Monday, 10 July 2017

The "Aryan" Story vs. True Aryan History.

The "Aryan" Story vs. True Aryan History.

I. The "Aryan" Story.

[This is an attempt to encapsulate within one reasonably short article the entire question of the "Aryan" problem. The subject has been dealt with in extremely great detail in my three books and in my numerous articles and blogs, but few people will have the interest or patience to go through all the details. This article attempts to place the subject in short in one place. Of course, being a technical subject, it will not be lacking in tediousness, but (and especially in the face of the growing propaganda about so-called "Aryan-Dravidian conflicts" as represented, I am told, by the new serial "Aarambh") I feel the whole subject should be understood in brief by all Indians].   

1. There is no oral or written tradition, and never was any, anywhere in any part of India about any people called "Aryans" who came into India as invaders or immigrants and brought the Vedic Sanskrit language and Vedic religion and culture into India. The concept of these "Aryans" was invented in the 18th-19th centuries by European scholars. Therefore any history or stories written today, showing these "Aryans" as a historical people in ancient India and depicting events, incidents and stories in which these people figure as "Aryans" contrasted with any other people who figure as "non-Aryans", are purely imaginary and fictional stories with no basis in any fact, and born only out of the colonialist imaginations of European scholars of the 18th-19th centuries and perpetuated by dirty hate-inspired modern Indian politics.

2. When the European colonialists came to India post the European Medieval Period (which ended in the 15th century), the scholars among them were impressed by India's Sanskrit language, grammar and literature. What stunned them the most of all was that the Sanskrit language was clearly related to their European Classical languages Greek and Latin. Further research showed there was indeed a linguistic relationship between Sanskrit, all the European languages (except a handful of languages in eastern Europe like Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian, and the Basque language of northern Spain) as well as the languages of Iran, parts of Central Asia, and most of northern India. All these languages were classified as belonging to the "Aryan" family of languages (based on the fact that the poets of the two oldest texts in these languages, the Indian Rigveda and the Iranian Avesta, referred to themselves as ārya/airya). Today, this is called the Indo-European family of languages. The linguistic facts are:
a. All these languages (constituting 12 branches: Hittite, Tocharian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Albanian, Greek, Armenian, Iranian and Indo-Aryan) are related to each other and belong to one language family, distinct from other neighbouring languages.
b. They are all descended from a common ancestral language, which has been artificially and approximately reconstructed by the linguists and has been named "Proto-Indo-European".
c. This Proto-Indo-European language was originally spoken in one particular area, and it broke up into distinct dialects which spread out to different areas and became the 12 historical branches of Indo-European languages. This particular area was the Original Homeland of the Indo-European languages.
d. The evidence of linguistics shows that the different dialects (which later became distinct branches of Indo-European languages) were in contact with each other in an area of mutual influence in and around the Original Homeland (wherever this Homeland was located) till around 3000 BCE, and only started to separate and get cut off from each other at around that time.

3. The above are the linguistic facts. The above linguistic facts themselves do not, in any way, indicate the location of the Original Homeland. But linguists arrived at a consensus that this Homeland was in South Russia. This automatically led to the conclusion that all Indo-European languages spoken outside South Russia must be the results of migrations of Indo-European speakers from South Russia. This is the only basis for assuming that the speakers of the Vedic language came into India from outside: there is no internal evidence of any kind within India to support such a theory. The date of around 1500 BCE for their assumed invasion/immigration is based on a series of conjectures about the time and routes they "must have" taken for their assumed journey setting out from South Russia around 3000 BCE, in order to reach India well before the post-Vedic Buddhist period from 600 BCE onwards.

4. The linguistic facts, of course, have to be explained, and the three fields of study which can determine the location of the Original Homeland are Archaeology, Textual Analysis (of the Rigveda) and Linguistics.

5. Of these, Archaeology completely disproves the idea of any Indo-European movement into India around 1500 BCE:
a. To begin with, absolutely no archaeological evidence has been found of the Proto-Indo-European language spoken in Russia before 3000 BCE, or of the Indo-Iranian speakers moving from South Russia to Central Asia between 3000-2000 BCE, or of the Indo-Aryan speakers moving from Central Asia to the Punjab around 1500 BCE, or even of the Vedic Indo-Aryans moving from the Punjab into the rest of northern India after 1000 BCE. Even Michael Witzel, who is spearheading the AIT battalions, admits that archaeology offers no proof of the AIT: "None of the archaeologically identified post-Harappan cultures so far found, from Cemetery H, Sarai Kala III, the early Gandhara and Gomal Grave Cultures, does make a good fit for the culture of the speakers of Vedic […] At the present moment, we can only state that linguistic and textual studies confirm the presence of an outside, Indo-Aryan speaking element, whose language and spiritual culture has definitely been introduced, along with the horse and the spoked wheel chariot, via the BMAC area into northwestern South Asia. However, much of present-day Archaeology denies that. To put it in the words of Shaffer (1999:245) ‘A diffusion or migration of a culturally complex ‘Indo-Aryan’ people into South Asia is not described by the archaeological record’ […] [But] the importation of their spiritual and material culture must be explained. So far, clear archaeological evidence has just not been found" (WITZEL 2000a:§15).
b. In fact, archaeologists are almost unanimous on the point that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence for any change in the ethnic composition and the material culture in the Harappan areas between "the 5th/4th and […] the 1st millennium B.C.", and that there was "indigenous development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onward"; and further that any change which took place before "the 5th/4th […] millennium B.C." and after "the 1st millennium B.C." is "too early and too late to have any connection with ‘Aryans’".
c. The archaeological consensus against the AIT is so strong that in an academic volume of papers devoted to the subject by western academicians, George Erdosy, in his preface to the volume, stresses that this is a subject of dispute between linguists and archaeologists, and that the idea of an Aryan invasion of India in the second millennium BCE "has recently been challenged by archaeologists, who ― along with linguists ― are best qualified to evaluate its validity. Lack of convincing material (or osteological) traces left behind by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the possibility of explaining cultural change without reference to external factors and ― above all ― an altered world-view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship" (ERDOSY 1995:x). Of the papers presented by archaeologists in the volume (being papers presented at a conference on Archaeological and Linguistic approaches to Ethnicity in Ancient South Asia, held in Toronto from 4-6/10/1991), the paper by K.A.R. Kennedy concludes that "while discontinuities in physical types have certainly been found in South Asia, they are dated to the 5th/4th, and to the 1st millennium B.C. respectively, too early and too late to have any connection with ‘Aryans’" (ERDOSY 1995:xii); the paper by J. Shaffer and D. Lichtenstein stresses on "the indigenous development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onward" (ERDOSY 1995:xiii); and the paper by J.M. Kenoyer stresses that "the cultural history of South Asia in the 2nd millennium B.C. may be explained without reference to external agents" (ERDOSY 1995:xiv). Erdosy points out that the perspective offered by archaeology, "that of material culture […] is in direct conflict with the findings of the other discipline claiming a key to the solution of the ‘Aryan Problem’, linguistics" (ERDOSY 1995:xi).
On the other hand, there is conclusive archaeological evidence for the arrival of the European branches (the Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic branches) into Europe from the east, for the arrival of the Hittites (the Anatolian branch) into Turkey (Anatolia) from the northeast, for the arrival of the Greeks and Albanians (the Greek and Albanian branches) into Greece from the east (across the Aegean Sea), and for the arrival of the Tocharians (the Tocharian branch) into the Qinjiang province of China from Central Asia to its south. [The arrival of the Iranian branch into Iran from the east is recorded in Babylonian texts. The Armenian language (the Armenian branch) is also clearly an intruder into Armenia, as evident from the evidence of the place names in Armenia]. It is only the theoretically postulated arrival of the Indo-Aryan branch (as represented by its oldest form, Vedic) into northwestern India from further northwest which is absolutely unsupported by any archaeological evidence.

5. Over 200 years of Textual Analysis of the Rigveda has also failed to provide one single piece of evidence for the AIT:
a. For example, George Erdosy, the editor of the volume referred to above, although a supporter of the AIT, writes: "we reiterate that there is no indication in the Rigveda of the Arya’s memory of any ancestral home, and by extension, of migrations. Given the pains taken to create a distinct identity for themselves, it would be surprising if the Aryas neglected such an obvious emotive bond in reinforcing their group cohesion". He tries to explain it away as follows: "Thus their silence on the subject of migrations is taken here to indicate that by the time of composition of the Rigveda, any memory of migrations, should they have taken place at all, had been erased from their consciousness" (ERDOSY 1989:40-41). The most valiant efforts of two centuries of western Indologists have failed to find a single reference in the Rigveda to any foreign homeland (or area); to any immigration from outside of the Vedic people; to any sense of "newness" felt by the Vedic Aryans to their Vedic territory; or to any person, tribe or entity whose name can be shown to be linguistically Dravidian, Austric, Burushaski, Sino-Tibetan, Sumerian, Semitic, or any other kind of specific "non-Indo-European" (let alone to those persons, tribes or entities being "indigenous" inhabitants as opposed to the Vedic people themselves, or to any conflicts with them, or to any past or contemporary invasion of their territory). The Indologists can only plead subjectively for faith in their AIT: "the IAs, as described in the RV, represent something definitely new in the subcontinent […] The obvious conclusion should be that these new elements somehow came from the outside" (WITZEL 2005:343)". Note the pathetically desperate plea in the "somehow", which Witzel places in italics.
b. In fact, an analysis of the data in the Rigveda (which the Indologists claim was composed after 1500 BCE), in comparison with the data in the Iranian Avesta and the data in scientifically dated West Asian manuscripts and inscriptions pertaining to the Mitanni people (a group of Indo-Aryan speakers who established the Mitanni kingdom in Iraq and Syria around 1500 BCE, but are known to have been present in West Asia well before 1750 BCE), shows:
i) The common data is found in 425 of the 686 New Hymns and 3692 of the 7311 verses in the New Books of the Rigveda (5,1,8,9,10) as well as in all later (post-Rigvedic) texts, but is not found in a single one of the 280 Old Hymns and 2351 verses in the Old Books of the Rigveda (6,3,7,4,2).
ii) This shows that the Mitanni Indo-Aryans in West Asia, the Avestan Iranians in Afghanistan, and the Vedic Indo-Aryans in India separated from each other during the period of composition of the New Books of the Rigveda, and after the period of composition of the Old Books.
iii) The geographical area of the New Books of the Rigveda extends from southern and eastern Afghanistan in the west to westernmost Uttar Pradesh and Haryana in the east. This, therefore, is the area from which the Mitanni Indo-Aryans migrated to West Asia: the fact that they entered West Asia from outside, and from the east, is not disputed by anyone.
iv) The fact that the linguistic ancestors of the Mitanni Indo-Aryans are already found in West Asia by 1750 BCE shows that they must have left the geographical area of the New Books of the Rigveda at the very least, and by a very conservative estimate, by 2000 BCE.
v) The development of this common culture of the New Books of the Rigveda, which the Mitanni Indo-Aryans took with them to West Asia around 2000 BCE, must therefore be much older, at least by a few hundred years: i.e. this culture must be at least datable to 2400 BCE.
vi) The totally distinct culture of the Old Books of the Rigveda must precede 2400 BCE by another few hundred years at least: i.e. it must go well into the early parts of the first half of the third millennium BCE.
vii) During this period, i.e. during the early parts of the first half of the third millennium BCE, the geography of the Old Books of the Rigveda is originally restricted to the eastern parts of the geography of the Rigveda as a whole: to Haryana and westernmost Uttar Pradesh. These Old Books show that the Vedic Indo-Aryans were residents of Haryana and westernmost Uttar Pradesh and were not familiar with the areas, rivers, mountains, lakes and animals further west, most of which appear only in the New Books. They also give in great detail the concrete historical events which led to the expansion of the Vedic Indo-Aryans westwards from Haryana, across the rivers of the Punjab to the borders of southern and eastern Afghanistan.
viii) Further, during this period, i.e. even as early as during the early parts of the first half of the third millennium BCE, as the Vedic Indo-Aryans expanded from east to west across the Punjab, the whole area is a purely Indo-European area, with not a single reference to any linguistically non-Indo-European person, tribe or entity, with even the local rivers having purely Indo-European names. [This last is to be contrasted with Europe, where the river names, even after over 3000 years of exclusive Indo-European presence, still bear evidence of their non-Indo-European and pre-Indo-European origins].
viii) In short, as per the linguistic consensus, the Indo-Europeans in 3000 BCE were still in and around their Original Homeland, and as per the Textual Analysis of the Rigveda, the Vedic Indo-Aryans around 3000 BCE were long-established residents of a purely Indo-European area in northern India: i.e. the Original Homeland was in northern India.

