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"India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the
mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much
of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals
embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities
of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many
ways the mother of us all."
- Will Durant
"If there is one place on the face of this Earth "where all the dreams of living men have found a home "from the very earliest days when Man began the dream of"existence, it is India." - Romain Rolland - French Philosopher 1886-11944
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Our view of human history colors the perception of who we are in a fundamental way. It
creates the infrastructure of ideas according to which we interpret the world. Like the
limitations of our senses we seldom question the limitations of our historical view, which
we take as a given fact, even though it changes with every generation. Each society
creates an idea of history through which it interprets civilization in its own image. In
the modern age science, technology and rational materialism have created an historical
view that makes ancient Greece, in which the seeds of modern culture arose, the basis of
civilization as a whole. It looks to the precursors of civilization in the ancient Near
East, Sumeria and Egypt, from which the Greeks derived the rudiments of their culture.
This view ignores or denigrates other ancient traditions like those of India, China or
Mesoamerica as of little importance. Indeed if we examine books on world history today we
discover that they are largely histories of modern Europ, with non-European cultures
turned into a mere footnote, or simply dismissed as primitive, that is not technologically
advanced, however spiritually or artistically evolved they may have been.
In the post-colonial era, however, we are now questioning this Eurocentric and
materialistic view of humanity. We are recognizing the value of traditional cultures and
indigenous peoples, whose mistreatment and devaluation now appears on par with the
destruction of our natural environment that we have been hastily promoting in the name of
material progress. With a new understanding of depth psychology, mythology and comparative
religion we are gaining a greater appreciation of spiritual ways of life, like the science
of yoga, which developed outside of both the European and Middle Eastern cultural
matrixes.
A number of racial, ethnic and religious groups have challenged their negative portrayal
in modern Eurocentric historical accounts. For example, the European conquest of America,
which was previously regarded as the benign expansion of advanced European civilization,
is now being reinterpreted as a genocide of native peoples and destruction of their
ancient cultures. Non-European cultures are no longer accepting the European
interpretation of their histories, which not surprisingly makes their cultures inferior to
that of Europe. This movement of historical rectification is bringing about a revolution
in our view of history that is only just beginning and is bound to change our idea of who
we are as human beings.
India is another country whose history has been greatly distorted by a colonial and
materialistic European bias. India was the foremost of the British colonies and the center
for the spiritual view of humanity that the materialistic mind has ever opposed. Now
historians of ancient India are raising questions about the Eurocentric interpretation of
Indian history and bringing forth new views that give greater validity to the traditional
culture and literature of the subcontinent which has always emphasized the spiritual life.
In this article we will examine important new discoveries in regard to ancient
India that show the need for a radical reexamination of the history of the region. A
careful study of the data today reveals that existing accounts of ancient India and
thereby world history as well - particularly the Aryan invasion theory which is the
cornerstone of the Eurocentric interpretation of India - are contrary to all the evidence
and need to be totally altered. This is indeed a bold statement but, if true as the facts
outlined below will indicate, requires changing the entire way in which Indian
civilization has been evaluated.
The main idea used to interpret the ancient history of India, which we still find in
history books today, is the theory of the Aryan invasion. According to this account, which
I will briefly summarize, India was invaded and conquered by nomadic light-skinned
Indo-European tribes (Aryans) from Central Asia around 1500-1000 BC. They overran an
earlier and more advanced dark-skinned Dravidian civilization from which they took most of
what later became Indian civilization. In the process they never gave the indigenous
people whom they took their civilization from the proper credit but eradicated all
evidence of their conquest. All the Aryans really added of their own was their language
(Sanskrit, of an Indo-European type) and their priestly cult of caste that was to become
the bane of later Indic society.
The so-called Aryans, the original people behind the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of
Hinduism, were reinterpreted by this modern theory not as sages and seers - the rishis and
yogis of Hindu historical tradition - but as primitive plunderers. Naturally this cast a
shadow on the Hindu religion and culture as a whole.
