Indo-Aryan migrations

The Aryan invasion theory is a historical theory first put forth by German Indologist Friedrich Max Müller and others in the mid 19th century to explain certain aspects of history in the Indian subcontinent. The theory itself has a complex history - initial acceptance, subsequent modifications, and currently new challenges in terms of counter theories. However, no single conclusive theory now prevails, rather combinations of theories are generally accepted.

Overview

According to the theory, a Caucasian race of nomadic warriors known as the Aryans, originating in the Caucasus mountains in Central Asia, invaded Northern India and Iran, somewhere between 1800 and 1500 BC. The Invaders entered the Indian sub-continent from the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush mountains possibly on horseback, bringing with them the domesticated horse into the sub-continent. The theory further proposes that this race displaced or assimilated the indigenous Dravidian people and their Indus Valley Culture, and that the bulk of the indigenous people moved to the Southern reaches of the subcontinent or became the lower castes of post-Vedic society. The Aryans brought with them their own Vedic religion, which was codified in the Vedas around the 1500 to 1200 BC. Upon arrival in India, the Aryans abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and intermixed with the Dravidians remaining in the north of India. The victory of the Aryans over the native civilization was quick and complete, resulting in the complete domination of Aryan culture and language over the northern part of the subcontinent and considerable influence on parts of the south.

The theory was first proposed in the nineteenth century on linguistic grounds. Given that Europe had Indo-European speaking people, it was proposed that (possibly) light skinned people invaded the subcontinent and subdued the aboriginal people and then mixed with them. The theory fit existing preconceptions, given the contemporary history of European colonization. Initially, the aboriginal occupants of India were assumed to be primitive and the achievements of ancient India were credited to the descendants of the Aryan invaders. However, during the 1920s, the Indus Valley civilization was discovered, which was obviously extremely advanced for its time with planned cities, a standardized system of weights and bricks, etc, and it was realized that if the Aryans had invaded, then, irrespective of their later achievements, they had in fact overthrown a civilization considerably more advanced than they themselves were.

The association of Aryans with a race also has been slowly dropped. Max Müller clarified late in his career that by Aryan, he only meant a group of languages and not a race. Romila Thapar also maintains that Aryan never meant race in the Rig Veda and that the Proto-Indo European speaking people were already a mixed bunch and not any "pure" Caucasian race.

Questioning the theory

Accepted generally when it was first propounded, this theory has since been questioned on two fundamental grounds: firstly whether the Aryans came through invasions or incursions/ migrations, and secondly, whether the Aryans came from outside the Indian subcontinent at all. The issues raised by these lines of questioning are discussed in the subsequent paragraphs.

Theory of migration rather than invasion

The first responses to the Aryan invasion theory accept the basic premise that the Aryans came from outside India but speculate and differ on the nature of their ingress. The proponents of this camp are of the opinion that there is very little archaeological evidence for an invasion. For the invasion theory to be viable, the Aryans would have had to discover mountain passes among the treacherous Hindu-Kush mountains, most of which are snow free only three months a year. The Aryan invaders, being a nomadic people would be far smaller in number to the Indus Valley civilization, which was spread over an area greater than 1.8 million square kilometers with an estimated population greater than the combined populations of all the other river civilizations at that time except ancient China. They would then have to quickly and completely rout an advanced civilization living in fortified cities over a large geographic area and impose their culture, language, cosmology and religion on the local population without leaving any physical traces of themselves.

In addition, there are practically no archaeological signs of an invasion, nor oral or written legends of an invasion. It seems much more likely that Aryan migrants found mountain passes and entered the sub-continent during the snow free months and settled within or close to the Indus Valley civilization. Multiple waves of migration are possible, causing intermingling of the immigrant and local populations. There may have been significant exchange and assimilation of culture and language on both sides. The immigrants may have travelled back and forth to their original lands taking language and culture to other Indo-European peoples, especially Ancient Persia. Human skeletal remains excavated from sites of the Indus Valley civilization show a mixed ethnic composition similar to the present, showing support for migration rather than an invasion. Thus the idea of "invasion by barbarian Aryan hordes" has been replaced by "immigration and acculturation by a small group of linguistically Indo-European people".

