Talk:B. B. Lal
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it has been noted other indian historians have been marked with their historiographic affiliations like nationalist marxist etc. to which tradition does BB lal belong to?
oh he is Nationalist and is loved by Hindu Nationalists who gave him a national honour under the BJP government, but the problem with his hypothesis is he cites phallic symbols, vermillion used by women and yoga type asanas in terracotta figurines from Indus Valley Civilization to conclude that Indus Valley Civilization was Aryan and the precursor of Vedic civilization or vedas might have come from IVC, the problem is they have long been known to historians and are thought of a carry overs from the IVC by the aryan speakers who came later. He is also propagating an 18th century idea long abandoned by historians after new evidence was uncovered later on, that says that Aryan speakers or Proto indo-european originated in north west Indian subcontinent, but doesn't give any concrete proof of this, only cites arguement not even based in concrete geological evidence, that saraswati river dried up before the mention of aryan gods occurs in the middle-east so Vedas must be the oldest aryan language texts. He hides behindthe fact that Indus Valley script has not been decipherd yet, so it could be the original script of Sanskrit. He gives no explanation of the existence of Dravidian language Brahui in baluchistan, so close to the early mehrgarh and indus valley sites, he also suggests that Mehrgarh might have been the earliest sttlement of Aryan or Proto-indo-european language. Again no explanation for burials instead of cremation etc. and totally different settlements i.e IVC planned cities and unorganized and haphazard Vedic village settlements, if they were the same people, with a continous civilization then how did it become totally primitive when mehrgarh to mohenjodaro shows a continous and gradual improvement in scale and sophistication and later on a sharp decline before the Vedic age starts. March 25, 2007
If it's a question of labels, then "nationalist" fits. But Lal's work has been quite uneven. His fame rightly rests on his magnificent work with the Gangetic basin and the Ramayana and Mahabharata sites. Things started going bad after he became DG of ASI at an early age (which sort of "forced" early retirement in 1972), and the focus of the ASI turned to IVC sites. Thus, he was naturally "in charge" of the excavation of Kalibangan (the stratigraphic data for which still haven't been published, in 30+ years![1]) Then he found religion, and convinced himself that the Vedas and the IVC are related. Things went downhill from there, and for the ASI too, though Lal had nothing to do with that personally. It's all of a piece, and a shame. rudra 08:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