The so-called pre-Aryan or Dravidian civilization is said to be indicated by the large
urban ruins of what has been called the "Indus Valley culture" (as most of its
initial sites were on the Indus river), or "Harappa and Mohenjodaro," after its
two initially largest sites. In this article we will call this civilization the
"Harappan" as its sites extend far beyond the Indus river. It is now dated from
3100-1900 BC. By the invasion theory Indic civilization is proposed to have been the
invention of a pre-Vedic civilization and the Vedas, however massive their literature, are
merely the products of a dark age following its destruction. Only the resurgence of the
pre-Vedic culture in post-Vedic times is given credit for the redevelopment of urban
civilization in India.
The Aryan invasion theory has become the basis of the view that Indian history has
primarily been one of invasions from the West, with little indigenous coming from the
subcontinent itself either in terms of populations or cultural innovations. The history of
India appears as a series of outside invasions: Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Scythians, Huns,
Arabs, Turks, Portuguese, British, and so on. Following this logic, it has even led to the
idea that the Dravidians also originally were outsiders. The same logic has resulted in
the proposition of a Dravidian migration into India from Central Asia, a few thousand
years before the Aryan invasion, overrunning the original aboriginal people of the region
(now thought to be represented by the tribals of the area). Though this "Dravidian
invasion" has not been brought into the same prominence as the Aryan invasion theory
it shows the same bias that for civilization we must look to Western peoples and cultures
and not to India as any separate center of civilization.
The Aryan invasion theory is not a mere academic matter, of concern only to historians. In
the colonial era the British used it to divide India along north-south, Aryan-Dravidian
lines, an interpretation various south Indian politicians have taken up as the cornerstone
for their political projection of Dravidian identity. The Aryan invasion theory is the
basis of the Marxist critique of Indian history where caste struggle takes the place of
class struggle with the so-called pre-Aryan indigenous peoples turned into the oppressed
masses and the invading Aryans turned into the oppressors, the corrupt ruling elite.
Christian and Islamic missionaries have used the theory to denigrate the Hindu religion as
a product of barbaric invaders and promote their efforts to convert Hindus. Every sort of
foreign ideology has employed it to try to deny India any real indigenous civilization so
that the idea of the rule of foreign governments or ideas becomes acceptable. Even today
it is not uncommon to see this theory appearng in Indian newspapers to uphold modern,
generally Marxist or anti-Hindu political views. From it comes the idea that there is
really no cohesive Indian identity or Hindu religion but merely a collection of the
various peoples and cultures who have come to the subcontinent, generally from the
outside. Therefore a reexamination of this issue is perhaps the most vital intellectual
concern for India today.
The Aryan invasion theory was similarly applied to Europe and the Middle East. It proposed
that the Indo-Europeans were invaders into these regions in the second millennium BC as
well. Thereby it became the basis for maintaining a Near Eastern view of civilization,
which places the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia and tries to derive all others from
it. Thereby the invasion theory has been used to try to subordinate Eastern religions,
like Hinduism and Buddhism, to Western religions like Christianity and Islam, which are
supposed to represent the original civilization of the world from Adam, the Biblical
original man, who came from Mesopotamia. This is the case even though the ancient
civilization which has been found in Mesopotamia resembles far more the Hindu, with its
Gods and Goddesses and temple worship, than it does these later aniconic traditions.
The Aryan invasion theory has been used for political and religious advantage in a way
that is perhaps unparalleled for any historical idea. Changing it will thereby alter the
very fabric of how we interpret ourselves and our civilization East and West. It is bound
to meet with resistance, not merely on rational grounds but to protect the ideologies
which have used it to their benefit. Even when evidence to the contrary is presented, it
is unlikely that it will be given up easily. The evidence which has come up that has
disproved it has led to the reformulation of the theory along different lines, altering
the aspects of it that have become questionable but not giving up its core ideas.
Yet with the weight of much new evidence today, the Aryan invasion theory no longer has
any basis to stand on, however it is formulated. There is no real evidence for any Aryan
invasion - whether archeological, literary or linguistic - and no scholar working in the
field, even those who still accept some outside origin for the Vedic people (the so-called Aryans), accepts the theory in its classical form of
the violent invasion and destruction of the Harappan cities by the incoming Aryans.
