Is the Aryan Invasion a Myth?

[Shauna Singh Baldwin]

Dear Historians on Indology:
I would appreciate your assistance as I edit a novel, What the Body
Remembers, scheduled for publication in Sept 1999, re the following
question:

Is there a consensus among historians about the Aryan invasion of India
that was taught when I was in high school in India in the seventies?
Lately I've been hearing more discussion about
the "Myth of the Aryan Invasion" (there is a book by that name,
published by Voice
of India in 1995), saying that Max Mueller in particular dated the Aryan
invasion at
3500 BC because of the prevailing Christian myth that the world was
created in
4004 BC at 4 pm (!), that the Aryan *language and colorism/ideas of
varna* may have
mixed with Indian language and culture via the passes, but that the
Aryan *people*
were not a tribe from the Caucasus, but were *indigenous* to India.
Bhagwan Gidwani's 1997 novel, "Return of the Aryans," is premised on
this theory. Another book,   "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization,"
also a 1995 Voice of India publication, says, I believe (I haven't yet
read this book myself, however) that the Aryans did invade, only they
came not from the Caucasus but from Persia. How rigorous is the
scholarship and does it stand behind the hypotheses?

Do you think, as the reviewers of these writers seem to, that the story
was a myth concocted by the English to create a tie between the Brahmins
and themselves? The "white Brahmin" idea?

Or do you feel these people who say the Aryan invasion was a myth are
indulging in wishful thinking?

Where does the historical evidence point? Has there been carbon dating
of archeological remains at Taxila, Harappa, Moenjodaro, for instance?
What does it reveal?

Perhaps you have already discussed these new theories on Indology. If
so, please point me to the website where I may find the archives with
discussion on this topic. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Shauna Singh Baldwin