“A people without the knowledge of
their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” Marcus Garvey
The myth that Aryans were not the indigenous people and the theory of
Aryan invasion theory came from British scholars, missionaries and rulers to
deepen the divisions in Hindu society and exacerbate caste conflicts. The Aryan invasion theory has been used for political and
religious advantage in a way that is perhaps unparalleled for any historical
idea. The bogey of Aryan and Dravidian races was unknown prior to the
nineteenth century either in the north or the south India. It was also raised
by Britishers. Attempts were made to trace the origin of the caste system in
the Aryan invasion theory and identify Dalits with non-Aryans. British rulers
adopted ‘divide and rule’ policy and tried to divide the Hindu society on caste
and regional basis, low caste dark-skinned Dravidians and the high caste
light-skinned Aryans. Christian and Islamic
missionaries have used the theory to denigrate the Hindu religion as a product
of barbaric invaders and promote their efforts to convert Hindus.
Indian history, particularly of ancient India, has been obscured and
confused. If you want to weaken a nation, distort its history. If you
want to destroy a community, confuse its ethno-cultural identity and
heritage. Western colonial rulers have done this to the ancient Hindu nation in
general, and to the history of India in particular. This has been more
adversely affected because of the attitude of indifference towards history on
the part of Hindu historians, probably because of oppression by Muslim and
English rulers. Wrong and misinterpreted history has confused Hindus about
their identity and about the antiquity of their heritage. They have questions
about the origin of Aryans and about Aryan invasion.We have blindly
endorsed most of the ethno-socio-cultural theories, particularly--‘Aryan Invasion of India’, ‘Aryans and Dravidians divide’, ‘Indo--European Family of Languages, which have been expounded by Western scholars
with their missionary agenda to confuse our heritage. Our own politicians have
remained apathetic, silent, indifferent, and unconcerned. It seems, they
have been resisting getting history of ancient India corrected, apparently
because of political reasons, fear of losing minority votes.
The Aryan invasion theory has been
used to explain both the linguistic and racial differences between the peoples
of north and south India, and such differences have been put forth as ‘proof’
of the invasion. As the Aryans were made into a race, so were the Dravidians
and the Aryan/Dravidian divide was turned into a racial war, the Aryan invaders
versus the indigenous Dravidians of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. By this view the
Vedic people promoted the superiority of their race and language and simply
drove away those of different races or languages.
In Sanskrit, Aryan is never a racial term but
a title of respect. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, Rama is described as an Arya, in
following words; “Arya--who cared for equality for all and was dear to
everyone.” During the Mahabharata war, when Arjuna told Krishna that he would
not fight his opponents—the Kuravas, in the battle, the Lord chastised him in
the following words:
“Kutas tva kasmalamidam (Whence is this perilous condition
Visama samuppasthitam come upon thee; this dejection,
Anarya-justam asvargyam un-Aryan like, heaven-excluding,
Akisti-karma, Arjuna” disgraceful, O Arjuna)
(Bhagwad Gita 2.2)
Lord Krishna characterizes Arjuna’s behavior
as un-Aryan, because the Aryans were ‘extremely sensitive to higher calls of
life, righteousness and nobility, both in thought and action.’
Even the Dravidian kings called
themselves Aryan. Nor is there anything in Vedic literature that places the
Dravidians outside of the greater Vedic culture and ancestry. Hence to place
Aryan against Dravidian as terms is itself a misuse of language. Vedic scholar,
Sri Aurobindo has stated that the Dravidian and Sanskritic languages have much
more in common and appear to have a common ancestor. Dravidian history does not
contradict Vedic history either. It credits the invention of the Tamil
language, the oldest Dravidian tongue, to the Rishi Agastya, one of the most
prominent sages in the Rig Veda. Dravidian kings historically have called
themselves Aryans and trace their descent through Manu (who in the Matsya
Purana is regarded as originally a south Indian king). Apart from language,
moreover, both north and south India share a common religion and culture. There
is no real evidence for any Aryan invasion---whether archeological, literary or
linguistic.
