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el is editor in chief of the electronic journal of vedic studies 3 and the harvard oriental series 4 witzel has been president of the association for the study of language in prehistory since 1999 5 as well as of the international association for comparative mythology since 2006 6 he was elected to the american academy of arts and sciences in 2003 and was elected honorary member of the german oriental society in 2009 7 in 2013 he was appointed cabot fellow of the faculty of arts and sciences at harvard university receiving recognition for his book on comparative mythology 8 philological research edit the main topics of scholarly research are the dialects of vedic sanskrit 9 old indian history 10 11 the development of vedic religion 12 and the linguistic prehistory of the indian subcontinent 13 early works and translations edit witzel s early philological work deals with the oldest texts of india the vedas their manuscripts and their traditional recitation it included some editions and translations of unknown texts 1972 14 such as the katha aranyaka 15 he has begun together with t goto et al a new translation of the rigveda into german books i ii 2007 books iii v 2012 books vi vii 2022 16 vedic texts indian history and the emergence of the kuru kingdom edit see also kuru kingdom after 1987 he has increasingly focused on the localization of vedic texts 1987 and the evidence contained in them for early indian history notably that of the rigveda and the following period represented by the black yajurveda samhitas and the brahmanas this work has been done in close collaboration with harvard archaeologists such as r meadow with whom he has also co taught witzel aims at indicating the emergence of the kuru kingdom in the delhi area 1989 1995 1997 2003 its seminal culture and its political dominance as well as studying the origin of late vedic polities 17 and the first indian empire in eastern north india 1995 1997 2003 2010 he studied at length the various vedic recensions śākhā 18 and their importance for the geographical spread of vedic culture across north india and beyond 19 this resulted in book length investigations of vedic dialects 1989 the development of the vedic canon 1997 20 and of old india as such 2003 reprint 2010 pre vedic substrate languages of northern india edit the linguistic aspect of earliest indian history has been explored in a number of papers 1993 21 1999 22 23 2000 2001 2006 24 2009 25 dealing with the pre vedic substrate languages of northern india 26 these result in a substantial amount of loan words from a prefixing language para munda similar to but not identical with austroasiatic munda khasi etc as well as from other unidentified languages in addition a considerable number of vedic and old iranian words are traced back to a central asian substrate language 1999 2003 2004 2006 27 this research is constantly updated in collaboration with f southworth and d stampe by the sarva project 28 including its south asian substrate dictionary 29 comparative mythology edit in recent years he has explored the links between old indian eurasian and other mythologies 1990 30 2001 2010 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 resulting in a new scheme of historical comparative mythology 39 that covers most of eurasia and the americas laurasia cf the related harvard kyoto beijing edinburgh ravenstein netherlands tokyo strasbourg st petersburg tübingen yerevan conferences of iacm 40 this approach has been pursued in a number of papers 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 a book published in late 2012 the origins of the world s mythologies 48 deals with the newly proposed method of historical comparative mythology at length 49 for scholarly criticism see 50 and for periodic updates see 51 it has been called a magnum opus which should be taken seriously by social anthropologists 52 and was praised by professor of sanskrit frederick smith who wrote that witzel s thesis changes the outlook on all other diffusionist models his interdisciplinary approach not only demonstrates that it has a promising future but that it has arrived and that finally one can actually speak of a science of mythology 50 bruce lincoln concluded that witzel in this publication theorizes in terms of deep prehistory waves of migration patterns of diffusion and contrasts between the styles of thought narration he associates with two huge aggregates of the world s population which strikes me as ill founded ill conceived unconvincing and deeply disturbing in its implications 53 criticism of indigenous aryans edit see also indigenous aryans witzel published 54 articles criticizing what he calls spurious interpretations of vedic texts 55 and decipherment of indus inscriptions such as that of n s rajaram 56 57 58 59 indus script edit witzel has questioned the linguistic nature of the so called indus script farmer sproat witzel 2004 60 farmer sproat and witzel presented a number of arguments in