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This work is an exploration of Ancient Indian History with a fresh look on Aryans.
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Myth and Reality
Of
The Aryan Question
1
Myth and Reality
Of
The Aryan Question
Dr. Sheo Das Pandey,
M.A. (English and Hindi), Ph.D.
Ex Joint Secretary to Govt. of Bihar, India
(Poet-Novelist and Mythologist-Indologist)
2
Dedicated to–
MRS. SONIYA GANDHI
The greatest living symbol of global peace and harmony and of the spirit of revival of the pre
historic unity and Indo-European fraternity that once upon a time enlivened the journey of
Aryanism up and down from Haryupia to Florence Via Istanbul and that agitated the mind
and heart of the author of The Discovery of India."
–S.D. Pandey
In Memorium
DR. JAGDISH PANDEY, PH. D., D. LIT
A nationally acknowledged Civil Engineer, Social reformer and man of letters my late
Samadhi and an inspiration as well as an instrument to this tedious work.
–SHEO DAS PANDEY
"We shall discover one day that the same logic is at work in mythical thought and in
scientific, and that man has always thought so well."
–Claud Levi-Strauss
3
INDEX Page No.
First Chapter: 19-27
In Quest of the Pillars of Haryupia
Second Chapter: 28-41
Urban Planning of an Aryan city
Third Chapter: 42-50
Historicisation of Mythology
Fourth Chapter: 51-64
Facts in Fiction: Reality of Harappa
Fifth Chapter: 65-78
Urban Face of the Vedic Physique
Sixth Chapter: 79-87
The Culture of Harappa:
From the Divine Brahmavarta to the
Urban-Aryavarta.
Seventh Chapter: 88-98
The Culture of Har, Har, Mahadev
The Supreme God.
Eighth Chapter: 99-111
The Aryan Question and the Journey of Aryanism.
Ninth Chapter: 112-122
Why Max Muller or Hans Hock? Why not
Agastya or Yask or Panini?
4
Tenth Chapter: 123-144
Towards Demolition of a citadel:
Relevant Excerpts from eminent scholars
On the Aryan Question since 1984
Eleventh Chapter: 144-152
Bibliography and Suggested Further Reading
5
FOREWORD
Anthropologists of the world guess the age of the Prehistoric man to be between
100000 to 35000 years before Christ on the basis of the discoveries made at Neander Valleys
in Germany in 1856 A.D. and assess that although this man would have dwelt in the caves, he
could very well use stone tools and weild wooden spears and also knew a working language
to interact with his kins. Charles Darwin (Born 1809 – Died 1882) was, probably at the same
time, working on his Evolution theory and was able to publish his famous thesis on the
“Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection” in the year 1859. a thesis which although
controversial was widely accepted even by scientists of Genetics and Molecular Biology with
very little modifications later on. It was not a mere coincidence that at the same time
Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) was busy with his studies on a probable family
relationship between the classical languages (Latin, Greek, Persian and Sanskrit) with an
open preference and appreciation for Sanskrit from which he also translated profusely. But as
he happened to be working on the foot prints of Sir William Jones (1746-1794) and others as
also under the strict guidance and decisions of the Royal Asiatic Society of London which
had held a secret meeting on the 10th
of April 1866 (Secret for the people of India which had
witnessed an Independence upheaval in 1857) his (Max Muller’s) studies in philology,
howsoever deep and wide, could not establish the proper and correct age of Rishi Angira, and
others who had composed the Vedic Richas as also of Rishies like Panini, Agastya and Yask,
the pandits who wrote the Sanskrit Grammar and its phonetic rules during the Post-Vedic
days. It is simply unfortunate that supposing the Neanderthal or the Piltdown man was
100000 years old and supposing that the man born in the Himalayan Valleys was only 40000
years old, even then it is not understandable how and why it was presumed that this
Himalayan man could not by then develop himself to be of the mental level of composing the
Vedas or writing a grammar even after a lapse of 30000 years of living a life of Darwin’s
Science of natural selection. If natural selection of advantages and rejection of the
disadvantages was and has been the working principle of evolution it does not at all stand to
reason that the Indian mind which is able to surpass any others in the field of technology in
less than a century time today would not have been able to compose the vedic richas even
after living a long long life of 30 to 40 thousand years of the process of natural selection.
Anthropologists may sometimes be wrong, sometimes misled but so cannot be the
6
archaeologists or the philologists or the sociologists or even the mythologists and the issue,
therefore, deserves a comparative assessment based on all these sciences.
It is, therefore, only being too modest for an Indian thinker or an Indologist today to
assert and reassert that the Vedas had been composed certainly by 13102 years before Christ
but in any case not later than 10,000 years B.C. This timing of the composition of the Richas
during the Satyug and called the Rigveda also tallies with the astronomical cycle of the four
Epochs or Yugas of the Aryans and stands at four thousand and eight hundred years prior to
the Treta epoch- These richas composed in Satyug which had already seen three thousand and
six years of Treta and two thousand four years of Dwapar by 3102 B.C. an astronomical stage
of time universally accepted as the beginning of Kaliyug (Ref. Britannica Ready Reference
Encyclopedia- ‘Yuga’) got transferred from mouth to mouth called Shruties till they were first
engraved on stone plates and later on inscribed on Talpatras (Palm leaves) and most probably
the then script of writing was Brahmi, the subject of writing was Brahman, the writers were
‘Brahma’ and his Rishi sons while the place of writing was ‘Brahmavarta’ or Haryupia which
was spread over the two banks of the river ‘Brahmani’ or ‘Bharati’ or ‘Sarswati.’ Max Muller
may be right in his Biblical Calculations that Noah’s Deluge occurred in the year 2500 B.C.
but a student of Panini and Yask cannot agree that it took less than seven to eight thousand
years of time for a shruti to be a lipi (Script) and a lipi or script to attain the heights of a
language and a literature or a philosophy of the standard of the Vedic Sanskrit and later on of
the classic Sanskrit which got systematised in the rules of grammar written not less than
1000 years before Christ by the great grammarian like him (Panini). Such a philological study
of Sanskrit properly done would have certainly taken Max Muller’s Deluge story also back
to 10-13 thousand years before Christ to the days of Manu’s Deluge mentioned in the
Shatpath Brahman. And similarly a student of Charles Darwin’s theory of development by
natural selection also cannot agree with Max Muller that within a period of only one to two
thousand years or so a language soared so high to the Vedic standard and fell so down to the
ground level of Prakrit and Pali of the Buddha days.
Study of civilisations does not have a short cut method and it is extremely essential
now, therefore, to go to Panini and his Ashtadhyayi and then through him to the Vedic
Satyugi Rishies and “Panies” who expanding westward from Brahmavarta planned and built
the city of Haryupia or Harappa, set out on trade to Persia and upto Anatolia, the terminal
point of Asia called Asia Minor where they built a commercially vibrant temple city called
Istanbul. Istanbul or Istambul both as a centre of knowledge and of commerce attracted the
Greeks and the Romans from across the Black, the Mediterranean and the Caspian seas and
7
became a central place, using a common language communicating to the West and then back
to the East to Harappa. This central language, this common language, this Proto language was
none else than Sanskrit which travelled from place to place and from dialect to dialect in its
journey from Harappa to Istanbul and established a co-relation with Persian, Arabic, Greek,
Latin and other languages which Sir William Jones had sometimes back called a family of the
Indo-European languages. It is surprising that this mystery Proto language, called a
“Common Source” language or a “single unrecorded” language by William Jones could not
be identified and exacted by Max Muller and by his clan till today which although they
adhere to the linguistic theories of Ramus Rusk or of Hans Hock which are very much
derived from Panini's they are hell bent to keep this mystery a mystery than to accept the
superiority of Panini or Sanskrit and that way the superiority of Harappa or Haryupia or
Aryavarta, or Bharatvarsh or Brahmavarta or Sindia, or India or Hindia or Hindustan. It is
rather amusing to mention here that although many modern scholars in order to locate some
facts of the early history of Ireland and welsh took into consideration the Irish Mythological
“Book of Conquest” or the Welsh “ The white Book”, the ‘Red Book” or the “Yellow Book”
supposed to have been written by monks similarly like the Aryan Rishies, Max Muller and his
men threw away the astronomically perfect Aryan Cycle of Yugas theory to the wind.
It would be worthwhile here to note that Istanbul was founded by none else than the
Aryan ‘Panies’ long before the 8th
century B.C. which the Byzantine empire is said to have
captured later on and made it its capital called Constantinople in 330 A.D. and historians
accept that the principal reason of the Greek and Roman invasions was that Istanbul was
more urban and commercially more prosperous and vibrant than any of the Greek or Roman
cities of its time. The city of Istanbul had temples made on square shaped foundations-
similar in size of the Yajna-Shalas of the Harappans. A Harappan Yajna Shala used to be a
sacred rectangular place of offering libations to god Hara (The Cosmic Reality called
Brahma) which generally had a square shaped main kunda at its centre while four small size
square shaped kundas at the four corners of the place. This placing of the Yajna Kundas with
a long pillar called Yoop at its front prompted the Haryupeans to construct their houses called
Karmashala, Pathshala, Pakshala etc. also on this very pattern and thus to initiate the specific
science of civil engineering and architecture. These very Haryupeans while at Istanbul might,
most probably, have got their identity as Europeans. This issue should be left to linguists, the
archaeologists, the mythologists and the anthropologists of the world together who should
better concentrate and devote themselves to studies on the topic in their own disciplines and
8
prefer not to indulge in any debate and sit together to reach a universal conclusion whether
Europeans owe their origin to the Greek Goddess Europa or it was an identity taken after
their get- together with the Haryupeans at Istanbul in Anatolia after they crossed over the
Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas and their eastern boundaries of Ural mountains and
the Ural river. The real identity and image of today’s Europeans, well denying Rudyard
Kipling’s verdict, “And never the Twain shall meet” may take a wider and greater meaning
in case we are capable to establish Istanbul as a place where the East and the West had
actually once met and where the Eastern Haryupeans and the Western Europeans had mixed
up like milk and water together..
This treatise is just a humble venture in this direction of thinking, thanking, inspiring
and encouraging scholars of Indology in their different areas to come together with details of
their further studies on the Aryan Question and remove the age long dusty and dirty curtain of
the superficial as well as prejudicial AIT or OIT or AMT theories still existing but agitating
the minds of students of Ancient Indian history and culture. I am definite, this is too big and
too heavy a structure howsoever so intelligently designed with such a weak and fragile
foundation called the AIT Citedel better read as Anti India theory which stands already
shaken up miserably today itself cannot withstand the joint shocks given tomorrow by the
scholars of all the streams aforesaid.
I feel happy to state here that my mythology based conviction in regard to the culture
and history of India finds a matching response not only in the scientific studies of the
evolution of man but also in the various sciences or logies of evolution of languages, cultures
and civilizations made by various scholars from all over the world. My thanks are due to all
those thinkers and scientists who I agree with while to those also who I may not agree and
both the types have found their due places in the references made in this book as well as in its
Bibliography appended herewith. But two persons who I feel specially indebted to are two of
my own non historian relations- Er. (Dr.) Jagdish Pandey and Er. Yogesh Pandey who not
only supported me with books and journals on the subject but with their valuable opinions in
course of discussions on various aspects of civil engineering of Harappa. I feel not less
indebted to my friend Dr. Satish Chandra Jha, a learned Professor and H.O.D. of Sanskrit of
the B.R.A. Bihar University who helped me, sometimes more or less like a virtual guide of a
Research Paper as also to my eldest son-in-law Prof. (Dr.) V.N. Upadhyay and my eldest
daughter Dr. Vandana Vijaylaxmi who being my immediate natural audience bucked me up
all the time and supported me not only with books and journals but also with their valuable
comments.
9
My success as a writer will solely depend upon how much convincing and attracting
my readers find this New Found Land of a tedious research work of this kind and how much
appreciate this approach to the study of ancient history and culture of India through
mythology and linguistics.
Muzaffarpur,
Vijayadashami, Sheo Das Pandey
21st
July, 2012
10
11
Chapter I
In Quest of the Pillars of Haryupia
If Rome was not built in a day or was the Great Wall of China not constructed in a
week or a month or the Pyramids of Egypt or the stones that were laid down the long bridge
over the sea at Rameshwaram were not collected and carried in a year or so and if the temples
of Olympia or the status of gods and goddesses all over the world like those of Osiris and Isis
were not carried and constructed by a magic skill or if the pillars of Dwarka at the bed of the
deep seas found today are no longer objects of superstition or figments of imagination, the
cities or the sites of Civilizations that came up and prospered in a span of thousands and
thousands of years cannot also be sweepingly slighted or side tracked or misunderstood and
misinterpreted like cock and bull stories. Cock and bull stories all over the world are said to
have been cooked or concocted for the sake of entertainment or time pass and so it would not
be proper to give stories of civilizations the same treatment. Unfortunately, scholars and
thinkers of the height of Max Muller also made not only some grave but grievous mistakes in
interpreting civilizations in a sweeping style as if they were nothing more than cock and bull
stories. Muller’s philological theory which even now is recognized as the established official
theory (AIT) is nothing more or less than a conjecture or speculation in the light of a world of
information that has now become available as a result of the archaelogical excavations and
other explorations made at Harappan sites. Not only the excavations but also the satellite
pictures taken by scientists from NASA of the underground position of the Rameshwaram
Bridge and of the Saraswati River have prompted students of ancient civilization to give a
rethinking to the official theory. It is now not strange although very curious to note that these
excavations and these photographs tell almost very much the same stories which have been
told by Indian sages and saints in their hitherto slighted descriptions of Rameshwaram,
Dwarka and Harappa, the three Vaman steps of the great civilization of the legendary
Brahmavarta later called Haryupia or Aryavart or the land of the Indus or of the Ganga in the
Puranas like the Lingapuran, the Vaman Puran, the Padma Puran and the epics like the
Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Study of Civilizations, if at all it is a subject of the study of
History and culture it has to primarily look back first to mythology, then to anthropology and
Biology, then to human psychology and last but not the least to Archaeology and the
excavations reporting on the tools and tales of living. Decipherment of inscriptions and
12
pictography as well as comparative study of languages also play a part in interpreting
excavation finds, no doubt, but then they play only a secondary role. Max Muller,
incidentally, attached the highest importance to the study of language and cooked his story of
migration and invasion of the Aryan race from central Asia to the Indus Valley and driving
away of the aboriginal race of the Harappan Indus valley civilization to the South. The
misfortune was that Max Muller drew up his PIE Family theory based mainly on the
physique and the speech of an Aryan race of his imagination based on a comparative
linguistic study of the people of different races with special reference to the Vedas. It was
unfortunate that he did not go deep into the Puranas and the Epics of India as carriers and
containers of Indian History and neither took the trouble of comparing the stories of the
Puranas with the anthropological or archaeological finds which might have been available at
his time and nor tried to extract history from the action-reaction of the contacts and conflicts
of different dialects with an ancestor or a Proto-type central language. Times have gone and
times have come and come right now to contradict the official theory, the so called Aryan
Invasion Theory called AIT or the Outside India Theory (OIT) in the face of the entire
Harappan life that has sprung up in the shape of settlements based on the lines of civil
Engineering and principles of town planning. Gone are now the times of conflict of
archaelogical evidence with the casual interpretations of mythology and anthropology in the
face of the archaelogical excavations spread over a vast area from Alamgirpur in U.P. to
Dholavira, Nageshwar and Bet Dwarka in Gujarat. And it is now the only right time to revise
the old theory behind the Indus valley Civilization, called till now a product of and the result
of a conflict between the hunting alien Aryans from Central Asia and the original Dravidians
that ruled Harappa. The story that Harappans were Dravidians and belonged to the race of
Demon Maya who was related to Ravana and whose son Hara established his kingdom at
Harappa may only be symbolic or a figment of imagination or only a partial truth related to
the original Aryan inhabitants of India settled in between the two great rivers named the
Saraswati and the Drishadvati now called the Indus. This land then was actually
Brahmavarta, the land of gods and goddesses, semigods and demigods and men and
supermen who had settled in temple houses and cities constructed on the two sides of the two
rivers as well as in between the two. It has, therefore, been incumbent here to present a
comparative study of the mythological descriptions with those of the civil engineering and
Town Planning details just to throw a new light on an oft harped imaginary story of the
migration and invasion of a race which had prospered beside the Saraswati and the Ganga. If
mythology has anything to do with Pre-History. Proto-History, Pro-History or History of
13
India and if Archaeology. Anthropology, Philology, Geology, Biology and Engineering have
some relevant bearing to it, it is not without a meaningful purpose to start a study with
reference to Urban planning and a civil engineering. Civil Engineering of India is as old as
Maya. Son of God Vishwakarma and father of the oft-talked Mayan civilization of South
America, particularly of Mexico and Brazil. It is here that Engineering seems to have been
absorbed in Mythology. Not only the Golden City of Lanka but the three cities (The Tripurs)
constructed, one each on the surface of the Earth, in the vast open sky and at the bed of the
deep seas by Maya, made of gold, silver and bronze or iron respectively and destroyed by
Lord Shiva or Hara in one of the wars fought between the gods and the Demons are lost
somewhere in mythological Pre-History past time but they have really become today an off
the record pastime of historians. The Sudharma courts planned and constructed by the same
Maya in the then Amaravati of Indra and Indraprastha of Yudhisthir, which are the model
ideals of the highest skill in engineering are matters of envy of civil engineering of today and
are also lost in the pages of the Puranas and the epic of Vyasa’s Mahabharat. Maya is said to
have been last found in the burning forest of Khandava, somewhere near Kurushetra of today
and it should not be without a reason to think of a Kingdom like Harappa take shape nearby.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler, a British Army brigadier in world war II, while confusing probably the
Vedic Hara, the Brahma, the God of the gods with the demon Hara, Maya’s son popularized a
dramatic scenario of white migrating marauders from the north west enslave the black
aboriginals and destroy the Harappan civilization. The mythology of Demon Hara (Maya’s
son) and the mythology of God Hara (Shiva) mixed together, no doubt, make Harappa a
dubious story and a mystery and this mystery can be solved only by a study of the civil
engineering finds collected from the Archaeological Surveys made so far in continuation of
the surveys made in the course of the Saraswati river, It is pertinent to quote Vivekanand here
who reacts as follows: “And what our European Pandits say about the Aryan’s sweeping from
some forcing land, snatching away the lands of the aboriginals and settling India by
exterminating them, is all pure nonsense, foolish talk. Strange that our Indian scholars too say
a-men to them and all these monstrous lies are taught to our boys.” (Complete works 1963,
Page 534-535). This study of Harappa, therefore, aims at a definite conclusion out of the mist
of a plethora of mysteries and myths by trying to connect mythology and engineering, if at all
this is plausible and not impossible, Now that a good number of Western philologists,
Archaeologists, Geologists, Anthropologists and Mythologists as well as a large number of
Indian researchers of all these fields have undertaken and have rather completed useful
studies in this connection and have provided meaningful test reports including satellite
14
pictures for and against every one of them, this study based mainly on linguistics and
engineering as a step onwards in this direction, it is hoped, must be able to throw a new flood
of important light on the so far drawn up blurred pictures of the elephant called Brahmavarta
or Divyadesh or Aryavarta or Haryupia or Harappa or Bharat.
The study of the evolution of Man and birth of a civilization has been made from
different angles viz the Religious angle, the Anthropological angle, the Psychological angle,
the Sociological angle, the Philological angle and last but not the least the Historical angle.
Fortunately, scholars related to all these angles, worked on this subject sometime in the 19th
century, the great century that produced Charles Darwin, G.W.E. Hegel, E.B. Tylor (1832-
1917), J.G. Frazer, R. Smith, B. Malinowski, Claude Lavi Strauss, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich
Max Muller (1823-1900) and last but not the least Rudolf Otto (1869-1937). Of all these
studies historians have unfortunately, given least importance to the phenomenological or the
religious or the theological or a linguistic or the mythological angles of approach to the
subject of evolution of Man and evolution of a civilized life. As a matter of fact, while
studying religion or theology or mythology we study the same Nature and the same Faith and
believe in the same habits and traditions, the same libido, the same speech and the same ways
of living life but tend to neglect religion and mythology very much alive in their natures and
tend to attach greater importance to Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology and Philology,
Religion generally is described as a belief in the spiritual way of life. When a Hindu bathes in
the sacred river such as the Ganga and the Saraswati or in the Godavari or the Narmada to
wash away the pollution, both Physical and spiritual this phenomenon is generally regarded
as a superstition. Taking bath in the ever flowing rivers to make oneself free from the
pollution of life has been a universal practice from time immemorial, but it has not been
interpreted as a development of human civilization in the direction of living a neat and
cleanly life. Man was a nomadic and hunting community in the Paleolithic age and used to
eat uncooked food and used to live a dirty and unhygienic life. When he learned to take
through a net of forests pregnant with medicinal values this was certainly a step towards the
development of civilization and it is mostly and mainly due to this that all great ancient
civilizations of the world prospered on the banks of the great rivers. Rivers full of a flow,
energy and action played wonders, they gave man his food, his health, his vision of
development. Rivers gave man fruits and different crops to eat. Rivers gave man his belief in
the eternity of life. Rivers gave man a faith in a super power and rivers brought a magical
15
change in the healthy life style of Humanity. This change was so great that this so called
Super Power became synonymous with a God or a Goddess and with his or her magical and
extra ordinary powers. Whether it was Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud or Karl Marx or
B.Malinowski or F. Max Muller theology was always ignored and misunderstood until the
French social scientist developing the methodology of combining empirical research with
sociological studies. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) in his famous book “The Elementary
forms of Religious life” convinced the students and scholars of human civilization that there
was something real in religion, and that man was not deceiving himself in identifying the
reality of life under-lying his religious behaviour. Durkheim proved that religion can be
studied by historians similarly as plants are studied by Botanists. According to him religion is
the human activity which speaks about social reality while using names or words for gods.
A scholastic turmoil has continued throughout the 19th
century and the real story of
the civilization of Brahamavarta and its capital at Amaravati has fallen a victim to this
turmoil. It was rather a great change in human approach of the study of civilization when all
the aforesaid angles started to be applied to it in the second half of the 20th
century and
luckily theories which were based on speculations were ruled out. Important studies on the
Civilization of Brahmavarta or the Indus Saraswati Civilization have been made and are
being made which are sufficient to prove that the Civilization of Brahmavarta or Divyadesh is
nothing but a blue print of the Civilization of Haryupia or Harappa. Mythology studied
phenomenologically and linguistically has proved itself to be another important method and
source of understanding the ancient Aryan civilization which was born in Brahmavarta and
which was associated with Brahma and his daughter or his consort that is Sarswati and which
can be located even today in its expanse from its then capital at today’s Ujjaini then called
Amaravati to Brahmapaty or Brahamadesh in the east and to Brahmagiri range of mountains
near Nasik and then on to Goa.
The school of thought on Indus Valley civilization led by Friedrich Max Muller
(1823-1900) and supported by anthropologists or sociologist like E.B. Tylor (1832-1917) J.G.
Frazer and followed by archaeologists like A, Cunningham or even by Raymond and Bridget
Allchin or even by R.E.M. Wheeler and Sir John Marshall received a big Jolt in 1984 when
Jim Shaffer initiated a new school of thought. The new school came into light with Shaffer’s
book, “The Indo Aryan Invasion’s Cultural Myth and Archaeological Reality” Published at
New York in the year 1984. It was for the first time that not only the Indian authors but also
16
authors like Kenoyer and Jonathan Mark, Gregory Possehi and L.A. Waddell started feeling
that the real answer of the Aryan question actually lay not in philological speculations but in
the Vedas and the Puranas and their explanation in the light of Sanskrit Grammar and Aryan
traditions. It is only then that archaeological realities and cultural myths started to be viewed
parallel to each other. Researches on Indus Saraswati civilization in place of Indus Valley
civilization got started. Lots of work were done on cultural myths, on Indus Script, on Indus
Age, on Indus seals, on Indus pictographs, on Indus statuettes, so on and so forth. Indian
authors like D.P. Agarwal, I Mahadevan, J.P. Joshi, S. Kak, M.S. Vatsa, B.B. Lal, S.P. Gupta,
N.S. Rajaram, S.R. Rao, N. Jha and Bhagwan Singh did lots of research work and we are in a
position at this stage of time to assert the view that Aryans were not invaders or emigrants
from central Asia. It is now an almost proved fact that Aryans belonged originally to the
Indus Valley or the land of the Seven rivers which was called Saptasindhu.
It cannot, however, be denied that there are certain writers belonging to both India and
abroad who want the old controversy to continue. An article entitled” Horse Play in Harappa.
The Indus Valley Decipherment Hoax” Published in an Indian magazine named “Frontline”
in the year 2000 and authored jointly by M. Witzel and S. Farmer currently professors of the
U.S.A. enlivened the controversy. Questioning the decipherment of Harappan scripts and
Harappan symbol of the horse, Witzel and Farmer got wide political support also from many
leftist Sociologists and Politicians of India and made history of Saraswati a subjects of
politics and started singing and harping on the Age old theory of an illiterate civilization
which had once been eulogised as the wonder that was Ind by the noted historian A.L.
Basham at New York in 1954.
Much water has by now however flowed in the underground stream that is Saraswati
or Brahmani, lots of research work done by Michel Danino, David Frawley, Gregory Possehi,
Stephen Knapp, Dr. Koenraad ELST, and others which go to prove that the so-called official
theories are no longer the widely accepted theories and if any further work needs to be done
on the history of the Indus Valley civilization, it has got to be based on the new linguistic
lines of the study of the Vedas and mythological and phenomenological study of the Puranas.
This work on Brahmavarta is a step forward in this direction. Brahmavarta is the name of a
divine land of goddess Brahmani or Bharti, consort of God Brahma situated between the two
divine rivers named the Saraswati and the Drishadvati where the Richas of the Rig-Veda were
composed by the Rishies of the land in the praise of Brahma or Narayan or Hari or Hara who
created the universe. The same land of the “Universal Cosmic Power” called Brahma later on
17
became the land of God Brahma and Goddess Bharti and was at a still later age called the
land of Hari or Hara and got branded as Hariyana or Hariyupia or Haryana or Harappa or
Aryana or Aryavanta. It is amply evident, therefore, that Harappan civilization is the first
Vedic Urban face of the original rural-divine culture of Brahmavarta which as time passed on
went on taking different names like Divyadesh (the land of heavenly gods and goddesses) or
Bharat Khand (the land of goddess Bharti) or Haryupia or Hariyana or Harappa or Aryana or
Aryavart (the land of the urban Aryans) We do, naturally, have therefore, to go deep, very
deep under mythology and particularly the mythology of Brahmavarta specially where live
virtually the actual pillars of the civilization and the Glory or the wonder that is Ind. Harold
Turner has rightly said, "Such Sacred plans have a symbolic significance. They may be
regarded as the center of the world or ‘Navel of the Earth’ as the meeting place between the
gods and the men and the earthy replica of the heavenly realms.”
18
Chapter II
Urban Planning of an Aryan City and the
Mythology of Harappa
The mythology related to the great river Saraswati was till 1920 not put on
archaeological test and was considered to be in conflict with archaelogy. But ever since 1935
students of History have started realizing that actually something considered to be a myth so
far was not a myth and that mythology at its base was really a basis of history. Mythology
assumes the form of a pure history of Civilization the moment it gets proved particularly as a
reality in terms of civil Engineering. Civil engineering comes in only when life under a roof
starts, Nomadism, fetishism, fatalism and Idolism may be different steps of life, even a step
towards civilized life but they are more a myth, less a reality or rather a mixture of the two.
Civil Engineering in the evolution of man and his life style means the end of a life of
pastoralism or of nomadism and beginning of a life primarily of agriculturalism, or
industrialism and setting down in a shelter at a place where there is a natural infrastructure for
the development of agriculture and industry. Such a life starts with construction of a safe and
secure house and manufacture of implements and equipments for tilling of the land, sowing
seeds, irrigating the fields and storing the harvests. It also simultaneously goes on
manufacturing necessary weapons for offence as well as defence. Of all the aspects of
culture and civilization agriculture and civil Engineering relate to the most apparent and
distinct aspect of an actually real civilization anywhere and at any time in the world and are
not known and remembered for its hunting or even cultivating implements or even the
religious symbols in sculpture or drawings but also for its civil engineering as much as it
reflects it in the construction of temples or in constructions made for living a safe and
comfortable life or even in the shape of granaries or cemeteries or tombs made in the honour
or in the memory of the dead and their customs and beliefs. The Palaeolithic man, Piltdown
or Neanderthal with whatever crude and rough hunting implements or the neopalaeolithic or
mega Palaeolithic man with even finer stone implements cannot be treated as a real civilized
man lacking as he has been in civil engineering structures as aforesaid. This stage of a life
19
like theirs can only be reckoned as a preliminary stage of the evolution of the crude and cruel
man into a man evolving the modes of living a need-based life or livelihood. Civilization
everywhere in the ancient world, as such, started actually with construction of a human
shelter or of a place of worship, or of a shelter for pet animals or of store houses to preserve
the grains or the dead bodies of the old ones on way to the birth of a life after death or on way
to another birth. Paleolithic discoveries date us back to the Magdalenian period finds at La
Madelave (France) at Ain, at Sordes in the Laudes, at Solutre and at Klause in Bavalia and all
these finds are related mainly to some skeletons enclosed between boulders up and down as
well as right and left. There are also remains of fertility cults sometimes represented in a male
bison mounting a female found as at the Tued Andoubert (Magdalonian Period) the most
advanced culture of the European Paleolithic period discoveries in La Made liance-France.