Robert Caldwell gave linguistic
meaning of Dravida in his ‘Comparative Grammer of the Dravidian or South Indian
Family of Languages’; “It is striking how, in the process, the word Dravida underwent the same abusive
mis-interpretation as the word Arya,
both of which never had any linguistic or racial sense. The meaning of Dravida
had always been purely geographical: it first appears in inscriptions as early
as the second century BC as dramira,
later as dramila or dramida, and was simply synonymous with
the word Tamil (from which, in fact,
most scholars derive dravida). Later
on, it came to mean loosely Southern India, and interestingly, the traditional Pancha-Dravida or five Dravidian regions
included Maharashtra and Gujarat.”
Hancock (2002:169) explains how the culture of the ancient India has been
scholarly misinterpreted: “The
Indus-Saraswati civilization was a literate culture, but the archaeological
interpretation of it has been strictly limited to excavated material remains
and has never been able to draw upon the civilization’s own texts. This is
because all attempts to decipher the enigmatic ‘Harappan’ script have failed,
and because (at least until very recently) the Sanskrit Vedas were regarded as
the work of another, later culture and were assumed to have had nothing to do
with the Indus-Saraswati civilization. In the twentieth century, this approach
simply meant that there was no Indus-Saraswati civilization. It was not part of
the archaeological picture of India’s past and was never even contemplated. It
was, in other words, as ‘lost’ as Plato’s Atlantis until the material evidence
that proved its existence began to surface when excavations were started at
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in 1920s.”
In his 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. The Aryan Invasion Theory is something, he questions on the
evidence. He states (p.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 (p.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 that 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, the main river of the Vedas.” This means that the Rig Veda must already
have been quite ancient by the time of the Harappan Civilization. Since the
Harappan Civilization was known to be flourishing in the 3100 - 1900 BC period,
the Rig Veda must have been in existence by 5000 BC. This now receives
archaeological support following R.S. Bisht’s investigation of the great
Harappan city of Dholavira. Bisht (and other archaeologists) have concluded;
“that the Vedic Aryans of the Saraswati heartland were the people who created
the Harappan cities and the civilization associated with it”. .
Archaeologist Paul-Henri
Francfort, who studied the Saraswati region at the beginning of the
nineties,found out that the Saraswati had "disappeared", because
around 2200 B.C., an immense drought reduced the whole region to aridity and
famine.He writes; “most inhabitants moved away from the Saraswati to settle on
the banks of the Indus and Sutlej rivers”.The Rig Veda, describes India as it
was before the great drought, which dried-up the Saraswati,which means the Indus or Harappan civilisation was a
continuation of the Vedic epoch, which ended approximately when the Saraswati
dried-up.
Ancient
Mohenjo-Daro Mohenjo-Daro Figure of a king or of a preist.
Lieut. Col. F. Wilford, in the
Asiatic Society of Bengal’s research series, led by William Jones (1746-94),
section: “On the Ancient Geography of India” (Vol. XIV,
pp.374-376), says; “that some Puranas have information about the names of some
mansions, geographical tracts, mountains, rivers, etc., but without any
explanations about them.”
The historian Graham
Hancock, in ‘Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization’ (2002,
p.116), remarks: “Almost every thing that was ever written about this
(Indus) civilization before five years ago is wrong.” Hancock concludes
that during most of the twentieth century, the archaeological record refused
to reveal evidence of the Indus civilization’s long period of development. This
created a vacuum, a dark hole in history, European scholars took advantage of.
Hancock further remarks: “European scholars felt free to conclude that the
Indus Valley civilization might, in its origin, have been alien to
India.”
There are numerous early critics, both
Western and Indian, of Aryan invasion theory, from its inception. The Indian
critics such as Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo,
Shri B. R. Ambedkar and other prominent scholars.
Lord Colin Renfrew, the
well-known British archaeologist, rejected the idea of an Aryan invasion on the
evidence of the Rig-Veda (something many Indian scholars and masters, from
Swami Vivekananda to Sri Aurobindo, had done earlier): “As far as I can see, there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rig
Veda which demonstrates that the
Vedic-speaking populations were intrusive to the area.... Nothing implies that the Aryas were
strangers there.”