Currently, there is a general acceptance of this theory of migration or gradual incursion.

Theory that the Indo-European languages originated in India

However, in recent times a different viewpoint has been proposed: that no such migration or invasion occurred, and that the Indus Valley civilization was the civilization described in the Vedas and the Aryans originated in India.

More recent scholarship claims that on the basis of archeology, linguistics, and study of available literature from that period, the Aryan culture was in fact an indigenous culture which had enjoyed continuous development in the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years. Recent discoveries of what appear to be Vedic elements in the Harappa and Mohenjodaro, as well as newly excavated cities in Gujarat and off the coastlines of Eastern and Western India seem to give the lie, according to some historians, to the Aryan Migration Theory. It supposes that in fact the great Vedic Saraswati River is the dry river bed that has been identified in North-Western India and that the white Aryan race is in fact nothing more than indigenous Indian tribes considered 'noble' for adherence to Vedic principles, not for their racial characteristics or lineage. This theory of the Aryan culture being indigenous establishes Vedic Indian culture to have come into being as early as 5000 BC, slowly developing over time till around the time of the dissolution of the Harappa and Mohenjodaro cultures, whose disappearance is now linked to the drying of the Saraswati River.

Researchers remain divided on this topic with the majority sticking to the old concepts.

Evidence relating to the theory

Over two thousand Indus Valley sites have been unearthed but only five percent of them have been excavated. The investigation of the Aryan question involves:

1. Archaeology of a large area and a long period of time.
2. Archaeogenetic evidence from the existing population
3. Linguistics involving Indo-European branches, Vedic Sanskrit, Dravidian
4. Hermeneutics involving Indian and other scripture (Vedas, Puranas, Avesta)
5. Geography of the areas involved.

It is hard to be an expert in all the above disciplines over such a large area and over such a long time period, so observations or claims made by any person may show accuracy and thoroughness in one area but faulty analysis or oversight in another.

The opponents of continuity primarily focus on showing that the Rig-Vedic culture is pastoral, external to the Indian sub-continent and that a chronological gap exists between the Indus Valley and the Rig Vedic cultures.

Proponents of continuity focus on stressing that the Rig-Vedic culture is native to the sub-continent, urban in nature, makes constant references to bodies of water (Central Asian nomads would not have been exposed to seas) and a chronological peer of the Harappan culture, and that perhaps they are the same culture.

The individual arguments may focus on linguistics, use of metals, domestication of horses or differences in described geography, but the basic focus is to identify the Rig-Vedic culture with or against the Indus Valley civilization.

Archaeology

Only five percent of the known Indus Valley sites have been excavated, so one could expect a constant stream of archaeological evidence to be unearthed in the future. Unlike hermeneutic evidence, there are very few issues with archaeological evidence, primarily due to the reliability of Carbon-14 and Thermo-luminescence dating.

The discovery of the Harappa and Mohenjo-daro sites changed the theory from an invasion of implicitly advanced Aryan people on an aboriginal population to an invasion of nomadic barbarians on an advanced urban civilization. Recent DNA evidence showing a change in the ethnic makeup of the people in the subcontinent once between 6000BC and 4500 BC and then again between 800 and 200BC caused Romila Tapar to state that the Aryans were already a mixed bunch when they arrived in India.

Among the archeological signs claimed to support the theory of an invasion are the many unburied corpses found in the top levels of Mohenjo-daro. Some interpret these as victims of a conquest of the city, while others suggest that they were victims of an epidemic, left unburied as a result of the breakdown of city sanitation.

An important piece of archaeological evidence mentioned in support of the invasion theory was the absence of horses in the Indus Valley civilization, while the Vedas make frequent mention of the horse. (The earliest domestication of the horse and the first use of horses in South Asia is a topic of great dispute.) However, terra-cotta figurines and faunal remains of the horse were excavated from the sites at Lothal, Surkotda and Kalibangan.

