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The "Aryan Invasion Theory," abbreviated AIT, is a complex polemical construct used in the context of discussions of South Asian prehistory of the period 3000BC to 1000BC. It is not known who coined the term. The point at dispute is whether the original speakers of Indic Languages were autochthonous to the Indian Subcontinent , or entered the region from outside (specifically from areas to the north and west of the Indus river). OVERVIEW The case of the supporters of the AIT may be set down as follows. Unlike in the case of Mesopotamia , where there are readable written inscriptions dating as far back as the Sumerian period in 3100 BC, there are no written records from the Indian subcontinent before the third century BC except the Indus Valley seals, which remain by general academic consensus unreadable despite occasional claims to the contrary. Yet, one must bear in mind that the earliest Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, were orally transmitted and hence cannot be firmly dated. One set of written records from northern Syria dated to the early second millennium BC does contain several names and words that bear very close relationship to Vedic Sanskrit . Vedic Sanskrit is an Indo-European language like classical Latin and Greek . This means that, analogous to the process by which the English language has spread from an island off the coast of continental Europe to cover all of North America and Australia, the languages that developed into English, German, French, Italian, Greek, Russian, Persian, Pashto, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali and Sinhala (among others) are all directly derived from a common ancestor which was spoken in a single relatively small area at a point in the distant past. There is no general agreement on either the exact date or place of this proto-Indo-European language even with the benefit of several complex arguments based on the linguistic, archaeological and philological evidence. Current mainstream opinion regards the Indian subcontinent as very probably an area into which an Indo-European branch diffused rather than from which the Indo-European branch could have spread over its subsequent range. It is important to note that this conclusion refers to the spread of languages, not people. There are numerous instances in the historical record to show that large areas can change their linguistic affiliation without the original population being wiped out and replaced by another. The dominance of English in Australia is an instance of invasion and replacement of the language of original population. Conversely, the dominance of English in Ireland is an instance of "elite dominance" in which a relatively small number of immigrants are able to impose their own language on a local population, albeit via a process that can take many centuries to carry out. Also, contrary to what is suggested in many polemics on the subject, this conclusion is not based on "unscientific" or "racist" assumptions that Indians are "inferior" and therefore could not have colonised other countries. It is instead based on mainstream readings of an extraordinary wealth of evidence and arguments. To begin to evaluate the arguments on which this conclusion is based requires a decent scholarly acquaintance with subjects as diverse as linguistic substrates and linguistic palaeontology, palatalisation, glottochronology, archaeological evidence, etc. and to do so within the context of the large area across which the Indo-European family of languages is attested in historical times (namely Europe, West Asia, Iran, Central Asia and South Asia). The "AIT" supporters also use the underlying motives of their opponents to buttress their arguments. They believe that the other side's polemics are motivated by a strong feeling that the Hindu religion, with its highest texts in Vedic Sanskrit, would become less "authentic" if it were to be accepted that the origin of this language were outside the sacred places of the Indian subcontinent, even though the people who wrote them lived in India and were not aware of other places. EARLY HISTORY OF THE AIT The modern history of Indo-European Studies and indeed of linguistics begins with William Jones, writing in the 1790s , who was the first to relate the kinship of Sanskrit with classical European languages. Some theorists, such as Friedrich Schlegel in 1808, postulated that India was the source of the language. They adopted the term "Indo-Germanic." Others preferred " Indo-European ," which is now the standard term. Later theorists identified that the Germanic , Celtic and Slavic languages also derived from the lost proto-Indo-European. Many early European writers such as Friedrich Schlegel were of the opinion that India was the "cradle of civilization". Voltaire thus wrote that "I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc...Voltaire, Lettres sur l'origine des sciences et sur celle des peuples de l'Asie (first published Paris, 1777), letter of 15 December 1775., and said: "It does not behove us, who were only savages and barbarians when these Indian and Chinese peoples were civilized and learned, to dispute their antiquity."Voltaire, Fragments historiques