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The Indo-European Homeland The evidence of the oldest literary records of the Indo-European family of languages, the Rigveda and the Avesta, as we have seen, clearly and unambiguously depicts a movement of the “Indo-Iranians” from the east to the west and northwest. And Central Asia and Afghanistan, which, according to the standard theory, is the route by which the Indoaryans migrated into India, turns out to be the route by which the Iranians migrated westwards and northwards. This deals a body-blow to a very vital aspect of the theory which places the original Indo-European homeland to the northwest of Central Asia (ie. in and around South Russia), and it lends strong support to the theory that the Indo-European family of languages originated in India. If, therefore, the scholars,, by and large, remain strongly resistant to the Indian homeland theory, it is not because the facts of the case rule out this theory, but because a defence of the standard theory has become a dogma with the scholars, and any scholar, particularly an Indian one, who pursues the Indian homeland theory is automatically held suspect as a fundamentalist or a chauvinistic nationalist. So much so that any theoretical scenario which is loaded against the Indian homeland theory gains respectability; and some scholars go to the extent of deliberately projecting a blatantly false picture of the whole situation, calculated to place the Indian geographical area as far out of the geographical ambits of early Indo-European history as possible. An example of this is the clearly fraudulent case presented by a Western scholar, Victor H. Mair, in a compilation, edited by himself, of the papers presented at the International Conference on the Bronze Age and Iron Age Peoples that was held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology (April 19-21, 1996). Mair prefaces his presentation with a sharp diatribe against a wide range of what he calls “extremists, chauvinists, and other types of deranged - and possibly dangerous - persons (eg. those who locate the Indo-European homeland in such highly improbable, if not utterly impossible, places as the Arctic, along the Indus Valley, in the Tarim Basin, in China; nationalists and racists of various stripes; kooks and crazies who attribute the rise of Indo-Europeans to extraterritorial visitations, etc.)”.1 At the same time, he places himself in a beatific light by announcing that he himself is impelled to carry out “the search for the Indo-Europeans and their homeland”, and to “pursue it with enthusiasm”, because: “I perceive such an inquiry to be (1) intrinsically compelling. (2) innately worthwhile. (3) historically significant. (4) humanistically important. (5) devoid of political content. (6) scientifically solvable. (7) intellectually satisfying”, and dismisses scholars of a lesser breed with the pompous announcement: “If other people want to distort or pervert the search for their own purposes, that is their problem.”2 Mair proceeds to present his thesis, in a quasi-humorous vein, likening the spreading Indo-European family to a spreading amoeba. And he presents his final conclusions, about the schedule of migrations and expansions of the Indo-European family, in the form of a series of nine maps, supposed to represent the situations in 4200 BC, 3700 BC, 3200 BC, 3000 BC, 2500 BC, 2000 BC, 1500 BC, 1000 BC, and 100 BC respectively. We are concerned here only with his depiction of the Indian geographical area in these maps: incredible as it will seem to any scholar who is even generally acquainted with the facts of the Indo-Iranian case, Mair’s map for 1500 BC3 shows the undifferentiated Indo-Iranians still located to the north and west of the Caspian Sea! Which western academic scholar in his right senses, and with any concern for his academic credentials, will accept that this depiction of the Indo-Iranian case in 1500 BC is even reasonably honest, or deny that it represents a most blatantly mischievous distortion of the facts? It may be noted that Mair, pompously and sweepingly, claims that his maps “are intended isochronously to take into account the following types of evidence: linguistic, historical, archaeological, technological, cultural, ethnological, geographical, climatological, chronological and genetic-morpho-metric - roughly in the order of precision with which I am able to control the data, from greatest to least. I have also endeavoured to take into consideration types of data which subsume or bridge two or more basic categories of evidence (eg. glotto-chronology, dendrochronology, and linguistic paleontology).”4 An examination of the maps, even as a whole (and not just in respect of the Indo-Iranians) shows that Mair would be hard put to explain how his arbitrarily, and even whimsically, drawn-out schedule of migrations and expansions fulfils even any one of the above academic criteria, let alone all of them. Mair claims to be interested, for a variety of noble reasons, in “the search for the Indo-Europeans and their homeland”; but it is clear that a “search” of any kind is as far from his intentions as possible, since his answer (South Russia) is already determined (although he does let out that his greater personal preference would have been to locate the core of the homeland “in Southern Germany, northern Austria, and the western part of what is now the Czech Republic”5, ie. in Hitler’s home-grounds), and all those who advocate any other solution automatically fall, in his opinion, in the same category as “kooks and crazies who attribute the rise of Indo-Europeans to extra-territorial visitations”! Mair’s presentation can certainly be classified, in his own words, as among the presentations of “extremists, chauvinists, and other types of deranged - and possibly dangerous - persons”: doubly dangerous since scholars like him function on the strength of a monopolistic academic world which grants respectability to their most blatantly fraudulent efforts’ while shunning or condemning genuinely factual studies, among which we definitely count our own. In such a situation, where any scholar, Indian or Western, who finds that the facts indicate an Indian homeland, has to struggle against a strong tide of prejudice in Western academic circles (not to mention the deeply entrenched leftist lobby in Indian academic circles), it is clear that establishing the truth about the original homeland is, practically speaking, an uphill task. And the fundamental obstacle is the widely held belief that the science of LINGUISTICS has proved conclusively that the Indo-European homeland is located in and around South Russia, and, equally conclusively, that this homeland could not have been located in India: this belief, as we shall see in our Appendix One (Chapter 8) on misinterpretations of Rigvedic history, is so deeply entrenched in the psyche of all scholars, whatever their views, who examine the problem, that it appears to overshadow and nullify, in their perceptions, the effect of all other evidence to the contrary. We will, therefore, primarily be examining, in this chapter, the linguistic evidence in respect of the location of the Indo-European homeland, and it will be clear that this evidence, wherever it indicates any geographical location, invariably points towards India. We will examine the case for the Indo-European homeland as follows: I. Archaeology
and Linguistics.
