{"id":141,"date":"2019-08-21T12:41:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T12:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icp02.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=141"},"modified":"2019-08-21T12:55:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T12:55:20","slug":"141","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/icp02\/chapter\/141\/","title":{"rendered":"Issues in the Protohistory of India and Pakistan I:The Aryans"},"content":{"raw":"
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Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

The theory of an invasion of the Indian subcontinent by Aryans was born early in the early 19th century from comparative philology: it provided a convenient explanation of the kinship between Sanskrit and Europe\u2019s languages noticed by a few Jesuits and eloquently expressed by William Jones in the late 18th century. It received a fresh impetus with F. Max M\u00fcller\u2019s historical reading of the Rig-Veda, who saw in it the story of a prolonged conflict between invading Aryans and native Dasyus.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

While the quest for linguistic origins was legitimate, the theory was from the start marred by various kinds of racial, racist, Victorian and Eurocentric prejudices. It turned the Aryans into an aggressive, conquering, superior \u201cAryan race\u201d, which later became one of the pillars of the Nazi ideology. It was also used by the British colonial powers to divide Indian society into so-called Aryan and Dravidian \u201craces\u201d (among others) and to portray Vedic culture (and its later form of Hinduism) as \u201cimposed\u201d on the \u201cnatives\u201d, the latter assumed to be the ancestors of today\u2019s low castes, Dalits and tribals.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

After World War II and the horrors of the Nazi ideology, proponents of the theory tried to shed its racial baggage and to turn the Aryans into pure linguistic entities. At the same time, since the 1960s, the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) has steadily retreated in the face of a growing body of evidence from archaeology, cultural studies, anthropology and genetics, and has sometimes adopted the milder form of Aryan Migration Theory (AMT). This module examines the various facets of the issue, which has too often been dealt with simplistically or with various ideological biases.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

2. Evidence from the Texts<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Mountstuart Elphinstone, a British historian and statesman, wrote in his 1841 History of India<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Neither in the Vedas, nor in any book ... is there any allusion to a prior residence ... out of India.... There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present one.1<\/p>\r\n \r\n

British archaeologist Colin Renfrew agreed:<\/p>\r\n \r\n

As far as I can see, there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rigveda<\/em><\/strong> which demonstrates that the Vedic-speaking populations were intrusive to the area....<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Nothing implies that the Aryas were strangers there.2<\/p>\r\n \r\n

These statements sum up the lack of evidence for an invasion or migration in India\u2019s Vedic texts, an absence stressed by several Indian figures, such as Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Besides, all racial or colonial readings of the Rig-Veda, which, for instance, turned Dasyus into \u201cdark-skinned\u201d, \u201cstub-nosed\u201d aborigines, have been challenged in recent decades and discredited. Indologists now widely accept that the Veda makes no racial distinction, only a cultural one, between \u0100 ryas and Dasyus: the former are those who side with the gods, observe the right rituals, utter mantras correctly, and fight for the preservation of the cosmic order (<\/span>ritam<\/em><\/strong>), while the latter oppose it, are of \u201cgarbled speech\u201d and \u201cwrapped in darkness\u201d. Such themes are common to several ancient mythologies; reading races and historical conflicts in them is illegitimate.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

3. Evidence from Geography<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

A study of the Rig-Vedic geography brings out four points opposed to the AIT\/AMT scenario:<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n