Who Were Aryans ?

by Anwar Shaikh

The Rgveda is the foundation of the Indian history, and this fact equally applies to both Pakistan and Bangladesh because these countries are as much racially, culturally and geographically part ot India as are the people of the Ganga- Jamna Doab. The significance of history to a nation is the same as vision is to eyes, tongue is to taste and comprehension is to brain.

Since history is a major part of national character, the nation without history is lost. This is exactly what has happened to the people of the Indian sub-continent. The Brahman stopped the Hindus from reading the Vedas to establish his monopoly of the Scriptures because it assured him sustenance, safety and superiority. Their ignorance of the indigenous Holy Books, coupled with the Islamic propaganda and political suzerainty, persuaded the Indian Muslims to find an easy way out of the ignominy, which the Indian nationality brings for the depression, degradation and devaluation of character that India has suffered for being a political toy of the foreign predators over the last 1000 years. This is a tragedy of gigantic proportions when people deny their own ancestry to avoid historical infamy under the cover of religion. Muslims in other countries are proud of being Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Afghans, and so on, but the followers of Islam in India refuse to be named as Indians and prefer to be called as the children of the Arabs, the Turks, the Mughals, etc. The truth is that at least 95% of them are Indian by blood and the remaining 5% have lived long enough on the Indian soil to become Indians. This is how they are known to the Arabs, Iranians and Mughals, who simply laugh at them for this pretence which is so shallow, self-supercilious and scandalous.

Realising that a nation is doomed without history, some Indian writers have started forging it to suit their palate for escaping the pangs of inferiority-complex. This is even worse than the Brahmanical practice of not putting facts into writing for the sheer joy of keeping people ignorant so that they must beg the priestly classes for guidance.

Does India have a history of its own? Yet it has, and it is bright like the sun that illumines the planets, which will otherwise be permanently drowned in a sea of darkness. What I am about to state is not based on wishful thinking but the truth. Unfortunately, the Indian history has not only been maligned but also grossly understated. Some fifty years ago, we were told that the Indians never set foot abroad, but now we know the story of what is called Greater India, that is, the Indians had a lasting empire in several countries of the Far East.

The facts that the Indians ruled the West for at least five centuries and also settled in several parts of the East. They possessed a civilisation which was superior to everything that other nations could dream of. The proof is in the Rgveda which I shall present to the readers for their examination. Wherever the Indians went, they took their Vedic civilisation with them to benefit the natives of the foreign lands.

How did it happen?

It started with emigration from the Punjab which took place in many waves at different times. One can take 1500 B.C. as a fairly safe point of inception. The Punjabis of that period had classified themselves as the Kashatrya, the martial Hindu caste known for its ferocity, gallantry and chivalry. Fighting was a part of their dharma. Dying for honour and prestige was a goal of life, and turning one's back on danger was considered the lowest conduct, which brought utmost social disgrace. Though the Manu Smriti, the Hindu Code of Law, was devised much later, it is for this reason that it treats honourable fighting a great virtue, and cowardice as the worst sin.