Similar weight has been placed on differences in the types of metals used in either civilization; the importance of the bull to the Indus Valley civilization as evidenced by imagery in seals and pottery in contrast to the Vedic cow-worship; the importance of the tiger in the Indus Valley civilization and its absence in the Vedic texts; the absence of the six spoked Aryan wheel and the heavy consumption of fish by the Indus Valley dwellers in contrast to the virtual absence of fish in the Vedas.

Proponents of a continuous civilisation point out that the bull is mentioned numerous times in the vedas (next only to the horse), for example verses comparing Soma to the bull [Rig Veda 1:32, 9:92] and Exploits of Indra [Rig Veda 1:33, 7:24, 10:86]. The sacred place of the cow is not Vedic; it originated in later Hinduism during the time of Krishna the cowherd. There are no verses in the Vedas that speak about the need to refrain from cow-slaughter. Verses mentioning fish do exist in the Rig Veda (7:18, 10:68) and the tiger is mentioned in the Yajur Veda (4:4, 5:3, 6:2, 7:7). Terra-cotta figurines excavated show chariots with spokes painted (at KaliBangan) or shown in relief (at Banawali).

Recently, the excavation of Dholavira in the Gujarath province of India is claimed by the same camp to show a city that is consistent with Vedic principles of city planning: arameshthina, madhyamesthina and avameshtina or upper, middle and lower cities [1].

Archaeogenetics

The recent advances in Archaeogenetics have some interesting results for the Aryan invasion theory. Genetic study shows that Indian population as a whole has little similarity to other areas of supposed Indo-European settlement indicating there was no mass settlement. Indian maternal DNA is generally similar right across the country indicating that the mass of population has been in place there for a long period. However, a 2001 examination of male Y-DNA by Indian and American scientists shows that higher castes are genetically closer to Europeans than are individuals from lower castes, whose genetic profiles are closer to those of other Asians. This evidence obviously strongly supports the hypothesis of the arrival of Indo-European outsiders, as it is supposed the caste system was an attempt by these predominately male arrivals to keep themselves separate from the native population. Tribal people from the south of India, which would have remained apart from any northern incursion, are also geneticaly closer to those of lower caste origin. These results are part of the ongoing interest in examinations of genetic heritage and will become more precise as more studies are done. [2]

Linguistics

The linguistic facts of the situation are little disputed; however, their historical interpretation is contentious. Most linguists interpret them as implying an Aryan migration into India; the linguistic arguments provide no data that would determine whether this migration was peaceful or invasive, and different linguists have argued for either or for a combination of both on extra-linguistic grounds. However, some historians contest this interpretation, and advocate an Indian origin for the speakers of Proto-Indo-European.

The languages of north India mostly belong to a single family, the Indo-Aryan subgroup (related to Sanskrit) of the Indo-European family of languages. The languages of south India belong to a different linguistic family, the Dravidian languages, including Tamil, a very distinct language in its own right (with literature and tradition from at least 300 BC, disjoint from the Vedic), which has not been proven to be linked with any other language family. While Dravidian languages are primarily confined to the south of India, there is a striking exception: the Brahui, which is spoken in the Indus Valley area, indicating that Dravidian languages were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-European languages such as Sanskrit. The Elamite language, an extinct language of southeastern Iran, has also often been linked to Dravidian (in a proposed Elamo-Dravidian or Zagrosian family); if this turns out to be true, it would even more strongly imply a more northerly former distribution of the Dravidian languages.

Linguists have several rules of thumb they use to gauge the place of origin of a family. One is that the area of highest linguistic diversity of a language family is usually fairly close to the area of its origin; thus, for example, while most speakers of Germanic languages live in the United States, the highest diversity of Germanic languages is found in northern Europe. By this criterion, India seems to be an exceedingly unlikely candidate for the origin of the Indo-European languages - it has only one Indo-European subfamily, Indo-Aryan, not counting recent introductions of European languages - and eastern Europe appears much more promising; conversely, the highest diversity in Dravidian is found among its northern branches. Another is that the earliest members of the family to diverge are usually found near the place of origin; the earliest member of Indo-European to diverge appears to have been the Anatolian languages, as Hittite grammar's many peculiarities (including an animate/inanimate gender system which appears to predate the three-gender system reconstructed for the rest of Indo-European) show. The second major divide is often considered to be the centum/satem divide (a sound shift affecting palatals); both types are found in Europe, but only satem languages appear to be found in India (with the possible exception of Bangani; see below.) For reasons such as these, most linguists believe Indo-European to have originated somewhere around the Black Sea; a favorite candidate is the Kurgan culture.

