Excerpts from a well-researched attempt at dating the MahABhArat… (published Feb ‘04 in the Daily Pioneer)
*** Excerpts Begin ***
…For thousands of years, we have believed in the divinity of Shri Krishna. For us he was a Karmayogi par excellence who gave us action oriented philosophy of life in the form of Bhagavad Gita. But questions have constantly haunted us as to whether Krishna was a historical or mythical character and whether the war of Mahabharata was actually fought.
Till recently, we did not have the wherewithal to search for and establish the truth. But modern scientific tools and techniques like computers with planetarium softwares, advancements in archaeological and marine archaeological techniques, earth-sensing satellite photography and thermo-luminescence dating methods, all have made it possible to establish the authenticity and dating of many events narrated in ancient texts like the Mahabharata. Recent archaeo-astronomical studies, results of marine-archaeological explorations and overwhelming archaeological evidence have established the historicity and dating of many events narrated in the Mahabharata. These have led to the conclusion that Mahabharata War was actually fought in 1478 BC and Shri Krishna’s Dwarka City got submerged under the sea in 1443 BC.
Astronomical Evidence: In the Mahabharata references to sequential solar and lunar eclipses as also references to some celestial observations have been made. Dr RN Iyengar…examined relevant references and searched for the compatible dates by making use of planetarium software (PVIS and EZC). He concluded that most of these references were internally consistent and that the eclipses and celestial observations of Mahabharata belong to the period 1493 BC-1443 BC of Indian History, (refer Indian Journal of History of Science/38.2/2003/77-115).
Keep Reading…
October 6th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
3 comments
I doubt if this piece will ever find its way to Hon. Thiru Karunanidhi but if it does, he will have good reasons to re-consider his earlier remarks (emphasis mine)
Who is this Ram?
From which engineering college he graduated? Is there any proof for this?
What follows is by far one of the best (and most extensive) piece of research I have yet come across on the historicity of Ramar Sethu and Lord Shri Rama.
It is a fairly long post (even though I have only taken excerpts) - but please do read when you have the time. The points made are compelling and have been put together cogently. Considered within the overall context, they make a strong case for the preservation of Ram-Setu or Sethubandha Rameshwaram (Thanks to Dr S Kalyanaraman-ji for alerting me to this; Pl note that there are several instances of the word “Aryan” in this essay - I would like readers’ views on this theory vis-a-vis AIT)
*** CAUTION: Long Post ***
Excerpts from Ramsetu – myth or fact by Dr. Nishit Sawal, M.D. (Medicine), April 2008 (emphasis mine). Dr. Sawal begins his essay with the following preface re. the historical basis of Ramayana:
“The recent Sethusamudram project controversy has again brought in limelight the Ramayana and the question of it being an historical fact or a plethora of myths and fables.
The UPA government filed an affidavit stating that ‘mythological texts such as the Ramayana cannot be said to be historical record to incontrovertibly prove the existence of characters or the occurrence of events depicted therein’. Since this affidavit has cast doubts about whether Lord Rama actually existed or was just a hero of various myths whose fame increased to such an degree with the passage of time so that he came to be worshipped as God by succeeding generations , let’s evaluate the evidence we have of existence of lord Rama.
The foremost question is whether Lord Rama actually ruled in India and if yes, at what period. This is not an easy task for around Lord Rama’s life has grown a tangle of pious legend , through which it is very difficult to penetrate to the flowers of historic truth.”
Dr Sawal then examines the lives of Lord Buddha and Lord Jesus Christ (and the evidence surrounding them) and states:
Keep Reading…
June 14th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Current Affairs, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Ram Janambhoomi, Ayodhya, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
7 comments
I recently came across The Whitewashing of History, by Nithin Sridhar. Nitin has kindly agreed to let me reproduce the article on this blog. Those of you who are interested in history will find here a devastating critique of current studies and interpretation of Indian History - which has largely been driven by leftist-leaning scholars steeped in their prejudices and with varying agendas.
The article looks at the now thoroughly discredited “Aryan Invasion Theory” (AIT), the impact of Islamic invasions on India and the red-herring of “Hindu vandalism”.
I have also included a selection of comments at the end.
*** ARTICLE BEGINS / LONG POST ***
The history of India has been whitewashed and distorted, first by European rulers, and after independence by eminent historians of India and their supporters the Leftists, Seculars and self-claimed Progressives of India to meet their own ends. They have painted the pre-Islamic invasion period as a Dark Age and have glorified the Islamic period to be very peaceful and prosperous.
Ram Swarup says, “Marxists have taken to rewriting Indian history on a large scale and it has meant its systematic falsification. They have a dogmatic view of history and for them the use of any history is to prove their dogma. Their very approach is hurtful to truth…. The Marxists’ contempt for India, particularly the India of religion, culture and philosophy, is deep and theoretically fortified. It exceeds the contempt ever shown by the most die-hard imperialists.”1 Some of the common claims of these eminent historians are:
1] The Aryan Invasion Theory is true2
2] Large scale destruction of Buddhists and Jain temples was done by Hindus in pre-Islamic India.3
3] The Muslim rulers were religiously tolerant and Islamic rule was prosperous. The eminent historians deny the destruction of Hindu temples or the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim rulers. They also deny the religious motive behind the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim rulers.4
Let us examine the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT).
Keep Reading…
May 18th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Conversions, Missionaries in India, Debates & Discussions, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Impact of Islam on India, Islamic Rule in India, Media Related, Medieval Indian History, Politics and Governance in India, Politics of Minority Appeasement, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
20 comments
A few days I came across the amazing research work by Dr Kalyanaraman on the Sarasvati-Sindhu script.
In his own words,
“…Ever since I got a letter from Dr. BV Subbarayappa (the great man who wrote on History of Science and Technology in Ancient India– who sent me a monograph stating that Indus script is a womb of numbers and asked for my comments since I had done some fonts for all scripts of the world on the early PC’s) and got from my American ADB colleague, 3 replicas of Mohenjodaro seals presented as paper-weight mementos mounted on turquoise and wood by Pakistan Intl. Airlines to its First Class passengers travelling from Karachi to Islamabad, understanding the writing system of our ancestors has become my life’s mission. The paperweights have been lying on my desk for 30 years now. And I have just cried many-a-time looking at them as my pitr-tarpanam to our pitr-s.
When Vatsyayana mentions mlecchita vikalpa (cryptography) together with akshara mushthika kathanam and des’a bhaashaa jnaanam and when mleccha is cognate with meluhha, the enigma unravels. Hemacandra notes milakkhu ‘copper’ (Pali) as in milakkhurajanam ‘colour of copper’. As in Manu, mleccha is simply indistinct ’speech’, it does connote the vernacular; mlecchavaacas (lingua franca) as distinct from aryavaacas (grammatically correct literary composition).
It was just breathtaking when I re-read jaatugriha parvan of Mahabharata and learnt that Yudhishthira and Vidura/Khanaka — according to Krishna Dvaipaayana or Veda Vyaasa — spoke in mleccha ! (crypt :)– Mleccha is the lingua franca and mlecchita vikalpa the writing system two of the 64 arts to be learnt by the young as vidyaasamuddes’a, according to Vatsyayana.
The journey into the mists of our ancestors’ world goes on. It is a journey into dharma…”
The work was painstaking and has taken “over 30 years of intense introspection and collation of earlier brilliant work done by our savants.“
As Dr Kalyanaraman says, “I find it just striking that one category alone — that of smithy or khanaka ‘mine-worker’, yes Khanaka of Jaatugrhaparvan of Mahabharata speaking in mleccha with Yudhishthira — explains, rebus, virtually the entire corpus of inscriptions of Sarasvati civilization. Invention of a writing system was as brilliant as the invention of alloying changing the way people live and interact with one another, for ever.”
