There was also at one point the Mitanni empire which had an indo-aryan linguistic superstate over parts of the near east, so it is quite possible for the language to spread over Europe. Especially considering that Europe (excluding parts of southern Europe) was vastly undeveloped and limited to tribal societies for quite sometime, these widely dispersed tribes could have developed their own subgroups of languages over that time.

What does not make sence is the fact that the so-called Aryans invaded India (without any physical evidence), while at the same time you have a plethora of sanskrit words distributed over many other Indo-European languages.

Wealthy nation can spread culture ( like USA ) and not savage like central asians of IVC time. Ancient India was not only wealthy , but also culturally very strong as Yoga is found in IVC terracota statues. And, Yoga tradition is just one aspect of Vedic philosophy. Yoga itself says that it’s derived from Vedas. So, we have proof that there were no Aryan invasion / migration. But, so called western indologists don’t want to risk their position and hence let them deny it. AIT was based only on twisted translations of some RigVedic verses and not some findings of genetic, archeology, anthropology. Also, before IVC excavation Aryans were white cultured people , but after 1920 Harappa excavations the same became white barbers. Wow what a 180 degree turn in assumptions.

By Roar Bjonnes (PNA)
In the fields of yoga and ayurvedic medicine, I have a great deal of respect for the scholarship of David Frawley and Georg Feuerstein. However, in their book In Search of the Cradle of Civilization, co-authored with Subash Kak, they may have ventured too far from the rigors of science. Their usual erudite research appears to be creating what they claim to debunk: another myth.

In attempting to expose the Indian Aryan Invasion Theory, they have instead created a new, bogus theory based on overzealous and often inaccurate interpretations of Vedic philosophy, history, rites and (oh yes!) myth.

But, who can blame them! It is not an easy task to make sense of Indian history, especially its prehistory.

The first and main mistake these authors make (and they are not alone in doing so!) is to lump most all of Indian history and spirituality into the omnipresence of the Vedas. In reality, India is composed of two distinct, yet often co-mingling rivers of rites and spiritual practice: the Vedic and the Tantric.

Unlike Frawley and Feuerstein, Tantric historians, such as N. N. Bahttacharya, and Tantric masters, such as P. R. Sarkar, draw a clear distinction between Aryan and Dravidyan culture and history. The Aryans were predominantly Vedic and the Dravidyans Tantric. Although over thousands of years, these two cultural rivers joined and became what we now call Hindu culture.

And, yes, these scholars also claim that indeed there was an Aryan invasion. Not always violent, and not a sudden one either. The Aryans arrived from central Asia, Iran and Afganistan over thousands of years and settled first in what is today Kashmir. It was here, claims Sarkar, that the Vedas were first written down in the Sarada script.

There are four Vedas, and according to tantric historians, the Rigveda is the oldest and was mostly composed outside of India. Frawley et al, however, maintains it was composed in India, of course. That the Rigveda contains material seemingly indigenous to India is likely because it was never written down before thousands of years later, after many linguistic and cultural changes throughout its long, oral history on Indian soil!

One example of such indigenous Indian influence on the Aryan Vedas can be seen especially in the fourth and often neglected Atharvaveda. As Frawley et al writes: “…many Vedic thinkers have had an ambivalent attitude toward the Atharvaveda.” Yes, indeed. And part of the reason for that is that this Veda was greatly influenced by Tantra. P. R. Sarkar points out, for example, that the Nrsimha Tapaniiya Shruti of the Atharvaveda has been far more influenced by the non-Aryan Tantra than by the Aryan Veda.

One important archeological fact mentioned in the book is the pashupati seal, found in the ancient Harappan valley civilization, and which depict God Shiva, the Lord of the Beasts. Sarkar points out that this seal is an example of the indigenous tantric symbolism of the Harappan culture. The esoteric Tantric meaning of this seal is that Shiva is the controller of the pashus, the animal desires of man.

Contrary to Vedic scholars, Shiva was not just a mythological God, he was, according to the Tantric tradition, an historical person. Like Buddha and Krishna, he was a great spiritual leader who systematized yogic practices, invented the octave, Indian classical dance (thus he was called Nataraja, the great dancer) and systematized ayurvedic medicine. Shiva lived in India around 5000 BCE, the time when Aryans already had settled in the north of India.

