[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Demise of Aryan Racial/Invasion Theory
-
Subject: Demise of Aryan Racial/Invasion Theory
-
From: "Dinesh Agrawal" <DXA4@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
-
Date: 8 Nov 1995 00:17:04 GMT
-
Approved: srh <srh@rbhatnagar>
-
Article: 522 of soc.religion.hindu
-
Newsgroups: soc.religion.hindu
-
Organization: none
Demise of Aryan Invasion/Race Theory
(Dr. Dinesh Agrawal)
Aryan Race and Invasion Theory is not a subject of academic interest
only, rather it conditions our perception of India's historical evolution,
the sources of her ancient glorious heritage, and indigenous
socio-economic-political institutions which have been developed over the
millennia. Consequently, the validity or invalidity of this theory has an
obvious and strong bearing on the contemporary Indian political and social
landscape as well as the future of Indian nationalism. The subject matter
is as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago when it was cleverly
introduced in the school text books by British rulers. The last couple of
decades have witnessed a growing interest among scholars, social scientists,
and many nationalist Indians in this some what vapid and prosaic subject due
to their aunguish on the great damage this theory has wrought on the psyche
of the Indian society, and its tremendous contribution in creating apparently
lasting schism between the different sections of the Hindu society. This
subject must especially and urgently interest to all those people who
are committed to the ideology of Hindutva, for one of the primary and
fundamental premises of Hindutva philosophy lies in the fact that the Indian
cultural nationalism has been evolved and fostered over the millenia by our
ancient rishis who at the banks of holy rivers of Saptasindhu had composed the
Vedic literature - the very foundation of Indian civilization, and realised the
eternal truth about the Creator, His creation, and means to preserve it. The
fact that these pioneers of the ancient Vedic culture and hence the Hinduism
were indigenous people of mother India, is mendaciously denied by the Aryan
Invasion theory which professes their foreign origin. If such a false theory
is allowed to perpetuate and given credence without any tenable and reliable
basis, the very raison d'etre of Hindutva is endangered. In this essay, an
attempt has been made to expose the myth of Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)
based on scriptural, archaeological evidences and proper interpretation of
Vedic verses, and present the factual situation of the ancient Vedic society
and how it progressed and evolved into all-embracing and catholic principle,
now known as Hindusim.
The Aryan issue is quite controversial and has been the focus of historians,
archaeologists, Indologists, and sociologists for over a century. AIT is merely
a proposed 'theory', and not a factual event. And theories keep modifying, are
discredited, nay even rejected with the emergence of new knowledge and data
pertaining to the subject matter of the theories. The AIT can not be accepted
as Gospel truth knowing fully well its shaky and dubious foundations, and now
with the emergence of new information and an objective analysis of the
archaeological data and scriptures, the validity of AIT is seriously challenged
and it stands totally untenable. The most weird aspect of the AIT is that it
has its origin not in any Indian records (no where in any of the ancient
Indian scriptures or epics or Puranas, etc. is there any mention of this
AIT, sounds really incredible!), but in European politics and German
nationalism of 19th century. AIT has no support either in Indian literature,
tradition, science, or not even in any of the south Indian (Dravidians,
inhabitants of south India, who were supposed to be the victims of the
so-called Aryan invasion) literature and tradition. So a product of European
politics of the 19th century was forced on Indian history only to serve the
imperialist policy of British colonialists to divide the Indian society on
ethnic and religious lines in order to continue their reign on the one hand
and accentuate the religious aims of Christian missionaries on the other.
There is absolutely no reference in Indian traditions and literature of an
Aryan Invasion of Northern India, until the British imperialists imposed this
theory on an unsuspecting and gullible Indian society and introduced it to the
school curriculum. The irony is that this is still taught in our schools as an
unmitigated truth, and the authorities who set the curriculum of Indian
history books are not yet prepared to accept the verdict, and make the amends.
This is truly a shame! Now, more and more evidence is emerging which not only
challenges the old myth of Aryan Invasion, but also is destroying all the
pillars on which the entire edifice of AIT had been assiduously but
cleverly built.
It is a known fact that most of the original proponents of AIT were not
historians or archaeologists but had missionary and political axe to grind. Max
Muller in fact had been paid by the East India Company to further its colonial
aims, and others like Lassen and Weber were ardent German nationalists, with
hardly any authority or knowledge on India, only motivated by the superiority
of German race/nationalism through white Aryan race theory. And as everybody
knows this eventually ended up in the most calamitous event of 20th century:
the World War II. Even in the early times of the AIT's onward journey of
acceptability, there were numerous challengers like C.J.H. Hayes, Boyed C.
Shafer and Hans Kohn who made a deep study of the evolution and character
of nationalism in Europe. They had exposed the unscientificness of many of the
budding social sciences which were utilized in the 19th century to create the
myth of Aryan Race Theory.
In the last couple of decades, the discovery of the lost track of the Rig
Vedic river Saraswati, the excavation of a chain of Harappan sites from Ropar
in the Punjab to Lothal and Dhaulavira in Gujarat all along this lost track,
the discovery of the archaeological remains of Vedis (alters) and Yupas
connected with Vedic Yajnas (sacrifices) at Harrapan sites like Kalibangan,
decipherment of the Harappan/Indus script by many scholars as a language
belonging to Vedic Sanskrit family, the view of the archaeologists like Prof.
Dales, Prof. Allchin etc. that the end of the Harappan civilization came not
because of the so called Aryan invasion but as a result of a series of floods,
the discovery of the lost Dwarka city beneath the sea water near Gujarat coast
and its similarity with Harappan civilization - all these new findings and an
objective, accurate and contextual interpretation of Vedas indicate
convincingly towards the full identity of the Harappan/Indus civilization with
post Vedic civilization, and demand a re-examination of the entire gamut of
Aryan Race/Invasion Theories which have been forcefully pushed down the throats
of Indian society by some European manipulators and Marxist historians all
these years.
