Vedic religion

While we have already discussed the religious elements found in the excavations at the Indus-Ghaggar sites, it would be equally important to see what the Vedic religion was and whether we find any traces of it in the IVC. We will discuss the religious concepts of the Rig Veda that later on evolved philosophically and ritualistically in the later period of Brahmanas. It is obvious from the mention of the first word “Agni” in the first hymn of the Rig Veda that the Vedic rituals were fire (Agni) centric. Yajnya (fire sacrifice) and the various offerings through it to the abstract Vedic gods is the only medium to link human beings with the divine. Vedic ritual also prominently includes Soma (an intoxicating herb or ephedra) ritual.  

Indra is a major deity and about a quarter part of the Rig Veda is dedicated to the praise of Indra. He is demon slayer (like Vrutra), destroyer of the fortified cities of the enemy, a warrior himself helping Sudasa clan to win the wars, his favorite weapon is thunderbolt (vajra), he is destroyers of the dams and he is the king. (RV 8.48)  

Following the Soma (deified ephedrine drink), other major God is the Varuna. Varuna, on many occasions, has been coupled with Mitra as “Mitra-Varuna”. Varuna is the protector of truth and morality, god of the high-arched sky and ocean. Varuna’s main epithet in the Rig Veda is Asura. Mitra personifies the agreement or contract and he sustains earth and heaven. (RV 7.87, 3.59). Nasatya, Prajapati, Vishnu etc. are others include almost 645 gods from the Rig Vedic pantheon.  

Female deities are almost absent from the Rig Veda, except for deification of some natural elements. The female deities include Aditi (mother of Adityas), Ratri (nights), Prithvi (Earth), Sarasvati (the river), Ushas (Dawn) and Vac (speech). Aditi gets more importance and is associated with Adityas as their mother. However, according to Griffith, the name Aditi is used in the Rig Veda in different contexts such as a female goddess, a name of the earth, another name of Agni and even as a name of the male god. (The Rig Veda, by Ralph T.H. Griffith) Mostly, Aditi is depicted as the mother of Adityas and has a minor role to perform. It is often suggested by scholars that the Vedic people were patriarchal treating women as a better half, subordinate to male. 

All the offerings were made through the fire ritual, yajnya, to praise the gods. Thus, the sacred fire altar attained such prominence that, even its construction and dismantling became a sacred ritual in later times, such as in Agnichyayana. However, except for this construction of the sacred fire altar we do not find any reference to the idol worship.  Rather idolatry appears to be prohibited in the Vedic religion. “Na tasya Pratima asti” (There is no image of Him.) [Yajurveda 32:3]. The word “Pratima” has been interpreted by some as symbol, claiming that the symbolism is abundantly present in Rig Veda, such as of “Purusha” in Purushsukta. However, symbolism does not mean “Pratima” (image, embodiment) that always is artificial and a human creation. The God has no image because to Vedics He is formless and is to be worshiped through the oblations in sacred fire while chanting the praises of Him in systematic order was the way the Vedic rituals were conducted. Looking at the Rig Vedic hymns those were specifically meant for the fire-centric rituals and total absence of any reference to the idol worship, it is hard to infer that the Vedic people were ever idol worshipers. 

The Rig Veda also does not mention anywhere that the Vedic’s were phallic or feminine organ worshipers. There is not a single verse in praise of these sex organs. This does not mean that they did not know the people who were phallic worshipers. The Rig Veda seems completely hostile against the people worshiping “shisnadeva” (Phallic God.) 

