Dear HH,
I never used to ask for 'scientific evidence for such things until I had the opportunity to have a discussion with you last time. I learnt it from you. Periy ar's Kashi visit may not require corroboration/evidence(scientific or non-scientific). But the incident you spun out in that thread would certainly need corroboration. If you do not remember I would like to remind you about it - the fight periya r had with the dogs of kashi to collect a morsel of food thrown out by the pandas of Kashi(not the great chinese panda) for survival and the question you had asked me about it emoting. You reminded about a question and I replied saying that the answer was already given and in turn I had to remind you about the question I addressed to you which has not been answered till this moment. I did not say the kashi story has any thing to do with the question of culture and in turn caste affecting the genes.
If I were to follow your foot steps/example I will certainly demand scientific proof from Shri Kunjuppu and when he says he really visited Kashi and Gaya and offers to produce a bottle each of Ganga and palkuni river water, I will collect it and yet would say he is telling lies. You said the same thing in another thread when I told you that I had personally listened as one in the audience to your great revolutionary periy ar badmouthing brahmins in a public meeting you had asked majestically "what is the proof that you are not telling a lie?"
Shri Raju,
Surely there is a big difference between "historical evidence", 'forensic evidence", "testimonial evidence", "scientific evidence", etc. Am still wondering how can a scientist ask for "scientific" evidence when it comes to words uttered from someone's mouth.
I feel your 2nd para is un-necessary characterisation (and assumption reg 'what i would have done' wrt the Kunjuppu ji situation). Surely if Kunjuppu Ji were to come back and gush about his experiences, there is no reason to disbeleive him. Especially if he has not yet become a politician (or 'social activist').
I think i made my position already clear on that thread. EVR said things a lot more worse than the brahmin-snake comparison. There was nothing preventing him from publishing the brahmin-snake statement (if indeed those were his words). Except for your word of mouth we have no proof that EVR said anything like that.
Let us put it this way, there is no proof that either EVR or yourself are telling the truth.
As regards EVR, am willing to accept that too many things about him are contradictory. EVR asked for dravidistan. But his brother EVK did everything in his capacity to demolish EVR's ideology of dravidistan. I see EVR as a vengeful person. We shall discuss EVR in length some other time.
You may have your pov. But the very scientific evidences you quoted to prove that culture can modify genes over time also go prove that castes can do the same thing as castes are basically tribes with distinct cultures chosen consciously and practiced already over thousands of years-sufficiently long to affect the genes in the way they evolved. The paper you had quoted, by the scientists of University of California LA, are sufficient scientific proof for my POV.
Raju, quite clearly when genetists are speaking of culture wrt to lactose-tolerance being genetic, they are speaking of the environment shaping the genome. This has nothing to do with caste. No one knows how many castes in India were previously cattle-herding groups. Even a fisherman with no historical tradition of cattle-herding can have lactose tolerance. Which is why i asked where is the proof that "caste affects genes".
Morevoer, you now claim that "
castes are basically tribes with distinct cultures chosen consciously and practiced already over thousands of years"
Seriously, do you think tribes that fought, mated and merged all over the sub-continent made a "conscious" effort to choose one another? And how many thousands of years please?
I really do not know just as many of the members of this forum who are reading this discussion. Please enlighten me.Also about the tribe-caste continuum you are speaking about.
cheers.
Shri Raju, if you accept that there was a tribe-caste contiuum, how can you accept the purvamimansa-dharmashastra idea of exclusivity? The ideas of tribes admixing and resulting in 'castes', or any idea of Caste-tribe continum contradicts all "orthodox" ideas in every possible way.
If brahmins are a "caste" derived from various old tribes it would mean that they are not a exclusive group. Certainly from the genetic pov they are not an exclusive group. In such case all talk of gotras, exclusive descent, etc, etc loses ground. This applies to all brahmins, all varnas, all castes and tribes all across the sub-continent.
I also asked specifically about the Vadagalai group because they make far too many claims when compared to the Thengalais.
Vadagalais claim that
1) They are an indo-aryan group of Prakrit speakers whereas Thengalais are Dravidian speakers.
2) They came from Kashmir whereas Thengalais are native to the Tamil land.
3) The article on Iyengars in Wikipedia even claims Vadgalais descended from Kossars.
Kossars (aka Kosars, Khazars, Khazzar, Khasa, Khasas) are Kiratas or Boyars (i have mentioned andhra boyas in other threads, perhaps you can read on them). If they claim to have descended from Kossars, how can they claim to be "vedic"?
If they claim to be from Kashmir, how can they claim to be "brahmins" when Brahmanda Purana says there are no brahmins in Kashmir?
Please note what i think myself is all very different. I feel there were brahmins in kashmir but they were the anthanar type who were not recognised as brahmins by the puranic and trayi-veda people. Infact i feel they were an ancient creed of Iranians (that is, old aryans) to whom the culture of Hayagriva, Puloman, Vritra, Prahalada, etc belongs. But what i feel is different from the traditional orthodox pov. From the traditional puranic pov, there are no brahmins in Kashmir, Abhira, Kambhoja, etc. So going by the orthodox pov, will Vadagalais (be willing to) accept that they descended from Non-Brahmins?
I also feel there is only a minor geographic difference between vadagalai and thengalai (apart from the differences in philosophy). Vadagalais are centered around Kanchi which is "north" of Srirangam, whereas Thengalai are active in Srirangam. If at all there is a big difference between Thengalai and Vadagali, then genetics should show up that difference, right? So how come they make claims of being different from Thengalais?
Plus when it comes to dubbing Thengalais as Dravidian speakers, i wonder about all other Tamils, how much "dravidian" or "tamil" is there in various Tamil castes? Vellalars came from Srisailam, Vellala Goundars from Karnataka, Kallars from Andhra, Nagarathars from Andhra, Sengunthars and Kaikolars have an Andhra connection as well. Like this we can go on about various "tamil" castes also. Therefore i do not understand this whole idea of classifying anyone as vadagalai or thengalai based on "prakrit" or "dravidian".
Regards.
