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 The Myth of theAryan Invasion Theory
Anupam Manur2/16/2009
 
I
1. INTRODUCTION
“The Aryans came down from central Asia and invaded India in 1500 BC, afterdestroying the Harappan civilization and they brought with them the rich Vedas” – That’s exactly how my 9
th
standard History text book reads. Shocking, now, notthen. I have to admit that I was quite disappointed that the one greatest wealth(Vedas) that India has was given to us by outsiders.However, something was fishy in the whole scheme of things. Something didn’t addup. Acting upon this hunch, I decided to do a bit of investigation and found out thatmany scholars had already been in this place and had disproved every inch of thetheory.
1.1 BRIEF BACKGROUND TO THE AIT:
In the beginning of the 18
th
century, Germany, France and England started taking avery special interest towards the study of Asian cultures and Indian society inparticular in the context of British India. This gave birth to Indology as an academicdiscipline in the 19
th
century with pioneers such as William Jones, Colin Mackenzie,Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Max Müller, etc, largely affected by the romanticOrientalism at that time (see my post on Orientalism). Indology mainly involvedstudying the ancient scriptures of the Hindus (Vedas, Puranas, etc), which wasfacilitated by new volumes of Sanskrit-English and Sanskrit-German dictionariesthat were being published. One of the most important breakthroughs was MaxMüller’s edition of the Rigveda, which appeared in 1849-75. The main objective of the Indologists was to rediscover India’s glorious past and give it to the Indians.Noble indeed! Needless to say, things were not quite as it seems, as I shall try touncover the hidden agenda.
1.2 THE THEORY ITSELF:
In the late 19
th
century and early 20
th
century, many seals were found in theHarappan region (now in Pakistan). This led to a fervent excavation campaign andthe result of which was the discovery of the ancient civilization of the Harappans. The fact is that the people inhabiting this area seemed to have moved out and thecivilization had perished. Then, the task of the archaeologists and Indologists of thetime was to try to explain this mysterious phenomenon as to why such a greatcivilization had perished. That it was great, there was no doubt because it was oneof the most ancient urban settlements which displayed ingenious city planning,advanced knowledge of science and astronomy, efficient municipal governments
 
which placed a high priority on hygiene, sewage and drainage systems, publicbaths, granaries, etc. The moment was opportune and it was seized by the scholars and archaeologistswho tried to explain this by propounding the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), which Ishall briefly restate in the following passages after dealing a bit about thetheoretical background...It has to be remembered that, at that time, there were no Indian scholars who werewriting about Indian history but there was an abundance of literature from the West,as mentioned earlier, owing to the birth of Oriental Studies and Indology. AbbéDubois is perhaps one of the first such western historians who has tried to explainthe origin of the Indian population and their presence in India. He stayed in India fornearly 30 years, in which he collected a large volume of data pertaining to theHindu traditions and customs. A thorough missionary agenda in mind, his aim wasto present the Hindus as barbaric and superstitious and not possessing any inherentgreatness. His manuscript was bought by the British East India Company andappeared in an English translation under the title
Hindu Manners, Customs andCeremonies
in 1897 with a Prefatory Note by the Right Hon. F. Max Müller.“It is practically admitted that India was inhabited very soon after the Deluge, whichmade a desert of the whole world. The fact that it was so close to the plains of Sennaar, where Noah's descendants remained stationary so long, as well as its goodclimate and the fertility of the country, soon led to its settlement.” (Dubois, 1897)He explains: 'According to my theory they reached India from the north, and Ishould place the first abode of their ancestors in the neighbourhood of theCaucasus.' The reasons he provides to substantiate his theory are utterlyunconvincing-but he goes on to build the rest of his migration theory (not yet an'Aryan' migration theory) on this shaky foundation.It was Max Müller, the German scholar (who was, supposedly, an authority on theVedas), who first or the most notable to propound the Aryan Invasion Theory.According to him, the only reason to explain the disappearance of the Harappanswas due to an external invasion of their cities. To firmly establish the link betweenEurope and India (through the concept of the Aryans), Müller and others suggestedthat the Aryans were a nomadic tribe who were allocated a place that was halfwaybetween Europe and India. They chose the mystical and elusive place called“Central Asia” (how precise!) from where they moved down towards India andentered India from the North, though they do not take the trouble of explainingwhich passes they traversed or any other geographical details. They then went onto destroy the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro with the help of their Vedic GodIndra and that the dark-skinned indigenous people (Dravidians) were the ones onwhom they imposed their religion and their caste system. The Aryans supposedlyenslaved the native Dravidians and wiped them out from the Indus valley civilization(this idea stemmed from the fact that a few skeletons and bones were found inthese sites). The entire Harappan civilization was supposed to have been massacredby the invading Aryans. The Dravidians, in fear of the onslaught fled from theirthriving civilization and migrated to the south of the Indian subcontinent. However,
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