6. The Linguistic case is equally clear:
a. The only thing the Linguistic evidence shows is as detailed above: the existence of the Indo-European language family as a language family distinct from other language families; the inevitable proposition that all these present-day Indo-European languages originated from a common ancestral language (unfortunately not recorded anywhere, but approximately reconstructable) which may be called "Proto-Indo-European", and which was spoken in a restricted area which represented the Original Homeland of these languages.
However, the Linguistic evidence does not in any way show us that this Original Homeland was located in South Russia, or that it was located in any area other than India or that it was not located in India. The reconstructed PIE (Proto-Indo-European) language is very different from Vedic Sanskrit, but it is also very different from every other known ancient and present-day IE (Indo-European) language: the obvious logic is that languages are constantly changing: one cannot decide which house a far ancestor was living in by examining which of his many descendants (living in different houses) looks exactly, or most closely, like him. This fact is inadvertently admitted by a very prominent AIT-propagating western linguist, Hans H. Hock, who concedes that: "The claim that the āryas are indigenous to India can therefore be reconciled with the relationship of Indo-Aryan to the rest of Indo-European only under one of two hypotheses: Either the other Indo-European languages are descended from the earliest Indo-Aryan, identical or at least close to Vedic Sanskrit, or Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of all the Indo-European languages, was spoken in India and (the speakers of) all the Indo-European languages other than Sanskrit/Indo-Aryan migrated out of India. For convenience, let us call the first alternative the ‘Sanskrit-origin’ hypothesis, and the second one, the ‘PIE-in-India’ hypothesis" (HOCK 1999a:1). And he further accepts the fact that the first version is easily refutable on linguistic grounds, but that the second one is not: "….the ‘Sanskrit-origin’ hypothesis runs into insurmountable difficulties [….but….] the likelihood of the ‘PIE-in-India’ hypothesis cannot be assessed on the basis of simIḷar robust evidence" (HOCK 1999a:2). "The ‘PIE-in-India’ hypothesis is not as easily refuted as the ‘Sanskrit-origin’ hypothesis", he admits, since it is neither proved nor disproved by the "‘hard-core’ linguistic evidence, such as sound changes, which can be subjected to critical and definitive analysis. Its cogency can be assessed only in terms of circumstantial arguments, especially arguments based on plausibility and simplicity" (HOCK 1999a:12). In short: the "PIE-in-India" hypothesis cannot be refuted on the basis of linguistic evidence, but only on a logical understanding of the linguistic facts.
And while every single linguistic fact cited by the Indologists to prove the AIT or to dismiss the Indian Homeland hypothesis can be shown to prove exactly the opposite, there is plenty of linguistic evidence - determinedly ignored by the Indologists - which cannot be explained by any other hypothesis than an Indian Homeland hypothesis. To give just a few examples: the common word for elephant/ivory in many IE branches (Sanskrit ibha, Latin ebur, Greek el-ephas, Hittite lahpa) with India being the only IE area having elephants; the branches to the east of the Semitic line (Iranian, Indo-Aryan and Tocharian) not having many important words borrowed from Semitic (e.g. wine, taurus, etc.) found in all the other branches to the west (indicating an IE movement from east to west across the Semitic longitudes); common words from eastern Siberia found in the Germanic and Celtic branches on the one hand and the Chinese, Yeneseian and Altaic languages (indicating that the Germanic and Celtic branches passed from the areas to the north of Central Asia); the large-scale one-way borrowings from Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages into the Uralic languages of eastern Europe with no borrowings in the opposite direction (again indicating a migration of small groups of Indo-Aryan and Iranian language speakers from the east to the west across Central Asia and Eurasia); the presence of "pre-Indo-Iranian" linguistic features (such as a distinction between r and l) in Indo-Aryan languages in the eastern parts of northern India; primitive connections between the proto-Austronesian and PIE languages, etc., etc. On the other hand, not a single linguistic fact militates against the Out-of-India Theory (OIT) or Indian Homeland Theory.

Therefore, all the three sciences associated with the "Aryan" question, Archaeology, Textual Analysis and Linguistics, prove the AIT wrong and the OIT right. In desperation, supporters of the AIT (both Leftist and other anti-Hindu elements as well as staunch but racist-casteist Hindus like Manasataramgini and Kalavai Venkat and their fans and followers) are today abandoning these three sciences and latching on to extremely dubious and fake pop-"Genetic" arguments to fight their ideological battles. They have now been joined by ideologically motivated film-makers.

[Note, added 18/7/2017: Genetics has no direct bearing on the AIT/OIT question. The spread of languages can be analysed or researched only through the fields of linguistics, archaeology and textual analysis (i.e. analysis of inscriptions, traditional history and ancient texts like the Rigveda). It can not be traced through the study of Genetics, which can neither prove nor disprove the AIT or the OIT. Today, there is not the slightest genetic connection between a Sinhalese, a Scandinavian and an English-speaking "African American" or "native American" (i.e. "Red Indian"), all of whom speak "Aryan" languages today. Languages spread through historical contacts between different peoples and civilizations, but trying to trace an exact "gene" or "haplogroup" moving from an original speaker to an acquired speaker of the language, and trying to trace the dates at which these "genetic transfers" took place, and the geographical areas from and to which these "genetic transfers" took place, is ridiculous and senseless. It simply can not be done. Read, for example, the book "The History of Chess" by HJR Murray: the game spread from India to every part of ancient Asia, taking the Indian name "chaturang" with it, which became "chhoeu trang" in Vietnamese to the east, "shatara" in Mongolia to the north, and "shatranj" in Arabia to the west. We can not trace this movement of the game from India to the rest of Asia through a study of "genes" and "haplogroups" transferred along with the game. Likewise, the spread of Buddhism from India into East and Southeast Asia can not be traced through any trail of Indian "genes" or "haplogroups" moving into those areas along with the religion. The transfer of language, though not exactly in the same category, is likewise not traceable through a study of genetic transfers and movements, but only through a study of archaeology. linguistics, and documented history (in this case, primarily the oldest recorded IE text, the Rigveda).

It is their defeat in these three fields, which is becoming increasingly evident to the AIT warriors, anti-Hindu or racist-casteist Hindu, that is making them abandon arguments based on linguistics, archaeology and textual interpretation, and latch on to pop versions of "genetics", the "scientific" nature of which is calculated to dazzle, mesmerize and confuse the average person into suspecting that they may be having something there].

II. True Aryan History.

The true history of Aryan culture and civilization is recorded in the traditional historical narrative of India recorded primarily in the Puranas, and it can be elucidated by the Textual Analysis of the oldest recorded Indian text, the Rigveda. We have an advantage over traditional Indian analysts of the Vedic texts, since we have before us the evidence uncovered by the study of modern Linguistics which helps us to unravel this true history, whose geographical reach extends far beyond the geography and period of the Rigveda.

The Puranas contain masses and masses of mythical "data", but here we are only concerned with what they tell us about Manu Vaivasvata and his ten sons. Nine sons were Ikṣvāku, Nābhāga, Dhṛiṣṭa, Śaryāti, Nariṣyanta, Prāṁśu, Ṛṣṭa, Karuṣa and Pṛṣadhra, and there was one daughter named Iḷaa: the daughter Iḷaa (as per a mythical story narrated in the Puranas) became a man named Iḷa or Sudyumna, or (as per another mythical story) Sudyumna was an original son of Manu who was converted (due to a spell) into a woman named Iḷaa, and was later reconverted back into a man named Iḷa. According to tradition, Manu Vaivasvata ruled over the whole of India, and the land was divided between his ten sons. However, for all practical purposes (and ignoring the mythical chaff), the Puranas, whose detailed narrative is restricted primarily to the Indian area to the north of the Vindhyas, concentrate only on the history of the descendants of two sons: Ikṣvāku and Iḷa. The descendants of Ikṣvāku are said to belong to the Solar Race, and the descendants of Iḷa are said to belong to the Lunar Race. The history of the descendants of the other eight sons of Manu is either totally missing, or they are perfunctorily mentioned in confused myths in between narratives involving the Aikṣvākus and the Aiḷas.