Mountstuart Elphinstone, a
British historian and statesman, wrote in his 1841, History of India: “Neither in the Vedas, nor in any book ... is there any allusion
to a prior residence ... out of India.... There is no reason whatever for thinking that
the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present one.”
The French archaeologist Salomon
Reinach, writing in 1892 at the height of the Aryan myth, was perhaps the first
to reject the very notion of an Aryan race: “To
speak of an Aryan race of three thousand years ago is to put forward a
gratuitous hypothesis;
but to speak of it as if it still existed today is quite simply absurd”.
In 1984 D.L. Heskel
wrote: “It is also evident that previous theories of wholesale population
migration and invasions... are not acceptable in the light of archaeological
evidence” (p 343).
Jim G. Shaffer,
another U.S. archaeologist with first-hand experience of Harappan sites, wrote
in 1984 an article entitled “Indo-Aryan Invasions: Myth or Reality?” in which
he refuted the invasionist framework. His conclusion as regards the
archaeological record was: “Current archaeological
data do not support the
existence of an Indo-Aryan or European invasion into South Asia any time in the pre- or
proto-historic periods.
Jean-François
Jarrige, a French archaeologist who led excavations at three sites in
Baluchistan, noticed important transformations in the course of several
millennia, but saw no evidence of Aryan invasions: “Nothing, in the present state of archaeological research ...
enables us to reconstruct
convincingly invasions that could be clearly attributed to Aryan groups.”
It is argued that in the excavations
at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the human skeletons found do prove that a massacre
had taken place at these townships by invading armies of Aryan nomads. Prof.
G.F.Dales, Former Head of Department of South Asian Anthropology, Berkelay University,
USA ,in his ‘The Massacre at Mohenjo-daro Expedition’ Vol.VI,3;1964, states the
following about this evidence: “What of these skeletal remains that have taken
on such undeserverd importance? Nine years of extensive excavations at Mohenjo-daro
(1922-31)—a city of three miles in circuit---yielded a total of some 37
skeletons, or parts thereof, that can can be attributed with some certainty to
the period of the Indus civilization. Some of these were found in contorted
positions and grouping, that suggest anything but orderly burials. Many are
either disarticulated or incomplete. They were all found in the area of the
lower town---probably the residential district. Not a single body was found
within the area of the fortified citadel where one could reasonably expect the
final defence of this thriving capital city to have been made.” He further states; “Where are the burned
fortresses, the arrowheads, weapons, pieces of armour, the smashed chariots and
bodies of the invaders and defenders? Despite the extensive excavations at the
largest Harappan sites, there is not a single bit of evidence that can be
brought forth as unconditional proof of an armed conquest and the destruction
on the supposed scale of the Aryan invasion.”
No evidence of any significant invading
populations has been found in ancient India, nor have any destroyed cities or
massacred peoples been unearthed. So-called Aryan cultural traits like horses,
iron, cattle-rearing or fire worship have been found to be either indigenous
developments (like iron) or to have existed in Harappan and pre-Harappan sites
(like horses and fire worship). No special Aryan culture in ancient India can
be differentiated apart from the indigenous culture. Much earlier, chariots and
horses were used in Mahabharata war. The
Mahabharatha, an encyclopaedia of early Indian
history and culture, became a unique history
of Dharma amongst all the books of
history in the world .The marine
archaeologists in India have found enough proof to assert that Mahabharata is
not a myth, but history. The discovery of submerged buildings of the legendary
city of Dwarka indicates that Indians were masters in town planning and
maritime activity, 4,000 years ago. The rise in the sea level in Dwarka is a
scientific truth. Studies have proved that the sea considerably and suddenly
rose to submerge the city. Harivamsha
describes the submerging of Dwarka saying Krishna instructed Arjuna, who was
then visiting Dwarka; to evacuate the residents of the city as the sea was
going to engulf the city. “On the seventh day (of Krishna saying this), as the
last of the citizens were leaving the city, the sea entered the streets of
Dwarka.”
