| HINDUISM AND ARYANS Hinduism :
Hinduism is a way of life, a way or art towards a good living. The word Hindu is derived from the celebrated river Indus that is their foundation head of this country's ancient history. The vernacular name of the river is Sindhu.
Perhaps the biggest misconception that the world has about Hinduism is presuming that it is a religion. Hinduism as it is known today was never conceived. It just happened just evolved. The last thing it was intended to be was religion. Hinduism is a path towards better living and better understanding of our universe. Its base is faith in the sheer connectivity of every matter in the universe, and the belief that knowledge alone is the goal of life.
Hindu is a person who walks on path of Hinduism.
Aryans :
Aryan is an English word derived from the Sanskrit, Avestan and Vedic term arya, meaning noble.
Another meaning refers to the Aryan race, a (presumed) more or less pure blood descendant ethnic group of this original Aryan group.
The texts describe geography that some believe to be north India. The greatest river of the Rig Ved was Saraswati. Our knowledge of the early Aryans comes mainly from the Rig ved, the earliest of the Veds.
Aryan Invasion theory :
The origin of the Vedic civilization and its relation to the Indus Valley civilization is considered as controversial. This controversy is created through a research of DNA pattern.
This research was conducted by The study, led by Micheal J. Bamshad of the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City and his colleagues is reported to be the most comprehensive genetic analysis to date of the impact of European migrations on the structure and origin of the current Indian population.
A study showed that Indians belonging to higher castes are genetically closer to Europeans than are individuals from lower castes whose genetic profiles are closer to those of Asians.
Through this theory it was considered that Aryans were not Indians but, there are certain facts which are hided from people to show that Europeans are superior and that Aryans are not Indians.
The below concepts are of Dr. Gaurav A. Vyas regarding Aryans being Indians :
As Aryan civilization is the oldest and most profound civilization it does not mean that it is European or something else. Thus, from the above given points we can clear the controversial theory about Aryans.
I would also like to add that the Aryan Invasion theory has been universally proved wrong but still it is put in books by political parties such as political in India to gain votes and to divide India so that they can divide and rule.
Political parties have divided India before and they are still dividing India so that there can be riots and they can gain votes out of it in order to stay in power.
According to another person :
Invasion Theory has been proved to be a myth and as a wrong theory long back. But let me explain in detail the actual history and dirty politics behind this theory.
Let us first see what the Aryan Invasion Theory says.
It calls the race which belonged to the Vedic age as Aryans. It says that at around 1500 BC Aryans, (which it says was a tribe from the Europe) invaded north India plundering and pushing down the local Dravidians (who it says were the original natives of India) who lived there to down South India. In a nutshell, it says the North Indians of today belong to an Aryan race which came to India from Europe and today's South Indians are the native Indians (called Dravidian Race!) who lived in North India before the Aryans came! The Vedic people who lived in North India during the Vedic ages were these Aryans, it says!
First let us see how they arrived at these dates! It was well known in India in the British period that Ved's pre-dated Christ, since they definitely pre-dated Buddha who lived some 400 years before Christ. Some scholars then said that as per Bible the world was created in 4000 BC, and Noah's flood took place in 2500 BC. So they decided that Aryan Invasion of India must have taken place only after this flood and before Buddha, and hence would be around 1500 BC.
This is the funniest investigation I have ever heard about. I doubt if anybody can dare to call this a scientific investigation! This is what some call as, 'adjusting history' to be 'compliant' with 'religious texts'
Dravidians was not a separate race :
The people of south India whom the Aryan Invasion theory says were the original natives, are NOT a race separate from the North Indians! They all belong to one and the same race. The ancient Indian Vedic race. This is because; the languages of both, the so called Aryan and Dravidian people have their roots in Sanskrit language. Both worship the same Gods. Both have the same epics. Both have same philosophies. Both have histories which date back to BC.
Given these facts, how can then Aryans and Dravidians be two separate races? If Aryans had invaded India then why are Dravidians following the same customs and religion as Aryans. How do they speak languages which originated from the same parental language?
Why don't any dravidian folk lore or ancient texts or sayings or stories or epics exist which talk about the so called Aryan Invasion? Also why do the Vedic texts talk about locations in South India? The Ramayana, Mahabharatha all talk about South Indian locations even below and beyond the main land of India into the Indian Ocean like Srilanka! If Aryans were from Europe and if they invaded North India and pushed local people down to South India, where did these locations come from?
This proves beyond doubt that there do not exist any separate Aryan and Dravidian races. Instead natives of both North India and South India belong to one single race called the Vedic Indian race!
