Are Idlis of Foreign Origin? Shrikant G. Talageri Right from my college days, when I was doing research in every single field of culture (natural, ethnic, civilizational) to show the sum-total greatness of Indian culture as encompassing range, variety and every stage of development in every field of culture, I was aware of an insidious trend in the writings of people with an agenda to chip away at the image of India as the source of so many important things, and countering such attempts was always one of the intended aspects of my research. It is not that I was ever the kind of chauvinist who wanted to show that everything originated in India. Even in my writings on the Rigveda, I have pointed out that while the IE family of languages originated in India, certain very important things even in the religion of the Rigveda, like the Soma ritual, did have an origin outside India, in the mountains of Central Asia, and these rituals were introduced to the Vedic people through the Bhṛgu rishis (originally) the priests of the Anu tribes to the west of the Vedic (Pūru) area, but well within India, who themselves acquired these rituals from further northwest. I do not believe in the principle satyameva jayate (truth always wins), because an honest look at what happens in real life shows that truth very rarely wins; but I do believe in the principle satyameva jayatu (truth should always win, or, let truth always win) and it has always been a guiding principle in my life to stand by the truth as indicated by the facts and data, so I have never belonged to the "everything originated in India" school of thought even though I wanted to prove the greatness of Indian culture. The number of things believed to be Indian but which are slowly being attributed to outside sources is getting longer and longer, as the Breaking India Forces who are mainly engaged in the main task of trying to break out certain sections of Indian people from the other sections (on the grounds of language, ethnicity, caste, sect, etc) take some time out on minor pursuits like proving that many Indian items of culture (in music, dance, plants, food, etc, etc. ) actually originated outside India. It requires just one or two speculative hints in any article or book, to trigger off a