Ancient Indian Civilization Aryans
Ancient Indian Civilization Aryans
Ancient Indian Civilization Aryans
CIVILIZATION
Part 2 — The Aryans and the Vedic Civilization
Dhruba Mukhopadhyay*
(The following is the second part of a 3-part Pontic-Caspian Steppe, a part of the larger
article on Ancient Indian Civilization. The Eurasian Steppe. This language is the an-
first part was published in the Vol.22, No.4 cestor of a reconstructed Indo-Iranian lan-
issue of Breakthrough.) guage which belongs to the Indo-European
family of languages, and was spoken by
Who were the Aryans? people who lived in the late 3rd millennium
BCE. A number of undifferentiated Indo-
A civilization, according to some scholars, Iranian speaking groups, mainly pastoral-
is characterized by urban development. In ists with their cattle, had migrated south-
this sense, strictly speaking, the society at wards from the Eurasian steppe lands at
the time of the Rigveda cannot be called about 2000 BCE and spread over Northern
Vedic civilization because the Vedic people Afghanistan and adjoining parts of Turk-
did not establish towns or cities, though menistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran
there is certainly a Vedic culture. How- and built up the BMAC (Bactria Margiana
ever the term is so deeply entrenched in Archeological Complex) culture (Figure 6).
literature, that we shall use this term in
this article. The Vedic civilization (VC) During 1800-1600 BCE the Indo-Iranian
was built by the Aryans. Who were the split into two branches, Old Iranian and
Aryans? In the Rigveda the word Arya Indo-Aryan. Common ties of language,
is used for a group of people speaking culture, mythology and rituals developed
Old Indo-Aryan language and dialects or between them before they ultimately sepa-
Vedic Sanskrit, following Vedic rituals and rated. The latter group might have reached
carrying Vedic culture. Almost all lin- as far the River Indus by ca. 1700 BCE
guists accept that all the Indo-European (Avari, 2005) and later built the Vedic
languages descended from a pre-historic re- culture. The Old Iranian and Indo-Aryan
constructed Proto-Indo-European language people had a common archaic poetry, like
spoken in the Neolithic era (Bryant and the Rigveda and the Avesta, with many
Patton, 2005, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, common expressions, like yajna in Sanskrit
2022, Masica 1991). The homeland of the and yasna in Avestan, mitra in Sanskrit
language, according to general consensus, and Avestan, arya in Sanskrit and arija
and based on archeological evidence, is the in Avestan, soma in Sanskrit, haoma in
* Prof Mukhopadhyay is an eminent geologist, for-
Avestan, and there are many more such
mer Professor of Calcutta University, and the President examples. The two peoples had the same
of Breakthrough Science Society type of priests and rituals. “Taking into
Figure 6: Migration routes from the Eurasian Steppes of the different branches of the Indo-
European family.
account the similarities in mythology, lan- immigrants to NW India might have looked
guage, religious practice and beliefs, we more like Kashmiris or Afghanis than the
may safely conclude that the traditions typical North or South Indians.
