The image of the
Pashupati seal and of the same Yogi on the Gundestrup
Cauldron from Western Europe shown below tells the story
of the Aryan Invasion and the nineteenth century discipline
called Indology that created the theory.
The Pashupati seal from India is nearly five thousand years
old, while the Gundestrup Cauldron was made a little over
two thousand years ago.
This means: while scholars have been telling us about
an 'invasion' of Indo-Europeans from Eurasia to India,
what evidence there is tells us exactly the opposite a
recorded movement in ancient times from India to West
Asia and Europe.
Lest this be misunderstood, let me point out that this
is only one item in a large body of evidence that
shows a westward movement out of India in ancient times.
For more details of this remarkable finding, I refer you
to the feature review of Shrikant Talageri's new book
'Rigveda: A Historical Analysis' reviewed in the book
section. All this is more than enough to shatter the
myth called the Aryan Invasion Theory.
But this is only part of the problem. The real problem is
that Indology is based upon a materialistic view of civilization
contrary to that of India and its Dharmic traditions.
The insidious field known as Indology , a creation
of alien interests with their own axes to grind. It
is not enough if we expose the distortions that are part
of the current version of history.
We must strike at the root of the problem and expose the forces that created
these distortions to serve their own interests. When we do so, what we
find is that the Aryan invasion theory is only the symptom, an external
manifestation.
The real insidious force is the academic discipline known
as Indology. It was a product of colonial interests
and missionary propaganda, sometimes adjusted according
to communist and leftist ideologies. Even today, as there
are attempts to revise curriculum in schools and museum
displays in India, there are howls of protests from academic
Indologists in the West and Church groups in India crying
foul at what they call 'saffronization'.
After all, what we are looking at is defining the relationship
between Harappan archaeology and the Vedic literature,
the oldest literature of India. Both are thousands of
years older than Christianity and Islam. Only Hinduism
has roots going that long back. So how can it be 'saffronization'
when we try to interpret pre-Christian and pre-Islamic
texts and artifacts in a Hindu framework. This is the
level to which scholarly discourse has sunk.
In the first place, why Indology at all, and not Indian
history? We don't have Europology or Americology, but
only European history and American history. A field like
Indology or Egyptology comes into being only when it falls
into the hands of outsiders. Unless the forces that led
to its creation are defeated, and their distortions erased,
India and her image as well as her future as a civilization
will remain bound by shackles created by hostile
forces.
At the same time we must recognize that any effort challenging
the status quo is bound to arouse the reaction of the
establishment. We are already seeing this. Instead of
reasoned arguments and refutation, there are charges of
Hindu chauvinism and communalism. But one must press on,
for there is no squatters right when it comes to scholarship.
What we are witnessing now is a new freedom struggle - a struggle
for recovering Indian history and culture from colonial
hands and minds. The unraveling of the Aryan invasion
myth is part of the de-colonization process. Untruths
must be exposed and uprooted. This issue makes a beginning
in that direction by providing a background on the subject,
and highlighting works that address the problem of Indology
in a fundamental way. It consists of articles and detailed
reviews of four books that examine the foundations of
ancient Indian history going back to the Vedas.
Our goal in this issue is to take steps towards breaking
this colonial anachronism and bringing out the truth. Our
weapon in this is an independent study of the
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primary sources.
This is an area in which many Indian scholars of an earlier
generation and a good many of the present, especially those
belonging to the establishment have fallen short.
As Sri Aurobindo wrote:[That] Indian scholars have
not been able to form themselves into a great and independent
school of learning is due to two causes: the miserable scantiness
of the mastery of Sanskrit provided by our Universities,
crippling to all but born scholars, and our lack of
sturdy independence which makes us over-ready to defer to
European authority. These however are difficulties easily
surmountable.
Happily, Sri Aurobindo's wish is becoming a reality. In the work of scholars
like Sethna, Talageri, Natwar Jha, and others we have the makings of a
new school of learning that combines mastery of traditional Indian learning
and the modern scientific method. With the rise of greater historical
awareness on the part of the Hindus, and a new school of scholarship,
they fear for their careers and their reputations. It only needs to be
nurtured and its message spread.
Added Note: From AIT to AMT
Recognizing that the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) has collapsed,
proponents of the Aryan Invasion have now floated a supposedly
new idea under the label of Aryan Migration to get around
the contradictions resulting from the invasion hypothesis.
The whole Aryan invasion/destruction of Harappa has been
proven to be an historical blunder of monumental
proportions, though it is yet to be rectified in history
textbooks and popular accounts.
It's former supporters, left without any real evidence
of an Aryan Invasion, have now been reduced to looking
for some limited Aryan intrusion in post-Harappan times.
They have also resorted to refuting the Vedic nature of
early ancient civilization in India, not by a comprehensive
examination of the data, but by diversionary tactics that
seek to bypass obvious evidence by bringing up irrelevant
data and arguments.
An
example of this is furnished by the recent flurry of motivated
articles in the popular press that claimed that horses
were unknown in Harappan India until brought in by the
invading Aryans.
This was soon refuted by pointing out that the Rigveda describes a horse
that is anatomically quite distinct from the Central Asiatic breeds; nor
is there any trail of Central Asian horses coming into India from the
northwest to substantiate the invasion hypothesis. In fact, the horse
evidence, which has become the argument of last resort for the Aryan invasion
advocates, furnishes one of the strongest refutations of the invasion.
This is described in detail in the chapter 'Looking Beyond the Aryan Invasion'.
In view of these well-established facts, we attach no
significance to this recent repackaging of the invasion
theory as the Aryan Migration Theory or the AMT.
It is a distinction without a difference. The goal is
still the same: to make the Veda and its language to be
of foreign origin and deny any connections between the
archaeological and literary records of ancient India.
All the old contradictions remain as with the old theory
with some new ones arising from biological and genetic
data. The AMT like the old AIT fails to examine the massive
evidence linking the Vedic Sarasvati River with
Harappan civilization, and fails also to explain the irrefutable
continuity of culture in the region.
It glosses over contradictions, hoping for an unknown mechanism, yet to
be discovered, to explain the mystery of how India became Aryanized after
Harappa, within a very short period, without any significant migrations
or destruction. Where is any literary, historical or archaeological evidence
showing the transition from the Harappan to the Vedic.
This only further highlights the bankruptcy of
the entire approach. In this regard, the old AIT was at
least more honest and looked for more genuine and verifiable
information to support it. The AMT is devised as a theory
that does not require evidence; in fact even ignores evidence
in an effort to hide the fact that all the evidence proposed
for the AIT has been refuted.
Where the AIT was created to explain the linguistic evidence relating
Indian and European languages, the AMT has as its goal the denial of inconvenient
evidence which means practically all the evidence. The AMT therefore is
more subterfuge than theory, that substitutes evasive rhetoric for facts.
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