posted 11-06-2000 19:26            

Chapter 17 - The Aryan Invasion of India
Questioned in the Western Textbooks

According to the Aryan Invasion Theory-which is the basis of interpreting the ancient history of India found in most books today-the Vedic people were barbarian
hordes who overran North India after 1500 BC. They destroyed the more advanced Dravidian civilization of the subcontinent, which is evidenced by the ruins of the
Harappan or Indus civilization. This theory is diametri-cally opposed to the traditional Hindu view of Vedic culture which regards it as indigenous from India, arising
on the Sarasvati river west of Delhi, and sees it as a culture of great spirituality ruled by seers and yogis.

The invasion idea was invented by nineteenth century European thinkers, and was mixed with colonial and missionary policies. It was always questioned by Hindus,
including great thinkers like Sri Aurobindo, Vivekananda. B.G.Tilak and Dayananda Sarasvati. It had no basis in the extensive. Vedic and Puranic literature which
speaks of no outside origin for the Vedic people. Yet owing to the European intellectual domination of the world, which followed its political domination, this idea
became regarded as the truth. It reduced the ancient history of India to a brutal invasion and coverup, with the perpetrators given the mantle of sages by the
ignorance of later generations!

Recently, however, this idea has been challenged again by a number of scholars east and west. Its opponents are becoming increasingly more numerous, raising more
and more objections, showing new astronomical, archeological, skeletal and geological evidence in favor of dismissing the theory. Meanwhile there has been no
substantial evidence to support the theory apart from the uncertainty of linguistic speculation. Everything that has been proposed to support it has been found not to
have really occurred or to have other causes.

For example, the Harappan cities were found to have been abandoned by climate and river changes, not destroyed by outside invaders, and the horse, thought to
have been first brought by the invading Aryans has been now been found to have existed already in many Harappan sites. Contrary to the theory, the picture has
emerged of an indigenous and organic development of civilization in ancient India going back to 6500 BC (the Mehrgarh site in Pakistan) with no break in continuity
and no significant outside invasions or migrations. Indeed it appears that in the coming years the Aryan invasion theory will soon be discarded all over the world.

Recently the monthly newspaper Hinduism Today (Dec. 1994) has come out against the Aryan Invasion Theory in its Time Line edition. Hinduism Today is largest
circulating Hindu monthly in the world Hinduism Today is published in the United States, though distributed world wide, including in India.

In defense of the theory, however, people point to the fact that it is still found in textbooks throughout the world, including in India, so that such new data against it
does not appear to have been accepted. Opponents of the theory have claimed that much of the data disproving it is new and has not yet had time to reach
textbooks, which usually represent information some decades old. Yet now the demise of the Aryan invasion theory is entering into the textbooks.

It is strange to see, however, that the first major university textbook to seriously question the theory has not come from India but from the West. In his recent edition
of Survey of Hinduism (Sunny, State University of New York Press 1994), Professor Klaus Klostermaier has noted important objections to this theory. He suggests
that the weight of evidence is against it and that it should no longer be regarded as the main model of interpreting ancient India. Survey of Hinduism is perhaps the
main textbook used in North America for university courses on the study of Hinduism.

Klostermaier is not a Hindu, in fact he is a Catholic priest. He is not speaking relative to any Hindu agenda but as a scholar and academician. Though as a teacher of
Hinduism he appears to have some sympathy with the tradition, he cannot be regarded as promoting Hinduism. He is critical of Hindu beliefs and practices in
different parts of his book. But the Aryan Invasion Theory is something he questions on the evidence.

He states (pg.34): "Both the spatial and the temporal extent of the Indus civilization has expanded dramatically on the basis of new excavations and the dating of the
Vedic age as well as the theory of an Aryan invasion of India has been shaken. We are required to completely reconsider not only certain aspects of Vedic India, but
the entire relationship between Indus civilization and Vedic culture." Later he adds (pg.38): "The certainty seems to be growing that the Indus civilization was carried
by the Vedic Indians, who were not invaders from Southern Russia but indigenous for an unknown period of time in the lower Central Himalayan regions."

He questions the difference proposed between Vedic and Indus culture and shows a continuity or possibility of identity between the two. He mentions the data on
the Sarasvati river, which according to scientific studies dried up around 1900 BC. As the Sarasvati is the main river of the Vedas, he states (pg.36): "If, As Muller
suggested, the Aryan invasion took place around 1500 BC, it does not make much sense to locate villages along the banks of the by then dried up Sarasvati."

He notes skeletal information that shows a continuity of the same racial and ethnic groups in ancient India as today, thus refuting the idea that India was populated by
an outside race in the ancient period. He notes the discovery of the ancient city of Dwaraka in Gujarat, the reputed city of Krishna, and its date to 1500 BC. He
notes astronomical evidence in Vedic texts that suggest early calendars contemporaneous with the Indus era.

He has been most influenced by the work of Subhash Kak and quotes him in several places, including Kak's decoding of what he calls "the astronomical code of the
Vedas." He also mentions from my work on the subject, as presented in my book Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization. He quote one long
passage of Kak (pg.38): by the middle of the fourth millennium BCE the Indo-European and the Dravidian words had already interacted and met across Northwest
India and the plateau of Iran....The Indo-European world at this time must already have stretched from Europe to North India and just below it lay the Dravidian
people. The interaction for centuries between these two powerful peoples gave rise to the Vedic language, which though structurally Indo-European, was greatly
influenced by the Dravidian language. The Vedic civilization of these two peoples as was the Harappan civilization.

These arguments represent the new data coming from various archaeologists and Vedic scholars. They do not come from Klostermaier, but clearly they are strong
enough to produce a case that ever Western academicians now have to listen to. They have caused Klostermaier to question the whole Western reading of the
Vedas, "We can be certain that these first efforts to get away from a historicist-humanistic Western reading of the Vedas will be followed by more detailed analyses
and probably quite startling discovers about the character and content of Vedic civilization. (pg. 38)"

The same arguments have been raised in India by many writers, archaeologists, scientists and spiritual leaders, but still have not yet entered into the textbooks. Now
the question arises, if textbooks in the West can be changed in regard to the Aryan Invasion Theory, why cannot textbooks in India be changed, particularly as the
theory has frequently been used to discredit the culture of India and the Hindu religion? We would expect that textbooks in India would be the first to change on this
matter and not have to follow those in the West. Surely if new data arose in a Western country and literature, the entire country would be quick to proclaim the new
information.

Unfortunately India does not appear to want to acknowledge its past, particularly if it gives credence to its spiritual tradition which a number of groups oppose. They
Aryan Invasion Theory has become a matter of political importance in the country, and politics is always willing to twist things for its electoral needs.

The British rulers of colonial India, Marxists scholars and politicians, Dravidian nationalists, Caste Reform advocates of various types, Christian missionaries and
Muslim groups have used the invasion theory to discredit or divide Hindu culture, particularly to attack its Brahmanical side. Even today one can see "Brahmins go
home (to Central Asia)," painted on walls as political propaganda in south India. Dravidians, the lower castes, and Muslims have all at times identified themselves
with the pre-Aryan indigenous people of India whom the invading Aryans were supposed to have conquered and enslaved. Clearly several groups have part of their
identify invested in the invasion theory that would be disconcerting to lose. On the other hand, many of the founders of the Indian independence movement like Tilak
and Aurobindo wrote against the theory. It appeared important to them in restoring Indian identity to reestablish the credibility of ancient Indian civilization and its
continuity.

Yet whatever one's social views, history should not be subject to them but should be examined according to the facts. Now the facts severely question the Aryan
Invasion Theory, so that it should no longer be portrayed as the truth. The events in a country today should not be made hostage to its history of over four thousand
years ago, whatever it might have been. Only in India does this occur. Yet India must now look at its ancient history anew, in the light of the collapse of the invasion
theory. A greater continuity to Indian civilization is revealed that hopefully can bring more wholeness to the country.

posted 11-06-2000 19:30            

Klaus Klostermaier

NB. The footnotes for this article are linked to a separate footnote page.

Introduction
Tacitus, the classical Roman writer, claimed to have described past events and
personalities in his works sine ira et studio, free from hostility and bias. This motto has
guided serious historians through the ages, and it became their highest ambition to write
history 'objectively', distancing themselves from opinions held by interested parties.

The ideal was not always followed, as we know. We have seen twentieth century
governments commissioning re-writings of the histories of their countries from the
standpoint of their own ideologies. Like the court-chroniclers of former times, some
contemporary academic historians wrote unashamedly biased accounts of events and
redesigned the past accordingly.

When, in the wake of World War II the nations of Asia and Africa gained
independence, their intellectuals became aware of the fact that their histories had been
written by representatives of the colonial powers which they had opposed. More often
than not they discovered that all traditional accounts of their own past had been brushed
aside by the 'official' historians as so much myth and fairytale. Often lacking their own
academically trained historians-or worse, only possessing native historians who had
taken over the views of the colonial masters-the discontent with existing histories of their
countries expressed itself often in vernacular works that lacked the academic credentials
necessary to make an impact on professional historians.

The situation is slowly changing. A new generation of scholars who grew up in
post-colonial times and who do not share the former biases, scholars in command of the
tools of the trade-intimacy with the languages involved, familiarity with the culture of
their countries, respect for the indigenous traditions-are rewriting the histories of their
countries.

Nowhere is this more evident than in India. India had a tradition of learning and
scholarship much older and vaster than the European countries that, from the sixteenth
century onwards, became its political masters. Indian scholars are rewriting the history
of India today.

The Aryan Invasion Theory and the Old Chronology
One of the major points of revision concerns the so called 'Aryan invasion theory', often
referred to as 'colonial-missionary', implying that it was the brainchild of conquerors of
foreign colonies who could not but imagine that all higher culture had to come from
outside 'backward' India, and who likewise assumed that a religion could only spread
through a politically supported missionary effort.

While not buying into the more sinister version of this revision, which accuses the
inventors of the Aryan invasion theory of malice and cynicism, there is no doubt that
early European attempts to explain the presence of Indians in India had much to with the
commonly held Biblical belief that humankind originated from one pair of humans-
Adam and Eve to be precise (their common birth date was believed to be c.4005
BCE)-and that all peoples on earth descended from one of the sons of Noah, the only
human to survive the Great Flood (dated at 2500 BCE). The only problem seemed to be
to connect peoples not mentioned in Chapter 10 of Genesis ['The Peopling of the Earth']
with one of the Biblical genealogical lists.

One such example of a Christian historian attempting to explain the presence of Indians
in India is the famous Abbé Dubois (1770-1848), whose long sojourn in India
(1792-1823) enabled him to collect a large amount of interesting materials concerning
the customs and traditions of the Hindus. His (French) manuscript was bought by the
British East India Company and appeared in an English translation under the title Hindu
Manners, Customs and Ceremonies in 1897 with a Prefatory Note by the Right Hon.
F. Max Müller.2 Abbé Dubois, loath 'to oppose [his] conjectures to [the Indians']
absurd fables' categorically stated:

It is practically admitted that India was inhabited very soon after the Deluge,
which made a desert of the whole world. The fact that it was so close to the
plains of Sennaar, where Noah's descendants remained stationary so long, as well
as its good climate and the fertility of the country, soon led to its settlement.

Rejecting other scholars' opinions which linked the Indians to Egyptian or Arabic origins,
he ventured to suggest them 'to be descendents not of Shem, as many argue, but of
Japhet'. He explains: 'According to my theory they reached India from the north, and I
should place the first abode of their ancestors in the neighbourhood of the Caucasus.'3
The reasons he provides to substantiate his theory are utterly unconvincing-but he goes
on to build the rest of his migration theory (not yet an 'Aryan' migration theory) on this
shaky foundation.

Max Müller (1823-1903), who was largely responsible for the 'Aryan invasion theory'
and the 'old chronology', was too close in spirit and time to this kind of thinking, not to
have adopted it fairly unquestioningly. In his Prefatory Note he praises the work of
Abbé Dubois as a 'trustworthy authority. . .which will always retain its value.'