For thousands of years the Hindu society has looked upon the Vedas as the
fountainhead of all knowledge: spiritual and secular, and the mainstay of Hindu
culture, heritage and its existence. Never our historical or religious records
have questioned this fact. Even western and far eastern travellers who have
documented their experiences during their prolonged stay and sojourn in India
have testified the importance of Vedic literature and its indigenous origin.
And now, suddenly, in the last century or so, these the so-called European
scholars are pontificating us that the Vedas do not belong to Hindus, they were
the creation of a barbaric horde of nomadic tribes descended upon north India
and destroyed an advanced indigenous civilization. They even suggest that the
Sanskrit language is of non-Indian origin. This is all absurd, preposterous,
and defies the commonsense. A nomadic, barbaric horde of invaders cannot from
any stretch of imagination produce the kind of sublime wisdom, pure and
pristine spiritual experiences of the highest order, a universal philosophy of
religious tolerance and harmony for the entire mankind, one finds in the Vedic
literature.
Now let us examine the origin and the conditions in which this historical fraud
was concocted.
Max Muller, a renowned Indologist from Germany, is credited with the
popularization of the Aryan racial theory in the middle of 19th century. Though
later on when Muller's reputation as a Sanskrit scholar was getting damaged,
and he was challenged by his peers, since nowhere in the Sanskrit literature,
the term Arya denoted a racial people, he recanted and pronounced that Aryan
meant only a linguistic family and never applied to a race. But the damage was
already done. The German and French political and nationalist groups exploited
this racial phenomenon to propagate the supremacy of an assumed Aryan race of
white people, which Hitler used to its extreme absurdities for his barbaric
crusade to terrorize Jews and other societies. This culminated in the
holocaust of millions of innocent people. Though now this racial nonsense has
mostly been discarded in Europe, but in India it is still being exploited and
used to divide and denigrate the Hindu society. Our aim is to expose myth about
AIT, and establish the truth of the identity of the pioneers of the Vedic
civilization and set the historical events after the Vedic period in proper
perspective and in realistic time frame.
What, really, is Aryan Invasion Theory?
According to this theory, northern India was invaded and conquered by
nomadic, light-skinned RACE of a people called 'ARYANS' who descended from
Central Asia (or some unknown land ?) around 1500 BC, and destroyed an earlier
and more advanced civilization of the people habitated in the Indus Valley and
imposed upon them their culture and language. These Indus Valley people were
supposed to be either Dravidian, or AUSTRICS or now--days' Shudra class etc.
The main elements on which the entire structure of AIT has been built are:
Arya is a racial group, their invasion, they were nomadic, light-skinned, their
original home was outside India, their invasion occurred around 1500 BC, they
destroyed an advanced civilization of Indus valley, etc. And what are the
evidences AIT advocates present in support of all these wild conjectures:
Invasion: Mention of Conflicts in Vedic literature, findings of skeletons at
the excavated sites of Mohanjodro and Harappa
Nomadic, Light-skinned: Pure conjecture and misinterpretation of Vedic hymns.
Non-Aryan/Dravidian Nature of Indus civilization: absence of horse, Shiva
worshippers, chariots, Racial differences, etc.
Date of Invasion, 1500 BC: Arbitrary and speculative, in Mesopotamia and Iraq
the presence of the people worshipping Vedic gods around 1700BC, Biblical
chronology
Major Flaws in Aryan Invasion Theory
A major flaw of the invasion theory was that it had no explanation for why
the Vedic literature that was assumed to go back into the second millennium BC
had no reference to any region outside of India. Also the astronomical
references in the Rig Veda allude to events in the third millennium BC and
even earlier, indicating origin ofVedic hymns earlier than 3000BC. The
contributions of the Vedic world to philosophy, mathematics, logic, astronomy,
medicine and other sciences provide one of the foundations on which rests the
common heritage of mankind, is well recognized but cannot be reconciled if
Vedas were composed after 1500BC. Further, if it is assumed that the so-called
Aryans invaded the townships in the Harappa valley and destroyed its habitants
and their civilization, how come after doing that they did not occupy these
towns? The excavations of these sites indicate that the townships were
abandoned. And if the Harappan civilization had a Dravidian origin, who were
allegedly pushed down to the south by Aryans, how come there is no
Aryan-Dravidian divide in the respective literatures and historical traditions.
The North and South have never been known to be culturally hostile to each
other. Prior to the descent of British on Indian scene, there was a continuous
interaction and cultural exchange between the two regions. The Sanskrit
language, the so-called Aryan language was the lingua-franca of the
entire society for thousands of years. The three greatest figures of later
Hinduism - Shankaracharya, Madhavacharya and Ramanujam were Southerners who
are universally respected in the North, and who have written commentaries on
Vedic scriptures in Sanskrit only for the benefit of the entire population.
Even in the ancient times some of the great Sutra authors like Baudhayana and
Apastamba were from South. Agastya, a celebrated Vedic rishi, is widely
venerated in the South as the one who introduced Vedic learning to the South
India. And also was the South India un-inhabitated prior to the pushing of the
original population of Indus Valley? If not, who were the original inhabitants
of South India, who accepted the newcomers without any hostility or fight?
There is enough positive evidence in support of the religious rites of the
Harappans being similar to those of the Vedic Aryans. Their religious motifs,
deities and sacrificial altars bespeak of Aryan faith, indicating continuity
and identity of Vedic culture with the Indus valley civilization.