“na yātava indra jūjuvurno na vandanā śaviṣṭha vedyābhiḥ |
sa śardhadaryo viṣuṇasya jantormā śiśnadevā api ghurtaṃ naḥ ||”(RV 7.21.5)

Translation:

"None of (ná) the demonic spirits (yātáva) [who] do not (ná) worship (vándanā) [you] with knowledge (vedyā́bhiḥ), Oh most-mighty (śaviṣṭha) Indra (indra), have pressed forwards (jūjuvurno) [against] us (no). May that (sá) excellent one (aryo) triumph over (ṇasya) the defiant ones (śardhat) in both directions (víṣu); also (api), may the children (jantór) of the phallic gods (śiśnádevā) not (mā́) go after (gur) our (naḥ) lawful work (ṛtáṃ)."

sa vājaṃ yātāpaduṣpadā yan svarṣātā pari ṣadatsaniṣyan |
anarvā yacchatadurasya vedo ghnañchiśnadevānabhi varpasā bhūt || (RV 10.99.3)

Horace Hayman Wilson translates it as follows:

“Going to the battle, marching with easy gait, desiring the spoil, he set himself to the acquisition of all (wealth). Invincible, destroying the phallus- worshippers, he won by his prowess whatever wealth (was concealed in the city) with the hundred gates.”

Both these verses clearly speak about the people those were engaged in phallic worship and resided in the fortified cities, were bitter opponents and sometimes enemies of the Vedic people. Some scholars have attempted to translate “shisnadeva” as unchaste, lewd (Griffith), vulgar or licentious deities. However, close examination of both the verses reveals that the verse 7.21.5 speaks about “yatava”, those follow occult practices, as well. In addition, it refers to the people who do not respect or practice Vedas and who are the children of the Shisnadeva. Verse 10.99.3 clearly speaks about destruction of the city of hundred gates belonging to shisnadevan (Phallus worshippers). It also makes it clear that the Vedic people closely knew the phallic worshiping civilization and had had some skirmishes with them.  Translating “shisnadeva” as unchaste, lewd, vulgar or licentious deities is meaningless and shows prejudice of the scholars. However, it would be important to see how Nirukta of Yaska interprets the verse 7.21.5.  

”May he, the noble one, defy the manifold creatures, let phallus worshippers not penetrate our sanctuary. May he overpower them, i.e. the manifold creatures who are hostile to us. Let the phallus worshippers, i.e. the unchaste Sisna (phallus) is derived from (the root) snath (to pierce) not approach our sanctuary, i. e. our truth, or sacrifice.”-Nirukta 4.19 (The Nighantu & The Nirukta, The oldest Indian Treaties on Etymology, Philology, and semantics. By Laxman saroop, Motilal Banarasidas, New Delhi, Second reprint 1967) 

Yaska catches on what both the verses clearly indicate - phallic worshippers to whom the Vedics were hostile and did not desire to have them come close to their society. Calling phallic worship “unchaste” is the point of the view of the outsider observers and not of the people who knew ethos of it.  

Even if we overlook the exaggerations or misinterpretation about phallic worship of the poets of the verses, it makes clear that the Vedic people were not the phallic worshipers of any kind. Moreover, there was hostility between the Vedics and the phallic worshipers. It is uncertain whether these phallic worshipers Rig Veda talks about belonged to IVC or to some other civilization because the phallic worship was practiced in other regions on the globe as well in ancient times. 

“This worship was so general as to have spread itself over a large part of the habitable globe; for it flourished for many ages in Egypt and Syria, Persia, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy; it was and is vigor in India and many parts of Africa, and was found in America on its discovery by the Spaniards.”  (“Ancient Symbol Worship: Influence of the Phallic Idea in the Religions of Antiquity” by Hodder Michael Westropp and Charles Staniland Wake, 1875, page 21). 

The phallic worship was divine enough to connect human with the Lord creator, the authors further clarifies. Hence, we cannot ascribe any specific region or human society to have it introduced first but it could have been rather an independent phenomenon. Vedic verses could be talking about the phallic worshipers of Persia or India, to which is not certain from the Vedic verses. 