I
The archaeological evidence has always been against the theory that there was an Aryan influx into India in the second millennium B.C., an influx so significant that it was able to completely transform the linguistic character and ethos of almost the entire country. Even D.D. Kosambi, for example, admitted the fact even as he waxed eloquent on the Aryan invasion: “Archaeologically, this period is still blank… There is no special Aryan pottery… no particular Aryan or Indo-Aryan technique is to be identified by the archaeologists even at the close of the second millennium.”6 This is in sharp contrast to the situation so far as Europe is concerned. Shan M.M. Winn, for example, points out that “a ‘common European horizon’ developed after 3000 BC, at about the time of the Pit Grave expansion (Kurgan Wave #3). Because of the particular style of ceramics produced, it is usually known as the Corded Ware horizon. However, some authors call it the Battle Axe culture because stone battle axes were frequently placed in burials… The expansion of the Corded Ware cultural variants throughout central, eastern and northern Europe has been construed as the most likely scenario for the origin and dispersal of PIE (Proto-Indo-European) language and culture.”7 After a detailed description of this archaeological phenomenon, Winn notes: “Only one conclusion seems reasonably certain: the territory inhabited by the Corded Ware/ Battle Axe culture, after its expansions, geographically qualifies it to be the ancestor of the Western or European language branches: Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Celtic and Italic.”8 However, this archaeological phenomenon “does not… explain the presence of Indo-Europeans in Asia, Greece and Anatolia”.9 This Corded Ware/Battle Axe culture represented the third wave of “the Pit Grave expansion (Kurgan Wave #3)” in the westward direction. Winn suggests that “an eastern expansion from the Caspian Steppe also occured at this time”,10 and tries to connect up the Tocharians with “the culture… known as Afanasievo… located in the Altai region… across the expanse of the Central Asian steppe to its ragged eastern boundary”,11 and the Indo-Iranians with the Andronovo culture which “covers much of the Central Asian steppe east of the Ural river and Caspian Sea”.12 However, he admits that these identifications are purely hypothetical, and that, even in hypothesis, and assuming the Andronovo culture to be Indo-Iranian, “it is still a hazardous task to connect the archaeological evidence… in the Central Asian steppe with the appearance of Iranian (Aryan) and Indic (Indo-Aryan) tribes in Iran, Afghanistan and India”.13 Consequently, he describes Indo-Iranian, archaeologically, as an “Indo-European branch which all the homeland theories we have reviewed so far have failed to explain”.14 The archaeological evidence for any Indo-European (Aryan) influx into India is missing in every respect:
In fact, the situation is so clear that a majority of archaeologists, both in India and in the West, today summarily reject the idea that there was any Aryan influx into India from outside in the second millennium BC. They, in fact, go so far as to reject even the very validity of Linguistics itself as an academic discipline which could be qualified to have any say in the matter. This has created quite a piquant situation in Western academic circles. In his preface to a published volume (1995) of the papers presented during a conference on Archaeological and Linguistic Approaches to Ethnicity in Ancient South Asia, held in Toronto on 4th-6th October 1991, George Erdosy notes that the Aryan invasion theory “has recently been challenged by archaeologists who - along with linguists - are best qualified to evaluate its validity. Lack of convincing material (or osteological) traces left behind by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the possibility of explaining cultural change without reference to external factors and - above all - an altered world view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship.”15 However, Erdosy points out, the perspective offered by archaeology, “that of material culture… is in direct conflict with the findings of the other discipline claiming a key to the solution of the ‘Aryan problem’, linguistics… In the face of such conflict, it may be difficult to find avenues of cooperation, yet a satisfactory resolution of the puzzles set by the distribution of Indo-Aryan languages in South Asia demands it. The present volume aims for the first step in that direction, by removing mutual misconceptions regarding the subject matter, aims, methods and limitations of linguistics and archaeology which have greatly contributed to the confusion currently surrounding ‘Aryans’. Given the debates raging on these issues within as well as between the two disciplines, a guide to the range of contemporary opinion should be particularly valuable for anyone wishing to bridge the disciplinary divide… indeed, the volume neatly encapsulates the relationship between two disciplines intimately involved in a study of the past.”16 The archaeologists and anthropologists whose papers feature in the volume include Jim G. Shaffer and Diane A. Lichtenstein, who “stress the indigenous development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onwards, and downplay the role of language in the formation of (pre-modern) ethnic identities”;17 J. Mark Kenoyer, who “stresses that the cultural history of South Asia in the 2nd millinnium B.C. may be explained without reference to external agents”,18 and Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, who concludes “that while discontinuities in physical types have certainly been found in South Asia, they are dated to the 5th/4th, and to the 1st millennium BC, respectively, too early and too late to have any connection with ‘Aryans’.”19 Erdosy and Michael Witzel (a co-editor of the volume, and a scholar whose writings we will be examining in detail in Appendix Two: Chapter 9) seek to counter the archaeologists in two ways: 1. By dismissing the negative
archaeological evidence.
We will examine their efforts under the following heads: A. The Archaeological Evidence.
I.A. The Archaeological Evidence According to Erdosy, “archaeology offers only one perspective, that of material culture”.20 This limit renders the archaeologists unable to understand the basis of the linguistic theory. Erdosy stresses that the theory of the spread of the Indo-European languages cannot be dispensed with: “The membership of Indic dialects in the Indo-European family, based not only on lexical but structural criteria, their particularly close relationship to the Iranian branch, and continuing satisfaction with a family-tree model to express these links (Baldi, 1988) all support migrations as the principal (albeit not sole) means of language dispersal.”21 But, according to him, the archaeologists fail to understand the nature of these migrations: they think that these migrations are alleged to be mass migrations which led to cataclysmic invasions, all of which would indeed have left behind archaeological evidence. But, these “images of mass migration… (which) originated with 19th century linguists… exist today principally in the minds of archaeologists and polemicists”.22 Likewise, “the concept of cataclysmic invasions, for which there is. little evidence indeed… are principally held by archaeologists nowadays, not by linguists who postulate more gradual and complex phenomena”.23 It is this failure to realize that the “outmoded models of language change”24 of the nineteenth century linguists have now been replaced by more refined linguistic models, that leads to “overreactions to them (by denying the validity of any migrationist model) by both archaeologists and Hindu fundamentalists”.25 Thus, Erdosy, at one stroke, attributes the opposition of the archaeologists to the linguistic theory to their ignorance of linguistics and clubs them together with “polemicists” and “Hindu fundamentalists” in one broad category of ignoramuses. But, it is not as easy to dismiss the views of the archaeologists as it is to dismiss those of “Hindu fundamentalists”. It must be noted that the opposition of the archaeologists is to the specific aspect of the Aryan theory which states that there was an Aryan influx into India in the second millennium B.C., and not to the general theory that the Indo-European language family (whose existence they do not dispute) must have spread through migrations of its speakers: obviously the languages could not have spread through the air like pollen seeds. But Erdosy puts it as if the archaeologists are irrationally opposed to the very idea of “the membership of the Indic dialects in the Indo-European family” or to the “family-tree model”. It is as if a scientist were to reject the prescriptions of a quack doctor, and the quack doctor were to retaliate by accusing the scientist of rejecting the very science of medicine itself. The linguistic answer