Michael Witzel

Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist and academic. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50-80). He is an author on Indian sacred texts and Indian history, and a critic of the "Indigenous Aryans" theory and of right-wing Hindu activists. In 2005, he attracted the scorn of Hindu activists when he opposed their attempts to influence USA school curricula in the California textbook controversy over Hindu history.

The Vedas were composed orally and they always were and still are, to some extent, oral literature. They must be regarded as tape recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and usually without the change of a single word.

Quotes

1980s

• “The river Yavyavati is mentioned once in the RV; it has been identified with the Zhob in E. Afghanistan. At PB 25.7.2, however, nothing points to such a W. localisation. The persons connected with it are known to have stayed in the Vibhinduka country, a part of the Kuru-PañcAla land.” [....] “A dolphin lying on the sands, dried out by the North wind, could refer to the Gangetic dolphin, as in fact it does at 1.176...
  • India and the Ancient World: History, Trade and Culture Before A.D. 650 edited by Gilbert Pollet (Paper by Michael Witzel), Department Oriëntalistiek Leuven, 1987.

1990s

• North-West India was a large "colonial" area, where the Indo-Iranian or early Vedic immigrant clans and tribes (including their poets) were struggling with each other and with more numerous local populations of non-Aryan descent which belonged to the post-Indus civilizations (c. 1900 B.C. and later).... The immigrating group(s) may have been relatively small one(s), such as Normans who came to England in 1066 and who nearly turned England into French speaking country- while they originally had been Scandinavians, speaking N. Germanic. This may supply a model for the Indo-Aryan immigration as well...…..However, the introduction of the horse and especially of the horse-drawn chariot was a powerful weapon in the hands of the Indo-Aryans. It must have helped to secure military and political dominance even if some of the local elite were indeed quick to introduce the new cattle-based economy and the weapon, the horse drawn chariot, - just as the Near Eastern peoples did on a much larger and planned scale. If they had resided and intermarried with the local population of the northern borderlands of Iran (the so called Bactro-Margiana Archaeological complex) for some centuries, the immigrating Indo-Aryan clans and tribes may originally have looked like Bactrians, Afghanis or Kashmiris, and must have been racially submerged quickly in the population of the Punjab, just like later immigrants whose staging area was in Bactria as well: the Saka, Kusana, Huns, etc……
  • Witzel, Michael; Lubotsky, A; M. S. Oort, M. S. (Eds.); 1997; F. B. J. Kuiper- Selected Witings on Indian Linguistics and Philology; Rodopi; Amsterdam/Atlanta. Introduction by Witzel, quoted in What is the Aryan Migration Theory? by V. Agarwal, quoted in A Reply to Michael Witzel’s ‘Ein Fremdling im Rgveda’ (Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 31, No.1-2: pp.107-185, 2003) by Vishal Agarwal 2003

• “India possesses, it is true, a class of texts that proclaims to be a history of the subcontinent, the Puranas. …..Nevertheless, they have been used uncritically, e.g., by some historians such as R. Thapar, and by modern archaeologists as materials to establish their identifications of particular pre-historic cultures.”
  • 1990. On Indian Historical Writing. pp. 1-57 in ‘Nihon Minami Ajia Gakkai: Hatsubai Tokyo Daigaku Shuppanaki. Tokyo

• Poets such as Śamyu Bārhapatasya 6.45.1, some early Kaṇvas (in book 8) [belong to the] Early Ṛgvedic level.
  • WITZEL 1997b: The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu. Witzel, Michael. in ―Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts, ed. by M.Witzel, Cambridge 1997 (being the proceedings of the International Vedic Workshop, Harvard univ., June 1989). Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• “[…] the Vedas were composed orally and they always were and still are, to some extent, oral literature. They must be regarded as tape recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and usually without the change of a single word.” (WITZEL 1997b:258).
  • WITZEL 1997b: The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu. Witzel, Michael. in “Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts”, ed. by M.Witzel, Cambridge 1997 (being the proceedings of the International Vedic Workshop, Harvard univ., June 1989).

