ARYAN INVASION IS A MYTH !!!

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ARYAN INVASION IS A MYTH

 

European scholars following Max Muller in the nineteenth century

decided that the Vedic people - whom they called the Aryans after a

misinterpretation of that Vedic term - invaded India around 1500 BC.

They were said to have overthrown the primitive and aboriginal

culture of the time, which was thought to be Dravidian in nature, and

brought a more advanced civilization to the land (though they

themselves were still regarded as barbarians). The indigenous

aborigines were identified as the Dasyus or inimical people mentioned

in the Vedas.

The rationale behind the late date for the Vedic culture given by

Muller was totally speculative and based only on linguistic grounds.

Muller had assumed that the five layers of the four Vedas and

Upanishads were each composed in two hundred year periods before the

Buddha at 500 BC, as they were in existence by that time.

 

However, the rates of change for languages are quite speculative,

particularly for those languages, like Sanskrit or Latin which became

scriptural or scholarly languages apart from common dialects. There

are more changes of language within Vedic Sanskrit itself than there

are in classical Sanskrit since Panini, regarded as a figure of

around 500 BC, or a period of 2500 years. As classical Sanskrit has

remained the same for that time period, the two hundred year strata

for the Vedic language carries no weight at all. Each of these

periods could have existed for any number of centuries and the two

hundred year figure is likely too short a figure.

 

The idea that the Aryans were a particular race was not accepted by

everyone. Max Muller himself rejected it. Yet it has become ingrained

in the Aryan theory so much that the common mind has accepted it as a

fact. This idea of the Aryans as a particular race, speaking a

particular language I call the "first birth" of the Aryan theory. Yet

in its first form the Aryan invasion was of people who were as or

more advanced in culture than the indigenous aborigines that they

overcame.

 

Harappa and Mohenjodaro were not excavated until the early part of

the twentieth century. As by this time the 1500 BC date for the Vedic

people was accepted and since Harappa dated before this it was

uncritically accepted that the Harappan culture must be pre-Vedic.

The Aryan invasion theory was rewritten to make the Aryans the

uncivilized destroyers of the civilized Dravidian-Harappan culture.

Yet few questioned this rewriting of the Aryan invasion theory in

light of new evidence. This we could call the "second birth" of the

Aryan invasion theory - in which the Vedic Aryans were not only

violent and intolerant but the destroyers of one of the great

civilizations of antiquity - which makes the Vedic Aryans appear as

proto-Nazis. This is the view of the Aryan invasion that is most

commonly accepted today, even after it has been accepted by all

scholars that there is no evidence of any Harappan cities being

destroyed by invaders. Because it is the most negative view of the

Aryans, it has been most seized upon by those opposing Hindu or Vedic

culture.

 

Meanwhile other archaeologists in the early part of this century

pointed out that in the middle of the second millennium BC, various

Indo-European appear in the Middle East, wherein Indo-European

Hittites, Mittani and Kassites conquered and ruled Mesopotamia for

some centuries. A Greek invasion of Europe was also postulated for

this period, as it marked the period when the Minoan culture

declined, which was assumed to be non-Indo-European. Hence an Aryan

invasion of Greece and the Middle East was proposed. An Aryan

invasion of India was regarded as another version of this same

migratory movement of Indo-European peoples around the middle of the

second millennium BC, which became one of the most dramatic

migrations in the history of the world and for which no real cause

has ever been given.

 

On top of this, excavators of the Indus Valley culture, like Wheeler,

thought they found evidence of destruction of the culture by an

outside invasion, confirming the idea (though Wheeler's so-called

skeletal evidence of the massacre of Mohenjodaro has long since been

refuted it still appears in many historical accounts even today!).

 

Vedic culture was thus said to be that of primitive nomads who came

out of Central Asia with their horse-drawn chariots and iron weapons,

like the Indo-European Hittites in the Near East who were among the

first to use iron weapons, and overthrew the cities of the more

advanced Harappan culture, with their cruder culture yet superior

battle tactics. It was pointed out that no horses, chariots or iron

were discovered in Harappan sites, and since such things are

mentioned in the Vedas, this culture must be pre-Vedic.