sur l'Inde (first published Geneva, 1773), Œuvres Complètes (Paris : Hachette, 1893), vol. 29, p. 414. By the 1840s the distribution-pattern of the languages had led several scholars to conclude that India was an unlikely origin-point, since it was at what was then believed to be the easternmost extension of the languages. ( Tocharian , once spoken by the inhabitants of the Tarim basin in what is present-day China , had yet to be discovered.) Statements made in the Iranian sacred texts about a northern homeland, along with descriptions of battles in the Rig-Veda , led scholars to conclude that the original Aryans must have migrated to India. This theory is most associated with the linguist Friedrich Max Müller , who argued that the Aryans had migrated to India at around 1500 BC , from an earlier homeland in Bactria or further north, in the Central Asian steppe. Müller also believed that the God s of the Vedic Pantheon were related to the gods of Greek , Roman and of Norse Mythology , so he argued that the Pagan culture of Europe could be traced back to the Aryans, who must have expanded both eastwards and westwards from their homeland. Other discoveries in linguistics, such as the role of Palatalization in Indo-European language change, comprehensively discredited the idea that Sanskrit could be the mother of other IE languages. .. narrated his tales in the twelfth century after Christ [and would not be a little surprised to learn that "a European point of view" raises a "ghost story" of his to the dignity of a historical document." (Goldstücker 1860; Bryant 2001) Max Müllers attempts to bring Hindu chronology in line with Biblical chronology (4004 BC for the Creation and c. 2448 BC for Noah's Flood) was also criticized.see e.g. Bryant 2001; N. S Rajaram: The Politics of History, Voice of India, Delhi 1995; and also by some religious writers: e.g. H.P. Blavatsky: Isis Unveiled, II, 435. The common heritage of the Indo-European languages is one of the most powerful and unexpected discoveries of modern science and elicited incredulity which is still to be encountered today. Max Müller recounted that any remarks on Sanskrit were treated with contempt by his teachers and that "no one was for a time so completely laughed down as Professor Bopp, when he first published his Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit , Zend , Greek , Latin and Gothic . All hands were against him." (Müller 1883 ) LATER DEVELOPMENTS Until recently it was generally accepted that the Indo-Aryans came to India from what is now Central Asia in a series of waves, conquering most of Northern India and either subjugating or assimilating the mostly Dravidian-speaking inhabitants there. More recent research indicates that the migrations were much more peaceful. By the 1920s, the theory of Aryan superiority was also challenged by the discovery of the remains of the Indus Valley Civilization , which preceded the postulated Aryan invasion. It was obviously advanced for its time, with planned Cities , a standardized system of weights and bricks, etc, and it was understood that if the Aryans had invaded, then, regardless of their later achievements, they had in fact overthrown or at least post-dated a civilization more advanced than their own. On the basis of the Rig-Veda, it was argued that the Aryans themselves must have been semi- Nomadic pastoralists. The British archaelogist Mortimer Wheeler argued that the Aryans may have taken advantage of the decline of the Indus civilization to invade it. As he wrote, the war-god Indra "stands accused" of its final destruction. The British anthropologist Edmund Leach , who didn't believe in the Aryan invasion theory, described the effect the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization had on the AIT: "Common sense might suggest that here was a striking example of a refutable hypothesis that had in fact been refuted. Indo-European scholars should have scrapped all their historical reconstructions and started again from scratch. But that is not what happened. Vested interests and academic posts were involved. Almost without exception the scholars in question managed to persuade themselves that despite appearances, the theories of the philologists and the hard evidence of archeology could be made to fit together. The trick was to think of the horse-riding Aryans as conquerors of the cities of the Indus civilization in the same way the Spanish conquistadores were conquerors of the cities of Mexico and Peru or the Israelites of the Exodus were conquerors of Jericho ." ROLE IN IMPERIALISM AND NAZISM The theory that the original Aryans were northern Europeans who had migrated into India was used by some British imperialists as an Ideological justification for British control of India, on the grounds that the founders of Indian culture were of the same race as the Anglo-Saxon invaders who established the British Raj .e.g. Viceroy Lord Curzon called the AIT "the furniture of the Empire" (Elst 1999) The theory provided an argument for an alliance between the British and the Indian ruling classes, however, some Indian nationalists also took the view that the Aryans had originated outside India. In ''The Arctic Home in the Vedas'' (1903) Bal Gangadhar Tilak argued on