[world-vedic] ARYAN INVASION MYTH

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By David Frawley

One of the

main ideas used to interpretand generally devaluethe

ancient history of India is the theory of the Aryan invasion. According

to this account, India was invaded and conquered by nomadic

light-skinned Indo-European tribes from Central Asia around 1500-1000

BC, who overthrew an earlier and more advanced dark-skinned Dravidian

civilization from which they took most of what later became Hindu

culture. This so-called pre-Aryan civilization is said to be evidenced

by the large urban ruins of what has been called the Indus valley

culture (as most of its initial sites were on the Indus river).

The war between the powers of light and darkness, a prevalent idea in

ancient Aryan Vedic scriptures, was thus interpreted to refer to this

war between light and dark- skinned peoples. The Aryan invasion theory

thus turned the Vedas, the original scriptures of ancient

India and the Indo-Aryans, into little more than primitive poems of

uncivilized plunderers.

This idea totally foreign to the history of India, whether

north or south has become almost an unquestioned truth in the

interpretation of ancient history. Today, after nearly all the reasons

for its supposed validity have been refuted, even major Western

scholars are at last beginning to call it in question.

In this article we will summarize the main points that have arisen.

This is a complex subject that I have dealt with in depth in my book

Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient

Civilization, for those interested in further examination of the

subject.

The Indus valley culture was pronounced pre-Aryan for several

reasons that were largely part of the cultural milieu of nineteenth

century European thinking. As scholars following Max Muller had decided

that the Aryans came into India around 1500 BC, since the Indus valley

culture was earlier than this, they concluded that it had to be

pre-Aryan. Yet the rationale behind the late date for the Vedic culture

given by Muller was totally speculative. Max Muller, like many of the

Christian scholars of his era, believed in Biblical chronology. This

placed the beginning of the world at 4000 BC and the flood around 2500

BC. Assuming to those two dates, it became difficult to get the Aryans

in India before 1500 BC.

Muller therefore assumed that the five layers of the four

Vedas & Upanishads were each composed in

200-year periods before the Buddha at 500 BC. However, there are more

changes of language in Vedic Sanskrit itself than there are in

classical Sanskrit since Panini, also regarded as a figure of around

500 BC, or a period of 2500 years. Hence it is clear that each of these

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

200-year figure is totally arbitrary and is likely too short a

figure.

It was assumed by these scholars many of whom were also

Christian missionaries unsympathetic to the Vedas

that the Vedic culture was that of primitive nomads from Central Asia.

Hence they could not have founded any urban culture like that of the

Indus valley. The only basis for this was a rather questionable

interpretation of the Rig Veda that they made, ignoring the

sophisticated nature of the culture presented within it.

Meanwhile, it was also pointed out that in the middle of the second

millennium BC, a number of Indo-European invasions apparently occured

in the Middle East, wherein Indo-European peoples the Hittites,

Mittani and Kassites conquered and ruled Mesopotamia for some

centuries. An Aryan invasion of India would have been another version

of this same movement of Indo-European peoples. On top of this,

excavators of the Indus valley culture, like Wheeler, thought they

found evidence of destruction of the culture by an outside invasion

confirming this.

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

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

weapons and overthrew the cities of the more advanced Indus valley

culture, with their superior battle tactics. It was pointed out that no

horses, chariots or iron was discovered in Indus valley sites.

This was how the Aryan invasion theory formed and has remained since

then. Though little has been discovered that confirms this theory,

there has been much hesitancy to question it, much less to give it

up.

Further excavations discovered horses not only in Indus Valley sites

but also in pre-Indus sites. The use of the horse has thus been proven

for the whole range of ancient Indian history. Evidence of the wheel,

and an Indus seal showing a spoked wheel as used in chariots, has also

been found, suggesting the usage of chariots.

Moreover, the whole idea of nomads with chariots has been

challenged. Chariots are not the vehicles of nomads. Their usage

occurred only in ancient urban cultures with much flat land, of which

the river plain of north India was the most suitable. Chariots are

totally unsuitable for crossing mountains and deserts, as the so-called

Aryan invasion required.

That the Vedic culture used iron and must hence date later

than the introduction of iron around 1500 BC revolves around the

meaning of the Vedic term ayas, interpreted as iron.

Ayas in other IndoEuropean languages like Latin or

German usually means copper, bronze or ore generally, not specially

iron. There is no reason to insist that in such earlier Vedic times,

ayas meant iron, particularly since other metals are not

mentioned in the Rig Veda (except gold that is much more

commonly referred to than ayas). Moreover, the Atharva Veda

and Yajur Veda speak of different colors of

ayas(such as red and black), showing that it was a generic

term. Hence it is clear that ayas generally meant metal and

not specifically iron.

