Who were the Aryans?

[Gauracandra]

I was going through Steven Rosen's "Om Shalom" and came across the following passage:

 

Right. He had a tremendous insight showing that in the Icelandic Eddas there is corroboration for various time periods, especially as calculated in the creation and destruction stories of the Vedic literature. And he marvelled at the amazing nature of such corroboration because he took into account the differences in culture and geography. In many ways, you see, the peopel of Iceland and those of the Vedic culture could not be more diverse!

 

Campbell observed that the time frame of Kali-yuga is 432,000 years. In the Icelandic Eddas, Othin (or, as his name is sometimes pronounced, Wotan) is described as having had a "warrior hall", named Valholl, which had a total of 540 doors attached to it. According to the tradition, at the end of the current time cycle, which they call "the Day of the Wolf", there will be 800 divine warriors who will march through those doors to battle the demons. This is to result in mutual annihilation. 800X540 = 432,000. This is the Icelandic reckoning for the end of the present cycle. Campbell marvelled that Icelandic philosophers in the tenth-to-thirteenth century had calculated the end of our era to appear in the exact same year as did the sages of ancient India.

So it got me to thinking about the age old question of the Aryans. Now most Hindus will not accept the Aryan invasion. However, from what I understand Zoroastrians fully accept that they came from the North, a place of snow. And the Zoroastrian religion has a number of similar stories to Vedic stories. So what is the connection between European civilization and Vedic civilization?

 

[This message has been edited by Gauracandra (edited 07-23-2002).]

[Guest guest]

 

The theory taught in schools is this...

 

There was a group of tribal warrior people

coming from anywhere from scandanavia

to above iraq, they are called (because there is no actual evidence they ever existed)- the proto indo europeans-(before world war 2,they were called aryans,now it's politically incorrect).

 

The theory goes that since almost alll european languages are related to sanskrit,also the ancient religions and languages are related to hinduism,like the celtic,germanic-norse(iceland is a germanic-norse culture),roman,greek ,etc,..that there was a source culture for both europe and India/Iran, the proto or original culture.

 

These people had horses and chariots,and the aryan religion was their religion.

their language is unknown,but after they invaded europe and Iran and India,their culture merged with the local tribes.

In europe their religion merged with local religions,producing the similarities with indian religions.

In India they retained their original

religion-the vedas-,but gradually it became mixed with the locals and produced modern hinduism,and sanskrit.

 

Zoroastrianism was stared by zoroastar,who changed the vedic religion of Iran,into his new religion,retaining many of the concepts from the vedic religion.

 

Of course the entire theory was produced by

colonialists to hide the truth ,to enable their exploitation of India.

 

I explained that in detail in an earlier post.

[shvu]

 

Of course the entire theory was produced by colonialists to hide the truth ,to enable their exploitation of India.

What is the truth that was hidden? And in what way did it "enable" colonialists to exploit India?

 

 

[Gauracandra]

I wish I knew more about the Zoroastrian religion. But from what I hear there are only like 250,000 left in the world, mostly in Bombay. Anyways, here is one interesting link:

 

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~zarathus/histar33.html

 

It quotes a Mr. Tilak, who I've heard of before in connection to Aryan Invasion theories. What interests me is that Zoroastrians readily seem to accept that they came from the North and the fact that many of their stories are similar to Vedic stories.

 

I have heard one hypothesis in the past that the ancient Aryans came from Lithuania. I'm curious if we have any Lithuanian readers on these forums. I say this because I once came across a number of Lithuanian names, and they seemed very, VERY similar to Sanskrit names. But I'm not familiar enough with the language to have noticed other similarities. It was just the sound of the syllables that seemed extremely similar.

[Tarun]

Is/was there actually an Aryan race? Ari Fleischer & Ariel Sharon included?

So far I've understood, SP defined Aryan race as amongst whom Vedik Culture is practiced.

[Guest guest]

 

I dont remember what thread ipposted the

history of the aryan invasion theory..

