Showing posts with label Aryan Invasion Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aryan Invasion Theory. Show all posts

March 03, 2025

Aryan Invasion Theory, Fact or Fiction?

In the preceding article we found out that there must have been a mingling of population and cultures of the people of ancient India (Bharat) and Europe, and we were pondering about the "direction" of migration. An article by Sri Subhash Kak, The Gundestrup Cauldron and its Indian Connection, discusses about this diffusion of culture in his article well.

Few other evidences worth mentioning here [Source: Recovery of the Foundations of Indian Knowledge Systems; IIT, Kharagpur]. The Vedic culture and Indus Valley Civilazation dated back to 7000 to 1500 BCE, much earlier  than the European relics were found; and there are concrete evidences to prove this point. The colonial rulers were desperate to disprove this obvious fact to promote their racial agenda and philological superiority. 

It is also however important to mention at this point that like many other nations, the left-leaning politicians and 'woke' elements are always there to discredit any indigenous systems/history for favor of something which feeds their agenda to make them appear "politically correct". An account of such an attempt at assassination may be found here.

But why was this Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) forged and forced, first of all? The colonial invaders found out 'millions of similarites' between Indian languages and the European language tree, and it suited them best to design an invasion, which was the easy way out. But ancient Vedic civilisation or Indus Valley Civilisation never actually believed in any kind of aggression or invasion, rather they always fostered brotherhood and unity.

"In what Veda, in what Sukta, do you find that the Aryans came into India from a foreign country? Where do you get the idea that they slaughtered the wild aborigines? What do you gain by talking such nonsense?"- Swami Vivekananda: The East and The West

Not only in the context of PIE languages, India had a lot to offer to the World for its developments, not even bothering for anything in return. For example, consider the Brahmi scripts, from which the English and the so called Arabic numerals evolved. The concept of zero (0) without which we couldn't use computers operating in binary logic; the Vaisesika philosophy (concept of atom, time and space and many other great features which were discussed in an article in East-West, April, 1934, wherein a summary of its scientific knowledge was given); concept of Yoga [the underlying principle of original Christianity] which the Western world is now recognizing; the basis for the invention of radio transmitter [Acharya J. C. Bose was the first to use semiconductor junctions to detect radio waves]; fields of medicine and surgery including plastic surgery and ophthalmologic procedures which predated Western methods; fields in astronomy; Spiritual philosophy including the first true monotheism [ATHMAN=BRAHMAN; Erwin Schrodinger: What is Life]; the birthplace of many religions and countless more. 

Regarding India's contribution in Arithmetic, Laplace, the famous French mathematician, statistician, physicist, a versatile polymath had this to say: 
"It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by the means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position, as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit, but its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest minds produced by antiquity.'
[Kumar, Raj (2003). Essays on Ancient India. Discovery Publishing House. pp. 196–. ISBN 978-81-7141-682-0.]

Now, this second installment of AIT and Sanskrit is also timely, considering that there are recent papers coming out to suggest and consequently prove that Sanskrit originated from outside India. It's as if saying that humans came from Saturn! Certainly, as one would expect, the woke Indian media will only be very happy to toe the line.

But does all this discussion about an invasion that never was make any difference? No! In Sanskrit it is said "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam": Maha Upanishad. The World is one family, we are all related. Let us evolve as one, that should be our motto, keeping aside all prejudices. 'Till we set up a colony on Mars riding on a Elon Musk rocket, the Earth is our one and only home.


Additional Reference: Autobiography of a Yogi
Tags: Language, philology, philosophy, India, Aryan Invasion Theory

June 30, 2018

Comparative Similarities Between Indo-European Languages Reflect Ultraconservation

As I was watching the James Bond film Specter a couple of months ago, I spotted the Spanish for "The Day of The Dead", "Dia de Muertos" flash across the screen. The scene was when Daniel Craig was visiting Mexico City on an unofficial purpose
I was overawed once more! How could there be so much semblance between languages, given that they are spoken by people separated some several thousands miles apart? Here in this case for example, dia stands for day in English and din in Bengali; while muertos (dead) is phonetically and alphabetically related to mrityu (death, in Bangla). Not only do they retain their meanings across languages/dialects/cultures so disparate geographically but also the phonetic pronunciation remain almost intact. I have been, for a long time, amazed at the astounding similarities between English and other European languages with that of Bengali and Hindi. Please note that these similarities existed way before the British came to India: some 15,000 years ago! (see references below). More recently, "in the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to notice similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and European languages." Here are only a few examples. More examples can be found here, here and here.

Phonetic Bengali [(IPA) symbols NOT adhered to]

English/other European terms with same meaning

Hindi or other ANI   Ancestral North Indians (ANI)

POOROপুরো

 

PURE, Full, 100%

POOREY, पूरे

दशम

MRITYU মৃত্যু

MUERTOS (SPANISH)

MURDA/MURDER मुर्दा

PATH পথ

PATH

पथ

ADOR আদর

ADORE

OLI (=LANE)-GOLI অলি

ALLEY

AAGRAASON আগ্রাসন

AGGRESSION

NAAM নাম

NAME, NOM

नाम

BAWD বদ

BAD

बद

DWOR দোর

DOOR

दौर

KUTTA কুত্তা

KUTYA (HUNGARY), Dog

KUTTA कुत्ता

BHRAATAA ভ্রাতা

BRAT (RUSSIA, POLAND, UKRAINE, CROATIA), Brother

भ्राता

BAARF বরফ

[BRITISH SLANG FOR SICK]