Palaeolithic discoveries in the Aurinnacian period have been located in the caves of Grimaldi
near the French city of Menton the most notable find being skeleton of a woman wearing a
sort of crown or bracelets made of shellfish. At La Barma Graudior at Paviland in Wales
many skeletons were gathered one of which appears to be that of a child wearing a necklace.
The skeleton of La coappelle aus-saints belongs to the Mousterian period preserved in a
trench 5ft x 3ft. x 1ft. The skeletons at La Ferrassile at Moustier were provided with funerary
furnishings, instruments and Joints of game. This period reflects in these finds the burial rites
in detail placing with the dead bodies ornaments, food materials like shellfish and red ochre.
Deposits of Fu-Ku-Lien near Peking permit us to go back of the earliest Pleistocene times
(Glacial or ICE) with the remains of a dozen human beings together, with skull and lower jaw
with animal’s remains represented in the bones of all parts of the body. These skeletons’
studies date back to some period between the Pithecanthropus (Apelike) Man of Jaw and the
Neanderthal man the oldest man like man of the Missourian Europe (in Germany).
The shape or size of the ancient man, by and large, has been found almost similar at a
particular point of time whether in Jawa or in Germany or at North Pole or South Pole. Man’s
most positive life was only need based and hence reflected only in hunting implements
without indicating anything when related to his customs or beliefs or any philosophy of life
or of any religious thoughts or of any sort of an artistic skill.
The first symptom of a real development of the ancient man reflected in his raising
some structures for his clan or his group or his family. Gradually as he developed further he
also constructed sheds for his pet animals, sheds for his grains, sheds for his dead ones. Still
further as he developed, he continued with his newer construction skills which reflected in
20
Constructing his places of worship, his Community Halls, his granaries, his pavements and
drains. But this time he had perhaps known the method of cooking and producing grains and
bartering the same with other nomadic races going through the process of settlements at one
particular place.
Harappa or Haryupia has till 1920 been known as a bare myth and more a subject of
our imagination and entertainment like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, a myth not only
without a history but even without a legend in an epic like the Raghuvansham or the Kumar
Sambhavam or the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, transferred to posterity from tongue to
tongue, from generation to generations.
Not that the legends are silent, not that there are no folk tales heard on the lives of
Vishwakarma or Maya or Hara but they could not be made a subject of an epic probably
because they could not fit in the qualifications prescribed for a hero or a Nayak by the Pandits
and the Archaryas.
It is simply unfortunate that the civilization growing in between a period of about
three thousand years of glories and grandeur of Indian civilization between the end of the
heroic Mahabharat and beginning of the heretic religions of Budha and Mahavira and which
was called the civilization of Haryupia had to remain unnoticed or unrecorded by the Vyasas
and the Ganeshas of India. Until the large mounds of the present day Harappa settlements
were visited by Mason in 1826, by Burns in 1837 and by general Cunningham twice in 1856
and the annual report of Cunningham was published in the year 1872-73 and the mounds in
an area of about 3.1/2 miles were got protected under the provisions of the Ancient
Monuments Preservation Act (VII) of 1904 by which time public digging or rather looting of
the bricks of Harappa had raised a new town of a population of some 5000 people and a long
Railway track of Lahore Multan Roadways of about 100 miles had been ballasted with the
Harappan bricks. Madho Sarup Vats in his account of Archaeological Excavations at Harappa
carried out between the years 1920-21 and 1933-34 while quoting extensively below a
passage from Marshall goes on to confirm Marshall’s views by stating that “the life that was
led by the Indus peoples of the 3rd
and 4th
millennia B.C. who were in possession of a highly
developed culture, in which no trace of Indo Aryan influence is to be found is drawn by sir
John Marshall” Vats quotes Marshall as follows:-
“Like the rest of western Asia, the Indus country is still in the Chalcolithic Age, that
age in which weapons and utensils of stone continue to be used side by side with those of
21
copper and bronze. Their society is organized in cities, their wealth derived mainly from
agriculture and trade, which appears to have extended far wide in all directions. They
cultivate wheat and barley as well as the date palm. They have domesticated the humped
Zebu, the buffalo, and short horned bull besides the sheep, pig, dog, elephant, and camel but
the cat and probably the horse are unknown to them. With the invention of writing the Indus
people are also familiar and employ for the purpose a form of script which though peculiar to
India is evidence analogous to other contemporary scripts of western Asia and the nearer
east.”
In the preface of his aforesaid account Mr. Vats while accepting the gratitude of Mr.
Marshall goes on to establish the Indus civilization as the Proto-Indian civilization and says :-
“Happily, Harappa has its own distinct contributions to make to the Proto-Indian
civilization in the shape of the cemetery with its highly interesting and fascinating pottery
much of which is painted and the miniature amulet seals and sealings of an amazing variety
of shapes associated with strata of the Middle and early periods the like of which are not
known elsewhere”. As a matter of fact Harappan civilization as understood today is not what
sir John Marshall thought to have unveiled with his excavation in the twenties of the
twentieth century in his three monumental volumes of “Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus
civilization” nor what Dr. E.J.H. Macky thought to have added with the two volumes of his
Further Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro with all the due thanks to khan Bahadur Sana Ullah,
Archaeological Chemist. Or to Mr. K.N. Dikshit or to Dr. Baini Prasad or to Mr. A.I. coulson
or Sir Brice Burte or to Mr. K.N. Sastri etc. whom Mr. M.S. Vats is grateful to. What requires
to find special mention here is that the picture of Harappa which all these scholars tried to see
through their coloured glasses is more or less similar to the one used by Max Muller and
other nineteenth century scholars.
Indus valley civilization is actually now an out-dated nomenclature of a culture and
civilization and is now better known as the Indus-Saraswati civilization or widely known as
the Harrappan civilization. The official theory of the Harappan towns destroyed by semi
Aryans rushing down from central Asia and driving out the Dravidian Harappan population to
south India is a totally demolished theory now, demolished by the U.S. Archaeologist G.F.
Dales in the 1960s & admitted rather openly by even the respected archaeologists of the old
school of thought such as Raymond and Bridget Allchin.
22
The founding father of the New school of thought was Jim Shaffer who may be
quoted here to have declared in 1984 as follows:-
“Current archaeological data do not support the existence of an Indo Aryan or
European invasion into South Asia any time in the Pre or Proto-historic periods. Instead, it is
possible to document archaeologically a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous
cultural development from Pre-historic to historic periods.” Jonathan Mark Kenoyer a U.S.
archaeologist and the French archaeologists Jean-Franois Jarrige also support Shaffer and
date back the civilization to a period between 7000 and 5000 B.C.
The recent archaeological studies which have come out with latest revelations are
based on the every year increasing number of excavation sites which with the excavation
studies of U.S. archaeologist Gregory Possehi, of late, have risen to 2600 from 1500 by the
year 1998. The final figure may increase the number of sites and may emerge with the
conclusive story which has till now been based more on conjecture and less on proper
analysis of the information available. The total area encompassed by now is estimated to be
around other one million square Kilometers, more than ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia put
together or eight times the area of Tamil Nadu. The northern limit has extended to some 1400
Kilometres away in Kashmir and Shortughai in Afghanistan while the southern limit goes to
the Tapti and the Godavari rivers and eastern boundary to Alamgirpur in U.P. and the Western
to the Marran Coast of the Arabian Sea and the present Pakistan border.
The civilization that appeared after the excavations (1920-1935) aforesaid was called
by the explorers as the Indus or Indus valley civilization only because it was supposed to be
existing once on the banks of the river Indus and its tributary the Ravi. But the hundreds and
hundreds of sites excavated later than the said period explored many more facts. The main
exploration was that parallel South to the Indus flew another river named the Saraswati and
greater number of sites now come to light relate more to the Saraswati and less to the Indus
and Ravi. This fact is confirmed not only by geological and geographical explorations alone
but also by satellite photography and by radioisotope dating of the water still found under the
rivers dry bed in the Rajasthan Desert. The Civilization therefore may better be named as
Indus-Saraswati Civilization if it is required to borrow its name from its association with any
rivers. Otherwise, we may better call it the Harappan Civilisation, the civilization of Haryupia
as mentioned in the Vedas. “Haryupia”, etymologically analysed, takes us but to the
mythological Brahmavarta, the divine land of God Brahma. The father of this creation.
23
Brahma and his consort Saraswati were the first to inhabit this land followed by a band of
divine figures devoted to their creator, the Ishwar or the Lord of the Universe who to express
their sense of gratitude and devotion to Him took to “Yajna” and offered to him the best,
whatever best they possessed, the milk, the curd, the honey, the flowers, the fruits, the best of
perfumes and clothings etc. This Yajna required them to have a worshipping altar, a
Yajnashala, a Yajnakund (fireplace) with places for the five divine elements, the fire, the
water, the wind, the earth and the sky around the worshipping arena. The fire being the
symbol of power and energy got the highest regard. This Yajnashala with the fire burning in it
inside or outside every habitation with a pillar (a yoop or a ‘stupa’ or ‘stambh’) by its side for
performing animal sacrifices was the one thing which became an identification mark, of an
“Aryan House” in times to come. And it was probably for this reason that this place used to
be called “God’s place with a sacrificing pillar” meaning Haryupia or Harappa. A Haryupian
settlement like this means nothing less than a planned township of today having separate
residential structures meant for separate social classes and communities. Clusters of houses
appear to have been built for industrial workmen closer to their working sites while, separate
settlements appear to have been planned for those who were given to the farming profession
or belonged to the Brahmanic one. The farmers were settled near the granaries while the latter
near the fire places or sacrificing altars. Construction of drains and water reservoirs as also of
roads, pathways and pavements point out but to a really civilized style of living. Provision of
different types of cemeteries also indicates that the Haryupian society had been divided into
different classes: the worshipping, the farming, the industrial, the commercial, the sanitary
etc, so on an so forth.
The commercial however, did not get special treatment and had community places of
worship or community cemeteries.
But the excavations of Harappa have made it quite clear that inspite of all its
urbanization or industrialization or Commercialisation it was primarily identified for its basic
culture of Brahmavarta- the culture of offering ‘Puja’ and observing Yajna at the fireplaces
and sacrificial places made for each and every individual house, as well as for the community
as a whole separately.
Mud brick made large terraces were also planned for Community Puja celebration
which provided large size fireplaces, sacrificial altars marked with wooden pillars or “Yoops”
to facilitate animal, sacrifices. Madho Sarup Vats’ account of archaelogical excavations at
24
Harappa with plates in sufficient numbers of exhibits leaves no doubt about the fact that
Harappa was nothing more than on extension of or a distorted nomenclature given to
‘Haryupia’ of the Rigveda.
Photographs of the paintings on the burial Jars or the flat covers or of household
vessels make it evident that the Harappan people had their central root at the life and culture
of Brahmavarta- the animals, the trees, the stars etc. finding specific places and specific
inscriptions on the seals and scalings as well as on the store slabs. With the bull with garlands
in its neck or the ox, the elephant and many other animals and birds associated with the
different gods and goddesses as their carriers, there should be no doubt that Harappa or better
said Haryupia was nothing more or less than an extension of the culture and civilization of
Brahmavarta.
It is amusing that many western researchers following Max Muller, instead of trying
to find out if Haryupia is the refined form of Harappa or Harappa is the distorted form of
Haryupia, label the very approach like this as a communal approach of Hinduttwa idealogues
and dismiss the very idea of a nomenclature like Brahmavarta or Haryupia, They are hell-
bent to identify this divine Brahmavarta-born Haryupian Aryan Sarswati civilization as one of
the so called non-Aryan Indus population driven out from Harappa to the South by the
migrating horse ridden invaders of the Mediterranean middle East. They thus, try to impose a
thoroughly imaginary story in the name of a history that the Aryans have been non Indians
who destroyed the industrially and commercially developed urban Indus valley civilization to
dust ignoring all the geological or geographical or archaelogical facts forgetting whatever
history or mythology in our Vedas and the puranas has been able to preserve. Surprisingly
enough, they prefer to base their Immigration and Invasion theories as pure speculation or
imagination ignoring volumes and volumes of mythological literature and condemning truth
as trash. When the same shulbsutras provide the basic tenets of the civil engineering of
Amaravati or Indraprastha or Dwarka as well as that of Haryupia or Harappa and when the
shulbsutras and the Kalpasutras are very much traceable today why weaving a spider’s net of
pure speculation and dirty materials? It is really a surprising story, how a civilization as
developed as Harappa was dilapidated by a pastoral gang of food hunters although the
excavations of Harappa don’t bear out any trace or proof of a war nor any discovery of any
war weapons. It is all the more surprising that the story of the migration and invasion appears
to be borne neither by the Babylonian nor by the Greek legends nor by the Persian and Indian
25
legends which, no withstanding, talk of not less than fourteen battles between the angels and
the devils, the Adityas and the Daityas.
The allegation of a Hinduttwa ideology or of a religious or communal bias levelled
on the recent trends of thought on Harappan culture and civilization is just a meaningless
sound and fury signifying nothing. As a matter of fact neither the vedic nor the Harappan
civilizations had anything to do with any religion nor the researchers and explorers of the
truth of History have any Hinduttva ideology working in their minds. Simply because they
have outwitted a universally accepted official theory established by a really learned scholar
like Max Muller and simply because the colonial rulers and Christian ideologues have been
flatly exposed to the intellectual world, some so- called American and European orientalists
appear to have made up minds to dismiss the new found proposition as communal and
imaginary. The Marxist writers are also unnecessarily poking their nose in the ongoing
controversy today.
The Harappan civilization was, rightly speaking, an extension of the Aryan way of life which
happened to be destroyed not by an outside Aryan invasion but by natural calamities and
catastrophes like an earthquake or a legendary flood or a legendary drought or a legendary tug of
war between the rural and urban civilizations or the agricultural and commercial civilizations
prospering simultaneously in the Gangetic plains and the Indus-Sarswati basin. This extension from
rural to urban ran parallel and hence a clash between the two was not uncalled for.
The Vedic culture of Brahamavarta is actually supposed to have come to its bloom
sometimes in between 10,000 B.C. and 7000 B.C. but then the Vedas remained only as
shruties (Passed on from tongue to tongue ) on learning by memorizing basis. They could be
scripted only between 5000 and 4000 B.C. and the script then was Brahmi, a Script which
later on covered the whole of Greater India from Gandhar to Lanka and from Gujrat and
Rajasthan to Videh and Manipur. Neither this language nor this script had anything to do with
the so called Indo-European Languages Family theory of Sir William Jones or of Max Muller
and other so called Indologists. As a matter of fact it was the Brahmi script and the Sanskrit
language which travelled from the Ganga, Sarswati and Indus plains to Persia and
Mesopotamia, to Sumeria and Babylonia as well as to Greece and Italy and other countries
across the Caspian and the Mediterranean Seas. Max Muller termed this interplay of
languages as a family interaction and called it the Indo-European family supporting Sir
William Jones. He, unfortunately, ignored the actual role played by the central force that was
26
Aryan or Sanskrit or Vedic or Brahmi. It is really unfortunate that the fallacies committed by
Max and Marx have become the legacies of their successors who for the sake of their religion
or ideological prejudices, are not prepared to shake off a myth and to accept a truth which, of
late, has been amply justified.
The greatest misfortune behind all the unfortunate controversy has been that this
pictographic script inscribed on the seals obtained from the excavations by Sir Alexander
Cunningham or Dr. J.F. Flu or by Rai Bhahadue Daya Ram Sahni and Sir John Marshall has
not been rightly deciphered or rightly explained keeping in mind the culture and mythology
of India. On the contrary, right from Max Muller down to Marshall and Cunningham the
basic prejudice or proposition in the root of all the thinking and conclusion has been that
according to all these scholars, the Central seat of ancient culture and civilization was Egypt
and Assyria, was Greece and Mesopotamia, was Persia and Babylonia, was Crete and Rome
and not India. The Philological speculation forwarded by Max Muller has been allowed to
supersede not only the apparently speaking mythological clues to History but also the
anthropological and archaeological facts and facts of civil Engineering. The whole science of
building construction engineering of today is based on the Vedic geometrical technique of
four pillars called chatustambh which culminates into arches and domes and other
multifarious forms and designs. European historians have dated this engineering back to
Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Rome, or Greece and then via the Renaissance to the rest of the
world in the 15th century A.D., originating from Florence in Italy and from Constantinople
in Anatolia replacing the medieval Gothic style with the classical. Incidentally Florence is
said to have been founded and flourished in the first century B.C. while Constantinople in the
first century A.D. The excavations of Harappa, on the other hand, prove that this engineering
as the engineering of construction on four pillars or stambh or stupa or columns or “Yoops”
called the chatustambh structure was widely popular in Haryupia or India in the 5th
millennium B.C. itself and travelled from Haryupia or Harappa to ‘Istanbul’ or Istambul or
Istambul in Anatolia and from there to Egypt or Babylon or Israel or Italy or Greece ‘Yoop’
or ‘Stamb’ or ‘Stupa’ is not different, not at all, from the cement cast pillars or columns of
today’s science of construction engineering which had once upon a time led to the
construction of the temple city of Istanbul in Anatolia, the terminal Asian Point which took
its name from Antya +Alaya=Antyalaya meaning Aryan’s last hill resort or their last
commercial station of their journey to the west. The words- “Station” or “Istanbul” or
“Stupa” or “Stamb” all take us back to nowhere else but to the square shaped large size Yajna
27
Kund in front of every house of Harappa with four small ones at the four corners with a
Yoop or Stupa or Stamb of God Hara of Harappa which stood for a temple of its own kind
and its own type and which inspired and spread the construction culture of temple buildings
all over the world. Historians generally agree that a true copy of this civilisation had once
upon a time spread and prevailed right from Panchnad of Aryavarta to Persia and from Persia
to Anatolia ruled then by Partheans. These Partheans identified as a community of men riding
on horse backs or Chariots driven by horses with arches in hands were sometime dispelled
back to Iran and later to their original home at Panchnad, where Parth, Prithu’s descendent
and Pritha’s son Arjun had once ruled at the fall of Mahabharat. Parthean empire in Anatolia
thus, got replaced by the Byzantine and the Byzantine later on by the Ottoman in 1453. The
Romans, the Greeks or the Arabs naturally borrowed away the Parthean’s i.e the Aryavart or
Haryupian art and architecture, language, culture and literature and branded this as their great
Renaissance. It is simply unfortunate that the culture and the architecture of Haryupia or
Harappa, instrumental to the glory of Anatolia and Istanbul in the 5th
Century B.C. itself
have been kept a mystery. An effort is going to be made here to establish a historical issue of
mythology which may lead the researchers and explorers of history to the correct final
conclusion.
This effort has been, at this juncture of criticism and contradiction, very essential
primarily because as most of the contemporary researchers belong to the west non-Hindu
background, these Pro-west or Pro-Christian scholars are hellbent upon contradicting
whatever new thoughts are presented by some enthusiastic researchers of India in India or
abroad. The thesis of Michel Danino delivered by him during a lecture at I.I.T. Madras on
29th
September or another thesis of David Frawley based on his studies of the Vedas and
criticism of the Indus writing made by many other contemporary scholars or still another one
named Stephen Knapp based on his study of the gods and legends of the East did not provoke
as much of a revolt by two professors of the Harvard University supported by some Marxist
Journalists of India as it did on the thesis of N.S. Rajaram and N.Jha, who not only made a
meaningful decipherment of the Indus script but also connected their finding with the spirit of
the cosmological realities of India and its mythologies.
At a time when great scientific discoveries and inventions are being based on
mythological inspirations it is hardly understandable why historical and engineering truths
28
are denied to be reckoned within the stories of our past, treasured in our myths and legends.
Let us not forget the precept proposed by Robert Graves that “Myth is romantic shorthand
record of such matters as invasion, migrations, dynastic changes, admission to foreign cults
and social reforms” and as such myth must not better be condemned. This story on Harappa,
therefore, aims at a definite conclusion out of a plethora of mysteries and myths by trying to
connect mythology and engineering, if at all, this is plausible and not impossible. Now that a
good number of western philologists, archaeologists, geologists, anthropologists and
mythologists as well as a large number of Indian researchers of all these fields have
undertaken and rather completed useful studies in this connection and have provided
meaningful test reports including satellite pictures for and against every one of them, this
study as a step onwards in the direction, it is hoped, must be able to throw a new flood of
important light on the so far drawn up blurred pictures of the elephant called Brahmavarta by
the seven wise men of the historical world.
l
29
Chapter III
Historicisation and the Mythology of Harappa
It is really strange that historicisation of mythology has been rather openly
condemned by a section of so-called progressive writers of history. Great living historians
like Witzel and Farmer too have, of late, adversely reacted to and scoffed at the idea of
historicisation of myths and mythologies while commenting upon the decipherment episode
of the script and language of the Harappans by Raja Ram and N. Jha, from as far as Harvard
in U.S.A. They have also played a rather un-Indian card by calling it re-writing of history by
a set of non historian Hindutwavadi writers. Some others have criticized the idea as revision
of history, as if it is a sin or an offence to revise history if wrongly written or as if history
writing is a forbidden land for those who don’t belong to the academic community of
historians.
Learning is advancing every day with the advancement in the fields of science and
technology besides researches made in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, linguistics
and other allied fields of knowledge. These advances are naturally very much likely to
encourage and call for a revision of history, if not an overhauling or re-writing of it, which
too can’t and should not be made a subject of political jehad.
I feel not only surprised but actually very deeply concerned and pained at the attitude
of these so-called stereotype men of learning in the field of Indology who are bent upon
branding such studies and such researches as acts of a communal approach or a narrow out-
look to history and its philosophy in a mujahiddin fashion. The very word ‘research’ calls for
going back to the roots of history which are lying deep in old writings either in the form of
literature or theology and are very important. To go to the remote deep past of a nation to find
out something unknown to the cultural life of that nation as well as to human knowledge by
such research means adding something very important, actually very important to the glories
of that nation and its people and naturally when one goes to the remote and deep past of India
one is likely to add something very important to the Glory that was Ind i.e to the glory that
was Indus or to the glory that was Hindus (Greek) or Hind (Persian) or Sindhu (Sanskrit). I’m
30
surprised, how even such an approach bound to lead to the truth of ancient India or Indian or
Hind or Hindu culture may be condemnable by any one. I am pained and feel pity also for an
illustrious author like, Dr. (Mrs.) Malti J. Shendge who rather feels terribly upset or
embarrassed at being dubbed as Hindutavavadi although her researches on the civilized urban
living of the demons of Harappa and the Aryas of the Rigveda and Avesta amply prove that
she has brought to light truths, hidden truths of the past Sindhu or Hindu or Sind or Ind or
Hind culture and civilization.
History has been got written and re-written several times what to speak of its revision
and re-revision time and again, not only in India but almost all over the world with
advancement of knowledge and advancement of the techniques of research and study of the
past. There has been little hue and cry even if history has been re-written sometimes even like
a fiction particularly in countries where religions other than the local ones had on account of
their absence, no chance of being affected. With the spread of Christianity or of Islam
particularly a trend appears to have developed in the world to prefer to conquer the religions
and the cultures of other lands to the conquest of its own peoples and lands. And it is merely
this reason what while plundering the treasures of the temples or of the kings and queens
greater efforts appear to have been made to desecrate the temples and plunder the scriptures
or books of learning of the concerned parallel culture or power or people. I’m sorry, if to be a
nationalist is not to be a sinner anywhere in the world and so also in India it is very difficult
for a Hindu or Hind Nationalist too to agree to the theory of Richard M. Eaton, teacher of
South Asian History at the University of Arizona, U.S.A. that “instances of temple
desecration” were done only with the intention of “annexation of newly conquered territories
held by enemy kings whose domains lay on the path of moving military frontiers and that
temple desolation also occurred when Hindu patrons of prominent temples committed acts of
treason or disloyalty to the Indo-Muslim states they served”. But even if, one agrees which
one can, one can’t justify such acts as administrative compulsion but as naked communal
prejudices. And to try to justify it like prof Eaton, shows nothing but a reflection of
anybody’s imperial or colonial or communal attitude. The foreign invaders who invaded
India. whether they ruled or settled in India consequently or left India happy with their booty,
whether emperors they were or were they sultans or crown princes numbering more than a
hundred barring Akbar, all behaved in the same manner more or less similar to a Nadir Khan
or a Taimur Lang or a Md. Ghori or a Babar or an Aurangzeb or the East India Company and
its royal successors. Not only this that they plundered our cultural properties and that was all
31
but they got our history written, very mischievously and carefully written, sometime in the
style of a writer writing a fiction while sometime in the style of a religious missionary
according to their interest. Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer have dared not challenge such
books of History written at the behest of either the Moghul Kings or the British Governors or
the dictators of the Royal Asiatic Society but on the contrary, they have tried to poke there;
nose in the established scriptural and epic truths of India’s history which date back to more
than, far more than five to seven thousand years or so before Christ. They are not prepared to
shake off their oft but ill-said historical illusions that Aryans migrated from the North Pole or
Mesopotamia or Assyria to India and to accept the fact that the truth is thoroughly otherwise
and that in those olden days Mesopotamia or Assyria or Babylone were nothing but pockets if
not parts of India, where the Ashur Banipal or Banasur had once ruled and where once upon a
time their ancestor Bhrigu was highly honoured and the Dasavatar’s statues were commonly
worshipped. They are not prepared to think afresh that the merchant sons Kashyap and
Bhrigu and Varun used to come and go from the Caspian sea (named so after Kashyap) to the
Indus valley and from the Gangetic plains of India to far off lands across Persia,
Mesopotamia, and Babylone from where they bartered and brought tons of gold, silver and
diamond and from where their urban and mercantile non ritualistic civilization spread over to
the whole of Europe.
The Harappan civilization as reflected in the archaeological finds or other scriptural
writings of this age, although they do not speak all the details of the great Rigvedic
Haryupian culture, cannot be anything other than vedic and any effort to read into them
otherwise has the risk of diverting the attention of the thinking intelligentsia from a great
historical truth that should have come to light much before.
I take strong exception to their labelling this re-reading and re-writing of Indian
History as a Hindutva propaganda. It really appears from all that is happening today at the
hands of such anti-Indian historians that actually understanding, appreciating or writing or re-
writing of Indian History can better be done only by those who are born, brought up and
educated in a Hindus or Indus cultural back-ground or have studied in Indian environs and
not by those who hail from Harvard or Cambridge or Arizona and whose all the
understanding is based upon nothing but a few outdating tenets or platitudes of history
writing, which, they think does not get out dated or annuated.
32
I wish to congratulate Mr. N.S. Raja Ram and Dr. Natwar Jha for having made with
great labour a pathway only through which the rich and the glorious culture and civilization
of India can be rightly approached. I also congratulate Mrs. M. Shendgey for having
discovered the truth that lies behind the gods and demons of India as the two dialectical
classes of humanity converted later on into the two classes : the Elite and the working or
agricultural and industrial or rural and urban I would also like to buck and boost Mrs.
Shendge up to go still deeper into her research and not to be discouraged by such so-called
secularists who are actually fanatics and communalist religious reactionaries or by the so
called leftist Indologists who are bent upon limiting history to around the birth of Buddha or
of Confucius or of Plato or at last around the birth of Jesus Christ or limiting the birth of
ideology to the emergence of Karl Marx and limiting civilization to the explosion of the
Industrial Revolution.
Mythologisation of History with a view to writing a history manoeuvred to suit a
slanted agenda in contemporary politics as started by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen at Kolkata
very recently must be warded off but historiciasation of or from mythology, apart from being
scoffed at or condemned should be widely welcomed like a New Found Land. To try to read
and decipher the language of Harappa from right to left is just like putting the cart before the
horse and the Horseplay played by Witzel and Farmer and highlighted by a dark line so called
progressive Hindu Journal called the Frontline is just like putting a ferocious animal at the
centrestage as the main subject of study while a do-good to-all-the-Universe man is put
behind the screen. The language of Harappa can be nothing other than that of the Vedas and
the man of Harappa is non else than the same great man of Haryupia (The shaivite ‘Har’
culture of the Rigveda) the man of the Saraswati, the Indus and the Gangetic plains. The only
difference between the Indus man and the Gangetic man is that both being cousins, the one’s
culture has grown into urban and non idolatory, non ritual and mercantile world while the
other’s is idolatory, ritualistic, agricultural and rural. And this very difference is the route
cause of the clashes and wars between these two classes of the Hindus or Hind or Sindhu
civilization. The Saraswati flows unseen within the hearts of both and both speak the same
language even after they have fought fourteen class-wars and have been drifted worlds apart.