That the Indus society worshiped male and female sexual organs and their personified deification is clear and undeniable from the excavated finds at the IVC. It is clear from the Rig Vedic texts that the Vedic people had organized their religion around the fire sacrifices and worshiped abstract deities.  There is no slightest indication that the both societies shared anything, even if in every possibility they knew each other. Both the societies had different faiths, which clashed with each other. ‘The Phallus cult has no place in Vedic rituals. The God Phallus (Shisna Deva) is however mentioned in Rig Veda (7.21.5, 10.99.3) as well as in Nirukta (4.29) but its worship is banned.” Thus states Alain Daniélou. (The Phallus: Sacred Symbol of Male Creative Power by Alain Daniélou, 1995) There is no reference to the Yoga either in Rig Veda. 

Rig Veda also refers to the ayajju, ayajvan, (those do not perform fire sacrifice), anindra (Those who do not have god like Indra) anyavrata (Having different religious rites) etc. indicating how their religion was set around fire sacrifice and how they distinguished other societies they came across. 

Associating Vedic culture with the IVC is thus becomes seriously problematic to the overenthusiastic Vedicist scholars.  

Shudra’s real identity!

Since the term has been too controversial, causing irreparable damage to the Indian society and outrage for its use in derogatory manner aimed for social suppression, indicating lowest status of the larger population of India since long time, we need to have a brief look at the reality.  

The most importantly word ‘Shudra’ appears in the only hymn, Purusha Sukta, which otherwise is completely absent from Rig Veda. Many attempts have been made by various scholars to find the real meaning of the Shudra and who were they. The people Dasa, Dasyus have been mentioned many a times in Rig Veda, though contemptuously for their different faith. But Purusha Sukta mentions, instead of Dasa-Dasyus, the Shudras, as name of a class of the people, that too in a hymn that has been proven to be a later composition.

Suprisingly in later Vedic texts the term Dasa and Dasyus (equivalent to Iranian Daha, Dahyu), used in Vedas for the people, goes on vanishing and remains just as a suffix of the personal names or denotes the servants. They, Dasa/Dasyus, no longer remains to be a set of the people, whether rival or not. Rather while speaking of fourth section of the society, the people other than Vedics, the term Shudras have been applied in the Purushasukta. 

The sudden shift in the terminology, assigned for the class of the people clearly means that the Vedic had come across the new set of the people and needed a new term to address them. It also is clear that the Dasa/Dasyu people were left far behind by the time of this hymn was composed. Rather appearance of the term Shudra for people is in itself a proof that the Vedic geography had changed from Afghanistan to India.

This also is evident because, we should note here that, the term “Shudra” or its equivalent is not present in Avesta at all. What we find is Daha – Dahyu, equivalent to Dasa and Dasyus, in Avesta applied to the people of the land or compatriots. To Rig Veda they are the people those adhere to the different faiths and thus were enemies. It would appear the term Shudra has been emerged from nowhere which have no meaning whatsoever! This sure creates a problem for the proponents of Indigenous Aryan Theory as well. 

Also, let us not forget here that the term Shudra have no etymology, neither in so-called IE languages or Dravidian languages. R. K. Pruthi suggests that perhaps Shudra was originally the name of non-Aryan tribe. (Indian Caste System, edited by R.K. Pruthi, Discovery Publishing House, 2004, page 72) It may surprise us why then this tribe never came across the Vedic people to make its slightest mention in whole bulk of Rig Veda except for Purushsukta where suddenly it forms a major part of the society? 

Rajwade suggests that the people those were taken in the personal service by the victorious Aryans were called as Shudras. According to him, the term was later applied to those all who were out of three Varnas. (Radhamadhav Vilas Champu, Preface, Edited by Vi. Ka. Rajwade, Sarita Prakashan, reprint2014, page 130-31)

Bhandarakar opines that the Shudras could be a tribe but afterwards came to signify anybody who was not a full-fledged Arya or a foreigner who has been partially assimilated by Arya culture. He further states that, from Sutras Shudra denotes a person other than the member of three Varnas, i.e. Brahmina, Kshatriya and Vaishya.  (Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture, By D. R. Bhandarkar, 1989, page 12) Interestingly the term “Varna” for class too is new Vedic innovation because it is absent from Avestan scripts! 

