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A Fresh Look
at the Aryan Controversy
A presentation by Note: This presentation is based on lectures to lay
audiences and students. Intended as a general
Michel Danino introduction to the topic, it claims no completeness.
(revised November 2011) Not for publication or for any commercial use: for
private circulation and educational purposes only.
What the textbooks say …
We find in textbooks used in Indian schools varying versions of the Aryan invasion
theory. In Tamil Nadu especially, the following statement is bound to leave a
psychological scar on young minds:
It Dravidians
“It is believed that the earliest inhabitants of India were the Dravidians, who
were ... the people who lived in Mohenjodaro and Harappa.... The Aryans
migrated from Central Asia and drove away the Dravidians after fierce battles….
The culture of the Aryans was entirely different from that of the Dravidians.”
(From a textbook used in Class 4 a few years ago. The most recent textbooks
perpetuate this scenario.)
Accompanied by purely imaginary depictions for greater effect (below), such
statements are misleading and based on no evidence.
The birth of the Aryan theory
To explain the kinship between Sanskrit and European languages, 19th-
century European Indologists — in particular Max Müller, a German
Sanskritist who lived in Oxford and published the full text of the Rig Veda
for the first time — propounded that:
An “Aryan race” speaking a “proto-Indo-European language” (PIE) somewhere in
Central Asia, split into several groups: one migrated towards Europe, the other
y , y
towards Iran and finally India, which they entered around 1500 BCE.*
They subjugated “indigenous tribals” (this was revised later to include
“Dravidians”), composed the Rig Veda soon after their conquest of northwest India,
and gradually spread Sanskrit, Vedic culture and the caste system throughout India.
India was thus composed of distinct “races,” languages, literatures, and cultures,
which turned the Aryan dogma into a political instrument of division between North
and South, upper (= Aryan) and lower (= non-Aryan) castes. The British colonial
l d th t th h d t bi b t “ i ” f th tA
powers also argued that they had come to bring about a “reunion” of the great Aryan
family; they were, after all, no more than a new wave of “Aryan” invaders of India!
The concept of an aggressive, conquering “Aryan race” was devoid of evidence, but
age races
it suited the dominance of the white man in the colonial age. Other “races”, including
the Jews and the Blacks, were regarded as inferior and unsuited to lead humanity. It
was the same racial theory that Hitler later took over and used to assert that the
Aryans were the “master race” (Herrenvolk) and had the right to rule the world and
exterminate inferior races.
* BCE = “Before Common Era” (= Before Christ). CE = “Common Era” (= AD).
Four approaches
The Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) remains an object of heated
controversy in India, but is rarely debated on the basis of hard
evidence and rational inquiry. Let us examine it from several
angles:
1. Literary & geographical
2.
2 Archaeological & cultural
A h l i l lt l
3. Anthropological & genetic
4. Linguistic
g
(Note: Other disciplines, such as archaeoastronomy or
archaeometallurgy , also have evidence to contribute; they are
gy ; y
not discussed here.)
1a. Literary Evidence
The Ri V d i dt h b db i di A B t t i
Th Rig Veda is supposed to have been composed by invading Aryans. But it contains no
reference whatsoever to a distant homeland or to an invasion / migration into India. Most
importantly, the “battles” with the Dasyus, described as dark beings, are clearly of a
mythological character, similar to the Purānas’ battles between devas and asuras.
y g ,
Swami Vivekananda: “There is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the
Aryan ever came from anywhere outside India. ... The whole of India is Aryan, nothing else.”
Sri Aurobindo: “There is no actual mention of such an invasion [in the Rig Veda]. ... There is
no reliable indication of any racial difference [between Aryans and Dasyus].”
George Erdosy, Canadian historian: “Even apparently clear indications [in the Rig Veda] of
historical struggles between dark aborigines and Arya conquerors turn out to be
misleading.
misleading ”
B.R. Ambedkar: “The theory of invasion is an invention. ... There is no evidence in the Vedas
of any invasion of India by the Aryan race and its having conquered the Dasas and Dasyus
supposed to be the natives of India. ... [The Aryan race theory is] so absurd that it ought to
have been dead long ago.”
Ancient Tamil Sangam literature, from the 2nd century BCE remembers no migration from
the North and no conflict with “Aryans” or anyone else. Moreover Sangam literature, even
anthologies gods Indra Vishnu etc
in its earliest anthologies, often praises Vedic gods, Indra, Vishnu, Agni etc. It also shows
high regard for the Vedas, the chanting of Vedic hymns, Brahmins, the Himalayas, etc.
