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Anexhibition
preparedforFACT
d f FACT
byMichelDanino
Whatthetextbookssay
We find in textbooks used in Indian schools varying versions of the Aryan invasion
theory. In Tamil Nadu especially, the following statement is bound to leave a
psychological scar on young minds:
It is believed that the earliest inhabitants of India were the Dravidians,
Dravidians who
It
were ... the people who lived in Mohenjodaro and Harappa.... The Aryans
migrated from Central Asia and drove away the Dravidians after fierce battles.
The culture of the Aryans was entirely different from that of the Dravidians.
(From a textbook used in Class 4 a few years ago. The most recent textbooks
perpetuate this scenario.)
Accompanied by purely imaginary depictions for greater effect (below), such
statements are misleading and based on no evidence.
ThebirthoftheAryantheory
To explain the kinship between Sanskrit and European languages, 19thcentury European Indologists in particular Max Mller, a German
Sanskritist who lived in Oxford and published the full text of the Rig Veda
for the first time propounded that:
An Aryan race speaking a proto-Indo-European language (PIE) somewhere in
Central Asia, split into several groups: one migrated towards Europe, the other
towards Iran and finally
y India,, which they
y entered around 1500 BCE.*
They subjugated indigenous tribals (this was revised later to include
Dravidians), composed the Rig Veda soon after their conquest of northwest India,
and gradually spread Sanskrit, Vedic culture and the caste system throughout India.
India was thus composed of distinct races, languages, literatures, and cultures,
which turned the Aryan dogma into a political instrument of division between North
and South, upper (= Aryan) and lower (= non-Aryan) castes. The British colonial
powers also
l argued
d that
th t they
th had
h d come to
t bring
b i about
b t a reunion
i off the
th greatt Aryan
A
family; they were, after all, no more than a new wave of Aryan invaders of India!
The concept of an aggressive, conquering Aryan race was devoid of evidence, but
it suited the dominance of the white man in the colonial age.
age Other races
races , including
the Jews and the Blacks, were regarded as inferior and unsuited to lead humanity. It
was the same racial theory that Hitler later took over and used to assert that the
Aryans were the master race (Herrenvolk) and had the right to rule the world and
exterminate inferior races.
* BCE = Before Common Era (= Before Christ). CE = Common Era (= AD).
Four approaches
The Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) remains an object of heated
controversy in India, but is rarely debated on the basis of hard
evidence and rational inquiry. Let us examine it from several
angles:
1.
2
2.
A h
Archaeological
l i l & cultural
lt
l
3.
4.
g
Linguistic
Ancient Tamil Sangam literature, from the 2nd century BCE remembers no migration from
the North and no conflict with Aryans or anyone else. Moreover Sangam literature, even
in its earliest anthologies,
anthologies often praises Vedic gods,
gods Indra,
Indra Vishnu,
Vishnu Agni etc.
etc It also shows
high regard for the Vedas, the chanting of Vedic hymns, Brahmins, the Himalayas, etc.
Indias oldest literatures, whether from the North or the South, are therefore silent on an
Aryan
y invasion and also on a North-South divide. It is irrational to expect
p
that both the
Rig Veda and the Sangam literature should have forgotten everything about an event (the
Aryan invasion) that is said to have changed Indias cultural landscape radically.
1b. Geography:
Rivers & Oceans in the Rig-Veda
The Rig-Veda has numerous references to the ocean (samudra), Indias
eastern
eastern and western seas
seas , ships,
ships sailing
sailing, storms,
storms waves
waves, etc
etc. all of which
invaders from Central Asia would have been ignorant of.
The Rig-Veda often mentions the Saptasindhava (seven sindhus or rivers):
the Indus
Indus, Sindhu,
Sindhu its five tributaries
tributaries, and the Sarasvat
Sarasvat. That is the geography
of the Northwest of the Indian subcontinent.
The Sarasvat* is described as a mighty river flowing unbroken from the
mountain to the sea
sea. An important hymn
hymn in praise of rivers
rivers (10.75)
(10 75) locates it
between the Yamuna and the Sutlej. In the nineteenth century, British
surveyors, topographers and geologists identified it with the huge dry bed of
the GhaggarHakra, which runs from Haryana to the Rann of Kachchh.
Archaeology shows that this river, which nurtured hundreds of Harappan
sites, started breaking up around 2700 BCE, and its central basin had dried up
from 2000 BCE. Aryans invading India around 1500 BCE could not have
worshipped
hi
d the
th dry
d bed
b d as a mighty
i ht river
i
flowing
fl i
from
f
the
th mountain
t i to
t the
th
sea. The composers of those hymns must have lived on the rivers banks
while it was in full flowin the third or fourth millennium BCE.
