Indigenous Aryanism


Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory and the Out of India theory, is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "religio-nationalistic" view of Indian history, and propagated as an alternative to the established migration model, which considers the Pontic–Caspian steppe to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.
Reflecting traditional Indian views based on the Puranic chronology, indigenists propose an older date than is generally accepted for the Vedic period, and argue that the Indus Valley civilisation was a Vedic civilisation. In this view, "the Indian civilization must be viewed as an unbroken tradition that goes back to the earliest period of the Sindhu-Sarasvati tradition."
Support for the IAT mostly exists among a subset of Indian scholars of Hindu religion and the history and archaeology of India, and plays a significant role in Hindutva politics. It has no relevance or support in mainstream scholarship.

Background

The standard view on the origins of the Indo-Aryans is that of the Indo-Aryan migrations, which states that they entered north-western India at about 1500 BCE. The Puranic chronology, the timeline of events in ancient Indian history as narrated in the Mahabaratha, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, envisions a much older chronology for the Vedic culture. In this view, the Vedas were received thousands of years ago, and the start of the reign of Manu Vaivasvate, the Manu of the current kalpa and the progenitor of humanity, may be dated as far back 7350 BCE. The Kurukshetra War, the background-scene of the Bhagavad Gita, which may relate historical events taking place ca. 1000 BCE at the heartland of Aryavarta, is dated in this chronology at ca. 3100 BCE.
Indigenists, reflecting traditional Indian views on history and religion, argue that the Aryans are indigenous to India, which challenges the standard view. In the 1980s and 1990s, the indigenous position has come to the foreground of the public debate.

Indian homeland and Aryan Invasion theory

In 19th century Indo-European studies, the language of the Rigveda was the most archaic Indo-European language known to scholars, indeed the only records of Indo-European that could reasonably claim to date to the Bronze Age. This primacy of Sanskrit inspired scholars such as Friedrich Schlegel, to assume that the locus of the proto-Indo-European homeland had been in India, with the other dialects spread to the west by historical migration. With the 20th-century discovery of Bronze Age attestations of Indo-European, Vedic Sanskrit lost its special status as the most archaic Indo-European language known.
In the 1850s, Max Müller introduced the notion of two Aryan races, a western and an eastern one, which migrated from the Caucasus into Europe and India respectively. Müller dichotomised the two groups, ascribing greater prominence and value to the western branch. Nevertheless, this "eastern branch of the Aryan race was more powerful than the indigenous eastern natives, who were easy to conquer." By the 1880s, his ideas had been adapted by racist ethnologists. For example, as an exponent of race science, colonial administrator Herbert Hope Risley used the ratio of nose width to height to divide Indian people into Aryan and Dravidian races, as well as seven castes.
The idea of an Aryan "invasion" was fueled by the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation, which declined around the period of the Indo-Aryan migration, suggesting a destructive invasion. This argument was developed by the mid-20th century archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, who interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in the top levels of Mohenjo-daro as the victims of conquests. He famously stated that the Vedic god "Indra stands accused" of the destruction of the Indus Civilisation. Scholarly critics have since argued that Wheeler misinterpreted his evidence and that the skeletons were better explained as hasty interments, not unburied victims of a massacre.

Indo-Aryan migration theory

Migrations

The idea of an "invasion" has been discarded in mainstream scholarship since the 1980s, and replaced by more sophisticated models, referred to as the Indo-Aryan migration theory. It posits the introduction of Indo-Aryan languages into South Asia through migrations of Indo-European-speaking people from their Urheimat in the Pontic Steppes via the Central European Corded ware culture, and Eastern European/Central Asian Sintashta culture, through Central Asia into the Levant, south Asia, and Inner Asia. It is part of the Kurgan-hypothesis/Revised Steppe Theory, which further describes the spread of Indo-European languages into western Europe via migrations of Indo-European speaking people.
Historical linguistics provides the main basis for the theory, analysing the development and changes of languages, and establishing relations between the various Indo-European languages, including the time frame of their development. It also provides information about shared words, and the corresponding area of the origin of Indo-European, and the specific vocabulary which is to be ascribed to specific regions. The linguistic analyses and data are supplemented with archaeological and genetical data and anthropological arguments, which together provide a coherent model that is widely accepted.
In the model, the first archaeological remains of the Indo-Europeans is the Yamnaya culture, from which emerged the Central European Corded Ware culture, which spread eastward creating the Proto-Indo-Iranian Sintashta culture, from which developed the Andronovo culture. Around 1800 BCE, Indo-Aryan people split-off from the Iranian branches, and migrated to the BMAC, and further to the Levant, northern India, and possibly Inner Asia.

