Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the
Aryan
''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''), Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood ...
s are indigenous to the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
, and that the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "
religio-nationalistic" view of Indian history, and propagated as an
alternative
Alternative or alternate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Alternative (Kamen Rider), Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki''
* Alternative comics, or independent comics are an altern ...
to the established
migration model,
which considers the
Pontic–Caspian steppe
The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is a steppe extending across Eastern Europe to Central Asia, formed by the Caspian and Pontic steppes. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the ''Pontus Euxinus'' of antiquity) to the northern a ...
to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.
Reflecting traditional Indian views based on the
Puranic chronology
The Epic-Puranic chronology is a timeline of Hindu mythology based on the '' Itihasa'' (the Sanskrit Epics, that is, the ''Mahabharata'' and the ''Ramayana'') and the Puranas. These texts have an authoritative status in Indian tradition, and na ...
,
indigenists propose an older date than is generally accepted for the
Vedic period
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the e ...
, and argue that the
Indus Valley civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the Northwestern South Asia, northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 Common Era, BCE to 1300 BCE, and in i ...
was a Vedic civilization. In this view, "the Indian civilization must be viewed as an unbroken tradition that goes back to the earliest period of the
Sindhu-Sarasvati (or
Indus
The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the dis ...
) tradition (7000 or 8000 BCE)."
Support for the IAT mostly exists among a subset of Indian scholars of
Hindu religion
Hinduism () is an umbrella term for a range of Indian religious and spiritual traditions ( ''sampradaya''s) that are unified by adherence to the concept of ''dharma'', a cosmic order maintained by its followers through rituals and right ...
and the
history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
and
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
of India,
and plays a significant role in
Hindutva
Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...
politics.
It has no relevance or support in mainstream scholarship.
Historical background
The standard view on the origins of the Indo-Aryans is the Indo-Aryan migration theory, which states that they entered north-western India at about 1500 BCE. The
Puranic chronology
The Epic-Puranic chronology is a timeline of Hindu mythology based on the '' Itihasa'' (the Sanskrit Epics, that is, the ''Mahabharata'' and the ''Ramayana'') and the Puranas. These texts have an authoritative status in Indian tradition, and na ...
, the timeline of events in ancient Indian history as narrated in the
Mahabaratha
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the '' Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kurukshetra War, a war of succes ...
, the
Ramayana
The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...
, and the
, envisions a much older chronology for the Vedic culture. In this view, the Vedas were received thousands of years ago, and the start of the reign of
Manu Vaivasvate
Vaivasvata Manu (), also referred to as Shraddhadeva and Satyavrata, is the current Manu—the progenitor of the human race. He is the seventh of the 14 Manus of the current kalpa (aeon) of Hindu cosmology. In the Jain religion he is also kno ...
, the
Manu
Manu may refer to:
Religion Proto Indo European Mythology
* Manu (Indo European Mythology) one of the mythical duo Manu and Yemo
Ancient Mesopotamia
* Manu the Great, a Chaldean god of fate
Hinduism
*Manu (Hinduism), Hindu progenitor of mank ...
of the current
kalpa
Kalevan Pallo (KalPa) is a professional ice hockey team which competes in the Finnish Liiga. They play in Kuopio, Finland at the Niiralan monttu, Olvi Areena.
Team history
Established in 1929 as ''Sortavalan Palloseura'' in Sortavala, the club r ...
(aeon) and the progenitor of humanity, may be dated as far back 7350 BCE. The
Kurukshetra War
The Kurukshetra War (), also called the Mahabharata War, is a war described in the Hindu Indian epic poetry, epic poem ''Mahabharata'', arising from a dynastic struggle between two groups of cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas, for the thr ...
, the background-scene of the
Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita (; ), often referred to as the Gita (), is a Hindu texts, Hindu scripture, dated to the second or first century BCE, which forms part of the Hindu epic, epic poem Mahabharata. The Gita is a synthesis of various strands of Ind ...
, which may relate historical events taking place ca. 1000 BCE at the heartland of
Aryavarta, is dated in this chronology at ca. 3100 BCE.
Indigenists, reflecting traditional Indian views on history and religion, argue that the Aryans are indigenous to India, which challenges the standard view. In the 1980s and 1990s, the indigenous position has come to the foreground of the public debate.
Indian homeland and Aryan Invasion theory
In 19th century
Indo-European studies
Indo-European studies () is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical p ...
, the language of the
Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
was the most archaic Indo-European language known to scholars, indeed the only records of Indo-European that could reasonably claim to date to the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
. This primacy of Sanskrit inspired scholars such as
Friedrich Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich (after 1814: von) Schlegel ( ; ; 10 March 1772 – 12 January 1829) was a German literary critic, philosopher, and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figures of Jena Roma ...
, to assume that the locus of the
proto-Indo-European homeland
The Proto-Indo-European homeland was the prehistoric homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), meaning it was the region where the proto-language was spoken before it split into the dialects from which the earliest Indo-European langu ...
had been in India, with the other dialects spread to the west by historical migration. With the 20th-century discovery of Bronze-Age attestations of Indo-European (
Anatolian,
Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the earliest attested form of the Greek language. It was spoken on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC). The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first atteste ...
