Paper Adds Support to Aryan Invasion Theory

Note: Repost from the old blog.

The notion that an “Aryan Invasion” that occurred 3,500 years ago in India and subsequently shaped the physical and religious landscape of the country is a controversial one, but it is steeped in Indian sociocultural politics.

Though it is uncontroversial outside of India, a huge debate has heated up inside India.

On the one side are the Dalits and their allies. The Dalits claim that they were the original Indians and practiced some sort of a nice, utopian religion. I don’t know if it was Goddess worship, but I guess it was something like that. The Dalits really hate Hinduism because Hindus have decided that Dalits are doomed through life to be lower than whale shit, and that’s at the bottom of the ocean.

So the Dalits say that these Aryans (White folks) invaded down from the steppes to the north and west (possibly Tajikistan or around Iran) and conquered a large part of India. They brought with them Hinduism and caste. They made themselves the lighter Brahmin caste and made the darker folks lower castes, and the darkest of all Dalits. So the Aryan invasion started the whole mess.

Hindu nationalists (Hindutvas) love their Hindu religion and feel that it can do no wrong, so they dislike this Aryan Invasion Theory. Their whole line is that there was no Aryan invasion.

Hinduism was native to India and was not some wicked religion brought by evil lighter-skinned dudes.

White nationalists, some high caste-Indian racialists, and Afrocentrists all support the Aryan Invasion Theory. White nationalists feel that there are two races in India – light-skinned cool guy “Aryans” in the north who are smart and get everything done in India, to the extent that anything gets done there in the first place, and darker Dravidians, who are apparently inferior muds or something.

In reality, there are just Indians of varying shades. The ones towards the northwest to tend to be more European-looking and lighter, and the ones heading to the south and east tend to get darker and more Dravidian looking. However, there are plenty of dark-skinned North Indians with varying degrees of Dravidian features, and in the south, there are a lot of lighter folks with more European features.

The “Aryans” and “Dravidians” have gotten so mixed in over 3,500 years that these categories no longer make much sense, except to idiots. In which case, they are encouraged to continue using them.

High-caste Indian racialists go along with this and hang out in White nationalist forums trying to convince White nationalists that funny- looking light-skinned Indians are really just White people too, albeit with patchouli oil and a taste for curry. White nationalists are dubious about admitting wogs into their midst of their White purity.

Afrocentrists like this theory because they moronically think that Dravidians are Black folks. Except they’re not. Actually, all Indians are pretty closely related and are very distant from Africans – they are no closer to Africans than anyone else on Earth. Any resemblance to Africans is just convergence, genetic drift, or coincidence.

Well, India was populated by all these really cool Indian Black folks, and then evil White dudes came in, brought an evil White Supremacist religion called Hinduism, and cruelly imposed it on the darkies.

In the midst of all of this swarming intellectual idiocy, it falls to the scientists to add some sense to the discussion.

The interesting paper  listed in the references  section adds to the evidence for an Aryan invasion.

They did find that higher-caste folks tended to be lighter than lower-caste Indians, but that was just a trend. There are light-skinned low-caste Indians in the northwest, and many of the Brahmins of South India are quite dark.

They also found a trend for lighter skin and more European features and genes towards the northwest and darker skin, more indigenous features and more Asian genes as one moved to the south and east. The paper felt that they had evidence for a large introgression of European-looking peoples maybe 3000-4000 years ago, though things have gotten pretty mixed up since.

Other papers studying the genetics of India have concluded Indians have been evolving, more or less in situ without a lot of outside inputs, for 15-20,000 years (call it 17,000 years). The result has been this endlessly varying type we call the East Indian. And where did the Indian stock come from prior to 17,000 years ago?

The authors were not sure, but they felt that the seed for the stock that started to grow the modern Indian tree came from the Middle East 17,000 years ago.

India, along with North Africa, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, is also one of main staging grounds for the evolution of Caucasians and proto-Caucasians from 39,000-52,000 years ago. In particular, there was a movement Ainu roots than to any Alan invasion.

Even today, the Japanese ruling class looks different (some say, more Caucasian) than the rest of the Japanese, who are closer to the Yayoi, rice-farmers from Korea who invaded 2,300 years ago and conquered the island, displacing the Ainu. The Ainu, despite superficial Caucasian appearances, are actually anthropologically Australoids close to Aborigines. Genetically, they are Asians.

