Talk:Rarh region

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I'm working on the betterment of the article here. --Universal Life (talk) 12:15, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Universal Life:

• Please see WP:OR: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." If a source mentions somethng about "Gangaridae" and not "Rarh", you can't include it here arguing that the two are same.
• The region covered by the terms "Gangaridae" and "Rarh" overlaps, but the two terms are not exactly same. This is why other encyclopedias have separate articles about the two topics as well. For example, see Banglapedia (Radha and Gangaridai. utcursch | talk 12:06, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Finally, have a look at Wikipedia:Summary style: Gangaridai has its own article. This article already should have a summary style description of Gangaridae, not a huge set of quotes about Gangaridae. If you want to propose merging the two articles, please propose a merger instead of adding excessive details here. utcursch | talk 12:06, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Utcursch:

• First of all, the two terms are not exactly the same, because of their connotation and their uses in different contexts (just like deep and profound mean the same thing but used in different contexts).
• The only reason for them having separate articles is the above reason. The term Rarh is more of a (ethno-)geographical term (a region), while Gangaridai is more of an historico-political entity in Rarh, by the Rarhi people (the Kingdom of Rarh). So when talking about Rarh's history, you can't keep Gangaridai apart from it, it's an integral part of it.
• Another important fact is that Ganga-ridai is not an endonym, it's Rarh's name in Greek.
  • Ganga is the name of the Ganges river.
  • Rarh(a) is spelled Radh(a) (রাঢ়) in its local language.
  • In Ancient Greek it's spelled as Ριδαι (Ridai in simplistic transliteration, Rhidai in Classical Greek Transliteration and Latinised version as Ridae or Rhidae)
  • Thus, Γαγγα-Ριδαι (Ganga-Ridai) is the Ridai (Radha) of Ganges. (can't remember the accentuation exactly)
• You might think that this is OR, however this is an explanation found in many books in India and is a quite common knowledge for the people working in the field.
• Moreover, if you look at the history of the article Rarh, from the first edits, to almost all editors who contributed to the article have indicated this very same thing that Rarh (RADHA) is ganga-RIDAI.
• I think that it would be an incomplete history to have huge part of the history of a region kept apart from it. If the name Gangaridai wouldn't have come from Greek historians, now may be we would have two articles: Rarh (region) and Rarh (kingdom). However most of the materials we have for the kingdom of Rarh, comes from Western sources, thus the name Ganga-ridae!
• By the way, it is explicitely stated by the sources that the two are the same. If you read the books cited in the article Rarh, you can see that it is stated that Ganga-ridae is the name of what's locally known as the Kingdom of Rarh in India and Bangladesh. Some even directly state that Gangardai is the Greek name of Rarh (although in Western literature it has been used mostly for the name of the Kingdom, more than just the region).
• Overall, I agree with you that may be as per format etc. it's not the best to have all the quotes about Gangaridai within the Rarh article (the excessive details you mentioned.) However, mass blanking of everything Gangaridai (including important historical and geographical data, which I intended to extend, such as: Καμβύσων (Kambyson), Μέγα (Mega), Kamberikon, Ψευδόστομον (Pseudostomon) and Ἀντεβολη (Antebole) by Ptolemy and their local counterparts (names of river mouths as they're known today) and other important historical data).
• I hope you see now, that the reason we (and Banglapedia) have different articles is not because they're different things...just extensions of the same thing, one the region of Rarh and the other, the Kingdom of Rarh. And that it doesn't mean we can't include data on Gangaridae in the Rarh article. --Universal Life (talk) 13:22, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Universal Life: I've not removed all references to Gangaridae from the article. The only content that I've removed is:

1. The content cited using Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India by D. C. Sircar, which actually opposes the assertion that Gangaridae is an equivalent of Rāḍha (i.e. Rarh).
   • Page 215 disagrees with the 'Ridae = Rāḍha' etymology: "The name Gangaridae is sometimes is taken as a Greek corruption of Sanskrit Gaṅgā-rāṣṭra, Gaṅgā-rāḍha or Gaṅgā-hṛdaya. The unsoundness of this suggestions is clearly demonstrated [...] The name of the people is therefore actually Gange or Ganges and not Gangaridae which simply means the Ganges or Gangian people."
   • Page 217-218 equates Gangaridae with Vaṅga (not Rāḍha); and clearly mentions Rāḍha as Suhma, which is distinct from the Vaṅga territory: "the celebrated Vaṅga people, known from the ancient Indian literature, exactly in the same region where the Gangaridae or Gangians are placed by the Classical writers [...] accepted the submission of the Suhmas (verse 35) and subdued the Vaṅgas (verses 36-37) [...] The Suhma country, later called Rāḍha, lay on both banks of the Ajay river in the modern Burdwan region..."
2. The content cited using other similar references which simply mention Gangaridae, but do not make any assertion that it was equivalent to Rarh (The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea by Wilfred H. Schoff etc.)
3. Unsourced content