),
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...
lost its special status as the most archaic Indo-European language known.
In the 1850s,
Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative philologist and oriental studies, Orientalist. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indology and religious s ...
introduced the notion of two Aryan races, a western and an eastern one, which migrated from the Caucasus into Europe and India respectively. Müller dichotomized the two groups, ascribing greater prominence and value to the western branch. Nevertheless, this "eastern branch of the Aryan race was more powerful than the indigenous eastern natives, who were easy to conquer." By the 1880s, his ideas had been adapted by racist
ethnologists
Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology).
Scien ...
. For example, as an exponent of
race science, colonial administrator
Herbert Hope Risley
Sir Herbert Hope Risley (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency. He ...
(1851–1911) used the ratio of nose width to height to divide
Indian people
Indian people or Indians are the Indian nationality law, citizens and nationals of the India, Republic of India or people who trace their ancestry to India. While the demonym "Indian" applies to people originating from the present-day India, ...
into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.
The idea of an Aryan "invasion" was fueled by the discovery of the
Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation, which
declined around the period of the Indo-Aryan migration, suggesting a destructive invasion. This argument was developed by the mid-20th century archaeologist
Mortimer Wheeler
Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, CH Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, CIE Military Cross, MC Territorial Decoration, TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeolo ...
, who interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in the top levels of Mohenjo-daro as the victims of conquests. He famously stated that the Vedic god "
Indra
Indra (; ) is the Hindu god of weather, considered the king of the Deva (Hinduism), Devas and Svarga in Hinduism. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. volumes
Indra is the m ...
stands accused" of the destruction of the Indus Civilisation. Scholarly critics have since argued that Wheeler misinterpreted his evidence and that the skeletons were better explained as hasty interments, not unburied victims of a massacre.
Indo-Aryan migration theory
Migrations

The idea of an "invasion" has been discarded in mainstream scholarship since the 1980s, and replaced by more sophisticated models, referred to as the
Indo-Aryan migration theory
The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages. These are the predominant languages of today's Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, North India ...
. It posits the introduction of
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east ...
into South Asia through migrations of
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
-speaking people from their ''Urheimat'' (original homeland) in the
Pontic Steppes
Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to:
The Black Sea Places
* The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores
* Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores
* The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from nor ...
via the Central European Corded ware culture, and Eastern European/Central Asian Sintashta culture, through Central Asia into the Levant (
Mitanni
Mitanni (–1260 BC), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, ; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or in Ancient Egypt, Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian language, Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria (region), Syria an ...
), south Asia, and Inner Asia (
Wusun
The Wusun ( ) were an ancient semi-Eurasian nomads, nomadic Eurasian Steppe, steppe people of unknown origin mentioned in Chinese people, Chinese records from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD.
The Wusun originally l ...
and
Yuezhi
The Yuezhi were an ancient people first described in China, Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defea ...
). It is part of the
Kurgan-hypothesis/Revised Steppe Theory, which further describes the spread of Indo-European languages into western Europe via migrations of Indo-European speaking people.
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...
provides the main basis for the theory, analysing the development and changes of languages, and establishing relations between the various Indo-European languages, including the time frame of their development. It also provides information about shared words, and the corresponding area of the origin of Indo-European, and the specific vocabulary which is to be ascribed to specific regions. The linguistic analyses and data are supplemented with archaeological and genetical data and anthropological arguments, which together provide a coherent model that is widely accepted.
In the model, the first archaeological remains of the Indo-Europeans is the
Yamnaya culture
The Yamnaya ( ) or Yamna culture ( ), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, is a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic–C ...
, from which emerged the Central European Corded Ware culture, which spread eastward creating the
Proto-Indo-Iranian
Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd ...
Sintashta culture
The Sintashta culture is a Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Southern Urals, dated to the period 2200–1900 BCE. It is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka complex, –1750 BCE. The culture is named after the Sintashta ...
(2100–1800 BCE), from which developed the
Andronovo culture
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1150 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo Problem: Studies of Cultural Genesis in the Eurasian Bronze Age" in Open Archaeology 202 ...
(1800–1400 BCE). Around 1800 BCE, Indo-Aryan people split-off from the Iranian branches, and migrated to the
BMAC (2300–1700 BCE), and further to the Levant, northern India, and possibly Inner Asia.
Cultural continuity and adaptation
The migration into northern India was not necessarily of a large population, but may have consisted of small groups, who introduced their language and social system into the new territory when looking for pasture for their herds. These were then emulated by larger groups, who adopted the new language and culture. Witzel also notes that "small-scale semi-annual
transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and Baluchi highlands continue to this day."
Indigenous Aryanism
According to Bryant, Indigenists
The "Indigenist position" started to take shape after the discovery of the
Harappan civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE ...
, which predates the Vedas. According to this alternative view, the Aryans are indigenous to India, the Indus Civilisation is the Vedic Civilisation, the Vedas are older than the second millennium BCE, there is no discontinuity between the (northern) Indo-European part of India and the (southern) Dravidian part, and the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. According to Bresnan, it is a natural response to the 19th century narrative of a superior Aryan race subjecting the native Indians, implicitly confirming the ethnocentric superiority of the European invaders of colonial times, instead supporting "a theory of indigenous development that led to the creation of the Vedas."
