The Rigveda, as we have seen in this book, contains a veritable treasury of information which sheds light on the early history of the Vedic Aryans, and of the Indo-Europeans as a whole.

But why, inspite of the fact that the Rigveda has been a subject of historical study for nearly two centuries, was this wealth of information left untapped?  Why did the scholars fail to discover all this evidence?

The answer is that scholars engaged in the historical interpretation of the Rigveda have never really found it necessary to examine the actual information in the Rigveda.  All interpretations have been based on purely extraneous factors, and the Rigveda itself has never been required to play more than an incidental, and dispensable, role in these exercises.

To be specific, one extraneous factor has been responsible for all the misinterpretations of Rigvedic history to date: the erroneous belief that linguists have established, on the basis of comparative philology, that the original homeland of the Indo-European or Aryan family of languages was located in and around South Russia, or, at any rate, that it was located outside India.

This belief has influenced the interpretations not only of those scholars who claim to subscribe to it, but, as we shall see, also of those who claim not to subscribe to it.

It will be necessary to examine why exactly scholars, belonging to different schools of interpretation, failed to tap the basic information in the Rigveda. We will not go into details about everything said and written by these scholars: given the facility with which many of these scholars have written out pages and pages, even tomes and tomes, of pure drivel, based only on an active imagination and an evident contempt both for facts and logic, as well as for the source-material, it would be an impossible as well as a fruitless task to go into all their writings in detail here.  That can always be a subject for deeper analysis elsewhere.

But it will be in order to examine generally the beliefs, the concerns, the aims and motives, and the obsessions, as well as the methods, which led the scholars into analyses and conclusions so completely divorced from the facts.

But, first and foremost, we must understand why exactly the history of the Rigveda is so inextricably bound up with the history of the Indo-Europeans as a whole.

The fact is that the Rigveda represents a very pristine state of Indo-European language and religion.  Griffith describes it as follows 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 Kelt, 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.”

It would not be possible to say this of any other Indo-European text anywhere else in the world.  And the implications of this for the history of the Rigvedic era are momentous: it means that the Rigvedic people were, in a manner of speaking, hot out of the Indo-European oven.

This presents us with two very specific alternatives about the geographical habitat indicated in the Rigveda: either this habitat was itself the original habitat of the Indo-European people as a whole, with the Vedic Aryans remaining in it after the departure of the other Indo-European groups; or else this habitat was not really the habitat even of the Vedic Aryans themselves, they having just arrived into it from outside.

The facts do not allow any other alternative: it is either one or the other.

But the linguists are supposed to have come out with a host of arguments based on comparative philology which apparently rule out the first alternative, that the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans could be located anywhere in India.

Hence, if the linguists are not to be challenged, the second alternative has to be accepted.  This, at any rate, has been the general understanding of the situation.

And if, as per this second alternative, the Vedic Aryans are newly arrived from outside India into the geographical area indicated in the Rigveda, then this must be demonstrable from the hymns.  In fact, if the linguists are to be vindicated, it must be demonstrated from the hymns!

Hence, the major, and official, school of interpretation of the history of the Rigveda holds that the Vedic Aryans entered India somewhere around 1500 BC, and the text of the Rigveda was composed by them during the early stages of their presence in India, when they were still busy invading, conquering and establishing settlements all over the Punjab and the northwest, later to spread out all over northern India.

The historical interpretation of the Rigveda, for scholars belonging to this school, is therefore a one-point programme: to find evidence for this theory in the Rigveda.

Needless to say, this is not exactly calculated to facilitate an honest and objective interpretation or analysis of the text.

Scholars belonging to the other schools of interpretation react emotionally, rather than objectively, to this theory; and, what is more, even when ostensibly opposed to the theory, they often labour under a sub-conscious impression that the linguists have somehow “proved” the external (to India) origin of the Indo-Europeans on the basis of linguistics, and this sub-conscious impression influences their various reactions to it.

Needless to say, this attitude is also not calculated to facilitate an honest and objective interpretation of the text.

We will examine the concerns and methods, in brief, of the four major schools of interpretation of the Rigveda, as follows:

I.    The Invasionist School.
II.   The Hindu Invasionist School.
III.  The Quasi-invasionist School.
IV. The Anti-invasionist School.
V.  A Much Misinterpreted Historical Theme in the Rigveda.
 

The invasionist school is the main school of interpretation of the Rigveda.

It also houses the widest range of scholars: from purely academic scholars to racist and casteist fringe lunatics, and every shade in between.  And from scholars who genuinely do believe that linguistics has “proved” that the Indo-European languages originated in and around South Russia, or, at any rate, somewhere outside India, to scholars for whom there is no question of any genuine belief in anything, and to whom it is all a matter of politics.

We will not concern ourselves here with the writings of the casteist and racist lunatics whose prolific writings on the subject contain neither logic, nor facts, nor analysis, nor even any pretence to objectivity: these are clearly cynical political writings whose only aim is to provide propaganda material for casteist and racist politics.

As to the rest, the main concern of scholars belonging to this school of interpretation is to find evidence in the Rigveda for the Aryan invasion in the form of:

1. References indicating

a. foreign lands;

b. migrations from these foreign lands, or, generally, movements from west to east;
c. unfamiliarity with the local terrain.

2. References to non-Aryan aboriginal inhabitants of the land.

3. References to conflicts between Aryan invaders and non-Aryan aboriginals.

But the stark fact is that the Rigveda itself does not contain one single reference which provides any actual evidence in respect of any of these points.  All the “evidence” lies in extraneous, inferential comments made by the invasionist scholars on words and phrases, in the text, which are basically innocent of invasionist connotations.

Nothing illustrates this better than Griffith’s translation of the Rigveda, which, inspite of its archaic language and style, is the best, most complete, and most reasonably honest English translation to this day.

Griffith is both, an honest scholar as well as a genuine and staunch believer in the Aryan invasion theory.  Consequently, an examination of his complete translation of the Rigveda brings out the following facts:

1. Not a single invasionist meaning appears in his translation of any of the 10552 verses in the Rigveda: only invasionist suggestions appear in his comments in the footnotes.

2. Although Griffith provides footnotes to around four thousand or so verses, it is only in around forty or so of them that we find these invasionist comments.

3. These invasionist comments, as even a layman can see, are purely gratuitous and subjective, and have no basis whatsoever in anything said in the actual verses to which they refer.

4. Many of these invasionist comments are contradicted by other comments in Griffith’s own footnotes.

The following is an almost exhaustive list of the verses in the text where Griffith’s translations of specific words and phrases are innocent, while his comments on them in the footnotes are loaded:

1. I.7.9: the five fold race: “the expression seems to mean the Aryan settlements or tribes only, and not the indigenous inhabitants of the country.”

2. 1.32.11: DAsa: “DAsa is a general term applied in the Veda to certain evil beings or demons… It means, also, a savage, a barbarian, one of the non-Aryan inhabitants of India.”

3. I.33.4: the ancient riteless ones: “indigenous races who had not adopted, or were hostile to, the ritual of the Veda.”

4. 1.33.4: Dasyu: “The Dasyus are also a class of demons, enemies of Gods and men, and sometimes the word means a savage, a barbarian.”

5. 1.51.8: Arya: “The Aryans are, first, the people who speak the language of the Veda, and the Dasyus are the original and hostile peoples of India.”

6. I.100.18: Dasyus and Simyus: “men of indigenous hostile races.”

7. I.100.18: his fair-complexioned friends: “explained by SAyaNa as the glittering Maruts, means probably the Aryan invaders as opposed to the dark-skinned races of the country.”

8. I.101.1: the dusky brood: “the dark aborigines who opposed the Aryans.”

9. I. 101.11: guards of the camp: “the guardians of the camp or new settlement.”

10. I.102.2: the seven rivers: “the chief rivers in the neighbourhood of the earliest settlements.”

11. I.103.3: DAsas: “or Dasyus, the non-Aryan inhabitants of the land.”

12. I.104.2: The DAsa: “a chief of non-Aryan race.”

13. I.104.3: Kuyava: “perhaps a name given by the Aryans to one of the non-Aryan chieftains.”

But contradiction I.103.8: Kuyava: “meaning, probably, ‘causing bad harvests’, is the name of another of the demons of drought.”

14. I.112.5: Rebha and Vandana: “Rebha and Vandana are said to have been thrown into wells by Asuras or demons… ‘In these and similar instances’, says Wilson, ‘we may probably have allusions to the dangers undergone by the first teachers of Hinduism among the people whom they sought to civilize’.”

15. I.112.12: RasA: “The RasA, known to the Zoroastrians as the RaNhA, was originally the name of a real river, but when the Aryas moved away from it into the PanjAb, it assumed a mythical character, and became a kind of Okeanos, surrounding the extreme limits of the earth.”

But contradiction X.108.1: RasA: “In I.112.12 and V. 53.9, RasA appears to be a river of the PanjAb, probably an affluent of the Indus.”

16. I.132.4: the lawless man: “The lawless man is the non-Aryan inhabitant of the country, the natural enemy of the new settlers.”

17. I.175.6: who give not: “who offer no oblations; barbarians who do not worship the Gods of the Aryans.”

18. II.11.18: The Dasyu: “the barbarian, the original inhabitant of the land.”

19. II.20.6: DAsa: “The word is frequently applied to the foes of the Aryas, to the malignant demons of the air as well as to the barbarians and hostile inhabitants of the land.”

20. II.20.7: The DAsa hosts who dwell in darkness: “the words thus rendered are variously explained.  It is uncertain whether the aborigines of the country are meant, or the demons of air who dwell in the dark clouds.”

21. III.12.6: ninety forts: “ninety is used indefinitely for a large number.  The forts are the strongholds of the non-Aryan inhabitants of the country.”

But contradiction V.29.6: his nine-and-ninety castles: “the aerial castles of Sambara, the demon of drought.”

