Jump to content

Talk:Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A historian's assessment

[edit]

From Romila Thapar:

General opinion however still adheres to the sixth century BC as the start of coinage. In any case they would have been in circulation prior to the Mauryas. The symbols on the coins are suggestive of an indigenous origin although the notion of coined metallic money was probably known from West Asian usage. Pre-Mauryan literary evidence, with the exception of Pãnini, does not confirm the use of coins, but is familiar with using weights of gold and silver with a designated value. Punchmarked coins would have increased in number with the greater availability of silver and this may have required close connections with West Asia and Afghanistan, apart from the more sporadic mining in the sub-continent.... The date should be determined by dated coinage in the Chaman Huzuri hoard and by the reference to Alexander receiving telents of marked silver. An examination of the symbols suggests that there were local issues of varying weight which are rare in northern India and national issues with a standard weight found all over the sub-continent. The coins were developed in the north-west and were imitated in the Ganges towns. However, the pre-Mauryan use of coins is suggested in other sources. The Nandas are said to have standardized weights and this is likely to have included coins. Coins were a familiar item to Pänini, which would date them to at least the fifth century." (Ashoka and the Decline of Mauryas, pp. 288-89).[1]

In other words, she doesn't see anything inconsistent with the "coins" starting from the north-west, but it wasn't a totally new idea. Pieces of metal were used as a medium of exchange earlier.

If I understand Panini right, he is saying that rupa becomes rupyam when it is stamped. And, rupa is not a generic word for metal, rather for a formed piece of metal. So, the transition from rupa to rupyam is what the north-west could have engendered.

Moreover, I don't see India producing enough silver of its own. Most of the silver would have been what you call "imported". But you don't "import" precious metal. You would have to give real stuff in exchange. If we extrapolate from what we know from historical times, Indians would have been running "trade surplus" all the time, and the international buyers would have been forced to cough up precious metal in exchange for the goods. Some of the metal would have been rupa and some of it rupyam. So, coins would have been known, even if their significance wasn't fully recognized.

The Greek coins were the majority of the coins in the Kabul hoard as well as Pushkalavati. The Achaemenid component was insignificant, even though it was supposedly the imperial authority. The conclusion is that the Greeks were buying stuff from India and paying for it with precious metal. The 170 talents of gold that the Achaemenids were earning from Paruparaesanna/Gandhara was their share of the tax on this trade.

If we believe that Buddha lived before the time of Darius I, then we learn that Magadha's Bimbisara and Taxila's Pukkusati were warring with Avanti's Pradyota, and Bimbisara and Pukkusati became allies. Now Magadha, Taxila and Avanti are at the three corners of the north Indian economic zone. Why were they bothered about each other? Trade is the only answer. Magadha had a monopoly on the Bay of Bengal trade, Taxila that on the Central Asian trade and Avanti on the Arabian Sea trade. And, Avanti was the stronger of the bunch, i.e., the Arabian Sea trade was more profitable than the others. So the start of the Achaemenid empire under Cyrus the Great already stimulated India's international trade and generated internal rivalries. Silver was flowing into India from three directions and it would have been increasingly used for exchange. The Achaemenids had this impact on India even without occupying anything. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:59, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Schaps[2] makes the important point that "money" is distinct from coins (reminiscent of Panini's rupa and rupyam). Ancient Babylonia had money without coinage, and experienced all the phenomena associated with a monetary economy, such as inflation and deflation. There is a lot of study of the Babylonian economy because they left us written records.
Vogelsang[3] makes another important point that there were four routes into India from the west. In addition to the Gandhara route, there was one through Bannu, another via Sindh, and finally the sea-route. He cautions against interpreting all western influences as coming via Gandhara. In particular notes, India developed two distinct scripts, Karoshti and Brahmi, only one of which came via Gandhara. We still don't know the antecedants of Brahmi, but it is clear that they weren't the same as those of Karoshti. Money too could have arrived via two routes. International trade is the one most in need of money. Barter is only good for local economy. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:15, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"We still don't know the antecedants of Brahmi, but it is clear that they weren't the same as those of Karoshti."