to the total lack of archaeological evidence of any Aryan influx into India in the second millennium BC, is to “postulate more gradual and complex phenomena”. But, apart from the fact that this sounds very sophisticated and scientific, not to mention superior and patronising, does the phrase really mean anything? What “gradual and complex phenomena” could account for the linguistic transformation of an entire subcontinent which leaves no perceptible archaeological traces behind? And it is not just linguistic transformation. Witzel admits that while “there have been cases where dominant languages succeeded in replacing (almost) all the local languages... what is relatively rare is the adoption of complete systems of belief, mythology and language… yet in South Asia we are dealing precisely with the absorption of not only new languages but also an entire complex of material and spiritual culture ranging from chariotry and horsemanship to Indo-Iranian poetry whose complicated conventions are still used in the Rgveda. The old Indo-Iranian religion… was also adopted, alongwith the Indo-European systems of ancestor worship.”26 In keeping with a pattern which will be familiar to anyone studying the writings of supporters of the Aryan invasion theory, such unnatural or anomalous phenomena do not make these scholars rethink their theory; it only makes them try to think of ways to maintain their theory in the face of inconvenient facts. Witzel tries to suggest an explanation which he hopes will suffice to explain away the lack of archaeological-anthropological evidence: according to him, the original Indic racial stock had settled down in Central Asia, and had “even before their immigration into South Asia, completely ‘Aryanised’ a local population, for example, in the highly developed Turkmenian-Bactrian area… involving both their language and culture. This is only imaginable as the result of the complete acculturation of both groups… the local Bactrians would have appeared as a typically ‘Vedic’ people with a Vedic civilization.”27 These new “Vedic people” (ie. people belonging to the racial stock of the original non-Aryan inhabitants of Bactria, but with language, mythology and culture of the Indic people who had earlier migrated into Bactria from further outside) “later on… moved into the Panjab, assimilating (‘Aryanising’) the local population”.28 “By the time they reached the Subcontinent… they may have had the typical somatic characteristics of the ancient population of the Turanian/Iranian/Afghan areas, and may not have looked very different from the modem inhabitants of the Indo-Iranian Boderlands. Their genetic impact would have been negligible, and… would have been ‘lost’ in a few generations in the much larger gene pool of the Indus people. One should not, therefore, be surprised that ‘Aryan bones’ have not been found so far (Kennedy, this volume; Hemphill, Lukas and Kennedy, 1991).”29 What Witzel, like other scholars who suggest similar scenarios, is doing, is suggesting that the Aryans who migrated into India were not the original Indoaryans, but groups of people native to the areas further northwest, who were “completely Aryanised” in “language and culture”, and further that they were so few in number that “their genetic impact would have been negligible” and “would have been ‘lost’ in a few generations in the much larger gene pool of the Indus people”. The scholars thus try to explain away the lack of archaeological-anthropological evidence by postulating a fantastic scenario which is totally incompatible with the one piece of solid evidence which is available to us today: THE RIGVEDA. The Rigveda represents a language, religion and culture which is the most archaic in the Indo-European world. As Griffith puts it in his preface to his translation: “As in its original language, we see the roots and shoots of the languages of Greek and Latin, of Celt, Teuton and Slavonian, so the deities, the myths and the religious beliefs and practices of the Veda throw a flood of light upon the religions of all European countries before the introduction of Christianity. As the science of comparative philology could hardly have existed without the study of Sanskrit, so the comparative history of the religions of the world would have been impossible without the study of the Veda.” Vedic mythology represents the most primitive form of Indo-European mythology: as Macdonell puts it, the Vedic Gods “are nearer to the physical phenomena which they represent, than the gods of any other Indo-European mythology”.30 Vedic mythology not only bears links with every single other Indo-European mythology, but is often the only link between any two of them (as we will see in Appendix Three, Chapter 10) Does it appear that the Rigveda could be the end-product of a long process of migration in which the Indoaryans not only lost contact with the other Indo-European branches countless generations earlier in extremely distant regions, and then migrated over long periods through different areas, and finally settled down for so long a period in the area of composition of the Rigveda that even Witzel admits that “in contrast to its close relatives in Iran (Avestan, Old Persian), Vedic Sanskrit is already an Indian language”;31 but in which the people who composed the Rigveda were in fact not the original Indoaryans at all, but a completely new set of people who bore no racial connections at all with the original Indoaryans, and were merely the last in a long line of racial groups in a “gradual and complex” process in which the Vedic language and culture was passed from one completely different racial group to another completely different racial group like a baton in an “Aryanising” relay race from South Russia to India? Clearly, the explanation offered by Witzel is totally inadequate, and even untenable, as an argument against the negative archaeological evidence. I.B. The Linguistic Evidence Erdosy speaks of the “disciplinary divide” between linguistics and archaeology. And it is Michael Witzel whom Erdosy pits against the archaeologists whose papers are included in the volume: “Placed against Witzel’s contribution, the paper by J.Shaffer and D. Lichtenstein will illustrate the gulf still separating archaeology and linguistics.”32 We will not assume that Witzel’s papers in this particular volume represent the sum total of the linguistic evidence, but, since the volume does pit him against the archaeologists, let us examine the linguistic evidence stressed by him. According to Erdosy, “M. Witzel begins by stressing the quality of linguistic (and historical) data obtainable from the Rgveda, along with the potential of a study of linguistic stratification, contact and convergence. Next, the evidence of place-names, above all hydronomy, is scrutinised, followed by an evaluation of some of the most frequently invoked models of language change in light of this analysis.”33 We have already examined Witzel’s “models of language change” by which he seeks to explain away the lack of archaeological evidence. We will now examine “the evidence of place-names, above all hydronomy”, on the basis of which Witzel apparently contests the claims of the archaeologists and proves the Aryan invasion. Witzel does not have much to say about place-names. He points out that most of the place-names in England (all names ending in -don, -chester, -ton, -ham, -ey, -wick, etc., like London, Winchester, Uppington, Downham, Westrey, Lerwick, etc.) and in America (like Massachussetts, Wachussetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Chicago, etc) are remnants of older languages which were spoken in these areas. But, far from finding similar evidence in respect of India, Witzel is compelled to admit: “In South Asia, relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan place-names survive in the North; however, many more in central and southern India. Indo-Aryan place-names are generally not very old, since the towns themselves are relatively late.”34 Witzel clearly evades the issue: he refers to “relatively few pre-Indo-Aryan place names” in the North, but judiciously refrains from going into any specifics about these names, or the number of such names. He insinuates that there are “many more” pre-Indoaryan place-names in Central and South India, but this is clearly a misleading statement: by Central India, he obviously means the Austric-language speaking areas, and by South India, he definitely means the Dravidian-language speaking areas, and perhaps other areas close to these. So, if these areas have Austric or Dravidian place-names respectively, does it prove anything? And, finally, he suggests that the paucity (or rather absence) of any “pre-Indo-Aryan” place-names in the North is because the towns concerned “are relatively late” (ie. came into being after the Aryan influx). This excuse is rather strange: the Indus people, alleged to be “pre-Indo-Aryans” did have towns and cities, but no alleged earlier place-names have survived, while