If removed Aryan and replaced with Vedic, it will be clear from above opinions of the scholars that those all who were not Dasas or Dasyus or Vedics, those all lived in the Indian subcontinent, practiced different religion, were Shudras for the Vedic people. The fact is, though in Purushasukta, Shudra seemingly is enumerated as fourth class of Vedic religion; it was never at all the case. 

If we carefully read the RV 10.90.12, it makes clear that, the head of Purusha became Brahmin, hands became Kshatriya, and thighs became Vaishya….but Shudras were born of his feet. Feets didn’t become Shudra but were produced from it. It clearly indicates the distinction between Vedic and non-Vedics. (The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rājanya made.His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Śūdra was produced. (RV 10.90.12, Trans. Griffith))

The term only would apply to Indian people as Purushasukta is a very later composition that got inserted in Rig Veda that mentions Indian tropical seasons too for first times and also uses the term Shudra for people first time and in the only verse. 

It could have been essential for the Vedics to name the people other than them or it was a term already in use to address the people of India. Those who were originally Vedics and those were converted to Vedic religion and set in one of the three Varnas, authorized to Vedic recitals and ritualistic practices, were but naturally Vedics and part of three Varnas as Bhandarkar suggests. 

Rest of the masses, following their traditional pre-Vedic religion seems to have been named as Shudras. Or alternatively it could have been a term used by Indians to address themselves from ancient times, but then the original term must have been phonetically quite different and Shudra could be the corrupt Vedic form, thus making us impossible to find its origin or any etymology. Vedic corruptions of other loanwords are not new. It can be proved from one instance that Vedics in India pronounced corrupt form of the country name ‘Meluha’ (Melukkha) as ‘Mlechchha’, which, later on lost its original meaning and became synonym of the people who spoke strange or foreign languages. (The Indus Civilization, by A. H. Dani and B. K. Thapar, page 274,)

Same could have happened with “Shudra” which in later course of the time became a derogatory term; originally, it couldn’t have been the case. The fact is, we forget, Shudras were non-Vedic class, practicing idolatry from ancient times which was banned in the Vedic religion. Shudras were not authorized for Vedic rites or recitals because simply they didn’t need it for the sake of their own distinct religion they had preserved and still is practiced by the majority. 

Another fact which we should not forget here is the Vedic class had not vanquished the local populations to enforce their languages and culture upon them, as many social activists like to believe. Rather we see uninterrupted Indian tradition of the culture since minimum of 7000 BC. R. N. Dandekar has explicitely stated that there is no significant iinfluence on the Indians those are practicing their religion since pre-Vedic times. The present Vedics cannot be blood-linked with the original preachers those had come to India; those too must have lost their ethnicity after inter-mingling in Indian populace. We find there have been the Vedics in India of different ethnicity and language groups because they are one whose ancestors had embraced to the Vedic faith in remote past. There is no foreign blood or so-called Aryan element in them to boast of. The Vedic religion became dominant after medieval period has socio-economic-political reasons. 

The fact remains that the two religions, Vedic and pre-Vedic, coined together under common umbrella name ‘Hindu” were always and are distinct in practice, rituals and philosophy. The fact is that, although Vedics accepted idolatry gradually, they maintained their independent identity of religion with retaining all rights over Vedas, related literature and Vedic rites.

This cannot be called as assimilation of equal footings. The evil spell of many socio-psychological conditions, especially birth-based inequality, are direct or indirect products of it. 

To sum up, Shudra was never a part of Vedic society, but indeed was an independent religion they are following from ancient times. To Vedics, like Dasa, Dasyus of Iran those followed different religions and hence looked upon contemptuously, similarly Shudras too became a derogatory term in Vedic literature to the adherents of different religion. The over-glorification of the Vedas and their divine origin, as we have seen in this chapter, has been a carefully nourished myth and deserves the rejection in totality.  

The harm it has done, in the form of seeding inferiority complex and sense of the inequality in the minds of non-Vedic masses, needs to be removed in the light of the bare facts!