It may be noted that Ravana does not speak or write a Sanskrit different from that spoken or
written by Valmiki. The impact and influence of Sanskrit on the life and languages of the
Dravidian culture as also on the culture and civilization of native inhabitants of the seven
sindhus or the seven islands and the seven coastal countries of the Asian Peninsula, the
33
Atlantic and the pacific oceans, for that matter cannot also be denied, or belittled or laughed
away. The Mayans of Mexico or the Maories of New Guinea or the Mauras of Mauritious or
the Mayans and Incas of America or the Malies of Mali and Somalia of Africa or the Indies of
the East or the Andes of the West from Argentina to Indiana are, if culturally studied, would
appear not very much different from the Hars of Harappa. The best approach road to the real
history of these people or places is through an analysis of their mythologies inherent in their
names. Hence there should be no denying the fact that historicisaton of or from mythology
only, although done amply carefully can only lead us to the real history of a land or of a
people or of a culture.
Hara of Harappa, it is also said by some mythologists was the son the great Asur or
Danav called Maya who was born to Danu one of the so many wives of Kashyap in whose
name a culture known as Caspian or Ashur culture had already spread around the Caspian sea
and later on spread in the entire “East (Far as well as Near) while a culture named Mayan
originating from Maya spread and prospered over to Mexico and the Americas in the west to
the entire west. Maya was a great architect and engineer and it is he who is said to have
designed and constructed the whole golden city of Lanka ruled by his great grandson the
great Ravana. It is he, who it is said, designed and constructed also the magic Indrapastha
Estate of king Yudhishthir which became the pride of Draupadi and the prejudice of
Duryodhan.
‘Hara’ being the heir-son of an engineer father Maya planned, designed and
constructed the oldest ever urban city of the ancient world and the whole edifice of the
Harappan civilization goes to his credit and goes in his name. Our great epics also bear
testimony to a fact that after the death of Ravana and destruction and demolition of Lanka
when Vibhishan was crowned as king of Lanka by Rama, he was in the emergent need of an
engineer statesman and planner of his own race to rebuild his devastated city and be his
Minister and so he had but to invite ‘Hara’ from Harappa to take up the position. This
mythological story, it should not be missed or thrown out of sight, to be piece of cultural
history to prove the fact that Dravid language or culture was nothing but an extension of the
Harrappan culture.
The Hara culture of Harappa interpreted also as a non idolatory, non ritualistic and all
pervading commoners’ culture of God Brahma or God Shiva and inherited later on by Hara,
Haryankas and Haranaksh and upgraded to the great urban and mercantile culture of the
34
Panies, later on condemned as Dasyus established a natural connection with many stories
narrated very meaningfully in the Rigveda.
The language and culture of Hara and Harappans was by its very heritage a culture
which was just a commercial and urban extension of or just a parallel to the rural Gangetic
Aryans and naturally therefore, there is no question of any possibility of the language and the
script of Harappa to be different from those of the vedic Aryan. And therefore, there is no
question of its being read from right to left. The very title of the article of Micheal Witzel and
Steve Farmer and the spirit of the discussion on it from its learned authors to its pseudo-
secular or cynic or hypocritic letter-writers of the Frontline appears to be a deliberate affront
on Indian culture or at least a gross ignorance of it. The great epics like the Ramayan and the
Mahabharat are full of horseplays and horse driven chariots. Both Rama and Ravana and the
Mahabharat are full of horseplays and horse driven chariots. Both Rama and Ravana used
their chariots which had descended to them from their antiquities. I can’t believe that Hara of
Harappa who lived between the Mahabharat and the vedic epochs was unaware of this
horsedriven vehicle. The Ashwamedh was also not unknown to the Harappans and hence the
crude Joke like “the Horseplay in Harappa” made by these scholars about the life of
Harappans is nothing but an exposure of their prejudices or their Jaundiced visions or
venomous minds. I would like, therefore, to submit to these learned Indologists mentioned
above to further devote themselves with a fresh zeal, to the study of mythologies of India
with the same vigour and zeal they have applied so far and not to mock at and to dismiss,
these historical clues as cock and bull stories or as fairy tales or as a “Piltdown Horse hoax”
but to try to fish out history from a water that has been flowing endlessly from eternity, from
a time much older than the Paleolithic.
I would also like to request the Indologists like Witzel and Farmer of Harvard as well
as historians like Richard M. Eaton of the University of Arizona and Romila Thapar of India
particularly to try to search and research historical inter-connections between Mur, Har,
Maya, Mali, Bali, Malooca, Malay, Mad or Madhu, Heti, Chedi and similar clans of Asur
India and the Maories, the Mayans, the Incas, the Indies, the Mauritians, the Maloocans, the
Indonesian, the Malayasian, the Madgassies, the Hatties, the Chads and similar other cultures
and countries that even today abound in India and bound the seven seas and stand as living
testimonies to the fact that all these ancient and native cultures of the seven seas and of a
thousand islands and coastal countries are nothing but the offshoots of the Indus culture of
India which in itself is an extension or a parallel composite culture similar to that of the
35
Gangetic plains and while both of these are closely interconnected with the culture of Assyria
and Babylonia from which stepping stone they had once thrown the light of civilization to the
whole of Europe and nearby lands. Well-known French Scholar Claud Levi-Strauss merits
their attention when he says. “We shall discover one day that the same logic is at work in
mythical thought and in scientific, and that man has always thought so well” They are
advised not also to forget the paths of learning History shown by the great Indian saint
Vivekanand at Chicago itself more than a hundred years ago or by the great analysts of
Mythology and philology, Anthropology, Psychology and Theology like E.B. Tylor (1832-
1917), William James (1842-1916), W.R. Smith (1846-1894), and Rudolf Otto (1869-1937)
respectively or of the great foreign Ethnologists like J.A. Hamerton, E. Thurston, R.G.
Latham and Grolier as well as Indian ones like Sachehidanand or Dr. K.S. Singh before they
leap so fast on to such a hasty conclusion.
36
CHPTER-IV
Facts in Fiction : Reality of Harappa in Allusions of Saraswati and Brahmavarta
The Harappan civilization so far generally called the Indus Valley civilization,
technically belongs to a pre history age. It is not also proto history now, so far as the
archaeological excavations have proved. Whatever has been written on Harappan civilization
so far has been based on either Harappa as a mysterious entity or Harappa as a group of few
villages. The physical data which have come to light now on have made Harappa a group of
settlements of not less than two thousand six hundred sites right from the Himalayas to the
Arabian sea. It is interesting to note that the Harappan civilization which was till late thought
to be mostly a part of today’s Pakistan is actually spread over an area of a million sq. kms
right from Alamgirpur in Uttar Pradesh to Dwarika in Gujrat and Nasik in Maharastra,
Incidentally these settlements comprising or containing Harappa are situated on both the sides
of the now underground river called the Saraswati. Saraswati so far was considered to be only
a fiction and talking of Saraswati used to mean talking of a legendary goddess, daughter of
God Brahma and later on his consort. Now that NASA has been able to present a satellite
photograph of the underground river we are very much in a position to establish the fact that
the Indus-Saraswati civilization and the Gangetic civilization are the two streams of the same
culture which is actually the oftspoken glory of Brahmavarta that is Ind. U.S. archaeologist
Gregory L. Possehi in his just published monumental study has drawn out the frontiers of the
Saraswati civilization from Manda in the north, to Alamgirpur in the east to the Arabian sea
and the Makran coast in the west and to Somnath, Ujjain, Bhagatrav and Nasik in the west,
and the South west. Not only that the area of Saraswati civilizaton has been located
geologically and by a Satellite photography but also by radioisotope dating test of the water
proving that it is still traceable under the river’s dry bed in the Rajasthan desert. The
Saraswati is not now a legendary river only but actually the lifeline of the Indian civilization
as a whole. According to the French archaeologist Jean-Francois Jarrige, the civilization
beside the river Saraswati has evidence of a continuous occupation for more than three
millennia prior to the Harappan civilization. According to Mark Kenoyer a U.S. archaeologist
the civilization is the result of a long evolution between 7000 and 5000 B.C. which saw the
emergence of the first village farming communities and pastoral camps.
37
It is said and believed, to quote Michel Danino that “The most probable cause of the
destruction of this civilization was a series of natural catastrophes-earth-quakes, drastic
changes in rivers courses, consequent depletion of the Saraswati, floods, and also a long
drought over the whole region including west Asia all of which ravaged agriculture, and
perhaps also excessive deforestation to supply wood to kilns and furnaces. Another likely
factor is a sharp reduction in external trade, especially with Mesopotamia While earlier
generations of scholars spoke of a total break in Indian civilization as a result of this decline
archaeologists now agree that the another phase called post Harappan, post urban or also
localizaton Era and dated about 1900-1300 B.C. followed and went on to provide a smooth
transition to the first historical states in the Ganga region.”
The history of the Indus-Saraswati civilizaton in its different phases together may be
only some thousand years old, but the history of the river as such is a thing of times
immemorial. It is said by Saint Lomharashan of our Puranas that this eternal river had its
origin in a forest of plaksha (Pakar) trees on the Himalayas and it flew west from the
Himalayas to the Arabian Sea through a series of forests and mountains.
Nar Narayan Sthanam Parvate hi Himalaye
Saraswati Yatra Punya Syandate Sarita Varan** (Vaman Puran)
The Saraswati is that and only that pious river which took its birth at the peak of the
Himalayas and the place of God-Narayan. It is said in the Vaman Puran that this river flew
down from the top of the Himalayas a little north of the river Mandakini and took its main
course to end up in the Arabian Sea. Between the Himalayas and the sea it passed through a
thousand hills and a number of forests including the Dvait-Van, a forest finding an important
description in the Van Parva of the great epic, the Mahabharat. This river’s water was thought
to be so pious that the men and the supermen of the time took it as means of washing away
their vices in this water and gaining Moksha (freedom from the bondage of life and sins.) The
great seer Lomharshan spoke to saint Markandeya that the river after reaching Kurushetra
flew towards west through thousands of pious places known even today mainly as pilgrimage
places of God Shiva –
Kurukshetre Samaanaplapya Prayata Paschimam disham
Tatra Tirthe Shahstrani Rishivi Sevitani Cha
38
Tanyaham Keertiyisyami Prasadat Parmeshthinah
Teerthanam Smarnam Punyam Darshanam Papnashanam
The course of the river aforesaid is of course, a course which has remained famous for
the worship of Lord Shiva and this can be seen even today from Kedarnath to Somnath, from
Karnprayag to Prayag or Allahabad, from Bhima Sagar in Nainital to Bhimashanker in
Maharastra, from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Nasik and Daimabad in Maharastra. It sounds
meaningful that this whole region from Himanchal, Roper, Alamgirpur in U.P. Kalibangan
and Gangeriwala in Rajasthan and Dholavira and Dwarika in Gujrat are all those pious places
which have become symbols of modern city or urban civilization of today.
To quote S.C. Mukherji from his paper read at ITPI silver jubilee international
conference at New Delhi in 1955" a highly advanced order of social life is in evidence in the
Indus Valley civilization.... having a phase of democracy and economy…perhaps a
corporation or an association of persons who were conducting the civic affairs of the people,
Building regulations seem to have been strictly enforced and a great care was taken to
prevent any structure from encroaching on streets” The river Saraswati was one and only one
among the seven rivers which was perennial and which crossed the seven pious forests
namely the kamyak, the Aditi, the Vyas, the Surya, the Madhu, the Shant and the Falki and it
can be easily guessed that all these pious forests now have turned into seven pious cities and
this can be verified from the satellite pictures taken by the NASA. The famous temples of
Kedarnath, Kurushetra, Kotishwar, Asthanishwar, Nageshwar and Someshwar are probably
examples of the planning and development science of the modern cities standing today. The
seven rivers of this region which was once called Brahmavarta are supposed to be situated in
between this visible Indus and the hitherto invisible Saraswati. It is a matter of further
research to ascertain whether today’s Indus was once upon a time the famous Drishadvati or
not. These seven rivers however have been praised as being constituent units of a city. Many
ancient kings, including those of Egypt and Mesopotamia had titles like destroyers of cities.
This does not turn them into nomads and hunting marauders. The Vedas actually say about
their own cities. ‘Fowler condemns Wheeler and Max Muller very clearly- when he writes
i.e. “such a view is not good scholarship or archaeology but merely cultural imperialism.
The western Vedic scholars did in the intellectual sphere what the British army did in
the political realm discredit, divide and conquer the Hindus. In short the compelling
reasons for the Aryan invasion theory were neither literary nor archaeological but
39
political and religious that is to say not scholarship but prejudice. Such prejudice may
not have been international but deep-seated political and religious views easily cloud
and blur our thinking.”
"It is simply unfortunate that this approach has not been questioned more
particularly by Hindus. Even though Indian Vedic scholars like Dayananda Saraswati,
Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Aurobindo rejected it, most of the Hindus today passively
accept it. They allow western, generally Christian, scholars to interpret their history for
them and quite naturally Hinduism is kept in a reduced role. Many Hindus still accept,
read or even honor the translations of the “Vedas” done by such Christian missionary
scholars as Max Muller Griffith, Monier Williams and H.H. Wilson. Would modern
Christians accept an interpretation of the Bible or Biblical history books and western
Vedic translations that propound such views that denigrate their own culture and
country.....tolerance is not in allowing a false view of one’s own culture and religion to
be propagated without question. That is merely self-betrayal”.
The very theory of the Aryan invasion has been found to be an absurd theory not only
by Indian archaelogists and biologists like B.B. Lal, S.R. Rao, S.P. Gupta, Dilip K.
Chakravarty, K.M. Srivastawa, M.K. Dhavalikar, R.S. Bisht and others but also by foreign
biologists like Keyoner and A.R. Kennedy of the united states. Michel Danino, therefore, has
concluded the view :
“No invasion or migration caused or followed the collapse of the urban phase of the
Indus-Saraswati civilization around 1900 B.C. What is still taught in our textbooks about so
called Aryans is no more that imagination. The Harappans were just North named so far no
doubt are Indus, Beas, Jhelum, Sutlaj, Ravi and Chenab, come to be seven ones only with the
addition of river Saraswati and Michel Danino is not unjustified when be calls this great
civilization the Indus valley civilization or the Harappan civilization as really the Saraswati
civilization or better called the “Indus Saraswati civilization.”
The Aryan invasion theory propounded originally by Max Muller and supported by
Sir REM wheeler and Hillibrandt and Mallory speaks of “the Aryan invasion of the land of
the seven rivers, the Punjab”. But literally the Punjab means a land of five rivers only and the
land of seven rivers as mentioned in the Rigveda is actually known as Saptsindhu. Both Max
Muller and REM. Wheeler have wrongly interpreted the Vedic story of so many wars
between the white and the dark as wars between the white complexioned Aryans and the dark
40
complexioned Dravadians whom they meant to call the aboriginal Indians i.e. the Dasyus.
David Frawley is very right in calling this approach as purely a political metaphor, not a
cultural statement.” According to him. “Anthropologists have observed that the present
population of Gujrat is composed of more or less the same ethnic groups as are noticed at
Lothal in 2000 B.C. Similarly, present population of Punjab is said to be ethnically the same
as the population of Harappa and Rupar 4000 years ago. Linguistically the present day
population of Gujrat and Punjab belongs to the Indo-Aryan language speaking group. The
only inference that can be drawn from the anthropological and linguistic evidence adduced
above is that the Harappan population in the Indus Valley and in Gujrat in 2000 B.C. was
composed of two or more groups, the more dominant among them having very close ethnic
affinities with the present day Indo-Aryan speaking population of India”.
David Frawely has absolutely no reservation in labelling the views of wheeler and Max
Muller as imaginary, totally speculative and an example of Christian prejudices. He scoffs at
the idea of Aryans coming to India on horse driven charitots particularly when chariots are
totally unsuitable for crossing mountains and deserts, as the so called Aryan invasion
required. Max Muller’s inferences of a war between the urban culture of Harappa and the
rural culture of migrating Aryans is also not acceptable as according to David Frawley the
Aryan gods like Indra, Agni, Saraswati and the Adityas have often been north western
Indians of the time and continued to live there even after the end of the urban phase (with
some of them migrating towards the Ganga plains in search of greener pastures). In simple
terms, this means that for science there is no such thing as an Aryan race, or a Davidian race
for that matter. Nor is there any one Indian tradition, in which the world “Arya” ever meant a
race, but a quality of true nobility culture and refinement. And so, if no Aryan people invaded
or entered into India, it stands to reason that the vedic culture was also native to the
subcontinent, and not an import, In fact, quite a few scholars and archaeologists today see a
number of clear vedic traits in the Harappan culture. To cite a few : the presence of fire altars,
the symbol of a bull engraved on hundreds of seals, the cult of Mother goddess, the cult of a
Shiva like deity, the depiction of Yogic features and of Yogies and sages”. As a matter of fact
Indian scriptures, particularly the Vedas and the Puranas, while speaking about the Ganga and
the Saraswati have made it quite clear that contrary to, Max Muller’s understanding the land
of the seven rivers or the saptasindhu connotes of one and only one composite culture,
known as the culture of the Brahmavart or the Saptasindhu that is Ind. They (the seven
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Rivers) originate as one from the highest point of the sky or the Himalayas (the Brahmaloka)
and after descending at the Vindusarovar get divided into seven streams called-
Vaswok Sara Nalini Awani Pawani Cha Saraswati
Jambu Nadi Cha Sita Cha Ganga-Sindhus Ch Saptami
(Mahabharat: Van Parva-48)
Although they take different names in their different routes, although they change their
names, although they bifurcate in many tributaries taking still other different names they
remain parts of the one and the same Ganga, or the Saptaganga or the Saptasindhu :
Drishyadarishya cha Bhavati Tatra itra Sarawati
Eta Divyah Sapta Gangadishu Lokeshu Vishrutah
(The Mahabharat : Van Parva – 50)
All this goes to prove only the conclusion of the discussion made byMichel Danino and his
lecture delivered on 29 September 1999 at Chennai’s Indian Institute of Technology which
reads as follows :
“All said and done, the people of the Indian subcontinent can justifiably claim this
ancient civilization as a central and inspiring part of their heritage. But they should not forget
to learn from it the great lesson of the cycles of birth, life, decay and rebirth of Indian
civilization, a lesson we need to keep on our minds especially at the present moment.”
It can be only regretted at this stage of time that although Max Muller tried his best to
interpret the Vedas he failed to catch the real Brahmavarta spirit in the absence of his capacity
in going deep and wide into the Puranas. He had of course, speculated of a horse driven
chariot being a vehicle not only of the gods and goddesses like Aditya and Indra but also of
the heroes like Ram and Ravana and Krishna and Bhishma but he could not rightly infer that
geographical features did not allow these chariots to cross the Hindukush or the passes of
Khyber and Bolan and hence it did not make any sense in establishing the theory that the
Aryans were a nomads and an alien race which invaded the Indus valley civilization of the
Dravidian race or the Das or the Dasyu Communities on horse-driven chariots with none
other than copper made weapons : The horse chariots and the weapons so speculated by Max
Muller rather strengthen the view that the said Indus valley or the Saraswati or the Harappa
42
civilization was a perfectly developed urban civilization with a very strong civil
administration and defence mechanism. The birth of this civilization took place, no doubt,
around the area spread out between two great rivers, the Saraswati and the Drishawati later on
called the sindhu or Sind or Indo or Indus. This civilization and this culture simultaneously
spread out to the two sides of the great Ganga also known by its different names on different
places form Gomukhi to Gangasagar and from the great Saraswati to the two sides of its
different tributaries named the Narmada, the Godavari, the Krishna and the Karveri. But the
original seat of this culture and civilization by such time had taken a very meaningful
nomenclature-the Harappan civilization.
According to the mythological interpretation of one school of the myth the fiction of
Harappa takes us toward the demon kings Hara or Maya and Ravana while the facts of
Harappa as a human civilization take us towards west Asia to Mesopotamia, to Iran or Persia
in so far as the building plans and art or architecture or the phonetic family of languages is
concerned. These scholars of Indian mythology have connected ‘Hara’ who it is said, had
been once called from Harappa to Lanka by Vibhishan, the younger brother of Rawana to be
appointed as his minister of the department of Technology with a view to re-building the
golden Lanka destroyed and dilapidated by the Ram-Rawan war. The matter got all the more
confused and confounded by the story of a series of fourteen wars between the Gods and the
Demons and establishment of their respective kingdoms at Amarawati. It is also said that the
Demons also had their government over the said Indrasan at Amaravati later chosen to be
capital of some Budhist King. Prahalad was one of such kings and so was his ancestor Bali
and so was his successer Vritra who was got defeatel by Indra. Actually this war or struggle
or battle between these two communities of gods and demons later on got interpreted as a war
or battle between the Aryans and the non Aryans or aboriginals or the Prabhus and the Dasas
or the Vibhu and the Dasyus. All these wars were nothing but symbolical wars between the
good and the evil, the light and the dark and last but not the least between the privileged and
the deprived ones. History got lost somewhere between the Indian mythologists and western
analysts like Max Muller, Wheeler, and Michel Steve and who were Harappans is still going
on between the orientalists and occidentalists even today and it is incumbent on students of
ancient Indian History to reach a definite conclusion. This conclusion is possible only by a
combined study of the subject on the basis of Mythology and Engineering, Mythology which
is half History and half fiction and Engineering which is solid fact taken together may reflect
the actual position of Harappa in the History of the civilizations of the world. Max Muller,
43
fortunately or unfortunately has remained a name like Karl Marx which has remained alive
even after the death of Marxism. Max Muller similarly has remained very much alive even
after the death of his Aryan Invasion Theory. Stephen Knapp in his paper entitled “The Death
of the Aryan Invasion Theory” has quoted the famous scholar Waddell and has explained how
Sumerians who have actually been the early Aryans, were unfortunately declared by Max
Muller as original Sumerians. To quote Knapp.
“The Sumerians were Aryans in physique, culture, religion language and writing”. He
also feels that the early Sumerians on the Persian Gulf near 3100 B.C. were Phoenicians who
were Aryans in race and speech, and were the introducers of Aryan civilization in ancient
India. Thus, he concludes that it was the ‘Aryans who were the bearers of high civilization
and who spread throughout the Mediterranean, Northwest Europe, and Britain, as well as
India. However, he states that the early Aryan sumera-Phoenicians did not become a part of
the Aryan Invasion of India until the seventh century B.C. after their defeat by the Assyrian
Sargon II in 718 B.C. Though the Sumerians indeed may have been Aryan People, some
researchers feel that rather than being the originators of vedic Aryan culture or Path of an
invasion into India, they were an extension of the Vedic culture that originated in India and
spread through Persia and into Europe.”
It is surprising how that theory of Aryan Invasion could become the official theory
particularly when its proponent himself was not sure either about their migration or about
their invasion or about the timing of the invasion Vis-à-vis the composition of the Vedic
hymns. Max Muller said about the timing of the composition of Vedas as 1000 B.C. but he
was never sure about it. He writes in his famous book, Physical Religion (P.91, 1891)
“Whether the vedic hymns were composed 1000, 1500 or 2000 BCE, no power on earth will
ever determine”. The personal views of Max Muller probably became the official theory
under some conspiracy of the Britishers, Otherwise a linguistic theory could not have been
allowed to supersede the Anthropological, Archaeological as well as literary details and by
speaking a lie hundred times could not have made the great lie a great truth. It is pertinent to
quote Knapp as follows: ‘Let us also remember that Aryan invasion theory was hypothesized
in the nineteenth century to explain the similarities found in Sanskrit and the languages of
Europe. One person who reported about this is Deen chandra in his article, “Distorted
Historical Events and Discredited Hindu Chronology as it appeared in “Revisiting Indus
Saraswati Age and ancient India” (P.383). He explains that the idea of the Aryan invasion was
certainly not a matter of misguided research, but was a conspiracy to distribute deliberate
44
misinformation that was formulated on April 10, 1866 in London at a secret meeting of the
Royal Asiatic society. This was “ to induct the theory of the Aryan invasion of India, so that
no Indian may say that the English are foreigners ……….India was ruled all along by
outsiders and so the country must remain a slave under the benign Christian rule”. This was a
political move and this theory was put to solid use in all schools and colleges.’ The hymns of
the Rigveda make it amply clear that the Vedas were composed not later than 9000 B.C. when
the perennial saraswati was flowing in its full swing, while the school led by Max Muller
thinks that the Vedas were composed in between 1000 to 2000 B.C. Not only the Provedic
camp of ipious Hindus but great modern Yogies like Aurobindo, Vivekananda and Yogananda
also believe that the Vedas are as old as the river Saraswati and its great culture and
civilization, its great temples and Gods and Godesses located in caves and cliffs, its great
pilgrims places standing now as great cities and as old as its great sages and seers in the
sacred pages of the Vedas. When the same river is central to vedic texts with dozens of vedic
references to its size and its location how can one agree to the theory and the date of the
Aryan entrance into India after the drying-up of this sacred river.
Not only the vedic language and literature but the geological studies of the land of
Harappa and Mohen-Jodaro suggest that these cities were left because of environmental
changes due to droughts or floods in the plains and earth quakes taking place due to the
downward flow of the river saraswati and the force of the flow inside some 40-50 ft. below
the present surface of Harappa.
The archaeological sites and the excavation made at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro have
brought out sufficient proof of having worship places in every house located centrally and
many remains of the statues and images of gods and goddesses particularly of Durga and
Shiva. These excavations also bear ample proof of sacrificial altars and fire places for
offering Puja to these gods and goddesses. It is said that every fire place used to have a
sacrificing wooden pillar also called “Yoop” or “Har-Yoop”. Or ‘Stupa’ or ‘Stamb.’
The anthropological remains found in the cemeteries and also the articles kept and
found therein take us to a much older date than what Max Muller and the Royal Asiatic
society scholars could guess of.
Further more, Dr. S.R. Rao’s decipherment of Harappan scripts indicates that whether
the south Arabic or the old Aremic or even the ancient Indian Brahmi scripts bear sufficient
similarities with the Indus valley scripts and this goes to prove that the Harappan civilization
45
was not at all an Iranian civilization or a central Asian civilization which is said by some
scholars to have invaded the Dravadian’s Indus townships. The Engineering of these
buildings is based on mathematical instructions that are found in the vedic literature of the
Aryans such as those found in the shulbasutras. The people of these cities, it is evident use
the vedic styles of religious altars and town planning.
Whether it was Max Muller or it was wheeler or it was Pargiter or it was John
Marshall or it was anybody belonging to the Royal Asiatic society or anybody belonging to
the Christian religion, there is hardly anything specific about their conclusions or specific
about the timing of the Aryan Invasion or the timing of the drying up of the river Saraswati or
the timing of the composition of the vedic hymns or the timing of the structures of Harappa
and Mohenjo-Daro. It is really strange that Indian leftist writers like R.S. Sharma and Romila
Thapar or American academics like Michel Witzel and Farmer open their mouth in favour of
the A.I.T. (Aryan Invasion Theory), but fail to give any solid proof in favour of their
arguments. While condemning Natwar Jha and others in respect of their thesis of horse and
chariot and the decipherment of the Indus scripts they appear to be suffering from the same
prejudices with which the Royal Asiatic society people were suffering from. To quote Knapp.
“They equate the Aryans with the horse and Chariot and Harappa with a non-horse,
non-chariot and hence non-vedic culture. Such a simplistic equation has many flaws and
ignores the many other issues. It overlooks that vedic culture was essentially a rishi-king
culture not a horse/nomad culture”. Although Sir John Marshall incharge of the excavations
at the Harappan sites did not disagree with Max Muller and his theory of Aryan invasion on
Harappa, his opinion on the Indus civilization was that this civilization was the oldest to be
unearthed. According to him the Indus civilization is older than the Sumerian culture and
believes the Sumerian culture to be but a branch of the Indus civilization and thus an out-
growth of the vedic society. The bones of horses found at all the locations of Harappa and
their biological study also proves that when the horse was unknown to Mesopotamia it was in
large use at Harappa and was very common creature in “vedic Yajna” culture of India. Not
only Marshall but Prof. Lal in his famous book ‘The Earliest civilization of South Asia’ has
proved that the theory of an Aryan invasion has no basis and according to him Ashwamedha
ritual and fire altars found at Harappan cities of Banawali, Lothal and Kalibangan prove that
this civilization had its origin in Brahmavarta itself and not in Mesopotamia or Babylone.