No mention of Europe :
There is no mention of any location outside the mainland of India in any of the Vedic texts! If Aryans came from Europe, then why haven't the so called Aryans mentioned any of the European locations in any of the Vedic or related texts? The farthest location away from India towards the west mentioned in the ved's is Kadhahar of present day Afghanistan, which was called Gandhar in the Vedic texts and was said to be the kingdom of Shakuni.
Why haven't any of the texts mentioned about their European locations? Why is there no Vedic text which talks about migration from Europe?
No European Rivers :
None of the Vedic texts talk about rivers outside India! Everybody knows that rivers were the major sources of water for all ancient civilizations and so all ancient civilizations were centered around the world's major rivers. Why is there no mention of any European river or a river outside India anywhere in the Vedic texts? Wouldn't a race mention something or the other about its native place in at least one of its texts?
Saraswati River :
This is a death blow to the Aryan Invasion theory. According to the Aryan Invasion theory the Aryans who invaded India in around 1500 BC settled on the banks of Indus or Sindhu river in North India.
The Vedic texts talk about Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati as the trio river, the three great rivers of their age. Ganga and Yamuna rivers exist even today in North India and till sometime back Saraswati was thought to be a mythological river. But ved's talk about Saraswati as a mighty river that flowed in the north India during the Vedic ages.
There is also the mention of the Ganga Yamuna Saraswati merging at a place called Prayag , which was also called the Triveni Sangam (the current Allahabad in North India where today only Ganga and Yamuna meet). It is said that the Saraswati that merged here with the other two rivers was a subterranean channel of the main river of Saraswati.
The Mahabhartha talks about Saraswati river saying that it dried up in a desert! So it has to be noted here that Mahabhartha can be dated back to the drying up of the Saraswati.
Saraswati river Recent satellite images and geological excavations have proved the existence of an ancient river in North India, with exactly the same features of river Saraswati described in the ved's and Mahabharath. Today Saraswati is a dried up river.
Before Saraswati dried up, the present Rajasthan was a lush green area! The drying up of Saraswati created the Thar Desert in Rajasthan. Even the current dry beds of Sindh and Baluchistan (currently in Pakistan) were lush green fertile lands before the Saraswati river dried up.
Why did the Saraswati river dry up? :
The plate tectonics of the Indian sub continental plate and the himalayan sources of this river are thought to be the main reason for that. Sutlej and Yamuna were the main sources of the Saraswati river. As the Indian plate moved up towards the main Eurasian plate, the course of Yamuna got altered in the Himalayas moving more water of Yamuna towards the Ganga River and that of Sutlej got altered to join Indus! This caused a major loss in terms of its water source for the river Saraswati and is thought to have been the cause for its drying up.
Now what does Saraswati river have to say about the Aryan Invastion theory of 1500 BC? Well, the geological excavations give a date of about 4000 BC for the drying up of Saraswati river.
Why Aryan Invasion Theory? :
Then why was the Aryan Invasion Theory created? Well, more than saying created, it was popularized and promoted by the British without investigating its merits and demerits because it suited their divide and rule policy in India. The same way they divided the Hindus and Muslims in India based on religion, they also divided the Indians using this theory as Aryans (North Indians) and Dravidians (South Indians).
This was the politics behind this theory.
Conclusion :
In a nutshell, the ancient Vedic people were settled in India much before 4000 BC and have nothing to do with the myth of 1500 BC Invasion theory! There is no separate Aryan or dravidian race. There is one single ancient Indian Vedic race with roots IN INDIA. Indus valley civilization is NOT the most ancient Indian civilization. It was probably only a remnant civilization of an ancient Civilization that existed till the end of the Mahabarath war. The most ancient Indian civilization was therefore the Saraswati valley civilization (or a Ganga-Yamuna-Saraswati civilization) of the Vedic age.
According to another person :
There was never an Aryan Invasion :
The Aryan Invasion theory was hypothesized in the nineteenth century to explain the similarities found in Sanskrit and the languages of Europe. One person who reported about this is Deen Chandora in his article, Distorted Historical Events and Discredited Hindu Chronology, as it appeared in Revisiting Indus-Sarasvati Age and Ancient India (p. 383). He explains that the idea of the Aryan Invasion was certainly not a matter of misguided research, but was a conspiracy to distribute deliberate misinformation that was formulated on April 10, 1866 in London at a secret meeting held in the Royal Asiatic Society. This was "to induct the theory of the Aryan Invasion of India, so that no Indian may say that English are foreigners. India was ruled all along by outsiders and so the country must remain a slave under the benign Christian rule." This was a political move and this theory was put to solid use in all schools and colleges.
So it was basically a linguistic theory adopted by the British colonial authorities to keep themselves in power. This theory suggested, more or less, that there was a race of superior, white Aryans who came in from the Caucasus Mountains and invaded the Indus region, and then established their culture, compiled their literature, and then proceeded to invade the rest of India.
