"“A better case for the early linguistic and ethnic history of South Asia can be made by investigating the names of rivers. In Europe river-names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 BC . It would be fascinating to gain a similar vantage point for the prehistory of South Asia."

“Poets such as Śamyu Bārhapatasya 6.45.1, some early Kaṇvas Early Ṛgvedic level.”

“Given the scholarly inclinations among the expatriate communities in North America we may expect a slew of new interpretations, in fact, a whole new cottage industry. Their impact will appear especially on the internet.”

““apart from archaeology, our principal source for the early period must be. the Rigveda…”

“This leads to the conclusion that the Indo-Aryan influence, ... was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus Civilisation where one would have expected the survival of older names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England with the name of the state of Massachussetts next to the Charles river, formerly called the Massachussetts river, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc., next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri.”

““books 2 to 7 … have been ordered according to the increasing number of hymns per book” ... “very important principle in their arrangement.”

“None of the archaeologically identified post-Harappan cultures so far found, from Cemetery H, Sarai Kala III, the early Gandhara and Gomal Grave Cultures, does make a good fit for the culture of the speakers of Vedic At the present moment, we can only state that linguistic and textual studies confirm the presence of an outside, Indo-Aryan speaking element, whose language and spiritual culture has definitely been introduced, along with the horse and the spoked wheel chariot, via the BMAC area into northwestern South Asia. However, much of present-day Archaeology denies that. To put it in the words of Shaffer ‘A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan’ people into South Asia is not described by the archaeological record’ the importation of their spiritual and material culture must be explained. So far, clear archaeological evidence has just not been found”