The Aryan Debate

by Thomas R. Trautmann

This book, the seventh in the Debates series, brings together a selection of significant essays on the extremely topical Aryan debate. The central question behind this selection is, did the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans enter India from the Northwest in 1500 BC, or were they indigenous to India and
identical with the people who inhabited the Indus Valley between 2800 - 1500.

Genres: History, India

260 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an overview of the various positions in the so-called Aryan debate. That is the heated debate about the earliest history of the Indian subcontinent, roughly the period from 4,000 to 1,000 BCE. It is a discussion that is no longer only being conducted by professional historians, but mainly by publicists of all kinds, often with their own agenda. As Thomas Trautmann himself states: “The sober works of academics are now swamped by the often overheated writings and websites of those who are not scholars trained in the history, linguistics, and archeology of ancient India. (…) What used to be a polite disagreement among scholars has become a strident public shouting match in which personal insults are all too freely thrown about.” The author mainly refers to the rise of Hindu nationalism, which wants to make India a homogeneous and exclusive Hindu nation, and projects that vision of the future back onto the past. But it is clear that there are many other elements and motives at play in this debate, which is gradually turning it into an inextricable tangle.

In this reader, Trautmann has made a selection of historical and recent texts that should give the reader an idea of the divergent positions in this controversy, precisely to bring more order to the chaos of the polemics. He admits that he consciously excluded the most radical and least well-founded positions. Interesting, but due to its very specialized focus, it is certainly not a book for the general public. More in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Sense of History]

What is the Aryan debate? According to the editor of this book, Thomas R. Trautmann, it's all about the question “Did the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans enter India from the north-west in about 1500 bc, or were they indigenous to India and identical with the people of the Indus Civilization of 2600-1900 bc?”. The standard position – going back to Western archaeologists and still followed by most academics and university textbooks – is that Indo-Aryan speaking communities did indeed move from Iran and Afghanistan in the 2nd millennium into the area hitherto controlled by the Harappan or Indus civilization. The alternative view is that the Aryans were present in the area much earlier and that the Harappan/Indus civilization actually was Aryan. It's a very thorny issue, especially because the Indo-Aryan speaking communities in the 2nd and 1st millennium bce produced the Vedas, a collection of scriptures that are considered among the earliest texts of Hinduism and that are considered to be decisive for Indian identity. That is why it mainly are Hindu nationalists, in both moderate and radical versions, who continually stir up the controversy.

I am not going to pass judgment here on the very different positions in the Aryan debate; to follow them properly requires a very in-depth study of archaeological and linguistic knowledge and methodologies, and also a detailed knowledge of the Vedic scriptures. So I feel absolutely incapable of making a judgment, unless that I firmly believe that analyzes and representations must correspond rigorously to conventional scientific standards. There some margin here, because conventional scientific standards are continually evolving (it's the essence of the scientific process to adjust itself to new - evidence-based or at least transparent - insights), but the margin is limited.

What I can emphasize is that the entire Aryan controversy exposes several interesting aspects of the historical métier. To begin with, there is the issue of dealing with an early historical period (roughly 4,000 to 1,000 BCE) of which there are still very large gaps in our knowledge: despite the extensive archaeological excavations, especially of the Harappan or Indus civilization, and despite the very intensive linguistic study of Sanskrit and the entire Indo-European/Indo-Aryan language family, we are still in the dark in many areas, especially for the time before the first millennium bce. This should encourage modesty and caution, but the opposite seems to be the case: historians and non-historians, linguists and non-linguists speculate wildly, magnify details out of proportion, and some even venture to the most absurd theses (for example that the "Aryan Civilization" was 60,000 years old). It really is a sad sight.

The Aryan question also clearly illustrates the influence that the present can have on the view of the past. I already referred to Hindu nationalism, which has its own agenda, and uses all rhetorical and other tricks to put the past at the service of that agenda. In other words, this debate essentially evolves around a 'hygienic' handling of the truth, an extremely relevant current issue in many regions of the world as evidenced by the corona conspiracy theories, the Russian attack on Ukraine, and the political polarization in the United States.