utcursch | talk 16:18, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Universal Life: Regarding this edit: Two of the references do not support the assertion.

As for PR Sarkar's Ráŕh – The Cradle of Civilization, I doubt this book is a good source. The author Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar was a poet-philosopher, not a historian or geographer. As indicated by the title ("The Cradle of Civilization"), the book makes absurd claims about the antiquity of Rarh. Here are a few quotes:

• "In that world uninhabited by human beings, the Ráŕh of those days was older than any other land."
• "Rainstorms and thunderbolts struck the mountains, and gradually the mountains diminished. Their snowy crowns fell off their heads, their height decreased. As the mountains became smaller and smaller through erosion, each river basin that lay between two mountains became higher. The undulating red soil that we see today in the west of Ráŕh, the undulation that advances ahead of us till it mingles in the remote blue, the undulation that gives a hint of some lost address as it recedes behind us – that undulating land is our Ráŕh.
• "The people of western Ráŕh migrated to eastern Ráŕh and set up habitation. This happened some lakhs of years ago. If human beings appeared a million years ago, then those inhabitants of the western Ráŕh of a million years ago found eastern Ráŕh to have been in a ready condition for them even before their birth."
• "...the origin of humankind in Ráŕh is very ancient. No trace can be found of any more ancient human habitation."
• "When the Aryans started coming into India, at a time when some had already come, and some were about to start from the barren, arid lands of Central Asia – Lord Sadáshiva, that great personality, the life and soul of everyone, was born. The people of Ráŕh came in touch with His eternal gospel and infallible guidance and received the much-desired touch of the enlivening wand of their Abhiiśt́a. Thus Ráŕh became the cradle of civilization."
• "Ráŕh was not only the starting-point of civilization, Ráŕh represented the first-ever steps towards cultural progress. The intermingling of the basins of small and big rivers, and the exchange of activities and ideas, laid the foundation for the civilization and the culture of Ráŕh, whose splendour in turn ushered in a golden dawn not only in Ráŕh, but also in the life of all of the underdeveloped humanity of that dark age. People of many lands started converging on Ráŕh to hear the páiṋcajanya, the clarion call, of humanity, and to join in singing the paean of humanity."
• "Though intellect is what makes a human being most venerable, one’s kśátra shakti [soldierly strength] and kśátra shaoryya [soldierly valour] can in no way be ignored. Vijaysingha, the son of Singhabahu the king of Singhapur(19) of southern Ráŕh, conquered Lanka [now Sri Lanka], and as a mark of his victory gave it the name Singhal. Pandu Basudev, the nephew of the sonless Vijaysingha, ascended the throne of Singhal in c. 534 BCE and conquered the south-western coast of India. The transplanted people of Bengal laid the foundation of the Nair society of Kerala. The Ráŕhii Brahmans of Bengal set sail for the coast of Konkan where they set up the Gaoŕiiya Sárasvata Brahman society. Sahasrabahu, another prince of Singhapur, founded the Thailand dynasty and named the country Shyámdesh. None of the above went as a conqueror; wherever they went they became sons of the soil and merged with the local inhabitants. This is a matter of great joy. The superiority of Ráŕh did not lie, as a hidden agenda, in the conquest of those lands; it lay in devoting themselves to the service of those new places. This was Ráŕh – Ráŕh the starting-point of civilization."

