Arguments For Aryan Invasion Theory

As it has already been mentioned before the article offers no new arguements in the favour of the Aryan Invasion Theory. My advice to Rohan is to read the books that I mention here:
1. The invasion that never was by Michael Danino
2. The Real Eve: Modern Man`s Journey out of Africa by Stephen Oppenheimer.
To the best of my knowledge none of these belong to the Sangh Parivar (if indeed belonging to Sangh Parivar automatically discounts one`s opinion as merely being Hindu nationalist). I am no supporter of VHP, Bajrang Dal etc but do not base my opinoins about them solely on the basis of information provided by the English media in India.
A few observations before I try to refute the author`s opinions.

``These people -- like Kak, Frawley and Rajaram -- have no background and no interest in linguistics, in history, in genuine, professional scholarship. They are cheap frauds. Their books argue at a level that would be laughed out of a first-year undergraduate history class. They proudly trot out arguments that are ridiculous nonsense.``

He leaves no stones unturned to malign Kak, Frawley, Fuerstein, Gautier and such people. I would recommed the author visit the website of Subhash Kak who happens to be a professor of Electrical Engineering at the Louisiana State University. There he would find a number of scholarly papers and articles on Indology
http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/hist.html
which could not have been written without significant research into the matter. If castigating them is premise for proving his point, it is laughable.

Anyway, coming back to the point : the second book mentioned above, The Real Eve; the author after pathbreaking study of DNA from all over the world proposes the migration patterns of humanity out of Africa. And much to the chagrin of the AIT supporters, I`m sure, there is no migration pattern out of Europe to India or to anywhere; exactly the opposite. So this discounts the Aryan Invasion or Migration theory absolutely on the basis of hard genetics.

As far as this article is concerned the author keeps harping on lingusitcs. Lingusitcs is not the only discipline utilized to estimate ancient history. There is absolutely no lingustic evidence whatsoever for the existence of any Proto Indo European Language. Nor is there any lingustic evidence to support the theory that Indo-Aryan languages were brought from outside. The author mentions near-unanimity about this amongst modern scholars without any names.

From amongst the human remains found at the Harappan sites, none of them have been distinctly different. Which discounts the claim for presence of two separate races. One being the ``Aryan`` invaders and other being the ``Dravidians``. In fact none of the terms Aryan or Dravidian has any racial connotation. Former being an ennobling quality and latter being a geographical entity. Panchdravid as mentioned in ancient books refers to the south of India including Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The author talks about pre-literate societies and their short memories and goes on with examples from other cultures. But the fact that he conveniently forgets is that Indian tradition has always been oral rather than literate. Thousands of hymns and verses have been passed down to generations for millienia. To claim that they could not have remembered their originial homeland through litereature is absolute rubbish. More so in the case where there were more than one wave of migration as claimed by some of the ``esteemed`` historians at JNU.

The author picks out from literature that is convenient to him e.g. the horse. What about river Saraswati?
Rg Veda abound with verses that praises the river Saraswati. And satellite images and studies have proved the existence of the river Saraswati and drying of the same circa 1900 BC. And all the Harappan sites have been found on the dry bed of the same. So there is no reason to believe that the authors of Rg Veda were not from the subcontinent. It also points to the continuity between Harappan and so called Aryan civilization discouting any migrations from outside of an alien culturel

Anyway the author has used some unconvincing lingustic concepts to prove the AIT with brute force discouting the literary and archeological evidences conveniently. And if Stephen Oppenheimer is to be believed, migration out of Europe is out of question, genetically.


People tend to forget that in modern ages writing history is influenced as much by archeology, literature, etc as geo-politics. Aryan invasion theory and its by product the PIE are both products of the same euro centric policy. Max Mueller, the father of the Aryan Invasion theory in his later years refuted it! But some so called scholars clung to it as if their life depended on it. The fact that invasionists changed their theory from invasion to migration and then to waves of migration signals a loss of face for them. If they are to be believed why haven`t they come up with the Uhreimat the Orginial Homeland for the Aryans and the PIE?? All European nations from England to Germany to Russia have claimed to the Uhreimat which is ridiculous. Although my school history text book told me it was the Caucasus montains in central Europe there are a large number of opinions by the invasionists as far as the origin is concerned.

In conclusion, to discount the anti invasion/migration theory as being purely Hindu nationalist would be a grave mistake. Neither archeologically, lingustically, literarily or genetically is the migration theory viable. I would strongly suggest the readers to read the book by Stephen Oppenheimer : it is a no nonsense scientific/ genetic proof for the unviability of the invasion/migration out of Europe theory.

This article does not offer any new arguments for the AIT other than rehashing 150 old linguistic ``evidence``. The author says that he does not take any books/articles with the word ``Aryan Invasion,`` in them and yet his own article includes those very words.

I would like to respond to this article from two angles:

1. The much lauded overwhelming ``linguistic evidence`` for the AIT is not conclusive at all.

2. There has been at least one major revision of linguistic based migration theories in favor of a theory verified by more exact sciences like genetics and archeology.

Issue # 1: The linguistic evidence can be explained in other ways also. Mr. Koenrad Elst who is an IE linguistic scholar has addressed this issue in ``An Update on The Aryan Invasion Debate,`` an Aditya Prakashan. He uses the same Kentum/Satum argument used by the linguistics to support their theory. The linguistics argue that the word for ``hundred`` in an Greek (?) or some other European language, is kentum and the Sanskrit equivalent is Satem. The process of transforming the velars to palatals is a one way process and hence the original home land of the PIE (Proto Indo European) speakers must be in the Kantum territory meaning outside India probably Central Asia, even though no such archeological sites have been found. Mr. Elst argues that in fact the Uhreimat (homeland) of the PIE speakers is more likely to be in Satem territory i.e. India, because people who transported the IE languages to Europe must have left BEFORE the k-s shift took place. In fact India still has the a language of the kentum type surviving: Bangani. He has also analysed the evidence from Linguistic Paleantolgy to make his case for an IUT (Indian Uherimat Theory). Mr. Oberoi cannot just dismiss these arguments because of some bias he has against Koenraad Elst.

Issue # 2: When the linguists are finally proved wrong as I am sure they will be it will not be for the first time. This has happend in a major way with the controversy about migration of Natives to the New World (the Americas).

Conventional wisdom had lended support for the ``Clovis First`` which puts the arrival of Native Americans just before the ice age (around 12,000 BCE) through Siberia into norhtern Alaska and down to the southern tip of South America. Linguistic scholars as usual hurridely jumped in with their arm chair theories about the spread of nearly 1000 native languages. These languages were first classified into 50+ groups which were later combined into 26 and finally to just 3 by Greenberg, a Stanford linguist. This evidence was taken as overwhelmingly conclusive in support of the Clovis first theory.

However some scholars were proposing a much earlier migration around (30,000 BCE) through a ``Coastal migration Theory) a scenerio in which Natives could have travelled along the North and South American coastiline at least 18,000 years before the ice age set in. These scholars were laughed out by the linguist until:

An archeologist from University of Kentucky discovered an astonishingly well preserved native settlement on the coast of Chile. The carbon C-14 datings of 12,000 BCE and earlier were so accurate all the way down to more than an dozen layers of this settlement. Even the strongest linguistic proponents of the Clovis first theory were completely silenced. The whole course of ancient history of the Americas was turned UPSIDE DOWN. The Coastal Migration Theory was also supported by the extremly exact gentic evidence.

The same thing is going to happen, nay its already happening in case of the PIE Uhreimat. The ancient datings of sites like Mehargar do not support the invasion/migration theory at all, and the current time table give to them. Its only a matter of time when more settlements like Mohanjodora will be discovered as far east as New Delhi. Linguistics will be sent packing to obsecurity.

To conclude, the ``overwhelming linguistic evidence`` in suppport of an invasion/migration is not so conclusive at all. In fact most of that evidence can be turned around to support IUT/OIT.

In the mean time amateur scholars like Mr. Oberoi should try to refrain from exhibiting their obvious colonial bias that everything in India must have come from the West.

Read Koenrad Elst and Shrikant Talegiri who have given convincing linguistic arguments that India is the Urheimat of the Indo European languages.

The Rig Veda not only does not mention a foreign homeland but it also clearly mentions the land of seven rivers (Sapta Sindhu) as the homeland.

You are citing ``unanimous agreements between modern scholars,`` who belong to the old school of thought and their opinions need to be examined. In the field of Physics the old die hard Newtonian scholars never accepted Einsteins relativity concepts. These old school people eventually vanished. Same thing is going to happend to the present day ``Indologist.``

Your assertion that they have not found horse bones in the Indus valley is just plain WRONG.

It is nice to run into you again Mr. Oberoi.