Dr. S.R. Rao and his team in
1984-88 (Marine Archaeology Unit), undertook an extensive search of Dwarka,
along the coast of Gujarat where the Dwarika Desh temple stands now, and
finally they succeeded in unearthing the ruins of this submerged city off the
Gujarat coast. Ruins of Dwarka also show a very advanced civilization of at
least 4000 years old, which could not be formed by semi-nomadic Aryans coming
down from central Asia in1500 BC. The city originally itself could be about
6000 years old. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in his essay ‘Is Krishna a historical
figure’ (in ‘Krishna Charita’) has calculated the time of the war described in
Mahavarat. According to him, the war took place in about 3700 BC.
By popular tradition, the Kali
Age started with the death of Lord Krishna, 35 years after the War. The Kali
calendar has a beginning of 3102 BC, therefore, it is thought that the
Mahabharata War took place in 3137 BC. The Kali age is supposed to have begun
with a grand planetary conjunction. Modern studies using powerful software that
can reconstruct the ancient skies indicated that there was actually an
approximate conjunction of the planets on Feb 17, 3102 BC as taken by
Aryabhata. The traditional time, mentioned by Aryabhata and in the Aihole
inscription of 634 AD confirm the date of 3137 BC. The Kurukshetra site itself
has structures that go back to about 3000 BC.
The Aryan invasion of India is based upon the
belief that Indians were composed of ; (a) “long headed, narrow nosed, slender
Mediterranean type people, found all over the ancient Middle East and
Egypt;”
(b) the
pro-Austrolloid people with a flat nose and thick lips related to the
Australian aborigines, typically represented by the bronze figurine of the
Dancing Girl of Sind Valley Civilization and
(c) the later racial
type represented by the “bearded steatite of the Sind Valley.”
The Aryan invaders are believed
to have swept down through Baluchistan into Harppan settlements, devastating
them completely. Describing the Aryan invasion, the British historian
A.L.Basham wrote; “These tribes of marauders, no doubt, were the uncultured
barbarians, when compared to the Indus society, but were speedy and sweeping
horsemen with the weapons of distant targeting like the bow and the arrow, and
means of stormy mobility and distant attacking rendered them victorious in
disarranging the settled cultural society of Indus people.”Basham wrote
further;”The Harappan people were replaced by squatters, living in small huts
with fire-places, an innovation, which suggests that they came from a colder
climate.” After having arrived in India the Aryan invaders settled in the Indo-Gangetic
plains grew into the Vedic civilization---reducing the people of the Harappan
India into the population of the
Dasyus.
The history of Rig Veda is the history of the
culture of the age. A more critical reading of Vedic texts reveals that
Harappan civilization, the largest of the ancient world, finds itself reflected
in Vedic literature, the largest literature of the ancient world. The Harappan
Civilization covered an area of about 1.5 million square kilometers (Agrawal 2009:
1) Harappan civilization (3100-1900 BC) was the largest in the world up to its
time. Harappan sites have now been found as far west as to the coast of modern
Iran, as far north as Turkestan on the Amu Darya river (a region usually
identified with the Aryans), as far northeast as the Ganges, and south to the
Godavari river. A site has even been found on the coast of Arabia. Thousands of
sites have been found with several cities, like Ganweriwala on the Saraswati
River and Dholavira near the ocean in Kutch, as large as the first two major
cities found, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Most sites remain unexcavated and new
explorations are likely to push the boundaries of this civilization yet
further.
Great Bath of Mohenjodaro The dockyard of Lotha
The Harappan civilization was the first urban
civilization of the Indian subcontinent. Archaeological discoveries show that
this culture evolved from the earlier rural communities. Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro,
Chanhu-Daro, Kalibangan, Lothal, Banawali, Rakhigarhi and Dholavira were some
of the important sites of the Harappan civilization, well-planned towns can be
observed at some Harappan centres. These towns were characterized by two broad
divisions–a citadel on a higher mound and the lower town. Burnt bricks were
used for building houses. The towns had good drainage system. Some major
buildings at the Harappan towns were the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro, a granary
at Harappa, and a dockyard at Lothal. The Harappans basically practiced
agriculture. Farming and related activities arise in the subcontinent by
7000 BC in Mehrgarh (Wright 2010: 48).This was to prove crucial and Mehrgarh
played an important role in developing early farming technology and keeping
contacts with settlements farther west (Bellwood 2008: 91). It also had a large
number of small and medium size sites all over the Indus plane by 4000 BC
(Possehl 1999).However, the first large city-state arises, not in the region of
Indus valley close to Mehrgarh but in a far away region of Hakra Basin in
Harappa around 3200 BC and seems to be an indigenous development.