Readers should not look at me with disbelief when I categorically state that it was the Punjabis and their progeny, who were the Aryans. I intend to argue this case with reason and evidence. The Aryans were not the people who invaded India through the northern passes but they were Indians from the Punjab who invaded the West and several eastern countries through northern passes. There is not one word in the Rgveda which describes the Aryans as foreigners. If they were outlandish invaders, this fact could not have escaped mention in the Rgveda whose vision has captured the cosmological facts with a good deal of circumspection. In fact, the history has been deliberately misinterpreted by the Western scholars. Since their people became the masters of India, they invented this theory to impress Indians with a aense of inferiority to prepare them for a lasting submission to the foreign rule. By the time the while nations conquered India, the Hindus had suffered so much at the hands of their Muslim predators that their taste for facing reality suffered a terrible setback. In fact, the Indian habit of escaping the world with a view to seeking solace from fancy, started with the Arab conquest of Sindh and was carried to its apex by the Turkish invades such as Mahmood Ghaznavi. He subjected India to no fewer than seventeen raids with the sole purpose of plundering Indian wealth and raping Indian damsels, yet he believed that he was discharging his most sacred duty to Allah who rejoices in the destruction of innocent infidels and condones the most heinous acts of the perpetrator as sacred, sweet and superb. This unusual Islamic morality was bound to warp the Indian mind, used to Ahimsa and opposed to violence. As the Hindus succumbed to the Muslim might, their faith in the Vedic traditicns tumbled lifting the foreign creed to its acme, and crushing the pride in Indian values; what was Islamic, became virtuous and veritable and what was Indian turned out to be vicious and venomous India might have recovered politically much sooner than most historians think, because the Indians did not lose their prowess and will to fight. This is clear from the fact that every time they were raided, they fought grimly. It was their disunity, mainly caused by the Caste System, which spelt their doom. India, the land of wealth, weal and wizardry, was the greatest prize that fell into the hands of these foreign thieves who thought of theft as a Divine gift, bubbling with Allah's mercy, mellowness and munificence. However, this gift was too big for these plunderers to hold indefinitely because of their small numbers. To prolong their suzerainty, they decided to destabilise the Hindu mind through a psychological process of brain-washing which spelt utter contempt of the Indian values and projected the Islamic precepts as great, gracious and godly. This process of self-hating persuaded the Hindus to become Muslims and share in the blessings of Allah who lives in Mecca, venerates Kaaba as the holiest place on earth and demands of all non-Arab Muslims to prostrate towards the birth-place of the Prophet day and night. To perfect this mental slavery, Islam condemned Benares, the holiest Hindu centre, as the most contemptible place for being the home of idolatory. This is what paralysed the Hindu mind through inferiority-complex which has proved to be the most derogatory, destructive and devastating to the Indian sense of national honour. This process of brain-washing has been so successful that it has turned every Indian Muslim into a moth, eager to cremate itself on the Islamic candle without any extraneous pressure. In Britain, all Britons, whether they be Protestanis, Catholics, Buddhists or Muslims, think of themselves as one nation and will unite to defend their national honour against any danger but the Indian Muslims hate Hindus and whatever they stand for, and think of themselves as Arabs, Turks and Mughals! This is a stunning example of inferiority-conplex, which makes a person believe what he is not.

Then came the British. They were far superior rulers to the ones they replaced. Whereas the Muslim suzerains failed to build one university in India, the British founded an educational network in the country which proved to be the envy of many lands and served as the springboard for India to launch itself into the 20th Century. It was also the British who invented what is called "INDOLOGY," which means a search into the Indian legacy for assessing its historical and cultural magnitude. For their aversion to writing, the Indians had kept no records of their past achievements. The British made a splendid job of it and, as other advanced European nations came to know of it, they a so joined the British orchestra in humming the Indian cultural glory still higher. While I applaud the European effort, I must point out that the Europeans could not do complete justice to the cultural achievements of India. An enigma as this statement appears to be, I should explain it. The Europeans did agree to the intellectual, rational and cultural splendour of the Rgveda, a product of the Aryan mind but refused to accept that the Aryans were Indians. It was a device to deny the benficence which India had bestowed on the European civilisation and many other cultures. The inferiority-complex which the Indians had come to inherit generation after generation, exerted its evil influence once again; to overcome their psychological compulsions, they felt elated when they heard the news that they were racially as good as the Europeans because the Aryans were Europeans who invaded India. They possessed the luxury of blue eyes and blonde hair. Flattering and gratifying thought though it was, it did no justice to the honour of India used to receiving perennial battering at the hands of foreigners. Accepting such a theory of the Aryan origin without investigation, proved far more lethal to the Indian glory than the combined devastation caused by Allah's fighters in the name of piety, probity and purity. Why? India is the home of the Aryans who civilised the West: the migration is from India to Europe, and many eastern countries, and not the other way round. Once we know this truth, we realise that wherever the Indians (Aryans) want, they took with them the Rgveda, which influenced the new lands of the Aryan settlements.

I have no doubt India, especially the Punjab, is the original home of the Aryans whose descendants settled in Europe and elsewhere carrymg their Vedic traditions which eventually grew to become the trunks of the world civilisation. However, I must warn readers that this emigration took place from the Punjab many millenia ago when sources of knowledge were limited and historical records scarce. The Hindu indifference to writing has added further difficulties in this field. Again, this subject has been debated widely with wild and wilful arguments on both sides so profusely that it has become difficult to tell the wood from trees. Therefore, readers should expect a proof based on balance of probabilities. This is the general standard for deciding cases in any court of law, and ought to be acceptable.