You call Kak, Frawly and others cheap frauds without actually refuting any of their arguments. Incidently you are completely unfamiliar with the work of two prominant archeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer (Univ of Wisconsin), and Craig Schaffer (Case Western University). Both of them after decades of field work have asserted that there is absolutely no evidance of an invasion which destroyed the Indus valley cities.

Incidently you might want to read two other books

Aryan Invasion Theory: An update, Koenrad Elst and

Arayan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (Shrikant Talegiri)

Rohan :

The impression I got reading folks on the Indology list about Rajaram and Jha is that the scholars think Jha is legitimate, though carried away by his ideas about decipherment, and perhaps naive; while Rajaram is quite different kettle of fish.

I also know that Kak does not agree with Rajaram. Also, regarding decipherment of the Indus script, Kak`s book with Frawley, Feuerstein, mentions that using cryptological theory, one can show that you would need a string of at least 20 characters to demonstrate a decipherment of the Indus script.

I just got a book by Cyrus Gordon on the history of decipherment of forgotten scripts, and it is instructive to read this to understand how the field works. E.g., the first person to suggest that Hittite is Indo-European, Knudtzon, met with a lot of criticism, and backed off his discovery. Having ``crazy`` ideas is common, and not indicative of lack of scholarship. Doctoring the evidence is quite a different thing.

I would be quite careful about impugning a Kak (or a Renfrew ) for lack of knowledge or lack of scholarship, in general or in a particular area, without a lot of cause.

I think for example, it was a legitimate hypothesis in 1995 to postulate that the Saraswati dried up around 1900 BC, thereby explaining the decline of the Harappan culture; and that this dried Saraswati was the Rig Vedic Saraswati -- thus significantly altering the conventional timeline of Indian history. There has been five years to gather hard physical evidence of when the Saraswati dried up, and it should be possible to say now, e.g., Saraswati dried up 1200 BC, and therefore does not explain the decline of Harappan culture, and keeps the conventional timetable intact.

-arun gupta

Question -- A footnote in J.P. Mallory (In search of the Indo-Europeans) says that Anna Davies carried out a cursory examination of the Greek vocabulary, which revealed that less than 40 per cent of it could be ascribed a transparent Indo-European etymology, 8 per cent had established non-Greek origins and about 52 per cent had no clear etymology.

This is a footnote to the statement that ``Yet the linguistic evidence taken as a whole does indicate that the Greeks did borrow a considerable number of elements from a non-Greek language.``

The question is -- what is the equivalent statistic for Vedic Sanskrit ?

Thank you,

-arun

1. Arun, thanks for posting the reference to Witzel`s article on the horse seal, which I hadn`t seen before. Do note that Rajaram has co-authored a book with Frawley, and Frawley has co-authored one with Kak.

2. ``Ilovemoney``: I believe, though I don`t have any references at hand, that the Vedas are supposed to show a roughly eastward chronological progression, with the Rig Veda familiar mostly with Punjab and the ``Gandhara`` area, while later texts show increasing familiarity with eastern India.

3. There were no ``proto-horses`` in India before the horse. Those (like Przewalski`s horse) come from farther north. India did have donkeys and asses. Linguistic transference (from one species to another) is certainly possible, but the horses referred to in the Rig Veda could not have been donkeys (donkeys pulling chariots?) On the subject of transference, I read that the ``alu`` (potato) of some North Indian languages is one of the relatively few Indian plant-names of Indo-European descent, being related to the French ``ail`` (garlic). In India it apparently was used for various indigenous tubers until Europeans brought the potato from North America.

3. About Francois Gautier: I would not take him seriously. He is one of the Europeans whose interest in India/Hinduism dovetails neatly with their hatred/dislike of Islam (another who comes to mind is Koenraad Elst). He has written a book (``Rewriting Indian History``) that uses a selective and tendentious reading of history to present medieval India as one long rape and pillage session by evil Muslims upon innocent and gentle Hindus.

4. ``Layman``: if you find the ``mater/mata`` similarities interesting, you would probably be interested in reading further into the connections between the Indo-European languages. There are many ways by which linguists establish that these are related (cognate) words and not just chance resemblances (of which there are almost always a few to be found between any two languages). For example, the conjugations of the verb ``to bear``:

Sanskrit: bharami, bharasi, bharati, bharamas, bharata, bharanti

Greek: phero, phereis, pherei, pheromes, pherete, pheronti

Latin: fero, fert, fert, ferimus, fertis, ferunt

Old High German: biru, biris, birit, berames, beret, berant

Old High Slavonic: bera, berasi, beretu, beremu, berete, beratu

I don`t know if that will come out readably on the page, but I thought I`d paste it in anyway.

5. I certainly would not presume to have ``my`` theory of Dravidian origins, considering that I have no particular expertise in the subject. However, McAlpin`s Elamite-Dravidian connection has received some acceptance among linguists, though it can`t by any means be regarded as proved. We don`t (I believe) have any direct positive evidence for a movement of Dravidian speakers southwards, other than the circumstantial evidence of the existence of the Dravidian language Brahui in Pakistan (however note that Brahui could possibly have got there in the other direction, as Hungarian got to Hungary).

Interestingly, there is a language spoken in Pakistan, Burushaski, that like Basque is totally unrelated to any other known language. Munda, possibly the oldest Indian language, has only two definite relatives among major world languages: guess which? Vietnamese and Cambodian! I think it is presumptuous to hope to reconstruct the linguistic history of India before Harappa, but I`m sure it was interesting.

6. Thanks for your exposition, Sameer. I would say that any account that presents as proven fact the actual destruction of Harappa by Indo-Aryans is thirty years behind the scholarly consensus and should not be included in present arguments. Nor is ``forcing Dravidians to move south`` argued for anywhere that I have seen (again, it may have happened, but we don`t have much evidence one way or another). I would caution you against making what are called ``straw-man`` arguments, ie. setting up patently weak arguments that no one of consequence is seriously making, and then knocking them down.

7. However the extra-subcontinental origin of the language and culture of the Rig Vedic authors (though not of the authors themselves -- since they obviously display only knowledge of northwestern India) is firmly supported by the scholarly consensus -- that`s the part of what you can call ``Aryan Invasion`` that stands.

8. Again, absolutely, language does not correlate with genetics. The Turks of modern Turkey are composed of many accretions of other tribes who were ``Turkicised`` during the centuries of westward movement, just as the Turkic-speaking Bulgars were ``Slavicised`` and now speak a Slavic language.

9. About Urdu: there is absolutely no question that it is Indo-European and Indic. By analogy, English is unquestionably a language of the Germanic subfamily, even though it has absorbed a huge higher vocabulary from the Italic subfamily (French and Latin).

10: About time-frames: this is a very important issue that you should read about further. It is one of the main reasons Renfrew`s arguments are dismissed as nonsense by many linguists. All languages change over time, and so it would be silly to project proto-Indo-European back to, say, 7000BC, just as it would be ridiculous to look for Proto-French in 1000BC. The upper and lower limits for unified proto-Indo-European are generally fixed in the following way: 2000 BC (or a little earlier) is a reasonable lower limit, given the documented existence of differentiated Indo-European dialects shortly thereafter; 3500 BC (give or take your favourite estimate of the uncertainty which for these time depths is considerable) is a common upper limit, given the earliest evidence for the existence of wheeled vehicles, which form part of the inherited vocabulary of Indo-European. Other higher upper limits are based on other inherited vocabulary, and they all fall well short of 6000 BC.

11. If Sanskrit were more distantly related to other Indo-European languages, we would be justified in looking more closely at the possibility that it developed on the subcontinent and just borrowed features from invaders as they came in. But it is not -- it is a very close relative. This means that wholesale linguistic replacement took place in Northern India, with some substrate (probably largely Dravidian) being overlaid with Indo-Aryan. That does *not * mean that the existing speakers of Dravidian would have been kicked out, any more than the Irish were kicked out at the time English started to replace Irish Gaelic as the main language of Ireland.

12. The Rig Veda and Zend Avesta are generally believed to greatly predate the historically known Persian rule in northwestern India. You should rely on more scholarly sources to avoid making anachronistic arguments.

13. Finally, Sameer: I would be very interested to hear your reaction upon reading the three books I cited in my article, if you can get a hold of them. Those are representative of the latest research (though not all the articles in the two collections necessarily represent the scholarly consensus) in a way that the other books you mention definitely are not.

Regards,

Rohan.

Sameer :

I liked your summing up; though I disagree with a couple of points.

Read ``The Bell Curve`` and investigate a little for yourself, and you will not have any respect for left for the psychometricians (IQ theorists) who are housed in ample numbers in departments in very otherwise respectable US universities such as Harvard and U.C. Berkeley and so on.

