To this book

Our daily life is organised by "Information". World wide. A continuously increasing flow of "Information" leading to more and more consolidated social and political order. "Information" is brought to us not only through the so-called print– and electronic media, but also by our environment, by the family, by educational institutions, etc. extensively. But, where does "Information" come from, where is it produced, who puts it into circulation, what are the channels, how fast does it reach us from its source? Can we really find out? Is it important to know all the facts?

These are the reasons, these are the backgrounds that made our search for answers to our rather harmless questions so difficult, so complicated: who the "Aryans" are, the "Indogermans" and the "Indoeuropeans"? Who they are, since when has their existence been known, how has it become known that they existed, who discovered them, and how, why and for what purpose? But we have made progress in our search. With the help of our unusual questions. And as it seems, we have banged on Pandora’s box and it is open now.

CONTENTS, Prolouge: WE ARE, WHAT WE KNOW, THE IMPETUS, Epilogue: AN ERA OF BRAINWASHING and THE BACK OF THE COVER.

 

CONTENTS

The impetus 7

Prologue: We are, what we know 9

What is happening to us? 28

Who paved the way
for the “epochal discoverer” William Jones? 52

Who is this William Jones? 119

Calcutta - Sir William’s Eldorado 155

All trails lead to Calcutta 227

Treading in Sir William’s steps 282

Epilogue: An era of brainwashing 383

PROLOGUE: WE ARE, WHAT WE KNOW

And we know what knowledgeable people tell us. We readily accept a story if it is consistent, if it does not create a feeling of unease and if it doesn't contradict our experience and our knowledge stored so far. We save it as an addition, and we increase our knowledge a little. We are inclined to accept stories from far away fields innocently, otherwise an inner assessment is due; assuming that our memories function well, we won't have time to sublime contradictions. We are accustomed to this process. Mostly we don't care about who the narrator is, how he got the story, how he earns his living, who is harmed by the story, who gains and so forth.

We wanted to know about "Aryans", "Indogermans" and "Indoeuropeans". And we found many stories. Who doesn't know them? Most learned people know these stories found in "references" in "standard books of history" and in more detail in specialised books: The "Aryans", the grazing nomads, were, in pre-historic age, residents in the Steppes between the Caspian Sea and China's western boundary. How does one define "pre-historic"? Well!

Those grazing nomads had domesticated horses and cows for the time in history around 6000 years ago. They discovered copper, iron and other precious metals. They invented bronze and steel. They prospered. Their population increased. They expanded their "Lebensraum". Whose living space did they invade? We won't know. Who is to tell us? Is it important to know? Did they perhaps occupy "Lebensraum" of animals only? An earlier age of "discoveries" eventually? Nothing is known yet. If our type of questions was important, we would have found answers in the end. Are we perhaps on a wrong track?

Some of these grazing nomadic people with cows, horses, copper, iron, bronze and steel emigrated. So it is told. To the west and to the south. The circumstances of this expansion of "Lebensraum" are either veiled in "early or pre-history" or even buried. We can imagine why they didn't go into the inhospitable northern regions, into the cold, if some of these grazing nomads did really emigrate. But why did they not expand their "Lebensraum" eastwards too? No one tells us. No one has, for that matter, as yet asked.

But there seems to be no doubt about "expansion" of "Lebensraum" of these people. Naturally, as "cultured" people they had a common language. So the language wandered with them too. Some of these "Aryan wanderers" reached Northwest India. The Hindukush was the only pass through the Himalayan massif. How could these nomads from the Turkmenian steppe find this single pass? Wandering from an area thousands of kilometres away? Should we be detained by such "useless" questions? Isn't it solely important that they did find the pass? Otherwise they would not have arrived in India. Did they really arrive? Anyway. They were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed, and obviously "dynamic" as well. Otherwise they could not have made this long journey.

They settled down in Northwest India. They brought their language with them. Quite logically. This was Sanskrit. But without scripts. They invented the device of writing in India only. Had they had brought also a script with them, we would have found it in their initially native area. However, the Sanskrit script was found nowhere. Therefore it is deduced that the need to store their knowledge for future generations in writing was first felt in Northwest India. And they accomplished the job nicely. How long does it usually take for a cultural community to devise a script? "Philologists" or "Comparative Linguists" do not tell us anything about that. We must be content with the fact that "Aryans" from central Asia moving around discovered the Hindukush pass, drove out the inhabitants from this hospitable Northwest India to the South, settled down, acquired new knowledge, invented a script for writing and produced a huge amount of highly sophisticated literature. We naturally won't know where the initial inhabitants of the North forced the inhabitants of the South to go after they had been forced out from the North. Is it important to know that? So far, so good. In the oldest parts of this literature these "New Indians" called themselves "Aryans"; so we are told. We shall yet have to identify the "historian" who told us these stories for the first time. No one can tell us, however, why only those grazing Nomads in India should call themselves "Aryans" but not their brothers, sisters and cousins elsewhere in western Europe and/or the ones who remained at home. Why not? Shouldn't we know it?

Let us take it as a fact for the time being. We are assured that the "New Indians" called themselves "Aryans" and the language they brought with them was "Sanskrit". Up to now Sanskrit is universally regarded as the best arranged language. As Sanskrit has been found nowhere else, it is logically assumed that the nomadic "Aryans" in central Asia must have spoken a simpler version of Sanskrit. So we are told. This simple form, the early Sanskrit, Sanskrit in its childhood so to say, is called "Protosanskrit". Well and good. Those "Aryans" wandering towards the West also had to take along the same "Protosanskrit" Isn't it absolutely logical? Well, it didn't keep its initial form. The language and culture of the "Aryans" did change with time and through encounters with other languages and cultures in different continents. But the "kinship" naturally remained in regard to language and otherwise. So we are told. A convincing story.

It is supposed to be sufficiently established that there is a close kinship between Sanskrit, the language of the Northwest-Indian "Aryans" on the one hand and Greek, Latin, Germanic and Celtic languages on the other hand. The family of the "Indoeuropeans". So to speak. And who has discovered and established this kinship? Not those "Aryans" who passed through the Hindukush and created the world-wide known literature like Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras, and so forth and allegedly called themselves "Aryans" in their literature. No! None of them, not in any of their writings, not even once has it been indicated that at some period in central Asia their "Lebensraum" became so congested that a lot of their brothers, sisters, cousins set out on a search for new space to live and emigrated in the end. No! The "Sanskrit-Aryans" did not remember anything else, so it is told, than that they were "Aryans". An absolute "black out" otherwise. The kinship was claimed rather late by the remote cousins and relatives belonging to the "Abendland" (occident); only while they were engaged in robbing and killing in the "Morgenland" (orient). They were robbing India indiscriminately, carrying away whatever was not riveted and nailed, occupying the country for enduring exploitation. But they blessed also their remote cousins and relatives first with "language kinship" and then the "Linguistics". This branch of "science" has also invented the term "language family", but only in the 19th century AD, to be more exact, between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 20th century.

Terms like "family" and "kinship" however, even when they are designed in the context of languages, develop their intrinsic dynamics. The "occidental" inventiveness was at that period quite effective. The distant cousins from the "occident" deduced consequently that if their languages were from a common origin, then they belonged also to the same family, then there was a "blood relationship" as well; even if this had remained in oblivion for centuries. This was how the "Aryan race" was added to the "Aryan language" hardly fifty years later. And we have also been blessed with further branches of "science": Ethnology, anthropology, psychology, psychoanalysis, and so forth.

In the 1995 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica we can read about these inventions: "During the 19th century there arose a notion - propagated most assiduously by the Comte de Gobineau and later by his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain - of an 'Aryan race', those who spoke Indo-European languages, who were considered to be responsible for all the progress that mankind had made and who were also morally superior to 'Semites', 'yellows'’ and 'blacks'. The Nordic, or Germanic, peoples came to be regarded as the purest 'Aryans'. This notion, which had been repudiated by anthropologists by the second quarter of the 20th century, was seized upon by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and made the basis of the German government policy of exterminating Jews, Gypsies, and other 'non-Aryans'." The second half of the 20th century has proved, however, that this rejection of the "Aryan theory" by anthropologists didn't have any effect. Shouldn't the anthropologists, historians, indologists, political scientists and social scientists of this culture have known from their own professional experience that a bare rejection rather confirms? As "makers" of a "media society" they should know that "denials" rather amplify the refuted statement? What has been undertaken by the anthropologists or representatives of other new disciplines after it was established that the rejection of the theory about the alleged superiority of the Aryan race had had no effect whatsoever?

In 1990 the second revised edition of the biography of German indologists was handed over from the "Max Mueller Bhawan (House)" in New Delhi. The German Institute for Culture in foreign countries is called "Goethe Institute". But in India quite interestingly it is called "Max Mueller House", named after Friedrich Maximilian Mueller. We shall deal with him in detail later. An impressive number of 130 German indologists have been referred to who are known through their publications on the "early history" of India. The youngest one in this "gallery of ancestral portraits" was born in 1931. There are younger indologists, of course, and a lot of young persons are engaged in "research" on this topic in Germany and elsewhere. Many books have been printed; the "Aryan race" lives on and is still going strong.

Helmuth von Glasenapp (1891-1963) wrote a lot in large editions about religion and philosophy. Here we quote from his book, first published in 1963, from "an unabridged paperback edition", printed in 1997 as a 6th edition: The five world religions. (He did not include Judaism!) Under the heading "The historical development" we read on page 29: "The old city Prayága (i. e. sacrificial site), which the Muhammadans renamed Allâhâbâd (Allah's residence) and as such familiar to us, happens to be the holiest place of India because both the holy rivers Ganges and Yamuná join here. That is symbolic for Hinduism: as it is according to its essential spirit also a merger point of two big evolutional streams, though emerging from different origins, merging to a new unit: one of these streams is Aryanism that penetrated from the north four millenniums ago to India and reshaped it to a large extent in linguistic and cultural respect, the other stream is represented by the indigenous element already before the Aryan immigration and has been maintaining its characteristic until today. The origin of Indian culture goes back to the creative synthesis of these two components; through them the Indian religion received its distinct mark, unique in the world."