Main arguments of the Indigenists
The idea of "Indigenous Aryans" is supported with specific interpretations of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic data, and on literal interpretations of the
Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
.
Standard arguments, both in support of the "Indigenous Aryans" theory and in opposition the mainstream Indo-Aryan Migration theory, are:
* Questioning the Indo-Aryan Migration theory:
** Presenting the Indo-Aryan Migration theory as an "Indo-Aryan Invasion theory", which was invented by 19th century colonialists to suppress the Indian people.
** Questioning the methodology of linguistics;
** Arguing for an indigenous cultural continuity, arguing there is a lack of
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
remains of the Indo-Aryans in north-west India;
** Questioning the
genetic evidence[Dinsa Sachan (4 July 2015)]
'' Aryan invasion debunked. Genetic study shows South Asians have a diverse ancestry''
/ref>[A.L. Chavda (05-05-2017)]
''Aryan Invasion Myth: How 21st Century Science Debunks 19th Century Indology''
/ref>
** Contesting the possibility that small groups can change culture and languages in a major way;
* Re-dating India's history by postulating a Vedic-Puranic chronology:
** Arguing for ancient, indigenous origins of Sanskrit, dating the Rigveda and the Vedic people to the 3rd millennium BCE or earlier; This includes:
*** Identifying the Sarasvati River
The Sarasvati River () is a Apotheosis, deified myth, mythological Rigvedic rivers, river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedas, Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Historical Vedic religion, Vedic religio ...
, described in the Rig Veda as a mighty river, with the Ghaggar-Hakra River
The Ghaggar-Hakra River () is an intermittent river in India and Pakistan that flows only during the monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar before the Ottu barrage at , and as Hakra downstream of the barrage in the Thar Desert. In pre-Ha ...
, which had dried up c. 2000 BCE, arguing therefore for an earlier dating of the Rig Veda;
*** Arguing for the presence of horses and horse-drawn chariots before 2000 BCE;
** Identifying the Vedic people with the Harappan civilisation;
** Redating Indian history based on the Vedic-Puranic chronology.
Questioning the Aryan Migration model
Rhetorics of "Aryan invasion"
The outdated notion of an "Aryan invasion" has been used as a straw man
A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said ...
to attack the Indo-Aryan Migration theory. According to Witzel, the invasion model was criticised by Indigenous Aryanists for being a justification for colonial rule:
While according to Koenraad Elst, a supporter of Indigenous Aryans:
Linguistic methodology
Indigenists question the methodology and results of linguistics. According to Bryant, OIT proponents tend to be linguistic dilettantes who either ignore the linguistic evidence completely, dismiss it as highly speculative and inconclusive, or attempt to tackle it with hopelessly inadequate qualifications; this attitude and neglect significantly minimises the value of most OIT publications.
Archaeological finds and cultural continuity
In the 1960s, archaeological explanations for cultural change shifted from migration-models to internal causes of change. Given the lack of archaeological remains of the Indo-Aryans, Jim G. Shaffer, writing in the 1980s and 1990s, has argued for an indigenous cultural continuity between Harappan and post-Harappan times. According to Shaffer, there is no archaeological indication of an Aryan migration into northwestern India during or after the decline of the Harappan city culture. Instead, Shaffer has argued for "a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural developments." According to Shaffer, linguistic change has mistakenly been attributed to migrations of people. Likewise, Erdosy also notes the absence of evidence for migrations, and states that "Indo-European languages may well have spread to South Asia through migration," but that the Rigvedic ''aryas'', as a specific ethno-linguistic tribe holding a specific set of ideas, may well have been indigenous people whose "set of ideas" soon spread over India.
Since the 1990s, attention has shifted back to migrations as an explanatory model. Pastoral societies are difficult to identify in the archaeological record, since they move around in small groups and leave little traces.[''Encyclopedia Britannica'']
''Emergence of the pastoral way of life''
/ref> In 1990, David Anthony published a defense of migratory models, and in his ''The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
''The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World'' is a 2007 book by the anthropologist David W. Anthony, in which the author describes his "revised Kurgan theory." He explores the ...
'' (2007), has provided an extensive overview of the archaeological trail of the Indo-European people across the Eurasian steppes and central Asia. The development and "revolutionary" improvement of genetic research since the early 2010s has reinforced this shift in focus, as it has unearthed previously unaccessible data, showing large-scale migrations in prehistoric times.
Genetic evidence
OIT-proponents have questioned the findings of genetic research, and some older DNA-research had questioned the Indo-Aryan migrations. Since 2015 however, genetic research has "revolutionarily" improved, and further confirmed the migration of Steppe pastoralists into Western Europe and South Asia, and "many scientists who were either sceptical or neutral about significant Bronze Age migrations into India have changed their opinions."
Cultural change
Indigenists contest the possibility that small groups can change culture and languages in a major way. Mainstream scholarship explains this by elite dominance and language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...
. Small groups can change a larger cultural area, when an elite male group integrates in small indigenous groups which takes over the elite language, in this case leading to a language shift in northern India. Indo-Aryan languages were further disseminated with the spread of the Vedic-Brahmanical culture in the process of Sanskritisation
Sanskritisation (or Sanskritization) is a term in sociology which refers to the process by which castes or tribes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the dominant castes or upper c ...
