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From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com

Forwarded post:

Demise of the Aryan Invasion Theory

By Dr. Dinesh Agrawal

Aryan Race and Invasion Theory is not a subject of
academic interest only, rather it conditions our
perception of India's historical evolution, the sources
of her ancient glorious heritage, and indigenous socio-
economic-political institutions which have been developed
over the millennia. Consequently, the validity or
invalidity of this theory has an obvious and strong
bearing on the contemporary Indian political and social
landscape as well as the future of Indian nationalism.
The subject matter is as relevant today as it was a
hundred years ago when it was cleverly introduced in the
school text books by British rulers. The last couple of
decades have witnessed a growing interest among scholars,
social scientists, and many nationalist Indians in this
some what vapid and prosaic subject due to their aunguish
on the great damage this theory has wrought on the psyche
of the Indian society, and its tremendous contribution in
creating apparently lasting schism between the different
sections of the Hindu society. This subject must
especially and urgently interest to all those people who
are committed to the ideology of Hindutva, for one of the
primary and fundamental premises of Hindutva philosophy
lies in the fact that the Indian cultural nationalism has
been evolved and fostered over the millenia by our
ancient rishis who at the banks of holy rivers of
Saptasindhu had composed the Vedic literature - the very
foundation of Indian civilization, and realised the
eternal truth about the Creator, His creation, and means
to preserve it. The fact that these pioneers of the
ancient Vedic culture and hence the Hinduism were
indigenous people of mother India, is mendaciously denied
by the Aryan Invasion theory which professes their
foreign origin. If such a false theory is allowed to
perpetuate and given credence without any tenable and
reliable basis, the very raison d'etre of Hindutva is
endangered. In this essay, an attempt has been made to
expose the myth of Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) based on
scriptural, archaeological evidences and proper
interpretation of Vedic verses, and present the factual
situation of the ancient Vedic society and how it
progressed and evolved into all-embracing and catholic
principle, now known as Hindusim.

The Aryan issue is quite controversial and has been the
focus of historians, archaeologists, Indologists, and
sociologists for over a century. AIT is merely a proposed
'theory', and not a factual event. And theories keep
modifying, are discredited, nay even rejected with the
emergence of new knowledge and data pertaining to the
subject matter of the theories. The AIT can not be
accepted as Gospel truth knowing fully well its shaky and
dubious foundations, and now with the emergence of new
information and an objective analysis of the
archaeological data and scriptures, the validity of AIT
is seriously challenged and it stands totally untenable.
The most weird aspect of the AIT is that it has its
origin not in any Indian records (no where in any of the
ancient Indian scriptures or epics or Puranas, etc. is
there any mention of this AIT, sounds really
incredible!), but in European politics and German
nationalism of 19th century. AIT has no support either in
Indian literature, tradition, science, or not even in any
of the south Indian (Dravidians, inhabitants of south
India, who were supposed to be the victims of the so-
called Aryan invasion) literature and tradition. So a
product of European politics of the 19th century was
forced on Indian history only to serve the imperialist
policy of British colonialists to divide the Indian
society on ethnic and religious lines in order to
continue their reign on the one hand and accentuate the
religious aims of Christian missionaries on the other.
There is absolutely no reference in Indian traditions and
literature of an Aryan Invasion of Northern India, until
the British imperialists imposed this theory on an
unsuspecting and gullible Indian society and introduced
it to the school curriculum. The irony is that this is
still taught in our schools as an unmitigated truth, and
the authorities who set the curriculum of Indian history
books are not yet prepared to accept the verdict, and
make the amends. This is truly a shame! Now, more and
more evidence is emerging which not only challenges the
old myth of Aryan Invasion, but also is destroying all
the pillars on which the entire edifice of AIT had been
assiduously but cleverly built.

It is a known fact that most of the original proponents
of AIT were not historians or archaeologists but had
missionary and political axe to grind. Max Muller in fact
had been paid by the East India Company to further its
colonial aims, and others like Lassen and Weber were
ardent German nationalists, with hardly any authority or
knowledge on India, only motivated by the superiority of
German race/nationalism through white Aryan race theory.
And as everybody knows this eventually ended up in the
most calamitous event of 20th century: the World War II.
Even in the early times of the AIT's onward journey of
acceptability, there were numerous challengers like
C.J.H. Hayes, Boyed C. Shafer and Hans Kohn who made a
deep study of the evolution and character of nationalism
in Europe. They had exposed the unscientificness of many
of the budding social sciences which were utilized in the
19th century to create the myth of Aryan Race Theory.