22. III.14.4: spreading them: “causing Aryan men to spread as the Sun spreads his rays.”

23. III.23.4: ApayA: “a little stream… near the earlier settlements of the Aryan immigrants.”

24. II.33: “The hymn is a dialogue between ViSvAmitra and the rivers VipAS and SutudrI… interesting as a relic of the traditions of the Aryans regarding their progress eastward in the land of the Five Rivers.”

25. III.34.1 fort-render: “breaker down of the cloud castles of the demons who withhold the rains as well as of the hostile non-Aryan tribes.”

26. III.53.14: the KIkaTas: “the non-Aryan inhabitants of a country (probably Kosala or Oudh) usually identified with South Bihar.”

27. IV.4: “This hymn is said by SAyaNa to be addressed to Agni as slayer of the RakSasas… that is, as God of the fire with which the immigrant Aryans burnt the jungle, drove back the hostile aborigines, and cleared the ground for encampment or permanent settlement.”

28. V.54.15: a hundred winters: “a frequently occuring expression, ‘from which we might infer’, says J. Muir, ‘that the Indians still retained some recollection of their having at one time occupied a colder country’.”

29. V.29.10: noseless: “that is, the flat-nosed barbarians.”

30. VI.20.10: autumn forts: “probably strong places on elevated ground occupied by the DAsas or original inhabitants during the rain and autumn.”

But contradiction I.131.4: autumnal forts: “the brilliant battlemonted cloud-castles, which are so often visible in the Indian sky at this period of the year.”

31. VI.47.21: those darksome creatures: “the dark aborigines.”

32. VII.6.1: fort-destroyer: “demolisher of the cloud-castles of the demon of drought or of the strongholds of the non-Aryan tribes.”

33. VII.18.7: Pakthas: “the Pakthas and the rest mentioned in the first line of the stanza appear to have been non-Aryan tribes.”

34. VIII.71.12: Agni to win the land for us: “the fierce and rapid fire that clears the jungle for the advance of the Aryan settlers.  “

35. IX.41.1: the black skin: “meaning apparently both the black pall or covering of night and the RAkSasas, or dark-skinned Dasyus or hostile aboriginals.”

36. X.43.8: the dames of worthy lords: “that is, subjected them to the Aryans, whereas they had been the thralls of DAsas.”

The purpose of giving this almost exhaustive list of Griffith’s invasionist comments is to demonstrate that even a verse-by-verse examination of the Rigveda (which is what Griffith’s translation amounts to) fails to conjure up even the faintest picture of Aryans pouring into India from outside, and invading, conquering and occupying the land.  This picture has to be produced by way of a sustained exercise in circular reasoning: words and phrases in the Rigveda are interpreted on the basis of extraneous ideas, and these extraneous ideas are “proved” on the basis of these interpretations.

This invasionist interpretation of the Rigveda forms a minor and almost incidental part of Griffith’s vast, and extremely valuable, work.  But, in the case of most other invasionist scholars, it constitutes the very raison d’être of their work.

The interpretations cover three aspects:

A. Movements and Migrations from the West.
B. Aryans and non-Aryans.
C. Conflicts between Aryans and non-Aryans.

The Rigveda contains no reference to any foreign place west of Afghanistan, and certainly no reference to any migration from west to east.

Some academic scholars have sought to prove such a migration by asserting that the Rigveda itself was composed in the west: “Brunnhofer, Hertel, Hüsing and others, argue that the scene of the Rgveda is laid. not in the Punjab, but in AfghAnistAn and IrAn.”¹

However, this view is so absurd, and so clearly contrary to the geographical facts in the Rigveda, that it can be dismissed with a bored yawn.  By and large, academic scholars have been more rational: “Max Müller, Weber, Muir, and others held that the Punjab was the main scene of the activity of the Rgveda, whereas the more recent view put forth by Hopkins and Keith is that it was composed in the country round the SarasvatI river south of modem AmbAla.”²

And most academic scholars are also agreed on the fact that “it really cannot be proved that the Vedic Aryans retained any memory of their extra-Indian associations”³, and “no tradition of an early home beyond the frontier survives in India.”⁴

Hence, the effort of most academic scholars is to show a movement from west to east within the accepted geographical horizon of the Rigveda, ie. from Afghanistan in the west to the GaNgA in the east, by the following methods:

1. By stressing that, in the west, the Rigveda refers frequently to many of the rivers of Afghanistan (i.e. the western tributaries of the Indus): the RasA, the Krumu, the KubhA, the GomatI, the GaurI, the Sveti, the TRSTAmA, the Susartu, the SvetyAvarI, the SuvAstu, the Mehatnu, the Sarayu, etc. But, in the east, it refers only to the GaNgA (twice) and the YamunA (thrice).

2. By interpreting various references as indicating an eastward movement, as in the case of hymn III.33, where the crossing of the SutudrI and the VipAS is interpreted as “a relic of the traditions of the Aryans regarding their progress eastwards.”

3. By interpreting common river-names in Afghanistan and India (the SarasvatI, the Sarayu, the GomatI) as evidence of a transfer of river-names by Aryans migrating from Afghanistan to India.

The first two points, as we have seen in the course of our analysis, are totally out of line with the evidence in the Rigveda.

The third point is again clearly a case of circular reasoning: if there are common river-names in two different places, it certainly indicates a geographical transfer of river-names from one place to the other.  But, the fact itself does not indicate the direction of this transfer.  As our analysis of the geographical data, not only in the Rigveda but also in the Avesta, shows, the direction of migration was from east to west.  Hence this was also the direction of transfer of the river-names.

As there is really no evidence of any kind in the Rigveda indicating a migration from west to east, the scholars often end up resorting to arguments and interpretations which border on the desperate and the ridiculous:

V.G. Rahurkar interprets the fact that the GayatrI mantra (III.62.10) is “regarded as the holiest mantra in the Rigveda”⁵ as evidence that this verse (which he himself correctly translates in the religious sense in which it is composed: “We meditate upon that most illuminating lustre of God SavitR so that he may stir our intellects”⁶) is actually “a slogan given by ViSvAmitra to the advancing Aryans, who must have been expanding towards the east ie. the direction of the rising sun.”⁷

I.B. Aryans and Non-Aryans

The Rigveda contains no references whatsoever to people speaking non-Indo-European languages (which is what “non-Aryans” basically means).

If the Rigveda is to be interpreted as a text composed by the Vedic Aryans during their period of invasion, conquest and settlement of a land originally occupied by non-Aryans, then this constitutes a very serious and fundamental setback to that interpretation.

This compels the scholars to resort to desperate methods of interpretation in order to produce evidence of the presence of such non-Aryan aboriginals of the land, hostile to the Vedic Aryans.  And the most desperate, and most pathetic, of these methods, and one which most of the invasionist scholars ultimately fall back on, is the interpretation of mythology as history: of mythical entities as historical entities, and of mythical events as historical events.

For this, the scholars follow a two-tier interpretation:

At one level, the Aryans are represented as being more or less settled in the Saptasindhu region, and now engaged as much in conflict with each other as with the indigenous non-Aryans.  The references to “Arya and DAsa enemies” are cited as proof of this state of affairs.

And, at a deeper, higher and more fundamental level, the earlier conflicts of the invading Aryans with the non-Aryan natives are represented as being already converted into religious myths: “When the Aryans created a religion out of these events, they deified their leaders and arrogated to themselves the title of cosmic good… (by a) transformation of historical events into mythopoeic and symbolic.”⁸

The myths which are treated as transformed historical events are inevitably those involving Indra and the celestial demons of drought and darkness.  Thus, Indra comes to be the sole symbol of the “Aryan invaders”, and the celestial demons become symbols of the conquered “non-Aryan natives”:

1. Indra is generally accepted by even the most conservative of invasionist scholars as a symbol of the invading Aryans: at the very least as a God invoked by them in their battles against the non-Aryans.

However, to many of the scholars, Indra is much more: he is an actual personification of the invading Aryan chieftains, or even a deification of the most prominent one among them.

For example, R.N. Dandekar devotes a large number of pages in his Vedic Mythological Tracts⁹ to prove “that Indra was not originally a god, but that he was a human hero, who attained godhood by virtue of his miraculous exploits.  Not only that, but he soon superseded the other gods (VII.21.7) and came to be regarded as the foremost among them (II.12.1).”¹⁰

Again, “Indra, the young, blond, bearded, handsome, well-shaped, mighty, heroic leader of the Aryans... protected the Aryans from the attacks of the Dasyus… Many were the hostile leaders conquered by Indra.  Many again were the Aryan chiefs and tribes to whom Indra is said to have rendered timely succour in several ways… It is therefore no wonder that such a leader should have soon become a national hero and then a national god of the Vedic Indians.  A warring people would naturally glorify a warlike god.”¹¹

Dandekar provides plenty of “evidence” to prove that Indra was a human being:

Firstly: “the human features in Indra’s personality… Indra’s body, head, arms and hands are very often referred to (II.16.2; VIII.96.3). He is said to be golden in colour (I.7.2; VIII.66.3). His body is gigantic, his neck mighty, and his back brawny.  His arms are sleek and his hands thick and firm - both right and left - being particularly well-shaped (I.102.6: IV.21.9; VI.19.3; VIII.81.1). He has handsome cheeks (or lips) and is, therefore, often called suSipra (II.12.6; 33.5), Siprin (I.29.2; III.36.10) and tawny-bearded (X.23.4). These and several other similar descriptions of Indra’s person unmistakably produce before our mind’s eye a very life-like picture of a tall, strong, well-formed, handsome, blond Aryan.”¹²

Secondly: “Far more lifelike, however, are the descriptions of some peculiar physical mannerisms of that god.  He agitates his jaws (VIII.76.10) or puffs out his beautiful lips (III.32.1), in a characteristic fashion, in anticipation of or after the Soma-drought.  Once he is described – very realistically indeed – as shaking off the drops of Soma from his moustache (II.11.17)…”¹³

