Arguments For Aryan Invasion Theory

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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. :)

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.

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.

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

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.