The historical data we get from amidst all the myths is the following:
1. The tribes described as descended from Ikṣvāku lived in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The descendants of Iḷa  were divided into five main conglomerates of tribes (mythically treated  in the later narratives as descended from the five sons of Yayāti, a descendant of Iḷa): the Pūru tribes in the general Area of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, the Anu tribes to their North in the areas of Kashmir and the areas to its immediate west, the Druhyu tribes to the West in the areas of the Greater Punjab, the Yadu tribes to the Southwest in the areas of Gujarat, Rajasthan and western Madhya Pradesh, and the Turvasu tribes to the Southeast (to the east of the Yadu tribes).
The Puranas, just as they fail to give details of the history and even the precise geography of the other eight sons of Manu, fail to give details of the history and even the precise geography of the Turvasu tribes (who are generally mentioned in tandem with the more important Yadu tribes). The main concentration of Puranic (and the Epic and other later traditional) narrative is on the history of the Pūru tribes of the western north, the Ikṣvāku tribes of the eastern north, and the Yadu tribes of the southwestern north. The early history of the Druhyu tribes is given, but later they disappear from the horizon (for reasons that we will see presently) and the history of the Anu tribes occupies a comparatively peripheral space in the Puranas (again for obvious reasons, as we will see).
2. Manu is regarded as the traditional ancestor of all the people of India. While we get details of the geography and history only of the descendants of Ikṣvāku and Iḷa, the clear implication is that all the people of the different parts of India are descended from Manu, including the people in the areas to the south of the Vindhyas and the areas to the east of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, who are regarded as descendants of the other eight sons of Manu.
The details of the geography and history of the people from the other parts of India (including perhaps the areas of the descendants of Turvasu) are missing from the earlier narrative because, due to distance from the main centre of Puranic compIḷation in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, there was less direct and regular interaction with them or the details of their activities were less detailedly known to the originally Pūru compilers of the Vedic and Puranic texts. The Pūru tribes were originally mainly concerned with their own history and traditions (and to a secondary extent that of the Ikṣvāku tribes to their east and the Yadu tribes to their south), and they had also developed extremely complicated techniques of maintaining oral traditions, unparalleled anywhere else in the world, which allowed them, for example, to keep their Vedic hymns orally alive for thousands of years without the change of a word or syllable or even tone.

The Aryan history we get from the records is of two kinds:
1. Indian or "Hindu" history.
2. International or "Indo-European" history.

1. Indian or "Hindu" history: Recorded Indian history starts with the Rigveda, the book of the Pūru tribal conglomerate -  in fact the book originally of one sub-tribe among the Pūru: the Bharata sub-tribe. This being the oldest maintained record in India (and definitely also one of the oldest, if not the oldest, coherent record in the world), it starts with the religion, culture and history of the Bharata Pūru tribe inhabiting mainly Haryana and westernmost Uttar Pradesh. [The Puranas also record the core of the history of northern India. But, being completely swamped by mythological and religious data, and, not maintained with the same rigidity as the Vedic texts and therefore being full of alterations, modifications and later data, they must be used only in order to supplement and corroborate the evidence of the Rigveda].
The Rigveda records the expansion of the Bharata Pūru tribe westwards into the Greater Punjab region then inhabited mainly by the Anu tribes. The subsequent Vedic Samhitas and post-Samhita Vedic texts, as well as the Puranic accounts, show the expansion of the Vedic culture of the Pūru tribes inwards into the areas of the Ikṣvāku tribes in the east and the Yadu tribes to the south, and subsequently all over northern India, and then all over India. In the process, this gave birth to the glorious pan-Indian Hindu religion and culture (or Parliament of religions and cultures) which incorporated into itself the religious and cultural elements of the different non-Pūru tribes in different parts of the country, and made the Gods, sacred places and sacred rivers of every tribe in every part of the country equally sacred to the members of every other tribe in every other part of the country, and united the whole land into one broad and complex religio-cultural unit. The point is that in this Hindu culture, the original religious elements of the Pūru tribes (the Vedic hymns and different types of Vedic yajnas) became just one nominal part of the whole religion, subordinated in actual importance to the elements from the other tribes: the philosophical concepts (Upanishads, Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka's philosophies, etc.) from the Ikṣvāku tribes, tantrism from tribes further east, idol-worship and temple culture from the tribes in South India, etc. Except for the fact that this religious journey commenced with the Indo-European Vedic language of the Pūru tribes (in which the Rigveda was composed, and which therefore made Sanskrit as a whole the sacred language of Hinduism), there is nothing particularly Pūru or even Indo-European in Hinduism: in fact the religio-cultural elements of the non-Pūru Indo-European tribes of northern India, and the Austric and Dravidian language speaking tribes, today constitute almost the whole body of Hinduism, which, in a sense, is truly a grand Parliament of the religions of all the descendants of the mythical sons of the mythical Manu.

2. International or "Indo-European" history: While the history of the Pūru tribes in interaction with the other tribes in the interior of India to their east and south produced Hindu or Indian culture and civilization; the history of the Pūru tribes in interaction with the Anu and Druhyu tribes to their north, west and northwest, set in motion two chains of events which, in the course of time, led to the migrations of the Indo-European languages in pre-historic times from India to Iran and Central Asia, West Asia and Europe. With the spread of European Imperialism and colonialism in the last few centuries, today these Indo-European languages are the predominant languages in four of the six inhabited continents of the world (i.e. in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia), the dominant languages in large parts of a fifth continent (Asia), and at least politically and administratively the most important force in the sixth (Africa).

As per the accepted linguistic consensus, the first two IE dialects to move out from the Homeland (wherever that Homeland is to be situated) were the speakers of the proto-Anatolian (proto-Hittite) and the proto-Tocharian dialect in that order. Then the speakers of the five European ancestral dialects, proto-Italic, proto-Celtic, proto-Germanic, proto-Baltic and proto-Slavic. The five dialects to remain in the Homeland for a period after that, and to develop many new linguistic features in common, were the speakers of the proto-Albanian, proto-Greek, proto-Armenian, proto-Iranian and proto-Indo-Aryan dialects. There is no consensus about the exact order of migration of these last five dialects, but the logical implication of this should be that the Homeland was located in the historical area of one of these five branches, which continued to remain in the Homeland after the migration of the other four. All the twelve dialects, however, remained in contiguous areas inside and just outside the Homeland in various degrees of contact with each other till around 3000 BCE, after which they started decisively breaking away from each other and moving (in the course of time) into their earliest known historical habitats.

As per recorded history in the Indian texts, there were two distinct waves of Indo-European migrations: a Druhyu migration and an Anu migration.

The Druhyu migrations:

The Puranas record that the Druhyu tribes were originally inhabitants of the Greater Punjab area to the west of the Pūru tribes.
Historical conflicts between the Druhyu tribes on the one hand and all the other tribes to their east and northeast led to major conflicts which resulted in their being driven out from the Greater Punjab into Afghanistan, and their space in the Greater Punjab being occupied by the Anu tribes.
All the scholars who have translated or studied the traditional historical literature have noted the significance of the Puranic traditions which relate that, several generations later (i.e. gradually, in the course of time), the Druhyu slowly migrated to the north from this area (i.e. from Afghanistan), and established settlements in the northern areas:
"Indian tradition distinctly asserts that there was an AIḷa outflow of the Druhyus through the northwest into the countries beyond, where they founded various kingdoms" (PARGITER 1962:298).
"Five Purāṇas add that Pracetas’ descendants spread out into the mleccha countries to the north beyond India and founded kingdoms there" (BHARGAVA 1956/1971:99).
"After a time, being overpopulated, the Druhyus crossed the borders of India and founded many principalities in the Mleccha territories in the north, and probably carried the Aryan culture beyond the frontiers of India" (MAJUMDAR 1951/1996:283).

The Early Druhyus: The first group among the Druhyu to migrate northwards and settle down in Central Asia were the speakers of the proto-Anatolian (or proto-Hittite) dialect. They settled down for a long period in the western part of Central Asia. The second group to move northwards were the speakers of the proto-Tocharian dialect, who settled down in the eastern part of Central Asia. This scenario is proved by many factors:
a. The above situation most naturally explains the logistics of the earliest recorded historical presence of these two branches:
Proto-Anatolian (proto-Hittite), after the movement from Afghanistan into western Central Asia, lands up near the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. A natural expansion along the shores of the Caspian Sea would naturally lead to the northeastern borders of Anatolia; and it is from the northeastern borders of Anatolia that the Hittites made their entry into their earliest attested areas in West Asia.
Proto-Tocharian, in any case, lands almost directly into its earliest historically attested area after it moves out northwards from Afghanistan into Central Asia. This area, eastwards, is the very area attested by the archaeological discoveries of Tocharian documents and by all the suggested literary references to the Tocharian people in other ancient texts.
b. The Puranas refer to two great tribes or peoples living to the north of the Himalayas, whom they call the Uttara-Madra and the Uttara-Kuru. The Uttara-Kuru are easily identified with the Tocharians: this is supported by the simIḷarity of the name Uttara-Kuru with the name Tocharian (Twghry in an Uighur text, and Tou-ch’u-lo or Tu-huo-lo in ancient Chinese Buddhist texts) suggesting that Uttara-Kuru may be a Sanskritization of the native appellation of the Tocharians, preserving, as closely as possible, what Henning calls "the consonantal skeleton (dental + velar + r) and the old u-sonant [which] appears in every specimen of the name" (HENNING 1978:225). Since the eastern of the two great tribes to the north were called the Uttara-Kuru, the western must have been called the Uttara-Madra on the analogy of the actual Kuru and the Madra tribes to the south being to the east and the west respectively; and the term Uttara-Madra must therefore refer to the proto-Anatolians (proto-Hittites).
c. That the proto-Hittites may have had some contact with the Indo-Aryans well into the Vedic period, and that too in the Central Asian region itself, is suggested by the presence, in Hittite mythology, of Indra, who is so completely unknown to all the other Indo-European mythologies and traditions (except of course, the Avesta, where he has been demonized) that Lubotsky and Witzel (see WITZEL 2006:95) feel emboldened to classify it as a word borrowed by "Indo-Iranian" from a hypothetical BMAC language in Northern-Afghanistan/Central-Asia.
d. Finally, incredible as it may seem, we actually have some kind of racial evidence (though nothing to do with any "Aryan race") indicating that the proto-Hittites  immigrated into West Asia from the east (Central Asia) rather than from the West: while the existence of the Hittites as a prominent historical tribe in West Asia has been known on the basis of detailed historical records since early times (they are very prominent in the Old Testament of the Bible), it was only in the beginning of the twentieth century that their language was discovered and studied in detail and they were conclusively identified linguistically as Indo-Europeans. Shortly after this, a paper in the Journal of the American Oriental Society makes the following incidental observations: "While the reading of the inscriptions by Hrozny and other scholars has almost conclusively shown that they spoke an Indo-European language, their physical type is clearly Mongoloid, as is shown by their representations both on their own sculptures and on Egyptian monuments. They had high cheek-bones and retreating foreheads." (CARNOY 1919:117).