the American Indians (in the U.S.A.) did not have large towns and cities, but their place-names have survived in large numbers. Witzel goes into more detail in respect of the hydronomes (ie. names of rivers), but the results of his investigation, and even his own comments on them, are intriguing. According to Witzel: “A better case for the early linguistic and ethnic history of South Asia can be made by investigating the names of rivers. In Europe river-names were found to reflect the languages spoken before the influx of Indo-European speaking populations. They are thus older than c. 4500-2500 BC (depending on the date of the spread of Indo-European languages in various parts of Europe). It would be fascinating to gain a similar vantage point for the prehistory of South Asia.”35 It is indeed fascinating. Witzel finds, to his chagrin, that “in northern India, rivers in general have early Sanskrit names from the Vedic period, and names derived from the daughter languages of Sanskrit later on.”36 Witzel tries to introduce the non-Aryan element into the picture: “River names in northern India are thus principally Sanskrit, with few indications of Dravidian, MuNDa or Tibeto-Burmese names. However, Kosala, with its uncharacteristic -s- after -o- may be Tibeto-Burmese (Sanskrit rules would demand KoSala or KoSala, a corrected form that is indeed adopted in the Epics).”37 Likewise, “there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanisation in northern India; this has progressed much less in southern India and in the often inaccessible parts of central India. In the northwest there are only a few exceptions, such as the names of the rivers GangA, SutudrI and perhaps KubhA (Mayrhofer, 1956-1976).”38 Thus, there are four river-names which he tries to connect with “pre-Indo-Aryan” languages. But three of them, Kosala, SutudrI and KubhA are clearly Indo-European names (the hairsplitting about the letter -s- in Kosala is a typical “linguistic” ploy which we will refer to later on in our examination of linguistic substrata), and only GaNgA is generally accepted as a possible non-Indo-European name. But the answer to this is given by Witzel himself: “Rivers often carry different names, sometimes more than two, along their courses. Even in a homogenous, monolingual country, such as Japan, this can be the case as names change as soon as the river passes through a major mountain range. In South Asia, to quote one well-known example, the BhAgIrathI and AlaknandA become the GaNgA. This increases the probability of multiple names from various languages for one and the same river of which only one may have survived in our sources.”39 (It may be noted that the Rigveda itself refers to the river as both GaNgA and JahnAvI). Witzel cannot escape the “evidence of hydronomy” as he calls it, and he tries to explain it away by suggesting that “there has been an almost complete Indo-Aryanisation”40 of the river-names in northern India. But his explanation rings hollow: “The Indo-Aryan influence, whether due to actual settlement, acculturation, or, if one prefers, the substitution of Indo-Aryan names for local ones, was powerful enough from early on to replace local names, in spite of the well-known conservatism of river-names. This is especially surprising in the area once occupied by the Indus civilization, where one would have expected the survival of earlier names, as has been the case in Europe and the Near East. At the least, one would expect a palimpsest, as found in New England, with the name of the State of Massachussetts next to the Charles River formerly called the Massachussetts River, and such new adaptations as Stony Brook, Muddy Creek, Red River, etc. next to the adaptations of Indian names such as the Mississippi and the Missouri. The failure to preserve old hydronomes even in the Indus Valley (with a few exceptions noted above) indicates the extent of the social and political collapse experienced by the local population.”41 Apart from anything else, does this last bit at all harmonize with the claim made elsewhere in the same volume (to explain the lack of archaeological-anthropological evidence of any invasion) that the “Indo-Aryanisation” of the northwest was a “gradual and complex” rather than a “cataclysmic” event? Witzel starts out with the intention of pitting the linguistic evidence of place-names and river-names against the evidence of archaeology; and he ends up having to try and argue against, or explain away, this linguistic evidence, since it only confirms the archaeological evidence. The long and short of the evidence of place-names and river-names is as follows: The place-names and river-names in Europe, to this day, represent pre-Indo-European languages spoken in Europe before 2500 BC. The same is the case with Armenia: “among the numerous personal and place-names handed down to us from Armenia up to the end of the Assyrian age, there is absolutely nothing Indo-European.”42 And with Greece and Anatolia: “numerous place-names… show that Indo-Europeans did not originate in Greece. The same can be said for Italy and Anatolia.”43 On the other hand, northern India is the only place where place-names and river-names are Indo-European right from the period of the Rigveda (a text which Max Müller refers to as “the first word spoken by the Aryan man”) with no traces of any alleged earlier non-Indo-European names. Witzel’s attitude towards this evidence is typical of the generally cavalier attitude of Western scholars towards inconvenient evidence in the matter of Indo-European origins: he notes that the evidence is negative, finds it “surprising” that it should be so, makes an offhand effort to explain it away, and then moves on. And, later on, in his second paper included in the volume, he actually refers complacently to the whole matter: “in view of the discussion of hydronomy and place-names in the previous paper, it is also interesting that the Indo-Aryans could not, apparently, pronounce local names.”44 But, like
it or not, the evidence of place-names and river-names is a very important
factor in locating the Indo-European homeland in any particular area.
And India, and India alone, passes this test with flying colours.
THE LITERARY EVIDENCE We have already examined the evidence in the Rigveda which clearly proves that the original Indo-Iranian habitat was in India and that the Iranians migrated westwards and northwestwards from India. We will now examine further literary evidence regarding the location of the original Indo-European homeland in India, under the following heads: A. Tribes and Priests.II.A. Tribes and Priests The political history of the Vedic period is centred around the division of the various peoples who fall within its ambit into five major tribal groupings (not counting the TRkSis, who fall outside this tribal spectrum): the Yadus, TurvaSas, Anus, Druhyus and PUrus. As we have seen, it is only one of these five tribal groupings, the PUrus, who represent the various branches of the Vedic Aryans, and it is only the PUrus who are referred to as Aryas in the Rigveda. This brings us to the second division of the various peoples who fall within the ambit of the Rigveda: the division into Aryas (the PUrus) and Others (the Yadus, TurvaSas, Anus, Druhyus, etc.) But there are two distinct words by which the Rigveda refers to these Others: a. DAsas It is necessary to understand the distinction between the two words. The word DAsa is found in 54 hymns (63 verses): I. 32.11; 92.8; 103.3; 104.2; 158.5; 174.7;The word Dasyu is found in 65 hymns (80 verses): I. 33.4, 7, 9; 36.18; 51.5, 6, 8; 53.4; 59.6; There are two distinct differences between the DAsas and Dasyus: 1. The first difference is that the term DAsa clearly refers to other tribes (ie. non-PUru tribes) while the term Dasyu refers to their priestly classes (ie. non-Vedic priestly classes). [This
is apart from the fact that both the terms are freely used to refer to
the atmospheric demons as much as to the human enemies to whom they basically
refer.]:
Not one of these abuses is used even once in reference to DAsas.
The Dasyus are referred to by all the nine priestly families of RSis, but not by the one non-priestly family of RSis (the Bharatas). The DAsas are referred to by the Bharatas (X.69.6; 102.3) also; but not by the most purely ritualistic family of RSis, the KaSyapas, nor in the most purely ritualistic of MaNDalas, MaNDala IX.
In three references (VIII.5.31; 46.32; 51.9), the DAsas are rich patrons. In seven references, the DAsas are powerful enemies from whose fury and powerful weapons the composers ask the Gods for protection (I.104.2; VIII.24.27; X.22.8; 54.1; 69.6; 102.3) or from whom the Gods rescue the RSis (I.158.5). In three others, the word DAsa refers to powerful atmospheric demons who hold the celestial waters in their thrall (I.32.11; V.30.5; VIII.96.18). In contrast, Dasyus never figure as rich or powerful enemies. They are depicted as sly enemies who incite others into acts of boldness (VI.24.8).