However, I must add that the purpose of this discussion is not to indulge in racism. To my mind all humans, irrespective of their nationalities, are equally blessed with intellectual and moral potential. A nation is superior because it has cultivated its potential, and not because superiority has been woven into its fabric; the greatness of a nation depends on its principles and practices. I believe that both the Aryans and Semites are members of the human race and thus, deserve equal respect and dignity. We know that the Arabian peninsula is the home of the Semites but no one has so far pinpointed the origin of the Aryans, who have made a great contribution to the world civilisation. The country which produced Aryans is entitled to some cultural elation though not racial arrogance. Unfortunately, Aryanism nas become a vehicle for flaunting racial pride. As the l9th century noted, Comte de Gobineau fervently raised the spectre of an "Aryan race" fully drenched in racial bigotry and bewilderment; his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain took it to the extreme by emphasising that all human progress was due to the Aryans who were superior to the Semites i.e. the Arabs and Jews, as well as the yellows and blacks. This notion became a national slogan of the Nordic or German peoples leading to untold misery of mankind.

Being a humanist, I am totally averse to this type of thinking. On several grounds, I believe that the Punjab (India) is the original home of the Aryans, and this land should be given some credit for its contribution to the world civilisation.

Aryan means noble; it is derived from the Sanskrit word "Arya." One can say that as Sanskrit is the language of the Rgveda which was composed in the Punjab, this language originated in the said land, and thus ranked as the religious tongue of the Punjabis though it was not their every-day spoken dialect. This assumption gathers a good deal of credibility when we look at the Urdu language which was developed in the Punjab as a literary vehicle though rarely spoken by the man-in-the-street. Of course, there are people who claim that Urdu was born in Delhi and its suburbs, but they do not realise that Delhi had been a part of the Punjab.

Since the Rgveda is the oldest Scripture af the world, Sanskrit is the oldest literary language of mankind. William Jones ranked it superior both to Greek and Latin but that happens to be an understatement. According to Max Muller, even a modern language like English does not have sufficient means to express "high state of mental excitement" as done by Sanskrit. This shows the cultural development of the ancient Punjabis, which is fully backed by the Rgveda. Alternatively. as the Brahmins wanted to keep the Vedas a secret lore, they had to invent an exclusive language which only they or the elite understood. There is nothing incredible about this statement. Esperanto, the artificial anguage constructed in 1887 by Ludwik Zamenhof, a Polish occulist, and intended for use as an international second language, proves my case. As the Aryans spread in Asia and Europe, Sanskrit as the Divine tongue of the Rgveda attained the status of a lingul franca, and thus influenced those dialects which came to be known as Indo-European languages such as Greek, Latin. German, etc. However, it stands to reason that the dialect spoken in the Punjab at that time, must have played some part in the construction of Sanskrit. Even this point of view vouches for the cultural glory of the Punjab and is confirmed by the fact that the first university of the world was founded in Taxila, which lasted many centuries.

As origin of the Aryans is a big cultural issue, and from my point of view, has a great bearing on the significance of the Rgveda, I mav first refer to those arguments, which claim the Aryans were foreigners, who entered the Punjab as conquerors, and thereafter spread to other parts of India over a period of centuries:

1. It has been argued that, as signs of early civilisation have been traced to Sumeria and Babylonia, the Aryans must have come to India from these lands.

2. The language of central Asia serves as the focal point for the Aryan origin. Of the two linguist streams which prevailed there, one found its way north-west to Europe and the other south-east to the Asian territories. It shows that the Aryans might have migrated from Central Asia to Europe and India.

This claim is further reinforced by the assertion that most other invaders such as Turks and Mughals came to India from the same parts of Asia.

3. As the Aryans were not a maritime people, they surely came to Ihe Punjat through the north-western passes. They defeated the Dravidians, aborigines of the Punjab, and took cver their country. They subdivided themselves again. One group left for Iran but the other stayed put to be known as the Indo-Aryans.

4. Mr. B. C. Tilak, a research scholar of international repute, concludes that the snow-bound Arctic region or the North Pole was the original home of the Aryans. His argument is based on the fact that the Aryans knew that the length of days and nights equalled six months in that part of the globe. When excessive snow caused destruction of animal life, and the process of living became very difficult for the people, they decided to migrate. A part of them settled in Iran, and the others invaded the Punjab to seek settlement there.

