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| Photo: Tweeted by Union minister Dr Harsh Vardhan |
I will begin this write-up with a story. Most of us have heard this at some point of time in our growing up years. It is called The Blind Men's Elephant. They could have been blind men only, not women.
Why?
Women are genetically predisposed to see a larger or complete picture. They have that extra full X chromosome. One may say that they may not use their genetic predisposition to their advantage. Men have a largely empty Y chromosome instead. Emptiness creates louder sound.
There is another explanation to this genetics. Since women have their 'octane' [those who still remember chemistry classes would understand easily], they stay like inert gases, going about the motion. Men, however, set out to seek something to fill their genetic emptiness.
I believe if blind women were to find out what an elephant look like, they would simply have asked someone who could see and settled in their chair peacefully. This explains why those Blind Men set out to explore what an elephant could be like.
The story is ancient and finds mention in one of the Upanishads. Since it finds mention there, the story must have been in popular or folk culture in an older period. The story goes like this.
HISTORY: BLIND MEN'S ELEPHANT
The blind men take turns to explore the elephant. The first man finds its trunk and reports that elephant is a snake-like animal with no bones [of contention]. The second man goes and gets hold of its tail to guess that an elephant is a rope-like animal with loose hair at the end.
The next one finds its tusk and returns impressed. He says that an elephant is like a strong stick with pointed end that could be used as a multi-purpose weapon. The fourth man was taller than others and meets one of its ears. He reports that an elephant is a winnowing basket-like animal that keeps waving like a hand-fan.
The fifth man was short and finds its leg. He declares elephant to be a pillar, very strong. The last man runs into the stomach of the elephant and concludes that an elephant must be like a wall.
Reconstruction of history has been a game played by historians of ideologies mirroring in effect the exploration of the Blind Men.
This longish prelude seemed necessary to me to put the Aryan question in perspective.
Aryan is an English word for Sanskrit's Arya. Who is an Arya?
PEOPLE FROM URALS-KAZAKHSTAN
Form whatever I have read, I say nobody knows the answer with certainty. Part of the problem lies in the lack of certainty about the origin of Sanskrit. It is part of the Indo-European language family. The most dominant theory is that proto-Sanskrit evolved in southern Urals-Kazakhstan where tribes identifying themselves as Aryans lived.
They migrated to India-AfPak region where Sanskrit developed into the language of oldest literature. While Sanskrit essentially has an Indian identity today, the first stone inscription in Sanskrit has been found from Syria.
THE MITTANI'S SYRIA DIVERSION
The Mittani people, who spoke a different unrelated Hurrian language, worshiped Rig Vedic gods and had Sanskrit names. All Mittani kings are said to have had Sanskrit names. A Mittani king signed a treaty in 1380 BC with another kingdom and gods such as Indra, Mitra and Varun were witnesses. This timeline is placed within the Aryan period in Indian subcontinent.
This theory has been challenged by some researchers and analysts, who dismiss the Aryan migration theory that propounds movement of these tribes from Central Asia to India. Also, having a Sanskrit inscription in Syria could also mean that the dominating party was Sanskrit-speaking Aryans form the east.
Another problem of this model of history is that it places Old Persian of Avesta Gatha before Old Sanskrit of Rig Ved in a manner to suggest that Sanskrit emerged from that language or a prototype of the same family. A video representation showing Old Persian's sphere showing the way to Sanskrit has been in wide circulation and could be easily found on YouTube or some other social media platform.
FINDING ARYAN COORDINATES
Those who challenge the Aryan migration theory offer a range of arguments, most of which are not backed by irrefutable archaeological evidence or literary proof.
One such proponent is Navratna S Rajaram. He wrote two books on this question: Aryan Invasion of India in 1993 and The Politics of History in 1995. I first read his theory in an article published in The Hindu in 2000.
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| Article by NS Rajaram in The Hindu, 2000 |
Titled, "Looking beyond the Aryan invasion", Rajaram rejected the Aryan migration theory proposed by European writers, researchers and scholars in the 19th century, and consolidated by most mainstream history professors by aligning evidence to the theory.
Reading Rajaram, it appears that he questions the premise that the European proponents of the Aryan migration theory were unbiased. His skepticism can't be discarded just like that. Though, his critics have done so. A European can take pride in finding that the pure Aryan race came from their land to India to produce the greatest literature of ancient world.