the basis of astronomical data that the Vedas could only have been composed from an Arctic location – the Aryan bards having brought them south after the onset of the last Ice Age . The Aryan Invasion Theory was also accepted by the Hitler sympathizers Savitri Devi and her husband Asit Krishna Mukherji . Elst (1999) asserted that "after reading her autobiography, ''Memories and Reflexions of an Aryan Lady'', there is not the slightest doubt left that for her and her husband, their belief in the AIT, along with their distortive reinterpretation of Hindu tradition in terms of the AIT, was the direct cause of their enthusiasm for Hitler ." The most notorious appropriation of the such as the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke .Duke, David. (1999) "My Awakening" The Indo-European linguist Jean Haudry , a member of the Scientific Committee of the Front National , claimed in 1985 in his book ''"Les Indo-Européens"'' that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired, long-skulled and straight-nosed. In the same publication, he also supported the Aryan Invasion Theory and claimed that it is probable that the Aryans left from Jamna on the Volga . The AIT is also supported or accepted by several Western nationalists. (e.g. Meerbosch 1992 Héritage Européen; Van den Haute 1993 "Le Mahabharata ou la mémoire la plus longue"; David Duke: My Awakening; Kemp, Arthur. (2003) March of the Titans, History of the White Race; Jean Varenne 1967; see e.g. Elst, Koenraad, 1999, Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate). An European Urheimat of the Indo-Europeans is also sometimes claimed by some writers associated with the "Nouvelle Droite". Schuon 1979; Benoist 1997, 2000; Benoit 2001:13; Venner 2002:63. (see Elst 2003) Even though the AIT has also been used as a polemical tool to support racist or colonial doctrines, it does not follow that writers who support the AIT are racist themselves. Koenraad Elst commented that ''"in their own case, I will gladly assume that none of them is motivated by racist doctrines, though they do work within a framework which is still indebted, through inertia, to ideas developed in an age when racist or colonial or missionary motives did play a significant role."''Elst: The official pro-invasionist argument at last Elst (1999) asserted that what the non-invasionist school rejects ''"is precisely the creation of the conceptual framework which has made the racialist misuse of the term "Aryan" possible."'' RACIAL ASPECTS Some scholars have argued that the transfer of the Indo-Aryan languages into India was accomplished by white-skinned invaders, who subordinated dark-skinned natives. The famous German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer proposed just such a theory, observing the "fairer white color" of the ruling caste of the non-local Nordic Brahmans: "The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands.” (Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume II, Section 92) The derogatory application of the word "anasa" (noseless) to the Dasa , the enemies of the Aryans, was interpreted to mean that the Dasa had Negroid -type flat noses. Other arguments were derived from alleged references to the "golden" hair of some Vedic deities and the long-standing higher status of fair skin colour in South Asia. From these arguments scholars postulated that the Aryans had subordinated or displaced earlier inhabitants of India. Because the Dravidian languages of southern India were unrelated to Sanskrit and the other languages of the Indo-European group, it was assumed that Dravidian speaking peoples had been the aboriginal inhabitants. The development of Indo-European linguistics did not lead to any conclusion about the home of the proto-Indo-Europeans, which continues to regard multiple theories to this day. It is possible that that available evidence is simply insufficient to enable us to establish where it was. This is not surprising given the enormous time scale involved: scholarly consensus places PIE at anywhere from four to six thousand years in the past. Huxley took the view that the "primitive Aryans" were of Nordic race, writing that "typical specimens have tall and massive frames, fair complexions, blue eyes, and yellow or reddish hair–that is to say, they are pronounced blonds." Huxley's view was shared by other writers such as Charles Morris in his 1888 book ''The Aryan Race'', and Friedrich Nietszche in '' On The Genealogy Of Morals '' ( 1887 ). These and other writers argued that the Aryans were a warrior people who had imposed themselves over others by their ruthless military energy, based on Chariot warfare. The invaders were thought to have entered the Indian Subcontinent from the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush (present-day Afghanistan ), bringing with them the domesticated horse, probably previously unknown in India. Isaac Taylor (''The Origins of the Aryans''. race", while French writers have maintained that they were Brachycephalic Gaul s. This increasing preoccupation with race led Max Müller to point out that language and race are not necessarily coterminous: "I have declared again and again that if I say Aryans, I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language… To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar." (Max Müller. 