46
It is this civilization of the Saraswati river or the civilization of Brahmavarta which
not only inducted the divine life style in the life of the Harappans but has reflected the vedic
form of Mathematics in the construction of their buildings. J.M. Mackay in his book ‘Further
Excavations at Mohen Jodaro has found sufficient proof of vedic Geometry and Algebra in
respect of the construction of altars and arenas for religious purposes. The Algebra and
Geometry applied in Shulbasutras and the Kalpasutras take us back to the 8th
Century B.C. to
the days of king Indra, his capital at Amaravati and his king Brahmavati. Vedic Mathematics
according to Mackay can no longer be considered as a derivative from ancient Babylone
which dates to 1700 B.C. only.
According to Waddell also Sumerian civilization dates back to 2800 B.C. which is a
date much later to the Indus valley civilization. The oldest of the civilizations particularly of
the west, the part of the Relief base of Le Roc, Charante (according to Dr. Henri Martin)
effigies of female animals connected with fertility magic or clay figures of the Magdalenian
period of a coupling male and a female bison or a pottery figure discovered in lake
Maracaibo, Venezuela of a Primitive mother goddess or the wall carving of goddess Isis of
Egypt or the bronze statuette of Anhur, a warrior God of Egypt or of Anubis Lord or the land
and God of death of Egypt, compared to the statuettes of Harappa, don’t appear to be older
than this. The later finds as for example the Alabaster head of a cow sacred to Hathor at the
temple of Deirel Bahri or another statue of Godess Hathor protecting a pharaoh belong to as
old as the 16th
century B.C. to 6th
century B.C. Similarly the temple of Ninkhursag at Tell-
el-obied near Ur in Sumeria being the oldest of the finds is supposed to be a later creation
compared to the finds of Harappa and Mohen-Jodaro. Greece and Rome being the most
talked of civilizations have hardly anything which can be said to be older than the finds of the
Indus valley excavations. The Chinese civilization, in so far as the archaeological finds are
concerned, is not at all as ancient as the Indus valley civilization what to talk of the American
and Slavonic civilizations.
47
Chapter V
Harappa : Urban Face of the Vedic
Brahmavarta Frame
Historians generally don’t accept mythology as a source of history and no
sources of history known so far, have ever proved to be sufficient source to bring to light the
knowledgeable facts of history lying here and there as fossils or fiction. Old fictions are
ignored while new ones are concocted or speculated or manoevred. Not only that the authors
of ancient history only are questioned about their authenticity of facts, but many of the
writers of modern history also are charged of concocting fictions in writing history. Nobody
expected Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose or Veer Savarkar and many other similar freedom
fighters to have become subjects of a fiction in the very century they lived and died. History
needs to be written or to be re-written or to be revised with the change of regimes of
governments prone to manipulations. Facts of history, have therefore been required to be
preserved in museums and libraries.
History at one point of time used to be preserved in the museums of the minds of the
people, in their customs and traditions, in their religious rites and rituals, in the courses of
their rivers and in the ranges of their mountains and forests which later on got recorded on
paper but are without any justifiable rhyme or reason called myths today, although they have
lots of history inside them. A.L. Basham’s comments on the Ramayan and the Mahabharata
explains the inter-actioon of myth and history very aptly and appropriately :
“It you read the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as history, you will find
lots of mythology. If you read them as mythology, you will find lots of history.”
It is interesting to note here that large number of texts both of prose and poetry have
been preserved in the books of Celtic traditions. Most important and valuable of such books
are the Book of Leinster and the Yellow Book of Lecan. In the Welsh tradition also there are
Books like white Book of RHYDDRCH and the Red Book of Hergest which contain much of
Celtic history in their mythologies. It is due to this that modern writers of ancient history
48
have classified the mythology of Celts into cycles. The mythological cycle is important in so
far so it gives something of the early history of Ireland in the form of myths, that is to say, it
treats some of the native myths as history even fixing definite dates to what must have been
mythical events. The first race which inhabited Ireland, it is said, perished in biblical floods,
but it again after 268 years of the flood rose up with 24 females by the sites of nine rivers and
three lakes.
These lakes and rivers and the Father-Mother and children cults is a Universal cult
which is prevalent in the mythologies of the world from India to Assyria, from Assyria to
Egypt, from Egypt to Phoenicia, from Phoenicia to Greece and from Greece to Rome. There
used to be a father who used to create a progeny. There was a father who used to have a lady
as a co-partner and might be, the lady was his sister or his daughter with whom he created a
generation. It is not without reason to guess that this fact of the generation creation was got
preserved in mythological stories like those of a Brahma and Saraswati in India, a Dagda and
a Danu in Ireland, a Ptah and a Sekkmet in Egypt or a Shamash and Ishtar in Babylone or an
El and a Not in Phoenicia or an Adonis and Venus in Greece or a Zeus and Hera again in
Greece and last but not the least a Jupiter and Juno in Rome. If all these traditions in all these
cultures have the same process of creation, it is not a mad effort to search some history of the
origin of man in such myths and such mythologies.
The story of Brahma and Saraswati and the creation of a land of a people called
Divyadesh situated on the two banks of the river Saraswati is called Bharat, the land of
goddess Bharati or Brahmavarta the land of god Brahma is not without a meaning and a
purpose. Actually Brahmavarta is so called not only because this heavenly land is Brahma’s
land but also because it is probably the land of those great gods and goddesses who are
supposed to have created, brought up and destroyed man and other creatures of the world
called “Brahmand”. Of all the creatures created by the God father called Brahma the two
important communities are the community of Adityas and the community of Daityas. Adityas
were the sons of mother Aditi and Daityas were the sons of mother Diti while the father of
both these communities was a sage called Kashyap. The mythological story goes to say that
after completing the work of creation of Daityas, God Brahma felt very much hungry and
expressed his desire to satisfy his hunger by eating up the Daityas which the Daityas
protested and said that they would do anything to save and protect their existence. God
Brahma felt unhappy with them and he became more inclined to the Adityas. The Adityas
including God Vishnu joined and combined together to fight against them (the Daityas) and a
49
battle between the two continued for thousands and thousands of years. Of the three great
Gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh the third of them called Hara or Shiva remained equally
merciful to both the Daityas and the Adityas and probably this is the reason that Hindu
mythologies are full of stories of his being very kind for his blessings and being merciful to
both these communities and probably this is why God Shiva is worshipped all over the
Aryavarta or Brahmavarta and has been recognized as the basic cause of creation. Brahma is
the creator no doubt, but Shiva or Hara is the basic and the ultimate reality, the Param
Brahma:
Vishwa Vishwesharam Cha Vishwakaranam
Vishwadharam Cha Vishwastam Vishwakaranam Karanam
Vishwaraksha Karnam Cha Vishwachhanam Vishwajam Parem
Phalbijam Phaladharam Phalam Cha Tatphalam Pradam
(Brahma Vaivarta Purana 1/3/25-26)
God Shiva, as a matter of fact, is the basic factor of creation and is different from its
manifestations called Mahesh or Shankar. And this is why both Brahma and Vishnu have
been worshippers of the Shiva factor called Brahma or Narayan or Hara and one of his three
consorts, Saraswati has manifested herself in the form of the pious river called the Saraswati.
Hara is an equivalent name of Shiva the basic as well as the ultimate reality called Brahma i.e
the universe and so the land of Saraswati and Brahma has been a land for the worship of God
Hara and this is why this land is called the land of the Bharati or Haryupia or Divyadesh in
the Vedas and the Puranas. Divyadesh means a land occupied by the heavenly gods of the
Universe and the ultimate lord being God Hara this whole expanse of this land might have
been called Haryupia or Harappa. Harappa therefore means the land of Hara the ultimate lord
of the Universe or the Brahma or Brahmavarta, it is called and this is probably why, the area
from the peak of the Himalayas to the Arabian sea is recognized as the origin and course of
the Saraswati, God Hara is worshipped as the only God, both by Brahma and Vishnu as well
as by the Asuras or the Nagas or the Daityas equally. Brahma is no doubt, the father or the
creation but the ultimate father of the Universe is “ Para Brahma” that is Hara and the land of
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Hara is therefore the real Divyadesh or the Brahmavarta and Brahmavarta is the place where
the original real culture of India is supposed to have been born.
The Divyadesh culture of India means the real vedic civilization which not only
according to the Puranas but also according to the latest findings of scriptural and
archaeological researchers carried out by scientists and scholars like S.R. Rao, V.S. Wakankar
and Srikant Talageri. The Harappan civilization is nothing but a continuation of that early
Vedic civilization belonging to the Sutra period of the Vedic Literature. This vast civilization
is supposed to have come to an end because of ecological changes particularly the drying-up
of the mighty Saraswati river which flew through Harayana and Harappa to the Arab sea Via
Punjab and Rajasthan. This has been confirmed by satellite photography also. The river
Saraswati which is supposed to have dried-up at about 2000 B.C. finds its mention in the
second Mandala of the Rigved nearly fifty times. The history of the children of Nahusha
being inhabitants and rulers of Saraswati heartland also have a reference in the Rigved. Max
Muller’s ghost may now be better called a political creature created to advance the cause of
German nationalism as well as British emperialism with Muller’s theory of the Arayn race.
Archaeological findings today are in a position to thwart the historical scenario built around
untested linguistic conjectures and are in a position to thwart the historical scenario built
around untested linguistic conjectures and are in a position, in the light of S.S. Mishra’s
linguistic analysis that it is not the west and central Asia invaders that invaded India but it is
the Vedic Aryans who travelled out of India to the west and central Asia. To quote N.S.
Rajaram-
“Aryan tribes settled in Persia, Parthia and Anatolia. (The Puranas record them as
Parsus and Partavas.) Indian emperor Mandhata drove the troublesome Dasyus out of India
before 4800 B.C. and according to Talageri (1933), “they became the celtic Druids of Europe,
which fits in with the latter’s tradition of tracing their origin to Asia.” Then there is the
question of Zoroster, his date and his origin. The Bhavisya Purana (139-15) records
“Contrary to the Vedic practices, your son will become famous by the name of Mag. His
name will be Jarathushtra Mag-and will bring fame to the dynasty. His descendents will
worship fire and will be known by the name Mag (Saka), and being Soma worshippers
(Magadha Sakadvipi) will be known as Mag Brahmins.” All this is so contrary to what we
have been subjected to learning in history books.
51
Archaeological, geological, anthropological and biological finds of Harappa have been
proved older than the remains of structures of temples or houses made for human beings not only in
Egypt and Babylone but also in Greece, Rome, Phoenicia, France or Great Britain. It is not without a
justification that most of these remains as well as most of the names of gods and goddesses of the
west tally with the names of the Gods and Goddesses of the Indus Saraswati belt. The following
comparison between the Indian names of the gods and goddesses and those of Greece, Rome,
Babylone, Assyria, Persia, Germany or Yugoslavia will prove how the Brahmavarta culture has
travelled from east to west and not from west to east. As a matter of fact the Brahmavarta Culture
expanded itself like a baloon not only to the west but also to the north, to the east as well as to the
South, Mythology, unfortunately and miserably overlooked so far, has in its unread fictions as well
as in its undecypherred dictions preserved vital facts that unfold those important realities of history
which have not been taken proper notice of by the stereotype historians who have utterly failed in
going deep and far in history beyond two to three thousand years of time. It is not actually an
injustice only to the Ancient History of India but an injustice to the ancient world which is present
this way or that way even with science-dominated present day life. The only Science of knowledge to
analyse the truth of life prevailing ten thousand years before Christ is the comparative study the
ancient languages like Greek, Roman, Persian, German, Vis a vis. Sanskrit which has not only been
the richest of all the languages but a proto language of a people which bore the torchlight of culture
and civilization from the Saptasindhu region to Persia, Babylone, Assyria, Greece, Rome and
Teutonic and Celtic countries in the west, to Indo China and Malluka Islands in the East, to
Afghanistan, Japan and Slavokian Countries in the north and not only to Ceylone and Tamilnadu etc.
in the South but also to African and Latin American countries abroad. The foremost culture which
ever took shape in the world was that of the ‘Deva’ or the “Divya” people who were called ‘Sur’ and
it was born between the two pious rivers named the Saraswati and the Drishadwati which also had
divine origins at Vindu Sarovar somewhere, over the plateau of Pamir. The ‘divya’ people were so
called because they were created by the divine Brahma on the bank of a river reverberating Vedic
Richas or mantras pregnant with eternal knowledge telling the Truth, the Beauty and the Good. This
culture of a divine life of meditation, vision and expression continued for thousands and thousands
of years when at a certain point of time exodus of the population took place with a change in their
life style of this divya (Divine) community. This exodus took place because by this time this
community had learnt producing grains and bartering them with other useful things with far off
people. This commercial type of a community was branded as non-surs or Asurs. They gradually
migrated from the Sarswati or Saptsindhus and settled at a place called Haryupia, or Harappa-
meaning a class of people who were descendents of god Har or Brahma but who adopted a different
52
occupation of agriculture and commerce and migrated onwards from Harappa to Persia, from Persia
to Babylone, from Babylone of Greece and from Greece to Rome and other places of Europe. This
change of life style was a change from culture to civilisation and this very civilization was named or
identified as Aryan. This civilization, this life style, this way of living was liked by all those who ever
came in Aryan’s contact and they adopted this life style. ‘Rit’ (i.e. Truth), Richa (i.e. Expression of
truth called its literature or Shloka) and a way of life translating this ‘Rit’ into living called ‘Aryan’
attracted to itself all the communities of the then world which ever came in its contact. ‘Rit’ was the
conscience of the creator Brahma, Richa was his word, ‘Arya’ was his action and Sanskrit was his
speech and so where ever this Aryan community migrated to, it took with it the Rit, the Richa, the
Aryan, the Aryan style and the Aryan or this divine language called Sanskrit. And this is why if there is
any language in the world which the conscience of the world recognizes as a Proto languages, it is
Sanskrit and Sanskrit alone. Unfortunately, William Jones called it as a Mystery or a mystery
language while Max Muller dismissed it.
Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian who analysed the Sanskrit language and its
effects on other languages, of the world conceptualized his formula of interaction of
languages as Bahulam Chhandasi and said that a Proto language changes its colour in other
languages in four ways - somewhere due to some similarity, somewhere due to some
dissimilarity, somewhere due to being different but being in perpetual contact while
somewhere due to some strange different reasons. The ancient civilizations of the world
analysed on the basis of the developments taking place in their languages prove this thesis
which was well- realized by Max Muller and other European linguists of the 19th
century
although they showed a bit of hesitation in giving this a universal acceptance. Max Muller
accepted that the names of the Greek Gods like Zeus, Pan, Demeter or Hephaestus or those of
the Roman gods like Mars, or Jupiter or Juno or Minerva or Haoma or Mithra of Persian or
i.e Svaroga or Agni i.e. Ogone of Slavonic mythology were the results of their constant
contact with this Proto language that was Sanskrit. Zeus was named after Dyous , Pan after
Pawan , Demeter after Earth Mother or Earth itself after Prith or Prithivi Hephaestus after
Yagyisthas, i.e Agni, Mars after Marut or Haoma ater Soma or Mithra after Mitra. The
similarities in Cults and characters of those gods and goddesses will go a long way to prove
that not only these divine figures but the heroes of these civilizations also bore the cults and
characters of Sanskrit or Aryans’ heroes and heroines. The very word Hero come to those
53
languages from the Indian Har and became Hor in Egypt, Horus in Latin, Horos in Greek,
and gave the world a poet like Horace in times to come. The Egyptian God Osiris, the
Assyrian Samash, the Teutonic Hathor, the Roman Jupiter, the Babylonian Anshar were
names taken under the effect or impact of the concept of the Aryan Sun God and none else.
The earth gods, the water gods, the wind gods, the sky gods and the fire gods
anywhere in the world stand identified according to their Aryan cult.
Not only the gods and goddesses of different ancient civilizations but the names of
ancient heroes like Ashur Banipal and Gilgamesh of Babylone, or Asshur or Anshar of
Assyria, Ahur Mazda and Vivant (derived from vaivasvat) of Persia, Aesir and Mannus of
Germany are but names derived from the Sur and Asur concepts borrowed from the Aryans.
Had they not been borrowed or adopted like this how the Sanskrit ` Matri’ or Pitri or ‘Bhratri’
or ‘Manuj’ or ‘Div’ would have been known even today, from times immemorial as Meter or
Mother, as Peter or Father, as Frater or brother, as Mannus or Man, as Divya or Divine and
how a thousand of such words would have survived and circulated in different languages of
the world of today!
A study of the Celtic mythology of Ireland clarifies that although time has been
divided in Ireland into mythological cycles it treats some of the native myths as history fixing
definite dates to what must have been normally taken as mythical events. It is said and
believed that the first race which inhabited Ireland perished in the biblical floods and the race
that followed the floods took two hundred and sixty eight years to inhabit Ireland again. In
India also mythical events have been treated historically in terms of cycles like Satyayug,
Treta Yug, Dwapar Yug and Kaliyug. It is believed and reasonably believed that Satyug
remained for four thousand and eight hundred years, Treta for three thousand six hundred
years, Dwapar for two thousand and four hundred years after which the Kaliyug is supposed
to have taken place. Kaliyug means the advent of an Urban age of mechanism and of
settlement of human beings constructing new shelters for their living, shelters for their dead
ones, shelters for their security guards and soldiers and a paraphernalia of town planning and
civilized life. Calculating from this angle, the Indus Saraswati civilization which is supposed
to have followed Dwapar, the age of the Mahabharat should be between 3000 B.C. and 1000
B.C. but this does not ever mean that the Vedic culture followed this Indus culture. The Indus
Saraswati culture must have been preceded by a culture as that of the Vedas and the
Upnishads which in itself should be expected to have been preceded by a culture identifiable
54
with the culture of the Ramayan i.e. a culture and a still other older culture known as the
culture of the Satyayug the ideal culture of India known for a society where no body is
plagued with sorrow and grief and in which everybody remains happy. The ideal life has
remained hyped in the following vedic rhyme.
Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah Sarve Santu Niramayah
Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu Ma Kashchid Dukh Bhagbhavet
The history of the ideal Indian culture thus naturally dates back to a period five thousand
years before Christ. It is interesting to know that the great U.S. Archaeologist. J.M. Kenoyer
who has worked on many Indus sites has proved on the basis of the findings in respect of
pottery, metallurgy and farming etc. of Harappa that this civilization taking its real form in
between 5000-2600 B.C. was the result of a long decadent evolution process taking place
between 7000 and 5000 B.C. It will be very relevant here to quote Michel Danino as
follows:-
“Whatever its name, when we speak of this civilization we usually mean its mature phase”
(also called “integration era”), during which the great cities such as Mohen Jodaro, Harappa,
Ganweriawala, Rakhighari, Dholavira and others flourished. That phase is now usually dated
2600-1900 B.C. But it was, of course, not born in a day. It was preceded by a long phase
called” the early Harappan “or” regionalization era”, during which villages kept developing
and started interacting and also many technologies (pottery, metallurgy, farming etc.) were
perfected, That early phase is now dated by Janathan Mark Kenoyer, a U.S. archaeologist
who has worked on many Indian sites of 5000-2600 B.C.It was itself the result of a long
evolution between 7000 and 5000 B.C. which saw the emergence of the first village farming
communities and pastoral camps (as in many other regions of the world) Mehrgarh, at the
foot of the Bolan Pass in the Kachi Plain of Baluchistan, is the best known example.
According to its excavator, the French archaeologist Jean-Francois Jerriage, “The site covers
an area of about 500 acres (200 hectares) with only Pre Harappan remains” and shows
evidence of continuous occupation for more than three millennia prior to the Harappan
civilization.”
The end of the mature phase is usually dated 1900 B.C. when most of the cities were
gradually abandoned : their remarkable civic organization broke down, forcing people to go
back to the village. The most probable cause was a series of natural catastrophes-earthquakes,
55
drastic changes in river course, consequent depletion of the Saraswati, floods, and also a long
drought over the whole region (including west Asia) all of which ravaged agriculture, and
perhaps also excessive deforestation to supply wood to kilns and furnaces. Another likely
factor is a sharp reduction in external trade, especially with Mesopotamia. But while earlier
generations of scholars spoke of a total break in Indian civilization as a result of this decline,
archaeologists now agree that another phase called Post-Harappan, Post-Urban or also
“localization era.” and dated about 1900-1300 B.C. followed and went on to provide a
smooth transition to the first historical states taking shape in the Ganga region.”
Unfortunately, a scholar like Max Muller who believed in Christian Chronology put
his seal on the Christian theory that the world was created at 9 A.M. on Oct. 23, 4004 B.C.
and the great flood occurred in 2500 B.C. and for all his assessment and conclusion he
depended knowing and unknowing upon this faith. It will be relevant to quote him from a
letter written by him to his wife in 1866 about his translation of the Rigveda-
“This edition of mine and the translation of the Veda, will hereafter tell to a great
extent on the fate of Indian and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the
root of their religion and to show them what the root, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting
all that has sprung from it during the last three thousand years.” He also misinterpreted the
struggle of the two wings of the same Indian culture as an invasion or a battle between the
Aryans migrating from middle Asia and the Dravadians inhabiting Harappa and Mohen-
Jodaro. David Frawely has made very substantial comments on Max-Muller while stating as
follows:-
“A close study of Vedic literature reveals that there were two related cultures in
ancient India. This is one of the main points of my book, “The Rig Veda and History of
India.” The first was a northern, Kingdom centered on the Saraswati-Drishadvati river region.
It was dominated by the Purus and the Ikshvakus and their mainly Angirasa gurus that
produced the existent Veda text that we have. The second was a southern culture along the
coast of the Arabian Sea in the Saraswati delta and into Vindhya Mountains. It was dominated
by Turvashus and Yadus and their mainly Bhrigu gurus had extended into groups yet further
south.”
These two groups vied for supremacy and influenced each other in various ways as
the Vedas and Puranas indicate. That is why, in Vedic literature the Turvashus and Yadus, the
southern people are the main enemies, though originally kinsmen, of the Vedic Bharatas.
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Great Vedic Kings like Divodasa, Srinjaya and Sudas have the Turvashus and Yadus as their
main opponents. The mythical ancient Deva-Asura war of the Vedas and Puranas involves the
Angirasas and Bhrigus (Brihaspati and Shukra) or the northern and southern rishi families.
It is really a misfortune of history that an intellectual clash between two schools
of thinkers the Angiras and the Bhrigus belonging each respectively to the north and the
south get interpreted as a clash between two civilizations the Aryans and the
Dravidians. A worse misfortune is another misinterpretation of history made by a great
European scholar like Max Muller that the Brahmin civilization which travelled from
Brahmavarta to Persia, to Mesopotamia, to Babylone, to Greece, to Rome, to Ireland
and last but not the least to England and Germany was interpreted as having made a
thoroughly reverse journey from Greece and Rome and Persia to the Saptsindhu that is
India and was declared as an immigration and an invasion by a clan coming through
Iran to India and so called the Iranian or the Aryan Race. Linguistic similarity from
Indian to Greece and Rome and from there to England and Germany must look natural in
both the cases Max Muller should have interpreted and establishing his theory in the
background of the older culture and civilization and not in the background of a culture that
was born at 9 A.M. on 23 Oct. in 4004 B.C. He unfortunately did not take into consideration
that the Vedas could not be recorded in writing for so many centuries before any script was
invented in the world. The Vedas were called shruties simply because they were transferred
from ears to ears, from generations to generations and from civilizations to civilizations.
Language any-where in the world was first invented in Brahmavarta in the form of
pictographs and symbols and later on it could be converted in to a script. A study of Harappan
pictographs, symbols and pictures and paintings indicated that it was a period of transcribing
knowledge and thought into a script. It is not without meaning that this script taking birth at
Harappa has been recognized by many scholars as the earliest from of Brahmi script which
later on became the script also of the Vedas and the script mainly of the land called
Brahmavarta. It sounds very-very natural to have a land like Brahmavarta, a lord like
Brahma, a river named Brahmani after Brahma’s daughter Saraswati and a language like
Brahmi.
It is really sad that Max Muller and his follower scholars of Royal Asiatic society
probably, knowingly ignored these facts of geographical as well as philological realities and
determined the time of creation of the Vedas at 1000 or 1500 B.C. and not at a time prior to
7500 B.C., a time when Angira, Bhrigu, Vashisth and Agastiya were composing as well as
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reciting the Richas (Shlokas) of the Vedas and were passing these shlokas from individuals to
individuals, from ears to ears, from generations to generations. The work of decipherment of
the Indus Valley script has luckily been taken up by scholars from all over the world. These
scholars generally included George Thompson, Steven weber, Alessandro Passi, Bo
Simphins, Martin, Fosse, Dennys Frenez Allen Thrasher, Bjarte Kaldhol, cosma Shalizi,
Victor Mair, D.P. Agrawal, Iravatham Mahadevan, Andrew Lawler, Malcolm Dean, Enrica
Gazilli, John Robert Gardner, J. Chadwick, A. Cunningham, Fair Servis, K. Kak, B.B. Lal,
S.R. Rao, A. Parpola, M. Witzel and S. Farmer. The last word spoken so far on the Indus
valley script is really cryptic to quote Farmer, Sproat and Witzel from their elaborate article
entitled, “The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis : The myth of a literate Harappan
civilization,” nothing appears to having been really done to untie the knot.
“A note on falsifiability- It will probably surprise many readers to discover that the
standard view that the Indus civilization was literate has been an assumption and not a
conclusion of previous studies. While debate over the language of Indus inscriptions has had
a long and acrimonious history, not one of the thousands of articles or books written on the
topic since the 1870s included any systematic justification for the belief that the inscriptions
were in fact linguistic.” Due to the long record of doctored evidence and forgery that is part
of the Indus-Script story (c.f; e.g. Witzel and Farmer 2000, Farmer 2003), any discoveries to
this type would have to be accepted by a broad consensus of Indus researchers before we
would consider our model to be falsified or subject to major modification.”
Efforts of Orientlists spread over the whole world are going on and time is not far off when
not only Farmer, Sproat and Witzel themselves will not be falsified but some so called leftist Indian
historians like Romila Thaper, R.S. Sharma and politician Journalists like N. Ram and Praful Bidwat’s
tougues will be sealed forever. It is really a crude Joke to call a developed Urban culture like that of
Harappa to be an illiterate civilization.
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Chapter VI
Culture of Harappa : From Divine
Brahmavarta to Urban Aryavarta
A real good historian is the one who writes a really good history. In case he
fails he is rather much worse than a good mythologist, because the bad historian might kill
the spirit of history while the good mythologist treasures it, saves it, protects it, promotes it
and supports it in the interest of humanity. A bad history of a civilization may be the cause of
a bad history for the whole mankind if unfortunately it happens to be some what like a so
called official theory of the birth and growth of civilization. This has some how or other
happened with the so called Aryan’s invasion theory (A.I.T.) established by Max Muller. Max
Muller has been such an important name in the history of languages and cultures that people
generally prefer to refrain from making comments over his studies and his theories. But
before accepting a theory in its totality established by a foreign scholar one must guard
against and think twice and first look into what native ones have spoken about on the contents
of the said establishing theory. A German thinker and scholar like Max Muller had learnt
workable Sanskrit to evaluate the culture of a land which wrote the Vedas after thousands and
thousands of years and seers called “Rishies” recorded their views about the origin and the
growth of the world and its culture. No foreign student should be easily expected to have the
same mastery over the scriptures of a land like India or for that matter of a land like China or
Greece or Egypt or Assyria or Babylonia. It is only the native scholars and it is they and they
alone who can catch in true sense of the term, the spirit of a culture in its language and
literature. When Max Muller was propounding this theory, he was probably exploiting the
advantage of India being a slave of the Britishers and Britishers were interested in a
universally acceptable theory like the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory). They had a political
interest in injecting this theory not only in the minds and the ears of the people of India, but
also in the minds and hearts of many other countries that since the Aryans were themselves
foreigners to India they had no moral right to call Britishers an alien race and hence to ever
raise the question of asking them to quit India. Not that there were no commentaries on the
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Vedas and the Upnishads created and composed by Indian scholars called Acharyas, not that
Max Muller was a better linguist than Panini and a better commentator of the Vedas than
Sayan, not that just to explain the ideas of the Vedas many-many Puranas had already not
been authored by a series of writers like Vysas and not that students of the Vedas other than
Max Muller should have no authority to establish a theory like him ignoring and excluding all
the aforesaid Archayas, but it was actually so important in the interest of British sovereignty
as also in the interest of Christianity that a rudimental learner of the Vedas became a master
of a Philosophy and a history of a land not known to him perfectly well. The worst
misfortune for India of today is that the so called historians of ancient India refuse to be
guided by what has been said by Sayan or Panini or Patanjali or Vyas while they are very-
very loyal to authors of ancient history like Max Muller, Griffith, Monier Williams and H.H.