The main article on the Brahmi script lists it as a derivative of the Aramaic alphabet. "Most scholars believe that Brahmi was likely derived from or influenced by a Semitic script model, with Aramaic being a leading candidate. However, the issue is not settled due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhī, and Brahmi. Though Brahmi and the Kharoṣṭhī script share some general features, but the differences between the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts are "much greater than their similarities," and "the overall differences between the two render a direct linear development connection unlikely", states Richard Salomon." Dimadick (talk) 11:58, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Goyal, Shankar (1999), "The Origin and Antiquity of Coinage in India", Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 80 (1/4): 125–154, JSTOR 41694581
  2. ^ David Schaps (2004), The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0-472-11333-X
  3. ^ W. Vogelsang, The Achaemenids and India, Two Worlds in Contact, Groningen, 1986.

Disputed

[edit]

Hidush or Hindush?

[edit]

Hi @Kautilya3: It seems you have now decided to change all the transliterations of the Old Persian 𐏃𐎡𐎯𐎢𐏁 from "Hidūš" to "Hindush", and 𐎥𐎭𐎠𐎼 from "Gadâra" to "Gandhara" [1]. This is problematic, because Old Persian sources only use "Hidush" or "Hiduya" in their inscriptions, "Hindush" never appears as you can see easily with this lexicon: Old Persian: Dictionary, Glossary and Concordance, or, if you wish, by going to the sources themselves: Titus Livius. So the transliteration of Old Persian cuneiform: 𐏃𐎡𐎯𐎢𐏁 has to be Hidūš (it spells H𐏃-i𐎡-du𐎯-u𐎢-š𐏁), because it is what it is, just as the transliteration of 𐎥𐎭𐎠𐎼, has to be Gadāra (it spells Ga𐎥-da𐎭-a𐎠-ra𐎼), for the same reason. Doing otherwise would mean corrupting the sources, and would be very un-encyclopedic. If still in doubt, you can check the syllabary at Old Persian cuneiform: the script is actually very easy to read. If you're interested, "Hindush" only appears in Elamite or Avestan or Egyptian, but the spelling is always "Hidush" with Old Persian inscriptions, as you can see with this source describing the variations across languages: Lexicon, variations and occurences. So let's keep transliterations exact please, that's really not something we should play with. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 05:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Encyclopedia Iranica writes the names as Hinduš and Gandāra, which are the forms I am using. When writing without diacritics, I am using Hindush and Gandara, as per Olmstead[1]. (Note that d is not aspirated in both cases.) These are the right level of sources to be used for Wikipedia.
How to transliterate the Old Persian inscriptions is not a concern for this page. I expect that all the coverage of those inscriptions will get deleted eventually anyway. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You also seem to be missing the key information that many of these inscriptions are written in multiple languages. They are written differently in these languages, and the scholars discern what was actually meant. Please use reliable WP:SECONDARY sources for interpretation, not transliterations of one inscription or the other. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:13, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's fine to use "Hindush" or "Gandara" in the text as many sources do, but when giving the precise transliteration of an Old Persian word we do not have any right to mispell it. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 05:57, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Olmstead, A. T. (1948), History of the Persian Empire, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-62777-9

But what was Hidush after all?

[edit]

Hi @Kautilya3: Various sources have various interpretations about what was meant by the Old Persian "Hidush". Most probably, it simply meant "Indus" or "Indus valley", from the Proto-Indo-Iranian síndʰuš meaning "river" and "the Indus" [2]. Here it is described as "Sindh, a Province of the Persian Empire on the northern Indus valley" (the opposite of modern Sindh!!) Here it is simply a "region near the Indus". Here it is the "center and lower part of the Indus valley". Here it is "the whole of the Province of Sindh and a considerable portion of the Punjab". Here it is just "Sindh". Here it is "People of the Sindhu, or Indus valley". So only choosing "Sindh" (or Sindhu) as the exclusive way to translate "Hidus" or "Hindus" as you do [3] is very problematic, especially knowing that the modern understanding of Sindh alone doesn't reflect properly the territory held by the Achaemenids (previous discussion above). Overall, in light of the various sources, I think we should either settle for a vague enough term like "Indus valley", or maybe just "Indus" (the most elegant solution in my opinion, since we avoid interpretation), or use a compound integrating the variations of the main scholarly views (like "Indus valley/Sindh", or "Punjab/Indus valley/Sindh"). But using "Sindh" only, definitely is unsatisfactory, misleading, and is a misrepresentation of the various sources. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 06:20, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sindhu in ancient Sanskrit sources means the lower Indus valley. Not the entire "Indus Valley", which goes all the way to Tibet.

