The second part of this four part series traces the history of Aryans and Dravidians and checks their antecedents in the subcontinent based on historical and scientific proof.
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Read Part 1 here.
A little bit into the podcast and J. Sai Deepak talks very briefly about certain theories which he claims that the Justice Party latches on in order to succeed on the basis of its anti-Brahmin plank.
This topic is discussed for hardly a few minutes in the interview but if it is not explained in detail with substantial facts and scientific evidence, it has the potential to change the narrative of history.
Part two of this reply series shall delve into these ‘theories’ and analyse them with documented pieces of research and literature.
The Aryan–Dravidian Theory
Throughout history, there has existed much debate and contention about who were the original natives of our land, whether it was Aryans or Dravidians. One view states that Aryans were the native tribes of our land and their Vedic civilisation is nothing but the continuity of the Harappan civilisation.
This view also claims that the civilisation of Aryans developed out of the ‘mythical’ Saraswati river, and is called the Indus–Saraswati civilisation.
The University Grants Commission, which has only issued general guidelines in the past, acknowledged this view and introduced it in the history syllabus for undergraduates for the first time in its draft Learning Outcome-based Curriculum Framework.
The other view states that Aryans were a bunch of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists from the East European Steppes who migrated into the Indian subcontinent at the end of the Harappan civilisation. This view also holds that the influx of Aryans was heavily resisted by the indigenous population of the land and ultimately led to the decline of the Harappan civilisation.
When faced with a conundrum like this, it is imperative for us to probe into literature that suggests and supports both of these theories and arrives at a conclusion strongly backed by factual and scientific evidence. Before that, let us look at certain excerpts from the oldest text of the Hindu religion, i.e, the Rig Veda itself, to understand what it says about the Vedic civilisation.
One view states that Aryans were the native tribes of our land and their Vedic civilisation is nothing but the continuity of the Harappan civilisation.
The meaning of the term ‘Aryan’, as attributed by the hymns of the Rig Veda, is people of a noble race and those who belong to the land of Aryavarta. The Rig Veda tells us that Aryans worshipped Indra as their deity along with other deities such as Soma, Yama and Varuna. It also tells us that Aryans did not believe in idol worship and they worshipped Agni (Fire) through which they performed yajnas.
The Rig Veda does not contain any information about Aryans living in well planned cities or towns, it can be only inferred that they lived in wooden or mud huts with thatched roofs made of bamboo or straws.
According to the hymns of the Rig Veda, it can be inferred that there existed a long-drawn battle between Aryans and Anaryans (non-Aryans), also known as Dasas or Dasyus, who did not belong to the Aryan race. The Rig Veda describes the Anaryans as, avrata (who doesn’t observe religious rites or obligations), anyavrata (infidel), ayajna (not offering sacrifices), anāsa (noseless), adevayu (irreligious), krsnatvac (dark skinned), mṛdhravāc (speaking a strange language), amongst other names.
The Vedas also mention that Aryans called Dasyus as Śiśnadeva, meaning, the people who worshipped the phallus for a deity. The text also talks about the well established cities with forts in which Dasyus lived. In the battle that ensued between these two races, Aryans caused the destruction of some of the cities and the fortresses of Dasyus and it was mainly done to acquire and amass the wealth that they possessed and to free waters in the rivers.
A very simple reading into these brief descriptions would tell us that even the undisputed oldest text of Hinduism talks about the existence of two different races with significantly distinct cultural practices during the so called Vedic period.
The usual rebuttal to such an analysis would be that the translations of the Vedic text has been misinterpreted or the essence of the symbolism of the text has been lost in the process of translation.
Taking that into account, it is important for us to see the analysis and the interpretation of the Vedic texts by renowned historians based on their scholarly study of the literature.
Also read: The right to religion and the Shudra predicament – The Leaflet
D.D. Kosambi, argues with compelling evidence that Aryans were nomadic pastoralists whose origins can be tracked to the northern regions of Eurasia, who according to him “invaded” the Indus Valley civilisation. He acknowledges the view that the pre-Aryan Indus Valley civilisation housed non-Aryan groups who were a fixed class of traders and the invasion of Aryans broke the static tradition of non-Aryans.