I first stumbled across this work on an Yahoo! group that I am member of which had this link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2231843/writing
I would encourage all of you to have a look at it when you have some time. You will be amazed. I believe this research is invaluable and I am very keen that it is read and understood widely.
The invention of writing by the inhabitants of Sarasvati-Sindhu basin was a ground-breaking, fundamental development that deserves to acknowledged and celebrated.
Sadly many of us continue to believe that the Sarasvati-Sindhu writing is indecipherable and hence of no significance..This research will go a long way in dispelling this notion.
Do also have a look at this site for more (and regular) updates: http://sarasvati97.blogspot.com/
and finally, for some photographs of seals and inscriptions from the era, please click here.
I hope to publish some excerpts/summary of theis research soon.
Related Posts:
RigVeda in UN Heritage List
Scientific validation of Vedic Knowledge
Revising the “Aryan Invasion of India” Theory
April 17th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
8 comments
Amidst esteemed leader Karunanidhi’s latest remarks questioning the historical basis of Ramayana and Shri Rama, comes this news-report from The Hindu (Thanks, Anirban).
Excerpts (emphasis mine) from “Ramayana is not a myth: S.R. Rao”:
“President of the Society for Marine Archaeology in India S.R. Rao said that Ramayana cannot be dismissed as a myth, just as it was done earlier in the case of Mahabharata.
…In the case of Ramayana, he said strong tradition depicts Hampi in Karnataka as Kishkindha, which was visited by Rama. The culture of Kishkindha at that time was of Neolithic levels, it said.
Prof. Rao, who undertook deep-sea excavations near Dwaraka, discovered the submerged parts of the town where Krishna lived when he was director of National Institute of Oceanography.
He said that the culture (seen in Kishkindha) has several Neolithic sites spread over Patapadu and Pusalpadu in Bellary district. Another important site is Bandi Pushala Chenu in Bellary-Kurnool area where excavations of the Harappan steatite wheel-like beads are found.
These beads occur in all Harappan sites as early as 3000 BC.
Bithur near Kanpur, a traditional Ramayana site, had yielded weapons of the culture, archeologically designated as ochre-coloured pottery, ranging from 1500 to 2000 BC or even 3000 BC near Ghaneswar in Rajasthan.
Excavations at the Neolithic culture site at Mahagara in the Belan valley of Uttar Pradesh yielded rice dated around 4000 BC.
Further north-west in Pakistan, the cotton growing Neolithic culture is 7,000 years old (5000 BC). When Rama came to Kishkindha, the Vanaras were the same Neolithic people, whose help he took, said Prof. Rao.
…
Ramayana is built on a core of truth depicting the life of a particular people and period, Prof. Rao added.”
I am hoping to do some more background research on this over the next few days but if any of you have additional information and/or links, please email me or leave a comment.
DhanyawAd.
Related Post: A Search for the Historical Krishna
Recommended Reading: The Historical Rama; Varnam’s series on Dwarka and finally: Scientific questions to ASI on Ram Sethu
Peripheral post: Of Vimanas and Time Travel
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UPDATE: Came across this article yesterday Ram Setu: historicity of Ramayana
Will try and post a summary here.
UPDATE II: Highly Recommended: http://arvindneela.blogspot.com/2007/09/romila-thapars-double-standards-and.html. Sumamry to follow.
September 22nd, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
11 comments
Some of you may already be aware of this: “Thirty manuscripts of the ancient Hindu text Rig Veda dating from 1800 to 1500 BC are among 38 new items that have been added to the United Nations heritage list (Memory of World Register, UNESCO) to help preserve them for posterity.”
The “funny” thing is that although the manuscripts are clearly “ancient”, IBNlive in its report mentions them as “The medieval Indian manuscripts“. Curiously, the IBN report link returns a page with error but you cant hide on the Internet - the report is also on Yahoo! India’s site !
In a bland statement on this, “Culture and Tourism Minister Ambika Soni welcomed the move and said India’s cultural heritage “always brought happiness to all the countrymen” - What about pride?
Thanks to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune which sponsored and prepared the nomination (sadly, their website appears to be down).
July 8th, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Hindu Dharma, Indian Media, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization, Spirituality & Philosophy |
no comments
Many of you must be familiar with how the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) is now all but dead…
We probably don’t need another nail in its coffin but here is one that I came across late last year (buried deep under my “TO DO” list): “India Acquired Language, Not Genes, From West, Study Says”
What is really interesting about the article though is not its mention of AIT being disputed but the surreptitious (and easily overlooked) mention of “technology” amongst things that do not appear to be indigenous and may have come from outside the region (excerpt: “If steppe-dwelling Central Asians did lend language and technology, but not many genes…”)
Oddly though, nowehere in the article is there any evidence of “technology” being borrowed from Central Asia.
I wonder if this is just a bad copy or a subtle attempt at undermining the scientific and technological achievements in ancient India? (Please read: “Does no one remember the Indian contribution to Technology?“)
Brief Excerpts:
“Most modern Indians descended from South Asians, not invading Central Asian steppe dwellers, a new genetic study reports.
…The finding disputes a long-held theory that a large invasion of central Asians, traveling through a northwest Indian corridor, shaped the language, culture, and gene pool of many modern Indians within the past 10,000 years.
… Vijendra Kashyap’s (Director of India’s National Institute of Biologicals in Noida)…findings, published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, stand at odds with those results.
…The data reveal that the large majority of modern Indians descended from South Asian ancestors who lived on the Indian subcontinent before an influx of agricultural techniques from the north and west arrived some 10,000 years ago.”
May 24th, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization, Technology in India |
one comment
I came across this 30-minute video over the weekend (thanks, Vijay): Scientific Verification of Vedic Knowledge
From the summary:
“A vast number of statements and materials presented in the ancient Vedic literatures can be shown to agree with modern scientific findings and they also reveal a highly developed scientific content in these literatures. The great cultural wealth of this knowledge is highly relevant in the modern world.
Techniques used to show this agreement include: - Marine Archaeology of underwater sites (such as Dvaraka) - Satellite imagery of the Indus-Sarasvata River system - Carbon and Thermoluminiscence Dating of archaeological artifacts - Scientific Verification of Scriptural statements - Linguistic analysis of scripts found on archaeological artifacts - A Study of cultural continuity in all these categories.“
Please take the time to watch it…Itis educative and well-researched. I will try and post a summary sometime in the next few days.
It is produced by DevaVision who also have some other interesting documentaries on their site.
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* the video is a bit grainy when run the first time but if you re-run it, it is clearer
March 21st, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Indian Architecture & City Planning, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
no comments
This essay is beyond any doubt one of the best explanations of the origin of the word “Hindu” I have come across.
In this scholarly and meticulously researched essay, Dr Pahoja has refuted claims that the word “Hindu” is a medieval construct (given currency by the Arabs).
He cites historical evidence from a rich variety of sources to conclude that the word “Hindu” (like “Sindhu”) has been in use since the Vedic age and although it is a modified form of “Sindhu”, the origin lies in the Saurashtran practice of pronouncing ‘H’ in place of ‘S’ rather than being a corruption of “Sindhu” in Persian.
Please read this along with my earlier post on this issue, “Hindu, India and Bharat - The Story behind Word Origins“.
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See also this comment explaining the origin of the word, “BhArat” (the real name for India)
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2007/12/01/source-of-satyameva-jayate/#comment-10009
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March 4th, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Medieval Indian History, Miscellaneous, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
no comments
Several months ago, a friend asked me the origin of the word India and “Hindu”. That question spurred this brief piece of research.
Most experts agree today that the name “India” was derived from the river Indus (in today’s Pakistan). But the name “Indus” itself has a fascinating history behind it.