Is it not pretty, light, and smooth convincing and saleable in style? Under the heading "The pre-Aryan period" we read on page 31: "The oldest history of India is to us still today a book with seven seals. Ethnographers accept that the oldest inhabitants of the Indian continent, which then did not have its contemporary appearance, were Negroid, standing to their tribal comrades in Africa and Melanesia in spatial and genetic connection. These are supposed to have been forced away by Europides coming from the north to the south and into remote fields and to have been absorbed by degrees so that they are not to be found today anymore in a pure state. Under the Europides, who, moving in several waves, took their residence in the wide country, ancestors of the delicate brown peoples which, with its inherent variety of aspects, had its seat in India talking in Dravidian languages in the south represented the most developed type. ... Fifty years ago (that is around 1913) the prevailing view was still that it were the Aryans who brought a higher culture and religion to India and that the pre Aryan inhabitants of the continent of Ganges, however, had been primitives lacking in culture. This view changed entirely through the great archaeological discoveries made since the years 1921/1922 in the Indus area. In Mohenjo Daro (in the region of Sindh) and in Harappa (in Punjab) the ruins of large cities were then laid open. The spacious buildings, artistic tools and form-beautiful sculptures found there betray a state of culture that was highly superior to that of the Aryans living only in villages that had no developed technique and art yet. This so-called Indus culture shows a striking similarity with the simultaneously existing Near East culture, on the other hand it bears again so individual traits, however, that it can not be considered as a simple subsidiary of the latter and is therefore to be taken as an independent link of the international world culture of the 3rd millennium. ... While some researchers are holding the Induspeople for Indogermans that belonged not to the Aryan branch, but to an older group of this language-family, most accept that they were ancestors of Dravidians and as such to be rather related to the Sumerians and pre-indogerman Mediterranean peoples."

Isn't it delightfully narrated? Why didn't Helmuth von Glasenapp come to the obvious conclusion that the results of excavation led to a thorough collapse of existing theories in "history"? Unfortunately we can not ask him anymore. But we can continue our reading in "The vedic period" on page 32: "Those Aryans who immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC, were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work."

Our apologies for the long quotation. As mentioned, we are quoting from a large paperback edition. It has a pretentious appendix: It has a pretentious appendix: "Comparative survey over teachings and customs of the Five Religions", "Comparative chronological table", "Regarding the pronunciation of words in Asiatic languages", "List of the abbreviations", "Section-wise Literature and Index of names". A pure "scientific" book at its best. We refrain here from a subject-wise criticism. We ask simply: what were the sources of Helmuth von Glasenapp's stories, which he tells us in this apparently pretentious book?

So we looked at the bibliography. The first chapter "History of Religion, General Theology" has three sections. The oldest mentioned source for "Overall views" goes back to 1920, for "References" to 1956 and for "Sources" to 1908. The next chapter: "Brahmanism and Hinduism" has two sections only for reasons we don't know: "References" and "Overall views" are put together. The oldest source referred to here is from 1891 and in "Sources" from 1912. A critical review of sources doesn't occur. Was every printed word holy for Helmuth von Glasenapp? What would be the benefit of a critical review of sources? Isn't it rather depressing to note what is being sold as science? How does it look like in other "scientific" books? We have not yet been able to identify a different "science-culture". Therefore, before we go into stories, we have decided to put a few simple questions: who is the narrator, how does he earn his living, who supports his story-telling, who is benefited by his stories and what were his sources. The result of this practice is even more depressing. But first things first. We haven't been able to detect a single primary source in Helmuth von Glasenapp's book. But he knew all about human races and their ranking. Tellingly, during the "Tausendjähriges Reich" under Hitler he certainly did not suffer any setback to his career.

Knowing the modern-science-culture as manifested in the book by Helmuth von Glasenapp we are not amazed to note that sources have been referred to in the latest edition of the book, which were first published after 1963, that is after his death. Of course not real sources, but new printed products. In "notes" we are informed that "a number of other publications, mainly of recent dates, that could be suitable for further studies of the five great religions have been made available." We would have liked to know, which "spirit" has selected 'a number of other publications' and whether this "spirit" has also fumbled in the text. To make the book more sellable, of course!

In one of the "standard history books" in Germany, History of India: from Indus Culture to Today by Hermann Kulke and Dietmer Rothermund, 2nd expanded and revised edition, Beck, Munich 1998, first edition 1982, the same story reads on pages 44-45 as follows: "The second millennium BC witnessed, after the fall of Indus Culture, another important event of the early history of India, when groups of central Asiatic nomads migrated through the Hindukush pass to Northwest India, who called themselves 'Arya' in their writings. In 1786 William Jones, the founder of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, discovered close linguistic affinity between Sanskrit, the language of Aryas, and Greek, Latin, and the Germanic and Celtic languages. This epochal finding laid the foundation stone for exploration of the Indo-European family of languages, to which according to our contemporary knowledge more languages belong to than Jones had assumed in the beginning. Since the late 19th century more and more researchers came to the conviction, that the origin of this Indo-European family of languages was to be searched for in the spread of the East European and central Asiatic steppe (We include William Jones in our list for later scrutiny).

The important findings of the early Linguists about the close linguistic affinity within the Indo-European family of languages were however overshadowed increasingly by racial-nationalistic ideologies, in which the origin of one's own nation was postulated in a mystic-Aryan race. This applies particularly to German nationalistic historians since the 19th century and recently also to nationalistic historians of India. This development led to devastating results in Europe and also resulted recently in India to vehement quarrels between historians and to heavy communal riots. It appears therefore to be appropriate in the context of the early Indian history, to speak of 'Aryas' in the German language, to distinguish the mythical primary race of Indo-Europeans of Northwest India more clearly from the ideological construct 'Arier' of recent times."

This quotation is even more cynical than the one circulated in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, isn't it? Are these "historians" not clandestinely trying to escape the moral responsibility for their so-called scientific doings? Even today they talk about 'the Indo-European family of languages', but do not tell us which languages are not to be assigned to this family. They act as if all those problems created during the "Tausendjähriges Reich" had been over for them since long. But do they really believe that it will work if they just spell the term "Aryans" differently? Should it now concern the Indian historians only? Can one be more hypocritical?

So, the immigrating "Aryans" bring the "Aryan" language "Protosanskrit" along with them to Northwest India. Then they refine their language to Sanskrit, devise the Sanskrit script and produce and deliver an abundance of great literature to the world. The "modern historians" specialised on this period and on this area are busy with their dating of events. What else could be more important than to determine precise dates when each and every writing was first published and to dispute on such issues "scientifically" with colleagues in the same field?

Since the emergence of Jainism and Buddhism about 2600 years ago the history of India is well documented. During that period Sanskrit was no longer spoken. The literature on metaphysics, on science, on history, the books (Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras) and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were, however, already known in the 7th century BC. So the "modern scientists" concluded precisely that this abundance of Sanskrit literature emerged before the 7th century BC only. So far, so good. The conquest and/or immigration is, however, dated around the 15th century BC. How was this dating determined? We add this question to our list of notes to be dealt with later. The ancient Sanskrit literature could accordingly by no means be older than the invasion and/or immigration of the "Aryans", with Sanskrit as their language.

Rigveda is established as the oldest of the four Vedas because it does not mention in the other three Vedas. It is also supposed to be the oldest of all Sanskrit scripts composed around 1200 BC. We cannot see how a "scientific" fixing of the dates of these books could particularly enlighten us. We won't pass judgement on that. We only wonder why we are so totally unable to comprehend the stories told by the "modern historians" and indologists about the origin of Sanskrit literature. It would be unfair not to mention here that there is dissent about the dating acrobatics among these "scientists" as well as among different "scientific" disciplines.

It is agreed by all "modern scientists" that something like an "Aryan invasion" or an "Aryan immigration" must have taken place in India. How else would Sanskrit have found its way to India? Brilliant, wouldn't you agree? Where else would Sanskrit have come from? Do we find Sanskrit elsewhere? We do not know. No one can tell us. But one fact is striking indeed: the inventors of the theory of the "Aryan invasion" and/or of the "Aryan immigration" resemble the "Aryans" in their physiognomy. Is it just coincidence? We won't know. The diligent diggers, the archaeologists have yet to find evidence of an "Aryan conquest", however. On the contrary. Their finding shocked the "Aryan-looking-scientists" for a while but could not shatter the whole theory. Because the archaeologists are unable to disprove the immigration of a language. Immigration of a language does not leave behind archaeological evidence. No one can deny the presence of Sanskrit in India. Does it not brilliantly prove that the "Aryans" did at least immigrate into India?

And as already mentioned, the "Aryans" were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. So they would have been absolutely able to conquer Northwest India if their immigration had faced resistance. There was no doubt about the presence of the "Aryans" in India. Every simpleton who visits India can obviously see the "Nordic race" in Northwest India. In the south on the other hand the people are of short stature, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. "Scientists" imaging the "Aryans" are obsessed in describing this physical appearance They were, as said, tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. People with these features are of course superior to others. Does the scientists' obsession not actually indicate an urgent desire to identify themselves with these "Aryans"? Is this desire rather an indication of "Ich-Stärke" (ego-strength) or of "Ich-Schwäche" (ego-weakness)?

Naturally the "race", allegedly inferior to the "Aryans", had also a name. They were "Dravidians". Unfortunately we have not come across such an exceptional "scholar" having the "qualities" of a Friedrich Maximilian Mueller, who could have told us whether they also did call themselves "Dravidians" in their early literature. Did the "Dravidians" have "early writings"? Did they have literature at all? We do not know. We do however wonder how the dynamic, self-conscious and clever "Aryans" obviously never compared themselves with the "Dravidians" in order to develop their own "we-consciousness". There is no reference whatsoever to "Dravidians", to "two races" or to "race" in any ancient Sanskrit script.

Shouldn't this lacuna have been noticed by the "modern scientists" and been reflected upon? Anyway. We are not yet through with the stories we are told. The "Aryans", having either invaded India or immigrated into India, displaced the "Dravidians" to the South, settled down, developed their "Protosanskrit" almost to perfection, devised a script, produced literature of high cultural value, brought this culture to the pushed out "Dravidians" and spread the "Aryan" culture over entire India. Helmuth von Glasenapp gave clear indication that the "Dravidians" too are not indigenous people (Ureinwohner) of India. They immigrated in the "earliest early period" from 'Africa and Melanesia' to India. We won't comment on this. We just take a note of this version of the earliest history of India. But we have many questions. It needs not be specially mentioned that we don't find answers to our questions in the "modern-scientific-literature". It is even worse. Most of these questions have not even been raised yet.

What was the numerical ratio, for example, when the "Aryans" sent the "Dravidians" scuttling South? Is it in the realm of imagination of these scientists that the more unfavourable the ratio of the conquerors or of the immigrants to the inhabitants was, the more difficult and more improbable it would have been to drive them out? The "Aryans" could not have passed the Hindukush in masses. Which routes could they have taken from the steppe to the south? How were the conditions of the routes? Did they encounter human beings on their way? Which ones? How much did they roam around until they discovered the only pass, the Hindukush?