He also says that non-Aryans constructed dams across the rivers for the purposes of flood irrigation for their crops and this led to swampy lands which restricted the grazing of Aryan cattle herds.
Citing mythological and metaphorical references such as the battle between the Aryan God Indra and the serpent Vritra (meaning obstruction to passage) to free the river waters, he says that Aryans demolished these dams, which ultimately led to the decline of the Indus civilisation. He talks about the commonality between the languages of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek and calls them classical Aryan languages.
He also says that the modern Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali etc., were derivatives of Sanskrit and it is significantly distinct from the non-Aryan languages of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Tulu, etc.
Romila Thapar, who Deepak feels should be sent out of the country and never allowed to return, says that the Vedic society was divided into two main groups, i.e., Arya Varna and Dasya Varna, which is nothing but an “us” vs “them” scenario in which political success justified the superiority of the former over the latter.
She also says that Dasyus spoke a language alien to Aryans and they did not follow either the rituals or the laws of Aryans, which according to them made Dasyus impure, hence they were also called mlecchas by Aryans. She says that this distinction based on ritual purity led to the rise of the dichotomy of the pure and the impure which laid the foundation for the feud between Aryans and Dasyus.
The Rig Veda does not contain any information about Aryans living in well planned cities or towns, it can be only inferred that they lived in wooden or mud huts with thatched roofs made of bamboo or straws.
N.C. Chaudhury states that the incoming tall, white-skinned, oval-shaped and straight-nosed Aryans faced stubborn resistance from the short-statured, black-skinned, snub-nosed and flat-faced people whom they called Dasyus. He also suggests that the Indus Valley people belonged to a distinct race who worshipped the image of Siva and lingam who later introduced it in South India and are perhaps the ancestors of Dravidians.
Also read: The Dravidian remedy to the inequities of Hindutva – The Leaflet
Benjamin Walker states that the term Anarya in Vedic texts refers to the name given by Aryans to the aboriginal and native people of the land whom they felt were inferior to the noble Aryans and inhabited India during the time of the Aryan invasion. He also says that Anaryans were highly civilised with advanced national groups, and they had their own religious system and their own dynasties of kings and highly organised governments, “based on a long established tradition of literate urban culture.”
He also says that despite their advancement, they were conquered and enslaved by Aryans because of the prejudice against them. He adds that non-Aryans were phallus-worshippers and venerated Siva, Sakti, the snake, bull, stone and even some features of Krishna and Vishnu which were later absorbed by Aryans into their religion.
The views of these scholars might be criticised by Deepak as colonialist, missionary, anti-Bharat or by using any other adjective attacking their identity instead of their work. So, let us consider the scientific and archeological evidence that we have at our disposal to have some evidence-based clarity on this subject.
Research-based studies on the Y chromosome haplogroup suggests that some of the social groups spread across India share common genetic ancestral lineage —the R1a1a— haplogroup with Eastern Europeans. Another genetics-based research shows that most ethno-linguistic groups in India arose from the mixture of two divergent ancestral populations of which one is related to Western Eurasians.
The recent 2019 findings from Rakhigarhi suggests that the DNA samples taken from the skeleton of a woman dated approximately between 2,600–1,900 BCE (the Vedic period starts from 1,500 BCE) does not exhibit any detectable ancestry from the Steppe pastoralists. This means that the Harappan civilisation that existed before the timeline of the Vedic civilisation showed no genetic material to suggest the indigenous existence of the Aryans from the pre-Vedic period.
The team of experts and Vasant Shinde who led this research, in a turn of events, held a press conference in September 2019 in which they stated that their research does not support the Aryan invasion or migration theory and they were trying to disprove the same.
Interestingly, the co-authors of the paper share a contradicting opinion to Shinde’s views and say that they do not agree that the Indus Valley people were the same as the Vedic people. Later, Shinde also explained his point by saying “the research does not point to any migration but a movement of a people.”
D.D. Kosambi, argues with compelling evidence that Aryans were nomadic pastoralists whose origins can be tracked to the northern regions of Eurasia, who according to him “invaded” the Indus Valley civilisation.