 

if you go to msn groups,to the hinduism for everyone community, i posted it there under the thread titled the truth of the aryan something or other,

i started the thread,as shiva,at the site you may have to go back a page.

 

[Gauracandra]

Here are a few things about the connection between Sanskrit and Lithuanian that I found on the web.

 

Lithuanian is one of the world's oldest surviving languages, and is distantly related to Sanskrit, a religious and literary language in India. The words for god and day, for instance, are devas and dina in Sanskrit and dievas and diena in Lithuanian. Because it has changed less than other languages, Lithuanian is a linguistic link to the past and has a special place in the study of languages. It's one of two languages in the Baltic branch of Indo-European languages; the other is Latvian.

And then from:

http://postilla.mch.mii.lt/Kalba/baltai.en.htm#SANSKRIT

 

SANSKRIT AND LITHUANIAN

 

One of the most important stimuli for the emergence of historical-comparative linguistics was the acquaintance of Europeans with Sanskrit, the old language of India. Europeans believed that a Sanskrit scholar could understand and be understood by a Lithuanian farmer.

 

In 1786, Wiliam Jones (1746-1794), an English Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Calcutta, read a paper before the Asiatic Society, founded by himself, in which he proclaimed that Sanskrit, this "wonderfully structured old language of India" is derived from the same source as Greek, Latin, and perhaps even Gothic and Celtic. This was a very bold idea, which produced a veritable revolution in linguistics.

 

European scholars turned their attention to Sanskrit, and started with old European languages. They created precise methodology which enabled them to understand phonetic changes and distinguish original words from loans. They taught themselves through the comparison of related words in different languages to reconstruct the extinct forms, which were very often similar or even identical with Sanskrit forms.

 

Linguists believed that comparative linguistics without Sanskrit is like astronomy without mathematics.

 

It is not difficult therefore to imagine the surprise of the scholarly world when that learned that even in their time somewhere on the Nemunas River lived a people who spoke a language as archaic in many of its forms as Sanskrit itself. Although it was not exactly true that a professor of Sanskrit could talk to Lithuanian farmers in their language, coincidences between these two languages were truly amazing, for example:

 

Sanskrit sunus son - Lith. sunus;

Sanskrit viras man - Lith. vyras;

Sanskrit avis sheep - Lith. avis;

Sanskrit dhumas smoke - Lith. dumas;

Sanskrit padas sole - Lith. padas.

We can be safe in asserting that these Lihuanian words have not changes their forms for the last five thousand years.

 

The most prominent Eurpean linguists visited to Lithuania in order to learn this archaic language from the lips of Lithuanians themselves, which helped them to investigate the history of other Indo-European languages.

 

Today, there is no doubt that Lithuanian has retained many ancient Indo-European forms. It is hard to say whether it was due to the character of the Lithuanians or of geographic position that their language has changed so little in the course of several thousand years. Scholars often make references to the Lithuanian language when conducting research on the history of other languages.

 

No wonder that Lithuanian is taught and studied not only in this country or Latvia. There are specialists of Lithuanian in Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, France, the USA and some other countries. The capital city of Lithuania - Vilnius - has become a world centre for Baltic studies.

 

The Lithuanian community in the United States of America founded the Department of the Lithuanian Language at Illinois State University in Chicago in 1984 in order to better know the culture and language of their parents and grandparents.

 

Because of its complex morphology and shifting stress, Lithuanian is not an easy language for foreigners to study. But increasingly more people want to learn it. Every summer, a group of people from abroad take a Lithuanian course at Vilnius University.

[Tarun]

Gaur, Shiv, Shvu: Great stuff. I have one Lithuanian aunt Helen. Is Lithuanian phonetic?

While studying Russian it was easy to notice how it was much closer to SanskRt than English.

My Yugoslavian vaiSNav friends say the same about Serbo-Croatian. So many nearly + fully identical words.

[Guest guest]

 

in fact there are only a few european

languages that are not connected to sanskrit-Basque is one,Hungarian is another,

and one of the baltic languages is also not related,all the rest are.