That a great deal of early British Indology was motivated by Christian missionary
considerations, is no secret. The famous and important Boden Chair for Sanskrit at the
University of Oxford was founded by Colonel Boden in 1811 with the explicit object 'to
promote the translation of the Scriptures into Sanskrit, so as to enable his countrymen to
proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian Religion'.4 Max Müller,
in a letter to his wife wrote in 1886: 'The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a
great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It
is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way
of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3 000 years.'5

When the affinity between many European languages and Sanskrit became a commonly
accepted notion, scholars almost automatically concluded that the Sanskrit speaking
ancestors of the present day Indians were to be found somewhere halfway between
India and the Western borders of Europe-Northern Germany, Scandinavia, Southern
Russia, the Pamir-from which they invaded the Punjab. (It is also worth noting that the
early armchair scholars who conceived these grandiose migration theories, had no actual
knowledge of the terrain their 'Aryan invaders' were supposed to have transversed, the
passes they were supposed to have crossed, or the various climates they were believed
to have been living in). Assuming that the Vedic Indians were semi-nomadic warriors
and cattle-breeders, it fitted the picture, when Mohenjo Daro and Harappa were
discovered, to also assume that these were the cities the Aryan invaders destroyed
under the leadership of their god Indra, the 'city-destroyer', and that the dark-skinned
indigenous people were the ones on whom they imposed their religion and their caste
system.

Western scholars decided to apply their own methodologies and, in the absence of
reliable evidence, postulated a timeframe for Indian history on the basis of conjectures.
Considering the traditional dates for the life of Gautama, the Buddha, as fairly well
established in the sixth century BCE, supposedly pre-Buddhist Indian records were
placed in a sequence that seemed plausible to philologists. Accepting on linguistic
grounds the traditional claims that the Rigveda was the oldest Indian literary document,
Max Müller allowing a time-span of two hundred years each for the formation of every
class of Vedic literature, and assuming that the Vedic period had come to an end by the
time of the Buddha, established the following sequence that was widely accepted:

Rigveda c. 1200 BCE
Yajurveda,Samaveda,Atharvaveda, c. 1000 BCE
Brahmanas, c. 800 BCE
Aranyakas,Upanishads, c. 600 BCE

Max Müller himself conceded the purely conjectural nature of the Vedic chronology,
and in the last work published shortly before his death, The Six Systems of Indian
Philosophy, admitted: 'Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns, whether 1500 or
15 000 BCE, they have their own unique place and stand by themselves in the literature
of the world' (p.35). There were, even in Max Müller's time, Western and Indian
scholars, such as Moriz Winternitz and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who disagreed with his
chronology and postulated a much higher age for the Rigveda.

Indian scholars pointed out all along that there was no reference in the Veda of a
migration from outside India, that all the geographical features mentioned in the Rigveda
are those of north-western India and that there was no archaeological evidence
whatsoever for the Aryan invasion theory. On the other side there were references to
constellations in Vedic works whose timeframe could be calculated. The dates arrived
at, however, 4500 BCE for one observation in the Rigveda, 3200 BCE for a date in the
Shatapatha Brahmana, seemed far too remote to be acceptable, especially if one
assumed-as many nineteenth century scholars did, that the world was only about 6 000
years old and that the flood had taken place only 4 500 years ago.

Debunking the Aryan Invasion Theory: The New Chronology
Contemporary Indian scholars, admittedly motivated not only by academic interests,
vehemently reject what they call the 'colonial-missionary Aryan invasion theory'. They
accuse its originators of superimposing-for a reason-the purpose and process of the
colonial conquest of India by the Western powers in modern times onto the beginnings
of Indian civilisation: as the Europeans came to India as bearers of a supposedly
superior civilisation and a higher religion, so the original Aryans were assumed to have
invaded a country on which they imposed their culture and their religion.

A recent major work offers 'seventeen arguments: why the Aryan invasion never
happened'.6 It may be worthwhile summarising and analysing them briefly:

1.The Aryan invasion model is largely based on linguistic conjectures which are
unjustified (and wrong). Languages develop much more slowly than assumed by
nineteenth century scholars. According to Renfrew speakers of Indo-European
languages may have lived in Anatolia as early as 7000 BCE
2.The supposed large-scale migrations of Aryan people in the second millennium
BCE first into Western Asia and then into northern India (by 1500 BCE) cannot be
maintained in view of the fact that the Hittites were in Anatolia already by 2200
BCE and the Kassites and Mitanni had kings and dynasties by 1600 BCE
3.There is no memory of an invasion or of large-scale migration in the records of
Ancient India-neither in the Vedas, Buddhist or Jain writings, nor in Tamil
literature. The fauna and flora, the geography and the climate described in the
Rigveda are that of Northern India.
4.There is a striking cultural continuity between the archaeological artefacts of the
Indus-Saraswati civilisation and subsequent Indian society and culture: a
continuity of religious ideas, arts, crafts, architecture, system of weights and
measures.
5.The archaeological finds of Mehrgarh (copper, cattle, barley) reveal a culture
similar to that of the Vedic Indians. Contrary to former interpretations, the
Rigveda shows not a nomadic but an urban culture (purusa as derived from pur
vasa = town-dweller).
6.The Aryan invasion theory was based on the assumption that a nomadic people in
possession of horses and chariots defeated an urban civilisation that did not know
horses, and that horses are depicted only from the middle of the second
millennium onwards. Meanwhile archaeological evidence for horses has been
found in Harappan and pre-Harappan sites; drawings of horses have been found
in paleolithic caves in India; drawings of riders on horses dated c. 4300 BCE
have been found in Ukraina. Horsedrawn war chariots are not typical for
nomadic breeders but for urban civilisations.
7.The racial diversity found in skeletons in the cities of the Indus civilisation is the
same as in India today; there is no evidence of the coming of a new race.
8.The Rigveda describes a river system in North India that is pre-1900 BCE in the
case of the Saraswati river, and pre-2600 BCE in the case of the Drishadvati river.
Vedic literature shows a population shift from the Saraswati (Rigveda) to the
Ganges (Brahmanas and Puranas), also evidenced by archaeological finds.
9.The astronomical references in the Rigveda are based on a Pleiades-Krittika
(Taurean) calendar of c. 2500 BCE when Vedic astronomy and mathematics were
well-developed sciences (again, not a feature of a nomadic people).
10.The Indus cities were not destroyed by invaders but deserted by their inhabitants
because of desertification of the area. Strabo (Geography XV.1.19) reports that
Aristobulos had seen thousands of villages and towns deserted because the Indus
had changed its course.
11.The battles described in the Rigveda were not fought between invaders and
natives but between people belonging to the same culture.
12.Excavations in Dwaraka have lead to the discovery of a site larger than
Mohenjodaro, dated c. 1500 BCE with architectural structures, use of iron, a
script halfway between Harappan and Brahmi. Dwarka has been associated with
Krishna and the end of the Vedic period.
13.A continuity in the morphology of scripts: Harappan, Brahmi, Devanagari.
14.Vedic ayas, formerly translated as 'iron,' probably meant copper or bronze. Iron
was found in India before 1500 BCE in Kashmir and Dwaraka.
15.The Puranic dynastic lists with over 120 kings in one Vedic dynasty alone, fit well
into the 'new chronology'. They date back to the third millennium BCE Greek
accounts tell of Indian royal lists going back to the seventh millennium BCE.
16.The Rigveda itself shows an advanced and sophisticated culture, the product of a
long development, 'a civilisation that could not have been delivered to India on
horseback' (p.160).
17.Painted Gray Ware culture in the western Gangetic plains, dated ca 1100 BCE has
been found connected to (earlier) Black and Red Ware etc.

Let us consider some of these arguments in some detail. As often remarked, there is no
hint in the Veda of a migration of the people that considered it its own sacred tradition.
It would be strange indeed if the Vedic Indians had lost all recollection of such a
momentous event in supposedly relatively recent times- much more recent, for instance,
than the migration of Abraham and his people which is well attested and frequently
referred to in the Bible. In addition, as has been established recently through satellite
photography and geological investigations, the Saraswati, the mightiest river known to
the Rigvedic Indians, along whose banks they established numerous major settlements,
had dried out completely by 1900 BCE-four centuries before the Aryans were supposed
to have invaded India. One can hardly argue for the establishment of Aryan villages
along a dry river bed.

When the first remnants of the ruins of the so-called Indus civilisation came to light in the
early part of our century, the proponents of the Aryan invasion theory believed they had
found the missing archaeological evidence: here were the 'mighty forts' and the 'great
cities' which the war-like Indra of the Rigveda was said to have conquered and
destroyed. Then it emerged that nobody had destroyed these cities and no evidence of
wars of conquest came to light: floods and droughts had made it impossible to sustain
large populations in the area and the people of Mohenjo Daro, Harappa and other
places had migrated to more hospitable areas. Ongoing archaeological research has not
only extended the area of the Indus-civilisation but has also shown a transition of its later
phases to the Gangetic culture. Archeo-geographers have established that a drought
lasting two to three hundred years devastated a wide belt of land from Anatolia through
Mesopotamia to Northern India around 2300 BCE to 2000 BCE.

Based on this type of evidence and extrapolating from the Vedic texts, a new story of
the origins of Hinduism is emerging that reflects the self-consciousness of Hindus and
which attempts to replace the 'colonial-missionary Aryan invasion theory' by a vision of
'India as the Cradle of Civilisation.' This new theory considers the Indus-civilisation as a
late Vedic phenomenon and pushes the (inner-Indian) beginnings of the Vedic age back
by several thousands of years. One of the reasons for considering the Indus civilisation
'Vedic' is the evidence of town-planning and architectural design that required a fairly
advanced algebraic geometry-of the type preserved in the Vedic Shulvasutras. The
widely respected historian of mathematics A. Seidenberg came to the conclusion, after
studying the geometry used in building the Egyptian pyramids and the Mesopotamian
citadels, that it reflected a derivative geometry-a geometry derived from the Vedic
Shulva-sutras. If that is so, then the knowledge ('Veda') on which the construction of
Harappa and Mohenjo Daro is based, cannot be later than that civilisation itself.7

While the Rigveda has always been held to be the oldest literary document of India and
was considered to have preserved the oldest form of Sanskrit, Indians have not taken it
to be the source for their early history. The Itihasa-Purana served that purpose. The
language of these works is more recent than that of the Vedas and the time of their final
redaction is much later than the fixation of the Vedic canon. However, they contain
detailed information about ancient events and personalities that form part of Indian
history. The Ancients, like Herodotus, the father of Greek histo-riography, did not
separate story from history. Nor did they question their sources but tended to juxtapose
various pieces of evidence without critically sifting it. Thus we cannot read
Itihasa-Purana as the equivalent of a modern textbook of Indian history but rather as a
storybook containing information with interpretation, facts and fiction. Indians, however,
always took genealogies quite seriously and we can presume that the Puranic lists of
dynasties, like the lists of paramparas in the Upanishads relate the names of real rulers
in the correct sequence. On these assumptions we can tentatively reconstruct Indian
history to a time around 4500 BCE.

A key element in the revision of Ancient Indian History was the recent discovery of
Mehrgarh, a settlement in the Hindukush area, that was continuously inhabited for
several thousand years from c. 7000 BCE onwards. This discovery has extended Indian
history for several thousands of years before the fairly well dateable Indus civilisation.8

New Chronologies
Pulling together available archaeological evidence as it is available today, the American
anthropologist James G. Schaffer developed the following chronology of early Indian
civilisation:

1.Early food-producing era (c. 6500-5000 BCE): no pottery.
2.Regionalisation era (5000-2600 BCE): distinct regional styles of pottery and other
artefacts.
3.Integration era (2600-1900 BCE) : cultural homogeneity and emergence of urban
centres like Mohenjo daro and Harappa.
4.Localisation era (1900-1300 BCE ) blending of patterns from the integration era
with regional ceramic styles.

