The Aryan Debate
The IIT Kharagpur calendar of 2022 was much under limelight. Thousands of calendar are published every year but, none was debated so passionately. The calendar succeeded in bringing the Aryan question into popular debate, out from the classrooms. In an scholarly article Shri Gopichand Katragadda has emphasized following three points in support of Aryan Migration theory;-
1. That people migrated into pre-historic India in multiple waves is accepted in scholarly literature.
2. The Indus Valley Civilisation predates any known presence of Steppe pastoralist descendants in India as established by recent DNA analysis at Rakhigarhi by Vasant Shinde, et al., 2019, and Narasimhan, et al., 2019.
3. Harvard geneticist Prof David Reich, a co-author on both the papers, has also stated in an interview that, “Sometime in the first half of the second millennium BCE, descendants of Steppe pastoralists entered South Asia from the north, eventually contributing 0–30% of the genes of groups living today (varying depending on the present-day group), and also almost certainly bringing Indo-European languages.”
Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/12-evidences-of-the-lack-of-scholarly-method-and-rigour-1073677.html
The unfortunate part of “The Aryan Debate” is that the historians have taken sides; one group wants to believe that the Aryans migrated from the Steppe, whereas another wants Aryans to be original settlers of India. The dogmatic approach has obscured the ability to assess the evidence. The last line of the paragraph 3 above “…and also almost certainly bringing Indo-European languages” is a pertinent example. How purely linguistic conclusion could be drawn based on the genetic evidence is beyond comprehension.
The Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), was a purely linguistic theory; developed in nineteenth century to explain the one way borrowing of words of Sanskrit in Latin, Greek and other Indo-Aryan group of languages. If the words would have been mutually exchanged it could be explained by mingling of population. Finding the simple conclusion humiliating to westerners; that these languages may have originated from Sanskrit; which was the view of many earlier linguist and grammarian, a new mythical language Proto-Indo European was devised as mother of all Indo-European language.
The archeological finding of Indus valley sites of Harappa and Mohan-Jo-Daro in 1921 were big blow to this AIT. Those in favor of AIT explained it by suggesting that the Indus Valley people spoke Dravidian languages and Aryans pushed them to the south of India. As no archeological evidence of large-scale invasion was found, the invasion changed to migration and then to wave of migration. There are number of undisputed facts, which do not fit with AIT or AMT; few of which are listed hereunder:-
1. The names of the rivers of North-west India up to Afghanistan are in Sanskrit. New migrants used the original names of rivers and places too. This is a established trend world over, name of Manchester etc are pre-British, Mississippi, Missouri etc are red-Indian in origin. If Indus Valley people, who are pre-Aryan spoke Dravidian language these names would have been in that language.
2. The Vedic Sanskrit and Vedic literature developed in Indian subcontinent. Veda were preserved in original farm as it is since their compilation by a rigorous method, and can be treated as inscriptions of the ancient time. Rigveda describes a mighty Saraswati river originating in Himalayas and flowing upto sea. Earlier, it was treated a mythical river but, scientific researches during last few decades have proved that this river really existed from 80000 years before to 1900 BCE when diminished. Out of total 1500 Indus Valley sites 2/3rd are situated on the dry bed of this river. This find pushes back the antiquity of the Rig Veda several millennium back.
3. The Aryan Migration Theory suggests that the proto Indo European speaking Aryans migrated in small band from 1500 BCE settled in India, developed a sophisticated Vedic Sanskrit language and created huge Vedic literature comprising of four Vedas, hundreds of Brahmans, Aryanaykas, Upanishads, Suktas within 1000 years. There is unanimity that, the Vedic literature predates Buddha (Fifth Century BCE). This shorter time line is unrealistic.
4. The Aryans who wrote Vedas carry no memory of their Steppe past or their migration journey.
5. After migrating to India; Aryans came across a vastly superior pre-existing Indus-Saraswati Valley Civilization, having well developed urban settlement with large population. Why these urban settlements find no reference in Vedas? Why it describes a rural civilization? It is only possible when Aryans migrated to an unpopulated Sapta-Sindhu area and developed Vedic language and literature there prior to Indus-Saraswati Valley civilization i.e. prior to 7000 BCE!
6. Different Indus-Saraswati-Valley sites are dated from 7000 to 300 BCE. As per AMT, this civilization spoke a Dravidian language. Why did such an advanced civilisation leave no literature in its own language? How millions of Indus-Saraswati-Valley people; voluntarily abandoned their own language and adopted a language of few thousand nomadic migrating people of an inferior civilization?
7. Indus valley people have trade relation with Persia, Mesopotamia and China. What was the language of transaction?
8. Mitanni was an ancient Subaraean people with an Indo-Iranian ruling class having a kingdom in northern Mesopotamia that was dominant in Mesopotamia and northern Syria from the end of the 15th to the middle of the 14th century BCE. They spoke a Hurrian language, not related to Sanskrit. In a treaty between the Hittites and Mitanni (between Suppiluliuma and Shattiwaza, c. 1380 BC); the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are invoked. Kikkuli’s horse training text (circa 1400 BC) includes technical terms such as aika (Vedic Sanskrit eka, one), tera (tri, three), panza (pañca, five), satta (sapta, seven), na (nava, nine), vartana (vartana, round). The numeral aika “one” is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper (Vedic Sanskrit eka, with regular contraction of /ai/ to [eː]) as opposed to Indo-Iranian or early Iranian (which has *aiva; compare Vedic eva “only”) in general. This find has seriously challenged the AMT. It means the Mitanni have Sanskrit speaking ancestors who worshiped Vedic Gods. In course of time they forgot Sanskrit and adopted local language but had memory of their Gods and language. This further pushes the timeline of Vedas century back.
9. The narrative of Aryan-Dravidian; Sanskrit-Tamil divide is also under serious challenge. Tamil and Sanskrit are two different languages separately developed but have deep mutual influence on one another. They used common script Brahmi in ancient time. Grammatical rules of changing person, tense, number by adding suffixes are common to both languages. The literature was mutually translated from one to another. Tamil was popular in Kavery river area, whereas Sanskrit was popular north of Godawari. The languages of boundary area were mix of both languages. Sanskrit and Tamil both were in use in South East Asian countries.
Supporters of AIT/AMT. could not explain the above points. The simple solution of this problem is that, the Sanskrit or its parent language was developed by original settlers of the fertile area of Sapta-Sindhu. They developed Sanskrit language and created Vedic literature. As they were original settlers the river names have Sanskrit roots. That is why Vedas have no memory of their earlier habitat or migration journey. Group of them moved in all direction influencing other people and languages. This explains the mutual influence of Tamil and Sanskrit. Some of them moved out and settled in other places forming Mitanni like settlements; adopting local language in course of centuries but remembered Vedic Gods and Sanskrit number. Initially a rural people, Aryans developed in course of times urban settlement which are Indus-Saraswati sites. Through trade and inter-mingling the language spread and have influence on other languages. This is to suggest that the Vedic people and Indus Valley people are part of a continuous civilisation.