In ancient times, the entire Indus river system (along with its seven tributaries - Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Jhelum, Beas and the now extinct River Saraswati[i]) and the area it covered, used to be called “Sapta Sindhu[ii]” i.e. the land of seven rivers (“Sindhu” means river in Sanskrit).
The word “Sindhu” not only referred to the river system and adjoining area but also became the label to denote the culture that had developed along its valleys (In fact, continuing archaeological evidence suggests that the “Indus Valley Civilization” should more accurately be called the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization considering the land mass where it developed).
The corruption of “Sindhu” into “Hindu” can be traced back to journeys made by early Persian explorers from the Northwest who due to the peculiarities of their own language aspirated the “S” sound in “Sindhu” to make the word “Hindu”
Thus to world beyond, the area around the Saraswati-Sindhu rivers and its culture became to be known as the area of “Hindus” (thus the name Hindustan which literally means the land of “Hindus”)
This nomenclature stuck and became particularly prevalent after the invasion and conquest of “India” by Mughals. The Mughals (based on the earlier Persian terminology) used the term “Hindu” to refer to the original inhabitants of the land and this label became the way to distinguish native/indigenous/ancient culture form that of the invaders.
About 2500 years ago, when the Greeks first reached the river plains of Punjab, they borrowed the name of the region from the Persians and simply modified it to “Indos”. “Indos” later morphed into “Indus” in Latin – by which name the river is still known in the West. The Romans began to call the whole land mass after this river and thus the name “India” came to stay – which has been the form used by Europeans over the ages.
It is clear from the above that the word “Hindu” simply meant (someone living in India) “Indian” or (something) related to India.
The term Hindu did not signify any religion or set of religious beliefs but was really a label for a specific landmass. At best the word simply implied someone associated with (or dwelling in) the geographical area the boundaries of which were roughly covered by the Saraswati-Sindhu rivers and their tributaries.
In the words of Dr Morales, “the term “Hindu” is not a term that is inherent to the religion itself. Rather, the term is known to have been first coined by the ancient Persians, who were culturally, religiously, and perspectively extrinsic to the culture. The term was first used by these ancient Persians in order to conveniently designate the ancient Vedic spiritual culture, and was mistakenly used to refer to the Vedic religion as primarily a geographic and ethnic phenomenon, more than as a religio-philosophical world-view.To the ancient Persians, the word “Hindu” simply referred to the culture, people, religion and practices of the peoples who lived on the other side of the Sindhu River. In the ancient Avestan Persian language ’s’ grammatically became ‘h’. Thus, the Persians pronounced the name of this river “Hindhu”, rather than “Sindhu”. Thus, ironically, the currently used word “Hindu” is itself a corruption of the Persian word “Hindhu”, which is in turn a corruption of the term “Sindhu”, which is itself only referring to a river, and not a religion! Thus when the word “Hindu” is used today to refer to the ancient religion of India, the term is in actuality a corruption of a corruption of a word whose meaning is irrelevant to begin with.In his essay, “Word as a Weapon”, Dr Morales has further examined the labels “Hindu” (and “Hinduism”) and suggested alternative terms.In my review of his essay, http://hindu_dharma.blogspot.com/2005/11/excerpts-from-word-as-weapon.html, I had offered the following suggestion, which I believe is even more relevant today:Let us henceforth decide to refer to ancient Indian achievements as Hindu achievements (which is what they are). And let us all insist on calling our religions “Sanatana Dharma” rather than a sterile “Hinduism”.
“Bharat”, that is India
India’s “official” name is Bharat – and this is accorded equal primacy as the word India in the Constitution. In fact the First Clause of the Constitution begins with the words, “India, that is Bharat”.
There is a general mis-conception that India (or to be more accurate, “Bharat”) as a nation did not exist until the British brought hundreds of princely states and fiefdoms under central rule. This is false and historically inaccurate – those of you who have read History would be aware that Samrat Ashok’s kingdom probably had the largest expanse of land of any kingdom in ancient times and of course included almost all of the Indian sub-continent – i.e. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of neighbouring states such as Nepal and Afghanistan.
In the words of Shri Srinivasan Kalyanaraman, “For those who think that the nation of Bharat is a British creation, they should be reminded about Rigveda verse by Vis’vamitra RV 3.53.12: vis’va_mitrasya raks.ati brahmedam bharatam janam, (this mantra of Vis’vamitra will protect the nation of the people of Bharatam). In Tamil bharatam (written pa_ratam) refers to the Hindu ra_s.t.ra. ” http://hindu_dharma.blogspot.com/2006/02/india-that-is-bharat.html
There are also references in ancient literature, including the “Bhagavad-Gita” to large parts of the landmass that we now call India, as “Bharat” or “Bharatavarsha”. See e.g. an article written by Shri Bhatnagar at http://humnri.com/HumZ/Articles/Article.aspx?number=15181
“…from Scanto V of Srimad Bhagavatam -Chapter 19 -The description of Jambudwipa concluded:
The people of Bharatavarsa touch with their body too the water of these rivers, which purify them by their very names.(17)Candravasa Tamraparni, Avatoda, Krtamala, Vaihayasi, Kaveri, Veni, Payaswini, Sarkaavarta, Tungabhadra, Krsna, Venya, Bhimarathi, Godavari, Nirvindhya, Payosni, Tapi, Reva, Surasa, Narmada Carmanvati (and) Sindhu, two big rivers — Andha (Brahmaputra) and Sona (Sone) — Mahanadi, Vedasmrti, Rsikulya, Trisama, Kausiki, Mandakini, Yamuna, Saraswati, Drsadvati, Gomati, Sarayu, Rodhaswati Saptavati, Susoma, Satadru, Candrabhaga, Marudvrdha, Vitasta, Asikni (and) Viswa are (the names of) the principal rivers.(18)
But all this would be irerelevant if we ourselves forget our name – so let us make an effort to remember (and to make others aware) that India does have an indigenous name – “Bharat” – and let us be proud of it.
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[i] The first five of these rivers gave “Punj – Aab” its name – the land of five rivers
Related Posts:
More on origin & usage of the word “Hindu”
This must be the last word on origin of “Hindu”…
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See also this comment explaining the origin of the word, “BhArat” (the real name for India)
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2007/12/01/source-of-satyameva-jayate/#comment-10009
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May 27th, 2006
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Ancient Indian History, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Medieval Indian History, Sanatana Dharma, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
no comments
Excerpted from an email by Shri Srinivasan Kalyanaraman on FHRS USA (emphasis mine):
“The term ‘hindu’ comes from ’sindhu’. The word ’sindhu’ is used many times in Rigveda and the meaning in most occurrences has been established to be ‘natural ocean frontier’. Thus, the term, ‘hindu’ is a geographical connotation in very early days of Hindu civilization. For those who think that the nation of Bharat is a British creation, they should be reminded about Rigveda verse by Vis’vamitra RV 3.53.12: vis’va_mitrasya raks.ati brahmedam bharatam janam, (this mantra of Vis’vamitra will protect the nation of the people of Bharatam). In Tamil bharatam (written pa_ratam) refers to the Hindu ra_s.t.ra. ”
*** UPDATE ***
Please also read: This must be the last word on origin of “Hindu”… AND “Hindu, India and Bharat - The Story behind Word Origins“.
See also this comment explaining the origin of the word, “BhArat” (the real name for India)
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2007/12/01/source-of-satyameva-jayate/#comment-10009
February 10th, 2006
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Ancient Indian History, British Rule in India, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
2 comments
Several of you may already be aware of the debate that has now been current for several years around the theory of �Aryan Invasion of India�. Based on archaeological evidence, new research and fresh examination of existing evidence (and stripping away the colonial bias of earlier interpretations), it now appears that the theory was fundamentally flawed and is difficult to justify in the light of new findings.