References

Bamshad M, Kivisild T, Watkins WS, Dixon ME, Ricker CE, Rao BB, Naidu JM, Prasad BV, Reddy PG, Rasanayagam A, Papiha SS, Villems R, Redd AJ, Hammer MF, Nguyen SV, Carroll ML, Batzer MA, Jorde LB. 2001. “Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations.” Genome Res 11: 994–1004.
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205 thoughts on “Paper Adds Support to Aryan Invasion Theory”

  1. If North Indians have 15% mongoloid blood in them, How much percentage of mongoloid blood do South Indians have?
    Because I have this friend who is South Indian(he lives here in the U.S) and he looks very asian. He gets mistaken for filipino all the time.. He looks like an asian person with light tan skin and his eyes are very filipino. I was shocked to hear that he is South Indian. Specifically, He is from Kerala.

  2. Well I feel the author of this post know nothing about the content of Vedas (ancient Indian scriptures) which according to Aryan invasion theory were written by Aryans . There is not even a single place in all 4 vedas where place outside India is mentioned . Everything in the writings circulates around india and another big reason can be there is no other place in the world where scriptures similar to Vedas are found nor there are any people who relate themselves to these. Did 100% Aryans came to India leaving no clue where they came from. If Aryans wrote Vedas why there is no mention of some foreign land anywhere in scriptures , why only bharat varsha (India) and its places and rivers. Above all Nomadic people Aryans can never even have dreamt of writing such an advance scriptures which have mention of powers 10 raise to 59. Max Muller, the inventor of this theory doubted his own finding (Six systems of Indian philosophy by Max Muller) at the end of his life. Why so people think that nothing great can be done by Asians and all came from Europe. Its just 50 years of Independence from 200 + 1000 years of slavery from moughals and british and India has created 1000s of scientists. The core of Mathamatics came from India. Learn about Hindu Arabic number system and contribution of Aryabhatta.
    There is no dark or light skinned… it all depends on the climatic condition. If there are 3 generations of south Indian living in Kashmir, he will turn light skinned. Cast system is a creation of some stupid Brahmins, it was not like that earlier. Please look at all aspects, one sided approach….

    1. It has been conclusively proven that the Aryans have their origin in Northern Kazakhstan. Before that, in southern Russia. They didn’t really come from Europe at all – they came from Eurasia and then from Asia.
      There is no further debate about this matter, and the proof rests on anthropology and linguistics. The Vedas are not a reputable source.
      A South Indian will NOT genetically change their skin color in 3 generations in Kashmir, forget it.
      Ethnic nationalism is all crap, and Indian ethnic nationalism is no less stupid and insane as any other variety.

    1. Besides, the scientist who proved that Aryan invasion theory is a myth is NOT even Indian.. He is a European and his name is David Frawley..
      Click the link of that I gave you and he clearly proves there was no “aryan invasion” at all and Indians are all the same race.. South Indians and North Indians are all members of the Mediterranean caucasian race..

    2. If you compare a North Indian to a South Indian, they look the same except for may be their skin color.. South India is located near to the equator which makes the people living there brown.
      Here is a North Indian: http://www.arts.ri.gov/images/kulkani.JPG
      Here is a South Indian: http://www.southdreamz.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/shriya-saran.jpg
      What difference is there between them?
      There are dark North Indians and pale South Indians tooo….

    3. I don’t agree with this Indian nationalist crap at all.
      It’s a proven fact that Aryans came from Northern Kazakhstan and before that, from the Pontic Steppe. That’s why they speak an Indo-European language. That’s why their genes are related to I-E speakers. We can trace their movements both archeologically and linguistically.
      I really don’t want to argue about this anymore, thx.

    4. I would say in my opinion, Tamilian people and Telugu people are the most australoid mixed south indians and keralites and people from karnataka are the least but there are exceptions.