What logistics? What were the prerequisites for logistic considerations for these grazing nomads in the central-Asiatic steppe? Were there any? Did these "historians" ever study a map of this area? Even if we accepted the story of "population explosion" leading to immigration, how could they have found and kept direction in a vast, unknown, incalculable terrain thousands of miles from their steppes? Besides, if, against all odds, the nomads did find direction, we should find these central Asiatics all over the place not just India. And to add to it, the nomads were no star gazers. Their eyes were on the ground or ahead of them. How did they suddenly learn astronomy?

And what has been told by Helmuth von Glasenapp? Under the heading "The vedic period" on page 32? " Those Aryans who immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC, were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work.

Instead of asking at least a few of the many obvious questions, the "Glasenapps" describe how different the physical characteristics of those the two races, "Aryans" and "Dravidians", were. As already said, the "Aryans" were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed and the "Dravidians" were of short stature, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. Would it actually have been possible that the "Dravidians" were inferior to the "Aryans" due to the differences of their physical features and were therefore conquered? In spite of a vast majority of "Dravidian" people? Which question is more relevant, the numerical ratios or physical features? And how could those "modern scientists" determine the appearance of people of those "two races" who lived 3500 years ago? Is there any comprehensible method for that? Can there be a method to that purpose?

Obviously the designers of the "theory of two races" and their descendants do not only sympathise with but admire them and identify themselves with "Aryans" and their assumed physical attributes. It goes without saying that the physical aspects dominate their subjective evaluation. These designers projected their own physical appearance to the assumed superior "Aryans" and developed with it a common "we-consciousness" vis-a-vis the "others", whoever these others might have been. There are just the "others". And the "others" were by no means tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. What is not wished cannot be.

After the creation of the "we-feeling" the individual features develop independently. We don't have to remember the impressive meeting of Hitler and Mussolini in the movie "The Great Dictator" by Charles Chaplin, to understand the powerful motivation behind the internalised values, the all too prevalent misconception that "big" is "great". In the Chaplin film, the two dictators are sitting on a swivel chairs and, throughout their conversation, each is trying to sit—appear—higher than the other this hilarious scene brings amply to light that inferiority complex — a sense of security — is the root motivator of all dictators.

We leave it at that, emphasising the fact that every "we-feeling" presupposes actual or pretended positive qualities which "the others", of course, don't possess. It is irrelevant who — linguists, historians or indologists — when they pen such imaginary theories in the guise of "scientific" history, a classic example being the following: 'in the context of the early Indian history it appears to be appropriate, to speak of "Aryans" in the German language, to distinguish the mythical primary race of Indo-Europeans of Northwest India more clearly from the ideological construct "Arier" of recent times. In their purely subjective desire to hold on to the "racial superiority" theory — whether it be the beauty or the virtues of the Aryans — the author has thrown to the winds one of the key elements in research ethics: Objectivity.

The impilcite massage is that In fact, the "short-statured" persons are not just "not tall", they are also "incalculable and mischievous"; dark-skinned people are in fact "shady customers", not frank and open like fair skinned people. And if they have dark eyes in addition, who would like to meet them? Be they citizens or not, who would seriously think about integrating them into the "we-group"? A culture which has generated the superiority consciousness of the "blond-blue-eyed-white" people for centuries must also be named accordingly. We should no longer allow "experts on culture" to confuse us by inventing new labels for this culture. The "Aryans" could not have been Christians. Christianity emerged later. But who are the "Indo-Europeans"? Are they only the Christian descendants of the "Aryans" or also products of the blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian culture? Are they not more civilised than the "Indo-Aryans"? And a little superior too?

And superiority is not superiority if it is not constantly scrutinised and being evidenced. This can be observed when physical violence is used against those fellow-habitants in Europe, in "America", in "Australia", in "New Zealand", who obviously do not belong to the "blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian" culture. And in Germany, of course. Why do we have the public appeals of the celebrities against the infringements? Is it more than just "celebrating"? It should be added that all pioneers of this culture have not necessarily to be "blond-blue eyed-white-Christian". Not all pioneers/leaders of this culture need to be blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian. Take Hitler and Gobbles. There should not be any misunderstanding. We, the authors, also belong to this culture. We lack the essential features but cannot root out the internalised "values" either.

But let's get back to the original "Aryans" who are supposed to have started the whole affair. They were basically simple people, who 'were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work', but nonetheless 'immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC'. They just 'were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen. That was it. We wanted to know in which period all these things happened. But there is no concrete evidence. And what about the spread of this culture up to the southern tip of India? When did it happen? From the time of Vardhamana, the first Mahavira of the Jains and Gautama Buddha, the history of India is well documented. There is no evidence of any "Aryan" invasion, occupation and spreading of the culture into the diminished "land of the Dravidians" in the south of India. Apparently this must then have occurred in the period between the 15th and 7th century BC. Why was it not even mentioned in the extensive literature of the "Sanskrit-Aryans"?

Even if we bought the theory of "population explosion" among the grazing nomads, we would need to try to find out what section of population would be ready for a collective emigration: The "well established" ones or the "inferior" ones? Which of these two would foster the common language better: the established ones or the inferior ones? Who is inclined to emigrate? If the "Aryans" brought "Protosanskrit" to India, must we not assume that those remaining at home spoke the same language? If the "Aryans" abroad produced an abundance of Sanskrit literature, shouldn't the same "breed" have produced literature at home? May be not in abundance and in good quality, but some literature anyhow? Where is the literature of the "Aryans" at home? Where is their history? And why didn't the other "Aryan" emigrants, the Greeks, the Romans, the Germans and the Celts, produce literature similar to "Sanskrit literature"?

Then we would like to know how “modern historians” were able to acquire their knowledge. What were the sources of all these theories which are being served even today? In that exemplary German "standard history book" of 1998 we get a hint about the quality of their sources on page 49: "The dating of the texts and the cultures that produced them was vigorously disputed for quite a long time also among western Indologists. Based on astronomical information the famous Indian freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak has published in his book 'The Arctic Home in the Vedas' at the beginning of this century his belief that the origin of the Vedas was to be backdated to the 5th and 6th millennium BC. The German Indologist H. Jacobi came independently to similar conclusions and dated the beginning of the vedic period in the middle of the 5th millennium. Mostly one followed, however, the dating set by the famous German Indologist Max Mueller who taught in Cambridge in the late 19th century. Setting out from the lifetime of the Buddha around 500 BC he dated the origin of the Upanishads in the centuries from 800 to 600 BC as the philosophy in them had originated before Buddha's deeds. These were preceded by the Brahmana- and Mantra texts in the centuries from 1000 to 800 respectively from 1200 to 1000 BC. Today one dates the oldest vedic text, that of Rigveda, into the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. Since the Vedas soon after this genesis as a divine manifestation were not allowed to be changed anymore and handed down to our contemporary time by priest families verbally in an unbelievably precise manner, they can now be considered, after their dating can be regarded as being fixed at least in specific centuries, as historical sources of first rank for the history of the vedic society in northern India."

Impressive style, indeed. In fact the whole book is in the same impressive style, made more so by its "scientific" character. Each sentence, each paragraph is convincingly presented. The book, from the first to the last word, is a demonstration of the scientific character of the "Humanities". Who can still have doubts about its contents? The most important aim is to convince readers - no, not exactly. It is to make believe. The weak points, wherever possible, camouflaged in insignificant portions. And the debatable points which might lead to criticism are just touched upon, signalling that these issues have been recognised, but could not be dealt with in detail due to the lack of space. Right?

At the beginning of the "modern humanities", we suppose, it was more difficult "to make others believe". But today the means of manipulation are almost perfect. It is not that the scientists of our time have become cleverer and packed their messages more impressively. No that is not the danger. What is happening is we are increasingly losing our ability to recognise manipulations. It begins with the family, continues at school, on the job, in the subcultures and finally takes control of the entire culture. The mass media always play a major role. Nothing depends on the actual truth. Whatever is sold becomes truth. The logic is primitive but effective. The people wouldn't buy it if it was not true, would they? Have we already forgotten the media report on the "Gulf war", "Kosovo-air strokes" and "Afghanistan-crusade"? And the bombshells enriched with uranium?

We have to apologise because of these provocative sentences. We are particularly angry because we have long been victims of this manipulation. It will not make much sense if we describe our way to emancipation in all details. There is no point here in going into all the details. Rather, what is needed is to read again the following "exemplary" paragraph carefully. "The dating of the texts and the cultures that produced them was vigorously disputed for quite a long time also among western Indologists (What could be the purpose of 'for quite long time also among western Indologists' in this connection? Is it important to know? Is it not more important to know why it 'was vigorously disputed ... also among western Indologists'? Why? And what is the meaning of 'also among western Indologists' in particular? And all these controversial items in one sentence? Why aren't we informed in a simple way that: for a long time the dating was controversial among Indologists? And thereafter the issues of controversies? Was all this done just by mistake?).

"Based on astronomical information (Is the information correct or wrong?) the famous Indian freedom fighter ('famous Indian freedom fighter'? What are we to be conditioned for now?) Bal Gangadhar Tilak has published in his book 'The Arctic Home in the Vedas' at the beginning of this century his belief ('belief'?) that the origin of the Vedas was to be backdated to the 5th and 6th millennium BC (Did Bal Gangadhar Tilak give some reasons also?). The German Indologist H. Jacobi came independently to similar conclusions and dated the beginning of the vedic period in the middle of the 5th millennium."

The 'famous Indian freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak' is not easily available to us. However, 'the German Indologist H. Jacobi' is. Hermann Jacobi (1850-1937) was a mathematician. He got his doctorate in 1872 on: De astrologiae Indicae "Hora" appellatae originibus. In translation it is: About the origins of the term "Hora" in the Indian astrology. He worked with Jainic texts dealing with mathematical and calculational background. He was proficient in Prakrit and in Pali, both spoken versions of Sanskrit 2600 years ago in the eastern area in India, in the contemporary Union state of Bihar. Up to his middle age he remained a mathematician and natural scientist. He also wrote a Prakrit-grammar. He contributed an article on the age of Vedas on the basis of astronomical calculations on the occasion of a commemorative volume for the indologist Rudolf von Roth, which then was published in 1908 also in the "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society". In his published biography we can not find any indications about his knowledge in Sanskrit. Having gained this background knowledge the next three sentences in our exemplary paragraph cast a different light.

