Aryan Invasion Theory, Vedas and Dravidian Discourse

Comments

1. Girdhar says

   September 17, 2011 at 7:49 pm

   Brilliant article Gurushankar. It busts many myths regarding the Aryan Invasion theory with verses straight from the Vedas 🙂

2. Druv says

   September 19, 2011 at 5:21 pm

   Thanks for the great article, this was a war tactic used by the Vatican to destroy and assimilate the culture of India. However, that is soon going to change.

3. Gautam says

   September 19, 2011 at 5:51 pm

   Thank you for good insight. Please do give an analysis over the evolution of two different family of languages i.e. Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages.

4. Gia says

   September 20, 2011 at 3:49 am

   Gurushankar great article.

   This one by Michel Danino is also worth perusing as he provides substantial evidence (archaeological, literary, etc.) for Vedic roots of the Tamil Culture:

   http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/tamilculture.html

5. akey says

   September 26, 2011 at 11:13 pm

   Genetics also proves this.

   If india wants to erase poverty, corruption, fear, violence, if india wants to progress and be rich, then we must start to educate our children with our education and not a coloniallly repressed education. A few generations of a truthfull education will create the unity that we seek. IF we continue to use a colonial education, then we will see more and more division and anger.

   if anyone wants to look at the genetics then please check this link,

   http://www.scribd.com/doc/44092576/Origin-of-Indo-European-languages-and-farming-Evidence-from-Human-Animal-and-plant-DNAs-and-from-linguistics

6. Sujay Rao Mandavilli says

   February 10, 2015 at 9:39 pm

   the Indus Valley Civilization was clearly pre-Vedic

   acculturation is the key

   please read part two of the paper syncretism and acculturation in ancient india and the paper ‘the demise of the Dravidian, Vedic and Paramunda Indus myths’

   http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/04/defining-meluhha-demise-of-dravidian.html

   however, the field of Indology badly needs to be modernized, and only this can put to rest the hindutva monster. this is the crying need of the hour

   Sujay Rao Mandavilli

7. Sujay Rao Mandavilli says

   April 19, 2015 at 4:22 am

   This is with respect to a recent article on the Saraswathi River in ‘The Hindu’ dated 17-04-2015. The identification of the Saraswathi River with the Ghaggra-Hakkar is accepted by leading archaeologists such as the much-respected late Dr Gregory Possehl as well and I don’t think any other scenario is feasible- readers may go through material published by him and other scholars in this regard. This is because of the following factors (a) The River Saraswathi explains the desertification of Rajasthan. (b) It also explains the transfer of populations to the Ganga-Yamuna doab in around 1900 BC. (c) The Indus Valley Civilization could not have flourished or taken shape with the Thar Desert sitting right in the middle and large cities on either side of the Thar Desert. However, the IVC was pre-Vedic as was explained in my papers, and the transfer of power happened through a series of acculturations. THE RIVER SARASWATHI DOES NOT PROVE THAT THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION WAS VEDIC. If this was the case, the IVC should have been pronounced Vedic a long time ago, as the Sindhu was known in the RV!

   This is not the first time such a trend has been observed- and Marxist historians are possibly as biased and prejudiced as Hindutvavaadins themselves. For example, conservative western scholars such as Witzel have often called for a reconstruction of history from Vedic and other texts- Marxist historians seem to have a penchant for claiming that effectively nothing existed before 600 BC. Even Edward Luce and Edwin Bryant suggest that Marxist historiography is of questionable neutrality. I would also challenge D N Jha to prove that his book ‘The myth of the holy cow’ is unprejudiced or unbiased or explains all facets of the complex issue impartially. I even have the following quote of Irfan Habib “Let us look at why a historian chooses a subject. To give a very mundane example, because I had a Communist background, I chose to work on the agrarian system of Mughal India, at the same time that my friend, the late M. Athar Ali, chose the structure of nobility under Aurangzeb, because, being of a liberal persuasion, he wished to examine how far religious identities impinged on Mughal administrative functioning. We would not have chosen these different topics if our personal predilections were identical. So, even in research work, the very fact that one chooses a particular topic may reflect some previous presumptions about what is more significant in history.” (THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: Irfan Habib Journal of History and Social sciences Volume: II, Issue I, January-June 2011)

   To reiterate, anyone who adopts a myopic or one-sided view that acts against the interests of science, society and the education system must likewise be exposed through empirical facts and data, and this is a process that must be begun in right earnest. This includes Hindutvavaadins, Marxist scholars, Dravidian nationalists, Euro centrists and Indo centrists, and anyone else for that matter.