Moreover, it is entirely possible for large corporations and think-tanks to purchase research which will have results favorable to themselves from respectable US universities, though this doesn`t usually happen in the hard sciences. There denial of permission to publish results can happen (but raises a stink).

-arun gupta

Sameer :

The 12 months in an year could have been developed independently several times in human history, simply because of the period of the moon.

Likewise, division of the new moon to full moon period into two could have possibly led to independent development of 7-day weeks.

-arun

About Rajaram, see :

http://www.safarmer.com/horseseal/update.html

Jha, Kak, Frawley, etc. are not in this class of person, as far as I know.

-arun gupta

1. Could Sanskritic language have been transferred to India without significant migration of people? Has anyone actually studied this? Seems to me that it is more likely that Sanskrit became so widespread if there was high social mobility and then there would be an incentive to learn the language... gaining money and status.

2. Why don`t the Vedas mention a journey to India?

Could be delibrate, the Ganges plain having been established as the holy land why advertise that they came from elsewhere?

3. Is it possible that Hinduism was the Harrapan religon and the Vedas were translated into Sanskrit as that language became more dominant?

4. Caste system. Just because Europeans do not have that now does not mean that they did not have similar ideas in the past. The social structure is usually described as being static because of children carrying on the profession of their fathers due to economic reasons, but there may have been a `this is the order of things` justification to it as well. Just imagine, if Buddism had been more succesful in India, historians might now be saying that the caste structure had no real meaning and was never considered sacrocant here too.

4. Is there some reason that the Sarawasti river refrences in the Vedas cannot be another name for the Ganges?

5. The word horse may originally have applied to the proto-horse found in India before the supposed Aryan Invasion, it doesn`t neccessarily prove that the speakers were familiar with the true horse.

5. The most attractive thing about AIT is that it is a coherent theory, the others are just random ideas....is there an alternate chronology of exactly what happened?

RE: ASK

Dear Ashish!
Thanks for your kind response. I really appreciate the effort. I think we are still standing where we were bofore these two articles.

SameerJB #52:

Can you tell me how the Indian Express article means that Indians are Indo-centric? Most of the quotes in the article are by foreigners - American mathematician, French astronomer, French historian etc. In fact, I would say that Indians are the least Indo-centric and are very outward looking, probably due to the inferiority complex inbred in them, from centuries of foreign rule.

In fact, it is only because European/Amerian scholars point out the virtues and contributions of ancient India, that the article even made it to the Indian Express. If the same comments had been made by an Indian, he/she would have been laughed at or accused of revisionism, wishful thinking etc.

Layman: I think the article from Indian-Express, you reproduced suffers from the same bias of Indo-centrism to which Rohan has described in his article. This debate is open-ended and must be carried out with open-mind. It is unnecessary to add Indo-centrism to Indian identity, just because there exists Eurocentrism and Sino-centrism. Most of us like to be defined by more than one data points on the three dimensional plot of identity, although many Muslims are content with one data point of religion. Indians can be proud of many things with several data points plotting their identity; Indo-centrism is not necessary.

I forgot to mention few other important points in my previous post on this thread. I talked about migration vs. invasion and migration in general. I should have added another issue of migrants vs. refugees [BTW I liked movie Refugee. It is about a Bihari family’s plight when they try to migrate to Pakistan through Rann of Kutch]. Refugees generally come with inherent weaknesses because they are leaving their homelands out of famine, disease, economy or over-population. It is generally believed that Aryans were migrating in waves during 1200-1800 BC for adverse reasons. Refugees usually adopt to their newer climates rather otherway around, be they Bangladeshis in Karachi or Assam, Afghans in Pakistan or Mexicans and Central Americans in the USA, unless they possess certain valuable skills or commodities, as Shah Shujah possessing Koh-i-Noor diamond or Hong Kong Chineese possessing large sums of money during the late eighties and early nineties. The best likelihood of refugees domination, in my opinion, is religion. The odds of a refugees community coming to dominate in language and culture, based on either or some of religion, skills, horses, chariots and good looks, are best for religion. If it can be proven with sufficient evidence that Rig-Veda was in fact composed by refugees, then theory has merits.

Actually a case against this theory can be made with eyes closed--without considering any evidence for or against it--based strictly on scientific reasoning and logic. The theory of Aryans exodus from their original homelands to India, Iran and Europe as well as the theory of Jewish exodus out of Egypt and into Palestine suffer from the same fundamental flaws. They are based on a series of unlikely, low probability events. The odds for other easy routes are more in each step than these theories suggest. When a case is build on unlikely pathways, the odds against it increase exponentially going to the second, third and the next “exception than the norm” steps. In biological evolution, mutations or unlikely events only survive if they have any advantage over its normal kins. Moreover, the number of biological or biochemical events are very large and very fast on time scale compared to slow and few events of social or linguistic evolution, a mutation is quickly lost or built up depending on natural selection.

Let us dissect these theories. It is less likely for a small powerless trible to leave Egypt together, putting all their eggs in one basket, knowing too well, the Pharoah’s army will chase them down. In the second step likelihood of army destroying the fleeing trible are more than army being destroyed under mysterious circumstances. The chances of crossing Sinai desert are more than being lost for 60 years because people always traveled using sun and stars as guide, in those times. In the next step entering Palestine and dominating the powerful existing tribe of cannanites is less likely than otherway arould. In the case of Aryan theory, the chances of taking chariots through harsh mountaneous terrain are lower than without them. If they moved without them, just carried the knowledge about them, then they must reach India within couple of generations otherwise the knowledge will be lost. Once in India, as refugees, odds are more for them adopting then otherway around, both because of numbers and weak refugee status. Hinduism has never been a religion like catholicism with one central authority who could influence far and near without might to back it up. Similarly, odds for peaceful transfer of language are more than coercive transfer, if it has certain benefits over existing languages.

It is the first step in the Aryan theory which has undeniable odds in favor. It is the existence of certain people probably around northern Caspean Sea, sometimes on the distant past, who spoke a language termed as proto-Indo-European and any other language which utilised their vocabularly to some extent is classified as belonging to proto-Indo-European family of languages. The odds for language transfer through induction, conduction, loan words, wave model or associated with trade can not be guessed and most likely all contributed to varying degree of extent to language transfer.

I believe the division of year into 12 month and month into 4 weeks is Egyptian in origin though it is widely believed that Chineese came up with similar division of year into 12 months independent of Egyptians. That is why, God made earth in seven days, sabbath, Sunday and Friday services and prayers respectively, and a large number of twelves; twelve brothers, twelve desciples and so on. We thank you, Pharoahs!!!! It is remarkable that French president De Gaulle himself welcomed Ramses II mummy officially at Paris airport. I am not sure if he was given guard of honor too.

Urstruly and ASK: Don`t we all wish to have the answers to every possible question about everything. I am as interested as you are in knowing more about it.

re:Urstruly #35

Rohan has responded to your query in reply#38 but thanks for asking the question. Though I must confess I am not an expert on AIT. I am just a curious onlooker as to the political aspects of the debate. I am more interested in the present direction that India and the region is taking.

I fully agree with your question though as I too have had the same doubts. Probably volcanoes can be ruled out after a study of the geology of the Indus valley but other possibilities that you have raised will certainly need extensive research. Moreover, who can say definitely that there wasn`t peaceful migration and assimilation with minor skirmishes, like what happens in refugee situations today? I remember having read somewhere that only one skeleton has been recovered from the Indus valley sites with any marks of a violent death.

Ashish

http://www.indian-express.com/ie/daily/20000828/ied28053.html

Mother of melting pots

FRANCOIS GAUTIER



It was always thought that India was a melting pot of different influences coming from the West, either by trade or through invasions, and that she owes many of her achievements - her sciences, philosophy, or religion - to outside influences, whether by the way of the Aryan invasions, or via the Greek incursions. But more and more discoveries, both archaeological and linguistic, are pointing to exactly the opposite direction: in the millenniums before Christ, it is Indian civilization which went gradually westwards and influenced the religions, the sciences and the philosophies of many of the civilizations which are considered today by the West as the cradle of its culture and thought.