 

[Gauracandra]

I studied Russian. In one of my classes was an Indian who started to notice a lot of grammatical similarities between Russian and Hindi. He pointed these out to my Professor who very matter of factly said that Russian was heavily influenced by Sanskrit.

 

Now for the Lithuanian connection. What I have heard some people say why it is unlikely that Lithuania was the source of the Aryans is simply because of its small size. If we are speaking of 3000 or 5000 years ago, the size would be much smaller than even today. So they say how could such a small group of people make such an impact etc... I don't know. I would be very interested if there are any "folk" legends or stories from Lithuania that match Vedic stories. That would be interesting.

 

[This message has been edited by Gauracandra (edited 07-26-2002).]

[xxvvii]

<FONT SIZE="1">What interests me is that Zoroastrians readily seem to accept that they came from the North and the fact that many of their stories are similar to Vedic stories.

 

I have heard one hypothesis in the past that the ancient Aryans came from Lithuania.

----------

I don't think eranvej is Lithuania. Lithuania is located at the edge of IE-speaking area.

 

 

Today, there is no doubt that Lithuanian has retained many ancient Indo-European forms. It is hard to say whether it was due to the character of the Lithuanians or of geographic position that their language has changed so little in the course of several thousand years.

----------

Their language little changed due to Lithuania's shorter distance to eranvej & its obturation in culture.

 

BTW, What does "lathu" mean?</FONT>

[Guest guest]

Like I have stated in an earlier post,

Aryans are originating in India.

 

The so called Harrappan civilization of the Indus valley is in fact the source.

 

They existed according to recent findings,

at the time of the Sumerians,some

5000 years ago and more.

 

Their language has not been deciphered,but linguists have noticed a remarkable similarty between the Hittite alphabet and the Indus valley script.

 

This is key,The hittite language has been deciphered.

 

It in fact is also belonging to the sanskrit family of languages.

 

It is not nearly as old as the indus valley script and civilization.

 

We can therefore understand that most lilkely the Harrappan indus valley script

is in fact also connected to sanskrit.

 

This demolishes the current theory taught in schools,which states that sanskrit was a by product of a proto language ,spoken by the original Aryans,then brought into Europe,Iran, and India,and became changed and mixed with the local dialects ,producing the varied languages of those regions,including sanskrit.

 

If the Indus valley script is connected to sanskrit,as it would seem to be because of the Hittite connection,then the idea that sanskrit was a by product of a proto language brought into India after the fall of the Indus valley civilization(as their Aryan invasion theory goes)is impossible to accept.

 

The truth is the Indus valley civilization was the largest trading empire of it's day ,they were the true aryans, and due to their trading empire,influenced tribal peoples in europe,with language,religion,and culture.

 

The same thing happened in S.E.Asia later on,

the tribal peoples there became "civilized" by Indian traders forming the great Hindu civilizations of Cambodia,Laos,Viet Nam,Indonesia ,Burma, Thailand, and Malyasia.

 

The truth of the Indian influence on the world was corrupted by the colonial ambitions of the europeans in the late 18th century.

 

 

[This message has been edited by shiva (edited 07-27-2002).]

[Dharma]

The word means "Noble People" and they were nomads.

 

The Aryans are considered a branch from which the Indo European races including the Anglo Saxons arose from. 60,000 years ago they (the ones wondering about in Northern grasslands and the ones that some say had settled in India) were still an undivided people.

 

The Western division is said to have gone through Southern Russia into what is now Poland & Austria, another East through mountain passes into India along the Indus river. The Persians were said to be Aryans as well and Zarathustra was their prophet.

 

It is said the thoughts are connected between the ancient Greeks and the Aryans of India and a common verb is said to be "is" Sanskrit asti, Greek esti, Latin, est. And there is a relative pronoun and the article definate & indefinate dating to at least 10,000 BC.

 

 

[xxvvii]

Bho bhoH shiva, could Indus valley be cold & snowy airaanvej ((airaan-aryan,vej-vas in skt.?)-aaryaavarta)?

