Kashmiri Hindus

[Guest guest]

I read in Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda that the Kashmiri Hindus are of white complexion, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Isn't this proof of an Aryan invasion/migration? Sure, Yogananda noted that complexion seems to have a gradual shift the further you go south, but that doesn't mean that their original complexion is white, with blonde hair and blue eyes. I know David Frawley made the argument that there is a gradual shift in complexion, but this argument doesn't go over well, considering the very fair complexion of the Kashmiri Hindus.

 

I would think that Aryan Invasion/Migration is actually correct, and any Hindutva movement to "correct" this is wrong. I'm only trying to be fair and judge this stuff as unbiased as I can, even though I am a Hindu, and I don't like the Aryan Invasion/Migration theory.

[Guest guest]

"white complexion, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Isn't this proof of an Aryan invasion/migration?"

 

Well it could be that a certain section of Kashmiri Hindus were mixed with white people some time in history, though I doubt they are Aryan invaders. For a start Kashmir is in the north of India where people are fairer due to environmental conditions. And to say that most kashmiri hindus are white, with blonde hair and blue eyes is ludicrous! Let me ask if you actually seen any Kashmiri Hindus, because I have and while some are fair they certainy are nowhere near white skinned and have never come across any with blonde hair. Some famous kashmiris are the Nehru family, who were not white skinned. The Indian film director Vidhu Vinod Chopra is kashmiri hindu and he looks like an Indian and is not very fair...definately not white!

 

"I would think that Aryan Invasion/Migration is actually correct, and any Hindutva movement to "correct" this is wrong."

 

Well it's not just Hindutva movements who believe it's wrong, there are many non-hindutva who don't believe it. The AIT was virtually unknown to Indian historians until the British introduced it. As we know history is written by the more powerful people with the right influence. British interpretation of indian history should not go unchallenged, especially if there are doubts. Everyone has a right to put forward their ideas as nothing is set in stone yet. The fact that you think the AIT did happen and nobody should go against it, shows that you've already made up you mind. I believe it's much better to be open minded and question both sides, rather than passivly accepting something that has flaws and bias.

 

I've discussed the theory with a few and we've believe that as India was invaded many times by 'whites' there would be a mixture of races which has brought down the rare blue eyes, blonde hair, etc. This has nothing to do with any 'Aryans' settling down in India but more to do with the Greeks who at one time invaded with Alexander, with some later intermarrying with Indians. Also some British did intermarry with Indians resulting in fairer complexions and even formed castes on their own.

[Guest guest]

all I'm saying is based on what I read in Autobiography of a Yogi. YOGANANDA said he saw Kashmiri hindus that were white and had blonde hair and blue eyes.

 

Most of the Kashmiri Hindus are supposedly Shaivites.

 

Your argument that the British and Greeks may have intermarried Hindus may be plausible, but I find it hard to believe that this intermarriage could still produce such a rare phenotype as white, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Any idea if these are recessive traits? If so, the chance of intermarriage would be highly unlikely wouldn't it?

 

The British couldn't have just fabricated this notion, or it would have fallen apart without much debate.

[Guest guest]

blonde hair and blue eyes are recessive genes.

 

I would agree that the British didnt invent the idea of the Aryan invasion theory. However its likely they did emphasise it to justify their own position.

 

There are many ancient civilisations which pre-date ancient Greece and indeed also seem to have been at least heavily influenced if not created by by those of European ethnicity. Problem is evidence of ancient civilisations is always very dubious and hard to draw concrete conclusions from.

 

However if you look say at the old Egyptian statues and carvings they are all clearly European at least in skeletal structure. Even findings dating from the ancient Olmec civilisation of South America show carvings and statuettes of ethnic European 'shamens'.

[Guest guest]

should be no doubt that "Aryan" is indeed a race, and not just culture, and that they invaded/migrated to India. The Brits were right.

 

 

[maadhav]

aryan is not a race, period.

