Demise of The Aryan Invasion Theory by Dr. Dinesh Agrawal
AskOnlyHow
This article by Dr. Dinesh Agrawal has been taken from
Hindunet Website. Main Article follows after the
references. Explanation regarding River Saraswati meaning
Knowledge and wisdom and some information on vedic dates
has been brought forward to help familiarize the reader
about the history of early aryans (noble-men).
River Saraswati IN RIGVEDA
The river called Saraswati is the most important of the
rivers mentioned in the Rig Veda. The image of this 'great
goddess stream' dominates the text. It is not only the most
sacred river but the Goddess of wisdom. She is said to be
the Mother of the Veda.
Vedic Age - 7000-4000 BC
End of Rig Vedic Age - 3750 BC
End of Ramayana - Mahabharat Period - 3000 BC
Development of Saraswati-Indus Civilization - 3000-2000 BC
Decline of Indus and Saraswati Civilization - 2200-1900 BC
Period of Complete chaos and migration - 2000-1500 BC
Period of evolution of syncretic Hindu culture - 1400 - 250
BC
So, What are the facts?
Based on what has been presented below, following facts
about an ancient and glorious period of India clearly
emerge:
The Aryan Invasion and Racial theories, and Aryan-Dravidian
conflicts are a 19th century fabrication by some European
scholar. They are being exploited even now for political
reasons. The hymns of Rigveda had been composed and
completed by 3700BC, this can be scientifically proved.
The language of the Indus script is related to Sanskrit,
the language of Vedas.
The Indus valley civilization should be aptly called as
Saraswati Vedic civilization, as the new evidences and
right interpretation of the archaeological findings
indicate.
There is now strong evidence that the movement of the
ancient Aryan people was from east to west, and this is how
the European languages have strong association and origin
in the Vedic Sanskrit language.
The ending of Indus Valley and the Saraswati civilization
was due to the constant floods and drought in the Indus
area and the drying up of the Saraswati river. This had
caused a massive emigration of the habitants to safer and
interior areas of the Indian subcontinent and even towards
the west.
There was no destruction of the civilization in the Indus
valley due to any invasion of any barbaric hordes.
The Vedic literature has no mention of any invasion or
destruction of a civilization.
There is no evidence in any of the literature which
indicate any Aryan-Dravidian or North-South divide, they
were never culturally hostile to each other.
The population living in the Indus valley and surrounding
the dried up Saraswati river practiced the Vedic culture
and religion.
Most of the material presented below has been taken from
the following books. Please see the deatiled article which
follows after the references.
1. The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)
By Shrikant G. Talageri (Voice of India)
2. The Astronomical Code of India (1992) By Subhash Kak
3. Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (1995) By
N.S. Rajaram and David Frawley (World Heritage Press)
4. Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth By N.S.
Rajaram (Voice of India Publication)
5. Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar (1993) By
Koenraad Elst
6. New Light on The Aryan Problem: Manthan Oct. 1994
(Journal of Deendayal Research Institute)
7. Dawn and Development of the Indus Civilization (1991) By
S.R. Rao (Aditya Prakashan)
Aryan Race and Invasion Theory is not only a subject of
academic interest , but also it conditions our perception
of India's historical evolution, the sources of her ancient
glorious heritage, and indigenous socio-economic-political
institutions which have been developed over the millennia.
Consequently, the validity or invalidity of this theory has
an obvious and strong bearing on the contemporary Indian
political and social landscape as well as the future of
Indian nationalism. The subject matter is as relevant today
as it was a hundred years ago when it was cleverly
introduced in the school text books by British rulers. The
last couple of decades have witnessed a growing interest
among scholars, social scientists, and many nationalist
Indians in this some what vapid and prosaic subject due to
their aunguish on the great damage this theory has wrought
on the psyche of the Indian society, and its tremendous
contribution in creating apparently lasting schism between
the different sections of the Hindu society. This subject
must especially and urgently interest to all those people
who are committed to the ideology of Hindutva, for one of
the primary and fundamental premises of Hindutva philosophy
lies in the fact that the Indian cultural nationalism has
been evolved and fostered over the millenia by our ancient
rishis who at the banks of holy rivers of Saptasindhu had
composed the Vedic literature - the very foundation of
Indian civilization, and realised the eternal truth about
the Creator, His creation, and means to preserve it. The
fact that these pioneers of the ancient Vedic culture and
hence the Hinduism were indigenous people of mother India,
is mendaciously denied by the Aryan Invasion theory which
professes their foreign origin. If such a false theory is
allowed to perpetuate and given credence without any
tenable and reliable basis, the very raison d'etre of
Hindutva is endangered. In this essay, an attempt has been
made to expose the myth of Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)
based on scriptural, archaeological evidences and proper
interpretation of Vedic verses, and present the factual
situation of the ancient Vedic society and how it
progressed and evolved into all-embracing and catholic
principle, now known as Hindusim.
The Aryan issue is quite controversial and has been the
focus of historians, archaeologists, Indologists, and
sociologists for over a century. AIT is merely a
proposed 'theory', and not a factual event. And theories
keep modifying, are discredited, nay even rejected with the
emergence of new knowledge and data pertaining to the
subject matter of the theories. The AIT can not be accepted
as Gospel truth knowing fully well its shaky and dubious
foundations, and now with the emergence of new information
and an objective analysis of the archaeological data and
scriptures, the validity of AIT is seriously challenged and
it stands totally untenable. The most weird aspect of the
AIT is that it has its origin not in any Indian records (no
where in any of the ancient Indian scriptures or epics or
Puranas, etc. is there any mention of this AIT, sounds
really incredible!), but in European politics and German
nationalism of 19th century. AIT has no support either in
Indian literature, tradition, science, or not even in any
of the south Indian (Dravidians, inhabitants of south
India, who were supposed to be the victims of the so-called
Aryan invasion) literature and tradition. So a product of
European politics of the 19th century was forced on Indian
history only to serve the imperialist policy of British
colonialists to divide the Indian society on ethnic and
religious lines in order to continue their reign on the one
hand and accentuate the religious aims of Christian
missionaries on the other. There is absolutely no reference
in Indian traditions and literature of an Aryan Invasion of
Northern India, until the British imperialists imposed this
theory on an unsuspecting and gullible Indian society and
introduced it to the school curriculum. The irony is that
this is still taught in our schools as an unmitigated
truth, and the authorities who set the curriculum of Indian
history books are not yet prepared to accept the verdict,
and make the amends. This is truly a shame! Now, more and
more evidence is emerging which not only challenges the old
myth of Aryan Invasion, but also is destroying all the
pillars on which the entire edifice of AIT had been
assiduously but cleverly built.