If the Aryan Hindus were outsiders, why don't they name places outside India
as their most holy places? Why should they sing paeans in the praise of India's
numerous rivers crisscrossing the entire peninsula, and mountains -
repositories of life giving water and natural resources, nay even bestow them
a status of goddesses and gods. If Aryans were outsiders why should they
consider this land as the 'holy land' and not their original land as the 'holy
land' or motherland? For the Muslims, their holy placeis Mecca. For the
Catholics it is Rome or Jerusalem. For the Hindus, their pilgrim centers range
from Kailash in the North, to Rameshwaram in the South; and from Hingalaj
(Sindh) in the West to Parusuram Kund (Arunchala Pradesh) in the East. The
seven holy cities of Hinduism include Kanchipurum in the south, Dwaraka in the
west and Ujjain in central India. The twelve jyotirlings include Ramashwaram in
Tamil Nadu, Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh, Nashik in Maharashtra, Somnath in
Gujarat and Kashi in Uttar Pradesh. All these are located in greater India
only. No Hindu from any part of India has felt a stranger in any other part of
India when on a pilgrimage. The seven holy rivers in Hinduism, indeed, seem to
chart out the map of the holy land. The Sindhu and the Saraswati (now extinct)
originating from the Himalayas and move westward and southwards into the
western sea; the Ganga and the Yamuna also start in the Himalayas and move
eastward into the north-eastern sea; the Narmada starts in central India and
the Godavari starts in western India, while the Kaveri winds its way through
the south to move into the southern sea. More than a thousand years ago, Adi
Shankaracharya, who was born in Kerala, established several mathas (religious
and spiritual centers) including at Badrinath in the north (UP), Puri in the
east (Orissa), Dwaraka in the west (Gujarat), and at Shringeri and Kanchi in
the south. That is India, that is Bharat, that is Hinduism.
These are some of the obvious serious objections, inconsistencies, and
glaring anomalies to which the invasionists have no convincing or plausible
explanations which could reconcile the above facts with the Aryan invasion
theory and destruction of Indus Valley civilization.
Now let us examine the facts about the so-called evidences in support of AIT:
1. Real Meaning of the Word 'ARYA'
In 1853, Max Muller introduced the word 'Arya' into the English and European
usage as applying to a racial and linguistic group when propounding the Aryan
Racial theory. However, in 1888, he himself refuted his own theory and wrote:
" I have declared again and again that if I say Aryas, I mean neither blood nor
bones, nor hair, nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language...
to me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and
hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic
dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar." (Max Muller, Biographies of Words and
the Home of the Aryas, 1888, pg 120)
In Vedic Literature, the word Arya is nowhere defined in connection with
either race or language. Instead it refers to: gentleman, good-natured,
righteous person, noble-man, and is often used like 'Sir' or 'Shree' before
the name of a person like Aryaputra, Aryakanya, etc.
In Ramayan (Valmiki), Rama is described as an Arya in the following words:
Arya - who cared for the equality to all and was dear to everyone.
Etymologically, according to Max Muller, the word Arya was derived from ar-,
"plough, to cultivate". Therefore, Arya means - "cultivator" agriculturer
(civilized sedentary, as opposed to nomads and hunter-gatherers), landlord;
V.S. Apte's Sanskrit-English dictionary relates the word Arya to the root r-,to
which a prefix a has been appended to give a negating meaning. And therefore
the meaning of Arya is given as "excellent, best", followed by "respectable"
and as a noun, "master, lord, worthy, honorable, excellent", upholder of Arya
values, and further: teacher, employer, master, father-in-law, friend, Buddha.
So nowhere either in the religious scriptures or by tradition the word Arya
denotes a race or language. To impose such a meaning on this epithet is an
absolute intellectual dishonesty, deliberate falsification of the facts, and
deceptive-scholarship. There are only four primary races, namely, Caucasian,
the Mangolian, the Australians and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians
are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed in the same
Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference between the so-called Aryans of the
north and the Dravidians of the south or other communities of Indian
subcontinent is not a racial type. Biologically all are the same Caucasian
type, only when closer to the equator the skin gets darker, and under the
influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to get a little smaller. And
these differences can not be the basis of two altogether different races.
Similar differences one can observe even more distinctly among the people of
pure Caucasian white race of Europe. Caucasian can be of any color ranging
from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in between.
Similarly, the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin whiter than
many so-called Caucasians. Further, a recent landmark global study in
population genetics by a team of internationally reputed scientists over 50
years (The History and Geography of Human Genes, by Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo
Menozzi and Alberto Piazza, Princeton University Press) reveals that the
people habitated in the Indian subcontinent and nearby including Europe, all
belong to one single race of Caucasion type. According to this study, there is
essentially, and has been no difference racially between north Indians and the
so-called Dravidian South Indians. The racial composition has remained almost
the same for millennia. This study also confirms that there is no race called
as an Aryan race.
2. The voluminous references to various wars and conflicts in Rigveda are
frequently cited as the proof of an invasion and wars between invading
white-skinned Aryans and dark-skinned indigenous people. Well, the so-called
conflicts and wars mentioned in the Rigveda can be categorized mainly in the
following three types:
A. Conflicts between the forces of nature: Indra, the Thunder-God of the Rig
Veda, occupies a central position in the naturalistic aspects of the Rigvedic
religion, since it is he who forces the clouds to part with their all-important
wealth, the rain. In this task he is pitted against all sorts of demons and
spirits whose main activity is the prevention of rainfall and sunshine. Rain,
being the highest wealth, is depicted in terms of more terrestrial forms of
wealth, such as cows or soma. The clouds are depicted in terms of their
physical appearance: as mountains, as the black abodes of the demons who retain
the celestial waters of the heavens (i.e. the rains), or as the black demons
themselves. This is in no way be construed as the war between white Aryans and
black Dravidians. This is a perverted interpretation from those who have
not understood the meaning and purport of the Vedic culture and philosophy.