The Indian archaeologist S.P. Gupta proposed this cultural sequencing:

1.Pre-ceramic Neolithic (8000-600 BCE)
2.Ceramic Neolithic (6000-5000 BCE)
3.Chalcolithic (5000-3000 BCE )
4.Early Bronze Age (3000-1900 BCE)
5.Late Bronze Age ( 1900-1200 BCE)
6.Early Iron Age (1200-800 BCE)
7.Late Iron cultures

According to these specialists, there is no break in the cultural development from 8000
BCE onwards, no indication of a major change, as an invasion from outside would
certainly be.

A more detailed 'New Chronology' of Ancient India, locating names of kings and tribes
mentioned in the Vedas and Puranas, according to Rajarama9 looks somewhat like this:

4500 BCE: Mandhatri's victory over the Drohyus, alluded to in the Puranas.
4000 BCE Rigveda (excepting books 1 and 10)
3700 BCE Battle of Ten Kings (referred to in the Rigveda) Beginning of Puranic
dynastic lists: Agastya, the messenger of Vedic religion in the Dravida country.
Vasistha, his younger brother, author of Vedic works. Rama and Ramayana.
3600 BCEYajur-, Sama-, Atharvaveda: Completion of Vedic Canon.
3100 BCE Age of Krishna and Vyasa. Mahabharata War. Early Mahabharata.
3000 BCEShatapathabrahmana, Shulvasutras, Yajnavalkyasutra, Panini,
author of the Ashtadhyayi, Yaska, author of the Nirukta.
2900 BCE Rise of the civilisations of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the
Indus-Sarasvati doab.
2200 BCE beginning of large-scale drought: decline of Harappa.
2000 BCE End of Vedic age.
1900 BCE Saraswati completely dried out: end of Harappa.

Texts like the Rigveda, the Shatapathabrahmana and others contain references to
eclipses as well as to sidereal markers of the beginning of seasons, which allow us by
backward calculation, to determine the time of their composition. Experts assure us that
to falsify these dates would have been impossible before the computer age.

Old verses new? Or scientists verses philologists?
We are left, at present, with two widely differing versions of Ancient Indian History, with
two radically divergent sets of chronology and with a great deal of polemic from both
sides. Those who defend the Aryan invasion theory and the chronology associated with
it accuse the proponents of the 'New Chronology' of indulging in Hindu chauvinism. The
latter suspect the former of entertaining 'colonial-missionary' prejudices and denying
originality to the indigenous Indians. The new element that has entered the debate is
scientific investigations. While the older theory rested on exclusively philological
arguments, the new theory includes astronomical, geological, mathematical and
archaeological evidence. On the whole, the latter seems to rest on better foundations.
Not only were the philological arguments from the very beginning based more on strong
assertions and bold guesses, civilisations both ancient and contemporary comprise more
than literature alone. In addition, purely philologically trained scholars-namely
grammarians-are not able to make sense of technical language and of scientific
information contained even in the texts they study.

Consider today's scientific literature. It abounds with Greek and Latin technical terms, it
contains an abundance of formulae composed of Greek and Hebrew letters. If scholars
with a background in the classical languages were to read such works, they might be
able to come up with some acceptable translations of technical terms into modern
English but they would hardly be able to really make sense of most of what they read
and they certainly would not extract the information which the authors of these works
wished to convey to people trained in their specialities. The situation is not too different
with regard to ancient Indian texts. The admission of some of the best scholars (like
Geldner, who in his translation of the Rigveda, considered the best so far, declares many
passages 'darker than the darkest oracle' or Gonda, who considered the Rigveda
basically untranslatable) of being unable to make sense of a great many texts-and the
refusal of most to go beyond a grammatical and etymological analysis of these-indicates
a deeper problem. The Ancients were not only poets and litterateurs, but they also had
their sciences and their technical skills, their secrets and their conventions that are not
self-evident to someone not sharing their world. Some progress has been made in
deciphering medical and astronomical literature of a later age, in reading architectural
and arts-related materials. However, much of the technical meaning of the oldest Vedic
literature still eludes us.

The Rigveda-a code?
The computer scientist and Indologist Subhash Kak believes he has rediscovered the
'Vedic Code' which allows him to extract from the structure, as well as the words and
sentences of the Rigveda, and the considerable astronomical information which its
authors supposedly embedded in it.10 The assumption of such encoded scientific
knowledge would make it understandable why there was such insistence on the
preservation of every letter of the text in precisely the sequence the original author had
set down. One can take certain liberties with a story, or even a poem, changing words,
transposing lines, adding explanatory matter, shortening it, if necessary, and still
communicate the intentions and ideas of the author. However, one has to remember and
reproduce a scientific formula in precisely the same way it has been set down by the
scientist or it would not make sense at all. While the scientific community can arbitrarily
adopt certain letter equivalents for physical units or processes, once it has agreed on
their use, one must obey the conventions for the sake of meaningful communication.

Even a non-specialist reader of ancient Indian literature will notice the effort to link
macrocosm and microcosm, astronomical and physiological processes, to find
correspondences between the various realms of beings and to order the universe by
establishing broad classifications. Vedic sacrifices-the central act of Vedic culture-
were to be offered on precisely built geometrically constructed altars and to be
performed at astronomically exactly established times. It sounds plausible to expect a
correlation between the numbers of bricks prescribed for a particular altar and the
distances between stars observed whose movement determined the time of the offerings
to be made. Subhash Kak has advanced a great deal of fascinating detail in that
connection in his essays on the 'Astronomy of the Vedic Altar'. He believes that while
the Vedic Indians possessed extensive astronomical knowledge, which they encoded in
the text of the Rigveda, the code was lost in later times and the Vedic tradition was
interrupted.11

India, the cradle of (world-) civilisation?
Based on the early dating of the Rigveda (c. 4000 BCE) and on the strength of the
argument that Vedic astronomy and geometry predates that of the other known Ancient
civilisations, some scholars, like N.S. Rajaram, George Feuerstein, Subhash Kak and
David Frawley, have made the daring suggestion that India was the 'cradle of
civilisation'. They link the recently discovered early European civilisation (which predates
Ancient Sumeria and Ancient Egypt by over a millennium) to waves of populations
moving out or driven out from north-west India. Later migrations, caused either by
climatic changes or by military events, would have brought the Hittites to Western Asia,
the Iranians to Afghanistan and Iran and many others to other parts of Eurasia. Such a
scenario would require a complete rewriting of Ancient World History-especially if we
add the claims, apparently substantiated by some material evidence, that Vedic Indians
had established trade links with Central America and Eastern Africa before 2500 BCE. It
is no wonder that the 'New Chronology' arouses not only scholarly controversy but
emotional excitement as well. Much more hard evidence will be required to fully
establish it, and many claims may have to be withdrawn. But there is no doubt that the
'old chronology' has been discredited and that much surprise is in store for the students
not only of Ancient India, but also of the Ancient World as a whole.

Sorting out the questions:
The 'Revision of Ancient Indian History' responds to several separate, but interlocking
questions that are often confused.

1.The (emotionally) most important question is that of the original home of Vedic
civilisation, identified with the question: where was the (Rig-)Veda composed?
India's indigenous answer to that question had always been 'India', more precisely
'the Punjab'. The European, 'colonial missionary' assumption, was 'outside India'.
2.The next question, not often explicitly asked, is: where did the pre-Vedic people,
the 'Aryans' come from? This is a problem for archeo-anthropologists rather than
for historians. The racial history of India shows influences from many quarters.
3.A related, but separate question concerns the 'cradle of civilisation', to which
several ancient cultures have laid claim: Sumeria, Egypt, India (possibly also
China could be mentioned, which considered itself for a long time the only truly
civilised country). Depending on what answer we receive, the major expansion of
population/civilisation would be from west to east, or from east to west. The
famous lux ex oriente has often been applied to the spread of culture in the
ancient world. India was as far as the 'Orient' would go.
4.It is rather strange that the defenders of the 'Aryan invasion theory', who have
neither archaeological nor literary documents to prove their assumption, demand
detailed proof for the non-invasion and refuse to admit the evidence available.
Similarly, they feel entitled to declare 'mythical' whatever the sources (Rigveda,
Puranas) say that does not agree with their preconceived notions of Vedic India.

Some conclusions:
If I were to judge the strength of the arguments for revising Ancient Indian History in the
direction of 'India as Cradle of Civilisation' I would rate Seidenberg's findings
concerning the Shulvasutra geometry (applied in the Indus civilisation; Babylonian and
Egyptian geometry derivative to it) highest. Next would be the archeo-astronomical
determination of astronomical data in Vedic and post-Vedic texts. Third is the satellite
photography based dating of the drying out of the Saraswati and the
archeo-geographical finding of a centuries long drought in the belt reaching from
Anatolia through Mesopotamia and Northern India. Geological research has uncovered
major tectonic changes in the Punjab and the foothills of the Himalayas. At one point a
section rose about sixty metres within the past 2 000 years.

'Vasishta's Head', a bronze head found near Delhi, was dated through radio-carbon
testing to around 3700 BCE- the time when, according to Hicks and Anderson, the
Battle of the Ten Kings took place (Vasishta, mentioned in the Rigveda, was the advisor
to King Sudas). A further factor speaking for the 'Vedic' character of the Indus
civilisation is the occurrence of (Vedic) altars in many sites. Fairly important is also the
absence of a memory of a migration from outside India in all of ancient Indian literature:
the Veda, the Brahmanas, the Epics and the Puranas. Granting that the Vedic Samhitas
were ritual manuals rather than historic records, further progress in revising Ancient
Indian History could be expected from a study of Itihasa-Purana, rather than from an
analysis of the Rigveda (by way of parallel, what kind of reconstruction of Ancient
Israel's History could be done on the basis of a study of the Psalms, leaving out Genesis
and Kings? Or what reconstruction of European History could be based on a study of
the earliest Rituale Romanum?)

An afterword:
Hinduism today is not just a development of Vedic religion and culture but a synthesis of
many diverse elements. There is no doubt a Vedic basis. It is evident in the
caste-structure of Hindu society, in the rituals which almost every Hindu still undergoes
(especially initiation, marriage and last rites), in traditional notions of ritual purity and
pollution, and in the respect which the Veda still commands. There is a large area of
Hindu worship and religious practice for which the Veda provides little or no basis:
temple-building, image worship, pilgrimages, vows and prayers to gods and goddesses
not mentioned in the Veda, beliefs like transmigration, world-pictures containing
numerous heavens and hells and much more which appear to have been taken over from
non-Vedic indigenous cultures. There have been historic developments that led to the
developments of numerous schools of thought, sects and communities differing from
each other in scriptures, interpretations, customs, beliefs.