The Later Druhyus: The other Druhyu groups later migrated northwards into Central Asia in the order indicated by the linguistic analysis, as well as by the linguistic connections of their dialects with each other: proto-Italic, proto-Celtic, proto-Germanic, proto-Baltic, proto-Slavic. After a long stay in Central Asia, and some interactions (resulting in different common features developed between individual groups) with the proto-Hittites and proto-Tocharians already in Central Asia, these five branches, linguistically referred to as the "European" or "northwestern" branches (which share a large vocabulary developed in common and missing in the other branches), slowly expanded and migrated in stages northwestwards across the expanse of Eurasia, and entered Europe from the east and spread out into different parts of Europe. This scenario is proved by many factors:
a. There are common linguistic features developed by individual European branches in common with proto-Hittite and proto-Tocharian: in the OIT, this is easily explained by the fact that they passed through the area (Central Asia) already inhabited by these two Early dialects. In the South Russian Steppe theory, there is no logical explanation: all the branches spread out in different directions like the rays of the sun, and while the proto-Hittite and proto-Tocharian dialects moved southwards and eastwards respectively, the European branches moved out westwards from the alleged Steppe Homeland and there was no logical chance of individual interactions with the two Early dialects.
b. The only European group which preserves the original PIE priestly class (the Celtic group, whose religion exhibits the same two central religious features found in the Vedic and Avestan religions, i.e. hymnology and fire-worship) also preserves the original name Drui (gen. Druid): an analysis of the Vedic and Avestan evidence (details in my books) shows that the three conglomerates of northern tribes, the Pūru, Anu and Druhyu, had three distinct (but religiously simiḷar) priestly classes: the Angiras, Bhrgu/Atharvan and Druhyu (this third conglomerate of tribes, being more distant, was referred to in the Pūru texts by the name of their priestly class) respectively.
c. A very detailed and complex linguistic study by Johanna Nichols and a team of linguists, appropriately entitled "The Epicentre of the Indo-European Linguistic Spread", examines ancient loan-words from West Asia (Semitic and Sumerian) found in Indo-European and also in other language families like Caucasian (with three separate groups Kartvelian, Abkhaz-Circassian and Nakh-Daghestanian), and the mode and form of transmission of these loan-words into the Indo-European family as a whole as well as into particular branches, and combines this with the evidence of the spread of Uralic and its connections with Indo-European, and with several kinds of other linguistic evidence : "Several kinds of evidence for the PIE locus have been presented here. Ancient loanwords point to a locus along the desert trajectory, not particularly close to Mesopotamia and probably far out in the eastern hinterlands. The structure of the family tree, the accumulation of genetic diversity at the western periphery of the range, the location of Tocharian and its implications for early dialect geography, the early attestation of Anatolian in Asia Minor, and the geography of the centum-satem split all point in the same direction [….]: the long-standing westward trajectories of languages point to an eastward locus, and the spread of IE along all three trajectories points to a locus well to the east of the Caspian Sea. The satem shift also spread from a locus to the south-east of the Caspian, with satem languages showing up as later entrants along all three trajectory terminals. (The satem shift is a post-PIE but very early IE development). The locus of the IE spread was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana." (NICHOLS 1997:137): i.e. in the very area outside the exit point from Afghanistan into Central Asia indicated by the data in the Puranas regarding the emigration of the Druhyu tribes.
d. Independently of the diverse linguistic evidence analyzed by Nichols above (which pertains to linguistic contacts of the European dialects with languages to the west and southwest of Central Asia), there is other linguistic evidence further east: A western academic scholar of Chinese origin, Tsung-tung Chang, shows, on the basis of a study of the relationship between the vocabulary of Old Chinese (as reconstructed by Bernard Karlgren, Grammata Serica, 1940, etc.) and the etymological roots of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary (as reconstructed by Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1959) that there was a very strong Indo-European influence on the formative vocabulary of Old Chinese. His conclusions: "Among Indo-European dialects, Germanic languages seem to have been mostly akin to Old Chinese" (CHANG 1988:32), and all this indicates that "Indo-Europeans had coexisted for thousands of years in Central Asia [….] (before) they emigrated into Europe" (CHANG 1988:33).
The presence of proto-Germanic, as well as proto-Celtic, in ancient Central Asia is confirmed by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov as well, who deal with this point at length in section 12.7 in their book, entitled "The separation of the Ancient European dialects from Proto-Indo-European and the migration of Indo-European tribes across Central Asia" (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:831-847), where they trace the movement of the European Dialects from Central Asia to Europe on the basis of a trail of linguistic contacts between the European Dialects and various other language families on the route. This evidence includes (apart from borrowings from the European Dialects into Old Chinese, already discussed above) borrowings from the Yeneseian and Altaic languages into the European Dialects and vice versa.
e. Of all the extant Indo-European groups, it is the European Dialects for whom we have the clearest archaeological evidence regarding their movement into their historical habitats (i.e. most of Europe). As Winn points out: "A ‘common European horizon’ developed after 3000 BC, at about the time of the Pit Grave expansion (Kurgan Wave #3). Because of the particular style of ceramics produced, it is usually known as the Corded Ware Horizon. [….] The expansion of the Corded Ware cultural variants throughout central, eastern and northern Europe has been construed as the most likely scenario for the origin of PIE (Proto-Indo-European) language and culture. [….] the territory inhabited by the Corded ware/Battle Axe culture, after its expansions, geographically qualifies it to be the ancestor of the Western or European language branches: Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Celtic and Italic" (WINN 1995:343, 349-350). This archaeological evidence "does not [….] explain the presence of Indo-Europeans in Asia, Greece and Anatolia" (WINN 1995:343), but it explains the presence of the European branches, and their expansion through Eastern Europe to the northern and western parts of Europe.

The Anu migrations:

As already pointed out above, historical conflicts between the Druhyu tribes on the one hand and all the other tribes to their east and northeast led to major conflicts which resulted in their being driven out from the Greater Punjab into Afghanistan, and their space in the Greater Punjab being occupied by the Anu tribes. Now, the Anu tribes came to occupy two areas: the original areas in the North (in the areas of Kashmir and the areas to its immediate west), and the new areas to the South (originally occupied by the Druhyu tribes: the areas of the Greater Punjab). The original areas are still the areas of the proto-Iranian tribes: the speakers of the Pishacha or Nuristani languages. The Anu tribes consisted of the speakers of the four last remaining dialects of PIE (other than the Indo-Aryan tribes, who were Pūru), and the historical events, which led to their migration westwards by a different (in relation to the Druhyu migrations) southern route, are described in unmistakable detail in the Rigveda. The basic details are as follows (for greater details see my books or my following blog "The Recorded History of the Indo-European Migrations - Part 3 of 4  The Anu Migrations"):

a. As per the accepted linguistic consensus, the five IE groups to remain in the Homeland after the departure of the other seven, and to develop many new linguistic features in common, were the speakers of the proto-Albanian, proto-Greek, proto-Armenian, proto-Iranian and proto-Indo-Aryan dialects. The great historical incident recorded in the Rigveda is the dāśarājña battle, or "the Battle of the Ten Kings", and the two hymns which mainly describe this battle  provide us the names of the different Anu tribes who united to fight against the expansionism of Sudās and the Bharata-s (i.e. the Vedic Indo-Aryan speakers): VII.18.5 Śimyu, VII.18.6 Bhṛgu, VII.18.7 Paktha, Bhalāna, Alina, Śiva, Viṣāṇin, VII.83.1 Parśu/Parśava, Pṛthu/Pārthava, Dāsa. Another major Anu tribe in the Puranas, and still present in the Punjab in later historical times, are the Madra. Incredibly, these names cover, in an almost continuous geographical belt, the names of historical  Iranian, Armenian, Greek and Albanian tribes who cover in later historical times the entire sweep of areas extending westwards from the Punjab (the battleground of the dāśarājña battle) right up to southern and eastern Europe:
i) IRANIAN: Avestan Afghanistan: Sairima (Śimyu), Dahi (Dāsa); NE Afghanistan: Nuristani/Piśācin (Viṣāṇin);  Pakhtoonistan (NW Pakistan), South Afghanistan: Pakhtoon/Pashtu (Paktha); Baluchistan (SW Pakistan), SE Iran: Bolan/Baluchi (Bhalāna); NE Iran: Parthian/Parthava (Pṛthu/Pārthava); SW Iran: Parsua/Persian (Parśu/Parśava); NW Iran: Madai/Median (Madra); Uzbekistan: Khiva/Khwarezmian (Śiva); W. Turkmenistan: Dahae (Dāsa); Ukraine, S, Russia: Alan (Alina), Sarmatian (Śimyu).
ii) ARMENIAN: Turkey: Phryge/Phrygian (Bhṛgu); Romania, Bulgaria: Dacian (Dāsa).
iii) GREEK: Greece:Hellene (Alina).
iv) ALBANIAN: Albania: Sirmio (Śimyu).
Their exodus is referred to in two other hymns in Book 7: VII.5.3 and VII.6.3.
The above mentioned tribes include the ancestors of other well-known ancient or modern Iranian tribes, including the Scythians (Sakas), Ossetes and Kurds, and even the presently Slavic-language speaking Serbs and Croats! The reader can check up the relevant encyclopedias (including Wikipedia) for the historical importance and geographical locations of all these different groups.

In short, the entire history of the Indo-European tribes in their Homeland in India, and their migration from India, is recorded in the Textual data in the Puranas and Rigveda, and corroborated by the Linguistic and Archaeological evidence. On the other hand, the AIT is a PURE LIE totally unsupported by Textual data, Linguistics or Archaeology.

It is time people understood the difference between the fake fabricated story of the "Aryan" Invasion of India, and the true History of the mythical sons of Manu (call them "Aryans" if you please, but it cannot be in the linguistic sense of "speakers of IE languages"), who include the speakers of all native Indian languages and the followers of all native Indian religions.

No-one should be allowed to brainwash divisive lies into the minds of the common Indian, fabricating hate-inspired and hate-instigating fictional stories of fake conflicts in ancient times between so-called "Aryans" and "Dravidians": whether Leftist and "Secularist" politicians, racist-casteist people (Hindu or anti-Hindu), "scholars" and writers, or the makers of films and serials.