It is a known fact that most of the original proponents of
AIT were not historians or archaeologists but had
missionary and political axe to grind. Max Muller in fact
had been paid by the East India Company to further its
colonial aims, and others like Lassen and Weber were ardent
German nationalists, with hardly any authority or knowledge
on India, only motivated by the superiority of German
race/nationalism through white Aryan race theory. And as
everybody knows this eventually ended up in the most
calamitous event of 20th century: the World War II. Even in
the early times of the AIT's onward journey of
acceptability, there were numerous challengers like C.J.H.
Hayes, Boyed C. Shafer and Hans Kohn who made a deep study
of the evolution and character of nationalism in Europe.
They had exposed the unscientificness of many of the
budding social sciences which were utilized in the 19th
century to create the myth of Aryan Race Theory.
In the last couple of decades, the discovery of the lost
track of the Rig Vedic river Saraswati, the excavation of a
chain of Harappan sites from Ropar in the Punjab to Lothal
and Dhaulavira in Gujarat all along this lost track, the
discovery of the archaeological remains of Vedis (alters)
and Yupas connected with Vedic Yajnas (sacrifices) at
Harrapan sites like Kalibangan, decipherment of the
Harappan/Indus script by many scholars as a language
belonging to Vedic Sanskrit family, the view of the
archaeologists like Prof. Dales, Prof. Allchin etc. that
the end of the Harappan civilization came not because of
the so called Aryan invasion but as a result of a series of
floods, the discovery of the lost Dwarka city beneath the
sea water near Gujarat coast and its similarity with
Harappan civilization - all these new findings and an
objective, accurate and contextual interpretation of Vedas
indicate convincingly towards the full identity of the
Harappan/Indus civilization with post Vedic civilization,
and demand a re-examination of the entire gamut of Aryan
Race/Invasion Theories which have been forcefully pushed
down the throats of Indian society by some European
manipulators and Marxist historians all these years.
For thousands of years the Hindu society has looked upon
the Vedas as the fountainhead of all knowledge: spiritual
and secular, and the mainstay of Hindu culture, heritage
and its existence. Never our historical or religious
records have questioned this fact. Even western and far
eastern travellers who have documented their experiences
during their prolonged stay and sojourn in India have
testified the importance of Vedic literature and its
indigenous origin. And now, suddenly, in the last century
or so, these the so-called European scholars are
pontificating us that the Vedas do not belong to Hindus,
they were the creation of a barbaric horde of nomadic
tribes descended upon north India and destroyed an advanced
indigenous civilization. They even suggest that the
Sanskrit language is of non-Indian origin. This is all
absurd, preposterous, and defies the commonsense. A
nomadic, barbaric horde of invaders cannot from any stretch
of imagination produce the kind of sublime wisdom, pure and
pristine spiritual experiences of the highest order, a
universal philosophy of religious tolerance and harmony for
the entire mankind, one finds in the Vedic literature.
Now let us examine the origin and the conditions in which
this historical fraud was concocted.
Max Muller, a renowned Indologist from Germany, is credited
with the popularization of the Aryan racial theory in the
middle of 19th century. Though later on when Muller's
reputation as a Sanskrit scholar was getting damaged, and
he was challenged by his peers, since nowhere in the
Sanskrit literature, the term Arya denoted a racial people,
he recanted and pronounced that Aryan meant only a
linguistic family and never applied to a race. But the
damage was already done. The German and French political
and nationalist groups exploited this racial phenomenon to
propagate the supremacy of an assumed Aryan race of white
people, which Hitler used to its extreme absurdities for
his barbaric crusade to terrorize Jews and other societies.
This culminated in the holocaust of millions of innocent
people. Though now this racial nonsense has mostly been
discarded in Europe, but in India it is still being
exploited and used to divide and denigrate the Hindu
society. Our aim is to expose myth about AIT, and establish
the truth of the identity of the pioneers of the Vedic
civilization and set the historical events after the Vedic
period in proper perspective and in realistic time frame.
What, really, is the Aryan Invasion Theory?
According to this theory, northern India was invaded and
conquered by nomadic, light-skinned RACE of a people
called 'ARYANS' who descended from Central Asia (or some
unknown land ?) around 1500 BC, and destroyed an earlier
and more advanced civilization of the people habitated in
the Indus Valley and imposed upon them their culture and
language. These Indus Valley people were supposed to be
either Dravidian, or AUSTRICS or now--days' Shudra class
etc.
The main elements on which the entire structure of AIT has
been built are: Arya is a racial group, their invasion,
they were nomadic, light-skinned, their original home was
outside India, their invasion occurred around 1500 BC, they
destroyed an advanced civilization of Indus valley, etc.
And what are the evidences AIT advocates present in support
of all these wild conjectures:
Invasion: Mention of Conflicts in Vedic literature,
findings of skeletons at the excavated sites of Mohanjodro
and Harappa
Nomadic, Light-skinned: Pure conjecture and
misinterpretation of Vedic hymns.
Non-Aryan/Dravidian Nature of Indus civilization: absence
of horse, Shiva worshippers, chariots, Racial differences,
etc.