Moreover, the enemies of the Vedic people in the Rig

Veda also use ayas, even for making their cities, as do the Vedic

people themselves. Hence there is nothing in Vedic literature to show

that either the Vedic culture was an iron-based culture or that their

enemies were not.

The Rig Veda describes its Gods as destroyers of

cities. This was used also to regard the Vedic as a primitive

non-urban culture that destroys cities and urban civilization. However,

there are also many verses in the Rig Veda that speak of

the Aryans as having having cities of their own and being protected by

cities up to a hundred in number. Aryan Gods like Indra, Agni,

Saraswati and the Adityas are praised as being like a city. Many

ancient kings, including those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, had titles

like destroyer or conqueror of cities. This does not turn them into

nomads. Destruction of cities also happens in modern wars; this does

not make those who do this nomads. Hence the idea of Vedic culture as

destroying but not building the cities is based upon ignoring what the

Vedas actually say about their own cities.

Further excavation revealed that the Indus Valley culture was not

destroyed by outside invasion, but according to internal causes and,

most likely, floods. Most recently a new set of cities has been found

in India (like the Dwaraka and Bet Dwaraka sites by S.R. Rao and the

National Institute of Oceanography in India), which are intermediate

between those of the Indus culture and later ancient India as visited

by the Greeks. This may eliminate the so-called dark age

following the presumed Aryan invasion, and shows a continuous urban

occupation in India back to the beginning of the Indus culture.

The interpretation of the religion of the Indus Valley culture -made

incidentally by scholars such as Wheeler who were not religious

scholars, much less students of Hinduism was that its religion

was different from the Vedic and more like the later Shaivite religion.

However, further excavations both in Indus Valley sites in

Gujarat, like Lothal, and those in Rajasthan, like Kalibangan

show large numbers of fire altars like those used in the Vedic

religion, along with bones of oxen, potsherds, shell jewellery and

other items used in the rituals described in the Vedic

Brahmanas. Hence the Indus Valley culture evidences many Vedic

practices that cannot be merely coincidental. That some of its

practices appeared non-Vedic to its excavators may also be attributed

to their misunderstanding or lack of knowledge of Vedic and Hindu

culture generally, wherein Vedism and Shaivism are the same basic

tradition.

We must remember that ruins do not necessarily have one

interpretation. Nor does the ability to discover ruins necessarily give

the ability to interpret them correctly.

The Vedic people were thought to have been a fair-skinned race like

the Europeans, owing to the Vedic idea of a war between light and

darkness, and the Vedic people being presented as children of light or

children of the sun. Yet this idea of a war between light and darkness

exists in most ancient cultures, including the Persian and the

Egyptian. Why dont we interpret their scriptures as a war between

light and dark-skinned people? It is purely a poetic metaphor, not a

cultural statement. Moreover, no real traces of such a race are found

in India.

Anthropologists have observed that the present population of Gujarat

is composed of more or less the same ethnic groups as are noticed at

Lothal in 2000 BC. Similarly, the present population of the Punjab is

said to be ethnically the same as the population of Harappa and Rupar

4000 years ago. Linguistically the present day population of Gujarat

and Punjab belongs to the Indo-Aryan language-speaking group. The only

inference that can be drawn from the anthropological and linguistic

evidences adduced above is that the Harappan population in the Indus

Valley and Gujarat in 2000 BC was composed of two or more groups, the

more dominant among them having very close ethnic affinities with the

present day Indo-Aryan-speaking population of India.

In other words there is no racial evidence of any such Indo-Aryan

invasion of India but only of a continuity of the same group of people

who traditionally considered themselves to be Aryans.

There are many points in fact that prove the Vedic nature of the

Indus Valley culture. Further excavation has shown that the great

majority of the sites of the Indus Valley culture were east, not west

of Indus. In fact, the largest concentration of sites appears in an

area of Punjab and Rajasthan near the dry banks of ancient Saraswati

and Drishadvati rivers. The Vedic culture was said to have been founded

by the sage Manu between the banks of Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers.

The Saraswati is lauded as the main river (naditama) in the Rig

Veda & is the most frequently mentioned in the text. It is

said to be a great flood and to be wide, even endless in size.

Saraswati is said to be pure in course from the mountains to the

sea. Hence the Vedic people were well acquainted with this river

and regarded it as their immemorial homeland.