I was therefore very pleased when I read �The Aryan-Dravidian Controversy�, By David Frawley [- thanks Sukand]. It very articulately sets the argument for considering a revision of the whole theory and I have attempted a summary below. The original essay in its entirety can be accessed at http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/aryan/aryan_frawley_1.html
For those of you who are not aware of the tremendous work that is being done by Dr Frawley, please have a look at http://www.vedanet.com/index.html
As Dr Frawley says in his introduction, although many of the theories that British historians postulated had a colonial bias [1], they are still accepted by many Hindus, although �a deeper examination reveals they may have no real objective or scientific basis.� To quote further,
�One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races - the lighter-skinned Aryans and the darker-skinned Dravidians - and that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans conquered and dominated. From this came the additional idea that much of what we call Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian, and later borrowed by Aryans who, however, never gave the Dravidians proper credit for it. This idea has been used to turn the people of south India against the people of north India, as if the southerners were a different race.� Dr Frawley makes the point that colour was the dominant influence in European theories of race which projected Europeans as belonging to a �white� (and therefore superior) race who had the duty and obligation to bear the burden of the �dark� (therefore inferior) natives.
This mental bias was then transposed on the (mistaken) theory that the �fair-skinned� Aryans had �subjugated/conquered� the �dark-skinned� indigenous people who had subsequently migrated southwards.
Around the same time, research into Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages revealed surprisingly large similarities and it became obvious that Indo-European languages and Sanskrit shared a similar origin. It was of course automatically assumed that, �the original speakers of any root Indo-European language must have been ‘white’�. The Europeans of course could not even consider the possibility that �their languages could have been derived from the darker-skinned Hindus. (Further) As all Hindus were dark compared to the Europeans, it was assumed that the original white Indo-European invaders of India must have been assimilated by the dark indigenous population, though they left their mark more on north India where people have a lighter complexion.�
This �racial interpretation� was carried further and applied to explain the reference in Vedas to the fight between �light� and �darkness�. This was �naturally� assumed to be a battle between light-skinned Aryans and dark-skinned Dravidians. The fact that most religions in the world (and most mythological references) speak about the battle between light and darkness (as a metaphor for good and evil) was conveniently ignored.
This projection of racism onto the ancient history of India was further extended to �explain� the caste system. The reference in Vedas to �Brahmins�(being) white, Kshatriyas red, Vaishyas yellow, and Shudras black� was misinterpreted from its original context of referring to �gunas� and was used to conclude that Brahmins were originally the white Aryans and the Dravidians the dark Shudras [2]
The fact that this theory flew in the face of empirical evidence (where are the red and yellow-coloured castes in India?) was also conveniently ignored.
Dr Frawley then points out the extent to which the ideas were misinterpreted:
�The racial idea reached yet more ridiculous proportions. Vedic passages speaking of their enemies (mainly demons) as without nose (a-nasa), were interpreted as a racial slur against the snub-nosed Dravidians. Now Dravidians are not snub-nosed or low nosed people, as anyone can see by examining their facial features. And the Vedic demons are also described as footless (a-pada). Where is such a footless and noseless race and what does this have to do with the Dravidians? Moreover Vedic gods like Agni (fire) are described as footless and headless. Where are such headless and footless Aryans? Yet such ’scholar- ship’ can be found in prominent Western books on the history of India, some published in India and used in schools in India to the present day. This idea was taken further and Hindu gods like Krishna, whose name means dark, or Shiva who is portrayed as dark, were said to have originally been Dravidian gods taken over by the invading Aryans (under the simplistic idea that Dravidians as dark-skinned people must have worshipped dark colored gods). Yet Krishna and Shiva are not black but dark blue. Where is such a dark blue race?
Moreover the different Hindu gods, like the classes of Manu, have different colors relative to their qualities. Lakshmi is portrayed as pink, Saraswati as white, Kali as blue-black, or Yama, the God of death, as green. Where have such races been in India or elsewhere? In a similar light, some scholars pointed out that Vedic gods like Savitar have golden hair and golden skin, thus showing blond and fair-skinned people living in ancient India. However, Savitar is a sun-god and sun-god are usually gold in color, as has been the case of the ancient Egyptian, Mayan, and Inca and other sun-gods. Who has a black or blue sun-god? This is from the simple fact that the sun has a golden color. What does this have to do with race? And why should it be racial statement in the Vedas but not elsewhere?
At the same time (circa 19th century), although several scholars (including Max Muller) did state that �Aryan� was not a racial term and there was no evidence of it being used as such (either in the Vedas or other ancient texts), these views were largely ignored.
As Dr Frawley states, �We should clearly note that there is no place in Hindu literature wherein Aryan has ever been equated with a race or with a particular set of physical characteristics. The term Aryan means “noble” or “spiritual”, and has been so used by Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as well as Hindus. Religions that have called themselves Aryan, like all of these, have had members of many different races. Race was never a bar for anyone joining some form of the Arya Dharma or teaching of noble people.�
If one looks at recent archaeological evidence, the theory of �Aryan Invasion� becomes even less tenable.
Research on the racial profiles of the original Indus Valley[3] inhabitants shows similarities to the inhabitants of North India of the present day. In view of this, it is hard to imagine that any large scale or significant �invasion� took place into the region in the last 4000 years. Even if it did, it must have been so far back that it has no relevance (or bearing on) what we know today about Hindu (Indian) culture.
As Dr Frawley accurately points out, �the idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of color. There are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian races. The three primary races are Caucasian, the Mangolian and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed in the same Mediterranean sub-branch.
The difference between the so-called Aryans of the north and Dravidians of the south is not a racial division. Biologically both the north and south Indians are of the same Caucasian race, only when closer to the equator the skin becomes darker, and under the influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to become a little smaller. While we can speak of some racial differences between north and south Indian people, they are only secondary.
For example, if we take a typical person from Punjab, another from Maharashtra, and a third from Tamilnadu we will find that the Maharashtrians generally fall in between the other two in terms of build and skin color. We see a gradual shift of characteristics from north to south, but no real different race. An Aryan and Dravidian race in India is no more real than a north and a south European race.
Those who use such terms are misusing language. We would just as well place the blond Swede of Europe in a different race from the darker haired and skinned person of southern Italy. Nor is the Caucasian race the “white” race. Caucasians can be of any color from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in between. The pre-dominant Caucasian type found in the world is not the blond-blue-eyes northern European but the black hair, brown-eyed darker skinned Mediterranean type that we find from southern Europe to north India. Similarly the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin whiter than many so-called Caucasians. In fact of all the races, the Caucasian is the most variable in its skin color��
Dr Frawley then examines the evidence and the theory of there being significant differences in religion, language and ancient texts between the two �races�, Aryan and Dravidian. In each case, he finds that either the theory is not based on empirical evidence and/or it uses selective observations to fit the conclusion of two different �races�.
To summarise, the theory of two distinct races (Aryan and Dravidian) is neither tenable on empirical evidence nor on religious, linguistic and �cultural� grounds.
He then suggests that people in the South should not consider themselves as �Dravids� and as being different and distinct from the ancient Vedic culture. Nor is there any reason for those in the North to believe that they are the true inheritors of the �Aryan legacy� for there is no such legacy and no evidence of any distinct, culturally superior race.