India’s oldest literatures, whether from the North or the South, are therefore silent on an
y p
“Aryan invasion” and also on a North-South divide. It is irrational to expect that both the
Rig Veda and the Sangam literature should have forgotten everything about an event (the
Aryan invasion) that is said to have changed India’s cultural landscape radically.
1b. Geography:
Rivers & Oceans in the Rig-Veda
The Rig-Veda has numerous references to the ocean (samudra), India’s
“eastern and western seas”, ships sailing storms waves etc — all of which
eastern seas ships, sailing, storms, waves, etc.
invaders from Central Asia would have been ignorant of.
The Rig-Veda often mentions the Saptasindhava (“seven sindhus” or rivers):
Indus, Sindhu, tributaries, Sarasvatī.
the Indus Sindhu its five tributaries and the Sarasvatī That is the geography
of the Northwest of the Indian subcontinent.
The Sarasvatī* is described as a “mighty river” flowing “unbroken” “from the
sea. hymn rivers” (10.75)
mountain to the sea ” An important “hymn in praise of rivers (10 75) locates it
between the Yamuna and the Sutlej. In the nineteenth century, British
surveyors, topographers and geologists identified it with the huge dry bed of
the Ghaggar–Hakra, which runs from Haryana to the Rann of Kachchh.
Archaeology shows that this river, which nurtured hundreds of Harappan
sites, started breaking up around 2700 BCE, and its central basin had dried up
from 2000 BCE. Aryans invading India around 1500 BCE could not have
hi d th d b d “ i ht i fl i f th t i t th
worshipped the dry bed as a “mighty river flowing from the mountain to the
sea”. The composers of those hymns must have lived on the river’s banks
while it was in full flow—in the third or fourth millennium BCE.
* For a fuller treatment, see my separate
presentation, “Sarasvatī, the Lost River”.
This geography of the Rig Veda (above)
coincides with that of the Indus or
Harappan civilization (right). Note the
high d it f H it l
hi h density of Harappan sites along theth
Sarasvatī.
But only one culture was found spread
over this whole region, not two: the
* For a fuller treatment, see my separate presentation,
Harappan.* “Glimpses of the Indus-Sarasvatī Civilization”.
2a. The verdict of archaeology: negative
Had the Aryans migrated into India, we should expect some evidence of
different tools, weapons, objects of daily use, pottery style, art forms, etc. The
opposite is the case: after more than a century of archaeological
investigations, no physical evidence for the arrival in India of a new people in
the 2nd millennium BCE has come to light.
B B Lal Indian archaeologist: “The supporters of the Aryan invasion theory
B.B. Lal, The
have not been able to cite even a single example where there is evidence of
‘invaders,’ represented either by weapons of warfare or even of cultural
remains left by them.”
J.M. Kenoyer, U.S. archaeologist: “There is no archaeological or biological
evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the
end of the Harappan Phase, about 1900 B.C. and the beginning of the Early
B.C.”
Historic period around 600 B C ”
The Indus cities begin to collapse around 1900 BCE: even if Aryans had come
around 1500 BCE, they would have had nothing to do with their destruction.
Moreover, man-made
Moreover there is no trace of man made destruction or warfare anywhere in
the Indus civilization. There is therefore no justification for the crude
misrepresentations found in textbooks depicting Aryans attacking Harappan
cities. That is why even those scholars who today continue to believe in the
y y
arrival of Aryans have downgraded it to a peaceful immigration.
2b. The verdict of archaeology: positive
Continuity between
Indus-Sarasvatī civilization
and classical India
According to the Aryan invasion theory, the Indus civilization (3rd
millennium BCE) is “pre-Aryan” and “pre-Vedic,” while the later
BCE)
Gangetic civilization (1st millennium BCE), supposedly created by
the Aryans, is of Vedic culture.
This implies a complete cultural break between these two
i ili ti
civilizations.
Let us examine the evidence.
Top: Kalibangan, 2800 BCE: a
field with perpendicular rows
of furrows, an ingenious
system of intercropping for
the winter season. Taller crops
(mustard, etc.) can be grown
in the north-south long
furrows, without their
shadows affecting shorter
crops (gram etc.) in the east-
west furrows.
Bottom: At Kalibangan, a field
p g ,
ploughed in the 1960s, while
excavations were going on.
Peasants were still using the
4,800 year old
4,800-year-old system!
There is continuity between Harappan
weights (right) and India’s traditional
weights, used till the 20th century, for
instance in medicinal preparations or
jewellery,
jewellery as this table shows:
256 712
y
There is also continuity between
Harappan units of length: Lothal’s
ivory scale points to a unit of 1.77
mm; Kaligangan’s terracotta scale
1.75 cm.