Apart from its Vedic origins Hinduism was never one in either administration, doctrine or
practice. It does not possess a commonly accepted authority, does not have a single
centre and does not have a common history. Unlike the histories of other religions,
which rely on one founder and one scripture, the history of Hinduism is a bundle of
parallel histories of traditions that were loosely defined from the very beginning, that
went through a number of fissions and fusions, and that do not feel any need to seek
their identity in conforming to a specific historic realisation. While incredibly conservative
in some of its expressions, Hinduism is very open to change and development under the
influence of charismatic personalities. From early times great latitude was given to
Hindus to interpret their traditional scriptures in a great many different ways. The ease
with which Hindus have always identified persons that impressed them with
manifestations of God has led to many parallel traditions within Hinduism, making it
impossible to chronicle a development of Hinduism along one line. The presentation of a
history of Hinduism will be a record of several mainstream Hindu traditions that
developed along individual lines; only very rarely do these lines meet in conflict or merge
to generate new branches of the still vigorously growing banyan tree to which Hinduism
has been often compared.

posted 11-06-2000 19:33            

Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory and Revising Ancient Indian
History

References

Feuerstein, George, Subhash Kak and David Frawley, In Search of the Cradle
of Civilization, Quest Books: Wheaton, Ill. 1995

Frawley, David, The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India, New Delhi: Voice of
India, 1994

Frawley, David, Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization,
Passage Press: Salt Lake City, Utah, 1991

Hinduism Today, November 1991 (International Edition): 'Invasion or
Indigenous?' p. 13

HIND.TXT;1 (Internet) communication of 9, April 1996: 'A History of India and
Hindu Dharma' (Hinduism Today)

Kak, Subhash, The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda, New Delhi: Aditya
Prakashan, 1994

Kak, Subhash, 'Archaeoastronomy and literature', Current Science Vol. 73, No.
7 (October 10, 1997): Historical Notes, pp. 62-47

Mueller, Georgina, The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max
Muller, 2 vols. London: Longman, 1902

Rajaram, Navaratha S., 'The Puzzle of Origins: New Researches in History of
Mathematics and Ancient Ecology', MANTHAN, Oct. 1994-March 1995,
pp.150-71

Rajaram, N.S. and David Frawley, Vedic Aryans and the Origins of
Civilization, 2nd ed New Delhi: Voice of India, 1997

Seidenberg, A. 'The Geometry of the Vedic Rituals' Agni: The Vedic Ritual of
the Fire Altar, Vol. II, ed. by Frits Staal, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press,
1983, pp. 95-126

Seidenberg, A. 'The Origin of Mathematics', Archive for History of Exact
Sciences, Vol. 19, No.4 (1978), pp.301-42

Talageri, Shrikant G. The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism, New
Delhi: Voice of India, 1993

Zabern, Philipp von, (ed.) Vergessene Städte am Indus: Frühe Kulturen in
Pakistan vom 8 -2 Jahrtausend v.Chr. , Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von
Zabern, n.d. (c. 1984) (Contains important contributions by C. and J.-F. Jarrige,
as well as by G. Quivron on Mehrgarh, R. Mughal, G. F. Dales and others on the
Indus Civilisation).

Footnotes

1.This paper is a slightly revised version of a seminar presentation at the
School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) University of London on
21, January 1998.

2.Dubois, Abbe, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, English
translation by Henry K. Beauchamp, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906
(third edition reprint, 1959)

3.Ibid., p.101

4.Preface to New Edition of M. Molier-Williams Sanskrit-English
Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899 (Reprint 1964), p. IX

5.Muller, Georgina, The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich
Max Muller, 2 Vols. London: Longman, 1902. Vol. I, p.346

6.G. Feuerstein, S. Kak, D.Frawley, In search of the Cradle of
Civilization, Wheaton: Quest Books, Ill., 1996

7.See A. Seidenberg.

8. See Philip von Zabern (ed.).

9. See N. S. Rajaram.

10.See entries under S. Kak.

11.The substance of S. Kak's essay 'The Astronomy of the Vedic Altars' is
found in S. Kak's book The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda. The
article itself was originally published in Mankind Quarterly, 33 (1992),
pp. 43-55.

posted 11-06-2000 19:37            

Edwin Bryant

Klostermaier has provided a useful summary of some of the main tenets of a version of
ancient history which is on the ascendancy amongst Indian historians and archaeologists.
Indeed, the basic idea of indigenous version of ancient history, which is on the
ascendancy amongst Indian Indo-Aryan origins (or at least openness to reconsidering
the Aryan Migration thesis), is rapidly becoming the dominant, but by no means
uncontested point of view amongst specialists in India. It has also recently been receiving
considerable attention in Western Indological circles. It is, however, only one point of
view. In fairness to those defending the status quo of Indo-Aryan migrations (few speak
of invasions anymore and modern scholarship has long since moved beyond the biblical
or colonial exigencies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) the matter is far more
complex than many Indigenous Aryanists appear to acknowledge. Most representations
of the Indigenous point of view are, at best, highly selective in their appropriation of the
available and relevant data and, at worst, completely neglectful or dismissive of the
fundamental and essential infrastructure of the problem.

The first glaring lacuna in many Indigenous Aryan publications is the almost complete
lack of reference to the linguistic evidence. Given that the Indo-Aryans are a linguistic
entity and that their existence is entirely a postulate of the linguistic data, such neglect is
not likely to be seen as indicative of thorough or detached scholarship. Few Indigenous
Aryanists seem to be even aware of the implications (or even the existence) of such data
as linguistic substrata, linguistic palaeontology, dialectical geography, and loan words
(amongst a host of other things), all foundational to the theory of external Aryan origins.

Even from within the context of the evidence that the Indigenous School does
addressnotably the archaeological, philological and astronomical dataalternative points of
view recalcitrant to the Indigenous position deserve at least some token
acknowledgement. Scanning the list of items Klostermaier offers for consideration, we
can grant that the Mitanni evidence, for example, is not incompatible with an indigenous
position, but neither does it by any means disprove the migrationist theory. The urban
references often noted in the Rg are peripheral at best (and completely far-fetched at
worst), and it seems only fair to note that whatever meagre evidence of horse bones in
Harappan and pre-Harappan sites has been brought forward has been disputed by
authorities in the field. The layout of the fire altars at Kalibhangan does not seem to
correlate with the prescriptions of the Srauta Sutras and so assigning them a ritual
function is highly questionable. Moreover, while the Sarasvati may have been drying up
by 1900 BCE, I am not aware of any evidence demonstrating that it had completely
dried up by then. And as for the correlation of the Indus script with Brahmi, this is hardly
a fait accompli, but only accepted by a small group of scholars even from within the
Indigenous camp. The list goes on.

All this is not to say that the evidence supporting the theory of Aryan migrations is not
without problems. Far from it: my own research concludes that the debate (where it is
conducted in a rigorous fashion) is a legitimate one and that the Indigenous position has
its merits. The whole theory of Aryan migrations does indeed need to be subject to
intense scrutiny. But this will only be fruitful when it is done by examining all the evidence
and all rational points of view in a detached and thorough fashion. Selective or one-sided
interpretations of the evidence are ultimately detrimental to such reconsiderations. As a
result much Indigenous Aryanist scholarship is understandably viewed with suspicion, or
dismissed as the product of predetermined conviction rather than objective scholarship.

ISKCON devotees, of course, are likely to greet the new version of events with
enthusiasm. But since some of them are proving to be sincere about open-minded
dialogue and interaction with the academic community, they would be better served by
being exposed to the full spectrum of data and the plethora of opinions in the complex
matter of Indo-Aryan origins. The Indigenous Aryan position certainly merits
consideration, but not at the expense of honest scholarship.

posted 11-06-2000 19:48            

Linda Hess

Compiled from fall 1996 discussion on RISA-L, electronic discussion list
for the American Academy of Religion's Religion in South Asia Section. Some
comments from the List discussion are included. This biblio isn't perfect,
in either form or content. It is occasionally updated, with new
information or corrections. (Last update: 12-2-96)

Allchin, Bridget and Raymond Allchin. The rise of civilization in India
and Pakistan. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Allchin, B., F.R. Allchin, B.K. Thapar, editors. Conservation of the Indian
heritage. New Delhi, India : Cosmo Publications, 1989.

Allchin, F. Raymond. The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: the
emergence of cities and states, with contributions from George Erdosy ...
[et al.]. Cambridge : New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press,
1995.

Allchin, F.R. See also Possehl 1995.

Balmuth, Miriam "Searching for the Origins of Indo-European Languages" in
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 20 (1989) pp, 257-62.

Converse, H. S. "The Agnicayana Rite: Indigenous Origin?" in History of
Religions IV.2 (Nov. 1974), pp.81-95.
Good for introducing the kind of thinking that has to be done with the
archeological data at hand [Dennis Hudson].

Crossland, Ronald, "When specialists collide: archaeology and
Indo-European linguistics" in Antiquity 66 (1992) pp. 251-54.

Deo, S, B & Kamath Surynath eds, 'The Aryan Problem' Pune: Bharatiya
Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, 1993.
If nothing else, this publication gives an idea of how widespread the
reconsideration of the external origin of the Aryans has become in India.
[E. Bryant]

Deshpande, Madhav M. and Peter Edwin Hook, eds. Aryan and non-Aryan in
India. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, The
University of Michigan, 1979. Michigan papers on South and SE Asia; no.
14.

Dyson, Robert. See Possehl 1995.

Elizarenkova, Tatyana J, ed. Language and style of the Vedic Rsis, with an
introduction by Wendy Doniger. Albany : State University of New York, 1995.
I have my doubts about the usefulness of the archaeological record in
general when it comes to things Vedic (cf. refs to Rau and Elizarenkova).
[G. Thompson]

Erdosy, George ed., The Indo-Aryans of Ancient south Asia: Language,
Material Culture and Ethnicity (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1995).
articles by Erdosy, K.A. R. Kennedy, M. Deshpande, M. Witzel, J. Shaffer.

Erdosy, George. Urbanisation in early historic India (Oxford, B.A.R.,
1988).

Feuerstein, Georg, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley. In Search of the
Cradle of Civilization. Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books, 1995. Also in
short form, "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient
India," article in recent Yoga Journal.

Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press,
1996. [P. Olivelle says best intro currently available, and pays sensitive
attention to the Aryan/IVC question as well as modern issues.]

Frawley, David. Gods, Sages and Kings. Salt Lake City: Passage Press,
1991; New Delhi: Voice of India, 1993.

Frawley, David. "On the Banks of the Saraswati: The ancient history of
India revised." The Quest, Autumn 1992, 22-30.
Uses evidence of the Saraswati river and astronomical data from the
Vedas to prove that Aryans have been in India forever, well at least 7500
BCE. [V. Narayanan]

Frawley, David. The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India. New Delhi: Voice
of India, 1994. More Frawley: Hinduism Today, Dec. 1994 vol. 16/no. 12.
Summarizes Kak, Frawley and others; gives timeline paying special attention
to astronomical details. Hinduism Today, Nov. 1991 "Invasion or
Indigenous?" [V. Narayanan] [ Some of this material also available
through http://zeta.cs.adfa.oz.au/Spirit/Veda/myth-of-invasion.html ]

Frawley, David with N.S.Rajaram. Vedic Aryans and the Origins of
Civilization. New Delhi: Voice of India, 1996.

Frawley, David. See also co-authored work under Feuerstein.

Garrett, Andrew. "Indo-European reconstruction and historical
methodologies" in Language 67 (1991) pp. 790-804.

Gila-Kochanowski, Vania de. Aryan and Indo-Aryan migrations/ tr. by L.
Regnier in Diogenes v. 149 (Spring, 1990) pp. 122-45

Gupta, S. P. Archaeology of Soviet Central Asia and the Indian
borderlands. foreword, V. A. Ranov. Delhi : B.R. Pub. Corp.; New Delhi :
D.K. Publishers' Distributors,1979.2 v.

Gupta, S. P. The Indus-Saraswati Civilization. Delhi: Pratibha Prakashan,
1996.

Kak, S.C. A frequency analysis of the Indus script. Cryptologia, vol.
12, 1988, 129-43.

Kak, S.C. The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda. Puratattva: Bulletin of
the Indian Archaeological Society, Number 25, 1994/5, 1-20.

Kak, S.C. On the classification of Indic languages. Annals of the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, vol. 75, 1994, pp. 185-195.

Kak, S.C. The astronomy of the age of geometric altars. Quarterly Journal
of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 36, 1995, pp. 385-396.

Kak, S.C. An Indus-Sarasvati signboard. Cryptologia, vol. 20, 1996, pp.
275-279.

Kak, S.C. See also co-authored work under Feuerstein.

Lal, B.B. & Gupta S.P, eds. Frontiers of the Indus Civilization. New
Delhi: Books and Books, 1984. Includes Lal's "Some Reflections on the
Structural Remains at Kalibangan."

Lal, B.B. See also Possehl 1995.

Lochtefeld, Jim. A very interesting article on Hindutva in the Spring
(96?) issue of the journal RELIGION.

Lukacs, John ed. The People of South Asia. N.Y & London: Plenum Press,
1984. Includes article by J. Shaffer.

Menon, Shanti. "Archeology Watch: Chariot Racers of the Steppes."
Discover, April 1995, short and magazine-style readable. (No page numbers
in my copy.) Features the research of David Anthony, archeologist from
Hartwick College, NY. [V. Narayanan]

Misra, S.S. The Aryan problem, a linguistic approach. N. Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal, 1992.