Most of the verses which mention the wars/conflicts are composed using poetic
imagery, and depict the celestial battles of the natural forces, and often take
greater and greater recourse to terrestrial terminology and anthropomorphic
depictions. The descriptions acquire an increasing tendency to shift from
naturalism to mythology. And it is these mythological descriptions which are
grabbed at by invasion theorists as descriptions of wars between invading
Aryans and indigenous non-Aryans. An example of such distorted interpretation
is made of the following verse:
The body lay in the midst of waters that are neither still nor flowing. The
waters press against the secret opening of the Vrtra (the coverer) who lay in
deep darkness whose enemy is Indra. Mastered by the enemy, the waters held back
like cattle restrained by a trader. Indra crushed the vrtra and broke open the
withholding outlet of the river. (Rig Veda, I.32.10-11)
This verse is a beautiful poetic and metamorphical description of snow-clad
dark mountains where the life-sustaining water to feed the rivers flowing in
the Aryavarta is held by the hardened ice caps (vrtra demon) and Indra, the
rain god by allowing the sun to light its rays on the mountains makes the ice
caps break and hence release the water. The invasionists interpret this verse
literally on human plane, as the slaying of vrtra, the leader of dark skinned
Dravidian people of Indus valley by invading white-skinned Aryan king Indra.
This is an absurd and ludicrous interpretation of an obvious conflict between
the natural forces.
B. Conflict between Vedic and Iranian people: Another category of conflicts in
the Rigveda represents the genuine conflict between the Vedic people and the
Iranians. At one time Iranians and Vedic people formed one society and were
living harmoniously in the northern part of India practising Vedic culture,
but at some point in the history for some serious philosophical dispute, the
society got divided and one section moved to further north-west, now known as
Iran. However, the conflict and controversy were continued between the two
groups often resulting into even physical fights. The Iranians not only called
their God Ahura (Vedic Asura) and their demons Daevas (Vedic Devas), but they
also called themselves Dahas and Dahyus (Vedic Dasas, and Dasyus). The oldest
Iranian texts, moreover depict the conflicts between the daeva-worshippers and
the Dahyus on behalf of the Dahyus, as the Vedic texts depict them on behalf of
the Deva-worshippers. Indra, the dominant God of the Rigveda, is represented in
the Iranian texts by a demon Indra. What this all indicate that wars or
conflicts of this second category are not between Aryans and non-Aryans, but
between two estranged groups of the same parent society which got divided by
some philosophical dichotomy. Vedas even mention the gods of Dasyus as Arya
also.
C. Conflicts between various indigenous tribal groups over natural resources
and various minor kingdoms to gain supremacy over the land and its expansion: A
global phenomenon known to share the natural resources like, water, cattle,
vegetation and land, and expand the geographical boundaries of the existing
kingdoms. This conflict in no way suggests any war or invasion by outsiders on
the indigenous people.
3. It is argued that in the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro the human
skeletons found do prove that a massacre had taken place at these townships by
invading armies of Aryan nomads. Prof. G. F. Dales (Former head of department
of Southasean Archaeology and Anthropology, Berkeley University, USA) in his
"The Mythical Massacre at Mohenjo-daro, Expedition Vol VI,3: 1964 states the
following about this evidence:
What of these skeletal remains that have taken on such undeserved importance?
Nine years of extensive excavations at Mohenjo-daro (1922-31) - a city of three
miles in circuit - yielded the total of some 37 skeletons, or parts thereof,
that can be attributed with some certainty to the period of the Indus
civilizations. Some of these were found in contorted positions and groupings
that suggest anything but orderly burials. Many are either disarticulated or
incomplete. They were all found in the area of the Lower Town - probably the
residential district. Not a single body was found within the area of the
fortified citadel where one could reasonably expect the final defence of this
thriving capital city to have been made.
He further questions: Where are the burned fortresses, the arrow heads,
weapons, pieces of armour, the smashed chariots and bodies of in the invaders
and defenders? Despite the extensive excavations at the largest Harappan sites,
there is not a single bit of evidence that can be brought forth as
unconditional proof of an armed conquest and the destruction on the supposed
scale of the Aryan invasion.
Colin Renfrew, Prof. of Archeology at Cambridge, in his famous work,
"Archeology and Language : The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins", Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1988, makes the following comments about the real meaning and
interpretation of Rig Vedic hymns:
"Many scholars have pointed out that an enemy quite frequently smitten in these
hymns is the Dasyu. The Dasyus have been thought by some commentators to
represent the original, non-Vedic-speaking population of the area, expelled by
the incursion of the war like Aryas in their war-chariots. As far as I can see
there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rigveda which demonstrates that the
Vedic-speaking population were intrusive to the area: this comes rather from a
historical assumption about the 'coming' of the Indo-Europeans. It is certainly
true that the gods invoked do aid the Aryas by over-throwing forts, but this
does not in itself establish that the Aryas had no forts themselves. Nor does
the fleetness in battle, provided by horses (who were clearly used primarily
for pulling chariots), in itself suggest that the writers of these hymns were
nomads. Indeed the chariot is not a vehicle especially associated with nomads.
This was clearly a heroic society, glorifying in battle. Some of these hymns,
though repetitive, are very beautiful pieces of poetry, and they are not by
any means all warlike.