As can be expected, most of those who were great proponents of the Aryan Invasion theory were often ardent English and German nationalists, or Christians, ready and willing to bring about the desecration of anything that was non-Christian or non-European.
In this way, the Aryan Invasion theory was created to make it appear that Indian culture and philosophy was dependent on the previous developments in Europe, thereby justifying the need for colonial rule and Christian expansion in India. This was also the purpose of the study of Sanskrit, such as at Oxford University in England, as indicated by Colonel Boden who sponsored the program. He stated that they should "promote Sanskrit learning among the English, so as 'to enable his countrymen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion.'"
So, in essence, the British used the theory of the Aryan Invasion to further their "divide and conquer" policy. With civil unrest and regional cultural tensions created by the British through designations and divisions among the Indian society, it gave a reason and purpose for the British to continue and increase their control over India.
However, under scrutiny, the Aryan Invasion theory lacks justification. For example, Sir John Marshall, one of the chief excavators at Mohenjo-Daro, offers evidence that India may have been following the Vedic religion long before any so-called "invaders" ever arrived. He points out that it is known that India possessed a highly advanced and organized urban civilization dating back to at least 2300 B.C., if not much earlier. In fact, some researchers suggest that evidence makes it clear that the Indus Valley civilization was quite developed by at least 3100 B.C. The known cities of this civilization cover an area along the Indus river and extend from the coast to Rajasthan and the Punjab over to the Yamuna and Upper Ganges. At its height, the Indus culture spread over 300,000 square miles, an area larger than Western Europe. Cities that were a part of the Indus culture include Mohenjo-Daro, Kot Diji east of Mohenjo-Daro, Amri on the lower Indus, Lothal south of Ahmedabad, Malwan farther south, Harappa 350 miles upstream from Mohenjo-Daro, Kalibangan and Alamgirpur farther east, Rupar near the Himalayas, Sutkagen Dor to the west along the coast, Mehrgarh 150 miles north of Mohenjo-Daro, and Mundigak much farther north. Evidence at Mehrgarh shows a civilization that dates back to 6500 B.C. It had been connected with the Indus culture but was deserted in the third millennium B.C. around the time the city of Mohenjo-Daro became prominent.
We also have to remember that many of the Indus sites, like Kalibangan, were close to the region of the old Sarasvati River. Some Hindu scholars are actually preferring to rename the Indus Valley culture as the Indus-Sarasvati culture because the Sarasvati was a prominent river and very important at the time. For example, the Sarasvati River is glowingly praised in the Rig-ved. However, the Sarasvati River stopped flowing and later dried up. Recent scientific studies calculate that the river stopped flowing as early as around 8000 B.C. It dried up near the end of the Indus Valley civilization, at least by 1900 B.C. This was no doubt one reason why these cities were abandoned. This also means that if the Vedic people came after the Indus Valley culture, they could not have known of the Sarasvati River. This is further evidence that the ved's were from many years before the time of the Indus Valley society and were not brought into the region by some Invasion.
As a result of the latest studies, evidence points in the direction that the Indus sites were wiped out not by acts of war or an Invasion, but by the drought that is known to have taken place and continued for 300 years. Whatever skeletons that have been found in the region may indicate deaths not by war but by starvation or lack of water. Deaths of the weak by starvation are normal before the whole society finally moves away for better lands and more abundant resources. This is the same drought that wiped out the Akkadians of Sumeria, and caused a sudden abandonment of cities in Mesopotamia, such as at Tell Leilan and Tell Brock. The beginning of the end of these civilizations had to have been near 2500 B.C. This drought no doubt contributed to the final drying up of the Sarasvati River.
Regarding Mohenjo-Daro, archeologists have discovered no sign of attack, such as extensive burning, or remains of armor-clad warriors, and no foreign weapons. This leaves us to believe that the enemy of the people in this region was nature, such as earthquakes, flooding, or the severe drought, or even a change in the course of rivers, and not warrior invaders. So again, the Invasion theory does not stand up to scrutiny from the anthropological point of view.
Another point that helps convince that the Vedic religion and culture had to have been there in India and pre-Harappan times is the sacrificial altars that have been discovered at the Harappan sites. These are all of similar design and found from Baluchistan to Uttar Pradesh, and down into Gujarat. This shows that the whole of this area must have been a part of one specific culture, the Vedic culture, which had to have been there before these sites were abandoned.
In a similar line of thought in another recent book, Vedic Glossary on Indus Seals, Dr. Natwar Jha has provided an interpretation of the ancient script of the numerous recovered seals of the Indus Valley civilization. He has concluded that the Indus Valley seals, which are small soapstone, one-inch squares, exhibit a relation to the ancient form of Brahmi. He found words on the seals that come from the ancient Nighantu text, which is a glossary of Sanskrit compiled by the sage Yaksa that deals with words of subordinate Vedic texts. An account of Yaksa's search for older Sanskrit words is found in the Shanti Parv of the Mahabharat. This may have been in relation to the Indus Valley seals and certainly shows its ancient Vedic connection.
