The BLACK Kings Russia Forgot

• The Abkhazians of Abkhazia (Blacks near the Black Sea)
• Dark Ages? That is when dark Black rulers successfully ruled Europe for centuries: When the Moors Ruled in Europe by Bettany Hughes and Timothy Copestake

USA was more racist than Nazi Germany to Owens

DVD DESCRIPTION: This critically acclaimed documentary explores the 700-year history of [Black] Islamic rule on the Iberian Peninsula [Spain and Portugal]. Although generations of Spanish historians have portrayed the Moors as brutish occupiers, recent research paints a much different picture. The Islamic invaders actually brought stunning advances in science and art to their territories. Oxford-educated historian Bettany Hughes gives modern viewers a rich, nuanced understanding of Islamic history and culture while visiting such sites as the Alhambra Palace and the Great Mosque at Cordoba.

REVIEW: "The drama seems infused, suddenly, with important complexity, with great questions of war, peace, civilian casualties" -- The Wall Street Journal

"highly informative and entertaining" -- Memorable TV

Is there a connection between India and Volga?

Sutra: Going Along with the Stream

SUTRA: Going Along with the Stream

How can we rise above?

(AN 4.5) “Meditators, there are four kinds of people found in the world. What are these four? There is:

1. the person who goes along with the stream;
2. the one who goes against the stream;
3. the one who is inwardly firm; and
4. the one who has crossed over and gone beyond, the [worthy one] who stands on high ground.

(1) “Who is the person who goes along with the stream? Here, one indulges in sensual pleasures and performs unskillful deeds (karma). This is called 'the person who goes along with the stream.'

Could I rise above and overcome ignorance?

(2) “Who is the person who goes against the stream? Here, one refrains from indulging in sensual pleasures, refrains from performing unskillful deeds. Even with pain and dejection, weeping with a tearful face, one lives the complete and purified spiritual life. This is called 'the person who goes against the stream.'

(3) “Who is the person who is inwardly firm? Here, with the utter destruction of the five lower fetters, some person is of spontaneous rebirth [in some superior world or other], due to attain final nirvana (nibbāna) there without ever returning from that world. This is called 'the person who is inwardly firm.'

Blissful and at ease

(4) “And who is the one who has crossed over and gone beyond, the noble one who stands on high ground? Here, with the destruction of the taints, some person has realized for oneself with direct knowledge, in this very life, the taintless liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, and having entered in it, one dwells in it. This is called 'the person who has crossed over and gone beyond,' the noble person who stands on high ground.

“These, meditators, are the four kinds of persons found in the world.”

Those people who are unrestrained in [pursuing] sense pleasures,

not free of lust, indulging in sense pleasures here,

repeatedly coming back to rebirth and old age again,

immersed in craving, are “the ones who go along with the stream.”

Therefore, a wise person with mindfulness established,

not resorting to sense pleasures and unskillful deeds,

gives up sense pleasures even if it is painful to do so:

they call this person “one who goes against the stream.”

One who has abandoned five defilements,

a fulfilled trainee, unable to fall back,

attained to mind’s mastery, with faculties composed:

this person is called “one inwardly firm.”

One who has comprehended things high and low,

burned them up, so they are done and exist no more:

that sage who has lived the supreme spiritual life,

reached the end of the world (samsara), is called

“one who has gone beyond.”

• Do our companions matter? Samseva
• Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), suttacentral.net, edited by Dhr. Seven, Aṅguttara Nikāya, Numerical Discourses, The Book of the Fours (AN 4.5), Wisdom Quarterly

Walking on water, high cost of eggs

O, Sea Spirit, we were shipwrecked! - Thank the Dragon King for saving you, Good Man.

.

Silanisamsa Jataka: Noble friendship [and the high cost of eggs]

How to get rid of predators stealing your eggs

(Jat 190) The Buddha told this story at Jetavana, the Jeta's Grove Hermitage, about a virtuous lay follower. One evening, when this faithful disciple came to the bank of the Aciravati River on his way to Jetavana to hear the Buddha, there was no boat at the landing stage.