Wilson. They refuse to appreciate the fact why the Christians of the west are not inclined to
accept the interpretation of the Bible or Biblical history done by Hindus although not at all
with any mission to converting them to Hinduism. Our misfortune today is that Universities
in India prefer use of western history books and western Vedic translations compared to the
commentaries made by modern Indian thinkers and scholars like Dayanand Saraswati, Swami
Ram Krishna, Swami Vivekanand, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Maharshi Aurobindo. To quote
David Frawely.
“Such a view is not good scholarship or archaeology but merely cultural
emperialism. The western Vedic scholars did in the intellectual sphere what the British
army did in the political realm discredit, divide and conquer the Hindus. In short, the
compelling reasons for the Aryan invasion theory were neither literary nor
archaeological but political and religious that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice.
Such prejudice may not have been intentional but deep-seated political and religious
views easily cloud and blur our thinker. The modern western academic world is
sensitive to criticism of cultural and social biases. For scholars to take a stand against
this biased interpretation of the Vedas would indeed cause a re-examination of many of
these historical ideas that cannot stand objective scrutiny. But if Hindu scholars are
silent or passively accept the misinterpretation of their own culture, it will undoubtly
continue, but they will have no one to blame but themselves. It is not an issue to be
taken lightly how a culture is defined historically creates the perspective from it is
viewed in the modern social and intellectual context. Tolerance is not in allowing a false
60
view of one’s own culture and religion to be propagated without question. That is
merely self-betrayal.”
It is really worse than unfortunate that the Brahma of the Vedas and Upnishads the
Sarva Khal Vidam Brahma or the Brahma even of the Brahmand Puran or the Brahma Vaivart
Puran could not become the subject of a study by our so-called modern historians of India.
They condemned not only the concept of the Advait Brahma of the Vedas and the Upnishads
who actually stood for the scientific concept of the cosmos but they also condemned the
Brahma of the Puranas, their First Father as something like a communal deity calling it a
Hindutwavadi interpretation of the culture and history of India. They never tried to establish a
relationship between the Brahmand i.e. the Cosmos and the land known as Brahmavart
inhabited at one stage of creation by one of the three great gods called Brahma with his
consort called Brahmani or Bharti or Saraswati later on flowing in the form of a perennial
river called the Saraswati from one of the hill tops of the Himalayas to Bet Dwarika or to
Somnath. They never took the trouble of understanding that primal super cosmic element
called Shiva or Hara and to establishing his relationship with the land called Brahmavart or
Divyadesh. The land of the eternal power called Brahma ¼czg~e½ or the land of the gods
and goddesses inhabited by Father Brahma and inherited by his creations like Angira, Pulah,
Pulastya and Bhrigu. etc. The culture of India dates back to a history from the land of these
gods and goddess which neither came in the purview of the study of Max Muller or
Cunningham or the study of modern historians from Romila Thaper and R.S. Sharma to
political Journalists and writers like N. Ram and Praful Bidwai.
“Such a view is not good scholarship or archaeology but merely cultural imperialism.
The western Vedic scholars did in the intellectual sphere what the British army did in the
political realm discredit, divide and conquer the Hindus. In short, the compelling reasons for
the Aryan invasion theory were neither literary nor archaeological but political and religious
that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice. Such prejudice may not have been intentional but
deep-seated political and religious views easily cloud and blur our thinking”, David Frawley
may well be repeated here rightly.
Brahm is actually a substitute for the Eternal cosmic power recognized not only by the
Samkhya and Vedanta philosophers but as also by Scientists and Philosophers of the world.
This cosmic power manifests itself in the form of the entire creation of this life called Nature,
or Gods & Goddesses or Men and Women or Animals and other creatures including the
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Demons called Rakshas as or Ghosts called Pishachas. It is said and recognized by the
religious thinkers all over the world that the genesis of creation was in the form of a blast of
light in a chamber of darkness when God said, “Let there be light and there was light.” A
Physicist and great mathematician like Hawking has also said that there must have been some
unseen power behind the black hole of life. Indian Philosophers called this creation a play of
Maya ‘Illusion’ or of Prakriti called Nature. The five elements called the Earth, the Sky, the
Air, the water and the Fire are instrumental to the creation of life that is visible on this earth.
All the religions of the world also believe that this invisible cosmic power is what we call the
ultimate reality or God or Brahm of India or Ptah of Egypt or Marduk of Babylonia or Zeus
of Greece or Jupiter of Rome and so on and so forth. Without going into the vagaries of these
stories of creation of the world, mention may be made here of the Philosphical fact that one
of the trio of the Three Gods called Trideva, Brahma was given the responsibility of creating
living beings and the place where the purest and the best enlightened ones of his creations
lived was called the land of Brahma i.e Brahavarta or Divyadesh. It is said that towards this
he created nine or seven sages who were nothing more than his mental sons “Manas Putras”
Later on it is said that these Manas Putras created their progenies and were called Prajapati or
Prajapita. The land of these sages was situated somewhere at the western top of the
Himalayas from where a perennial river called Saraswati flew in two streams one to the east
the other to the west. The eastern stream was called Prachi Saraswati which appeared at
Kurukshetra and disappeared again to be seen in a mixed form at Sangam at Prayag. The
western stream called the Pratichi Saraswati flew from the same Himalayan hill top to the
west through Ropar, Ambala, Bhagwanpura, Kalibangan, Ganweriwala, Chanhudaro,
Dholavira, Bet Dwarika to Somnath. It was quite natural then to call this land of Brahma or
of Saraswati as Brahma-varta meaning both of the ultimate cosmic powers as well as one of
the three great Gods and Saraswati meaning his daughter or his consort. It is perhaps due to
this that this land was called the only religious land on the Jambu dwip (Island) by Vyasa in
Mahabharat’s “Bhoomi parva”.
Eko Janpado Rajan Dvipe Eteshu Bharat
Ukte Janpade Yeshu Dharmashaik Pradrishyete
It has been said in Bhagwat Puran as also in Shatpath Brahman that it is due to the piousness
of this great land that king Parikshit perfomed many of his religious rituals at this land
between the two rivers called the Saraswati and the Drishadwati. It is also said that king
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Prithu and Lord Manu also lived at this place itself and the cultural value of this place was so
great that people from all over India visited the belt of Saraswati for washing their sins
having dipped themselves into the water of this great river. Brahma was probably a great
artist and Engineer at the same time and it is probably due to this that engineering skills are
amply found in the dilapidated remains of an Urban civilization like that of Harappa and
Mohen-Jodaro which were nothing but the urban extensions of the divine way of life of
Brahmavarta.
A theological study of the archaelogical excavations of Harappa as interpreted by
Anthropologists like Parpola misinterprets the religion of Harappa as a religion of Dravidians
while accepting in the same vein that the chief God of Harappans was Shiva. The general
feeling of such interpreters of History is that the chief God of the Aryans was Vishnu. They
have failed to understand that Shiva who stands for the Cosmic Entity includes in His Entity
all the Three subsidiary entities called Brahma, Vishnu as Mahesha is a universally accepted
God of the Jambu Dwip and is equally venerated by the Dravidians and the Aryans equally.
Similarly the Saraswati is another name of a stream or western wing of the river Ganga which
they are not able to understand. They have also failed to appreciate that the fire altars found at
Harappa are mathematically dug-up and constructed as prescribed in the Vedas. They also fail
to appreciate that the bunch of fractured skulls or skeletons found at Harappa are more the
result of floods and droughts and not the result of a war between the black suroid Dravidians
or Africans race and the white Indo-Aryan Caucasoids. The wars fought between the Gods
and the Non-Gods i.e the Surs and Asurs also have been mis-interpreted as a war between the
white and the black races. The excavations also speak about floods in the so called Indus
cities which these historians explain as a mental mischief at the hands of the Aryans while
that must have been due to a natural calamity. It is strange that although Sanskrit literature is
quoted by them, it is interpreted to be a battle between the Gods and the Non-Gods. A.K.
Pateria in his book “Modern Commentators of the Veda” (Page-63) very rightly exposes them
while writing –”Both Dayananda and Aurobindo refuted in clear terms the historical doctrines
of Aryan invasion and struggle of Aryans with Dravidians, which was originated by the
westerners and has ever been popularized among a large section of the India Historians.”
With the publication of the account of archaeological excavations at Harappa carried
out between the years 1920-21 and 1930-34 by Madho Sarup Vats (Munshi Ram Manoherlal
Publishers Pvt. Ltd.) We do possess now sufficient plates of Harappan Urban Planning of
buildings and roads, of cemetery and granary, of pavements and pathways, of burials and pot
63
burials, of wells and reservoirs, of seals and sealings, of figurines and statuettes, of terracottas
and metals, of ornaments, utensils, implements, weapons and last but not the least of
jewelries and ornaments indicating that Harappa has been a perfectly developed Urban
civilization with its mooring in the religion, tradition and customs of a land that was also
called once upon a time a land of spiritualist men & women of Divyadesh or Brahmavarta
which was later on known as Aryavarta, the land of the Rishies called the Aryans. When the
Brahmans meaning the settlers of Brahmavarta developed from visionaries and
peasants into an urban way of life with a spiritual cultural back ground, it is they
themselves that were called the Aryans. Brahmans were called Aryans and Aryans due
to being the creation of Hara, were called Harappans with a change in their further
growing way of life and this cultural background and this Urban growth encompassed
almost the whole country which is called India today. The Harappan culture and
civilization, therefore, should not have been interpreted as Dravidian and the Aryan
civilization should not have been interpreted to be a civilization of emigrant invaders
from middle Asia. As a matter of fact this Urban civilization of Harappa spread far and
wide to Iran and Mesopotamia in the west, to Jawa, Sumatra and Indonesia in the east,
to Siberia, China and Japan in the North and to South Africa and South America in the
South. It was just an extension of this civilization of Brahmavarta to Persia that the
Asur king of Harappa known probably as Banasur was known as Ashur Banipal of
Persia or Gilgamesh of Babylonia or Zeus of Greece or Jupiter of Rome. It was due to
the extension of this culture and civilization to the east that a good number of Shiva
temples were got constructed in Indonesia, in Combodia, in Burma, in Jawa and in
Sumatra. It was probably from the temples of the east that the people of Greece and
Rome learnt to construct their temples which followed the Vedic mathematical
measurements and it is probably due to this that all religious buildings of the world are
called temples. Interestingly enough temples is a derivative of the word “Stamb”.
Much controversy has recently been raised by Witzel and Farmer in their article
published in the Frontline (2201) over the hoax of the horse theory and much of sound and
fury was created stressing that the horse was not known to Harappa until the central Asian
Aryans invaded Harappa crossing the Caucasus and the passes of Khyber and Bolan on their
chariots driven by horses which they might have taken from Persia or Mesopotamia. While
the horse driven chariot has been as old to India as the sun and the moon themselves with a
number of stories associated with them the animal which dominated the Harappan culture
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was the Ox or the Bull which was the backbone of the Agricultural rural life of the early
Vedic period. It is not without a purpose and a meaningful purpose that the maximum number
of the seals of Harappa from seal no. 1 to 104 have drawings of the Ox itself on the seals,
Besides these seals, seals no. 233, 236, 237, 238, 241, 242, 243, 614, 615, 616, 617, 618, &
619 have drawings of a bull with long horns. There are many others seals which have swastik
marks on them or seals which show the Natraj posture of God Shiva. Not only the seals but
also the Lingum of God Hara or Shiva has been found at Harappa and has been recorded by
M.S. Vats at Plate No. X which goes to prove how important God Hara was for Harappa with
his carrier known to be the Ox finding place in hundreds of its seals and sealings. The
inscriptions found on the said seals may not have been deciphered properly by Scientists and
Historians but it can not be proper to say that these inscriptions belong to a civilization which
was illiterate. Most of these inscriptions tally in their signs and symbols and most of these
signs and symbols pertain to the rites and rituals of the process of worship of God Shiva.
There are a good number of signs and symbols of Shiva’s Trishul or Shiva’s Lingum or of the
bells rung in the temples or of the objects which were offered in the worship to the God and
all this indicates that it is only passing a sweeping and superficial remark while branding the
Harappan civilization an illiterate civilization. We cannot call a civilization illiterate having
inscriptions of many-many such writings which demonstrate over them a good number
human figurines in Yoga and Puja postures. Plates LXXVI and LXXVII may be perused. Not
only the figures and figurines but also the paintings of the Sun and the Stars done on the flat
covers of the cemetery indicate a religious and aesthetic tone. The residential buildings
showing a circular terrace or the houses having fire places inside them also go to prove that
the Harappans used to offer libation to their Gods and Goddesses and the Chief among them
was God Shiva or Hara. A civilization recording pictoral or other literal writings on hundreds
of places, coins, signs, seals and sealings can’t and should not be rated as illiterate nor a
developed and fortified city dwellers community like that of Harappa’s should be expected to
have been invaded by an uncivilized clan of a semi barbarian community wandering in search
of something to eat and some place befitting to dwell also surprisingly be supposed to have
defeated a civilized urbanized race like that of the Harappans.
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Chapter VII
The Culture of Hara, Hara, Mahadev,
The Supreme God
As current events of today’s life are materials collected for history of tomorrow
similarly history of yester day’s life is a record of materials called mythology. But there is a
great difference between history and mythology. Current events take only years to become
history while history takes centuries or Millennia to become mythology. It is, therefore,
worthwhile to establish a relationship between the two. History is actually mythology in
continuity from infinite past to infinite future. It is not understandable why some historians
refrain from locating the origins of history in the vast and deep world of mythology. Our
present is nothing but a development of our past while our future is similarly a development
of our present. The Indus Valley civilization which is said to be a way of life of the Indus
people of the third and fourth millennia B.C. by Sir John Marshall who has at least
recognized that it was a highly developed culture although according to him there is no
vestige of Indo Aryan influence to be found here. It will be pertinent to quote Marshall as
follows :-
“Like the rest of Western Asia, the Indus country is still in the Chalcolithic Age that
age in which arms and utensils of stone continue to be used side by side with those of copper
or bronze. Their society is organized in cities, their wealth derived mainly from agriculture
and trade, which appears to have extended far and wide in all directions. They cultivate wheat
and barley as well as the date-plam. They have domesticated the humped Zebu. buffalo, and
short horned bull, besides the sheep, pig, dog, elephant and camel : but the cat and probably
the horse are unknown to them. For transport they have wheeled vehicles, to which oxen
doubtless were yoked. They are skilful metal workers, with a plentiful supply of gold, silver,
and copper, Lead, too, and tin are in use, but the latter only as an alloy in the making of
bronze. With spinning and weaving they are thoroughly conversant. Their weapons of war
and of the chase are the bow and arrow, spear, axe, dagger, and mace. The sword they have
not yet evolved; nor is there any evidence of defensive body armour. Among their other
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implements, hatchets, sickles, saws, chisels, and razors are made of both copper and bronze;
knives and celts sometimes of these metals, sometime of chert or other hard stones. For the
crushing of grain they have the muller and saddle-quern but not the circular grind stone. Their
domestic vessels are commonly of earthenware turned on the wheel and not infrequently
painted with encaustic drawings; more rarely they are of copper, bronze, or silver. The
ornaments of the rich are made of the precious metals or of copper, sometimes overload with
gold, of faience, ivory, carnelian, and other stones; for the poor, they are usually of shell or
terracotta. Figurines and toys, for which there is a wide vogue, are of terracotta, and shell and
faience are freely used, as they are in Summer and the west generally, not only for personal
ornaments but for inlay work and other purposes. With the invention of writing the Indus
peoples are also familiar, and employ for this purpose a form of script which though peculiar
to India is evidently analogous to other contemporary scripts of Western Asia and the Nearer
East.”
Not only Marshall but Pargiter also was under the influence of Max Muller and his
successors when he traced the Aryan influence in India to be much earlier than the
composition of the Vedas and strengthened the theory propounded by Max Muller in his book
Physical Religion (P.91) in the year 1891 that the Aryans entered India near 2000 B.C. and
the Vedas were composed in between 2000 B.C. and 1000 B.C.
As a matter of fact the civilization of the so called Indus Valley people was a
magnified replica of the divine life of the Brahmans of Brahmavarta who had the credit of
planning a city like Amaravati and composing the sutras and Mantras of the Rigved and the
other Vedas. The life of Brahmavarta and its capital city of Amaravati or Awantika or Ujjayini
was thoroughly a divine life very much similar to the Greek divine life of Mount Olympus or
the Egyptian divine life of Heliopolis and which later on developed into a human urban
culture and civilization. The priests or the Rishis who lived in Brahmavarta were great seers
and composed the mantras of the Rigved and the other Vedas sitting by a fire place under the
tree or in a cave or on the bank of a river like the Saraswati or the Ganga. They did not know,
they did not need any comfort, they did not live any sort of a life like ours called urban life.
The development of an Urban life was a later development when they felt the need of
something to eat, some shed and shelter to live, some weapons to protect themselves and
some measures against natural calamities, they had experienced so far. This phase of the
development of a pattern of life was the beginning of an urban life in the history of mankind.
The transition to the urban life from that of the divine life was actually the process of
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Aryanisation of the Brahmans or the Rishis or the Priests of Brahmavarta. This Aryanisation
(a human way of civilized life) was probably adopted and followed by the peoples of Persia,
Babylonia, Greece, and finally by Rome which was later on known for its city states. Neither
Max Muller nor Pargiter nor Marshall nor anyone of their followers could guess that
this urbanization was actually a substitute of Aryansiation which promoted and
prospered itself in a planned city life previously of Amaravati and later on of Harappa
and Mohen-Jodaro. Aryanisation meant a farewell or a change over from a rural-
religious way of life hitherto called divine to the urban style and commercial way of
living and moving far inside and far abroad both by sea as well as by land in search of a
trading ground. It was this trading and migrating community which due to its change in
life style was called un-divine or Asur like or Un-Aryan. It was this community which
took the names of Asshur, or Asur or Ahur in Persia and Assyria with its kings being
called Ahur-Mazda or Asur or Banipal and owing to its unaryan habits the land where it
settled was known as Iranyan or Iran. The whole problem behind the explanation given to
the origin and growth of the Indus valley civilization is due to an arbitrary and
unetymological interpretation of the word Arya or Aryan. It is not understandable how a
philologist like Max Muller connected the Social class of the Aryans with the Iranians
although to a student of Sanskrit scriptures and literature like him, the word Arya should not
have been unknown and unheard. He must have gone through the Atharva Veda 19/62/01
where a clear classification of the Aryans appears to have been made with a purpose to
differentiate a class with the class of the shudras-
Priyam Ma Krisu Deveshu Priyam Rajasuma Krinu
Priyam Sarvashya Pashyanta Utshudra Utaryo
The clear meaning of the above quoted mantra is that the Aryan race which was born at
Brahmavarta had at one stage of its growth developed into two classes, first a class of people
of moral integrity while the other being a class of people who did not live upon or believe in
morals called Rit and the Brahmanic way of life. The seers of the Rit were called Rishis or
Sages and their words were called Richas and their way of life was called Aryan. The word
Arya was formed from the root verb Ri or from the verb Rich or from the verb Rit and was
probably not known or was probably ignored or was probably not given proper importance to
by Max Muller and his followers and this is why they speculated the theory of their origin in
middle Asia or in Iran and concocted a story that they were an emigrant race or invaders who
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came to the Indus valley sitting on horse driven chariots, fought with the aboriginal settlers at
Harappa called Dravadians or Mundas and ultimately threw them beyond the Vindhyas and
were called the un-Aryans or Anaryas.
Aryanism was actually a developed and progressive way of social and moral life of
the people of Brahmavarta. Brahmavarta meant a settlement of the Brahmans called Rishies
who believed in Rit, a high quality of moral life and thought man to be in close proximity
with Brahma, the ultimate cosmic reality. They composed Richas later called the Rigved and
lived in caves or huts beside a spring or a stream flowing with pure and fresh water. They
lived on fresh fruits, and roots of plants and trees and led a highly natural, spiritual, religious
or moral life. Such people were also called the Devas, or the Gandharvas in the beginning
who worshipped the Pagan gods like Agni, Varun, Mitra, Indra, and Vayu etc. The Rigveda is
full of Richas or Prayers sung in praise of these gods. They believed that these gods who
represented the ultimate reality (Parmatma) were the cause of their birth, growth and death
and hence they used to worship them with flowers, fruits and milk or curd or ghee with a
feeling that while worshipping these pagan gods they were actually worshipping their creator,
protector or the destroyer, the ultimate father- “Kasmay Devay Havisha Vidhen”. A taking it
to be their devotion to that unseen Param Tatva who was the cause of the creation called
‘srishti’ Later on it appears that when their population grew, they expanded their area of
living and spread over slowly and gradually on the two banks of the river Saraswati as also in
between the two rivers of the Saraswati and the Drishadvati and ultimately settled down in a
vast area spreading even today from Alamgirpur in U.P. to Dholavira in Gujrat with their
capital at Harappa. It was thus that a perfectly hilly or forest or river side settlement was
converted into a planned city like that of Harappa and Mohen-Joedaro. Harappan culture and
civilization in this sense was just a development or a growth or an expansion or a
continuation of the life of Brahmavarta- a Journey from the spiritual Rit to the physical Real,
a Journey from Amaravati in today’s M.P. to another Amaravati in Maharashtra. The Rit was
in the spirit of the culture while the Real was in the emergence of a city like way of life called
civilization.
And it is rather surely due to this that this way of life was called the Aryan way of
life- “Kartavyamacharan Karyam Katavyammanacharan Tishthati Prikatacharya sa va arya
iti smritah” It is amply clear that those observing the principles of morality (The Rit) were
called the Aryans and those that did not were called the Anaryans. Aryans and Anaryans who
originally belong to the same race should be taken proper care of and not be misinterpreted as
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two different races belonging to two different lands although they did not believe in the same
standards of moral life. Those practicing Rit (Morality) were graded later on as respectable,
highly placed and honorable men and women and were addressed as Aryashresth or
Aryaputra or Arya in the poetic dramas written later on and the place of their living called
Brahmavarta once upon a time was named as Aryavarta and the center of Aryavarta i.e. the
capital of it was sometime named as Haryupia or as Harappa or sometime as Mohenjo-Daro.
It is not improper and improbable to infer on the basis of the above description that the
Aryans occupied the vast area north of the vindhyanchal while the so called non-aryans or
non practioners in Rit adopting commerce and industry as a profession occupied the area
South of the Vindhyachal, the former guided by Angira or Vrihaspati while the later guided
by Bhrigu or Shukra. This division was not water tight.. The non-aryans were not restrained
from coming to the north and similarly the Aryans were not restrained from going to the
South. On the other hand both these divisions kept on exchanging their ideals and ideologies
from north to the south and from south to the north, right from those olden days to those days
of Agastya or Gautam or of Ram, Parashuram or Krishna. Manu therefore, defined Aryavarta
as follows-
Aasamudrantu Vai Parvadasamudrashcha Paschimat
Tavorevantaram Giryoha Aryavartam Vidhurbudhah
This exchange of ideas and ideologies was not limited only to the South or North of
Vindhyachal, but this extended to the East and to the West across the seas and across
mountains and hills to the north also at the same time but with a difference. While the
exchange of ideas and ideologies between the north and the south was limited to principles
and styles of life, the exchange to the North and Near east and the Far west it, besides being
ideological, was also based on a relationship of trade mostly on a barter system. Grains
particularly rice and wheat unknown then to the west produced in the Indo-Gangetic plains
were carried to the west including Iran, Babylone, Greece, Rome, and Ireland and metals
including Silver, copper, bronze and gold were brought to India which was by then being
called Aryavarta or the land of the Aryans of which the capital then was Harappa. It was
therefore not very unnatural for foreign students of Aryan culture to misunderstand and
misinterpret this system to cultural and commercial exchange. Today is probably the right
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stage of time to correct this error and revise the official theory of Aryan immigration and
invasion established by the great German Indologist, Max Muller.
Sir John Marshall while recording his views on the Archaeological finds of Mohenjo-
Daro had rightly apprehended that the Indus Valley civilization was not only limited to the
Punjab the land of five rivers but it had its expansion also in the Gangetic as well as river
plains spread across the Vindhyas as also to the west upto Baluchistan and Afghanistan. He
had also apprehended a very close relationship of this Ganga-Saraswati and Narmada-
Godavari culture to Iran and Mesopotamia. The civilization of the city of Harappa and the
civilization of the city of Mohenjo-daro which were very much similar in nature represented
the highest order of the then civilized city life of a world which was called Aryan.
The natural corollary, therefore, is that standard of civilization must have had also a
formative period prior to this stage of '"the urban" of civilization as well as a deteriorative
period at the decline of it. Similarly, it is just possible that this civilization of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro had a range of rural and Pro-urban culture expanded throughout the course of
the Saraswati and the Drishadvati now called the Indus and the other five rivers namely the
Ravi, the Jhelum, the Tapti, the Beas, and the Chenab-the land of seven rivers called the
Saptasindhu.
The culture and civilization of Ropad as it reflects from the Archaeological remains
appears to be semi urban while that of Alamgirpur appears to be very much rural. The
civilization of Lothal on the other hand besides urban is also commercial and it is not
improper to imagine that Lothal was a commercial center of trading between Harappa and
Turkmania of Central Asia and many other places of Persia, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Since
the civilization of Rome is a much later development than that of Harappa, it will not be
irrelevant to conclude that the city state of Rome might have been designed on the town-
planning systems of Amaravati called Ujjayani or of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Sir John
Marshall himself therefore, had anticipated that the Indus valley civilization named by him
might in a future course of time take some other name like the Indian civilization. A purely
religious culture like that of Brahmavarta had thus in a long span of time turned itself
to be a mixture of religious Cum-Rural-Cum-Semi-urban-Cum-Urban-Cum-a highly
urban society that is Harappa. Harappa therefore is the name of a civilized urban life at
a particular point of time. Harappa itself is nothing but another name therefore of the
civilization of Aryavarta which is still another name for the civilization of Saraswati
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which is still another name for the culture of Brahmavarta, Spreading today from the
Himalayas to Kanyakumari and from the Sind to the land of the Brahmaputra.
In his famous book “The Roots of Ancient India” published in 1962 from Chicago
University Press W.A. Fairsevis has rightly and fairly established the fact that this entire
Indo-Gangetic plain was mainly a wheat producing area which transported its wheat produce
to Lothal from the east and was exported to the west by sea. It is expected that wheat and
Rice produced from the plains of the Ganga and the Saraswati to the southern plains of the
seven rivers of the south where also sent abroad by sea as well as on horse-back and the then
Harappan civilization therefore should better be called the civilization of Indus-Saraswati or
still better the civilization of Aryavarta or Brahmavarta. Since this great civilization, travelled
by land as well as by sea it developed many other places in its own fashion in its Journey to
Afghanistan or Baluchistan or Sindh or Alimurad or Chanhu Daro or Balakot or Allahdino.
The places that deserve mention as Pro-urban and urban developments in today’s
India are mainly Ropad Bada (Punjab), Rakhigadhi Kunal, Banawali, Baly, Mitathal
(Haryana), Kalibangan (Rajasthan), Alamgirpur and Hulas (U.P.), Rangpur, Dholavira,
Surkotada Lothal, Padri, Rosadi, Malvan, Kuntsi, and Deshalpur (Gujrat) and last but not the
least Daimabad and Nasik in Maharashtra. Whether it is architecture or town planning or
defense or safety and security of men and women dead or alive or it is the way of
worshipping Gods and Goddessess and rites and rituals observed while worshipping, by and
large, the same systems are perceptible from one place to the other.
It is only strange or rather cryptic to notice that right from Max Muller or Marshall
and wheeler as also to witzel and Farmer, no proper explanation has been given to the
presence of the Terracota Statuettes of the Ox and the Bull found in the excavations both of
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. One of the plates on an Ox statuette (Plate no. 43), the ox is
shown with a good number of garlands in its neck. Not only at Mohenjo-Daro but at Harappa
and Lothal also a good number of Oxen are present in the archaeological finds, oxen in
different shapes and sizes, poses and postures. There are many Terracotta statuettes of human
beings in Yoga postures and prayer positions. There are many figures on the seals and
sealings showing the presence of the swastik, and the Sun. There are some other statuettes
showing double and triple faced human being. All this goes to prove that this civilization had
some religious faith at its base and most probably that religious faith was nothing else than, a
faith in the religion and Philosophy of Brahma (the Ultimate Reality) or God Shiva or God
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Hara whose carrier symbol is Nandi, the ox. It is further strange that although this Ox or the
Bull symbol is supposed to be existing and continuing for thousands of years on the seals of
Harappa, the culture of Harappa has not been boldly interpreted as the culture of Hara or the
culture of Harappa has not been boldly interpreted as the culture of Hara or the culture of
Brahma or the culture of Brahma and saraswati, the eternal father and mother of the creation.