Misra, S.S. The Avestan : a historical and comparative grammar.1st ed.
Varanasi : Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1979. Chaukhambha oriental research
studies; no. 13.

Misra, S.S. A comparative grammar of Sanskrit, Greek and Hittite. With a
foreword by Suniti Kumar Chatterji. Calcutta, World Press, 1968.

Misra, S.S. The laryngeal theory : a critical evaluation / Satya Swarup
Misra. 1st ed. Varanasi : Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1977.

Misra, S.S. New lights on Indo-European comparative Varanasi: Manisha
Prakashan, 1975. Manisha oriental research series ; no. 1.

Misra, S.S. The Old-Indo-Aryan, a historical & comparative. Varanasi :
Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan, 1991-1993.

Misra, S.S. Fresh light on Indo-European classification and chronology.
Varanasi : Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan, 1980.

Mitchiner, John E. Studies in the Indus Valley Inscription. New Delhi:
Oxford, 1978.

Nayak, B.U. and N.C. Ghosh, eds. New Trends in Indian Art and Archaeology.
New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan 1992.

Pal, Yash, et al. "Remote Sensing of the 'Lost' Sarasvati," in B.B. Lal &
S.P. Gupta, Frontiers of the Indus Civilization (see above).

Parpola, Asko. Prof. Parpola sent a list of his important works for this
bibliography, with comments:

Parpola, Asko, 1988. The coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the
cultural and ethnic identity of the Dasas. Studia Orientalia 64: 195-302.
Helsinki. (This paper was reprinted, without my permission and in fact
against my express wish to the contrary, in the International Journal of
Dravidian Linguistics, without mentioning the original place of publication
and with unindicated deletions.) This paper is now partially antiquated, as
my views have been evolving with new evidence and continued deliberation.
Successive revisions which however do not repeat much material of the above
article that I still subscribe to are:

Parpola, Asko, 1993. Margiana and the Aryan problem. Information Bulletin
of the International Association for the Study of the Cultures of Central
Asia 19: 41-62. Moscow.

Parpola, Asko, 1994. Deciphering the Indus Script. Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press. Pp. 142-159 =3D chapters 8.4 The coming of the
Aryans, and 8.5 The horse argument.

Parpola, Asko, 1995. The problem of the Aryans and the Soma: The
archaeological evidence. Pp. 353-381 in: George Erdosy (ed.), The
Indo-Aryans of ancient South Asia: Language, material culture and ethnicity
(see above).

Parpola, Asko, in press. Formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European.
In: Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs (eds.), Language and Archaeology, vol.
3: Combining archaeological and linguistic aspects of the past. London:
Routledge. (Paper read at World Archaeological Congress 3, New Delhi, 4-11
December 1994.)

Parpola, Asko, in press. The Aryan languages and archaeology, with an
excursus on Botaj. In: Bridget and Raymond Allchin (eds.), South Asian
Archaeology 1995. New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Company. (Paper read
at the conference on South Asian Archaeology held at the University of
Cambridge, England, in July 1995.)

Parpola, Asko, in press. (I do not have the exact title at hand.) To
appear in: The Journal of Indo-European studies. (Paper read at the
symposium on Bronze and Iron Age peoples of eastern Central Asia organized
by Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania, 19-21 April 1996.)

(Following are other works of Prof. Parpola from RISA-L discussion or from
library catalogs. He has been publishing on Indus civ. and script as well
as Aryans and other aspects of ancient Indian history/archeology for about
30 years. Pre-1985 publications are not included here.)

Parpola, Asko, ed. Association of South Asian Archaeologists in Western
Europe. International Conference (12th : 1993 : Helsinski, Finland) South
Asian Archaeology, 1993 : proceedings. Helsinki: Suomalainen
Tiedeakatemia, c1994.

Parpola, Asko & Jagat Pati Joshi, eds., with the assistance of Erja
Lahdenpera and Virpi Hameen-Anttila. Corpus of Indus seals and
inscriptions. Helsinki : Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987-<1991> Memoirs
of the Archaeological Survey of India ; no. 86. Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian
toimituksia. Sarja B ; nide 239,

Parpola, Asko. Deciphering the Indus script. New York, NY : Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1994.

Parpola, Asko. The sky-garment : a study of the Harappan religion and its
relation to the Mesopotamian and later Indian religions / by Asko Parpola.
Helsinki : Societas Orientalis Fennica, 1985.Series title: Studia
Orientalia 57.

Parpola, Asko & Bent Smidt Hansen, eds. South Asian religion and society.
London : Curzon Press ; Riverdale, MD : Riverdale Co., 1986.

Possehl, Gregory, ed. "Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective" 2nd
rev. ed. (New Delhi : American Institute of Indian Studies and Oxford & IBH
Pub. Co. c1993)
Includes: Allchin,"The Legacy of the Indus Civilization"; B.B. Lal, "West
was West and East was East, but When and How did the Twain Meet?"; Robert
Dyson, "Paradigm Changes in the Study of the Indus Civilization"; Jim
Shaffer, "Harappan Culture: A Reconsideration"

Possehl, Gregory. 1996 book on Indus script, exact title not at hand.
Univ. of Penn. Press.

S.R. Rao. Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization. N. Delhi:
Aditya Prakashan, 1991.

S.R. Rao. Lothal and the Indus Civilization. Bombay: Asia Publishing,
1973.

Rau, Wilhelm. A whole bunch of stuff in German. I have my doubts
about the usefulness of the archaeological record in general when it comes
to things Vedic (cf. refs to Rau and Elizarenkova). [G. Thompson]

Renfrew, Colin. " Origins of Indo-European Language." Scientific American,
Oct. '89, 106-14.

Renfrew, Colin. Approaches to social archaeology. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard
University Press, 1984.

Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and language : the puzzle of Indo-European
origins London : J. Cape, 1987. New York : Cambridge University Press, 1988

Saussure, Ferdinand de.
PhD diss.: "Memoire sur le systeme primitif des voyelles dans les langues
indo-europeenes" [Paris: Vieweg, 1887; reprinted 1879]
It has been excerpted [very briefly] and translated into English by
WinfredP. Lehmann in his "A Reader in Nineteenth-Century Historical
Indo-European Linguistics" [Indiana Univ. Press, 1967].
A lucid and accessible discussion of it [with a refreshingly
biographical touch] can be found in Emile Benveniste: "Problems in General
Linguistics" [eng transl. publ. by Univ. of Miami Press, 1971]. Chapter
Three: "Saussure after Half a Century".
It might also be interesting for Indologists in general to consult
Hans Heinrich Hock's "Principles of Historical Linguistics" [Mouton de
Gruyter, 1986], where a fairly extensive and more technical discussion is
offered.
The migration model has been generated by principles that really work.
Admittedly, the model is hypothetical. It exists in that land alluded to
by Laurie, to the east of the asterisk. But think of in 1879 applying
these principles and concluding that there *had* to be a "coefficient
sonantique", attested in no known language, but necessary nevertheless in
order to explain IE ablaut. Of course, a generation later Hittite was
discovered, and -- guess what -- laryngeals were *right there* where
Saussure thought that the coefficient sonantique should have been. In his
skillful hands the principles worked [G. Thompson]

Seidenberg, A. "The Ritual Origin of Geometry" in Archive for Exact
Science, vol. 1.1, 1960, pp. 488-527.

Seidenberg, A. "The Origin of Mathematics," in Archive for Exact Science,
vol. 18, 1978, pp. 301-42.

Sethna, K.D. 'The Problem of Aryan Origins (from an Indian Point of View)
Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1992.
This 1992 ed (as opposed to the 1980 one), has a 200 pg. supplement
which meticulously critiques Asko Parpola's speculations on the coming of
the Aryans into India. Sethna's book is generally well written and
provocative. It is also free from Nationalistic undertones. [E. Bryant]

Shaffer, James. See Erdosy 1995, Possehl 1995, Lukacs 1984.

Sharma, G.K. "the horse was buried under the dunes of..." in Puratattva no.
23, 1922-3 pp 30-34 "a poignant article with a few ref's" [E. Bryant].

Singh, Bhagavan . The Vedic Harappans. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1995.
Is the Rig so nomadic? What do we do about ref's to thousand pillared
houses, thousand doored houses, pillars of copper covered with gold, purs
made of stone (asanmaya), and of plaster? (dehya) which are prthvi, bahula
and urvi. What about ships with a hundred oars and the numerous references
to boats and maritime trade? What about the oceanic imagery in cosmology
and other cosmic references? Is this compatible with a nomadic tribesmen
who had never seen the ocean? I will defer to G. on this, for the time
being, but would be curious as to his (or anyone's) opinion on a book
recently published called 'The Vedic Harappans' by Bhagavan Singh, New
Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1995. It seems that if we look for nomadic Aryans
in the Rig, we will come away with a nomadic reading of the text. Singh,
at least, has not shared those assumptions. Extracting all the words from
the Rig dealing with material culture (which result in sizeable lists) his
reading is of a culture fully aware of urbanity and pastoralism
simultaneously--just like India today. I haven't had time to check all his
references yet, so I cannot give an informed opinion as to his accuracy.
[E. Bryant]

Talageri, Shrikant. Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism. New
Delhi: Voice of India, 1993.
Talageri is explicitly of the Hindutva camp, and the first part of his
book can be critiqued accordingly. The rest of his work, though, reveals a
very keen mind examining the 'evidence' upon which the Aryan invasion
theory was put together and merits a response in kind (he is at his worst,
I should note, when he tries to propose Maharashtra as the IE homeland).
[E. Bryant]

Talbot, Cynthia. "History, Ethnicity, and Identity: Who is Indian?" paper
presented at Univ of Texas South Asia Seminar, March 28, 1996. Abstract
(and maybe the rest by now?) is on the U of Texas Asian Studies website.
I would echo Talbot's words: "Rather than summarily dismissing the
revisionist historiography [concerned with the medieval Hindu-Muslim
encounter and the question of India's protohistory]...I urge professional
historians to seize this opportunity to ressess the premises of the
standard historiography." [Leslie Orr]

Thapar, Romila. From Lineage To State. New Delhi, 1984.
I spent several weeks last spring reading through all the Arya
controversy literature that I could lay my hands on--including all the
titles specified thus far in your mailings. I think that Romila Thapar has
done the best job so far of sifting through the evidence. [Nancy Falk]

Thapar, Romila. Interpreting Early India (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1993).
Nancy adds an important point about Thapar, and she reminds me that I
have found Thapar's work actually quite good for pedagogical purposes on
this issue. I have assigned Thapar's essay, "Imagined Religious
Communities?" and "Ideology and the Interpretation of Early Indian History"
in a collection of her essays, **Interpreting Early India** (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1993), at the END of classes on early Indian religious
history. These two essays in particular are quite helpful because they do
present some of the counter-evidence in some simple, straightforward ways.
They raise the issue of identifying race with language, BOTH in terms of
Orientalist and communalist historiographies of Aryan identities. For that
sort of even-handedness it is quite helpful in classes. And she agrees
with Dyson in questioning the usefulness of the invasion hypthesis, but for
political, not archaeological, reasons. She argues in **From Lineage to
State** (New Delhi, 1984) that there is a kind of symbiotic
relationship between Aryan and non-Aryan, with an adoption of vocabulary,
linguistic structures, technologies and religious practices in a bi-lingual
situation.
But I would argue for assigning these essays by Thapar at the end
of a class, or a section on this material, not at the beginning. The
essays expect a lot of historiographical sophistication--sometimes
problematic for the beginning student. Much of the intriguing points she
makes would NOT be lost on the student who is a little more familiar with
issues of representing India, etc. [Laurie Patton]

Thappar, B.K. "Kalibangan: A Harappan Metropolis beyond the Indus Valley"
in Expedition,17.2 (1975) 19-33.
I was unable to recognize the fire altars that he depicted. I tried
without success to obtain further photos from him, and to my knowledge he
has not published any more on the subject. What he did publish did not
resemble (at least not very easily) any Vedic fire altars that could be
recognized from the 'Srautasuutras. Nevertheless, it is possible, if not
likely, that he is correct. [Fred Smith]

On horse controversy (from larger discussion), E. Bryant: I mentioned
previously that, due to the politicization of this whole issue. . . a
Hungarian horse bone specialist was called in to examine the specimens in
Surkotada. He confirmed that they were equus caballus Linn. I would have
to add, now, that a prominent archaeologist (who asked to remain unnamed on
the list) informed me yesterday that this identifi-cation has been rejected
by Meadows. I'll have to hunt down the article. Of course, one would have
to allow the Hungarian specialist, Sandor Bokonyi, to defend his
identification, but I had not been aware of any controversy on these
particular findings, at least, which there now evidently is.