5. Another argument states that the south-east Europe, especially the countries known as Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria are the original home of the Aryans. It is because trees like the oak and beech and animals llke the horse and cow, which have been mentioned in the Rgveda and the Avesta, can be found in south-east Europe only. Thus, Greeks, Germans, Persians and Indians had a common homeland. These people were called Aryans who depended on an agricultural economy.

6. Yet another opinion asserts south Russia as the original habitat of the Aryans. The basis of this theory is the antiquity of Tripolic pottery and its similarity to that of the Indo-Europeans. One branch of these people who came to be known as Aryans, settled in Iran and the other headed for the Punjab. It ought to be mentioned that Dr. R. C. Majumdar of India, concurs with this theory.

7. Dr. R. C. Majumdar, M.A., PhD., the honorary head or the Department of History, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, acted as the general editor of the famous work known as "The Vedic Age;" he insists that the Aryans were not indigenous to India but were of European origin. Restated simply, the following are his arguments:

a. The comparative philology suggests that "of all the living European languages of the present day, it is Lithuanian, and not Sanskrit (even if considered a living language) or any of its daughter dialects, that has kept closest to the basic idiom reoonstructed by Comparative Philology."

b. Most of the Indo-European languages (which are related to Sanskrit) "are crowded together within the comparatively small space of Europe, covering practically the whlale of that continent, whereas outside Europe .... are found only scattered members of it, and ending at least in the age of the earlier Rgveda, in the region of the Punjab. The geographical distribution of the idioms of the Indo-European speech- family, therefore, does suggest that the original home of the Indo-Europeans (the Aryans) is to be sought rather in Europe than Asia."

c. He also insists that if the Punjabis were the Aryans, they must have Aryanised the whole of India hefore marching into Europe and other parts of the world.

8. Again, another opinion states the Caspian region as the original home of the Aryans. The Iranians call these lands as "Airyano-Vaejo - The Aryan home." About the same time as the Aryans, known to be Iranians, entered Iran, the Aryan Kassites overran Babylonia, and the Aryans who were to be called the Punjabis, conquered the and, Sapta Sindhu (the Punjab).

9. Mesopotamia saw the arrival of the Aryan Kassites, who introduced the horse and the chariot and bore European names such as Surias, Indas and Maruttas (which in sanskrit mean Surya, Indra and Marutah). Again a treaty c. 1400 B.C. betweer the Hittites, who were recent arrivals to Anatolia, and the Mittannis invoked four deities - Indara, Unuvna, Mitira and Nasatiya (names which are found in the Rgveda as Indra, Varuna, Mitra and Naksatras). Once again, the clay tablets dating back to c. 1400 B.C. written at Tell-el-Armarna in Babylonian cuneiform, describe the names of princes as Biridashva and Artamanya, which are also Indo- European. An inscription at Bogazkoy of about the same date as mentianed above refers ta certain Indo-European technical term, in training of horses: association of the horse with these people, would point their origin to Central Asia or the southern Russian steppes.

10. Similarity of Avesta, the Iranian Scripture, with that of Rgveda shows that the Iranians and the Punjabis are closely related. It appears that a branch of the Iranians moved into Sapta Sindhu where most of the hymns of the Rgveda were composed.

One can quote many other opinions to support the idea of the Aryans being foreign conquerors of India. This theory is puerile, perverse and petty-minded for ignoring facts, and especially misinterpreting them. However, as a mitigating factor, I must mention that the people of the Indian sub- continent have fallen from the political and cultural grace for the last one thousand years. This disgrace has been magnified many times over by the fact that the Indians kept no record of their history. Small wonder that they have been looked down upon by the Europeans who deserve the credit for creating modern civilisation. Their low opinion of India prompted them to call aborigines of various countries as "Indians." Even British historians like James Mill and the Utilitarians condemned the Indian culture as irrational and inimical to human progress. It is its present plight which attracts aversion, apathy and antagonism, and not its true nature. When looked at seriously and sincerely, it transpires that without the beneficence of the Vedic Culture, this planet would still be wandering in the orbit of ignorarce.

This is a big assertion. To demonstrate its veracity, I shall give counter-arguments to prove fallacy of these theories. and thereafter shall enumerate a host of convincing facts that it is the Punjabis who are the true Aryans and it is they who played a substantial role in civilising the east and the west.