American mathematician A. Seindenberg, for instance, has demonstrated that the Sulbasutras, the ancient Vedic mathematics, have inspired all the mathematic sciences of the antique world from Babylonia to Egypt and Greece. ``Arithmetic equations from the Sulbasutras were used in the observation of the triangle by the Babylonians and the theory of contraries and of inexactitude in arithmetic methods, discovered by Hindus, inspired Pythagorean mathematics``, writes Seindenberg. In astronomy too, Indus were precursors: 17th century French astronomer Jean-Claude Bailly had already noticed that ``the Hindu astronomic systems were much more ancient than those of the Greeks or even the Egyptians and the movement of stars which was calculated by the Hindus 4500 years ago, does not differ from those used today by even one minute``. What about philosophy? French historian Alain Danielou noted as early as 1947 that ``the Egyptian myth of Osiris seemed directly inspired from a Shivaite story of the Puranas and that at anyrate, Egyptians of those times considered that Osiris had originally come from India mounted on a bull (Nandi), the traditional transport of Shiva``. But it is mainly Greece that was most influenced by the myth of Shiva: many historians have noted that the cult of Dionysius (later known as Bacchus in the Roman world), definitely looks like an offshoot of Shivaism. There is also no doubt that the impact of the Vedas and subsequent Hindu scriptures, such as the Vedanta and Upanishads, was tremendous on the different philosophical sects which flourished at different times in Greece. We know that the Greek Demetrios Galianos had translated the Bhagavad-Gita. And even William Jones, the 18th century linguist of British India, noted that ``the analogies between Greek Pythagorean philosophy and the Sankhya school are very obvious``. German philosopher Shroeder had also remarked in his book òf40óPythagoras und die Inder that nearly all the philosophical and mathematical doctrines attributed to Pythagoras are derivedfrom India.

It also seems very clear that ancient India played an immense role in the making of Christianity, particularly the writings of the Gospel. Alain Danielou thus notes that the structure of the Christian church resembles that of the Buddhist Chaitya, that the rigorous asceticism of certain early Christian sects reminds one of Jaina practices, that the veneration of relics, or the usage of rosaries are all Hindu customs``. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the Art of Living, which is practised in more than eighty countries, also remarks that Jesus sometimes wore an orange robe, the Hindu symbol of renunciation in the world, which was not a usual practice in Judaism. ``In the same way,`` he continues, ``the worshipping of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism is probably borrowed from the Hindu cult of Devi``. Bells too, which cannot be found today in synagogues, the temples of Judaism, are used in churches and we all know their importance in Buddhism and Hinduism for thousands of years. There are many other similaritiesbetween Hinduism and Christianity: incense, sacred bread (Prasadam), the different altars around churches (which recall the manifold deities in their niches inside Hindu temples); reciting the rosary (Japamala), the Christian Trinity (the ancient Sanatana Dharma: Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh), Christian processions, the sign of the cross (Anganyasa). Hindu and Buddhist philosophies had also a great influence on 19th century Europe, particularly in Germany, where philosophers, such a Frederich Shlegel, said that ``there is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and the philosophical precision of Sanskrit,`` adding that ``India is not only at the origin of everything, she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison``. Shopenhauer agrees with him and writes in the preface of his ``The World as a Will and as a Representation``: ``According to me, the influence of Sanskrit literature on our time will not be lesser than whatwas in the 16th century Greece`s influence on Renaissance. One day, India`s wisdom will flow again on Europe and will totally transform our knowledge and thought``.

òf40óThis is an excerpt from Gautier`s just released book `Arise O India` (Har Anand)

India played an immense role in the making of Christianity

Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

Apart from the pita/pater and mata/mater kind of stuff, there are other similarities that I find amazing!

Both Indian (Hindu) and European days-of-the-week are seven in number. Sunday = Ravivar (Ravi means Sun), Saturday = Shanivar (Shani = Saturn) etc.

Similarly, both have seven notes in music...

How does one explain that both Indian and European civilisations used and use a 24 hour day, with 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per minute? Who influenced whom? But the months are different - most Indians follow the lunar calendar which has 12 months per year with roughly 28 days per month, and a ``leap month`` every few years to bring it in sync with the rotation of the Earth round the sun. (Tamilians follow the solar calendar like the Chinese).

If you take Indian and Western astrology, it is similar, with both having twelve signs of the zodiac and the figures remaining the same (Leo = Simha raashi, Taurus = Rishabha raashi, Pisces = Meena raashi etc) with the same animals depicted... Again, did they develop independently or, if not, who influenced whom? Because these things have been around in India even before recent European invasions or Islamic invasions and even before Alexander.

It would be great to hear what Rohan and others have to say about it.

Finally, Rohan - do you agree with the AIT that Dravidians are Dasyus who were pushed from the Indus Valley to down South in India? If so, shouldn`t their language and script be similar to the Harappa-Mohenjodaro heiroglyphics. If not, what is your theory for Dravidians - pure Tamil is totally different from Sanskrit, and is a classical language in its own right.

Regards.

Ref RSaxena #: 45

{you always seem to be reading while one hand and your attention are diverted elsewhere.}

It is called multi-processing. You should try it some time.

{And how/why do you know who is wearing what???}

Petabytes of high-speed random access memory.

You can`t beat a biochemical computer for random processing of data. How do you think I recall stuff I read years back and am able to quote it chapter and verse?

I may be off for several weeks since I am shortly leaving on one of my periodic visits to the holy land of IT. We will see what exactly happens as I attempt to access the internet from India. Reality cookies have a strange way of tasting differently than they are described on paper.

Dear Rohan, I deeply enjoyed your well based comments on a variant of politically motivated distosion of history that was new to me until some weeks ago,

Maerte

gymnosophist #44,

May God help you.

Amen

Re: gymno

Uhhh, beavis, you always seem to be reading while one hand and your attention are diverted elsewhere. And how/why do you know who is wearing what??? Old man, this was entertaining thus far but now you`re going to scare us.

Phew, thank god I am nowhere near the US.

Ref RSaxena #: 41

{``I couldn`t agree more. (hope gymno isn`t reading)``

Uh oh, I bet he is and is going to accuse you of ``coming to [my] defense.``}

Gymno reads all responses and reads both direct and subtle indirect hints.

Don`t tell me you didn`t show up at that Pakistani shindig Saturday after Scout said that she would be there wearing a green shalwar. The message was nominally addressed to someone else but the hints were there for all to see.

I am confused...why name calling and use of the words ``normal people`` without defining them

Re: gymno

``Tsk, tsk. Aren`t you overlooking the fact that the Mohenjadaro civilization had running water and sewers and well laid-out streets?``

Proud announcements of past achievement by people several hundred generations from you and I doesn`t do much to motivate the do-nothing, ladoo-popping buffoons who run the country.

So the children of the Mohenjo Daro and sister civilizations - our ancestors - were good for nothing brats who squandered away the sewage systems and paved cities we were supposed to inherit...is that what we`re going to learn from these useless academic debates?

Re: scout

``I couldn`t agree more. (hope gymno isn`t reading)``

Uh oh, I bet he is and is going to accuse you of ``coming to [my] defense.``

``With all the running around that they do, their behinds are worth more than most desi peoples`.``

Well, most desi people run around a lot. Some of them doing less than noble things but they do chase a dollar better than anyone else.

Ref RSaxena #: 30

You said {Stop yo silly academic debates. Whether or not the Aryans came to India or vice versa, the fact of the matter is that all of Europe has running water and flush toilets and most of us in the subcontinent don`t. So whether or not we have linguistic or other linkages is hardly worth a chooha`s behind.}

Tsk, tsk. Aren`t you overlooking the fact that the Mohenjadaro civilization had running water and sewers and well laid-out streets? Thus, it is of supreme importance to determine what caused us to lose our sense of geometrically laid out cities with sanitation and go in the direction we had taken since. ;-)

By the way, has anybody read Nirad Chaudhri`s `The Continent of Circe`? I thought it was a hoot. It took the Aryan Invasion Theory to the next level.

Invasion vs. Migration:

The term “invasion” does not always imply invasion by a group of people with the intention of overpowering others. A migration followed by coersion or a migration leading to harmful consequences is also termed as invasion. From the perspective of native Amerindians, the migration of Europeans to Americas can be termed as invasion of Europeans because it led to harmful consequences. The term invasion is not restricted to humans only. A seasonal migration of locust, other insects or animals to an area with destructive outcome is also termed invasion though it may be a seasonal migration from insects or animal point of view. It is usually termed, in cultural terms, invasion of western culture through media by the people who consider it harmful to their value system.

The Aryan theory, as it is written in most of history books, clearly mention the destruction of Indus Valley Civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro by Aryan migrants. They often use such terms as “Victory of Aryans” to describe the coming of dominance of Aryans in North India. It is then appropriate to consider it “Aryan Invasion Theory”, no matter what the intensions of original immigrants may be. The term “Arguments” clearly suggests it to be a debatable and open-ended subject, otherwise a “Death or End of Aryan Invasion Theory” might have been preferred.