Seven verses refer to both Aryas and DAsas as enemies (VI.22.10; 33.3; 60.6; VII.83.1; X.38.3; 69.6; 83.1; 102.3) and one verse refers to both Aryas and DAsas together in friendly terms (VIII.51.9). This is because both, the word DAsa and the word Arya, refer to broad secular or tribal entities, while the word Dasyu refers to priestly entities: thus, one would generally say “both Christians and Muslims”, or “both padres and mullahs”, but not “both Christians and mullahs” or “both Muslims and padres”. 2. The second difference is in the degree of hostility towards the two. The Dasyus are clearly regarded with uncompromising hostility, while the hostility towards the DAsas is relatively mild and tempered: a. The word Dasyu has a purely hostile connotation even when it occurs in the name or title of heroes: Trasadasyu = “tormentor of the Dasyus”. On the other hand, the word DAsa has an etymological meaning beyond the identity of the DAsas. When it occurs in the name or title of a hero, it has a benevolent connotation: DivodAsa = “light of Heaven” or “slave of Heaven”. b. All the 80 verses which refer to Dasyus are uncompromisingly hostile. On the other hand, of the 63 verses which refer to DAsas, 3 are friendly references (VIII.5.31; 46.32; 51.9); and in one more, the word means “slave” in a benevolent sense (VII.86.7: “slave-like, may I do service to the Bounteous”, ie. to VaruNa). c. Of the 80 verses which refer to Dasyus, 76 verses talk of direct, violent, physical action against them, ie. they talk of killing, subduing or driving away the Dasyus. On the other hand, of the 63 verses which refer to DAsas, only 38 talk of such direct physical action against them. The importance of this analysis is that it brings to the fore two basic points about the rivalries and hostilities in the Rigvedic period:
Hence, any analysis of the political history of the Rigvedic period must pay at least as much attention, if not more, to the priestly categories as to secular or tribal categories. II.B. The Three Priestly Classes The basic tribal spectrum of the Rigveda includes the five tribal groupings of Yadus, TurvaSas, Anus, Druhyus and PUrus, and of these the PUrus alone represent the Vedic Aryans, while the other four represent the Others. But among these four it is clear that the Yadus and TurvaSas represent more distant tribes (they are, as we have seen earlier, mostly referred to in tandem, and are also referred to as residing far away from the Vedic Aryans), while the Anus and Druhyus fall into a closer cultural spectrum with the PUrus:
But, the PUrus represent the various branches of the Vedic Aryans, and the Anus represent various branches of Iranians. It is clear, therefore, that the Druhyus represent the third entity in this cultural spectrum, and that it is mainly the Druhyus who will take us beyond the Indo-Iranian arena into the wider Indo-European one: appropriately, while the PUrus are located in the heartland of North India (U.P.-Delhi-Haryana) and the Anus in the northwest (Punjab), the Druhyus are located beyond the Indian frontiers, in Afghanistan and beyond. The priestly categories, as we have seen, play a more important role in the rivalries and hostilities in the Rigvedic period than the secular categories. In the earliest period, the only two families of RSis (from among the families who figure as composers in the Rigveda) were the ANgirases and the BhRgus, who were the priests of the PUrus and the Anus respectively. Logically, there must have been a priestly class among the Druhyus as well, but no such priestly class figures among the composers in the Rigveda. The explanation for this is simple: the Druhyus were a rival and non-PUru (DAsa) tribe, hence their priests do not figure as composers in the Rigveda. Of course, the BhRgus, who were also the priests of a rival and non-PUru tribe, do figure as composers in the Rigveda, but that is because, as we have seen in the previous chapter, a section of BhRgus (after Jamadagni) aligned themselves with the Vedic Aryans and joined the Vedic mainstream (where, in fact, they later superseded all the other priestly families in importance, and became the dominant priests of Vedic tradition). But since the Druhyus figure in the Rigveda, the name of their priestly class must also be found in the text, even if not as the name of a family of composers. Since no such name appears, it seems logical that the name Druhyu itself must originally have been the name of this third priestly class: since priestly categories were more important for the composers of the Rigveda than the secular categories, and since the tribes for whom the Druhyus functioned as priests were an amorphous lot located far out on the frontiers of India and beyond, the name of the priestly classes became a general appellation for the tribes themselves. Therefore, there were three tribal groupings with their three priestly classes: PUrus - Angirases. This trinary situation tallies with the Indo-European situation: outside of the Vedic and Iranian cultures, the only other priestly class of a similar kind is found among the Celts and the related Italics. While the Italics called their priests by the general name flAmen (cognate to Sanskrit brAhmaNa, “priest”), the priests of the Celts were called Drui (genitive Druad, hence Druids). Shan M.M. Winn notes that “India, Rome, Ireland and Iran” are the “areas in which priesthoods are known to have been significant”;45 and he describes this phenomenon as follows: “Long after the dispersion of Indo-Europeans, we find a priestly class in Britain in the west, in Italy to the South, and in India and Iran to the east. Though these cultures are geographically distant from one another... they have striking similarities in priestly ritual, and even in religious terminology. For example, taboos pertaining to the Roman flAmen (priest) closely correspond to the taboos observed by the Brahmans, the priests of India.”46 Like the Indian priesthood, the curriculum of the “Celtic Druids … involved years of instruction and the memorization of innumerable verses, as the sacred tradition was an oral one”.47 After noting, in some detail, the similarities in their priestly systems, rituals, and religious and legal terminology, Winn concludes that the “Celts, Romans and Indo-Iranians shared a religious heritage dating to an early Indo-European period…”48 While the three priesthoods flourished only in these areas, they must originally have been the priests of all the branches of Indo-Europeans in the early Indo-European period. While the priesthoods themselves did not survive elsewhere, the names of the three priesthoods did survive in different ways. An examination of these words helps us to classify the various Indo-European branches into three groups: 1. PURUS: Indoaryan. In the Rigveda, hymn VII.18, the DASarAjña battle hymn, refers to the enemy confederation once in secular (tribal) terms as “Anus and Druhyus” (VII.18.14), and once in what is clearly priestly terms as “BhRgus and Druhyus” (VII.18.6: the only reference in the whole of the Rigveda which directly refers to the BhRgus as enemies). Once, it may be noted, it also refers to the kings of the two tribal groupings as “KavaSa and the Druhyu” (VII. 1.8.12. Thus, even here, the general appellation “Druhyu” is used instead of the specific name of the king of the Druhyus). The words Druh/Drugh/Drogha occur throughout the Rigveda in the sense of “demon” or “enemy”. (The word BhRgu, for obvious reasons, does not suffer the same fate.) 2. ANUS: Iranian, Thraco-Phrygian, Hellenic.
The priests of the Iranians were the Athravans (AtharvaNas = BhRgus), and the words Angra and Druj occur throughout the Avesta as epithets for the demon enemies of Ahura Mazda and Zarathushtra. 3. DRUHYUS: Baltic and Slavonic, Italic and Celtic, Germanic.
The Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology notes: “whereas the Celtic Gods were specifically Celtic… the goddesses were restatements of an age-old theme”.49 And two of the three Great Goddesses of the Celts were named Anu and Brigit (Anu and BhRgu?). And while all the Goddesses in general were associated with fertility cults, “Brigit, however, had additional functions as a tutelary deity of learning, culture and skills”.50 The main activity of the Drui, as we have seen, was to undergo “years of instruction and the memorization of innumerable verses, as the sacred tradition was an oral one”.51 The fact that the Goddess of learning was named Brigit would appear to suggest that the Drui remembered the ancient BhRgus, in a mythical sense, as the persons who originally introduced various priestly rituals among them (a debt which, as we have seen in the previous chapter, is also remembered by the. ANgirases in the MaNDalas of the Early Period of the Rigveda). The BhRgus, by the joint testimony of Vedic and Celtic mythology, would thus appear to have been the oldest or most dominant and innovative of the three priestly classes.