There were four stages of growth of the culture with the first
revolution in farming around 7000 BC, the second one of introduction of metals
around 5000 BC, Urbanization around 3000 BC. The induction of Iron is shown in
1000 BC. Change is the most constant part of
human evolution. It can be for better or worse depending on the situation. If
continuously new technologies or organizational restructuring come then the
society will progress to next level of organization.
There were skilled craftsmen who
worked in copper and other metals, the stone tools were still in common use.
They produced beads, terracotta figurines, potteries and seals of various
kinds. The Harappans carried out trade, both internal and external. They had
commercial links with Mesopotamian cities through Oman and Bahrain in the
Persian Gulf. The merchants traded in various commodities of import and export.
The people followed different professions such as those of priests, physicians,
warriors, peasants, traders and artisans. Though the Harappans wore simple
clothes made of cotton and wool, they were fond of decorating themselves with
various kinds of ornaments. The Harappans worshipped the Mother Goddess,
Pashupati (Proto-Shiva), trees and animals. They also followed different kinds
of burial practices and rituals associated with them. There is enough positive
evidence in support of the religious rites of the Harappans being similar to
those of the Vedic Aryans. Their religious motifs, deities and sacrificial
alters bespeak of Aryan faith, indicating continuity and identity of Vedic
culture with the Harappan civilization.
Seal of a Bull, Bronze statue of a dancing
girl excavated Mohenjo-daro,
The
Harappans were literate and their script is in the form of ideograms. However,
the script has not been fully deciphered so far. Once it is fully deciphered,
we will be able to know more about the Harappan culture. The culture
makes a dramatic increase in sophistication around 2500 BC and dies out equally
dramatically around 1900 BC. (Wright 2010: 308).
Scholars have suggested various factors such as natural calamities, increased
aridity, drought, floods and earthquakes for the decline of the culture. The
archaeological evidence suggests that this civilization did not face a sudden
collapse but had a gradual decline. Recent archaeological
discoveries indicate that the Saraswati river dried up around 1900 BC, leading
to the collapse of the Harappan civilization that was principally located in
the Saraswati region (accounting for about 70 percent of all the Harappan
sites). The Rig Veda celebrates the Saraswati as the greatest river of its day,
going from the mountains to the sea (Giribhya Asamudrat in Rig Veda 7.95.2)
There are two schools
of thought related to the drying up of the Saraswati river. According to the
first one, the Saraswati ceased to be a sea-going river about 3000 BC,
explaining why the 3rd millennium settlements on the banks of the Saraswati
river end in the Bahawalpur region of the Punjab and do not reach the sea;
there was a further shrinking of the river in about 1900 BC due to an
earthquake that made its two principal tributaries to be captured by the Sindhu
and the Ganga river systems. According to the second view, the Saraswati flowed
to the sea until 1900 BC when it dried up. The first view explains the
geographical situation related to the Harappan sites more convincingly. The
drying up of Saraswati, with its pre-eminent status during the Rig Vedic times,
it follows that the Rig Vedic hymns are generally anterior to 1900 BC. If one
accepts the theory that the Saraswati stopped reaching the sea in 3000 BC, then
the Rig Vedic hymns are prior to 3000 BC and the Mahabharata War could indeed
have occurred in 3137 BC.
Dr S. H.Levitt finds that “the Ṛig Veda would date back to the
beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C. with some of the earliest hymns perhaps
even dating to the end of the 4th millennium B.C.” The co-relation of the Indus and Brāhmana periods is consistent
with the views of archaeologists and geologists. .E.F.Bryant, ‘The Quest for
the Origins of Vedic Culture’(p. 160) states; “A growing number of Indian
archaeologists believe that the Indus Valley civilization could have been an
Indo-Aryan civilization, or at least, the two cultures could have co-existed.”
