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The Indigenous Aryans theory• The Indigenous Aryans theory, also known as the Out
of India theory, proposes that the Indo-European languages, or at least the Indo-Aryan languages, originated within the Indian subcontinent, as an alternative to the established migration model which proposes the Pontic steppe as the area of origin of the IndoEuropean languages.
• The indigenist view sees the Indo-Aryan languages as having a deep history in the Indian subcontinent, and being the carriers of the Indus Valley Civilization.
• This view proposes an older date than is generally accepted for the Vedic period, which is generally considered to follow the decline of Harappan culture.
• It includes arguments against the Indo-Aryan migration theory, and arguments to re-date the Vedas and the presence of the Vedic people in accordance with traditional, Vedic-Puranic datings.
• The idea of "Indigenous Aryans" also implies a migration "Out of India" to Europe and east Asia.
• This is contrary to the mainstream scholarly view, saying that the Indo-Aryan languages originated outside India.
• The proposal has been entwined with political and religious arguments, since it is based on traditional and religious views on Indian history and its identity.
• There has also been resistance among some Indian scholars to the idea that Indian culture can be divided between external Indo-European and indigenous Dravidian elements, a division which is sometimes described as a legacy of colonial rule and a hindrance to Indian national unity.
• The debate mostly exists among the scholars of Hindu religion and the history and archaeology of India, whereas historical linguists nearly unanimously accept the migration model of Indic origins.
Indo-European
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.
• An alternative view is the idea that the Aryans are indigenous to India, which challenges the standard view.
• In recent times the indigenous position has come to the foreground of the public debate.
Indo-Aryan migration theory• The Indo-Aryan Migration theory posits a migration
of Indo-European-speaking people from the PonticSteppes into Europe, the Levant, south Asia and east Asia. It is part of the Kurgan-hypothesis/Revvised Steppe Theory.
• Historical linguistics provides the main basis for the theory, analysing the development and changes of languages, and establishing relations between the various Indo-European languages, and the time frame wherein these languages developed.
• 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.
Indo-Aryan migration theory• The linguistic analyses and data are supplemented with
archaeological data and anthropological arguments, which together provide a coherent model that is widely accepted.
• In the model, the Yamna culture is the "Urheimat" of the Indo-Europeans,east of which emerged the Sintashtaculture (2100–1800 BC), from which developed the Andronovo culture (1800–1400 BC).
• Andronovo culture interacted with the BMAC (2300–1700 BC) and, out of this interaction, developed the Indo-Iranians, which split into the Indo-Aryan and the Iranian branches around 1800 BC.
• The Indo-Aryans migrated to the Levant, northern India, and possibly east Asia.
• The migration into northern India was not necessarily a large-scale immigration, but may have consisted of small groups,possibly of ethnically and genetically heterogeneous composition, who introduced their language and social system into the new territory.
• These are then emulated by larger groups of people,which become absorpted in the new language group.
• Witzel also notes that "small-scale semi-annual transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and Baluchi highlands continue to this day."
"Aryan Invasion Theory"• In the 1850s Max Müller introduced the notion of two Aryan
races, a western and an eastern one, who 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 "hijacked" by racist ethnologists. For example, as an exponent of race
science, colonial administrator Herbert Hope Risley (1851 –1911) used the ratio of the width of a nose to its height to
divide Indian people into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes and found Gurjar as Purest Aryans.
• The idea of an Aryan "invasion" was fueled after the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation, also called Harappan Civilisation.
• The Indus Valley Civilisation underwent decline at precisely the period at which the Indo-Aryan migration occurred.
• This led to the idea that this migration was actually an aggressive invasion which caused the decline of the Harappan Civilisation.
• This argument was developed by the mid-20th century archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, 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 stands accused" of the destruction of the Indus Civilisation.
• Nevertheless, critics of the Indo-Aryan Migration theory use it to present the Indo-Aryan Migration theory as an "Aryan Invasion Theory".
• According to Witzel, the invasion model was criticised by Indigenous Aryanists for its allegedly racist and colonialist undertones:
The theory of an immigration of IA speaking Arya("Aryan invasion") is simply seen as a means of British policy to justify their own intrusion into India and their subsequent colonial rule: in both cases, a "white race" was seen as subduing the local darker colored population
Indo-Iranian migrations according to Kazanas
Indigenous Aryanism
• The "Indigenist position" started to take shape after the discovery of the Harappan Civilisation, which predates the Vedas.
• According to this alternative view, the Aryans areindigenous to India, the Indus Civilisation is theVedic Civilisation, the Vedas are older than thesecond millennium BCE, there is no differencebetween the (northern) Indo-European part andthe (southern) Dravidian part, and the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homelandin India into their present locations.