Thirdly: “Another peculiarity… is the fact that he is frequently referred to as having been born.  Two entire hymns, namely III.48 and IV.18, deal with the subject of his birth.”¹⁴

Fourthly: “by far the most convincing proof of the essentially human character of Indra is the fact that the Vedic poets have often referred to what may be called the ‘weaknesses’ of that god.  One such oft-mentioned weakness is Indra’s proverbial fondness for Soma.  His immoderate indulgence in the intoxicating beverage is a favourite theme of the Vedic poets… Similarly Indra is represented as an expert in female lore (VIII.33.17)… Though Indra’s amorous adventures are nowhere clearly mentioned in the RV, there are, in it, a few indications of that trait of his character.  The latter have, indeed, been the basis of Indra’s representation, in later mythology, as a romantic figure - a ‘gay Lothario’.”¹⁵

Fifthly: “the Vedic poets have never unnecessarily over-idealised the character of Indra which they would have done had he been primarily thought of as a god… he did not disdain deceiving his enemies or cleverly circumscribing the conditions of an agreement whenever circumstances so demanded… In I.32.14, mighty Indra is said to have been overcome with fear when, after killing VRtra, he thought that some avenger of the enemy was following him.  Such a reference would be hardly understandable in relation to a god who had been conceived as a god from the beginning.”¹⁶

All this reads like the naive, and even imbecile, analysis of a schoolboy who knows nothing whatsoever about mythologies in general.  The Greek Gods (for example.  Zeus, the Greek equivalent of Indra) are similarly described in great physical detail, their mannerisms are similarly detailed, they are also “born”, they also indulge in drink and have tempestuous affairs, they also have fears and jealousies, they also cheat and quarrel among themselves.

As we shall see, an examination of other Indo-European mythologies is the one thing that the invasionist scholars dread and avoid like the plague, since it can be fatal to their childish identifications of “history” in the Vedic myths.

2. Almost the sole criterion in classifying any entity in the Rigveda as “non-Aryan” is the criterion of conflict: the necessity of identifying “non-Aryans” in conflict with “Aryans” is so vital to the very survival of the Aryan invasion theory that the scholars go overboard in identifying “non-Aryans” on the basis of some “conflict” or the other.

In setting out on this exercise, the scholars virtually set out on a path of no-return: it is like jumping off a cliff - there is no going back, or stepping off, halfway.  Starting with the classes of supernatural beings and the individual demons, the scholars end up identifying nearly every entity in the Rigveda as “non-Aryan” on the basis of the sole criterion of conflict, right from the Vedic tribes to the Vedic Gods to the Vedic RSis:

a. The Supernatural beings: The scholars accept all the classes of supernatural beings (Asuras, DAsas, Dasyus, PaNis, Daityas, DAnavas, RAkSasas, YakSas, Gandharvas, Kinnaras, PiSAcas, etc.) as non-Aryan races, and the individual demons (VRtra, SuSNa, Sambara, Vala, Pipru, NamUci, Cumuri, Dhuni, Varcin, AurNavAbha, AhISuva, Arbuda, IlIbiSa, Kuyava, MRgaya, UraNa, PadgRbhi, SRbinda, DRbhIka, RauhiNa, RudhikrAs, SvaSna, etc.) as non-Aryan chieftains or heroes, defeated, conquered or killed by Indra.

This is basically like identifying the fairies, pixies, gnomes, elves, trolls, ogres, giants, goblins, hobgoblins, leprechauns, and the like, in the fairy tales and myths of Britain as the original non-Indo-European inhabitants of the British Isles.

b. The Vedic tribes: All tribes depicted as enemies of the Vedic Aryans are classified as non-Aryan tribes.

Thus, A.D. Pusalker refers to the Ajas, Sigrus and YakSas, who fight, under the leadership of Bheda, against SudAs, as “three non-Aryan tribes.”¹⁷

Likewise, Griffith, as we saw, identifies “the Pakthas and the rest”, ranged against SudAs in VII.18.7, as “non-Aryan tribes”.  Rahurkar also describes the Pakthas and others as “tribes of obviously non-Aryan origin.”¹⁸

F.E. Pargiter¹⁹ (who, strictly speaking, is not an invasionist scholar proper, but belongs to the quasi-invasionist school, which we will examine later) classifies the Aila tribes (the Yadus, TurvaSas, Anus, Druhyus and PUrus) alone as Aryan, and all the rest (particularly the IkSvAkus, whom he classifies as Dravidians) as non-Aryan.  Thus, prominent Vedic kings like Purukutsa and Trasadasyu, and prominent Puranic kings like MandhAtA, Sagara, HariScandra, BhagIratha, DaSaratha and RAma, are non-Aryans according to him.

Malati Shendge²⁰ classifies all tribes whose names end in u (and she specifies the PUrus among them) as non-Aryan: this includes the five Aila tribes whom alone Pargiter classifies as Aryan!

c. The Vedic Gods: An overwhelming majority of the scholars hold that Rudra is a non-Aryan God borrowed by the Aryans, on the ground that Rudra “is regarded in Vedic cult and religion as an apotropaeic God of aversion – to be feared but not adored.”²¹

Many hold VaruNa also to be non-Aryan on the ground that many verses in the Rigveda depict a rivalry between Indra and VaruNa, and hymn X.124 shows Indra abducting the leadership of the Gods from VaruNa.  According to Malati Shendge, “Indra represents the conquering Aryans, VaruNa as his powerful equal represents the non-Aryans”,²² and, according to R.N. Dandekar, “the mythological rivalry between asura VaruNa and Indra… (represents the rivalry) between the Assyrians of the Indus Valley and Indra of the Vedic Aryans.”²³

Other Gods, also, qualify as non-Aryans: according to D.D. Kosambi, USas is a Goddess “adopted from the non-Aryans” since she “had a famous brush with Indra on the BeAs river which ended in her ox-cart being smashed.”²⁴

Malati Shendge, in fact, decides that all the Vedic Gods, except Indra and ViSNu, are non-Aryans; and not even non-Aryan Gods, but non-Aryan human beings: “The so-called Vedic pantheon, with the exception of Indra and ViSNu, is composed of the functionaries of the government of the Asura empire having its capital in the Indus Valley.”²⁵ The various Gods were “the cabinet-members of the non-Aryan government,”²⁶ Mitra being “the exchequer-general of contracts”²⁷ Rudra “the commander of the Asura army”,²⁸ SUrya “the head of the intelligence department”,²⁹ SavitR “the head of the system of redistribution”,³⁰ PUSan “the inspector and builder of roads”,³¹ and so on.

Shendge excepts only Indra and ViSNu, who, according to her, were “the leaders of the Aryans in their conflict.”³² According to her, “the Aryan origin of Indra and ViSNu is beyond doubt.”³³

But, according to S.K. Chatterji, ViSNu is “partly at least… of Dravidian affinity as a sky-God whose colour was of the blue sky (cf. Tamil viN, ‘sky’…).”³⁴ D.D. Kosambi, perhaps on the basis of ViSNu’s dark skin, goes further: among the Gods “adopted from the pre-Aryans”, according to him, is “the obscure Vishnu, who was later to find a great future in India.”³⁵

So Indra, alone is a purely Aryan God.  Or is he?  According to R.N. Dandekar, Indra (inspite of being a “tall, strong, well-formed, handsome, blond Aryan”³⁶), was half a non-Aryan, and, moreover, from his father’s side: “Indra belonged to the DAsas on the father’s side, and to the Gods (Aryans) on the mother’s side.”³⁷

The reasoning behind this conclusion is as follows: there is conflict between Indra and his father, and Indra is depicted as “having killed his father in order to snatch away Soma from him”;³⁸ hence his father must have been a DAsa or non-Aryan!

d. The Vedic RSis: V.G. Rahurkar, in his Seers of the Rigveda, classifies the KaNvas and the Agastyas and VasiSThas as being partly at least of non-Aryan origin: according to him, the names of the RSis belonging to the KaNva family clearly show “some non-Aryan influence”;³⁹ and Agastya and VasiSTha are born “from a non-Aryan mother-goddess”,⁴⁰ whatever that means.

Three different scholars, D.D. Kosambi,⁴¹ l F.E. Pargiter,⁴² and Malati Shendge⁴³, classify all the families of Vedic RSis, with the sole exception of the ViSvAmitras, as non-Aryans (Malati Shendge, among them, does not specifically except the ViSvAmitras by name, but she does name all the other families as non-Aryan).  The sole criterion behind this appears to be the fact that there was conflict between ViSvAmitra and VasiSTha, and that ViSvAmitra was originally a king belonging to a Bharata dynasty.

The implications of this do not escape the attention of these scholars, since the majority of the hymns of the Rigveda, it must be remembered, are composed by these very RSis:

According to Malati Shendge, most of the hymns “were composed by the ancient sages in their own language”,⁴⁴ and “were probably, at a later stage, either translated into Sanskrit, or, on the basis of earlier material, new hymns were composed.”⁴⁵

Pargiter also assures us that the fact that they “appear in Sanskrit” does not disprove their non-Aryan origin, since “they would naturally have been Sanskritized in the course of time.”⁴⁶

This whole exercise of identifying various entities in the Rigveda as “non-Aryan” ones, quite apart from the intrinsic fatuousness of most of the arguments and conclusions, suffers from two very vital flaws:

1. Firstly, “non-Aryan” can only, and only, mean non-Indo-European in the linguistic sense; and the fact is that all the entities which the scholars identify as non-Aryan, whether classes of supernatural beings, or individual demons, or tribes, or Gods, or RSis, have purely Indo-European names.

