Arguments For Aryan Invasion Theory

Well you convinced me. Do recall reading parts of Mallory a couple of years back. I thought this was not an issue. The thrust of recent research had been the origin of Indo-Europeans, causes of the their migration and deciphering of the Indus Valley script. There are ofcourse theories of natural disasters/social upheavels in Central Asia. There was an archealogical expedition marked for this summer around Black sea-Wonder what they uncovered. In the Sinkiang province they have uncovered well-preserved mummies of people who can only be classified as Europeans dating back more than a thousand years.

Questions:

Any comments on the origin?

Why has the Rig Veda been relagated to such a lowly position within the Hindu religion?

What are the implications of differences in the Rig Veda and the latter Vedas?

I read with interest articles from Sameer and Rohan Oberoi. Having a side interest in the history of this area I have to agree with Oberoi in his refutation of Sameer. All the points raised by Oberoi merit attention and are generally the consensus of modern scholarship. I would also like to comment that many facts in Sameer`s article were simply not correct.

Qasim Iqbal

Pakistan / USA.

Rohan,
Impressive work. And thank you for sharing your knowledge in this area with us. I am afraid I am one of those who despite having doubts about Aryan Invasion Theory, believe that we don’t have enough evidence (linguistic, archaeological, historical or from any other perspective) to refute AIT – I suggested the same in one of my responses to Sameer. Your analysis of linguistic evidence in support of AIT is difficult to discount. However, in your discussion in support of AIT, you have spent very little time on other related areas, such as the archaeological or sociological evidence. Linguistics may be your strong area, but we need to look at this from other perspectives as well. For example, from sociological perspective, it is difficult to understand why western culture has no trace of cast system?

Your view of all books, articles, and arguments against AIT as [badly-argued, semi-literate, politically motivated, nonsense.] may be true if you are referring to BJP/RSS lead campaign against AIT. But why would you consider all other works in this area as such?

Once again, thanks for your efforts. I quite enjoyed your piece.

Dear Oberoi,

You wrote
``But I do hate it when genuine scholarship is shoved aside in favour of badly-argued, semi-literate, politically motivated, nonsense``.

I am more confused than ever after reading your article. May be it will make more sense to me if you elaborate on the ``political motivations`` aspect.

Do you have any comments on Rajesh Kochhar`s recent book on the history of Vedic Indians ? He has some very interesting theories. Aryans apparently lived for a long time in Afghanistan, and many of their legends, including both the great epics, originated from clan rivalries during this sojourn. The place names were later carried to the Gangetic plains, just like `Ayuthhya` was later built in the 1400s, in present day Indo-China.

The author uses the standard methodology used by the history establishment in India. He just quotes `experts` as if that was reason enough for something to be true, heaps scorn on the other side, blames them for not knowing `20th century` linguistics, of not being `serious` historians, and casts doubts on personal integrity of the people who believe differently. In short, the `spit and scoot` policy. And all this without a line of actual reasoning. So, we dont know what are the reasons and proofs that his `Aryans` couldnot have originated in India, we just have to take his knowledge about 20th century linguistics for a proof. His horse argument is weak, to say the least. Real horse remains have been found from many harappan cities, and also `Ashwa` in vedic times could very well have meant a so called `semi-horse` or something like that found widely around vedic India.

In a patronising, sneering tone the author informs that `pre-literate`societies dont have long memories, and he is talking about a society whic composed and saved all the vedas, brahmans, upanishads, aranyakas, all according to AIT supporters in 200 years odd, and this society, in all the stories and songs it had, absolutely forgot about its old homeland! Australlian aborigins, with no written tradition, keep memories of their homelands thousands of years ancient.

Archaeology has no meaning for the author, neither do genetics or geology. The recent discovery of Sarasvati has no importance. All that is important is his `linguistics` about which he doesnot condescend to tell us.

In any case, this article is not about discussion. It is about sneering and name-calling, a typical marxist pastime.

In addition to the linguistic arguement, Cavalli-Sforza a genetic anthropologist, cites evidence for 2 waves of migrations into the subcontinent with an inerval of many millenia. I am very hazy on the details since this subject is not something that I get vey excited about, but I think he speculates that the migration originated in the middle eastern region.