ARYAN MIGRATION ISSUE: A CRITIQUE (1)

Applying the term “Arya” as a race has proven the intellectual bankruptcy of the 19^th century racist scholars. In fact, discussion about this term itself is waste of time. Much so because it had been a hypothetical, fanciful and proven to be a dangerous idea to the humankind which had no material proof to support except some wild guesswork. The term invoked racial ego in Europeans as well as in some classes of Indian society causing sever irreparable social damage and unnecessary social divide.  Moreover, nowadays it seems to be an intellectual entertainment for some scholars, who engage themselves in the issue under the disguise of solving linguistic mysteries.  

The term “Aryan” was invented in the mid-eighteenth century. Prior to that, the term had never been used to refer to a race or ethnic group, which existed anywhere on the globe. Max Muller was the first one to refer to ‘Aryans’ as a “race of people”. (1) (‘Lectures on the Science of Languages’ Friedric Max Muller, Vol. 1, 1861). Of course, he later realized the grave danger of doing so and apologetically took back his words. He also explained that while using the word ‘Aryan’, he meant a group of languages and not the ethnic race.  Still the harm had already been done. 

Without getting into the detailed history of this term, we shall focus on a few points, which explain what the term ‘Aryan’ really meant in the ancient societies. 

In the Rig Veda, the word ‘Arya’ appears on only 36 occasions in 34 stanzas and it is used to address mostly to the lineage of Sudasa clan and Gods as an epithet. Moreover, in the Verse 7.33.3, the term ‘Arya’ has been used for enemy also. This only does indicates that the Vedics fought against each other too.

“Airyana Vaeja” in Yasna and Yasts, (Persian scriptures) is the name of a mythical or poetically glorified land where Zarathustra was born and delivered his first sermon. In Persian scriptures, it does not refer to people or epithet. Moreover, the term rarely appears in the Avesta. According to Gherardo Gnoli, ‘Ariya’ was not quite a racial category. Later in Achaemenid times, ‘Ariya’ meant to be a cultural and religious term to evoke the kings' origin, like a title of particular nobility. In its very restricted, exclusivist nature, the term is quite different from a racial category. 

The words similar to ‘Arya’, like ‘Ariya’, ‘Ire’, ‘Ariana’, ‘Aristocrat’ etc. appear in several languages and they do not represent any race anywhere. At some places, such words represent titles or epithet and at some places, they represent certain geographies. According to Max Muller, the term ‘Arya’ means ‘one who ploughs or tills’ which later on came to be used as ‘Noble’, of a good family. (‘Lectures on the Science of the Language’, Vol 1, by Friedrich Max Muller, 1861, page 226) 

Etymology of ‘Arya’ is yet not certain. Some linguistics like Oswald Szemerény considers it most probably being a loan word, meaning ‘kinsman, companion’ from non-Indo-European language ‘Ugaritc’. (“In Search of Indo-Europeans by J. P. Mallory, 1991, page 276)  

There has been exchange of several words within the nomadic tribes in the so-called Indo-European language geographies though there have been phonetic and denotative changes in every region.

The term ‘Aryan’ came into use as a race by the politically and ideologically motivated people to prove the supremacy of the Caucasian/Nordic race over other races. 

The so-called Aryans who were described as ‘fair haired, light or blue eyed Nordic warriors, who tamed the horses and invented wheel and conquered most of the Europe, Northern India and much of the Middle East thousands of years ago, were indeed a fairy tale.’ More so, because so far no remains of skeleton that would resemble to such Nordics have ever been found in the vast of Indus civilization or Iran so far. Such complex is the nature of the ethnic diversity in the so-called Indo-European language speaking regions that no material proof of the Aryan Race theory and its so-called supremacy is found.

Though the Aryan race theory has been abandoned, discarded by the scholars of present times, the Indo-European Languages group theorists still continue to propose the same, carefully replacing the term “race” with “PIE languages group” in their theories. Though racial elements looks like to have been removed from the new theories of the Indo-European Language group, the underlying intentions are the same… supremacist and racially prejudiced. 