• 

  The Buddha is best noble friend

  [What is "noble" friendship (kalyāṇa-mittatā) in Buddhism? The greatest thing about a "noble" (enlightened) friend, whether a layperson as in this case or a monastic, is the opportunity to HEAR the Dhamma, the Buddha's Teachings that lead to enlightenment and nirvana. They speak of it when they speak, though often pleased just with quietude and noble silence, are just by their being fine examples of good conduct, virtuous, uplifting (although capable of misconduct and even immorality until they reach the stage of arahant even if the popular misconception is that a stream-enterer immediately becomes morally flawless and of perfect conduct, never mind what the Ratana Sutta has to say about it). The Noble Sangha (lit., "community of enlightened beings"), which includes every being attained at least to the stage of stream-entry or possibly even the two preliminary stages (saddhanusari and dhammanusari), is one of the "Three Treasures" (ti-ratana) or Jewels, the ultimate guides for beings subject to suffering (disappointment in this unending Cycle of Rebirth, which can be brought to an end (nirodha) but never ends by itself). There are by this reckoning seven such "noble ones." However, Ven. Upatissa's Path of Freedom has more details on the three types of stream-enterers (the sattakkhattu-parama facing as many as seven more rebirths, the kolaṅkola or "passing from one noble family to another" is the stream-enterer who may be reborn fewer times and travel from teacher or school until settling down with the right one and reaching nibbana, and the eka-biji or "one-seeder" or "germinating only once more" stream-enterer, each weakening the further fetters binding one to ignorance and the Wheel of Becoming or Cycle of Rebirth, see AN 9.12), which is more helpful than the standard condensed Path of Purification enumeration of just four stages of enlightenment/awakening.]
• [The Threefold Training that leads to enlightenment]
• [There are cankers, corruptions, biases to overcome]

The ferrymen had pulled their boats onto the far shore and themselves gone to hear the Buddha. However, the disciple's mind was so full of delightful thoughts of the Buddha that even though he walked into the river, his feet did not sink below the surface: He walked on water, going across as if on dry land.

But when he noticed the waves as he reached the middle of the river, his ecstasy subsided and his feet began to sink. Then as soon as he again focused his mind on the qualities of the Buddha, his feet rose and he was able to continue walking joyously over the water.

When he arrived at Jetavana, he paid his respects to the Teacher and took a seat respectfully to one side.

"Good layman," the Buddha said, addressing the disciple, "I hope you had no mishap on your way."

"Venerable sir," the disciple replied, "while coming here, I was so absorbed in thoughts of the Buddha that, when I came to the river, I was able to walk on water and cross it as though it were solid."

"Friend," the Blessed One said, "you are not the only one who has been protected in this way. In olden days, virtuous laymen were shipwrecked in mid-ocean and saved themselves by remembering the virtues of the Buddha." At the man's request, the Buddha then told this story of the past.

Story of the past: Jataka

It's not a sutra, Homer, it's a jataka. - Shut up, Flanders! *Whisper* I'll be back for those eggs.

.

This ship is going to sink, friend.

Long, long ago, at the time of the Buddha Kassapa [3], a lay [stream-enterer] disciple who had already entered the path [reached the first stage of enlightenment] booked passage on a ship with his friend, a rich barber.

The rich barber's wife asked the disciple to look after her husband. But a week after it left port, the ship sank in the middle of the ocean.

The two friends saved themselves by holding on to a plank of wood and were eventually cast up on the shore of a deserted island rookery.

Famished, the foolish barber raided egg nests, killed birds, slaughtered and cooked them, offering a share of his bloody meal to the Buddha's disciple.

Farmer trying to steal the mother chicken's babies/eggs goes viral

The wise go for guidance to the Buddha.

"No thank you," the disciple answered, "I'm fine" [not wishing to encourage the foolish barber in his defilements or unskillful karma]. He thought to himself, "In this desolate place, there is no help [guidance] for us here except the Three Jewels [the Buddha, Dhamma, and noble Sangha]."

As he sat meditating on the Three Jewels, a naga (reptilian, dragon, CDs) king who had been reborn on that island magically transformed himself into a beautiful ship filled with the seven precious things [4]. Its three masts were made of sapphire, the planks and anchor of gold, and the ropes of silver.

The naga king transforms into a ship to save the good man

The helmsman, who was a sea spirit, stood on the deck and yelled, "Passengers for Jambudipa [earth, subcontinent, or India] now boarding for immediate passage!"

"Yes," the virtuous lay disciple called back, "that's where we're bound!"

"Then come aboard," the sea spirit invited.

The virtuous layman climbed aboard the beautiful ship and turned to call his friend the foolish barber.

Go vegan with an abundant mindset: How much are New Yorkers

willing to pay for Eggs? Josh Johnson investigates | The Daily Show

(The Simpsons) Stealing to kill and devour mother and their offspring

"You may come," the sea spirit declared "but he may not."