Here are my counter-arguments which shall be stated in the same order as the arguments:

1a. There is no conclusive proof that civilisation started in Sumeria and Babylon. The Indus Valley Civilisation is not only older than the Semitic civilisation but its artifacts, such as steatite seals, exhibit a superiority of design and finish over the Mesopotamian products. The scholarly opinion has been warped by the present social state of the Indian sub-continent. Learned men find it hard to believe the people who have got used to such a way of life, could have been cultural pioneers of the world. However, the truth is becoming evident and some historians such as Will Durant have acknowledged the precedence of the Indian culture aver that of Mesopotamia i.e. Sumeria and Babylonia.

2a. This is a silly argument, because on the basis of language, India surpasses all countries. Sanskrit, basically the language of the Rgveda, was developed in the Punjab for expressing the mystical, Intuitive and spiritual observations of the Vedic seers. It proves the incomparable cultural status of the Punjab, and shows the level at which they canducted their cogitation and observation of the natural phenomena.

This is the reason that Sir William Jones, the father of Indology, declared Sanskrit as the "more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either."

One must bear in mind that Greek and Latin were considered the most celebrated languages of the world until scholars came to realise the beauty, brilliance and blandness of Sanskrit. This fact is evident from the word: "Sanskrit" itself, which means "prepared, pure, perfect, sacred." This is the reason that it has never been the language of the man-in-the-street but of the scholarly, the learned and the saintly. Every Aryan tribe has had a tongue of its own, yet there is no language which has not been influenced by Sanskrit, and it goes for the most modern languages too, such as English, German, Persian, Urdu, and so on.

Just because most invaders came to India from Central Asia through the Khyber pass, it does not prove that the Aryans were also foreign invaders, and not indigenous to the Punjab. It is equally likely that the Aryan or Punjabi invaders might have gone through the same passes to the various parts of the world. I intend to narrate this story which has become a part of the historical mystery.

3a. Aryans versus Dravidian is ane of the biggest myths of history. Nor is there any proof that they were ignorant of seafaring. This argument is irrelevarit with regard to the Aryan origin.

4a. This is a trivial argument. The arctic region has always been so thinly populated that its people are numerically insigniticant to form "waves of Aryan migrants" to fill the plains of Europe and Asia.

Sa. Trees like oak and beech are not confined to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria. They grow in most cold climes. Thus, this argument is baseless.

6a. It is unwise to decide the origin of such a great race as the Aryans on such a flimsy evidence as a few pieces of pottery. Some Indian scholars have accepted this argument to mitigate their grief of persecution-complex arising out of sense of inferiority, because it enables them to enjoy membership of the "White Race."

7a. Philology is a term used in the study of comparative and historical linguistics, the study of the evolution and interrelations of languages and the lingual changes. Its main purpose has been to establish language families on the basis of linguistic relationships.

Again, Lithuania is a tiny country having a population of just over 3 million in 1973. Several thousand years ago, it could not have possessed sufficient numbers to populate other regions. It is a part of the Baltic lands along with Latvia and Estonia. There is no doubt that by the middle of the 14th century, Lithuania became powerful enough to control an area extending from the Baltic Sea to lands beyond the Dnieper River in the east and almost to the Black Sea in the south. But it cannot retain ts purity of idiom because it is heavily influenced by other languages of the area such as Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Veps, Ingrian, Votic and Livonian. Besides, the Lithuanian language has also been affected by the extinct Old Prussian, Yotvingian, Curonian, Selonian and Semigallian languages. It is interesting to note that like other Baltic languages, Lithuanian is more closely related to Indo-Iranian than to the Indo European family.

This is not true that it is a well-preserved tongue because Lithuanian as a literary language has been in use since the 16th century and is much different from old Lithuanian. Of course, it has retained some of its archaic features which it inherited from the ancestral Proto-Indo-European language. This is not peculiar to Lithuanian but all Baltic languages. Thus, the Baltic lands cannot be cited as the original home of the Aryans. The truth is the other way round: tongues of the tiny nations, not used to foreign intercourse, stay comparatively pure.

7b. Most of the Indo-European languages are crowded in Europe because this is where the Punjabis settled. The fact that the Punjab is the only such region outside Europe proves that the Punjab has greater links with the Aryans than any other land. Is it not mystifying to think that the Aryans migrated from Europe to the Punjab only, and nowhere else? However, when the Punjab is treated as the fountain of the Aryans, this mystery is solved.

