Aryan invasion debate

[N. Ganesan]

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     Secondly, the absence of a number of things in the Vedic
testimony points to pre- rather than post-Harappan.  Thus, you may be
aware that one of the opening shots in the renewed Aryan invasion
debate was KD Sethna's argument sometime in the 1980s, that the Vedas
were unaware of cotton, a common commodity in the late-Harappan
period, and also making its appearance in the literary record in the
Sutras.  How likely is it that wool-clad Central-Asian invaders
conquered the Harappan territory, which even after losing its most
advanced urban traits continued its elementary achievements
like the production and use of cotton, did not acquaint themselves
with this climate-adapted native cloth?  It is obviously more likely
that cotton had not been commodified yet, pointing to the
pre-Harappan time.
>>>

  Is it possible that Indo-Aryans when they entered India did not
know the cultivation of cotton? Later when the acculturated
Dravidians adopted the IA language, they started using the cotton.
Comparison: Just like the mahAvedi sacrificial altars with complex
math rules is likely from Dravidian side. Pl. refer to the
etymology of the word, kaNi (Skt. gaNi) from Dravidian
by Dr. Palniappan. While the sacrificial altars are
shallow pits in the RV, the evolution of them into mahaavedis
for public display employing bricks and mathematical formulas
is likely to have happened after the Dravidians turned into
IA speakers.

  In direct contrast to the nonexistence of cotton in early Vedic,
Tamil sangam texts celebrate cotton. This aspect is not
subject to study yet. The vertical looms making cloth
are compared to rain falling from clouds; Even
the biofences around a village are made with the cotton plant.
"pan2n2al vEli paNai nallUrE!". 'parutti, pan2n2al'
are ancient tamil terms for cotton. Importantly,
widows are called "paruttip peNTir" (=cotton ladies)
in ancient sangam works. This stems from an ancient custom
where widows are given handlooms for spinning cotton thread.
This sangam text usage is found even today in some castes:
when the husband dies, an important funerary ritual is the
wife's brother giving a handloom in front of close relatives.
Gandhi took this idea when he was visiting the South and applied
it nationwide.

The contrast of cotton, its high place in tamil sangam texts
and its absence in vedic will be an interesting topic to pursue.

Regards,
N. Ganesan


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