1887: 120. "Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas".) Even in the 19th century, several theorists had criticised the use of the term "primitive primal Aryans" to refer to the earliest speakers of Indo-European languages, wherever they may have originated. They argued that the word should only describe the cultures in which the term "Arya" was used – those that occupied Iran and northern India. The tribal name of the earliest speakers is unknown, hence the term ’s Bhasya on Jaimini 1:33) we read the verse "Let him kindle the sacrificial fire while his hair is still black". And apart from a few gods associated with the sun, there is in Sanskrit literature only one golden-haired (hiranyakeshin) person , i.e. Hiranyakeshin, the author of the Hiranyakeshin-Shrauta-Sutra. (M. Witzel in J. Bronkhorst and M.M. Deshpande. 1999: 390). More recent writers have taken the view that racial arguments are irrelevant to the theory. Hans Hock (1999b) studied all the occurrences that were interpreted racially in Geldner's translation of the Rig Veda and concludes that they were either mistranslated or open to other interpretations. He writes that the racial interpretation of the Indian texts "must be considered dubious." (p.154) Hock also notes that "early Sanskrit literature offers no conclusive evidence for preoccupation with skin color. More than that, some of the greatest Epic heroes and heroines such as Krishna , Draupadi , Arjuna , Nakula and (...) Damayanti are characterized as dark-skinned. Similarly, the famous cave-paintings of Ajanta depict a vast range of skin colors. But in none of these contexts do we find that darker skin color disqualifies a person from being considered good, beautiful, or heroic." (p.154-155) Hans Hock also notes that the world of the Aryas is often described with the words "light, white, broad and wide", while the world of the enemies of the Aryas is often described with the words "darkness or fog". And in many of these instances, he notes, a "racial" interpretation can be safely ruled out. Vishnu , Rama and many others are also described as dark-skinned. Ravana, who was often described as Dravidian, came from a Vedic family in Gujarat. On the other hand Siva who is considered by many invasion-theorists as a Dravadian god is often described as fair-skinned. Also, Veda Vyas who compiled the Vedas and wrote the great Hindu epic Mahabharata was dark-skinned. According to another examination by Trautmann ( 1997 ), the racial evidence of the Indian texts is soft and based upon an amount of overreading. He concludes: "That the racial theory of Indian civilization still lingers is a miracle of faith. Is it not time we did away with it?" (p.213-215) Earlier commentators on the Rig Veda like Sayana ( 14th Century ) did not interpret the Rig Veda in racial terms. According to Romila Thapar (1999, ''The Aryan question Revisited'', "There isn't a single racial connotation in any of Sayana's commentaries." POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS ISSUES Some Hindu thinkers like . There it ends." In modern India, the discussion of Indo-Aryan migration is charged politically and religiously. The debate has produced a lot of polemics on both sides. The Belgian Indologist K. Elst noted that „in the intervening years, the atmosphere in this debate has calmed down a little, but in the final years of the second Christian Millennium , scolding and shouting and smearing were the done thing on internet forum discussions of the Aryan invasion question. Ironically, most Western AIT champions have managed to come away with the impression that all the foul language was only their Indian opponents' doing, but the record shows that they too have given their best; Witzel's misrepresentation of my position is but a case in point.“ (Elst 2005) Supporters of migration are faced with several accusations. The major one is that the British Raj and European Indologists from the 19th century to the present day promoted the Aryan Invasion hypothesis in support of Eurocentric notions of White Supremacy . Assertions that the highly advanced proto-Hindu Vedic culture could not have had its roots in India are seen as attempts to bolster European ideas of dominance. After Indian independence, Socialist and Marxist accounts of history proliferated in Indian universities. Opponents of the invasion theory contend that Marxists promoted the theory because its model of invasion and subordination corresponded to Marxist concepts of Class Struggle and Ideology . But it was also pointed out that Western and Russian Marxists were often critical of the AIT.Elst 1999 Some modern opponents of the Aryan-Vedic continuity in India, like Romila Thapar , are Marxist . Some others like V.T. Rajshekar ('' Dalit Voice '') are proponents of the Dalit (outcast) movement.V.T. Rajshekar represents an extremist section of the Dalit movement, and can not be compared with other moderate Dalit movements such as the Ambedkar movement Such writers have alleged that the Aryans were nomadic plunderers who invaded and destroyed civilizations from Europe to India, especially the Harappan civilization. Missionaries in India have