The point of all this is that the entire Rig-ved had to have been existing for thousands of years by the time the Indus Valley seals were produced. Therefore, the seals were of Vedic Sanskrit origin or a derivative of it, and the Indus Valley sites were part of the Vedic culture. This is further evidence that there was no Aryan Invasion. No Aryan Invasion means that the area and its residents were already a part of the Vedic empire. This also means that the so-called Indo-Aryan or Indo-European civilization was nothing but the worldwide Vedic culture. From this we can also conclude, therefore, that the so-called Indo-Aryan group of languages is nothing but the various local mispronunciations of Sanskrit which has pervaded the civilized world for thousands of years.
Another interesting point is that skeletal remains found in the Harappan sites that date back to 4000 years ago show the same basic racial types in the Punjab and Gujarat as found today. This verifies that no outside race invaded and took over the area. The only west to east movement that took place was after the Sarasvati went dry, and that was involving the people who were already there. In this regard, Sir John Marshall, in charge of the excavations at the Harappan sites, said that the Indus civilization was the oldest to be unearthed, even older than the Sumerian culture, which is believed to be but a branch of the former, and, thus, an outgrowth of the Vedic society.
One more point about skeletal remains at the Harappan sites is that bones of horses are found at all levels of these locations. Thus, the horse was well known to these people. The horse was mentioned in the Rig-ved, and was one of the main animals of Vedic culture in India. However, according to records in Mesopotamia, the horse was unknown to that region until only about 2100 B.C. So this provides further proof that the direction of movement by the people was from India to the west, not the other way around as the Invasion theory suggests.
Professor Lal has written a book, The Earliest Civilization of South Asia, in which he also has concluded that the theory of an Aryan Invasion has no basis. An Invasion is not the reason for the destruction of the Harappan civilization. It was caused by climactic changes. He says the Harappan society was a melting pot made up of people from the Mediterranean, Armenia, the Alpine area, and even China. They engaged in typical Vedic fire worship, ashwamedha rituals. Such fire altars have been found in the Indus Valley cities of Banawali, Lothal, and Kalibangan.
He also explains that the city of Kalibangan came to ruin when the Saraswati River dried up, caused by severe climactic changes around 1900 B.C. Thus, the mention of the Sarasvati River also helps date the ved's, which had to have existed before this. This would put the origin of Sanskrit writing and the earliest portions of Vedic literature at least sometime before 4000 B.C., 6000 years ago.
The Indus Valley Civilization a part of the Vedic culture :
Besides what we have already discussed, more light is shed on the advanced civilization of the Indus Valley and how it influenced areas beyond its region when we consider the subject of Vedic mathematics. E. J. H. Mackay explains in his book, Further Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro, that the whole basis of Vedic mathematics is geometry, and geometrical instruments have been found in the Indus Valley which date back to at least 2800 B.C. The Vedic form of mathematics was much more advanced than that found in early Greek and Egyptian societies. This can be seen in the Shulbasutras, supplements of the Kalpasutras, which also show the earliest forms of algebra which were used by the Vedic priests in their geometry for the construction of altars and arenas for religious purposes. In fact, the geometrical formula known as the Pythagorean Theorem can be traced to the Baudhayans, the earliest forms of the Shulbasutras dated prior to the eighth century B.C.
The Shulbasutras are the earliest forms of mathematical knowledge, and certainly the earliest for any religious purpose. They basically appear as a supplement to the ritual (Shrauta) aspect of the Kalpasutras. They essentially contain the mathematical formulas for the design of various altars for the Vedic rituals of worship, which are evident in the Indus Valley sites.
The date of the Shulbasutras, after comparing the Baudhayana, Apastamba and Katyayana Shulbas with the early mathematics of ancient Egypt and Babylonia, as described by N. S. Rajaram in Vedic Aryans and The Origins of Civilization (p.139), is near 2000 B.C. However, after including astronomical data from the Ashvalayana Grihyasutra, Shatapantha Brahman, etc., the date can be brought farther back to near 3000 B.C., near the time of the Mahabharat War and the compilation of the other Vedic texts by Srila Vyasadeva.
With this view in mind, Vedic mathematics can no longer be considered as a derivative from ancient Babylon, which dates to 1700 B.C., but must be the source of it as well as the Greek or Pythagorean mathematics. Therefore, the advanced nature of the geometry found in the Shulbasutras indicates that it provided the knowledge that had to have been known during the construction of the Indus sites, such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, as well as that used in ancient Greece and Babylon.