• These ideas are based on the Puranas, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, which contain lists of kings and genealogies,which are used for the traditional chronology of India's ancient history.
• "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 ca. 300 BCE, reported to have heard of a traditional list of 153 kings that covered 6042 years, beyond the traditional beginning of the Kaliyuga at 3102 BCE.
• The royal lists are based on Bardic traditions, and are derived from lists which were orally transmitted and constantly reshaped by the Sūta bards.
• These lists are supplemented with astronomical interpretations, which are also used to reach an earlier dating for the Rg Veda.
• Along with this comes a redating of historical personages and events, in which the Buddha is dated to 1700 BCE or even 3139/8 BCE, and Chandragupta Maurya (c. 300 BCE) is replaced by Chandragupta, the Gupta king.
• In August 1995, a gathering of 43 historians and archaeologists from South-Indian universities (at the initiative of Prof. K.M. Rao, Dr. N. Mahalingam and Dr. S.D. Kulkarni) passed a resolution fixing the date of the Bharatawar at 3139-38 BC and declaring this date to be the true sheet anchor of Indian chronology
• The Vedic Foundation gives a chronology of ancient India (Bharata), which starts in 3228 BCE with the descension of Bhagwan Krishna.
• The Mahabharata War is dated at 3139 BCE, while various dynasties are dated more than a millennium earlier,Gautama Buddha is dated at 1894-1814 BCE, and Jagadguru Shankaracharya at 509-477 BCE.
• These ideas provide a continues chronology of India, in contrast to the discontinuity between the Harappan end Vedic period:
[T]he 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 BC)
• The idea of "Indigenous Aryanism" fits intotraditional Hindu ideas about their religion, namelythat it has timeless origins, with the Vedic Aryansinhabiting India since ancient times. The VedicFoundation states:
The history of Bharatvarsh (which is now called India) isthe description of the timeless glory of the Divinedignitaries who not only Graced the soils of India withtheir presence and Divine intelligence, but they alsoshowed and revealed the true path of peace, happinessand the Divine enlightenment for the souls of the worldthat still is the guideline for the true lovers of God whodesire to taste the sweetness of His Divine love in anintimate style.
"Indigenous Aryans" scenariosMichael Witzel 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 and Dayananda;
2) The "out of India" school that posits India as the Proto-Indo-European homeland, originally proposed in the 18th century, revived by the Hindutva sympathiser Koenraad Elst (1999), and further popularised within Hindu nationalism by ShrikantTalageri (2000);
3) The position that all the world's languages and civilisationsderive from India, represented e.g. by David Frawley.
Kazanas adds a fourth scenario;The Aryans entered the Indus Valley before 4500 BC and got
integrated with the Harappans, or might have been the Harappans.
Main arguments of the "Indigenists"
• The idea of "Indigenous Aryans" is supported with specific interpretations of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic data, and on literary interpretations of the Rigveda.
• Standard arguments, both in support of the "Indigenous Aryans" theory, and in opposition the mainstream Indo-Aryan Migration theory, are shown in next slides.
Questioning the IAMt
• Presenting the Indo-Aryan Migration theory as an "Indo-Aryan Invasion theory";
• Questioning the methodology of linguistics;• Reinterpretation of the linguistic data, arguing for
the ancient, indigenous origins of Sanskrit;• Pointing to the supposed lack
of genetic and archaeological evidence to support such an "invasion" into North West India;
• Contesting the possibility that small groups can change culture and languages in a major way;
Re-dating India's chronology, re-establishing the Vedic-Puranic chronology
• Dating the Rigveda and the Vedic people to the 3rd millennium BC or earlier;
• Identifying the Sarasvati River with the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which dried up c. 2000 BC;
• Identifying the Vedic people with the HarappanCivilisation;
• Equating the Harappan Civilisation, Vedic Culture and the Vedic-Puranic chronology.
Aurobindo's Aryan person• For Aurobindo, an "Aryan" was not a person who
belonged to a particular race, but a person who "accepted a particular type of self-culture, of inward and outward practice, of ideality, of aspiration.“
• He wanted to revive India's strength by reviving the Aryan strength and character.
• Aurobindo 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 division of European historians between two types of cultural configurations.
The "emerging 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 originated in Northern India and spread to the remainder of the Indo-European region through a series of migrations.
• It implies that the people of the Harappancivilisation were linguistically Indo-Aryans.
Map showing the spread of the Proto-Indo-European language from the Indus Valley. Dates are those of the
"emerging non-invasionist model" according to Elst.
Theoretical overview
• Koenraad Elst, in his Update in the Aryan Invasion Debate, investigates "the developing arguments concerning the Aryan Invasion Theory".
• Elst notes: Personally, I don't think that either theory, of Aryan invasion and of Aryan indigenousness, can claim to have been proven by prevalent standards of proof; even though one of the contenders is getting closer.