"Mostly one followed, however, (why so?) the dating set by the famous German Indologist Max Mueller who taught in Cambridge in the late 19th century (Was he famous because he taught as a German in Cambridge, or did he teach in Cambridge because he was famous before? Did he become "the leader of the (indologist)pack") because he was famous, or did he become famous because he had ascended to "the leader of the pack"? We would prefer to know instead how this indologist established the dating of the Vedas. Absolutely no indication. And what is more, there had never been 'a German Indologist in Cambridge' called Max Mueller. We continue in that paragraph.). Setting out from the lifetime of the Buddha around 500 BC he dated the origin of the Upanishads in the centuries from 800 to 600 BC as the philosophy in them had originated before Buddha’s deeds. These were preceded by the Brahmana– and Mantra texts in the centuries from 1000 to 800 respectively from 1200 to 1000 BC ."(Are these methodological indications or arguments? Instead they foist upon us that the famous German indologist Max Mueller could read these texts brilliantly, judge them and consequently deduce when these texts were written. Nothing like that in fact. We shall deal with Friedrich Maximilian Mueller, that is his full name, in detail giving special attention to his knowledge of Sanskrit in particular and to the knowledge of Sanskrit of the indologists in general. Now we can continue our reading.).

Today one dates (just like that?) the oldest Vedic text, that of Rigveda, into the middle of the 2nd millennium of BC. Since the Vedas soon after this genesis (had there been anything before that?) as a divine manifestation (A divine manifestation is always related to a person. To whom was the Rigveda divinely manifested and by which God?) were not allowed to be changed anymore (how could it be ascertained?) and handed down to our contemporary time by priest families (priest families?) verbally in an unbelievably precise manner, they can now be considered, after their dating can be regarded as being fixed at least in specific centuries, as historical sources of first rank for in northern India (Is this sensible reasoning?)."

How does 'the history of the vedic society' emerge? We also fail to comprehend the meaning and purpose of: 'a divine manifestation', 'historical sources of first rank' and 'the history of the vedic society'. Another aspect is striking in this exemplary paragraph. It applies adjectives and adverbs, positively and negatively loaded, as an instrument of manipulation, like: vigorously disputed', 'for quite a long time', 'western Indologists', 'famous Indian freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak', 'the German Indologist', 'mostly one followed', 'the famous German Indologist Max Mueller'. We were not led astray by this trick. We have frequently endured such fruitless disputes staged in order to scuttle essential discussions. Just to give an example, we all remember the quarrels about "tapped-records" being "illegally" published in many "democratic" countries. Mostly the public disputes were focused on the legitimacy of the publication. The essential question remained in the dark: What in fact did honourable democratic political personalities tell their political friends, opponents and leading administrators? Why should it be kept away from the democratic public? A diversion of focus as a technique of manipulation.

Again we must apologise because of a small naughtiness of ours. In the beginning we talked about "Aryan conquerors". Later we introduced "Aryan conquerors and/or immigrants" just like that. It was only done to get the reader tuned to understand the way we become victims of a common method of manipulation by the "historians". The 2nd section of that standard history book, The history of India: from Indus culture to today by Hermann Kulke and Dietmer Rothermund, 2nd expanded and revised edition, Beck, Munich 1998, first edition 1982, is titled: "Immigration and Settlement of Aryas". Now, "immigration of Aryas" is an event which was called "Conquest by the Aryans" till the first quarter of the 20th century. Due to absolutely unavoidable interdisciplinary rivalries among "modern scientists", the "historians" and indologists got involved into more than a dating conflict with the archaeologists. The archaeological finds refute the conquest theory insofar, as the so called war trophies as a proof of the defeat of "Dravidians" were unfortunately already there much earlier, before the "Aryans" were supposed to have had their "population explosion" in the central-Asiatic steppe and gone on their march to a new "Lebensraum".

In fact, this should have not only led to the collapse of the theory of the Aryan conquest, but also of the theory which claims that India is a country of two or three races. But 'mostly one followed' the flexibility of the "historians" and indologists: If there was no conquest, then there must nevertheless have been an immigration! By this twist the theory of the "superior Aryan race" was rescued. These "Indo-Europeans", no, these "Aryan-Europeans" were and are emotionally convinced of their own superiority. What would happen to them if the theory collapses? Perish the thought!

These manipulators of opinions know very well how deeply the racial consciousness is rooted in this "blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian" culture, which is still on the search for an innocent name. They are confident that even if they have to use the term "immigration" it will nonetheless automatically be converted in the mind of the members of this culture into "conquest". And their smug confidence has no limits. They do not even feel that while writing a little more attention has to be paid to keep their innermost conviction about the superiority of the "Aryan-Europeans" under restrain lest it be exposed. Thus we can already read on page 50 of the 2nd section: "The victory of the Indo-Aryas over the indigenous population seems to have been as in the case of other conquering nations in the Near Orient, based considerably on their sophisticated two wheeled horse chariots (ratha). The spokes of their wheels were so valuable and sensitive that the chariots were carried occasionally on ox carts in order to spare them until the beginning of the battle. The land-taking of the Aryas seems nevertheless to have been carried out only in a step by step manner and slowly. The reason for that might have lain indeed also in the width of the country and in the great number of hardly passable rivers.

The resistance of the indigenous population seems however to have carried more weight. As dark-skinned Dasa or Dasyu they are named in the texts again and again as the real adversaries of the conquerors. They defended themselves in fortified places (pura, later = city) that were mainly surrounded by several palisade rings or ramparts, or they moved back onto the mountains into their retreat-castles. Numerous hymns celebrate the God Indra as the «castle breaker» (purandara) and King of Gods of the Aryas who stormed the castles and killed the Dasyu intoxicated from the Soma drink."

Apart from the fact that these "historians" and indologists, who, in spite of the archaeological discoveries, let themselves be led by the "race superiority of the Aryans", our attention is attracted by two other facts that are not less fatal. By insertions of simple Sanskrit words these "scientists" create the impression that they are proficient in Sanskrit. Whether this is true, remains to be examined thoroughly. We will systematically track down, how Sanskrit and "Vedic Sanskrit" or the one that is just being called Sanskrit came to Europe.

The second aspect is still more pathetic. We recall the part of the quotation: 'The resistance of the indigenous population seems however to have carried more weight. As dark-skinned Dasa or Dasyu they are named in the texts again and again as the real adversaries of the conquerors.' As already mentioned, in their tales these "historians" and indologists describe the Aryans" as tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. As these physical characteristics are still positively evaluated and are in flesh and blood those of the members of this culture, we will also trace the time when these physical characteristics were applied to distinguish the quality of human beings and where this theory originated.

A very last remark on "modern humanities" to reveal their treacherous arts. Since the third quarter of the last century archaeologists in India are laying open entire cities concealed under the earth for millenniums. These cities were planned with coherent settlements, straight roads, play grounds with stadium, efficient water management, public baths, drainage, artificial irrigation plants, channel systems, dry docks and so forth on banks of mighty rivers later dried up by drought. These cities didn't have palaces and temples. An intensive discussion at least on one issue should have started. Is it conceivable that such a civilisation could exist without a language, without writing, without literature, without science, without philosophy? The answer is obvious. It is not conceivable. Where are those cultural achievements?

And what would happen if we had reasonable doubts about Sanskrit being the language of the 'Aryans who immigrated through the mountain route of the Northwest into the watershed of Indus and subjugated in continuous fight the prior residents of the north-west corner of India in the 2nd millennium BC, were warriors of a youthful group of herdsmen, who did already some farming, but knew nothing of town planning and of fine artistic work.' What are we supposed to do then? What would have to be done?

 

The impetus

The Faculty of Social Sciences of the Oldenburg University announced a seminar on "Might, Media and Manipulation: The invention of 'Indogermans', 'Indoeuropeans', 'Aryans' as an exemplary case-study" for the winter term of 1996/1997. It was a project of "learning by doing it". It was research at its purest—seeking answers to open questions free of any prefixed projects and unprejudiced by preconceived or prefabricated theories.

No one could have anticipated that the seminar would last for four long years, to the beginning of the winter term 2000-2001. And, the extensions were always on students' demand, though with changing participants. Some students were dropping out and new students were constrained for time. They had to go through the work already done — the collected material, protocol of the sessions, and their evaluation — and then develop new areas for further research.

When more than 35 students wish to participate in the seminar it is time for rethinking. A seminar of "learning by doing research" needs a manageable size of between 5 to 15 participants. So in the first session of the term a detailed report was presented on what had already been done and what the open questions were. Thereafter, only five participants were left. They decided to evaluate the results achieved so far and to prepare an interim report before proceeding to further research work. After the evaluation, only two participants remained at work. And these were not to undergo any more university-examinations.

They added new materials to fill up the gaps so as to get a comprehensive view of what had been accomplished. In this process the realisation came that many of the questions would not have arisen at all without the students' participation. The author thanks all of them and is deeply grateful. This book is also theirs.

A special acknowledgement is due to Aldo Stowasser. He is one of the two who completed this project. He joined the seminar in the winter-term 1997/98, at the age of 71. He was born in Fiume, Italy (the town's name was changed into Rijeka in 1974, as it became part of Yugoslavia (since 1992 Croatia). He grew up in a multi-lingual environment (Italian, German and Croatian). He received a substantial humanistic and general education, of which he is still in command. He studied philosophy for two terms and Law for two terms at the University of Rome. He can look back on a long experience in several European countries and to a career in branches as varied as travel, trade and banking. He was ever inquisitive and keen to gain new knowledge. He was quick to see through the hollowness of the scientific approach, material and achievements praised in the biographies. Patient, relentless and dogged in his research, he came up with numerous comprehensive contributions. He is still a polyglot. All translations, from the original Latin, Italian and French, as well as a large number of those from English sources, are his work. He co-operated in the correction of the manuscript of this book until it actually went into printing.

The methods adopted in this research have been described and substantiated in the Prologue. We do apologise for any obstacle or abridgement that might be found in the report on our journey to the primary sources. In the course of each of the necessary steps we have been startled by the fact that our seemingly simple questions have brought up countless corollary questions. Besides, the source-texts are not free from contradictions. We had to read many such texts more than twice. We have marked many of those obstacles by signs. These are exclamation marks, interrogation marks and short comments put in brackets. We have put many words in inverted commas. These are expressions, terms on which we had to reflect more than twice. This is the reason for our apology.

We have often wondered why the questions in this book have not been raised earlier by others or by us. Had we been tied up as an integrated part in the establishment called "University" we might not have accomplished this search and research. As we have already indicated, we don't have to suffer "exams" anymore. And we are beyond the strain and 'publish or pack up'.

Dr. Gisela Aich has kindly read the manuscript critically at all phases.

Prodosh Aich

Epilogue: An era of brainwashing

At the end of our rough, rather impassable and tedious trip to the primary sources we are no longer so angry with ourselves. During the entire search we were anguished by simple questions like: Why did we not notice earlier the real value of the so called modern sciences, of social sciences and of humanities? Why did we realise so late that these were nothing but tools of the ruling power and had nothing to do with science? We had possessed, in fact, all prerequisites and many facilities for detecting. At the end we are a little more relaxed. Now we know how ideological blinkers were clapped on us or how our brain was washed. We had been good and staunch "scientists".