  3. Some points to ponder upon:
    1) Vedas are not everything in Hinduism, though they form some of the core. There are many books written in ancient mathematics and science in the post-Vedic period which are as relevant to the history of Hindus, if not more than the Vedas. Look at the books written by Bhaskara (there were two Bhaskaras recorded in history), Aryabhatta, Apastamba, Baudhayana, Varahmihira and several other authors. Some of them have had their base south of the Vindhyas, which indicates the migration of the culture of the Vedic people southward. i am guessing the actual migration of Vedic people might also have taken place either before or after the completion of the writing of the Vedas.(500-1000 BCE). Read about the myth of Agastya and his followers and the Vindhyas.
    2) Skin color depends on the climate and gradually over generations (maynot be 3 but lets say about 30 generations) it is sure to change.
    3) People speaking different languages derived from a root language (or speaking the root language itself) need not share genetic origins or race. For example, I am an Indian, if I speak or write in English, a Europe-originated language, that does not make me European. I bet the same applies to speakers of Indo-European languages.
    4) Based on several references in the Vedas against dark-skinned tribes, one cannot assume that all the scriptures of the Hindus (the sruti and smriti) were written by the highly-advanced fair-skinned race-preserving cohort known as Aryans who came down from central Asia and pushed the locals down south. One severe contradiction to this simplistic theory is, how come there are references of lower-caste tribals getting upgraded to the higher caste of Brahmins (like Valmiki, Vishwamitra) in the epics written by these same racially-finicky people(the Aryans) that was allowed to be published without censorship. The racial references in the Vedas are at best ambigious. If the Aryans were the vanguards of Hinduism and they were the creators of the scriptures , how did dark-skinned gods like Vishnu and Shiva find their ways into the texts. More likely they should have been shown as demons given the benchmarks by which they would have decided.
    Given all these, there surely exists a possibility of a fair-skinned race coming down from Afghanistan or central Asia and contribution to the creation of Hindu scriptures and merging with the locals, infact there could be several races of this type migrating in at different points of time. But to say that they did this at the expense of a dark-skinned race or an indigenous race is pure baloney, given the facts. Infact the genesis of Hindu scriptures could have come from different parts (including the non-Indo-European parts which may include Sanskrit speakers of Dravidian origin) of the Indian subcontinent. Likewise, tribes that had originally entered from the northern borders of India (one of them being the Aryans) must have migrated all over the country giving an inseparable and indistinguishable genetic mixture that we know as the people of India today. Also the caste system in ancient India upto a period must have been rather fluid and based on occupation than ancestral as is the popular notion. Hinduism (atleast the history and references from Hinduism) seems to have a much greater tolerance for skin color and caste than is touted to be.

  4. A Rai : “There is not even a single place in all 4 vedas where place outside India is mentioned”
    R Lindsay : “The Vedas are not a reputable source”
    And anyway The Persian Avesta tradition and Zarathoustra, the Persian sage, said that the original home of the Aryan (Aryanem Vaejah) was located in Central Asia (Sounds like the Andronovo culture to me, or its successor).
    Here’s an excerpt of a book by John Boardman (the archeologist) :
    http://books.google.fr/books?id=nNDpPqeDjo0C&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=aryanem+vaejah&source=bl&ots=TlHx-VIFBm&sig=WA8t5xzvnCdM_KKw98MeYkvnRhM&hl=fr&ei=yBSVSs7IE57bjQew26HrDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=aryanem%20vaejah&f=false
    Reminder : The Iranians can as much claim a filiation to the Aryans than the Indians.
    The name Iran means etymologically “Land of the Aryans”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Name

  5. Very amusing discussion. Please read the recent article in Nature (Sept 24, 09)…Indian are a hybrid product of two distinct gene pools that united more than 40000 years ago. Perhaps Indian are the root of asian, european…and so you see all kind of colors.

  6. @ Bikram :
    Oh, you’re talking of that study that says that ancestral north Indians and Europeans are part of a same group ?
    “First, the ANI and CEU form a clade, and further analysis shows that the Adygei, a Caucasian group, are an outgroup. Many Indian and European groups speak Indo-European languages, whereas the Adygei speak a Northwest Caucasian language.
    It is tempting to assume that the population ancestral to ANI and CEU spoke ‘Proto-Indo-European’, which has been reconstructed as ancestral to both Sanskrit and European languages, although we cannot be certain without a date for ANI-ASI mixture”
    “forms a clade” = are a group
    ANI = Ancestral North Indians
    CEU = Utah Mormons of Northern and Western European descent. (“European”-type population sample for the study)
    > David Reich et al., Reconstructing Indian population history, Nature 461, 489-494 (24 September 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08365

    An Indo-iranian invasion from outside india is very likely.
    Not much is left to the imagination.
    During bronze age, Kazakhstan was the place of the Andronovo culture which is strongly believed to be an indo-european culture (and more exactly, an Indo-iranian culture).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronovo_culture#Ancient_DNA
    “A 2004 study also established that, during the bronze/iron age period, the majority of the population of Kazakhstan (part of the Andronovo culture during bronze age), was of west Eurasian origin (with mtDNA haplogroups such as U, H, HV, T, I and W), and that prior to the thirteenth-seventh century BC, all Kazakh samples belonged to European lineages. ”
    > http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1691686
    And south Siberian population of Andronovo were found to be often fair-skinned, blue/green-eyed and light-haired.
    Also, the y-DNA haplogroup R1a1 was by far majoritary in this population. This haplogroup is found from India (especially the north) to north-western Europe. Big clue again.