 

many people from out of india have invaded or come in india,

but they did not bring with them the vedic culture.

one who lives by the vedic culture is an aryan.

so an aryan can be of any race, and india is the cradle of the vedic culture. it grew there and was spread almost all over the world once. this is the reasno why the muslims and xians do not want to look into pre-. or pre-islam history.

 

i really wish all the hindus understand this.

the above is in accordance with our scriptures and aacharyas' words.

 

[Guest guest]

from Kashmir who are of white skin and have blonde hair and blue eyes?

 

Acharyas can be wrong. How do they know what went on in the past? Why is their word so reliable when they could be biased?

 

 

You're right, many have invaded India. But there is no way to tell who brought the vedic culture into India. Perhaps it originated in India, though I don't think there's any proof of this.

 

By the way, scriptures aren't very reliable as they can be altered or destroyed over time. Not to mention the interpretations of the scriptures are so varied, that there is no way to know what the truth is.

[maadhav]

<< from Kashmir who are of white skin and have blonde hair and blue eyes? >>

 

human beings with krishna in them as supersoul.

 

<< Acharyas can be wrong. >>

if you think that way then you do not follow them,

and you cannot help or learn anything from here.

 

 

<< You're right, many have invaded India. But there is no way to tell who brought the vedic culture into India. >>

 

we know it and we ndo not need to convince any one.

 

<< By the way, scriptures aren't very reliable as they can be altered or destroyed over time. Not to mention the interpretations of the scriptures are so varied, that there is no way to know what the truth is. >>

 

if it is so for you,

then you do not follow it,

we will.

 

do you have any heartburn about it?

 

[Guest guest]

I'm not trying to dissuade you from following anything. I'm just debating the whole notion that AIT/AIM is wrong. As much as I'd like to believe it's wrong, I refuse to just take the word of someone who is very likely biased regarding the topic. Then again, just about everyone is biased and is working their own angle on something. Very hard to trust anybody these days.

 

But I really do believe truth can only come out from questioning what you are told or taught.

[Guest guest]

Like I said India was invaded many times by many different people, plus there was trade and intermixture. Blonde hair and blue eyes may have come from any inter-mixture. Not only may the North Indians be fairer due to invasions and inter-mixture, but also to do with climatic conditions, people in the North are usually fairer anyway. By the way, it seems the 'Aryans' were at the time living around the Saraswati river which has now dried up and identified by Nasa satelittes.

 

Although I understand there are Indians with a genuine interest who want to discover the truth, I've also come across some Indians who do believe in the AIT simply because they like to think that they were originally non-indians who came to India. I think they're a bit ashamed to by 'fully' indian and like the idea of being of mixed race originally. Without a doubt they have an inferiority complex.

 

Lets's get a fact straight the word 'Aryan' is a corruption of 'Arya' which means noble and does not refer to a race. aryan as a word doesn't mean anything in sanskrit rather it is a word originating from arya which has now a racial/ negative connotations. Even Buddha referred to his religion as "Arya Dharma" which had nothing to do with the Aryan race.

 

The AIT seems to be evolving into the Aryan Migration Theory (AMT) due to doubts expressed over if an invasion ever happened at all. Apparently Max Muller changed his mind later in his life...why should someone like him who pushed the theory have doubts?

 

One thing I don't understand is if the theory is true how is the AIT a threat to Hinduism? If the Aryans are within us, in our blood, then theres not much you can do, is there? It's ancient history. The Hinduism that is known is from India.

[Guest guest]

all I think it means is most of the scriptures/puranas are just false.

 

 

[brinthan]

I'm not taking sides here, but I just want to ask your opinions about these questsions. Let's say Aryan is not a race and all of the people who follows Vedas are Aryans. But it doesn't explain about Dravidian's language such as Tamil. Again, where did it come from? It doesn't seem to have much things common to Sanskrit or Hindi. It's a total different language. If Aryans were here all along, and sanskrit is the original language of India and Hinduism, where does tamil belong to now? It's almost like Tamil's have a different religion as well. Have you ever seen a Tamil Temple? It's in the shape of a human actually. I never seen a North Indian temple, but I heard that it's in a different way.

