Indo European Culture

The grammatical feminine gender was developed by Indo-European in relatively recent times, and was superimposed on an older system of two genders (animate / inanimate). The virtual totality of Indo-Europeanists would agree with this affirmation; but there is no agreement between researchers over the factors which led to the emergence of this new gender.
By analyzing the diverse uses of the suffix * eH2 , Karl Brugmann managed to explain why the feminine grammatical gender includes many words which are not semantically feminine. Brugmann’s perspective is still substantially correct, but, in the exact terms in which he formulated this theory (more than a hundred years ago), it cannot give a satisfactory explanation to three important questions: (1) How did the diversity of uses of the suffix * (e)H2 originate? (2) How did some adjectives develop specific forms for feminine agreement? (3) Why are the ā stems and the thematic declension in complementary distribution?
The different theories that have been proposed since Brugmann can some-times answer one or (at best) two of these questions, but there is not a theory which can resolve the three questions simultaneously. Such a theory is, precisely, the object of the present study.

A word-by-word explanation of the translation of the so-called creation hymn of Rigveda. The translation is very different from traditional ones.

As I demonstrate, the hymn has been completely misunderstood by previous translators.

The hymn has nothing to do with the origin or creation of the Universe. It is in fact, simply a prayer to God.

Comparison of Copper Hoard weapons and similar item mentioned or described in Vedic literature. SINCE location, use and technology are not at variance a Vedic background of the Copper Hoard culture is most likely. Experimental use of the so-called anthropomorphs shows that they can serve as weapons but do not fulfil the requirements of a Vedic vajra.

That Old Gutnish is a variant of Old Norse is unmistakeable. The first line of the medieval law text of Gotland–preserved in two manuscripts and comprising the bulk of the Old Gutnish corpus–is easily read by the Old Norse scholar: þitta
ir fyrst upp haf .i. lagum orum: þet wir sculum naicca haiþnu oc iatta crisnu (‘This is the beginning of our law: that we shall deny heathendom and accept Christianity’) which in standardized Old West Norse (Old Icelandic) would read þetta er fyrst upphaf í lo˛gum várum: at vér skulum neka heiðni ok játta kristni.

However, Old Gutnish displays a number of developments which vary from those of Old Icelandic, Old Swedish, and the other Old Norse variants. Alongside unique Gutnish innovations, the medieval insular language remains important for scholars of Old Norse because of the divergent participation in generally-
accepted Common Norse sound changes, namely umlaut and breaking.

This paper presents Old Gutnish from two vantage points: first, as an Old Norse variant with divergence in Common Norse umlaut and breaking; and second, as a unique language variety with its own history and development.

A fresh and original translation from Sanskrit of the dashrajnya hymn (hymn 7.18 of Rig Veda) describing this defining battle between Aryan king Sudas and his Aryan as well as non-Aryan foes. The decisive battle led to the uprooting of many tribes from the Sapta Sindhu area.

Many existing beliefs are shown to be merely due to misunderstandings. Further, it is shown that the existing translations fall well short of the true meaning.
For example, no Matsya tribe was involved in this battle.

The present study is a TEST run aiming to see if a substantial fraction of the Ancient Egyptian vocabulary is shared with various Indo-European languages. Short of a hundred Ancient Egyptian words were selected on the basis of their phonological similarities with their I.E. equivalents, relying mainly on pillar/stable/root consonants since true vowels are not seen in the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic script. These words were compared with their equivalents in about twenty I.E. languages, including Proto Indo-European, so as to confirm that Ancient Egyptian and I.E. languages are related – a linguistic connection suggested by linguists as early as 1836 but never made convincing. Results of the study reveal that despite the relative randomness by which the words were selected, fundamental words of the A.E. language are seemingly and with a varying degree of certitude cognates  of their equivalents in I.E. In view of these recurring phonological similitudes, the test run is considered as sufficiently significant to engage future systematic comparendas of the A.E. vocabulary with the same I.E. languages and others.