However, even this ‘truth-debate’ is not a question of black or white, of good and evil, right or wrong. The Aryan issue illustrates this: the controversy is partly inspired by the way in which the migration of Indo-Aryan speakers in the 2nd millennium eventually was depicted. It were Western archaeologists and linguists who set the tone in the first half of the 20th century: from their Biblical background they talked about a massive invasion of Aryans (corresponding with the Moses-Hebrews in Palestine), and according to the prevailing scientific standards of the time they also talked about the Aryan 'race'. Needless to say, both views are clearly outdated and/or compromised. But that has certainly stimulated criticism of the standard view, especially from a postcolonial (Indian) perspective, and that keeps on fueling the debate. Adherents of the alternative view continue to hit that postcolonial nail, even though the standard view has made significant adjustments in the meantime. As in other domains, contemporary sensitivities inevitably color the view of the past, - historiography is sometimes described as permanent revisionism, and rightly so (it's the way science proceeds). But that should certainly not mean that 'anything goes', as is the case in the Aryan debate.

In the meantime I also read another introduction to the controversy, see The Indo-Aryan Controversy, which is also interesting. In the review of that book (here) I look into some possible scenarios to get out of the polemic.

[Neeraj Shetye · Rating 3 out of 5]

. It tries to answer the question whether the Aryans were the “invaders” or whether they were indigenous to this sub-continental region. The growing influence of racial ideas in the West had its effects in India, too. One of the most debatable issues in the Indian history is its racial history. The linguistic difference between Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian language groups was interpreted as a sign of an ancient clash between a light-skinned race bringing Sanskrit and civilization to an India inhabited by savage speakers of Dravidian languages. This book is seventh in the series by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya and Richard Eaton. They worked on the Debate in Indian History and Society series in the Oxford University press as an attempt to present a clear picture on widely debated issues in the South Asian History.
I have always been fascinated by the racial narratives in the Indian Society. The clash of these races resulted in the caste system considered to be a formative central institution of Indian civilization. I have perceived this axiomatic notion that Aryans were the outsiders who invaded the Indian sub-continent. Trautmann refers to this as the standard view that is usually discussed and included in the academic curriculum. However, I came across an alternative view that is also interpreted by various historians. It assumes that Aryans belong to this region and it tries to prove this through archaeological evidences. This holistic approach towards this narrative has broadened my views on this debate and I am able to reconsider my views based on the historical analysis. This debate has two main avenues by which we acquire new knowledge: Philology (linguistics) and Archaeology. My views on this particular debate are developed based on linguistic evidences. The distinctive nature of Indian languages based on their “origins”; Aryan languages based on Sanskrit and the Dravidian language family having “non-Sanskritic” origins.
Trautmann has aptly divided the book into three relevant categories based on different perspectives. The book met my opinions as it began with a philological approach. It discusses the origins and similarities in the Indian languages with that of European languages. I had a broad idea about the linguistic evidences but this book has helped me to verify them. Sanskrit is often addressed as the mother of all languages and its elucidating nature is fundamental to study its relation to the Indian languages. It is hard to believe the existence of a common ancestral language which is referred as “Proto-Indo-European” which later unscrambled into the common languages that we know today. As a reader, I would consider this discovery as a major breakthrough to understand the nature of the debate. This section explains the “invasion theory” through Sir William Jones and F.W. Ellis’ articles. However, Sir John Marshall explains the alternative view by describing the nature of the Indus civilization. He presupposes this civilization to be an independently developed culture as that of Nile and Tigris. It must be considered that Marshall’s essay was published in the initial stages of the excavation and that it lacked sufficient sources. This gave me a fair chance to assume that Aryans can be the invaders due to the philological evidence.
Indian civilization was formed by a clash of civilized and uncivilized races and also by excessively interpreting the Vedic evidence. Trautmann has attempted to show how historians examine ways in which ideas of race have coloured the interpretation of the evidence. This has also contributed to the political appropriation of the Aryan idea.
The second section, “Aryans and Dravidians” provides an excellent sample of scholarly literature on linguistic studies and historical studies of racial ideas. I would particularly point out to Emeneau’s article that critically evaluates the nature of languages in the sub-continental region. Whenever two language communities come in contact and remain in contact for appreciably long period, the languages have some effect upon each other’s structures. The present day speakers of contemporary languages represent a mixture of races. Mehendale’s article did not deal with the Dravidian scope of studies but his explanation of the Indo-Iranian language family has an in-depth analysis that proves the outsider theory. Madhav Deshpande’s article critiques the British attempt to misinterpret the idea of race and nation. This racializing tendency in the interpretation of evidence in the colonial period was conditioned by racial division of labour. It is only a question of whether there was a difference of complexion between the Aryans and the indigenous people. This analysis subscribes to the idea of a cultural warfare between the two groups that led to a complex social condition.
The final section of the book invites for an appreciation to deal with the debate more precisely. I was convinced that my ideas about the entire debate before reading the book were basic historical claims. Historical analysis in this entire discourse has been questioned by scholars by all means. Scholarship, of course, always involves disagreement and debate and we must have this disagreement so the interpretations of history are rigorously tested for without them there is no hope of progress in historical knowledge. Trautmann presented an entire set of essays on archaeological evidences that contributed both sides. I wasn’t entirely convinced though that Aryans were indigenous to this region even though there were pragmatic claims for the same. An interesting factor that Trautmann presents is the study of horse remains. I did not consider this perspective to this whole argument and it was quite insightful. Although I felt that the authors were sceptical about the evidence for domestic-horses before the end of the Indus Civilization. This was an abrupt category that did not particularly help me in deriving logical conclusions. Is archaeological evidence insufficient to prove that the Aryans were outsiders? Were these animals, which the historians consider to be horses really what they are? Can a single bone prove the entire biological construct of a creature? It did not answer these questions. Now that I was much doubtful and confused about the entire debate, my final resort was the last essay by Kamil Zvelebil. This was a critical work by an eminent linguist and I was impressed with the decipherments of the Indus Script. The logographic nature of the script had many secrets hidden beneath it. Where a clue or reference is absent, the decipherer can only exercise his own imagination and the acceptance of any decipherment is an act of faith. This was an interesting read that put forth the challenges one has to go through especially with inadequate data. It was a successful attempt to unfold the mystery.
“The Aryan Debate” has informed my views on this historically critical topic in the Indian History. My views are definitely not the same as they were when I began reading the book. It has forced me to consider a number of avenues that contribute to this issue. I would recommend a first timer to read this book for its precise nature though some questions are not answered by the authors. The period of their publications has to be taken into considerations; the data and the historical study have improved through the years. The book does not necessarily side with one view of the debate and logically approaches both of them. Given the wide variety of approaches, the need for this diversity for a better and complete understanding of the Aryan Debate.