(right) to 1 75 cm This agrees with
India’s traditional angula of 1.77 cm.
Left: A tablet from Mohenjo-daro depicting
a boat with raised sides and a central
cabin. Right: A traditional Mohana boat on
the Indus, with precisely the same shape.
Chess-like gamesmen from
Lothal (left) and dice from
Harappa (right) offer strong
evidence of cultural
continuity.
Left: The “dancing girl,” bronze
t t tt from M h j d
statuette f di l
Mohenjo-daro, displays
continuity in the wearing of bangles:
rural women in Rajasthan and Gujarat
often wear bangles over the whole left
arm. The bronze-casting technique
(“lost wax technique”) is still used by
traditional craftsmen in India today
( the S i l ib t )
(see th Swamimalai bronze casters).
Continuity of craft techniques,
cutting, drilling, bleaching, etc., of
semiprecious stones, metals and
shells and even designs has been
demonstrated between Harappan
jewels (right) and those
manufactured till recently in the
Khambat (Cambay) region.
Several important Harappan symbols
i d i t hi t i l ti Th
survived into historical times. The
“endless knot” is shown here on a
Mohenjo-daro copper plate (far left)
and on a Gujarat inscription of the 9th
century CE (near left).
This Harappan symbol is
very frequent on tablets,
etc.
pottery etc It is clearly the
precursor of the Hindu,
Buddhist and Jain swastika.
This statuette from Nausharo, Baluchistan, 2800
BCE reveals the use of vermilion (sindūr,
hair,
kumkum) at the parting of the hair just where
married Hindu ladies apply it today.
Modest Harappan graves
dead,
show respect for the dead
but unlike in ancient Egypt,
where the Pharaoh, high
priests or officials had
glorious tombs, here the
wealth was not buried with
the dead; it remained with
the living: death was not
regarded as all-important.
This is a typical Indian
attitude.
Evidence of animal sacrifice
(carefully built sacrificial pit from
Kalibangan)
Other elements of Harappan
f
religion: ritual purification through
water (left) at Mohenjo-daro’s
“Great Bath”.
Bottom left: tree worship.
Harappans used conch shells just
like today’s Hindus: with the mouth
cut open and used to pour libations
(bottom); d ith th ti t ff f
(b tt ) and with the tip cut off for
trumpeting (bottom right).
Evidence of fire worship in Harappan religion
(Left) A fire altar, about 2.6 x 2.6 m in a street at Lothal; the pit was
found to be full of ash and terracotta cakes; the big jar must have
been used to keep liquid offerings, perhaps oil or ghee. Such a
structure in a public place could only have been used for ritual
purposes. (Right) Fire temple at Banawali, Haryana, with the central
apsidal (semicircular) structure also found to be full of ash.
The Harappans worshipped a mother-
goddess, left.
goddess left This terracotta figurine
has two basket-like cups on either
side of the head, which were used as
oil lamps: traces of soot were found
in some of them.
Religion apart, the iconography
also shows continuities, left: a
Harappan mother-goddess;
i ht th dd f th
right: a mother-goddess of the
3rd century BCE. Both sport a
headdress of large flowers,
g g , g
huge ear-rings, a large necklace
and a pendant.
g p( g )
Evidence of linga worship (above left: Kalibangan) and of the trishūla
(above right) is a strong argument for cultural continuity.
The ritual slaying of a
buffalo on this terracotta
tablet k th
t bl t evokes the
Mahishamardini theme,
Durga’s slaying of the
buffalo-asura.
More possible
parallels between
parallels between
Harappan and Vedic
cultures
Indus seals: (Top left) A Vedic bull? (Top centre) The Unicorn: the Rig Veda speaks
with horn”; Mahābhārata, In
of a bull “with a sharpened horn ; Krishna in the Mahābhārata “In days of old ... I
was known by the name of Ekashringa [one-horned].” (Top right) Triple-headed
mythical creatures: in the Rig Veda, Agni is “three-headed”.
A three-faced god in yogic
posture, mūlabandhāsana
expresses mastery over wild
animals: an early
representation of Shiva? Shiva
is the “Lord of Yoga”
g
(Yoganāth) and also the “Lord
of the Beasts”.
A note of caution: Since the Indus script remains undeciphered, Harappan culture seen through archaeology is a
folk culture, while the Rig Veda is a specialized text intended to invoke divine powers. Although bridges between
the two are visible, they cannot be simply equated, just as today’s Hinduism practised in rural India is a mix of
mainstream, folk and tribal deities and rituals.
Harappan figurines in āsanas attest to some practice of yoga.