In the last couple of decades, the discovery of the lost
track of the Rig Vedic river Saraswati, the excavation of
a chain of Harappan sites from Ropar in the Punjab to
Lothal and Dhaulavira in Gujarat all along this lost
track, the discovery of the archaeological remains of
Vedis (alters) and Yupas connected with Vedic Yajnas
(sacrifices) at Harrapan sites like Kalibangan,
decipherment of the Harappan/Indus script by many
scholars as a language belonging to Vedic Sanskrit
family, the view of the archaeologists like Prof. Dales,
Prof. Allchin etc. that the end of the Harappan
civilization came not because of the so called Aryan
invasion but as a result of a series of floods, the
discovery of the lost Dwarka city beneath the sea water
near Gujarat coast and its similarity with Harappan
civilization - all these new findings and an objective,
accurate and contextual interpretation of Vedas indicate
convincingly towards the full identity of the
Harappan/Indus civilization with post Vedic civilization,
and demand a re-examination of the entire gamut of Aryan
Race/Invasion Theories which have been forcefully pushed
down the throats of Indian society by some European
manipulators and Marxist historians all these years.

For thousands of years the Hindu society has looked upon
the Vedas as the fountainhead of all knowledge: spiritual
and secular, and the mainstay of Hindu culture, heritage
and its existence. Never our historical or religious
records have questioned this fact. Even western and far
eastern travellers who have documented their experiences
during their prolonged stay and sojourn in India have
testified the importance of Vedic literature and its
indigenous origin. And now, suddenly, in the last century
or so, these the so-called European scholars are
pontificating us that the Vedas do not belong to Hindus,
they were the creation of a barbaric horde of nomadic
tribes descended upon north India and destroyed an
advanced indigenous civilization. They even suggest that
the Sanskrit language is of non-Indian origin. This is
all absurd, preposterous, and defies the commonsense. A
nomadic, barbaric horde of invaders cannot from any
stretch of imagination produce the kind of sublime
wisdom, pure and pristine spiritual experiences of the
highest order, a universal philosophy of religious
tolerance and harmony for the entire mankind, one finds
in the Vedic literature.

Now let us examine the origin and the conditions in which
this historical fraud was concocted.

Max Muller, a renowned Indologist from Germany, is
credited with the popularization of the Aryan racial
theory in the middle of 19th century. Though later on
when Muller's reputation as a Sanskrit scholar was
getting damaged, and he was challenged by his peers,
since nowhere in the Sanskrit literature, the term Arya
denoted a racial people, he recanted and pronounced that
Aryan meant only a linguistic family and never applied to
a race. But the damage was already done. The German and
French political and nationalist groups exploited this
racial phenomenon to propagate the supremacy of an
assumed Aryan race of white people, which Hitler used to
its extreme absurdities for his barbaric crusade to
terrorize Jews and other societies. This culminated in
the holocaust of millions of innocent people. Though now
this racial nonsense has mostly been discarded in Europe,
but in India it is still being exploited and used to
divide and denigrate the Hindu society. Our aim is to
expose myth about AIT, and establish the truth of the
identity of the pioneers of the Vedic civilization and
set the historical events after the Vedic period in
proper perspective and in realistic time frame.

What, really, is the Aryan Invasion Theory?

According to this theory, northern India was invaded and
conquered by nomadic, light-skinned RACE of a people
called 'ARYANS' who descended from Central Asia (or some
unknown land ?) around 1500 BC, and destroyed an earlier
and more advanced civilization of the people habitated in
the Indus Valley and imposed upon them their culture and
language. These Indus Valley people were supposed to be
either Dravidian, or AUSTRICS or now--days' Shudra class
etc.

