Saturday, January 01, 2005

Aryan Invasion Theory

Well, I must agree that I am not a regular blogger. You can see that from the frequency of my posts. My last post was on 12th February. I have been following some blogs recently and was just curious to maintain my own as I have enough time to kill. I will try to be regular in posting my blogs from now.


Yesterday, I had a discussion about Aryan Invasion to India with my roommate. I was never a strong believer of that theory, but this discussion questioned my beliefs. For those of you, who are not familiar with this topic, it is about the history of India and Hinduism. The following links will help you understand the background.


According to this theory, the Hindu culture prevalent in India is due to the migration of Aryans from European countries,
somewhere between 1800 and 1500 BC. This theory further says that the Aryans would have brought with them their own Vedic religion, which was codified in the Vedas around 1500 to 1200 BC. However there were many disputes against this theory, especially in traditional Hindu community. To get a feel for the other side of the coin, let me point you to the sources that contradict this theory and prove why this theory is invalid. But if you observe carefully, most of the sources that contradict the Aryan Invasion theory are from Hindu societies and organizations like ISKON. So these articles may be biased.


Ultimately, I think that we are too limited with knowledge and resources in order to decide what exactly has happened in past. But whatever the history may be, the only thing we need to agree upon is that there is only one religion, the religion of mankind. All different kinds of practices in various religions are just various ways to help us follow the right spiritual path.

Let me know what your views on this topic are.

2 comments:

Maverick said...

Aryan Invasion Theory, if taken up just as a theory for academic discussion is right and welcome. But these are such topics which run the politics and bias in Tamil Nadu(TN), wherein any Brahmin or North Indian for that matter is considered Aryan. The Dravidian movement is just anti Aryan movement, to banish all those who they call Aryans from TN.

These theories are speculative best. For example, I can tell you, there are people in TN who have tweaked Ramayana as Aryan-Dravidian conflict, where Lord Ram is shown as Aryan attacking Ravan, a Dravidian.

So for a better society I feel people need to stop any further research in this regard. Every section of the society has contributed enough for the growth and this is not the time for all this. And whatever is happening in TN regarding Kachi seer is just a new chapter in the Dravidian movement. It fetches votes. I will not be surprised in another 15 years, all so called Aryans see the fate the Jews in TN.

Anonymous said...

Director

Bal Ram Singh, Ph.D.
Phone: 508-999-8588
Fax: 508-999-8451
Email: bsingh@umassd.edu



Date: July 3, 2006

PRESS RELEASE


Scientists Collide with Linguists to Assert Indigenous origin of Indian Civilization

Comprehensive population genetics data along with archeological and astronomical evidence presented at June 23-25, 2006 conference in Dartmouth, MA, overwhelmingly concluded that Indian civilization and its human population is indigenous.

In fact, the original people and culture within the Indian Subcontinent may even be a likely pool for the genetic, linguistic, and cultural origin of the most rest of the world, particularly Europe and Asia.

Leading evidences come from population genetics, which were presented by two leading researchers in the field, Dr. V. K. Kashyap, National Institute of Biologicals, India, and Dr. Peter Underhill of Stanford University in California. Their results generally contradict the notion Aryan invasion/migration theory for the origin of Indian civilization.

Underhill concluded "the spatial frequency distributions of both L1 frequency and variance levels show a spreading pattern emanating from India", referring to a Y chromosome marker. He, however, put several caveats before interpreting genetic data, including "Y-ancestry may not always reflect the ancestry of the rest of the genome"

Dr. Kashyap, on the other hand, with the most comprehensive set of genetic data was quite emphatic in his assertion that there is "no clear genetic evidence for an intrusion of Indo-Aryan people into India, [and] establishment of caste system and gene flow."

Michael Witzel, a Harvard linguist, who is known to lead the idea of Aryan invasion/migration/influx theory in more recent times, continued to question genetic evidence on the basis that it does not provide the time resolution to explain events that may have been involved in Aryan presence in India.

Dr. Kashyap's reply was that even though the time resolution needs further work, the fact that there are clear and distinct differences in the gene pools of Indian population and those of Central Asian and European groups, the evidence nevertheless negates any Aryan invasion or migration into Indian Subcontinent.

Witzel though refused to present his own data and evidence for his theories despite being invited to do so was nevertheless present in the conference and raised many questions. Some of his commentaries questioning the credibility of scholars evoked sharp responses from other participants.

Rig Veda has been dated to 1,500 BC by those who use linguistics to claim its origin Aryans coming out of Central Asia and Europe. Archaeologist B.B. Lal and scientist and historian N.S. Rajaram disagreed with the position of linguists, in particular Witzel who claimed literary and linguistic evidence for the non-Indian origin of the Vedic civilization.

Dr. Narahari Achar, a physicist from University of Memphis clearly showed with astronomical analysis that the Mahabharata war in 3,067 BC, thus poking a major hole in the outside Aryan origin of Vedic people.

Interestingly, Witzel stated, for the first time to many in the audience, that he and his colleagues no longer subscribe to Aryan invasion theory.

Dr. Bal Ram Singh, Director, Center for Indic Studies at UMass Dartmouth, which organized the conference was appalled at the level of visceral feelings Witzel holds against some of the scholars in the field, but felt satisfied with the overall outcome of the conference.

"I am glad to see people who have been scholarly shooting at each other for about a decade are finally in one room, this is a progress", said Singh.

The conference was able to bring together in one room for the first time experts from genetics, archeology, physics, linguistics, anthropology, history, and philosophy. A proceedings of the conference is expected to come out soon, detailing various arguments on the origin of Indian civilization.

Bal Ram Singh, Ph.D. Director, Center for Indic Studies University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 285 Old Westport Road Dartmouth, MA 02747

Phone: 508-999-8588 Fax: 508-999-8451 Email: bsingh@umassd.edu

Internet address: http://www.umassd.edu/indic