Date of Invasion, 1500 BC: Arbitrary and speculative, in
Mesopotamia and Iraq the presence of the people worshipping
Vedic gods around 1700BC, Biblical chronology.
Major Flaws in the Aryan Invasion Theory
A major flaw of the invasion theory was that it had no
explanation for why the Vedic literature that was assumed
to go back into the second millennium BC had no reference
to any region outside of India. Also the astronomical
references in the Rig Veda allude to events in the third
millennium BC and even earlier, indicating origin ofVedic
hymns earlier than 3000BC. The contributions of the Vedic
world to philosophy, mathematics, logic, astronomy,
medicine and other sciences provide one of the foundations
on which rests the common heritage of mankind, is well
recognized but cannot be reconciled if Vedas were composed
after 1500BC. Further, if it is assumed that the so-called
Aryans invaded the townships in the Harappa valley and
destroyed its habitants and their civilization, how come
after doing that they did not occupy these towns? The
excavations of these sites indicate that the townships were
abandoned. And if the Harappan civilization had a Dravidian
origin, who were allegedly pushed down to the south by
Aryans, how come there is no Aryan-Dravidian divide in the
respective literatures and historical traditions. The North
and South have never been known to be culturally hostile to
each other. Prior to the descent of British on Indian
scene, there was a continuous interaction and cultural
exchange between the two regions. The Sanskrit language,
the so-called Aryan language was the lingua-franca of the
entire society for thousands of years. The three greatest
figures of later Hinduism - Shankaracharya, Madhavacharya
and Ramanujam were Southerners who are universally
respected in the North, and who have written commentaries
on Vedic scriptures in Sanskrit only for the benefit of the
entire population. Even in the ancient times some of the
great Sutra authors like Baudhayana and Apastamba were from
South. Agastya, a celebrated Vedic rishi, is widely
venerated in the South as the one who introduced Vedic
learning to the South India. And also was the South India
un-inhabitated prior to the pushing of the original
population of Indus Valley? If not, who were the original
inhabitants of South India, who accepted the newcomers
without any hostility or fight?
There is enough positive evidence in support of the
religious rites of the Harappans being similar to those of
the Vedic Aryans. Their religious motifs, deities and
sacrificial altars bespeak of Aryan faith, indicating
continuity and identity of Vedic culture with the Indus
valley civilization.
If the Aryan Hindus were outsiders, why don't they name
places outside India as their most holy places? Why should
they sing paeans in the praise of India's numerous rivers
crisscrossing the entire peninsula, and mountains -
repositories of life giving water and natural resources,
nay even bestow them a status of goddesses and gods. If
Aryans were outsiders why should they consider this land as
the 'holy land' and not their original land as the 'holy
land' or motherland? For the Muslims, their holy placeis
Mecca. For the Catholics it is Rome or Jerusalem. For the
Hindus, their pilgrim centers range from Kailash in the
North, to Rameshwaram in the South; and from Hingalaj
(Sindh) in the West to Parusuram Kund (Arunchala Pradesh)
in the East. The seven holy cities of Hinduism include
Kanchipurum in the south, Dwaraka in the west and Ujjain in
central India. The twelve jyotirlings include Ramashwaram
in Tamil Nadu, Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh, Nashik in
Maharashtra, Somnath in Gujarat and Kashi in Uttar Pradesh.
All these are located in greater India only. No Hindu from
any part of India has felt a stranger in any other part of
India when on a pilgrimage. The seven holy rivers in
Hinduism, indeed, seem to chart out the map of the holy
land. The Sindhu and the Saraswati (now extinct)
originating from the Himalayas and move westward and
southwards into the western sea; the Ganga and the Yamuna
also start in the Himalayas and move eastward into the
north-eastern sea; the Narmada starts in central India and
the Godavari starts in western India, while the Kaveri
winds its way through the south to move into the southern
sea. More than a thousand years ago, Adi Shankaracharya,
who was born in Kerala, established several mathas
(religious and spiritual centers) including at Badrinath in
the north (UP), Puri in the east (Orissa), Dwaraka in the
west (Gujarat), and at Shringeri and Kanchi in the south.
That is India, that is Bharat, that is Hinduism.
These are some of the obvious serious objections,
inconsistencies, and glaring anomalies to which the
invasionists have no convincing or plausible explanations
which could reconcile the above facts with the Aryan
invasion theory and destruction of Indus Valley
civilization.
Now let us examine the facts about the so-called evidences
in support of AIT:
Real Meaning of the word Arya
In 1853, Max Muller introduced the word 'Arya' into the
English and European usage as applying to a racial and
linguistic group when propounding the Aryan Racial theory.
However, in 1888, he himself refuted his own theory and
wrote:
" I have declared again and again that if I say Aryas, I
mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair, nor skull; I mean
simply those who speak an Aryan language... to me an
ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan
eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who
speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic
grammar." (Max Muller, Biographies of Words and the Home of
the Aryas, 1888, pg 120).
In Vedic Literature, the word Arya is nowhere defined in
connection with either race or language. Instead it refers
to: gentleman, good-natured, righteous person, noble-man,
and is often used like 'Sir' or 'Shree' before the name of
a person like Aryaputra, Aryakanya, etc.
In Ramayan (Valmiki), Rama is described as an Arya in the
following words: Arya - who cared for the equality to all
and was dear to everyone.
Etymologically, according to Max Muller, the word Arya was
derived from ar-, "plough, to cultivate". Therefore, Arya
means - "cultivator" agriculturer (civilized sedentary, as
opposed to nomads and hunter-gatherers), landlord;
V.S. Apte's Sanskrit-English dictionary relates the word
Arya to the root r-,to which a prefix a has been appended
to give a negating meaning. And therefore the meaning of
Arya is given as "excellent, best", followed
by "respectable" and as a noun, "master, lord, worthy,
honorable, excellent", upholder of Arya values, and
further: teacher, employer, master, father-in-law, friend,
Buddha.