...When Wheeler speaks of the Aryan invasion of the Land of the Seven Rivers,
the Punjab', he has no warranty at all, so far as I can see. If one checks the
dozen references in the Rigveda to the Seven Rivers, there is nothing in any of
them that to me which implies an invasion: the land of the Seven Rivers is the
land of the Rigveda, the scene of the action. Nothing implies that the Aryas
were strangers there. Nor is it implied that the inhabitants of the walled
cities (including the Dasyus) were any more aboriginal than the Aryas
themselves. Most of the references, indeed, are very general ones such as the
beginning of the Hymn to Indra (Hymn 102 of Book 9)
To thee the Mighty One I bring this mighty Hymn,
for thy desire hath been gratified by my praise.
In Indra, yea in him victorious through his strength,
the Gods have joyed at feast, and when the Soma flowed.
The Seven Rivers bear his glory far and wide, and heaven and sky and earth
display his comely form.
The Sun and Moon in change alternate run their course
that we, O Indra, may behold and may have faith . . .
The Rigveda gives no grounds for believing that the Aryas themselves lacked for
forts, strongholds and citadels. Recent work on the decline of the Indus Valley
civilization shows that it did not have a single, simple cause: certainly there
are no grounds for blaming its demise upon invading hordes. This seems instead
to have been a system collapse, and local movements of people may have followed
it."
M.S. Elphinstone (1841): (first governor of Bombay Presidency, 1819-27) in his
magnum opus, History of India, writes:
Hindu scripture.... "It is opposed to their (Hindus) foreign origin, that
neither in the Code (of Manu) nor, I believe, in the Vedas, nor in any book
that is certainly older than the code, is there any allusion to a prior
residence or to a knowledge of more than the name of any country out of India.
Even mythology goes no further than the Himalayan chain, in which is fixed the
habitation of the gods...
...To say that it spread from a central point is an unwarranted assumption, and
even to analogy; for, emigration and civilization have not spread in a circle,
but from east to west. Where, also, could the central point be, from which a
language could spread over India, Greece, and Italy and yet leave Chaldea,
Syria and Arabia untouched?
And, Elphinstone's final verdict:
There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabitated any
country but their present one, and as little for denying that they may have
done so before the earliest trace of their records or tradition.
So what these eminent scholars have concluded based on the archaeological
and literary evidence that there was no invasion by the so-called Aryans, there
was no massacre at Harappan and Mohanjo-dara sites, Aryans were indigenous
people, and the decline of the Indus valley civilization is due to some natural
calamity.
4. Presence of Horse at Indus-Saraswati sites
It is argued that the Aryans were horse riding, used chariots for transport,
and since no signs of horse was found at the sites of Harappa and Mohanjo-daro,
the habitants of Indus valley cannot be Aryans. Well, this was the case in the
1930-40 when the excavation of many sites were not completed. Now numerous
excavated sites along Indus valley and along the dried Saraswati river have
produced bones of domesticated horses. Dr. SR Rao, the world renowned scholar
of archeology, informs us that horse bones have been found both from the
'Mature Harappan' and 'Late Harappan' levels. Many other scholars since then
have also unearthed numerous bones of horses: both domesticated and combat
types. This simply debunks the non-Aryan nature of the habitants of the Indus
valley and also identifies the Vedic culture with the Indus valley civilization.
5. Origin of Siva-worship
The advocates of AIT argue that the inhabitants of Indus valley were Siva
worshippers and since Siva cult is more prevalent among the South Indian
Dravidians, therefore the habitants of Indus valley were Dravidians. But Shiva
worship is not alien to Vedic culture, and not confined to South India only.
The words Siva and Shambhu are not derived from the Tamil words civa (to
redden, to become angry) and cembu (copper, the red metal), but from the
Sanskrit roots si (therefore meaning "auspicious, gracious, benevolent, helpful
kind") and sam (therefore meaning "being or existing for happiness or welfare,
granting or causing happiness, benevolent, helpful, kind"), and the words are
used in this sense only, right from their very first occurrence.
(Sanskrit- English Dictionary by Sir M. Monier-Williams).
Moreover, most important symbols of Shaivites are located in North India: Kashi
is the most revered and auspicious seat of Shaivism which is in the north, the
traditional holy abode of Shiva is Kailash mountain which is in the far-north,
there are passages in Rigvada which mention Siva and Rudra and consider him an
important deity. Indra himself is called Shiva several times in Rig Veda
(2:20:3, 6:45:17, 8:93:3). So Siva is not a Dravidian god only, and by no
means a non-Vedic god. The proponents of AIT also present terra-cotta lumps
found in the fire-alters at the Harappan and other sites as an evidence of
Shiva linga, implying the Shiva cult was prevalent among the Indus valley
people. But these terra-cotta lumps have been proved to be the measures for
weighing the commodities by the shopkeepers and merchants. Their weights have
been found in perfect integral ratios, in the manner like 1 gm, 2 gms, 5 gms,
10 gms etc. They were not used as the Shiva lingas for worship, but as the
weight measurements.
6. Discovery of the Submerged city of Krishna's Dwaraka
The discovery of this city is very significant and a kind of clinching
evidence in discarding the Aryan invasion as well as its proposed date of
1500BC. Its discovery not only establishes the authenticity of Mahabharat war
and the main events described in the epic, but clinches the traditional
antiquity of Mahabharat and Ramayana periods. So far the AIT advocates used to
either dismiss the Mahabharat epic as a fictional work of a highly talented
poet or would place it around 1000 BC. But the remains of this submerged city
along the coast of Gujarat were dated 3000BC to 1500BC. In Mahabharat's Musal
Parva, the Dwarka is mentioned as being gradually swallowed by the ocean.