It is very much worthwhile therefore to call this land as Aryavarta or Brahmaverta or
Haryupia or Harappa. It sounds rather irrelevant to come across a controversy over the Horse
or the Bull symbols as rasised by Witzel and Farmer and divert a meaningful discussion on
the civilization of Brahmavarta expanding right from the bright land of the Saraswati to the
dark waters of the Black sea. The horse matters little in the context of Brahmans or
Brahmavarta although it matters very greatly in the context of Aryans and Aryavarta, the
former standing for a culture while the latter for an urban and trading culture and civilization.
It is not less relevant to note that not a single one of these contexts is devoid of the Shiva or
Hara spirit. The seals and sealings of Harappa which exhibit their dominance amongst
pictures and figurines of animals like the Ox, (Laden with lots of garlands in its neck) and the
bull and a number of terracotta figurines of the monkey, the elephant, the Jackal, the tiger, the
camel, the bear, the dog and the cat etc. actually from the lineage of the Hara worshippers,
participants of the Marriage procession of the God called Har, the God of the Gods. Harappa
or Haryupia or Harappa or Hariyana or Aryana or Aryavarta are thus nothing but the urban
face of the divine Brahmavarta. To quote Stephene Knapp: “In the Vedic sutras, the word
Aryan is used to refer to those who are spiritually oriented and of noble character. The
Sanskrit word Aryan is linguistically related to the word Harijana meaning one related to the
spititual Father. It has little to do with these emigrants that some reserarchers have speculated
to be the so called invading Aryans.”
Knapp’s point of view is also supported by a popular mandate given in favour of Har
as the supreme God and the Father of Brahmavarta called Haryupia or Aryavarta. The
mandate is even today expressed at the conclusion of every religious function anywhere in
India when all the great gods are remembered for their victory but the last to be praised in
reverence and devotion is the supreme Father—Har Har Mahadev.
“Hara, Hara, Mahadev” meaning, Hara is the God of Gods and the God of the land
called Haryupia or Harjana, or Haryana or Harappa. Harappa actually means the land of Hara
or Brahma and stands as a yoop or a pillar for that central force of integration of the nation
which makes India a single National Entity. It is a recognized pillar or yoop of Sacrifices
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right from Kendarnath and Pashupati Nath in the north, to Somnath, Nageshnath, Vishwanath
or Tryambkeshwar Nath and Rameshawr Nath in the South. Today’s India lives in the vast
expanded area of God Hara or Shiva spread over the areas covered by the twelve Jyotirlingas
of the Cosmic Reality called the ‘Brahm’ in the Vedas and the Vedanta.
Harappan excavations remind us of a time of India’s civilization of the Shwetashwetar
upnished ¼'osrk'orjksifu"kn½ when Lord Hara, or Shiva was the recognized the supreme
God:
“Eko hi Rudrah Na Dvitiyaye Tasthu”
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Chapter VIII
The Aryan Question and the Journey of Aryanism
It is a universally accepted truth that humanity is a bye product of divinity and
divinity is the ultimate end, the highest point of the Journey of humanity which might once
upon a time have its genesis in Barabarianism or demonism. The cycle of the Journey from
humanity to divinity and from divinity to humanity generally goes on eternally and
universally. This is actually a four stage Journey of culture and civilization very much like
that of the Journey of the Earth on the orbit of the Sun. The four stages comprise the Divine,
the Semi Divine, the Humanistic and the Demonistic. Like a change of seasons, a change in
civilizations also takes place but this change goes on every moment although it becomes
visible and effective not in a few years but in a few thousand years or so and is called by
names like Satyug, Treta, Dwapar and Kaliyug. Another universally established theory of the
revolution of civilization is that all the great civilizations of the world were mostly born and
generally prospered on the banks of the rivers and sometimes on the Sea-coasts. The Journey
from divinity down to semi divinity and from semi divinity down to humanity generally starts
from a god or goddess expressing himself or herself in the form of natural objects like fire,
water, earth, wind, or sky. These five objects are called the five elements of nature and these
five elements are said to have expressed themselves in human forms and have adopted human
nature and human names in their interaction with mortal beings. This stage of transformation
of the divine to the human is a stage where cosmogony, physiognomy and theognomy
combine together Myths and mythologies of the world are the product of this combination
and therefore any student of primitive history has got to go into legends and mythologies.
Unfortunately, historians of the world have not so far attached proper and due importance to
this aspect of approaching Primitive history through legends and mythologies and this is why
our history till today is hardly two to three thousand years old at the maximum.
Archaeological and anthropological surveys and researches could not help historians to go as
deep into antiquities as they should have gone had they taken recourse to mythologies and
theological writings.
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The civilization of Brahmavarta is a civilization which goes back to the days of
Brahm or Brahma and Saraswati, Brahma one of the three original deities may not today be
present physically, but Sarasvati exists very much even today. The importance of the
Saraswati, one of the seven Gangas has been so great that the river has turned into a Deity or
a Goddess. Brahma was her creater and later on probably her master or her consort who
created a clan of divine people at a place from where Saraswati originated and up to a place
where Saraswati ultimately merged herself with the Ocean. This land where Brahma created
this divine clan and the expanse of the land of which this so called divine clan transformed
itself into human beings and over which a developed civilization prospered in course of time,
of course, a very long time, was called the civilization of Saraswati Pradesh or Brahmavarta
as it finds mention in the Shatpath Brahman. If the land of the Sarasvati river and the land of
the Sarasvat Brahmins happens to be the same even today it would be only an injustice to
deny to go back to the history and civilization of that and through a study of the mythologies.
It is all the more interesting that archeological or geological or anthropological or
philological researches made so far are also going in this very direction and tend to support
the mythological stories to a great extent. The mythological approach to primitive history
need not therefore be ignored and be taken as a strong platform of the methodology to
explore the ancient and primitive life and civilization of humanity.
The Egyptian legend of Khnum which was later on rendered in Greek as Khnumis
was a river god of fecundity and creation and was, originally worshipped in the form of a
Ram or he-goat. To quote J. Viaud:-
“Like all gods of this sort he doubtless, according to Mespero, symbolized the Nile
which comes from the heavens to fertilise the earth and make it fruitful. His chief Sanctuary
was near the cataracts, not far from the spot where the earliest Egyptions placed the source of
their great river, on that Isle of Elephantine of which Khnum was proclaimed sovereign lord.
From his temple, where he received offering in company with his two wives, Sat and
Anukis-who were, as far as we know, childless- Khnum watched over the Sources of the Nile.
Khnum means the moulder and it was taught that he had formlly fashioned the world-egg on
his potter’s wheel. At Philae, moreover, he was called ‘the Potter “who shaped men and
modelled the gods. We see him moulding the limbs of Osiris, for it was he, they said, who
“shaped all flesh-the procreator who engendered gods and men.”
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The potter who shaped men moulded the gods was nothing but another name of the
Hindu prajapti or Brahma. It is interesting to mention here that the potter’s community of
today’s India calls itself a Prajapati Community only because it shapes and forms different
types of statues and statuettes on its potter’s wheel even today.
Not only in the Egyption and Indian mythologies alone, but also in the mythologies of
Mesopotamia, we find mention of a great civilization prospering in between the two rivers of
Tigris and Euphrates like that of the civilization between the two rivers of the Sarasvati and
the Indus or the Drishadvati. In Greek Mythology also rivers were represented as vigorous
men with long beards and the most celebrated and venerated of rivers was the Achelus which
was also the largest water course in Greece. Named after this river was also a hero named
Achelus who fought a war against Hercules and threw himself into the river ashamed of his
defeat due to which the river was also so named. History of Greece reguires to be traced back
to this mythological period of Achelus and Inachus or Cephissus, the father of Narcissus.
As a matter of fact history of man had started both physically and spiritually with
water and so with water gods and goddesses whether in Egypt or in Mesopotamia or in
Greece or in celtic Ireland or in Slavonia or in Babylone. Although different epochs and ages
had different elements as the originator of human creation, sometimes it is the mother earth,
sometimes it is the father sky, sometimes it is wind, sometimes it is the Sun God and so on
and so forth.
It is, however, a fact that ancient civilization did not remain static at a place but
travelled very much like the culture or civilization of today and sometimes took a curious
shape of a mixed civilization. A deep study of the mythologies of the world along with
sculptures and paintings of, different ages showing human body and animal face together
bear out the fact of mixed up civilizations. The civilization of ancient Persia was such a
curious mixture where the civilization of the Indus Valley, the civilization of Mesopotamia,
Assyria and Babylon as well as the civilization of Phoenicia and Greece and Rome combined.
This combination has; not been properly appreciated particularly by some western scholars
like Max Muller and his followers and injustice has been done to the Aryan or Brahmavarta
civilization by giving interpretation that Aryanism was a distorted name after Iran or Eran.
The advantage of the interpretation on the basis of linguistic principles which should have
gone to the culture of Brahmavarta and Sanskrit language of the Indus Sarasvati rivers has
been shifted to the Greek, Latin and Persian languages and culture. Mythology may not be a
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chain of logical documents, but it is certainly a complex union of facts and this is why
genuine students of history have been trying to locate facts of history in what is called a
legend. A legend is generally not history but there is no denying the fact that the legendary
characters, the gods and the goddesses behave in the similar manner as human beings behave.
Michael Grant in his book” Myths of the Greeks and Romans”- (1962& P.P. 83, 104) has
rightly said that “myths are dialects of a single language but the magnacarta of our universe.”
Although there have been a good number of thinkers and scholars of history in the
west who have tried to interpret mythologies of Greece and Rome, of Eypt and Mesopotamia,
of Palestine and Persia, from the historical angle but, they have given a different treatment to
the mythology of India. They talk of Hesiod and Homer, they talk of the Olympus and the
Capitol, they talk of the river Nile and the river Tigris and Euphrates, they depend upon the
Caucasus or the plateau of Iran, they take notice of the story of the Trojan war as described
by Homer, they give credence to Gilgamesh and the Epic of Creation, but it is not
understandable what problem do they have in giving credence to the Himalayas, to the
Ganga, to the Sarasvati, to the Vindhyachal, as well as to the Vedas which exist similarly as
the Nile, the Olympus, the Capitol, the Epic of Creation the Kojiki and the Nehongi and
which actually might be older than the former ones. The only problem in recognizing the
roots of Indian history appears to be the psychosis that if once due credence is given to the
India’s remotest past they may have to accept that the real human culture and civilization
originated at Brahmavarta and that Brahmavarta was the first cultural global village and
culture and civilization of Brahmavarta travelled from the belt of the Sarasvati to the west to
Persia or Iran, to Mesopotamia, Babylon, or Assyria, to Greece and Rome and Germany, to
Palestine and Ireland, to Africa and South America in the west and to Korea and Japan, to
Tibet and China, to Malaysia and Indonesia, and to New Guinea in the east. The Principles of
ethics, morality, rites and rituals and other religious disciplines taught by the Vedas and
adopted by the Greeks and the Romans, the Japanese and Koreans, the South Africans and the
South Americans are very much similar and very much like the ethics and the religious
principles propagated by the Vedas and the Samhitas of India. It is strange that they accept
that the epic of creation was recorded in writing centuries after it remained on the tongue of
its people and passed from generation to generation. This also might have been the case in
respect of writings of Hesoid who had to say similar stories about the creation of human
beings in his Theology. Hesiod is trusted but the Vedas are not recognized or are appreciated
as being the oldest literature of the world.
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P. Masson and Louise Morin in their article “Mythology of ancient Persia” accept
clearly that the word ‘Iranians’ was not heard of previous to the Ninth Century B.C. and that
they (Iranians) were on offshoot of that branch of Indo-European race which is known as
Aryan. To quote them- “Their language which is very similar to the Vedic of India, is a
variety of the same tongue which is inferred to be the parent language of Slavonic, Teutonic,
Celt, Greek and Latin.”
It is clear from the above quotation that all these aforesaid languages are the branches
of a parent language in which the Vedas were composed. To quote the authors again- “We
find no mention of the future ‘Iranians’ previous to the ninth century B.C. The first allusion to
the Parsua or Persians, who were then in the mountains of Kurdistan, and to the Madal or
Medes, already established on the plain, occurs in 837 B.C. in connection with an expendition
of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. About a hundred years afterwards the Medes invaded
the plateau which we call Persia (Or Iran), driving back or assimilating populations of whom
there is no written record; and Deioces (708-655) established a median Empire. One of his
successors Cyaxares became strong enough totally himself with the Babylonians against the
Assyrians, destroyed Nineveh (606) and annexed Assyria. In the following century in was
another Iranian people, the Persians, who gained pre-eminence in western Asia when their
king, Cyrus, in 538 (B.C) seized Babylon. Hence forth the Iranians took the historical place
of the Assyro-Babylonians although the Persian Archaemenian Empire represented in Iran a
return to Aryanism, an ism purer than that of the Medes.”
The Aryanism of Medes is said to be 2 to 3 hundred years older than that of the
Assyro Babylonian Aryanism which means that it took three hundred years for this Aryan
culture and civilization to travel to Babylone from near Kurdistan. And this clearly means
that Aryanism of Persia was the effect of a culture that had started from Brahmavarta, the
land of the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati.
It is an admitted fact that when a culture travels, it travels in all directions in all its
forms-its dress, its address, its way of living, its way of faith and belief, It should, therefore,
better be inferred that when the Aryan culture travelled to Persia and established itself there
the people of Persia started copying the language, the way of life and the way of faith and
belief of the Aryan people. It was quite natural then that they were called Aryans or Iranians
and also started worshipping the Sun God, the Moon God the Fire God, the Sky God, the
Water God and all the ways in which these Gods were worshipped in the land of the Aryans.
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The only difference was the difference of place and time and climate. The Vedic God Mitra
became Mithra, the Aryan God Soma became Haoma, the Aryan God Apas became Apo or
Apsu. Since, the civilized and the commercial class of the people of Brahmavarta was being
identified (for the simple reason of its neglecting divine worship and inclining to trade and
commerce as Asur that is non-divine people and since the people travelling from
Brahmavarta to Persia or Iran were this non-divine class, their supremo started to be called
Ahur Banipal, whose cultural similarities with the past Vedic Banasur cannot be ruled out.
The sun was worshipped but he also was worshipped in a different way, that is, as
Ahur Mazda. Ahur Mazda was not at all different in nature from the God Asur Banipal. The
difference in culture of the Asur or that of the Ahura and that of the Asshur was due to the
difference of the places and the climates which the Aryans had to face in their commercial
Journey from Brahmavarta or Aryavarta which it was later on so called.
The Ahur Mazda later on took another name and became ‘ormzed’ and was the object
of worship for the latter Iranians. The concept of Aryan by this had also changed and had
become Ahriman or Ahirman similar to a post Vedic allusion known as Ahiravan.
The analysis made above should be enough to infer another corollary and that is that it
is Aryanism which started its Journey from Brahmavarta or Aryavarta or Bharat (The land of
Bharti that is the Sarasvati) which reached Persia and travelled from Persia to Babylon, and
from Babylon to Greece, to Slavonia, to the land of the Teutons, to the land of the celts and to
Rome and other European countries including Germany. The effect of Aryanism is also
evident in the faith and belief of the Egyptian people. As a matter of fact, this Journey of
Aryanism was not limited to west Asia or to South Asia and to Central Asia only. It crossed
its Asian boundaries and travelled also to Fizi and South African countries as also to the west
Indies as well as to Brazil and Mexico and Surinam etc. It is regretted that the whole story of
this Journey of Aryan civilization has been put topsy turvy- ‘Fair is foul and Foul is fair’ to
quote Shakespeare.
The word Aryan is derived from the original root verb ‘Ri’ . The suffix makes it Arya.
‘Ri’ itself gets changed into ‘Rit’ or Prakrit and it is this ‘Ri’ which makes the word ‘Rishi’ ,
a word which means a venerable, respectable, noble and honorable man of religious and sage-
like temperament and habits called Sanskar (culture)-
Kartavyam aacharan Karmakartavyeyamacharan
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Tristhali Prakritchare Santu Aryamitresmritah
The great Grammarian saint Hemchandra has also explained Aryans as a race of pious
living people-
Artu Sadacharitu Yogyah
The Haribansh Puran defines Aryans as follows,-
Variyanshchavariyansche Sambhava Dhritam Vapuh
Charishnurayo Drishnucha rajah Sumati Devcha
which means that the Aryans were known for their pious and intellectual way of life (the
Vedic life of the Rishi style) besides people known for their peculiar partience and nobility, It
is very well said in the Mahabharat, the great Indian Epic that the Aryans believed, in the
Philosophy of universal familyhood—
Malachchantye Bahividheh Poorvahe
Nikritarane Aaryascha Parthivipalah
It is unfortunate that the history of the Aryans or of Aryanvarta or, of Bharat or of
Brahmavarta was not properly evaluated in the background of the Vedic and postvedic
literature and a particular school of thought dominated by a particular Political and religious
ideology misinterpreted the whole story of a culture that had played a definite role in
influencing peoples of different worlds living on the face of this earth. The influence of this
culture and of its gods and goddesses was so great and wide-spread that the gods named
Indra, Mitra, Varuna and Nasatyas, had to be witnesses of a treaty in Cappadocia (Asia
minor) as early as 1400 B.C. and the clay tablets bearing the treaties are said to be still
preserved. This is enough to prove that the Vedic age was much older than the Brahminic age
which was followed by a civilization called Aryan. Aryanism, it has rightly been said was a
development of a civil or civic life or city life based on a social code and based in a planned
city civilization which was called the Aryan civilization and which was later on called and
recognised as a symbol of the Urban civilization. The word Urban and the world Aryan are
not only very much similar in pronunciation, but also very much similar in meaning. Manu,
the great Aryan thinker who was also a great king codified the Aryan way of living as
follows:-
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Kartvyamacharan Karyamakartavyam anacharan
Tistathi prakritachar Satu Aaryamiti Smritah
The Aryan life was a life not deified, it was a life codified for different categories
of people living in the same society and living in a city. It was most probably with a view
to codifying the social city life that many had to divide the Aryan (Urban) community
into four castes or Varnas as Brahmans, the Kshatriyas, the Vaishyas and the Shudras
and the four the castes into the four Ashrams (the four stages of urban human life) into
Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanprastha, and Sanyas. It was the need of the urban way of
living that these castes and these Ashrams were planned and were codified after a long-
long experimentation. The origin of the word Urban may be explored in the same root
verb form Ri from which the words Reet, Rishi, Prakrit, Richa and Aryan were formed
with the addition of suffixes like (Nyat) or (Lyap) and so on. The word urban does not
appear to be a derivative of the word city or town or society. This word also appears to
have travelled far and wide with the Aryan’s race, Aryan’s Culture, and Aryan’s
language with Sanskrit written in the old Brahmi Script.
The Journey of Aryanism which spread far and wide from Brahmavarta to the north of
Pamir and to the west of Caucasus reached Asia Minor, reached Persia, reached
Mesopotamia, reached Babylone and Assyria, reached Greece and Rome and reached not as
an empire, but as an influence. The Gods and Goddesses of Brahmavarta like Dyous or Soma
or Mitra had their Prototypes in Iran, in Babylone, in Greece and in Rome simultaneously
although their names differed slightly from each other. The God Mitra became Mithra and the
God Soma became Haoma, the God Fire became Atar, The God Apas became Apo in Iran, the
God Dyus became Zeus in Greece, and what to speak of the gods and goddesses and their
ways of a similar style of living, the Aryan Matri became the Latin mater, the Sanskrit pitri
became the Latin Pater the Sanskrit Bhratri became the Latin Frater- So on and so forth. It is
worthwhile to stress here on the process of the linguistic change that came due to the change
of place and time although the change never reflected any shift in the spirit of the language. It
is a universally accepted fact that in Sanskrit language there is no difference in what we write
and what we pronounce. The mutations and permutations which take place also have a fixed
pattern and style of isoglossic change. The letter ‘ch’ when mutated and permutated becomes
‘J’ , the letter T or V become D or M] ‘Th’, becomes Dh, Sa, becomes Ha, Pa, becomes Fa
but not viceversa, Duous when mutated can be Zeus, Pitri can be mutated to father but Matri
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cannot be a bye product of Mother, Pitri not of father Bhratri not of Brother, Duous not of
Zeus, Mitra not of Mithar and Soma not of Haoma and similarly saptah can mutate to Greek
hepta or Iranian hafta or Latin Septem but not vice versa. This goes to prove even
philologically that Aryans travelled onwards to west changing practically from Brahmavarta
to the west, to Iran, to Mesopotamia, to Greece and to Rome and never migrated from Central
Asia or west Asia or Asia minor to the land of the Indus or the Saraswati or to the land called
Brahmaverta or Divyadesh or Bharat or Aryavarta or even Harappa. Brahmaverta was so
called probably because it was the land where the creation of humanity started with a god-
knowing and godlike Community of Brahmans. The geographical area of Brahmaverta as
specified by Manu is an area between the two divine rivers called the Saraswati and the
Drishadwati (i.e the Indus) while the political area is specified as the regions known as
Kurushetra, Matsya, Panchal and Shoorsen. May be, it was done just after the Great Flood as
stated in the Satpath Brahman. It is said there that Sharadha and Manu came into contact here
and gave birth to their first son called Aayu. It was an age of divine purity in human life
which later on had a change when many developed some charm for a so-called civilized life
in a so-called Urban and civilized society represented by Ira or Sarasvati. But the name
Brahmavarta is better qualified as a land which was created by Brahma by the side of his
consort Sarasvati where the divine Brahmanas lived-
Saraswati Drishadvatyorha Vanathodanam
Tad Deranirmitam Desham Brahmaputra Prachakte
Kurushetra Matsyakcha Panchela Shooesenkha
Evam Brahmarshi Desho Vai Brahmavartadamantarah
Ettadesha Prasootsya Skshat Agramamah
Swam Swam Charitam Shikshram Prithvyah Sarmanvah
This Brahmavarta as it is mentioned in the Mahabharat is a place where the pious river
Sarasvati flows by taking a bath in which one can go to the Brahmalok that is Heaven. It is
said that one dip into the Sarasvati is equal to one hundred (100) Ashwamedh Yajnas
anywhere. It is also said that Brahmavarta was so called because it was a land of a clan of
sages- sons and grand- sons of Angiras who ruled this northern western region of the then
Brahmavarta or Aryavarta or Haryupia Harappa. The southern region it is said was ruled by
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the sons and grandsons of the sage Bhrigu, whose centre of habitation was somewhere near
the river Narmada. But as a matter of fact the whole of India of today was culturally united
and their common God was Narayan or Hara who was worshipped all over India but whose
most important seat was Haryupia or Harappa and this is why probably that the land of
Brahm because the land of Brahma which later on because the land of Brahmarshi and later
on the land of the Brahman’s and the four varnas of the Indian civilized society which called
itself an Aryan or Urban society and which was and which is still known as Aryavarta.
It sounds really stupid to speculate the migration of a race from between the Caspian
and the Black seas to that of the Indus valley ignoring a linquistic derivation of the brand
name Aryan from a Sanskrit root Ri or the world Harijan, or Harijan meaning one related to
the God Hari or God Hara. It is highly pertinent to think of a race of pious human beings
created by Hara or Hari and living at a land named Harayana or Hariyana or Hariupia or
Harappa. The real Aryans therefore appear to be born settlers of Brahmavarta or Aryavarta,
the land of the Vedas. The root verb Ri, according to Sanskrit Grammar mutates and
permutates to make the words-Reet, Rick, Richa, Rishi, Ritwik and Prakrit and it is probably
very much due to this that the first compilation of the Richas conveying Vedic knowledge
was named the Rig-veda and the propagators and the practioners of the Rigveda were
naturally called the Arya or the Aryans and the place they inhabited was known as Aryavarta.
An Arya meant a human being carrying a torch of the Rigveda-the anthology of the reet, (The
Truth) and the culture of Aryavarta originally called Brahmavarta. N.S. Rajaram in his
famous book, “The politics of History” calls the Aryan Invasion Theory a colossal
Intellectual blunder” of the 19th
Century European scholars particularly. Max Muller” Dr.
Vamdev Shastri while Commenting on the books rightly reiterates-
“Max Muller’s theory was taken up by the nineteenth Century linquists and other
scholars, who after discovering upon the existence of a Proto Indo-European language to
preserve their “pet theory” of the Aryan invasion. Nineteenth Century linquists built the
whole historical scenario around untested linguistic conjectures.
According to Dr. Shastri the causes of the colossal intellectual blunder of the 19th
Century European scholars, particularly, Max Muller were ignorance of the scientific method
and lack of archaeological data combined with European Politics and missionary interests. He
also points his critical finger to the upsurge of German nationalism in the 19th
Century and
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the German dislike of any association with Semitic origin and when he does it he does it very
strongly.
The 21st
Century scholars, particularly, those belonging to India must at this Juncture
stand together and substitute all the conjectures and speculations of the 19th
Century with
facts of history collected from all the connected and concerned logies including the hitherto
neglected and slighted science of Prehistory called Mythology.
The most dominant myth of the 19th
Century, the myth of an empire where the Sun
never set, fell flat by the middle of the 20th
century while the myth of the 20th
century that
socialism stood for nothing more or nothing less than Marxism was laid self dead at the tail
end of the same century. The 21st
Century must, similarly, have to declare the end of another
dominant Eupropean myth and conviction that God was and is but a Roman Catholic and one
who preaches Christianity only. Europeans would rather be proud, instead, to have descended
or transformed to a great race called the Aryan race, a great language called the Sanskrit
language, a sacred land called Brahmavata and a way of life called the Aryan or Brahman
way of life preaching a culture of universal brotherhood and a philosophy of a happy global
family.
Adolf Hitler relished this sense of pride although he suffered from religious as well as
national prejudices and he had his own reasons for both.
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Chapter IX
Why Max Muller or Hans Hock : Why Not Panini Or Agastya Or Yask
The main propounders of the Aryan invasion theory or the Aryan Migration theory
may be the German Max Muller or the British M. Wheeler, but in the face of all the recent
researches made on the Indus valley civilization ever since 1872-73 the most important
barriers in letting the world know the realities of this great civilization have been Michel
Witzel, Richard Sproat and Steve Farmer and a band of some so-called teachers or students of
History who have been primarily careerists living under their departmental obligations.
Michel Witzel belongs to the Department of Sanskrit and Indian studies, Harvard university,
Sproat to the Departments of Linguistics and Electrical and computer Engineering in the
university of Illinois and the Beckman Institute, while Steve Farmer to the Portola valley,
Callifornia, U.S.A. It is unfortunate that inspite of lots of appreciable work done to negate the
traditional AIT or the OIT by scholars from all over the world including those belonging also
to the U.S.A., these three giants are bent upon proving that this great civilization equal of
which is not to be found elsewhere in the ancient world has been an illiterate civiliazation.
They refuse to establish any relationship between the Vedic civilization and the Indus Valley
civilization although engouh has been said to prove that the Indus civilization was nothing
but a continuation or an extension of the Vedic culture and civilization of Aryavarta or
Brahmavarta or Bharat, the land of Bharati that is Sarasvati. After a hundred and thirty years
of attempts to identity and to decipher the supposed language underlining the inscriptions of
Harappa as also indications given by Sir John Marshall (1924-1931) SYCe (1924) Gadd and
Smith (1924), Hunter (1929), they hesitate even today to accept the decipherments made by
Kenoyer (1998), Possehi (2002), Danels and Bright (1996), Pope (1999), Robinson (2002)
and last but not the least N. Jha and N.S. Rajaram (2000) who on the basis of computerized
studies of the seals and sealings of Harappa have proved that this civilization is none else
than that of the Vedic civilization, which was born in Brahmavarta and which developed itself
into an urban civilization at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro on the two sides of the river
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Sarasvati as also in between the two rivers called the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati also
known later on as the Indus or the Sindhu. They call this decipherment exercise, a political
exercise or an exercise made by Hindu fanatics or Cultural Chauvinists or Communal
nationalists. They appear to be very much interested in proving that these inscriptions, if at all
they are literate inscriptions, are more identical to the Dravidian language or to the Mundari
language or to the Persian or Arabic and not to Sanskrit as strangely according to them, the
Indus inscriptions are meant to be read from right to left and not from left to right as Sanskrit.