. In this process, local traditions ("little traditions") became integrated into the "great tradition" of Brahmanical religion, disseminating Sanskrit texts and Brahmanical ideas throughout India, and abroad. This facilitated the development of the Hindu synthesis
The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related Hindu denominations, religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age in Ind ...
, in which the Brahmanical tradition absorbed "local popular traditions of ritual and ideology."
Redating Indian history
Redating the Rig Veda and the Rig Vedic people
=Sanskrit
=
According to the mainstream view, Sanskrit arose in South Asia after Indo-Aryan languages had been introduced by the Indo-Aryans in the first half of the second millennium BCE. The most archaic form of Sanskrit is Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...
found in the Rig Veda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
, composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE.
Taking recourse to "Hindu astronomical lore" Indigenists argue for ancient, indigenous origins of Sanskrit, dating the Rigveda and the Vedic people to the 3rd millennium BCE or earlier. According to Subhash Kak
Subhash Kak is an Indian-American computer scientist and historical revisionist. He is the Regents Professor of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, an honorary visiting professor of engineering at Jawaharla ...
, situating the arrival of the Aryans in the seventh millennium BCE, the hymns of the Rig Veda are organised in accordance with an astronomical code, supposedly showing "a tradition of sophisticated observational astronomy going back to events of 3000 or 4000 BCE." His ideas have been rejected by mainstream scholars.
=Horses and chariots
=
Several archaeological finds are interpreted as evidencing the presence of typical Indo-Aryan artefacts before 2000 BCE. Examples include the interpretation of animal bones from before 2000 BCE as horse-bones, and interpreting the Sinauli cart burials as chariots. While horse remains and related artifacts have been found in Late Harappan (1900-1300 BCE) sites, indicating that horses may have been present at Late Harappan times, horses did not play an essential role in the Harappan civilisation, in contrast to the Vedic period (1500-500 BCE). The earliest undisputed finds of horse remains in South Asia are from the Gandhara grave culture
The Gandhara grave culture of present-day Pakistan is known by its "protohistoric graves", which were spread mainly in the middle Swat River valley and named the Swat Protohistoric Graveyards Complex, dated in that region to –800 BCE. The It ...
, also known as the Swat culture (c. 1400-800 BCE), related to the Indo-Aryans
Horse remains from the Harappan site Surkotada
Surkotada is an archaeological site located in Rapar Taluka of Kutch district, Gujarat, India which belongs to the Indus Valley civilisation (IVC). It is a smaller fortified IVC site with in area.
Location and environment
The site at Surkotad ...
(dated to 2400-1700 BC) have been identified by A.K. Sharma as ''Equus ferus caballus''. However, archaeologists like Meadow (1997) disagree, on the grounds that the remains of the ''Equus ferus caballus'' horse are difficult to distinguish from other equid species such as ''Equus asinus'' (donkey
The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...
s) or ''Equus hemionus'' (onager
The onager (, ) (''Equus hemionus''), also known as hemione or Asiatic wild ass, is a species of the family Equidae native to Asia. A member of the subgenus ''Asinus'', the onager was Scientific description, described and given its binomial name ...
s).
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
solid-disk wheel carts were found at Sinauli in 2018. They were related to the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture
The Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (OCP) is a Bronze Age culture of the Indo-Gangetic Plain "generally dated 2000–1500 BCE," extending from eastern Punjab to northeastern Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh.
Artefacts of this culture show ...
, and dated at ca. 2000-1800 BCE. They were interpreted by some as horse-pulled "chariots", predating the arrival of the horse-centered Indo-Aryans. According to Parpola, the carts were ox-pulled charts, and related to a first wave of Ino-Iraninan migrations into the Indian subcontinent, noting that the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture
The Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (OCP) is a Bronze Age culture of the Indo-Gangetic Plain "generally dated 2000–1500 BCE," extending from eastern Punjab to northeastern Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh.
Artefacts of this culture show ...
(2000-1500 BCE) shows similarities with both the Late Harappan culture and steppe-cultures.
=Sarasvati river
=
In the Rig Veda, the goddess Sarasvati is described as a mighty river. Indigenists take these descriptions as references to a real river, the Sarasvati river
The Sarasvati River () is a Apotheosis, deified myth, mythological Rigvedic rivers, river first mentioned in the Rigveda and later in Vedas, Vedic and post-Vedic texts. It played an important role in the Historical Vedic religion, Vedic religio ...
, identified with the Ghaggar-Hakra, an eastern tributary to the Indus. Given the fact that the Ghaggar-Hakkra had dried-up at 2000 BCE, Indigenists argue that the Vedic people must therefore have been present much earlier.
Rig Vedic references to a physical river indicate that the Sarswati "had already lost its main source of water supply and must have ended in a terminal lake (samudra)," "depicting the present-day situation, with the Sarasvatī having lost most of its water." "Sarasvati" may also be identified with the Helmand
Helmand (Pashto/Dari: ; ), also known as Hillmand, in ancient times, as Hermand and Hethumand, is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, in the south of the country. It is the largest province by area, covering area. The province contains 18 ...
or Haraxvati river in southern Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
,[ the name of which may have been reused in its Sanskrit form as the name of the Ghaggar-Hakra river, after the Vedic tribes moved to the ]Punjab
Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...