Secondly, this could have supported the European idea that Indian needed to be civilised as they needed many millennia ago. It is the Europeans who popularised the idea that there was a Hindu India that was vanquished by a stream of Islamic conquerors. But Rajaram's rejection can't be accepted either without putting it to test.
LITERATE BUT NO LITERATURE, ILLITERATE WITH GREAT LITERATURE
Rajaram throws open a question that needs deeper digging for an accurate answer. He writes in The Hindu article: "the Harappans, the creators of one of the greatest material civilisations of antiquity have no literature, while the Vedic Aryans were said to be illiterate who depended on memory for preserving their literature. And, yet it is the literature of the illiterate Aryans that has survived in abundance while the literate Harappans have vanished without a literary trace."
Clearly, he is seeking to establish deeper connection between the Indus people and the Aryan people to extent of breaking the European-established dichotomy between the two. Is it not possible that the stream of historians played the six Blind Men failing to picture the elephant [in the room] as one complete entity?
BONES OF CONTENTION
Rajaram cites paleontology-biological evidence to back his claim of the Europeans' Aryan migration theory. He cites some research to says that the Indian cattle (Bos indicus) closer to the wild cattle of South-East Asia known as Banteng (Bos banteng or Bos javanicus).
He also cites the example of India horse describing it "a special breed". He says it was closer to an ancient horse, known as the Siwalik Horse. He quotes Rig Ved to say that the literature says the Vedic horse had 34 ribs just like the Siwalik horse while the Central Asian horse had 36 ribs.
This example establishes that the Aryan, the horse-riding stock, did not come from Central Asia, Rajaram stresses in the article. If at all, ancient humans came crossed the Indian Ocean to arrive in South or South-East Asian islands from eastern Africa and took the Aryan characteristics in India over several millennia.
But if the Aryan migration theory is not foolproof, Rajaram's is yet to be tested before it could be mainstreamed.
DISDAIN FOR OBJECTION
Rajaram's theory was slammed brutally by JNU's Shereen Ratnagar in a seven-page Frontline article in 1996. Ratnagar virtually shredded the two books by Rajaram in to historical pieces. Archaeologist Ratnagar said Rajaram's basic premise that the Aryan theory was about invasion of India was grossly inaccurate perception. She also dismissed Rajaram's suggestion that Rig Vedic age ends by 3700 BC.
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| Shereen Ratnagar dismissing NS Rajaram's theory in Frontline artilce, 1996 |
She questioned Rajaram's assertion that a 'Vedic' brass head was of sage Vashistha arguing that the technology of zinc smelting with copper was not developed till 100 BC in India. Placing such an object in the fourth millennium BC would be "nonsense", she said.
Ratnagar contends that Rajaram does not understand linguistics, the social science of phonology and semantics. She rejects the suggestion that the Aryan movement happened from Down South to the North where Vedas were finally composed. Attempting to coach Rajaram in linguistics, she says Sanskrit and Dravidian languages were from two different families.
BUT, RAJARAM IS NOT TOTALLY OUT
She, however, comes closer to Rajaram's suggestion when she says that Indo-Aryan languages (such as Sanskrit) are "unique in having retroflex consonants like t, th, d, dh, n that clearly derive from Dravidian" languages.
Shereen Ratnagar also referred to horse example saying that the Mittanis could not have introduced Indian horses into Syria and that their horses were from the steppes of Central Asia.
Writing four years after Shereen Ratnagar's Frontline article, Rajaram in his The Hindu article cited the Siwalik horse example. The debate is still not settled and needs more scholarship.
So, we have no idea who the Arya was?
THAT ARYAN GIRL DESERVES AN I-CARD
What we can assume is that Arya refers to someone civilised in manner, intellect and practice. It might not well be about a stock of people or a group of tribes, certainly not colour or race. There could have been an Arya and an Anarya in the same family. We don't know. There is a reference about man, wife and his son belonging to different varna in Vedic literature. Arya could be similar to varna and equally misunderstood over three millennia.
My untrained brain throws up a Sanskrit word, Ari meaning enemy. Did this word have any relation to Arya?