The trouble for a person like me, who has a smattering of knowledge on the subject, but really hasn`t followed up on it, is that everyone else sounds so knowledgeable.. :-). Best I avoid THIS debate..!

Cheers, AK

Rohan,

What is your argument in support of ``INVASION``? Why not an ``Aryan landing theory`` where Aryan landed everywhere from space? I certainly have no arguments in support of that, but you also have no arguments to refute that.

I`d like to elaborate on the point raised by ``fairdinkum``. He`s quite right that I didn`t talk about the archaeological evidence much.

Both Renfrew and Mallory`s books go into that in detail, so reading those two books is a good (and very accessible) way to learn about that. But about archaeology and linguistics: in many ways, rather than complementing each other, the two disciplines seem to progress with only a passing acquaintance with the latest developments in each other`s research. Renfrew says this prompted him to write ``Archaeology and Language``, to try to bring about some synthesis. That`s a wonderful idea, though perhaps he should have teamed up with a linguist to ensure that his linguistic analysis was on par with his archaeological one.

The problem in South Asia is that, while there is very conclusive linguistic evidence that the North Indian languages are genetically related to Iranian and European languages, there is no really conclusive archaeological evidence of anything other than the existence of the Harappan civilisation. There are many analyses of the various grave cultures and how to relate them to movements of cultures, but the interpretations are varying because the evidence is thin.

Let me put that another way. The genetic relationship of the Indo-European languages is the single most well-established fact in the entire discipline of linguistics; its discovery practically invented modern linguistics. So there are only three possibilities.

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 can see how this imposes certain restrictions on interpretation of the evidence, requiring that any theory be consistent not just with the local South Asian situation, but also with the linguistic evidence from Europe and the Middle East. No one seriously believes Option 3, and linguists believe they have very clinching arguments against Option 1 (See Hock for an analysis of that).

There are archaeologists who argue for ``non-invasionism``. This is a historical artefact of the science of archaeology: at one time archaeologists used to interpret every new kind of pottery they found as evidence of a new migrating people. Now there is a pendulum-swing reaction against that, so archaeologists try to formulate their theories without any invoking any movements of peoples (in ``Archaeology and Language``, Renfrew uses ``invasionist`` as a dirty word without any particular discussion of the merits of ``invasionism`` one way or another). Neither kind of knee-jerk interpretation is particularly intelligent, especially when the archaeological evidence in Central Asia and post-Harappan northwest India is so thin and so open to varying interpretations.

You raise another good question about why I dismiss all ``Aryan Invasion Theory`` articles. There`s a very good reason: because the mere use of the terminology indicates that the writer comes from the background of cranks, rather than the background of any academic field. You see, no historian, archaeologist or linguist, refers to the standard view as ``the Aryan Invasion Theory``, and even the archaeologists like Renfrew (or, I believe, some of the other writers in the Bronkhorst-Deshpande volume) who criticise the standard view never, ever, refer to what they are doing as ``debunking the Aryan Invasion Theory``. The only people who have ever done that are the stable of cranks (Frawley, Rajaram, Talageri, Kak) maintained by the RSS-BJP publishing house Voice of India, which has published all the major ``Anti-Aryan-Invasion-Theory`` books by these authors.

To understand just how much of single-source campaign this, is look at the attached bibliography of books by Voice of India, and also at the following sources of information on Voice of India:

http://www.voi.org/reviews/rev-aitstal.html

http://www.indiaserver.com/frontline/1998/12/19/15261230.htm

http://www.voi.org/authors/sita.html

http://www.hindu.org/publications/ramswarup/voiceofindia.html

http://www.voi.org/authors/srg/srg-intvw1.html

http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/miscarticles/tnonf.html

http://www.voi.org

I`d like to apologise if I sounded offensive in my article (which was written in one stretch without review) but as long as it has the effect of focussing the discussion back on serious, professional sources and away from the cranks I`ll be happy with it. After all, we as amateurs here wouldn`t have a discussion about the latest research in, say, modern physics, without quoting respected professional physicists; the same should hold true in discussions of history, archaeology and linguistics. That`s not to say that no one else can hold an opinion or enter into, or even disagree with, the arguments - only that there should be a greater initial weight attached to the professional consensus, in these as in all other disciplines.