support of their thesis that the indus script is non linguistic principal among them being the extreme brevity of the inscriptions the existence of too many rare signs increasing over the 700 year period of the mature harappan civilization and the lack of random looking sign repetition typical for representations of actual spoken language whether syllable based or letter based as seen for example in egyptian cartouches earlier he had suggested that a substrate related to but not identical with the austro asiatic munda languages which he therefore calls para munda might have been the language of part of the indus population 61 62 asko parpola reviewing the farmer sproat and witzel thesis in 2005 states that their arguments can be easily controverted 63 he cites the presence of a large number of rare signs in chinese and emphasizes that there is little reason for sign repetition in short seal texts written in an early logo syllabic script revisiting the question in a 2007 lecture 64 parpola takes on each of the 10 main arguments of farmer et al presenting counter arguments he states that even short noun phrases and incomplete sentences qualify as full writing if the script uses the rebus principle to phonetize some of its signs all these points are rejected in a lengthy paper by richard sproat corpora and statistical analysis of non linguistic symbol systems 2012 65 shorter papers edit shorter papers provide analyses of important religious 2004 and literary concepts of the period 66 and its central asian antecedents 67 as well as such as the oldest frame story 1986 1987 prosimetric texts 1997 the mahabharata 2005 the concept of rebirth 1984 the line of progeny 2000 splitting one s head in discussion 1987 the holy cow 1991 68 the milky way 1984 69 the asterism of the seven rsis 1995 70 1999 the sage yajnavalkya 2003 supposed female rishis in the veda 2009 71 the persistence of some vedic beliefs 72 73 in modern hinduism 1989 74 2002 with cultural historian steve farmer and john b henderson as well as some modern indocentric tendencies 2001 75 76 other work 1976 deals with the traditions of medieval and modern india and nepal 77 17 78 79 including its linguistic history 21 brahmins 80 81 rituals and kingship 1987 and present day culture 82 as well as with old iran and the avesta 1972 including its homeland in eastern iran and afghanistan 2000 83 conferences edit witzel has organized a number of international conferences at harvard such as the first of the intermittent international vedic workshops 1989 1999 2004 2011 at bucharest 2014 at kozhikode kerala the first of several annual international conferences on dowry and bride burning in india 1995 sqq the yearly round tables on the ethnogenesis of south and central asia 1999 sqq 84 85 and since 2005 conferences on comparative mythology kyoto beijing edinburgh ravenstein netherlands tokyo harvard tokyo 86 87 88 89 90 91 as well as at strasbourg st petersburg tübingen and yerevan at the beijing conference he founded the international association for comparative mythology 6 controversies and criticisms edit california textbook controversy over hindu history edit main article california textbook controversy over hindu history in 2005 witzel engaged other academics and activist groups to oppose changes to california state school history textbooks proposed by us based hindu groups note 1 mainly the rashtriya swayamsewak sangh rss linked organisations 93 94 the vedic foundation vf and hindu education foundation hef 95 witzel and his allies argued that the changes were not of a scholarly but of a religious political nature 93 note 2 reflecting a limited view on hinduism which excludes non vaishna traditions note 3 parents supportive of the changes said they wanted a fair representation of their culture 96 explaining that the current textbooks make their children ashamed 96 witzel was appointed to an expert panel set up to review the changes 96 94 59 which was opposed by the hef and the vf claiming that witzel knew little about hinduism and ancient indian history 93 and accusing him of leftist leanings and being biased against hinduism allegations he rejects 96 98 99 while the expert panel rejected most of the changes 97 59 the cbe nevertheless accepted most of them 97 59 under pressure of hindu organisations 97 92 after further protest by scholars of south asia the cbe eventually rejected most of the changes proposed by the hef and vf 100 101 92 the hef campaign was dismissed by critics as one driven by the sectarian agenda of the sangh parivar a term commonly used to describe the hindu nationalist triumvirate of india s bharatiya janata party the rashtriya swayamsevak sangh and the vishwa hindu parishad 102 in a letter to the board of education vinay lal a history professor at the university of california at los angeles wrote as far as i am aware the hindu education foundation and vedic foundation and their supporters do not number among their ranks any academic specialists in indian history or religion other