Four main points have emerged, which this article will elaborate:
 | The main center of Harappan civilization is the newly rediscovered Sarasvati river of
Vedic fame. While the Indus river has about three dozen important Harappan sites, the
Sarasvati has over five hundred. The drying up of the Sarasvati brought about the end of
the Harappan civilization around 1900 BC. As the Vedas know of this river they cannot be
later than the terminal point for the river or different than the Harappans who flourished
on its banks. Harappan culture should be renamed "the Sarasvati culture" and the
Vedic culture must have been in India long before 2000 BC. |
| No evidence of any significant invading populations have been found in ancient India,
nor have any destroyed cities or massacred peoples been unearthed. The so-called massacre
of Mohenjodaro that Wheeler, an early excavator of the site claimed to find, has been
found to be only a case of imagination gone wild. The sites were abandoned along with the
ecological changes that resulted in the drying up of the Sarasvati. |
| So-called Aryan cultural traits like horses, iron, cattle-rearing or fire worship have
been found to be either indigenous developments (like iron) or to have existed in Harappan
and pre-Harappan sites (like horses and fire worship). No special Aryan culture in ancient
India can be differentiated apart from the indigenous culture. |
| A more critical reading of Vedic texts reveals that Harappan civilization, the largest
of the ancient world, finds itself reflected in Vedic literature, the largest literature
of the ancient world.(*1) Vedic literature was previously not
related to any significant civilization but merely to "the destruction of
Harappa." How the largest literature of the ancient world was produced by illiterate
nomadic peoples as they destroyed one of the great civilizations of the ancient world is
one of the absurdities that the Aryan invasion leads to, particularly when the urban
literate Harappans are not given any literature of their own remaining. |
Putting these points together we now see that the Vedas show the same development of
culture, agriculture and arts and crafts as Harappan and pre-Harappan culture. Vedic
culture is located in the same region as the Harappan, north India centered on the
Sarasvati river. The abandonment of the invasion theory solves the literary riddle.
Putting together Vedic literature, the largest of the ancient world, with the Harappan
civilization, the largest of the ancient world, a picture emerges of ancient India as the
largest civilization of the ancient world with the largest and best preserved literature,
a far more logical view, and one that shows India as a consistent center from which
civilization has spread over the last five thousand years.
Therefore it is necessary to set aside the discredited idea of the Aryan invasion and
rewrite the textbooks in light of the new model, which is an organic and indigenous
development of civilization in India from 6500 BC with no break in continuity or evidence
of significant intrusive populations such as the invasion theory requires.(*2) Ancient India now appears not as a broken civilization deriving
its impetus from outside invaders but as the most continuous and consistent indigenous
development of civilization in the ancient world, whose literary record, the ancient
Vedas, remains with us today.
Based on such new evidence an entire group of scholars has arisen from both India and the
West who reject the Aryan invasion theory on various grounds considering the evidence of
archeology, skeletal remains, geography, mathematics, astronomy, linguistics and so on.
Such individuals include S.R. Rao, Navaratna Rajaram, Subhash Kak, James Schaffer, Mark
Kenoyer, S.P. Gupta, Bhagwan Singh, B.G. Sidharth, K.D. Sethna, K.D. Abhyankar, P.V.
Pathak, Srikant Talageri, S. Kalyanaraman, B.B. Chakravorty, Georg Feuerstein, and myself,
to name a few.(*3) Their views generally support those of
earlier Indian scholars and yogis, like Sri Aurobindo or B.G. Tilak, who proposed a Vedic
nature for the civilization of India going back to early ancient times.
The few scholars today who continue to hold an outside oRigin for the Aryans have also
generally given up the invasion/destruction idea, though they may still be proposing an
outside oRigin for the Aryans. They are proposing an Aryan migration, diffusion, or mixing
with indigenous people which is quite different from the violent and intrusive form of the
original Aryan invasion idea (note Romila Thapar in this regard *4).
Some of these scholars accept an Aryan element in the Harappan culture itself, owing to
Vedic traits like fire altars which have been found in Harappan sites, though they still
may not regard the Harappan culture as a whole as Aryan.
Yet whether the Vedic people were the original people of India, which is the majority
view, or whether they migrated gradually into India, the image of the invading and
destructive Aryans is totally discredited and should be removed. The image of the
Indo-Aryans as proto-fascists, which is how the Aryan invasion theory has been used to
represent them, is totally false. The idea misrepresents Hindu-Vedic culture, which has
traditionally been peaceful and never invaded any country, inflames Dravidian sentiments,
and casts a shadow of violence on ancient India for no real reason.