They also try sometimes, to connect the Indus inscriptions with the Soviets and the Finns and
create a confusion worse confounded. They have tried to confuse the decipherments made so
far into a play of suffixes, prefixes and infixes and thus have tried to establish that Sanskrit
may be closer to Latin, to Persian, the Greek, the Assyrian, or Roman, but without any
meaningful co-relation or connection with the Harappan pictographic scripts. In their famous
paper entitled-
“The collapse of the Indus script Thesis” they have concluded and closed the chapter
opened by so many great scholars including N.S. Rajaram and N. Jha as follows :
“The most obvious missing maker of Indus manuscript production is sufficient to
close the case : the complete absence of Indus text of any length on durable goods which
show up in abudance in every pre-modern civilization, that is also known to have written on
perishable materials. Ironically, some of the ancient world’s richest finds of this type show up
again in northwest South Asia- most dramatically in the thousands of rock and cliff
inscriptions from Post-Indus times, written in at least ten languages or scripts, found in the
passes of the upper Indus valley linking South Asia to China through one branch of the So-
called Silk Road (Jettmaret al 1989-94), for longer inscriptions in this general region” (cf.
Marshall 1951; Salomon 1998, 1999)."
A strong case can be made on this evidence alone that the Indus civilization could not
possibly have been literate. If it had been, it would be the only known literate society in the
world ancient or modern that did not produce texts of significant length somewhere on
durable materials. It is strange to note that Farmer, sproat, and Witzel as also their followers
don’t view the writings on undurable materials as evidences of a literate civilisation. To be
called literate according to them, a civilisation must have to write something on the stone
tablets or on the walls of cliffs or caves and not on the Terracotta or on the leaves of plants
and trees. They plead to refuse to call a civilisation literate which has left its records on seals
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and sealings made of metals other than stones. While dismissing the Indus civilisation to be a
literate civilisation, they appear to be more inclined and interested in proving that the culture
and civilisation of the Dravidians and the Mundas is an offshoot or a continuation of the
Dravadian and not of the culture and civilisation of Harappa while the culture and civilization
of the Ganga basin and the north is completely different. They have made efforts to prove that
the language and writings found in Harappan seals and symbols may be similar to the
Dravidian group of languages and also that Sanskrit in any way, has no influence over the
south Indian languages including Mundari of Chhotanagpur. Their only intention is to
establish a theory that the fourteen mythical wars of Surs and Asurs have been wars between
the North Indians and the South Indians, the Aryans and Anaryans or the Aryavartans and the
Dravidians. They probably forget that there have been and there are even today linguistic
Pandits both North Indians and South Indians who can understand and appreciate better the
linguistic relationship between the Dravidian and the so called Indo European languages.
They also forget that there are good number of words of Sanskrit on the one hand and South
Indian languages on the other which have been adopted Suo moto by Tamil, Telgu and
Malyalam languages and there is also ample, evidence of Tamil and Telgu words being
adopted by Sanskrit as well as Hindi Spoken by North Indians. They forget that India is
nothing but a name given to Aryavarta which may have many languages but it has one and
only one culture which is inherent in the rites and rituals, customs and traditions, dresses and
addresses, faiths and worships as well as in the languages and literatures of different regions
of the country. The name India is said to have been derived from the word Indus and the word
Indus is derived from the word Sindh or Sindhu which means a river, India had its birth in a
region where seven great rivers flew and were called Sapt Sindhus in Indian scriptures. One
of these Sapt Sindhus was Drishadvati Sindhu which later on took the name Sindh and still
later on became the Indus. The Richas of the Vedas were first pronounced in this very land of
the Saptsindhus and passed on from individual to individual and from generation to
generation through the medium of the “ear” and probably it was due to this that they were
called the Shruties. The seers called the Rishies pronounced the truth called the Rit which
flashed into their contemplating minds and was expressed in the form of Richas ) and were
later on called the Rigved. Since the Rishies had their visions while they used to sit at
meditation before a ritual called Yajna they felt the need of recording the rituals of the Yajna
(;K) which they called the Yajurved. The rituals of the Yajurved often found expression in
songs and Prayers called Psalms and so they were called Samved. The Atharvaved is a
creation of the later Vedic period but it is interesting to note that the tradition of the shruties
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was as prevalent in the South as it was in the north. These Shruties evidently were the Proto
Aryan Language which when recorded in writing with all the possible care and culture could
be named as Sanskrit. The tradition of the Shruties has been so widespread that there are
many centers of Vedic education even today in active form in a few temples of Andhra
Pradesh and Tamilnadu, what to speak of the Gurukuls of North India, where Vedas are
taught more by hearing and less by writing. One of the sapt sindhus was the sarasvati which
flew from Haryana to the Sea coast near Dwarika. The region on the two sides of the
Sarasvati was called the Panchnad or the Saraswati Pradesh and mythology says that at the
end of the Dwapar era and with the total annihilation of the Yadav Community Dwarika
engulfed into the sea and the remaining population of Dwarika, the former, followers of
Krishna, were got inhabited by Arjun in the Panchnad Pradesh—
Pathah Panchadadeh Desho Bahudhanya Dhananvite
Chakar Vasam Sarvashya Tattr aiya Muni Satamah
(Bhavishyapuran : 5th
Part) : Chapter 38 (12)
There is mention of a battle between Arjun on the one side and the Aabheers on the other side of
Panchnand Pradesh for snatching away the beloveds of Krishna with all the wealth, they were
carrying. These Aabheers were sometimes called Dashyus or the Malechhas also. But this remains a
fact that these Aabheers were victorious and Arjun was defeated by them for the first time in his life.
Prekshatah Tashya Parthasya amah
Jambudvipe Malechhad Samasta Muni Sat
(Bhavishya Puran : 5 : 38 : 28)
All this means to reiterate that the culture of Brahmavarta itself which grew in the form of the
culture of Kurukshetra or Matsya or Panchal or Sursen or Madhyadesh called Aryavarta
spread simultaneously South ward upto Lanka and slowly and gradually expanded itself
towards east to the confluence of the Ganga and Sadanira, towards west to Persia and on
wards, to North right from Afghanistan to Burma and later on became the culture of
Bharatvarsa called India. Max Muller also has indicated how this culture spread itself from
the confluence of Sarasvati and Drishadvati to thatof the Sadanira and the Ganges in the east.
The culture which spread to the east must have spread to the South also and this can not be
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ruled out in the face of the first living grammar of the Tamil language having been written
and consolidated by the great Pandit of Sanskrit called Agastya. Agastya who originally
belonged to the North and was named Kumbhaj had his academies situated at so many places
in the South including Rameshwaram and Ceylone and it was only then that he preferred to
take a Tamil name called Agastya. The influence of Sanskrit on the Tamil and the other
languages of the South can’t also be ruled out in the face of the same Sanskrit rites and rituals
observed in almost all the temples of the South even today. The writings of the great Sanskrit
Scholar and Pandit king called Ravana stand testimony to the Vedic culture engulfing the
whole life and literature of the South. Max Muller probably, as he did neither have a study of
Sanskrit Grammar written by Yask and Panini nor did he possess the spirit of an Indian
intellectual, could not appreciate this. Even then he writes in his famous book “The Vedic
Index” as follows :-
“Here the home of the Indo-Aryans of the earliest period that of the Rigveda is the
territory drained by the Indus river system, corresponding roughy to the North west Frontier
Province of the Punjab of the present day. But the home of the fully developed culture of the
Brahmanas lay in the territory extending in a South easterly direction XXX between the
confluence of Saraswati and Drisadvati in the west and that of the Sadanira and Ganges on
the east etc. “ (Vide Page XIV)
It is amusing to note that although Max Muller accepts that the culture of the land of
five rivers expanded east wards to the confluence of rivers sadanira and Ganga, he refused to
appreciate that this very culture might also have expanded from the North to the South as
well as to the West. Students of History know and know it well that a developed civilization
has always expanded like a balloon in all the four directions and it was not unnatural if the
civilization of the Saptsindhu or the Panchnad expanded to Afganistan, Iran, Mesopotamia,
Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome in the west, to Tibet, China and Japan in the North and to
Lanka and then to South Africa and South America in the South, what to speak of expanding
only to the land of Narmada, Krishna, Godawari, and Kaweri which are credited with their
own stories to have been extensions of the great Ganga. With the expansion of the culture and
civilization of Saptsindhu or Panchand or Haryypia or Harappa in all the four directions the
most important direction being the West, the far West it was also natural that the commodities
produced and propagated in Saptsindhu travelled to all the directions and had a commercial
inter-action with the peoples and the languages spoken by them. A developed culture and
civilisation like that of Haryypia or Harappa after this inter-action not only exported its
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commodities and languages but also imported, at least a bit of the language besides some
bartered commodities also of those lands. Sanskrit spoken in this period also enriched itself
from languages of the West like Persian, Greek and Latin as also of the South like Tamil and
Mundari, but the influence of Sanskrit on the European or Dravidian languages was greater
being an ancestor or Proto language. Similarly it should not also be denied that Sanskrit
might have learnt or adopted some expressions from the languages of Tibet or Japan or of
Iran or Arabia or of Greece and Rome but the fact remains that Latin, Persian, Arabic, Greek,
German and Roman languages learnt, adopted and intermingled in them more of Sanskrit
language particularly Sanskrit names and this effect is evident in them if they are studied with
Sociology and Philology taken together. A developed civilisation like that of Harappa should
not be expected to be invaded and conquered by an undeveloped barbaric and nomadic race
nor it should be expected to have imported and adopted the languages of such less developed
races.
Max Muller admitted that the language and literature of Sanskrit was more developed
than any other civilization of that time but he refused to appreciate why a richer language
should borrow anything from the poorer. His prejudices prompted him to interpret the inter-
action of Sanskrit with Persian, Latin and Greek at Central Asia as an inter-action of the
languages of different ethnic groups of Central Asia itself denying the fact that Sanskrit
played the role of a Proto language. He propagated the theory of an Indo-European family of
languages propounded by William Jones and propagated his view of the so-called Aryans
travelling from middle Asia through Iran and settling in India after ousting the Harappan
Dravidians from the land of the Panchnad or of the Saptasindhu. His Philological argument
has been developed, in more details by Hans Hock ignoring the tree diagram language theory
and replacing it with a dialectological approach called isoglosses stressing on alignment of
dialects with a central language or better called an ancestral language which happened to be
none but Sanskrit, although according to Max Muller or Hans Hock it should be Greek or
Latin or Arabic and not Sanskrit. This fact, has already been discussed in the previous pages
of this book, but one thing which needs special mention here is that Haryupia or Harappa was
not the land where the so-called Aryans and the Dravidians fought but it was actually the land
where the Dravidians also lived and worked together and lived and lived and added
something to the culture and language of the land as well as carried something out from it.
The word Mayil of Tamil came from Dravid Desh to Panchnad where it took the name of
Mayoor in Sanskrit. Probably the Mayur or the Majil travelled with the Aryans to the west
and it got itself reflected in the sculpture of the Mitanni art. This Journey of the Peacock from
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Dravid land to Panchnad and from Panchnad to the West also hints at the language and
civilization of that time travelling not from West to the East but from the East to the West.
Panini, the greatest and the oldest of the grammarians of the world and the greatest
grammarian of Sanskrit language and Agastya the greatest grammarian of the Tamil language
are said to be coincidentally born in the same land of the saptsindhu and will it not therefore
be an injustice if we disconnect the traditional relationship of Tamil with the languages of the
South and Sanskrit with those of Europe respectively? Panini has rightly hinted at a rich
language like Sanskrit taking manifold forms when it comes in contact with different
languages at different places and different times. The formula (Sutra) propounded by Panini
is-
“Bahulam Chhandasi-
The changes that come in the form of a language after intermixture are due to four reasons.
Panini’s four reasons are—
Kwachit Pravitih Kwachad Pravitih Krichit
Panini’shote Varvike varanashed ParishodNAMformula of Yathodistan has been very rightly
interpreted by Patanjali as follows :
Bhavet Argamat Hanso Simharaso
Goo
**
And Max Muller unfortunately did’nt take notice of the reasons of this intermixture. Max
Muller, it is said was a pretty good student of Sanskrit so much so that he could translate the
Vedas into German and English and it is presumed, therefore, that he must have taken notice
of the rules of Grammar of both Sanskrit and Tamil propounded by Panini and Agastya.
Panini’s lexoscripta or furmula as interpreted by Patanjali had probably been utilized by
Hans Hock in 1999 when he accepted that “The early Indo-European languages exhibit
linguistic alignments which cannot be captured by a tradiagram but which require a
dialectological approach that maps out a set of intersecting “Isoglosses” which define areas
with shared features”.
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The theory of linguistic changes common to several neighboring or sister languages is
called the theory of “Isoglosses” and this theory is certainly a bye-product although Hans
Hock used this theory to support the AIT dismissing Sanskrit as one of the ancestor languages
of the PIE (Proto Indo European) homeland which according to Max Muller is nowhere else
than central Asia. East has rightly reacted to “Hock’s line of argument,Viz, by proving that
certain, isoglosses must date back to PIE times, making it tougher to reconcile the distribution
of isoglosses with an Indian Homeland hypothesis.
And with this hypothesis in view nothing can restrain “Go West” theory of the Aryans
and the ancestral PIE language Sanskrit from Harappa to the Caspian central Asia region
influencing the neibouring geographical areas and the then sister languages according to the
theory of isoglosses or the i`”kksnjkfu ;Fkksifn”Ve~ formula of Panini or Five ways theory of
lexographical mutations propounded by Yask and interpreted by Durgacharya later on . It was
unfortunate that Max Muller could not or did’nt appreciate Panini or Patanjali or Yask but the
sons and grandsons and great grandsons of Panini, Yask and Agastya have unfortunately
accepted whatever Max Muller said and said without much thought or studies and turned a
deaf ear to what their fore fathers meant to say. They listened to what Max Muller spoke in
the 19th
Century and Hans Hock in the 20th
but they are not proudly prepared to listen to
what the Rigveda had presented in 10000 B.C. and what Panini interpreted in 3000 B.C. To
quote a translation by Griffith, of a piece of the Rigveda from its 10th
Chapter, the Aryans—
“They strode though all the regions with victorious might establishing the old
immeasurable laws. They compassed in their bodies all existing things, and streamed forth
offspring, many successive forms.
In two ways have the sons established in his place the Asura who finds the light by the
third act. As fathers they have set their heritage on earth, their offspring as a thread
continuously spun out.
As in a ship through billows, so through regions of air, with blessings through toils
and troubles, Hath Brhadukha brought his seed with glory and placed it here and in the
realms beyond us.”
It is not understood how Griffith brought the word “Victorious Might” in his
translation of a Passage of the Rigveda where there is mention of clause.
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Griffith failed and failed miserably to realize that the Aryans wherever they went, they went
not merely for commercial interests but for the expansion of a way of life, a noble way of life
which they had developed in thousands of years of living at Brahmavarta or Saptsindhu or
Divyadesh or Panchnad Pradesh or Haryupia or Harappa. It was not a show of a victorious
might of a conquering Community but it was a journey of a faith and of a civilized and noble
way of life.
However Griffith or Max Muller for whatever their mistake which has rightly been
called a colossal intellectual blunder of the 19th
Century as they have been scholars of a non-
Aryan culture and climate they may also be excused.
But should we excuse those Indian writers and those so called Indian scholars also
who keep on hyping an Un-Indian tune with
scholars like Witzel, Sproat and Farmer trying to write the cultural history of a nation like
India from a far off land and a far off university like that of Harvard in U.S.A.
It’s high time, we stop playing a fiddle to the tunes played at London or Harvard and stress
harping on the principles and rules of our own grammar or “Chhandas” reverberating continuously
for at least the last ten thousand years or so from the Vedas to the Puranas and from the
Vindusarovar in the Himalayas to the Sindhu-Sarovar called the Indian ocean. Let us first trust Yask,
Panini and Agustya and lest we are misled, test all that Max Muller, or Hans Hock said on the basis of
the Sutras or formula they (Panini and Yask) devised. Why only Panini and Yask, the popular public
grammar also accepts that as the test of land water changes at every sixth mile so also the account
and intonation of a language or dialect changes every two miles. As a matter of fact Hans Hock’s
theory of isoglosses or the formula propounded by Panini or the popular proverb quoted above
could appear to narrate more or less a similar story would Hans Hock once realize that Sanskrit is the
only aucestor language of the Aryan Race speaking hundreds of dialects from more than ten
thousand years back, at Bharatkhand or Brahmavarta on the bank of river Saraswati. It was simply
unfortunate that Max Muller missed to learn properly from Yask and Panini and from a long chain of
their interpreters like Patanjali or Durgacharya and his followers, more unfortunately thought that
whatever Muller had said was the alpha and omega of linguistics and it was wasting energy to invest
any brain power over the principles and rules of Sanskrit Grammar laid down by not one but as many
as some twenty three predecessors like Indra, Gautam, Bhardwaj, Kashyapa, Gargya, Galob,
Shakatayan or Stophayam or hundreds of successors like Patanjali, sharvaverma, chandragomi,
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Vaman, Palyakirti, Bhojdeva or Himchandra and a chain of Pali and Prakrit grammarians whose ideal
guru or guide has been one and only one and that is Panini.
A study of Indian grammar in the right perspective will certainly help us to establish
the correct answer to the Aryan Question.
l
Chapter-X
Towards Demolition of A Citadel : Relevant
Excerpts From Scholars on
"The Aryan Question" Since 1984
The Aryan Question is actually a well planned and well-designed question mark on
the purity and primitivity, on the gene, on the genesis and the genius called the Aryan. It is a
question mark on Indian roots, on the Indian traditions, on the Indian culture and civilization
and on the all the heights achieved by the Indian people in the fields of learning and
literature. It is actually an affront on the national Glory that was Ind, a negation of the
Gurudom which India enjoyed by leading the light of knowledge and showing the righteous
paths of life to the rest of the world. The saints, the sages and the visionaries like Angira,
Bhrigu Vashista Agastya and Pulastya chanted mantras long long before Adam was born and
lived a long heavenly life of as long as a four thousand and eight hundred years cycle called
Satyug in the Himalyayan Valleys and on the banks of the Ganga and the Sarasvati. The
mantras or the richas recited by them are chanted even today with a distinct change of diction
from the Vedic to the classic and from the classic to the modern. It is linguistically assessed
and chronologically and astronomically proved that, it was more than a minimum ten
thousand years back that the Rishies composed these Chhandas or these Richas or mantras or
these Shlokas or these verses to refer to the researches done by B.C. sidhartha, Director of
B.M. Birla, Science Centre.
But this stood belied by those whose mythologies believed
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that their first ancestor was born only some 4000 years or so before Christ and that Noah who
managed to save the creation from the deadly Deluge happened to be in 2500 B.C. only.
India’s past glories were not only unbelievable but also intolerable for a community that ruled
India and ruled for over two hundred years and wanted to rule for all times to come. It was
necessary for them therefore, to negate the faith that the Vedas were as old as 10000 years
B.C. or so and to affirm on the contrary the story of the Bible’s Genesis not as a story but as a
History of the world. It was incumbent, on their part, therefore, to employ a man of learning,
a scholar of languages and scriptures of different religions of the world who could establish
theories of Christian superiority and could create an altogether new history of the cultures of
the world. And the man selected for this mission was none else than the great German scholar
Mr. Max Muller who agreed to do the job at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society held at
London on the 10th
of April 1866. The theories to be established were that Adam was the first
human being created by God in His own image, Noah was the man who saved the creation
through the Deluge, Abraham, Ismael and Israel and their successors were the men blessed by
God with the power to create and to rule over all the nations which they surveyed around
them and there was only one language of the whole world and that was probably Latin until
they spread over in groups after the scene of great confusion at the Tower of the Babel. All
that these so called blessed men could survey were their nations and all those who lived fallen
apart at far off places were men under their subjugation.
Thus all the myths of the Bible henceforward became history, while all the history and
all the languages, which came in contact after subjugation, were declared dialects and myths.
And as such a group of white complexioned men of quite a good height and strong and stout
personality riding on horse-driven chariots were supposed to have invaded the illiterate
Harappan aboriginals and throwing them out beyond the Vindhyas ruled over the Indus
Valley and were called the Aryans as most probably they had rushed into the Harappan lands
through Iran. Sanskrit was rated as one of the dialects of the East and a civilization spread
over an area of 3000 sq. miles or so like that of Haryupia or Harappa was rated as an illiterate
civilization.
Times changed after 1920 AD and changed upside down after Marshal and others
excavated the mounds scattered from Alamgirpur to Dholavira and from Ropad to
Kalibangan and told a different story of a civilization that had prospered on the Indian soil
much before even the so called Noah’s Deluge. The finds of the excavation referred to an
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even older culture of Saptasindhus and Panchnad spreading from the banks of Sindhu and
Saraswati not only to those of the Narmada and Godavari but also to the Singhal Islands.
It was a time the great hero of the so called Aryan theory, F. Max Muller had grown
old and had died in 1900 AD and the Archaeologists both Indians and outsiders were ready to
revise their views but Indians had even then a lower voice while the foreigners still
dominated and said that Max Muller’s Invasion theory can at best be rechristened or
reincarnated as Migration theory with all the stories remaining the same. The Sarasvati dried
up in course of time and the civilization on its banks used to be remembered as Haryupia later
on changed its name from Haryupia or Harappa to Aryavarta or India The Sarasvati dried up,
no doubt, may be due to some environmental changes like the Earthquake or some severe
drought or otherwise but did never die and kept on flowing underground perennially to join
the Ganga and the Yamuna at the Sangam at Prayag.
Much water has since flowed in the Indian rivers and Indians minds together and there
came a time when the minds working both in India and abroad could make a meeting point
on India particularly on the Harappan India. This change started with Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917) with his book entitled “ Elementary Form of Religious Life” and with Jim
Shaffer with his book entitled “The Indo-Aryan Invasion: cultural Myth and
Archaeological Reality” in 1984. A flood gate was opened and a band of Indian as well
as foreign scholars have joined a brigade which has fought out a battle bravely and
intelligently and is now engaged to see the so well fortified citadel of Max Muller
thoroughly demolished. Here is what the main stalwarts speak on the main points.
1. The Aryan Problem :
The relationship of the Indus-Saraswati civilization with the later Indian civilization
remains a subject of debate. Most of you probably learned at school that the Harappan towns
were destroyed by Semi-barbarian Aryans rushing down from Central Asia on their horse
Chariots, and that the Survivors among their inhabitants, assumed to have been Dravidians,
were driven to South India by the invaders. Passages from the Rig-veda were twisted and
sometimes mistranslated to show a record of such a Physical and cultural clash. In many
respects this is still the “Official” theory, although, since the 1960s, when the U.S.
archaeologist G.F. Dales demolished all supposed evidence of such attacks and slaughter, the
theory has limited itself to saying that the supposed Aryans, or Indo-Aryans or Indo-
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Europeans, to use the present terminology, entered North India after the collapse of the
Harappan civilization.
But you may be surprised to learn that most archaeologists now reject this invasion or
migration theory, as they cannot find the slightest trace of it on the ground and it is
unthinkable that the supposed Aryans could have conquered most of India and imposed on it
their Vedic culture without leaving any physical evidence of any sort. Even respected
archaeologists of the old school of thought, such as Raymond and Bridget Allchin, now
admit that the arrival of Indo-Aryans in Northwest India is “Scarcely attested in the
archaeological record, presumably because their material culture and life-style were already
virtually indistinguishable from those of the existing population we are very far from the
bloody invasion and cultural war envisaged by Max Muller and other nineteenth-Century
scholars. (Michel Danino- The Indus Saraswati civilization and its Bearing on the Aryan
question-1999)
2. Aryan Race : A Misnomer
In simple terms, this means that, for science, there is no such
thing as an Aryan race, or a Dravidian race for that matter Nor is there for Indian tradition, in
which the world” “Arya” never means a race, but a quality of true nobility, Culture and
refinement. And so, if Aryan people invaded or entered into India, it stands to reason that the
Vedic culture was also native to the subcontinent, and not import, In fact, quite a few scholars
and archaeologists today see a number of clear Vedic traits in the Harappan culture. To cite a
few : the presence of fire-altars, an essential element of Vedic rituals; the symbol of a bull
engraved on hundreds of seals, a Vedic symbol par excellence; the cult of a mother-goddess,
of a Shiva-like deity.
(Michel Danino- The Indus-Sarasvati civilization and its Bearing on the Aryan Question-
3. The Myth Of The Aryan Invasion : A Product Of The Christian Mythology :
The Indus valley culture was pronounced Pre-Aryans for several reasons that were
largely part of the cultural milieu of nineteenth century European thinking as scholars
following Max-Muller had decided that the Aryans came into India around 1500 B.C. since
the Indus valley culture was earlier than this, they concluded that it had to be pre Aryan. Yet
the rationale behind the late date for the Vedic culture given by Muller was totally
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speculative. Max-Muller, like many of the Christian scholars of his era, believed in Biblical
Chronology. This placed the beginning of the world at 4000 B.C. and the flood around 2500
B.C. Assuming to those two dates, it became difficult to get the Aryans in India before 1500
B.C. Muller, therefore, assumed that the five layers of the four “Vedas” & ‘Upnishads’ were
each composed in 200 year periods before the Budha around 500 B.C. However, there are
more changes of language in Vedic Sanskrit itself than there are in classical Sanskrit since
Panini, also regarded as a figure of around 500 B.C. or a period of 2500 years. Hence it is
clear that each of these periods could have existed for any number of centuries and that the
200 year figure is totally arbitrary and is like too short a figure.
It was assumed by these scholars many of whom were also
Christian missionaries unsympathetic to the “Vedas” that the Vedic culture was that of
Primitive nomads from central Asia. Hence they could not have founded any urban culture
like that of the Indus valley. The only basis for this was a rather questionable interpretation of
the “Rig Veda” that they made, ignoring the sophisticated nature of the culture presented.
Meanwhile, it was also pointed out that in the middle of the second millennium B.C. a
number of Indo-European invasions apparently occurred in the Middle East, wherein Indo-
European peoples the Hittites, Mittani and Kassites conquered and ruled Mesopotamia for
some centuries. An Aryan invasion of India would have been another version of this same
movement of Indo-European peoples. On top of this, excavators of the Indus valley culture
like wheeler, thought they found evidence of destruction of the culture by an outside invasion
confirming this. The Vedic culture was thus said to be that of primitive nomads who came out
of Central Asia with their horse-drawn chariots and iron weapons and overthrew the cities of
the more advanced Indus valley culture, with their superior battle tactics. It was pointed out
that no horses, chariots or iron was discovered in Indus valley sites.
(David Frawely-The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India—)
4. Vedism And Shaivism : Offshoots Of The Same Basic Tradition Of Narayan Or
Brahma Or Hara
The interpretation of the religion of the Indus valley culture-made incidentally by
scholars such as wheeler who were not religious scholars much less students of Hinduism
was that its religion was different than the Vedic and more likely the later Shaivite religion.
However, further excavations both in Indus valley site in Gujrat, like Lothal, and those in
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Rajasthan, like Kalibangan show large number of fire altars like those used in the Vedic
religion, along with bones of oxen, potsheds, shell jewelry and other items used in the rituals
described in the “Vedic Brahmanas” Hence the Indus valley culture evidences many Vedic
practices that can not be merely coincidental. That some of its practices appeared non-Vedic
to its excavators may also be attributed to their misunderstanding or lack of knowledge of
Vedic and Hindu culture generally, wherein vedism and shaivism are the same basic tradition.
We must remember that ruins do not necessarily have one interpretation. Nor does the ability
to discover ruins necessarily give the ability to interpret them correctly.
The Vedic people were thought to have been a fair-Skinned race like the Europeans
owing to the Vedic idea of a war between light and darkness, and the Vedic people being
presented as children of light or children of the sun. Yet this idea of a war between light and
darkness exists in most ancient cultures, including the Persian and the Egyptian. Why don’t
we interpret their scriptures as a war between light and dark-skinned people? It is
purely a poetic metaphor not a cultural statement. Moreover, no real traces of such a race
are found in India.
Anthropologists have observed that the present population of Gujrat is composed of more
or less the same ethnic groups as are noticed at Lothal in 2000 B.C. Similarly, the present population
of the Punjab is said to be ethnically the same as the population of Harappa 4000 years ago.
Linguistically the present day population of Gujrat and Punjab belongs to the Indo-Aryan language
speaking group. The only inference that can be drawn from the anthropological and linguistic
evidence adduced above is that the Harappan population in the Indus valley and Gujrat in 2000 B.C.
was composed of two or more groups, the more dominant among them having very close ethnic
affirnity with the present day Indo-Arayn speaking population of India.
(David Frawely-The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India)
5. Misinterpretation of the Saptsindhu or the Punjab :
When wheeler speaks of “the Aryan Invasion of the land of seven rivers, the Punjab”
he has no warranty at all, so far as I can see. If one checks the dozen references in the “Rig
Veda” to the 7 rivers, there is nothing in them that to me implied invasion : the land of the 7
rivers is the land of the “Rig Veda” the scene of action. Nor is it implied that the inhabitants
of the walled cities (including the Dasyus) were any more aboriginal than the Aryan
themselves.
