iliad and Odyssey, in western literature. Those stories describe wars that took place around 1200 BC, but they could easily be much older, from the early Mycaenean history (1600 BC) or even earlier (foundation of Argos, 2000 BC).   

What we do know is that without a script, any oral tradition can change a lot until it is finally attested and copied. Not that a text cannot be modified but it is much easier to add or remove elements from an oral tradition such as Vedic mythology and religion.

Now, the debate regarding Brahmi, the oldest script that the ancient Indians used to write Classical & Vedic Sanskrit, was probably formed around 300 or maybe 400 BC. 

And of course, what really matters is the oldest surviving texts that really prove that a certain script was developed enough to provide a way to write a whole book, not just a couple of words on some stone that have zero historical value.  The edicts of Ashoka (3rd century BC) are the oldest or one of the oldest examples of readable writing in India. 

Regarding Sri Lankan Brahmi inscriptions, they also date back to 300 BC, not 500-600 BC as mentioned above. Megasthenes was right, as modern archaeology confirms what he noted explicitly; that the Indians "have no knowledge of written letters".  






-------------
αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν
Een aristevin
“Ever to Excel“
From Homer's Iliad (8th century BC).
Motto of the University of St Andrews (founded 1410), the Edinburgh Academy (founded 1824) and others.


Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 24-Jun-2013 at 00:25
Originally posted by red clay

Surya, your rudeness and inability to express your opinions without insults has earned you some time off.
 

2 Weeks suspension.


Ya should have got em three pages back when he was using red as a color for emphasis. And this thread went into the crapper three pages ago. When trig gave way to arguments about language attestation version physical script.

I got to hurry up and get well.





-------------
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

S. T. Friedman


Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true'



Posted By: lincy
Date Posted: 04-Jun-2019 at 02:49
Interesting post to read. Thanks for sharing this post. 



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