Now we just wonder sometimes how we could manage to stand this long, extensive and arduous search anyway. But this journey has given us also a lot of confidence. Whenever we made some progress in our search we realised also that no brainwashing is perfect. So far. Who knows what would be the blessings of fiddling around with the genes if we won't be on alert.

There is another reason for worries. The so-called technological innovations which enable the "Roberto de Nobilis", "William Joneses", "Franz Bopps", "Thomas Babington Macaulays", "Friedrich Maximilian Muellers" of our days to disguise themselves effectively. They write fewer letters. They leave behind less and less documentary traces. But we trust upon the fact that even these "makers" won't be able to obscure all traces. Not that they might become careless knowing their power and the might of their willing helpers in the mass media. Also not that they might overlook some traces. No. Our trust is based on the fundamentals. The "makers" are inherently in a hurry. No "maker" will ever foresee all possible traces and effects he leaves behind as there will always be after-effects of "deeds". These may appear immediately, they may also appear later. Moreover, no matter what they do to their own advantage, many disadvantages will also be involved. We shouldn't turn our ears to them. We must pay more attention to the earth, the world than to the beautiful, coloured and breathtaking virtual world. And there will be searchers again and again. Let's hope that our number will increase ever more.

On our search we didn't have to extend our investigation outside of the libraries. There was enough printed material to expose celebrated "scholars", "Popes" and "Gods" of modern sciences. Their artfully designed false trails did not lead us to dead ends. Of course we do not approve that they decorated themselves with false accessories, sold themselves at the highest possible bid, mostly as blind believers, and brought us posthumously a lot of sorrow and suffering. However, we disapprove much more the machinations of those late-born "emancipated scholars" who willingly approved all almost criminal activities of their predecessors, paid homage to them, used them shamelessly and offered themselves for sale in the market. Unrelenting and without scruples. But with affected moral postures. And they perform all this in the schools, in the universities, in public and they darken the consciousness of the youth practically with a "governmental licence".

Following examples reveal how audaciously they get off, how cheekily they act. Let us take Thomas R. Trautmann whom we got to know well, a Ph.D. of London University (1968) and a professor for history and anthropology of the Michigan University. He is the author of that well known book Aryans and British India printed in 1997 by the University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London. As we also know he was one of the "teacher's pets" of the internationally known "historian" Arthur Llewellyn Basham. He has also dedicated his book Aryans and British India thus: 'In memory of A. L. Basham, British Sanskritist historian of India, guru, friend'. We are not going to pick up again their strange understanding of science. We have already criticised this earlier. No. Our curiosity was roused by the eloquent, elegant language of this Thomas R. Trautmann, often nicely decorated with foreign-language expressions, even in Indian languages. We wanted to know who he is. As he has not yet published his diary or letters or biography we had to investigate.

From a candidate for a Ph. D. in indology (we better don't mention his name) at the California University we got the following information about Thomas R. Trautmann: "I'm not sure about his Sanskrit knowledge, but I would imagine his professional standing is excellent, as Michigan is certainly highly regarded here in the U.S., and his last book (1997, see below) is very good. He specialises in the history of ancient India, the history of Orientalist scholarship in India, the history of anthropology, and kinship; secondary research and teaching interests are comparative ideas of time and the relation of anthropology to American culture. He is editor of Comparative Studies in Society and History. His books are: Kautilya and the Arthasastra (1971), Dravidian Kinship (1981), Lewis Henry Morgan and the Invention of Kinship (1987), The Library of Lewis Henry Morgan and Mary Elizabeth Morgan (1994) (with Karl Sanford Kabelac), Aryans and British India (1997). He is also the author of several articles, notably 'The Revolution in Ethnological Time', Man (1992), 'Hullabaloo about Telugu', South Asia Research (1999)." As such, an impressive account about Thomas R. Trautmann from a "would be Trautmann". Most probably.

We were not quite satisfied with this information. We wanted to know more, directly from Thomas R. Trautmann. On December 23, 2000. In which Indian languages is he able communicate (read, write, and speak) and how did he learn these languages. He has a "home page" on the web. He didn't react. On February 18, 2001 we sent a reminder, electronically. Probably he assumed now that the matter would not find an end by itself. He wrote back on February 21, 2001 simply: "I don't think I have had the pleasure of meeting you. Perhaps you would explain who you are and why you ask me this question? Sincerely, Tom Trautmann"

So, he wanted us to legitimate ourselves. We did it. He must have checked our credentials. On February 26, he sent us following information by e-mail: "Dear Dr. Aich, I studied in the Sociology Department of the Delhi University for a year when it was newly formed under M. N. Srinivas, and then did a Ph.D. in ancient Indian history under A. L. Basham at the University of London, where I studied Sanskrit and Tamil. My CV is on the web, at:

www.lsa.umich.edu/trautmann/Trautmann.html.

I hope that gives you the information you want. Good luck on your projects, which are interesting and important. Sincerely, Tom Trautmann"

Well, he wrote round our queries elegantly. On March 4, 2001 we had to inform him that we didn't find on his web site the information we needed: for how long did he learn Sanskrit and Tamil in England, whether he could read Sanskrit and also Vedic Sanskrit fluently and whether he also could read, write and speak Tamil. Faced with his Article "Hullabaloo about Telegu" we were a little naughty and had set up a small, but rather transparent, trap for him, as "sociologists" generally do. We enquired whether he could also speak Telegu because we were still looking for interview partners for a documentary film on the Meenakshi Tempel in Madurai in Tamil Nadu.

Already on March 5, he let us know: "Dear Dr. Aich, I studied Sanskrit in England, and can read it with a dictionary at my elbow. I have not studied Telugu, but did do a bit of Tamil. I have lived in Chennai for a year and most recently was working in the Tamil Nadu State Archives. I've only briefly visited Madurai. Best wishes, Tom Trautmann"

Of course his reply was not complete. Moreover, he failed to recognise the little naughty but transparent trap we had set up for him. Had he known the south of India he would have simply enquired why we are at all bothered with "Telegu" if we were looking out for interview partners for our documentary film on Meenakshi Temple in Tamil-speaking Madurai. Therefore, on March 8, we sent another short mail: "Dear Dr. Trautmann, thanks a lot for your mail. Did you have an opportunity to visit the Meenakshi Temple? There are lot of indications that this temple is one of the oldest temples in India, if not the oldest. And its history is yet to be researched. For how long and how intensive did you study Sanskrit in England? How is your German? Thanks and best regards. Sincerely, Prodosh Aich"

On the same day he mailed back. Rather a little irritated: "Dear Dr. Prodosh, If you want a fluent speaker of Telugu you should try one of the students of Narayana Rao at Wisconsin, such as Philip Wagoner or Cynthia Talbot. Yes, I have visited the Minakshi Temple. What is its interest for you? Sincerely, Tom Trautmann"

On March 12, we wrote back: "Dear Dr. Trautmann, are you tensed? I do hope, you are not. Look, I am a sociologist. It is my business to ask questions, to formulate them as simple as possible, as precise as possible and as direct as possible. You must have felt, that I am trying to get into a dialogue with you. I am not seeking your help to identify a fluent speaker of Telegu. I would have directly approached you, had it been the case.

In my last mail I wanted to know: For how long and how intensive did you study Sanskrit in England? How is your German? What is wrong in these two enquiries?

Now that you have asked me a question I shall try to answer in short. You must have noticed that Madurai is an ancient city which has been mentioned in many different documents at least since the last 2400 years. Madurai is mentioned in the great ancient epic Ramayana and in Kautilya's ancient Arthashastra (science of wealth). Megasthenes ("302 BC"), Pliny ("77 AD") and Ptolemy ("140 AD") have mentioned Madurai as the kingdom of the Pandyas. Even today, the city of Madurai is dominated by the Meenakshi Temple. The streets run in concentric circles around it. Though it has grown and expanded through the centuries, the pattern of its growth has remained the same. It has evolved around the Meenakshi Temple. This temple has remained the heart of the city.

And then the perfect architectural proportions of the whole complex of Meenakshi Temple, also the perfection of the original modest structure of the Meenakshi Temple, location being fixed and built according to Agamic guide-lines.

This Temple in Madurai has always been dedicated to Meenakshi (another name for Parvati) and Sundareswarar (another name for Shiva). And this is very intriguing: Meenakshi and Sundareswarar are Sanskrit names, both are Vedic characters as well. Now, Sanskrit is supposed to be the language of "Aryan", of "Indo-German", of "Indo-European" origin, which were brought by the "Aryan invaders" into the land of the "Dravidians". Accordingly, the "Dravidians" were not aware of a language alike Sanskrit. Therefore, we have to conclude that at some period between the invasion of the "Aryans" into northern Bharatavarsa 3500 years ago and 2400 before our time (foundation of Meenakshi Temple) the "Aryan invaders" must have also conquered the south of Bharatavarsa, subjugated all the "Dravidians", a large part of which was once driven from the north, converted and successfully assimilated them into in the "Aryan culture" and into all that goes with it. When did it happen?

We are surprised to note that the Meenakshi Temple is less than under-researched. We are surprised because this temple is the most visited in the country. In this temple and in its compound differences in Art- and Architecture-Styles are so obvious, also for non-scholars, and there is a complete infra-structure for research facilities within and around the temple.

Madurai, also a University, Meenakshi Temple has not been a subject of comprehensive research yet. We have referred this contradiction to quite a few scholars in the country. Silence of embarrassment. But there was one rather casual remark that appeared to be witty in the beginning. But later, this remark captured our mind: "Because this temple is too complicated for historical, art and architectural research. There are so many other temples to keep yourself busy."

I hope, I have not taken too much of your time. I look forward to getting a reply to my two rather simple questions. Kind regards. Sincerely, Prodosh Aich"

On March 26, 2001 we reminded him of our enquiry for the last time. No reply. Thomas R. Trautmann did not disclose his secret for how long and how intensely he had learnt Sanskrit in England in order to acquire that skill which he himself described so prettily: 'I studied Sanskrit in England, and can read it with a dictionary at my elbow'. Or did he, nevertheless, disclose his secret? Or let us take his 'guru (and) friend' A. L. Basham, British Sanskritist historian of India, whom we could not ask. He died in 1986. His bookThe Wonder that was India, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, made him world-famous. Not immediately after the first print in 1954, i. e. seven years after the "Independence of India". In 1963 a new and revised edition of the book came out. Then in 1967 only a revised edition. The break-through came when the Indian publisher Rupa & Co, New Delhi brought out a paperback edition in 1981. Then things started happening fast. Also Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London, anticipated good business. European readers might like to detect why that book had been so successful in India. Therefore Macmillan Publishers made also a paperback edition in 1985. And we, slow in the uptake as we are, hold the 37th edition of the Indian publisher of The Wonder that was India, 568 pages, in the hands.

