r long despite protestations and assertions to the contrary men have known that

men are all not born equal. There are few men who tower over the rest in one or
more of the axes of distinction. For over a decade now sequences of the human Ychromosome have been pointing to a consistent phenomenon: Few men have left behi
nd disproportionately many descendants. One of the most talked about cases is of
a lineage within the Y-chromosome haplogroup C-M217 clade. The clade itself had
an early origin probably in eastern central Asia, from where it spread to North
America borne by one of the Asiatic lineages which contributed to the natives o
f north America. But it happened to be the Y-chromosome haplogroup of a prominen
t Mongol man 5901,300 years before present (YBP). Something this man did resulted
in over 16 million men today carrying his Y-chromosome. This man was probably th
e great Mongol ruler and law-giver Chingiz Khan, one of those unreachable pinnac
les of human achievement. Like him other males with big imprints have come to li
ght but their exact identities remain debated. Going back in time, over the last
10,000 years, there were such founder men in Africa, India and the steppes of E
urasia, who left even bigger impacts on the human population. Some of them have
well over 100 million male descendants today. Of some of these super-men we pers
onally cannot say much but others might be the men of our legendary traditions.
The great father in Africa belonged to the the E1b-M180 clade. His descendants i
n three great spurts from around 5300-4800 YBP expanded among the speakers of Ni
ger-Congo languages and spread across the vast African continent. A clade relate
d to this lineage is rumored to have been that of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses-II
I on one hand and that of the South African leader Mandela on the other indicati
ng a continent-wide spread to include prominent men over the ages. A sister line
age that separated long ago from this lineage contributed to up to 1/5th of the
Ashkenazi Jews (including the great physicist Einstein) and ironically also incl
uded their mortal enemy, the former German Fhrer. The phylogenetic evidence sugge
sts that the E1 lineage probably arose in west Asia and then returned to Africa
where it differentiated further in the northern part of the continent. It is lik
ely that the E1b-M180 lineage arose there and then penetrated deep into sub-Saha
ran Africa as the Niger-Congo languages diversified. Its initial expansions coul
d have been triggered by the events of the emergence of civilization in the Egyp
tian cultural zone, with its bearers subsequently acquiring high status in the s
ub-Saharan milieu east and west.

Around 6300 YBP a man in India belonging to the H1-M52 lineage left a huge impac
t on the genetic landscape of India. He hailed from a patriline, which was alrea
dy prominent and had expanded, albeit more modestly, around 7300 YBP. Who was th
is man? We do not know for sure but his descendants allow us to make some guesse
s. His imprint is the dominant one in those jti-s occupying the middle and lower
rungs of the Indian jti-stratification. H1-M52 is prominently present in the curr
ently or formerly socially powerful middle jti-s like the Marh, Velllar, the Vanniyar
, the Kamm and the Re. His imprint is less prominent in the saskta brhmaa and katriy
s but not absent. This distribution of H1-M52 together with the timing of the ex
pansions clearly suggest that the father of this lineage was a very prominent fi
gure in pre-Indo-Aryan India. The prestige of his lineage was so high that even
after the conquest of India by the rya-s his descendants were able to enter and e
stablish themselves to degree within the highest rungs of the rya system as brhmaas and katriya-s. Even those who did not were still socially prominent, often atta
ining de facto katriya status and spreading their genes extensively into the soci
al strata who lay below them.
Given that his descendants are found throughout Jambudvpa, the timing of the expa
nsion of H1-M52 makes it tempting to suggest that one of the great fathers of th
is lineage was probably a prominent elite figure in the empire of the old Indus
valley civilization. It remains to be seen if this speculation might be borne ou
t by ancient DNA from the sub-continent. Whatever the case, he was likely a spea
ker of the common substratum language that can be easily discerned in Indo-Aryan
and Dravidian. It is likely that some of his descendants collaborated with or q

uickly shifted sides at the time of the one or more invasions of the rya-s which
established them in India.
The early Indo-Aryan literature speaks of chiefs and rulers of a tribal group th
ey termed the nida-s, who figure as either agonists (Guha and Nala) or antagonists
(Ekalavya) of the rya-s. In the late Indian phase of the Vedic age their leaders
were already accorded adhikra for certain vaidika rituals. They are another pote
ntial group who might have borne the H1-M52 haplogroup. How, if it at all, they
were related to the IVC still remains unclear. However, there is another competi
ng possibility namely an O2-K18 haplogroup for the dominant haplogroup of the tr
ibal nida-s as it is common in various Indian tribal groups today. Again the prese
nce and status of males with this haplogroup in the IVC remains unclear.