The meanings of the word Druhyu as it occurs in the Celtic branch (“priest”), the Germanic branch (“soldier”, etc. or “people”) and the Baltic-Slavonic branches (“friend”) clearly correspond with the word in the Rigveda and Avesta, where Druhyu/Druh/Drugh/Drogha and Druj represent enemy priests, soldiers or people. Thus, to sum up: II.C. The Anu-Druhyu Migrations The evidence of the Rigveda, and Indian tradition, clearly shows that the Anus and Druhyus were Indian tribes. If they were also the ancestors of the Indo-European branches outside India, as is indicated by the evidence of the names of their priestly classes, then it is clear that the Rigveda and Indian tradition should retain memories of the migrations of these two groups from India. Significantly, this is exactly the case: the Rigveda and the PurANas, between them, record two great historical events which led to the emigration of precisely these two tribes from India: 1. The first historical emigration recorded is that of the Druhyus. This emigration is recorded in the PurANas, and it is so historically and geographically specific that no honest, student of the Puranic tradition has been able to ignore either this event or its implications for Indo-European history (even without arriving at the equation PUrus = Vedic Aryans): The PurANas (VAyu 99.11-12; BrahmANDa III.74.11-12; Matsya 48.9; ViSNu IV.17.5; BhAgavata IX.23.15-16) record: PracetasaH putra-Satam rAjAnAH sarva eva te, mleccha-rASTrAdhipAH sarve hyudIcIm diSam ASritAH. As Pargiter points out: “Indian tradition knows nothing of any Aila or Aryan invasion of India from Afghanistan, nor of any gradual advance from thence eastwards.”53 On the contrary, “Indian tradition distinctly asserts that there was an Aila outflow of the Druhyus through the northwest into the countries beyond where they founded various kingdoms.”54 P.L. Bhargava also notes this reference to the Druhyu emigration: “Five PurANas add that Pracetas’ descendants spread out into the mleccha countries to the north beyond India and founded kingdoms there.”55 This incident is considered to be the earliest prominent historical event in traditional memory: The Druhyus, inhabitants of the Punjab, started conquering eastwards and southwards, and their conquest brought them into conflict with all the other tribes and peoples: the Anus, PUrus, Yadus. TurvaSas, and even the IkSvAkus. This led to a concerted attempt by the other tribes against the Druhyus. AD Pusalker records: “As a result of the successful campaigns of SaSabindu, YuvanASva, MAndhAtRI and Sibi, the Druhyus were pushed back from RAjputAna and were cornered into the northwestern portion of the Punjab. MAndhAtRI killed their king ANgAra, and the Druhyu settlements in the Punjab came to be known as GAndhAra after the name of one of ANgAra’s successors. After a time, being overpopulated, the Druhyus crossed the borders of India and founded many principalities in the Mleccha territories in the north, and probably carried the Aryan culture beyond the frontiers of India.”56 This first historical emigration represents an outflow of the Druhyus into the areas to the north of Afghanistan (ie. into Central Asia and beyond). 2. The second historical emigration recorded is that of the Anus and the residual Druhyus, which took place after the DASarAjña battle in the Early Period of the Rigveda. As we have already seen in our chapter on the Indo-Iranian homeland, the hymns record the names of ten tribes (from among the two main tribal groupings of Anus and Druhyus) who took part in the confederacy against SudAs. Six of these are clearly purely Iranian peoples: a. PRthus or PArthavas (VII.83.1): Parthians. One more Anu tribe, not named in the Rigveda, is that of the Madras: Medes. All these Iranian peoples are found in later historical times in the historical Iranian areas proper: Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia. Two of the other tribes named in the hymns are Iranian peoples who are found in later historical times, on the northwestern periphery of the Iranian areas, ie. in the Caucasus area:
And the name of one more tribe is clearly the name of another branch of Indo-Europeans - non-Iranians, but closely associated with the Iranians - found in later historical times in the area to the west of the Iranians, ie. in Anatolia or Turkey: the BhRgus (VII.18.6): Phrygians. Significantly, the names of the two tribes found on the northwestern periphery of the Iranian area are also identifiable (as we have noted in our earlier book) with the names of two other branches of Indo-Europeans, found to the west of Anatolia or Turkey. a. Simyus (VII.18.5): Sirmios (ancient Albanians). The DASarAjña battle hymns record the emigration of these tribes westward from the Punjab after their defeat in the battle. Taken together, the two emigrations provide us with a very logical and plausible scenario of the expansions and migrations of the Indo-European family of languages from an original homeland in India: 1. The two tribal groupings of Anus and Druhyus were located more or less in the Punjab and Afghanistan respectively after the Druhyu versus non-Druhyu wars in the earliest pre-Rigvedic period. 2. The first series of migrations, of the Druhyus, took plate shortly afterwards, with major sections of Druhyus migrating northwards from Afghanistan into Central Asia in different waves. From Central Asia many Druhyu tribes, in the course of time, migrated westwards, reaching as far as western Europe. These migrations must have included the ancestors of the following branches (which are not mentioned in the DASarAjña battle hymns): a. Hittite. 3. The second series of migrations of Anus and Druhyus, took place much later, in the Early Period of the Rigveda, with various tribes migrating westwards from the Punjab into Afghanistan, many later on migrating further westwards as far as West Asia and southwestern Europe. These migrations must have included the ancestors of the following branches (which are mentioned in the DASrAjña battle hymns): a. Iranian. The whole process gives a clear picture of the ebb-and-flow of migratory movements, where remnants of migrating groups, which remain behind, get slowly absorbed into the linguistic and cultural mainstream of the other groups among whom they continue to live, retaining only, at the most, their separate names and distinctive identities: 1. The Druhyus, by and large, spread out northwards from northwestern Punjab and Afghanistan into Central Asia (and beyond) in the first Great Migration. A few sections of them, who remained behind, retained their distinctive names and identities (as Druhyus), but were linguistically and culturally absorbed into the Anu mainstream. 2. The Anus (including the remnants of the Druhyus), by and large, spread out westwards from the Punjab into Afghanistan in the second Great Migration after the DASarAjña battle. A few sections of them, who remained behind, retained their distinctive names and identities (as Anus), but linguistically and culturally, they were absorbed into the PUru mainstream and they remained on the northwestern periphery of the Indoaryan cultural world as the Madras (remnants of the Madas or Medes), Kekayas, etc. 3. Further migrations took place from among the Anus in Afghanistan, with non-Iranian Anu groups, such as the BhRgus (Phryges, Thraco-Phrygians), Alinas (Hellenes, Greeks) and Simyus (Sirmios, Illyrians or Albanians) migrating westwards from Afghanistan as far as Anatolia and southeastern Europe. A few sections of these non-Iranian Anus, who remained behind, retained their distinctive names and identities, but, linguistically and culturally, they were absorbed into the Iranian mainstream, and remained on the northwestern periphery of the Iranian cultural world as the Armenians (who, however, retained much of their original language, though greatly influenced by Iranian), and the Alans (remnants of the Hellenes or Greeks) and Sarmations (remnants of the Sirmios or Albanians). The literary evidence of the Rigveda, thus, provides us with a very logical and plausible scenario of the schedule and process of migrations of the various Indo-European branches from India. At this point, we may recall the archaeological evidence in respect of Europe, already noted by us. As we have seen, the Corded Ware culture (Kurgan Wave # 3) expanded from the east into northern and central Europe, and the “territory inhabited by the Corded Ware/Battle Axe culture, after its expansions, qualifies