Here is a select Bibliography:

posted 11-06-2000 20:17            

If AIT is false or discredited what takes its place ?

If it is an Indigenous Vedic/Indus/Saraswati civilization did the denizens of such a civilization in fact fan out to other parts of the world ?

I am slowly laying my hands on the vast literature on this topic. Needless to say, a knowledge of Sanskrit is extremely helpful in these discussions (which I must admit I lack, except at a rudimentary level) and those who have familiarity with the Rig V in the Sanskrit original and the Puranas will be able to add immensely to this discussion.

I trust we do not get into religious discussions here. The thrust is historical/anthropological on 'who are we, the people who inhabit this vast subcontinent, where did we spring from or to put it in another way, did we always reside in the confines of the Indian subcontinent ?

Also I trust we do not get into ' I dont like your viewpoint, therefore you must be reincarnated as a cockroach ....'. Immensely more satisfying to say why 'I think your viewpoint is not cogent or logical or not borne out by evidence or based on implied assumptions, not clearly stated'.

K

posted 12-06-2000 00:05            

New Delhi: The key to unravelling the secrets of the great Indus Valley
civilization lies in the Rig Veda, according to a German writer, who has
developed a new method to decipher and decode the Indus script, that has
defied researchers and scriptographers for centuries.

Experts are no doubt impressed by the method, but would like more in-depth
study beore they put the seal of approval. Of the few scholars, who have
claimed to have succeeded in deciphering the Indus script, the method evolved
by the German, Mr Egbert Rochter Ushanas, gives a new dimension to the
tantalising search.

After over six years of research, he has come up with a method that relies
heavily on the verses of the ancient Rig Veda, and the premise that the holy
scripture was influenced by the Indus way of thinking. He has found striking -
if not parallel - similarities between the translations of the motifs on
Indus seals and the verses in the Rig Veda....

(The news item provides the details of the connection between Rig Vedic
hymns and the writings on Indus seals.)

According to him (mr Ushanas), it is impossible to arrive at a translation
of an Indus inscription without the Rig Veda for comparison. All the Indus
signs on the seals, including the number signs, were originally names of
gods....

Mr M.C. Joshi, former director general of the Archaelogical Survey of India
(ASI) is clearly excited about the conclusions. The deduction that the
inscriptions have parallels in the Rig Veda may need further probe, but the
methodology adopted by Mr Richter-Ushanas certainly has an interesting logic,
he told the TOINS...

see also
http://alf.zfn.uni-bremen.de/~ushanas/#introduction

posted 12-06-2000 13:25            

pp. US$19.95. ISBN 1-896064-00-0

The impact of colonization during the British domination of India was not
merely political and economic. It extended to the collective psychology of
the people and in the latter's perception of its own culture. This was
noticeable in the manner in which the educated Indian citizen came to view
his or her past. The myth that quickly gained credence in academic circles
arose from the Western Indologists' view that ancient Indian history was
initiated by an invasion of Aryans coming from somewhere in Central Asia.
Several generations of Indian scholars, honestly mistaken by the
assumption that the learned philologists trained in the scientific and
''objective'' methods of research in Western academe, conscientiously
taught and wrote the history of their country by taking the myth of the
Aryan invasion as a starting point.

Of late, however, some Indian historians and Indologists have
deemed it necessary, under the imperative of truth-seeking, to reexamine
the premises (1) of the Western philologists' claim of the veracity of an
Aryan-invasion theory and (2) of its cultural consequences. Drs. N. S.
Rajaram and D. Frawley have, in this context, brought forth a cogent,
coherent argument that purports to lie to rest once and for all the
erroneous theory of the Aryan invasion of India around 2000 BCE. To
buttress their thesis the authors use the resources of their deep
knowledge of the Sanskrit language, their acquaintance with the most
recent archaeological discoveries, their expertise in mathematics and in
computer science. In short, they bring to a focus a remarkable synthesis
of several ''disciplines'' to unlock the arcane secrets of Sanskrit texts
that the early Indologists overlooked. The evidence thus brought forth
from several original sources provides sound reasons to refute the earlier
invasion theory. The dominant idea that gives the clue to their theme is
that while the Aryans have a literature, but no history or geography, the
Harappans have a sophisticated urban civilization, a history and
geography, but no language or literature. The paradox disappears when the
two are assimilated into a unitive history and geography. It becomes
logical then to argue for North India as the original home of the Aryans.
The authors further argue for a reversal of the movement of the Aryans:
they moved _out_ of India into the outlying areas, in ancient Persia and
beyond. This new theory receives support from archaeology and from a
comparative analysis of Mesopotamian and Egyptian mathematics with Vedic
mathematics. It is evident that the polyvalent learning of the authors
provides a vastly superior key to the secrets of the past than the mere
gratuitous speculation of earlier Indologists, of Friedrich Max Muller in
particular. In fact the authors do pay a worthy tribute to Max Muller for
his many attainments and for his contributions to the discovery of India
by Western scholars. At the same time, faithful to their own insights and
convictions, based on their own findings, they demonstrate how the
foundation of the invasion theory was more an expression of the prejudice
fed by racist theories that were spawned by Western academic anthropology
and supported by the triumphant colonial enterprises of West European
countries.

The significance of this work consists in its being an important
confirmation of Indian history having at last decisively come into its
own, freed from the distortions of the arbitrary normative conclusions of
earlier Western historians. The authors pay tribute to other scholars--D.
Sethna, S. Talageri, S. B. Roy, K. C. Varma, and others--whose
contributions have altered the perception of ancient Indian history with
the evidence that it actually had an indigenous genesis. With a fair
measure of self-reliance and confidence, they even propound the thesis
that the early Vedic civilization was not merely a locally restricted way
of life, but actually spread out to other parts of West Asia and Africa. A
welcome aspect of this work is its refutation of certain Marxist Indian
historians who persist in their attachment to the superstitious theories
bequeathed by the Indologists of Max Muller's generation. The authors
rightly point out that ''not one significant contribution has been made by
Indian historians belonging to the elite 'establishment'.'' At the same
time they make it clear that they are not driven by the need to write an
apology of Indian chauvinistic nationalism. Theirs is a statement of
veracity based on hard evidence. At the same time the authors recognize
that their work is not the last say in the ongoing process of unveiling
the truth about ancient Indian history. They acknowledge that gaps still
remain in the task of reinterpreting Vedic history. Nevertheless, their
contribution provides substantial material that will enable the historians
of India to work towards the common goal of knowing what happened at the
beginning of the Vedic civilization and to collaborate with one another to
bring about a synthetic reconstruction of the historical integrity of the
country.

Vedic "Aryans" and the Origins of Civilization stands out as a
major original and fresh statement of what India was. It is lucidly
written. The intricacies of the mathematical discussions and of Vedic
linguistics, are expressed with clarity in a language which will appeal to
both the scholar and the layperson. This is indeed a felicitous way of
writing about a difficult and abstruse subject. The book is commendable
for its style, the seriousness of its purpose, and for the originality of
the thesis that claims to establish that the moral and intellectual order
that marked the early Vedic culture arose in that part of India irrigated
by the Sarasvati River, a region that then stood as a greenhouse in which
were grown the saplings that were subsequently transplanted and grew into
the trees of civilizations in the surrounding lands.

The reader must rush to read this very well written book on a
subject that will fascinate even those unacquainted with the history of
India.

Dr. K. D. Prithipaul
Emeritus Professor of Religion at
University of Alberta, Edmonton

ORDERING INFORMATION:

TO: World Heritage Press
1270 St-Jean, St-Hyacinthe
Canada J2S 8M2

Price: US-$19.95
Student: US-$9.98, a 50% saving off the regular price
S&H: add US-$5 for first copy, US-$1.50 each additional copy
[Sept. 1997]

see also
http://www.tamilnation.org/books/History/aryan.htm

posted 12-06-2000 15:19            

ARYAN INVASION THEORY AND INDIAN NATIONALISM

by Shrikant Talageri
(a Voice of India Publication: ISBN 8185990026)

The Author: Shrikant G. Talageri: Born in 1958, Shrikant G.Talageri was educated in Bombay where he
lives and works. He has been interested in Wildlife, Comparative Music, Religion and Philosophy, History
and Culture and Linguistics. He has made a special study of the Konkani language, his mother tongue. He
has devoted several years, and much to study, to the theory of an Aryan invasion of India, and interpreted
the Vedas with the help of the Puranas, Itihasapuranabhyam, vedam samupabrinhayeta.

The Reviewer: Sita Ram Goel, Author and Publisher.

History is a very potent subject. Politics can be, and very often is, based on it. A nation which forgets, or
falsifies, or wilfully ignores, or glosses over the lessons of its history is a nation heading toward doom. And,
conversely, when a nation is intended toqbe sent to its doom, a process of falsification of its history can be
profitably launched.

Indian 'history', as it is formulated, taught, and propagated today, has been the handiwork of the Leftist
'intellectuals', ever since Leftist intellectualism came into vogue. And since destruction of national identity is
one of the basic tenets of Leftist ideology, it is no wonder that Indian history, as an academic subject, has
been falsified on a grand scale, with the sole aim and intention of uprooting and destroying India's national
identity and ethos.

Recent publications in India and abroad, have contributed a great deal toward exposing most of the fallacies
and falsehoods perpetrated by Leftist historians, and their scularist fellow travelers, in respect of medieval
and post-medieval history. There is, however, one remote period of history, or prehistory, which, inspite of
its remoteness, has come to acquire a major propaganda value for the Leftists and their ilk the period of the
so called "Aryan invasion of India".

A race of people, called the "Aryans", is supposed to have invaded India somewhere around 2000-1500
BC from the north west. These Aryans, after centuries of warfare and bloodshed, are supposed to have
destroyed, or driven southward, or subjugated and absorbed (as lower castes) most of the natives in the
north of the 'subcontinent', and then themselves occupied the northern areas.

Originally formulated by European scholars, mainly for imperialistic reasons, this theory has been perfected
by Indian Leftists into a powerful weapon to be used against Indian nationalism.The theory has been
accepted on such a scale that any text book or scholarly book the world over, which deals with, or refers
to, India's early history, mantions the Aryan invasion of India in the second millenium BC, as if it were a
natural and indisputable part of proven history.

To the Leftist propagandists, however, the theory means much more. It means that just as the British and
the Muslim invaders came from outside, so also the Aryan invaders came from outside. Hence, Christianity,
Islam and Hinduism are all eqaully foreign to India; or, conversely, all three are equally Indian.

Further, it means that just as Christianity and Islam were imposed on Indians by foreign invaders, so was
Hinduism imposed on native Indians (Dravidians) by foreign invaders (Aryans).

For the Leftist, of course, the matter does not end there. He goes further and propounds that while the
Aryans conquered India and reduced its natives to the level of lower castes within their social structure and
hierarchy, in the name of Hinduism, the other invaders sought to liberate the natives from this bondage, in
the name of Islam and Christianity. Hence these original natives, the 'Dravidians', must reject Hinduism and
align with Islam and Christianity.