of the Avesta and that of the Rig-Veda The Indo-Aryan migrants carried with
have emerged from a single common source them their collection of sacred hymns and
(Dange, 2002). Among all the Indo-Iranian chants that they had been composing for
speakers only the Avestan and Rigvedic centuries during their Iranian and Afghan
people called themselves Aryans. sojourn (Avaris, 2005). The oldest pre-
It must be emphasized that the term served literature of the Indo-Aryan people
Aryan does not connote a race; it is a is the Rigveda. It has been suggested
linguistic community, united by how they that at least parts of the Rigveda were first
lived, worshipped, thought, and particu- composed in the Afghanistan area as the
larly what kind of poetic text they composed early parts of the text include references
(Witzel, 2001). The concept of Aryan race at least obliquely to places, rivers, animals,
was a much later construct particularly etc., of that land (Witzel, 1995) The other
championed by the fascist ideologues of three Vedas, Samaveda, Yajurveda and
the 20th century. The outward appear- Atharvaveda are of later composition; some
ance, that is the racial characterization, of the verses contained in them are taken
of all the people speaking the Indo-Aryan from the Rigveda. The migrants were semi-
language cannot be ascertained with any nomadic cattle herders, horse riders and
degree of certainty. The people speaking had horse-drawn chariots. Their society
this language might have been quite a was governed by strict moral principles,
diverse group with different physical fea- including adherence to truth, oaths and
tures, though it is possible that the original other oral agreements between individuals
ous linguistic evidence is put forward for pastoral and forest dwellers. The Rigveda
the development of Indo-European, Indo- does not know of large cities such as those
Iranian or Old-Indo-Aryan/Vedic languages of the IVC; it mentions only ruins and
inside the subcontinent. On the contrary, small forts. The IV Civilization is urban
the Iranian and Mitanni (Northern Syria whereas the Indo-Aryans were nomadic
and Southeast Anatolia) linguistic evidence pastoral people with limited agriculture. If
contradicts this idea. the IVC and VC are contemporaneous, then
why is there no mention of the IVC cities
The autochthonist view is linked to the in the Vedic texts. The linguistic study
current of Hindu revivalism which was indicates that the Indo-Aryan/Vedic branch
present even during our freedom movement of the Indo-Iranian has been Indianized and
and has gained momentum in recent years grammatically innovated after its arrival in
with BJP’s coming to power in the Central the Punjab while the Iranian branch es-
Government. Contrary to the autochthon- caped this influence as it did not enter the
ist view, many scholars have presented subcontinent (Witzel, 2005). This supports
strong linguistic and cultural arguments in the idea that the Old Indo-Iranian split into
support of the idea of immigration of the two branches, one moving to Iran the other
Aryans into India. Michael Witzel (2001) migrating to India.
and Romilla Thapar (2002) have summa-
rized the arguments against the idea of au- The aurochthonists claim a continuous
tochthonist Aryans. The Harappan people cultural evolution in India denying any dis-
were urban while the Vedic people were continuity in archeological remains during
Figure 8: Migration routes of Yamnaya Pastoralists along with the strength of this ancestry in the
migrant Population. Pie charts depict the proportion of Steppe ancestry. Dates indicate age of the
earliest available ancient DNA with Steppe ancestry (after Narasimhan et al.)
the Steppe pastoralists with the ASI (Figure some tribal groups of South India. Hence
8). it can be concluded that the population
structure of India before around 4000 years
It is also interesting that Steppe ances- ago was profoundly different from what it
try is disproportionately high in present is today. During the time frame of the
day Brahmins and Bhumihars of North collapse of the IVC and composition of the
India. From detailed studies of the ge- Rigveda there was convulsive mixture of
netic structure Moorjani et al. (2013) populations. The rigid caste system and
obtained ANI-ASI mixture dates to be be- the practice of marriage within the same
tween 4000 and 2000 years ago (2050- caste have helped to preserve the genetic
50 BCE). Narasimhan and his team have signature of populations for thousands of
argued that it is plausible that formation years.
of both ANI and ASI was after the decline Therefore, the genetic evidence lends cre-
of IVC, that is between 1900-1500 BCE. dence to the view that the IVC preceded
About 17.5% of the Indian male lineage the VC and the VC is related to Aryan
belongs to haplogroup R1a; Pontic-Caspian migration. It belies the hypothesis that the
steppe is regarded to be the point of origin VC is older than or contemporaneous with
of R1a from which it spread east, west and the IVC.
south. What is significant is that neither
the 11 IVC-related outliers in the BMAC Conclusions
nor the Rakhigarhi IVC individual had any
Steppe-pastoralist derived ancestry.. There The Vedic Civilization was set up by
is very little or no Steppe ancestry in ASI. the Indo-Aryan migrants entering from
The direct descendants of ASI now live as Afghanistan and Iran. The term Indo-Aryan
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