[Rinchhani Chhakchhuak]

I need to do my assignment

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the risk of straying too far from Trautmann's (1997) analysis of the racialization of the study of ancient Indian civilization (including plenty of interesting discussion of noses!), I was most struck by Trautmann's (2005) discussion of the politics of the current aryan debate in India. As an archivist-to-be, I'm continually aware of the degree to which the archivist creates -- and I mean this is a much stronger and more intrusive process than simply shaping -- the historical record. Although the processes of appraisal, arrangement and description are deeply interpretive, they are taught and practiced as though they were natural and blindly procedural. This results in the reproduction of particular views of the past, the preservation of evidence that follows the received wisdom, and the discarding of other evidence that is precieved by the archivist as irrelevant, unhistorical, or white noise.

Historians often continue this rather conservative method of interpreting the past. Indeed, "facts only become significant facts for history in respect of some general view of things, some intellectual paradigm," and the professionalization of the study of history is often responsible for crystalizing a particular intellectual viewpoint.

This is why I find it exciting that persons outside of archeology, linguistics and history take a stake in the aryan debate (although they are of course not exempt from the same intellectual paradigms -- but they may offer a more diverse view). I am aware, however (although Trautmann treads lightly here, out of a sense of fairness, I assume) that the motivations behind some of those who advocate the "alternative view" are not necessarily politically benign and that their conclusions are not deliberated with the same degree of expertise and training as that of sober academics.

Trautmann says that "... the truth of ancient history is indifferent to our wishes, our politics, our religion, in short, our own social and historical location. The idea of truth in history involves the idea that it exists independent of our will, and is therefore inherently difficult to know, because our interpretations are will-bound, and our facts are never independent of our theories." This, I think, is fascinating, because it speaks to our motivations for studying a particular subject -- while the aryan debate in the public sphere, with its loud voices and ill-considered opinions obfuscates historical study, it also fuels historical study and draws attention to a subject that might be otherwise considered irrelevant.

[Murari Srinivasa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection of essays representing various viewpoints - mainstream and alternate on the Aryan origin stories. Must read for those interested in the history of the Indian population.