Noble Aryans were Indians

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Aryans were Indians, they did not invade

By R.A. Goel

 

Under the pretence of detoxification of the alleged saffronisation of

school educational texts, many self-proclaimed intellectuals and

acclaimed fellow-travellers are pushing the questionable but long-

held fictitious propaganda, which is offensive as much to the truth

as to the self-respect of even the sleeping, sluggish, Indian

society.

 

1. A classical instance of the canard is the continued plugging in of

the thesis that the Indo-Aryans were not the sons of the soil of

India and that they were as much intruders or invaders as the other

recorded historical invaders and plunderers from Alexander onwards.

 

2. Aryans of India possessed the earliest known book and spoken words

in the entire world literature as their Vedas. It is amazing that it

does not strike as extremely odd to the so-called intellectuals and

rationalists that if the early Aryans of India had their original

abode elsewhere outside this country, it would be elementary to

expect the knowledge contained in the Vedas to have necessarily pre-

existed in such land of their alleged origin. So, the universally

accepted proposition that the Vedas were the earliest known

literature of the world, both spoken and recorded, does establish

that no other people anywhere possessed the capacity and the treasury

and knowledge of the Vedas-like literature. Accordingly, when no

other foreign people outside India had Veda-like literature at their

command, it would be calumny to persist with the awkward proposition

that people of some foreign land were the ancestors of the Indo-

Aryans and that the Aryans poured into or streamed into India from

other lands or regions of the world.

 

3. A few more aspects of the ridiculous thesis that Aryans entered

India from elsewhere are intended to be highlighted in the subsequent

discussions.

 

4. An obstinate myth in circulation for centuries is regarding the

origin of Aryans being from land outside India.

 

We can get an insight from the extracts of such an attempt from

historian R.S. Sharma's history textbook of Class XI entitled Ancient

India (p. 70) published by NCERT.

 

"Originally the Aryans seem to have lived somewhere in the region

stretching from southern Russia to Central Asia. Certain names of

animals, such as goats, dogs, horses, etc. and names of certain

plants such as pine, maple, etc. are similar to one another in all

the Indo-European languages. They show that the Aryans were

acquainted with the rivers and forests. Curiously enough, common

words exist only in a few Aryan languages for mountains although the

Aryans crossed many hills."

 

The Aryans had a concept of universalism not advanced by any people

of that age; they glorified non-violence, then not preached or

practiced anywhere in the world.

 

5. The facts, however strongly suggest the foregoing hypothesis to be

altogether fictitious and imaginary:

 

Commonality of linguistic words, roots, phrases or even grammar may

exist amongst English, Greek, Italian, Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit or

other languages of the world just as simple words like father,

mother, daughter, etc. would show but there is hardly any evidence

that Englishmen, Italians, Arabs had common ancestors in any known

historical era.

 

Noted historian, Vincent A. Smith, has clearly concluded the

proposition that "Language was no proof of commonality of blood".

(Oxford History of India by Vincent A. Smith, 1957, p. 40).

 

It is sheer superstitious prejudice and continued misplaced belief in

myths with their least factual or historic foundation that tempts or

drives even learned people and scholars into such superstitious

labyrinths.

 

6. It is conceded in the history textbook by R.S. Sharma, NCERT, 1999

(p. 71) as follows:

 

"A little earlier than 1500 b.c. the Aryans appeared in India. We do

not find clear and definite archaeological traces of their advent."

 

7. The above clear admission by the proponents of the theory of non-

Indian origin of Aryans, despite all endeavours to paint Aryans as

foreigners immigrating into India, is really astounding. These

scholars themselves admit the absolute absence of any trace of

archaeological evidence in their possession in support of this much-

hyped and persistently repeated myth.

 

8. It is a surreptitious suggestion and a mere naïve conjecture and

surmise in gross distortion of truth or history seemingly with the

blind purpose to equate other foreign people entering and invading

India as being of the same kind of intruders that Aryans were wrongly

suggested to be.