In his words, �What is necessary is to assert�(that)�the Aryans and Dravidians are part of the came culture and we need not speak of them as separate. Dividing them and placing them at odds with each other serves the interests of neither but only serves to damage their common culture (which is what most of those who propound these ideas are often seeking). Perhaps the saddest thing is that modern Indian politicians have also used this division to promote their own ambitions, though it is harmful to the unity of the country.�
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THE TRUE ARCHITECTS of HARRAPAN (SARASWATI RIVER) CIVILISATION
Next, Dr Frawley refers to a number of separate reports and research which indicates that the Indus Valley Civilization may have actually been established by the Dravidians and the Aryan Invasion theory may have been based on half-baked evidence and a blinkered view of progress made in ancient India long before the Christian era. Thus,
“Dravidians, whose descendents still live in Southern India, established the first city communities, in the Indus valley, introduced irrigation schemes, developed pottery and evolved a well ordered system of government.” (Reader’s Digest Great World Atlas, 1970)
Clyde Ahmad Winters, who has written extensively on Dravidian origins (has) commented, “Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the Dravidians were the founders of the Harappan culture which extended from the Indus Valley through northeastern Afghanistan, on into Turkestan. The Harappan civilization existed from 2600-1700 BC. The Harappan civilization was twice the size the Old Kingdom of Egypt. In addition to trade relations with Mesopotamia and Iran, the Harappan city states also had active trade relations with the Central Asian peoples.”
Professor Klaus Klostermaier in ‘Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory and Revising Ancient Indian History’ (has) commented: “India had a tradition of learning and scholarship much older and vaster than the European countries that, from the sixteenth century onwards, became its political masters. Indian scholars are rewriting the history of India today. One of the major points of revision concerns the so called ‘Aryan invasion theory’, often referred to as ‘colonial-missionary’, implying that it was the brainchild of conquerors of foreign colonies who could not but imagine that all higher culture had to come from outside ‘backward’ India, and who likewise assumed that a religion could only spread through a politically supported missionary effort.While not buying into the more sinister version of this revision, which accuses the inventors of the Aryan invasion theory of malice and cynicism, there is no doubt that early European attempts to explain the presence of Indians in India had much to with the commonly held Biblical belief that humankind originated from one pair of humans- Adam and Eve to be precise …”
Hinduism Today concluded in Rewriting Indian History - Hindu Timeline: “Although lacking supporting scientific evidence, this (Aryan Invasion) theory, and the alleged Aryan-Dravidian racial split, was accepted and promulgated as fact for three main reasons.
� It provided a convenient precedent for Christian British subjugation of India.
� It reconciled ancient Indian civilisation and religious scripture with the 4000 BCE Biblical date of Creation.
� It created division and conflict between the peoples of India, making them vulnerable to conversion by Christian missionaries.”
“Scholars today of both East and West believe the Rig Veda people who called themselves Aryan were indigenous to India, and there never was an Aryan invasion. The languages of India have been shown to share common ancestry in ancient Sanskrit and Tamil. Even these two apparently unrelated languages, according to current “super-family” research, have a common origin: an ancient language dubbed Nostratic.”
Finally, Dr Frawley provides some background and an explanation of how the Aryan Invasion Theory was conceived and how it became the accepted wisdom.
In his own words, �One of the most interesting puzzles in archaeology, and one that hasn’t really been completely answered yet, concerns the story of the supposed Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent.
The story goes like this: The Aryans were a tribe of IndoEuropean-speaking, horse-riding nomads living in the arid steppes of Eurasia. Sometime around 1700 BC, the Aryans invaded the ancient urban civilizations of the Indus Valley, and destroyed that culture. The Indus Valley civilizations were far more civilized than any horse-back nomad, having had a written language, farming capabilities, and led a truly urban existence. Some 1,200 years after the supposed invasion, the descendants of the Aryans, so they say, wrote the classic Indian literature called the Vedic manuscripts.
Hitler, or more specifically, Hitler’s pet archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna (1958-1931), used this idea to put forward the Aryans as a master race of Indo-Europeans, who were supposed to be Nordic in appearance and directly ancestral to the Germans.
The problem is, most if not all of this story - “Aryans” as a cultural group, invasion from the arid steppes, Nordic appearance, the Indus Civilization being destroyed, and, certainly not least, the Germans being descended from them - may not be true at all.
The historical basis of this theory was an account of Indian culture by French missionary Abbe Dubois (1770 � 1848) who was driven by the need to fit what he saw with the Biblical myths of Noah and the Great Flood. He also authored some poorly translated versions of the existing literature.
His work was translated into English in 1897 by the East India Company, prefaced by Max Muller and became the basis of the Aryan Invasion Theory.
When excavations in Mohenjo-daro and other sites revealed a far advanced culture, instead of using this evidence to bury the Aryan Invasion Theory, it was ingenuously incorporated to confirm to the existing hypothesis.
Thus it was assumed that the Harappa civilisation must have been destroyed by an �invasion of people from Europe� who then went on to create the second great civilization of India.
Note that instead of admitting that the Aryan Invasion Theory may not be true and there may have been continuity in the civilization and culture for the past five thousand years, British historians used the evidence to confirm to the hypothesis of a superior race invading India.
As Dr Frawley says, �It turns out that there are serious problems with this argument. There are no references to an invasion in the Vedic manuscripts; and the word “Arya” means “superior being” as an honorific, not as a superior cultural group. Secondly, recent archaeological evidence suggests that the Indus civilization was shut down by droughts combined with a devastating flood, not a violent confrontation. Recent archaeological evidence also shows that most of the so-called “Indus River” valley peoples lived in the Sarasvati River, which is mentioned in the Vedic manuscripts as a homeland. And, there is no biological or archaeological evidence of a massive invasion of people of a different race.�
And he concludes by saying, �Born from a colonial mentality, corrupted by a Nazi propaganda machine, the Aryan invasion theory is finally undergoing radical reassessment by Indian archaeologists and their colleagues, using the Vedic documents themselves, additional linguistic studies, and physical evidence revealed through archaeological studies. Indian cultural history is an ancient and complex one, and one that only time will teach us.�
I would add to that by saying that we need to do more to make everyone aware of these biases in the �history� that continues to be taught in schools and colleges even today. And although a generation or two has grown up with this warped colonial-view of Indian history, it is never too late.
P.S. As I was summarising this, I was made aware of a recent change that the BBC made on its website in the section on Hinduism (see �The Aryan Invasion Theory - Why is the theory no longer accepted?� http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history5.shtml ).
I was very pleased to see that even the BBC is now coming around to the view that the �Theory of Aryan Invasion� was a result of poor research based on evidence that has since been discredited and based on misinterpretations of archaeological, linguistic and ethnological observations.
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Footnotes:
[1] - in the sense that most of them sought to perpetuate colonial myths, an example being that ancient India had no art or culture to speak of and most of the developments in these areas happened with the advent of the Mughals
[2] - note that what these colours actually signify are �the gunas or qualities of each class. White is the color of purity (sattvaguna), dark that of impurity (tamoguna), red the color of action (rajoguna), and yellow the color of trade (also rajoguna).�
[3] � (Indus Valley culture) which should more properly be characterised as �Saraswati culture� since its centre was not Indus Valley but the ancient river �Saraswati� which dried up around 1900 BC
October 8th, 2005
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Hindu Dharma, Hindu Social System, Sanatana Dharma, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
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The Aryan-Dravidian Controversy
By David Frawley
The British ruled India, as they did other lands, by a divide-and-conquer strategy. They promoted religious, ethnic and cultural divisions among their colonies to keep them under control. Unfortunately some of these policies also entered into the intellectual realm. The same simplistic and divisive ideas were used for interpreting the culture and history of India. Regrettably many Hindus have come to believe these ideas, even though a deeper examination reveals they may have no real objective or scientific basis.
One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races - the lighter-skinned Aryans and the darker-skinned Dravidians - and that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans conquered and dominated. From this came the additional idea that much of what we call Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian, and later borrowed by Aryans who, however, never gave the Dravidians proper credit for it. This idea has been used to turn the people of south India against the people of north India, as if the southerners were a different race.