This is the most fundamental obstacle to identifying these entities as non-Aryan: their names not only do not have Dravidian or Austric etymologies, but they actually have purely Indo-European etymologies, so that they cannot even be identified with hypothetical, unrecorded and extinct non-Indo-European groups.

Some invasionist scholars have tried hard to discover non-Indo-European elements in the Rigveda, but without success.  John Muir, after one such exercise, admits: “I have gone over the names of the Dasyus or Asuras, mentioned in the Rigveda, with the view of discovering whether any of them could be regarded as being of non-Aryan or indigenous origin, but I have not observed any to be of that character.”⁴⁷

Likewise, Sarat Chandra Roy, in the census report of 1911, tried to identify some names in the Rigveda with Mundari (Austric) names, but even so staunch a supporter of the Aryan invasion theory as S.K. Chatterji admits: “Mr. Roy’s attempts to identify non-Aryan chiefs in the Rigveda with Munda names… are rather fanciful.”⁴⁸

However, the necessity of identifying “non-Aryans” in the Rigveda is so vital to the very survival of the invasion theory that the scholars have to find means of overcoming this obstacle:

a. The first, and safest, method is to simply ignore the linguistic aspect altogether, and to continue classifying entities as “Aryan” and “non-Aryan” whenever occasion and convenience demands or permits.

b. The second method is to merely make vague statements to the effect that the names “seem” non-Aryan, without bothering to specify what exactly is intended to be meant by the term.

V.M. Macdonell, in his Vedic Mythology, derives the Sanskrit etymologies of the names of most of the demons of drought and darkness; but in respect of the names SRbinda and IlIbiSa, he suggests that they have “an un-Aryan appearance.”49

D.D. Kosambi, in speaking of the PaNis, suggests that “the name PaNi does not seem to be Aryan.”⁵⁰

V.G. Rahurkar, in suggesting that the KaNvas were influenced by non-Aryans, tells us that the names of many of the RSis belonging to this family “appear to be strange names… (which) can be accounted for by assuming some non-Aryan influence.”⁵¹

Among the names specified by Rahurkar are names like ASvasUktin and GoSUktin!

c. The third method is to attribute specific linguistic identities to clearly non-linguistic entities.

F.E. Pargiter,⁵² in speaking of the different tribal groups, tells us that the Ailas (the Yadus, TurvaSas, Anus, Druhyus and PUrus) were Aryans, the IkSvAkus were Dravidians, and the eastern Saudyumna groups (named in the PurANas) were Austrics.

Malati Shendge⁵³ classifies the classes of atmospheric demons as follows: the DAsas and Dasyus were Austric, the RAkSasas were Dravidians, and the Asuras were Semites.

d. The fourth method is to allege linguistic camouflage: ie. the names were originally non-Indo-European, but they were “Sanskritized”, so they appear to be Indo-European.

Malati Shendge, who classifies the Asuras as Semites, and VaruNa as their king, tells us that VaruNa is “a Sanskritized form of a Semitic name.”⁵⁴

F.E. Pargiter, clearly uncomfortable with having to classify entities with purely Indo-European names as non-Aryans, tells us that “the fact that many of the names… have a Sanskrit appearance does not necessarily militate against their non-Aila origin, because they would naturally have been Sanskritized in the course of time.”⁵⁵ In fact, he suggests two methods of linguistic conversion: “Non-Aryan names appear to have been (either) Sanskritized or translated into Sanskrit.”⁵⁶

Thus, to illustrate a hypothetical example, a person named RAjA in an ancient Sanskrit text can be classified as a Semite: his name can be claimed to originally have been either RazA (Sanskritized into RAjA) or Malik (translated into the Sanskrit equivalent word for “King”).

Needless to say, this kind of logic saves the scholars the trouble of trying to adhere to linguistic principles in classifying anyone or anything as “non-Aryan”.

2. Secondly, “non-Aryan” entities encountered by Aryan invaders in India must be found only in India; but the fact is that many of the most important names classified by the scholars as refering to “non-Aryan natives” of India, are found in the farthest Indo-European mythologies:

Thus, Asura is found in the Iranian Ahura, and the Teutonic Aesir.

PaNi is found in Greek Pan and the Teutonic Vanir (see Chapter 10 = Appendix 3 of this book for further details).

DAsa is found in Iranian Daha and Slavonic DaZ.

VaruNa is found in Greek Ouranos and Teutonic Woden.

This obstacle is also basically an insurmountable one, but the scholars surmount it by four simple methods:

a. The first method is to simply ignore the inconvenient correspondences with other Indo-European mythologies altogether.

In some cases, this is easy because the correspondences have apparently not been noticed by any scholar so far: a case in point is the unmistakable correspondence between the PaNis of the Vedas, Pan of Greek mythology, and the Vanir of Teutonic mythology (see Chapter 10 of this book).

In other cases, even well-known and well established correspondences are firmly ignored by the scholars. 

b. The second method is to note the correspondence but to argue against it.

Thus, the correspondence between VaruNa, Ouranos and Woden is clear not only from the similarity of the names but from the identity of many or most of the mythical traits and characteristics of the three Gods.  Yet many scholars argue against the correspondence by suggesting different etymologies for the three names.

c. The third method is to note, and accept, the correspondence; but to disdain to accept it as an objection to branding the entity of that name, in the Rigveda, as “non-Aryan”, by arguing that there was a transfer of meaning of the word from its original Indo-European context to a new context of conflicts with non-Aryans in India.

Thus, most scholars are aware that the words Asura, DAsa and Dasyu pertain to Indo-Iranian contexts; but that does not prevent them from interpreting these words as refering also to the non-Aryan natives of India.

Emile Benveniste notes that “the Avestan word for ‘country’, dahyu (anc-dasyu) has as its Sanskrit correspondent dasyu… (and) the connection between the sense of dahyu/dasyu reflects conflicts between the Indian and Iranian peoples.”⁵⁷ However, he suggests that although “the word at first referred to Iranian society, the name by which this enemy people called themselves collectively took on a hostile connotation and became for the Aryas of India the term for an inferior and barbarous people.”⁵⁸ Hence: “In Indic, dasyu may be taken as an ethnic”⁵⁹ (ie. a native of India).

d. The fourth method, the most brazen of them all, is to note and accept the correspondence; and then, in the very same breath, to go on classifying the entity in question as non-Aryan.

Thus, D.D. Kosambi, in one and the same breath, or at least, on the same page of his book, tells us that the Goddess USas “is related to the Greek Eos”, and also that USas belongs to a group of “peculiar Vedic gods not known elsewhere (who) had been adopted from the pre-Aryans.”⁶⁰

It is clear that the whole exercise of identifying “non-Aryans” in the Rigveda is more a case of ignoring, or arguing against, facts, than a case of citing facts as evidence.

I.C. Conflicts between Aryans and Non-Aryans

As we have seen, rather than linguistic principles, it is “conflicts” in the Rigveda which are made the criteria for locating “non-Aryans” in the text.

And, as we have also seen, it is not so much the conflicts between the Vedic Aryans and their human enemies (who, in any case, have purely Indo-European names and tribal identities), which engage the attention of the scholars, as the conflicts between the elements of nature: between the thunder-God and the demons of drought, or the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

The early Western scholars who analysed the hymns of the Rigveda very clearly accepted that the conflicts between Indra and the various anthropomorphised demons were basically nature-myths pertaining to the elemental battles between light and darkness, or between the benign nature-Gods of plenty and the malignant demons of drought.

And, although these scholars tried to introduce a parallel scheme of interpretation whereby the nature-myths also functioned, on a secondary level, as allegorical depictions of actual terrestrial conflicts between Aryans and non-Aryans, they rarely lost sight of the fact that this second scheme of interpretation was secondary, and basically speculative.  Griffith, for example, interprets the nature-myths as nature-myths throughout his work; and, whenever he also introduces the invasionist motif, there is an element of dilemma in his comments: commenting on “the DAsa hosts who dwell in darkness” in II.20.7, for example, he notes that it is “uncertain whether the aborigines of the country are meant, or the demons of air who dwell in dark clouds.”

But, later invasionist scholars became more and more impatient with the naturalistic scheme of interpretation. D.D. Kosambi is extremely critical of the early Western scholars for interpreting the battles of Indra as the battles between a thunder-God and the demons of drought or darkness, and attributes these interpretations to the scholars having flourished “during the nineteenth century, when nature-myths were made to account for everything, including the Homeric destruction of Troy…”⁶¹

These later invasionist scholars, therefore, interpret the two major categories of “conflicts” in the nature-myths as two categories of historical conflicts:

1. The first category of “conflicts” is the one represented by the great battle, between Indra and VRtra (or the VRtras).

Griffith, in his footnote to 1.4.8, notes: “The VRtras, the enemies, the oppressors, or obstructors, are ‘the hostile powers in the atmosphere who malevolently shut up the watery treasures in the clouds.  These demons of drought, called by a variety of names, as VRtra, Ahi, SuSNa, Namuci, Pipru, Sambara, UraNa, etc. etc., armed on their side, also, with every variety of celestial artillery, attempt, but in vain, to resist the onset of the gods’ - Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, V, p.95.”

Further, in his footnote to 1.31.1, he quotes Wilson: “the legend of Indra’s slaying VRtra… in the Vedas is merely an allegorical narrative of the production of rain. VRtra, sometimes also named Ahi, is nothing more than the accumulation of vapour condensed or figuratively shut up in, or obstructed by, a cloud.  Indra, with his thunderbolt, or atmospheric or electrical influence, divides the aggregate mass, and vent is given to the rain which then descends upon the earth.”

VRtra is regularly depicted as a dragon or Great Serpent, and Indra as a dragon-slayer.