So, the great limitation of this book and all other scholars who claim there was never an Aryan Invasion of India, is that they completely discount this “other” aspect of Indian history. Indeed, they often claim that the historical struggle between Tantric and Vedic peoples, and their gradual co-mingling, never really took place at all.

But, if the rich tantric history and tradition of India is unable to sway these scholars, maybe Western genetic science will.

Recent genetic discoveries by Dr. Spencer Wells (well documented in his book Journey of Man) shows that there were at least two large migrations into India, one by dark skinned people from Africa via the coastal areas and then into Australia, and another much later migration by lighter skinned people from central Asia.

By sampling DNA of people in a village close to Madurai in Tamil Nadu, Dr Wells spotted a genetic mutation that had been passed on to aboriginal people in Australia – thus offering the first biological proof that African ancestors of the Australian natives passed through India on the way to their new home. He also proved that later the people who moved into India indeed were of Aryan stock.

There is also now some historical and archaeological evidence which suggests that as the Aryans came in, they intermarried with indigenous people and also absorbed many of them into their system of ranking.

Frawley et al dismiss this theory as a myth, claiming it “devalues” India’s history. Now, however, another genetic study has produced strong evidence supporting the Aryan Invasion Theory. A team led by Michael Bamshad of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City compared the DNA of 265 Indian men from different castes with DNA from nearly 750 African, European, Asian and other Indian men.

The researchers first analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which people only inherit from their mothers. When they looked at specific sets of genes that tend to be inherited as a unit, they found about 20 to 30 percent of the Indian sets resembled those in Europeans. The percentage was highest in upper caste males, which supports the theory of Aryans being upper castes. Overall, though, each caste resembled other Asians most.

So, the proof of the Aryan Invasion Theory, as they say, is to be found in the genetic pudding.

I definitely consider it a myth…have a look at some interesting articles on the above link

answer please
help me
thank you

Cremation is told as Aryan mark , then why in central asia we find mostly remains of cemetry before period 1700 BC ?

Why central asian settlements ruined after 1800 – 1700 BC ? Is it possible that all current USA citizens start living on the moon and leave the original homeland ?
Then, why aryan civilization is not found in parent central asian area when the same aryan people are told to have done wonders in India ?

Rig-Veda geometry starts from Gangetic plains and then it moves towards north – west India ( opposite to aryan migration from NW ). Dasa of Rig-Veda is not south indians but iranians. We find Daha people in ancient iran. Dasaranjan war of Rig-Veda was source of rivalry between aryan ( i.e. noble , truth abiding ) and iranians.

Central asian aryan nomads did not bring any Iron age in India. In fact, it was India which was famous for Iron. Refer Damascus steel which was infact Indian steel ( or process was Indian ). When, nomad people didn’t have any superiority in terms of anything then what made them click ? Do you think that people of Green Land can impart such a change to USA people today.
Example of above mentioned aborinals & britishers is perfectly logical.

Indian knowledge was known as technically superior and hence arabs translted maths, algebra, trignometry, chemistry, metallurgy, astronomy related texts from Indians and then passed on that knowledge to European translators. IVC people used uniform bricks ratio ( still used the same ratio world over ), decimal system, weights & measure system over area bigger than western europe. They made dock comparing with current size and it required knowledge of astronomy. Average Indian uses astronomy much more than any people by way of Panchang.

Spain captured native americans by way of cruel invasion. Also, they were militarily superior than natives with gun powder & pistols. Where as central asia was never superior to India. Even so called aryan BMAC area of central asia is not having horse remains before 1700 – 1600 BC ( in tune with Indian subcontinent ).

I can elborate on many points, but illogical person will always think in `one way’ direction ( as if path from central asia to India was only `one way’ ) !

“And just like a dominant Spanish minority managed to make its own language the mother-tongue of much larger populations which are genetically predominantly Native American,”

but then he turns right around and assumes that the probability of AIT rests on the denial of such an impact by a minority upon a majority and that this denial should be held against AIT:

“Saying that India had a large population may not sound -very revolutionary, yet in the context of the AIT, it is.