Racial Theories
The Nineteenth century was the era of Europeans imperialism. Many Europeans did in fact believe that they belonged to a superior race and that their religion, Christianity, was a superior religion and all other religions were barbaric, particularly a religion like Hinduism which uses many idols. The Europeans felt that it was their duty to convert non-Christians, sometimes even if it required intimidation, force or bribery.
Europeans thinkers of the era were dominated by a racial theory of man, which was interpreted primarily in terms of color. They saw themselves as belonging to a superior ‘white’ or Caucasian race. They had enslaved the Negroid or ‘black’ race. As Hindus were also dark or ‘colored’, they were similarly deemed inferior. The British thus, not surprisingly, looked upon the culture of India in a similar way as having been a land of a light-skinned or Aryan race (the north Indians), ruling a dark or Dravidian race (the south Indians).
About this time in history the similarities betweeen Indo-European languages also became evident. Sanskrit and the languages of North India were found to be relatives of the languages of Europe, while the Dravidian languages of south India were found to be another language family. By the racial theory, Europeans natuarally felt that the original speakers of any root Indo-European language must have been ‘white’, as they were not prepared to recognize that their languages could have been derived from the darker-skinned Hindus. As all Hindus were dark compared to the Europeans, it was assumed that the original white Indo-European invadors of India must have been assimilated by the dark indigenous population, though they left their mark more on north India where people have a lighter complexion.
Though the Nazis later took this idea of a white Aryan superior race to its extreme of brutality, they did not invent the idea, nor were they the only ones to use it for purposes of exploitation. They took what was a common idea of nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe, which many other Europeans shared. They perverted this idea further, but the distortion of it was already the basis of much exploitation and misunderstanding.
Racial Interpretation of Vedas
Europeans Vedic interpreters used this same racial idea to explain the Vedas. The Vedas speak of a battle between light and darkness. This was turned into a war between light skinned Aryans and dark skinned Dravidians. Such so-called scholars did not bother to examine the fact that most religions and mythologies including those of the ancient American Indians, Egyptians, Greeks and Persians have the idea of such a battle between light and darkness (which is the symbolic conflict between truth and falsehood), but we do not interpret their statements racially. In short, the Europeans projected racism into the history of India, and accused the Hindus of the very racism that they themselves were using to dominate the Hindus.
European scholars also pointed out that caste in India was originally defined by color. Brahmins were said to be white, Kshatriyas red, Vaishyas yellow, and Shudras black. Hence the Brahmins were said to have been originally the white Aryans and the Dravidians the dark Shudras. However, what these colors refer to is the gunas or qualities of each class. White is the color of purity (sattvaguna), dark that of impurity (tamoguna), red the color of action (rajoguna), and yellow the color of trade (also rajoguna). To turn this into races is simplistic and incorrect. Where is the red race and where is the yellow race in India? And when have the Kshatriyas been a red race and the Vaishyas as yellow race?
The racial idea reached yet more ridiculous proportions. Vedic passages speaking of their enemies (mainly demons) as without nose (a-nasa), were interpreted as a racial slur against the snub-nosed Dravidians. Now Dravidians are not snub-nosed or low nosed people, as anyone can see by examining their facial features. And the Vedic demons are also described as footless (a-pada). Where is such a footless and noseless race and what does this have to do with the Dravidians? Moreover Vedic gods like Agni (fire) are described as footless and headless. Where are such headless and footless Aryans? Yet such ’scholar- ship’ can be found in prominent Western books on the history of India, some published in India and used in schools in India to the present day.
This idea was taken further and Hindu gods like Krishna, whose name means dark, or Shiva who is portrayed as dark, were said to have originally been Dravidian gods taken over by the invading Aryans (under the simplistic idea that Dravidians as dark-skinned people must have worshipped dark colored gods). Yet Krishna and Shiva are not black but dark blue. Where is such a dark blue race? Moreover the different Hindu gods, like the classes of Manu, have different colors relative to their qualities. Lakshmi is portrayed as pink, Saraswati as white, Kali as blue-black, or Yama, the God of death, as green. Where have such races been in India or elsewhere?
In a similar light, some scholars pointed out that Vedic gods like Savitar have golden hair and golden skin, thus showing blond and fair-skinned people living in ancient India. However, Savitar is a sun-god and sun-god are usually gold in color, as has been the case of the ancient Egyptian, Mayan, and Inca and other sun-gods. Who has a black or blue sun-god? This is from the simple fact that the sun has a golden color. What does this have to do with race? And why should it be racial statement in the Vedas but not elsewhere?
The Term Aryan
A number of European scholars of the 19th century, such as Max Muller, did state that Aryan is not a racial term and there is no evidence that it ever was so used in the Vedas, but their views on this were largely ignored. We should clearly note that there is no place in Hindu literature wherein Aryan has ever been equated with a race or with a particular set of physical characteristics. The term Arya means “noble” or “spiritual”, and has been so used by Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as well as Hindus. Religions that have called themselves Aryan, like all of these, have had members of many different races. Race was never a bar for anyone joining some form of the Arya Dharma or teaching of noble people.
Aryan is a term similar in meaning to the Sanskrit word Sri, an epithet of respect. We could equate it with the English word Sir. We cannot imagine that a race of men named sir took over England in the Middle Ages and dominated a different race because most of the people in power in the country were called sir. Yet this is the kind of thinking that was superimposed upon the history of India.
New Evidence on the Indus Culture
The Indus Civilization - the ancient urban culture of north India in the third millenniem BC - has been interpreted as Dravidian or non-Aryan culture. Though this has never been proved, it has been taken by many people to be a fact. However, new archaelogiocal evidence shows that the so-called Indus culture was a Vedic culture, centered not on the Indus but on the banks of the Saraswati river of Vedic fame (the culture should be renamed not the Indus but the “Saraswati Culture”), and that its language was also related to Sanskrit. The ancient Saraswati dried up around 1900 BC. Hence the Vedic texts that speaks so eloquently of this river must predate this period.
The racial types found in the Indus civilization are now found to have been generally the same as those of north India today, and that there is no evidence of any significant intrusive population into India in the Indus or post-Indus era. This new information tends to either dismiss the Aryan invasion theory or to place it back at such an early point in history (before 3000 BC or even 6000 BC), that it has little bearing on what we know as the culture of India.
Aryan and Dravidian Races
The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of color. There are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian races. The three primary races are Caucasian, the Mangolian and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race generally placed in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference between the so-called Aryans of the north and Dravidians of the south is not a racial division. Biologically both the north and south Indians are of the same Caucasian race, only when closer to the equator the skin becomes darker, and under the influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to become a little smaller. While we can speak of some racial differences between north and south Indian people, they are only secondary.
For example, if we take a typical person from Punjab, another from Maharash- tra, and a third from Tamilnadu we will find that the Maharashtrians generally fall in between the other two in terms of build and skin color. We see a gradual shift of characteristics from north to south, but no real different race. An Aryan and Dravidian race in India is no more real than a north and a south European race. Those who use such terms are misusing language. We would just as well place the blond Swede of Europe in a different race from the darker haired and skinned person of southern Italy.
Nor is the Caucasian race the “white” race. Caucasians can be of any color from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in between. The predominent Caucasian type found in the world is not the blond-blue-eyes northern European but the black hair, brown-eyed darker skinned Mediterranean type that we find from southern Europe to north India. Similarly the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin whiter than many so-called Cauca- sians. In fact of all the races, the Caucasian is the most variable in its skin color. Yet many identification forms that people fill out today in the world still define race in terms of color.