The main elements on which the entire structure of AIT
has been built are: Arya is a racial group, their
invasion, they were nomadic, light-skinned, their
original home was outside India, their invasion occurred
around 1500 BC, they destroyed an advanced civilization
of Indus valley, etc. And what are the evidences AIT
advocates present in support of all these wild
conjectures:

o Invasion: Mention of Conflicts in Vedic literature,
findings of skeletons at the excavated sites of
Mohanjodro and Harappa

o Nomadic, Light-skinned: Pure conjecture and
misinterpretation of Vedic hymns.

o Non-Aryan/Dravidian Nature of Indus civilization:
absence of horse, Shiva worshippers, chariots, Racial
differences, etc.

o Date of Invasion, 1500 BC: Arbitrary and speculative,
in Mesopotamia and Iraq the presence of the people
worshipping Vedic gods around 1700BC, Biblical
chronology.

Major Flaws in the Aryan Invasion Theory

A major flaw of the invasion theory was that it had no
explanation for why the Vedic literature that was assumed
to go back into the second millennium BC had no reference
to any region outside of India. Also the astronomical
references in the Rig Veda allude to events in the third
millennium BC and even earlier, indicating origin ofVedic
hymns earlier than 3000BC. The contributions of the Vedic
world to philosophy, mathematics, logic, astronomy,
medicine and other sciences provide one of the
foundations on which rests the common heritage of
mankind, is well recognized but cannot be reconciled if
Vedas were composed after 1500BC. Further, if it is
assumed that the so-called Aryans invaded the townships
in the Harappa valley and destroyed its habitants and
their civilization, how come after doing that they did
not occupy these towns? The excavations of these sites
indicate that the townships were abandoned. And if the
Harappan civilization had a Dravidian origin, who were
allegedly pushed down to the south by Aryans, how come
there is no Aryan-Dravidian divide in the respective
literatures and historical traditions. The North and
South have never been known to be culturally hostile to
each other. Prior to the descent of British on Indian
scene, there was a continuous interaction and cultural
exchange between the two regions. The Sanskrit language,
the so-called Aryan language was the lingua-franca of the
entire society for thousands of years. The three greatest
figures of later Hinduism - Shankaracharya, Madhavacharya
and Ramanujam were Southerners who are universally
respected in the North, and who have written commentaries
on Vedic scriptures in Sanskrit only for the benefit of
the entire population. Even in the ancient times some of
the great Sutra authors like Baudhayana and Apastamba
were from South. Agastya, a celebrated Vedic rishi, is
widely venerated in the South as the one who introduced
Vedic learning to the South India. And also was the South
India un-inhabitated prior to the pushing of the original
population of Indus Valley? If not, who were the original
inhabitants of South India, who accepted the newcomers
without any hostility or fight?

There is enough positive evidence in support of the
religious rites of the Harappans being similar to those
of the Vedic Aryans. Their religious motifs, deities and
sacrificial altars bespeak of Aryan faith, indicating
continuity and identity of Vedic culture with the Indus
valley civilization.

If the Aryan Hindus were outsiders, why don't they name
places outside India as their most holy places? Why
should they sing paeans in the praise of India's numerous
rivers crisscrossing the entire peninsula, and mountains
- repositories of life giving water and natural
resources, nay even bestow them a status of goddesses and
gods. If Aryans were outsiders why should they consider
this land as the 'holy land' and not their original land
as the 'holy land' or motherland? For the Muslims, their
holy placeis Mecca. For the Catholics it is Rome or
Jerusalem. For the Hindus, their pilgrim centers range
from Kailash in the North, to Rameshwaram in the South;
and from Hingalaj (Sindh) in the West to Parusuram Kund
(Arunchala Pradesh) in the East. The seven holy cities of
Hinduism include Kanchipurum in the south, Dwaraka in the
west and Ujjain in central India. The twelve jyotirlings
include Ramashwaram in Tamil Nadu, Srisailam in Andhra
Pradesh, Nashik in Maharashtra, Somnath in Gujarat and
Kashi in Uttar Pradesh. All these are located in greater
India only. No Hindu from any part of India has felt a
stranger in any other part of India when on a pilgrimage.
The seven holy rivers in Hinduism, indeed, seem to chart
out the map of the holy land. The Sindhu and the
Saraswati (now extinct) originating from the Himalayas
and move westward and southwards into the western sea;
the Ganga and the Yamuna also start in the Himalayas and
move eastward into the north-eastern sea; the Narmada
starts in central India and the Godavari starts in
western India, while the Kaveri winds its way through the
south to move into the southern sea. More than a thousand
years ago, Adi Shankaracharya, who was born in Kerala,

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