The theory of the Aryan Invasions, complemented by the secondary theory of an earlier Dravidian invasion, assumes, as it were, that India was nearly empty. On the other hand, the steppes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia must have been a beehive of people.” (same text, 4.1)

In addition to his own examples of the colonization of the Americas, we may think of the Germanic invasions at the fall of the Roman Empire: The Romans and romanized Celts far outnumbered the invading ‘Germans’ (Goths, Vandals, Franks, etc.), but they were soft and weak and fought amongst themselves, while the Germans were ‘lean and mean’.

But more importantly, the fact that AIT is NOT based on the notion of a relatively empty India prior to the Aryan invasion is its defining feature, which is what I have been looking for when I asked if people could specify what it is that they are referring to when they say that they either accept or reject AIT:

it seems to me that there are three (but as we will see, really only two) fundamentally different possible positions:

Around 1500 BC,

(1) India was was relatively underpopulated compared to central Asia, and the populous Aryans migrated into a relatively empty India, and are responsible for almost all of Indian culture.

(2) There was a relatively sophisticated civilization in the Indus Valley, and a less sophisticated, barbaric, warlike people, the Aryans, swept down from the overlooking mountains, and established themselves as the new ruling class, and gradually became interested in the cultural activities that had preceeded their arrival.

(3) There was a relatively sophisticated civilization in the Indus Valley, that gradually expanded outward as its population grew, and this civilization distributed various elements of its culture piecemeal, as various emigrations took place.

I said that there were really only 2 positions here, because I don’t think anybody seriously upholds (1)

This gives us (2)= AIT; (3)=anti-AIT

This is the kind of fundamental argument I was looking for when I asked what the ‘fuss’ was all about. Haggling over which particular mountain range the Aryans came from doesn’t seem to touch on AIT vs anti-AIT (it seems to assume AIT), but that is much of what one hears about concerning the issue, which is only obfuscatory.

Elst’s article is a good example: he sometimes argues against AIT as though it were (1) (which it isn’t) and sometimes as if it were(2) (which it is, if I’m right above)

worse, his arguments against (2) work directly against him upon closer inspection. He points out later in the section on demographics that small groups of invaders attacking large civilizations tend to assimilate rather than impose their own culture. But I think this is exactly what AIT is saying: that the Aryans ‘took over’ the civilization that they found in the Indus valley, just as the germanic tribes ‘took over’ the remnants of Roman civ (which is the parallel he himself makes) But if we take into account the relativley dense population of the subcontinent compared to Europe that he himself has argued for (and which seems to fit in general), we see that where the Aryans were expanding into sparsely populated Europe, their language took root, while in densely populated India, the predecessor languages survived, the more so the further away from the GENERAL locus of the invasion, north (not necessarilly northwest; if we want to situate the point of origin of the Aryans as far east as Panjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, that doesn’t seem to affect the ‘essence’ of AIT.

If we go with his proposed model of the outward expansion of a 5000+yr-old Indus civ, we would expect their language to be evenly dispersed around its Indus valley epicenter, rather than only in the less pop areas.

another, epiphenomenal problem with the 4.1.1 section is that out of nowhere, he starts talking about the color of people’s skin, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes this a political issue, and yet he casually throws it in there with the drier issue of linguistics:

“And just like a dominant Spanish minority managed to make its own language the mother-tongue of much larger populations which are genetically predominantly Native American, so also the slightly darker emigrants from India may have passed on their language to the white people of Russia and Europe.”

All of this was written before looking at the link provided by Karma Dude; I will do that tomorrow, for now, gotta run.

Dan W, there is plenty of information out there on this whole debate. The points you have raised, have been raised before, and debated over and over.

The sad part is, most of this comes from either lack of information or misinformation. Here is a simple resource on facts about the archeological side of Ancient Indus Valley civilization

Invasion of the Bread People is a funny example of: to what extent people will go to debate this issue,

As for language, I am not an expert on Sanskrit, but the more I learn about it, the more it looks like a language made for a purpose. One event that really got me curious about Sanksrit, was when I was in college. I had a friend from Indonesia, and I was really surprised that I could kind of understand his language, because it had it’s roots in Sanskrit. I am from south India, and speak a Dravidian language, but even Malayalam has so much Sanskrit influence, that I am skeptical when someone claims that they can clearly make distinctions between Sanskrit and the Dravidian languages.

