The missing link
Sushil Aggarwal
The Pioneer
May 31, 1999
Title: The missing link
Author: Sushil Aggarwal
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 31, 1999
"They commit to memory immense amounts of poetry, ...some of them
continue their studies for 20 years... they have knowledge of the
stars and their motion, of the size of the world and of the earth, of
natural philosophy, and of the powers and spheres of action of the
immortal gods, which they discuss and hand down to their young
students."
he above may appear to be an apt description of a Gurukul in ancient
India. But no, this is a statement attributed to Julius Caesar made
about Celtic Druides of Gaulish society in ancient times. Prof Myles
Dillon, an eminent linguist from Ireland, in his book Celts and Aryans
has quoted the statement to indicate "the similarity in status and
function between Celtic Druid and Hindu Brahmin" pointing clearly to a
common Indo-European inheritance. A detailed analysis of the ancient
literature of both India and the Celtic people can prove the
commonality in the language, law and institutions in the two
societies.
In present-day Europe, the people of Ireland. Scotland and Wales in
the British Isles and the Brittany area in France is called the Celtic
speaking people. But in ancient times, Celtic dialects were spoken in
a vast area extending from parts of Turkey to large parts of Europe.
During the pre-Christ period, Celts wielded great power in Europe for
a couple of centuries. They are now con-fined only to the
western-most areas of. Europe and British Isles.
The ancient Celtic society in Gaul (France) was divided into three
groups: Druides (priests), Equites (warriors) and the Plebs (common
people). This corresponded closely to the social set-up in India.
The parallel names in Ireland were Fill, Flaith and Aithech. Apart
from the social structure, the influence of Indian traditions is
visible in Celtic folklore also.
Indian tradition describes eight forms of marriage while the ancient
Irish tradition also talks of eight to ten forms of marriage. The
nature of these marriages in the two traditions may not exactly be the
same, but a degree of closeness is visible. For example, besides the
regular marriages, relationship accepted on man's invitation or
marriage by force seem to be similar to the Gandharva and Asura forms
in India.
Curious similarities are found in economic matters also. In ancient
India, a person having given a loan to another would adopt various
methods for collecting his money, one of which amounted to either a
sit-in or hunger strike at the door of the debtor until the payment
was made. The ancient Irish laws also speak of a creditor's fast till
death to recover the money from a debtor.
Another economic similarity was the recognition of wealth in cattle.
In the Vedas, cows are the proper measure of value, and gold became a
standard only later. In Ireland too, cows remained the measure of
one's value as long as the old order lasted. In the societies, cows
represented fortune, prosperity, and the satisfaction of needs and
desires of men in both ancient societies.
In India, rivers are revered as cows, flow of their water as flow of
milk and the Sanskrit word for cow (go) occurs in the river names,
such as Gomati (possessing cows) or Godavari (giving cows). In
Ireland too, the word for cow is bo which occurs in the names of their
rivers, such as Bo Nemid, Bo Guare, Boand. Boand means cow-finder
whose Sanskrit parallel with same meaning is 'Govind'.
The point to be considered is why is there so much similarity in the
two societies, when geographically the two places are so far away from
each other. Do the Vedic and the Celts be-long to a common stock of
people who were separated at some point of time in distant past? The
scholars are inclined to answer this in the affirmative. But there
are differences in identifying the original homeland of these ancient
people called the Indo-Europeans.
On this question, one may follow the trail of the 'Aryan invasion
theory' invented by the nationalist Germans and the colonial British
scholars during the last century to explain the strange phenomenon of
linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and many European and Central
Asian languages. The basic premise of the theory is that in ancient
times people living in a certain area in Europe or Central Asia, most
probably in South Russia (but certainly not in India), moved out of
their habitat and entered different areas in Europe and Asia. The
Aryans entered India as invaders and gradually dominated the entire
land besides developing their literature called Vedas.
The idea of Aryan invasion is totally unknown to the Indian tradition
and literature. Many leading Indian scholars have negated this
theory. They hold that the original homeland of the Indo-European
people was India. That it was from India that the large scale
migration took place to various directions including Iran and Central
Asia, Asia minor and European countries.
An old Irish story of Manannan and Oengus call India a sacred land,
from where two cows were brought whose milk tasted like honey. The
obvious inference that can be drawn from this mythological story is
that the migration to Europe and Celtic areas took place from India
which is why the Celtic tradition remembers India as a prosperous
land, and also which is why it reveals such significant traces of
Indian influence. Nomadic hordes are not capable of developing any
profound philosophy or literature. Clearly, the migrations to
European areas took place out of a developed Vedic culture whose
cradle indeed was India.
Back
Top
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This site is part of Dharma Universe LLC websites.
Copyrighted 2009-2011, Dharma Universe.
|
|