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Who Invented Trigonometry?

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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Who Invented Trigonometry?
    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.
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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. 
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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. 
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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. "
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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.
 
 


Edited by red clay - 17-Jun-2013 at 09:26
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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 
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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. 


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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.
 
 
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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" .


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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.




Edited by SuryaVajra - 18-Jun-2013 at 13:27
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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


Edited by SuryaVajra - 18-Jun-2013 at 12:45
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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



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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.
 
  


Edited by red clay - 18-Jun-2013 at 13:28
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  Quote SuryaVajra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.


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  Quote red clay Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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 
 
 


Edited by red clay - 18-Jun-2013 at 19:32
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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. 


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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Jun-2013 at 06:57
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

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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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.



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