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Preface
ThisbookisanattempttoreconstructtheeffortsoftheancientIndianthinkers
inunderstandingtheworldandthemselves.Theyexpressedtheirconceptsinatext
calledtheÇgveda,whichisanalysedinthisbook.TheÇgvedaistheearliestIndian
compositionandfundamentaltoitslaterculture.Itisalsoanimportanttestimony
forthebeginningsofIndianphilosophyandforhumanphilosophicalthinkingin
general.
1.TheÇgveda
TheÇgveda(RV)isacollectionofpoeticalhymnscomposedduringthesecond
halfofthesecondmillenniumBCintheearliestformofSanskrit.Itsauthors,who
calledthemselvesAryaorArya,belongedtotheeasternIndo-Iranianbranchoftribes
speakingIndo-Europeanlanguages,whograduallysettledonthePanjabplateau
duringthesecondmillenniumB.C1.AtitspeaktheÇgvediccivilisationextended
fromtheKabulRivertotheGaṅgfi(Witzel1995a:93).
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InthewesternarchaeologytherearetwomajorhypothesisaboutthehomelandoftheProto-Indo-
Europeans(Rozwadowski2003:74–75):thatofPontic-Caspiansteppe(Childe1926,Gimbutas
1977,Mallory1977,1991)andthatofAnatolia(Ivanow,Gamkrelidze1984,Renfrew1987).Some
IndianscholarsrejecttheEuropeanoriginoftheÇgvedicpoetsandarguefortheirindigenous
origin(e.g.Talageri2000,fordiscussion,cf.Witzel2001aandPatton,Bryant2005,Bryant
2001).Variousproblemsconnectedwithsocalled‘Aryanproblem’arediscussedinErdosy
1995,forthetermsdrya/arya,cf.Witzel2001b,2–3,Elizarenkova1989:455.Thesurveyof
archaeologicalproblemsconnectedwithreconstructionoftheIndo-AryanscanbefoundinErdosy
1995.ForreconstructionsofIndo-Aryanethnicityandlanguages,cf.Witzel2000,2004,Parpola
1988,1997,1999,Deshpande1995,Southworth1995,Oberlies1998:159ff.;alsoBronkhorst,
Deshpande1999.InthisbookIwillusetheterm‘Aryan’as‘aculturaltermindicatingthe
speakersofVedicSanskritandthebearersofVedicculture’(Witzel2001b:3)which,asthe
Çgvedicpoetsthemselvesstress,isdifferentfromothercultures(beitIndo-Iranianornot).
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