However, the later invasionist scholars reason otherwise: according to D.D. Kosambi, Indra represents the Aryan invaders, and the VRtras represent the non-Aryans of the Indus Valley, who had built dams across the rivers.  The Aryans destroyed these dams, thereby flooding out the non-Aryans: “the myth and metaphors give a clear account of the methods whereby the Indus agriculture was ultimately ruined.”⁶²

According to Malati Shendge, VRtra was “an official, who, alongwith his men, referred to as VRtrANi, was guarding the dam.”⁶³ Indra, “by killing VRtra, the guard of the dam across the seven rivers, brought under his control the sluice gates which he opened in order to flood the downstream settlements, thus causing panic and damage to life and property.”⁶⁴

R.N. Dandekar also reasons as above, and includes the killing of the non-Aryan VRtra or VRtras among the exploits of his blond, Aryan hero, Indra.  He reasons as follows: “Indra, the national hero, was deified by the Vedic poets… And, still later, when naturalistic elements came to be superimposed upon Indra’s personality, as a result of which Indra came to be regarded as the rain-god, there was a corresponding naturalistic transformation in VRtra’s personality so that he came to be looked upon as the cloud-demon.”⁶⁵

As usual, the scholars firmly avoid examining the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples.  Every major Indo-European mythology records the killing of a mighty serpent by the thunder-God: the Greek Zeus kills the Great Serpent Typhoeus, and the Teutonic Thor kills the Great Serpent of Midgard.

The scholars would, of course, claim that an original nature-myth, of a thunder-God killing the serpent who withholds the rain-clouds, has merely been superimposed on the historical exploits of a human, Aryan hero, Indra, who killed the VRtras of the Indus Valley.

But Hittite mythology gives the lie to this forced interpretation.  The Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology relates the following prominent Hittite myth: “The Great Serpent had dared to attack the weather-God.  The God demanded that he be brought to justice.  Inar, (another) God,… prepared a great feast and invited the serpent with his family to eat and drink.  The serpent and his children, having drunk to satiety, were unable to go back into their hole, and were exterminated.”⁶⁶ This weather-God “presided over tempests and beneficial rainfall.”⁶⁷

Here, in this much-transformed myth, the name of the God, who kills the Great Serpent who is interfering with the rainfall, is Inar, clearly cognate to Indra.  So there has clearly been no “superimposition” of any historical events onto any nature-myth: Indra’s exploits are indeed the exploits of a thunder-God fighting the demons of drought.

2. The second category of “conflicts” is the one represented by the hostilities between Indra and the PaNis, particularly described in hymn X.108.

As Griffith points out in his footnote to this hymn: “The hymn is a colloquy between SaramA, the messenger of the Gods or of Indra (see I.62.3, note; 72.8; III.31.6, V.45.8), and the PaNis or envious demons who have carried off the rays of light which Indra wishes to recover.”

Elsewhere, in his footnote to 1.62.3, Griffith adds: “SaramA, the hound of Indra… is said to have pursued and recovered the cows stolen by the PaNis; which has been supposed to mean that SaramA is the Dawn who recovers the rays of the Sun that have been carried away by night.”

Again, later invasionist scholars refuse to accept this naturalistic interpretation: D.D. Kosambi points out that “the hymn says nothing about stolen cattle, but is a direct blunt demand for tribute in cattle, which the PaNis scornfully reject. They are then warned of dire consequences.”⁶⁸ Kosambi therefore interprets the hymn as an illustration of the terror tactics by which the invading Aryans attacked small communities of the native non-Aryan populace: first they demanded tribute, and, when denied this tribute, they attacked and conquered the hapless community.  Kosambi calls this “the standard Aryan procedure for invasion.”⁶⁹

A majority of the invasionist scholars identify the PaNis as non-Aryans.

However, in this case, also, an examination of other Indo-European mythologies shows that the PaNis, as well as the particular “conflict” in which they are involved, are represented in at least two other mythologies: Greek and Teutonic.  We will not go into this subject in greater detail at this point, as we will be examining it in full in a later chapter (Chapter 10 = Appendix 3).

The long and short of the whole thing is that there is no such thing as a conflict between Indo-Europeans and non-Indo-Europeans depicted anywhere in the Rigveda.

And it is because scholars belonging to the invasionist school of interpretation have expended all their energies and efforts in trying to discover history in the mythology of the Rigveda, that the wealth of historical information, which is actually present in the Rigveda, has remained totally untouched by them.

The Hindu invasionist school is a distinctly different school of interpretation from the standard invasionist one: it also fully accepts the idea that the Aryans invaded, or migrated into, India from outside in the distant past; but that, perhaps, is the only point on which it agrees with the standard invasionist school.  On every other point, this school represents a particularly bizarre variety of staunch Hindu reaction to the invasion theory, and the sole aim of this school is to present the Vedic Aryans and their civilization in as glorified a manner as possible.

The basic postulates of the standard invasion theory with which the Hindu invasionist school differs sharply, are:

1. The Rigveda was composed around 1200 BC, and it represents a culture and civilization which commenced and flourished after 1500 BC.

2. The Aryans invaded India around 1500 BC.

3. Vedic civilization is different from the original Aryan civilization, and both represent semi-civilized and semi-nomadic cultures.

We will examine what the Hindu invasionist scholars have to say, from the point of view of:

A. The Date of the Rigveda and of Vedic Civilization.
B. The Aryan Invasion.
C. Vedic Civilization vis-a-vis the Original Aryan Civilization.
D. The Original Homeland.

II.A. The Date of the Rigveda and of Vedic Civilization

B.G. (Lokmanya) Tilak, the earliest scholar belonging to this school of interpretation, proved on the basis of astronomical references in the Rigveda, that the composition of the Rigveda commenced around 4500 BC or so, and the bulk of the hymns were composed between 3500 BC and 2500 BC.

However, he was not satisfied with these dates, and he tried to find earlier astronomical references, but without success: “I have, in my later researches, tried to push back this limit by searching for the older zodiacal positions of the vernal equinox in the Vedic literature, but I have not found any evidence of the same.”⁷⁰

Tilak, therefore, tried to “push back” the date of the civilization represented in the Rigveda, if not of the actual Rigveda itself, by formulating his Arctic homeland theory, according to which Vedic civilization “did not originate with the Vedic bards, but was derived by them from their interglacial forefathers”⁷¹ who lived in the Arctic region in the interglacial period which ended around “10000-8000 BC” with “the destruction of the original Arctic home by the last Ice Age.”⁷²

Going even further back: “Aryans and their culture and religion cannot be supposed to have developed all of a sudden at the close of the last interglacial period, and the ultimate origin of both must, therefore, be placed in remote geological times… though Aryan race or religion can be traced back to last interglacial period, yet the ultimate origin of both is still lost in geological antiquity.”⁷³

Latter-day scholars of this school, however, are less discreet about these dates “lost in geological antiquity”.  S.D. Kulkarni tells us that “our civilization, Vedic or Hindu, has a continuity of more than 31092 years before present.”⁷⁴ and he pinpoints “21788 BC as the period, at least, of the origin of the Rigveda.”⁷⁵

For sceptics, Kulkarni adds: “It appears that the scholars simply get awe-struck if any date for any event in the past is fixed to such remote antiquity.  They forget that the creation of this universe is some 200 crores of years old if not more, and the first man has set his foot on this mother earth at least some 60 lac years ago.”⁷⁶

II.B. The Aryan Invasion.

Tilak had nothing particular to say about the date of the Aryan invasion of India, or about the actual invasion itself.

The Indus civilization had not been excavated in his time, and hence it formed no part of his considerations.

However, later scholars of this school are very careful to bring the Aryans into India before the period of the Indus civilization, unwilling to allow this civilization to be attributed to anyone other than the Aryans themselves.  And they are strongly critical of suggestions or claims to the contrary.

Kulkarni, for example, holds “the British imperialist circles” responsible for “hatching a plot to perpetuate their rule in India by adopting the doctrine of ‘divide and rule’……”.⁷⁷ They “spread the canard that the Dravidians who peopled India, from north to south, were conquered by the Aryan barbarians sometime in 1500 BC… as a natural corollary, when the Indus Valley Civilization was discovered and its date was adjudged to be around 3000 BC, this thesis was further developed and conclusion drawn that the Aryan barbarians came from the Northwest and destroyed the locally developed civilization.”⁷⁸

Kulkarni alleges that by identifying “the Indus Valley people as the Dravidians… they have sowed the seeds of schism between the North Indians and their southern counterparts”,⁷⁹ and he firmly insists that “the Harappa civilization was a part and parcel of the Aryan achievements.”⁸⁰

It is clear that Kulkarni’s objection is not to the idea that Aryans, coming from outside, conquered the local Dravidians: he accepts the idea of this invasion and conquest, but insists that it “occured prior to 4500 BC.”⁸¹ His objection is to the Aryans being considered “barbarians” and the Dravidians “civilized”.

The Hindu invasionist interpretation, in fact, contains the seeds of even greater “schism”: while the standard invasionist theory, after the discovery of the Indus civilization, at least gives the Dravidians the credit of cultural and civilizational superiority alongwith the military inferiority which led to their alleged defeat at the hands of the invading Aryans, the Hindu invasionist theory wants the Dravidians to be considered inferior in terms of both military strength and culture.

The standard invasionist school treats the latter-day Indian or Hindu culture and civilization as an amalgam of the cultures and civilizations of the invading Aryans and the indigenous Dravidians, with more Dravidian elements than Aryan, but the Hindu invasionist school treats this culture and civilization as a wholly Aryan one imposed by a superior race on an inferior one.