M.S.Elphinstone (1841), First Governor of Bombay (1819-27), writes in ‘History
of India’; Hindu scripture…“It is opposed to their (Hindus) foreign origin,
that neither in the code (of Manu) nor, I believe, in the Vedas, nor in any
book, that is certainly older than code, is there any allusion to a prior
residence or to a knowledge of more than the name of any country out of India.
Even mythology goes no further than the Himalayan chain, in which is fixed the
habitation of gods…There is no reason what-ever for thinking that the Hindus
ever inhabited any country but their present one, and as little for denying
that they may have done so before the earliest trace of their records or
tradition.” ,
Ramesh Chadra Mazumdar notes;
that India was the origin of the ancient Aryans, who had migrated to Russia via
Armenia. The discovery made by the Russian archeologists of the temple of
Mithra under the basement of the world’s oldest official Christian church in
Yerevan, Armenia shows that link.
The ancient people of Japan were not
Mongolian, but Indo-Aryans; Mongolians began to migrate to Japan about 2000
years ago. The descendants of the ancient Indo-Aryans of Japan, Aino people,
are still there in the northern island of Hokkaido; they have distinct
Indo-Aryan physical features. It is probable the ancient Aryans have migrated
eastwards to Japan, as there is evidence that the Aino people, descendants of
the ancient Indo-Aryans in Japan, came originally from eastern Siberia. The
ruins of submarine city near Okinawa were probably developed by the same
Indo-Aryans nearly 8,000 years ago.
Aerial View of a
massive city with Ancient
Aryan Houses in Arkaim, Chelyabinsk
astronomical Observatory,
Arkaim, Chelyabinsk. Source:
Pravda, 16 July, 2005.
Archaeological discoveries made
in the Indian sub-continent in the past century have slowly accumulated
evidence which has led to a discrediting of the Aryan invasion model. These
discoveries have been reinforced by new insights from history of science,
astronomy, and literary analysis.
According to Dr. Subash Kak, the main points
of the evidence are highlighted below: 1.It has been found that the Sapta
Sindhu region -- precisely the same region which is the heartland of the Vedic
texts-- is associated with a cultural tradition that has been traced back to at
least 8000 BC without any break. It appears that the Saraswati region was the
centre of this cultural tradition and this is what the Vedic texts also
indicate. The term 'Aryan' in Indian literature has no racial or linguistic
connotations.
2. According to the
work of Kenneth Kennedy of Cornell University, there is no evidence of
demographic discontinuity in archaeological remains during the period 4500 to
800 BC. In other words, there was no significant influx of people into India
during this period.
3. B.B. Lal of the
Archaeological Survey of India discovered fire altars in his excavations at the
third-millennium site of Kalibangan. It appears now that fire altars were in
use at other Harappan sites as well. Fire altars are an essential part of the
Vedic ritual.
4. Geologists have
determined that the Saraswati river dried up around 1900 BC. Since Saraswati is
the greatest river of the Rig Vedic hymns, one conclusion that can be drawn is
that the Rig Veda was composed prior to 1900 BC.
5. Study of pottery
styles and cultural artifacts has led archaeologists such as Jim Shaffer of
Case Western Reserve University, to conclude that the Indus-Saraswati culture
exhibits a continuity that can be traced back to at least 8000 BC. Shaffer
summarizes:
“The shift by Harappans (after the drying up of the Saraswati river around 1900 BC) is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium BC.'' In other words there has been no Aryan-invasion.
“The shift by Harappans (after the drying up of the Saraswati river around 1900 BC) is the only archaeologically documented west-to-east movement of human populations in South Asia before the first half of the first millennium BC.'' In other words there has been no Aryan-invasion.
6. A. Seidenberg of
University of California at Berkeley reviewed the geometry of the fire altars
of India as summarized in early Vedic texts such as the Shatapatha Brahmana and
compared it to the early geometry of Greece and Mesopotamia. In a series of
papers, he was able to establish that this Vedic geometry should be dated prior
to 1700 BC.
