Aryan Invasion Theory - Debate!

Well, this post contains parts of the debate that took place last month between me and a friend on the Aryan Invasion Theory. The debate started over some document containing a time line of Indian history in which I found some absurdities. It was an xl document titled "The Royal Chronology of India". Try Googling. U'll be able to find it....Read On...
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TD:
"The Royal Chronology of India":

-Royal ???
-Contains some historical inaccuracies and erroneous interpretations (esp in the comments).
e.g. Indo-European Migration before 4000 BC??? never heard of this!!! :D ...the guy who wrote this doc has tried to pre empt any attack on this migration story by setting the timing between 10k-4k BC!! hahaha!!! utterly stupid though....Initially I thought it to be the Aryan Invasion Theory(the 1500 BC wala), but then later found that the doc mentions AIT later(and RIGHTLY calls it a myth)....All this makes me think that it is written by some amateur guy (other than the usual Marxist dominated and influenced, often doctored, propagandist , anti nantionalistic history of India that u find in history textbooks in india ) who has made a fool of himself in some parts of the doc...Though I think the guy has done a tremendous job on the whole by compiling it at one place...good work....but has to be taken with a pinch of salt...
-Blasphemous comments on hindu gods makes this doc unreliable.(at least the sources from which these sections were lifted were the works of some anti-hindu/marxist historians)

COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT RELIGIONS/DHARMAS:
-seems to be a very personal interpretation of hinduism and divisions thereof. seems stupid...


KBS:

Response to your comments on Royal Chronolgy

Yes, Even I take it with a pinch of salt
Secondly I havent studied it completely myself
Also the problem with mythology is that people
tend to take very binary stance on things
To me Vedic history is a combination of fiction
and incompletely understood facts, difficult to
separate (gray not B/W)
The fiction is primarily due to exaggeration of
facts during history reporting of that period,
a phenomenon not uncommon in history

Regarding dating the chronolgy to 4000BC,
there have been two schools of thoughts on this
The general academic acceptance (including Marxist)
is that Vedic/Arya civilization dates to 1500BC to
500 BC, after decline of Indus Civilization, and
before birth of Mahavira/Buddha

TD:
-Firstly,
It's pretty clear the guy who wrote this doc has done so by compiling the data from a varied number of sources (from wherever he could!!), and doesn't seem to subscribe to any specific group of historians as such, and most probably is not any of those self proclaimed "eminent historians". So, obviously, u will find that the doc is not 'coherent' with regard to any particular "school of thought". And portions of it do belong to the communist historians which when examined critically (without giving in to any assumptions), clearly show rampant bias and distortions. So, let's forgive the poor author of that doc [:D].

u said: "To me Vedic history is a combination of fiction and incompletely understood facts, difficult to separate."

- That's ur personal assumption.
KBS: yup it is.

Studying history has to be based on archeological, documentary and socio-cultural evidences and logical arguments and not on plain assumptions. Moreover, there are ppl all around the world who have understood the Vedic stuffs that u haven't.
KBS: yes there would be.

u said: "The other school of thought which is a bit weak in its argument is placing Mahabharata at 3900BC "
-How is it 'a bit weak' ? Any pointers?
The Indus Civilization is dated to be 2600BC-1700BC, and by putting Mahabharata at 3900BC, we have overlap, yet Vedic literature does not mention things as excavated in Indus civilization, neither do we know why Indus language/script is so different from Arya language and why no mapping (I do not think Indus script has yet been deciphered)

TD:
u said : "Vedic literature does not mention things as excavated in Indus civilization"
td: ARE U KIDDING ? Read my previous reply on AIT. & about Indus civ from other sources.

What do u mean by "Arya Language" ? Actually, although the proponents of AIT made up stories of nomadic Aryans invading and settling in India, they never bothered to propose any theory or unearth any details about who the Aryans were exactly? What was their exact land & culture before suddenly turning into sages and settlers with stable communities? And of course, in none of the literature/vedic scriptures do we find any mention of any foreign land from where the Aryans might have arrived. Instead all the literature is full of praises for their "new home"!

Anyway, I think u mean to refer to Sanskrit as the "Arya Language" ? . FYI, The Indus script has been deciphered by scholars' in the last couple of decades. The findings were that the Language was indeed Sanskrit, and that the Indus script was similar to the Brahmi script which came later. I guess not many ppl know abt this. The writings on the famous seals found in Indus civ have been decoded. No question of mapping as it was Sanskrit and not any other language.
U can google and u'll get authentic info(details of research work and books containing the decoded script in detail ) on this. I had read abt it on the internet sometime back. Dont remmbr the authors/researchers' names.

Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)/ Aryan Migration Theory (AMT)

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First, abt the timing: I don't know abt any historian claiming the Invasion/Migration before 2nd millennium BC. So the 10k-4k BC timing seems to be a gross error, rather than the view of ANY 'school of thought'.

Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)
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The AIT has been thrown into the dustbin by most modern historians as no conclusive archaeological evidence to support external origin of ppl in the northern part of India has been found - neither around 1500 BC nor in any prehistoric time. AIT was just a theory that was too absurd to be true, and was forced on the academia by the divisive British and zealously supported by the Marxist historians of India and other "racial(read '19th century Biblical'; 'White Supremacy' etc) schools" of thought. And later research have conclusively shown non-occurrence of any demographic changes/ invasion by nomads. I can continue and elaborate on the proofs & arguments on how the AIT myth got broken, but that will require a lot of time...

Aryan Migration Theory (AMT)
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It's nothing but a modified version of AIT. When no proofs of invasion or it's effects were found (it's now well accepted that decline of Indus valley civ was due to environmental changes, and not by invasion of any nomadic, virulent tribes from central asia/eastern europe. A major jolt to the "Indians are non-indigenous ppl theory" was the discovery of Saraswati river, and it's well known that vedic literature is full of references to the Saraswati river....incidentally Saraswati river dried up before or around 1500 BC, I m not sure of the dating here.).


And when AIT was discarded by modern historians, AMT came up, which is even weaker and more absurd than AIT as a theory. It's preposterous to think that migrants (instead of the killer tribes of AIT, were they cattle rearing shepherds or what?) can displace the original inhabitants from their homes, and force their culture, language and religion on the original inhabitants. General trend in history is that it's the migrants-turned-settlers who adapt to the local way of life and culture, and sometimes religion too, not the other way round. Of course, if the local ppl are all-encompassing ppl (like us Indians through out the ages), an exchange of ideas does take place and have taken place all along history, but without the extinction, displacement or domination of the locals and their culture by the migrants.

'Aryans' & the Language Connection:
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During the infancy of AIT/AMT, linguists grossly misunderstood the origin of the Indo Europian languages of modern Europe and their relation to Sanskrit and the Dravidian langs...and used those primitive research to explain AIT stuff...But Linguistic research done in the last century have refuted those claims...I am not an expert on this , so can't go into details, but u can find lots of stuff available online on this and other aspects of AIT/AMT.

Epilogue:
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THOSE NCERT TEXTBOOKS WE READ IN SCHOOL ARE NOT THE ONLY THINGS KNOWN TO ARCHAELOGISTS AND HISTORIANS ACROSS THE WORLD. We Indians have the misfortune of being taught the biased history written by a bunch of historians like Romila Thapar & Co. Kids in the schools should be encouraged to question any Theory that seems absurd and dissect history scientifically without any constraints of being "politically/ideologically correct". History has to be seen the way it was, not the way anybody merely believes or wants others to believe it to have been.

-td. 9 Aug 08

TD: u said :"The political reason for the second school of thought is to assert the indegeniety of Vedic/Arya and identify them to be same as Indus civilization, since dating of Indus civilization is now irrefutable and immovable."

-I don't get it. 2ndly ur comment on dating of Indus civ is WRONG if u think it to be around 1500 BC.

KBS: (I am not putting it at 1500BC, but 2600BC-1700BC)
TD: 1.Dating of the Indus civ does NOT prove any Aryan invasion or migration either in 1500 BC or in 4k BC.
KBS: Yes It doesnt, I do not hold Arya speaking people responsible for decline of Indus civilization, but if we out Aryan migration to 4k BC, we cannot explain the overlap as explained above
TD: Refer to the beginning of my email
TD:2. Though the AIT is asserted to have 'taken place' in 1500 BC, IT DOESN'T MEAN that no civ existed at times much prior to 1500 BC, e.g. Indus civ was itself flourishing in the 3rd millennium BC...Loads of archae stuff been dated to such times.
KBS: Very much Agreed

TD: # Excavations done at numerous sites around both sides of the Indo-Pak border (e.g Rajasthan, Haryana and punjab province on the other side) yielded data that provided conclusive archaeological proof of the Saraswati civ (that existed circa much earlier than 1500BC) along banks of the river Saraswati(which dried up long ago). It is now well established fact, DATING 4TH MILLENNIUM BC. Satellite data confirms the Saraswati basin etc fundae. So the civs in the subcontinent existed at times much earlier than 1500 BC and were NOT localised to Indus valley only.

# The indus civ + saraswati civ was quite a huge civ (ppl have the common misconception of the Indus civ as a tale of just 2 cities - harappa & mohenjodaro!!! ...pity them). And it was quite an advanced civ in terms of agri, metallurgy, architecture, urban planning and trades(these were seafaring civs...remember Lothal port?).