   Marxist historiography, like Hindutva, is perhaps a one-sided ideology- it is, if it can be empirically proved, anti-truth, anti-science and anti-progress and is such is sure, like Hindutva, to go into the dustbin and rubbish-heap of history. I have, in my papers, taken the views of several mainstream and non-Hindutva western scholars about how racism and imperialism continue to haunt us to this day. Marxist scholars on the other hand, are silent about the issue – Marxist historiography is one of the pillars of racism and imperialism in India, and as such, one should have no qualms or inhibitions in calling it the Colonial-Marxist-Imperialist school of Indology. Marxist Historiography is also one of the pillars of Hindutva because one kind of a bias legitimizes every other kind of a bias. I have also discussed in my papers why a Marxist historian ceases to be a scholar in the longer term and becomes more of a ‘politician’ acting against the interests of science, society and the education system. Clearly, dogmatic Marxist historiography of the kind practiced in India is biased, one-sided and irrational, and due to this, we declare them anti-national in most respects, even though they may have no mala fide intentions per se. The fact that their approach is one-sided has been pointed out by many other scholars and we are certainly not the first to have done so. In many cases, they may be working against national interest, and in what cases they are working against national interest, they themselves may have no control, given that they may be entirely driven by dogma, unlike that approach that should be ideally adopted by logical-thinking individuals. As has been pointed out Marxist historiography has become synonymous with obsolescence and senility, and this kind of an approach cannot even continue beyond one or two generations, and will lead to depleted intellectual faculties, illogical and irrational behaviour, loss of personal respect and dignity, lowered level of professional competence, and such individuals may frequently act against national interest and interests of science and will inflict, like Hindutva, damage on the education system as well. We will persist with this categorization, however provocative it may seem, till they change, or can at least provide a convincing refutation backed by data. The fact that the average age of the top five Marxist historians in India as of 2015, was around 83 years speaks for itself, and this by itself should serve as an indicator that something is very seriously wrong with their approach. Thus, the obvious conclusions are (a) Marxist historiography in India cannot continue and is doomed to failure (b) It death can come about due to a variety of causes such as death of its practitioners, senility or old age (c) its collapse may also be cataclysmic like the collapse of the Soviet Union and may be brought about by the takeover of the field by other ideologues. (d) Its collapse with be disastrous, as there is no credible alternative approaches to history, and a fossilized-approach has ensured that textbooks have not been updated for decades. (e) Marxist historians are not even interested in combating Hindutva in the longer term. While they undoubtedly did play a major role in exposing Hindutva in the 2000’s, and must be thanked for it, their long-term commitment to the healthy progress of science is under question; the reasons may not be difficult to seek: when an individual starts with a fundamentally wrong premise, and attempts no course corrections over a period of time, he loses a sense of direction, loses his purpose and will eventually cease to act in the interests of science and scholarship. Such approaches also work against the natural process of knowledge-creation, and are against the spirit of innovation, adversely impacting many fields of science. In a recent paper called ‘Historiography by Objectives: A new approach for the study of history within the framework of the proposed Twenty-First Century School of Historiography’, we identified nearly forty key objectives of a historian which would be endorsed with any one with elementary common sense – the performance of Marxist historians in all these parameters as would be very obvious to even a casual observer, has not just been abysmal or sub-par- it has been nothing short of disastrous! All this warrants serious course-corrections in the interests of science and scholarship.

   Indology needs to be modernized, liberated from antiquated nineteenth century paradigms and brought into the 21st century before it is too late. The stakes for all related fields of science and scientific progress in general are simply too huge to be ignored- this time the transition must be led by mainstream scholars and researchers. Unless this happens, and all ideology-driven approaches are driven out from the purview of mainstream scholarship, mainstream scholarship will always be at a risk of losing relevance. However idealistic this may seem to some, this is the crying need of the hour and has to happen. The healthy growth of science and scholarship must override all other vested interests.

   To reiterate, the key objectives of modernizing Indology should be as follows, as these should be obvious to anyone who has read my published papers as well:

   1. To use a scientific study of Indology as a weapon against Hindutva, Marxism, Dravidian nationalism, Euro-centrism, Indo-centrism and other ideology driven approaches.

   2. To use a scientific study of Indology to combat superstition and blind faith as most Indians rely on tradition and blind faith and a scientific reconstruction of history will go a long way in educating the people and can do for India what Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution did in the West.

   3. To use latest theories and acculturation models to help synthesize archaeology and linguistics and help trace the spread of languages in India and elsewhere.

   4. To use latest acculturation models to interface with anthropology and other theories explaining the evolution and spread of humans across the globe.

   5. To help in Indo-Iranian studies and research on the ancient history of Iran.

   6. To help the research of the history of writing systems. Thus, the modernization of Indology and the adoption of latest acculturation models can have a major bearing on the research of writing systems as we have shown in one of our papers.

   7. To help promote indo -US ties and ties between India and other countries as cultural barriers have often led to misunderstandings between Western and Indian scientists/historians and approaches like this will allow scientists from across continents to work together in greater harmony. As Marxist historians are living in a long-bygone age, they may not understand all this.

   8. To help in reconstructing the languages of the Indus valley civilization as approaches to reconstruct the languages of the Indus valley civilization have been presented in these papers.

   9. To help in the research in alphabetic scripts as a very detailed theory on the origin of Brahmi is presented in one of these papers.

   10. To use latest theories as a template for the cultural studies of Ancient India.

   11. To use latest theories as a template to study the invention & dissemination of other technologies such as metallurgy and transportation technology.

   12. To help popularize multi-disciplinary and India-specific approaches for the study of Ancient India.

   13. To popularize approaches based on transparency, collaboration and goodwill among researchers in the interests of advancement of research. (This is certainly not possible so long as Hindutvavaadins, Marxist historians and other ideologues exist.)

   This is a part of a series of posts to create awareness both in the West and in India- particularly in mainstream circles- Indology needs a revolution and a makeover- ask for it in the name of science!

   If this still does not work, we have many other tools at our disposal- all Marxist scholars will be branded imperialist, one-sided, anti-science and anti-truth- just as Hindutva is branded anti-science – and we will prove it empirically- such that they are driven to death’s door. So far Marxist historians may have been lucky as awareness of India related issues in the West is low and because racism and imperialism have always been the pillars of Marxist historiography in India- but that may be about to change.

   Sujay Rao Mandavilli

8. India Inspires says

   August 13, 2015 at 4:12 am

   India Inspires Talks :

   Aryan Invasion Theory – Part I – http://www.indiainspires.org/indiainspires/videos/10

   Aryan Invasion Theory – Part II – http://www.indiainspires.org/indiainspires/videos/17