This 37th edition also carries a two-page preface written by Arthur Llewellyn Basham in 1953 in London. It begins with the sentence: "This book has been written to interpret ancient Indian civilisation, as I understand it, to the ordinary Western reader who has little knowledge of the subject, but some interest in it. ...As this book is intended for the general reader I have tried, as far as possible, to leave nothing unexplained. ...I have tried to reduce Sanskrit terms to a minimum, but the reader without background knowledge will find definitions of all Indian words used in the text in the index, which also serves as a glossary. ...Sanskrit, Prákrit and Páli words are transliterated according to the standard system at present used by indologists; ... The translations, except where specified, are my own. I lay no claim to great literary merit for them, and have not been able to reproduce the untranslatable incantation of the originals. In most cases they are not literal translations, since the character of Indian classical languages is so unlike that of English that literal translations are at the best dull and at the worst positively ludicrous. In places I have taken liberty with the originals, in order to make their purport clearer to the Western reader, but in all cases I have tried to give an honest interpretation of the intentions of their authors, as I understand them."

Arthur Llewellyn Basham turned out to be a model pupil of such different teachers as William Jones, Franz Bopp, Friedrich Maximilian Mueller. But unlike his teachers he confessed without much fuss that he was only interested to propagate his version of the history of India. It didn't matter whether his version of the history was really correct. Real history would be boring anyway. Therefore, it was inevitable for him to take 'liberty with the originals'. We would have liked to know those 'originals' he talked about. We can only gather from the bibliography of the book that for Arthur Llewellyn Basham the history of India began with the tales told by Sir William Jones. What William Jones and his descendants did not tell, didn't and doesn't even exit.

For him it was sufficient to depend on publications of the 20th century only, excepting very few. He made a difference between bibliography and reference for the first section of the book. A cheap but usual bluff. He tried by it to create the impression that in fact he knew those references. But he didn't. Had he known them, he would have included them in the bibliography as well. Arthur Llewellyn Basham didn't bring any evidence in his book that he had reviewed any of those references.

The title of the first section is: "Introduction: India and her Ancient Culture The Land of India: The Discovery of Ancient India: The Glory of Ancient India". Whatever he knew, he knew from books published after 1913. His oldest source was that of his teacher, L. D. Barnett, Antiquities of India, London 1913. Arthur Llewellyn Basham was born in 1914. As we said, we have used 37th edition of the Indian publisher "Rupa & Co", Delhi 2001. Thirty-seven paperback editions in twenty years. Thomas Babington Macaulay would probably rise from the dead cheerfully, if he would get the news of the mass circulation of this book in India with the title The Wonder that was India.

Or let us take the example of Garland Cannon who marketed his "William Jones" a life long. In our time, in the 2nd half of the 20th century. Who financed him? Which interests did he serve? Who gained and who lost by his exercise? Even before starting with the biography Garland Cannon already lit smoke candles. In the preface he describes vividly how Sir William Jones and his wife, Anna Maria, spent a contemplative afternoon in Calcutta in the year 1784: "Sir William Jones stood on his veranda looking out over the lush, exotic flowers surrounding Garden Reach. ...It had not taken Jones long to perceive overwhelming possibilities for European co-operation with the vital Eastern colonies. Witnessing the corruption and injustice of the East India Company and the British administration, he had realised that Europe would never succeed until it respected the peoples' religion and culture...providing the Orientals with the fairest government of all that had ever dominated them ... By his side was his loving wife Anna Maria. Together they watched the coolie-boy clipping orchids for the dinner table, ...he felt pride as he put his arm around Anna Maria's waist. He was now a world citizen, the prime example of European humanism in its richest qualities...."

Of course Garland Cannon doesn't tell us how he knew all this. What could have been the source of this kind of information? Fantasies of a biographer? What is the relation between a biographer and the person whose biography he writes? Who immortalises whom? Who pays the price?

Garland Cannon acclaims William Jones as a propagator of the "human rights". Even in the last third of the 20th century. Which human rights? Right of which people? William Jones rendered great service to the East India Company. The East India Company colonised India. That was: Plunder, slaughter, murder, rape, deprivation of rights, exploitation. William Jones a propagator of human rights? How does all this match together? A humanist of the "blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian" culture? When was the term "human rights" coined? In which context? By whom? To whom was the term useful? And who had had to pay the price?

Or let us take, as previously announced, the example of brainwashing of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of the "Republic of India" and look into it in comprehensive perspectives. We remember. Lady Anna Maria couldn't cope with the tropics. Doctors recommend her a cooler climate. She didn't want to leave behind her Sir William in inhospitable Calcutta. They wanted to earn enough quick money in India for a comfortable life in England and return by 1790. However, Sir William got an offer of extension for another 4 years. He accepted it. Lady Anna Maria had to return on health grounds. The couple was childless. Sir William earned a lot of money, but ended by being buried in Calcutta. In 1794.

In fact a pitiful life of a greedy, unrelenting impostor and soldier of fortune who didn't manage to enjoy the fruits of robbery at some ease. We are reminded of Robert Clive. But the "blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian" culture was powerful and propagated its values. In our days mass murderers accuse others of murder and hammer these charges for so long until our brain is exhausted. We don't hear anything else. We know of nothing else. And: We are, what we know.

Inventors, manufacturers, circulators and users of weapons of mass destruction accuse others of doing so and attack them as a prevention with weapons of mass destruction to save humanity. We are again caught up by the 1st world war, the 2nd world war, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Viet Nam, the Neutron bomb, the Gulf war, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Those killers and slaughterers style themselves as defenders of human rights. And we ask: which human rights?

But the first prime minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, knew the "history of the world" only up to Nagasaki, when he wrote in his book The discovery of India in 1946 (p. 317): "To Jones and to the many other European scholars, India owes a deep debt of gratitude for the rediscovery of her past literature."

Garland Cannon can even top this statement (p. 154): "At last he (Sir William) had seemingly discovered the key to a just colonial government in the Orient, for which the Indian people should forever love and be grateful to Europe."

William Jones died in 1794 in Calcutta, but the "Asiatick Society of Bengal" he had set up continued in his spirit for years. It produced plenty of printed papers which were intensely read and internalised in India, in England and elsewhere. On October 15, 1800 another "William Jones" was born: Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859). He was to evolve not only as the "Godfather" of the theory of the Aryan race. No wonder. His father Zachary Macaulay (1768-1838), as reported in the Chambers Biographical Dictionary, "...had a somewhat chequered career as a West India Merchant, but he was best known as an abolitionist and a member of the 'Clapham sect'".

The Encyclopaedia Britannica brings a little more light into the life of Zachary Macaulay. He was the son of a Presbyterian minister from the Hebrides. Beside his 'career as a West India Merchant' he had also been governor of Sierra Leone, a major base of the slave-trade. It is perhaps therefore Thomas Babington was born in the house of his uncle in Leicestershire. How does all this match together? It might be useful to give it some serious thinking. His mother was the daughter of a bookseller in Bristol, a Quaker.

As we already know Thomas Babington was the eldest of nine children. At the age of eight he was said to have written a compendium of universal history and a poem on "The Battle of Cheviot", a romantic poem in the style of Sir Walter Scott. William Jones was a genius already at the age of four! Thomas Babington came to a private school in Little Shelford in 1812 near Cambridge, then in 1814 to Aspenden Hall in Hertfordshire. He was extraordinarily precocious, began in 1818 his studies at the Trinity College, Cambridge, "where he gained a reputation for inexhaustible talk and genial companionship in a circle of brilliant young men". In 1822 he passed his B .A., studied law without enthusiasm, wrote poems. In 1823 another "William Jones" was born in Dessau. Thomas Babington Macaulay became known in 1825 when he wrote an essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review. He "was called to the bar in 1826 but never practised seriously".

When his father went bankrupt he had to feed the whole family. In the beginning as a private tutor, then through writings and from a low ranking government post. But in contrast to William Jones he won the seat of Calne in Wiltshire in the House of Commons for the Whigs at the age of 30. As an eloquent speaker "in an age of great orators he also took over the post of the secretary of the Board of Control of the East India Company. He was climbing rapidly. His ambitions too.

As we know he got through a Bill in Parliament which established a lucrative post of legal adviser in the Supreme Council of India. He himself got that appointment, of course. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica it will be recorded later: "In 1834 Macaulay accepted an invitation to serve on the recently created 'Supreme Council' of India, foreseeing that he could save from his salary enough to give him a competence for life." Salary £10000 a year. Distortion of history? Well, anyway. In 1834 he sailed to Calcutta. His sister Hanna accompanied him. A few months later she got married to a promising coloniser of the Company, Charles Edward Trevelyan. She as well as their son George Otto were to write his biography. All machinations of Thomas Babington Macaulay in parliament about how he increased his income from 1500 to 10000 English pounds fell into oblivion. This is how "history" is being reconstructed by biographers.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica reports on his outstanding achievements in Calcutta: "He inaugurated a national system of education, Western in outlook, and as president of a commission on Indian jurisprudence he drafted a penal code that later became the basis of Indian criminal law." And what 'Western in outlook' meant we find unambiguously worded, of course, in his letters, speeches and minutes. "A national system of education" only disguised an instrument of brainwashing. We remember: "We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population."

Bengali collaborators like Raja Ram Mohan Roy contributed to form this class. These collaborators have been immortalised by the colonisers in their printed products as progressive people. Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote to his father on October 12, 1836: "It is my firm belief that, if our plan of education is followed up, there will not be a single idolater among respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytise, without the smallest interference with religious liberty, merely by natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in this prospect."

After his return to England in 1838 Thomas Babington Macaulay was soon elected to the House again. In the whole of Europe he looked out for "scholars" who were ready to translate the ancient Sanskrit literature in such a way as to convince "his new class" in India that the New Testament was superior to the Vedas. He found in 1854 Friedrich Maximilian Mueller (1823-1900) from Dessau. In 1859 this assignee was to invent the "theory of the Aryan Race" by contending that the "Aryan race" was referred to in the Rigveda itself. Although he was only able to spell words in the Devnagri script. And what about reading or understanding? Well. As late as in 1878 he was to realise that the vedic texts were not written in Sanskrit.

