N. S. Rajaram
Encyclopedia
Navaratna Srinivasa Rajaram (born 1943 in Mysore, India
) is an Indian mathematician, who is however notable for his publications with the Voice of India
publishing house focusing on the "Indigenous Aryans
" controversy in Indian politics, in some instances in co-authorship with David Frawley
.He's also a member of Folks Magazine's Editorial Board since 2009.
, and has published papers on statistics
in the 1970s http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA037099http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA039208 and on artificial intelligence
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADD803894http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=30081&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=15700578&CFTOKEN=24643596 and robotics
http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=A8415667AH&q=%22N+S+Rajaram%22+-Aryan&uid=790197364&setcookie=yes in the 1980s.
and Sanskrit scholarship, arguing within the "Indigenous Aryans
" ideology instead. According to Rajaram,
Rajaram's work and publications claim to expose the "lack of scientific methodology" that has gone into the field of Indology
. He has criticized the process by which, he says, eurocentric 19th century "Indologists / missionaries" arrived at many of their conclusions. Rajaram questions how it was possible for 19th century European evangelical
"Indologists / missionaries" to study and develop hypotheses on Indian history, claiming many of them were "functionally illiterate" in Indian languages, including even the fundamental classical language, Sanskrit
, suggesting that "every available modern tool from archaeology
to computer science
" be used to "clearing away the cobwebs cast by questionable linguistic theories" as he chooses to refer to mainstream historical linguistics
and philology
.
Rajaram has also published on historical Indian mathematics
found in the Sulbasutras and the Vedas
.
as pseudoscience
, and by Asko Parpola as "trash" and "crude" or "nonsensical" propaganda
.
Rajaram's and Jha's claim of having deciphered the Indus script
was universally rejected. Regarding the history of the horse in South Asia
, Asko Parpola, professor of Indology at Helsinki University, stated that
Indus script expert Iravatham Mahadevan
likewise dismisses Jha-Rajaram 'decipherment' as a "non-starter" and "completely invalid", and on Rajaram's contributions to the opus specifically judges that
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) is an Indian mathematician, who is however notable for his publications with the Voice of India
Voice of India
Voice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
publishing house focusing on the "Indigenous Aryans
Indigenous Aryans
The notion of Indigenous Aryans posits that speakers of Indo-Aryan languages are "indigenous" to the Indian subcontinent.The "Indigenous Aryans" position may entail an Indian origin of Indo-European languages, and in recent years, the concept has been increasingly conflated with an "Out of India"...
" controversy in Indian politics, in some instances in co-authorship with David Frawley
David Frawley
David Frawley is an American Hindu author, publishing on topics such as Hinduism, Yoga and Ayurveda. He is the founder and director of the American Institute for Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which offers courses on Yoga philosophy, Ayurveda, and Hindu astrology...
.He's also a member of Folks Magazine's Editorial Board since 2009.
Professional career
Rajaram holds a Ph.D. degree in mathematics from Indiana UniversityIndiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
, and has published papers on statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
in the 1970s http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA037099http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA039208 and on artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADD803894http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=30081&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=15700578&CFTOKEN=24643596 and robotics
Robotics
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...
http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=A8415667AH&q=%22N+S+Rajaram%22+-Aryan&uid=790197364&setcookie=yes in the 1980s.
Indian history
Rajaram has published on topics related to ancient Indian history and Indian archeology, alleging Eurocentric bias in mainstream IndologyIndology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....
and Sanskrit scholarship, arguing within the "Indigenous Aryans
Indigenous Aryans
The notion of Indigenous Aryans posits that speakers of Indo-Aryan languages are "indigenous" to the Indian subcontinent.The "Indigenous Aryans" position may entail an Indian origin of Indo-European languages, and in recent years, the concept has been increasingly conflated with an "Out of India"...
" ideology instead. According to Rajaram,
-
- "Indology is a ‘secular eschatology’ built around a Euro-centric view of the world... Its creators were driven mainly by European colonial and Christian missionary interests."
Rajaram's work and publications claim to expose the "lack of scientific methodology" that has gone into the field of Indology
Indology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....
. He has criticized the process by which, he says, eurocentric 19th century "Indologists / missionaries" arrived at many of their conclusions. Rajaram questions how it was possible for 19th century European evangelical
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
"Indologists / missionaries" to study and develop hypotheses on Indian history, claiming many of them were "functionally illiterate" in Indian languages, including even the fundamental classical language, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, suggesting that "every available modern tool from archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
to computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
" be used to "clearing away the cobwebs cast by questionable linguistic theories" as he chooses to refer to mainstream historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
and philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
.
Rajaram has also published on historical Indian mathematics
Indian mathematics
Indian mathematics emerged in the Indian subcontinent from 1200 BCE until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics , important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II. The decimal number system in use today was first...
found in the Sulbasutras and the Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
.
Criticism
Rajaram's contributions are characterized by physicist and pseudoscience expert Alan SokalAlan Sokal
Alan David Sokal is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. To the general public he is best known for his criticism of postmodernism, resulting in the Sokal affair in...
as pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
, and by Asko Parpola as "trash" and "crude" or "nonsensical" propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
.