"Why not?" the disciple asked.

"He is no follower of the pure life," answered the sea spirit. "I brought this ship for you, but not for him."

"If that's the case," the virtuous layman announced, "then all the gifts I have given, all the virtues [restraints and exertions] I have practiced, all the powers I have developed — I give the fruit of all of them to him!"

"Thank you, Master!" cried his friend the barber.

"Very well," relented the sea spirit, "now I can take both of you aboard."

List of the Buddha's rebirth tales or Jataka Stories (Wiki)

.

The ship carried the two men across the sea and up the Ganges River that pours into it. After depositing them safely at their home in Baranasi [the holy ancient city of Varanasi/Benares], the sea spirit used his magic power to create enormous wealth for both of them. Then, poising himself mid-air, he instructed them and their friends:

"Keep company with the wise and good. If this barber had not been in the company of this virtuous layperson, he would have perished in the middle of the ocean."

• 

  McDharma's: Can the US get Beyond Meat?

  [Taking eggs from nests, killing birds to survive, the foolish barber was engaged in things that make sense to worldlings even though they are very unskillful karma capable of bringing one to ruin, storing up unwholesome deeds avoided by the wise who neither encourage nor engage in them. That is the high cost of eating eggs, bloody handed, eating babies (bird fetuses), depriving them of life. Who would eat the womb of a woman with the excuse, "No, this womb was not a baby yet because sperm hadn't impregnated it"? The same people eat eggs with blood, indicating the eggs were fertilized and ready to produce a baby chick. Similarly, people eat murdered chicken-mothers, hens who lay eggs, and their rooster partners, calling them "poultry," ignoring that they are sentient beings, conscious entities killed to keep human-ghouls fed on corpses. Going vegan/vegetarian might be a better and more compassionate, environmentally-conscious option.]

Finally, the sea spirit returned to his own abode, taking the naga king with him.

Having finished this recounting of the past, the Buddha identified the rebirth (jataka) and taught the Dhamma, after which the virtuous layperson listening to him entered the fruit of the second path [reached the second stage of enlightenment].

"On that occasion [in that past life]," the Buddha said, "that disciple attained full enlightenment (arahantship). Sariputta was the naga king, and I myself was the sea spirit." Source

• List of Jatakas (Buddhist Rebirth Stories)
• Ken and Visakha Kawasaki (trans), Jataka Tales of the Buddha: Part III retold by the Kawasakis; edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

The Jewel Sutra (Ratana Sutta)

.

All beings gathered here

from earth and aether

may we all be happy at heart

to listen carefully to what is said.

All beings, heed:

Love human beings,

who day and night make offerings

and please protect them diligently.

There is no wealth here or beyond,

no sublime jewel found in heaven,

that equals the Enlightened One.

This sublime jewel is the Buddha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

Cessation, dispassion, deathless, sublime

attained by the Scythian Sage in samādhi --

without equal is that Dharma.

This sublime jewel is the Dharma:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

The purification praised by the Buddha Supreme

is said to be the “absorption with immediate fruit.”

No equal to that absorption is found.

This sublime jewel is the Dharma:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

The eight individuals praised by the wise

are the four pairs of the Awakened One’s disciples,

worthy of offerings and all other courtesies.

For what is given to them is abundantly fruitful.

This sublime jewel is the Noble Saṅgha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

I go for guidance to the Teacher, the Teaching, and the successfully Taught (tricycle.org)

.

Dedicated to the Buddha’s dispensation,

strong-minded, free of craving for sense,

they have attained the aim, plunged into deathless freedom

and enjoy a cooling they have thus gained.

This sublime jewel is the Noble Saṅgha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

As a boundary-post set firmly in the ground

is unshaken by winds of the four directions,

I say a supreme person is just this way,

who knows-and-sees the enlightening truths.

This sublime jewel is the Noble Saṅgha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

Those who fathom the enlightening truths [sacca]

taught by the one of deepest wisdom

do not undergo more than seven rebirths

even if they are extremely negligent.

This sublime jewel is the Noble Saṅgha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

When they attain the eye of wisdom,

they give up three things:

personality view, skeptical doubt, and

any clinging to rules or rituals.

They are freed from four miserable planes

and cannot do six heinous (karmic) actions.

This sublime jewel is the Noble Saṅgha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

Even if they do some unskillful deed

through body, speech, or mind,

they are unable to conceal it,

which is said of those who have seen the Truth.