 

How do you explain the modern civilization which is now destroyed, Harappan and Indus valley civilization? How do you explain that language that were used in those civilization is Dravidian's language? Old tamil.

 

Hinduism is a great religion it has a lot of good things in it. Things like Yoga meditation, astrology, etc are very scientific and it could have been only discovered by a very very advanced civilization. Now the question is which civilization is it? Was it taken from Dravidian? Hinduism did exist even before the time Aryan's migration to India (If it has ever occured). And after the time which is to be believed when Aryan Invasion/Migration theory occured, Hinduism had a lot of changes in it. Poojas, and everything have been discovered. Now is it a coincidence? Well, could be. But what's the truth? was it taken from Dravidians?

 

What do you guys think? Again I'm not taking sides here, I'm just questioning the ones who believe that Aryan Invasion/Migration theory is false.

[Guest guest]

"all I think it means is most of the scriptures/puranas are just false"

 

Well if that's the case, then you can also say that some Hindu groups believe the Puranas are completely false, they are after all referred to as Mythology. An example are the Arya Samaj who completely rejected all puranas because they believed it contradicted the Vedas.

 

Some parts and events of the puranas may be true but may not be literally depicted correctly. For other Hindus groups the Puranas are important, especially Srimad Bhagvat Purana for Vaishnavas. Maybe because the reason that the puranas come under the smriti category was to attach less importance to them compared to the sruti (Vedas) which is seen as the authority.

 

The argument that the British used on the AIT/AMT about Aryans conquring the Dravidians was influenced by ideas of other mythology and history, such as Greek and Roman where conquring nations was seen as a great achievement. The British thought this applies to Indians too as the rest of the world. They're not wrong about the conquring nations idea, but the thought of them believing that the Aryans conqured India especially since this was unknown to the Indians at the time should be looked at carefully.

 

Also there's the racist idea that likens the Aryans to Europeans being progressive and the Dravidians to blacks being primtive. It's like they were saying the Aryans were the ones who brought civilisation to India. They couldn't believe Indians on their own could ever civilise without outside influence. Maybe even as they learnt of the greatness of the Vedic religion and civilisation that they wanted to claim it as their own?

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hello,

My knowledge about Tamil is limited. But I am pretty sure that Tamil has a lot of similarities with Sanskrit. In fact I find the culture in the whole of South India very Sanskritized in many respects. I have read about references to Thiruvalluvar in Aurobindo's analysis on the Vedas. The reasons behind not believing the AIT are

1. The Indus Valley Civilization,which was believed to be a Dravidian civilization, has been proved to have a very old version of Sanskrit language. Scholars like N.S. Rajaram & Jha have deciphered the scripts on the hieroglyphics to be a very old version of Sanskrit.

 

2. The river Saraswati has been mentioned 51 times in the Rigveda. And according to recent findings the river used to flow close to areas, where the Indus Valley Civilization remains were found. There was a river which dried up and then the people probably moved to the present sites of the Indus Valley remains. All these are hard to believe and added to that is the effect of antiquity.

 

3. If one reads the Puranas, the idea of the subcontinental geography is pretty perfect. How can a group of invaders so accurately write about mountains like Kailash or the Vindhyas? Or about Jambudwip which is nothing but the whole Indian subcontinent. The idea of "invaders" coming over to India and setting up the highest ideals of universal spiritualism is too fantastic to believe.

 

So I guess the Aryan/dravidian divide is nothing but a more modern creation to divide the Indian society. It is more due to a misunderstanding of the spirit of the existence of diversity in Hindu or Sanatan Dharma. Actually all Indian cultures are the same if you look very carefully into the various nuances, which are most of the time, unnoticed. Truly enough, in spite of all the differences, the unity is in the culture and spirituality. If you are interested in Sanskrit roots of Dravidian languages, you may read this page http://www.voi.org/michel_danino/tamil_cult01.html