. ''Sarasvati'' of the Rig Veda may also refer to two distinct rivers, with the family books referring to the Helmand River, and the more recent 10th mandala referring to the Ghaggar-Hakra.[
]
Identifying the Vedic people with the Harappan civilisation
Indigenists claim a continuous cultural evolution of India, denying a discontinuity between the Harappan and Vedic periods, identifying the IVC with the Vedic people. According to Kak, "the Indian civilization must be viewed as an unbroken tradition that goes back to the earliest period of the Sindhu-Sarasvati (or Indus) tradition (7000 or 8000 BCE). This identification is incompatible with the archaeological, linguistic and genetic data, and rejected by mainstream scholarship.
Postulating a Puranic chronology
The idea of "Indigenous Aryanism" fits into traditional Hindu ideas of religious history, namely that Hinduism has timeless origins, with the Vedic Aryans inhabiting India since ancient times. The ideas Indigenist ideas are rooted in the chronology of the , the Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...
and the Ramayana
The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...
, which contain lists of kings and genealogies used to construct the traditional chronology of ancient India. "Indigenists" follow a "Puranic agenda", emphasizing that these lists go back to the fourth millennium BCE. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the Maurya court at Patna at 300 BCE, reported to have heard of a traditional list of 153 kings that covered 6042 years, beyond the traditional beginning of the ''Kali Yuga
''Kali Yuga'' (Devanagari: कलियुग), in Hinduism, is the fourth, shortest, and worst of the four '' yugas'' (world ages) in a '' Yuga cycle'', preceded by '' Dvapara Yuga'' and followed by the next cycle's '' Krita (Satya) Yuga''. I ...
'' in 3102 BCE. The royal lists are based on Sūta bardic traditions, and are derived from lists which were orally transmitted and constantly reshaped.
These lists are supplemented with astronomical interpretations, which are also used to reach an earlier dating for the Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
. Along with this comes a redating of historical personages and events, in which the Buddha is dated to 1100 BCE or even 1700 BCE, and Chandragupta Maurya (c. 300 BCE) is replaced by Chandragupta, the Gupta king. The Bharata War is dated at 3139–38 BCE, the start of the kali Yuga.
Indigenous Aryans scenarios
Michael Witzel
Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist, comparative mythologist and Indologist. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50–100). He ...
identifies three major types of "Indigenous Aryans" scenarios:
1. A "mild" version that insists on the indigeneity of the Rigvedic Aryans to the North-Western region of the Indian subcontinent in the tradition of Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian yogi, maharishi, and Indian nationalist. He also edited the newspaper ''Bande Mataram''.
Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at King's ...
and Dayananda
Dayanand Saraswati () born Mool Shankar Tiwari (12 February 1824 – 30 October 1883), was a Hindu philosopher, social leader and founder of the Arya Samaj, a reform movement of Hinduism. His book ''Satyarth Prakash'' has remained one of the ...
;
2. The "out of India" school that posits India as the Proto-Indo-European homeland
The Proto-Indo-European homeland was the prehistoric homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), meaning it was the region where the proto-language was spoken before it split into the dialects from which the earliest Indo-European langu ...
, originally proposed in the 18th century, revived by the Hindutva
Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...
sympathiser Koenraad Elst
Koenraad Elst (; born 7 August 1959) is a Belgian author, known primarily for his adherence to the Hindutva ideology and support of the Out of India theory, which is rega ...
(1999), and further popularised within Hindu nationalism by Shrikant Talageri (2000);
3. The position that all the world's languages and civilisations derive from India, represented e.g. by David Frawley
David Frawley is an American Hindutva activist and a teacher of Hinduism.
He has written numerous books on topics spanning the Vedas, Hinduism, yoga, ayurveda and Hindu astrology. In 2015 he was honored by the government of India with the Padm ...
.
Kazanas adds a fourth scenario:
4.The Aryans entered the Indus Valley before 4500 BCE and got integrated with the Harappans, or might have been the Harappans.
Aurobindo's Aryan world-view
For Aurobindo, an "Aryan" was not a member of a particular race, but a person who "accepted a particular type of self-culture, of inward and outward practice, of ideality, of aspiration." Aurobindo wanted to revive India's strength by reviving Aryan traditions of strength and character. He denied the historicity of a racial division in India between "Aryan invaders" and a native dark-skinned population. Nevertheless, he did accept two kinds of culture in ancient India, namely the Aryan culture of northern and central India and Afghanistan, and the un-Aryan culture of the east, south and west. Thus, he accepted the cultural aspects of the division suggested by European historians.
Out of India model
The "Out of India theory" (OIT), also known as the "Indian Urheimat theory," is the proposition that the Indo-European language family
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
originated in Northern India
North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...
and spread to the remainder of the Indo-European region through a series of migrations. It implies that the people of the Harappan civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE ...
were linguistically Indo-Aryans.