7. It has now
been discovered that altar constructions were used to represent astronomical
knowledge. Further more, an astronomical code has been found in the
organization of the Vedic books. This code establishes that the Vedic people
had a tradition of observational astronomy which means that the many
astronomical references in the Vedic texts that point to events as early as
3000 or 4000 BC can no longer be ignored.
8. Recent computer
analysis of the texts have shown that the Brahmi script of the times of
the Mauryan king Ashoka, is derived from the earlier third millennium script of
the Indus-Saraswati age. This again is strong evidence of cultural continuity.
9. The archaeological
record shows that the Indus-Saraswati area was different from other ancient
civilizations in many cultural features. For example, in contrast to ancient
Egypt or Mesopotamia, it shows very little monumental architecture; it appears
that the political organization and its relationship to other elites in the
society were unique. This is paralleled by the unique character of the Vedic
literary tradition with its emphasis on knowledge and the nature of the
Self.
10. Remains of the
horse have been discovered in the Harappan ruins. A clay model of a horse was
found in Mohenjo-Daro. New findings from Ukraine show evidence of horse riding
as early as 4000 BC. The notion that the Aryans burst into history as
horse-riding nomads sometime after 2000 BC stands totally rejected.
Indian savants have warned against the non-factual distorted nature of
the Aryan Invasion/Migration theory. Swami Vivekananda said; “There is not one
word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans ever came from
anywhere outside India.... The whole of India is Aryan, nothing else.” He
further stated very clearly: “Such words as Aryans and Dravidians are only of
philological import, the so-called craniological differentiation finding no
solid ground to work upon.” Any theory worth its salt should provide clarity of
vision. But not so the Aryan race concepts. Swami Vivekananda correctly pointed
out that they instead provide only “a lot of haze, created by a too adventurous
Western philology”.
S. R. Rao, a well-known Indian
archaeologist who excavated at Lothal and Dwaraka in Gujarat, wrote: “There
is no indication of any invasion of Indus towns nor is any artifact attributable to the so-called
‘invaders’.”
B. B. Lal, another well-known archaeologist who once headed the Archaeological
Survey of India, noted: “The supporters of the Aryan invasion theory have not been able
to cite even a single example where there
is evidence of ‘invaders,’ represented
either by weapons of warfare or even of
cultural remains left by them.”
M. K.
Dhavalikar, an Indian archaeologist known for his excavations at several sites
of the Deccan, wrote: “The theory of large-scale invasion by Aryans is
now discounted as there is no evidence to
support it.”
U.S. anthropologist Peter G. Johansen recently summarized the whole problem
posed by AIT: “This [Aryan invasion] theory of
Indian civilization is perhaps one of the
most per during and insidious themes in the
historiography and archaeology of South
Asia, despite accumulating evidence to the contrary.”
U.S. anthropologist K. A. R. Kennedy notes;
“Biological anthropologists remain unable to lend support to any of the
theories concerning an Aryan biological or demographic entity.... What the
biological data demonstrate is that no exotic races are apparent from
laboratory studies of human remains excavated from any archaeological sites....
All prehistoric human remains recovered thus far from the Indian subcontinent
are phenotypic ally identifiable as ancient South Asians.... In short, there
is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the north-western sector of
the subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the Harappan
culture.”
Recent linguistic work by Ideologists and linguists Edwin Bryant (from the
U.S.) and Koenraad Elst (from Belgium) has rejected the notion that the
existence of one Indo-European family of languages demands an Aryan invasion or
migration into India. Migratory models are decidedly outdated, especially when
there is no hard evidence for migrations. Elst summarizes the verdict of
linguistic evidence in these words: “The oft-invoked linguistic evidence
for a European Urheimat (original homeland) and
for an Aryan invasion of India is completely wanting. One after another, the classical proofs of the European Urheimat theory
have been discredited.
The linguistic evidence, available since the earliest forms of Sanskrit (Rig
Vedic), is crucial, as the materials transmitted by language obviously point to
the culture of its speakers and also to their original and subsequent physical
surroundings. Language has, just as history, its own 'archaeology'; the various
subsequent historical 'layers' of a particular language can be uncovered, using
well-developed linguistic procedures.