North and South Indian Religions Scholars dominated by the Aryan Dravidian racial idea have tried to make some Hindu gods Dravidian and other gods Aryan, even though there has been no such division within Hindu culture. This is based upon a superficial identification of deities with color i.e. Krishna as black and therefore Dravidian, which we have already shown the incorrectness of. In the Mahabharat, Krishna traces his lineage through the Vedic line of the Yadus, a famous Aryan people of the north and west of India, and there are instances as far back as the Rig Veda of seers whose names meant dark (like Krishna Angiras or Shyava Atreya).
Others say that Shiva is a Dravidian god because Shaivism is more prominent in south than in north India. However, the most sacred sites of Shiva are Kailash in Tibet, Kashmir, and the city of Varanasi in the north. There never was any limitation of the worship of Shiva to one part of India.
Shiva is also said not to be a Vedic god because he is not prominent in the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, where deities like Indra, Agni and Soma are more prevalent than Rudra (the Vedic form of Shiva). However, Rudra-Shiva is dominent in the Atharva and Yajur Vedas, as well as the Brahmanas, which are also very old Vedic texts. And Vedic gods like Indra and Agni are often identified with Rudra and have many similar characteristics (Indra as the dancer, the destroyer of the cities, and the Lord of power, for example). While some differences in nomenclature do exist between Vedic and Shaivite or Vedic and any other later teachings like the Vaishnava or Shakta - and we would expect a religion to undergo some development through time - there is nothing to show any division between Vedic and Shaivite traditions, and certainly nothing to show that it is a racial division. Shiva in fact is the deity most associated with Vedic ritual and fire offerings. He is adorned with the ashes, the bhasma, of the Vedic fire.
Early investigators also thought they saw a Shaivite element in the so-called Dravidian Indus Valley civilization, with the existence of Shivalinga like sacred objects, and seals resembling Shiva. However, further examination has also found large numbers of Vedic like fire-altars replete with all the traditional offers as found in the Hindu Brahmanas, thus again refuting such simplistic divisions. The religion of the Indus (Saraswati) culture appears to include many Vedic as well as Puranic elements.
Some hold that Shaivism is a south Indian religion and the Vedic religion is north Indian. However, the greatest supporter of Vedanta, Shankaracharya, was a Dravidian Shaivite from Kerala. Meanwhile many south Indian kings have been Vaishnavites or worshippers of Vishnu (who is by the same confused logic considered to be a north Indian god). In short there is no real division of India into such rigid compartments as north and south Indian religions, though naturally regional variations do exist.
Aryan and Dravidian Languages
The Indo-European languages and the Dravidian do have important differences. Their ways of developing words and grammar are different. However, it is a misnomer to call all Indo-European languages Aryan. The Sanskrit term Aryan would not apply to European languages, which are materialistic in orientation, because Aryan in Sanskrit means spiritual. When the term Aryan is used as indicating certain languages, the term is being used in a Western or European sense that we should remember is quite apart from its traditional Sanskrit meaning, and implies a racial bias that the Sanskrit term does not have.
We can speak of Indo-European and Dravidian languages, but this does not necessarily mean that Aryan and Dravidian must differ in culture, race or religion. The Hungarians and Finns of Europe are of a different language group than the other Europeans, but we do not speak of them as of a Finnish race, or the Finns as being non-Europeans, nor do we consider that their religious beliefs must therefore be unrelated to those of the rest of Europe.
Even though Dravidian languages are based on a different model than Sanskrit there are thirty to seventy per cent Sanskrit words in south Indian languages like Telugu and Tamil, which is much higher percentage than north Indian languages like Hindi. In addition both north and south Indian languages have a similar construction and phraseology that links them close together, which European languages often do not share. This has caused some linguists even to propose that Hindi was a Dravidian language. In short, the language compartments, like the racial ones, are not as rigid as has been thought.
In fact if we examine the oldest Vedic Sanskrit, we find similar sounds to Dravidian languages (the cerebral letters, for example), which are not present in other Indo-European tongues. This shows either that there were already Dravidians in the same region as the Vedic people, and part of the same culture with them, or that Dravidian languages could also have been early off-shoots of Sanskrit, which was the theory of the modern rishi, Sri Aurobindo. In addition the traditional inventor of the Dravidian languages was said to have been none other than Agastya, one of the most important rishis of the Rig Veda, the oldest Sanskrit text.
Dravidians in Vedic/Puranic Lore
Some Vedic texts, like the Aitareya Brahmana or Manu Samhita, have looked at the Dravidians as people outside of the Vedic culture. However, they do not look at them as indigenous or different people but as fallen descendants of Vedic kings, notably Vishwamitra. These same texts look upon some people of north India, including some groups from Bengal, as also outside of Vedic culture, even though such people were Indo-European in language.
Other texts like the Ramayana portray the Dravidians, the inhabitants of Kishkindha (modern Karnataka), as allies of Aryan kings like Rama. The Vedic rishi Agastya is also often portrayed as one of the progenitors of the Dravidian peoples. Hence there appears to have been periods in history when the Dravidians or some portion of them were not looked on with favour by some followers of Vedic culture, but this was largely temporary.
If we look through the history of India, there has been some time when almost every part of India has been dominated for a period by unorthodox traditions like Buddhist, Jain or Persian (Zoroastrian), not to mention outside religions like Islam or Christianity, or dominated by other foreign conquerors, like the Greeks, the Scythians (Shakas) or the Huns. That Gujarat was a once suspect land to Vedic people when it was under Jain domination does not cause us to turn the Gujaratis into another race or religion. That something similar happened to the Dravidians at some point in history does not require making something permanently non-Aryan about them. In the history of Europe for example, that Austria once went through a protestant phase, does not cause modern Austrians to consider that they cannot be Catholics.
The kings of south India, like the Chola and Pandya dynsties, relate their lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the progenitor of all the Aryas, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata. Hence there are not only traditions that make the Dravidians descendants of Vedic rishis and kings, but those that make the Aryans of north India descendants of Dravidian kings. The two cultures are so intimately related that it is difficult to say which came first. Any differences between them appear to be secondary, and nothing like the great racial divide that the Aryan-Dravidian idea has promoted.
Dravidians as Preservers of Vedic Culture
Through the long and cruel Islamic assault on India, south India became the land of refuge for Vedic culture, and to a great extent remains so to the present day. The best Vedic chanting, rituals and other traditions are preserved in south India. It is ironic therefore that the best preservers of Aryan culture in India have been branded as non-Aryan. This again was not something part of the Aryan tradition of India, as part of the misinterpretation of the term Aryan fostered by European thought which often had a political or religi- ous bias, and which led to the Nazis. To equate such racism and violence with the Vedic and Hindu religion, the least aggressive of all religions, is a rather sad thing, not to say very questionable scholarship.
Dravidians do not have to feel that Vedic culture is any more foreign to them than it is to the people of north India. They need not feel that they are racially different than the people of the north. They need not feel that they are losing their culture by using Sanskrit. Nor need they feel that they have to assert themselves against north India or Vedic culture to protect their real heritage.
Vedic and Hindu culture has never suppressed indigenous cultures or been opposed to cultral variations, as have the monolithic conversion religions of Christianity and Islam. The Vedic rishis and yogis encouraged the development of local traditions. They established sacred places in all the regions in which their culture spread. They did not make everyone have to visit a single holy place like Meca, Rome or Jerusalem. Nor did they find local or tribal deities as something to be eliminated as heathen or pagan. They respected the common human aspiration for the Divine that we find in all cultures and encouraged diversity and uniqueness in our approach to it.
Meanwhile the people of north India also need not take this north-south division as something fundamental. It is not a racial difference that makes the skin of south Indians darker but merely the effect of climate. Any Caucasian race group living in the tropics for some centuries or millennia would eventually turn dark. And whatever color a person’s skin may be has nothing to do with their true nature according to the Vedas that see the same Self or Atman in all.