Книга посвящена проблеме происхождения индоевропейских народов. На
основе анализа археологических материалов Евразии рассматриваются
связи евразийских культур от неолита до энеолита. Полученная схема
культурогенеза сопоставляется с лингвистическими теориями, и на этой основе
обосновывается ближневосточное происхождение индоевропейцев.

According to the  prevalent history of Bharata varsha as told by western scholars the Indus valley civilisation belonged to the
Dravida/Munda people and the vedic people(Aryans) reached India around 1900 BCE only . But in reality the Indus civilisation is vedic and the vedic people were in the Indus Valley at least from 6000BCE as seen from the excavations.
If an unknown script can explain the known myth and known history of a nation,what more proof is required to show that the script belongs to the same people.The script of Egypt explains
their myth and history.The script of Sumer,Akkad or Elam does the same.So it is natural for the Indus script to denote the myth
and history of the Hindu/Sindhu / Sarasvati/ vindu/vipra/sura/ bhuusura/bhudeva/bharata/kuru/pancala/Somaka  people.Hence we shall try to understand a bit of Indian history through the Indus script.We shall presently see  evidences pointing to the existence of the Aryans in the Indus Valley several millennia prior to the so called Aryan arrival  in the Indus valley.
In the last  articles we have looked into the writing of the Harappans in the early Ravi/Kot Diji phases and concluded that they are the same vedic people of the mature Harappan phase;we have  compared an inscribed  Ravi sherd showing  presence of the Pancalas/ Bharatas in the Indus valley before 3300BCE and a Taxila coin showing their presence in Taxila around 200 BCE confirming the continuity of the vedic civilisation in the Indus Valley from the early Harappan days;we have seen how an indus seal
portray the story of Ahalya described in later literature;
we have explored the universal idea of the mount of the dead Concept In The  Worship Of The Sun God .
One of the reasons for the hesitation of scholars  to accept
the Indus valley civilisation as vedic is that the Rg veda has
several passages referring to Asva-the horse and the veda
itself states that its horse has 34 ribs whereas modern horse
usually has 36 ribs.
In the last articles we have gone into the issue of the vedic
horse and the number of its ribs. Interestingly many of the Harappan Inscriptions refer to the Asvamedha itself as we have seen .There was no horse,but they are speaking of asvamedhas!
In this article we are exploring the Harappan connection
to Kodungallur(Kerala) through the temple rituals/festivals at the Kodungallur Bhagavati Temple,one of the oldest south Indian temples,which help us understand the symbols of the
Indus script in a much better way.

Ratha(car) festivals have been  traditionally associated with temples of India from Harappan times to the present and show the continuity of the vedic culture throught the ages.
Nowadays the most famous of these is the Car festival of the Puri Jagannath temple.
Temple cars are chariots used to carry images of Hindu gods(bhadra-king,bull,gold,girl/bharata-anointed king,fire→bha-ratha→vrisha-bull,Indra→varsha-year,place→vraja-Ambadi/Gokula→vrata-dominion→svar-sun,sky,sound). The cars are usually used on annual festival days called Ratha Yatras.
In Tamilnadu,the great temple car of Thiruvarur(in Tamil: ஆழித் தேர்) is said to be the largest of its kind in height and weight, standing  96 feet (29 m) tall and weighing more than 300 tons.
Annamalaiyar Temple,  Tiruvannamalai,  Chidambaram Natarajar Temple also possess  huge wooden chariots for regular processions. The Natarajar Temple celebrates the chariot festival twice a year; once in the summer (Aani Thirumanjanam, which takes place between June and July) and another in winter (Marghazhi Thiruvaadhirai, which takes place between December and January). Lord Krishna of Udupi has five temple cars, namely Brahma ratha (the largest), Madya ratha (medium), kinyo (small), and the silver and gold rathas.
In the Sunasepha sacrifice Indra presented his suvarNa ratha(golden car) to Sunasepha.
In the Yuddha(udaya) KaNDa of the Ramayana Indra gave his Ratha(tara) to Rama.
The spiked car of Harappa described by Dr.Massimo Vidale is an Indra Ratha model used in the Rajasuuya sacrificial ritual.Since raajas are not there now,the “ritual is also lost” as noted by him.