The funny part is, Robert Caldwell coined the term “Dravidian” from the Sanskrit dravida. I wonder if being a bishop had something to do with all this I am glad he did not find the word Asura instead. You know, we do worship asura’s in the south. The famous story of Mahabali is a good example of the less discussed Asuras of south India. What is even more interesting is the fact that the dravidian asuras are interpreted as being barbaric and demonic!!

The point I am trying to make is, there is a whole lot of information out there, and everything does not seem to fit in the little AIT box. So instead of starting with AIT, start with all the pieces of the puzzle, try putting it together, and then if it looks like AIT, then kudos to Max Muller for getting it right. If not, then atleast we know the TRUTH, and for me, that’s all it’s about. Like Rabindranath Tagore once said, “Facts are many, but truth is one”

It seems to me that a key part of the problem is defining what is included under the term ‘AIT’.

If this is taken to mean that there was no culture in the Indus valley more sophisticated than sticks and stones prior to an invasion of Swedish-looking people from the Caucasus or even further west, then it is clearly false.

If, on the other hand, ‘AIT’ is simply taken to mean that there was a people speaking proto-Indo-Aryan/Iranian/European that ‘originated’ somewhere in the mountains between the Hindu Kush and Turkey, and that these people spread their language, one way or another, from India to Ireland, then it is clearly true.

Instead of being beguiled into the false dilemma of either accepting AIT ‘in toto’ or rejecting in ‘in toto’, it seems to me that the task is rather to find the correct position between these 2 extremes.

In the same vein, If AIT is by definition only suported by speculations about ancient religious texts, then it is on shaky ground, although not necessarilly patently false. But at the very least, AIT is also based on linguistic data, which helps shore it up a bit.

re:
“Well, I don’t think it takes much to realize that AIT is all about race. Do white Europeans what to be known as decendants of brown Indians, or brown Indians want to be known as decendants of white Europeans?”:

If both parents are ‘white’, their children will be ‘white’. Likewise for any ‘race’. What is really at issue here would seem to be that modern-day Indians,like (almost?)all populations, are the product of ‘miscegenation’ at some level, whether this be ‘intraracial’ or ‘interracial’.
Again, I don’t see what the problem is or why anyone would not would not “want to be known as the descendents” of such a mixture.

Under any reasonable interpretation, AIT is not saying that Europeans descended from Indians or vice versa, but that there was a population that contibuted to some extent to the genetic composition of both groups,or at the very least to the languages of both groups, with many exceptions in both cases (Finnish, Hungarian, and of course the Dravidian languages). In Europe, in at least some cases, these ‘Aryans’ mixed with some pre-existing European peoples (e.g. Greece)[does Greece also have an AIT debate'?] There is the possibility that in some other cases, the Aryans were the first ones there. Likewise, in India, they mixed with the Dravididans, and possibly with some pre-Dravidian people.

Is that the concern? that some people might be much more ‘purely’ Aryan than others? Why would this be a problem? Because the Aryans ‘proved’ their ’superiority’ by invading other peoples’ territory 3000 Yrs ago? That seems silly. Peoples go through cycles of barbarism, civilization and decay all the time. Different peoples are superior in different ways at different times throughout their history. The barbarians are often better in war because of a bellicose, aggressive culture, while they might be inferior in terms of things like literature,architecture, painting, etc. And then they become civilized, become less aggressive and more sophistacated, and the cycle is repeated.

re:
“If vedic culture could spread east and south, as far as Bali and Fiji, why could it not have spread to the west? “:

It seems quite clear that to the extent that Vedic culture = Aryan culture,it DID in fact spread westward. Even if we accept the western-most suggested point of origin for the Aryan/Proto-Iranian-Indo Europeans, it would still have had to have spread from there to Ireland and Spain and sundry points in between. If we situate this point of origin further east, in Persia/Iran or the Hindu Kush, that would indicate that much more westward movement.

The bottom line is that instead of simply asserting the falseness of AIT as a whole, it would be more helpful if people made it clear which specific aspects of it that they are rejecting.

PS
(All of this was written before looking at the link provided by Karma Dude; I will do that tomorrow, for now, gotta run.)