There has been a lot of discussion about the deceitful killing of vAlin by rAma. Despite the justifications which rAma offers they seem hollow. However, after some thought I concluded that vAlmIki purposefully presented it that way. As we have seen he closely follows the shruti&
repeatedly tries to illustrate the indra-nature of the ikShvAku prince by paralleling the acts of indra in the shruti. This I believe represents that side of indra which is hard to grasp for the unrealized:
bahvIH sandhA atikramya divi prahlAdIyAn atR^iN aham antarikShe paulomAn
pR^ithivyAM kAlakA~njAn | tasya me tatra na loma chanAmIyata |
I guess a later day votary felt similarly about the slaying of vAlin as an Arya of yore might have felt when he heard the above shruti-vAkya-s: perhaps, even a sense of awe.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The late Littauer had remarked in her landmark review of chariot petroglyphs: "One cannot help wondering if, no matter what other ends it may eventually have served, this type of rendering of a vehicle was not first suggested to the artist by looking down into a tomb...
The petroglyphs she was talking about are from the Poltavka-Sintashta-Andronovo horizons & zones influenced by them. The tombs she was referring to re the chariot burials that appear in the Sintashta horizon & continue to the steppe-I-Ir influenced Shang age of what became China
The chariot burial is that drawn by von Dewall in from Shang age burial. Thus, it seems that ratha-s depicted in Mongolian steppe are from a time when instead of an actual burial the deceased ratheShTha was commemorated by a petroglyph that resembled the original chariot burial
1 of the enduring mysteries of Bronze Age Mongolia is the Bayan Olgy complex with humanoid figures with insect antennae & wings(?)
While its genetics emains unknown to me Sintashta, Yamnaya, BMAC derived ancestries have been found in the general vicinity in the period. The ibex
figure is over a thousand years later in the tamgha of the Ashina clan of the Turkic Khaghanate. There are also depictions of both skiers & horsemen.
To the south of this region Andronovan chariots riding among herds of deer are depicted
A f3-statistic network for selected Eurasians with an emphasis on the Turkic & Mongolic groups. The Munkh Khairkhan culture folks from around 1800-1900 BCE show very Mongolian ancestry while being contemporary to Sintashta-derived populations in the vicinity. While Arkhangai had
Sintashta successor groups well into the Hunnic age. At least one Munkh Khairkhan shows signs of small IE-derived admixture though the original authors did not report it. That shows up as the edges to Chemurchek & Arkhangai from the 1st Hun (Xiongnu) Khaghanate.
The Munkh Khairkhan culture in Mongolia from ~1800-1900 BCE is characterized by a barrow that might have housed 1 or more human remains that was shaped quite like the dakShiNAgni altar of the H.
Invocation of nAga-s for rain-inducing rituals is common in the bauddha world & in early shaiva rituals like that preserved in the jayadrathayAmala. However, later it became muted or entirely lost in the H world while continuing in the saugatan sphere. 1 of the earliest surviving
nAga rites for rain-making in the bauddha world is that deploying a mantra known as the mUlamantra. The ritual is said to involve pratiShTha of an image of a nAga followed by the ritual performed by a vidyAdhara for weather control -rain or its modulation in case of an excess.
The roots of the rain-making ritual are mysterious but we posit that they originate from the "water" incantations to ahi budhnya mentioned in the RV itself & also metaphorically but indicated in the taittirIya saMhitA.
nU rodasI ahinA budhnyena
stuvIta devI apyebhir iShTaiH |
sUkta RV 7.34 is replete with riddles similar to the sUkta of father manu from maNDala 8. We believe the deities riddled in the below R^ik-s are marut-s
uta na eShu nR^iShu shravo dhuH
pra rAye yantu shardhanto aryaH ||
tapanti shatruM svar Na bhUmA
mahAsenAso amebhir eShAm ||
If so, it would present the epithet mahAsena (here in plural) shared with skanda in the singular.
The word mahAsena is a hapax in the R^igveda & practically a hapax across the core vaidika texts (barring the late insertion, the taittirIya AraNyaka skanda-gAyatrI). However, in the mahAbharata it occurs 38 times. The vast majority of occurrences are as an epithet of skanda
👍 I'm glad to have Harappan genetic heritage -- believe it was largely good stuff for the modern urban world. However, beyond that, &some mundane typically Indian food habits, it remains mute behind a veil. What really matters to our identity is IEan in provenance
Being an older person, I can reminisce a bit: Before molecular data 1 really could not be sure of the affinities of the greater Harappan peoples. One could infer, given the obvious phenotypic differences vis-a-vis the Europeans, that they had likely contributed to Indian ancestry
But how & how much was still unclear. Similarly, on the other side, we could not be precise about the timing & the tempo of the Aryan invasion(s) -- massive conquest vs migration vs mere linguistic influence. When the 1st molecular data on extant peoples became available they