The Myth of Aryan Invasion of India

- By Dr. David Frawley

 CONTENTS
1. Index 2. The Post-Colonial World 3. The Aryan Invasion Theory 4. Basis of the Aryan Invasion Theory 5. Aryan as Race or Language
6. The Development of the Aryan Invasion Idea 7. Mechanics of the Aryan Invasion 8. Harappan Civilization 9. Migration Rather than Invasion 10. The Rediscovery of the Sarasvati River
11. The Vedic Image of the Ocean 12. Horses, Chariots and Iron 13. Destroyers of Cities 14. Vedic and Indus Religions 15. The So-called Racial War in the Vedas
16. Vedic Peoples 17. The Aryan/Dravidian Divide 18. Vedic Kings and Empires 19. Vedic Astronomical Lore 20. Painted Grey Ware
21. Aryans in the Ancient Middle East 22. Indus Writing 23. Sanskrit 24. Indian Civilization, an Indigenous Development 25. The New Model
26. Ancient History Revised        27. Political and Social Ramifications         28. Footnotes


FOOTNOTES


1. Navaratna Rajaram and David Frawley, VEDIC ARYANS AND THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION: A Literary and Scientific Perspective (Ottawa and New Delhi, World Heritage Press, 1994)

2. For the archeological work in this regard note CHRONOLOGIES IN OLD WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, Third Edition, edited by Robert W. Ehrich, Vol. 1. (University of Chicago Press, 1992), Chapter 26, The Indus Valley, Baluchistan, and Helmand Traditions: Neolithic through Bronze Age.

3. For several such views note B.U. Nayak and N.C. Ghosh, NEW TRENDS IN INDIAN ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY (New Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, 1992).

4. Romila Thapar, "Archaeology and Language at the Roots of Ancient India," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay, Vol. 64-66 1989-1991.

5. S.R. Rao, DAWN AND DEVOLUTION OF THE INDUS CIVILIZATION (New Delhi, Aditya Prakashan, 1991).

6. Jim G. Schaffer and Diane A. Lichtenstein, The Cultural Tradition and Paleoethnicity in South Asian Archeology, To appear in LANGUAGE, MATERIAL CULTURE AND ETHNICITY: THE INDO-ARYANS IN ANCIENT SOUTH ASIA (Berlin, Mouton, DeGruyter).

7. Romila Thapar, "Archaeology and Language at the Roots of Ancient India," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay Vol. 64-66 1989-1991, pp. 259-260.

8. Malati Shengde, THE CIVILIZED DEMONS: THE HARAPPANS IN RIG VEDA. New Delhi, India: Abhinav Publications, 1977.

9. Asko Parpola, THE SKY-GARMENT, A study of the Harappan Religion and its Relation to the Mesopotamian and later Indian Religions. Helsinki, Finland: Studia Orientalia 57, 1985.

10. Manu Samhita II.17-18.

11. Note Rig Veda II.41.16; VI.61.8-13; I.3.12.

12. Rig Veda VII.95.2. This is in a hymn of the rishi Vasishta who has the greatest number of hymns in the Rig Veda.

13. Studies from the Post-Graduate Research Institute of Deccan College, Pune, and the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur. Confirmed by use of MSS (multi-spectoral scanner) and Landsat satellite photography. Note MLBD NEWSLETTER (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass), Nov. 1989.

Note also Sriram Sathe, BHARATIYA HISTORIOGRAPHY (Hyderabad, India: Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, 1989, pp. 11-13.

14. David Frawley, GODS, SAGES AND KINGS: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization. Salt Lake City, Utah: Passage Press 1991/ Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass 1993.

15. R. Griffith, THE HYMNS OF THE RIG VEDA (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976).

16. A.K. Sharma, "The Harappan Horse Was Buried Under the Dunes of," Puratattva 23.

17. Rig Veda VIII.46.22, 32. Note also Rig Veda III.34.9).

18. Eric Partridge, A SHORT ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH ORIGINS, New York: MacMillan, 1979, pg. 457.

19. For example Shukla Yajur Veda XVIII.13.

20. For example, Rig Veda II.20.8, IV.27.1, VII.95.1

21. Rig Veda VII.3.7; VII.15.14; VI.48.8; I.166.8; I.189.2; VII.95.1.

22. S. R. Rao, LOTHAL AND THE INDUS CIVILIZATION (Bombay, India: Asia Publishing House, 1973), p. 140; note also pp. 37 and 141.

23. Ibid., p. 158

24. Rig Veda VII.6.5, VII.95.2

25. Vishnu Purana IV.10.16-8

26. Vishnu Purana IV.10

27. Rig Veda VII.18, 6, 12, 13, 14

28. Mahabharata Adi Parva 175-6

29. Rig Veda VII.18.12

30. Aitareya Brahmana viii.21

31. Rig Veda IX.61.2

32. Mahabharata Vanaparva 126.46

33. Ramayana Uttara Kanda 70

34. Mahabharata Adi Parva 67

35. Aitareya Brahmana VII.18

36. For example, Baudhayana Dharmasutra I.1.2, 14-15

37. Aitareya Brahmana VIII.21-23; Shatapatha Brahmana XIII.5.4.

38. VEDANGA JYOTISH OF LAGADHA (New Delhi, India: Indian National Science Academy, 1985), pp. 12-13.

39. For example, Atharva Veda XIX.7.2

40. Subhash Kak, "The Astronomical Code of the Rig Veda," CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL.66, NO.4, 25 Feb. 1994., pp.323-326.

41. J. Shaffer, "The Indo-Aryan Invasions: Cultural Myth and Archaeological Reality," from J. Lukacs Ed., THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH ASIA (New York: Plenum 1984), p. 85.

42. T. Burrow, "The Proto-Indoaryans," JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, No. 2, 1973, pp. 123-140.

43. See G. R. Hunter, THE SCRIPT OF HARAPPA AND MOHENJODARO AND ITS CONNECTION WITH OTHER SCRIPTS (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. 1934). Also see J.E. Mitchiner, STUDIES IN THE INDUS VALLEY INSCRIPTIONS (New Delhi, India: Oxford and IBH, 1978).

Note particularly the work of Subhash Kak as in "A Frequency Analysis of the Indus Script," CRYPTOLOGIA, July 1988, Volume XII, Number 3; "Indus Writing," THE MANKIND QUARTERLY, Volume 30, Nos. 1 & 2, Fall/Winter 1989; and "On the Decipherment of the Indus Script -A Preliminary Study of its Connection with Brahmi," INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE 22(1):51-62 (1987).

44. J. F. JarRige and R. H. Meadow, "The Antecedents of Civilization in the Indus Valley," SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Aug. 1980.

45. J. Shaffer, "The Indo-Aryan Invasions: Cultural Myth and Archaeological Reality," from J. Lukacs Ed., THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH ASIA (New York: Plenum 1984), p. 88.

46, 47, 48, 49. C. Renfrew, ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 182, 188, 190, 196.