Krishna had forewarned the residents of Dwaraka to vacate the city before the
sea submerged it. The Sabha Parva gives a detailed account of Krishna's flight
from Mathura with his followers to Dwaraka to escape continuous attacks of
Jarasandh's on Mathura and save the lives of its subjects. For this reason,
Krishna is also known as RANCHHOR (one who runs away from the battle-field).
Dr. SR Rao and his team in 1984-88 (Marine Archaeology Unit) undertook an
extensive search of this city along the coast of Gujarat where the Dwarikadeesh
temple stands now, and finally they succeeded in unearthing the ruins of this
submerged city off the Gujarat coast.
7. Saraswati River Discovered
It is well known that in the Rig Veda, the honor of the greatest and the
holiest of rivers was not bestowed upon the Ganga, but upon Saraswati, now a
dry river, but once a mighty flowing river all the way from the Himalayas to
the ocean across the Rajasthan desert. The Ganga is mentioned only once while
the Saraswati is mentioned at least 60 times. Extensive research by the late
Dr. Wakankar has shown that the Saraswati changed her course several times,
going completely dry around 1900 BC. The latest satellite data combined with
field archaeological studies have shown that the Rig Vedic Saraswati had
stopped being a perennial river long before 3000 BC.
As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently observed, "...we now know,
thanks to the field work of the Indo-French expedition that when the
proto-historic people settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for
a long time."
The proto-historic people he refers to are the early Harappans of 3000
BC. But satellite 'photos show that a great prehistoric river that was over 7
kilometers wide did indeed flow through the area at one time. This was the
Saraswati described in the Rig Veda. Numerous archaeological sites have also
been located along the course of this great prehistoric river thereby
confirming Vedic accounts. The great Saraswati that flowed "from the mountain
to the sea" is now seen to belong to a date long an terior to 3000 BC. This
means that the Rig Veda describes the geography of North India long before 3000
BC. All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in existence no later than
3500 BC. (Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth By N.S. Rajaram)
River Saraswati IN RIGVEDA
The river called Saraswati is the most important of the rivers mentioned in the
Rig Veda. The image of this 'great goddess stream' dominates the text. It is
not only the most sacred river but the Goddess of wisdom. She is said to be the
Mother of the Veda.
A few Rig Vedic hymns which mention Saraswati river are presented below:
ambitame naditame devitame sarasvati (II.41.16)
(The best mother, the best river, the best Goddess, Saraswati)
maho arnah saraswati pra cetayati ketuna dhiyo visva virajati (I.3.12)
(Saraswati like a great ocean appears with her ray, she rules all inspirations)
ni tva dadhe vara a prthivya ilayspade sudinatve ahnam: drsadvatyam manuse
apayayam sarasvatyam revad agne didhi (III.23.4)
(We set you down, oh sacred fire, at the most holy place on Earth, in the land
of Ila, in the clear brightness of the days. On the Drishadvati, the Apaya and
the Saraswati rivers, shine out brilliantly for men)
citra id raja rajaka id anyake sarasvatim anu; parjanya iva tatanadhi vrstya
sahasram ayuta dadat (VIII.21.18)
(Splendor is the king, all others are princes, who dwell along the Saraswati
river. Like the Rain God extending with rain he grants a thousand times ten
thousand cattle)
Saraswati like a bronze city:
ayasi puh; surpassing all other rivers and waters:
visva apo mahina sindhur anyah; pure in her course from the mountains to the
sea: sucir yati girbhya a samudrat (VII.95.1-2)
All this indicates that the composers of the Vedic literature were quite
familiar with the Saraswati river, and were inspired by its beauty and its
vasteness that they composed several hymns in her praise and glorification.
This also indicates that the Vedas are much older than Mahabharat period which
mentions Saraswati as a dying river.
8. Decipherment of Indus Script
Dr. SR Rao, who has deciphered the Indus script, is an ex-head of
Archaeological Survey of India, a renowned Marine archaeologist, has been
studying archeology since 1948 and has discovered and excavated numerous Indus
sites. He has authored several monumental works on Harappan civilization and
Indus script. To summarize his method of decipherment of Indus script, he
assigned to each Indus basic letter the same sound-value as the West Asian
letter which closely resembled it. After assigning these values to the Indus
letters, he proceeded to try to read the inscriptions on the Indus seals. The
language that emerged turned out to be an "Aryan" one belonging to Sanskrit
family. The people who resided at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were
culturally Aryan is thus confirmed by the decipherment of the Harappan script
and its identity with Sanskrit family. The Harappa culture was a part of a
continuing evolution of the Vedic culture which had developed on the banks of
Saraswati river. And it should be rightly termed as Vedic-Saraswati
civilization.
Among the many words yielded by Dr. Rao's decipherment are the numerals
aeka, tra, chatus, panta, happta/sapta, dasa, dvadasa and sata (1,3,4,5,7,
10,100) and the names of Vedic personalities like Atri, Kasyapa, Gara, Manu,
Sara, Trita, Daksa, Druhu, Kasu, and many common Sanskrit words like, apa
(water), gatha, tar (savior), trika, da, dyau (heaven), dashada, anna (food),
pa(protector), para (supreme), maha, mahat, moks, etc.
While the direct connection between the late Indus script (1600 BC) and the
Brahmi script could not be definitely established earlier, more and more
inscriptions have been found all over the country in the last few years, dating
1000 BC, 700 BC, and so on, which have bridged the gap between the two. Now it
is evident that the Brahmi script evolved directly from the Indus script.