This sublime jewel is the Noble Saṅgha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

As a tall forest tree springing flowers

in the first month of summer

he taught the supreme Dharma

leading to cessation, to ultimate freedom.

This sublime jewel is the Buddha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

The knower, giver, and bringer of the sublime

taught the most sublime Dharma.

This sublime jewel is the Buddha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

The past is ended, nothing anew is produced:

Their minds hanker after no future rebirth.

Spent seeds desire no growth,

The ever-mindful become as still as this lamp.

This sublime jewel is the Noble Saṅgha:

By this truth, may all beings be well!

All beings gathered here

of earth and aether,

the Enlightened One is honored by devas and humans!

We honor the Buddha! May all be safe!

All beings gathered here

of earth and aether,

the Enlightened One is honored by devas and humans!

We honor the Dharma! May all be safe!

All beings gathered here

of earth and aether,

the Enlightened One is honored by devas and humans!

We honor the Noble Saṅgha! May all be safe!

• Dhr. Seven (trans.), Kalyani (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Disadvantages of Sex Sutra (Snp 4.7)

Who is the ultimate Hollywood sex symbol promoted by the movie industry? Elvis?

.

CONTEXT: Tissa (7) had a friend named Metteyya ("Friend"). Together they visited the Buddha at Jetavana and, having listened to the Teaching, entered the monastic order. Metteyya went into seclusion in the forest with his new teacher. Not long after, he became fully enlightened.

Tall, dark, and handsome bad boy, sex symbol?

Tissa, on the other hand, lived in the city of Sāvatthi. And when his elder brother died, he returned home and was persuaded by his relations to revert to the lay life.

Later, Metteyya, on a journey with the Buddha, passed through the village and visited Tissa. He brought him once more to the Buddha. And the Buddha taught them the "Tissa-Metteyya Sutra," at the end of which Tissa became a stream-winner (sotāpanna, the first stage of enlightenment), later reaching full enlightenment (SN., p.160f; SNA.ii.535f, NidA.184). What did the Buddha say?

To Tissa Metteyya on the Disadvantages of Sex

I feel lust. - That's art. - I thought we were depicting truth and beauty. - Nah, just beauty.

• [Tissa asked:]

Attachment to sexual intercourse:

Sir, what are its disadvantages?

Having heard this Teaching then,

secluded, we will train ourselves.

• [The Buddha replied:]

Attached to sexual intercourse,

forgetful of the Teaching then,

wrong things that person practices,

and does what is ignoble.

• [*Not conducive to enlightenment; noble ones = Aryans = "the enlightened."]

Who formerly fared on alone

But again in sex indulges,

“Low” they call, a common worldling,

like transport that swerves off the track.

That one who had renown and fame —

it now surely diminishes.

Having seen this then train yourselves:

renounce sexual intercourse.

• What are the steps of training in detail?

Overcome by [low lustful] thoughts,

one slow broods, as a beggar does,

and hearing reproach of others,

such a person dejected is.

But for yourselves creating “arms”

of others’ reprimanding words,

so with great entanglement

sinks down into untruthfulness.

Well-known and called “one who is wise,”

who vows and lives the left-home life

but again engages in sex,

will then be called “a fool defiled.”

• There are other enumerations of mental defilements.

Disadvantages having seen,

the sage, to start and thereafter,

establishes the left-home life,

now no more resorting to sex.

So train yourselves in solitude,

for that’s the life of noble ones,

not conceiving yourselves as “best” —

having seen indeed nirvana.

• Noble ones (in any of the four stages of enlightenment) have glimpsed nirvana and no longer conceive of themselves as better then, worse than, nor equal to others.

The sage who’s rid of sense-cravings,

and to them is indifferent,

who’s crossed the flood, is envied then,

by those enmeshed in pleasures of sense.

• Some follow the Buddha, while others ordain and practice full-time
• G.P. Malalasekera, Pali Proper Names; Laurence (formerly Ven. Khantipalo) Mills (trans.), Tissametteyya Sutta (Sutta Nipata, 4.7) via suttacentral.net; compiled and edited by Dhr. Seven for Wisdom Quarterly

Ten Mental Defilements and Four Floods

Learn to surf, to "go with the flow," before the waves, before the flood (Sandra Dee/WQ).

Holy cow, the waves are coming to drown us in a flood of force we can't resist.

.

Fat Happy Budai loves to play through danger.

A "flood" (ogha) or taint (asava, lit. "influx") is another kind of defilement, of which there are four.

They are also referred to as "cankers, corruptions, or intoxicating biases" in Buddhism.