It's frankly ridiculous to use something like this as a source. We can discuss this at WP:RSN, if you disagree. utcursch | talk 17:05, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. Ok, about that edit specifically, I've already provided you with a source that big parts of Jharkhand is coterritorial with the Rarh region; in the diff of the edit.
2. Second of all, I totally disagree with you on Sarkar being an unreliable source. If you can put aside your sarcasm for a moment and not expect all sources to be written with the intent to be read by Western academical standards, you can understand the points below:
   1. P.R. Sarkar was a polymath, yes a controversial figure but also a very resorved person of high intelligence, who could easily combine various subjects into one thread. He was also a historian, called as such by many other Indian academicians, I won't bother to provide you with sources, you're welcome to search if you wish so.
   2. You've randomly taken many citations from his book, without understanding the basic things about the book and its purpose, audience etc.
   3. The book is a collection of discourses that he has given, in Bengali, to the masses...He uses poetic language of course because:
      • He aims in those discourses to inspire the public and
      • Also educate them with very deep knowledge, given in the most simple language.
   4. Therefore you could say, the aim is two-faceted; imparting knowledge - not in the strict Western academic style - and touch the heart of people who are connected with Rarh.
   5. Now let's come at your idea that the things above said are ridiculous. Which one? For example
      1. ...that Rarh is an extremely old land? ...that it existed before the advent of human beings? Let me quote you Senior Anthropologist S. Chakraborthy [1]

         There are no signs of terra incognito (break in continuum) in the Subarnarekha valley, unlike any other site in India.

      2. Given the fact that Rarh (and the Subarnarekha valley in it) are part of the Gondwana landmass. It's not such a ridiculous idea now to think that it could be one of the oldest soils on earth. Right?
      3. What's the problem with the second citation you've given...He simply describes geographical events in a literary style.
      4. Authors in history are known to use some terms in some specific meanings. For example Sarkar consistently used through his entire publications human beings as synonym of Homo sapiens not Homo sapiens sapiens, neither Homo. If, instead of randomly quoting, you had carefully read the place where he speaks about the origin of mankind, you could see that he's supporting the multiregional origin hypothesis. And also, the earliest Homo sapiens (according to the inclusionist theory, that include H. sapiens neardenthalensis and others within the same species) is from 900,000 years ago.

         Human beings originated at a few particular points on this planet. Even without getting into a detailed discussion as to which humans appeared first and which appeared later, I can say that the origin of humankind in Ráŕh is very ancient.

      5. Quoting from the source I've provided up here [2]:

         Evidence of the oldest human habitation in India — dating back to 2 to 1.2 million years — has been found on the banks of the Subarnarekha in Jharkhand. A 50-km stretch between Ghatshila in Jharkhand and Mayurbhanj in Orissa has yielded tools which suggest the site could be unique in the world with evidence of human habitation without a break from 2 million years ago to 5,000 BC.

      6. The one you gave in the last quote are also proven facts:
         1. Vijaysingha was in fact a famous king of Sri Lanka. And even Banglapedia says he was originally from Lala (Rarh). There are other sources as well.
         2. Pandu Vasudev is also the king after Prince Vijaya (you can check the WP in Catalan, much better told there in detail).
      7. So, I know the language is very unusual for the Western audience, there are a lot of facts given without trying to provide reasoning...like I could say;

         Emptiness permeates everywhere. -or

         We and almost all matter are almost all empty space. -or

         99% of you is empty space. - and I could add

         Observers of the universe affect on its reality. -and add

         8 billion years ago this planet and the sun were just a gaseous substance.

      8. All these statements may sound unreliable to the reader however, they're actually all science-based truths. The first 3 sentences are actually saying the same thing in different ways. The fourth one is relativity, a sentence Einstein would vehemently agree. And if an expert of a subject wrote in his own journal or gave a speech to people outside his area, could easily say gaseous substance instead of molecular cloud.
   6. One more fact is that the book is composed of several chapters. Some chapters deals with religion in detail (Shiva worship, phallus warship, Jainisim etc.), some with the education system in different eras, some about geography, some about linguistics, some about history...of Rarh. So taking random sentences here and there, together with the fact that the book contains discourses of spiritual nature, doesn't make the information on geography somehow unreliable. --Universal Life (talk) 18:55, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Universal Life: Thanks for adding a new ref, but this one is not a good source either. First of all, it doesn't mention Bihar. Secondly, books by Gyan publications are not optimal sources: this has been discussed several times in the past (a couple of examples: Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks/Archive 4#Gyan Publishing House and Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 42#Problem with ISHA books as references).