So nowhere either in the religious scriptures or by
tradition the word Arya denotes a race or language. To
impose such a meaning on this epithet is an absolute
intellectual dishonesty, deliberate falsification of the
facts, and deceptive-scholarship. There are only four
primary races, namely, Caucasian, the Mangolian, the
Australians and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians
are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed
in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference
between the so-called Aryans of the north and the
Dravidians of the south or other communities of Indian
subcontinent is not a racial type. Biologically all are the
same Caucasian type, only when closer to the equator the
skin gets darker, and under the influence of constant heat
the bodily frame tends to get a little smaller. And these
differences can not be the basis of two altogether
different races. Similar differences one can observe even
more distinctly among the people of pure Caucasian white
race of Europe. Caucasian can be of any color ranging from
pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown
in between. Similarly, the Mongolian race is not yellow.
Many Chinese have skin whiter than many so-called
Caucasians. Further, a recent landmark global study in
population genetics by a team of internationally reputed
scientists over 50 years (The History and Geography of
Human Genes, by Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and
Alberto Piazza, Princeton University Press) reveals that
the people habitated in the Indian subcontinent and nearby
including Europe, all belong to one single race of
Caucasion type. According to this study, there is
essentially, and has been no difference racially between
north Indians and the so-called Dravidian South Indians.
The racial composition has remained almost the same for
millennia. This study also confirms that there is no race
called as an Aryan race.
The voluminous references to various wars and conflicts in
Rigveda are frequently cited as the proof of an invasion
and wars between invading white-skinned Aryans and dark-
skinned indigenous people. Well, the so-called conflicts
and wars mentioned in the Rigveda can be categorized mainly
in the following three types:
A. Conflicts between the forces of nature: Indra, the
Thunder-God of the Rig Veda, occupies a central position in
the naturalistic aspects of the Rigvedic religion, since it
is he who forces the clouds to part with their all-
important wealth, the rain. In this task he is pitted
against all sorts of demons and spirits whose main activity
is the prevention of rainfall and sunshine. Rain, being the
highest wealth, is depicted in terms of more terrestrial
forms of wealth, such as cows or soma. The clouds are
depicted in terms of their physical appearance: as
mountains, as the black abodes of the demons who retain the
celestial waters of the heavens (i.e. the rains), or as the
black demons themselves. This is in no way be construed as
the war between white Aryans and black Dravidians. This is
a perverted interpretation from those who have not
understood the meaning and purport of the Vedic culture and
philosophy. Most of the verses which mention the
wars/conflicts are composed using poetic imagery, and
depict the celestial battles of the natural forces, and
often take greater and greater recourse to terrestrial
terminology and anthropomorphic depictions. The
descriptions acquire an increasing tendency to shift from
naturalism to mythology. And it is these mythological
descriptions which are grabbed at by invasion theorists as
descriptions of wars between invading Aryans and indigenous
non-Aryans. An example of such distorted interpretation is
made of the following verse:
The body lay in the midst of waters that are neither still
nor flowing. The waters press against the secret opening of
the Vrtra (the coverer) who lay in deep darkness whose
enemy is Indra. Mastered by the enemy, the waters held back
like cattle restrained by a trader. Indra crushed the vrtra
and broke open the withholding outlet of the river. (Rig
Veda, I.32.10-11)
This verse is a beautiful poetic and metamorphical
description of snow-clad dark mountains where the life-
sustaining water to feed the rivers flowing in the
Aryavarta is held by the hardened ice caps (vrtra demon)
and Indra, the rain god by allowing the sun to light its
rays on the mountains makes the ice caps break and hence
release the water. The invasionists interpret this verse
literally on human plane, as the slaying of vrtra, the
leader of dark skinned Dravidian people of Indus valley by
invading white-skinned Aryan king Indra. This is an absurd
and ludicrous interpretation of an obvious conflict between
the natural forces.
B. Conflict between Vedic and Iranian people: Another
category of conflicts in the Rigveda represents the genuine
conflict between the Vedic people and the Iranians. At one
time Iranians and Vedic people formed one society and were
living harmoniously in the northern part of India
practising Vedic culture, but at some point in the history
for some serious philosophical dispute, the society got
divided and one section moved to further north-west, now
known as Iran. However, the conflict and controversy were
continued between the two groups often resulting into even
physical fights. The Iranians not only called their God
Ahura (Vedic Asura) and their demons Daevas (Vedic Devas),
but they also called themselves Dahas and Dahyus (Vedic
Dasas, and Dasyus). The oldest Iranian texts, moreover
depict the conflicts between the daeva-worshippers and the
Dahyus on behalf of the Dahyus, as the Vedic texts depict
them on behalf of the Deva-worshippers. Indra, the dominant
God of the Rigveda, is represented in the Iranian texts by
a demon Indra. What this all indicate that wars or
conflicts of this second category are not between Aryans
and non-Aryans, but between two estranged groups of the
same parent society which got divided by some philosophical
dichotomy. Vedas even mention the gods of Dasyus as Arya
also.
C. Conflicts between various indigenous tribal groups over
natural resources and various minor kingdoms to gain
supremacy over the land and its expansion: A global
phenomenon known to share the natural resources like,
water, cattle, vegetation and land, and expand the
geographical boundaries of the existing kingdoms. This
conflict in no way suggests any war or invasion by
outsiders on the indigenous people.
It is argued that in the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-
daro the human skeletons found do prove that a massacre had
taken place at these townships by invading armies of Aryan
nomads. Prof. G. F. Dales (Former head of department of
Southasean Archaeology and Anthropology, Berkeley
University, USA) in his "The Mythical Massacre at Mohenjo-
daro, Expedition Vol VI,3: 1964 states the following about
this evidence:
What of these skeletal remains that have taken on such
undeserved importance? Nine years of extensive excavations
at Mohenjo-daro (1922-31) - a city of three miles in
circuit - yielded the total of some 37 skeletons, or parts
thereof, that can be attributed with some certainty to the
period of the Indus civilizations. Some of these were found
in contorted positions and groupings that suggest anything
but orderly burials. Many are either disarticulated or
incomplete. They were all found in the area of the Lower
Town - probably the residential district. Not a single body
was found within the area of the fortified citadel where
one could reasonably expect the final defence of this
thriving capital city to have been made.