Iranian scholar Reza Zia-Ebrahimi stated, “Today, the talk of the "Aryan race" in the West is restricted to white supremacist circles in North America and neo-Nazi militants in Europe. The very concept of "race", although it is still used in political discourses, especially in the United States, is scientifically bankrupt. Leading scientific associations assert that genetic variations between human groups are so gradual that drawing lines is inevitably an arbitrary and subjective exercise. "Indo-European" today refers to languages, not to people, let alone people supposed to assume inherent characteristics. Even its now limited use has been questioned. According to prominent linguists such as Merritt Ruhlen and the late Joseph Greenberg, the theory which holds that Indo-European languages are unrelated to other language groups such as the "Semitic" is overstated, if not outright fictitious.” (Iranian Identity, the 'Aryan Race,' and Jake Gyllenhaal, an article in Frontline by REZA ZIA-EBRAHIMI, August 2010)

He adds, “Throughout the nineteenth century, Aryanism was wrapped into the discourse of science. Racial anthropology came into being as a discipline claiming to classify humans into different racial categories with immutable psychological features by measuring noses, skulls, and ears. As we know all too well, Aryanists, in particular like Adolf Hitler, became increasingly obsessed with the racial purity and elevated the opposition between Aryan and Semite to the level of paradigmatic antagonism. This opened the way for the next stage: extermination. Aryanism provided the ideological backbone for Nazi atrocities.”  

It will be pertinent here to note that all the British ethnologists of the 19^th century like Herbert Risley, Russel, Heeralal etc. have classified the Indian population in different races based on the physical measurements of the people. Their study is held in almost a gospel-like reverence even in the present day India to make governmental and judicial decisions on socio-ethnic issues and reservations. There has been no attempt to relook into the social and ethnic history of India from a fresh point of the view to correct the mistakes of the past, which is rather the need of the time. 

The Rig Veda or the Avesta nowhere indicates that there ever was a distinct race of the Aryan and that it had any struggle with the Dasas, Dasyus etc. on racial account. Rather, in the famous battle of ten kings, among the enemy of king Sudasa, five tribes bore the title “Aryan” while the five other tribes did not bear that title. The Dasas and the Dasyus were no racial groups. They were rather groups of different religious faiths. In the Rig Veda, Dasyus appear as “Avrata”, which means without Vedic rites (RV 1.51.8, 9) or as Anagnitra, Ayajjyu or Ayajvan, which means without fire sacrifice (RV 5:189:3, 1.131.44, 1.33.4). Apparently, with their religious conversion, the Dasas too could become Aryas. The Rig Veda states, “Oh Vajri, though hast made Aryas of Dasas” (RV 10.49.3). Thus, it seems that initially the Vedic society had been welcoming the non-Vedics to the Vedic fold. 

Similar terms like Dahae, Dakhyu do appear in the Avesta too but they connote men or compatriots of the same society and not any different race. Zarathishtra’s epithet is “Dakhyuma” though his sacred land of birth is called as Airyanam Vaejo, which means in a way the prophet was Dakhyu (Dasyu) and Airya (Arya) in same breath.  People of those times developed the designation of ‘Aryas’ to denote or express self-pride and independent religious faiths. We may not know ever from where this term originated and how it travelled across the regions adorning different meanings. 

In the latter days, the term Dasa, Dasyu came to be used for slaves and robbers. Nevertheless, the change in the meaning of the words over a time is not new phenomena. A famous example of this is that the term Asura (The Lord) came to acquire the exactly opposite sense, i.e. Demon in Vedic tradition. Of course, this, in no way, suggests that the term Dasa-Dasyu was used to show any kind of racial or linguistic distinctions.

In short, though the ‘Aryan as a race theory’ has not been proved on any, even genetically count beyond doubt, the Indo-Aryan language speaking people’s migration theories are in circulation in different formats. Like the Aryan race theory, PIE group of languages theory too has prerequisites such as a common habitat of single, closely-knit tribe and their subsequent migrations to different directions, either in waves or in unison, in the small span of time of the earliest settlement. 