Incidentally, the Aryan invasion theory is just one part of a larger scheme which seeks to brand India as a
kind of Imperialists' paradise, into which people of different races and cultures poured in at various points of
time; an area, therefore, with no native people of its own, to which no people can lay claim, and which
belongs to anyone who has the power to acquire overlordship over it.

posted 13-06-2000 09:29            

see also http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/koenraadelst/articles/Indusscr.html

posted 13-06-2000 19:01            

K

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html

posted 14-06-2000 02:44            

While the average Indian will scoff at the notion that he is descended in some fashion from Armenians or Georgians (in the Caucasus)the establishment in India , especially JNU is firmly in the hands of the Communists and they are controlling the agenda. There are profound implications of abandoning the AIT. For one , with the AIT, an argument can be made that everybody in India is an invader and nobody has a claim to victimhood or being the 'original Indian'. This is the undercurrent of the secularists in India. It is a gaggle of communists, pseudo seculars, minorities who now support this bankrupt theory. India is one of the countries in the planet which has been robbed of her own history. Indians have now to defend why they have always been in the subcontinent and they have always been Indians.

The other major reason widely prevalent among Europeans and some Indians, is that they cannot fathom the idea that the Vedas were conceived by Indians. IOW, it is beyond the capabilities of the present day Indian to compose the vast literature of the Vedas and the Puranas. Ergo, the Vedas were composed anywhere but in India and then they swooped down the Hindu Kush on horse drawn chariots and defeated the dark skinned but highly skilled and urbanized Dasyus and Dravidians living in the Indus Valley. Does this seem vaguely reminiscent of divide and rule.

posted 14-06-2000 08:55            

HISTORY
Our Druid Cousins
Meet the brahmins of ancient Europe, the high caste of Celtic society
By Peter Berresford Ellis

The Celtic people spread from their homeland in what is now Germany across Europe in the first millennium bce. Iron tools and weapons rendered them superior to their neighbors. They were also skilled farmers, road builders, traders and inventors of a fast two-wheeled chariot. They declined in the face of Roman, Germanic and Slavic ascendency by the second centuries bce. Here Peter Berresford Ellis, one of Europe's foremost experts of the Celts, explains how modern research has revealed the amazing similarities between ancient Celt and Vedic culture. The Celt's priestly caste, the Druids, has become a part of modern folklore. Their identity is claimed by New Age enthusiasts likely to appear at annual solstice gatherings around the ancient megaliths of northwest Europe. While sincerely motivated by a desire to resurrect Europe's ancient spiritual ways, Ellis says these modern Druids draw more upon fanciful reconstructions of the 18th century than actual scholarship.

The Druids of the ancient Celtic world have a startling kinship with the brahmins of the Hindu religion and were, indeed, a parallel development from their common Indo-European cultural root which began to branch out probably five thousand years ago. It has been only in recent decades that Celtic scholars have begun to reveal the full extent of the parallels and cognates between ancient Celtic society and Vedic culture.

The Celts were the first civilization north of the European Alps to emerge into recorded history. At the time of their greatest expansion, in the 3rd century bce, the Celts stretched from Ireland in the west, through to the central plain of Turkey in the east; north from Belgium, down to Cadiz in southern Spain and across the Alps into the Po Valley of Italy. They even impinged on areas of Poland and the Ukraine and, if the amazing recent discoveries of mummies in China's province of Xinjiang are linked with the Tocharian texts, they even moved as far east as the area north of Tibet.

The once great Celtic civilization is today represented only by the modern Irish, Manx and Scots, and the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. Today on the northwest fringes of Europe cling the survivors of centuries of attempted conquest and "ethnic cleansing" by Rome and its imperial descendants. But of the sixteen million people who make up those populations, only 2.5 million now speak a Celtic language as their mother tongue.

The Druids were not simply a priesthood. They were the intellectual caste of ancient Celtic society, incorporating all the professions: judges, lawyers, medical doctors, ambassadors, historians and so forth, just as does the brahmin caste. In fact, other names designate the specific role of the "priests." Only Roman and later Christian propaganda turned them into "shamans," "wizards" and "magicians." The scholars of the Greek Alexandrian school clearly described them as a parallel caste to the brahmins of Vedic society.

The very name Druid is composed of two Celtic word roots which have parallels in Sanskrit. Indeed, the root vid for knowledge, which also emerges in the Sanskrit word Veda, demonstrates the similarity. The Celtic root dru which means "immersion" also appears in Sanskrit. So a Druid was one "immersed in knowledge."

Because Ireland was one of the few areas of the Celtic world that was not conquered by Rome and therefore not influenced by Latin culture until the time of its Christianization in the 5th century ce, its ancient Irish culture has retained the most clear and startling parallels to Hindu society.

Professor Calvert Watkins of Harvard, one of the leading linguistic experts in his field, has pointed out that of all the Celtic linguistic remains, Old Irish represents an extraordinarily archaic and conservative tradition within the Indo-European family. Its nominal and verbal systems are a far truer reflection of the hypothesized parent tongue, from which all Indo-European languages developed, than are Classical Greek or Latin. The structure of Old Irish, says Professor Watkins, can be compared only with that of Vedic Sanskrit or Hittite of the Old Kingdom.

The vocabulary is amazingly similar. The following are just a few examples:

Old Irish - arya (freeman),Sanskrit - aire (noble)
Old Irish - naib (good), Sanskrit - noeib (holy)
Old Irish - badhira (deaf), Sanskrit - bodhar (deaf)
Old Irish - names (respect), Sanskrit - nemed (respect)
Old Irish - righ (king), Sanskrit - raja (king)

This applies not only in the field of linguistics but in law and social custom, in mythology, in folk custom and in traditional musical form. The ancient Irish law system, the Laws of the Fénechus, is closely parallel to the Laws of Manu. Many surviving Irish myths, and some Welsh ones, show remarkable resemblances to the themes, stories and even names in the sagas of the Indian Vedas.

Comparisons are almost endless. Among the ancient Celts, Danu was regarded as the "Mother Goddess." The Irish Gods and Goddesses were the Tuatha De Danaan ("Children of Danu"). Danu was the "divine waters" falling from heaven and nurturing Bíle, the sacred oak from whose acorns their children sprang. Moreover, the waters of Danu went on to create the great Celtic sacred river--Danuvius, today called the Danube. Many European rivers bear the name of Danu--the Rhône (ro-Dhanu, "Great Danu") and several rivers called Don. Rivers were sacred in the Celtic world, and places where votive offerings were deposited and burials often conducted. The Thames, which flows through London, still bears its Celtic name, from Tamesis, the dark river, which is the same name as Tamesa, a tributary of the Ganges.

Not only is the story of Danu and the Danube a parallel to that of Ganga and the Ganges but a Hindu Danu appears in the Vedic story "The Churning of the Oceans," a story with parallels in Irish and Welsh mytholgy. Danu in Sanskrit also means "divine waters" and "moisture."

In ancient Ireland, as in ancient Hindu society, there was a class of poets who acted as charioteers to the warriors They were also their intimates and friends. In Irish sagas these charioteers extolled the prowess of the warriors. The Sanskrit Satapatha Brahmana says that on the evening of the first day of the horse sacrifice (and horse sacrifice was known in ancient Irish kingship rituals, recorded as late as the 12th century) the poets had to chant a praise poem in honor of the king or his warriors, usually extolling their genealogy and deeds.

Such praise poems are found in the Rig Veda and are called narasamsi. The earliest surviving poems in old Irish are also praise poems, called fursundud, which trace back the genealogy of the kings of Ireland to Golamh or Mile Easpain, whose sons landed in Ireland at the end of the second millennium bce. When Amairgen, Golamh's son, who later traditions hail as the "first Druid," set foot in Ireland, he cried out an extraordinary incantation that could have come from the Bhagavad Gita, subsuming all things into his being [see sidebar right].

Celtic cosmology is a parallel to Vedic cosmology. Ancient Celtic astrologers used a similar system based on twenty-seven lunar mansions, called nakshatras in Vedic Sanskrit. Like the Hindu Soma, King Ailill of Connacht, Ireland, had a circular palace constructed with twenty-seven windows through which he could gaze on his twenty-seven "star wives."

There survives the famous first century bce Celtic calendar (the Coligny Calendar) which, as soon as it was first discovered in 1897, was seen to have parallels to Vedic calendrical computations. In the most recent study of it, Dr. Garret Olmsted, an astronomer as well as Celtic scholar, points out the startling fact that while the surviving calendar was manufactured in the first century bce, astronomical calculus shows that it must have been computed in 1100 bce.

One fascinating parallel is that the ancient Irish and Hindus used the name Budh for the planet Mercury. The stem budh appears in all the Celtic languages, as it does in Sanskrit, as meaning "all victorious," "gift of teaching," "accomplished," "enlightened," "exalted" and so on. The names of the famous Celtic queen Boudicca, of ancient Britain (1st century ce), and of Jim Bowie (1796-1836), of the Texas Alamo fame, contain the same root. Buddha is the past participle of the same Sanskrit word--"one who is enlightened."

For Celtic scholars, the world of the Druids of reality is far more revealing and exciting, and showing of the amazingly close common bond with its sister Vedic culture, than the inventions of those who have now taken on the mantle of modern "Druids," even when done so with great sincerity.

If we are all truly wedded to living in harmony with one another, with nature, and seeking to protect endangered species of animal and plant life, let us remember that language and culture can also be in ecological danger. The Celtic languages and cultures today stand on the verge of extinction. That is no natural phenomenon but the result of centuries of politically directed ethnocide. What price a "spiritual awareness" with the ancient Celts when their culture is in the process of being destroyed or reinvented? Far better we seek to understand and preserve intact the Celt's ancient wisdom. In this, Hindus may prove good allies.

The Song of Amairgen the Druid
I am the wind that blows across the sea; I am the wave of the ocean;
I am the murmur of the billows; I am the bull of the seven combats;
I am the vulture on the rock; I am a ray of the sun; I am the fairest of flowers;
I am a wild boar in valor; I am a salmon in the pool; I am a lake on the plain;
I am the skill of the craftsman; I am a word of science;
I am the spearpoint that gives battle;
I am the God who creates in the head of man the fire of thought.
Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain, if not I?
Who tells the ages of the moon, if not I?
Who shows the place where the sun goes to rest, if not I?
Who is the God that fashions enchantments--
The enchantment of battle and the wind of change?

Amairgen was the first Druid to arrive in Ireland. Ellis states, "In this song Amairgen subsumes everything into his own being with a philosophic outlook that parallels the declaration of Krishna in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita." It also is quite similar in style and content to the more ancient Sri Rudra chant of the Yajur Veda.

Peter Berresford Ellis is one of the foremost living authorities on the Celts and author of many books on the subject, including "Celt and Roman," "Celt and Greek," "Dictionary of Celtic Mythology" and "Celtic Women."
PETER BERRESFORD ELLIS, 30 GRESLEY ROAD, LONDON, N19 3JZ, ENGLAND (from Hinduism Today)

posted 15-06-2000 08:41            

Aryan Invasion Theory - where the denizens of the Mahabharata (the Kurus and the Purus) came from elsewhere - anywhere but India around 1500 BC, long after the Saraswati dried up.

Indigenous Aryan Theory - where they have not come from anywhere but have evolved in India. The Rig was composed around 4000 BC. Pl. see the post by Klaus Klostermeier where he lists the problems (17 bullets) with the AIT, including the fact that the Saraswati dried up long before (circa 2000 BC) they made numerous references to it in the Rig.

posted 15-06-2000 09:11            

'The Arabs had considerable commerce with India, and a knowledge of one or both of the two great Hindoo works on algebra had been obtained in the Caliphate of Al-Mansur (754-775 AD)though it was not until fifty or seventy years later that they attracted much attention. The algebra and arithmetic of the Arabs were largely founded on these tretises, and I therefore devote this section to the consideration of Hindoo mathematics.

The Hindoos like the Chinese have pretended that they are the most ancient people on the face of the earth, and that to them all sciences owe their creation. But it is probable that these pretentions have no foundation; and in fact no science or useful art (except a rather fantastic architecture and sculpture) can be definitely traced back to the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula prior to the Aryan invasion. This seems to have taken place at some time in the fifth century or in the sixth century when a tribe of Aryans entered India by the north west part of their country. Their descendants, wherever they have kept their blood pure, may still be recognized by their superiority over the races they originally conquered; but as is the case with the modern Europeans, they found the climate trying and gradually degenerated.'