Migrations:

Pulsed migrations have been the undeniable fact of human history. It is not contested in “Arguments Against.....”. The arguments were made against a very large number of people migrating in a relatively short period of time and its coersive nature leading to the violent destruction of Indus Valley Civilization, forcing people to move South. This part of Aryan Invasion theory is an attempt to link it with Rig-Veda description of wars under the leadership of Indra, although there are no ways to prove when these hymns were composed. Moreover, it does not provide any evidence for Indra and his followers to be of extra-sub continent origin. A mere moving the date of these compositions to earlier than the Invasion period would eliminate the possiblity of it has to do anything with the migrants. Since they are composed in Sanskrit and Sanskrit is beleived to be an Indo-Aryan language, it is assumed these hymns to have been composed after the invasion. You have to assume also that these hymns are the eye-witnessed accounts and not a recomposition of older material, for their current utility in terms of religion. Religious literature tend to exaggerate history because their motives are more noble than recording history. There motives are social, moral and religious teachings. Unfortunately there is an obsession going on for the last two hundred or so years to prove the history of Old Testament. A mere blank square next to Ramses II mural is paraded as a proof of the death of his first born due to the curse of Moses. This mindset and predisposition also influenced the Aryan Theory in relation to Vedic literature.

Race:

Aryan as a racial group is no longer taken seriously among informed people. Many others whose knowledge is limited to old history books or a desire of belonging to a noble race, still believe and take pride in Aryan as race. Those who do not believe in it do so for two different reasons. There are those, like myself, who believe that migrants were in small numbers to significantly alter the genetic make up of pre-existing people of mixed races (see SR post at Arguments Against.......), the term aryan represents a family of languages and in time became part of the lingua franca of north Indian people. Others think that we are mixed race because of the later waves of migrants, the Scythians, White Huns etc.

Language:

The issue here really is many-fold. There are valid reasons for linguistics to classify languages in groups based on large number of similar sounding words for same objects. The relationship among various Indo-European languages is a fact based on common roots for such words. On this basis a proto-Indo-European vocabulary is undeniable. First question arises as to what percent of a language actually utilizing such words. As I suggested the possibility of Indo-Aryan language becoming part of Sanskrit, thus sharing phonetics for several words with other Indo-European Languages. Does Urdu belong to Indo-Iranian family of languages for having a large number of Persian words or it belongs to Indo-Aryan for sharing a large number of Hindi, Sanskrit words? I tend to believe it to be an Indo-Aryan. Is Pidgen also an Indo-European Language because of its relationship with English? Sometimes it is traditon and other times it depends who classifies them and rest of the world accepts it. And what does it mean to have term Indo ahead of Aryan, Iranian and European; why not other way around. There is nothing magical about it; it simply means that pioneers of this subject invented these terms.

What does it mean to belong to a family of languages as seen in the family tree of Indo-European languages? I am conceding here that proto-Indo-European speaking were the carrier of common words in these languages but at the same time I am not conceding the time frame described for this transfer, nor do I concede that it is the only available mechanism of words transfer ( as I expained in my piece). I tend to agree with Colin Renfrew, in “Archaeology and Language” that it is a long drawn out period dating several thousand years befor 1200-1800 BC. It started with the Neolithic Age (cultivation and domestication of animals), 6000-8000 BC. Since it is a pulsed mechanism, it will have its periods of fast diffusion as well as slow diffusions. Without proven time frame, language family tree does not lose its value in analysis but loses its luster. I can draw a family tree of life with a dog, a tree and a girl all related to earliest form of life. Can it be justification enough to marry a girl to a dog or hugging a tree because afterall they are her cousins through tree of life? The time frame is primary boundary condition to make a language independent of its cousins. More we push the time frame backward, less important it becomes for a living thing, like a language.

There must have been some language in which people of Indus Valley communicated. They were continuously accepting the words from each migrants. They accepted words from Indo-Aryan language also and the result is Sanskrit. It was Indo-European as well as Indic. Languages keep evolving as modern north Indian languages do, though originating from proto-Indic (Sanskrit) language are quite different from one another. Many Indo-European languages use mother, madar, maa, madre, mata for mother and father, pidr, padre, fater, pita for father but the most common terms in vogue in Pakistan are ammi and abba for mother and father. Koreans also use ammi and abba for mother and father. Are ammi and abba words from pre-Aryan origin? Are these terms introduced in Korea by Buddhist monks from India? Or these words have their origin somewhere in the chain of cultures from Korea, Manchuria, Mongols, White Huns and Scythians? I tend to believe in the last possibility. There origin might be somewhere in the chain and brought to Pakistan by later Scythian or White Hun migrants. Another common word fro mother in Punjabi villages is bey-bey. No Idea about its origin. Wheat is called by different names within Pakistan. It is kanak in Punjabi and gandum in Urdu. This does not sound related to Aryan theory because it is post-Aryan influence. But it is relevent to my suggesting that as people, as cultures and as languages, we are mixed, influenced by many who cotributed and enriched cultures and languages.

The similarites of some verses and language of Zend Avesta and Rig-Veda is not tht importsnt. Persia ruled wester India during 6th century BC, western India contributed tremendous revenues to persian Empire and Indian soldier took part in the wars including sacking and burning of Athens, Greece. It is not unusal to influence each other’s religious literature besides niether Zend Avesta nor Rig-Veda are compositions of one person in a shord period of time. It was very easy to include or delete portions even later than Persian rule over western India. Moreover, persianised Greek, the Parthians and Selucids also ruled western India later. Ashoka’s empire including the headquarter of Mullah Omar, Qandhahar.

In short, both time frame and accepting new words contradict Aryan Invasion Theory as it was widely believed.

Archaeology:

Since Arguments for... did not go into details about archaeology, I will not stress about it too much but it must be known that archaeology has lot more evidence against Aryan Invasion than for it. Carbon-14 dating of many of the pottery shard believe to be of Indo-European style, from several European sites date them to much earleir period than supposed Indo-European arrival in Europe. In India, the finding of 27 human reamins at Mohenjo-daro, and more than usual charred material in that particular layer is all the evidence to support the violent sudden destruction of the city. This in itself is no proof of destruction by war from Indo-Aryan people.

The horses remains are not that important. The suggestion of chariots and horses playing a signifcant role in the destruction is based on Hyksos model of destroying a weakened Egyptian empire and much later successes fo Mongols although many people Mongols defeated were also on horses back.

Similarly, the whole Invasion theory utilizing religion and force, overpowering pre-Aryan people is right out of book of Muslim Arabs conquering whole of Middle East and North Africa with the help of religion and sword. Since it happened and we have enough proof for it; same could have happened to India.

My interest in this subject dates back about 12 years by first reading “Archaeology and Language” by Colin Renfrew. Since then, I have raed a lot of books, articles and talking to people interested in this subject. I used several Indian History books, Colin Renfrew (Archaeology and Languages), Mallory(In Search of the Indo-European Origins), Kak/ Frowley (boring cosmology, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization), Ariel & Will Durrant (Our Oriental Heritage), Arnold Toynbee (A Study of History) and couple of books about Asian Philosophies (for information about Rig-Veda) for writing “Arguments Against.......” over a month period. I come from Muslim backgroung in Pakistan. I have no interest in BJP/ RSS or other indo-centric websites; never visited any of those, not familiar with Voice of India or any of their literature. My interest, as I alluded to, earlier is more due to dislikeness of sweating over the history described in religious literature, turning half of Israel upside down to prove the history described in the Old Testament and using Rig-Veda to substantiate Aryan Invasion Theory. Religious literature offers more important things than history.

While it is argued for human carrier of Indo-European and Bantu (African) languges, the topic of Semitic origins are carefully avoided. It is no secret that like proto-Indo-Euroean and its origins somewhere in Central Asia, proto-Semitic is an African language of Ethiopean highlands. Noone will believe that modern day Semites (Hebrews, Arabs) could be of African origin, in the same way Aryans are believed to be Central Asian. Because, it might decrease their claim to the Holy Land and Middle East. It is fiercely argued for contact of wandering nomadic tribes from Middle East coming in contact with Ethiopean Highlanders and accepting words from their language alongwith circumcision and some other myths. In this way, Indo-centric myth could be thought of if its sole purpose is to create an identity.

Last word: Most people will say democracy, respect for law, powerful economy or individual human rights to the question: what impressed you most in the USA? My answer would be, academia. I believe the best and brightest of American are found in universities, unequal in knowledge and wisdom. I have been extra careful even responding to retired academician at chowk. I can be blamed for anything else but not for being disrespectful of specialists, professors and researchers in any discipline. Though no longer in academia, I still consider them gods. Disagrreing or debating an issue for the purpose of learning more about it is in no way a criticism or abuse of any learned individual.

Urstruly:

The assumption that Aryan invaders destroyed Harappa (rather than any of the alternative possibilities, ie. that they arrived at some point during or after its decline, or even during its heyday) was put forward in the middle of the twentieth century, eg. by Mortimer Wheeler. It is no longer assumed by most scholars that the Indo-Aryans actually destroyed Harappa, since there is no positive evidence for that, though it remains open, of course, as a possibility.