The Saraswati, as modern land studies now reveal, was indeed one of

the largest, if not the largest river in India. In early ancient and

pre-historic times, it once drained the Sutlej, Yamuna and the Ganges,

whose courses were much different than they are today. However, the

Saraswati river went dry at the end of the Indus Valley culture and

before the so-called Aryan invasion, or before 1500 BC. In fact this

may have caused the ending of the Indus culture. How could the Vedic

Aryans know of this river and establish their culture on its banks if

it dried up before they arrived? Indeed the Saraswati as described in

the Rig Veda appears to more accurately show it as it was

prior to the Indus Valley culture, as in the Indus era it was already

in decline.

Vedic and late Vedic texts also contain interesting astronomical

lore. The Vedic calendar was based upon astronomical sightings of the

equinoxes and solstices. Such texts as Vedanga Jyotish

speak of a time when the vernal equinox was in the middle of the

Nakshtra Aslesha (or about 23 degrees 20 minutes Cancer). This gives a

date of 1300 BC. The Yajur Veda and Atharva

Veda speak of the vernal equinox in the Krittikas (Pleiades;

early Taurus) and the summer solstice (ayana) in Magha (early Leo).

This gives a date about 2400 BC. Yet earlier eras are mentioned but

these two have numerous references to substantiate them. They prove

that the Vedic culture existed at these periods and already had a

sophisticated system of astronomy. Such references were merely ignored

or pronounced unintelligible by Western scholars because they yielded

too early a date for the Vedas than what they presumed, not

because such references did not exist.

Vedic texts like Shatapatha Brahmana and Aitereya

Brahmana that mention these astronomical references, list a group

of 11 Vedic Kings, including a number of figures of the Rig

Veda, said to have conquered the region of India from sea

to sea. Lands of the Aryans are mentioned in them from Gandhara

(Afghanistan) in the west to Videha (Nepal) in the east, and south to

Vidarbha (Maharashtra). Hence the Vedic people were in these regions by

the Krittika equinox or before 2400 BC. These passages were also

ignored by Western scholars and it was said by them that the

Vedas had no evidence of large empires in India in Vedic

times. Hence a pattern of ignoring literary evidence or misinterpreting

them to suit the Aryan invasion idea became prevalent, even to the

point of changing the meaning of Vedic words to suit this theory.

According to this theory, the Vedic people were nomads in the

Punjab, coming down from Central Asia. However, the Rig

Veda itself has nearly 100 references to ocean (samudra), as well

as dozens of references to ships, and to rivers flowing in to the sea.

Vedic ancestors like Manu, Turvasha, Yadu and Bhujyu are flood figures,

saved from across the sea. The Vedic God of the sea, Varuna, is the

father of many Vedic seers and seer families like Vasishta, Agastya and

the Bhrigu seers. To preserve the Aryan invasion idea it was assumed

that the Vedic (and later sanskrit) term for ocean,

samudra, originally did not mean the ocean but any large

body of water, especially the Indus river in Punjab. Here the clear

meaning of a term in Rig Veda and later times

verified by rivers like Saraswati mentioned by name as flowing into the

sea was altered to make the Aryan invasion theory fit. Yet if we

look at the index to translation of the Rig Veda by

Griffith for example, who held to this idea that samudra

didnt really mean the ocean, we find over 70 references to ocean

or sea. If samudra does not mean ocean, why was it

translated as such? It is therefore without basis to locate Vedic kings

in Central Asia far from any ocean or from the massive Saraswati river,

which form the background of their land and the symbolism of their

hymns.

One of the latest archeological ideas is that the Vedic culture is

evidenced by Painted Grey Ware pottery in north India, which appears to

date around 1000 BC, and comes from the same region between the Ganges

and Yamuna as later Vedic culture is related to. It is thought to be an

inferior grade of pottery, and to be associated with the use of iron

that the Vedas are thought to mention. However it is

associated with a pig and rice culture, not the cow and barley culture

of the Vedas. Moreover it is now found to be an organic

development of indigenous pottery, not an introduction of invaders.

Painted Grey Ware culture represents an indigenous cultural

development and does not reflect any cultural intrusion from the West

i.e. an Indo-Aryan invasion. Therefore, there is no archeological

evidence corroborating the fact of an Indo-Aryan invasion.