He further questions: Where are the burned fortresses, the
arrow heads, weapons, pieces of armour, the smashed
chariots and bodies of in the invaders and defenders?
Despite the extensive excavations at the largest Harappan
sites, there is not a single bit of evidence that can be
brought forth as unconditional proof of an armed conquest
and the destruction on the supposed scale of the Aryan
invasion.
Colin Renfrew, Prof. of Archeology at Cambridge, in his
famous work, "Archeology and Language : The Puzzle of Indo-
European Origins", Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988, makes the
following comments about the real meaning and
interpretation of Rig Vedic hymns:
"Many scholars have pointed out that an enemy quite
frequently smitten in these hymns is the Dasyu. The Dasyus
have been thought by some commentators to represent the
original, non-Vedic-speaking population of the area,
expelled by the incursion of the war like Aryas in their
war-chariots. As far as I can see there is nothing in the
Hymns of the Rigveda which demonstrates that the Vedic-
speaking population were intrusive to the area: this comes
rather from a historical assumption about the 'coming' of
the Indo-Europeans. It is certainly true that the gods
invoked do aid the Aryas by over-throwing forts, but this
does not in itself establish that the Aryas had no forts
themselves. Nor does the fleetness in battle, provided by
horses (who were clearly used primarily for pulling
chariots), in itself suggest that the writers of these
hymns were nomads. Indeed the chariot is not a vehicle
especially associated with nomads. This was clearly a
heroic society, glorifying in battle. Some of these hymns,
though repetitive, are very beautiful pieces of poetry, and
they are not by any means all warlike.
...When Wheeler speaks of the Aryan invasion of the Land of
the Seven Rivers, the Punjab', he has no warranty at all,
so far as I can see. If one checks the dozen references in
the Rigveda to the Seven Rivers, there is nothing in any of
them that to me which implies an invasion: the land of the
Seven Rivers is the land of the Rigveda, the scene of the
action. Nothing implies that the Aryas were strangers
there. Nor is it implied that the inhabitants of the walled
cities (including the Dasyus) were any more aboriginal than
the Aryas themselves. Most of the references, indeed, are
very general ones such as the beginning of the Hymn to
Indra (Hymn 102 of Book 9).
To thee the Mighty One I bring this mighty Hymn, for thy
desire hath been gratified by my praise. In Indra, yea in
him victorious through his strength, the Gods have joyed at
feast, and when the Soma flowed.
The Seven Rivers bear his glory far and wide, and heaven
and sky and earth display his comely form. The Sun and Moon
in change alternate run their course that we, O Indra, may
behold and may have faith . . .
The Rigveda gives no grounds for believing that the Aryas
themselves lacked for forts, strongholds and citadels.
Recent work on the decline of the Indus Valley civilization
shows that it did not have a single, simple cause:
certainly there are no grounds for blaming its demise upon
invading hordes. This seems instead to have been a system
collapse, and local movements of people may have followed
it."
M.S. Elphinstone (1841): (first governor of Bombay
Presidency, 1819-27) in his magnum opus, History of India,
writes:
Hindu scripture.... "It is opposed to their (Hindus)
foreign origin, that neither in the Code (of Manu) nor, I
believe, in the Vedas, nor in any book that is certainly
older than the code, is there any allusion to a prior
residence or to a knowledge of more than the name of any
country out of India. Even mythology goes no further than
the Himalayan chain, in which is fixed the habitation of
the gods...
...To say that it spread from a central point is an
unwarranted assumption, and even to analogy; for,
emigration and civilization have not spread in a circle,
but from east to west. Where, also, could the central point
be, from which a language could spread over India, Greece,
and Italy and yet leave Chaldea, Syria and Arabia
untouched?
And, Elphinstone's final verdict:
There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus
ever inhabitated any country but their present one, and as
little for denying that they may have done so before the
earliest trace of their records or tradition.
So what these eminent scholars have concluded based on the
archaeological and literary evidence that there was no
invasion by the so-called Aryans, there was no massacre at
Harappan and Mohanjo-dara sites, Aryans were indigenous
people, and the decline of the Indus valley civilization is
due to some natural calamity.
Presence of Horse at Indus-Saraswati sites
It is argued that the Aryans were horse riding, used
chariots for transport, and since no signs of horse was
found at the sites of Harappa and Mohanjo-daro, the
habitants of Indus valley cannot be Aryans. Well, this was
the case in the 1930-40 when the excavation of many sites
were not completed. Now numerous excavated sites along
Indus valley and along the dried Saraswati river have
produced bones of domesticated horses. Dr. SR Rao, the
world renowned scholar of archeology, informs us that horse
bones have been found both from the 'Mature Harappan'
and 'Late Harappan' levels. Many other scholars since then
have also unearthed numerous bones of horses: both
domesticated and combat types. This simply debunks the non-
Aryan nature of the habitants of the Indus valley and also
identifies the Vedic culture with the Indus valley
civilization.