 

To support this theory other aspects of the Vedas were molded

according to it. Vedic references to destruction of cities were

related to Harappa. The Vedic metal ayas was said to be iron, though

it is only a generic term meaning metal. Vedic references to the

ocean were reduced to mean only the Indus river or some other large

body of water in northwest India or Afghanistan. Vedic references to

rivers from the Indus to the Ganges, which are merely a list of

rivers, were interpreted to show a movement from the west to the east

of India. The Aryan invasion theory was imposed on archeological and

literary evidence, even if it required altering the data.

 

This was how the Aryan invasion theory formed. The logic was

inevitable. Once the image of invading Aryans was formed, it had to

be drawn out to its ultimate form envisioning the Aryans like Atilla

the Hun.

 

The languages of South India are Dravidian, which is a different

linguistic group than the Indo-European languages of the North of the

subcontinent. The two groups of languages have many different root

words (though a number in common we might add), and above all a

different grammatical structure, the Dravidian being agglutinative

and the Indo-European being inflected. Dravidian languages possess a

very old history of their own, which their legends, the Tamil Sangha

literature, show a history in South India and Sri Lanka dating back

over five thousand years.

 

Along with the difference of language there is a difference of skin

color from north to south of India, with the southerners being darker

in skin color (though northerners are hardly light in color by

Western standards, with the exception of some people of the far

northwest). Though a less pronounced difference than that of language

it has been lumped together along with it again assuming that race

and language must be the same.

 

The Aryan invasion theory has been used to explain both the

linguistic and racial differences between the peoples of North and

South India, and such differences have been put forth as "proof" of

the invasion (as if no other explanation were possible). As the

Aryans were made into a race, so were the Dravidians and the

Aryan/Dravidian divide was turned into a racial war, the Aryan

invaders versus the indigenous Dravidians of Harappa and Mohenjodaro.

By this view the Vedic people promoted the superiority of their race

and language and simply drove away those of different races or

languages. We have already discussed how Sanskrit Aryan is never a

racial term but a title of respect. Even the Dravidian kings called

themselves Aryan. Nor is there anything in Vedic literature that

places the Dravidians outside of the greater Vedic culture and

ancestry. Hence to place Aryan against Dravidian as terms is itself a

misuse of language. Be that as it may, the Aryan and Dravidian divide

has also failed to prove itself.

 

Now it has been determined that there is no such thing scientifically

speaking as Aryan and Dravidian races. The so-called Aryans and

Dravidian races of India are members of the same Mediterranean branch

of the Caucasian race, which prevailed in the ancient civilizations

of Egypt and Sumeria and is still the main group in the Mediterranean

area, North Africa, and the Middle East. The Caucasian race is not

simply white but also contains dark skinned types. Skin color and

race is another nineteenth century idea that has been recently

discarded.

 

Darker skin color is commonly found in peoples living in more

southern regions and appears as an adjustment mechanism to hotter

climates and greater sunshine. For example southern Europeans are

darker in skin color than northern Europeans, though they are not a

different race because of this. This suggests that the Dravidian

branch of the Mediterranean race must have lived in South India for

some thousands of years to make this adjustment, and the same thing

could be said of the people of North India as well if we would make

them originally light-skinned invaders from the north.

 

The issue of language is similarly more complex. It is now known that

Dravidian languages, with their agglutinative patterns, share common

traits and are of the same broad linguistic group as such Asian and

East European languages as Finnish, Hungarian, old Bulgarian,

Turkish, Mongolian and Japanese, the Finno-Ugric and Ural-Altaic

branches of languages. As the common point between these groups lies

in Central Asia some scholars have recently proposed that the

Dravidian peoples originally came from this region.

 

The same linguistic speculation that led to the Aryan invasion theory

has following the same logic required a "Dravidian invasion." Not

only are the Dravidians like the Aryans styled invaders into India,

they took the same route as the Aryans. The city-state of Elam in

southwest Iran, east of Sumeria, which had a high civilization

throughout the ancient period, shows an agglutinative structure like

the Dravidian, as does possibly the Sumerian itself. This would place

Dravidian type languages in Iran as well. Thereby the Dravidians,

just like the Aryans, would have migrated (again the reason for which

is not clear) from Central Asia and into Iran, with one group moving

west to Mesopotamia and the other, apparently larger group, going

east into India. Later the invading Aryans are said to have forced

the Dravidians to move to the south of the country from their

original homeland on the Indus and Sarasvati rivers. (However, we

have already noted that there is no evidence of such migrations, nor

of any Dravidian references to the Sarasvati like those of the

Vedas.)