As for P R Sarkar, sorry, but I've to disagree with you here. Neither the concepts like Gondwana and multiregional origin hypothesis, nor non-peer-reviewed news stories like this one support the author's pseudo-scientific views. "Vijayasingha" is a legendary person, and legends about him also describe magic and mythical creatures. A book that mixes such legends (and pure mythology like "Lord Sadáshiva") with history is not a good source in my opinion. Since there is no agreement here, I've dropped a note at WP:RSN and WT:IN to seek third-party opinions.

Also, two of the references cited right now still do not support the assertion -- I'm not sure what's the point of retaining these. utcursch | talk 20:05, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't understand you. Why are you making things more and more complicated? I'm trying to bring the argument cycle into a simpler place, but you're making it bigger by carrying them over to other places. If the subject is whether parts of Jharkhand and Bihar is indeed also part of the toponym called Rarh, why don't you just look at google maps, putting pins to the geographical bounderies given by the references you trust...and then see with your own eyes that the modern states of Jharkhand and Bihar actually do share part-territories with Rarh. Rarh is an ancient concept and modern states are just that, new in time. So, not every researcher of Rarh (and there are very few indeed) need to connect the two...But this is geography and you can always verify it from maps, you don't need written evidence to see that the sky is blue. Respectfully --Universal Life (talk) 20:19, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'm sorry. You are not making things more complicated, I misunderstood you. I've just seen the posts you have posted. I just didn't want it to become a huge discussion and get out of hand and forget to concentrate on the main subject, which is the article itself. --Universal Life (talk) 20:24, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've no problem with Jharkhand: the Banglapedia article (which is a reliable source) mentions Santal Parganas as a part of Rarh. But I don't see Bihar being mentioned as a part of Rarh in this source (or any other reliable source cited in the article). Also, as I've mentioned above, I don't think Sarkar's book should be used as a source. utcursch | talk 20:46, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Universal Life: Regarding this edit: Please explain how this is a reliable source. utcursch | talk 17:05, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Utcursch: This used to be a good source, I can see that the webpage has collapsed. --Universal Life (talk) 09:37, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Utcursch: Are these reliable sources? Can they be used in citations? --Universal Life (talk) 09:40, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all. Wikis are classified as WP:SPS. utcursch | talk 15:27, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. --Universal Life (talk) 16:28, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Utcursch: I've read the entire passage in the source you provided (Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India). However, the source only explains that Gangaridae in Greek etymologically doesn't come from Ganga-Radha etc. and that it literally means the Gangetic people. There is no evidence in the source book saying that Gangaridae are not Rarhi people. On the contrary, it does say that the ancient sources geographically places the Gangaridae in Bengal.

On top, expressions such as However, this is not correct: are POV-statements and go against the neutrality principle of the WP, needless to say that it's not an encyclopaedic expression. Instead it should state both views according to x, y, z...Gangaridae derives from.... That would be NPOV. Respectfully --Universal Life (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Universal Life: I agree with the suggestion that the Sircar's views should be attributed to him. As for Gangaridae, I have not removed anything about the Gangaridae from the Geography section. That said, "Rarh" is not same as "Bengal": Sircar identifies the Gangaridae with the Vanga people, whose territory (also in Bengal) he distinguishes from the Rāḍha/Suhma region. By the way, "Rarh = Gangaridae" is just one of the several theories about the location of Gangaridae. There are several other suggestions, including a greater part of Bengal, and even areas other than Bengal. I'll update the Gangaridai and this one sometime later, with sources. utcursch | talk 21:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Utcursch: Yes you haven't and - not to be misunderstood - I didn't mean to imply that you did. Mine was just informative for just in case for future edits :) Anyway, unfortunately Sircar's views on the etymology are unreliable. He is not a linguist, at least he doesn't seem to have worked with Ancient Greek. I have started learning A. Greek at 17 and took semesters of A. Greek grammar while I was at university. The epenthetic -ρ- (-r-) that Sircar explains didn't seem logical to me (in British English it does, but not in A. Greek), so I honestly checked one-by-one all words suffixed by -ίδης (-ides), singular of -ίδαι (-idai). None of the word roots ending by a vowel, had an "r" in between itself and the suffix. There is no evidence of such a consonant addition as Sircar explains. You can see:

Ἀριστείδης (Aristeides) is from the root Ariste (Ἀριστε-ύς) + the suffix -idae; whose plural is Aristeidai (Ἀριστείδαι) and not Aristeridai.