APPENDIX 1, added 10/8/2017: A reader in a personal mail to me writes that I have "bypassed" the existence of the IVC in my above blog. Hence, I must point out:

There is no question of bypassing the Indus Valley Civilization at all. I see now that I may not have referred to the IVC in my article on my blogspot, but I have made it very clear in my books that the IVC was mainly the joint civilization of the Anus, Purus and perhaps the western Yadus. The very fact that the Vedic Civilization (whose actual physical existence in the past no scholar, from any "side", would dream of doubting or disputing) has not yet been "found" or identified" by the scholars and archaeologists, and that the IVC has left us no records at all about its actual human details (names of people, language, historical events, etc.), and that "both" the Civilizations cover the same geographical area (Afghanistan to Haryana and its hinterland, as testified by the geographical details in the Rigveda) in the same chronological period (3500-1500 BCE, as testified by the joint testimony of the Rigveda, the Avesta and the Mitanni records, as shown by me in detail) shows that the IVC represented the Proto-Indo-European Civilization with the eastern parts comprising the areas of the "Indo-Aryans" or Vedic Purus, the central parts comprising the areas of the Anus (ancestors of the Last Branches other than Indo-Aryan: i.e. of Iranian, Armenian, Greek, Albanian) and the western fringes comprising the remnants of the earlier departed branches who left in earlier stages of development of the pre-IVC cultures.

The problem arises when AIT writers want to derive all the "Indo-Aryan" (i.e. Indo-European) languages of India from the Vedic language, and make the IVC a "pre-Rigvedic" and non-Indo-European culture later displaced or replaced by the "invading Aryans". Or when the anti-AIT writers want to derive all the Indo-European languages from the Vedic language and identify the IVC as Rigvedic or post-Rigvedic. Vedic (Puru) culture was the eastern component of the IVC.

Those who argue that the IVC was an "urban" culture and the Vedic culture was a "pastoral" culture may note:
1. All the Encyclopeadias classify the IVC as one of the two centres of domestication of cattle.
2. Various Indologists (even before the discovery of the IVC) have written as follows:

“[The Rigvedic collection] reflects not so much a wandering life in a desert as a life stable and fixed, a life of halls and cities, and shows sacrificial cases in such detail as to lead one to suppose that the hymnists were not on the tramp but were comfortable well-fed priests” (HOPKINS 1898:20).

APPENDIX 2, added 16/10/2017: The defeat of the AIT on all three fronts, though still successfully stonewalled by Western Academia (and the International, including Indian, Academia that they control) to this day, has led to some swift and radical damage control measures, represented by weird about-turns by western scholars on crucial points like the identity of the Rigvedic Sarasvati with the Ghaggar-Hakra river complex. But nothing weirder than the Stalin-era like Confession and visibly reluctant Apology by a major western linguist, Johanna Nichols, whose linguistic study on the locus of the Indo-European language spread, which she locates in Bactria-Margiana in Central Asia east of the Caspian, is mentioned above. Read the full quote of Nichols' conclusions in her 1997 paper, given in the body of this blog above. She has posted the above paper (and another one from 1998) on, but she prefaces the paper with the following "retraction":


The theory of an east Caspian center of the IE spread argued for here is untenable and with much regret I retract it. It's a beautiful theory that accounts elegantly for a great deal of the dynamic and linguistic geography of the IE spread, but it conflicts with essential archaeological and etymological facts. The paper that convinced me to abandon it is:
Darden, Bill J. 2001. On the question of the Anatolian origin of Indo-Hittite, Robert Drews, ed., Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite Language Family, 184-228. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
The rest of both chapters still stands, but the east Caspian locus is post-PIE. The PIE homeland was on the western steppe."

Incredible but true. The scholar who had presented such detailed data and conclusions in 1997 and 1998 ("The locus of the IE spread was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana." NICHOLS 1997:137), is now (after her conclusions were profusely quoted by opponents of the AIT) forced by academic and "peer" pressure to state (without detailed explanation in the form of data, logic or logistics which would negate the original thesis) that "the east Caspian locus is post-PIE. The PIE homeland was on the western steppe", even as she still insists that the "rest" of what she had written "still stands"!  She fails to point out the details of the "archaeological or etymological facts" which now overturn the "beautiful theory that accounts elegantly for a great deal of the dynamic and linguistic geography of the IE spread", or to point out which part of this theory "still stands" as opposed to the part which does not, and why she is now compelled to create this new division of her original thesis into one part which "still stands" and another part which does not.

Can there be testimony more eloquent than this to the defeat of the AIT and the stranglehold of Stalinistic scholarship in Western Academia? 


BHARGAVA 1956/1971: India in the Vedic Age: A History of Aryan Expansion in India. Purushottam Lal Bhargava. Upper India Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Lucknow, 1956.

CARNOY 1919: Pre-Aryan Origins of the Persian Perfect. pp. 117-121 in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.39, 1919.

CHANG 1988: Indo-European Vocabulary in Old Chinese: A New Thesis on the emergence of Chinese Language and Civilization in the Late Neolithic age. Chang, Tsung-tung. Sino-Platonic Papers Number 7, January 1988. Department of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1988.

ERDOSY 1989: Ethnicity in the Rigveda and its Bearing on the Question of Indo-European Origins. Erdosy, George.  pp. 35-47 in “South Asian Studies” vol. 5. London.

ERDOSY 1995: Preface to “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: language, material Culture and Ethnicity”, edited George Erdosy, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-NY, 1995.

GAMKRELIDZE 1995: Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto-Culture. Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Ivanov, V.V. Mouton de Gruyter, 1995, Berlin, New York.

HENNING 1978: The First Indo-Europeans in History. Henning, W.B., pp.215-230 in “Society and History ― Lectures in Honour of Karl August Wittfogel”, edited G. L. Ulmen, Mouton Publishers, The Hague-Paris-New York, 1978.

HOCK 1999a: Out of India? The linguistic evidence. Hock, Hans H. pp.1-18, in “Aryan and non-Aryan in South Asia: evidence, interpretation, and ideology” (proceedings of the International Seminar on Aryan and non-Aryan in South Asia, Univ. of Michigan, October 1996).

MAJUMDAR ed.1951/1996: The Vedic Age. General Editor Majumdar R.C. The History and Culture of the Indian People. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Mumbai, 1951.

NICHOLS 1997: The Epicentre of the Indo-European Linguistic Spread. Nichols, Johanna. Chapter 8, in “Archaeology and Language, Vol. I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations”, ed. Roger Blench & Matthew Spriggs, Routledge, London and New York, 1997.

PARGITER 1962: Ancient Indian Historical Tradition. Pargiter F.E. Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi-Varanasi-Patna, 1962.

WINN 1995: Heaven, Heroes and Happiness: The Indo-European Roots of Western Ideology. Winn, Shan M.M. University Press of America, Lanham-New York-London, 1995.

WITZEL 2000a: The Languages of Harappa. Witzel, Michael. Feb. 17, 2000.

WITZEL 2005: Indocentrism: autochthonous visions of ancient India. Witzel, Michael. pp.341-404, in “The Indo-Aryan Controversy — Evidence and Inference in Indian history”, ed.Edwin F. Bryant and Laurie L. Patton, Routledge, London & New York, 2005.


  1. Great read.

    How did you or other researchers arrives at ~3000 BCE as the timing when all these branches (linguages) were still in the original homeland (where ever than might have been?

    For example, you write...


    1. This date is based on the evidence of chronological markers in the common vocabulary. When there is a common word or connected words in all or most of the dialects (branches) for a certain item, it means that this word originated when all the dialects were together in the Homeland. Common words for tree, mother, sun, etc. are not chronological markers, but common words for certain technical items which were invented around or after 3500 BCE (such as wheeled carts, etc.)shows that the dialects were together in the Homeland after 3500 BCE. Incidentally, a common word for the elephant/ivory (Sanskrit ibha, Greek el-ephas, Latin ebur, Hittite lahpa)is a geographical marker showing that this homeland was in India (the only IE language area with elephants).

    2. (1) If I understand it right, common words for elephant within IE domain may allow us to infer that India was homeland for IE languages.

      (2) Common words for a 'technology invention' may allow us to infer a time-stamp (so to say) on the timing of event before it's spread (e.g. Wheeled cart).

      (3) Is it fair to say that this (point made in (2)) assumes, transfer of technological knowledge was not possible after initial spread of languages into different IE languages, either based on Linguistics (common words for technology under discussion) or based on assumption of no further contacts between speakers of these IE languages?


    3. Obviously common words could be transferred to the different PIE languages long after they separated: thus all IE languages today have common words for (for example) three products: one is called by variations of "chai" and "tea", another by variations of "chiku" and "sapota", and a third by variations of "peru" and "guava", but we know that both the names of the first item are derived from Chinese words, and the names of the other two from native language words from Latin America: the original words in each case are known, their forms in IE languages are clearly individually borrowed forms of a late date, and similar forms are found in all other (non-IE) languages as well.

      On the other hand, the ancient IE words for wheeled cart and elephant are clearly separately evolved (and not borrowed from each other) from a common ancestral form, and have no correspondences in other non-IE languages. I have dealt with the case for the elephant in complete detail in my blog "The Elephant and the PIE Homeland".

      Note the hypocrisy and fake scholarship of western linguists and Indologists. Mallory and Adams tell us that the criterion for determining a word to be definitely Proto-Indo-European is "if there are cognates between Anatolian and any [even one] other Indo-European language", to which they righteously add: "This rule will not please everyone, but it will be applied here" (MALLORY-ADAMS 2006:109-110). But when confronted with cognate words for elephant/ivory in Anatolian (Hittite) and six other branches, they try to explain away the damning (to their theory) facts in different untenable ways!

    4. Sorry, that should have been "Anatolian (Hittite) and five other branches"

  2. Sticking to this logic then, ( not of MALLORY-ADAMS) and assuming for now 3500 BCE as the timing of invention of wheeled cart ( I presume the related words being Ratha, Rota etc) it correct if I state that wheeled carts were invented in the original homeland, which based on elephant (origin and also common words via PIE) evidence, was Indian subcontinent.

    1. I will not presume to speculate as to where wheeled carts were invented. The point is that wheeled carts (invented around 3500 BCE, wherever they were invented) became known in the Original Homeland (wherever it was situated) before the separation of the different branches. The words for wheel show the chronology, the words for elephant show the geography: I have shown in my blog "The Elephant and the PIE Homeland" that it is impossible that these common words for elephant/ivory could have been developed in common in any other area than in India before the separation of the different branches. That is, it cannot be a question of the elephant (whether African or Indian) becoming known to the PIE people in (for example) a Homeland in the Steppes of South Russia or Anatolia, leading to the development of common words.

    2. Thank you. In that case, wouldn't we need alternate theories to explain presence of common words for 'elephant' and 'wheeled carts' in PIE, the language of original homeland, if these two entities 'animal- elephant' and 'technology -wheeled cart' came from two different regions of IE language areas? elephants from India and Wheeled carts from somewhere else?[I understand you are not asserting anything about the origin of 'wheeled cart'. All you are saying is that you (we) don't know]

      The problem gets worse, IMHO, if the evidence for this 3500 BCE origin of technology (Wheeled carts) come from areas of IE languages that is not India.