Cultural continuity and adaptation

The migration into northern India was not necessarily of a large population, but may have consisted of small groups, who introduced their language and social system into the new territory when looking for pasture for their herds. These were then emulated by larger groups, who adopted the new language and culture. Witzel also notes that "small-scale semi-annual
transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and Baluchi highlands continue to this day."

Indigenous Aryanism

According to Bryant, Indigenists
The "Indigenist position" started to take shape after the discovery of the Harappan civilisation, which predates the Vedas. According to this alternative view, the Aryans are indigenous to India, the Indus Civilisation is the Vedic Civilisation, the Vedas are older than the second millennium BCE, there is no discontinuity between the Indo-European part of India and the Dravidian part, and the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. According to Bresnan, it is a natural response to the 19th century narrative of a superior Aryan race subjecting the native Indians, implicitly confirming the ethnocentric superiority of the European invaders of colonial times, instead supporting "a theory of indigenous development that led to the creation of the Vedas."

Main arguments of the Indigenists

The idea of "Indigenous Aryans" is supported with specific interpretations of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic data, and on literal interpretations of the Rigveda. Standard arguments, both in support of the "Indigenous Aryans" theory and in opposition the mainstream Indo-Aryan Migration theory, are:
  • Questioning the Indo-Aryan Migration theory:
  • * Presenting the Indo-Aryan Migration theory as an "Indo-Aryan Invasion theory", which was invented by 19th century colonialists to suppress the Indian people.
  • * Questioning the methodology of linguistics;
  • * Arguing for an indigenous cultural continuity, arguing there is a lack of archaeological remains of the Indo-Aryans in north-west India;
  • * Questioning the genetic evidence
  • * Contesting the possibility that small groups can change culture and languages in a major way;
  • Re-dating India's history by postulating a Vedic-Puranic chronology:
  • * Arguing for ancient, indigenous origins of Sanskrit, dating the Rigveda and the Vedic people to the 3rd millennium BCE or earlier; This includes:
  • ** Identifying the Sarasvati River, described in the Rig Veda as a mighty river, with the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which had dried up c. 2000 BCE, arguing therefore for an earlier dating of the Rig Veda;
  • ** Arguing for the presence of horses and horse-drawn chariots before 2000 BCE;
  • * Identifying the Vedic people with the Harappan civilisation;
  • * Redating Indian history based on the Vedic-Puranic chronology.

    Questioning the Aryan Migration model

Rhetorics of "Aryan invasion"

The outdated notion of an "Aryan invasion" has been used as a straw man to attack the Indo-Aryan Migration theory. According to Witzel, the invasion model was criticised by Indigenous Aryanists for being a justification for colonial rule:
While according to Koenraad Elst, a supporter of Indigenous Aryans:

Linguistic methodology

Indigenists question the methodology and results of linguistics. According to Bryant, OIT proponents tend to be linguistic dilettantes who either ignore the linguistic evidence completely, dismiss it as highly speculative and inconclusive, or attempt to tackle it with hopelessly inadequate qualifications; this attitude and neglect significantly minimises the value of most OIT publications.

Archaeological finds and cultural continuity

In the 1960s, archaeological explanations for cultural change shifted from migration-models to internal causes of change. Given the lack of archaeological remains of the Indo-Aryans, Jim G. Shaffer, writing in the 1980s and 1990s, has argued for an indigenous cultural continuity between Harappan and post-Harappan times. According to Shaffer, there is no archaeological indication of an Aryan migration into northwestern India during or after the decline of the Harappan city culture. Instead, Shaffer has argued for "a series of cultural changes reflecting indigenous cultural developments." According to Shaffer, linguistic change has mistakenly been attributed to migrations of people. Likewise, Erdosy also notes the absence of evidence for migrations, and states that "Indo-European languages may well have spread to South Asia through migration," but that the Rigvedic aryas, as a specific ethno-linguistic tribe holding a specific set of ideas, may well have been indigenous people whose "set of ideas" soon spread over India.
Since the 1990s, attention has shifted back to migrations as an explanatory model. Pastoral societies are difficult to identify in the archaeological record, since they move around in small groups and leave little traces. In 1990, David Anthony published a defense of migratory models, and in his The Horse, the Wheel, and Language, has provided an extensive overview of the archaeological trail of the Indo-European people across the Eurasian steppes and central Asia. The development and "revolutionary" improvement of genetic research since the early 2010s has reinforced this shift in focus, as it has unearthed previously unaccessible data, showing large-scale migrations in prehistoric times.