It is Vedic mathematics that originated the decimal system of tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on, and in which the remainder of one column of numbers is carried over to the next column. The Indian number system was used in Arabia after 700 A.D. and was called Al-Arqan-Al-Hindu. This spread into Europe and became known as the Arabic numerals. This, of course, has developed into the number system we use today, which is significantly easier than the Egyptian, Roman, or Chinese symbols for numbers that made mathematics much more difficult. It was the Indians who devised the methods of dividing fractions and the use of equations and letters to signify unknown factors. They also made discoveries in calculus and other systems of math several hundred years before these same principles were understood in Europe.
Thus, it becomes obvious that if the Europeans had not changed from the Roman numeral system to the form of mathematics that originated in India, many of the developments that took place in Europe would not have been possible. In this way, all evidence indicates that it was not any northern invaders into India who brought or originated this advanced form of mathematics, but it was from the Vedic Aryan civilization that had already been existing in India and the Indus Valley region. Thus, we can see that such intellectual influence did not descend from the north into India, but rather traveled from India up into Europe.
Additional evidence that it was not any invaders who originated the highly advanced Vedic culture in the Indus Valley is the fact that various seals that Waddell calls Sumerian and dates back to 2800 B.C. have been found bearing the image of the water buffalo or Brahma bull. Modern zoologists believe that the water buffalo was known only to the Ganges and Brahmaputra valleys and did not exist in Western India or the Indus Valley. This would suggest a few possibilities. One is that the Sumerians had traveled to Central and Eastern India for reasons of trade and for finding precious stones since Harappa was a trading center connected by way of the Indus river with the gold and turquoise industry of Tibet. Thus, they learned about the water buffalo and used images of them on their seals. The second and most likely possibility is that the Aryan civilization at the time extended from Eastern India to the Indus region and farther west to Mesopotamia and beyond, and included the Sumerians as a branch. So, trade and its Vedic connections with India naturally brought the image of the water buffalo to the Indus Valley region and beyond.
Further evidence showing the Vedic influence on the region of Mohenjo-Daro is a tablet dating back to 2600 B.C. It depicts an image of Lord Krishna as a child. This positively shows that the Indus Valley culture was connected with the ancient Vedic system, which was prevalent along the banks of the Rivers Sarasvati and Sindhu thousands of years ago.
The Vedic literature supplies no evidence of Aryan Invasion :
Since the Rig-veda (7.95.1) describes the course of the river from the mountains to the sea, as well as (10.75.5) locates the river between the Yamuna and the Shutudri (Sutlej), it becomes obvious that the Vedic Aryans had to have been in India before this river dried up, or long before 2000 B.C. The Atharv-ved (6.30.1) also mentions growing barley along the Sarasvati. And the Vajasaneya Samhita of the Yajur-ved (Shukla yajur-ved 34.11) relates that five rivers flow into the Sarasvati, after which she becomes a vast river. This is confirmed by satellite photography, archeology, and hydrological surveys that the Sarasvati was a huge river, up to five miles wide. Not only does this verify the antiquity of the Aryan civilization in India, but also of the Vedic literature, which had to have been in existence many hundreds of years before 1900 B.C. So this helps confirm the above date of 3102 B.C. when the Vedic texts were compiled.
Furthermore, the ancient Rig-ved (10.75.5; 6.45.31; 3.59.6) mentions the Ganges, sometimes called the Jahnavi, along with the Yamuna, Sarasvati, and Sindhu (Indus) rivers (Rig-ved, 10.75.1-9). So the rivers and settlements in the Ganges region did have significance in the Vedic literature, which shows that the Ved's were written in India and not brought into the Ganges area after they had been written at some other location.
The Manu-samhita (2.21-22) also describes Madhyadesh, the central region of India, as being where the Aryans were located between the Himavat and Vindhya mountains, east of Prayaga and west of Vinasana where the Sarasvati River disappears. It also says the land that extends as far as the eastern and western oceans is called Aryavat (place of the Aryans) by the wise. This means that the center of Vedic civilization at the time was near the Sarasvati River.
The point of this is that here is more evidence that the Vedic Aryans could not have invaded India or written the Rig-ved after 1800 B.C. and known about the Sarasvati River. In fact, for the river to have been as great as it is described in the ved's and Puranas, the Aryans had to have been existing in the area for several thousand years, at least before the river began to dry up. And if the Aryans were not the first people in this area, then why there is no pre-Aryan names for these rivers? Or why has no one discovered the pre-Indus Valley language if it had been inhabited by a different people before the Aryans arrived? And why is there no record of any Aryan Invasion in any of the Vedic literature?