• At the outset, it must be underlined that the Vedic texts excel among other early texts of other cultures in that they are 'tape recordings' of this archaic period. They were not allowed to be changed: not one word, not a syllable, not even a tonal accent. If this sounds unbelievable, it may be pointed out that they even preserve special cases of main clause and secondary clause intonation, items that have even escaped the sharp ears of early Indian grammarians. These texts are therefore better than any manuscript, and as good―if not better―than any contemporary inscription" (WITZEL 1999a:3).
  • WITZEL 1999a: Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages. Witzel, Michael. in MOTHER TONGUE, Special Issue, 1999.

• I would not care, eg, if the IA-s could be shown to emerge from the proto-Masai culture of E-Africa.
  • Prof Witzel’s reply to Subhramanya on 24/5/1998: as quoted and attributed by Nicholas Kazanas, The AIT and scholarship, 2001

Early Indian history: Linguistic and textual parametres, 1995

in : The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity edited by George Erdosy (Papers by Michael Witzel and P. Oktor Skjærvø), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York, 1995. Quoted in Talageri, S. (2000). The Rigveda: A historical analysis. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• "In Europe, river names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 B.C. (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe)... “in northern India rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on" (WITZEL 1995a:104-105).
  • WITZEL 1995a: Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters. Witzel. Michael. pp. 85-125 in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin, 1995.

• “Right from the beginning, in Ṛgvedic times, elaborate steps were taken to insure the exact reproduction of the words of the ancient poets. As a result, the Ṛgveda still has the exact same wording in such distant regions as Kashmir, Kerala and Orissa, and even the long-extinct musical accents have been preserved. Vedic transmission is thus superior to that of the Hebrew or Greek Bible, or the Greek, Latin and Chinese classics. We can actually regard present-day Ṛgveda recitation as a tape recording of what was composed and recited some 3000 years ago. In addition, unlike the constantly reformulated Epics and Purāṇas, the Vedic texts contain contemporary materials. They can serve as snapshots of the political and cultural situation of the particular period and area in which they were composed. […] as they are contemporary, and faithfully preserved, these texts are equivalent to inscriptions. […] they are immediate and unchanged evidence, a sort of oral history ― and sometimes autobiography ― of the period, frequently fixed and ‘taped’ immediately after the event by poetic formulation. These aspects of the Vedas have never been sufficiently stressed […]” (WITZEL 1995a:91).
  • WITZEL 1995a: Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters. Witzel. Michael. pp. 85-125 in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin, 1995.

• “Something of this fear of the horse and of the thundering chariot, the "tank" of the 2nd millennium B.C. is transparent in the famous horse 'Dadhikra' of the Puru king Trasadasya ("Tremble enemy" in RV 4.38.8) ……..The first appearance of thundering chariots must have stricken the local population with terror similar to that experienced by the Aztecs and the Incas upon the arrival of the iron-clad, horse riding Spaniards.”

• “apart from archaeology, our principal source for the early period must be. the Rigveda…”

• Since the SarasvatI, which dries up progressively after the mid 2nd millennium BC is still described as a mighty river in the Rigveda, the earliest hymns in the latter must have been composed by C.1500 BC. (p. 98)

• “in contrast to its close relatives in Iran (Avestan, Old Persian), Vedic Sanskrit is already an Indian language”. (p 108)

• “In South Asia, relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan place-names survive in the North; however, many more in central and southern India. Indo-Aryan place-names are generally not very old, since the towns themselves are relatively late.” (p 104)

• “A better case for the early linguistic and ethnic history of South Asia can be made by investigating the names of rivers. In Europe river-names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 BC (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe). It would be fascinating to gain a similar vantage point for the prehistory of South Asia.” (p 104-5)

• “in northern India, rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on.” (p 105)

• “River names in northern India are thus principally Sanskrit, with few indications of Dravidian, MuNDa or Tibeto-Burmese names. However, Kosala, with its uncharacteristic -s- after -o- may be Tibeto-Burmese (Sanskrit rules would demand KoSala or KoSala, a corrected form that is indeed adopted in the Epics).” ... To sum up, what does the evidence of hydronomy tell us? Clearly there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanisation in northern India; this has progressed much less in southern India and in the often inaccessible parts of central India. In the northwest there are only a few exceptions, such as the names of the rivers GangA, SutudrI and perhaps KubhA.” (p 106-7)

• This leads to the conclusion that the Indo-Aryan influence, ... was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England with the name of the state of Massachussetts next to the Charles river, formerly called the Massachussetts river, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc., next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri.

