The Aryan Invasion Myth

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Most Indians have grown up with myths: Myths of divine origin, myths of Indra killing Britra demon to cause beneficent rains and what not? But when it comes to the Origin of Indian Civilization our minds are clouded by historians both Firangi and Indian. When were the  Vedas, supposedly the first serious effort in poetry, philosophy, worldview and man's position in cosmic reality, written? The answers have been given by foreigners. It was Max Muller and Mortimer Wheeler who have built up the trenchant narrative that the Vedas especially the Rig Veda was written around 1500 BCE after the Aryans invaded/ migrated to India. Basically, the people of the Steppes of Central Asia was the original homeland of the Aryans. The Aryans had horsedrawn chariots and greater firepower. They drove the dasas, the dark skinned inhabitants to south of India and reigned over the whole of north- western India. If this is true that the Vedas were composed by the Aryans how is it that the place of the origin of the Aryans has no great poetry or philosophy to offer? They have built Pyramids, Sphinxes, Mausoleums, in fact, structures for the dead and their living cultures have not shown any continuity. Iran , Iraq, Mesopotamia even Greece are now languishing under the weight of their own contradictions of mythic confusion: Whereas India has cultural continuity despite all Mogul, British invasions and its past, however shadowy, is still a large part of our inheritance. The leftist historians of Independent India have merely perpetuated and fortified the colonial legacy, therby shielding the Aryan Invasion- Migration Theory ( IAMT).

The colonial archaeologists claim to have discovered the Indus Valley Civilization in 1920; a civilization at par with the Civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia guessed to be the cradle of human civilization. The IVC has no reference to Saraswati although in the Rigveda there are 74 verses in it as a paean to river Saraswati: The Nadi Sukta (Rigveda 10.75.5) praises the Saraswati as the sustainer of life and nourisher of a civilization. If the Aryan migration is true and the Rigveda is composed by the foreigners who invaded /migrated to India in 1500 BCE, how come that the carbon dating of the Indus Valley sites in places dates back to 9500 BCE? It suggests that this 'newly' discovered civilization is much older than the so called cradle of human civilization. The Indus valley civilization was spread over a vast territory of two million square miles and the Harappan and Mohenjo Daro sites have shown a more advanced civilization than the Cradle was. The IVC has shown that it was a civilization where there was no slave trade nor continual wars. It had its currency, weights and measures and also the figurines, terracotta works and especially agriculture and bullock carts. They had their scripts- which unfortunately has not yet been deciphered, thereby stifling our claims to being the cradle of human civilization.

The foreign archaeologists claim that the IVC was destroyed by whatever factors, around 3500 BCE. But none have advanced a plausible theory of its decline.  But recent research has revealed that more than the Indus (Sindhu) the Saraswati river was the life breath of this civilization.  An American Satellite for the first time brought out a picture of the dried out bed of River Saraswati. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) too has given clearer satellite imagery of Saraswati's bed. She flew from the Himalayas (Glacier melt-water) and had a length of more than 3000 kms, finally ending up in the The Arabian Sea. The Landsat of America was the first to image its course followed by ISRO. Scientific studies have shown that Saraswati flowed from 8000-6000 BCE and dried up and desiccated around 1900 BCE. If this is true the IVC studies are not authentic. Most of the so called  Indus sities were in fact Saraaswati sites. The river was desiccated, perhaps, because of tectonic plate shifts. Yamuna was a tributary but she changed her course. Saraswati had created a civilization that was peace-loving and contemplative. The cities on her banks were prosperous. India's trade in the steppe regions might have caused some cross fertilization of cultures but to say that the indigenous people were uncultured natives who were driven out by the so called invaders is now not acceptable.

Further study will definitely reveal as have been shown by the DNA studies of David Reich, Vasant Shindhe, G.D. Bakshi and others that the Saraswati of the Vedas and the great epic Mahabharat had given rise to a culture which was the beginning of human culture. The river is now gone but the memories of her still linger in the minds of the  modern Indians. In view of these facts the History of India should be rewritten.