  7. Hi,
    I am Neo and a shudra by birth in Hindu religion which I deny to own. Kindly go through my comments in the other link
    http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/more-on-hinduism-race-caste-and-the-aryan-invasion/#comment-33754
    Just wanted to share the link of the book written by the writer of Indian Constitution, the great Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. It explains the religion of vedas and brahmins.
    http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/21A1.Riddles%20in%20Hinduism%20PART%20I.htm

  8. The most contentious issue in the world history is Aryan Invasion theory. The problem is that Indian sub continent is unique in the sense that it notices everybody but it is not noticed by everybody. Indians have problem among themselves but not with the rest of the world. But rest of the world is baffled by India due to existence of so many colours, races languages etc. This is the problem with Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Chinese as well. Unfortunately it is the dishonesty of the Indian intellegentia to understand this. The business class and labour class is pan Indian. There is no language barrier even though they dont know local language yet they somehow manage. This is due to purely understanding the nature of life belief in Karma and hope for elevation in the next birth which is the cornerstone of all Indian religions. That is why when the Indian kings fought most bitter battles among themselves the vengence did not spread to other communities but restricted to warriors only. With this background if we look into the history the racial theory will become totally irrelevant. All the Dharma Sastras were enacted only to rule the masses. The caste is a loose world. It is not hereditary but people themselves found it convenient to fit into the system. I put forth further arguments in this regard: i)The Buddhist/jain sources are older to Puranas in Sanskrit. In Jainism there are only three classes and no Brahmins but essential elements of Vaidik traditions viz.,chanting Gayathri manthra, Propiation of Gods, ascetism, tonsure of head even by ladies observance of chaturmasya Vrata etc. ii) A large number of Brahmins contributed to Buddhist theology. iii)In the absence of Arya Dasyu war in Jain/Buddhist literature what is the interpretation of defeat of Indra in the hands of Bodhisatvas. In Jain literature the Vedic kings like Bharata went for dig vijaya where there is no mention about Arya dasa war. Why is that there is complete absence of arya dasa war in those literature. Even if we assume that Jainism is rebellion against Brahmin order why is that there is no mention about Brahmins?iv)History starts in India only in Bihar ,Bengal and South India where there were kingdoms. Western and Northern India did not have original kingdoms. The western kshatraps and kushans were foreigners while satavahanas and Rashtrakutas were of Karnataka. The entire kingdoms of Deccan Chalukyas,Kadambas and Gangas were of Gangetic origin.v)Here comes the crux of the problem. Even assuming Dasas are Dravidians then who were the Dravidians. The entire Deccan people are from Himalayan plains as evidenced by spread of Buddhism in Godavari Krishna basin all the dynasties starting from Ikshvakus to Kalachuris are from Ayodhya. In respect of Tamilnadu its history ended with sack of Madurai by Malik Kafur. At present 40% of people in Tamil Nadu are of Telugu origin. Kerala’s history is even more mysterious since there is not even an iota of trace of tamil but for Palghat Iyers though the temples there were solemnised by Alwars. Thus in the absence of historical continuity and multiplicity of ethnic tribes which cannot happen in aggresive atmosphere dominated by Aryan hegemony. Thus it is futile to go ahead with a theory where there is no continuation or linked history chronologically .

  9. I am a kangaroo and I must jump to conclusions. ha ha ha. This is the summary of the aryan invasion theory.
    Somehow europeans must be included into an aryan invasion model for India. And it does not matter one bit how this is done. The spectrum of theories that is offered just have one particular objective. Each aiming at the same end result from a large variety of vantage points.
    This is not science, perhaps it is reasonable battle strategy. For foisting upon the heathen a certain political philosophy.
    Europe could not have had any significant human population until the end of the last ice age. Around 10000 BC. And then not amounting to much even until well into the days of the roman empire.
    India’s large native population would always be impossible to “subdue” let alone replace with a foreign population in any significant measure. It is entirely inconceivable that in 3000 BC or even 1500 BC there could be a large scale invasion by a foreign population from an icy waste land of europe, that is large enough to replace well developed local society. And still not form any notable empire.
    Was there anything even within Europe amounting to an empire? before 500 BC. And yet the first empires of europe were from greece hardly “european”. The greeks themselves surely recent immigrants from central asia, following the land as it was emerging from the ice ages.
    There is absolutely no evidence offered about such an invasion into india. Not archaeological, not scriptural, not genetic. Nothing.
    Just vague speculation, claiming authority of “scientific” investigation. Just a pile of european colonialist mumbo jumbo claiming legitimacy through invented “indologist” terminology.