• Between the arrival of the Aryans ... and the formation of the oldest hymns of the Rigveda a much longer period must have elapsed than is normally thought.

• “The Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, acculturation, or, if one prefers, the substitution of Indo-Aryan names for local ones, was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river-names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus civilization, where one would have expected the survival of earlier names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England, with the name of the State of Massachussetts next to the Charles River formerly called the Massachussetts River, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc. next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri. The failure to preserve old hydronomes even in the Indus Valley (with a few exceptions noted above) indicates the extent of the social and political collapse experienced by the local population.” (p 107)

Rgvedic history: poets, chieftains and polities, 1995

in : The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity edited by George Erdosy (Papers by Michael Witzel and P. Oktor Skjærvø), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York, 1995. Quoted in Talageri, S. (2000). The Rigveda: A historical analysis. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• "The structure of the text has been more extensively studied, already by Bergaigne (1878-83) and Oldenberg in the 19th century. From the latter's Prolegomena (Oldenberg 1888), it appears that the Ṛgveda was composed and assembled in the following stages, beginning 'at the centre' with books 2-7" (WITZEL 1995b:309).
  • WITZEL 1995b: Rgvedic History: Poets, Chieftains and Politics. Witzel, Michael. pp. 307-352 in "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia", ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin.

• [the SarasvatI is] “prominent in Book 7: it flows from the mountains to the sea (7.95.2) - which would put the battle of 10 kings prior to 1500 BC or so due to the now well-documented dessication of the SarasvatI”. (p. 335)

• “Book 8 concentrates on the whole of the west: cf. camels, mathra horses, wool, sheep. It frequently mentions the Sindhu, but also the Seven Streams, mountains and snow.” [This MaNDala] “lists numerous tribes that are unknown to other books”. [In this MaNDala,] “camels appear (8.5.37-39) together with the Iranian name KaSu, ‘small’ or with the suspicious name Tirindra and the ParSu (8.6.46). The combination of camels (8.46.21, 31), Mathra horses (8.46.23) and wool, sheep and dogs (8.56.3) is also suggestive: the borderlands (including GandhAra) have been famous for wool and sheep, while dogs are treated well in Zoroastrian Iran but not in South Asia.” (pp. 317-322)

• “books 2 to 7 (usually referred to as the ‘family books’) … have been ordered according to the increasing number of hymns per book” ... “very important principle in their arrangement.”

• By contrast, the Pürus, who along with the Bharatas appeared on the scene later, began to use the designation “Five Peoples” immediately: as dis­cussed above, they probably regarded themselves as being located at the centre. In the later books the tribes mentioned include both the older “Five Peoples” as well as the newcomers, namely the Pürus and the Bharatas.

• We know very little about the Püru domination in the Panjab. It is only clear that they were the leaders in a coalition of Five Peoples, and some other tribes, against the Bharata chief Sudäs in the dasaräjna battle.

• The entire book 7 is thus a snapshot o f history: the incursion o f the Bharata into the Panjab from across the Sindhu, and their battle with the “Five Peoples” and the Püru.

• Theoretically, since Gartsamada Saunaka [the eponymous Rsi of Mandala II of the Rigveda] is made a Bhargava, he could be later than Book 6.

• “all these geographical notes belonging to diverse hymns are attributed to one and the same poet, SyAvASva, which is indicative of the poet’s travels.” [about Mandala 5 of the RV]

• Book 5 [...] even knows, in a hymn not suspected as an addition, of the Yamunā.

• Book 6, again, knows of the west (including the Yavyävatp) but once mentions even the Ganga in an unsuspicious hymn [a hymn not suspected to be an addition].

Aryan and Non-Aryan names in Vedic India, 1999

• Even a brief look at this list indicates that in northern India, by and large, only Sanskritic river names seem to survive.... [he notes that over 90% don't just look IA but] “are etymologically clear and generally have a meaning” [in Indo-Aryan]... [He attributes this unexpectedly large etymological transparency to] “the ever-increasing process of changing older names by popular etymology”. ... [Sindhu might be an] “Indo-Iranian coinage with the meaning ‘border river, ocean’ and fits Paul Thieme's etymology from the IE root *sidh, ‘to divide’”.
  • Witzel, Michael. 1999a. “Aryan and Non-Aryan names in Vedic India. Data for the Linguistic Situation, c.1900–500 BC.” In Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia, edited by J. Bronkhorst and M. Deshpande, Harvard Oriental Series. Opera Minora, Vol. 3, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 337–404. Quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.