Updated attached exel file only, 3.09.2024. Updated to include corrections of mirrors. One mirror carries the name TIRANAII (Tyrhenni).  It is the oldest extant document containing the name Herodotus referred to and may predate Herodotus' "Histories." The Etruscan Glossary A spreadsheet presents 2,800 individual words from the major extant Etruscan texts. The texts contain a total word count of 6,000+ words, about 4,000 of which are repetitious. The Etruscan Glossary also sheds light on Etruscan declension and conjugation patterns that are similar to Latin, French & Italian. The glossary accounts for all of the 6,000+ words in the texts, including  the Zagreb Mummy wrapping and important grammatical and mythological data contained in Etruscan mirrors. Each word in the glossary has alphanumeric locators showing exactly where they are used in the cited texts.

The use of the sewing needle in Western Europe dates back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic. The terms denoting this instrument in the older PIE languages are highly divergent. The present article discusses their etymologies and the conclusions to be drawn from the combination of linguistic and archaeological data.

(from a work published in 1981) This table shows an unusual spectrum of cognates: Indo-European - Sanskrit, Avestan, Persian, Belarusian, Croatian, Polish, Romanian, Greek, Armenian, Albanian, Latin, Irish, Scots-Gaelic, Welsh, Italian, French, English, Etruscan, Hittite, Tocharian, Luwian;; in addition, Hurrian, Urartian, Akkadian, Georgian, Latvian, Baltic-Sudovian, and Finnish-Uralic. Overlaying the Semitic Sumero-Akkadian cognates in this table has produced an unusual Concordance. The Concordance is also part of our Copeland-Akkadian-English.Dictionary which integrates the findings in our Indo-European Table. Part 2 (http://www.maravot.com/Indo-European_Table1A.html) includes our integrated Akkadian-Indo-European Table. Click on it for the most current version.

Historical inquiries into religious giving are generally limited to the point at which a society becomes literate and begins keeping written records. With the analytical tools of linguistics, though, plausible inferences may be also drawn regarding the religious rituals and giving practices of pre-literate societies. This paper examines linguistic and mythographic evidence indicating that Prometheus in Hesiod and Mātariśvan in the Rig Veda are cognate figures, pointing to the existence of a Proto-Prometheus dating to at least the last point of Graeco-Aryan unity, around 2500 BCE. One of the strongest points of correspondence between Prometheus and Mātariśvan is their role in founding the ritual of sacrifice to the Gods with burnt offerings; a ritual also closely associated with the private provision of public feasts in both archaic Greece and Vedic India. Establishing the existence of a Graeco-Aryan Proto-Prometheus, therefore, also implies the existence of religious giving in that society.

In answer to the notion that spiritual experiences are unpredictable and irregular, voiced in not only one specific paper but rather generally assumed by Western scholars, I present the evidence of my own life. Both in visual and conceptual form I demonstrate how, over a period of eighty years there have been four distinct cycles within which spiritual experiences occurred rather regularly and in a repeating pattern. These were invariably responses to various degrees of stress, which the experiences served either to prepare for, or to resolve. The effect of these experiences was to empower me to move on with my life and career without any serious hindrance or breaks in continuity, despite, in many instances, strong opposition or attack. The form in which these events occurred within the four cycles prepared my mind to receive the ancient Vedantic form of the chatushpad, or a series of levels of consciousness, again in contradistinction to the usual Western model, which at the moment seems largely to posit only the material world and a theoretical "Consciousness", without any distinguishing features. While hoping for corroboration of my experiences, I present some circumstances that may have predisposed me to this unusual mode of experience and some background evidence that for me supports my orientation to the chatushpad as well as its possible relationship to quantum theories of learning.

This hymn pertains to the river crossing event of the Rigveda.

A massive and continuous flood stopped the Bharatas in their tracks. Their guide Vishwamitra then organised a sacrifice and composed this hymn to mollify the rivers' fury. Amazingly, the rivers did subside for a while, just enough for the army to cross over.