Bottomline : U don't need to have any "political reason", for there are enuff "factual reasons". And yeah, if u are under the impression that the AIT rebuttal is some "Indian right wing" idea, you are completely wrong. Historians and Indologists of repute all round the world have discarded the invasion/migration theory after detailed research. Do a bit of googling and u'll know. Of course, our anachronistic and biased communist historians are still clutching to it.

KBS: The political thought for/against the entire AIT/MT was by the British to justify their Indian invasion. It was at first seconded by the elite of the country trying to align themselves as cousins of white Europeans, later turning into opposition. The theory then degraded into a North-South / Dalit-UpperCaste theory with each group supporting/opposing it for selfish reasons without verifying the veracity of it.

TD: True. The British supported the AIT to justify their own invasion. And the reasons for the Marxists support mainly stems from the class/caste related implications of the AIT, which is at the centre of their existence.

TD:
Saturday, August 10, 2008.
Let me clear a few things first:
The debate is not on
AIT/AMT in 1500 BC Vs AIT/AMT in 4000BC or before.
What I am/was arguing about is AIT/AMT Vs NO AIT/AMT ever.

The Dating Issues of Vedas wrt AIT:
If one assumes AIT to be true, the dating of Vedas and other scriptures is also assumed to be after 1500 BC.
Else if one subscribes to the "NO AIT" theory then the datings of the Vedas etc are not constrained to times after 1500BC.

BTW, I had read that all this AIT and Vedic literature's dating was influenced by the Christianity based notions of beginning of earth's civilizations etc at the beginning of the Julian calender (i.e. beginning around 4000BC). I guess, the British theologists didn't believe in humanity's existence before 4000BC.

The Dating of Vedas : I am not very sure of the exact dating ascribed to the vedas by current historians. As much as I know, Vedas are dated to times before 3500 BC. In the Vedas u'll find copious mention of the Saraswati and other rivers of the north western region.
This fact proves that the Vedas predate the time when Saraswati river dried out (the drying occured sometime during 2000 BC....). One way I have know of the 3500 - 4000 BC dating of the Vedas is based on the astronomical/astrological data available in them which were recorded when some astronomical phenomena took place at those times, & it is confirmed by astrological back-calculations by scholars in modern times.

The Dating of Mahabharata: I didn't know this before as I never read abt it's dating or discussed abt it's dating with ppl...I googled a bit and found this http://www.boloji.com/astro/00325.htm .The approach is similar to the dating of Vedas based on astronomical events.The page suggests two possible years : 3129 BC
and 2559 BC.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -

KBS: I never had the chance to read NCERT history, and my study of Arya theory in school was largely confined to a couple of chapters in Std-V i.e. 1993
I however had reading Romila Thapar in the last couple of years, and I do not think that the Marxist historians have a blind support for AIT/AMT (Please read the Thapar Article I have uploaded if you have time - I read it a long time ago and I do not remember what she says)I think its just that we have two different view on the topic, that identifies Vedic/Arya civ to be same as Indus-Sarasawati Civ and another view that doesnt both of which cannot explain every things.

TD: Marxist historians DO have a blind support for AIT/AMT. If u think otherwise, then perhaps u don't quite understand the attitudes and the heavy ideological baggage carried by these orthodox Indian communists.

History as reported by Marxist historians contains too much of bias against Hindus, and the indigenous cultural heritage of India. Suppression, omission and deliberate wrong interpretation of many important and well known historical facts about the spread of Islam and Mughal rule in India is a much criticized aspect of their biased history. And of course, when anybody tries to correct them with solid proof, the resort to neglect, negationism, lies and name calling (e.g anything that doesn't fit their scheme of things is termed as "Hindu fundamentalism", "communalism" etc etc..), and even violence - the well known tools used by them the world over. The effect of the pseudo-intellectuals' hypocrisy, biased history teaching by the Marxist authors and continuation of the Macaulay-type education in India is quite apparent. Even in this age people find it fashionable to follow the Marxist/Eurocentric interpretation of our own history and many of us don't go against them for the fear of being termed "Hindu fanatics".

I too had read the Thapar article long ago....if i remmbr correctly, the lady tried to leave the AIT shrouded in mystery and as other Marxists do, she didn't accept the demise of the theory. Anyway, it looks too boring...can't read again... :-)

TD:
u said : "I think its just that we have two different view on the topic, that identifies Vedic/Arya civ to be same as Indus-Sarasawati Civ and another view that doesnt

both of which cannot explain every things "

td: It was indeed the situation a few decades back. Not anymore. The fact is : AIT myth has been busted. U don't need to get this fact attested by Thapar or her tribe, just like the fact that "sun is at the centre of the solar system, not earth" need not be attested by the Pope. Period.