      This would force us to assume the following:

      (1) The invention of 'wheeled carts' happened either in India or somewhere in non-IE language speaking area from where it came to India first (PIE Land) before all PIE groups split into IE language speaking areas.

      Which also means...

      (2) The archaeological evidence of wheeled cart in 3500 BCE can only be taken as evidence of its existence in the area during ~3500 BCE, wherever it was found...and not referring to the timing of its FIRST INVENTION.

      Do you agree? or am I confusing myself with the steps I am inferring these?

    3. These are the entries for archaeological evidence from Wikipedia for the wheeled carts...




    4. You are right: "The invention of 'wheeled carts' happened either in India or somewhere in non-IE language speaking area from where it came to India first (PIE Land) before all PIE groups split into IE language speaking areas." Where wheeled carts were invented is a separate issue unconnected with the question of the PIE homeland. It is useful to us only because it establishes a chronological point.

    5. I would respectfully point out to both of you gentleman that the use of wheeled vehicles is attested in the Indus civilization at least since the early Harappan phase which is dated to around 3500 BC. However in actual fact it could even be older in Haryana. Wikipedia having no reference to it is immaterial. The western academia ignores South Asian archaeology findings because they work under the assumption that South Asian history is not very important.

    6. Jaydeep ji,

      I agree with what you have written. In fact the point I want to make is that the very assumption of ~3500 BCE (or any other date) for the 'INVENTION' of wheeled carts, based on the mere fact that earliest evidence of 'wheeled carts' (does not matter the location. There appear to be few) were found in 3500 BCE (or any other date) is neither logical nor scientific. All these archaeological findings attests is the evidence of their earliest use that we have identified. The evidence does not have (and can not) say anything about the timing of invention, but also their use, prior to and after the specific timing attached to archaeology finds.

    7. I am very sorry, I just can not understand what the point is that you are trying to make by repeatedly talking about a distinction between the "invention" and the "earliest use" of wheeled carts. As you yourself have pointed out, the earliest evidence of wheeled carts is around and after 3500 BCE simply everywhere: "near-simultaneously in Mesopotamia (Sumerian civilization), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe (Cucuteni-Trypillian culture", and, as Jaydeep pointed out, in the Harappan area as well. So obviously, both the "invention" and "earliest use" of wheeled carts were around and after 3500 BCE. So what is the distinction: are you suggesting they were "invented" long before (in 10000 BCE or 8000 BCE or 6000 BCE or 4000 BCE or something) and hidden from the whole world as a well-guarded secret (which you say "does not matter the location") and only released to the world around 3500 BCE, when (as would happen with such an invention) it spread like wildfire? Why this pointless distinction? And how does all this fit in with your claimed "astronomical" date for the Mahabharata somewhere before 5500 BCE: are you suggesting that the participants had chariots at that point of time, which left no traces in archaeological records anywhere in the world in that period?

    8. The point is rather very simple. The earliest archaelogical evidence of 'wheeled carts' goes back to 3500 BCE. All we can say, based on this evidence is that 'wheeled carts' definitely existed in around 3500 BCE, at least in the areas, where they were found/identified archaeologically.

      This evidence by itself does not tell us anything (Nothing! Nada!) about the existence and usage of wheeled carts (1) before 3500 BCE (2) after 3500 BCE and (3) at places other than where these wheeled carts were found archaeologically ad frankly (4) even at places where they were founds archaeolgoically - before and after 3500 BCE.

      What I wrote above is all that can be inferred from the available evidence. We all are free to speculate if that was the time of their invention or not. As long as we state what can be inferred by evidence and where speculation begins.

      IMHO, this is not a pointless distinction at all. To wit, consider the case of iron age in India. It was originally thought to have began in ~800 BCE. As earlier evidence of iron was found, it moved back to 1200 BCE, then 1800 BCE and now about ~2300 BCE.

      Thus, all I was commenting was on the inferential logic based on available evidence.
      These inferences and conclusions do have implication for my proposed dates for Mahabharata and Ramayana, but that is a separate subject.

      I have no suggestions whatsoever for whatever happened to the chariots and why they have not been found in archaeological records.

  3. Thank you for the article. I have read your The Rigveda and the Avesta, 4 or so years back and I have a copy of your book which I treasure very much. I would also say that your article on the Elephant is a great piece of scholarship. I look forward to more such articles from you.

    Coming to the current post, I have a few observations/questions :-

    1. When we talk of the sons of Manu, it is quite likely that some of them went out of South Asia. It is pertinent to note that the Abrahamic faiths also have the story of Noah which is exactly the same as that of Manu Vaivasvata. It is highly likely that both of these are referring to one and the same person. The name of Noah in Arabic is Nuh, which can be arrived at by truncating the prefix Ma- from Manu or Manuh, a very plausible scenario if we envisage that the Semites or Afro-Asiatics migrated out of India at the start of the Neolithic and settled in the Middle East after a long wandering across arid lands.

    2. Another point is that while the Rigveda might have the Bharata as their primary patrons, but it and other Vedas, repeatedly refer to Manu Vaivasvata as the father of all and also as one whose example in conducting the Soma ritual or the fire sacrifice is to be followed. Therefore the Vedic religion looks like it is older to the period of the Purus and therefore it might not have been restricted only among the Purus but was already practiced among other non-Puru groups even before the expansion of the Purus. The Upanishads, Buddhism etc date to a much later period and I highly doubt that during the expansion of Bharatas in the interior of India the religion was significantly different to that of the Bharatas themselves. Idol worship itself is most likely a phenomenon of the last 2 millennia in India and cannot be dated to much earlier. Most of beliefs and customs we have in Hinduism today, which lack textual support, are likely to be comparatively recent innovations. As an example, if we read the observations of the early Muslim Arabs about India around 8th-9th centuries, we find that several very common Hindu practices of today were only restricted to a few specific cults in that period. Lastly, the Vedas alone are considered divine revelation and no other scripture is accorded such high status.

    3. My last point is with regard to the identification of the Uttara Kurus with Tocharians. Is it not more likely that the Uttara Kurus may refer to a branch of the Kurus (aka Indo-Aryans) that migrated nr Northwards after most of the early IE groups had left Central Asia. This northern group of Kurus may intact be responsible for the Indo-Aryan loanwords we observe among the Finno-Ugrics.

    1. Thank you for appreciating the books. But, with due respect, about your points:
      1.When discussing Manu, the only relevant point is that tradition treats all Indians as his descendants, which is important in the context of propaganda about "Aryan-Dravidian" conflicts (which, anyway, are not referred to anywhere). The question of Indo-European origins is a genuine academic problem. But treating the mythical concept of Manu as the father of all mankind to suggest that all other people, such as the Semites (for whom there is really no known connection with India), also went from India would be a bit speculative.
      2. Your contention that the whole of India followed the Vedic religion even before the expansion of the Puru Bharatas, and that everything not found in the Rigvedic religion is a later development, is based on the familiar Hindu bias that the Vedic religion is the fountainhead of everything. To begin with, this is playing into the AIT hands: for example, as the Rigvedic data shows, Soma was introduced to the Purus by the Anus to their west, and they themselves got access to the Soma areas only after the expansion of the Bharatas to the west. However, the AIT treats Soma as a memory of older Vedic rituals brought by the Vedic Indo-Aryans from Central Asia as they immigrated into India. Your version would suggest that all the other internal areas of India were also populated by people who followed rituals revolving around a plant product of Central Asia! "The Vedas alone are considered divine revelation" is irrelevant, "no other scripture is accorded such high status" because the Vedas alone were considered important enough to be memorized and kept orally alive with such meticulous zeal, but treating this religious belief as a historical proof would be like a missionary telling us that we must accept Christianity because "Jesus alone is considered a Son of God" and "no other person is accorded such high status".

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    3. Further: of course Buddhism as a religion originated with the Buddha, but Jainism has a tradition that Mahavir was the end-product of a long line of Tirthankaras, showing that the eastern people had different ancient traditions. Again, the Vedic religion is singularly karma-kandic, until the Upanishads (situated in the east, for example in the court of Janaka) bring in the philosophical discussions which must have been a part of eastern traditions from long before: most other early philosophical traditions, including the Ajiva and Charvaka traditions of agnostic and atheistic philosophies, also point to long histories in the east. The Vedic texts themselves talk about eastern peoples with totally different traditions, such as the Vratyas. Idol worship, linga worship, etc. are found all over India from early times, but not in the Vedic religion (if the pejorative tern "sisnadeva" in the Rigveda means "phallus-worshippers", this would again prove that the present aspects of Hinduism were already present in non-Puru areas long before the composition of the Rigvedic hymns themselves). In our zeal to accord a high status to the Vedic religion (whose two unique central aspects, hymnology and fire worship were found in the three northern tribes, as represented later by the Avesta and the religion of the Druids), many Vedic-centred Hindus end up devaluing and degrading other aspects of Hinduism as "later" innovations since they are not found in the Rigveda or Vedas. This however fits in with the AIT view that Hinduism "starts" with the Vedas brought in by Aryans from the west. The reason "Most of beliefs and customs we have in Hinduism today lack textual support" is because textual traditions start with the Vedas. Must we believe that African, American Indian and Australian aboriginal religious practices did not exist at all in times before the European colonialists gave them "textual support" by recording them in books?
      3. About the Uttara Kurus, the similarity of the name to the names of the Tocharians, their Puranic location in Kyrgyzstan identical with the location of the Tocharians, and the fact that they are described as regular inhabitants of this region (and not as people passing through them), identifies them as Tocharians. The epithet "Kuru" in their names does not necessarily identify them as Kurus, and the stray Indo-Aryans who migrated towards the Uralic areas need not necessarily be found mentioned in ancient records.

  4. Dear Sir, This is an excellent summary and very enlightening.

    Important battles in west were (please correct me if I am wrong)
    a. First Druhyu war during the time of Mandhatri - when they were driven out (recorded in Puranas)
    b. Dasrajna Battle with Anavas (Puru expansion)
    c. Varsagira Battle in Punjab border (also recorded in Avesta) - Iranian-Indian rift
    d. Bharata War (?)