The presence of retroflex consonants (including L) in Vedic Sanskrit is generally taken by linguists to indicate the influence of a non-Indo-European speaking substratum population, since these sounds are found throughout Dravidian and Munda and are reconstructed for proto-Dravidian and proto-Munda, but are not reconstructable for proto-Indo-European - nor even proto-Indo-Iranian - and are extremely rare among other Indo-European languages (having phonetically emerged in Swedish and Norwegian only in recent centuries, as a result of combinations with r.) This argument is strengthened by the presence of words with Dravidian and Munda etymologies in Sanskrit, argued to be borrowings from a previous Dravidian and Munda population, or substratum; some of these etymologies have been challenged, though most have not.

While all of this clearly suggests an Indo-European migration into India, critics of the Aryan invasion theory note that this does not automatically imply a migration at 1500 BC from the North-West. Any migration could have occurred much earlier and may not have resulted in any conflict; see Colin Renfrew. They also argue that the "substratum" influences from Dravidian and Munda could equally well be adstratum influences through mutual contact without conquest.

The presence of words describing a temperate climate in Proto-Indo-European - such as a root for "snow" - has also been taken as evidence against the theory of Indian origin for Indo-European; however, this argument is weak, since the Himalayan foothills have a temperate climate.

The argument from the centum/satem divide has been challenged: in the eighties, Claus-Peter Zoller announced the discovery of apparent traces of a centum language in the Bangani language of the western Himalayas. However, George van Driem and Suhnu Sharma later went there to do further fieldwork[3], and claim that it is in fact a satem language, and that Zoller's data were flawed. Zoller does not accept this[4][5], and claims that their data was flawed. The question is unlikely to be resolved without further fieldwork.

Indo-Europeanists note that the names of several temperate-climate flora and fauna - for instance the salmon and the beech tree - seem to be reconstructible for proto-Indo-European; critics note that the meaning of these words varies from branch to branch, and consider the exact referent of the terms to be as yet unestablished. Proponents of the claim that Indo-European originated in India note that Sanskrit names of purely Indian animals have IE etymologies: mayUra for peacock”; vyAghra for tiger; mahiSa for buffalo; pRshatI for spotted deer; iBha and hasthi for elephant. Critics note that these names appear to be derived rather than basic words - for instance, hasthi comes from the Sanskrit word for "hand" - and that they cannot be reconstructed for proto-Indo-European (unsurprisingly, since one would expect such words to have been lost by people traveling to regions without peacocks and elephants.)

Hermeneutics

A major hurdle with the hermenutics of the Vedic age is the complexity of the scripture and the Vedic language itself. At the least, a passing knowledge of Vedic Sanskrit is required and scholars who rely solely on translations inherit mistranslations and any prejudices that may be present in the translator's commentaries. Fortunately, the Rig Veda is easy to understand with some knowledge of classical Sanskrit.

A major argument offered against identifying the Indus Valley civilization with a continuous, indigenous Vedic civilization is that the society described in the Vedas is primarily a pastoral one, whereas the Indus Valley civilization was heavily urbanized, and that few of the elements of such an urban civilization (e.g., temple structures, sewage systems) are described in the Vedas. However, proponents of continuity note that the Rig Veda does contain some phrases referring to elements of an urban civilization: city's lord [Rig Veda 1:173], shrine [Rig Veda 9:113], ship with a hundred oars [Rig Veda 1:116] and iron forts [10:101]. Frequent references to the ocean and large tracts of water are also suggested as indicating the idea of continuity, since the most obvious route for IE-speakers to have entered India by would have been through the sea-less inland areas of Afghanistan; although the steppes of Russia (often proposed as an origin for Indo-European) border on two seas, and Central Asia contains two seas, proponents of continuity argue that the people would have forgotten such ideas on their route. They also note that a primarily pastoral society does not exclude the existence of urbanisation, especially since the Vedic books appear to have been composed over a long period of gradual change, rather than being a snapshot of society at one particular moment.

