BRINGING INDOLOGY INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: WHY RICH REWARDS ARE IN STORE FOR MANY FIELDS OF SCIENCE WITH MAJOR IMPLICATIONS REACHING FAR BEYOND INDIAN SHORES

Abstract

our previous papers, we had dealt with the Aryan problem, the identity of the Harappans, the origin of Brahmi and the Indus script, besides other related topics. We had also observed that the autochthonous Aryan theory and the Vedic Indus theories were untenable, and that the conventional theory that immigrants speaking the PIE, or one of the constituents of the PIE, now to be known as Base Indo-European, migrated to India from Central Asia would still hold good. We had proposed that the Dravidian and the Paramunda Indus theories would be untenable, and that the Harappans were intensely multi-lingual, speaking languages that were remote ancestors of the Prakrits of the Gangetic plains. We had shown how linguistic transformations had taken place: this issue was studied as an interplay between two language groups: an ancestor of Vedic Sanskrit spread in a part of India, died out as a spoken language, and became a liturgical language, and a lingua franca of the elite. The speakers of IE languages then took on the languages of the descendants of the Indus for everyday use due to the transfer of populations to the Ganga-Yamuna doab. Sanskrit then re-influenced the languages of the region, even after it disappeared as a spoken language. We had also discussed the origin of the term ‘Aryan’ which had a cultural connotation in the Rig Veda. We had also proposed that the migrations into India perhaps took place in around 2750 BC, long before the Rig Veda was compiled. In this paper, we discuss the importance of modernizing Indology for various fields of science and the need to replace the now effectively dead Mid-Nineteenth Century school of Indology and Marxist historiography with modern paradigms. We also explain why inaction could be fraught with disastrous consequences. This paper may therefore be construed as a clarion call to scholars from all over the world to take up research on Ancient India, and to raise awareness among scholars of related fields of study. The scientific and the intellectual rewards associated with such an endeavour would be enormous. We also attempt to lay out the contours and identify the key drivers for Twenty-first century Indology.