(Sources: Decipherment of the Indus Script, Dawn and Development of Indus
Civilization, Lothal and the Indus Civilization, all by S. R. Rao)
9. New Archaeological findings
Since the first discovery of buried townships of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro on
the Ravi and Sindhu rivers in 1922, respectively, numerous other settlements,
now number over 2500 stretching from Baluchistan to the Ganga and beyond and
down to Tapti valley, covering nearly a million and half square kilometers,
have been unearthed by various archaeologists. And, the fact which was not
known 70 years ago, but archaeologists now know, is that about 75% of these
settlements are concentrated not along the Sindhu or even the Ganga, but along
the now dried up Saraswati river. This calamity - the drying up of the
Saraswati - and not any invasion was what led to the disruption and abandonment
of the settlements along Saraswati river by the people who lived a Vedic life.
The drying up of the Saraswati river was a catastrophe of the vast magnitude,
which led to a massive outflow of people, especially the elite, went into Iran,
Mesopotamia and other neighboring regions. Around the same time (2000-1900 BC),
there were constant floods or/and prolonged draughts along the Sindhu river and
its tributaries which forced the inhabitants of the Indus valley to move to
other safer and greener locations, and hence a slow but continuous migration of
these highly civilized and prosperous Vedic people took place. Some of them
moved to south east, and some to north west, and even towards European regions.
For the next thousand years and more, dynasties and rulers with Indian names
appear and disappear all over the West Asia confirming the migration of people
from East towards West. There was no destruction of an existing civilization or
invasion by any racial nomads of any kind to cause the destruction or
abandonment of these settlements.
10. Chronology of the pre-historic period of India
According to the invasionists, the Indian civilization or the Indus Valley
civilization is only 4000-5000 years old. They place the end of this
civilization around 1900BC, and invasion of Aryans around 1500BC. There is also
no plausible explanation from these invasion advocates for a gap of 400 years
between the end of the Indus Valley civilization (IVC) and the appearance of
Aryans on the Indian scene if Aryans were responsible for the destruction of
the IVC. They propose the period of 1400-1300 BC as the beginning of the Vedic
age when the Vedas were composed and Aryans began to impose their culture and
religion on the indigenous population of the northern India. The Ramayana and
Mahabharat, if considered as real events, must be according to them arbitr-
arily be dated in the period 1200-1000BC. And only after 1000BC, the historic
accounts of empire building, Buddha's birth etc. have to be dated. This
chronology first proposed by Max Muller was primarily based on his firm belief
in the Biblical date of the creation of the world, i.e. October 23, 4004 BC.
Such chronology contradicts all the archaeological evidences, scriptural
testimonies, traditional beliefs, and most importantly defies the commonsense
and scientific method. Therefore, based on Vedic testimonies, Puranic
references, archaeological evidences, and all the accounts presented here
above, the most realistic and accurate chronological events of the pre-historic
period of India should be fixed as follows:
*Vedic Age - 7000-4000 BC
*End of Rig Vedic Age - 3750 BC
* End of Ramayana - Mahabharat Period - 3000 BC
*Development of Saraswati-Indus Civilization - 3000-2000 BC
*Decline of Indus and Saraswati Civilization - 2200-1900 BC
*Period of Complete chaos and migration - 2000-1500 BC
*Period of evolution of syncretic Hindu culture - 1400 - 250 BC
David Frawley's Paradox
The Harappans of the Indus Valley have left profuse archaeological records
over a vast region - from the borders of Iran and beyond Afghanistan to eastern
UP and Tapti valley, and must have supported over 30 million people and
believed to be living an advanced civilization. And yet these people have left
absolutely no literary records. Sounds incredible! The Vedic Aryans and their
successors on the other hand have left us a literature that is probably the
largest and most profound in the world. But according to the AIT there is
absolutely no archaeological record that they ever existed. Either on the
Indian soil or outside its boundaries. So we have concrete history and
archeology of a vast civilization of 'Dravidians' lasting thousands of years
that left no literature, and a huge literature by the Vedic Aryans who left no
history and no archaeological records. The situation gets more absurd when we
consider that there is profuse archaeological and literary records indicating a
substantial movement of Indian Aryans out of India into Iran and West Asia
around 2000 BC.
So, how can all these obvious anomalies and serious flaws be reconciled? By
accepting the truth that the so-called Aryans were the original people
habitants of the townships along the Indus, Ravi, Saraswati and other rivers of
the vast northern region of the Indian subcontinent. And no invasion by nomadic
hordes from outside India ever occurred and the civilization was not destroyed
but the population simply moved to other areas, and developed a new syncretic
civilization and culture by mutual interaction and exchange of ideas.
The Vedic seers in Vedic literature have proclaimed and practiced the
following all-embracing, catholic, and harmonious principles for a peaceful
coexistence of various communities. How can such people be accused of
annihilater of a civilization, murderer of innocent people, and destroying
large number of cities?
ahm bhumimdadamaryam (Rgveda)
Creater declares: I have bestowed this land to Aryas.
Kirnvanto Vishwaryam (Rgbeda)
Make the entire world noble.
Aa na bhadra katavo yanto vishwatah (Rgveda)
Let noble thoughts come from all sides.
Mata Bhumih putro ham prithvyah (Atharv veda)
Earth is my mother, and I am her son.
Vasudeva kutumbubakam
The entire universe is one family.
Consequences of the Aryan Invasion Theory in Context of India
*It serves to divide artificially India into a northern Aryan and southern
Dravidian culture which were made hostile to each other by various interested
parties: A major source of social tension in south Indian states.
*It gave an easy excuse to the Britishers to justify their conquest over India
as well as validating the various conquests and mayhems of invading armies of
religious fanatics from Arab lands and central Asia. The argument goes that
they were doing only what Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had previously done
millennia ago to the indigenous population.