Sindhu means a stream, a river, and in particular the Indus river, but likewise it denotes the territory of the lower Indus valley, or modern Sind.[1]

Eggermont also makes an attempt to define it precisely based on the Greek sources:

The Old Persian inscriptions do not give any details concerning the extent of this province, but as Alexander the Great used to maintain the Persian administrative organization, we know that Hindush alias Sindhu comprised the lower Indus valley from the conjunction of the Indus and the Chenab down to the coast-line of the Indus delta

Eggermont's chapter is the effort to pinpoint the geography of the various regions, and it should be considered authoritative. Once again, the Encyclopedia Iranica accepts this interpretation. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 08:58, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kautilya3: You are cherry-picking sources, and choosing the ones that suit you while rejecting the others. This is rude to the other editors, and this is not what Wikipedia does: Wikipedia either chooses wording that is broad enough to cover all the main authoritative sources, or presents the various versions according to the sources. You are also misrepresenting Ergermont. He is actually never saying that Achaemenid Hindus is Sindh, he is only explaining what the Sanskrit word Sindhu means: Indus river in the general sense, and sometimes denotes Sind p.145, referring to the Monnier Sanskrit-English dictionary definition: p.1217. When explaining what Hindus actually stands for as a territory, he is not referring to Sindh at all, he just says clearly that it is "the lower Indus valley from the conjunction of the Indus and the Chenab down to the coast-line of the Indus delta", which is not at all equivalent with Sindh p.146.

Definition of the problem

I think we should distinguish two very different things here: on the one hand, there is question of what the word Hindush/Hidush means, and I think all the sources agree that Hindush/Hidush means "Indus" (the river), just as Gadara means Gandhara and Thataguš means Sattagydia. "Indus" is therefore what we should use as a direct translation. On the other hand, there is the territory that Hindush/Hidush covered, and that's a lot trickier because nobody agrees:

Sources on the territory of the Hindush
  • According to Egermont it was "the lower Indus valley from the conjunction of the Indus and the Chenab down to the coast-line of the Indus delta" p.146
  • According to Ernst Badian, it was "East and southeast of Gandhara" p.665
  • According to Christon Archer, it was just "the Indus valley" p.34
  • According to Olmstead it was "the Punjab east of the Indus".[2]
  • According to Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi it was "Hindush, i.e., the Indus valley" p.84
  • According to Roland Grubb Kent it was "Sindh, a Province of the Persian Empire on the northern Indus valley" (the opposite of modern Sindh!!) Here
  • According to M. Dandamayev it was the "center and lower part of the Indus valley" Here
  • According to Sailendra Nath Sen, it was "the whole of the Province of Sindh and a considerable portion of the Punjab" Here
  • According to Pierfrancesco Callieri, it was just "Sindh" Here
  • According to Sagar, it was the "People of the Sindhu, or Indus valley" Here

There is no way we can choose one or two interpretations and deem them "authoritative" and consider the rest of academic views as crap. In summary, I believe we should say Hindush 'means "Indus" (the river), but regarding the territory it covers, we should say, in typical Wikipedia fashion, that there are various academic views and describe them with attribution. It is actually an interesting subject and would deserve a few lines in the article. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 05:51, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Sorry for the delay in responding. I have gotten rather busy in RL.)
  • I don't accept your "definition" of the problem. There is practically no source that says that Hindush was the "Indus river". Many sources say it was the "Indus valley", i.e., the land, not the river. I think you need retract this claim.
  • The scholars that stop at calling it the "Indus valley" without narrowing it further are being non-committal. Either they aren't interested it narrowing it down or perhaps they think it is not a settled issue. You cannot interpret them as positively asserting that Hindush should necessarily cover the entire Indus valley. (If that is what they meant, there would need to be a further discussion of the issue in the source).
  • WP:CONSENSUS does not mean counting sources. And, you cannot imply placing the same weight on all sources. The Encyclopedia Iranica article is an Encyclopedic article. It is expected to tell us what the current scholarly consensus is! You can't treat it on the same footing as the books written by retired IAS officers (like Sagar). Sagar should be entirely removed from the equation here.
  • You also need to discount old sources, because they would have taken Marshall's testimony at face value, to the effect that there was plenty of Achaemenid presence in Bhir Mound. But that assessment is now thoroughly discredited. Knowledge progresses with time, especially so in contentious issues like this one.
  • Even the scholars who place Hindush at one location or the other admit that there is no way to tell from the Achaemenid sources as to where it was. They also admit that Herodotus implies that it was the lower Indus basin, adjoining the sea. The scholars who firmly place it on the lower Indus basin, especially the Indian scholars, relate it to Indian Sindhu Kingdom, which has countless references in the Indian sources. Eggermont is also relating it to Alexander's later province, which gives him a firm definition.
  • The only sources to be taken seriously among your list is Ernst Badian. The paper is from 1998 and it discusses the issue with enough detail. Yet when we read the text, it clearly comes across as conjectural. Badian dismisses Herodotus' testimony that Hindush was along the sea, and maintains that Maka (satrapy) stretched up to what we know as Sindh. And, therefore, he believes Hindush must have been to the north of it. He believes that Gandara and Hindush must have been next to each other, as inferred from the tribute lists. But other scholars have analysed the tribute lists and concluded that they were based on the distance from the Iranian heartland. On that basis, Gandara and Hindush would necessarily appear together because they were they were the only provinces at comparable distance from capital of the empire. The only ones that were farther out were the Central Asian Sakas. Practially nobody today accepts Maka covering Sindh. Badian himself recognizes that he hasn't made a decisive analysis, old Hindush (wherever it was) (p.680). So, I don't see what we can say based on this source, against clear scholarly consensus.
  • An up to date Indian history text, Upinder Singh,[3] covers it as follows:

The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that ‘India’ (i.e., the Indus valley) was the twentieth and most prosperous satrapy (province) of the Persian empire, and reports that the tribute from this province amounted to 360 talents of gold dust... (p.274)

and

The Behistun inscription of Darayavaush or Darius I (522–486 BCE) mentions the people of Gadara (Gandhara), Harauvati (Arachosia, including south-eastern and probably also parts of north-eastern Afghanistan), and Maka (possibly the Makran coast of Iran and Baluchistan) among the subjects of the Persian empire. The Hamadan inscription refers to the Hidus (i.e., Hindus, inhabitants of the lower Indus valley). (p.274)

So, she is unsure about what Herodotus meant by "India". But she seems certain that Hindush meant the lower Indus valley. I maintain that this is the current scholarly consensus, and this should be our main interpretation. There is no harm in mentioning that other scholars place it up north. But that is clearly a minority view at this point. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:14, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comments. So, how about we simply give the direct translation of "Hindush" as "Indus valley" which is the cognate term and used by almost all sources, and explain that the actual extent of Hindush is uncertain, often considered as the "middle to lower Indus valley", but with some authors placing it further north, to the east or southeast of Gandhara? पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 16:18, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is no problem with mentioning the literal meaning of Hindush as "the land of Indus or the Indus valley". But the extent of Hindush is no more uncertain than the extent of the Sindhu Kingdom. The settled civilization of the Sindhu Kingdom was the Sindh. That is always the core area. The rest of it northwards would have been upto the vagaries of the history. The present day Punjab would have been pastoral and tribal at that time. Those tribes fought hard when Alexander invaded. But the Sindhis didn't fight. They knew the rules, viz., once Alexander defeated Darius III, they automatically became his subjects. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:57, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
See the Fig. 2 of this paper by Parpola[4] for the Indian nomenclature. In his new book, you will find this passage:

The etymology of “Hindu” goes back to about 515 BCE, when the Persian king Darius the Great annexed the Indus Valley to his empire. Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of the Indus River and its southern province—the area now known as Sindh—became Hindu in the Persian language. The Ionian Greeks serving the Great King did not pronounce word-initial aspiration (like French-speakers today) and so in the Greek language Persian Hindu became Indos (whence, Latin Indus) and its surrounding country became India.[5]

Scholars that know the Indian literature have long identified Hindush with Indian Sindhu (not the river, the land). -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not do OR and stick with what our sources are saying. I think the following sentence is a fair reflection of what we've seen (I've removed the word "uncertain"): "the actual extent of Hindush is often considered as the "middle to lower Indus valley", but with some authors placing it further north, to the east or southeast of Gandhara" . पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 06:18, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, you cannot label this "OR". This is part of WP:NPOV, to examine the sources closely to determine how much WP:WEIGHT to give to each one. Asko Parpola is a leading scholar of Indo-European Studies, who knows intimately the linguistics, literature as well as archaeology of the entire region, including India, Afghanistan, Iran and the Central Asian regions around them. Ernst Badian has not referred to any of these factors. And, here is Vogelsang, an expert in Achaemenid history, especially concerning its eastern provinces:

Hindush (apparently modern Sind in southern Pakistan)[6]: 186 

Vogelsang has actually proposed that Multan could have been the capital of Sattagydia, which indicates that he does not even favour Hindush extending to the "central Indus valley". Badian apparently accepts this conclusion. He believes that Hindush was to the north of Sattagydia. This viewpoint has no takers in modern times, making it WP:FRINGE. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:10, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there is much certainty regarding the precise territory of Hindus, so claiming certainty by cherry-picking sources and claiming that other sources, like Ernst Badian, are "Fringe" is quite weird and unwarranted: his position deserves as much respect as that of the others, we just have to present these views in a balanced way. You said above that you valued encyclopedias most highly: "The Encyclopedia Iranica article is an Encyclopedic article. It is expected to tell us what the current scholarly consensus is! You can't treat it on the same footing as the books written by retired IAS officers (like Sagar)..." [4]. Fine, so, why don't we look at what one of the most reputable of all Encyclopedias has to say on the matter (The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press (2002 edition) p. 203-204):

The region was soon to appear as Hindūš in the Old Persian inscriptions... Transparent though the name appears at first sight, its location is not without problems. Foucher, Kent and many subsequent writers have identified Hindūš with its ethymological equivalent , Sind, thereby placing it on the lower Indus towards the delta. However (...) no material evidence of Achaemenid activity in this region is so far available. (...) There seems no evidence at present of gold production in the Indus delta, so this detail seems to weight against the location of the Hindūš province in Sind. (...) The alternative location to Sind for an Achaemenid province of Hindūš is naturally at Taxila and in the West Punjab, where there are indications that a Persian satrapy may have existed, though no clear evidence of its name. (p.203-204)

I think The Cambridge Ancient History seems quite reasonnable in balancing opinions and perfectly summarizes knowledge on the subject. This is exactly what we should do here. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 14:31, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The book is not an encyclopedia and it is not a "2002 edition". It is a history book with survey articles, published in 1988. But I am happy to accept that it is a survey article, similar in nature to an encyclopedic article. ADH Bivar is well-known and can be accepted as a reliable source. However, you haven't noticed the WP:WEIGHT he himself placed on it. After an extensive discussion of Sind as Hindush, he adds:

The alternative location to Sind for an Achaemenid province of Hindus is naturally at Taxila and in the West Punjab, where there are indications that a Persian satrapy may have existed, though no clear evidence of its name. Taxila under the Achaemenid dispensation was apparently distinct from Gandara, but could of course have been included in Sattagydia, if there is truth in Herzfeld's etymology of the name as Indo-Aryan,[31] signifying the 'Seven Rivers', and effectively synonymous with our Punjab.

The wording indicates to me that he is stating the old theory, whose mention is mandatory in a survey article since the issue is not settled yet. He offers no evidence and no argumentation in favour of the theory.
David Fleming, his former student, seems to have expanded Bivar's position, which you can read here.[7] Once again, there is no argumentation in favour of the theory. He just points out that it is still a plausible theory. I am quite happy to add that it is a plausible theory. But I have to note that the numerous counterpoints that the proponents of the Sind theory have raised have not been answered. All this discussion probably go into the Hindush article, not here. So, let us work on that, and once we have the content polished, we can summarise it here. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:55, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmm. You are seriously misreading the The Cambridge Ancient History [5]. If the article has a long discussion about Sindh, it is mainly in order to reject it: first by saying that there are no known traces of Achaemenid occupation whatsoever in Sindh, and second by explaining that no gold can be found there, in contradiction with Herodotus' explanation that vast amounts of gold were provided by India as tribute. Cambridge also presents the "Sindh" theory as an old view since the time of Foucher, the exact contrary of what you are claiming. In contrast the article states that the alternative location is naturally Taxila and in the West Punjab, and back its up with the arguments that, in total contrast to Sindh, "there are indications that a Persian satrapy may have existed" there, and that gold has been found in significant quantities around the northern areas of the Indus. You are also gravely misrepresenting Fleming, claiming the contrary of what he is saying: Fleming, in his "Where was Achaemenid India?" [6], does not write even once about Sindh, or even the southern Indus region, as a possible candidate for the "India" of the Achaemenids. The only option he considers at length after reviewing the evidence, is an area which has Taxila as its capital, which he says in conclusion is "the most plausible candidate for the capital of Achaemenid India". I maintain that The Cambridge Ancient History seems quite reasonnable in balancing opinions and perfectly summarizes knowledge on the subject. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 16:39, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If the two of us come back with two different conclusions from the text, I suppose that proves that it is not an encyclopaedic article. I suppose we can infer from the text that Bivar prefers Taxila as his choice, his main argument being that it had access to "gold dust". Most reasonable scholars would take Herodotus's gold dust with a large grain of salt or even the idea that the 'Indians' alone paid tribute with gold dust, whereas everybody paid with silver. Herodotus was clearly falling for myths. If this is what the Taxila theory stands on, it is rather weak indeed.
I pointed to Fleming as a way to figure out what Bivar thinks, not to say that his conclusions are ready for an encyclopedia. (It is a quintessential WP:PRIMARY source.) I haven't seen anything from Bivar himself expanding out his Taxila theory. Fleming is not claiming that Hindush was Taxila, only that Taxila was its likely capital. Locating the entire Hindush at Taxila would squarely contradict Herodotus's statement that it was the most populous province of all. It would also contradict his statement that India was the easternmost territory of the known world, beyond which there was only desert. (Remember that Herodotus imagined Indus flowing "east" or at least southeast). The Taxila theorists haven't answered any of these questions. Merely labelling it a "natural choice" doesn't cut it.
Anyway, as I said, all these deliberations have to go in the Hindush article, where we can present both the sides of the story. I am pinging Utcursch to mediate. He is good with balancing such contentious theories. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:20, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there are very good reasons why no archaeological remains have been found in Sindh. Basically, the archaeologists don't even know where to look. Bivar knows this well.[8] -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:23, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note this caution from Magee et al.[9]