• Indeed, while I have enjoyed pointing out the flaws in the AIT statements of the politicized Indian academic establishment and its American amplifiers, I cannot rule out the possibility that the theory which they are defending may still have its merits.
• Edwin Bryant also notes that Elst's model is a "theoretical exercise:"...a purely theoretical linguistic exercise […] as an experiment to determine whether India can definitively be excluded as a possible homeland. If it cannot, then this further problematizes the possibility of a homeland ever being established anywhere on linguistic grounds.
• And in Indo-Aryan Controversy Bryant notes:Elst, perhaps more in a mood of devil’s advocacy, toys with the evidence to show how it can be reconfigured, and to claim that no linguistic evidence has yet been produced to exclude India as a homeland that cannot be reconfigured to promote it as such.
"The emerging alternative"• Koenraad Elst summarises "the emerging alternative to the Aryan
Invasion Theory" as follows.• During the 6th millennium BC Proto-Indo-Europeans lived in
the Punjab region of northern India. As the result of demographic expansion, they spread into Bactria as the Kambojas.
• The Paradas moved further and inhabited the Caspian coast and much of central Asia while the Cinas moved northwards and inhabited the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, forming the Tocharian group of I-E speakers. These groups were Proto-Anatolian and inhabited that region by 2000 BC. 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.
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 BC, civilization inIndia started evolving into what became theurban Indus Valley Civilization.
• During this time, the PIE languages evolvedto Proto-Indo-Iranian.
• Some time during this period, the Indo-Iraniansbegan to separate as the result of internalrivalry and conflict, with the Iranians expandingwestwards towards Mesopotamia and Persia,these possibly were the Pahlavas.
• They also expanded into parts of central Asia. By theend of this migration, India was left with the Proto-Indo-Aryans.
• At the end of the Mature Harappan period, theSarasvati river began drying up and the remainder ofthe Indo-Aryans split into separate groups.
• Some travelled westwards and established themselvesas rulers of the Hurrian Mitanni kingdom by around1500 BC .
• Others travelled eastwards and inhabitedthe Gangetic basin while others travelled southwardsand interacted with the Dravidian people.
Hindu revivalism and nationalism• In contrast to the mainstream views, the Hindu
revivalist movements denied an external origin to Aryans.
• Dayananda Saraswati, the founder of the AryaSamaj (Society of Aryans), held that Vedas were the source of all knowledge that 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 devoid of any people earlier.
• 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.
• The Hindu nationalists, led by Savarkar and Golwalkar, 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.
• 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.
• The Hindu nationalists, led by Savarkar and Golwalkar, 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.
• 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 indigenistliterature and the Hindu nationalist publications like the Organiser.
• Witzel traces the "indigenous Aryan" idea to the writings of Savarkar and 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 .
• Since these ideas emerged on the brink of the internationalist and socially oriented Nehru-Gandhi government, they lay dormant for several decades, 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.
Current form of Aryans: Gurjar, JatRajputs of India
• The Vedic Vayupurana describes a battle waged among the ancient Aryans. It was as a result of this war that Anavs part of the Chandravanshi clan and Gurtar ( Guzar ) of suryabanshi had to immigrate to wester Aryabart area of modern Iran (Iran means "land of Aryans") to Tarim basin.
• It was in these regions, where the fertile soil of the mountainous country is surrounded by the Turanian desert, that the prophet Zarathushtra(Zoroaster) was said to have been born and gained his first adherents. Avestan, the language of the oldest portions of the Zoroastrian Avesta, was once called "old-iranic" which is related to Sanskrit.
• Chandravansi known as Sythians ( Jats and Rajputs) and Suryabanshiknown as Guzar by Tibbetian , Yuezhi by Chineese , Tocharian by Romans and Tushara by Indians, currently known as Gurjar in India and Gujjar in Pakistan
Formation of Kushana Empire• In 176 BC, the Yuezhi were driven from Tarim Besin to
westward by the Xiongnu, a fierce people of Magnolia.• The Yuezhi under the leadership of the Kushanas came down
from Central Asia and swept away all earlier dynasties of the Northwest in a great campaign of conquest. They established an empire which extended from Central Asia right down to the eastern Gangetic basin.
• In Bactria, they conquered the Scythians and the local Indo-Greek kingdoms, the last remnants of Alexander the Great's invasion force that had failed to take India.
• From this central location, the Kushan Empire became a wealthy trading hub between the peoples of Han China, Sassanid Persia and the Roman Empire.
• Roman gold and Chinese silk changed hands in the KushanEmpire, at a very tidy profit for the middle-men.
Kushana Empire Map
Gurjars are Purest Aryans• Gurjars are purest form of aryans as the survey depicts. All the
details are given in the book The People Of India By Herbert Risley, W. Crooke.