*As a corollary, the theory makes Vedic culture later than and possibly derived
from Middle Eastern cultures, especially the Greek culture: An absurd
proposition.
*Since the identification of Christianity and the Middle Eastern cultures, the
Hindu religion and Indian civilization are considered as a sidelight to the
development of religion and civilization in the west: A deliberate and
dishonest undermining of the antiquity and the greatness of the ancient Indian
culture.
*It allows the science of India to be given a Greek basis, as any Vedic basis
was largely disqualified by the primitive nature of the Vedic culture: In fact
the opposite is true.
*If the theory of Aryan invasion and its proposed period were true, this
discredited not only the Vedas but the genealogies of the Puranas, and all the
kings mentioned in these scriptures including Lord Krishna, Rama, Buddha etc.
would become as fictional characters with no historical basis: Which simply
means disowning and discarding the very basis and raison de'etre of the Hindu
civilization.
*The Mahabharat, instead of being a civil war of global proportion in which all
the main kings of India participated as is described in the epic, would be
dismissed as a local skirmish among petty princes that was later exaggerated by
poets.
*In other words, the Aryan Invasion Theory invalidates and discredits the most
Hindu traditions and almost all its vast and rich literary and civilizational
heritage. It turns its scriptures and sages into fantasies and exaggerations.
*On the basis of this theory, the propaganda by the Macaulayists was made that
there was nothing great in the Hindu culture and their ancestors and sages. And
most Hindus fell for this devious plan. It made Hindus feel ashamed of their
culture - that its basis was neither historical nor scientific, the Vedas were
the work of nomadic shepherds and not the divine revelations or eternal truth
perceived by the rishis during their spiritual journey, and hence there is
nothing to feel proud about India's past, nothing to be proud of being Hindu.
In short such a view and this concocted Aryan Invasion theory by a few
European historians in order to prove the supremacy of Christianity and Western
civilization, served (and still serving) the purpose: 'divide and conquer the
Hindus'.
Swami Vivekananda on Aryan Invasion Theory
"Our archaeologists' dreams of India being full of dark-eyed aborigines, and
the bright Aryans came from - the Lord knows where. According to some, they
came from Central Tibet; others will have it that they came from Central Asia.
There are patriotic Englishmen who think that the Aryans were all red haired.
Others, according to their idea, think that they were all black-haired. If the
writer happens to be a black-haired man, the Aryans were all black-haired. Of
late, there was an attempt made to prove that the Aryans lived on Swiss lake.
I should not be sorry if they had been all drowned there, theory and all. Some
say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their
habitations! As for as the truth of these theories, there is notone word in
our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of
India, and in ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it ends..."
"And the theory that the Shudra caste were all non-Aryans and they were a
multitude, is equally illogical and irrational. It could not have been possible
in those days that a few Aryans settled and lived there with a hundred thousand
slaves at their command. The slaves would have eaten them up, made chutney of
them in five minutes. The only explanation is to be found in the Mahabharat,
which says that in the beginning of the Satya Yoga there was only one caste,
the Brahmins, and then by differences of occupations they went on dividing
themselves into different castes, and that is the only true and rational
explanation that has been given. And in the coming Satya Yuga all other castes
will have to go back to the same condition."
(The Complete Work of Swami Vivekananda, Vol.III Page 293.)
So, What are the facts?
Now, based on what has been presented above, following facts about an ancient
and glorious period of India clearly emerge:
1. The Aryan Invasion and Racial theories, and Aryan-Dravidian conflicts are a
19th century fabrication by some European scholar. They are being exploited
even now for political reasons.
2. The hymns of Rigveda had been composed and completed by 3700BC, this can be
scientifically proved.
3. The language of the Indus script is related to Sanskrit, the language of
Vedas.
4. The Indus valley civilization should be aptly called as Saraswati Vedic
civilization, as the new evidences and right interpretation of the
archaeological findings indicate.
5. There is now strong evidence that the movement of the ancient Aryan people
was from east to west, and this is how the European languages have strong
association and origin in the Vedic Sanskrit language.
6. The ending of Indus Valley and the Saraswati civilization was due to the
constant floods and drought in the Indus area and the drying up of the
Saraswati river. This had caused a massive emigration of the habitants to safer
and interior areas of the Indian subcontinent and even towards the west.
7. There was no destruction of the civilization in the Indus valley due to any
invasion of any barbaric hordes.
8. The Vedic literature has no mention of any invasion or destruction of a
civilization.
9. There is no evidence in any of the literature which indicate any
Aryan-Dravidian or North-South divide, they were never culturally hostile to
each other.
10. The population living in the Indus valley and surrounding the dried up
Saraswati river practiced the Vedic culture and religion.
Most of the material presented above has been taken from the following books.
1. The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)
By Shrikant G. Talageri (Voice of India)
2. The Astronomical Code of India (1992)
By Subhash Kak
3. Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (1995)
By N.S. Rajaram and David Frawley (World Heritage Press)
4. Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth
By N.S. Rajaram (Voice of India Publication)
5. Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar (1993)
By Koenraad Elst
6. New Light on The Aryan Problem: Manthan Oct. 1994 (Journal of Deendayal
Research Institute)
7. Dawn and Development of the Indus Civilization (1991)
By S.R. Rao (Aditya Prakashan)
Dinesh Agrawal
2500 Buchenhorst Road
State College, PA 16801 USA
--------------------------
Sent by "Dinesh Agrawal" <DXA4@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Moderator: Ajay Shah Submissions: srh@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu
Administrivia: srh-request@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu
Archives: http://rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu:8080/soc_hindu_home.html
Follow-Ups:
