[Y-Indology] Genetic Research Confirms Aryan Invasion Theory and Ancient Roots of Caste System

[Guest guest]

Well I'm no expert in genetics, but did it ever occur to the experts that it

could have been the other way round, the upper caste from here left there

mark in europe when some of them migrated and they need not have been a

marauding army. If they had read the arguments by several leading historians

against the theory of a maruading army it would probably have helped.

 

Thanks,

 

Yogesh

[Guest guest]

I plan to read the article and look up the links shortly But a basic

question: How does genetic evidence distinguish between invasion and

migration?

Rajesh Kochhar

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

-

"Khalid Azam" <khalidazam

<foil-l

Thursday, February 19, 2004 7:41 PM

[Y-Indology] Genetic Research Confirms Aryan Invasion Theory and

Ancient Roots of Caste System

 

 

| Below are two articles about the recent research in genetics that

has brought closer to fact the "Aryan Invasion theory" and the roots of the

Caste System to that Aryan Invasion. In addition to the two articles below,

please see below the link to the PDF version of the original research paper:

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| ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER:

| Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations

| http://www.genome.org/cgi/reprint/11/6/994.pdf

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| More work on this research should conclusively settle the political

debate on whether "Aryans" were "Indic" people or "foreign invaders".

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| Genetic Study Confirm Origin of Hindu Caste System

| PRAVIDHIK JAGAT, NEPAL

| http://www.pravidhik.com/news/nw/n0001.htm

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| Latest genetic research supports the anthropological and historical

theory that the Hindu caste system and the link between the Europeans

invasion from west. Those born into higher castes in India may be more

related to Europeans, while lower castes may be more similar to Asians, the

research finds.

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| The original Hindu caste system is said to have started when

Indo-European nomadic groups called Aryans invaded India about 5000 years

ago. They set themselves as priests and then divided the society they

encountered into a four-part caste system -- Brahmans (priests and

teachers), Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), Vaisyas (merchants and traders)

and Sudras (workers and peasants) who were born to serve the other three.

There also are castes within castes; in all, there are more than 1,000.

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| Lowest in the social order are the Harijans or Untouchables. They

did all the dirty work.

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| Researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and India

studied the linkage between the Europeans and high caste in India by DNA.

"We've been working in India, asking questions about the origins of the

caste system and tribal populations," says Dr. Michael Bamshad, an assistant

professor at the University of Utah's Eccles Institute of Human Genetics in

Salt Lake City. "We were also interested in the effects of social forces on

biological variations."

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| Bamshad and his colleagues conducted their research by drawing blood

from eight different populations in the lower, middle and upper castes. They

compared five different types of genetic data, Bamshad says. "Two of those

types are inherited only from your mother -- called mitochondrial data --

and two of those types are from the Y chromosome, so they come only from the

father."

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| The researchers compared the data to about "750 Africans, Asians and

Europeans and then compared the affinities of the castes of different ranks

with those continental groups," Bamshad says.

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| The genetic data from the mother shows "some evidence of European

markers," Bamshad reports. The higher the caste, the "higher the frequency

of those European markers," he says.

| But genes passed on from the father show a more striking pattern.

"When we looked at father markers, we see that the castes are more similar

to Europeans than Asians, again with the upper classes being closer to

Europeans than the lower classes," Bamshad says.

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| Though discrimination against the ancient caste system was declared

illegal by bothe Nepalese and Indian government, it still continues as part

of day to day life in both countries.

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| The findings, which appear in the May issue of Genome Research,

support the historical data showing that India was in part populated by

people from Turkey, the Middle East, the Caucasus or Eastern Europe, Bamshad

says.

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| "And it also suggests that those who migrated from Europe often left

their descendents in the higher castes rather than the lower castes,"

Bamshad says. "The evidence from the Y chromosomes shows that it was the men

who married into the upper castes, and it appears that more men than women

moved into India, and that certainly is consistent with the concept of a

marauding army."

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| Bamshad's research falls under the rubric of molecular anthropology,

says Peter Underhill, senior research scientist in genetics at Stanford

University. "The main thrust of this research project is to better

understand the Indian population, where it came from, how it developed."

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| "This research, which attempts to correlate genetics with the

historical record, provides good genetic evidence, and such correlations are

reassuring," Underhill says. "What's particularly nice about this paper is

that it doesn't emphasize one slice of the genome. It weaves in genetics

from both men and women."

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| While Bamshad's research has no direct relevance, "it would be of

some interest to medical genetic studies. It's another piece of the puzzle

that might help scientists understand certain traits within the Indian

population," Underhill says.

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| Indian Caste Origins: Genomic Insights and Future Outlook

| Partha P. Majumder

| Anthropology and Human Genetics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute,

Calcutta 700035, India

| http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/full/11/6/931

| The main feature of Indian society, seen at its strongest in the rural

areas, is caste. A caste is a collection of people who share similar

cultural and religious values and practices. Members within a caste

generally marry among themselves; intercaste marriages are a cultural taboo.

These social regulations governing the institution of marriage have resulted

in a substructuring of the Indian gene pool. There are also elaborate social

regulations of avoidance of marriages within castes, and thus there is

genomic substructuring even within a caste.

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| The origins of the castes in India remain an enigma. Many castes are known

to have tribal origins, as evidenced from various totemic features that

manifest themselves in these caste groups (Kosambi 1964). The caste system

in northern India may have developed as a class structure from within

tribes: As agriculture spread from the Indus River valley to the Gangetic

basin, knowledge and ownership of the means of food production may have

created hierarchical divisions within tribal societies (Kosambi 1964). Karve

(1961) has also argued that "something very like castes were in India" even

before Aryan speakers entered India.

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| The Aryan world comprised three classes (varnas): priests, nobles, and

commoners. Aryans as the conquering people possibly placed their three

classes on the indigenous Indian society. The varna organization is

hierarchical. Initially, the system had names for two ranks, Brahma

(Brahmin) and Kshatra (Kshatriya), Brahmin being of a socially higher rank

than Kshatriya. The third rank was made up of Vis, that is, all the

subjects. To this society, a fourth rank was added: Shudra, who had no

rights to Aryan ritual. In southern India, the menial workers, the so-called

"untouchables", were placed in a new varna, Panchama (meaning fifth). It is

conceivable that the Aryan speakers had greater contact, including genetic

admixture, with the Brahmins, who were professionally the torchbearers and

promoters of Aryan rituals. The Aryan contact should have been progressively

less as one descended the varna ladder. The genetic expectation, therefore,

is that the proportions of those genes (or genomic features, such as

haplotypes or haplogroups) that "characterized" the Aryan speakers should

progressively decline from the highest varna to the lowest and a reverse

trend should be observed with respect to those genes that "characterized"

the indigenous Indians.

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| Although some previous studies have sought to test this expectation, the

observed trends were equivocal. The primary reason was the lack of data on a

large uniform set of markers from populations of India and central/west Asia

(the region from which the Aryans speakers who entered India originated).

The study by Bamshad et al. (2001), who have also sought to test the above

expectation, is clearly a landmark. Using a very large battery of genomic

markers and DNA sequences, spanning autosomal, mitochondrial, and

Y-chromosomal genomic regions, they have shown that the observed trend of

genetic admixture estimated from castes belonging to different varnas is

congruent with expectations. This trend was observed in each of the three

data subsets. The only exception was in respect of mtDNA restriction site

haplotypes, which was also noted in a recent study conducted by us

(Roychoudhury et al. 2000). However, after combining these haplotype data

with DNA sequence data, Bamshad and colleagues were able to capture the

expected trend. Thus, this study not only provides a wonderful genomic view

of the castes and of their origins, but also underscores the need for

careful statistical analysis of genomic data for drawing appropriate

inferences.

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| The use of "upper", "middle", and "lower" to designate caste hierarchy is

much more recent than the use of varna. Whereas varnas are traditionally

defined, different anthropologists have used different definitions of upper,

middle, and lower castes, in terms of the castes that they included in each

of these clusters. Sometimes these differences in definitions have stemmed

from socio-cultural similarities or differences as noted or perceived by

different anthropologists, and sometimes ranked caste-cluster compositions

were altered for convenience, such as pooling to adjust for small sample

sizes. As noted earlier, in studies such as Bamshad et al.'s, the most

appropriate classification is by varna. As the reader will note, the authors

have analyzed their data using different compositions of hierarchical

caste-clusters and have obtained homologous results. However, it needs to be

emphasized that traditional varna system is the only unequivocally accepted

hierarchical system. In studies pertaining to the origins of castes, one is

liable to draw incorrect inferences by including castes belonging to

different varnas in the same ranked cluster.

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| Bamshad et al. have chosen to study caste populations drawn from a

restricted geographical region of India. They have rightly emphasized the

need to replicate their findings. This is absolutely essential because, as

Karve (1961) has noted, "it is not generally realized that the caste society

in a sense was a very elastic society." Indeed, a caste bearing the same

name may have very different origins in different geographical regions.

There are examples in which a tribe dispersed over a large geographical

region, took up different occupations in different sub-regions, and "fitted"

itself into the caste hierarchy on different rungs. Karve's work has also

indicated that each of the different Brahmin castes (Chitpavan, Sarasvat,

etc.) in Maharashtra probably has a different origin. Thus, the origin of

caste populations may not be uniform over the entire India geographical

space, and it is crucial to undertake studies to replicate Bamshad et al.'s

findings. Finally, I would also like to suggest that in future studies

bearing on the origins of the Indian castes, it would be a good idea to

include tribal populations inhabiting the same region along with the caste

populations.

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| FOOTNOTES

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| E-MAIL ppm; FAX 91-33-577 3049.

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| Article and publication are at www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.192401.

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| REFERENCES

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| a.. Bamshad, M., Kivisild, T., Watkins, W.S., Dixon, M.E., Ricker, C.E.,

Rao, B.B., Naidu, J.M., Prasad, B.V.R., Reddy, P.G., Rasanayagam, A. 2001.

Genome Res. 11: 994-1004[Abstract/Free Full Text].

| b.. Karve, I. 1961. Hindu Society - An Interpretation. Deshmukh

Prakashan, Poona.

| c.. Kosambi, D.D. 1964. The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in

Historical Outline, 1991 Reprint. Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., New

Delhi.

| d.. Roychoudhury, S., Roy, S., Dey, B., Chakraborty, M., Roy, M., Roy,

B., Ramesh, A., Prabhakaran, N., Usha Rani, M.V., Vishwanathan, H. 2000.

Curr. Sci. 79: 1182-1192.

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