* p.712-713: It is generally supposed that Hindush is analogous with modern Sind,[13: Revieweid in Bivar( 1988,2 02-4), where Taxila is proposed as a possible alternative, although the route of Scylax that is reconstructed does not pass Taxila. See also Vogelsang 1990, 101-2.] although there are no excavated remains that support this suggestion.[14: Although there are significant Iron Age remains at Pirak in Baluchistan, the latest occupation phase (period III) has been dated to ca. 1100-800 B.C. (Jarrige and Santoni 1979, 12-3; Vogelsang 1985, 75-7).]

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:32, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kautilya3: in response to you points:
1) David Fleming: you are contradicting yourself, and it is ironic that I now have to defend a source which you yourself proposed. Fleming is a PhD in Oriental Studies and is well-published in the area of Achaemenid studies [7], so I don't see why you are now trying to discard him and claim that he is "a quintessential WP:PRIMARY source", just because he turns out to be a clear supporter of Taxila as the capital of Achaemenid India (p.70). That really does not make sense.
2) "If the two of us come back with two different conclusions from the text, I suppose that proves that it is not an encyclopaedic article."... well, this has nothing to do with the definition of an encyclopedic article, and as far as I am concerned it only means that there are issues with the way you read sources (a phenomenon I've already seen in several cases before, such as your adamant "Greeks pronounced Ἰνδός "Hindos"" theory above [8])
3) Personal theories are not relevant to Wikipedia, and I don't favour any point of view (ie Sindh, or western Punjab), we just need a good synthesis of academic viewpoints on the subject. I maintain that The Cambridge Ancient History (2002) seems quite reasonnable in balancing opinions and nicely summarizes knowledge on the subject: pp 203-204:

The region was soon to appear as Hindūš in the Old Persian inscriptions... Transparent though the name appears at first sight, its location is not without problems. Foucher, Kent and many subsequent writers have identified Hindūš with its ethymological equivalent , Sind, thereby placing it on the lower Indus towards the delta. However (...) no material evidence of Achaemenid activity in this region is so far available. (...) There seems no evidence at present of gold production in the Indus delta, so this detail seems to weight against the location of the Hindūš province in Sind. (...) The alternative location to Sind for an Achaemenid province of Hindūš is naturally at Taxila and in the West Punjab, where there are indications that a Persian satrapy may have existed, though no clear evidence of its name. (The Cambridge Ancient History (2002) pp203-204)

