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Bernard Sergent Quotes (1946-)
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About Bernard Sergent
Bernard Sergent (French: sɛʁʒɑ̃; born 23 February 1946) is a French ancient historian and comparative mythologist. He is researcher of the CNRS and president of the Société de mythologie française.
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“The present stage of research effectively permits tracing an Asian origin for the Indo-Europeans well before their dispersion.”
“One of the paradoxes of India is its astonishing linguistic diversity (they speak about five hundred languages there) compared with its cultural unity.”
“Shiva, Varuna, Yama, Durga-Parvati, we already said it, are deities of IE origin, the rituals concerning fire, soma and the person of the king are equally of IE if not Indo-Iranian origin. But it is now obvious that the Indo-Aryans, upon arriving in India, have amply harvested the Harappan heritage and included its ritual customs (construction of hearth-altars, rites inside buildings, use of the stellar vestment, ritual baths, fixation of feasts on the stellar equinoxes…) in their own religion.”
““The Vedda, the Melano-Indians and the Indus people and the actual inhabitants of the northern half of India, which classical anthropology used to class as Mediterraneans, all belong to one same human ‘current’ of which they manifest the successive ‘waves’. Everything indicates, physical traits as well as geographical distribution, that the Vedda have arrived first, followed by the Melano-Indians, and then the Indus people.”... “The Italian anthropologist [Mario Cappieri] has emphasized not only that the skulls of Mohenjo Daro resemble those of today’s Sindh and those of Harappa resemble those of today’s Panjab, but even that the individual variability is identical today to what it was four thousand years ago.””
“Indeed, from the Indus eastwards, we lose track of this Bactrian invasion. Sergent himself admits as much:
“For the sequel, archaeology offers little help. The diggings in India for the 2nd millennium BC reveal a large number of regional cultures, generally rather poor, and to decree what within them represents the Indo-Aryan or the indigenous contribution would be arbitrary. If Pirak (…) represents the start of Indian culture, there is in the present state of Indian archaeology no ‘post-Pirak’ except at Pirak itself, which lasted till the 7th century BC: the site remained, along with a few very nearby ones, isolated.” So, the Bactrian invaders who arrived through the Bolan pass and established themselves in and around the border town of Pirak, never crossed the Indus.”
“For the sequel, archaeology offers little help. The diggings in India for the 2nd millennium BC reveal a large number of regional cultures, generally rather poor, and to decree what within them represents the Indo-Aryan or the indigenous contribution would be arbitrary. If Pirak (…) represents the start of Indian culture, there is in the present state of Indian archaeology no ‘post-Pirak’ except at Pirak itself, which lasted till the 7th century BC: the site remained, along with a few very nearby ones, isolated.” So, the Bactrian invaders who arrived through the Bolan pass and established themselves in and around the border town of Pirak, never crossed the Indus.”
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Bernard Sergent on Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex 2 quotes
“[the Harappan-Bactrian similarities are due to] “influence of northwestern India on Bactria by means of a migration of Indus people to Central Asia after the end of their civilization”.”
Bernard Sergent on Vedi (altar)
““The Indian Vedic fire altar seemed to have borrowed its construction principles from the Indus civilization”, all while “the very idea of the fire cult was Indo-Iranian”.”
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Bernard Sergent on Pirak
“If Pirak… represents the start of Indian culture, there is in the present state of Indian archaeology no ‘post-Pirak’ except at Pirak itself, which lasted till the 7th century BC: the site remained, along with a few very nearby ones, isolated.”
About Bernard Sergent
Bernard Sergent (French: sɛʁʒɑ̃; born 23 February 1946) is a French ancient historian and comparative mythologist. He is researcher of the CNRS and president of the Société de mythologie française.
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