* For a fuller treatment, see my separate
presentation, Sarasvat, the Lost River.
The Indus cities begin to collapse around 1900 BCE: even if Aryans had come
around 1500 BCE, they would have had nothing to do with their destruction.
Moreover there is no trace of man-made
Moreover,
man made destruction or warfare anywhere in
the Indus civilization. There is therefore no justification for the crude
misrepresentations found in textbooks depicting Aryans attacking Harappan
cities. That is why
y even those scholars who today
y continue to believe in the
arrival of Aryans have downgraded it to a peaceful immigration.
256
712
EvidenceoffireworshipinHarappanreligion
(Left) A fire altar, about 2.6 x 2.6 m in a street at Lothal; the pit was
found to be full of ash and terracotta cakes; the big jar must have
been used to keep liquid offerings, perhaps oil or ghee. Such a
structure in a public place could only have been used for ritual
purposes. (Right) Fire temple at Banawali, Haryana, with the central
apsidal (semicircular) structure also found to be full of ash.
Evidence of linga
g worship
p (above
(
left: Kalibangan)
g ) and of the trishla
(above right) is a strong argument for cultural continuity.
Morepossible
parallels between
parallelsbetween
HarappanandVedic
cultures
Indus seals: (Top left) A Vedic bull? (Top centre) The Unicorn: the Rig Veda speaks
of a bull with
with a sharpened horn
horn;; Krishna in the Mahbhrata,
Mahbhrata In
In days of old ... I
was known by the name of Ekashringa [one-horned]. (Top right) Triple-headed
mythical creatures: in the Rig Veda, Agni is three-headed.
4. Linguistics
Problems with the linguistic scenario proposed by 19th-century
century European linguists:
It is a fact that Sanskritic and European languages belong too the same family. But even
after two centuries, linguists remain unable to agree on the location of the original IndoEuropean [= Aryan] homeland.
homeland Proposed homelands still today spread from Northern
Europe to Southern Russia to the Caspian Sea or even Bactria.
Language need not spread through invasion / migration alone. For example, Sanskrit
spread through much of Asia in the first centuries CE but without any invasion by, or
migration of, Indians; its spread was a cultural, not a demographic, migration.
Beyond the tree model, with a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) as the
trunk of the tree, more complex models have been proposed to take lateral influences
into account. Linguists
g
agree
g
that PIE is a convenient model but probably
p
y was never a
ground reality.
One recent model (by Russell Gray & Quentin Atkinson) argues in favour of an early
dispersal of PIE from Anatolia, from 6000 or 7000 BCE onward. With such a time-frame,
dispersal from India is equally possible.
possible In fact,
fact another recent model (by U.S.
U S linguist
Johanna Nichols) takes Bactria to be the original homeland; Bactria (todays northeast
Afghanistan) was part of Indias cultural sphere. Scholars Koenraad Elst and Nicholas
Kazanas argue that PIE migrated out of India.
Dravidian languages (the four south Indian languages and a few other dialects) are distinct
from the Indo-European family, but linguistics remains unable to pinpoint their origin.
However, language and culture are distinct and should not be confused (e.g., Switzerland
has three languages but one culture; English covers many different cultures.)
In the end, linguistics, though an important discipline, is soft evidence which can be bent
to various interpretations. It cannot clinch the issue.
Thehorsecontroversy
Proponents of the Aryan theory often claim that Harappans did not know the horse, while Vedic
people did. The argument has many flaws.
Top left: Figurine of a horse from Mohenjo-daro, identified as such by Mackay. Top centre:
Figurine from Lothal. Top right: Horse bones from Surkotada, Gujarat, among horse
remains from a dozen sites certified by the best experts
experts. The Harappans did know the
horse, although it is true that they did not depict the animal on their seals.
If Aryans had introduced the horse into India around 1500 BCE, we should see an increase
of horse remains and depictions; there is none. The horse remains very rarely depicted in
India until the Mauryan age and many historical sites have no horse bones
bones.
In the Rig Veda, the adversaries of the ryas (the dasyus and panis) also have horses
(ashva). The equation horse = Vedic is a crude oversimplification.
In Vedic hymns to the dawn, Ushas is praised as gomati ashvavati literally full of
cows and horses! A literal reading of the Veda can only lead to such absurdities; the true
meaning is full of light (go) and speed/energy (asva). We need to look at the Veda afresh.
S
Summary&Conclusions
&C l i
Harappan
pp culture has many
y similarities with later classical Indian culture:
there is no cultural break of the kind imposed by the Aryan theory.
The Vedic geography coincides with the Harappan civilization but only
one culture has been found in India
Indias
s Northwest, not two.