• The classification in general use is - leptorrhine (fine nose) if the nasal index is < 70, mesorrhine is it is between 70-85 and platyrrhine (broad-nosed) if it is > 85.
• The Indo-Aryan is comparable to the European, fopr the French of Paris have a nasal index of 69.4 as measurd by Topinard [ Ris 28-9 ].
• According to Sir H.H.Risley, the nose of Sudras is very similar to that of the lowest Negro types.
• The nasal index frequently reaches more than 100. The Paniyans of Malabar have an average nasal index of 95, while certain individual Kadias of Tamil Nad measured 115.
Nasal Index of Gurjars is lowest , which means minimum mixing of
non Aryan Blood• No. Tribe Nasal Index Nasal Type
1. Gurjar 66.9 Leptorrhine2. Sikh and Jat 68.8 Leptorrhine3. Brahman (Bengal) 70.3 Sub-Leptorrhine4. Kayasth (Bengal) 70.3 Sub-Leptorrhine5. Rajput 71.6 Sub-Leptorrhine6. Vellala 73.1 Sub-Platyrrhine7. Brahman (Bihar) 73.2 Sub-Leptorrhine8. Brahman (Bhojpur) 74.6 Sub-Leptorrhine9. Tamil Brahman 76.7 Sub-Leptorrhine10. Vaisya (Bania) 79.6 Sub-Leptorrhine
Aryan Practice : Khaps• Khap is generally a unit of 12 villages or multiple of 12 i.e. 24,
60 or 84 villages of a particular clan or gotra of tribe or caste. Khaps are generally found in North western India, among Gurjara, Jats and Rajputs.
• Famous historian R S Sharma ascribes the formation of these units of 12 villages or its multiples to the Gurjara Pratihara’s or their feudatories rule in North Western India during the early medieval period. He says what distinguished the Gurjara Pratihara polity from that of contemporary Rastrakutas and Palas was the imposition of clan aristocracies on old, settled villages. He further says that Gujar imposed themselves as dominant clans on settled villages.
Source : Research Article of Dr. Sushil Bhati
• The tribal practice that spoils should be distributedamong the members of the tribe led to theapportionment of villages among the conqueringchiefs, some of them received them in units of 84.
• It implies that Khaps constitute the clan aristocraciesof Gurjara Pratihara empire system or polity.
• It also implies that Jat clans formed the bulk ofGurjara Pratihara army along the clans of leadingGurjara tribe. Arab traveler Al Masudi informs in hisbook ‘Muruz-ul-zahab’ that Gurjara Pratihara hadfour armies, each having 7 to 9 lakhs soldiers. Suchvast army of around 28-36 lakhs men is only possibleif all such clan aristocracies imposed on old, settledvillages are included in it.
• The upper doab of Ganga and Yamuna comprises the Modern district of Saharanpur, Haridwar, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Hapur, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar and Gautam Budh Nagar.
• The Trans Yamuna region of East Delhi also fall in the upper doab.Some major khaps of Upper Doab of Ganga and Yamuna are as follows-
1. ‘Khubar’ Panwar Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 84 villages in Saharanpur district.
2. Butar Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 52 villages in Saharanpur district. 3. Chokker khap of Gurjaras comprising of 24 villages in Saharanpur
district.4. Kalsian Chauhan Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 84 Villages in
Khandhla- Kairana area in shamli district.5. Baliyan Khap of Jats comprising of 84 villages in Shamli- Muzaffarnagar
area.6. Malik Khap of Jats comprising of 45 villages in Shamli-Muzaffarpur area.7. Rajput khap of 24 villages in Sardhana area of Meerut district.
8. Tomar Khap of Rajputs comprising of 12 Villages in Meerut
9. Bhadana Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 12 villages in Meerut
10. Chaprana Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 12 villages in Meerut-Baghpat area
11. Huna Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 12 villages in Meerut-Hapur area
12. Salaklain khap of Jats comprising of 84 villages in Baghpat district.
13. Bainsla Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 12 villages.14. Kasana khap of Gurjaras comprising of 12 villages15. Ahir khap of 24 villages in Bulanshahar district.
16. Bhati khap of Gurjaras comprising of 360 villages in Gautam Budh Nagar. 360 seem to be traditional figure as we have only around 100 villages of this clan. In Medieval times Kaasnaaand Dadri were their seats of power. 7 villages of Bhati Rajputs are also found along with this group in Gautam Budh Nagar district.
17. Nangdi Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 24 villages in Gautam Budh Nagar
18. Tomar Rajput Khap of 24 Villages in Dhaulanaarea of Ghaziabad.
19. Dedha Khap of Gurjaras comprising of 24 villages in East Delhi.
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