 

The Dravidian and Aryan invasion theories turns the migration of

particular language/racial groups from Central Asia into a kind of

panacea to explain the developments of race and language for much of

humanity, particularly for India. However both invasion theories

appear far too simplistic given the complex ways in which cultures,

languages and races move and interact.

 

The Dravidian claim to be indigenous to India has, like the Aryan,

been discredited by linguistic argument. Yet the argument brings the

Aryans and Dravidians back into contact with each other and derives

them from the same region, suggesting a long term association between

them outside of India. However if we give up the invasion model such

association can be better explained by contact within India which we

know was an historical fact.

 

Certainly the present population of India - which even the ancient

Greeks and Persians regarded as dark-skinned - was not produced by

light-skinned people from Central Asia (whether Aryan or Dravidian).

Moreover, there cannot be a Dravidian invasion changing the language

but not the population of India just like the Aryan invasion, as the

idea is far-fetched to happen once but to happen twice in a row in

the same region and by the same route is ridiculous.

 

If both the Aryan and Dravidian languages of India have affinities

with those of Central Asia, and to peoples of different ethnic groups

(the Indo-Aryan with the lighter skinned European and the Dravidians

with both light-skinned Finns and Hungarians, and Mongolian race

Turks) a phenomenon is created that is too complex to be explained by

mere migration alone. It takes languages across the racial boundaries

that migration theories up-hold and places them on par with other

cultural affinities (like art or religion), which are not limited by

race.

 

The linguistic divide between Aryan and Dravidian, as that between

the Indo-European and other language groups is also now being

questioned. A greater Nostratic family of languages has been proposed

that includes Indo-European, Dravidian and Semitic languages and

looks for a common ancestor for all three. This requires a greater

degree of contact between these groups which remote Central Asia

cannot afford. Moreover, there are affinities between Sanskrit and

the Munda or aboriginal languages of India, as S. Kalyanaraman has

noted, that indicate a long and early contact, if not common

evolution, which could have only happened in India. Such Vedic

scholars as Sri Aurobindo have stated that the Dravidian and

Sanskritic languages have much more in common than has yet been

admitted and appear to have a common ancestor.

 

Dravidian history does not contradict Vedic history either. It

credits the invention of the Tamil language, the oldest Dravidian

tongue, to the rishi Agastya, one of the most prominent sages in the

Rig Veda. Dravidian kings historically have called themselves Aryans

and trace their descent through Manu (who in the Matsya Purana is

regarded as originally a south Indian king). Apart from language,

moreover, both north and south India share a common religion and

culture. Prior to Vedic Sanskrit there may have been a language that

was the basis of both the Dravidian and Sanskritic languages in

India.

 

The idea that the same culture cannot produce two different language

systems may itself be questionable. It may have been the very power

of Vedic culture and its sages, with their mastery of the word, that

they could have produced not only Indo-European like languages but

also Dravidian.

 

In any case the Aryan/Dravidian divide is no longer sufficient to up-

hold the Aryan invasion theory. It leads to a more difficult to

maintain Dravidian invasion theory. The Dravidian invasion theory is

just a shadow cast by the Aryan invasion theory and reveals the

erroneous nature of the latter.

 

Other aspects of the Aryan-Dravidian divide are predicated upon the

invasion theory. For example the idea that South India represents a

pre-Vedic Shaivite culture as opposed to the Brahmanical culture of

the north follows only from this. Otherwise we see Shaivism in the

North, in Kailas, Benares and Kashmir, and Shiva as Rudra of the

Vedas. What have thereby been proposed as radical cultural

differences between the North and South of India are merely regional

variations in the vast cultural complex of the subcontinent and its

interrelated spiritual traditions.

 

Dravidian pride or nationalism need not depend upon the Aryan

invasion theory or denigrating the culture of North India. The

Dravidians have long been one of the most important peoples of India

and, perhaps ironically, have been the best preservers of Vedic

culture itself. The best Vedic Sanskrit, rituals and traditions can

be found only in the south of India. That South India was able to do

this suggests the importance and antiquity of Vedic culture to this

region.