SNOW IN FARSI, URDU, HINDI बर्फ

BOWMI বমি

VOMIT

NAWBOW নব

NEW, NUEVO

नया

BETTER

BEHTER बेहतर

BYABOHAAR ব্যবহার

BEHAVIOUR

ब्याबोहर

আহ্নিক

DI-URNAL

সায়া কায়া ট্রিক

PSYCHIATRIC [SAYA-KAYA (BODY-MIND)]

साया _काया

ONDOR অন্দর

INDOOR

अंदर

BAAG বাগ

BURG/BURGH/Borough [E.G. KAROLBAAG, HAMBURG]

BAAG बाघ

GEET/ GITA গীত, গীতা

GUITAR [Song, E.G. BHAGWAT GITA]

OSTHI অস্থি

OSTEO (BONE)

अस्थि

SHAWTOW শত

CENTUM (HUNDRED)

शत

PAWD পদ

PEDIS

पद

BAKYO বাক্য

VOX, Voice, Word

BAKSH बाक्या

DOSHOM দশম

DECEM, TEN

दशम

বার্চ

BIRCH

BHURJYA भुर्ज्य (SANSKRIT)

AAMI আমি

ME, MYSELF

मुझे

DIN দিন

DAY, DIEM

दिन

NAASAAA, নাসা, নাসিকা

NASION, NOSE

नासा, नासिका

DEVAH দেব

DIO (GOD)

देवा

SARPA, SERPE সর্প

SERPENT

सर्प

ASTAA অষ্ট

EIGHT, OCTO (LATIN)

अष्ट

NAVA নবম

NINE, NOVE (ITALIAN)

SAAT সাত

SEPTEM, SEVEN, SETTE

सात

DWO দু

TWO

दो

SARKARA শর্করা

SUGAR/CANDY

SUKKAR (ARABIC) शक्कर

আদমি

ADAM

ADMI (PERSON) HINDI) आदमी

DANT দাঁত

DENTAL, TOOTH

दांत

BANDHAN বন্ধন

BONDAGE

बंधन


Well, then how are these languages so intricately related? How likely is it that the "cognates" are just coincidences? 

[Cognates are words which have the same linguistic lineage. When you do a voice search on Google Assistant or Apple's Siri, the server breaks-up your voice command into 'phonemes' and they then try to match the word that appears most likely to be spoken by comparing with its database. Cognates are thus likely to be confused by the computer since they are so phonetically similar. Generally, most cognates have a linguistic half-life of about 2000-4000 years. This means that there is 50% chance that a cognate will be replaced by a non-cognate (not similar sounding) one. But it has been seen that pronouns, numerals and some other words tend to persist much longer, and are less prone to erosion.] 

The semblance unequivocally points to a common origin; and that these words did not originate 'separately' on the planet!

However, the linguistic similarities are noticed between European and North Indian languages only

It has been proved by genetic analysis that most of the ethno-linguistic groups in India (and South Asia in general) originated from two separate ancestral populations: Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI). While the ANI ancestry is strongly related genetically to Central Asians, Caucasians and Europeans, the ASI ancestry derived from within the subcontinent. This finding in genome analysis corroborates with the evidences from archaeology and linguistics, that there was a mixture between ANI and people from the said regions. 

[There happened mixtures between ASI and ANI as well, but endogamous marriages became the order of the day when the caste system came into vogue precluding any further admixtures.]

Clearly, the etymological similarities between the said language families strongly suggest a single single linguistic superfamily (Proto-Indo-European superfamily) from which civilizations diverged. So it is certain that there were some ancient populace who migrated and somehow some of the words still managed to survive the language erosion. 

[The term Indo-European was first used by none other than Thomas Young, the British Polymath, famous for his double-slit experiment that foxes our ordinary minds!] 

The most accepted opinion is that the early linguistic ancestors migrated from the Pontic Caspian steppe, somewhere near Ukraine, to populate more southwards. There is another postulate that the early migration took a northward route, towards Europe.

But is there any proof that these ancient people really traveled or migrated? There is, indeed! Not only the similarities in language, there are also other clues that prove that this migration really happened. It is bolstered by archaeological, ecological, genetic and anthropological evidences. Though it is innate human nature to forage and advance just for the sake of adventure, the early migration may have arisen out of necessity. The early hunter-gatherers may have moved to a favorable place where farming and agriculture was prevalent, so that they could feed themselves and their cattle and horses. Perhaps a harsher winter in Europe forced these population to leave their original homeland (Urheimat hypothesis or the primary homeland hypothesis).

Consider the Gundestrup Cauldron (below) adored as a beautiful example of Celtic art, discovered in Denmark in 1891 and was thought to date back to about 100 BC. 


There are other artefacts of proto-Indian-European (PIE) religion that suggest the linkage of ancient Indian items to that found in Europe.

Of all the possible theories that explain our common ancestry, the most interesting perhaps is the Genetic theory. 

There are 46 chromosomes in humans. 22 pairs of autosomes and two sex chromosomes: XX in females and XY in males. In addition to these strands of DNA that these chromosomes contain, there are mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that also contains the 'four letters' (ATGC) of the nucleotide alphabetic lexicon. What's interesting about these mtDNA strands is that they are inherited "exclusively" from the maternal side.

So it's certain that migration of population did take place but in which direction? The Aryans migrated from Europe or the other way? I'm sure that if you have seen the 2 pictures above and noted their dates as well, you've already drawn your conclusion!

We will next discuss about the faint 'possibility' of a plaussible "Aryan Invasion Theory" in our next blog post. Till then hang on! 

Special Reference:
https://www.rbth.com/blogs/2014/11/01/sanskrit_and_russian_ancient_kinship_39451

["The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either":  (William Jones, Philologist)]

Published on 30/06/2018, last updated on 02/03/2025
tags: aryan invasion theory, genetics, evolution, DNA, archaeology, cognates, James Bond, Specter