The Controversial Aryans
The Indus Valley culture began to decline
around 1800 BC, due possibly to flooding or drought. Until recently, it was
held that the Aryans (an Indo-European culture whose name comes from the
Sanskrit for "noble" invaded India and Iran at this time. According
to this hypothesis, both the Sanskrit language and the Vedic religion
foundational to Hinduism is attributable to the Aryans and their descendants.
The original inhabitants of the Indus Valley are thought to have had a
Dravidian language and culture, which became subordinate to that of the
invading peoples.
Proponents of this hypothesis point to
similarities between Zoroastrianism (the ancient religion of Iran) and the Vedic
religion of ancient India, as well as similar finds in ancient cemeteries in
modern-day India and Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In addition, no trace of horses
or chariots has been found in the remains of the Indus Valley culture, but was
central to Aryan military and ritual life. Since
the 1980s, this "Aryan Invasion" hypothesis has been strongly
challenged as a myth propagated by colonial scholars who sought to reinforce
the idea that anything valuable in India must have come from elsewhere. Critics
of the hypothesis note that there is lack of evidence of any conquest, among
other historical and archaeological problems.
One alternative hypothesis is explained
as follows:
Between about 2000 and 1500 BCE not an
invasion but a continuing spread of Indo-Aryan speakers occurred, carrying them
much farther into India, to the east and south, and coinciding with a growing
cultural interaction between the native population and the new arrivals. From
these processes a new cultural synthesis emerged, giving rise by the end of the
2nd millennium to the conscious expressions of Aryan ethnicity found in the
Rig-Veda, particularly in the later hymns.
The 19th-century Aryan Invasion theory has generally been abandoned as inaccurate, but most scholars do not reject the notion of some outside influence on the Indus Valley civilization. For many, it is a political issue as well as a historical one, with the original theory is regarded as racist and offensive.
The 19th-century Aryan Invasion theory has generally been abandoned as inaccurate, but most scholars do not reject the notion of some outside influence on the Indus Valley civilization. For many, it is a political issue as well as a historical one, with the original theory is regarded as racist and offensive.