However, does this hypothesis stand up to the test of logic? Does it require explaining some similarities in the various languages? There are many unanswered questions in this regard. 

The Indian nationalistic scholarship denied the Aryan race theory completely or partially. However, it did not deny the Aryan language theory (IE). The only change they have made recently is that the Aryans migrated from India towards the west up to Europe and not otherwise as suggested by the western scholars. Needless to mention that for them, the term ‘Aryan’ of India means just the Vedic people, i.e. three Varnas. Max Muller asserts that, “In the later dogmatic literature of the Vedic age, the name of Arya is distinctly appropriated to the three first castes- the Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas as opposed to the fourth, or the Sudras.” ( Ibid page 225)  We will see in next chapters that how the Shudras meant those all who didn’t follow the Vedic religion. Also kindly take the note that the term ‘Shudra’ is absent in the Rig Veda except of Purushasukta. (RV 10.90)

The issue of original homeland of the Aryan (Vedic) people has also been a matter of a great controversy since 19^th century. Various theories have been proposed vehemently to prove Vedic homeland either within India or outside India. One must wonder what is so special about the Vedic people engaging in the search of their original habitat! However, let us not forget that “Original Habitat” itself is a flimsy concept. There is nothing like original habitat when it comes to the human race. In no way it explains the common features in the world cultures and languages. No race possesses any special qualities on basis of which it can boast of superiority over others, as declared by the UNESCO. (“Four Statements on the Race Question”, UNESCO Publication, 1969)

Moreover, it would be wrong for the people to be hyped about the Vedics for it being the oldest known religion codified in the Rig Veda. Vedic, as we have already discussed, is neither the oldest religion nor are the Vedas or even the Avesta the oldest scriptures. The oldest religious script found so far was in Egypt (2400-2300 BCE) in the form of Pyramid texts, that too in a written format which is not the case with either IE scriptures like the Avesta and the Rig Veda. 

Did the Vedics (IE’s) come to India from Urasia? According to most of the scholars who believe answer to this question is in affirmative, suggesting most suitable candidate for the original habitat of the Vedic Aryans is South Russia. Did the Vedics migrate from India towards the West spreading their language and culture? Indic scholars like Shrikant Talageri place their original habitat towards the east of the Ghaggar (which he believes to be the Sarasvati) River.

Let us take an overview of both the theories and check is they help us understand the reality of the history of the humanity.  

The general assumption is that for the spread of the Vedic religion and so-called Indo-Aryan languages, the migrations of the people belonging to that certain stock or common ancestry is the first requirement. 

Wherever might have been their original habitat, migration is the precondition for the spread of cultural and linguistic elements as per the migration theorists.

For the migration theorists we can raise few simple questions:

Why do the migrations in unison or in batches take place?

Are immigrants are superior over the native populace wherever they migrate or could it be otherwise?

Is the migration essential for the spread of culture, languages or religion?

Many questions can be raised on this issue. However, in this chapter, let us deal with the above questions only and try to find answers.

Migrations are not a new phenomena occurring in the human world. It is widely assumed that from the ancient times human race has been moving from one place to other in the search of the food. Geographical spread of the human beings is attributed as reason to this. However, the human beings had almost started settling down in different regions in the Mesolithic period (approx 15000 years BC). 

C.K. Chase-Dunn (Institute for Research on World-Systems (IROWS), University of California, Riverside, USA) states in his paper ‘WORLD URBANIZATION: THE ROLE OF SETTLEMENT SYSTEMS IN HUMAN SOCIAL EVOLUTION’, “The earliest sedentary societies were of diversified foragers in locations in which nature was bountiful enough to allow hunter-gatherers to feed themselves without migrating. These first villagers continued to interact with still-nomadic peoples in both trade and warfare. The best known of these is the Natufian culture of the Levant, villagers who harvested natural stands of grain around 11,000 years ago. In many regions, the largest villages had only about 250 people. In other regions there were larger villages, and regions with different population densities were often in systemic interaction with each other.”  