Origin of Siva-worship
The advocates of AIT argue that the inhabitants of Indus
valley were Siva worshippers and since Siva cult is more
prevalent among the South Indian Dravidians, therefore the
habitants of Indus valley were Dravidians. But Shiva
worship is not alien to Vedic culture, and not confined to
South India only. The words Siva and Shambhu are not
derived from the Tamil words civa (to redden, to become
angry) and cembu (copper, the red metal), but from the
Sanskrit roots si (therefore meaning "auspicious, gracious,
benevolent, helpful kind") and sam (therefore
meaning "being or existing for happiness or welfare,
granting or causing happiness, benevolent, helpful, kind"),
and the words are used in this sense only, right from their
very first occurrence. (Sanskrit- English Dictionary by Sir
M. Monier-Williams).
Moreover, most important symbols of Shaivites are located
in North India: Kashi is the most revered and auspicious
seat of Shaivism which is in the north, the traditional
holy abode of Shiva is Kailash mountain which is in the far-
north, there are passages in Rigvada which mention Siva and
Rudra and consider him an important deity. Indra himself is
called Shiva several times in Rig Veda (2:20:3, 6:45:17,
8:93:3). So Siva is not a Dravidian god only, and by no
means a non-Vedic god. The proponents of AIT also present
terra-cotta lumps found in the fire-alters at the Harappan
and other sites as an evidence of Shiva linga, implying the
Shiva cult was prevalent among the Indus valley people. But
these terra-cotta lumps have been proved to be the measures
for weighing the commodities by the shopkeepers and
merchants. Their weights have been found in perfect
integral ratios, in the manner like 1 gm, 2 gms, 5 gms, 10
gms etc. They were not used as the Shiva lingas for
worship, but as the weight measurements.
Discovery of the Submerged city of Krishna's Dwaraka
The discovery of this city is very significant and a kind
of clinching evidence in discarding the Aryan invasion as
well as its proposed date of 1500BC. Its discovery not only
establishes the authenticity of Mahabharat war and the main
events described in the epic, but clinches the traditional
antiquity of Mahabharat and Ramayana periods. So far the
AIT advocates used to either dismiss the Mahabharat epic as
a fictional work of a highly talented poet or would place
it around 1000 BC. But the remains of this submerged city
along the coast of Gujarat were dated 3000BC to 1500BC. In
Mahabharat's Musal Parva, the Dwarka is mentioned as being
gradually swallowed by the ocean. Krishna had forewarned
the residents of Dwaraka to vacate the city before the sea
submerged it. The Sabha Parva gives a detailed account of
Krishna's flight from Mathura with his followers to Dwaraka
to escape continuous attacks of Jarasandh's on Mathura and
save the lives of its subjects. For this reason, Krishna is
also known as RANCHHOR (one who runs away from the battle-
field). Dr. SR Rao and his team in 1984-88 (Marine
Archaeology Unit) undertook an extensive search of this
city along the coast of Gujarat where the Dwarikadeesh
temple stands now, and finally they succeeded in unearthing
the ruins of this submerged city off the Gujarat coast.
Saraswati River Discovered
It is well known that in the Rig Veda, the honor of the
greatest and the holiest of rivers was not bestowed upon
the Ganga, but upon Saraswati, now a dry river, but once a
mighty flowing river all the way from the Himalayas to the
ocean across the Rajasthan desert. The Ganga is mentioned
only once while the Saraswati is mentioned at least 60
times. Extensive research by the late Dr. Wakankar has
shown that the Saraswati changed her course several times,
going completely dry around 1900 BC. The latest satellite
data combined with field archaeological studies have shown
that the Rig Vedic Saraswati had stopped being a perennial
river long before 3000 BC.
As Paul-Henri Francfort of CNRS, Paris recently
observed, "...we now know, thanks to the field work of the
Indo-French expedition that when the proto-historic people
settled in this area, no large river had flowed there for a
long time."
The proto-historic people he refers to are the early
Harappans of 3000 BC. But satellite 'photos show that a
great prehistoric river that was over 7 kilometers wide did
indeed flow through the area at one time. This was the
Saraswati described in the Rig Veda. Numerous
archaeological sites have also been located along the
course of this great prehistoric river thereby confirming
Vedic accounts. The great Saraswati that flowed "from the
mountain to the sea" is now seen to belong to a date long
an terior to 3000 BC. This means that the Rig Veda
describes the geography of North India long before 3000 BC.
All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in
existence no later than 3500 BC. (Aryan Invasion of India:
The Myth and the Truth By N.S. Rajaram)
River Saraswati IN RIGVEDA
The river called Saraswati is the most important of the
rivers mentioned in the Rig Veda. The image of this 'great
goddess stream' dominates the text. It is not only the most
sacred river but the Goddess of wisdom. She is said to be
the Mother of the Veda.
A few Rig Vedic hymns which mention Saraswati river are
presented below:
ambitame naditame devitame sarasvati (II.41.16)
(The best mother, the best river, the best Goddess,
Saraswati)
maho arnah saraswati pra cetayati ketuna dhiyo visva
virajati (I.3.12)
(Saraswati like a great ocean appears with her ray, she
rules all inspirations)
ni tva dadhe vara a prthivya ilayspade sudinatve ahnam:
drsadvatyam manuse apayayam sarasvatyam revad agne didhi
(III.23.4)
(We set you down, oh sacred fire, at the most holy place on
Earth, in the land of Ila, in the clear brightness of the
days. On the Drishadvati, the Apaya and the Saraswati
rivers, shine out brilliantly for men)
citra id raja rajaka id anyake sarasvatim anu;
parjanya iva tatanadhi vrstya sahasram ayuta dadat
(VIII.21.18)
(Splendor is the king, all others are princes, who dwell
along the Saraswati river. Like the Rain God extending with
rain he grants a thousand times ten thousand cattle)
Saraswati like a bronze city: ayasi puh;
surpassing all other rivers and waters: visva apo mahina
sindhur anyah;
pure in her course from the mountains to the sea: sucir
yati girbhya a samudrat (VII.95.1-2)
All this indicates that the composers of the Vedic
literature were quite familiar with the Saraswati river,
and were inspired by its beauty and its vasteness that they
composed several hymns in her praise and glorification.
This also indicates that the Vedas are much older than
Mahabharat period which mentions Saraswati as a dying
river.