Theoretical overview
Koenraad Elst, in his ''Update in the Aryan Invasion Debate'', investigates "the developing arguments concerning the Aryan Invasion Theory". Elst notes:
Edwin Bryant also notes that Elst's model is a "theoretical exercise:"
And in ''Indo-Aryan Controversy'' Bryant notes:
"The emerging alternative"
Koenraad Elst summarises "the emerging alternative to the Aryan Invasion Theory" as follows.
During the 6th millennium BCE, Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in the Punjab region
Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...
of northern India
North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...
. As the result of demographic expansion, they spread into Bactria
Bactria (; Bactrian language, Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization in Central Asia based in the area south of the Oxus River (modern Amu Darya) and north of the mountains of the Hindu Kush, an area ...
as the Kambojas
The Kambojas were a southeastern Iranian peoples, Iranian people who inhabited the northeastern most part of the territory populated by Iranian tribes, which bordered the Indian subcontinent, Indian lands. They only appear in Indo-Aryan langua ...
. The Paradas
Pāradas (alternatively Varadas, or Parita) was an Iron age kingdom described in various ancient and classical Indian texts. The exact location of the kingdom is unknown. The Vayu Purana locates the tribe on the upper course of the Amu Darya (a ...
moved further and inhabited the Caspian Caspian can refer to:
*The Caspian Sea
*The Caspian Depression, surrounding the northern part of the Caspian Sea
*The Caspians, the ancient people living near the Caspian Sea
*The Caspian languages spoken in northern Iran and southeastern Azerbaij ...
coast and much of central Asia while the Cinas
The Chinas (Sanskrit ) are a people mentioned in the Indian religious texts, such as the '' Mahabharata'', '' Manusmriti'', and the Puran.
Etymology
The origin of the Sanskrit name is commonly believed to have been the Qin (''Tsin'' or ''C ...
moved northwards and inhabited the Tarim Basin
The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...
in northwestern China, forming the Tocharian group of I-E speakers. These groups were Proto-Anatolian
Proto-Anatolian is the proto-language from which the ancient Anatolian languages emerged (i.e. Hittite and its closest relatives). As with almost all other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstruct ...
and inhabited that region by 2000 BCE. These people took the oldest form of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language with them and, while interacting with people of the Anatolian and Balkan region, transformed it into a separate dialect. While inhabiting central Asia they discovered the uses of the horse, which they later sent back to the Urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historicall ...
. Later on during their history, they went on to occupy western Europe and thus spread the Indo-European languages to that region.
During the 4th millennium BCE, civilisation in India started evolving into what became the urban Indus Valley civilization
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE ...
. During this time, the PIE languages evolved to Proto-Indo-Iranian
Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd ...
. Some time during this period, the Indo-Iranians began to separate as the result of internal rivalry and conflict, with the Iranians expanding westwards towards Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
and Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
, these possibly were the Pahlava
The Pahlavas are a people mentioned in ancient Indian texts. According to Patrick Carnegy, a Raj-era ethnographer, the 4th-century BCE ''Vartika'' of Katyayana mentions the ''Sakah-Parthavah'', demonstrating an awareness of these Saka-Parthians, ...
s. They also expanded into parts of central Asia. By the end of this migration, India was left with the Proto-Indo-Aryans. At the end of the Mature Harappan
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE t ...
period, the Sarasvati river began drying up and the remainder of the Indo-Aryans split into separate groups. Some travelled westwards and established themselves as rulers of the Hurrian
The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...
Mitanni
Mitanni (–1260 BC), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, ; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or in Ancient Egypt, Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian language, Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria (region), Syria an ...
kingdom by around 1500 BCE (see Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni
The ancient Middle Eastern state of Mitanni (modern-day Northeast Syria, Southeastern Turkey, 2nd millennium BCE) used a dialect of Hurrian as its main language. This dialect however contains some loanwords of evidently Indo-Aryan origin, i. ...
). Others travelled eastwards and inhabited the Gangetic basin while others travelled southwards and interacted with the Dravidian people
The Dravidian peoples, Dravidian-speakers or Dravidians, are a collection of ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia who speak Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. Telugus form the la ...
.
David Frawley
In books such as ''The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India'' and '' In Search of the Cradle of Civilization'' (1995), Frawley criticises the 19th century racial interpretations of Indian prehistory, such as the theory of conflict between invading Aryan race, Caucasoid Aryans and Dravidians. In the latter book, Frawley, Georg Feuerstein, and Subhash Kak
Subhash Kak is an Indian-American computer scientist and historical revisionist. He is the Regents Professor of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, an honorary visiting professor of engineering at Jawaharla ...
reject the Aryan Invasion theory and support Out of India.
Bryant commented that Frawley's historical work is more successful as a popular work, where its impact "is by no means insignificant", rather than as an academic study,
and that Frawley "is committed to channelling a symbolic spiritual paradigm through a critical empirico rational one".
Pseudohistory, Pseudo-historian Graham Hancock (2002) quotes Frawley's historical work extensively for the proposal of highly evolved ancient civilisations prior to the end of the Last Glacial Period, last glacial period. including in India. Kreisburg refers to Frawley's "The Vedic Literature and Its Many Secrets".
Significance for colonial rule and Hindu politics
The Aryan Invasion theory plays an important role in Hindu nationalism, which favors Indigenous Aryanism.