It is also not necessary to turn various Vedic gods into Dravidian gods to give the Dravidians equality with the so-called Aryans in terms of the numbers or antiquity of their gods. This only gives credence to what is superficial distinction in the first place. What is necessary is to assert what is truly Aryan in the culture of India, north or south, which is high or spiritual values in character and action. These occur not only in the Vedas but also the Agamas and other scriptures within the greater tradition.
The Aryans and Dravidians are part of the came culture and we need not speak of them as separate. Dividing them and placing them at odds with each other serves the interests of neither but only serves to damage their common culture (which is what most of those who propound these ideas are often seek- ing). Perhaps the saddest thing is that modern Indian politicians have also used this division to promote their own ambitions, though it is harmful to the unity of the country.
Indus Civilisation
The Tamils are an ancient people. Their history had its beginnings in the rich alluvial plains near the southern extremity of peninsular India which included the land mass known as the island of Sri Lanka today. The island’s plant and animal life (including the presence of elephants) evidence the earlier land connection with the Indian sub continent. So too do satellite photographs which show the submerged ‘land bridge’ between Dhanuskodi on the south east of the Indian sub-continent and Mannar in the north west of the island.
Some researchers have concluded that it was during the period 6000 B.C. to 3000 B.C. that the island separated from the Indian sub continent and the narrow strip of shallow water known today as the Palk Straits came into existence. Many Tamils trace their origins to the people of Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley around 6000 years before the birth of Christ. There is, however, a need for further systematic study of the history of the early Tamils and proto Tamils.
“Dravidians, whose descendents still live in Southern India, established the first city communities, in the Indus valley, introduced irrigation schemes, developed pottery and evolved a well ordered system of government.” (Reader’s Digest Great World Atlas, 1970)
Clyde Ahmad Winters, who has written extensively on Dravidian origins commented:”Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the Dravidians were the founders of the Harappan culture which extended from the Indus Valley through northeastern Afghanistan, on into Turkestan. The Harappan civilization existed from 2600-1700 BC. The Harappan civilization was twice the size the Old Kingdom of Egypt. In addition to trade relations with Mesopotamia and Iran, the Harappan city states also had active trade relations with the Central Asian peoples.” He has also explored the question whether the Dravidians were of African origin. (Winters,Clyde Ahmad, “Are Dravidians of African Origin”, P.Second ISAS,1980 - Hong Kong: Asian Research Service, 1981 - pages 789- 807)Other useful web pages on the Indus civilisation (suggested by Dr.Jude Sooriyajeevan of the National Research Council, Canada) include the Indus Dictionary.At the same time, the Aryan/Dravidian divide in India and the ‘Aryan Invasion Theory’ itself has come under attack by some modern day historians. (see also Sarasvati-Sindhu civilisation; ‘Hinduism: Native or Alien to India’)
Professor Klaus Klostermaier in ‘Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory and Revising Ancient Indian History’ commented: “India had a tradition of learning and scholarship much older and vaster than the European countries that, from the sixteenth century onwards, became its political masters. Indian scholars are rewriting the history of India today. One of the major points of revision concerns the so called ‘Aryan invasion theory’, often referred to as ‘colonial-missionary’, implying that it was the brainchild of conquerors of foreign colonies who could not but imagine that all higher culture had to come from outside ‘backward’ India, and who likewise assumed that a religion could only spread through a politically supported missionary effort.While not buying into the more sinister version of this revision, which accuses the inventors of the Aryan invasion theory of malice and cynicism, there is no doubt that early European attempts to explain the presence of Indians in India had much to with the commonly held Biblical belief that humankind originated from one pair of humans- Adam and Eve to be precise …”
Hinduism Today concluded in Rewriting Indian History - Hindu Timeline: “Although lacking supporting scientific evidence, this (Aryan Invasion) theory, and the alleged Aryan-Dravidian racial split, was accepted and promulgated as fact for three main reasons. It provided a convenient precedent for Christian British subjugation of India. It reconciled ancient Indian civilisation and religious scripture with the 4000 bce Biblical date of Creation. It created division and conflict between the peoples of India, making them vulnerable to conversion by Christian missionaries.” “Scholars today of both East and West believe the Rig Veda people who called themselves Aryan were indigenous to India, and there never was an Aryan invasion. The languages of India have been shown to share common ancestry in ancient Sanskrit and Tamil. Even these two apparently unrelated languages, according to current “super-family” research, have a common origin: an ancient language dubbed Nostratic.”
Who were the Aryans?
One of the most interesting puzzles in archaeology, and one that hasn’t really been completely answered yet, concerns the story of the supposed Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent. The story goes like this: The Aryans were a tribe of IndoEuropean-speaking, horse-riding nomads living in the arid steppes of Eurasia. Sometime around 1700 BC, the Aryans invaded the ancient urban civilizations of the Indus Valley, and destroyed that culture. The Indus Valley civilizations were far more civilized than any horse-back nomad, having had a written language, farming capabilities, and led a truly urban existence. Some 1,200 years after the supposed invasion, the descendants of the Aryans, so they say, wrote the classic Indian literature called the Vedic manuscripts.
Hitler, or more specifically, Hitler’s pet archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna (1958-1931), used this idea to put forward the Aryans as a master race of Indo-Europeans, who were supposed to be Nordic in appearance and directly ancestral to the Germans.
The problem is, most if not all of this story - “Aryans” as a cultural group, invasion from the arid steppes, Nordic appearance, the Indus Civilization being destroyed, and, certainly not least, the Germans being descended from them - may not be true at all.
During the 19th century, many European missionaries and imperialists travelled the world seeking conquests and converts. One country which saw a great deal of this kind of exploration was India. Some of the missionaries were also antiquarians by avocation, and one such fellow was the French missionary Abbé Dubois (1770-1848). His manuscript on Indian culture makes some unusual reading today; the good Abbé tried to fit in what he understood of Noah and the Great Flood with what he was reading in the great literature of India. It was not a good fit, but he did describe Indian civilization at the time, and provided some pretty bad translations of the literature.
It was the Abbé’s work, translated into English by the British East India Company in 1897 and with a laudatory preface by German archaeologist Max Muller, that formed the basis of the Aryan invasion story - not the Vedic manuscripts themselves. Scholars had long noted the similarities between Sanskrit, the ancient language in which the classical Vedic texts are written, and other Latin-based languages such as French and Italian. And when the first excavations at the large Indus Valley site of Mohenjo Daro were completed early in the 20th century, and it was recognized as a truly advanced civilization, a civilization not mentioned in the Vedic manuscripts, among some circles this was considered ample evidence that an invasion of people related to the peoples of Europe had occurred, destroying the earlier civilization and creating the second great civilization of India.
It turns out that there are serious problems with this argument. There are no references to an invasion in the Vedic manuscripts; and the word “Aryas” means “superior being” as an honorific, not as a superior cultural group. Secondly, recent archaeological evidence suggests that the Indus civilization was shut down by droughts combined with a devasting flood, not a violent confrontation. Recent archaeological evidence also shows that most of the so-called “Indus River” valley peoples lived in the Sarasvati River, which is mentioned in the Vedic manuscripts as a homeland. And, there is no biological or archaeological evidence of a massive invasion of people of a different race.
Born from a colonial mentality, corrupted by a Nazi propaganda machine, the Aryan invasion theory is finally undergoing radical reassessment by Indian archaeologists and their colleagues, using the Vedic documents themselves, additional linguistic studies, and physical evidence revealed through archaeological studies. Indian cultural history is an ancient and complex one, and one that only time will teach us.
May 15th, 2005
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, British Rule in India, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
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