In this article I will summarize the main points which demonstrate the invalidity of the
invasion theory. This is a complex subject which I have dealt with in depth in my book
GODS, SAGES AND KINGS: VEDIC LIGHT ON ANCIENT CIVILIZATION (Salt Lake City USA: Passage
Press, 1991 and New Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass 1993), for those interested in a
more extensive examination.
The Aryan invasion theory is based upon the idea that Aryan represents a particular group
of people. In the classical view of the Aryan invasion the Aryans are a particular ethnic
group, speaking a particular language. However in Vedic literature Aryan is not the name
of the Vedic people and their descendants. It is a title of honor and respect given to
certain groups for good or noble behavior. In this regard even the Buddha calls his
teaching Aryan, Arya Dharma; the Jains also call themselves Aryans, as did the ancient
Persians. For this reason one should call the Vedic people simply the "Vedic
people" and not the Aryans. If one takes Aryan in the Vedic sense it would not be
like talking of the invasion of good people, as if goodness were a racial or linguistic
quality!
The Aryan invasion theory proposed that the Aryans belonged to a particular racial stock -
generally the blond and blue-eyed nordic caucasians or at least fair-skinned European
types (for which no real evidence in ancient India exists either) - and spoke only one
language, Vedic Sanskrit (though this appears from the beginning as a priestly language,
not a common dialect). The Aryans were said to have looked down upon those of different
racial features or those who spoke different (presumably non-Indo-European) languages. The
invasion theory thereby projected various cultural biases - that Vedic culture was racist
or that it was based upon some sort of linguistic chauvinism. In short it cast an
aspersion of prejudice and intolerance upon a culture before there had been any real
examination of it. Meanwhile all the changes in ancient India were defined by this
conflict of racial or linguistic groups, and ignoring all other factors of social change.
This idea of a monolithic cultural group chauvinistically promoting ethnic and linguistic
purity is the product of nineteenth century colonial thinking. It mirrors nineteenth
century European racial views of humanity, in which dark-skinned people were regarded as
inferior and used as slaves. It is quite different than the Hindu and Vedic view that the
One Being masks itself in numerous names and forms which are all ultimately the same. Such
a monolithic group is incompatible with the image of the Aryans as nomads, who as a
scattered and disorganized group could not have had such a uniform idea of their own
identity and been able to impose it upon a larger population of more civilized peoples.
The Aryan invasion theory is an example of European colonialism turned into an historical
model. Its simplicity is compelling but also questionable. Race and language are not the
only factors in the development of civilization. Religious or economic factors, which cut
across racial and linguistic divisions, often overwhelm them. For example, ancient
Mesopotamia had a number of ethnic groups, people of different language families, a
composite of many religions, and yet many common cultural elements can be found through
the Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations of the region.
This monolithic race/language approach to history appears to be overly simplistic,
particularly in the twentieth century wherein the pluralism of culture (a common Hindu
idea) is becoming recognized. The history of a subcontinent like India is likely to be
much more complex than such facile stereotypes.
Migration theories were in vogue in nineteenth and early twentieth century thought, which
had witnessed the great migrations from Europe to America. Any new cultural innovation
discovered in archeology was made the product of a new migration. A new pottery style
found in a culture was attributed to a new people coming into the area. However migration
is usually not the main factor in social change, which usually occurs owing to internal
factors. Otherwise we would have to explain the invasion or migration of the computer
people to explain current changes in civilization! Now archaeologists are moving away from
such migration theories and looking more for the internal factors that could cause such
changes. If such internal factors can be found - such as is the case in ancient India
which shows an internal continuity of cultural developments going back to the pre-historic
era - a migration is not necessary.
We should note that Vedic literature, with its many Gods and Goddesses who can be
identified freely with one another (what Max Muller called henotheism), is clearly the
product of a pluralistic culture and world view, not that of a monolithic culture (which
Hinduism has never produced in the historical period either). Unity-in-multiplicity is the
basic theme of the Vedas which state "That which is the One Truth the seers speak in
many ways (Rig Veda I.164)." This is not the philosophy of militant nomads but of a
mature cultural complex in which many different cultural elements have been interwoven.
Simplistic invasion/migration theories reducing cultural developments to movements of
narrowly defined groups of people appear now to be out of date, and certainly do not
mirror the Vedic view of the universe.