Rohan.

Arun:

Since you seem determined to misinterpret it, here`s what I said again:

``I personally find the existence of the Mitanni in West Asia in 1600 BC, using recognisable archaic Sanskrit and recognisable Vedic deities (Mitra, Varuna, Nasatya) fascinating.``

Nothing in there implies that the Hurrian state exclusively spoke Indic, rather than Hurrian, or that they used nothing but Vedic deities. The important point about the Mitanni is that they did use Indic words, and that they did have the Vedic deities and use them in treaties. By doing so they attest (in writing) the existence of an archaic and already differentiated (from proto-Indo-Iranian) form of Indic in 1600 BC, over a thousand years before the next written evidence of any Indic language. But we don`t have the slightest idea by what mechanism they came by that Indic element. That`s what I referred to.

I`m glad you`ve worked out some of this for yourself through web searches, but I strongly suggest you get a better grip on it and the rest of the subject (since you are so interested in it) by doing some background reading. A copy of Mallory is easy to get a hold of. Trying to build the kind of deductions that you do on the high level of ignorance that you display is a recipe for going off on pointless tangents, the way you just did.

Regards,

Rohan.

Hi,

I will honestly accept that, I do not understand this or the previous article in detail.

The basic theory I can see is:

1)Language are similar.

So similar that it has to come from a common ancestory and not developed as part of interaction. (I cannot see how one can proove that.)

2)Horses: Something about them.

3)pre-literate: did not have long term memory but were able to remember the whole shlokas. Can only laugh at that.

Based on the above, the only way it is possible is Aryans must have invaded, means physically attack. I find that conclusion little un-reasonable. I am not saying it is not possible, but saying that it is not reasonable enough.

One way to disproove is, to attack someone of their intention. Those who oppose AIT, are supportes of some political party and have some political motive.

Similar thing can be said of those who support AIT:(I am not saying these are true, but just showing how we can attack each other intentions):

a)Still have the slave mentallity. Whatever the west says is good. Cannot think independently.(Even the famous Indian Chess player Ananand, said, that for Indians to appreciate something, it has to be appreciated by westerners before. I think it was in 50th year celeberation of India Today)

b)Want to look good, honest and unbiased in other eyes.

I think, that this thing cannot be prooved. We have to make assumptions. I do not want somebody else to tell me who am I. I don`t mind Indian Historian, telling me who am I. Others have this privilege,(there historian tell them, who they are). Why should not I have the privilege. How do we know that those historians are not biased? I think everyone is almost biased, so we should only look at facts. If we have to be biased, let us be biased by our own people.

If one look at the spread of Buddhism, it will be difficult to see as India as the origin(if one take the central place from where it might have spread.). There is no example I know of where, people, came to different region and worshipped and made that place as theirs. All there gods, also somehow begin to live in the new region.

Until there is explicit proove that, invasion was there, basing it on language alone is too far fetched. Not all natural phenomenon has another example. Some are unique.

(One more theory with a cursory glance: the people in North are big and built, the people in the south also are big and built. If you look at the middle of India, than people are medium built and usually thin. It might mean, that the people in middle are the one who got attacked both in North and South. Another theory. :-))

Vijay

ASK# 31

Thank you ASK for your reply. I have one more question to ask, as a matter of fact I asked that question to Mr. Oberoi and he chose to ignore it-so I am a bit more curious. My question was, why is it assumed that the Aryans destroyed the indegenous civilization. Is there an evidence based on archeological finds or is it just an assumption. What if the indeginous culture was not destroyed-I think that people used to leave places very often due to natural disasters, floods, earthquakes, unusually long periods of drought, plague, volcanoes (Pompie and some South American places). So why the assumption that the destruction took place.

Rohan,

The only Indo-European words in the Hurrian language are some of the numbers and the terms used for horses and horse-training. These are clearly understood to be loan words. The other Indo-European influence is in the names of some of the Mitanni nobility. The words you mention are about the sum total of Indo-Aryan words in the Hurrian vocabulary.

I repeat, Hurrian is not a Indo-European language, no more than loan words from Dravidian make Sanskrit a Dravidian language.

Also, if you read a bit more about the Boghazkhoy tablet, you will find that Indra, Varuna, Nasatya, Mitra appear at the end of a long list of gods and goddesses, all the other gods and goddesses are not Indo-Aryan. Therefore, the statement

``P. Thieme demonstrated that the gods of the Mitanni treaties are specifically Vedic gods`` is misleading. The correct statement is that ``P. Thieme demonstrated that the four gods with Indo-Aryan like names out of the many gods named in the Mitanni treaties are specifically Vedic gods``.

You can find a partial list of Hurrian deities in the Britannica at http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/7/0,5716,119917+4+110694,00.html .

A web-source of Hittite and Hurrian deities is at

http://pubpages.unh.edu/

Rsaxena #30, ``Whether or not the Aryans came to India or vice versa, the fact of the matter is that all of Europe has running water and flush toilets and most of us in the subcontinent don`t. So whether or not we have linguistic or other linkages is hardly worth a chooha`s behind.``

I couldn`t agree more. (hope gymno isn`t reading)

By the way, on behalf of all the choohas in NY, I resent that comment about the worth of their behinds. With all the running around that they do, their behinds are worth more than most desi peoples`.

Arun, re Mitanni:

You have always had a tendency to confuse matters by basing a lot of conclusions on a little research. :)

Mitanni, like Tocharian, is one of the sidelights of the history of Indo-European that are enigmatic and not fully understood, but everything that we do know about them is well explained in any good overview of Indo-European linguistic history. Please do read one if you`re interested in the subject.

``The earliest evidence for an Indic language is found not in India but in the Tigris-Euphrates doab, ca. 1600 BC... Here was the empire of Mitanni, extending from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Zagros mountains, in conflict with the Hittites in the west and with the Egyptians in the southwest for the control of the Euphrates river. The language of Mitanni was Hurrian; there is, however, a clear evidence of the use of Indic vocabulary in the Mitanni documents. ... P. Thieme demonstrated that the gods of the Mitanni treaties are specifically Vedic gods, and that they cannot be Proto-Aryan. Macdonnel is more emphatic: ``It is a fact, however, that this particular grouping of the gods Varun.a and Mitra, Indra and Na_satyau, with these forms of their names, can be traced only in the Veda... In the treaty between the Hittites and Mitanni, the Mitanni king swears by: Mi-it-ra (Indic Mitra), Aru-na (Varun.a), In-da-ra (Indra) and Na-sa-at-tiya (Nasatya or As`wins). A Hittite text on horse-training and chariotry, written by Kikkuli (a Mitanni) uses Indic numerals to indicate the number of turns made by a chariot on a track: aika (India eka `one`), tera (tri `three`), panza (panca `five`), satta (sapta `seven`) and na (nava `nine`). Opening instructions from the Hittite text on horse-training by Kikkuli the Mitanni. In order to describe Kikkuli`s profession, the text employs the Indic word assussanni (Skt. asvasani-).``

Regards,

Rohan.

re: Urstruly # 24

The Sangh parivar (the constituents of the former Jan Sangh who are generally refered to as the Sangh Family) is made up of many organizations. Though a lot of the leadership of the BJP comes from an RSS background a substantial part doesn`t. RSS is strongly anti-caste, so is the mainly cultural Arya Samaj. On the other hand the VHP and sundry have their own beliefs. So this guy Birodkar is most likely not from an RSS background but from some other organization. I believe it was the second Sarsanghsanchalak (head-convenor of the organization) of the RSS who said that the caste system ``has to go lock, stock and barrel``. Hence the more intellectual appeal of the RSS. Their main belief is nationalism and their opposition to the semitic religions is on the grounds that they supposedly require extra-national loyalty (ummah, vatican, etc.). This is, however, not true of other organizations in the ``family`` who have less high brow ideologies.

Ashish

Stop yo silly academic debates. Whether or not the Aryans came to India or vice versa, the fact of the matter is that all of Europe has running water and flush toilets and most of us in the subcontinent don`t. So whether or not we have linguistic or other linkages is hardly worth a chooha`s behind.

Arun:

Oh, you were talking about this 2000BC:

1) Some time before 2000 BC, the speakers of the Indo-European languages headed out of India and spread over Europe.

2) Some time before 2000 BC, the speakers of the Indo-European languages headed into India and spread over North India.

3) All of modern historical linguistics is complete nonsense.

You`re quite right, that should be ``around`` 2000BC. But note that it`s overstating the case to argue that Indo-Aryans could not have arrived before we have evidence of horse bones. The clinching argument is that the Indo-Aryans were a deeply horse-centred culture, and the people who built Harappa were not.