Proponents of continuity state that evidence in the Vedas points to a considerably earlier dating of the text. As an example, they argue that the positions of stars described in the Vedas occurred in 3500 to 4000 BC and point out that there is no account in the text of an invasion, of a great migration, or of an ancestral homeland in Central Asia.

There is, as well, considerable description of a river Saraswati. Recent geological evidence (taken from satellite photographs) has uncovered the existence of a dry riverbed -- the Hakra River -- going through the Punjab area in the Indian subcontinent.

A few historians believe this river is the Saraswati described in the Vedas. Many of the archaeological Indus Valley sites lie along the remains of this riverbed, suggesting that the Indus Valley civilization may have flourished between these two rivers. Around 1900 BC, however, the Hakra river appears to have dried up (due to earthquakes and the shifting of the path of the tributary Yamuna river, which turned from feeding the Hakra to feeding the Ganges), causing the decline of the Indus Valley civilization.

Opponents of continuity argue that the identification of the Saraswati with the Hakra would lead to inconsistencies, and that the Saraswati is very probably a particular river in Afghanistan, that is known to have had a similar name. They also point to the linguistic and religious similarities between the Vedas and early Iranian sacred literature such as the Avesta, as well as the earlier Mitannian kings of Syria. The languages and the names of gods are very similar and both involve the ritual drinking of Soma. Proponents of continuity retort that it could have been Indian people that moved from India to Iran and interacted with, or founded, the Zoroastrians.

The issue might be settled definitively by the deciphering of the many seals found at Indus Valley sites, which are written with an unknown script. If the language of these seals turned out to be Dravidian or Munda (or any other non-IE language group), this would confirm the theory that an indigenous culture was supplanted by an outside one. If it were Indo-Aryan it would support the alternative claim. What the script says would also be of great significance, shedding new light on the Indus Valley culture and possibly on ancient movements within the Indian subcontinent. However, the Indus Valley script remains undeciphered; several decipherments have been proposed - the best-known being Parpola's which interprets it as Dravidian, although some others interpret it as an early form of Sanskrit - but none has been widely accepted among scholars, and the sparseness of the corpus makes it difficult to test such claims. Some even suggest that it may not have been a form of writing after all[6].

Influence of politics

Like much of history, this question is immensely politically charged with ulterior motives being ascribed to proponents of both camps.

Supporters of the migration theory are faced with several accusations. The most major one is that the British Raj and European Indologists from the 19th century to the present day forwarded an Aryan Invasion (and now Migration) in support of Euro-centric notions of white supremacy. Current 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. Also, there are many South Indians who have adopted the 'Dravidian' identity as a matter of ethnic pride. Many opponents of the Aryan-Vedic continuity in India, like Romila Thapar, are seen as Leftist/ Marxist.

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. Another motivation is seen as arising from the need to negate 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.

The dominance in post-independence India of socialist accounts of history in Indian universities is a fact. And so is the recent emergence of Hindutva as a significant force in Indian politics. Until legitimate and widely corroborated archeological evidence for either side of the argument emerges, ulterior motive rather than genuine scholarship will be seen as underpinning their respective theories.

External Links

1. Michael Witzel's home page containing contributions from the Invasionist/Migrationist viewpoint.
2. Aryan Invasion and Fall of the Indus Empire - Defending Aryan Invasion Theory
3. Update on the Aryan Invasion Theory Koenraad Elst's non-invasionist online book.
4. The Aryan question revisited Romila Thapar counters new archaeological evidence and arguments of non-invasionists.
5. Indus Valley Rig-Vedic Connection Archaeologist B.B.Lal presents visual evidence.
6. [[http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/05_01/Indo-European.shtml Genetic evidence on India's caste system
7. Michael Witzel vs David Frawley David Frawley responds to Michael Witzel's arguments about the migration theory.
8. DMOZ listing
9. The Myth of the Aryan Invasion