  10. Lindsey,Bengali Kulin Brahmin with around half million population produced Tagore and IVF pioneer doctor both which was later verified to be worth of Nobel prize…200 yrs ago they created Bengal renaissance…and in US with less than 10,000 population they have more than 250 US patents,Nobel laureate signature award winner,and one of greatest biologist of last century(who has not won Nobel yet),2 Pulitzer,13 Grammy…etc all within last couple of decade…how it’s possible?

  11. Rushton estimated the Brahmin IQ to be 110 on average which is close to Ashkenazi but in terms of intelligence Tamil Brahmins,who have darker skin are very strong while Bengali Brahmin who have shown highest caucasian blood in their genetics along with some East Asian blood(well Bengal is very close to Tibet) are probably one of the smartest in the planet.I’m a lighter skin Brahmin from UP but unfortunately we have not much achievements in science and art to boast.Why only Bengali and Tamil Brahmins are so smart?Razib Khan has done a research on it and his theory tells Tamil Brahmins are more similar with south -west people while Bengali Brahmins are most hybrid race with south Asian,East Asian ,west Asians and estern European blood-all their famous names such as Mukherjee,Tagore,statistician Mahalanobis,RavishankarJhumpa Lahiri etc had caucasian looks…may be they are pure Aryan.

  12. The indo Aryan theory is the most stupid and intellectually dishonest theory. The reasons are: the supporters conveniently take the word Aryan from Vedas but take Dravida from Buddhist literature after thousand years. The actual theory should be Arya Dasa theory. Poor protagonists there is no word dasa or dasyu in Tamil. See the sequence of events. There is clear case of backward integration. Take 326BC as the starting point. Link it with Buddhism. Take sixteen janapadas from Buddhism. Then go to Jainism. Then go to Satapadabrahmana and lastly Rigveda. Is it science?is it not ridiculous? One should hung his head in shame. First of all sixteen janapadas correspond to sixteen provinces of DariusI. There was bitter animosity between followers of Gomata and Ahura Mazda and followers of Gomata retreated to India as Jains. That is why we find that from the period of Darius I to Demetrius we find only Jainism. But for Tamil there was no Literature for Hindus in Prakrit. It was only during Indo Bactrian kings worship of Siva and Vishnu was encouraged with Rudradaman and Kadambas and lastly Guptas. Unlike in Tamil where in Sangam literature where performance of sacrifices were described minutely why was it no king of North till Agnimithra never performed any sacrifice or why was it not recorded. Take the case of growth of Sanskrit. It was western Kshatrapa Rudradaman first introduced Sanskrit followed by Kadambas adopted by Vakatakas and Guptas who had matrimonial alliances with Kadambas. Why was it the early poets Bhasa Bharavi hailed from South. The greatest puzzle is while majority of South Indians are meat eaters the western India is completely vegetarians. This is not surprising since DariusI and Demetrius shifted to vegetarianism. All the Vedic Gods Indira, Agni,Varuna,Surya.are all black. Even now Pallars an SC Community call themselves Mallas and Devendrakula Vellalas and their rituals are Indo Aryans. Lastly Unlike North South India is the most unstable region no community can boast of even five hundred years since after the collapse of Chola empire and invasion of Malik Kafur there was complete breakdown of social set up and who ever were fortunate adopted higher social hierarchy. There was no continuity in food habits or dress code. But for Temple worship all other things change with efflux of time. Let the North Indian elite stop with Indo Aryan theory with Dasas upto Narmada and leave South India as such and not introduce Dravidas not found either in Tamil or Vedas.

  13. I believe there’s a group in Russia similar to the Ainu culturally. No clue if they’re related though. The Alan-Japanese theory is romantic.

        1. I think the Nivkhi (Gilyak) has a bear cult also. The Ainu also had a bear cult. The Nivkhi are located right to the north of the Ainu, in Japan and in Russia on Sakhalin Island.

          1. High caste Indian racialists go along with this and hang out in White Nationalist forums trying to convince White Nationalists that funny looking light-skinned Indians are really just White people too, albeit with patchouli oil and a taste for curry. White Nationalists are dubious about admitting wogs into their midst of their White purity.

            Makes me crack up every time. I once checked Stormfront’s Alexa traffic figures: the site’s second highest number of visitors came from India, second only to the United States.

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