    Now in the east (Ikshvaku) an important event was Ramayana:
    a. can it be said that while Ramayana is an older Ikshvaku tradition it may have actually been recorded later (with embellishments) into pan-Hindu fold after Puru culture spread east?
    b. given that there were approx 30 royal generations gap (as per Puranic lists) between Ramayan and Mbh, can it be said that Ramayana events happened chronologically after the Varsagira battle?
    c. Since by this time India as we know it today (with well defined western borders) and with a pan-Indian culture in place, is that the reason so much importance is accorded to Ramayan and why it is so popular, being the first recorded historical event post-integration?

    Also in terms of conceptual origin/ origin of ideas then can it be said?
    a. RV, Brahmanas and Mahabharata - originated in Puru mind-space
    b. Ramayana (events), Aryanaka, Upanishads - Eastern Areas
    [Many upanishads may have been written in Punjab and Brahmanas may have been composed in Bihar, after the two cultures fused - I am only asking about the origin of ideas]

    1. I think almost everything you have written above puts the facts in their correct perspective.

      The only matter on which I would not venture to express any decided opinions is about the accuracy of the exact details in the Puranic king lists (and the synchronization and relative chronologies of the different dynastic lists by different scholars) so as to accurately state the number of years or generations before or after between any two separate events.

  5. "true history of the mythical sons of Manu"

    I don't think your helping when you say they are mythical.

    1. Surely we can not seriously claim as a historical fact that Manu had ten sons with precisely the names (all Sanskrit names) that we find in the Puranas, and that all the people of India are descended from them. The point is that the people of ancient India were conscious of the fact that the whole country was united in a very close but diverse and complex mutual relationship, and this myth was their way of spelling out their consciousness of this common cultural ancestry of all Indians.

  6. I wanted to ask about something. One professional archaeologist has made up a theory that Ancient Indians were illiterate before Greeks and thus Vedas were made in Gupta period. He refers to this document (by a Greek traveler Megasthenes to Chandragupta's kingdom) :


    So, the archaeologist says that if a civilization is illiterate, it cannot produce Vedas and Upanishads, and hence they must be later concoctions, made possible with Greek influence.

    Here are the links where this archaeologist makes these claims :

    This is an outrageous claim, but how to reply to him and refute his theory? Please help, you are an expert on Vedic Era India, so I thought you will be able to offer some insight. Thanks.

    1. He concludes Indians are illiterate because apparently no inscription or text has been found in India dated before 3rd century BC, like how they've found plenty of inscriptions among Egyptians, Chinese, Mesapotamians, etc.

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  7. The fact is that there are no decipherable documents before the 3rd century BCE. If someone wants to decide from this that Indians were "illiterate", he is only showing his own stupidity and illiteracy. The very fact that the Rigveda was kept alive in exact photographic form without the change of a letter, word or tone for thousands of years, a phenomenon unparalleled anywhere else in the world, shows the intellectual and technological level of the Vedic tradition.

    We cannot, need not and should not reply to every petty piece of name-calling and abuse. No-one, in the last nine years, has had the guts to even pretend to try to take on the unchallengeable case I presented in my third book (2008). Any archaeologist who claims the Vedas were concocted in the Greek period, under Greek influence, must be incorrigibly insane. I wonder how many academic Indologists and linguists would care to support his mad claim. As I pointed out in my book, the data (consisting of thousands of words, and even meter-types) presents such a completely one-sided case, with not a single contradiction, that it simply can not be concocted, and certainly not more than 3000 years ago, unless we assume that the "concocters" of the Rigveda learnt from their crystal balls about the present (but to them thousands of years in the future) AIT/OIT debate, and "concocted" the text with such super-computer precision so as to support the OIT case!

    1. Thanks for your support sir. I was disturbed by his claims.

    2. One last question. Why did Megasthenes point out that Indians "had no written laws and were ignorant of even writing". His whole argument is based on this claim by Megasthenes, which can be found in this link :

      I meant that many Vedangs such as Vyakarana were specifically built to preserve Vedic Sanskrit, so they must have some sort of writing too. For example Panini and Patanjali wrote many treatises in these time periods.

    3. Very frankly, I do not want to make authoritative statements on a subject on which I do not have the final answers. I do not know how Megasthenes so confidently states that Indians "were ignorant of even writing". It is a strange statement to make when Megasthenes lived from 350-290 BCE, and we have the full-fledged Brahmi script being used by Ashoka (and certainly not as yet claimed by any scholar as being derived from the alphabet of the Greeks) in inscriptions found all over India. And, although we do not have such full-fledged inscriptions earlier, many stray stones have been found in earlier centuries depicting earlier forms of the Brahmi alphabet. It may be that he based his views on observations of the Indians in his army (who may not have been literate), or that writing was a specialized activity (as in ancient Egypt, China, etc.) restricted to a small class of scribes. At any rate, taking all the statements of the Greek historians about India so literally and deriving such vital or crucial historical or state-of-the-civilization conclusions from them is not wise. Many of their observations and reports are very general, naive and subjective, and many very peculiar things "noted" by them have to be taken with a pinch of salt. SD Kulkarni, author of the BHISHMA series, for example, quotes many "reports" of the Greek historians (such as that the average life of Indian at the time was 150-200 years) which he likes, but which we surely can not quote as testimony to the life-span of Indians of that period!

      As I said, Indian civilization and culture do not require to be "defended" from critics who quote such things to buttress their derogatory or uncomplimentary conclusions. Ancient India gave very much to the world (see my blog on "Hindutva or Hindu Nationalism"). And all this (whether the ancient Indians were scholars or illiterate buffoons, or heroes or villains), in any case, is basically irrelevant to the AIT/OIT debate.

    4. Thanks a lot for your views sir. I completely agree with you, Megasthenes' views might be that of the army men.

      But it does affect AIT/OIT debate, since all of the evidences from Vedas and Avesta would be rendered modern day, and hence inconclusive.

      Actually, that person has his own Aryan Theory too, that Patanjali is Pythagoras and the Shulba Sutras (which are also from a later time, since they are a part of Vedas) are an evidence of this. He then claims almost all of Ancient Indian achievements as being influenced from Greeks.

      I have a premonition that his theory would be used in the coming era by western scholars to counter OIT narrative, hence shared this with you. Although I also agree that his views are outrageous and will ignore him from now on.

      Thanks a lot for your time and invaluable advice!

  8. Dear Talageriji,

    There is good archaeological evidence now to show Central Asian influence in the formation of the Maykop culture of the 4th millennium BC in the North Caucasus. An archaeologist called Mariya Ivanova has brought this to light.

    Unfortunately I do not have full access to the text and The Google Books option only allows some snippets. Nevertheless this is a very important discovery and I would request you to look into it.

    Maykop is said to have played a fundamental role in the formation of the Yamnaya culture of the steppe which the proponents of the PIE steppe model argue to be the PIE culture.

    The date of the 4th millennium BC is also very crucial as it means the evidence is right at the time when we would expect a Druhyu migration from Central Asia.

    Items from Maykop which show Central Asian influence include evidence of cotton, metal objects of Central Asian origin, cooking method similar to a tandoor which is also evident in Indus civilization, wheeled vehicles etc .

    1. Dear Talageriji.

      I sent an email to the author of the book, Ms Ivanova, and ske kindly uploaded a scanned copy of the book over here...

      The chapters of interest are chapter 4 - The Valley of the Lower Kuban and chapter 8 - Conclusions.

      I think that this is far more soild archaological evidence for an Out of India model, which corroborates the linguistic model of Nichols and also the Puranic narrative of Druhyu migration, than the rather questionable evidence of Andronovo expansion that the likes of Kuzmina and Anthony argue as evidence of Indo-Iranian migration.

    2. Thank you very much for this valuable book. I have downloaded it and will go through it in detail.

  9. Rejecting 'Genetics' as useless even while calling your opponents names is hardly acceptable, particularly when you have made no effort to study the field.

    While there was a tendency to emphasize genetic continuity since the paleolithic recent developments in genetics particularly the ability to study DNA from 'the ancients' seems to imply massive population movements over the past 10000 years propelled by massive population growth and mobility due to the discovery of agriculture and tool working abilities.

    The correlation between language and genetics is complex. At its root lies the fact that most often a child imbibes the language spoken by his/her parents fairly early in life and passes it on to his offspring as an adult. This does not mean that switching languages cannot occur without a population replacement particularly when the languages involved are closely related. Since you brought up native american 'english speakers' who represent an example of a population who switched over to the dominant language ie. English, we likewise have can cite the example of the 'white population of the USA ' as an example of linguistic expansion mediated by an actual population movement. Let's suppose that all contacts between the americas and europe were cut off for a few centuries and the history of the americas were lost following a major disaster. A few centuries later , maybe 2500 the british rediscover the americas and find a population speaking a language similar to them. Would it be 'racist' for them to discuss any possibility of that the americans & their language derived from an actual population movement from the old world? Must they assume that English spread to the new world solely by 'cultural contacts'?

  10. I found your detailed research into the history of the 'syrian elephant' very impressive though I am not sure if I agree with the OIT'. To continue, in the case of the Indo-european languages there does seem to be some 'genetic links' between various Indo-European peoples. A large percentage of Slavic and Indo-Iranic people seem to share a common ancestor who lived around 6000ybp, surely it does seem like more than coincidence and deserves to be investigated. An analysis of the whole genome reveals that many Indo-European speakers all share some ancestry in common. Like wise Indians and Europeans share the same mutation for lactose persistence. Doesn't that seem like it indicates shared ancestry in the period post domestication of cows. Thus a strong case for an ancestral link between Indians and Europeans.

    1. When someone is determined to not "agree with the OIT" in spite of the massive linguistic, archaeological and actual recorded textual evidence (i.e. evidence in the three fields which really set off the whole debate in the first place and which are really vital to the solution), which he is determined to ignore and to not bother to examine and refute if he can, and determined to carry on endless and fruitless quibbling about "genetics" (there are many people who have made great "efforts" to "study the field" and reply in kind to the AIT "geneticists", and I see no reason to waste my time talking on an irrelevant "field" that I have "not studied"), it is certainly unacceptable. Apparently a desire to "agree" with a particular side in a debate is more important than accepting or refuting the relevant evidence, and insisting on endless discussions on irrelevant fields is a useful tactic.

      The truth pinches, so apparently certain people being described accurately as "racist" (again, a desire to "agree" or not "agree" is more important than the factuality or otherwise of the accusation) constitutes "calling opponents names", and the various direct and subtle ways in which these "opponents", with neither provocation nor justification, categorize, patronize and insult is their race/caste based right! Sorry, brother, not everyone is a fool to be abashed into accepting these double standards. Talk about, and disprove, the massive linguistic, archaeological and actual recorded textual evidence, if you can.