Colonial India
Curiosity and the colonial requirements of knowledge about their subject people led the officials of the East India Company to explore the history and culture of India in the late 18th century. When similarities between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin were discovered by William Jones (philologist), William Jones, a suggestion of "monogenesis" (single origin) was formulated for these languages as well as their speakers. In the latter part of the 19th century, it was thought that language, culture and race were inter-related, and the notion of biological race came to the forefront The presumed "Aryan race" which originated the Indo-European languages was prominent among such races, and was deduced to be further subdivided into "European Aryans" and "Asian Aryans," each with their own homelands.
Max Mueller, who translated the Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
during 1849–1874, postulated an original homeland for all Aryans in central Asia, from which a northern branch migrated to Europe and a southern branch to India and Iran. The Aryans were presumed to be fair-complexioned Indo-European speakers who conquered the dark-skinned ''dasas'' of India. The upper castes, particularly the Brahmins, were thought to be of Aryan descent whereas the lower castes and Dalits ("untouchables") were thought to be the descendants of ''dasas''.
The Aryan theory served politically to suggest a common ancestry and dignity between the Indians and the British. Keshab Chunder Sen spoke of British Raj, British rule in India as a "reunion of parted cousins." Indian nationalism, Indian nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak endorsed the antiquity of ''Rigveda'', dating it to 4500 BCE. He placed the homeland of the Aryans somewhere The Arctic Home in the Vedas, close to the North Pole. From there, Aryans were believed to have migrated south in the post-glacial age, branching into a European branch that relapsed into barbarism and an Indian branch that retained the original, superior civilisation.
However, Christian missionaries such as John Muir and John Wilson drew attention to the plight of lower castes, who they said were oppressed by the upper castes since the Aryan invasions. Jyotiba Phule argued that the ''dasas'' and ''sudras'' were indigenous people and the rightful inheritors of the land, whereas Brahmins were Aryan and alien.
Hindu revivalism and nationalism
In contrast to the mainstream views, the Hindu revivalism, Hindu revivalist movements denied an external origin to Aryans. Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj (Society of Aryans), held that Vedas were the source of all knowledge and were revealed to the Aryans. The first man (an Aryan) was created in Tibet and, after living there for some time, the Aryans came down and inhabited India, which was previously empty.
The Theosophical Society held that the Aryans were indigenous to India, but that they were also the progenitors of the European civilisation. The Society saw a dichotomy between the spiritualism of India and the materialism of Europe.
According to Romila Thapar, the Hindutva, Hindu nationalists, eager to construct a Hindu identity for the nation, held that the original Hindus were the Aryans and that they were indigenous to India. There was no Aryan invasion and no conflict among the people of India. The Aryans spoke Sanskrit and spread the Aryan civilization from India to the west. However, Hindutva
Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...
creator V. D. Savarkar believed that Aryans migrated to South Asia.
Witzel traces the "indigenous Aryan" idea to the writings of M. S. Golwalkar. Golwalkar (1939) denied any immigration of "Aryans" to the subcontinent, stressing that all Hindus have always been "children of the soil", a notion which according to Witzel is reminiscent of the ''blood and soil'' of contemporary fascism. Witzel adds that Savarkar offered a religious and cultural definition of Hindu-ness which he called "Hindutva". It has different components: territorial, political, nationalisitic, ancestral, cultural and religious. Since these ideas emerged on the brink of the internationalist and socially oriented Nehru-Gandhi government, they lay dormant for several decades after the independence, and only rose to prominence in the 1980s.
Bergunder likewise identifies Golwalkar as the originator of the "Indigenous Aryans" notion, and Goel's Voice of India as the instrument of its rise to notability:
Present-day political significance
Lars Martin Fosse notes the political significance of "Indigenous Aryanism". He notes that "Indigenous Aryanism" has been adopted by Hindu nationalists as a part of their ideology, which makes it a ''political'' matter in addition to a scholarly problem. The proponents of Indigenous Aryanism necessarily engage in "moral disqualification" of Western Indology, which is a recurrent theme in much of the indigenist literature. The same rhetoric is being used in indigenist literature and the Hindu nationalist publications like the ''Organiser (newspaper), Organiser''.
According to Abhijith Ravinutala, the indigenist position is essential for Hindutva exclusive claims on India:
Repercussions of the disagreements about Aryan origins have reached Californian courts with the Californian Hindu textbook controversy, Californian Hindu textbook case, where according to ''The Times of India'' historian and president of the Indian History Congress, Dwijendra Narayan Jha in a "crucial affidavit" to the Superior Court of California:
According to Thapar, Modi's government and the BJP have "peddled myths and stereotypes", such as the insistence on "a single uniform culture of the Aryans, ancestral to the Hindu, as having prevailed in the subcontinent, subsuming all others", despite the scholarly evidence for migrations into India, which is "anathema to the Hindutva construction of early history".