utilized the Aryan Invasion Theory for their own political goals. They claim for example that the AIT proves that Aryan Hinduism is as much a foreign import as Christianity .see e.g. Elst 1999 It was thus proposed by some Christians and Muslims that " Sanskrit should be deleted from the Eight Schedule of the Constitution because it is a foreign language brought to the country by foreign invaders - the Aryans." Elst 1999 Some Marxists, Missionaries and others have thus questioned the legitimacy of Hinduism (e.g. as a native religion) because of the Aryan Invasion Theory. According to Elst (1999), "the ridiculous argument of doubting the legitimacy of a community's presence in India on the basis of an ancestral immigration of 3500 years ago has been launched in all seriousness by interest groups wielding the AIT as their major intellectual weapon, not by the critics of the AIT." In contrast, the proponents of a continuous, ancient, and sophisticated Vedic civilization are seen by some as Hindu Nationalists who wish to dispense with the foreign origins of the Aryan for the sake of national pride or religious dogma. Another motivation may arise from the desire to eradicate the problem associated with the Indian Caste system; the hypothesis that it may originally have been a means of social engineering by the Aryans to establish and maintain a superior position compared to the Dravidians in Indian society may be a source of discomfort. and Islam). He noted that "Even if it is assumed that a group of people, called 'Aryans,' invaded, or immigrated into, India,... they have left no trace, if ever there was any, of any link, much less the consciousness of any link, much less any loyalties associated with such a link, to any place outside India." Scholars who have been critical of the AIT are often stereotyped as "Hindutva", even if they are not Indians or Hindus themselves. Koenraad Elst noted that this "mistakenly attributes a political identity and motive to a scholarly hypothesis about ancient Indian history." Elst: The official pro-invasionist argument at last. He added: "I don't call the AIT party "the European racist school" or the "Dravidian chauvinist school" eventhough those terms do explain the motives behind at least a part of the pro-AIT polemic, past or present." Sometimes all opponents of the AIT are bracketed with other writers like P Choudhury who make inordinate claims. Talageri 2000; Kazanas, Nicholas: AIT and Scholarship {Link without Title} Critics of the AIT have also claimed that pro-AIT (or pro-AMT) scholars refuse the debate by dismissing arguments against the AIT as politically motivated or that they replace arguments with mud-slinging.e.g. Talageri 2000. Talageri claims: "It is not we who have avoided the debate. It is these Western scholars who have chosen to conduct a spit-and-run campaign from a safe distance, while restricting their criticism of our theory ... to name-calling and label-sticking rather than to demolition of our argmuments.(...) Books and theories cannot be condemned, unread and unseen, solely on the basis of one's perceptions about the motivations behind them." (Talageri 2000)"Elst remarks: "Let me put on record here that in my 9 years of close invovement in this debate, I have seen time and again that it is the invasionist school which, when it did not refuse the debate, has spoiled the debate by replacing argument with mud-slinging. There are exceptions, of course,..." Elst: The Official Pro-Invasionist Argument at Last A book by Shrikant Talageri that was critical of the AIT was strongly dismissed in an acadamic publication by Michael Witzel and G. Erdosy. However, they condemned Talageri's book without even having read it. Talageri noted that „this strong condemnation of a book, unread and unseen by them, is both unacademic and unethical.“ Witzel and Erdosy constantly cite the work incorrectly, using the wrong book data that was earlier used in a review of the Times of India. (see Elst 1999, Talageri 2000) It should however be noted that many scholars who have written for or against the Aryan Invasion Theory are not politically motivated. Moreover, the AIT was accepted by Veer Savarkar, Tilak and other Indian nationalists.Savarkar: Hindutva The AIT was also criticized by some Indian Marxists.(Bhagwan Singh 1995: The Vedic Harappans) Ambedkar , an icon of the Dalit movement, was dismissive of the AIT: "There is not a particle of evidence suggesting the invasion of India by the Aryans from outside India...The Aryan Race theory is so absurd that it ought to have been dead long ago."Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, Volume 7 edited by Vasant Moon, Education Department, Govt. of Maharashtra Publications, Mumbai, 1990. Ambdekar also claimed that the invasionist interpretation of the Rig Veda is "a perversion of scientific investigation" by western scholars who are on a mission "to prove what they want to prove, and do not hesitate to pick such evidence from the Vedas as they think is good for them."Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, Volume 7 edited by Vasant Moon, Education Department, Govt. of Maharashtra Publications, Mumbai, 1990. REFERENCES LITERATURE
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