I wish we could just move on and do some more constructive stuff: पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 12:51, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wherever a new fact is presented or a new thesis proposed, the place is regarded as a primary source. I can't find the exact place where this is explained, but see WP:ALLPRIMARY. I have given the Fleming source to you as a way of explaining what Bivar could have meant (since this paper is dedicated to Bivar). But the statement you included in the article now: Taxila's Bhir Mound remains the most plausible candidate for the capital of Achaemenid India appeared here for the first time and goes further than anything Bivar said. (You have also ignored the escape clause "until and unless another contender is found"). The citations for the paper indicate no takers. So, there are no SECONDARY sources for this thesis. It is not ready for inclusion in an encyclopedia.
I am constantly giving you sources that argue the opposite point of view. But you are choosing to ignore them and include only the view points that you prefer. In other words, you show no interest in WP:NPOV. If this persists, I intend to report you to the admins. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:25, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Many authors have discussed the possibility of Bhir Mound/Taxila as an Achaemenid city or even capital. This is not new, this is trivial stuff, even Bivar is basically saying that: "The alternative location to Sind for an Achaemenid province of Hindūš is naturally at Taxila and in the West Punjab" [9]. Your source, Fleming, is just giving his academic view about this. But this is not the core of the matter: the point is that there are various views on the subject of the actual location of Hindush, and with The Cambridge Ancient History (2002) pp203-204, we have both an excellent, highly reputable source and an excellent review and synthesis of the question, as well as an excellent model for making our own NPOV summary of academic views on Wikipedia. You are the one who is pushing a one-sided POV that only Sindh should be taken as a candidate. Honestly, I don't care much about the Achaemenids or Hindush, and I'm fine with both Sindh and west Punjab as candidates, but I do care when a user tries to promote only one side of a story, pushing his own personal theories or bias [10]. We don't even have to choose sides: let's present both views as per the The Cambridge Ancient History, and move on... पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 06:33, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I am glad to learn that you want to cover all the sources in an WP:NPOV way and that it doesn't matter to you where the Achaemenid Hindush is. However, these contentious are belied by the prominent bubble chart you made, where you tagged Taxila as Hindush, your insertion of a doctored quote from Fleming in a prominent place as an image caption, and your effort to edit war over these edits.
If you genuinely regard Fleming as "my source", then you can leave it to me to deal with it as appropriate. I did not ask for your help in covering it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:46, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Kautilya3: Sadly, all your assertions in this last post are false:
1) Hindush is not mentioned in the map you are attaching.
2) The quote from Fleming is perfectly exact and verbatim: "Bhir Mound remains the most plausible candidate for the capital of Achaemenid India" p.70 also freely visible here.
3) This edit is not edit warring, it is simply reinstating referenced material which you deleted in an indiscrimate fashion. You can balance referenced material if you wish, not just delete it.
4) How a source is handled is not your personal choice on Wikipedia.
May I suggest you cool down a bit, and remain respectful of the contributions of others. This is not a question of personal opinion [11], Wikipedia doesn't care, it's just about presenting reputable sources in a balanced manner: you cannot go around that. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 12:12, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Eggermont, Pierre Herman Leonard (1975), Alexander's Campaigns in Sind and Baluchistan and the Siege of the Brahmin Town of Harmatelia, Peeters Publishers, p. 145, ISBN 978-90-6186-037-2
  2. ^ "Olmstead's Hindush is the Punjab east of the Indus", quoted in Problems of ancient India, p.27
  3. ^ Singh, Upinder (2008), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson Education India, ISBN 978-81-317-1677-9
  4. ^ Parpola, Asko (1988), "The coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the cultural and ethnic identity of the Dāsas", Studia Orientalia Electronica, 64: 195–302
  5. ^ Parpola, Asko (2015), The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization, Oxford University Press Incorporated, ISBN 0190226927
  6. ^ Vogelsang, W. (1987), "Some Remarks on Eastern Iran in the Late-Achaemenid Period", in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (ed.), Achaemenid History I, Sources, Structure and Synthesis, pp. 183–190
  7. ^ * Fleming, David (1993), "Where was Achaemenid India?", Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, 7: 67–72, JSTOR 24048427
  8. ^ Bivar, A. D. H. (January 1979), "The Kushan Period, Indus Topography, and the Buddhist Sites of Sind", Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, 27 (1), Karachi: 1– – via ProQuest
  9. ^ Magee, Peter; Petrie, Cameron; Knox, Richard; Khan, Farid; Thomas, Ken (2005), "The Achaemenid Empire in South Asia and Recent Excavations in Akra in Northwest Pakistan", American Journal of Archaeology, 109: 711–741
Kautilya3 is right. Pataliputra you cannot claim for a NPOV summary of current scholarship on the one hand while ostensibly advocating the minor academic POV that Taxila is Hindush. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rachitasuri (talkcontribs) 15:13, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Gandhara or Gandara?