Left: The so-called
“priest-king” (from
Mohenjo-daro) in deep
meditation. Right: the
origin of India’s
“namaste” (a figurine
from Harappa).
gy p
The verdict of archaeology: positive
Between the Harappan and the Gangetic civilizations, we find numerous
continuities on the material level, in agriculture, technologies and crafts.
Harappan religion practises:
the ritual use of water
fire worship
Nature worship: trees and animals
Linga worship
Mother-goddess worship
animal sacrifice
religious processions
Yoga and meditation
All these are also characteristic features of Hinduism. Hence:
“The [Harappan] religion is so characteristically Indian as hardly to be
distinguished from still living Hinduism....” John Marshall, 1931
“Current studies of the transition between the two early urban civilizations
l i th t th i ifi tb k hi t ” J th M K
claim that there was no significant break or hiatus.” Jonathan M. Kenoyer
“It is difficult to see what is particularly non-Aryan about the Indus Valley
civilization.” Colin Renfrew
The
“The cultural and religious traditions of the Harappans provide the
substratum for the latter-day Indian Civilisation.” D.P. Agrawal
3. Anthropology & Genetics
K.A.R. Kennedy, U.S. bioanthopologist, after studying hundreds of skeletons of
Harappan and later times: “Biological anthropologists remain unable to lend
support to any of the theories concerning an Aryan biological or demographic
entity.... There is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the north-western
sector of the subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the
Harappan culture.” In other words, no demographic disruption by “Aryans”.
S.P. Gupta: “There was neither an Aryan race nor a Dravidian race. The concept of
‘race’ itself is a myth.”
Today s race ,
Today’s biologists and anthropologists no longer use the term of “race”, which is
an unscientific concept: it is impossible to biologically define a “race”. Biologists
speak of human types, ethnic groups, or haplogroups, which reflect the great
complexity of our human genetic heritage.
Contrary to a widespread misconception, darkness of skin is not related to “race”
or to any ethnic grouping: it depends purely on the latitude. Melanin, a dark
pigment in our skin, acts as a barrier against the effects of the ultraviolet rays of
sunlight. The closer we move to the tropics and equator, the higher the content of
melanin. Central Africans are black while North Africans are not; Italians are
noticeably darker than Swedes. The darker skin tones of south Indians (with
exceptions) have no other meaning; inhabitants of northern Karnataka or Andhra
are already much fairer (though linguistically Dravidian).
Recent genetic studies of Indian Indian populations have great genetic
populations have failed to detect y p g
diversity. In a map of genetic distances
the impact of an Aryan invasion (bottom left), the Chenchus, a Dravidian-
speaking tribe of Andhra Pradesh, are much
/ migration in the 2nd millennium
closer to Central Asia than Brahmins of the
India s
BCE on India’s gene pool. Punjabis
Goan region or Punjabis.
Y-DNA studies show that the “deep, common
ancestry” between India and Central Asia is
readily explained by northward migrations
from India’s Northwest some 40,000 years ago
(Sanghamitra Sahoo et al, 2006).
g p
“High castes share more than 80 per cent of
their maternal lineages [mtDNA] with the lower
castes and tribals.” (Kivisild et al, 2000)
Brahmins and the caste system are of
autochthonous origin al, 2009).
“autochthonous origin” (Sharma et al 2009)
Geneticists have started speaking of a “caste-
tribe continuum”: the notion of ādivāsi has no
scientific validity.
India’s populations are linguistically and
ethnically very diverse, but share a
“fundamental genomic unity” traceable to the
i i l li f I di b i t f
original peopling of India by migrants from
Africa some 50,000 years ago.
4. Linguistics
century
Problems with the linguistic scenario proposed by 19th-century European linguists:
It is a fact that Sanskritic and European languages belong too the same family. But even
after two centuries, linguists remain unable to agree on the location of the “original Indo-
homeland
European [= Aryan] homeland.” Proposed homelands still today spread from Northern
Europe to Southern Russia to the Caspian Sea or even Bactria.
Language need not spread through invasion / migration alone. For example, Sanskrit
spread through much of Asia in the first centuries CE but without any invasion by, or
migration of, Indians; its spread was a cultural, not a demographic, migration.
Beyond the “tree model”, with a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) as the
trunk of the tree, more complex models have been proposed to take “lateral influences”
g g p y
into account. Linguists agree that PIE is a convenient model but probably was never a
ground reality.