Rajaram's and Jha's claim of having deciphered the Indus script
Indus script
The term Indus script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Indus Valley Civilization, in use during the Early Harappan and Mature Harappan period, between the 35th and 20th centuries BC. In spite of many attempts at decipherments and claims, it is as yet undeciphered...
was universally rejected. Regarding the history of the horse in South Asia
History of the horse in South Asia
The horse has been present in South Asia from at least the mid 2nd millennium BC, more than two millennia after its domestication in Central Asia. The earliest uncontroversial evidence of horse remains on the Indian Subcontinent date to the early Swat culture...
, Asko Parpola, professor of Indology at Helsinki University, stated that
Indus script expert Iravatham Mahadevan
Iravatham Mahadevan
Iravatham Mahadevan is an Indian epigraphist, specializing on the Indus script and Early Tamil epigraphy.-Biography:Iravatham Mahadevan was born in 1930 in a Smartha Tamil Brahmin family of Thanjavur district. He was born in British Burma where his father Iravatham was practising as a...
likewise dismisses Jha-Rajaram 'decipherment' as a "non-starter" and "completely invalid", and on Rajaram's contributions to the opus specifically judges that
- "Rajaram's outbursts speak for themselves and need no annotation. The first part of the book is not about academic research on the technical problem of deciphering an unknown script. It is crude communal propaganda with obvious political overtones, betraying deep mistrust of foreigners and alien ideologies and intolerance towards religious and linguistic minorities."
Works
- Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth (New Delhi : Voice of IndiaVoice of IndiaVoice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
, 1993) ISBN 81-85990-12-3. - The politics of history : Aryan invasion theory and the subversion of scholarship (New Delhi : Voice of IndiaVoice of IndiaVoice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
, 1995) ISBN 81-85990-28-X. - with David FrawleyDavid FrawleyDavid Frawley is an American Hindu author, publishing on topics such as Hinduism, Yoga and Ayurveda. He is the founder and director of the American Institute for Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which offers courses on Yoga philosophy, Ayurveda, and Hindu astrology...
, The Vedic "Aryans" and the origins of civilization : a literary and scientific perspective (St-Hyacinthe, Québec : World Heritage Press, 1995) ISBN 1-896064-00-0, 2nd rev. enl. ed. (New Delhi : Voice of IndiaVoice of IndiaVoice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
, 1997) ISBN 81-85990-36-0. - Secularism : the new mask of fundamentalism : religious subversion of secular affairs (New Delhi : Voice of IndiaVoice of IndiaVoice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
, 1995) ISBN 81-85990-34-4. - The Dead Sea scrolls and the crisis of Christianity : an Eastern view of a Western crisis (London : Minerva, 1997) ISBN 1-86106-206-0.
- with David Frawley, A Hindu view of the world : essays in the intellectual kshatriya tradition (New Delhi : Voice of IndiaVoice of IndiaVoice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
, 1998) ISBN 81-85990-52-2. - Gandhi, Khilafat and the national movement : a revisionist view based on neglected sources (Bangalore : Sahitya Sindhu Prakashan, 1999) ISBN 81-86595-15-5.
- Christianity's scramble for India and the failure of the secularist elite (New Delhi : Hindu Writers' ForumHindu Writers' ForumHindu Writers' Forum is a New Delhi publisher and lobbying group, tax-exempt in India by section 80 G of the Income Tax Act. The group publishes on the topics of persecution of Hindus at the hands of Muslims and Christians, and general criticism of Islam and criticism of Christianity.HWF states...
, 1999) ISBN 81-86970-09-6. - From Sarasvati river to the Indus script : a scientific journey into the origins of the Vedic Age (Bangalore, Karnataka, India : [Mitra Maadhyama,]http://www.mitramaadhyama.co.in 1999).
- Profiles in deception : Ayodhya and the Dead Sea scrolls (New Delhi : Voice of IndiaVoice of IndiaVoice of India is a New Delhi publishing house, supportive of Hindu nationalist sentiment and political ideology. It was founded by Ram Swarup in 1983 and later joined by Sita Ram Goel, who themselves published extensively under the label...
, 2000) ISBN 81-85990-65-4. - Nationalism and distortions in Indian history : causes, consequences and cure (Bangalore : Naimisha Research Foundation, 2000).
- with N. Jha, The Deciphered Indus Script (New Delhi : Aditya Prakashan, 2000) ISBN 81-7742-015-1.
- with David Frawley, The Vedic Aryans and the origins of civilization : a literary and scientific perspective, 3rd ed. with three supplements (New Delhi : Voice of India, 2001) ISBN 81-85990-36-0.
- Nostradamus and beyond : visions of yuga-sandhi (New Delhi : Rupa, 2002) ISBN 81-7167-954-4.
- "Sarasvati River and the Vedic Civilization: History, science and politics," (Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 2006), ISBN 8177420661
See also
- Indigenous AryansIndigenous AryansThe notion of Indigenous Aryans posits that speakers of Indo-Aryan languages are "indigenous" to the Indian subcontinent.The "Indigenous Aryans" position may entail an Indian origin of Indo-European languages, and in recent years, the concept has been increasingly conflated with an "Out of India"...
- Aryan invasion theoryAryan invasion theoryThe term Aryan invasion theory may refer to*migrational scenarios of prehistorical Indo-Aryan migrations*in 19th and early 20th century racialism:** Historical definitions of races in India** Aryan race*in late 20th century:**Out of India theory...
- Nationalism and ancient history