In addition, the Aryans in the Middle East, most notably the

Hittites, have now been found to have been in that region at least as

early as 2200 BC, wherein they are already mentioned. Hence the idea of

an Aryan invasion into the Middle East has been pushed back some

centuries, though the evidence so far is that the people of the

mountain regions of the Middle East were Indo-Europeans as far as

recorded history can prove.

The Aryan Kassites of the ancient Middle East worshipped Vedic Gods

like Surya and the Maruts, as well as one named Himalaya. The Aryan

Hittites and Mittani signed a treaty with the name of the Vedic Gods

Indra, Mitra, Varuna and Nasatyas around 1400 BC. The Hittites have a

treatise on chariot racing written in almost pure Sanskrit. The Indo

Europeans of the ancient Middle East thus spoke Indo-Aryan, not

Indo-Iranian languages, and thereby show a Vedic culture in that region

of the world as well.

The Indus Valley culture had a form of writing, as evidenced by

numerous seals found in the ruins. It was also assumed to be non-Vedic

and probably Dravidian, though this was never proved. Now it has been

shown that the majority of the late Indus signs are identical with

those of later Hindu Brahmi, and that there is an organic development

between the two scripts. Prevalent models now suggest an Indo-European

base for that language.

It was also assumed that the Indus Valley culture derived its

civilization from the Middle East, probably Sumeria, as antecedents for

it were not found in India. Recent French excavations at Mehrgarh have

shown that all the antecedents of the Indus Valley culture can be found

within the subcontinent, and going back before 6000 BC.

In short, some Western scholars are beginning to reject the Aryan

invasion or any outside origin for Hindu civilization.

Current archeological data do not support the existence of an Indo-

Aryan or European invasion into South Asia at any time in the pre- or

protohistoric periods. Instead, it is possible to document

archeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous

cultural development from prehistoric to historic periods. The early

Vedic literature describes not a human invasion into the area, but a

fundamental restructuring of indigenous society. The Indo-Aryan

invasion as an academic concept in 18th and 19th century Europe

reflected the cultural milieu of the period. Linguistic data were used

to validate the concept, that in turn was used to interpret

archeological and anthropological data.

In other words, Vedic literature was interpreted on the assumption

that there was an Aryan invasion. Then archeological evidence was

interpreted by the same assumption. And both interpretations were then

used to justify each other. It is nothing but a tautology, an exercise

in circular thinking that only proves that if assuming something is

true, it is found to be true!

Another modern Western scholar, Colin Renfrew, places the Indo-

Europeans in Greece as early as 6000 BC. He also suggests such a

possible early date for their entry into India.

As far as I can see there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rig

Veda which demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking population was

intrusive to the area: this comes rather from a historical assumption

of the coming of the Indo-Europeans.

When Wheeler speaks of the Aryan invasion of the land of the 7

rivers, the Punjab, he has no warranty at all, so far as I can

see. If one checks the dozen references in the Rig Veda to

the 7 rivers, there is nothing in them that to me implies invasion: the

land of the 7 rivers is the land of the Rig Veda, the scene

of action. Nor is it implied that the inhabitants of the walled cities

(including the Dasyus) were any more aboriginal than the Aryans

themselves.

Despite Wheelers comments, it is difficult to see what is

particularly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley civilization. Hence

Renfrew suggests that the Indus Valley civilization was in fact

Indo-Aryan even prior to the Indus Valley era:

This hypothesis that early Indo-European languages were spoken in

North India with Pakistan and on the Iranian plateau at the 6th

millennium BC, has the merit of harmonizing symmetrically with the

theory for the origin of the Indo- European languages in Europe. It

also emphasizes the continuity in the Indus Valley and adjacent areas,

from the early neolithic through to the floruit of the Indus Valley

civilization.

This is not to say that such scholars appreciate or understand the

Vedas their work leaves much to be desired in this

respect but that it is clear that the whole edifice built around

the Aryan invasion is beginning to tumble on all sides. In addition, it

does not mean that the Rig Veda dates from the Indus Valley

era. The Indus Valley culture resembles that of the Yajur

Veda and they reflect the pre-Indus period in India, when the

Saraswati river was more prominent.

The acceptance of such views would create a revolution in our view

of history, as shattering as that in science caused by Einsteins

theory of relativity. It would make ancient India perhaps the oldest,

largest and most central of ancient cultures. It would mean that the

Vedic literary record already the largest and oldest of the

ancient world even at a 1500 BC date would be the record of

teachings some centuries or thousands of years before that. It would

mean that the Vedas are our most authentic record of the

ancient world. It would also tend to validate the Vedic view that the

Indo-Europeans and other Aryan peoples were migrants from India, not

that the Indo-Aryans were invaders into India. Moreover, it would

affirm the Hindu tradition that the Dravidians were early offshoots of

the Vedic people through the seer Agastya, and not unaryan peoples.