7c. It is a silly argument. Migration is governed by the rules of necessity, and not by the laws of logic. The Punjabis migrated into various parts of the world according to the dictates of time. Samavdea, Yajurveda and Atharveda conclusively prove that it is the Punjabis who urbanised the Ganges Valley during the later vedic period around 1000 B.C., and the archaelogical discoveries witness this fact to the hilt. The mutual strife of the Punjabis in which they excel, made them move from the Sapta Sindhu (the Punjab) into the Ganfes-Yamuna Doab, thus depriving the Sindhu of divinity, which they bestowed on the Ganges River. According to their old custom, they thought of the people beyond these territories as Mlecchas, the impure barbarians for being unfamiliar with the Aryan speech and customs. After all, they were the Aryan, which meant "noble." No wonder, they called the areas occupied by themselves as "Aryavarta," the Land of the Nobles - to distinguish themselves from the natives.

8a. Iranians claim to have migrated from Airyano-Vaejo "The Aryan home" but the Punjabis or the Vedic Aryans have never admitted a foreign origin. There is not a word in the Rgveda to this fact. Therefore, the Iranians are not indigenous to Iran but the Vedic Aryans are native to the Punjab. The fact that Iranians had the same Vedic gods such as Indra, Mitra and Varuna along with the love of Soma, indicates that the Iranians migrated from the northern Punjab which they call "Airyano-Vaejo." However, I shall return to this theme in the last section of this discussion.

9a. It is obviously a manipulation of history because fair interpretation of this episode demands that the Kassites, the Hittites and the Mittannis should be regarded as the people who had originally migrated from the Punjab because the names of their gods demonstrate quite clearly that they practised the Vedic religion. It is unviersally accepted that the Rgveda is a product of the Punjab.

Regarding "horse" as the kernel of the argument, one ought to remember that Arabia produces the finest horses in the world, yet nobody has ever said that horse is a native of Arabia. Just because these people were skilled horse-riders, cannot be an argument for calling Caspian or Russian Steppes as the real home of the Aryans.

We seem to forget that the first military sect of the world was torn in the Punjab. These people, called Kshatriya, were adept warriors, and must have been great horse-riders. The Rgveda mentions chariots as the tool of battles. Where there is a chariot, there are horses. When a chariot is a tool of war, its driver has got to be a superb horseman.

Fiction seems at its best when writers-on-antiquity claim that there were no horses in India. It is strange that all courtries seem to, possess this animal except India, which has always housed 20%, of the world population. Mention of horse is frequent in the Rgveda and Asvameda is at least a five thousand year old fundamental Vedic ritual. It is based on sacrificing horse. Therefore, one cannot accept Caspian or Russian Steppes as the true home of the Aryans on account of "horse" and its training methods. The mention of the Vedic deities in this context, proves tne said people were of the Punjabi origin and confirms that once they were great horse-riders.

10. I think that the real contestants in this race are the Punjab and Iran. Claims of the other lands as origin of the Aryans, can be dismissed unhesitantly as shown above.

As caged birds lose taste for flying, the nations burdened with foreign domination, whether it be political or ideological, get used to a slavish mentality, and begin to demonstrate disrespect to what is sacred, super and supreme in their own culture. Veracity of this statennent reveals itself when we study attitudes of the Muslims of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh who feel proud of bullying, bruising and bashing the honour of their Hindu ancestors and what they stood for. So ashamed are they of their origin that they pretend to be the progeny of the Arabs, the Turks and the Mughals, who were nothing but their oppressors. It is unwise to complain about the attitudes ot the people who are pleased to punish the memory or their own ancestors with utmost profanity, perfidy and perversion. Obviously, they have lost sense of honour and sanity of thinking; otherwise how can they twist history just to appease their guilt which arises out of inferiority-complex pulsating with shame, stupidity and sterile feeling.

When one looks seriously at the Hindus themselves, who claim to be the devotees of the Vedas, it transpires that their devotion and dutifulness are as tenacious as the swelling beauty of a bubble. Their praise for their proverbial ancestry and cultural excellence is paltry, puerile and parsimonious. Ancestor-worship is such an exciting part of the Vedic teaching that it was taken up by countries as great as China, yet some Hindu scholars will give anything to prove that the Aryans were iroreign invaders and not the natives of India. This is a gross disrespect to the Aryans especially when the arguments for their being Indian easily outweigh the reasoning to the contrary.

