Andrew, its "Padma Bushan," not "Padma Bushwan."

Thanks.

Tangentially, there is a recent book--The Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David Anthony--that includes one of the most understandable explanations of how Indo-European linguistics works and how it might relate to archaeological research. Since Anthony is himself an archaeologist, there is a little too much information in the archaeological sections, but he makes a good argument for linking linguistic changes with archaeological changes, and his discussion helps to correct the impression most people seem to get, when one talks about the linguistic relationship between Tocharian and Celtic languages, that a bunch of geographically bemused Irishmen, no doubt loaded up on poitin, somehow wandered off into western China. (Briefly, what happened is that two bunches of people at roughly the same degree of distance from the original Indo-European language(s) and culture(s), wandered off in different directions. But Anthony explains it better and in more detail!)

Very interesting article and I will look with interest as more information emerges from this immensely interesting period of our early history. The process of recording history has long been subject to concerns for faith & politics more than objectivity and so much remains to be scraped clean of the patina of propaganda long carried on the surface. Fortunately some objective data remains beneath and here is where the true story will amaze and astonish us even today.

This is an interesting story.

Actually, the Tocharians themselves remain pretty hard to place exactly. The odd thing about Tocharian is that as an Indo-European language it is geographically displaced from languages within its own linguistic division (i.e. other Centum languages). Indo-European languages are divided into Centum and Satem language groups, the word for one hundred (100) in Latin and Sanskrit respectively. Roughly speaking, Centum languages are found in Western Europe and Satem languages are found in Eastern Europe, Iran, and Northern India. Tocharian was generally spoken to the north and east of Iran in Central Asia.

One clue alluded to here concerning who the Tocharians might have been was uncovered (literally) early at the beginning of the last century when a cache of mummies was discovered in the Tarim Basin in western China. The mummies had been preserved as a result of the arid climate conditions.

Initially, the discoverers were stumped as to what to make of them. They were surprised to find that these mummies were apparently (verified subsequently) the bodies of an ancient (1800 BCE) Western European-related people. Humans depicted on frescoes found in the general vicinity were also mostly Western-European in appearance. Mummies with red and blond hair were found. From thence comes the allusion to the Irish.

There's an interesting book that covers not only issues surrounding the "mystery" of the Tocharians both genetically and linguistically (and in many other ways), but also details the history of the excavations as well.

The book is "The Tarim Mummies" by J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair, Thames & Hudson, Ltd., London 2000.