• During the Vedic period, there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanization of the North Indian hydronomy. . . . Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, cultural expansion, or. ... the substitution of indigenous names by Sanskrit ones, was from early on powerful enough to replace the local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. The development is especially surprising in the area of the Indus civilization. One would expect, just as in the Near East or in Europe, a survival of older river names and adoption of them by the IA newcomers upon entering the territories of the people(s) of the Indus civilization and its successor cultures.... "such names tend to be very archaic in many parts of the world and they often reflect the languages spoken before the influx of later populations" (368-369). ... "by and large, only Sanskritic river names seem to survive" in the Northwest (370). [In the Kuruksetra area,] "all names are unique and new formations, mostly of IA coinage" (377). ...[in] "the 'homeland' of the Rgvedic Indians, the Northwest "we find "most Rgvedic river names . . . are Indo-Aryan, with the possible exception of the Kubha, Satrudri, and perhaps the Sindhu" (373). [These latter, according to Witzel (1999)] "prove a local non-IA substrate.
  • 1999. "Aryan and Non-Aryan Names in Vedic India: Data for the Linguisitic Situation, c. 1900-1500 B.C." Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia (337-404). Harvard Oriental Series vol. 3. Ed. J. Bronkhorst and M. Deshpancle. Cambridge: Dept of Sanskrit and Indian Studies. quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 5

2000s

• So far archaeology and palaeontology, based on multi-variate analysis of skeletal features, have not found a new wave of immigration into the subcontinent after 4500 BCE (a separation between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic populations of Mehrgarh), and up to 800 BCE.
  • 2001. Autochthonous Aryans? EJVS 7-3, 1-93. quoted from Kazanas, N. (2002). Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 30(3-4), 275-334.

• [the Sintashta-Arkaim culture on the W. Siberian plains east of the Urals,] "dated to c.2200/2100-1700/1600 BC", [where] "the earliest attested traces of Aryan material culture "and even of Aryan belief". ..[there we find] "remnants of horse sacrifices (aśvamedha) and primitive horse drawn chariots (ratha, raθa) with spoked wheels [....] a real tripura [....] adobe bricks (*išt) [....] frame houses (which reminds of Rgvedic kula 'hollow, family‘ [....]) [....] Most tellingly, perhaps, at the site of Potapovka (N. Krasnayarsk Dt., near Kybyshev on the N. Volga steppe), a unique burial has been found. It contains a human skeleton whose head has been replaced by a horse head, a human head lies near his feet, along with a bone pipe, and a cow‘s head is placed near his knees. This looks like an archaeological illustration of the Rgvedic myth of Dadhyanc, whose head was cut off by Indra and replaced by that of a horse. The bone pipe reminds, as the excavator has noted, of the RV sentence referring to the playing of pipes in Yama‘s realm, the world of the ancestors".
  • The Home of the Aryans. Witzel, Michael. in ―Anusantyai, Fest schrift fur Johanna Norten zum‖ 70, Geburtstag. Ed. Almut Hintze, Eva Tichy, JH Roll, 2000. Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N. S. Rajaram... who ship their ideas to India from U.S. shores.
  • About Indians criticising the theory of Aryan invasions or migrations.
  • Witzel, Michael and Steve Farmer. 2000. Horseplay in Harappa Frontline, 17(20), September 30-October 13.