There`s an interesting point in Andre Wink`s histories, about how India`s terrain was always more hospitable to elephant than to horse warfare, which gave an inherent advantage to northern invaders.

Regards,

Rohan.

Hi, Arun:

1. Good point about genetics. However, keep in mind that linguistic movements are not the same thing as genetic movements; thus very large linguistic movements can be accompanied by very small genetic ones (Ireland`s acquisition of English I would suspect to be an example). I`m not sure about the converse.

2. About the title, I did write it. You may recall that using the title of the article responded to, with minor modifications, resulting in a probably inappropriate title, is an old habit of mine. (In September 1995, you and I had some disagreements on Usenet over my article, ``For Hindu Negationists - Wake Up! Smell the Coffee.`` whose title was styled after one by Rajiv Varma in which ``Muslim`` took the place of ``Hindu``).

3. No, I didn`t say Indo-Aryans arrived in India circa 2000BC. I said Indic and Iranian probably diverged not very far before then, which is a very different thing.

I don`t have the reference from Mallory at hand but this summary of the ``lower limits`` for PIE from David Anthony in the Journal of Indo-European Studies, 1991 discusses almost the same material:

``This terminus post quem can be matched with an equally probable terminus ante quem. The distinctiveness of the Anatolian IE languages

requires a substantial period of development between their separation from common PIE and their first historical documentation at Kanesh in

1900BC. ... Similarly, the existence of a distinct Indo-Aryan language group before 1600BC in the borderlands of Mesopotamia (Mitanni) and of a distinct Greek language group in Greece by 1600BC (a conservative date for the appearance of Greek-speaking Mycenaeans) requires a substantial period of prior differentiation and development

from PIE. These three already-divergent IE language groups suggest a dispersal of the PIE community well before 2000 BC.``

Scout:

Get some sleep. :)

According to the Asia Society- Govt. of Pakistan jointly organized exhibition on the Harappan civilization held in New York City as part of the 50-years of Independence celebration, there is no archaelogical evidence that that civilization was destroyed by invaders of any kind.

-arun gupta

PS, from old sci.archaelogy : another indication that Hurrian was not archaic Sanskrit, as claimed by Rohan Oberoi :

Author: Piotr Michalowski

Date: 1996/09/28

Forums: sci.archaeology

In article 52jqhc$3dr@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) writes:

``I have a question. If Mitanni Indo-Aryan was a dead language by the

``time of the Hittites, what did the Mitanni who fought the Hittites

``speak at the time of their war?

``I think that there is a bit of terminological confusion here. There were no people called Mitanni; that was the name of a state. It would appear from their writings that they were primarily Hurrian speaking. In fact, the longest Hurrian text that we have is a letter sent by Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, to the pharoah and found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. Some of the rulers of Mitanni had Indo-European names. There was a long discussion on the nature of these names and of IE loan words in Hurrian and the main agreement these days seems to be that this was not a living language at the time, but only remnants of previous contacts that certain Hurrian groups had with IE dialects elsewhere. The analysis of these words seems to indicate that this had nothing to do with the Anatolian branch of IE (``Hittite``), but with eastern dialects. I believe that I noted this before, but I will again. The classic statement of all of this is by I. Diakonoff, ``Die Arier im Vorderen Asien--Ende eines Mythos,`` Orientalia 41, 1972. In English one can read his The Prehistory of the Armenian Peoples, Caravan Books, 1984. [...]

end quote

I think the point is that if Rohan Oberoi with his interest in ancient history, and myself, with my interest in ancient history, in all our readings at the popular level, were mislead to think that Hurrian was a Indo-European language (like archaic Sanskrit ), then something is wrong with us or with the popular literature, or both.

-arun gupta

Someone gave me Kak, Frawley and Feuerstein to read about a week ago, and I`m wondering whether to waste my time with the book of these cheap frauds.

Perhaps the following will help decide.

Rohan Oberoi writes (#15)

``I personally find the existence of the Mitanni in West Asia in 1600 BC, using recognisable archaic Sanskrit and recognisable Vedic deities (Mitra, Varuna, Nasatya) fascinating. There are theories but no one really knows what they are doing in West Asia. The discovery of the Mitanni state archives would be a real archaeological coup if it ever happens.``

Now, just to be clear -- the mention of Indra, Mitra, Varuna and Nasatya -- is in a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni.

The Hittites were an Indo-European language people; and their deities are well-known, and do not include the deities mentioned above.

The Mitanni language was Hurrian; and as far as I can tell (searching on the Web) Hurrian is NOT a Indo-European language.

Kak, etc. write :

``Cuneiform clay tablets were found in the Hittite capital of Boghazkhoy that record a treaty found bteween the Hittite king Subiluliuma and the Mitanni ruler Mattiwaza.

Whereas Hittite has been recognized as an Indo-European language, Hurrian (the language spoken in the Mitanni kingdom) is neither Indo-European nor Semitic. The treaty mentions the names Mi-it-tra-as-si-il, U-ru-w-na-as-si-il, In-da-ra, and Na-sa-at-ti-ia-an-na. These have been identified as Mitanni versions of the divinities Mitra, Varuna, Indra and Nasatya....

---------

Now, either Kak, etc. have this wrong (i.e., Hurrian is Indo-European, and as Rohan Oberoi put it, recognizably archaic Sanskrit); or else, I am mistaken, and the Hittites had these deities; or else, every Indologist has to explain how a non-Indo-European language people had these Indo-Aryan deities in 1600 BC.

Incidentally, I knew about this Hittite-Mitanni treaty for years, but I personally do not recall anyone until Kak, etc., pointing out that Hurrian is not in the Indo-European language tree.

Perhaps Rohan Oberoi, with his interest in ancient history, can help clear that up, and I will know whether to proceed with the book or not.

-arun gupta

RE: Rohan, Macgupta

Is it an assumption that the Aryan invaders destroyed the indigenous civilization or this assertion is based on some archeological facts?

Why would anyone destroy a thriving civilization when it is a perfect source of revenue? Especially when it is not a matter of one or two cities, its a matter of an area bigger than Europe?

Rohan: Thanks for the info, I will check the links.

ASK # 14

Thank you ASK for your post, now it is making more sense to me. However, I still have a question about RSS`s conection with the caste system. Are you implying that RSS is against the caste system. I have just visited a site maintained by BJP`s court historian Sudhir Birodkar i.e hindutva.com, I think he is pretty much for the caste system and justifies it with a long set of arguments. True?

Aur bhi dukh hain zamaanay main Aryan Invasion kay siva...

There is the ``hard`` science of genetics, which is more reliable both at establishing relationships and times of divergence of peoples than linguistics of with languages. Within a decade or so,our knowledge about the spread of peoples over the globe should have a pretty good foundation.



-arun gupta

I am assuming that the title of the article was provided by Chowk staff and not by Rohan Oberoi.

Otherwise, it is a little disconcerting to find that the author arguing for the Aryan Invasion Theory and then stating that no respectable scholar thinks that there is such a thing as the ``Aryan Invasion Theory``, it is called something else.

My schooltexts in India taught that Aryan invaders destroyed the Indus Valley/Harappan civilization. While having heard opinions otherwise, only a couple of years ago, in an exhibition in New York City by the Asia Society and the government of Pakistan on Harappa, the clear statement there that that theory was discredited reassured me that at least that part was not Hindutvavadi rhetoric.

There may be very good reasons not to believe that the people from whom the composers of the Rig Veda arose were in India for a few thousand years prior to the Rig Veda. Conventional wisdom is usually correct. On the other hand, there are also cases where the good reasons for not believing something turned out to be wrong. The theory of continental drift, or Lord Kelvin`s (scientific) belief about the age of the earth are such cases.

The next thing to note is that yes, the Hindutvavadi crowd is mostly behind the OIT (Out of India theory). But there are other non-Hindutva folks who believe that history has been used as a tool to justify India`s subjugation.

e.g., http://fbc.binghamton.edu/gaht5.htm

whose authors have nothing to do with Hindutva, but who write :

Thus, coercive rule was rationalized through the construction of a body of ``knowledge`` about the Indian past and heritage, aimed at demonstrating both the unfitness of India for the institutions of representative government and the fitness of Britain to rule India by means of a ``vigorous`` despotism--a process now familiar to us as Orientalism (on Orientalist representrations of India, see among others Inden 1986; Guha 1992a; Prakash 1990).

Central to this construction was the portrayal of India as a society composed of implacably hostile communities, castes, cultures, and religions--a portrayal which was used over and over again to deny liberal democratic reforms.

End quote.

Presumably, modern scholarship has gotten over such a bias.