This is not merely an inference drawn from their theory; it is actually stated in so many words by Tilak, who asserts that “the very fact that… (the Aryans) were able to establish their supremacy over the races they came across in their migrations from the original home, and that they succeeded, by conquest or assimilation, in Aryanising the latter in language, thought and religion under circumstances which could not be expected to be favourable to them, is enough to prove that the original Aryan civilization most have been of a type far higher than that of the non-Aryan races.”⁸²

Tilak is very evidently proud of “the vitality and superiority of the Aryan races, as disclosed by their conquest, by ex-termination or assimilation, of the non-Aryan races with whom they came into contact in their migrations in search of new lands from the North Pole to the Equator.”⁸³

Moreover, Tilak, and other scholars of this school, are quite certain that they themselves are descendants of these “Aryan races” who conquered India, rather than of the “non-Aryan races” of India who were conquered: Tilak repeatedly refers to the Aryans as “the ancient worshippers and sacrificers of our race.”⁸⁴

V.D. (Veer) Savarkar, who more or less accepted Tilak’s hypothesis, takes equal pride in the “achievements” of the Aryans, but is less inclined to stress the “extermination” of the inferior races, and, in fact, tries to suggest that the non-Aryans were relatively few in number, and that most of them welcomed the Aryan invaders with open arms.

According to Savarkar, the history of the Aryan conquest began in the westernmost part of the Saptasindhu region when “the foremost band of the intrepid Aryans made it their home and lighted the first sacrificial fire on the banks of the Sindhu… BY the time they had cut themselves aloof from their cognate and neighbouring people, especially the Persians, the Aryans had spread out to the farthest of the seven rivers, Sapta Sindhus…”⁸⁵

Now, “the region of the Sapta Sindhus was, though very thinly, populated by scattered tribes.  Some of them seem to have been friendly towards the newcomers, and it is almost certain that many an individual had served the Aryans as guides and introduced them to the names and nature of the new scenes to which the Aryans could not be but local strangers.  The Vidyadharas, Apsaras, Yakshas, Rakshas, Gandharvas and Kinnaras were not all or altogether inimical to the Aryans as at times they are mentioned as being benevolent and good-natured folks.  Thus it is probable that many names given to the great rivers by the original inhabitants of the soil may have been Sanskritised and adopted by the Aryans…”⁸⁶

“The activities of so intrepid a people as the Sindhus or Hindus could no longer be kept cooped or cabined within the narrow compass of the Panchanad or the Punjab.  The vast and fertile plains farther off stood out inviting the efforts of some strong and vigorous race.  Tribe after tribe of the Hindus issued forth from the land of their nursery, and, led by the consciousness of a great mission and their Sacrificial Fire that was a symbol thereof, they soon reclaimed the vast, waste and but very thinly populated lands.  Forests were felled, agriculture flourished, cities rose, kingdoms thrived… As time passed on, the distances of their new colonies increased, and different peoples of other highly developed types began to be incorporated into their culture…”⁸⁷

“At last the great mission which the Sindhus had undertaken of founding a nation and a country, found and reached its geographical limit when the valorous Prince of Ayodhya made a triumphant entry in Ceylon and actually brought the whole land from the Himalayas to the Seas under one sovereign sway.  The day when the Horse of Victory returned unchallenged and unchallengeable, the great white Umbrella of Sovereignty was unfurled over that Imperial throne of Ramchandra, the brave, Ramchandra the good, and a loving allegiance to him was sworn, not only by the Princes of Aryan blood, but Hanuman, Sugriva, Bibhishana from the south – that day was the real birth-day of our Hindu people.  It was truly our national day: for Aryans and Anaryans knitting themselves into a people were born as a nation.”⁸⁸

Besides accepting that “Yakshas.  Rakshas, Gandharvas”, and “Hanuman, Sugriva, Bibhishana” were not “of Aryan blood”, Savarkar also accepts the linguistic and sociological (caste) implications of the invasion theory: “Further on, as the Vedic Sanskrit began to give birth to the Indian Prakrits which became the spoken tongues of the majority of the descendants of these very Sindhus as well as the assimilated and the cross-born castes, these too might have called themselves as Hindus.”⁸⁹

Kulkarni is much more graphic in his description of the Aryan invasion of India.  He converts the whole thing into a veritable saga, ostensibly on the basis of the Rigveda:

According to him, the Vedic empire, which lay mainly to the west of the Indus, was ruled by the PRthu emperor CAyamAna, with his capital in Abhivarta, “now identified as a village near the city of Khorasan in Eastern Iran.”⁹⁰

The Bharatas were one of the groups of Vedic people living within this empire.  A rift developed between the Bharatas and the PRthus, and “DivodAsa, the chief of the Bharatas, was captured by VadhryaSva, the commander of the CAyamAnas.”⁹¹

Later, DivodAsa was released: “After his release, he crossed the Sindhu and the other rivers of the Punjab and settled in the region between the rivers Satudri and the GangA.”⁹²

DivodAsa’s “son SudAs was very ambitious.  He wanted to be independent of the CAyamAnas of the PRthus ruling from far-off Abhivarta in Eastern Iran”,⁹³ VasiSTha agreed to help him in his ambition, and “crossed the Sindhu and other rivers and joined SudAs”.⁹⁴  Together, they “gained supremacy over the region between the Sindhu and the GangA.”⁹⁵

However: “The emperor CAyamAna could not tolerate this.  He gave a call to all his chieftains to gather together under his command.  Ten very powerful kings including Yadu, Turvasu, Anu, Druhyu - the Arya chiefs, and Sambar the Dasyu chief, joined CAyamAna.  They crossed the Sindhu…”.⁹⁶ The resulting DASarAjña war was decisively won by SudAs: “This was the turning point in the relationship of the Vedics who stayed behind in the western region beyond the Sindhu, and those who crossed over the rivers of the Punjab and came to settle permanently in the region east of the river Sindhu.”⁹⁷

“The exodus of the Bharatas to the east of the Sindhu had started.  And it gained momentum with the sage ViSvAmitra crossing the Sindhu and the other rivers of the Punjab… when ViSvAmitra left his original habitat west of the Sindhu, alongwith his followers, he is stated to be requesting the rivers Vipat and Satudri to allow passage for his people, the Bharatas (RV 3.33.11).”⁹⁸

“After ViSvAmitra became the priest of SudAs, he inspired SudAs to perform a horse-sacrifice to proclaim to the Kings here that they should hereafter pay homage to him as their King Emperor (RV 3.53.11)… The horse was escorted to the east, the west and the north.  It appears that SudAs had not yet penetrated the Vindhyas and established his sway there in the South.  But the Bharatas triumphed over all the regions north of the Vindhyas.  For it is stated that SudAsa’s army had humbled the Kikatas, ie. modem Bihar and the regions around it.”⁹⁹

There is clearly a sleight of hand in Kulkarni’s description of the exploits of SudAs: since the geographical landmark associated with VasiSTha (ie. the ParuSNI) is to the west of the geographical landmarks associated with ViSvAmitra (ie. the VipAS and SutudrI, and KIkaTa), Kulkarni places VasiSTha before ViSvAmitra, although the unanimous verdict of both tradition as well as modern scholarship is that ViSvAmitra preceded VasiSTha as the priest of SudAs.  His only explanation for this reverse order, significantly, is that “the sequence of events appears to be queer”¹⁰⁰ (from the point of view of the invasion), if ViSvAmitra is placed before VasiSTha!

And finally, Kulkarni does what he accuses the Western scholars of doing: he sows “the seeds of schism between the North Indians and their southern counterparts.”¹⁰¹ He takes the invasion right into southern territory: “the expansion of the Vedic Aryans towards the south of the Vindhyas clearly belongs to the later Vedic and early post-Vedic periods.  It must have been during these periods that the family of Agastya led the colonising Aryan missionaries to the south… He is the first Aryan explorer and the originator of the art of colonization… the Aryanizer of the south.”¹⁰²

II.C. Vedic Civilization vis-a-vis the Original Aryan Civilization.

Tilak sees the religion and culture preserved in the Rigveda as “the anti-diluvian religion and culture”¹⁰³ of the Aryans in their original Arctic homeland, “preserved in the form of traditions by the disciplined memory of the Rishis until it was incorporated first into crude, as contrasted with the polished, hymns (su-uktas) of the Rig-Veda in the Orion Period, to be collected later on in MaNDalas and finally into Samhitas; and… the subject matter of these hymns is interglacial.”¹⁰⁴

It was “those who survived the catastrophe or their immediate descendants” who first “incorporated into hymns the religious knowledge they had inherited as a sacred trust from their forefathers”.¹⁰⁵

If this anti-diluvian religion and culture is found preserved only in India, and to some extent in Iran, it is because “the civilization of the Aryan races that are found to have inhabited the northern parts of Europe in the beginning of the Neolithic age” suffered “a natural relapse into barbarism after the great catastrophe”;¹⁰⁶ while “the religious zeal and industry of the bards or priests of the Iranian and the Indian Aryas”¹⁰⁷ preserved this religion and culture “to be scrupulously guarded and transmitted to future generations”.¹⁰⁸

About the language of the hymns, and therefore, indirectly, of the original Aryans, Tilak at first tries to appear non-commital: “How far the language of the hymns, as we have them at present, resembled the anti-diluvial forms of speech is a different question… we are not concerned here with the words or the syllables of the hymns, which, it is admitted, have not remained permanent.”¹⁰⁹

But he immediately abandons this ambiguity: “the hymns have been preserved, accent for accent, according to the lowest estimate, for the last 3000 or 4000 years; and what is achieved in more recent times can certainly be held to have been done by the older bards in times when the traditions about the Arctic home and religion were still fresh in their mind.”¹¹⁰

In short, Tilak sees little difference between the language, religion and culture of the original Aryans, and that of the Vedic Aryans.

Kulkarni is more categorical: “the Vedas are the heritage of mankind.  Even though the credit for preservation of these without adding a syllable here or a dot there is that of the Indians, the verses in these have come down to us from remotest antiquity when forefathers of all the peoples of this wide world were living together”¹¹¹ in the original homeland.