• Given the scholarly inclinations among the expatriate communities in North America we may expect a slew of new interpretations, in fact, a whole new cottage industry. Their impact will appear especially on the internet.
  • Witzel, M. N. Jha and N.S. Rajaram, The deciphered Indus script. Methodology, readings, interpretation. (2000) [1]

• “Not only the language, but also the culture of the newly arrived elite was appropriated, including the 'Vedic Tank' the horse drawn chariot.”
  • Posted in IndicTraditions Yahoogroup (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indictraditions/) on 11 December 2000, message # 2735 (also quoted in Vigil, 'Thus Spake Professor Michael Witzel A Harvard University Case Study in Prejudice?' (2006))

• “I have also since changed my opinion, based on new evidence, about the relative date of the bulk of RV2 which I would now include in the mid-level texts”.
  • WITZEL, Michael .2001. “WESTWARD HO! The Incredible Wanderlust of the Rgvedic Tribes Exposed by S. Talageri” in EJVS 7.2. Quoted in TALAGERI, Shrikant G. 2001. Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book.

• Other writers in Kazanas’ class, including D. Frawley, K. Elst, and N. S. Rajaram, have already caused significant damage to linguistics, philology, Indology, archaeology, and history.... In the fundamentalist/nationalistic circles from, which Kazanas draws support – despite his pretense of political naivete.
  • ‘Ein Fremdling im Rgveda’ (Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 31, No.1-2: pp.107-185, 2003)

• The so-called ‘invasion’ of IA speakers is not (yet) visible in the archaeology.
  • Longer quote : If the so-called “invasion” of IA speakers is not (yet) visible in the archaeology, it must be stressed that such movements rarely leave clear physical traces.
  • Michael Witzel (2006): “Rama’s Realm: Indocentric Rewritings of Early South Asian History”, in Garrett Fagan (ed.), Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public, London - New York, Routledge. 213

• “The language of the RV is an archaic form of Indo-European. Its 1028 hymns are addressed to the gods and most of them are used in ritual. They were orally composed and strictly preserved by exact repetition through by rote learning, until today. It must be underlined that the Vedic texts are ‘tape recordings’ of this archaic period. Not one word, not a syllable, not even a tonal accent were allowed to be changed. The texts are therefore better than any manuscript, and as good as any well preserved contemporary inscription. We can therefore rely on the Vedic texts as contemporary sources for names of persons, places, rivers (WITZEL 1999c)” (WITZEL 2006:64-65).
  • WITZEL 2006: Central Asian Roots and Acculturation in South Asia: Linguistic and Archaelogical Evidence from Western Central Asia, the Hindukush and Northwestern South Asia for Early Indo-Aryan Language and Religion. in “Indus Civilization: Text and Context”, edited by Toshiki Osada, Manohar Publications, New Delhi, 2006.

The Languages of Harappa, 2000

• Even now, however, three RV periods can be established, as follows:
  1. early Ṛgvedic period: c.1700-1450 BCE: RV books 4, 5, 6.
  2. middle, main Ṛgvedic period : c.1450-1300 BCE: books 3, 7, 8.1-47, 8.60-66 and 1.51-191, most probably also 2; prominent: Pūru chieftain Trasadasyu and Bharata chieftain Sudās and their ancestors, and
  3. late Ṛgvedic period: c.1300-1200 BCE: books 1.1-50, 8.48-59 (the late Vālakhilya hymns), 8.67-103, large sections of 9, and finally 10.1-84, 10.85- 191; emergence of the Kuru tribe, fully developed by the time of Parīkṣit a descendant of Trasadasyu...
  With Indo-Aryan settlement mainly in Gandhāra/Panjab, but occasionally extending upto Yamunā/Gangā, e.g. Atri poem 5.52.17; the relatively old poem 6.45.13 [sic] has gāngya [...] Even the oldest books of the RV (4-6) contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab: note the rivers Sindhu 4.54.6, 4.55.3, 5.53.9 ̳Indus‘; Asiknī 4.17.5 ̳Chenab‘; Paru ṣṇ ī 4.22.3. 5.52.9 'Ravi‘; Vipāś 4.30.11 (Vibali) 'Beas‘; Yamunā 5.52.17; Gangā 6.45.31 with gāngya 'belonging to the Ganges‘ [...] G. van Driem and A. Parpola (1999) believe that these oldest hymns were still composed in Afghanistan [...]. This is, however, not the case as these books contain references to the major rivers of the Panjab, even the Ganges (see above).
  • WITZEL 2000: The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000. Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• In general, the books of RV level I (RV 4-6) are thoroughly South Asian and have reference to local climate, trees and animals. We therefore have to take them seriously at their word, and cannot claim that they belong just to Afghanistan.
  • WITZEL 2000: The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000. (WITZEL 2000a:§13). Quoted in Talageri, S. G. (2010). The Rigveda and the Avesta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• None of the archaeologically identified post-Harappan cultures so far found, from Cemetery H, Sarai Kala III, the early Gandhara and Gomal Grave Cultures, does make a good fit for the culture of the speakers of Vedic […] At the present moment, we can only state that linguistic and textual studies confirm the presence of an outside, Indo-Aryan speaking element, whose language and spiritual culture has definitely been introduced, along with the horse and the spoked wheel chariot, via the BMAC area into northwestern South Asia. However, much of present-day Archaeology denies that. To put it in the words of Shaffer (1999:245) ‘A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan’ people into South Asia is not described by the archaeological record’ […] [But] the importation of their spiritual and material culture must be explained. So far, clear archaeological evidence has just not been found"
  • (WITZEL 2000a:§15). WITZEL 2000a: The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000. Quoted in [2]