[edit]

Why do you now change the spelling of all instances of "Gandhara" to "Gandara" [12]? This is getting weird. The only proper spelling for the region is "Gandhara" in English as well as in the standard transliteration of Sanskrit. "Gandara" is NOT a proper noun in English: it is only used very rarely, to express the prononciation in some foreign languages, NOT in a general sentence such as "The Achaemenids invaded the general region of Gandhara" [13]. However, you could write "The Achaemenids invaded the general region of Gandhara, which they called Gandara or Gadara", and in that case you should use italics. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 05:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On the one hand, you keep removing the n in Hindush, claiming that it isn't there in the Persian inscriptions, but, on the other hand, you want to add h to Gandara, despite it not being in any Persian, Greek or Roman transcription. Aren't you being a tad bit inconsistent?
As your favourite web site explains it, Gandara is how the Persian province is written. We use Gandhara to talk about the Indian conception of Gandhara, which is not necessarily the same. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:34, 10 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We have to give the exact transcriptions when dealing with the inscriptions: Hidūš or Hindūš, simplified as "Hindush", and Gadāra or Gandāra, simplified as "Gandara" (the nasal "n" before consonants was omitted in the Old Persian script), but use the English terms Indus and Gandhara when translating or making a general statement about these regions, just like most sources do. For example writing "Gandara" as the translation of "Gadāra" in the article [14][15] is meaningless, because "Gandara" is not an English translation of "Gadāra": these are just two variants of transliterations of the Old Persian. If we want to refer to an actual geographical area, we can only use a standard term such as Gandhara, possibly with qualifiers when necessary: "greater Gandhara", an area "encompassing Gandhara" etc... since "Gandara" as such has no meaning whatsoever in English. Same thing for Hindush: we should use a term such as Indus, with qualifiers if necessary, like "Indus valley", "middle and lower Indus" "Indus region" etc... as again Hindush or the Sanskrit Sindhu have no meaning in standard English. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 07:50, 10 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is rather too much use of inscriptions in this article, which shouldn't be there. (But I don't want to get into that just at this time.) The article should be based on secondary sources, not the inscriptions. And, these sources invariably write Gandara for the Persian name. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:27, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"These sources invariably write Gandara for the Persian name".... Of course, but we are on the English Wikipedia, not Persian Wikipedia: when designating the same general area in English, the word proper spelling is Gandhara. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 06:13, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neither Gandhara nor Gandara is an English word. So, please stop pushing this.
The reasons for the Gandara spelling are as follows:
  • This is a page on the Achaemenid Empire. So, as far as possible, we should use the Achaemenid names and the specific meanings they attached to them.
  • The Achaemenid meaning of Gandara and the Indian meaning of Gandhara are different. Eggermont has explained that.[1] -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but Gandhara is the standard English spelling for the region. I'm really in favour of using Gandara, or Gadāra, when describing the Persian sources, or when explaining that the Persian Gandara was not necessarily strictly identical with our understanding of Gandhara (probably a bit larger), but when translating the Persian word or speaking about the region in modern terms, the only appropriate term is the standard geographical name Gandhara, possibly with qualifiers such as "greater" etc..., to which anybody with some culture can refer to. What you are trying to do is comparable to forcing the usage of the Persian word Hindush throughout the article, without ever allowing the use of the words "Indus" or "Sindh" or "Punjab" to explain to which known regions it corresponds, on the ground that "This is a page on the Achaemenid Empire, so we should use the Achaemenid names"... पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 14:52, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Standard spelling for what region? Surely, you are speaking nonsense, and you know it. Please read your own edit summary here to see why. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:19, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
???? I don't see your point at all. The diff you're giving was about correcting your wrong attribution of the short bent bars to Gandhara, whereas they belong to the Kabul region. I don't see how it is related to this discussion. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 06:00, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't answered the question: what region are you speaking of? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:52, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your question doesn't make sense. What are you trying to say? पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 16:40, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I am asking you to expand your sentence, "but Gandhara is the standard English spelling for the region", into a full description. What "region" are you referring to? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is here. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 06:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Eggermont, Pierre Herman Leonard (1975), Alexander's Campaigns in Sind and Baluchistan and the Siege of the Brahmin Town of Harmatelia, Peeters Publishers, pp. 175–178, ISBN 978-90-6186-037-2

Masarh lion alleged persian inspiration, indus valley civilization octopus star

[edit]

Masarh lion sculpture

octopus tentacles

indus valley civilization octopus star, shortugai

thracian plate octopus star

masarh lion, displaying indus civilization art, is not persian inspiration.

115.135.130.182 (talk) 22:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]