One recent model (by Russell Gray & Quentin Atkinson) argues in favour of an early
dispersal of PIE from Anatolia, from 6000 or 7000 BCE onward. With such a time-frame,
possible fact U.S.
dispersal from India is equally possible. In fact, another recent model (by U S linguist
Johanna Nichols) takes Bactria to be the original homeland; Bactria (today’s northeast
Afghanistan) was part of India’s cultural sphere. Scholars Koenraad Elst and Nicholas
Kazanas argue that PIE migrated out of India.
Dravidian languages (the four south Indian languages and a few other dialects) are distinct
from the Indo-European family, but linguistics remains unable to pinpoint their origin.
However, language and culture are distinct and should not be confused (e.g., Switzerland
has three languages but one culture; English covers many different cultures.)
In the end, linguistics, though an important discipline, is soft evidence which can be bent
to various interpretations. It cannot clinch the issue.
The horse controversy
Proponents of the Aryan theory often claim that Harappans did not know the horse, while Vedic
people did. The argument has many flaws.
Top left: Figurine of a horse from Mohenjo-daro, identified as such by Mackay. Top centre:
Figurine from Lothal. Top right: Horse bones from Surkotada, Gujarat, among horse
experts.
remains from a dozen sites certified by the best experts The Harappans did know the
horse, although it is true that they did not depict the animal on their seals.
If Aryans had introduced the horse into India around 1500 BCE, we should see an increase
of horse remains and depictions; there is none. The horse remains very rarely depicted in
bones.
India until the Mauryan age and many historical sites have no horse bones
In the Rig Veda, the adversaries of the āryas (the dasyus and panis) also have “horses”
(ashva). The equation horse = Vedic is a crude oversimplification.
In Vedic hymns to the dawn, Ushas is praised as “gomati ashvavati ”— literally “full of
cows and horses”! A literal reading of the Veda can only lead to such absurdities; the true
meaning is “full of light (go) and speed/energy (asva)”. We need to look at the Veda afresh.
Summary & C l i
S & Conclusions
• No sign of confrontation / man-made destruction anywhere in Harappan
cities during and after the Mature (urban) phase.
• g p p
No sign of the arrival of a new population in the 2nd millennium BCE: no
archaeological or anthropological discontinuities of the kind an invasion
should have caused.
• pp y
Harappan culture has many similarities with later classical Indian culture:
there is no cultural break of the kind imposed by the Aryan theory.
• The Vedic geography coincides with the Harappan civilization — but only
India s
one culture has been found in India’s Northwest, not two.
• There is no ground for the survival of divisive theories conceived in
colonial times and unsupported by any hard evidence.
A few Internet resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_India_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race
http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/en_index.html
http://www omilosmeleton gr/english/en index html
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/aryan-invasion-history.html
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_link.html
By Michel Danino:
http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/tamilculture.html
http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/indus.html
www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/Genetics_and_the_Aryan_Debate.pdf
www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/The_horse_and_the_Aryan_Debate.pdf
www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/A_Dravido-Harappan_connection.pdf
www omilosmeleton gr/pdf/en/indology/A Dravido Harappan connection pdf
Suggested Further Reading
Aurobindo, Sri, The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1998
Bryant, Edwin, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate,
Press
Oxford University Press, 2001
Chakrabarti, Dilip K, Colonial Indology: Sociopolitics of the Ancient Indian Past, Munshiram
Manoharlal, 1997
Danino, Michel, The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati, Penguin Books India, 2010
Michel, The D f I di Ci ili ti d th El i A
Danino, Mi h l Th Dawn of Indian Civilization and the Elusive Aryans, f th
D i i
forthcoming
Elst, Koenraad, Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate, Aditya Prakashan, 1999
Feuerstein, Georg, Kak, Subhash & Frawley, David, In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, Motilal
Banarsidass, 1999
Frawley, David, Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization, Motilal
Banarsidass, 1993
Kazanas, Nicholas, Indo-Aryan Origins and Other Vedic Issues, Aditya Prakashan, 2009
Lal B B The Sarasvati Flows On: The Continuity of Indian Culture Aryan Books International 2002
Lal, B.B, Culture, International,
Lal, B.B, The Homeland of the Aryans: Evidence of Rigvedic Flora and Fauna, Aryan Books
International, 2005
Rajaram, N.S. & Frawley, David, Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization: A Literary and
Voice f India, d d
Scientific Perspective, V i of I di 3rd ed, 2001
S i tifi P ti
Staal, Frits, Discovering the Vedas, Penguin Books, 2008
Talageri, Shrikant G, The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis, Aditya Prakashan, 2000
y
Trautmann, Thomas R, Aryans and British India, Vistaar, 1997
Trautmann, Thomas R, ed., The Aryan Debate, Oxford University Press, 2005
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