Decipherment of Indus Script
Dr. SR Rao, who has deciphered the Indus script, is an ex-
head of Archaeological Survey of India, a renowned Marine
archaeologist, has been studying archeology since 1948 and
has discovered and excavated numerous Indus sites. He has
authored several monumental works on Harappan civilization
and Indus script. To summarize his method of decipherment
of Indus script, he assigned to each Indus basic letter the
same sound-value as the West Asian letter which closely
resembled it. After assigning these values to the Indus
letters, he proceeded to try to read the inscriptions on
the Indus seals. The language that emerged turned out to be
an "Aryan" one belonging to Sanskrit family. The people who
resided at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other sites were
culturally Aryan is thus confirmed by the decipherment of
the Harappan script and its identity with Sanskrit family.
The Harappa culture was a part of a continuing evolution of
the Vedic culture which had developed on the banks of
Saraswati river. And it should be rightly termed as Vedic-
Saraswati civilization.
Among the many words yielded by Dr. Rao's decipherment are
the numerals aeka, tra, chatus, panta, happta/sapta, dasa,
dvadasa and sata (1,3,4,5,7, 10,100) and the names of Vedic
personalities like Atri, Kasyapa, Gara, Manu, Sara, Trita,
Daksa, Druhu, Kasu, and many common Sanskrit words like,
apa (water), gatha, tar (savior), trika, da, dyau (heaven),
dashada, anna (food), pa(protector), para (supreme), maha,
mahat, moks, etc.
While the direct connection between the late Indus script
(1600 BC) and the Brahmi script could not be definitely
established earlier, more and more inscriptions have been
found all over the country in the last few years, dating
1000 BC, 700 BC, and so on, which have bridged the gap
between the two. Now it is evident that the Brahmi script
evolved directly from the Indus script. (Sources:
Decipherment of the Indus Script, Dawn and Development of
Indus Civilization, Lothal and the Indus Civilization, all
by S. R. Rao)
New Archaeological findings
Since the first discovery of buried townships of Harappa
and Mohenjo-Daro on the Ravi and Sindhu rivers in 1922,
respectively, numerous other settlements, now number over
2500 stretching from Baluchistan to the Ganga and beyond
and down to Tapti valley, covering nearly a million and
half square kilometers, have been unearthed by various
archaeologists. And, the fact which was not known 70 years
ago, but archaeologists now know, is that about 75% of
these settlements are concentrated not along the Sindhu or
even the Ganga, but along the now dried up Saraswati river.
This calamity - the drying up of the Saraswati - and not
any invasion was what led to the disruption and abandonment
of the settlements along Saraswati river by the people who
lived a Vedic life. The drying up of the Saraswati river
was a catastrophe of the vast magnitude, which led to a
massive outflow of people, especially the elite, went into
Iran, Mesopotamia and other neighboring regions. Around the
same time (2000-1900 BC), there were constant floods or/and
prolonged draughts along the Sindhu river and its
tributaries which forced the inhabitants of the Indus
valley to move to other safer and greener locations, and
hence a slow but continuous migration of these highly
civilized and prosperous Vedic people took place. Some of
them moved to south east, and some to north west, and even
towards European regions. For the next thousand years and
more, dynasties and rulers with Indian names appear and
disappear all over the West Asia confirming the migration
of people from East towards West. There was no destruction
of an existing civilization or invasion by any racial
nomads of any kind to cause the destruction or abandonment
of these settlements.
Chronology of the pre-historic period of India
According to the invasionists, the Indian civilization or
the Indus Valley civilization is only 4000-5000 years old.
They place the end of this civilization around 1900BC, and
invasion of Aryans around 1500BC. There is also no
plausible explanation from these invasion advocates for a
gap of 400 years between the end of the Indus Valley
civilization (IVC) and the appearance of Aryans on the
Indian scene if Aryans were responsible for the destruction
of the IVC. They propose the period of 1400-1300 BC as the
beginning of the Vedic age when the Vedas were composed and
Aryans began to impose their culture and religion on the
indigenous population of the northern India. The Ramayana
and Mahabharat, if considered as real events, must be
according to them arbitr- arily be dated in the period 1200-
1000BC. And only after 1000BC, the historic accounts of
empire building, Buddha's birth etc. have to be dated. This
chronology first proposed by Max Muller was primarily based
on his firm belief in the Biblical date of the creation of
the world, i.e. October 23, 4004 BC. Such chronology
contradicts all the archaeological evidences, scriptural
testimonies, traditional beliefs, and most importantly
defies the commonsense and scientific method. Therefore,
based on Vedic testimonies, Puranic references,
archaeological evidences, and all the accounts presented
here above, the most realistic and accurate chronological
events of the pre-historic period of India should be fixed
as follows:
Vedic Age - 7000-4000 BC
End of Rig Vedic Age - 3750 BC
End of Ramayana - Mahabharat Period - 3000 BC
Development of Saraswati-Indus Civilization - 3000-2000 BC
Decline of Indus and Saraswati Civilization - 2200-1900 BC
Period of Complete chaos and migration - 2000-1500 BC
Period of evolution of syncretic Hindu culture - 1400 - 250
BC
David Frawley's Paradox
The Harappans of the Indus Valley have left profuse
archaeological records over a vast region - from the
borders of Iran and beyond Afghanistan to eastern UP and
Tapti valley, and must have supported over 30 million
people and believed to be living an advanced civilization.
And yet these people have left absolutely no literary
records. Sounds incredible! The Vedic Aryans and their
successors on the other hand have left us a literature that
is probably the largest and most profound in the world. But
according to the AIT there is absolutely no archaeological
record that they ever existed. Either on the Indian soil or
outside its boundaries. So we have concrete history and
archeology of a vast civilization of 'Dravidians' lasting
thousands of years that left no literature, and a huge
literature by the Vedic Aryans who left no history and no
archaeological records. The situation gets more absurd when
we consider that there is profuse archaeological and
literary records indicating a substantial movement of
Indian Aryans out of India into Iran and West Asia around
2000 BC.
So, how can all these obvious anomalies and serious flaws
be reconciled? By accepting the truth that the so-called
Aryans were the original people habitants of the townships
along the Indus, Ravi, Saraswati and other rivers of the
vast northern region of the Indian subcontinent. And no
invasion by nomadic hordes from outside India ever occurred
and the civilization was not destroyed but the population
simply moved to other areas, and developed a new syncretic
civilization and culture by mutual interaction and exchange
of ideas.
