The Aryans (again); 19th century discourse.

Bapa Rao bapa_rao at HOTMAIL.COM
Fri Dec 18 18:34:35 UTC 1998


va side did not hold the
>> position that Indo-European languages originated in India. Does
anyone
>> know where they do believe IE came from?
>
> There is no one theory that the "Indic Home for Aryans" side holds,
there
>are many different variants:
>
>1. The Aryans originated in Aryavarta (modern UP), then spread into
>Sapta Sindhu and then expanded all across the world after the Comments
in text and below.

collapse of
>the Indus Valley
>2. The Aryans originated in Sapta Sindhu (Punjab) and then after the
>collapse of the "Vedic Indus" migrated all across the world.
>3. The Aryans originated near Mt.Meru (in Tibet/Himalayas ?) and then
>spread all across the world. In favour of this theory are the following
>points:
> + Mt. Meru is sacred to Aryas.
> + Some legends claim lost cities exist near Mt.Meru,
> + Other legands hold that underground cities with the
>   "pure Aryans" (`devatas' ?) still live in a pure
>   hyper-civilization there. Numerous `bottomless caves' are said to
lead
>   to those cities.
>
> Theory 2. is favoured by some, but many Aryanists don't like it
because
>Sapta Sindhu is now located in Pakistan.

a. Aside from your statement here, I don't know "how many" "Aryanists"
don't like this theory and for what reason. I could make a similar
unsupported statement that theory 2 is popular among "many" "xyz" (where
both "many" and "xyz" are undefined or vaguely defined) because it
justifies a territorial claim on Pakistan.

> Theory 1. is now the most popular (in fact, that is the view
propagated
>in most of the Aryanist books, incl. Talageri's).
> I think you may have heard about Theory 3. This is, as far as I know,
the
>only variant of the Indo-centric theories that postulates a non-Indian
>origin of Aryans. But it is not in favour because Meru is (probably) in
>Red China.

b. see a, replace Pakistan with China.

Of course, I am using a and b above only for illustration. Seriously, I
am sure it would be instructive to study the political dynamics of the
popularity of various alternative speculations on the "indo-aryan"
origins. But simply speculating on those dynamics without bothering to
adduce any basis serves no purpose other than to add another (possibly
more palatable to some) political layer to the existing political
layers.

In short, Samar Abbas, if you don't have a political agenda here and you
are simply indulging in random speculations, I respectfully suggest you
are wasting your time. If you are actually a student of the politics of
origin theories, then again I hope you are able to substantiate your
claims more rigorously than you have done here.

Bapa Rao


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