A list of four floods (as in DN 16, Pts.M., Vibhanga) exists, namely, the flood of:

1. sense-desire (kāmāsava)
2. [craving for eternal] existence (bhavāsava)
3. [wrong] views (ditthāsava)
4. ignorance (avijjāsava).

If waves are rolling in on us, what should we do? Run from the world or learn to surf?

.

Hey, I gotta get back to intensive surf training.

A list of three, omitting the "flood of views," is possibly older and is more frequent in the basket of discourses (Sutta Pitaka, e.g. in MN 2, MN 9, DN 33; A.III.59, 67; A.VI.63.

In the Vibhanga (Section 17, the Khuddakavatthu Vibhanga) both the threefold and fourfold division are mentioned. In addition to taints (asava), the fourfold division also occurs under the name of "floods" (ogha) and "yokes" (yoga).

Japanese Buddhists warned of tsunamis to come

Through the path of stream-entry -- the first stage of enlightenment (or initial phase of awakening) -- the flood of views is overcome.

Through the path of non-returning -- the third stage of enlightenment -- the third stage enlightenment -- flood of sense-desire (craving for sensual pleasures) is overcome.

Through the path of arhatship, the floods of craving for eternal existence and ignorance are overcome.

Cow-a-Bunga, I got this covered!

The "All the Taints Discourse" (Sabbasava Sutta, MN 2) shows how to overcome the floods, namely, through:

• insight,
• sense-control,
• avoidance,
• wise use of the necessities of life,
• and so on.

For a commentarial exposition, see Atthasālini (Tr. I, p. 63f: II, pp. 475ff).

Who's afraid of a flood, a tainted heart/mind?

Another name for a fully enlightened person or Buddhist arhat is khīnāsava, "one whose floods are overcome," "one whose taints are destroyed," or "one who is canker-free." This is a fully awakened individual.

The state of the arahat (Pali arahant) is frequently called āsavakkhaya, "the destruction of the taints."

Sutras concluding with the attainment of full enlightenment by the listeners often end with the words: "During this utterance, the hearts [minds] of the [hearers] were freed from the floods through clinging no more" (anupādāya āsavehi cittāni vimuccimsū'ti).

What are the Ten Defilements (kilesa)?

The great Theravada commentator Buddhaghosa compiles The Path of Purification.

.

"Defilements" (kilesa) are heart/mind-defiling, unwholesome qualities. According to The Path of Purification (Vis.M. XXII, 49, 65):

"There are ten defilements, thus called because they are themselves defiled, and because they defile the mental factors associated with them. They are:

• (1) greed (lobha),
• (2) hatred (dosa),
• (3) delusion (moha),
• (4) conceit (māna, the habit of self-reference),
• (5) speculative views (ditthi),
• (6) skeptical doubt (vicikicchā),
• (7) mental torpor (thīna),
• (8) restlessness (uddhacca);
• (9) shamelessness (ahirika),
• (10) lack of moral dread (anottappa)."

For 1-3, see "roots" (mūla); 4, see māna; 5, see ditthi; 6-8, see "Five Hindrances" (nīvarana); 9 and 10, see ahirika-anottappa.

The ten are explained in Dhs. 1229f and enumerated in Vibh. XII. No classification of these Ten Defilements is found in the sutras (Sutta Pitaka), though the term occurs quite often in them. For the related term, "impurities" (upakkilesa) different lists are given (Appendix).

• Ven. Nyanaponika, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, entry: āsava and kilesa (palikanon.com); edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

The Aryans and the Vedic Age: Brief History

Namit Arora, 1/2024; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Shauna Schwartz (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Man, this kind of Indian history is way better than American history about Indians.

Oh, how we worship our male gods, Hitler, Goebbels, Mengele, von Braun, and Little Eve.

Indians | Ep. 2: The Aryans and the Vedic Age | A Brief History of a Civilization

(The Wire) The story of [proto-India or Great Bharat] is one of profound and continuous change. It has been shaped by the dynamic of migration, conflict, mixing, coexistence, and cooperation.

Am I Aryan? The Right thinks so (Swift)

In this 10-part web series, Namit Arora tells the story of Indians and their civilization by exploring some of our greatest historical sites, most of which were lost to memory and were dug out by archaeologists.

He focuses on ancient and medieval foreign travelers whose idiosyncratic accounts conceal surprising insights about us Indians.

All along, Arora surveys India’s long and exciting churn of cultural ideas, beliefs, and values — some that still shape us today, and others that have been lost forever.