-arun gupta

Some points regarding rohanoberoi`s #10 :

1. If Indo-European speakers arrived before 2000 BC, then this is before the Harappan civilization entered its final decline. I think this is at least a couple of hundred years too early based on current conventional wisdom.

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9912&L=indology&P=R2

for example, mentions that no horse remains are found from before 1700 BC.

At another place, the same author writes :

(For those who see horse bones in the IVC: none of these has been found in a good, archaeologically stratified context and none is clearly discernable from the local half-ass, the onager or hemiod).

Same author also writes :

*Well recorded and stratified * finds of TRUE horse bones first occur in the Northern Kachi plain of Sindh/E. Baluchistan (c. 1700 BC; cf. also the contemporary Pirak figurines of horses and camels). All others belong to hemiones (equus hemionus khur, the khara? half-ass), not to true horses (equus caballus), see Meadow & Patel, 1997.

Meadow and Patel deny the existence of the true horse in any well documented level of the Indus civilization. All ``finds`` are from unclear horizons or have not been tested carefully enough to distinguish between horses and hemiones.

See detailed discussion in : South Asian Studies 13, 1997, 297-318, with papers by Bokonyi, Meadow and Patel, Anthony and the journal editor.``

End quote

If Indo-European speakers arrived during the hey-day of the Harappan culture, then the ``anti-AIT cranks`` would have made their point :-).

2. The problem with linguistics is that it cannot establish dates with any great reliability, e.g., when did the divergence of two related languages begin. Archaelogical evidence is also needed.

-arun gupta

In a totally non-expert, speculative mode --

I was surprised to find Rig Vedic verses where the Asvins (the prototypical twin horsemen) ride and race donkeys. ( I think it was RV 1.116, and I am relying on the O`Flaherty translation). Kind of wierd, why would horsemen race donkeys or ride in a donkey-drawn chariot ?

I was also surprised to find an RV verse talking about the 34 ribs of the sacrificial horse -- the true Horse (Equus caballus) has 36 ribs. Supposedly a now extinct species of horse Equus Sivalensis??? (spelling) that was native to India has 34 ribs. I haven`t been able to find out what the hemione had. (Of course, most probably, one pair of ribs of the horse is too small to be noticed in the sacrificial cut).

Lastly, if the dried-up river that flowed from the Himalayas to Kutch is indeed the Vedic Saraswati, and if indeed the drying up of the Saraswati is the prime cause of the decline of the Harappan civilization (as Kak, etc. theorize), then the Vedic people are in India well before the horse !

-arun gupta

The key point being that is being disputed in the Aryan Invasion Theory is the ``Invasion`` part of it.

The key question to be answered is ``When did the Saraswati river dry up ?``, and this can be done purely by physical evidence. That date will set a lower bound to when the Indo-European language speakers entered India. That in turn will help characterize whether this influx was an invasion or something else.

-arun gupta

The key point being that is being disputed in the Aryan Invasion Theory is the ``Invasion`` part of it.

The key question to be answered is ``When did the Saraswati river dry up ?``, and this can be done purely by physical evidence. That date will set a lower bound to when the Indo-European language speakers entered India. That in turn will help characterize whether this influx was an invasion or something else.

-arun gupta

Very very interesting article and debate. Need to see a few more of these on this site. Very interested in reading Sameer`s rebuttal.

Narain:

These are fascinating questions. First of all let me say (to your point about pride) that it is believed that the origins of the human race lie in Africa, but I don`t think that gives Africans anything to be proud about in that regard! This is ancient history, and to mix it up with modern political or cultural concerns can only lead to confusion.

About the ancient language of Harappa: I believe it is fair to say only that we *do not know * what it was. It has not been disproved that it was Dravidian, but neither has it been proved. The lack of horse-motifs, as I said, makes it highly unlikely that it was Indo-Aryan (that argument, to be refined, has to be taken in the context of the dates for the various stages of the Harappan civilisation, as well as the earliest recorded dates of the Indo-European languages -- but here we are getting out of my depth, and you had better go read some professional Indo-European scholars instead).

If you get a chance to read the Erdosy and/or Bronkhorst-Deshpande volumes you will see some fascinating discussions about Munda, the third (and usually forgotten) great language group of of India, which (going by geographic dispersion) probably predates the other two. I suppose it is not far-fetched to say that Munda is also a candidate for the the Harappan language. But again, the evidence for deciding one way or another is just not there. Remember that we are talking about almost 4500 years in the past; these are questions that, unless we have great luck in uncovering more evidence, may never be answered.

About religion: religion changes much more quickly and easily than language. For example, given the extremely close similarity between Sanskrit and Avestan, the two probably diverged fairly recently from a common culture (``fairly recently``, of course, meaning not very far before 2000BC). Yet the Iranians were converted first by Zoroaster, and then by Islam, which means they have gone through two major religious conversions, while retaining the same linguistic affinity.

I personally find the existence of the Mitanni in West Asia in 1600 BC, using recognisable archaic Sanskrit and recognisable Vedic deities (Mitra, Varuna, Nasatya) fascinating. There are theories but no one really knows what they are doing in West Asia. The discovery of the Mitanni state archives would be a real archaeological coup if it ever happens.

Urstruly:

If you take a look at the URLs I posted about Voice of India publishing house (which has spearheaded the ``AIT`` campaign), perhaps the political side of this debate will make more sense. I have tried not to focus on that because I think this should be discussed as a scientific issue, not a political one.

And to anyone who`s feeling even more confused after reading my article: copies of Mallory`s book are available new at Bn.com or Amazon.com for around $18, and there are some used copies at Half.com for around $10. A very inexpensive way to get a proper introduction to these issues.

http://www.half.com/products/books/detail.cfm?item=447203

http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=1PKDKEZP5J&mscssid=H33AF9M49L1L9PJWHAV0WXSBLVP1F5B8&isbn=0500276161

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500276161/o/qid=967230012/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_3/102-0397687-7894530

Or for a price comparison

http://media18.dealtime.com/evenbetterbin/nph-evenbetter8.cgi?type=1&acses_item=0500276161&list_price=19.95&idcode=1088977&info_1=In+Search+of+the+Indo-Europeans%3ALanguage%2C+Archaeology+%26+Myth&info_2=Author%3A+Mallory%2C+J.+P.&info_3=Paperback&info_4=Thames+%26+Hudson&info_5=04%2F1991&location=3&state=MA¤cy=1&SUBMIT=Start+Price+Comparison

Regards,

Rohan.

Having been exposed to both sides of the argument for so long I have begun to see some broad motivating factors. I invite the opinion of others on these thoughts.

The two main political implications of accepting or rejecting AIT are with regard to

1) Caste,

2) Islamic Invasions.

The Indian ``Left`` is mainly upper class (not just caste) and pro-European (eastern or western Europe doesn`t matter to them as long as the skin is colorless). Supporting the AIT puts them in the good books of europeans and makes them look good in their attitude towards the muslim minority (mainly upper class muslims with whom they get along well anyway). The logic goes- the muslim invasions are just like the aryan invasions and hence like the integration of aryans, the muslims should be integrated too. The west-european imperial political establishment (in the past) liked the AIT for its purported link to the caste system as it provided them with a justification for imperialism and apartheid. The Indian elitist ``Left`` also finds this link to caste convenient as it provides them an opportunity to mouth platitudes on this issue and then explain away their failed top-down policies by hinting at ``genetic distinctions``.

The ``Right`` is led intellectually by the RSS and most anti-AIT people in India are affiliated to it. AIT rejection is convenient for the RSS because of its anti-caste, anti-muslim ideology. The fact that most Indian muslims have ancestors living here for millenia is a minor inconvenience- after all they need to build a support base. Depending upon their audience their story changes from calling muslims foreigners to calling their religious motivations foreign (Ummah concept). But it is important to note the anti-caste ideology of the RSS (and the mainly apolitical Arya Samaj). That`s how the middle class- lower middle class support base is built.

None of the parties in the AIT debate - including the ``scholars`` in the west are without their baises. Even if we are to assume that present day western scientists have no hidden agenda their work builds upon previous work of dubious scientific value.

Ashish

re: Rohan Oberoi

Way way back when a roomate in college once asked me what my race was, I had gotten really interested in this subject. At that point in time I had read just about everything I could get my hands on. You seem to be a little confused about what Sameer`s article is suggesting.

His article refutes the `Aryan invasion theory`. Modern archaeology (last 40 yrs) corroborates this view as there are no signs of the destruction of the earlier (dravidian, proto-austroloid ??) people or large scale migrations. In fact, Sameer also asserts that the Indus Valley was (and still is) inhabited by people of different races. Indians (and Pakistanis, B`deshis, South Asians, whatever go from black to white !)

The title of your article got me curious but then I was disappointed to read the same old linguistic based hogwash.