In closing, it is important to examine the social and political

implications of the Aryan invasion idea:

First, it served to divide India into a northern Aryan and southern

Dravidian culture which were made hostile to each other. This kept the

Hindus divided and is still a source of social tension.

Second, it gave the British an excuse in their conquest of India.

They could claim to be doing only what the Aryan ancestors of the

Hindus had previously done millennia ago.

Third, it served to make Vedic culture later than and possibly

derived from Middle Eastern cultures. With the proximity and

relationship of the latter with the Bible and Christianity, this kept

the Hindu religion as a sidelight to the development of religion and

civilization to the West.

Fourth, it allowed the sciences of India to be given a Greek basis,

as any Vedic basis was largely disqualified by the primitive nature of

the Vedic culture.

This discredited not only the Vedas but the genealogies

of the Puranas, and their long list of the kings before the

Buddha or Krishna were left without any historical basis. The

Mahabharata, instead of a civil war in which all the main

kings of India participated as it is described, became a local skirmish

among petty princes that was later exaggerated by poets. In short, it

discredited most of the Hindu tradition and almost all its ancient

literature. It turned its scriptures and sages into fantasies and

exaggerations.

This served a social, political and economical purpose of

domination, proving the superiority of Western culture and religion. It

made the Hindus feel that their culture was not the great thing that

their sages and ancestors had said it was. It made Hindus feel ashamed

of their culture that its basis was neither historical nor

scientific. It made them feel that the main line of civilization was

developed first in the Middle East and then in Europe and that the

culture of India was peripheral and secondary to the real development

of world culture.

Such a view is not good scholarship or archeology but merely

cultural imperialism. The Western Vedic scholars did in the

intellectual sphere what the British army did in the political realm

discredit, divide and conquer the Hindus.

In short, the compelling reasons for the Aryan invasion theory were

neither literary nor archeological but political and religious

that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice. Such prejudice may not

have been intentional, but deep-seated political and religious views

easily cloud and blur our thinking.

It is unfortunate that this approach has not been questioned more,

particularly by Hindus. Even though Indian Vedic scholars like

Dayananda Saraswati, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Aurobindo rejected it,

most Hindus today passively accept it. They allow Western, generally

Christian, scholars to interpret their history for them, and quite

naturally Hinduism is kept in a reduced role. Many Hindus still accept,

read or even honor the translations of the Vedas done by

such Christian missionary scholars as Max Muller, Griffith, Monier-

Williams and H. H. Wilson. Would modern Christians accept an

interpretation of the Bible or Biblical history done by Hindus, aimed

at converting them to Hinduism? Universities in India also use the

Western history books and Western Vedic translations that propound such

views that denigrate their own culture and country.

The modern Western academic world is sensitive to critisms of

cultural and social biases. For scholars to take a stand against this

biased interpretation of the Vedas would indeed cause a

reexamination of many of these historical ideas that can not stand

objective scrutiny. But if Hindu scholars are silent or passively

accept the misinterpretation of their own culture, it will undoubtedly

continue, but they will have no one to blame but themselves. It is not

an issue to be taken lightly, because how a culture is defined

historically creates the perspective from which it is viewed in the

modern social and intellectual context. Tolerance is not in allowing a

false view of ones own culture and religion to be propagated

without question. That is merely self-betrayal.

[Sunds 1]

This is a beautiful article. I have read similar articles before. This thought process should be promoted aggressively.

[LoveroftheBhagavata 0]

Absolutely. AIT was a political ruse that the European Christian rulers of 19th century India used to implement their 'divide and rule' policy, and rests on flimsy empirical evidence to say the least. Now that many of the arguments of the predominantly anti-Hindu practitioners within academia have been effectively quashed, they have resorted to another fallacious distortion of AIT termed AMT, or the Aryan Migration Theory, to explain away the history of the Indian subcontinent without giving a toss as to what the native version of that history is. We've all had experience of the anti-Vedic bias that tends to be the norm in mainstream scholarship, media and society in general. Let them delude themselves and try to mask Truth if that makes them feel better about themselves.

 

For our part, we know that modern Bharata, with all its innumerable faults and shortcomings, is home to the oldest culture and religion in the world, and can legitimately be regarded as the spiritual mother of the entire earth.

 

Hari Om Tat Sat