[atma]

From the latest Braha's book in astrology:

 

James: Some astrologers use the term "Hindu astrology," some say "Vedic astrology," and some say "Jyotish" I generally use the terms "Hindu astrology" and "Jyotish" interchangeably. I almost never say "Vedic astrology" because I don't believe today's astrology of India is very similar to the astrology that was practiced many thousands of years ago, during Vedic civilization.

 

In my opinion, there are simply too many fundamental Jyotish terms (kendra,trikona,apoklima,hora), that are actually Greek and have no meaning whatsoever in Sanskrit, the language of the Vedas. What can it possibly mean when many of the most basic terms of Hindu astrology are Greek?

 

Martin: It mean that Indian astrology was influenced by invaded cultures......

 

There is more in the book, I may be wrong but I remember a "Hora Shastra" book somewhere. Is Braha wrong?

 

 

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

A couple messages didn't get transfered. If you posted one, you can copy it from this link and post it here:

 

http://www.indiadivine.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001456.html

[Gauracandra]

Transferring my comments from the other list:

 

 

This is interesting. I've always wondered if there was any connection between Western astrology and "Vedic" astrology. For instance, do they tend to give similar readings, or are they completely different. From what you say it sounds like "Vedic" astrology might have alot of commonalities with Western astrology.

 

 

[atma]

continuation....

 

atma

Member posted 07-31-2002 05:33 AM

--

Jyotish is more concerned with predictions and events and Western astrology is more concerned with psychology and behavior.

Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac based in the Spring equinox and Hindu astrology uses the sidereal zodiac based in the constellations. Glen Smith explains that at one time both zodiacs were identical, but over the centuries they have drifted apart. This drifting phenomenon is called the precession of the equinoxes. The difference in degrees between the 2 zodiacs is called Ayanamsa that is used to cast the ascendant and all the planetary positions. Thus your western horoscope and your eastern chart will vary. Therefore, if by your western chart, you are born at 10 degrees Capricorn rising, your eastern chart, substracting the 23 degrees ayanamsa for the 20th century will have you as 17 degrees Sagitarius rising. The Sun sign that is giving in the newspapers is probably inaccurate. If you born i.e June 12 in the west you'll be Gemini but in eastern you'll be in the end of Taurus.

You can't mix the systems. Personally I have no idea of Western astrology and I know only the basics of jyotish.

Astrology is very complicated and vast and many have different opinions. Braha believes that you learn the techniques, do thousands of charts and from experience and intuition make your own decisions of what work and what doesn't.

Some astrologers see my chart and when they see my 2nd house and powerful malefics on it inmediately tell me how horrible my childhood was but that is so wrong, I had a happy chilhood and I did very well at school, my memory was incredible, straight A's all the way to college and I was in my Mercury period from birth to 8 years old and in Ketu from 8 to 15 and both of them are associated with Saturn and Mars. If you just read the books they'll tell you how bad is to have malefics in the 2nd but Saturn and Mars are good for me. I swear that because of Saturn I was able to live for so long in a city like Calcutta and didn't bother me.

One thing all the astrologers agree is that when I hit my Mars period lots of laxmi will come my way. Mars exalted at 27 degrees in the 2nd house. A long way to go though

 

Another important thing to remember is 'free will', astrology give you the tendencies but we have a choice in most cases. Reminded me Minority Report.

 

[Guest guest]

First and foremost:

There is no difference between Aryan and Dravidian. Infact, the Dravidians never existed, India was only and exclusively Aryan, because Aryans were the natives of India. Secondly, they never came -in- through the Hindukush mountains. They spread *out*!

 

You see, the british screwed up Indian history as a way to demolish their pride. They said the Vedas were written in 600 B.C because the idea that they were written milennia ago directly contradicts the British Christian belief.

 

Next, they said the Aryans moved in, and subdued a population of dravidians that outnumbered them about 5,000 to 1. That's not possible. Also, they said the vedas were records of the Aryan journeys, which is true to some extent. However, if the Aryans indeed did capture the dravidians, the Vedas would say so, and they certainly don't!