On this basis, we can surmise that by 10,000 years ago, most of the tribes had settled in their respective regions. They were semi-nomadic for their profession of cattle herding and primal agriculture. In 2013, the archaeologists unearthed evidence of early agriculture at a 12,000-year-old site in the Zagros Mountains in eastern Iran. Mehrgarh site indicates that the human beings of that region knew agriculture ten thousand years ago. There might be more sites indicating to the earliest agriculture on the globe. The fact remains that it helped human being to settle in the respective regions.  Kenoyer asserts that, “….These data indicate that foragers were present in the exact locations where we later see the emergence of settled agro-pastoral communities during the Early Food Producing Era (7000-5500 BCE) and the Regionalization Era (5500-2800 BCE).” (Changing Perspectives of the Indus Civilization: New Discoveries and Challenges! By JONATHAN MARK KENOYER, Puratatva, Editor-K. N. Dixit, Number 41, 2011, Indian Archeology Society, page 4) 

Kenoyer furher declines the idea of any new influx of the populations in Indus valley and Gangetic regions. What does it means that the people who were progenitors of the IVC were settled in the same regions long before Harappan times. The technological advances led them to the urbanization and establish trade networks with the known world. Even after the decline of the IVC, due to the climatic changes, although people abandoned urban centers, they spread out nearby opting for to live in small settlements or towns, but they didn’t desert their habitat. 

Cultural evolution of the human beings has been almost a simultaneous process in various parts of the earth. We cannot attribute it to any particular advanced human race of human being or region.

Michael Maystadt (Illinois State University), on basis of proofs gathered from Europe, states in his thesis titled ‘A Critique of the Out of Africa Model’, “Around 40,000 years ago, there was a cultural explosion in which jewelry, art, and elaborate burials suddenly became commonplace all across Europe. These attributes indicate that for the first time in history, anatomically modern humans started to behave and think like modern humans.” 

Proofs found in other continents too support this conclusion. The evolution of cultures that includes even the languages has been a parallel phenomenon across the globe as an outcome of innate need of the human race! Since we cannot attribute such “cultural explosion” result of any particular intruding advanced tribe, how can we believe that the some so-called advanced group of PIE languages could cause acculturation of all other tribes those had already settled in the respective regions with their own advanced cultures?    

What was the status of languages in those times? Neom Chomskey, a proponent of the discontinuity theory, says the ability to speak or language faculty is as old as 100,000 years. From primordial gestures and sounds to the present complex state, the language has evolved through the passage of the time. 

Let us keep in mind here that there is a close relationship between developments of the language with growing complexities of the life. Early languages must have been too simple, limited to some words supported by the gestures. Certain sounds are so common in the human world that there is no need for tracing their origin to any certain place and population of common ancestry. 

As per the linguists and psychologists, the language is an innate need of human race, it is adequate to consider that the language evolutions, their exterminations and re-evolutions or blend of own languages with other languages of neighboring people with social mutations has been the constant process in human societies of the globe. We find similar words having hypothetically similar roots in different languages and conclusions of the scholars that one language influenced the other have marred our linguistic history. We find several similar words in most of the languages but the meanings attached to them are opposite or entirely different.

“Language consciousness is probably identical with every human meta-consciousness and may therefore play a significant role in the control processes effected in the human subject by consciousness,” states Jerzy Banczerowski, a noted linguist. (‘Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical Boundaries’ ,Volume 1, edited by Dieter Kastovsky, A. J. Szwedek, page no. 19).

Development of languages is largely independent process. Development of the words and their order put syntactically to express larger meaning mostly depends on the cultural ethos and the complexity of transactions of the people of the certain regions. The words gain larger-yet-restricted meanings in the course of their evolution. Of course, here we are not ruling out the borrowings and exchanges of words.