Rejection by mainstream scholarship
The Indigenous Aryans theory has no relevance, let alone support, in mainstream scholarship. According to Michael Witzel, the "indigenous Aryans" position is not scholarship in the usual sense, but an "apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking":
In her review of Bryant's ''The Indo-Aryan Controversy'', which includes chapters by Elst and other "indigenists", Stephanie Jamison comments:
Sudeshna Guha, in her review of ''The Indo-Aryan Controversy'', notes that the book has serious methodological shortcomings, by not asking the question what exactly constitutes historical evidence. This makes the "fair and adequate representation of the differences of opinion" problematic, since it neglects "the extent to which unscholarly opportunism has motivated the rebirth of this genre of 'scholarship. Guha:
According to Bryant, OIT proponents tend to be linguistic dilettantes who either ignore the linguistic evidence completely, dismiss it as highly speculative and inconclusive, or attempt to tackle it with hopelessly inadequate qualifications; this attitude and neglect significantly minimises the value of most OIT publications.
Fosse notes crucial theoretical and methodological shortcomings in the indigenist literature. Analysing the works of Sethna, Bhagwan Singh, Navaratna and Talageri, he notes that they mostly quote English literature, which is not fully explored, and omitting German and French Indology. It makes their works in various degrees underinformed, resulting in a critique that is "largely neglected by Western scholars because it is regarded as incompetent".
According to Erdosy, the indigenist position is part of a "lunatic fringe" against the mainstream migrationist model.
See also
* Dravidian culture
Indo-Aryans
* Indo-Iranians
* Indo-Aryan migrations
Politics
* Historiography and nationalism
* Saffronisation
* NCERT controversy
Indigenists
* Voice of India
** N. S. Rajaram
** David Frawley
David Frawley is an American Hindutva activist and a teacher of Hinduism.
He has written numerous books on topics spanning the Vedas, Hinduism, yoga, ayurveda and Hindu astrology. In 2015 he was honored by the government of India with the Padm ...
* Subhash Kak
Subhash Kak is an Indian-American computer scientist and historical revisionist. He is the Regents Professor of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, an honorary visiting professor of engineering at Jawaharla ...
Books
* ''The Arctic Home in the Vedas'' (1903)
* '' In Search of the Cradle of Civilization''
* ''Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth'' (1993)
* ''Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate'' (1999)
* ''The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis'' (2000)
Other
*Yamnaya culture
The Yamnaya ( ) or Yamna culture ( ), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, is a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic–C ...
Notes
References
Sources
;Printed sources
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;Web-sources
Further reading
;Overview
Edwin Bryant (author), Edwin Bryant, a cultural historian, has given an overview of the various "Indigenist" positions in his PhD-thesis and two subsequent publications:
*
*
*
''The Indigenous Aryan Debate'' and ''The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture'' are reports of his fieldwork, primarily interviews with Indian researchers, on the reception of the Indo-Aryan migration theory in India. ''The Indo-Aryan Controversy'' is a bundle of papers by various "indigenists", including Koenraad Elst, but also a paper by Michael Witzel.
Another overview has been given by Thomas Trautmann:
*
*
;Literature by "indigenous Aryans" proponents
*
*
* Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak
Subhash Kak is an Indian-American computer scientist and historical revisionist. He is the Regents Professor of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University–Stillwater, an honorary visiting professor of engineering at Jawaharla ...
, David Frawley
David Frawley is an American Hindutva activist and a teacher of Hinduism.
He has written numerous books on topics spanning the Vedas, Hinduism, yoga, ayurveda and Hindu astrology. In 2015 he was honored by the government of India with the Padm ...
, '' In Search of the Cradle of Civilization: New Light on Ancient India'' Quest Books (IL) (October, 1995)
* Lal, B. B. (2002), ''The Sarasvati flows on: The continuity of Indian culture'', Aryan Books International, .
* Lal, B. B. (2015), ''The Rigvedic People: Invaders? Immigrants? or Indigenous?''. See also Koenraad Elst
"Book Review: The Rig Vedic People Were Indigenous to India, Not Invaders"
*
* N. S. Rajaram, ''The Politics of History: Aryan Invasion Theory and the Subversion of Scholarship'' (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1995) .
* Talageri, S. G., ''The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis'', New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000
*
*
;Bharat
*
;Criticism
* Shereen Ratnagar (2008), ''The Aryan homeland debate in India'', in Philip L. Kohl, Mara Kozelsky, Nachman Ben-Yehuda "Selective remembrances: archaeology in the construction, commemoration, and consecration of national pasts", pp 349–378
* Suraj Bhan (archaeologist), Suraj Bhan (2002), "Aryanization of the Indus Civilization" in Panikkar, KN, Byres, TJ and Patnaik, U (Eds), ''The Making of History'', pp 41–55.
*
;Other
*
External links
Thapar, Romila: The Aryan question revisited (1999)
Witzel, Michael: The Home of the Aryans
Witzel, ''Horseplay at Harappa'', Harvard University
– Frontline (magazine), Frontline, 11–24 November 2000.
Linda Hess, ''The Indigenous Aryan Discussion on RISA-L: The Complete Text (to 10/28/96)''
Thomas Trautmann (2005), ''The Aryan Debate: Introduction''
{{Authority control
Politics of India
Indology
Vedic period
Historiography of India
Sanskrit
Evolution of language
Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups, Aryans
Indigenous Aryanism, Indigenous Aryanism
Indo-Aryan peoples