In this regard, Mr. K. D. Sethna points out on page 67 of his book, The Problem of Aryan Origins From an Indian Point of View, that even scholars who believe in an Aryan Invasion of India around 1500 B.C. admit that the Rig-ved supplies no sign of an entry into the Indian subcontinent from anywhere. There is no mention of any such Invasion. From our research and evidence, the Rig-ved can be dated to at least around 3000 B.C. or much earlier. Thus, for all practical purposes, there is little reason to discuss any other origination of the Vedic Aryans than the area of Northern India.
This is corroborated in The Cultural Heritage of India (pp. 182-3) wherein it explains that Indian tradition knows nothing of any Aryan Invasion from the northwest or outside of India. In fact, the Rig-ved (Book Ten, Chapter 75) lists the rivers in the order from the east to the northwest, in accordance with the expansion of the Aryan outflow from India to the northwest. This would concur with the history in the Puranas that India was the home of the Aryans, from where they expanded to outside countries in various directions, spreading the Vedic culture. The Manu-samhita (2.17-18) specifically points out that the region of the Vedic Aryans is between the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati Rivers, as similarly found in the Rig-ved (3.24.4).
Any wars mentioned in the Vedic literature are those that have taken place between people of the same culture, or between the demigods and demons, or the forces of light and darkness. The idea that the term "Aryan" or "Arya" refers to those of a particular race is misleading. It is a term that means anyone of any race that is noble and of righteous and gentle conduct. To instill the idea of an Aryan Invasion into the Vedic texts is merely an exercise of taking isolated verses out of context and changing the meaning of the terms. Even the oldest written Vedic book, the Rig-ved, contains no mention of a wandering tribe of people coming from some original holy land or any mountainous regions from outside India. In fact, it describes the Indian subcontinent in recognizable terms of rivers and climate. The Sarasvati River is often mentioned in the Rig-ved, which makes it clear that the region of the Sarasvati was a prime area of the Vedic people. Furthermore, it describes no wars with outsiders, no capturing of cities, and no incoming culture of any kind that would indicate an Invasion from a foreign tribe. Only much later after the Vedic period do we have the Invasion of India by the Muslims and the British, for which there is so much recorded evidence.
More evidence for the original home of the Aryans :
The Brahmin priests and Indian scholars believe that the Sarasvati and Ganges valley region are the origin of Indian civilization and the Aryan society. This can be given some credence when we look at the cities in this region. For example, North of Delhi is the town of Kuruksetra where the great battle of the Mahabharat took place when Sri Krishna was still on the planet over 5,000 years ago. There is also the old city of Hastinapura that was once situated along the Ganges until the river changed its course and swept the city away in 800 B.C. This is the old capital of the Kuru dynasty in the Mahabharat. Pottery remains have been found near these locations that are traced back to at least 1200 B.C. In New Delhi we find the Purana Qila site, which is known to have been part of the ancient city of Indraprastha. An interesting quote can be found in the ancient Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.72.13) which can give us some idea of how prominent Indraprastha had been. It states that during the time when Sri Krishna was on this planet 5,000 years ago, King Yudhisthira sent his brothers, the Pandavas, to conquer the world in all directions. This was for bringing all countries to participate in the great Rajasuya ceremony that was being held in ancient Indraprastha. All countries were to pay a tax to help the performance of the ceremony, and to send representatives to participate. If they did not wish to cooperate, then they would have to engage in battle with the Pandavas. Thus, the whole world came under the jurisdiction of the Vedic Aryan administration.
The Vedic explanation of the original Aryans and how their influence spread throughout the world.
The Vedic literature establishes a different scenario. They present evidence that ancient, pre-historical India covered a much broader area, and that the real Aryans were not invaders from the north into the Indus region, but were the original residents who were descendants of Vedic society that had spread over the world from the area of India. Let us remember that the term Aryan has been confused with meaning light or light complexion. However, Aryan refers to Arya, or a clear consciousness toward God, not white or white people. In the Vedic sutras, the word Aryan is used to refer to those who are spiritually oriented and of noble character.
The Sanskrit word Aryan is linguistically related to the word harijana (pronounced hariyana), meaning one related to God, Hari. Therefore, the real meaning of the name Aryan refers to those people related to the spiritual Vedic culture. It has little to do with those immigrants that some researchers have speculated to be the so-called "invading Aryans." Aryan refers to those who practice the Vedic teachings and does not mean a particular race of people. Therefore, anyone can be an Aryan by following the clear, light, Vedic philosophy, while those who do not follow it are non-Aryan. Thus, the name Aryan, as is generally accepted today, has been misapplied to a group of people who are said to have migrated from the north into India.
