Aryans, caste etc.

[Guest guest]

Hello Friends-I am the one who posted one of the warnings re the Aryan question.

I have lived in an ashram in Los Angeles for 20 years where this Aryan invasion

issue is often discussed, so I am aware of all the evidence one way or the

other. One of the main arguements of the invasion theory is linguistic. Sanskrit

is in a line of ancient languages that can be traced from India,through the

ancient civilizations of what is now Iran, north into possibly Eastern Europe.

Over time languages tend to simplify rather than become more complicated, just

as Pali is a more linguistically simple form of Sanskrit. The ancient language

in Iran, used by proto-Zoroastrians, is more complicated than Sanskrit, with the

complexity increasing northwards. Thus it is assumed that the people moved

towards the South, into India rather than away from it. This theory coupled with

the number of battles recorded in the Vedas seem to form the foundation of

invasion theory. But here's my question- could it be that modern people are

making a complete mistake by categorizing the ancients rigidly into tribes,

peoples and kingdoms? Could it be that the human tendency to record battles and

ignore uneventful daily living has given us a false impression? Think of how

Sept. 11 will probably be recorded in history:the day America was attacked. The

truth is that there were victims from all over the globe on that day, not to

mention the fact that "Americans" also are people from all over the globe. India

also has been a melting pot for many cultures over the millenia. To my mind, all

we can really say for sure is that several cultures existed in ancient India,

probably more harmoniously than recorded events lead us to believe. We will

never know who they really were and where they came from, or if they "came" at

all. Meanwhile the excavations continue at Mohenjo daro and Harappa.

Fascinating! And then there's this-the Mayan(?) ruins in Central America seem to

show a direct connection with the temples in So. India. Personally I think

modern people have been a little arrogant looking back at the ancients,

considering them unsophisticated because they could not build WMDs and Stealth

bombers and the like. Could it be that we white folks, who have done a pretty

good job of invading the whole world, imagine invasions everywhere? Cultures

probably shifted quite a bit more than we suppose, and not always because of

invasions or famines.

Two cents worth on caste. What about the fact that, in the Rg Veda, caste does

not appear to be hereditary?

Jai Ma, Gitaprana