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6. Not Scholarship But Cultural Emperialism :
Such a view is not good scholarship or archaeology but merely cultural
emperialism. The western Vedic scholars did in the intellectual sphere what the British
army did in the political realm discredit, divide and conquer the Hindus. In short, the
compelling reasons for the Aryan invasion theory were neither literary nor
archaeological but political and religious that is to say, not scholarship but prejudice
which may not have been intentional but deep-seated political and religious views easily
cloud and blur our thinking.
It is unfortunate that this approach has not been questioned more, particularly by
Hindus. Even though Indian Vedic scholars like Dayananda Saraswati, Bal Gangadhar Tilak
and Aurobindo rejected it, most Hindus today passively accept it. They allow western,
generally Christan, scholars to interpret their history for them and quite naturally Hinduism is
kept in a reduced role. Many Hindus still accept, read or even honor the translations of the
“Vedas” done by such Christian missionary scholars as Max-Muller, Griffith, Monier
Williams and H.H. Wilson. Would modern Christians accept an interpretation of the Bible or
Biblical history done by Hindus aimed at converting them to Hinduism? Universities in India
also use the western history books and western Vedic translations that propound such views
that denigrate their own culture and country.
The modern western academic world is sensitive to critisms of cultural and social
biases. For scholars to take a stand against this biased interpretation of the “Vedas” would
indeed cause a re-examination of many of these historical ideas that cannot stand objective
scrutiny. But if Hindu scholars are silent or passively accept the misinterpretation of
their own culture, it will undoubtedly continue, but they will have no one to blame but
themselves. It is not an issue to be taken lightly, because how a culture is defined historically
creates the perspective from which it is viewed in the modern social and intellectual context.
Tolerance is not in allowing a false view of one’s own culture and religion to be
propagated without question. That is merely self betrayal.
(David Frawely- The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India.)
7. The Truth Of The Battle Story : Was There Ever An Aryan Invasion?
One of the major reasons why a consideration of the idea of an Aryan invasion into
India is prevalent among some western researchers is because of their misinterpretation of the
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Vedas, deliberate or otherwise, that suggest, the Aryans were a nomadic people. One such
misinterpretation is from the Rig-Veda, which describes the battle between sudas and then
then kings. The battle of the then kings included the Pakthas, Bhalanas, Alinas, Shivas,
Vishanins, Shimys, Bhrigus, Druhyas, Prithus, and Parshus, who fought against the Tritsus,
The Prithus or Parthavas became the Parthians of latter day Iran (247 B.C.- 224 A.D.). The
Parshus or Pashavos became the latter day Persians. These kings though some are described
as Aryans, were actually fallen Aryans, or rebellious and materialistic kings who had given up
spiritual path and were conquered by Sudas Occasionally, there was a degeneration of the
spiritual kingdom in areas of India and wars had to be fought in order to re-establish the
spiritual Aryan culture in these areas. Western scholars could and did easily misinterpret this
to mean an invasion of nomadic people called Aryans rather than simplify a war in which the
superior Aryan kings re-established the spiritual values and the Vedic Aryan way of life.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory)
8. Conspiracy Behind It :
Let us also remember that the Aryan invasion theory was hypothesized in the
nineteenth century to explain the similarities found in Sanskrit and the languages of Europe.
One person who reported about this is Deen Chandara in his article, “Distorted Historical
Event and Discredited Hindu Chronology”, as it appeared in “Revisiting Indus-Sarasvati Age
and Ancient India” (P. 383) He explains that the idea of the Aryan invasion was certainly
not only a matter of misguided research, but was a conspiracy to distribute deliberate
misinformation that was formulated on April 10, 1866 in London at a Secret meeting
held in the Royal Asiatic Society. This was “to induct the theory of the Aryan invasion of
India so that no Indian may say that “English are foreigners…..India was ruled all
along by outsiders and so the country must remain a slave under the benign Christian
rule.” This was a political move and this theory was put to solid use in all schools and
colleges.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory)
9. Expanse Of The Civilization :
However under scrutiny, the Aryan invasion theory lacks justification. For example,
Sir John Marshall, one of the chief excavators at Mohen-Jodaro offers evidence that India
may have been following the Vedic religion long before any so-called “invaders” ever
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arrived. He points out that it is known that India possessed a highly advanced and organized
urban civilization dating back to at least 2300 B.C., if not much earlier. In fact, some
researchers suggest that evidence makes it clear that the Indus valley civilization was quite
developed by at least 3100 B.C. The known cities of this civilization cover an area along the
Indus river and extend from the coast to Rajasthan and the Punjab over the Yamuna and
Upper Ganges. At its height, the Indus culture spread over 300,000 square miles, an area
larger than western Europe. Cities that were a part of the Indus culture include Mohan-Jadaro,
Kut Diji east of Mohen-Jodaro, Amri on the lower Indus, Lothal South of Ahmedabad,
Malwan farther south, Harappa 350 miles upstream from Mohen-Jodaro, Kalibangan and
Alamgirpur farther east, Ropar near the Himalyas, Sutkagen Dor to the west along the coast,
Mehrgrah 150 miles north of Mohen-Jodaro and Mundigak much farther north. Evidence at
Mehrgarh shows a civilization that dates back to 6500 B.C. it had been connected with Indus
culture but was deserted in the third millennium B.C. around the time, the city of Mohen-
Jodaro became prominent.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory—)
10. Ruins Of A War Or Remains Of A Byegone Civilization :
However some geologists suggest that the cities were left because of environmental
changes, Evidence of floods in the plains is seen in the thick layers of silt which are now
thirty-nine feet above the river in the upper strata of Mohen-Jodaro. Others say that the
ecological needs of the community forced the people to move on, since research shows there
was great reduction in rainfall from that period to the present.
We also have to remember that many of the Indus sites like Kalibangan, were close to
the region of the old Sarasvati River. Some Hindu scholars are actually preferring to rename
the Indus Valley culture as the Indus Sarasvati culture because the Sarasvati was a prominent
river and very important at the time. For example, the Saraswati River is glowingly praised in
the Rig Veda. However the Saraswati River stopped flowing as early as around 8000 B.C. It
dried up near the end of the Indus valley civilization, at least by 1900 B.C. This was no doubt
one reason why these cities were abandoned. This also means that if the Vedic people came
after the Indus valley culture, they could not have known of the Saraswati River. This is
further evidence that the Vedas were from many years before the time of the Indus valley
Society and were not brought into the region by some invasion.
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As a result of the latest studies, evidence points in the direction that the Indus sites
were wiped out not by acts of war or an invasion, but by the drought that is known to have
taken place and continued for 300 years. Whatever skeletons that have been found in the
regions many indicate deaths not by war but by starvation or lack or water. Deaths of the
weak by starvation are normal before the whole society finally moves away for better lands
and more abundant resources. This is the same drought that wiped out the Akkadians of
Sumeria, and caused a sudden abandonment of cities in Mesopotamia, such as at Tell leilan
and Tell Brock. The beginning of the end of these civilization had to have near 2500 B.C.
This drought no doubt contributed to the final drying up of the Saraswati River.
Regarding Mohen-Jodaro, archaeologists have discovered no sign of attack such as
extensive burning or remains of armour clad warriors and no foreign weapons. This leaves us
to believe that the enemy of the people, in this region was nature, such as earthquakes,
flooding, or the severe drought, or even a change in the course of rivers and not warrior
invaders. So again, the invasion theory does not stand up to scrutiny from the anthropological
point of view.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory—)
11. Decipherment Of The Indus Script :
Further more, Dr. S.R. Rao has deciphered the Harappan script to be of an Indo Aryan
base. In fact he has shown how the South Arabic, old Arabic, and the ancient Indian Brahmi
scripts are all derivatives of the Indus valley script. This new evidence confirms that the
Harappan civilization could not have been Dravidian’s that were overwhelmed by an Aryan
invasion, but they were followers of the vedic religion. The irony is that the Vedic Aryans
destroyed the Dravidian Indus townships which had to have been, previously built according
to the mathematical instruction that are found in the Vedic literature of the Aryans such as the
‘shulbasutras’. This point helps voids the invasion theory. After all if the people of these cities
used the Vedic styles of religious altars and town planning, it would mean they were already
Aryans.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan invasion theory.)
THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION WAS A PART OF THE ADVANCED VEDIC
CULTURE.
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The Vedic form of mathematics was much more advanced than that found in early
Greek and Egyptian Societies; This can be seen in the “Shulbasutras, supplements of the
“Kalpasutras” which also show the earliest forms of Algebra which were used by the Vedic
priests in their geometry for the construction of altars and arenas for religious purposes. In
fact, the geometrical formula known as the Pythagorean theorem can be traced to the
“Baudhyans” the earliest forms of Shulbasutras dated prior to the eighth century B.C. xxxx
with this view in mind, Vedic mathematics can no longer be considered as a derivative from
ancient Babylon, which dates to 1700 B.C. but must be the source of it as well as the Greek
or Pythagorean mathematics. Therefore, the advanced nature of the geometry found in the
“Shulbasutras” indicates that it provided the knowledge that had to have been known during
the construction of the Indus sites, such as Harappa and Mohen-Jodaro as well as that used in
ancient
Greece and Babylon.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion theory-)
12. The Aryans And The Period Of The Rig-Veda :
In his book called “The celestial key to the Vedas: Discovering the origins of world’s
oldest Civilization” B.C. Sidhrath provides astronomical evidence that the earliest portions of
the Rig-Veda can be dated to 10,000 B.C. He is the director of the B.M. Birla science centre
and has 30 years of experience in astronomy and science. He also confirms that India had a
thriving civilization capable of sophisticated astronomy long before Greece, Egypt, or any
other culture in the world.
In his commentary on “Srimad Bhagavatam (1.7.8), A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, one
of the most distinguished Vedic scholars of modern times, also discusses the estimated date of
when the Vedic literature was written base on astronomical evidence. He writes that there is
some diversity amongst mundane scholars as to the date when Srimad-Bhagavatam’ was
compiled, the latest of Vedic scriptures.
It is Certain that it was compiled after Lord Krishna disappeared from the planet and
before the disappearance of King Parikshit, we are presently in the five thousand year of the
age of Kali according to astronomical calculation and evidence in the revealed scriptures.
Therefore, he concludes “Srimad Bhagavatam” had to have been compiled atleast five
thousand years ago. The Mahabharata was compiled before Srimad Bhagavatam and the
major ‘Puranas’
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Furthermore we know that the Upnishadas and the four primary Vedas including the
Rig-veda were compiled years before Mahabharata. This would indicate that the Vedic
literature was already existing before any so-called invasion, which is said to have happened
around 1400 B.C. In fact, this indicates that the real Aryans were the Vedic kings and sages
who were already prevalent in this region and not any uncertain tribe of nomadic people that
some historians, inappropriately call “invading Aryans” who came into India and then wrote
their Vedic texts after their arrival. So this confirms the Vedic version.”
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan invasion theory-)
13. Aryavarta According To Manu-Samhita And Rig-Veda:
The Manu-Samhita (2.17-18) specially points out that the
region of the Vedic Aryans is between the Saraswati and Drishdvati rivers, as similarly found
in the Rig-veda (3.24.4).
Any wars mentioned in the Vedic literature are those that have taken place between
people of the same culture, or between the demigods and demons, or the forces of light and
darkness. The idea that the term “Aryan” or “Arya refers to those of a particular race is
misleading. It is a term that means anyone of any race that is noble and of righteous and
gentle conduct. To instill the idea of an Aryan invasion into the Vedic texts is merely an
exercise of taking isolated verses out of context and changing the meaning of the terms.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan invasion theory)
14. Who Is An Aryan:
The Sanskrit word Aryan is linguistically related to the world harijana (Pronounced
hariyana), meaning one related to God, Hari. Therefore, the real meaning of the name
“Aryan” refers to those people related to the spiritual Vedic culture. It has little to do with
those immigrants that some researchers have speculated to be the so-called “invading
Aryans.” Aryan refers to those who practice the Vedic teaching and this does not mean a
particular race of people. Therefore anyone can be an Aryan by following the clear light,
Vedic Philosophy, while those who do not follow it are non-Aryan.
15. The Aryan Spread- Out Story:
106
We can see some of the affect of this spread out of India in regard to the term Aryan.
The name Harijana or Aryan evolved into Syriana or Syrians in Syria, and Hurrians in Hurri,
and Arianna or Iranians in Iran. This shows that they were once part of Vedic society. A
similar case in the name parthians in partha another old country in Persia. Partha was the
name of Krishna’s friend Arjuna a Vedic Aryan and means the son of king Prithu. So the
name Parthian indicates those sons of Pritha or Kunti who are descendants of king Prithu.
Parthians also had a good relationship with the early Jews since the Jews used to buy grains
from the Parthians. The Greeks referred to the Jews as Judeos or Jah deos or Yadavas
meaning people of Ya or decsendents of Yadu, one of the sons of Yayati, It is also regarded
that the basis of the Kabbalah, the book of Jews, mystical concepts, as described in “The
Holy Kabbalah by Arthur Edward waite is linked with Kapila Muni, the Indian sage and
incarnation of Krishna who established the analytical “Sankhya-Yoga” philosophy. Therefore,
a connection between the early Jews and ancient Vedic culture is evident.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan invasion Theory—)
16 The Aryans Sans Vedic Culture Spreading Out To Greece And Turkey:
Another province mentioned in Mahabharata (Adi-Parva 85.34) is that of the Yavanas
(Turks) who were so named for being descendants of Maharaja Yavana (Turvasu), one of the
Sons of Maharaja Yayati, as previously explained. They also gave up Vedic culture and
become Malechhas. They fought in the battle of kuruksetra against the Pandavas on behalf of
Duryodhana and lost. However, it was predicted that they would one day return to conquer
Bharata-varsa (India) and, indeed, this came to pass. Mahammad Ghori later attacked and
conquered parts of India on behalf of Islam from the Abhira and Yavana or Turkish countries.
Thus we can see that these provinces in the area of Greece and Turkey (and the countries in
between there and India) were once part of the Vedic civilization and had at one time not only
Political and cultural ties but also ancestral connections. This is the Vedic version of the
origin of Aryan civilization and how its influence spread in various degrees throughout the
world.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion theory.)
17 The Last Deluge And First Creation:
In any case we can begin to see that the Vedic Aryans had been living in the region of
India since the last deluge, from about 13,000 to 10,000 B.C. Thus there could not have been
107
any Pre-Aryan civilization in this area that had been conquered by so called “Invasion
Aryans” in 1500 B.C.
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory—)
18. The Cradle Of Civilization That Is Brahmavarta Or Aryavarta Or Bharat :
As N.S. Rajaram so nicely explains in “Vedic Aryans and
The origins of civilization” (P.P. 247-8), “To conclude : On the basis
of archaeology satellite Photography, metallurgy and ancient mathematics, it is now clear that
there existed a great civilization, a mainly spiritual civilization perhaps before the rise of
Egypt, Sumeria and the Indus valley. The heartland of this ancient world was the region from
the Indus to the Ganga-the land of the Vedic Aryans.
This conclusion, stemming from scientific findings of the past three decades,
demolished the theory that nomadic Aryans from central Asia swooped down on the plains of
India in the Second millennium BCE and established their civilization and composed the Rig-
Veda. The picture presented by science therefore is far removed from the one found in history
books that, place the cradle of civilization in the river valleys of Mesopotamia. Modern
science and ancient records provide us also a clue to a long standing historical puzzle : why
since time immemorial, people from India and Sri Lanka to England and Ireland have spoken
languages clearly related to one another and possess mythologies and beliefs that are so
strikingly similar. “The simple answer is : they were part of a great civilization that flourished
before the rise of Egypt, Sumeria and the Indus valley. This was a civilization before the
dawn of civilization.”
(Stephen Knapp-Death of the Aryan Invasion Theory—)
19. Why Vedic Language Or Sanskrit Could Become A Basic Language For Other IE
Language ?
The Rig Vedic language was a synthetic language combining elements of the different
language of the region, upholding an older and sanctified terminology for spiritual and
religions purposes. Vedic Sanskrit, called “ Chhandas” or meter, was probably a poetic
language acceptable to the various peoples of the religion at least on a religious level. Hence
it could travel far and be acceptable by various groups, even those speaking rather different
108
common dialects. While linguists have argued that an elite Aryan culture from central Asia
could change the languages of India, they have missed the basic facts of culture and
demographics. The civilization of ancient India was larger, older and more popular than that
of central Asia. Any Primary cultural diffusion would have been from east to west not west to
east. This is what history shows us, with ancient Indo-Europeans like the Persians, Greeks
and celts coming originally from regions to the east of their later homelands.”
The Rig veda lasted because it was the main literature of the Subcontinent and its
dominant rishi and royal families. The main kings and rishis of the Rig-veda are those of the
Bharata dynasty that ruled on the Sarasvati river from whom India gained its traditional name
as Bharata. Just as the Mahabharata later endured because it was a natural literature so did the
Rig Veda itself. The Vedic as a royal literature of the region explains its power to endure. As
nomadic poetry, there is no reason why it could have ever been preserved. (Dr. Koenraad
Elst-Linguistic aspects of the Aryan non-invasion theory)
20. May That Vedic Vision Come Again :
May that Vedic vision again come forth for the benefit of all creation. May the
misinterpretations that obscure it disappear like the darkness at the rising of the Sun”
(Dr. Koenraad Elst-Linguistic aspects of the Aryan non-invasion theory.)
21. The Politics Of History And N. Rajaram’s contributions :
Rajaram’s book is the most systematic and thorough study of the Aryan invasion
theory presented to date. He traces the origin and development of this ugly theory which
according to him is “a colossal intellectual blunder” of the 19th
Century European scholars,
particularly, Max Muller. The author points out that Indian history was created by men who
were neither Indians nor historians but European linguists. What were the causes of this grim
blunder and how did it happen is discussed in the chapter “Sahibs and Pandits.” Ignorance of
scientific method and lack of archaeological data coupled with European politics and
missionary interests were the main forces behind this mythical creation.
(Professor Uma Erry-Bhavan’s Journal July 15, 1996)
22. Southern And Northern Vedic Cultures :
109
A close study of Vedic literature reveals that there were two related cultures in ancient
India. This is one of the main points of my book. “The Rig veda and the History of India”
The first was a northern kingdom centered on Saraswati-Drishadvati river region. It was
dominated by the Purus and the Ikshvakus and their mainly Angirasa gurus that produced the
existent Vedas texts that we have. The second was a southern culture along the coast of
Arabian Sea in the Saraswati delta, and into the Vindhya Mountains. It was dominated by the
Turvashas and Yadus and the mainly Bhrigu gurus and extended into groups yet further south.
These two groups vied for supremacy and influenced each other in various ways as
the Vedas and Puranas indicate. That is why in Vedic literature the Turvashas and Yadus, the
Southern people are the main enemies, though originally kinsmen of the Vedic Bharatas.
Great Vedic “Kings like Divodasa, Srinjaya and Sudas have the Turvasha and Yadus as their
main opponents. The mythical ancient Deva-Asura was of the Vedas and Puranas involves the
Angirasas and Bhrigus (Brihaspati and Sukra) or the northern and Southern rishi families.
(Dr. Koenraad Elst-Linguistic aspects of the Aryan “non-invasion theory)
23. The Rig Veda As The First Bharata :
A more sensitive study of the Rig veda shows it as a book of great kings and seers
(rajas and purohits). The Vedas reflect great kingdoms and a sophisticated ancient culture
with the main Vedic rishis like Vasishta being the Purohits or Chief priests of great emperors
like Sudas said to have ruled India from Sea to Sea in Brahmanical literature. The Vedas look
back to many generations of kings and seers in their Sarasvati homeland. They are not the
kind of Primitive or barbaric people that the invasional migration scenario requires. Even
their glorification of horses and chariots is that of an urban nobility such that occurred in the
ancient literature of Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia, not of Primitive invaders.
24. Harappa A Continuation Of The Vedic Brahmavarta :
The Vedic civilization dates back to 7000 B.C., whereas the Harappan civilization
represents nothing but a continuation of the early Vedic civilization. It was indeed the
“twilight of the Vedic civilization” and belonged to the Sutra period of the Vedic literature.
And this vast civilization came to an end because of ecological reasons, particularly the
drying up of the mighty Saraswati River. That there was a mighty river, which used to flow
through Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan has been discovered by Wakankar’s exploration and
confirmed by Satellite Photography. Archaeological sites have been found on the river bed
110
which show that the river gradually became weaker and finally dried up around 1900 or 2000
B.C. But to get back to the accounts in ancient literature, the Second Mandala of the Rigveda
mentions the great Sarasvati River about fifty times, while the Ganga is mentioned only once
and the Seventh Mandala attributed to Rishi Vasistha says “the Sarasvati is a mighty stream”
that flowed from the” “Mountain to the Sea…..nursing the children of Nahusha,” R.V. VII
95.2 The children of Nahusha refers to the rulers of the famed Bharat Dynasty, and the
inhabitants of the Sarasvati heartland.
(Professor Uma Erry-Bhavan’s Journal July 15, 1956)
25. Max Muller’s Fanciful Historical Scenario :
Max Muller’s theory was taken up by the nineteenth Century linguists and other
Scholars, who after discovering Sanskrit and the relationship which it bears to European
languages, hit upon the existence of a Proto Indo-European language to preserve their Pet
theory of the Aryan invasion. The linguistic approach to history reveals how the human mind
can pervert facts and how preconceived ideas can falsify one’s view of events. Nineteenth
Century linguists “built the whole historical scenarios around untested linguistic conjectures.”
It proved to be “Monumental failure of vision” as shown by archaeology, which began to
have an enormous bearing on the study of history. “All fanciful historical scenarios began to
crumble in the face data from archaeology, mathematics and other sources, observes the
author. Archaeologists have now proved the existence of a vast civilization, the great
Saraswati Sindhu civilization, spread over more than a million and a half square kilometers.
(Professor Uma Erry-Bhavan’s Journal, July 15, 1996)
26. The Aryan Migration Theory- The New Incarnation Of The Invasion View :
The scholar (Sri M. Wheeler etc) place the Aryan entry after the end of Harapan
culture in the 1900-1000 BCE era. In the absence of any evidence of significant migrations,
the Aryan takeover of India has been reduced by most migrations to a gradual process of
acculturalization from central Asia accomplished by a small group of elites. This absolves it
proponents from needing to produce any tangible evidence for it, which they do not have.
This outside India Theory (OIT) for the Vedas, much like the Aryan Invasion Theory that it
supplants, ignores major data in several areas.
111
Much important work has been done on the Sarasvati river over the past few years, through
the Geological society of India and other scientific groups, with dozens of papers and studies’
outlining the change of course of this great river over the centuries. The migration theory, Just like
the invasion theory, ignores the prominence of the Sarasvati river in Vedic texts. It was the drying
up of this river that brought the Harappan civilization to an end. However, such scholars even while
recognizing that river changes caused the abandonment of Harappan sites, ignore the fact the same
river is central to Vedic texts. They will not equate the great lost river of ancient India with the Vedic
Sarasvati, inspite of dozens of Vedic references to its size and its location They would still date the
Aryan entrance into India after the drying up of the sacred river in India that the Vedas honor as
their ancestral homeland…
Just as Vedic literature requires a civilization to produce it, so does Harappan
civilization require a great literature to reflect it. Such a vast urban culture would have left a
literary mark. Certainly, it could not have been completely overwhelmed by the crude
literature of a few intruders from central Asia, Particularly when that intrusive tradition was
oral not written, and the Harappans had writing since archaeology now shows, that there was
no real break in ancient Indian civilization but only a Post-Harappan relocation, the literature
or the region would have persisted as well.
(Dr. Koenraad Elst-Linguistic aspects of the Aryan Non-invasion Theory)
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SUGGESTED FURTHER READING
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1999)
112
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l
The whole science of building construction engineering of today is based on the Vedic
geometrical technique of four pillars called chatustambh which culminates into arches and
domes and other multifarious forms and designs. European historians have dated this
engineering back to Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Rome, or Greece and then via the Renaissance
to the rest of the world in the 15th century A.D., originating from Florence in Italy and from
Constantinople in Anatolia replacing the medieval Gothic style with the classical. Incidentally
Florence is said to have been founded and flourished in the first century B.C. while
Constantinople in the first century A.D. The excavations of Harappa, on the other hand, prove
118
that this engineering as the engineering of construction on four pillars or stambh or stupa or
columns or “Yoops” called the chatustambh structure was widely popular in Haryupia or
India in the 5th millennium B.C. itself and travelled from Haryupia or Harappa to ‘Istanbul’
or Istambul in Anatolia and from there to Egypt or Babylon or Israel or Italy or Greece
‘Yoop’ or ‘Stamb’ or ‘Stupa’ is not different, not at all, from the cement cast pillars or
columns of today’s science of construction engineering which had once upon a time led to
the construction of the temple city of Istanbul in Anatolia, the terminal Asian Point which
took its name probably from Antya+Alaya= Antyalaya meaning Aryan’s last hill resort or the
last commercial station of their journey to the west. The words- “Station” or “Istanbul” or
“Stupa” or “Stamb” all take us back to nowhere else but to the square shaped large size Yajna
Kund in front of every house of Harappa with four small ones at the four corners with a
Yoop or Stupa or Stamb of God Hara of Harappa which stood for a temple of its own kind
and its own type and which inspired and spread the construction culture of temple buildings
all over the world. Historians generally agree that a true copy of this civilisation had once
upon a time spread and prevailed right from Panchnad of Aryavarta to Persia and from Persia
to Anatolia ruled then by Partheans. These Partheans identified as a community of men riding
on horse backs or Chariots driven by horses with arches in hands were sometime dispelled
back to Iran and later to their original home at Panchnad, where Parth, Prithu’s descendent
and Pritha’s son Arjun had once ruled at the fall of Mahabharat. Parthean empire in Anatolia
thus, got replaced by the Byzantine and the Byzantine later on by the Ottoman in 1453. The
Romans, the Greeks or the Arabs naturally borrowed away the Parthean’s i.e the Aryavart or
Haryupian art and architecture, language, culture and literature and branded this as their great
Renaissance. It is simply unfortunate that the culture and the architecture of Haryupia or
Harappa, instrumental to the glory of Anatolia and Istanbul in the 5th
Century B.C. itself
have been kept a mystery.
(Extracted from chapter II of this book.)
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DR. SHEO DAS PANDEY
Born : At Village Jayichapra (P.O.) Distt.-Saran in a respectable Middle class family.
Father : Vaikunth Nath Pandey, A devout Arya Samajist and National Freedom Fighter
Mother : Shiva Ratna Devi, a kind hearted, loving and religious lady.
Education : M.A. in English (Patna University)
M.A. in Hindi (Bhagalpur University)
LL.B. (Bihar Univeristy), Ph. D. (Bihar University)
Service Career :
Lecturer in English at Samastipur College, Samastipur and Morang College
Biratnagar (Nepal). Teacher of English at Netarhat School, Netarhat (Ranchi),
(Bihar Education Service) (1959-66) Bihar Administrative Service (1966-1993),
Retd. as Jt. Secretary to Govt. in the Deptt. of Revenue and Land reforms Bihar,
Patna.
Awards : Besides dozens of distinguished Awards of the Distt. and State levels received
the following National Awards :
(i) National Unity Award (1991) New Delhi, (ii) Millennium Vishwa Hindi
Service Award 2000, New Delhi, (iii) Secular Harmony Award, New Delhi, (iv)
Laxmi Narayan Dubey Award, Panipat, (v) Sohan Lal Dwivedi Award, Panipat,
(vi) Ambika Prasad 'Divya' National Award for the best Hindi Novel
'Dronacharya' of 2007.
Publications :
Nadi Pyasi (Hindi Poetry) 1982, Sagar Matha Kitni Baar (Hindi Poetry) 1992,
Haan, Mere Malik (Political Satires) 1992, Hindi Kavita Mein Mithak (Principles
of Literary Criticism) 1995, Main Hoon Nachiketa (Political Satires) 1998, Jwar
Jwar Mahasagar (Hindi Poetry) 1999, Vichardhara Ka Sach (Political Thought)
2000, Yeh Kavita Nahin Hai (Political Satires) 2000, Anjuri Mein Saptasagar,
2008, Dronacharya (Hindi Novel) 2007, Dar Se Na Likhi Kabhi Diary, 2011.,
Gautam Gatha (Historical Novel ) 2012. and Ek Fata Chita Note, 2012.
Current Engagement : A full time writer and Social Activist
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President North Bihar Sanskar Bharti/ Sanskritik Gaurav Sansthans/ Hindi
Sahitya Sammelan / Panchshakti Prakashan, Muzaffarpur
Contact : Sudhanjali/ Mihanpura/P.O.-Ramna/ Muzaffarpur.
Pin-842002, Mob. 09431239631
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