Regards,

Rohan.



Bibliography of Voice of India books:

Sethna, K.D: Ancient India in a New Light. Delhi: Voice of India,

1989, 645p., Rs. 500



Frawley, David. Gods, Sages and Kings. Salt Lake City: Passage

Press, 1991; New Delhi: Voice of India, 1993.

Sethna, K.D: The Problems of Aryan Origins. Delhi: Voice of India,

1992, 443p., Rs. 450

Talageri, Shrikant G: The Aryan Invasion Theory; A Reappraisal with a

Preface by Dr. S. R. Rao. Delhi: Voice of India, 1993, 373p., Rs. 350

The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India by David Frawley New Delhi:

Voice of India, 1995



Singh, Bhagwan: The Vedic Harappans. Delhi: Voice of India, 1995,

493p., Rs. 850

The Politics of History: Aryan Invasion Theory and the Subversion of

Scholarship. by Navaratna Rajaram New Delhi: Voice of India, 1995

Danino, Michel and Sujata Nahar: The Invasion that Never was. Delhi:

Voice of India, 1996, 128p., Rs. 80 (PB)

Rajaram, Navaratna S and David Frawley: Vedic Aryans and the Origins

of Civilizations; A Literary and Scientific Perspective. 2nd

Edition. Delhi: Voice of India, 1997, 328p., Rs. 450

Der ubermensch sind uber alles!

Der ubermensch sagt, ``ich will alles!`` and lo behold, for it shall come to pass!

Ciao!

I must confess that I would very much like to believe in the ``India origin`` hypothesis. It satisfies my pride by making India one of the greatest influences on the history of the world. However I must bow before the rigorous and logical research that you have presented. A few questions remain though:

1. What happened to the ancient language of the Indus valley civilization? I am assuming that it is not closely related to the Dravidian branches otherwise it would have been deciphered by now (?). By your argument it could not also be Aryan in origin. Now is there any historical precedent where a civilization and its language vanished completely in the face of a (peaceful or otherwise) invasion?

2. What about the evidence from religion and specifically from the Rig Veda? Assuming that it was a reflection of the prevailing religious thought of the Aryans, and assuming that they migrated from europe to India, there should be some similarity in the gods in pre-christian europe and the vedas. Do we observe any such similarity? On the other hand if we assume that the aryans migrated from India onto europe, and assuming that Arya-vrat or Hindusim was the original religion of the Aryan branches, how was it that this survived only in India and Iran and that the Rig Veda did not make it across? What is the prevailing thought on this?

3. How completely can we rely on linguistics alone? Is there any contradictory evidence from any other branch of history which would go against the linguistic evidence?

Thanks for an interesting read.

narain

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.
The similarities between Old Avestan and Sanskrit speaking people you point out are more than just linguistic. There are references to each other in the texts (Zend Avesta, Rig Veda) which suggest a lot of interaction between the two (wars, moving apart, etc.) As far as links for this are concerned I don`t have them but there are plenty on the web. Even some customs of Parsis and Vedic Hindus are similar. In fact, read about Arya Samaji rituals (havans, agni worship, etc) and Parsi rituals.
But carrying this further to Europeans, etc. based on SOME similarities in language, is ridiculous. And from that point going on to hypothesize a complete INVASION theory is completely ludicrous.

BTW in your article where are your arguments FOR the Aryan INVASION theory ? Based on similarities in languages, you merely assert, there are some common roots or links between some people in ancient India and some people in ancient Europe (?).
I guess here is another way to put it. English is becoming the de facto global language even in non-colonial places. So lets say 500 years down the line will our future generations be arguing that the English conquered the entire world or that we all actually came from England ??

Oh yeah, getting back to the race question. The answer is, well, we are not divided that way :-)
regards

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

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.

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