Here, I am especially referring to the compilers of "The Vedic Age, " whose fervour to look members of the white race, has given them an outlook towards their national identity, which is illusive, idiotic and ill-mannered. The Rgveda is the true source of the Indian traditions of honour and cultural excellence because this is the greatest text which was conceived by the Indian mind and which has exerted more influence on human civilisation than any other book. One can clearly see on page 223 of "The Vedic Age," the arguments of its compilers. They insist:

1. The Iranians remembered that they migrated from Eranvej but the Vedic Indians maintained a deliberate silence about their homeland from where they had emigrated to India.

2. To stress the Iranian origin of the Vedic Indians, the compilers of "The Vedic Age" stress: "thus the names Rasa, Sarsvati and Bahylika, not to speak of others, must have been brought to India from Iran by the Aryans and applied to two Indian rivers and one Indian province."

3. "It would seem that those parts of the Rgveda in which possible or probable Iranian names occur, were composed already in Iran, as Hillebrandt actually suggested."

It is sinful to base serious facts of history on one's personal conjecture. In this case, it is the inferiority-complex of the authors of these statements which has prompted them to seek a non-Indian origin of their national identity. Though I hope to advance some irrefutable arguments about the Punjabi origin of the Aryans at a later stage, I do not wish to tackle the above assertions individually right now. Instead I shall quote learned opinion to avoid innuendoes of jingoism.

Zaratushtra, the great Persian prophet certainly influenced several religions of later date such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam but he himself was guided by the Rgveda. The books called "Avesta" contain his doctrines, sayings and prayers. Scholars have opined about this Zaratushtrian collection. Will Durant, a highly respected American historian, says about Avesta: "The Student discovers here and there the gods, the ideas, sometimes the very words and phrases of the Rgveda - to such an extent that some Indian scholars consider the Avesta to have been inspired not by Ahura-Mazda (God) but by the Vedas." (The Story of Civilisation: Our Oriental Heritage: 11-366).

Can scholars of non-lndian origin think differently in view of such a devastating evidence? This is the reason that Iran is not the origin of Aryans because they remember that they migrated from Eranvej. On the contrary, Punjabis, the Vedic Aryans, have no recollection of any migration because the Punjab had been their eternal home.

Origin of the Aryans is a major historical issue. I believe that it can be solved with reference to the Rgveda only, the most ancient, the most relevant and the most authentic document on the subject, which was composed in the Punjab. Having advanced counter-arguments to what has been said on the issue, now I may resort to positive reasoning which will demonstrate that many Europeans and Asians adopted the Vedic principles concerning religion, philosophy and cultural attitudes. This is possible only if the Punjabis had migrated to other lands. I contend that the Punjabis are the true Aryans.

However, to give credibility to this narralive, I must answer one question, that is, if Punjabis are the progenitors of the Aryan race and the harbinger of civilisaiton, then how come that the Punjab is devoid of any political glory?

This is a bona fide question; this is also true that the Punjab lacks political lustre. The reason is simple: political glory such as empire-building is a mark of national conscience and unity. The Punjabis suffer from a deep malaise which may be termed as "Unnationalism." Owing to their religious fervour, they prefer to be called Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Christians instead of being addressed as Punjabis. The religious hatred has become their driving torce, which keeps erupting occasionally leading to sectarian killings and massacres. In 1947, religious fanatics murdered no fewer than one million fellow-Punjabis, though some put the number at two million! Again, in 1947, the Punjab was divided into two political units - the East and the West Punjab. Since then the East Punjab has been subdivided into three units, and there is a strong likelihood that the West Punjab will suffer a similar fate.

On the contrary, the Aryans who organised themselves on a national pattern, gained political ascendency and built empires. Take the Iranians, for example. According to Herodotus, the Persians (Iranians) ''esteem themselves to be far the most excellent of men." It was an article of their faith that a country geographically nearer to Iran is luckier than the one situated farther away from it!

For lacking this spirit, the Punjabis have suffered political humiliation but their religious zeal has been a blessing to mankind. Without it, they could not have emigrated to spread the Vedic message in other lands.

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