Taken together, the cumulative evidence completely belies the Aryan invasion
theory. If an influx of people into India took place it should be earlier than
4500 BC if one considers the demographic evidence, and perhaps before 8000 BC
if one considers other related evidence. On the other hand, it is equally
plausible that the Sapta Sindhu region was the original homeland of the Aryans
from where they migrated to Iran and Europe, as remembered in Puranic legend. It
was originally proposed that the Harappan culture was ended abruptly by the
Aryan invaders. Evidence however revealed that the sites were abandoned rather
than destroyed, along with major ecological changes in the region, with
shifting rivers, floods, and desertification of parts of the region, along with
the drying up of the Saraswati river. The upper course of the Ghaggar, however,
is not dry even today, as some scholars state; it is still known as the small
river Sarsuti. Also, it has
been long known, and is easily visible on many maps, that the lower, dry bed of
the Sarsuti (Ghaggar) continues well beyond the Pakistani border as Hakra
(Wilhelmy 1969, Witzel 1984,1987), and it seems to continue further south as the Nara channel in
Sindh, finally emptying into the Rann of Cutch (Oldham 1886, Raverty 1892,
Witzel 1994).
The Aryans were initially
localized to the west of Indus River, but gradually their influence,
observed by the
presence of Painted Grey Ware pottery extended further east into the western
Ganges valley.
Aryan influence also appears to have moved south to the Deccan plateau,
indicated by the
introduction of iron and later of the Northern Black Polished pottery type,
also associated with Aryan cultural levels in the Ganges valley. These Aryan
penetrations into
the Deccan put into
contact, by the end of the first millennium B.C., with other types as revealed
by the presence of
megalithic burial sites, which were widespread in southern Indian by about
300 B.C. Aryan
influence also appears to have moved south to the Deccan plateau, indicated by
the introduction of iron and later of the Northern Black Polished pottery type,
also associated with Aryan cultural levels in the Ganges valley. These Aryan
penetrations into the Deccan put into contact, by the end of the first
millennium B.C., with other types as revealed by the presence of megalithic
burial sites, which were widespread in southern Indian by about 300 B.C.
Sir Monier William writes in ‘Religious
Life in Ancient India’; “They were people gifted with high mental capacities
and strong mental feelings. They possessed great powers of appreciating and
admiring the magnificent phenomena of nature with which they found themselves
surrounded. They were endowed with a deep religious sense—a profound
consciousness of their dependence on the invisible forces which regulated the
order of the world in which they found themselves placed. They were fitly
called ‘noble’ (Arya), and they spoke a language fitly called ‘polished’ or
‘carefully constructed’ (Sanskrita).”
“The Vedic literature is massive and no other culture has produced
anything like it in regard to ancient history. Not the Egyptians, Sumerians,
Babylonians, or Chinese. So if it was produced outside of India, how could there
not be some reference to its land of origination. For that matter, how could
these so-called primitive nomads who came invading the Indus region invent such
a sophisticated language and produce such a distinguished record of their
customs in-spite of their migrations and numerous battles? This is hardly
likely. Only a people who are well established and advanced in their knowledge
and culture can do such a thing” Source: Proof of Vedic Culture's Global
Existence - By Stephen Knapp.
. Dr.
B. R. Ambedkar, a well known messiah of the Dalits had studied Vedas and other
connected literature, wrote; “The theory of invasion is an invention. This
invention is necessary because of a gratuitous assumption that the Indo-German
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 facts. On the contrary, the theory is
pre-conceived and facts are selected to prove it. My conclusions are;
(1) the Vedas do not know any such race as
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 Aryan, Dasas and Dasyus was a
racial distinction.
(4) The Vedas do not
support the contention that the Aryans 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 same race. From this it follows that if
Brahmins are Aryans, the untouchables are also Aryans…”
Swami Vivekananda
said; “ The Aryans were kind and generous,
and in their hearts which were large and unbounded as the ocean and in their
brains gifted with superhuman genius, all these ephemeral and apparently pleasant
but virtually beastly processes, never found a place.”