 

9. It is our intent to show in further write-ups that Aryans were

natives of India, and not in the least intruders or invaders or

immigrants or migrants into India at any point of time in history or

of pre-historic period. This caricature of history, being absurdly

carried out by known learned historians persistently, must in the

interest of truth and historical values cease unless these scholars

have pursuits other than truth in the matter.

 

This matter can hardly be put on the back burner any further. It has

already done grave injustice to the Aryans and to the people of

India. Pricking of this prejudicial and false hypothesis is essential

to show its absolutely imaginary origin.

 

10. How the hypothesis of Aryan intrusion into India came to be

widely postulated during the efforts to reconstruct history of India

needs some exposition:

 

Oxford History of India (p. 32), 1957, says: "From the Vedic hymns it

has been possible to piece together a reasonably coherent picture of

Aryan invaders on their first impact with the black, flat-nosed

Dasyus who comprised their native opponents and subjects."

 

 

 

"In fact, the accepted belief in the Indo-Aryan immigration from

Central Asia depends largely on the interpretation of geographical

allusions in the Rig Veda and Yajurveda. Direct testimony to the

assumed fact is lacking and no tradition of an early home beyond the

frontier survives in India."

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 14, (p. 228) records: "From the 4th

century b.c. two scripts were in issue-Kharosthi in the north-west

and the more important Brahmi elsewhere."

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol.14 (p. 228) holds:

 

"Trade, for example, between the Roman Empire and South-east Asia via

south India was considerable in the early centuries of the Christian

era."

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 18 (p. 630) mentions:

 

"The Vedas are in a sense hymns, but the gods to which they refer are

not persons but manifestations of the ultimate truth and reality."

 

 

 

The Aryans had no slave system; they reared cows. They were

agriculturists and not pastoral or indulging in animal husbandry like

the Asians. They had no feudal landlords; they never attacked or

enslaved any people or country, not even Ceylon; they had no purdah;

they cremated their dead while all the remaining communities of the

world buried their dead. The script of their language was from left

to right, unlike the Semitics or Iranians whose script ran from right

to left. They had village democratic units and no kings or lords or

chiefs like Central Asians or Mongols or Tartars. These features are

in sharp contradistinction to the contemporary Central Asian or

Arabic or Roman or Greek traditions or habits or institutions of

these people. The Aryans could not, therefore, ever have been their

constituents at any point of time in history.

 

 

 

The Aryan had a concept of universalism not advanced by any people of

those eras; they glorified non-violence, not preached or practiced

anywhere in the world. What more proof is required to show their

distinct identity from any other people of those days?

 

 

 

The Vedic people had no founding Prophet unlike Abraham of the Jews,

Christ of the Christians, Mohammed of the Muslims and many others.

This shows their absolute exclusive personality, different from other

peoples or faiths.

 

 

 

There is no concept of an `infidel' or `Jehad' or `holy war' in the

Aryan culture, civilisation or faith. The entire world outside the

Aryan fold considers people different from themselves as heretics.

The Aryans, therefore, had abiding gentleness and humanism, not known

or possessed by others.

 

 

 

Vedic women were scholars and also participated in village sabhas and

vidvat-mandals. Such respect and authority given to women was

absolutely unknown to Central Asians of those days. Never have been a

group of people belonging to such Central Asian communities shown

such respect.

 

 

 

The Aryans, unlike other people, had no concept or tradition of

having a standing army. The Aryans were republicans; the term jana

occurs at about 275 places in the Rig Veda. Republicanism was unknown

to the rest of Asia in those days.

 

 

 

Muir's History (Sanskrit version, Part-II) records: "No Sanskrit

books, howsoever old, mention Aryans as being of non-Indian origin.

There is also no hint or evidence to show or suggest that the Rig

Veda mentions dasa's (slaves) or asuras as people belonging as

aborigines of India.

 

 

 

Bal Gangadhar Tilak clearly admitted to Umesh Chander Vidya Ratan

that Aryans hailed from the Arctic and that (he) Tilak had read only

the translation of the Vedas by Western authors, and not the Vedas

translated or commented upon by the (original) Hindus. Tilak,

therefore, admitted that he could not clearly vouchsafe for the

authenticity of his theory.