The bachelor Thomas Babington Macaulay was ennobled in 1857. The 1st baron Macaulay of Rothley died in 1859. Immediately after his death the late Lord Rothley was accused by several English authors, on satisfactory evidence, of having frequently twisted and invented facts in his books to make others believe his obsessive ideas. Well! Didn't he have brilliant examples? In Chambers's Biographical Dictionary it is stated: "Macaulay's reputation is not what once it was – he has been convicted of historical inaccuracy, of sacrificing truth for the sake of Epigram, of allowing personal dislike and Whig bias to distort his views of men and incidents. But as a picturesque narrator he has no rival."

And in the Encyclopaedia Britannica we read: "Macaulay's reputation, immense during the last decade of his life, fell steadily in the 50 years that followed. His undisguised political partisanship, his arrogant assumption that English bourgeois standards of culture and progress were to be forever the norm for less favoured nations, and the materialism of his judgements of value and taste all came under heavy fire from such near-contemporary critics as Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and John Ruskin."

His foreign legionnaire Friedrich Maximilian Mueller had also to revoke his theory of the "Aryan race" because he had "translated" wrongly. Unfortunately only after almost three decades, but the lasting and irrevocable damage remained. Formal disclaimers don't help, as we all know. And the word forgery did not occur in the vocabulary of Sir William, Lord Macaulay-Rothley, Friedrich Maximilian Mueller and the "scholars" of that time. Of that time only?

We recall that nice little story. Sir William was looking out for a Sanskrit scholar at two old universities, Nadia in Bengal and Varanasi ("Benares") in Uttar Pradesh. In vain. In spite of lucrative financial offers. He just couldn't contain it. And Sir William wouldn't have been "Oriental Jones", hadn't he enquired beforehand from Charles Wilkins. No, not that. Later he had a nice after thought. He preferred to tell that the Brahmins wanted to keep the holy language away from foreigners. Well, he knew nothing about intellectual reservations in regard to collaboration. But every descendant of Sir William equipped with an average intelligence should have asked himself why the Hellenic, Arabic and Persian scholars did not mention anything about the Brahmins keeping away the holy language from foreigners. Or why Sir William didn't go into the organisational means of these Brahmins. Well, Sir William was an outstandingly intelligent coloniser. He knew exactly that he could make out a new tale and spread it around in his name. At the same time he would get rid of the embarrassment of reporting that at his time there were scholars in India who could not be hired and bought. In addition: can a language be actually sacred? "Sacred language" was also a nice little sellable idea, wasn't it? And this is what has been reported by Garland Cannon on page 131!

"When he and Anna Maria went up to Krishnanagar, he was prepared to take advantage of one of his purposes for having chosen that location. He went to the nearby ancient Hindu university at Nuddea (in fact Nadia), where he intended to arrange for a Brahman to act as native informant (native informant?) and teacher of Sanskrit. This caste was the keeper-preserver of the language and manuscripts in the language and therefore should be the best teachers. It was vacation time but several were there. Through an interpreter he asked one to help. The man refused. Jones asked another. Again there was a refusal. He raised his offer of pay to a considerable sum, (how much is 'a considerable sum'), and it met with a similar fate. No Brahmin would teach an unbelieving Christian the holy language."

Well, these Brahmins! Narrow-minded, xenophobic, subversive, ignorant, hostile to enlightenment, incapable of collaboration and centrally organised. Didn't it sell well? But was this pretty tale also true? How could Garland Cannon know about this episode. What was his source. Sir William didn't mention this episode in one of his letters. Nor in any of his writings. He mentioned in his letters that the estate in Krishnanagar was simply leased in 1784 as a rural sanctuary, also as a status symbol. But let's read a little more Garland Cannon in continuation of the above quote: "Jones had known of the Hindu attitude about showing sacred books to foreigners, in which it was thought sacrilegious for Christians even to see the books. Hasting and Wilkins, he had assumed, had done much to dispel such an unscholarly attitude, since they wanted to enlighten the Western world as to the unknown, remote religion. They had not attempted to delve into the mysterious Vedas, and neither did Jones intend to. It had never occurred to him that the Brahmans would do anything but co-operate wholeheartedly, inasmuch as he wanted to learn Sanskrit only in order to know Hindu culture so as to be a better administrative protector of the customs and rights of the people.

He was not the sort to give up easily once he had decided to do something. He redoubled his attempts to find a Brahman teacher, pointing out that there was not the slightest thought or chance of defilement of the Hindu religion. He was not seeking to read the Vedas. His purpose was legal justice for the Indian people. But no Brahman would help.

Then a non-Brahman would have to suffice. It took great effort for Jones to convince a vaidya, a medical practitioner, of his high purpose. The man, who himself was prohibited from reading certain texts, laid down stringent conditions, which Jones had to accept because it seemed to be the only chance."

These lines were really written in 1964! Anyway. At this place Garland Cannon indicates his source: The discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru, New York 1946 (p. 316-317). The original is, of course, in English. So to speak in the "mother tongue" of Jawaharlal Nehru. Before dealing with the term "mother tongue" we first quote the source referred to by Garland Cannon: "Ram Mohan Roys journalist activities were intimately connected with his reform movements. His synthetic (or did he want to mean syncretic) and universalist points of view were resented by orthodox sections who also opposed many of the reforms he advocated. But he also had staunch supporters, among them the Tagore family which played an outstanding part later in the renaissance in Bengal. Ram Mohan went to England on behalf of the Delhi Emperor and died in Bristol in the early thirties of the nineteenth century.

Ram Mohan Roy and others studied English privately. There were no English schools or colleges outside Calcutta and the government's (which government?) policy was definitely opposed to the teaching of English to Indians. In 1781, the Calcutta Madrassa was started by the government (Government?) in Calcutta for Arabic studies. In 1817, a group of Indians and Europeans started Hindu College in Calcutta, now called the Presidency College. In 1791, a Sanskrit College was started in Benares (that is Varanasi renamed by the English). Probably in the second decade of the nineteenth century some missionary schools were teaching English. During the twenties a school of thought arose in government circles in favour of the teaching of English, but this was opposed. However, as an experimental measure some English classes were attached to the Arabic school in Delhi and to some institutions in Calcutta. The final decision in favour of the teaching of English was embodied in Macaulay's Minute on Education of February 1835. In 1857, the universities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay began their career.

If the British Government in India was reluctant to teach English to Indians, Brahmin scholars objected even more, but for different reasons, to teach Sanskrit to Englishmen. When Sir William Jones, already a linguist and a scholar, came to India as a judge of the Supreme Court, he expressed his desire to learn Sanskrit. But no Brahmin would agree to teach the sacred language to a foreigner and an intruder, even though handsome rewards (rewards?) were offered. Jones ultimately, with considerable difficulty, got hold of a non–Brahmin Vaidya or medical practitioner who agreed to teach, but on his own peculiar and stringent conditions. Jones agreed to every stipulation (which stipulations?), so great was his eagerness to learn the ancient (and no more the "sacred"?) language of India. Sanskrit fascinated him, especially the discovery of the old Indian drama. It was through his writings and translations that Europe first had a glimpse of some of the treasures of Sanskrit literature. In 1784 Sir William Jones established the Bengal Asiatic Society which later became the Royal Asiatic Society. To Jones and to many other European scholars, India owes a deep debt of gratitude for the rediscovery (rediscovery?) of her past literature. Much of it was known of course throughout every age, but the knowledge had become more and more confined to select and exclusive groups, and the dominance of Persian, as the language of culture, had diverted people's minds from it. The search for manuscripts brought out many a little-known work and the application of modern critical methods of scholarship gave a new background to the vast literature that was revealed."

How did Jawaharlal Nehru know all this? He didn't disclose his sources to us. A Jawaharlal Nehru didn't need to indicate any sources in 1946. He just knew it and as an "Indian freedom fighter" he was beyond all doubts. And when Garland Cannon quotes Jawaharlal Nehru, he also cannot be questioned. Even if we accept this premise, we have to raise the issue that there are certain deviations in Garland Cannon's writing. He has written much more than his source. How comes? Is it taking 'liberty with the originals' in the tradition of Arthur Llewellyn Basham or just the emotional outbreak of a writer? We leave the matter at that for further reflection.

We are concerned with a more fundamental issue. Suppose that the information of Jawaharlal Nehru was all gossip or was all wrong or was all false. Suppose that Jawaharlal Nehru had simply copied this information from dubious sources. The Discovery of India is a book of almost 600 pages. In small letters and narrowly printed. It has an Index of 12 pages, but no bibliography. There is not the slightest indication that Jawaharlal Nehru had reviewed even a single one of his sources. Well, Garland Cannon has not raised any of these issues in regard to Jawaharlal Nehru or The Discovery of India. We, however, make a small test and look into the Encyclopaedia Britannica and find this: "Nehru, Jawaharlal, byname PANDIT (Hindi: 'Pundit' or 'Teacher') NEHRU (b. Nov. 14, 1889, Allahabad, India--d. May 27, 1964, New Delhi), first prime minister of independent India (1947-64)...He was also one of the principal leaders of India's independence movement in the 1930s and '40s.

Nehru came of a family of Kashmiri Brahmans, noted for their administrative aptitude and scholarship, that had migrated to India early in the 18th century. He was the son of Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), a renowned lawyer, early established a lucrative law practice and was admitted to the Allahabad High Court in 1896. ... Until the age of 16, Nehru was educated at home by a series of English governesses and tutors. Only one of these, a part-Irish, part-Belgian theosophist, Ferdinand Brooks, appears to have made any impression on him. Jawaharlal also had a venerable Indian tutor who taught him Hindi and Sanskrit.

In 1905 he went to Harrow, a leading English school, where he stayed for two years. Nehru's academic career was in no way outstanding. From Harrow he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he spent three years earning an honours degree in natural science. On leaving Cambridge he qualified as a barrister after two years at the Inner Temple, London, where in his own words he passed his examinations 'with neither glory nor ignominy'. (...)

On his return to India (in 1912), Nehru at first tried to settle down as a lawyer. But, unlike his father, he had only a desultory interest in his profession and did not relish either the practice of law or the company of lawyers. (...)

Nehru met Gandhi for the first time in 1916 at the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress Party in Lucknow. Gandhi was 20 years his senior. Neither seems to have made any initially strong impression on the other. Nehru did not assume a leadership role in Indian politics, however, until his election as Congress president in 1929, when he presided over the historic Lahore session that proclaimed complete independence as India's political goal. (...)

After his father's death in 1931, Jawaharlal moved into the inner councils of the Congress Party and became closer to the Mahatma. (...) During the mid-1930s Nehru was much concerned with developments in Europe, which seemed to be drifting toward another world war. He was in Europe early in 1936, visiting his ailing wife, shortly before she died in a sanatorium in Switzerland. (...)