The Vedic seers in Vedic literature have proclaimed and
practiced the following all-embracing, catholic, and
harmonious principles for a peaceful coexistence of various
communities. How can such people be accused of annihilater
of a civilization, murderer of innocent people, and
destroying large number of cities?
ahm bhumimdadamaryam (Rgveda)
Creater declares: I have bestowed this land to Aryas.
Kirnvanto Vishwaryam (Rgbeda)
Make the entire world noble.
Aa na bhadra katavo yanto vishwatah (Rgveda)
Let noble thoughts come from all sides.
Mata Bhumih putro ham prithvyah (Atharv veda)
Earth is my mother, and I am her son.
Vasudeva kutumbubakam
The entire universe is one family.
Consequences of the Aryan Invasion Theory in Context of
India
It serves to divide artificially India into a northern
Aryan and southern Dravidian culture which were made
hostile to each other by various interested parties: A
major source of social tension in south Indian states.
It gave an easy excuse to the Britishers to justify their
conquest over India as well as validating the various
conquests and mayhems of invading armies of religious
fanatics from Arab lands and central Asia. The argument
goes that they were doing only what Aryan ancestors of the
Hindus had previously done millennia ago to the indigenous
population.
As a corollary, the theory makes Vedic culture later than
and possibly derived from Middle Eastern cultures,
especially the Greek culture: An absurd proposition.
Since the identification of Christianity and the Middle
Eastern cultures, the Hindu religion and Indian
civilization are considered as a sidelight to the
development of religion and civilization in the west: A
deliberate and dishonest undermining of the antiquity and
the greatness of the ancient Indian culture.
It allows the science of India to be given a Greek basis,
as any Vedic basis was largely disqualified by the
primitive nature of the Vedic culture: In fact the opposite
is true.
If the theory of Aryan invasion and its proposed period
were true, this discredited not only the Vedas but the
genealogies of the Puranas, and all the kings mentioned in
these scriptures including Lord Krishna, Rama, Buddha etc.
would become as fictional characters with no historical
basis: Which simply means disowning and discarding the very
basis and raison de'etre of the Hindu civilization.
The Mahabharat, instead of being a civil war of global
proportion in which all the main kings of India
participated as is described in the epic, would be
dismissed as a local skirmish among petty princes that was
later exaggerated by poets.
In other words, the Aryan Invasion Theory invalidates and
discredits the most Hindu traditions and almost all its
vast and rich literary and civilizational heritage. It
turns its scriptures and sages into fantasies and
exaggerations.
On the basis of this theory, the propaganda by the
Macaulayists was made that there was nothing great in the
Hindu culture and their ancestors and sages. And most
Hindus fell for this devious plan. It made Hindus feel
ashamed of their culture - that its basis was neither
historical nor scientific, the Vedas were the work of
nomadic shepherds and not the divine revelations or eternal
truth perceived by the rishis during their spiritual
journey, and hence there is nothing to feel proud about
India's past, nothing to be proud of being Hindu.
In short such a view and this concocted Aryan Invasion
theory by a few European historians in order to prove the
supremacy of Christianity and Western civilization, served
(and still serving) the purpose: 'divide and conquer the
Hindus'.
Swami Vivekananda on Aryan Invasion Theory
"Our archaeologists' dreams of India being full of dark-
eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryans came from - the Lord
knows where. According to some, they came from Central
Tibet; others will have it that they came from Central
Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that the
Aryans were all red haired. Others, according to their
idea, think that they were all black-haired. If the writer
happens to be a black-haired man, the Aryans were all black-
haired. Of late, there was an attempt made to prove that
the Aryans lived on Swiss lake. I should not be sorry if
they had been all drowned there, theory and all. Some say
now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the
Aryans and their habitations! As for as the truth of these
theories, there is notone word in our scriptures, not one,
to prove that the Aryans came from anywhere outside of
India, and in ancient India was included Afghanistan. There
it ends..."
"And the theory that the Shudra caste were all non-Aryans
and they were a multitude, is equally illogical and
irrational. It could not have been possible in those days
that a few Aryans settled and lived there with a hundred
thousand slaves at their command. The slaves would have
eaten them up, made chutney of them in five minutes. The
only explanation is to be found in the Mahabharat, which
says that in the beginning of the Satya Yoga there was only
one caste, the Brahmins, and then by differences of
occupations they went on dividing themselves into different
castes, and that is the only true and rational explanation
that has been given. And in the coming Satya Yuga all other
castes will have to go back to the same condition." (The
Complete Work of Swami Vivekananda, Vol.III Page 29
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Akorps
directed at the British Empire and the
European races, since the British left
India 50 years ago, and the *real*
enemies India faces are the nuclear
armed (non-European) neighbors, China
and Pakistan. I guess hatred of Europeans
still serves as a convenient vehicle for
stirring up Indian nationalism, for political
reasons.
The true face of supposedly spiritual India:
a land full of hatred, bigotry,resentment and deceit?
A heart filled with the fires of hatred for
the British, and a burning desire for
revenge?
Who is more likely to nuke you, Europe or the
Pak/China axis? You ought to be grateful
that the British did the work of breaking
Muslim rule, which might otherwise still
continue (and may return). Don't shoot
at the wrong target, Europe is no threat
to India, and no enemy either. Unless you
create that enemy yourself. Until recently
western opinion was very favorable towards
India, but recent events have soured that
relationship to a certain extent.