Some call these people Sumerians, but L. A. Waddell, even though he uses the name, explains that the name Sumerian does not exist as an ethnic title and was fabricated by the modern Assyriologists and used to label the Aryan people. And Dr. Hall, in his book Ancient History of the Near East, says that there is an anthropological resemblance between the Dravidians of India and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, which suggests that the group of people called the Sumerians actually were of Indian descendants. With this information in mind, it is clear that the real Aryans were the Vedic followers who already existed throughout India and to the north beyond the Indus region.
To help understand how the Aryan influence spread through the world, L. A. Waddell explains that the Aryans established the pre-historic trade routes over land and sea from at least the beginning of the third millennium B.C., if not much earlier. Wherever the Aryans went, whether in Egypt, France, England, or elsewhere, they imposed their authority and culture, much to the betterment of the previous culture of the area. They brought together scattered tribes and clans into national unity that became increasingly bright in their systems of social organization, trade, and art. In seeking new sources of metal, such as tin, copper, gold, and lead, the Aryans established ports and colonies among the local tribes that later developed into separate nations which took many of their traditions and cultural traits from the ruling Aryans. Of course, as trade with the Aryans diminished, especially after the Mahabharat War in India, variations in the legends and cultures became prominent. This accounts for the many similarities between the different ancient civilizations of the world, as well as those resemblances that still exist today.
Another consideration is that since the Aryans were centralized in the Gangetic plains and the Himalayan mountains, from there they could have spread east along the Brahmaputra River and over the plain of Tibet. The Chinese, in the form of the Cina tribe, also are likely to have originated here since they have the legend of the sacred mountain in the west with four rivers. The ancient Puranas explain that Manu and his sons ruled over the area, over as many lands north of Mount Meru and Kailas as south. Other Aryans could have easily gone down the Sarasvati and Sarayu into north India. Others went from the Indus into Kashmir and Afghanistan, and into Central Asia. Others went into the areas of Gujarat and Sind, and over through Persia and the Gulf region. This is how the Sumerian civilization was founded, along with Babylonia. From there they went farther into Turkey and Europe.
After spreading throughout South India, they continued down the Ganges by sea east into Malaysia and Indonesia, founding the ancient Vedic cultures there. By sea they continued to China, meeting the Aryans that were probably already there. From China and the orient, they sailed over the Pacific Ocean and finally reached and colonized the Americas. Plenty of evidence of this is presented in the following chapters.
We can see some of the affect of this spread out of India in regard to the term Aryan. The name Harijana or Aryan evolved into Syriana or Syrians in Syria, and Hurrians in Hurri, and Arianna or Iranians in Iran. This shows that they were once part of Vedic society. A similar case is the name Parthians in Partha, another old country in Persia. Partha was the name of Krishna's friend Arjun, a Vedic Aryan, and means the son of King Prithu. So the name Parthian indicates those who are the descendants of King Prithu. Parthians also had a good relationship with the early Jews since the Jews used to buy grains from the Parthians. The Greeks referred to the Jews as Judeos, or Jah deos or Yadavs, meaning people of Ya or descendants of Yadu, one of the sons of Yayati. It is also regarded that the basis of the Kabbalah, the book of Jewish mystical concepts, as described in The Holy Kabbalah by Arthur Edward Waite, is linked with Kapil Muni, the Indian sage and incarnation of Krishna who established the analytical sankhya-yog philosophy. Therefore, a connection between the early Jews and ancient Vedic culture is evident.
Another aspect of the connection between these various regions and the Vedic culture is explained in the Vedic literature. In the Rig-ved (10.63.1) Manu is the foremost of kings and seers. Manu and his family were survivors of the world flood, as mentioned in the Shatapatha Brahmana (1.8.1). Thus, a new beginning for the human race came from him, and all of humanity is descendants from Manu. The Atharv-ved (19.39.8) mentions where his ship descended in the Himalayas. One temple that signifies the location of where the ship of Manu first touched land after the flood is in Northern India in the hills of Manali. His important descendants are the Pauravas, Ayu, Nahush, and Yayati. From Yayati came the five Vedic clans; the Purus, Anus, Druhyus, Turvashas, and Yadus. The Turvashas are related to India's southeast, Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, and are the ancestors of the Dravidians and the Yavanas. Yadu is related to the south or southwest, Gujarat and Rajasthan, from Mathura to Dwaraka and Somnath. The Anus are related to the north, to Punjab, as well as Bengal and Bihar. The Druhyus are related to the west and northwest, such as Gandhara and Afghanistan. Puru is connected with the central Yamuna/Ganges region. All but Puru were known for having intermittently fallen from the Vedic dharma, and various wars in the Puranas were with these groups.
The chronology of events in the spread of Vedic culture :
In any case, we can begin to see that the Vedic Aryans had been living in the region of India since the last deluge, from about 13,000 to 10,000 B.C. Thus, there could not have been any pre-Aryan civilization in this area that had been conquered by so-called "invading Aryans" in 1500 B.C.