When the elections following the introduction of provincial autonomy brought the Congress Party to power in a majority of the provinces, Nehru was faced with a dilemma. The Muslim League under Mohammed Ali Jinnah (who was to become the creator of Pakistan) had fared badly at the polls. Congress, therefore, unwisely rejected Jinnah's plea for the formation of coalition Congress-Muslim League governments in some of the provinces, a decision on which Nehru had not a little influence. The subsequent clash between the Congress and the Muslim League hardened into a conflict between Hindus and Muslims that was ultimately to lead to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan."

It is not easy to determine the real identity of Jawaharlal Nehru: did he belong to the "new class" designed by Thomas Babington Macaulay and was culturally cloned, or did he acquire the soul of a Whig? He learnt to read printed products in English only, i. e. literature produced by the "Sir Williams". Where could he or Garland Cannon have learned to question a Sir William about his sources of knowledge? They didn't even notice the many obvious contradictions in the writings they read. So didn't Arthur Llewellyn Basham and Thomas R. Trautmann. But let's keep aside the contradictions for the time being. Though we are equipped with average intelligence, how comes that we raise so many straight and simple questions which don't occur in the mind of scholars in the "blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian" culture? Questions like: why Charles Wilkins never spoke of a "sacred Sanskrit language"; or how did Charles Wilkins and a lot of other colonial bosses hire Brahmins as private "Pandits" before Sir William emerged on the Indian horizon, if the Brahmins were a sworn community guarding Sanskrit as a sacred language; how did the Frenchman Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, the Jesuits Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux , Heinrich Roth and Roberto de Nobilli learn Sanskrit? We could continue to raise similar questions.

The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru is regarded in India as a basic book on political enlightening. He was locked up in a colonial prison. His wife had already died. His little daughter Indira was de facto without a proper educational guardian. And he had plenty of time in prison. In addition, the colonial prisons for leading freedom fighters were as good as luxury hotels of that time. Of course, there were no electronic media for pastime yet. Any amount of print media, however, and facilities for writing. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote letters to his daughter Indira intending to educate her. The discovery of India was the outcome of this exercise. When the first edition came out in 1946, it was already set that Jawaharlal Nehru would become the first prime minister of "independent" India. India's independence was decided upon by passing a bill in the British parliament: Great Britain was to divide "British-India" and then to leave "British-India". Did the Britons really leave?

As we said, The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru is a compulsory reading for "educated" Indians. The book had many editions. We read the 19th edition of 1999. Since 1981 it is being published by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund and marketed by Oxford University Press, New Delhi Mumbai Kolkata Chennai. Sonia Gandhi, the daughter-in-law of Indira, holds the copyright now. As we also said, the book does contain an extensive index, but no bibliography. That Jawaharlal Nehru could only have used sources in English can also be inferred from his biography. British governesses and private teachers like Ferdinand Brooks until he was sixteen, then Harrow, as William Jones and Lord Althorp, the son of Earl Spencer, then Trinity College as Thomas Babington Macaulay, thereafter the law college Inner Temple in London as William Jones.

The question is, of course, inevitable, whether the 1st prime minister of the "Republic of India", Jawaharlal Nehru, was more a Briton than an Indian. A soul of a Whig? Or a product of Thomas Babington Macaulay's 30-years plan? Brainwashing total? The Encyclopaedia Britannica provides also an interesting biographical report on the political mentor of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Father of the Indian nation: "The educational facilities at Porbandar were rudimentary; in the primary school that Mohandas attended, the children wrote the alphabet in the dust with their fingers. Luckily for him, his father became dewan of Rajkot, another princely state. Though he occasionally won prizes and scholarships at the local schools, his record was on the whole mediocre. One of the terminal reports rated him as 'good at English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting'. (...)

It was clear that, if he was to keep up the family tradition of holding high office in one of the states in Gujarat, he would have to qualify as a barrister. This meant a visit to England, and Mohandas, who was not too happy at Samaldas College, jumped at the proposal. His youthful imagination conceived England as 'a land of philosophers and poets, the very centre of civilisation'. ... Mohandas ... sailed in September 1888. Ten days after his arrival, he joined the Inner Temple, one of the four London law colleges.

Gandhi took his studies seriously and tried to brush up on his English and Latin by taking the London University matriculation examination. (...) In the vegetarian restaurants and boarding houses of England, Gandhi met not only food faddists but some earnest men and women to whom he owed his introduction to the Bible and the Bhagavadgita, the most popular expression of Hinduism in the form of a philosophical poem, which he read for the first time in its English translation by Sir Edwin Arnold. The English vegetarians were a motley crowd. They included socialists and humanitarians like Edward Carpenter, 'the British Thoreau', Fabians like George Bernard Shaw; and Theosophists like Annie Besant. Most of them were idealists; quite a few were rebels who rejected the prevailing values of the late Victorian Establishment, denounced the evils of the capitalist and industrial society, preached the cult of the simple life, and stressed the superiority of moral over material values and of co-operation over conflict. These ideas were to contribute substantially to the shaping of Gandhi's personality and, eventually, to his politics. Painful surprises were in store for Gandhi when he returned to India in July 1891. His mother had died in his absence, and he discovered to his dismay that the barrister's degree was not a guarantee of a lucrative career. The legal profession was already beginning to be overcrowded, and Gandhi was much too diffident to elbow his way into it. In the very first brief he argued in a Bombay court, he cut a sorry figure. Turned down even for the part-time job of a teacher in a Bombay high school, he returned to Rajkot to make a modest living by drafting petitions for litigants. Even this employment was closed to him when he incurred the displeasure of a local British officer. It was, therefore, with some relief that he accepted the none-too-attractive offer of a year's contract from an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa."

If all these transmissions by the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica do correspond to facts, there is no way out for us but to acknowledge ungrudgingly that the seeds sown by Thomas Babington Macaulay had brought a rich harvest for England and do bring an even richer harvest today for all industrialised countries. Should we articulate doubts about the validity of these handed down facts, then we would have to clean up the libraries globally from all printed products which have been produced by the "Sir Williams", "Lord Macaulay of Rothleys" and "Jawaharlal Nehrus".

We take the liberty of providing a last example which unveils 'the application of modern critical methods of scholarship' in the "blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian" culture. In The Discovery of India Jawaharlal Nehru acknowledged unshakeable authority of knowledge to the colonisers who consolidated India for sustained colonial exploitation and had no scruples when writing in 1946 (p. 165): "Sir William Jones observed as long ago as 1784: 'The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either: yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists ..."

Being accustomed to read, Jawaharlal Nehru could have effortlessly deduced that profound knowledge of all three languages, especially of Sanskrit, was required to assert the above facts, as Sir William Jones had done. He could have easily found out that as late as 1784 the "Oriental Jones" believed that he would manage in Calcutta with his inadequate knowledge of the Persian language. He knew absolutely nothing about any Indian languages. Therefore, Jawaharlal Nehru should have been sceptical if he had studied literature on the subject attentively. Jawaharlal Nehru could have concluded with his intellectual capacity that Sir William's comprehensive contentions were at the least doubtful.

Even by a simple scrutiny Jawaharlal Nehru would have ascertained that nothing of the like was ever dealt with in the writings of Sir William up to 1784. Therefore we deduce that Jawaharlal Nehru was not concerned about whether he was quoting facts. He had just copied a fashionable idea as it is usually done also today. Or did he just believe his "masters" and tried to strengthen his own belief by quoting a "grand master"? Until today the quotation has not been challenged. Who shouldn't want to believe such a nice thought? Moreover, checking and reviewing costs time and causes a lot of troubles. We did check. Now we wonder in addition why Jawaharlal Nehru didn't quote the complete sentence After 'no longer exists there are dots only!

After the dots Jawaharlal Nehru continued: "William Jones was followed by many European scholars, English, French, German and others, who studied Sanskrit and laid the foundation of a new science - comparative philology. (...) A new type of scholarship arose in India under European inspiration, and many Indians went to Europe (usually to Germany) to train themselves in the new methods of research and critical and comparative study. These Indians had an advantage over the Europeans, and yet there was a disadvantage also. The disadvantage was due to certain preconceived notions, inherited beliefs and traditions, which came in the way of dispassionate criticism. The advantage, and it was great, was the capacity to enter into the spirit of the writing, to picture the environment in which it grew and thus to be more in tune with it."

These Indians, Jawaharlal Nehru was surely one of them, were in fact the better Europeans. Brainwashed and cloned. And they helped the few "William Jones" strongly to construct a sheer insurmountable wall of hypocrisy and falsehood. In the form of miles-long printed products on the shelves in the libraries. World wide. A wall between the handed down scientific knowledge of past millenniums and the "modern science" based on 'the new methods of research and critical and comparative study' of about the last three centuries. All that is new counts. An objective criticism of the new is in fact superfluous and not desired either. It is also strenuous.

Strenuously we had to search to find that incomplete sentence quoted by Jawaharlal Nehru. We went through the writings of William Jones of 1784. We didn't find it. Nor in those of 1785. The fact is that Sir William never wrote a sentence like that. In a ceremonial address he spoke this sentence. That is why we found the complete sentence in his biography in 13 volumes written by his former colleague in Calcutta, Sir John Shore, the later lord Teignmouth, under the heading "The third Anniversary Discourse, delivered 2 February, 1786 by The President". Here it is: "The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either: yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all (while copying Jawaharlal Nehru lost here the word "three" and a comma) three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source which perhaps no longer exists (Jawaharlal Nehru discontinued the sentence here): there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia."

Why the sentence was not quoted completely? Well, never mind. They all are skilful in copying. Even on February 2, 1786 Sir William knew not a single Indian language, not to speak about Sanskrit. As to the depth of Sir William's knowledge of the Persian language Garland Cannon illuminates it on page 143): "A Persian teacher had accompanied the couple (Sir and Lady Jones) on their vacation for the purpose of helping Jones with the language every morning for an hour or so." We write the year 1786, summer 1786.

And who would earnestly like to know today in which language Jawaharlal Nehru talked to his daughter Indira within the four walls of his house in 1946? We must learn to ask this and similar questions. We must learn to know reality and not just virtual realties.

What did the European Christians do in India?

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you..."

Matthew, 28, 19-20

"We must at present do our best to form a class
who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern;
a class of persons Indian in blood and colour,
but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.
To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country,
to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature,
and to render them by degrees fit vehicles
for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population."

1835, Thomas Babington Macaulay

"I hope I shall finish that work, ... that this edition of mine
and the translation of the 'Veda' will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, 
and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. 
It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is,
is, I feel sure, the only way of uprooting all that 
has sprung from it during the last 3,000 years."

1867, Max Mueller

"A new type of scholarship arose in India under European inspiration,
and many Indians went to Europe (usually to Germany) to train themselves
in the new methods of research and critical and comparative study."