Better example (as the end of the root is -ᾱ, just like in Ganga): Νῑκολᾱΐδης (Nikolaides), from Νῑκόλᾱ-ος (Nīkólā-os) + -ίδης (-ídēs the patronymic suffix). In this example, according to Sincar it should have been Νῑκολᾱρΐδης (Nikolarides) and its plural Νῑκολᾱρΐδαι (Nikolaridai). However it is Νῑκολᾱΐδαι (Nikolaidai).:D And there are many more examples like this.

I have found one word ending in -ridai, formed out of this suffix: Τυνδαρίδαι (Tyndaridai), however "r" is part of the root word Τυνδάρεως (Tyndareos) and not an epenthetic infix as Sincar has suggested in Gangaridai. I don't see any reliability on which Sircar is basing his etymological hypothesis. Best regards --Universal Life (talk) 22:02, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind removal of the Gangaridai bit from the etymology section. I'm unable to find a better source (Sarkar isn't acceptable, as discussed at WP:RSN). "Gaṅgā-rāṣṭra", "Gaṅgā-rāḍha", and "Gaṅgā-hṛdaya" are all conjectural roots, and I doubt there is a better source for these. utcursch | talk 01:08, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, we haven't established that Sarkar isn't a reliable source. And for etymology of Gangaridai specifically it doesn't matter because he doesn't elaborate an etymology, just states that Rarh was called Ganga ridae by the Greek.

1. Just about that, we have tons of sources, such as blogs and writers who write about subjects that are not their field and many of them is routinely used and accepted as RSs in the WP. (I don't mean they should, some of them should be removed but not all, logic and common sense should be used regarding the well-being of the WP.)
2. And Sarkar has written more than 300 books - a underrated polymath - and if you had read his books on Economics, if you had eyed his 26-volume encyclopedia on the etymology of Bengali etc. you wouldn't be able to make comments such as the ones you made above, about those works. His book on Rarh, as I mentioned earlier, is a collection of the discourses, speeches he made. You have to understand that Rarhi people is one the poorest and most-underdeveloped societies in India. Sarkar, as he deeply felt for the suffering people (in his own words) - apart from his genius books - also gave popular speeches to encourage and to give self-confidence to those people. Now, if editors who collected his speeches, chose to include the popular speeches, alongside academic ones, still it doesn't diminish the value of the academic speeches given by Sarkar.
3. If some editors would publish Einstein's university lectures and if they also published his quotes on "God and the universe" in the first chapter of the book they edit, taking passages from the first chapter and using it to make the book seem not-reliable doesn't in fact prove that the book is non-RS and it doesn't diminish the value of the next chapters (relevant to Physics) at all. Because those following chapters are not tied to the first one, like in classic books. The same applies for the book Rarh - The Cradle of Civilisation.

Second, Sarkar is not the one giving etymologies such as Ganga-Hrday, Ganga-Rastha etc. There are tons of sources (not all of them in English unfortunately) that makes such statements. So we have to include that some people derive it that way, and some people the other way as neutrally as possible.
Yes, I agree that the sources can be bettered, but you know it takes time, we are not writing about Britney Spears here, we're not full of online sources here. But I'll see my best how I can really provide better sources here and even add page numbers of the books, where the source info is being taken from.
Overall, the main goal here is to create a reliable but also a well-written encyclopedic article with correct information, isn't it? --Universal Life (talk) 09:12, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Utcursch: Native language of this region is Bengali. According to Bhasacharja Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, he classified Bengali language as five main dialects. Among them Rarh and Jharkhandi are two most important dialects of Bengali language. These two dialects of Bengali are the main and most spoken native language of Rarh region. Hindi is not native language of Jharkhand. According to census report of India govt. Bangali is the largest ethinic people of jharkhand. They are 42% of jharkhand's total population. Odia is not concern here as Odia is native to Orissa , not in Rarh. পশ্চিমবাংলা (talk) 04:00, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@পশ্চিমবাংলা: Please see WP:INDICSCRIPT. As for Odia, Hindi and other languages, feel free to add {{citation needed}} tags or remove them -- I've no problem with that. utcursch | talk 18:04, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@পশ্চিমবাংলা: Dear Paschim Bangla, I agree with you completely that Bengali is the main language of Rarh, especially Rarhi Bengali. However the infobox asks for official languages and even though Bengali is the main langauge, Hindi is an official language in Jharkhand, so technically we have to include it. Universal Life (talk) 14:21, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]