Using the many types of evidence previously provided in this chapter, it is clear that the height of the Vedic Age was certainly long before 3100 B.C., even as early as 4000 to 5000 B.C. as some scholars feel. Bal Gangadhar Tilak estimates that the ved's were in existence as early as 6000 B.C., based on historical data, while others say it was as far back as 7000-8000 B.C. Since the Vedic culture during this time was practicing an oral tradition, and the literature had still not been put into written form, the basic hymns of the Rig-ved, and even the Atharv-ved and others, could have been in existence for many thousands of years. These ved's were used in everyday life for society's philosophy, worship, and rituals. Therefore, they were a highly sophisticated product of a greatly developed society, and must date back to the remotest antiquity. Or, as the tradition itself explains, the essence of Vedic knowledge had been given to humanity by God at the time of the universal creation and has always been in existence.
By 3700, all of the principal books of the Rig-ved were in place and known. Of course, this was still an oral tradition and additional books could still have been added. One point in this regard is that the father of the great Bishma was Shantanu whose brother, Devapi, is credited with several hymns of the Rig-ved. This could not have been much earlier than 3200 B.C. since Bishma played a prominent role in the Mahabharat War at Kurukshetra, which is calculated to have been around 3137 B.C. Further calculations can be accorded with the dynastic list as found in the Adi Parv of the Mahabharat. With the help of the list, from 3100 B.C. we get nearly an additional 630 years or longer going back to Sudas and the Battle of the Ten Kings, as described in the Rig-ved. This takes us back to about 3730 B.C. Therefore, the height of the Vedic Age can be dated no later than 3700 B.C.
From the Vedic literature, we can also see that the Sarasvati River had to have been at its prime around 4000 to 5000 B.C. or earlier. This is when it was recorded in the Rig and Atharv-ved. This was also when the Vedic culture was spreading throughout the world, either because of reasons of trade, migration, or because some of the degenerated tribes were driven out of the Indian region. Some of the first tribes to have left India may include the Prithu-Parthavas (who later became the Parthians), the Druhyus (who became the Druids), the Alinas (Hellenes or ancient Greeks), the Simyus (Sirmios or ancient Albanians), the Cinas (Chinese), and others. This could have been around 4500 B.C., as explained by N. S. Rajaram in the Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (p. 210).
These were some of the earliest of Aryans who created the most ancient form of Indo-European society. They took with them their Vedic customs, language, rituals, etc., all of which gradually changed with time due to their lack of seriously following the Vedic traditions, or because of their loss of close contact with the orthodox homeland. This would certainly help explain the many similarities in languages and culture that we find today between numerous regions of the world, many of which we will explain later in this book.
During the fourth millennium, near 3800 B.C., North India had plenty of water, with such great rivers as the Indus to the north, the Ganga to the east, and the central Sarasvati-Drishadvati river system, which was fed by the Sutlej and the Yamuna. The great Thar Desert did not yet create a division between North India and the western areas. So it was all one cultural entity. Thus, the central Vedic society covered a much wider area and had greater influence than the mere country of India today.
The reason why the populace of Europe gradually forgot their connection with India was because contacts between India were reduced to the Greeks and Romans. Then when Alexander and the Greeks invaded India, contacts were reduced to almost nothing for centuries. Thereafter, the Romans became Christians, forcing the rest of Europe to follow. This left the Arabs as the primary traders between India and Europe, until the wars developed between the Christians and the growing Muslims. Once the Muslims captured Constantinople in Turkey, they controlled all trade routes between Europe and India, and forced Europeans to find a sea route to India. This lead to the "discovery" of America, Australia, and parts of Africa. Later, as the trade routes with India were opened, missionaries, new invaders, and so-called scholars became the new conquerors. With them also came the new versions of history brought about to diminish the real heritage and legacy of India.
Conclusion :
This chapter provides evidence of the real origination of the Vedic Aryans. It also makes it clear that it is to the East, specifically the area of India, where the origins of advanced civilization and the essence of religion and spiritual philosophy can be traced. From there, the Aryan influence had spread to many other regions and can still be recognized in numerous cultures. Only a few open-minded people who look at the whole picture of this kind of religious development will understand the inherent unity the world and its history contains. Such unity is disturbed only by mankind's immature, dogmatic, and self-centered feelings for regional and cultural superiority.
We have seen this in the propaganda that was effectively used by the Nazis and is presently used by neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups who now employ the modern myth that the original location of the Aryan race was in northern Europe. Thus, they imply that members of this race are superior over all other races in physique, language, mental capabilities, and culture. This myth must be seen for what it is because there is no doubt that the real Aryan people originated and spread from the region of India and the Indus Valley, not Europe. |
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