“Unfortunately, those who migrated from their original homeland almost totally lost their links with the ancient culture while only the Indians could preserve the Vedas and their links with their ancient Vedic civilization, making such modifications as the climes and times demanded.”¹¹²

About the language of the original Aryans, Kulkarni is even more categorical: he objects to “the language from which all these languages including Sanskrit and Zend have been derived (being) designated as Indo-European”,¹¹³ and he tells the scholars that they “should not feel shy and should consider this original language as Sanskrit itself, instead of Indo-European.”¹¹⁴

The Hindu invasionist scholars thus clearly see the language, religion and culture of the Rigveda as almost identical with the language, religion and culture of the Aryans in their original homeland outside India, and, in the process, they make this Vedic culture totally alien to India.  It may be noted that even the standard invasionist scholars, except for the lunatic fringe among them, accept that while the Aryans came from outside, “the Indo-Aryans had become completely Indianized when the Rigvedic culture started on its course as a distinct product of the Indian soil about 1500 BC.”¹¹⁵ The Hindu invasionist theory is thus far more inimical to the Indian ethos than the standard invasionist one.

The only thing with which these scholars are concerned is the glorification of the Aryan civilization in its original homeland:

Tilak insists that the Aryans had attained “a high degree of civilization in their original Arctic home,” and “there is no reason why the primitive Aryans should not be placed on an equal footing with the prehistoric inhabitants of Egypt in point of culture and civilization”.¹¹⁶

This, of course, means more than it actually says: the Aryan civilization apparently flourished in the Arctic region before 10000-8000 BC, while the Egyptian civilization flourished much later; so naturally the Aryan civilization must be treated as much more than merely “equal” with the Egyptian civilization!

Kulkarni, as usual, is much more reckless in his pronouncements.  He starts out by asserting that “the Vedas are the compositions of a highly civilized people”,¹¹⁷ and ends up with deriving all the civilizations of the world from the civilization of the Vedic Aryans: “the Rigvedic people were the civilizers of the world in the post-glacial epoch”¹¹⁸ since “the Aryans dispersed to different lands in Europe, North Africa, the rest of Asia, and America, and developed the ancient world civilizations in their respective regions.”¹¹⁹

II.D. The Original Homeland

After examining the main concerns of the Hindu invasionist scholars, we now come to the main point: the location of the original homeland according to these scholars, their real reasons behind locating the homeland in these far-off regions, and the arguments by which they try to prove these locations on the basis of the Rigveda.

Tilak locates the original homeland in the Arctic region from “remote geological times” till “the destruction of the original Arctic home by the last Ice Age”¹²⁰ in “10000-8000 BC”.  The period from “8000-5000 BC” was the “age of migration from the original home.  The survivors of the Aryan race roamed over the northern parts of Europe and Asia in search of new lands.”¹²¹

By 5000 BC, according to Tilak, the Aryans were divided into two groups.  One group consisted of “the primitive Aryans in Europe… as represented by Swiss Lake Dwellers”, and the other group consisted of the “Asiatic Aryans… probably settled on the Jaxartes”,¹²² still in Central Asia, on their way towards India.

Thus, the Aryan colonisation of India took place long after the colonisation of Europe.  Far from being the original Aryan homeland, India, according to Tilak, was practically the last land to be colonised by the Aryans.

Kulkarni’s idea of the original homeland is even more peculiar than Tilak’s:

Letting his imagination run riot, Kulkarni tells us that “the Vedic civilization covered a wide area including Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Sindha, Punjab and Kashmira”,¹²³ and “the Vedic influence was all-pervasive and it spread right from modem Turkey and Egypt, covered the region between the Caucasus mountain and the Caspian Sea down to Syria and Palestine and the Persian Gulf kingdoms of Ancient Babylon, Asur, Sumer, Akkad, Ur, Kassite, and including the modern Iran-Afghanistan, the Russian Azerbaijan, and the Southern regions of the Russian Republics, Tadjikistan, Uzbek, Turkmen and Kirghis.  It extended further east to Hindukush Mountains and covered the region around Varasakh river and included the Sindhu region of modem Sindha, the Punjab and the Kashmira.”¹²⁴

Now, it may appear from the above that Kulkarni includes three northwestern parts of India in the original homeland.  But he is quick to disclaim this.  He immediately clarifies that “this was the position in about 5000 BC.  About 2000 or so years earlier, the Dasarajnya battle was fought and the Vedics… began to spread eastwards and southwards to the present day India”;¹²⁵ and, even after that, “these people had their settlements mostly in the regions West of the river Sindhu, and only the Punjab, Sindha and Kashmir were the regions known to them.”¹²⁶ Needless to say, “southern India of present day was unknown”¹²⁷ to them.

Now the question arises: why are these staunch Hindu scholars so determined to locate the original Aryan homeland far outside India?

There are two main reasons:

1. Firstly, these scholars are not concerned with the narrow national boundaries of India: their main concern is to portray Vedic civilization as the most ancient civilization in the world, and as the most likely source-point for all the other civilizations of the ancient world.

At the time Tilak wrote The Arctic Home in the Vedas, the Indus civilization had not yet been excavated, and the oldest archaeological remains of any highly developed civilization in India did not go beyond the first millennium BC.

Hence Tilak was compelled to look elsewhere for an ancient and highly developed civilization which could be projected as the original Aryan and Vedic civilization.  However, all civilizations excavated till then were already booked and accounted for.  The only option left for Tilak was to postulate a hypothetical Aryan, and Vedic, civilization in the remote geological past, in an almost inexcavable part of the world like the Arctic region.

Later scholars belonging to this school have an option within India in the Indus civilization, but this option has very limited utility: it is difficult to suggest that this civilization could have been the source or inspiration for the other civilizations like the Egyptian or Mesopotamian.  Hence, even though careful to suggest that the Aryans entered India before the period of the Indus civilization, they still find it necessary to look outside India for the original Aryan or Vedic civilization.

Many scholars (for example B.G. Siddharth,¹²⁸ Director-General of the B.M. Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad) accept Colin Renfrew’s view that the original homeland was in Anatolia (Turkey), and try to identify 10,000 year old epipaleolithic agricultural and proto-agricultural sites excavated in Turkey, such as Nevali Cori in southeastern Turkey, as Rigvedic sites.  Anatolia is conveniently close to the later centres of development of civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Kulkarni, as we have seen, sweepingly includes almost the whole of Asia to the west of the Indus in the original homeland.  Consequently, he feels free to identify any and every archaeological site in West Asia, which shows signs of economic or technological advancement, as a Vedic site: referring, among others, to Jarmo, Tell-es-Sawwan and Maghzatiyah in Iraq, Beidha in Jordan, and Jericho in Israel, Kulkarni tells us that “they fit in with our picture of the developed administration in the Vedic days.”¹²⁹

2. Secondly, these scholars are irked by the fact that their Hindu ancestors are portrayed, by historians in general, as a race of mild, stay-at-home namby-pambies who bowed down before every new race of invaders.

Their answer to this is to portray their Hindu ancestors, or at least a section of Hindu ancestors whom they can claim to be their own, as a glorious, vibrant race of daredevils who swept a large part of the world, including India, with their military prowess and civilizational greatness.

Their attitude is somewhat like that of a large section of Indian Muslims, who, themselves descendants of native Hindus, identify themselves with the Islamic invaders from the west, claim them as their own ancestors, and glorify the Islamic invasion of India.  The difference is that there was an Islamic invasion of India, recorded in great detail by the invaders themselves, while the “Aryan invasion of India” is a comparatively recent, and purely hypothetical, proposition.

If the Aryan invasion theory places a question mark on the status of the ancestors of other sections of Hindus, it is a matter of little consequence to these scholars.

However, it is of consequence to other scholars. Dr. Ambedkar reacts sharply and critically to “the support which this theory receives from Brahmin scholars”: as he points out, “this is a very strange phenomenon.  As Hindus they should ordinarily show a dislike for the Aryan theory with its expressed avowal of the superiority of the Aryan races over the Asiatic races. but the Brahmin scholar has not only no such aversion, but he most willingly hails it.  The reasons are obvious.  The Brahmin… claims to be a representative of the Aryan race and he regards the rest of the Hindus as descendants of the non-Aryans.  The theory helps him to establish his kinship with the European races and share their arrogance and their superiority.  He likes particularly that part of the theory which makes the Aryan an invader and a conqueror of the non-Aryan races.  For it helps him to maintain his overlordship over the non-Brahmins.”¹³⁰

Finally, we come to the question of the methods by which these scholars try to find evidence in the Rigveda for their homeland theories.  We will not go into details, but we will examine, in general, the trend of the “evidence” presented by them:

Tilak completely ignores the actual geographical data in the Rigveda, and concentrates instead on finding “memories” of the Arctic astronomy embedded in the phrases, myths and rituals in the Rigveda, and even in later texts.

According to Tilak, “the North Pole and the Arctic region possess certain astronomical characteristics which are peculiar to them,”¹³¹ and these characteristics form the basis of the phrases, myths and rituals in the Rigveda.  This can only mean that “the ancestors of the Vedic Rishis must have become acquainted with these characteristics when they lived in these regions”,¹³² and, therefore, that “the home of the ancestors of the Vedic people was somewhere near the North Pole before the last Glacial epoch.”¹³³

These astronomical characteristics are:

a. “The spinning round of the heavenly dome over the head.”¹³⁴

b. “A Dawn continuously lasting for many days.”¹³⁵

c. “The long day, the long night, the number of months of sunshine and of darkness, and the character of the year”¹³⁶ peculiar to the Arctic region.