 

 

 

Jawaharlal Nehru in his book Discovery of India (p. 92) mentioned

that Plotinus (a.d. 205-270), an Iranian and other philosophers came

to study Indian philosophy, including the Upanishads. From them,

these ideas also reached Saint Augustine (a.d. 354-430)-the greatest

of Latin Church fathers, and through Augustine the Aryan philosophy

thus influenced the Christianity of the day.

 

 

 

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 18 (p. 972) the blood

group B prevalent in India is found elsewhere in the world in eastern

Asia or India or Africa but is not in any substantial existence in

Europe or Central Asia. The Aryans could not have, therefore,

emanated from Central Asia or Europe.

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 6 (p. 292) says: "Although in

appearance the majority of Indian people look like Europeans, in

blood type they are similar to Mogoloid neighbours to the east who

are quite distinct from Central Asia (or people of the Steppes of the

Siberia of erstwhile USSR).

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 1 (p. 34) again holds:

 

"Type B blood, high in Asia with a maximum in northern India, is low

in Europe and in Africa." This also goes to show that the Aryans of

India did not migrate from either Europe or Africa.

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 10 (p. 722) admits that "the

assumption that the people whose languages are related, or also

related racially is spurious."

 

 

 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 21 (p. 31) makes the following

admission regarding the origin of the Aryans in India:

 

 

"Theories of the origin of the Aryans in India relate to the question

of what has been called the Indo-European homeland. In the 17th and

18th centuries, European scholars who first studied Sanskrit were

struck by the similarity in its syntax and vocabulary to Greek and

Latin. This resulted in the theory that there had been a common

ancestry for these and other related languages, which came to be

called the Indo-Europeans group of languages. This, in turn, resulted

in the notion that the Indo-European-speaking people had a common

homeland from which they had migrated to various parts of Asia and

Europe. This theory led to unlimited speculation which continues

today, regarding the original homeland of Aryans and the date of

their dispersal from it. The early history of India is still beset

by `the Aryan problem' which often clouds a genuine search for

historical insight into this period."

 

11. The time has come now when, as per German philosopher Rudolf Karl

Bultmann's advice, the demystification and demythologisation of the

Aryan ingress into or their alleged invasion of ancient India can no

longer be avoided. We have to expose its absolute hollowness as well

as its fictitious origin. This matter can hardly be put on the back

burner any further. It has already done grave injustice to the Aryans

and to the people of India. Pricking of this prejudicial and false

hypothesis is essential to show its absolutely imaginary origin. Its

continuous repetition is obstinate, motivated by a fatal disregard of

the truth. The habit is merely in line with the imitative peculiar to

Indian people's trait of self-denigration. It is misconceived

modernism and false rationalism. The entire enlightened world has

stopped subscribing to this myth already.

 

12. History has established that Tamilians, Dravidians and the so-

called northern Indians had a common ancestral script, the Brahmi.

Dravidians and Aryans, even if a little physically different in

appearance, are not different racial people in blood group or other

genetics of importance. Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala show the

classical case of Aryans' and Dravidians' merger of identities.

 

Aryans had no practice of untouchability. Caste system was not known

to the Aryans. It was an aberration of much later times dating to the

dark period of Indian history following the invasions by Huns and

Shakas that led to the caste syndrome. In the Vedic and Aryan

regimes, the alleged Shudras even became rulers and kings when they

acquired such faculties.

 

The Aryans are indigenous people of India inasmuch as Chinese are of

China or Arabs are of Arabia. The story of their intrusion into India

was fabricated by some foreigners deliberately to justify their

aggression, brutalities, invasions, suppression, and enslavement of

India in the past two millennia. The Aryans alone have the proud

heritage of belonging to this ancient land and its eclectic as also

syncretic universalism. They sent out the message of peace and

brotherhood for the entire world's peoples' progress and prosperity

(sarve bhavantu sukhin). Yes, but then the Aryans shall not accept

hegemony by others or any further vilification to the effect that

they invaded India at any point of time. They are the original people

of India or Aryavarta or Hindustan or Bharat, call it what you may.

 

(The writer is a retired engineer-in-chief and can be contacted at

630, Sector 16-A, Faridabad, Haryana.)