than professor bajpai himself it is a remarkable fact that in a state which has perhaps the leading public research university system in the united states these two foundations could not find a single professor of indian history or religion within the uc system with its ten campuses to support their views indeed it would be no exaggeration to say that they would be hard pressed to find a single scholar at any research university in the united states who would support their views 102 criticism of indo aryan migration framework edit indian scholars championing the out of india theory like vishal agrawal 103 nicholas kazanas 104 and shrikant talageri accused witzel of what they called brazen scholarly dishonesty arguing that his philological framework systematically suppresses counter evidence citing use of the word upariśyena by witzel absent from all four vedas and only found later in jaiminiya brahmana as a purported evidence of indo aryan migration routes talageri further argues that witzel s mitanni chronology is internally contradictory dating the mitanni kingdom to c 1600 bce while simultaneously dating rigveda to c 1200 1000 bc placed india s oldest text after a civilization whose indo aryan loanwords it supposedly influenced his treatment of uralic borrowings ignores the one way direction of linguistic exchange which by elementary logic suggests indo iranian expansion outward from south asia rather than inward from the steppes in his article michael witzel the perennial liar talageri argues that witzel s framework is colonial era eurocentric inheritance dressed in modern linguistic garb 105 the common critique of witzel is that he employs straw man fallacy and ad hominem to build his argument 106 103 104 works edit witzel s written works include the following the origins of the world s mythologies 107 textual criticism in indology and in the european philology during the 19th and 20th centuries 108 inside the texts beyond the texts new approaches to the study of the vedas 109 the home of aryans 110 substrate languages in old indo aryan 111 aryan and non aryan names in vedic india 112 which of us are aryans rethinking the concepts of our origins 113 see also edit list of indologists notes edit proposed changes included 92 presenting the indus valley civilisation as an aryan or vedic society denying the indo aryan migrations downplaying caste and gender hierarchies in ancient india ignoring the rich diversity of hindu traditions and deities presenting hinduism as essentially monotheistic emphasiz ing a vedic form of hinduism meenakshi ganjoo witzel requested the board of education to reject the hindutva recommended changes witzel wrote to the cbe president the proposed revisions are not of a scholarly but of a religious political nature and are primarily promoted by hindutva supporters and non specialist academics writing about issues far outside their area of expertise about 50 international scholars specializing in indian history and culture including indian historian romila thapar and d n jha endorsed the letter 95 limited view witzel the proposed edits come out of a very sectarian approach to history they view all of hinduism through one narrow lens it s people on the very fringe who want to dispute these points 96 witzel california has been hijacked by a saffron agenda worse by a sectarian saffron agenda in this case a strident vaishnava one that excludes shaiva devi tantric lingayat and other forms of hindu worship and darshana the new ca california history textbooks will reflect that 93 in a letter to the board of education vinay lal a history professor at the university of california at los angeles wrote as far as i am aware the hindu education foundation and vedic foundation and their supporters do not number among their ranks any academic specialists in indian history or religion other than professor bajpai himself it is a remarkable fact that in a state which has perhaps the leading public research university system in the united states these two foundations could not find a single professor of indian history or religion within the uc system with its ten campuses to support their views indeed it would be no exaggeration to say that they would be hard pressed to find a single scholar at any research university in the united states who would support their views 97 references edit michael witzel s curriculum vitae accessed september 13 2007 1 2 witzel witzel witzel scholars harvard edu archived from the original on december 29 2025 retrieved june 29 2026 electronic journal of vedic studies homepage accessed september 13 2007 about the harvard oriental series accessed september 13 2007 personal web page accessed july 30 2015 1 2 compmyth org compmyth org retrieved may 16 2012 dmg web de dmg web de retrieved may 16 2012 professor michael witzel named 2013 cabot fellow the lakshmi mittal and family south asia institute october 23 2013 archived from the original on october 10 2017 retrieved may 16 2014 michael witzel on the localisati...