This fresh translation of Rig Veda's hymn 3.33 brings out the meaning clearly. It shows there was no real or imaginary dialogue between the sage Vishwamitra and the rivers. Rather, this was Vishwamitra's prayer to the rivers in which the Bharata army joins in at the very end.

It has recently (JIES 2011) been proposed that the Roman god Faunus/Silvanus and Vedic Rudra share a common origin. The names of the divinities represent a clear binary opposition that is already by itself remarkable (Rudra/Silvanus can be rendered as 'savage' and Faunus/Śiva as 'favourable '). The structural correspondence includes several overlapping divine functions: their
savage nature and abode, protection of cattle, healing and fertility, multiplicity and gender, a specific type of warfare (Männerbund) and prophecy and singing.

However, their sexuality can also be added to the number of similarities, as I argue in this paper. While several rituals attest Silvanus’ danger to women, Faunus is also the god of the Lupercalia, a ritual where young naked men strike women with goatskin whips to ensure their fertility. The sexual exploits of Faunus earned him the epithet Inuus, which is derived from 'inire' (to penetrate ). He is said to have violated his daughter in the form of a snake. On the Indian side, various myths associate the creation of Rudra with the punishment of Prajāpati for
committing incest with his daughter.

The Elephant is an animal found only in India and Africa. If this animal were to be mentioned in the Rigveda, it would be a clear proof that the Events described in the Rigveda took place in India. However, this translation shows that the words from the Rigveda commonly understood to denote the elephant, actually refer to another animal. This animal is not found in India.

In Rig veda, Indra is treated much like a celebrity sportsperson of today.

This original translation from Sanskrit, of Hymn 3.45 of Rigveda, just as my other translations, demonstrates how lucid and lively the hymns of Rigveda are, in contrast to the almost abstract work of all previous translators.

""On the basis of relevant textual passages and lexicographical research this article focuses on the meaning of purity in everyday life and cult as well as the rules referring to it. Furthermore, it deals with a more complex concept of purity which comprises the physical body as well as the mind and the soul. Apparently, it was understood as a state of social and religious integrity which is endangered by violating social and religious rules and thus be turned into impurity. In order to avert impurity and to restore the state of purity the Hittites had many rituals at their disposal. The fact that some of these rituals contain a rite quite simliar to the biblical scapegoat ritual made some scholars think of a common origin while others refer to these similarities as mere structural paralells. On the basis of a comparative analysis in which also related rituals of the Syro-Mesopotamian area are included several explanations for the similarities are evaluated.

Auf der Grundlage einer Analyse zentraler Textpassagen des hethitischen Schrifttums sowie einer lexikalischen Untersuchung des relevanten Vokabulars thematisiert der Beitrag zunächst die Bedeutung der Reinheit im Alltag und Kult und die diesbezüglichen Normen.
Darüber hinaus wird eine weitere Form der Reinheit behandelt, die komplexer ist und neben dem Äußeren auch das Innere umfasst. Sie kann als Zustand sozialer und religiöser Integrität beschrieben werden, der durch das Übertreten sozialer und religiöser Normen gefährdet wird und Unreinheit zur Folge hat. Zur Abwendung derselben und zur Wiederherstellung von Reinheit standen den Hethitern eine Vielzahl von Ritualen zur Verfügung. Einige von ihnen enthalten einen Ritus, der eine Reihe von Übereinstimmungen mit dem biblischen Sündenbockritus aufweist, die von verschiedenen Forscher als Indiz für einen entstehungsgeschichtlichen Zusammenhangs gewertet wurde, während andere eine rein strukturelle Parallelität für wahrscheinlicher erachten. Auf der Basis einer vergleichenden Analyse, in die auch ähnliche Riten aus dem syromesopotamischen Raum einbezogen werden, werden in dem Beitrag verschiedene Szenarien entstehungsgeschichtlicher Beziehungen diskutiert und auf ihre Plausibilität hin untersucht. ""