    2. Sir, I have explained why genetics is relevant to the question at hand . Please read it with an open mind. Neither AIT nor OIT seem fully convincing in their present forms atleast. If you feel you lack the expertise to comment on genetics by all means abstain but please do not label it irrelevant.

    3. No, you have not explained at all why genetics is relevant to the question at hand. I will certainly explain to you why genetics is irrelevant to the question at hand, but only after you give me the list of Indian "genomes", "haplogroups" and "DNA" structures in the people of China, Japan, Mongolia and Korea, acquired by them along with Buddhism (which also must have been passed on to them from India by groups of Indians, and, one assumes, not by telepathy or through seeds carried by birds).

  11. One of my biggest issues
    with your model is your arbitrary identification of druhyus and anus as various branches of Indo-European and the purus, ikshvakus and yadus as indo-aryans. One sees that the Druhyus remain in the western Punjab ie. the Gandharis and arattas and the Anus to their east constituting the madras, sivis, sauviras and usinaras even in later times speaking Indo-Aryan. It would be expected that their dialects would be the most atypical having absorbed loan words from various other branches on the contrary it is the language of the udichyas that were hailed as superior by later vedic times. Further shouldn't a substrate be demonstrable amongst the present day languages of the Punjab?

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    2. Jijnasu,

      It is high time we Indians stop this behavioral defect of ours of questioning our own scholars ad infinitum and keeping silent on the outlandish assumptions of western scholars. For example, can you please try and be as belligerent on Davidski's blog ?

      You're being unncessary confrontational here with Talageriji. I can understand that you have some different views as compared to him regarding genetics. But you can express yourself in a much more polite manner.

      It is after all his blog you're visiting and not vice-versa and moreover he has taken time to put up so much of his resaerch material, that undoubtedly would have taken him years to research & compile, on his blog for free for people like you & me to read and understand.

      The research of Talageriji is undoubtedly unique and important. It stands on its own merit and is of a much higher caliber than the wishy-washy nonsense that so many of the western indologists write about. So let us read and appreciate it and make some constructive arguments.

      Do not come here complaining about genetics. You can follow the Eurogenes blog for that, can you not ? If Talageriji's arguments have merit, it would undoubtedly also be supported by genetics. But if our kind author disapproves of it, why keep flogging a dead horse ?

      It would be much better if you can limit your criticism on the arguments and interpretation of the author in his articles.

    3. I must apologise to sri Talageri if I did seem impolite, that was not my intention. His extensive work on the Indo-European expansion deserves praise particularly coming from a person outside the academia. The point of my certain raising doubts is not to undermine the author but to clarify certain points. I for example had been wondering why a PIE word for elephant would necessarily suggest a link to India rather than west asia (which supposedly housed the syrian elephant.) The author's blog has been enlightening in this regard.

      The one grouse I do have with OITists is their insistence on using expressions such as 'conclusively disproven' 'disproven once and for all' etc. which are unscientific and misleading. A further error seems to be that they often believe that the legitimacy of Hinduism/ Indian unity depends on disproving the AIT. This too is mistaken and is another case of Hindus creating a trap for themselves. I would have no problem swinging either way as new evidence is unearthed, I do hope popular H intellectual voices can remain open minded too

    4. If, after all the details given in my books and blog articles, you can still claim that you find my identification of Druhyus and Anus as the ancestors of various branches of Indo-Europeans to be "arbitrary", it is clear you are not here to clarify points but to heckle and troll.

      Strangely, you want to see proto-Germanic, proto-Hittite and proto-Greek substrate words "demonstrable" in the present languages of the Punjab to accept that those languages (actually the far ancestral forms of those languages, and not the historically known much-evolved forms) were spoken in the Punjab in pre-Vedic and early Rigvedic times. But you do not ask for proto-Dravidian and proto-Austric substrate words to be "demonstrable" in these languages of the Punjab in order to accept that those languages were spoken there before your superior Aryan race brought its genetic amrit into the region! Nor do you ask for Vedic words and features (like cerebral sounds, including the cerebral "lh" sound) to be "demonstrable" in the present-day languages of the Steppe region, from where you claim the Aryan supermen originally came!

      Of course, it would be useless to point out the pre-Vedic or "Anu-Druhyu" words in Tocharian to the north of India, in Bangani in Uttarakhand, and even (e.g. "watura")in Sinhalese to the far south, because you will only start quibbling again.

    5. Jijnasu's last mail got posted as I was typing the above. I will not desist from using phrases like "conclusively proven", because it is true, however much it may irk anyone, and I am not interested in being hypocritically "politically correct" or in demonstrating false "modesty".

      About the legitimacy of Hinduism/Indian unity depending on disproving the AIT, it was an issue I tackled before I even ventured into the subject in my first book in 1993. Assuming these three chapters in Section 1 of my 1993 book are not generally known, they are available at the following link:

  12. Perhaps some evidence of Anu-Druhyu dialects may be discovered in the present day languages of the punjab in the future reaffirming your theory. As of now there is some evidence of Indo-Aryan toponyms on the steppe and Indo-Aryan loanwords in Finno-Ugric (I am aware of the issue that most linguistic transfer between these groups seems to have been unidirectional). I think it is unlikely that dravidian or munda was ever spoken in punjab or the saraswati basin even if indo-european originated outside the subcontinent. Harappan most likely belonged to some long lost family, attested in the vocabulary of rig-vedic and modern languages of the region. Likewise I do not believe Munda or Dravidian was widespread in the subcontinent much before the first millennium. Austro-Asiatic itself likely originated to the East of the subcontinent, being brought in not many centuries before the supposed Indo-Aryan migration. In any case any demonstrable Indo-aryan intrusion is likely to vary significantly from present models, I do believe much of current Indological models is garbage

  13. As regards the the 'legitimacy' of Hinduism I do agree that AIT or not much of it practice has evolved within the subcontinent, the vedic rsis themselves having lived in the vicinity of the saraswati. I do however disagree with your characterization of much of the major gods and practices as 'dravidian'. Shaivism and Vaishnavism can both be traced directly to the gods of the veda. The worship of various goddess though seems to have borrowed much more from indigenous cults. Durga or Arya in particular seems to have particularly borrowed from the customs of Vindhyan tribes though it seems doubtful if they did indeed speak dravidian. I view 'India' as we know it as essentially established by the puru-bharatas with the vedic tradition serving as the binding force between disparate minor elements.

  14. Let me come to my main point. There is a possibility that genetics will establish a population movement from the steppe to India sometime around 2000 BCE that contributed significantly to the ancestry of modern day Indians. It would be very likely be conjectured that they were Indo-Aryan speakers. Leftists would exploit such an event to spin their own divisive anti-Hindu propoganda. What would be a Hindu response to such an eventuality?

  15. I have already given the Hindu response to such an eventuality in 1993 itself. But in any case such an eventuality will never come. With all the archaeological, linguistic, and, most importantly, the recorded textual evidence showing the OIT case to be right, against nothing but impressionistic and wishful arguments by the AIT proponents in these three fields, I really fail to see how any Indian who is not already ideologically motivated in favour of the AIT can still labour under the psychological feeling that something or the other (genetics at the moment) will prove an AIT scenario! Genetics for the supporters of the AIT (but in some cases also for many of its opponents!) is what astronomy is for opponents of the AIT - a matter of wishful thinking and obfuscatory logic and arguments from non-existent or totally fabricated or grossly misrepresented data.

    And ultimately, in propaganda warfare, the truth is always the first thing to be sacrificed. We have leftist and secularist "scholars" denying the detailedly documented (by the destroyers themselves!)largescale destruction of literally millions of Hindu temples by Islamic invaders, while at the same trying to manufacture fake cases of destruction of non-Hindu religious structures by Hindus. The truth is exactly the opposite, but can we compel anti-Hindus to accept the truth? And if we can't, should we then be terrified of exposing the truth out of a brainwashed fear that someone will some day produce evidence that Muslims never destroyed non-Islamic religious structures, but Hindus always demolished non-Hindu religious structures?

    Why not just concentrate on exposing the truth and let prejudiced opinions play their own games? I have certainly never compromised on the truth, even dropping many of my own wishful ideas when the facts dictated otherwise, and this is why my writings have as many and as sharp critics among traditional (even non-racist-casteist) Hindu opponents of the AIT as among AIT proponents.

    1. Further, I have not classified Shaivism and Vaishnavism as "Dravidian": I have pointed out and quoted AIT-supporting scholars making these assertions. However, they can not be "traced directly to the gods of the Veda" either. The names Vishnu and Shiva/Rudra are certainly in the Rigveda, as also the three steps of Vishnu and many of the fearsome characteristics of Rudra (and the Pashupati form in the seals of the Harappans). But most of the other features of Vishnu and Shiva in later and present-day Hinduism are adapted from the customs of inner non-Vedic tribes (Ikshvakus, Yadus, Turvasus, and nameless others, speaking inner IE as well as Dravidian and Austric languages. Surely you can not be unaware of how every local deity in every part of India, retaining all its rituals, customs, features, myths, and often even the name, are simply treated as forms of Shiva, Vishnu or Parvati, with perhaps new myths manufactured to establish the connection, but in the process adding new facets to the personalities of these three primary Forces. With, as you put it, "the Vedic tradition [as well as each newer developing form] serving as the binding force between disparate minor elements".

  16. Dear Talageriji,

    Have you gone through that book by Mariya Ivanova ?

    What do you make of the evidence published in her book ?


  17. Talageriji,

    This may of interest to you :


    1. It is interesting, but it pertains to the historical period (after the different IE groups had entered history from different areas, and long forgotten any possible memories of a common homeland and common traditions, and then came into contact with each other as strager peoples) and not from the prehistorical PIE period.

    2. That should have been "stranger peoples" or simply "strangers".

  18. Their is something about bank clerks and the genius factor that our respected Mr.Talageri is.I could only remember Einstein.

    Beautifully written and i would say this is the last word on the debate.Average Indian may not realize this but someone like me would.The very proof of the OIT gives me pride.What Mr. Talageri has done is that he has made everybody realize how great is the homeland of India.I am not a hindu nationalist, Just someone who loves truth and true academia.

  19. Dear Srikant.
    Keep up the good work. The main issue the AIT proponents made that who ever opposes them is termed as a Hindu Nationalist.
    My opinion on Genetics with statistics on random sampling can be used to prove anything one wants and should have no bearing on debunked AIT

  20. Beautiful - Hope to go thru your detailed work on the Topic

    To Hindu commoners like me who will take some years to upgrade education level to be an effective "IK" on Hinduism, already i now notice more such blatant misrepresentation of facts example "wikipedia" having a prominent mention of "DRAVIDIAN" as 20% of India appearing in a Pie Chart at Mid of this wiki page.