it to be the ancestor of the Western or European language branches: Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Celtic and Italic”.57 The origins of the Kurgan culture have been traced as far east as Turkmenistan in 4500 BC. This fits in perfectly with our theory that the seven branches of Indo-Europeans, not mentioned in the DASarAjña hymns, migrated northwards into Central Asia during the first Great Migration. Five of these, the five European branches mentioned above, later migrated westwards into Europe, while the other two, Hittite and Tocharian, remained behind in parts of Central Asia till the Hittites, at a much later date, migrated southwestwards into Anatolia. These two branches, which remained behind in Central Asia, it is possible, retained contact with the Indoaryans and Iranians further south: the fact that Hittite mythology is the only mythology, outside the Indo-Iranian cultural world, which mentions Indra (as Inar) may be evidence of such contacts. Even more significant, from the viewpoint of literary evidence, is the fact that Indian tradition remembers two important peoples located to the north of the Himalayas who are called the Uttarakurus and the Uttaramadras: “The Uttarakurus alongwith the Uttaramadras, are located beyond the HimAlayas. Though regarded as mythical in the epic and later literature, the Uttarakurus still appear as a historical people in the Aitareya BrAhmaNa (VII.23).”58 It is possible that the Uttarakurus and the Uttaramadras were the Tocharian (Uttarakuru = Tokhri) and Hittite branches of Indo-Europeans located to the north of the Himalayas. The scenario
we have reconstructed from the literary evidence in the Rigveda fits in
perfectly with the linguistic scenario of the migration schedule of the
various Indo-European branches, as reconstructed by the linguists from
the evidence of isoglosses, which we will now be examining.
THE EVIDENCE OF LINGUISTIC ISOGLOSSES One linguistic phenomenon which is of great help to linguists in their efforts to chalk out the likely scenario of the migration schedule of the various Indo-European branches from the original homeland, is the phenomenon of linguistic isoglosses. A linguistic isogloss is a linguistic feature which is found in some of the branches of the family, and is not found in the others. This feature may, of course, be either an original feature of the parent Proto-Indo-European language which has been lost in some of the daughter branches but retained in others, or a linguistic innovation, not found in the parent Proto-Indo-European language, which developed in some of the daughter branches but not in the others. But this feature is useful in establishing early historico-geographical links between branches which share the same isogloss. We will examine the evidence of the isoglosses as follows: A. The IsoglossesIII.A. The Isoglosses There are, as Winn points out, “ten ‘living branches’… Two branches, Indic (Indo-Aryan) and Iranian dominate the eastern cluster. Because of the close links between their classical forms - Sanskrit and Avestan respectively - these languages are often grouped together as a single Indo-Iranian branch.”59 But Meillet notes: “It remains quite clear, however, that Indic and Iranian evolved from different Indo-European dialects whose period of common development was not long enough to effect total fusion.”60 Besides these ten living branches, there are two extinct branches, Anatolian (Hittite) and Tocharian. Of these twelve branches, one branch, Illyrian (Albanian), is of little use in this study of isoglosses: “Albanian… has undergone so many influences that it is difficult to be certain of its relationships to the other Indo-European languages.”61 An examination of the isoglosses which cover the other eleven branches (living and extinct) gives a more or less clear picture of the schedule of migrations of the different Indo-European branches from the original homeland. Whatever the dispute about the exact order in which the different branches migrated away from the homeland, the linguists are generally agreed on two important points: 1. Anatolian (Hittite) was the first branch to leave the homeland: “The Anatolian languages, of which Hittite is the best known, display many archaic features that distinguish them from other Indo-European languages. They apparently represent an earlier stage of Indo-European, and are regarded by many as the first group to break away from the proto-language.”62 2. Four branches, Indic, Iranian, Hellenic (Greek) and Thraco-Phrygian (Armenian) were the last branches remaining behind in the original homeland after the other branches had dispersed: “After the dispersals of the early PIE dialects,… there were still those who remained… Among them were the ancestors of the Greeks and Indo-Iranians…63 “Greek and Sanskrit share many complex grammatical features: this is why many earlier linguists were misled into regarding them as examples of the most archaic stage of Proto-Indo-European. However, the similarities between the two languages are now regarded as innovations that took place during a late period of PIE , which we call stage III. One of these Indo-Greek innovations was also shared by Armenian; all these languages it seems, existed in an area of mutual interaction.”64 Thus we get: “Greek Armenian, Phrygian, Thracian and Indo-Iranian. These languages may represent a comparatively late form of Indo-European, including linguistic innovations not present in earlier stages. In particular, Greek and Indic share a number of distinctive grammatical features……”65 The following are some of the innovations shared only by Indic, Iranian, Greek and Armenian (Thraco-Phrygian); features which distinguish them from the other branches, particularly the other living branches:
1. “Hittite, the first to separate itself, shares many isoglosses with Germanic and Tocharian.”76 2. “Celtic, Italic, Hittite, Tocharian and (probably) Phrygian share an interesting isogloss: the use of ‘r’ to indicate the passive forms of verbs. This feature… does not occur in any other Indo-European language.”77 3. Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavonic, as we have seen, constitute one distinct group (in contradistinction to another distinct group consisting of Indic, Iranian, Armenian and Greek). However, within themselves, these five branches link together as follows:
To go into more precise detail: “The difference between a dative plural with *-bh-, eg. Skr.-bhyah, Av. -byO, Lat. -bus, O.Osc. -fs, O.Ir.-ib, Gr. -fi(n), and one with *-m-, eg. Goth. -m, O.Lith. -mus, Ol.Sl. -mU, is one of the first things to have drawn attention to the problem of Indo-European dialectology. Since it has been established, principally by A. Leskien, that there was no unity of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic postdating the period of Indo-European unity, the very striking similarity of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic which we observe here cannot… be explained except by a dialectical variation within common Indo-European.”84 It is, therefore, clear “that these three languages arose from Indo-European dialects exhibiting certain common features.”85 To sum up, we get two distinct groups of branches: Group A: Hittite, Tocharian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavonic. Group B: Indic, Iranian, Thraco-Phrygian (Armenian), Hellenic (Greek). No major isogloss cuts across the dividing line between the two groups to suggest any alternative grouping: the phenomenon of palatalization appears to do so, but it is now recognized as “a late phenomenon” which took place in “a post-PIE era in which whatever unity that once existed had broken down and most of the dialect groups had dispersed”,86 and we will examine the importance of this phenomenon later on. Other similarities between languages or branches which lie on opposite sides of the above dividing line are recognizable as phenomena which took place after the concerned branches had reached their historical habitats, and do not, therefore, throw any light on the location of the original homeland or the migration-schedule of the branches. The following are two examples of such similarities: 1. The Phrygian language appears to share the “r-isogloss” which is found only in the Hittite, Tocharian, Italic and Celtic branches. However:
2. Greek and Italic alone share the change of Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops (bh, dh, gh) into voiceless aspirated stops (ph, th, kh). Sanskrit is the only language to have retained the original voiced aspirated stops, while all the other branches, except Greek and Italic, converted them into unaspirated stops (b, d, g). But this similarity between Greek and Italic is because “when Indo-European languages were brought to Mediterranean people unfamiliar with voiced aspirated stops, this element brought about the process of unvoicing”,89 and this change took place in the two branches “both independently and along parallel lines”.90 Hence, this is not an isogloss linking the two branches. Therefore, it is clear that the two groups represent two distinct divisions of the Indo-European family. III. B. The Homeland Indicated by the Isoglosses The pattern of isoglosses shows the following order of migration of the branches of Group A: 1. Hittite. Some of these branches share certain isoglosses among themselves which represent innovations which they must have developed in common after their departure from the original homeland, since the remaining branches (Indic, Iranian, Armenian and Greek) do not share these isoglosses. This clearly indicates the presence of a secondary homeland, outside the exit-point from the original homeland, which must have functioned as an area of settlement and common development for the migrating branches. The only homeland theory which fits in with the evidence of the isoglosses is the Indian homeland theory: The exit-point for the migrating branches was Afghanistan, and these branches migrated towards the north from Afghanistan into Central Asia, which clearly functioned as the secondary homeland for emigrating branches. As Winn points out: “Evidence from isoglosses… shows that the dispersal cannot be traced to one particular event; rather it seems to have occured in bursts or stages.”91 Hittite was the first to emigrate from Afghanistan into Central Asia, followed by Tocharian. Italic-Celtic represented the next stage of emigration. The four branches developed the “r-isogloss” in common. Germanic was the next branch to enter the secondary homeland, and it developed some isoglosses in common with Hittite and Tocharian. The Baltic-Slavonic movement apparently represented the last major emigration. And its sojourn in the secondary homeland was apparently not long enough for it to develop any isoglosses in common with Hittite or Tocharian. The five branches (Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavonic, in that order) later moved further off, north-westwards, into the area to the north of the Caspian Sea, and subsequently formed part of the Kurgan III migrations into Europe. The Slavonic and Baltic branches settled down in the eastern parts of Europe, while the other three proceeded further into Europe. Later, the Italic branch moved towards the south, while the Germanic and Celtic branches moved to the north and west. Meanwhile, the other branches (barring Indic), Greek Armenian and Iranian, as also, perhaps, the one branch (Illyrian or Albanian) which we have not taken into consideration so far, migrated westwards from India by a different and southern route. The scholars, now, generally accept the evidence of the isoglosses, so far as it concerns the schedule of migrations of the different Indo-European branches from the original homeland, or the interrelationships between different branches. However, when it comes to determining the actual location of the original homeland, on the basis of this evidence, they abandon their objective approach and try to make it appear as if the evidence fits in with the particular homeland theory advocated by them, even when it is as clear as daylight that they are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. The homeland theory generally advocated by the scholars is the South Russian homeland theory. Shan M.M. Winn advocates the “Pontic-Caspian area” within this region as the particular location of the homeland. An examination shows that the South Russian homeland theory (“Pontic-Caspian” or otherwise) is totally incompatible with the evidence of the isoglosses: 1. To begin with, it is clear that we have two distinct groups of branches, which we have already classified as Group A and Group B. As per the evidence of the isoglosses, the branches in Group A are the branches which migrated away from the original homeland, and those in Group B are the branches which remained behind in the homeland after the other branches had departed. At the same time, all the branches in Group A are found to the north of the Eurasian mountain chain (except for Hittite in Anatolia, but this branch is known to have migrated into Anatolia from the north-east), while all the branches in Group B are found to the south of the Eurasian mountain chain (the northernmost, Greek, is known to have migrated into southeastern Europe from the south-east). The logical corollary should have been that the original homeland is also to the south of the Eurasian mountain chain, and that it is located in the historical habitat of one of the branches in Group B. However, the scholars regularly advocate homeland theories which place the homeland in the area of one or the other of the branches in Group A. 2. The branches in Group A developed certain isoglosses in common after they had migrated away from the homeland. As we have pointed out, this makes it likely that there was a secondary homeland where they must have developed these isoglosses. However, any homeland theory which locates the homeland in a central area, like South Russia or any area around it, makes the location of this secondary homeland a problem: the Tocharian branch is historically located well to the east of South Russia, the Hittite branch is located well to the south of South Russia, and the Germanic and Italic-Celtic branches are located well to the west of South Russia. It is difficult to think of a way in which all these branches could have moved together in one direction from South Russia before parting from each other and moving off in totally opposite directions. It is perhaps to avoid this problem that Winn suggests that the isoglosses shared in common by these branches are not innovations developed by these branches in common, but archaic features which have been retained by otherwise separately migrating branches. In respect of the r-isogloss, for example, Winn puts it as follows: “Celtic, Italic, Hittite, Tocharian, and (probably) Phrygian share an interesting isogloss: the use of ‘r’ to indicate the passive forms of verbs. This feature, which does not occur in any other Indo-European language, is probably an example of the ‘archaism of the fringe’ phenomenon. When a language is spread over a large territory, speakers at the fringe of that territory are likely to be detached from what goes on at the core. Linguistic innovations that take place at the core may never find their way out to peripheral areas; hence dialects .spoken on the fringe tend to preserve archaic features that have long since disappeared from the mainstream… Tocharian… was so remote from the center that it could hardly have taken part in any innovations.”92 However, it is more logical to treat this isogloss as an innovation developed in common by a few branches after their departure from the homeland, than to postulate that all the other, otherwise disparate, branches eliminated an original “use of ‘r’ to indicate the passive forms of verbs”. 3. What is indeed an example of the “archaism of the fringe” phenomenon is the phenomenon of palatalization. Winn describes it as follows: “Palatalization must have been a late phenomenon; that is, we date it to a post-PIE era, in which whatever unity that once existed had now broken down, and most of the dialect groups had dispersed: looking at the geographical distribution of this isogloss, we may note its absence from the peripheral languages: Germanic (at the northwest limit of Indo-European language distribution); Celtic (western limit); Italic, Greek and Hittite (southern limit); and Tocharian (eastern limit). It is the languages at the center that have changed. Here, at the core, a trend towards palatalization started; then gradually spread outward. It never reached far enough to have any effect on the outlying languages.”93 Note that Winn calls it a “post-PIE era, in which whatever unity that once existed had now broken down, and most of the dialect groups had dispersed”, and that he locates every single other branch (except Indic and Iranian), including Greek, in its historical habitat |