The series mostly mirrors — and often extends — the contents of his book, Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization.

Episode 2: The Aryans and the Vedic Age

Indians: A Brief History

After the decline of the Harappan Civilization, waves of Aryan [from the Steppes around the Stans and Ukraine] migrants arrived from Central Asia between 2000–1500 BCE.

A nomadic-pastoralist people of lighter skin, the Aryans were culturally different from the Subcontinent’s settled farmers and forest tribes of darker skin.

They brought along an early Sanskrit, proto-Vedas, Vedic [mostly male] gods, a [Brahmin] priestly class fond of fire rituals and oral chants, new social and [sexist] gender hierarchies, the horse and chariot.

Who will be US president: Kamala, Nikki, Vivek?

Mixing with the locals forged a lighter-skinned elite that spoke Indo-European languages, or Prakrits.

In the centuries ahead, larger political units led by tribal chiefs emerged in north India. War among Aryanized tribes like the Bharatas and Purus became common.

From this substrate and its social conflicts came the early stories of the Mahabharata, circa 1,000 BCE.

Indo-Aryan culture and languages became dominant in Aryavarta, whose cultural and material qualities Arora explores in this episode.

More than 1,000 years after the Harappans, the next cities arose in the Gangetic Plain in mid-first millennium BCE.

• The use of the word "Aryan" is not a coincidence. It was stolen by German Nazis along with other elements of Buddhist philosophy and legend (namely that of a world monarch chakravartin world ruler) by genius Nazi propagandist Goebbels. As for the problem of suffering (dukkha), "the final solution" would be the ultimate liberation (moksha), nirvana, cynically used by Nazi killers and eugenicists (inspired by earlier U.S. eugenic projects and programs) to refer to the extermination of invalids, the infirm, and "human parasites," including gays, Gypsies, and one other targeted groiup.

Scientific racism is real.

New states with money economies even flirted with democratic ideas. New hybrid cultures arose from the mixing of Indo-Aryans, post-Harappans, and ethnic groups whose ancestors had come to [proto-] India much earlier.

They forged new trades, lifestyles, and a thriving marketplace of spiritual and religious ideas.

This prolific age — of the early Upanishads, the Buddha, Mahavira [Jainism], Carvaka, Panini — would profoundly shape later Indians.

PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY/FOR FURTHER READING

• Anthony, David W, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, Princeton, 2010
• Bryant, Edwin, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate, OUP, 2001
• Devy, G N, Mahabharata: The Epic and the Nation, Aleph, 2022 Doniger, Wendy, The Hindus: An Alternative History, Penguin, 2009
• Jha, D.N., The Myth of the Holy Cow, Navayana, 2010 Joseph, Tony, Early Indians, Juggernaut, 2018
• Khan, Razib, The character of caste; Stark Truth About Aryans: a story of India; Stark Truth About Humans: a story of India, 'Unsupervised Learning' Substack, 2021
• Kristiansen, K., Kroonen, G., & Willerslev, E. (Eds.), The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited: Integrating Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics. CUP, 2023
• Kuz'mina, Elena E., The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, Brill, 2007
• Mohan, Peggy, Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages, Penguin, 2021
• Modi, Jivanji Jamshedji, ‘The antiquity of the custom of Sati’, Anthropological Papers, 1929
• Ollett, Andrew, Language of the Snakes: Prakrit, Sanskrit and the language order of premodern India, UC Press, 2017
• Olsen, Birgit Anette (editor), Tracing the Indo-Europeans: New evidence from archaeology and historical linguistics, Oxbow Books, 2019
• Parpola, Asko, The Roots of Hinduism, Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 96–7
• Reich, David, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the new science of the human past, OUP, 2018
• Sen, Sudipta, Ganga: The Many Pasts of a River, Gurgaon, Viking, 2019
• Shinde, Vasant, et al., ‘An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers’, Cell, Vol 179, Issue 3, Oct 17, 2019
• Silva, Marina, et al., ‘A genetic Chronology for the Indian Subcontinent Points to Heavily Sex-biased Dispersals,’ BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2017
• Singh, Upinder, Political Violence in Ancient India, Harvard UP, 2017
• Thapar, Romila, Early India, Penguin, 2002 Thapar, Romila, et al, Which of Us Are Aryans?, Aleph, 2019

Indians (Namit Arora)

Research, script, and narration by Namit Arora. Producer: The Wire. Director: Natasha Badhwar. Camera: Ajmal Jami. Video editor: Anam Sheikh.

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