In order to get some clarity on these contrasting viewpoints, it is essential to look into the subject matter of the research findings. According to the abstract of one of the papers in which they sequenced 523 ancient humans, it is established that the people of the Indus Valley civilisation, after its decline, mixed with the individuals of Southeast Asia to form one of the two main ancestral populations of South Asia, the descendants of which live in South India.
It also says that Indus Valley people mixed with the descendents of Steppe pastoralists who spread from Central Asia and formed the other main ancestral population of South Asia. It further adds that the “Steppe ancestry in South Asia has the same profile as that in Bronze Age Eastern Europe, tracking a movement of people that affected both regions.”
This study clears the air surrounding the Aryan migration theory and the contradicting stands of the authors of the paper. It proves that there indeed was a gradual influx of the European Steppes into Central Asia and they subsequently intermixed with the population of the Indus Valley civilisation post its decline and not before that.
All the empirical data mentioned above suggests that the early Indus Valley civilisation predates the Vedic period and had an indigenous population without any foreign ancestry. It is at this juncture that we have to look at the ongoing excavations taking place in Keezhadi, a town in Madurai located on the banks of the Vaigai river in Tamil Nadu.
The first phase of the excavations in 2015 by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) revealed that there existed complex urban settlements with drainage systems similar to the well developed cities of the Indus Valley civilisation.
Controversies started surrounding this project in 2017 when the Union government suspended the excavation project citing lack of funds followed immediately by the transfer of the head of the project Amarnath Ramakrishnan. The political parties in Tamil Nadu accused the Union government of disrupting the project for the findings showed the existence of an advanced and secular Tamil civilisation independent of the Vedic period.
The project resumed its operations in 2017 in its third phase. However, the ASI announced that the research did not yield any significant findings which resulted in a public interest litigation before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.
The court ordered the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archeology (TNDSA) to take over the project from the ASI. The fourth phase of the excavation carried out by the TDSA unearthed significant findings that linked the early civilisations of Tamil Nadu with that of the Indus Valley civilisation. The findings unearthed around 15,000 artefacts which dated back to 580 BCE with graffiti marks similar to that of the Indus script.
It is also to be noted that none of the artefacts contained any symbols of religious nature like those of the Vedic civilisation. The report of the TNSDA also throws light on the Sangam era of the Tamils and the presence of the Brahmi script (subject of the next article).
Romila Thapar, who Deepak feels should be sent out of the country and never allowed to return, says that the Vedic society was divided into two main groups, i.e., Arya Varna and Dasya Varna, which is nothing but an “us” vs “them” scenario in which political success justified the superiority of the former over the latter.
Also read: Artwork in the Constitution — myriad interpretations
So far, eight phases of the excavation have been conducted at Keezhadi through which more of such significant artefacts and evidence have been unearthed and archeologists suggest that these findings would enlighten us more about the early Tamil civilisations.
Conclusion
Thus, a cumulative reading of the available literary, scholarly, scientific and archeological sources clearly tells us that the Indus Valley civilisation was the earliest civilisation in our country with advanced and complex urban settlements dating back to 5,000 BCE and its people belonged to an indigenous population.
The people of Indus Valley spoke a different language and had different racial features and cultural practices from Aryans. Aryans were genetically distinct Eurasian Steppe pastoralist nomads who migrated into the Indian subcontinent and fought the indigenous population of the land, destroying their resources and cities which ultimately led to the decline of the Harappan civilisation.
It also tells us that the early civilisations of Tamil Nadu share commonality with the early Indus Valley people, including their language, racial features and cultural practices, which provides compelling evidence that the Indus Valley people belonged to the Dravidian race as opposed to Aryans.
The first phase of the excavations in 2015 by the Archeological Survey of India revealed that there existed complex urban settlements with drainage systems similar to the well developed cities of the Indus Valley civilisation.
Deepak might refute all of the data mentioned above and continue to retain his beliefs on the natives of our country. However, as the citizens of a country which was the first and only to introduce scientific temper in its Constitution through an amendment, it is essential and necessary for us to understand the essence of Article 51A(h) of our Constitution which tells us that it shall be the fundamental duty of every citizen to develop scientific temper, humanism, the spirit of inquiry and reform.
Hence, as Indians, it is our duty to amend our views based on scientific evidence and to inculcate the habit of inquiring into beliefs to find the truth and reform false narratives, because that is what makes us humane.