• Apparently, Dravidian speakers began influencing the Panjab only at this moment in time. Consequently, all linguistic and cultural deliberations based on the early presence of the Drav. in the area of speakers of IA, are void or they have to be reinvestigated. ... In short, the Panjab is an area of a Pre-rigvedic, largely Para-Munda substrate that apparently overlays a still older local level. Since no traces of the supposedly Dravidian language of the Indus civilization (Parpola 1994) are visible in the early RV (see below), the people who spoke this language must either have disappeared without a trace, or, more likely, the language of the Panjab was Para-Munda already during the Indus period (2600- 1900 BCE). Therefore, the most commonly used language among the languages of the Indus people, at least of those in the Panjab, must have been Para-Munda or a western form of Austro-Asiatic.... In short, even if Drav. had been the traders' language, it remains unexplainable why Drav. influence is only seen in the middle and late RV as well as later one (AV+). The reason cannot be, as van Driem (1999, appendix p. 2, quoting agreement with Parpola) supposes, that the oldest RV hymns were still "composed in more northerly areas, perhaps as far north as modern Afghanistan." (Parpola forthc.) On the contrary, even the oldest books of the RV (4-6) contain data covering all of the Greater Panjab...
  • The Languages of Harappa, 2000, partially quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch.5

• “It must be underlined that just like an ancient inscription, these words have not changed since the composition of these hymns c.1500 BCE, as the RV has been transmitted almost without any change […] The modern oral recitation of the RV is a tape recording of c.1700-1200 BCE.” (WITZEL 2000a:§8).
  • WITZEL 2000a: The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000.

Indocentrism, 2005

Indocentrism: autochthonous visions of ancient India. Witzel, Michael. pp.341-404, in “The Indo-Aryan Controversy — Evidence and Inference in Indian history”, ed.Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton, Routledge, London & New York, 2005.

• The IAs, as described in the RV, represent something definitely new in the subcontinent […] The obvious conclusion should be that these new elements somehow came from the outside.
  • Italics in the original. (WITZEL 2005:343) WITZEL 2005: Indocentrism: autochthonous visions of ancient India. Witzel, Michael. pp.341-404, in “The Indo-Aryan Controversy — Evidence and Inference in Indian history”, ed.Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton, Routledge, London & New York, 2005. Quoted in [3]

• Elst disingenuously insists on calling any migration or even a ‘trickling in’ an ‘invasion’. However, immigration/trickling in and acculturation are entirely different from a (military) invasion, or from overpowering and/or eradicating the local population.... For Elst, however, ‘the ancient Hindus colonized the world’ while India, in reality, by and large, has been a cul de sac.
  • Witzel, Michael in Bryant & Patton, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.