Note the blatant racism in the second paragraph and the venom that this author exhibits.

K

posted 15-06-2000 15:07            

The Myth of Aryans and Non-Aryans
By Swami Vivekananda
"The mind jumps back several thousand years, and fancies that the same things happened here, and our archaeologist dreams of India being full of dark eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryan 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 they were all black haired. If the writer happens to be a black haired man, then the Aryans were all black haired.

Of late there have been attempts to prove that the Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes. 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 in these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afganistan. There it ends.

All the theory that the Shudras caste were all non-Aryans and they were a multitude, is equally illogical and equally irrational. It could not have been possible in those days that a few hundred Aryans settled and lived there with a few hundred thousand slaves at their command. These slaves would have eaten them up, made "chutney" of them in five minutes.

The only explanation can be found in the Mahabharatha, which says, that in the beginning of Satya Yuga there was only one caste, the Brahmanas, and then by difference of occupation they went on dividing themselves into castes, and that is the only true and rational explanation that has been given. And in the coming of the Satya Yuga all the other castes will have to go back to the same condition. The solution to the caste problem in India, therefore, assumes this form, not to degrade the higher castes, not to crush out the Brahmana."

posted 17-06-2000 13:50            

The Politics of History, Aryan Invasion Theory and the subversion of scholarship by Navaratna S Rajaram, Voice of India Publications, 1995

This is a very interesting book. Much scholarship, especially in the west, in the social sciences is tainted by political and racial considerations. However, most Indians have accepted Max Mueller as being an unbiased and admiring student of the ancient Indian Vedic literature. While the second part of Max Muller’s motivation may be true, few Indians are aware that he brought an agenda into his scholarship, which he barely tried to conceal.

This book discusses the motivations of European scholars and especially Max Mueller, in great detail In another book titled Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization, Frawley and Rajaram give a brief account of the political forces that went into the creation of the Aryan Invasion Theory. The present book takes a more detailed look at these political forces and their underlying motives.

The present book focuses on two clearly identifiable causes that brought about this subversion of scholarship. European politics and ignorance of science and scientific method on the part of its practitioners. One interesting observation that the author makes is that, the ancient Indian civilization was blessed with a plethora of riches in one particular area – namely the vast literary treasures that the Vedic people have left behind. This is a unique feature of ancient Indian civilization. Neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia is blessed with a continuous living tradition of Vedic and other scholarship preserved through millenia.

The first chapter is devoted to recounting in summary the arguments that have bedeviled the Aryan Invasion Theory. I will not go into them here in detail but they include

1. the ecological and geographical evidence of the drying of the Sarasvati River, to which they made numerous references in the Rig V, long before the Aryans were supposed to have arrived in India

2. Frawley’s paradox – a literature without history or archaeology for the Aryans, and a history and archaeology for the Harappans but no literature.

3. Evidence of Mathematics – Sulbasutras and the Ancient world

4. The Harappa-Sutra-Sumeria equation

5. The Harappan language and script , now shown to be Sanskrit.

The second chapter is devoted to the early years of discovery of the vast literature in Sanskrit by Sir William Jones and the subsequent realization that this was indeed part of a Indo-European family of languages. All is well so far, but this is where the colonialist and missionary impulse starts to assert itself and a deliberate agenda is put in place by colonialists such as Thomas Babington Macaulay. This was also the start of the Boden Professorship at Oxford. Max Mueller, who coveted this Professorship himself, was never actually awarded this chair (Is it because he was German, in a land where the elite were ashamed of their boorish Royal family who happened to be from Germany). But Max Mueller was financed by the East India Company for a considerable part of his work, and the motive was quite clear . In a letter to his wife , he writes ‘…this edition of mine (Sacred Books of the East) and the translation of the Veda, will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion and to show them what the root is, I feel sure is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last three thousand years’ (Max Mueller , Life and Letters, Vol.I, edited by Georgina Mueller, London, Longmans, 1902, p.328).IOW, the subtext is very clear, all that is noteworthy and immemmorial in India came from outside the geographical borders of the subcontinent. The rot had set in, the implied racial superiority of the European races could not be challenged even when faced with overwhelming literary evidence to the contrary. Under such a milieu, the coming of a Hitler was almost pre-ordained.

There is a separate chapter on Max Mueller’s ghost, which describes both the vast scope of his contributions as well as his erroneous conclusions which have bedeviled this field of scholarship for over a 100 years. The rest of the book is devoted to the status of the field of scholarship of Ancient Indian civiliations and how it has been usurped by a small band of scholars who are Marxist in their outlook, and who have an agenda of their own.

Every Indian should read this book from cover to cover, not merely to understand the massive fraud that has been perpetrated on the subcontinent by a small group of sometimes well intentioned but mostly ill-intentioned gaggle of scholars, colonialists, missionaries and communists, but also to discriminate between what is good science and scholarship and what is a mass of unsubstantiated hypotheses.

Kaushal

posted 17-06-2000 20:08            

K

http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/nov/18inter.htm

posted 17-06-2000 21:56            

quote:

---

The Harappan language and script , now shown to be Sanskrit.

---

posted 17-06-2000 22:05            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johann:
Don't you mean that Brahmi and Harappan scripts show some similarity?

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posted 18-06-2000 01:28            

The Indian archaeologists and scientists have discounted this hypothesis and have tied the sounds to a Proto-Vedic language which is a predecessor to Sanskrit. The Indians now believe that the so called Dravidian languages and the Vedic language are derived from a Proto language which was spoken in Harappa .The distinction between Dravidian and Vedic is purely a concoction of European philologists which is really the topic of this book (The Politics of History).

Of course the Brahmi scripts, which is the script that Telugu (Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam)uses, came into use far later in time. We are talking the mists of time here (3000 bce for Harappan and 1000 BCE for Brahmi). One has to read the books mentioned in the posts above to follow this fascinating story. I am just skimming the surface, but this is not something you can reach a conclusion by one afternoon's reading.

For some visuals of the pictography of Harappa, a good book is that of Jonathan mark Kenoyer 'The ancient cities of the Indus Valley'. While he is not definitive(he simply says not all scholars agree with the Dravidian identification), he expounds the conventional European explanation that it is a ProtoDravidian language.

http://www.harappabazaar.com/books/kenoyer.html

The Europeans and the West in general is extremely reluctant to embrace the Indian decipherment , with the exception of a few (Klaus Klostermeier, Edwin Bryant).

Kaushal

posted 19-06-2000 13:30            

Note the initial years of discovery of the literature of India were accompanied by great adulation of the Indian tradition. Voltaire was one such admirer. But everything started to change after the British military conquest of India was complete by the end of the 17th century (coinciding approximately with the defeat of Tipu). In one century the British had managed to accomplish the task of converting India from a wealthy country to a penurious one. More importantly, so complete was the British brainwashing in cultural terms, that even today we in India self flagellate interminably about the evils of our indigenous culture. Forgotten in all this by our Dalit brothers, especially those who choose to believe the firengi, is the admonition of Ambedkar;

B. R. Ambedkar is our second example. Known in India chiefly for his campaign in support of the lowest castes (he himself was a Harijan) and his work on the
Indian Constitution, it is often overlooked that in order to find out the truth of the European theories about Aryans and non-Aryans, high and low caste, he did
precisely what Sri Aurobindo exhorted Indians to do: he went to the source, and studied the Veda for himself, with an open mind. His conclusions are unequivocal,
though regrettably they are largely ignored by those who profess to follow his lead - and who more often than not make a strident use of the very theories he sought
to demolish:

"The theory of invasion is an invention. This invention is necessary because of a gratuitous assumption that the Indo-Germanic people are the purest of
the modern representatives of the original Aryan race. The theory is based upon nothing but pleasing assumptions, and inferences based on such
assumptions. The theory is a perversion of scientific investigation. It is not allowed to evolve out of facts. On the contrary, the theory is preconceived
and facts are selected to prove it. It falls to the ground at every point.23

"[My conclusions] are:

1. The Vedas do not know any such race as the Aryan race.

2. There is no evidence in the Vedas of any invasion of India by the Aryan race and its having conquered the Dasas and Dasyus supposed to be the
natives of India.

3. There is no evidence to show that the distinction between Aryans, Dasas and Dasyus was a racial distinction.

4. The Vedas do not support the contention that the Aryas were different in colour from the Dasas and Dasyus....

"If anthropometry is a science which can be depended upon to determine the race of a people... [then its] measurements establish that the Brahmins and
the Untouchables belong to the same race. From this it follows that if the Brahmins are Aryans the Untouchables are also Aryans. If the Brahmins are
Dravidians, the Untouchables are also Dravidians...."24

Despite these remarkable protests, none listened - we Indians have long had the inexplicable habit of accepting change only if it comes to us from the West. Yet in
recent years, some voices have begun to be heard, both in the West and in India, asserting that the time has come to chuck out this worm-eaten theory once and for
all. The cumulative evidence from all scientific branches of knowledge, especially archaeology, has become simply too overwhelming to be ignored, except for
historians with dubious motives.

posted 19-06-2000 13:51            

Another on-line resource courtesy of our friendly mlechha David Frawley, with lots of links to other sites.

K

posted 19-06-2000 14:46            

Dr Kak just emailed me and he gave me a link. Here it is
http://www.sulekha.com/articles/skak_indology.html

posted 19-06-2000 15:02            

Kaushal

posted 19-06-2000 16:06            

Would that it were so. Alas, reality intrudes and such is not the case.
Sagar, go back and visit the link to the discussion (ca.1995) I posted earlier. Except for a few, the majority of the firengi who took part in that discussion still believe in the AIT. Of course to make it more palatable they no longer call it such. The new name is Aryan Migration Theory. But the belief and the proselytization continues - there was a race called Aryans. They spoke a proto-Aryan language. They came from a Ur-heimat, and lo and behold that heimat was not India, but the Central Steppes of Southern Russia (the Kurgan theory) OR from Anatolia (present day Turkey) - IOW anywhere but India.

The battle is not over and it is premature to declare victory. And unfortunately there are plenty of Bharatiya who are willing to spout this nonsense, for tasting the meager crumbs of a favorable citation from a patronizing firengi.

posted 19-06-2000 21:53            

Migration and invasion are entirely different business altogether e.g. we migrated to North America while the white settlers initially invaded it.
I personally think that the proto-Vedic culture existed in an area which would roughly include present-day North, North-West India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and perhaps Eastern Iran. If there was a migration it was within this region and later it may have spread into heartland India and Asia and Europe - so in effect my belief is a synthesis of the two contending theories. In my belief both the contending theories can be explained to a great extent if we assume that there was migration from East and West taking place from this region. Anyway, since I am not a "professional" I better shut up. -

posted 19-06-2000 23:02            

I may be wrong, but is it crystal clear that the Gathas of the Avesta came before or after the Rig veda. It is ironic that the Zoroastrians themselves believe that their religion evolved from India, which is the main reason they chose to emigrate to India when faced with extinction by the Islamic invasions. Almost every Parsee I know believes that his forefathers came back to India certain in the belief that they would receive a welcome because it was the land of their ancestors.

Needless to say I am not an expert in linguistics. But this is the crux of the problem - that reliance on linguistics alone cannot answer the problem of determining if , when and where there was a cradle of civilization.

Kaushal

posted 19-06-2000 23:15            

But that is not what the AIT protagonists maintain. Their preference is that the migration took place either from Turkey or Southern Russia.

To participate in this debate one needs a knowledge of linguistics (primarily Sanskrit), archaeology, the history of science and mathematics, informatics and the deciphering of scripts. Each one of these topics involves a lifetime of study and research.

The point of the discussion is that in the past claims have been made on the flimsiest of reasons and without the kind of scrutiny that I described. Max Mueller had only basic knowledge of Sanskrit and no knowledge of the other disciplines I mentioned.

Like you, I do not claim to be an expert. All the more reason to educate oneself on these issues and not let it be hijacked by persons claiming to be experts. As I said earlier in this thread , the issues raised here cannot be resolved in an afternoon of reading.

Kaushal