 

What the Vedas DO say is the descriptions of journeys of great Maharathis as they LEFT India and conquered the known world.

 

Example:

Bhima traveled through the present Bay of Bengal, Burma, and Thailand, then to Cambodia, Vietnam, and then to the southern states of the previous soviet union. Then up to Lithuania. In the Southern States they STILL worship a diety of a wrestler with a large mace (Bhima). Also, at that time, the Bay of Bengal did not exist. The islands, such as the nicobar islands, were not islands then but mountain peaks. Then he came back through Germany and Turkey/Afghanistan, collecting funds.

 

The Turks were routed and then they became the Greeks and Romans.

 

Such irony. The Aryans never originated from the Romans, the Aryans conquered the romans for india. Interesting....

 

And that's Aryans in a nutshell. Just don't be fooled by the British texts by Muller and all. With all due respect, they're nothing but lies.

[Gauracandra]

 

More pictures of the desert mummies of China can be found here:

http://www.discovery.com/stories/history/desertmummies/desertmummies.html

 

I saw this program on the Discovery channel quite some time ago. These mummies are over 4,000 years old, possess white features, and the clothing they wore were like tartan patterns. We have the Aryan Invasion Theory that posits that white Europeans came from Europe into India bringing the Vedic culture. Could these mummies in China be the individuals on their continuing trek across the continent?

 

Also I recall a controversy among an Indian tribe in North America (in Washington state I believe). The report I saw was on 60 Minutes and was several years ago. But apparently archaeologists found the oldest skeletal remains ever in North America and that they were of European ancestry. The Indians and Clinton Administration quickly had the skeleton removed from scientific examination. After all a key part of the Native American complaint against white settlers is that "We were here first." If it was shown that Europeans were here first, this would damage their case.

[theist]

I saw that show also.It'll come back on Discovery or TLC,one of those.

 

Yeah finding that 10,000 year old Caucasian buried in "Indian ground" was really just too political incorrect.

 

I'm convinced we don't have any real idea of what has gone on on this planet.

 

 

[Avinash]

Archaeologists are really very brave. I got frightened just looking at the picture that you have posted.

[Krsnadas]

Dont be scared Avinesh we all gotta go there some day, if she's your beloved be vigilant for she may come like a thief in the night . Hopefully in a prettier form than this photo.

Looks a little like the way I feel some mornings, maybe I could use this pic for my ID photo. It's not easy to discern but this dude looks of European origin to me.

But then it goes back around to where did they come from? I'm with Theo. It's all just a big mystery. But it'd be kool if you could tap into some so called akashic records like old dvd's and just play back some a the old favourite timezones especially the ones with the Lord and his devotees pastimes here on earth. You definately have a knack of ferreting these things out Gaura you must have a good job with lots of spare time. Keep it coming.

[Guest guest]

I have one small request.

I quote "Forbidden Archaeology" when I say that we have this misconception that people in India could not have lived civilized lives 25,000 years ago. Why? Because we just can't accept it! But if we do that, we're taking an ENORMOUS risk. Just because we don't believe it doesn't mean it isn't true. We can deny it as long as we want, but it wont change anything

 

My two cents

[Krsnadas]

In my short life I've seen too many religionists, archeoligists, historians

philosophers, scientists and upstarts change their conceptions, dates, perspectives, myths, stories, theories, and thesis. It's mostly all thesis, antithesis and synthesis to deduce the Truth but these days nobody wants to accept the truth from real authority anyway, because most are sceptical that the other guys source is correct.

An honest man will admit he just doesn't know where we all came from. How can you trust anyone but the Maha-Bhagavats, for they have proposed where we, the person actually comes from.

Pure knowledge comes from a pure heart. It's interesting to feel we know with some certainty where our roots are, but it's probably alot more important what we're doing with where we are now, and where we may be heading. If we blow this chance it's going to be a hell of a riddle for any future race to figure out the puzzle that's left to them. Especially if they find a Sony playstation that has a power source that don't work. Moreso if it does work. One thing for sure is that we're a curious mix.