2010s

• Chicken and still later exports from India are absent in common Laurasan ritual.
  • Witzel Michael. Origins of the World’s Myths (Oxford University Press 2013) (p.395)

Quotes about Michael Witzel

• It will be an important reference work in mythological studies for decades to come, being easily the most ambitious work in that field. Witzel makes an attempt, with apparent success, to reconstruct the history of myth, not for one culture in the past several thousand years but for mankind as a whole since its dispersal from Africa more than fifty-thousand years ago. ... Note that this work has only become possible now. We have collected the mythologies of nearly all tribes, very often recording them just as they were dying, either because tribes got converted to Christianity and were forgetting their own traditions, or because communities disintegrated into modern societies.... For the first time, we can give an account of the whole world’s myths, and therefore we must be glad that finally someone has taken on this task. ... This builds its reconstruction with the help of the archaeological and genetic evidence. Specialists of those disciplines will certainly complain that more of it could have been given, but then this book is a pioneering innovation and other scholars are invited to expand on this new paradigm.
  • Elst, K. in a review of Witzel, M. Origins of the World’s Myths (Oxford University Press 2013). , quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.

• The thrust of all Witzel’s misrepresentations is one and the same: to replace reasonable opinions with far-fetched or plainly nonsensical claims. Or in other words: to depict me as some kind of weirdo, fanatic and other ugly things besides.... For a well-established academic at a leading university, safe in his tenure and his creamy salary, approaching the completion of his career, Prof. Witzel’s behaviour seems odd to me. What is he afraid of that he thinks he must stoop to tackling me with these unacademic tricks? The reason for this unpleasant pattern of falsely attributing silly opinions to me is probably not far to seek. It is the fact that I have exposed a mistake made by Witzel in a crucial part of his pro-AIT argumentation... I have never accused Prof. Witzel of deceit or fraud. I prefer to live by Napoleon’s dictum: “Never attribute to malice what can be explained through incompetence”,-- or in this case, through over-enthusiasm for a long-hoped-for “discovery”. When people are very very thirsty, they start to see an oasis on the horizon; no malice intended, just self-delusion. Only, after his innocent mistake had been highlighted, Witzel’s reaction was rather unsportsmanlike. He claimed that it was all due to a printing error. That sounds a bit random for such a precise and sensational reading. As if you can put monkeys at a typewriter and let them produce an AIT-friendly translation by coincidence... What’s the big deal about standing corrected once in a while?
  • Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.

• “Witzel quotes favourably a statement at the beginning of this rather long article about India's role as "the cultural diffusion cul -de-sac of Asia" (p.1), an idea that has "kept me occupied on and off over the past few years." This sums up Witzel's view of Indian civilisation — it is the cultural backwater and dead end of Asia, where wandering nomads can go no further, with no real civilisation of its own. Not surprisingly Witzel has little appreciation for the Vedas, Vedanta, Yoga, Buddhism or anything else India has produced. His extensive bibliographies on ancient India seldom refer to any Indian scholars, and certainly avoid mentioning any yogis like Aurobindo who have different views. You would never find Witzel chanting Om, practicing Yoga or in any other way honouring the great traditions of the region. His anti-India views reflect those of the colonial era which he is continuing. For this reason Witzel is mainly honoured by Marxists in India whose political agenda favours rejecting anything great not only in the Vedas but in Indian civilisation as a whole, which many Marxists following Marx himself see as an invention of the British. However, no one who really studies and loves the Vedas will be fooled by such theatrics. There is much more to the Vedas than Witzel's philology.
  • David Frawley. Quoted in Vigil, 'Thus Spake Professor Michael Witzel A Harvard University Case Study in Prejudice?' (2006)

• To sum up: when it comes to indulging in “inane accusations and outright slander”, even under cover of writing a “review article” of a book, Witzel is second to none! .... Throughout the whole debate, Witzel epitomizes the kind of scholar described by Max Muller (in his book “India – what it can teach us”) as being very rare in India, but not so rare in the west (a generalization which need not be true in general, but is definitely true in this case): the scholar who indulges in “rudeness of speech … quibbling….. special pleading ….. (and) untruthfulness” and who “writes down what he knows perfectly well to be false, and snaps his fingers at those who still value truth…”
  • Shrikant Talageri, Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book (2001)

• Translations of this kind pervade the Witzel/Goto version, but I find them remarkable both for meaninglessness, and for lack of poetic charm. They stand out as bizarrely improbable in the context of the contemplative lyricism of the poems. Like Chomsky’s “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”, although grammatical, they don’t make sense.
  • About the Witzel and Gotó (partial) translation of the Rigveda. Thomson, K. (2009). A still undeciphered text, continued: the reply to my critics. Journal of Indo-European Studies Studies, 37(1–2), 59-88.