>>18118093
>trans. Griffith
GTFO. Max Müller and Ralph T. Griffith were colonial officers, and evangelists neither trained in the Vedangas, using classical (not vedic) Sanskrit to aid in their translations.
For those unaware, to learn the Vedas a Brahmin has to learn the six Vedangas first, 3 of which are a study on grammar/linguistics, phonetics (vedic Sanskrit is phonetic), etc.
Müller and Griffith did not learn the Vedas from a Brahmin but rather studied and attempted to translate the medieval scholar Sayana’s texts.
But the incorrect means to study the Vedas isn’t the issue, it’s the blatant intellectual dishonesty by colonial scholars and evangelists. Now historical revisionism isn’t anything new to colonial administrations, you see this with how Great Zimbabwe was seen as a non-black civilization or how Tutsis were proposed to be more European in origin and therefore fit to aid in governance, leading to the Rwandan genocide.
>Dasam varnam adharam | Rigveda, Book 2, Indra 12.4 (2.XXII.4)
This is translated to “black skin is impious”. None of these words mean black nor skin. Their entire theory rests assertion that Dasas are Dravidians. Hence why Dasa is translated as “black”. Dasa according to him supposedly is used in the context like the word “negro.”
Dasas are serpents. Varnam means color or cloak (camo), adharam can mean impious, immoral, or evil. But “Black skin is impious” is worlds apart from “(the) Serpents cloak is evil.”
It is true in some verses the Dasas are referenced as being dark or associated with darkness, it’s also true they’re described as noseless. Griffith and Müller think this means flat-nosed black person. But they ignore references to Dasas as legless and armless. Cause you know, they’re actually serpents.
Indra slaying serpents is not a made up idea, it’s his whole entire trope as a deity. He slays Vritra, the great serpent.