Aryans and Dravidians

[phil013 at csc.canterbury.ac.nz]

Jonathan Silk has suggested that we close the discussion now to 
avoide further acrimony.  While I sympathize with his motivations, I 
would like to keep it open for just a bit longer.  

Originally it was claimed that "new evidence" of some kind called 
the whole theory of Aryan migration into question.  But it turned 
out that there wasn't much, if any, new evidence of a scholarly 
sort, and in any case that most of us have already aborbed the 
implications of the evidence (e.g. that the Indus Valley 
Civilization was not suddenly destroyed by waves of attacking 
Aryans).

Perhaps all the facts are not in yet.  Is there indeed any new or 
noteworthy evidence about Aryan origins, migrations, etc., that 
hasn't yet been discussed?  Would anyone care to summarize it for 
non-experts like myself?

If there really isn't much in the way of evidence, then an important 
question arises: where are these assertions (about "new" evidence 
calling the Aryan migration hypothesis into question, about the 
evils of colonial and neo-colonial scholarship, etc.) being made, 
and why?  These are matters of cultural and representational 
politics, and they seem to me to be eminently worthy of debate, even 
if (or better, "especially because") they  tend to excite rather 
more passion than philological discussion.


Bo Sax
Head of Religious Studies
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch-I
New Zealand

Tel. (03) 364-2230
FAX  (03) 364-2007
e-mail: phil013 at csc.canterbury.ac.nz