1. Words and phrases in the Rigveda: Thus, for example, he translates II.28.9 as: “Remove far the debts (sins) incurred by me. May I not, o King! be affected by others’ doings.  Verily, many dawns (have) not fully (vi) flashed forth. O Varuna! direct that we may be alive during them.”¹³⁷ After a long and involved discussion on the meaning of the phrase “many dawns”, Tilak “proves” that the phrase does not mean “many days”, but that it means “many day-long portions of time during which the dawn lasted”.¹³⁸

2. Myths and legends in the Rigveda: This includes the myths of Aditi and the seven Adityas, MArtaNDa the eighth Aditya, the seven sages, the Navagvas and DaSagvas, the blind DIrghatamas, Trita Aptya, Satakratu Indra, VRtrahan Indra, RjrASva and the hundred sheep, Sambara and his hundred forts, ViSNu and his three steps, the ASvins and their rescue-missions at sea, etc. etc.

An examination of Tilak’s voluminous book, and the single-minded way in which he interprets anything and everything in the Rigveda on the basis of the “astronomical characteristics” of the Arctic region, is a depressing experience; and it is made worse by his naive assertions, repeatedly made, that the traditions and myths in the Vedic texts “can be better explained on the Arctic theory than at present”,¹³⁹ and that all difficulties of Vedic interpretation vanish “when we explain the legends on the Arctic theory.”¹⁴⁰

In fact, the Arctic theory apparently explains all kinds of inexplicable myths even in respect of late texts like the RAmAyana.  The following representative examples of such myths, and their Arctic explanations according to Tilak, will illustrate how this method of interpretation apparently solves all kinds of problems:

a. Problem: The fact that “RAma's adversary was con­ceived of as a ten-headed monster.”¹⁴¹

Solution: This represents “the annual fight between light and darkness as conceived by the inhabitants of a place where a summer of ten months was followed by a long winter night of two months.”¹⁴²

b. Problem: The myth that “the brother of this ten-headed monster slept continuously for six months in a year.”¹⁴³

Solution: This “indicates his Arctic origin.”¹⁴⁴

c. Problem: The myth that “all the Gods were said to be thrown into prison by RAvana until they were released by RAma.”¹⁴⁵

Solution: This indicates “the temporary ascendancy of the powers of darkness over the powers of light during the continuous night of the Arctic region.”¹⁴⁶

d. Problem: The myth of “the birth of SItA from the earth and her final disappearance into it.”¹⁴⁷

Solution: This represents "the story of the restoration of the dawn… to man”¹⁴⁸ in the Arctic region.

3. Vedic rituals and sacrificial sessions (sattras): This includes the Pravargya, GavAmayanam, AtirAtra, etc.

Thus, for example, according to Tilak,¹⁴⁹ the TaittirIya SaMhitA, the Aitareya BrAhmaNa, the ASvalAyana and Apastambha Srauta S5tras, and even the Nirukta, describe a procedure to be followed in respect of the GavAmayana sacrifice, which shows that a very long time (so long that “all the ten MaNDalas of the Rigveda” could be comfortably recited without the sun appearing above the horizon) elapsed between the first appearance of morning light on the horizon, and the rising of the sun above the horizon, clearly indicating the long dawn of the Arctic region.

It may be noted here that according to Tilak’s own chronology,¹⁵⁰ the Arctic home was destroyed in 10,000-8000 BC, the “survivors of the Aryan race roamed over the northern parts of Europe and Asia in search of lands” between “8000-5000 BC”, and the Asiatic Aryans were settled in Central Asia by 5000 BC.  “The TaittirIya SamhitA and the BrAhmaNas” were produced in “3000-1400 BC”, when “the sacrificial system and the numerous details thereof found in the BrAhmaNas seem to have been developed.” And “the SUtras... made their appearance” in “1400-500 BC”.

Is it at all within the realms of possibility that the composers of the BrAhmanas who developed the sacrifices after 3000 BC, and the writers of the SUtras, who wrote after 1400 BC, could be seriously giving detailed instructions to sacrificers about the procedures to be followed when performing a sacrifice in the Arctic region which their remote ancestors had left around 8000 BC?

Rational thinking clearly has no role to play in Tilak’s scheme of interpretation.  Anything and everything in the Rig-veda, howsoever commonplace or howsoever esoteric, somehow refers to the “astronomical characteristics” of the Arctic region: the mere fact that the Vedic texts describe a “series of night sacrifices from two to a hundred nights”¹⁵¹ indicates to Tilak that “a hundred continuous nights marked the maximum duration of darkness experienced by the ancient sacrificers of the race”,¹⁵² and that “the duration of the long night in the ancient home varied from one night (of 24 hours) to a hundred continuous nights (of 2400 hours) according to latitude, and… the hundred nightly Soma sacrifices corresponded to the different durations of the night at different places in the ancient home.”¹⁵³ Tilak complacently notes that any number can be given a special Arctic connotation, “for the sun may then be supposed to be below the horizon for any period varying from one to a hundred nights, or even for six months.”¹⁵⁴

But Tilak knows where to draw the line: he takes poetical or ritualistic exaggerations in the texts literally, whenever he can interpret them on the basis of the “astronomical characteristics” of the Arctic region (which, as we have seen, can mean anything); but, elsewhere, when he refers to some annual sacrifices which “are described as extending over 1000 years”, he decides that “we may pass it over as unnecessary for our purpose.”¹⁵⁵ He does not, in this case, take it as evidence of the “astronomical characteristics” of some other planet where the Aryans may have lived before migrating (by space-ship) to the Arctic region!

Kulkarni’s procedure for finding evidence in the Rigveda for his homeland theory is different: he merely goes on making geographical statements and assertions on a take-it-from-me basis, and these statements and assertions, apparently, constitute sufficient evidence in themselves.

Thus, Kulkarni assigns the following geographical locations to the different families of RSis:

a. The Atris: near “Susa, the ancient Iranian capital.”¹⁵⁶

b. The KaNvas: “somewhere in the regions of modern Persia and Afghanistan.”¹⁵⁷

c. The GRtsamadas: in the “Tadzhak and Kazakh republics of the U.S.S.R.”¹⁵⁸

d. The KaSyapas: in the area of the “Caspian Sea and to its north… (in) the Caucasus mountains”.¹⁵⁹

e. The ANgirases and BhRgus: “somewhere in Iran”.¹⁶⁰

f. The ViSvAmitras and VasiSThas: “somewhere in Iran”.¹⁶¹

Likewise, he tells us that the Saptasindhu region is not the Punjab, but “the land watered by SarasvatI, Sindhu, Sharayu, Rasa, Oxus, Helmand, and one more river somewhere in the region West of the river Sindhu.”¹⁶²

The SarasvatI is “the modem river Syr Darya which now disappears in the Aral Sea.”¹⁶³ Kulkarni is critical of scholars for “trying to locate the river SarasvatI within the present day boundaries of India.”¹⁶⁴

The RasA is, on one page, “the mighty Euphratis river”,¹⁶⁵ and on another, “that famous river Tigris.”¹⁶⁶

AbhyAvartin CAyamAna is from “Abhivarta… a village near the city of Khorasan in Eastern Iran.”¹⁶⁷

Likewise, “Sushna’s clan was from South Azerbaijan and Sambara was the chief of the clan operating in North Iran along the banks of Samber, a small river.”¹⁶⁸

Arbuda is not Mount Abu, but “the present-day Alburz mountain of North Iran.”¹⁶⁹

KIkaTa, more generously, is either “modem Baluchistan or Baharain”¹⁷⁰ (although, on another page, it is “modem Bihar and the regions around it.”¹⁷¹)

To cut a long story short, the Hindu invasionist scholars are so busy internationalising the Rigveda, and transporting it into the remote past, that they really cannot be bothered with the actual historical information so richly present in the Rigveda.

The quasi-invasionist school, strictly speaking, is not exactly a school of interpretation in itself, but, for want of a better name, and because the two scholars whose interpretations we will examine here cannot be properly included in any of the three other schools, we must examine it separately.

The two scholars who can be classified as quasi-invasionist scholars are F.E. Pargiter and Dr. B.R. (Babasaheb) Ambedkar, and what makes them different from other scholars is that both invasionists and anti-invasionists can try to claim them as their own on the basis of select quotations from their writings.

But what makes their writings particularly important is that they best illustrate the phenomenon which has been at the root of all the misinterpretations of Vedic and Aryan history: the phenomenon of the blind belief in the fallacy that linguists have established that the original homeland of the Indo-European family of languages was located outside India.

Both Pargiter and Ambedkar, after their detailed examination of the ancient texts, find that there is absolutely no basis to the invasion theory.  And they make their conclusions in this regard clear in no uncertain terms.

But, after making their views loud and clear, they suddenly seem to be assailed by apprehensions about having exceeded their brief in challenging the conclusions of established scholars belonging to a field in which they themselves cannot lay claims to any special scholarship, viz. linguistics.

So they try to backtrack by trying to give respectability to their literary analysis by somehow introducing the concept of an Aryan invasion through the back door (literally so in the case of Pargiter, as we shall see); and the ways in which they do so are so illogical, so contradictory to their own analyses, and so incongruous even with the linguistic theory itself, that the effect is ludicrous.

We will examine their writings as follows:

A. The Anti-invasionist Conclusions.
B. The Invasionist Second Thoughts.

III.A. The Anti-invasionist Conclusions

F.E. Pargiter examines traditional Indian history as recorded in the PurANas, and he finds that this history gives absolutely no indications of any Aryan invasion of India from the northwest: “Indian tradition knows nothing of any Aila or Aryan invasion of India from Afghanistan, nor of any gradual advance from thence eastwards.”¹⁷²

In fact, he finds quite the opposite: “the Aryans began at Allahabad, conquered and spread out northwest, west and south, and had by YayAti’s time occupied precisely the region known as MadhyadeSa… They expanded afterwards into the Punjab and East Afghanistan, into West India and the northwest Dekhan…”¹⁷³

And then, “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.”¹⁷⁴

Pargiter’s examination of traditional history produces a picture which tallies perfectly with our theory.  He describes¹⁷