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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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A UNIQUE PHENOMENON |
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| Clearly,
the first is the more widespread view largely as a result of the
work of Western scholars. This is rather surprising not only for the
reason (outlined earlier) that if Central Asia was indeed the
nursery of nations and speech communities, these could not be all
that different from one another in view of the close proximity in
which the peoples involved must have lived. There is another reason
for the surprise. Max Mueller, who played a leading role in
popularizing philology, the so-called science of languages, denied
the existence of an Aryan race. Others have followed him, especially
after the disaster of Nazism in Europe. Not many people now accept
the theory of a pure race.
One of India's best known linguists, the late Professor Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, has expounded the second viewpoint again and again. He was a scholar in the Western tradition of Orientalism. As such, he accepted the theory of Aryan invasion/migration as well as broadly the dates in respect of Indian history as determined by Western scholars; he rejected dates based on astronomical calculations of events mentioned in the Vedas, epics and Puranas. I have reservations on both these counts; but let that pass and let us discuss Professor Chatterjee's views.
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