User:Kautilya3/sandbox/Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda

Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the Rigveda is a journal article authored by Sanskrit scholar Nicholas Kazanas in the Journal of Indo-European Studies in 2002, proposing that the Indo-Aryans, who established Sanskrit as the lingua franca in India, arrived in India in the 5th millennium BC or earlier. This contrasts with the mainstream view that they arrived in India in the 2nd millennium BC. Citing the controversial nature of of the article's conclusions, the editor J. P. Mallory decided to accept the article for publication without peer review in the interest of "scholarly fair play," and invited 9 established Indo-European scholars to write comments on the article. Kazanas was also given an opportunity to write a "final response" to the commentaries.

Along with Bryant's 2005 volume The Indo-Aryan Controversy, these articles form a primary source of information for the Indo-Aryan migration debate.

Background
The normative theory of the appearance of the Indo-Aryans in India is that they developed from an Indo-European homeland in Central Eurasia, first attested in the Sintashta culture east of the Pontic Steppes, further developing in the Andronovo culture and interacting with the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, and arriving in India in early 2nd millennium BC. The theory was developed through collaborative research involving historical linguistics and archaeology over the last 200 years, and is part of the larger Indo-European migration theory. However, since the 1990's significant opposition to the normative theory has developed among several scholars in India as well as some scholars in the West, who have claimed that the Indo-Aryans were indigenous to India. Edwin Bryant has called the latter a "marginalised view" in his 2001 book The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture and called for it to be given a legitimate place in the debate.

Nicholas Kazanas, a Sanskrit scholar at the Greek institution Ominos Meleton, published an article on Indo-European deities and the Rigveda in the Journal of Indo-European Studies in 2001, wherein he drew parallels between the deities in the Indo-Aryan text Rigveda and the deities in other Indo-European cultures. At the time, he also discussed with the editor J. P. Mallory the possibility of a follow-up article postulating that the Indo-Aryans were indigenous to India. Mallory thought such a conclusion would not be supported by the peer reviewers, making the article unlikely to be accepted. However, in the interest of "scholarly fair play," he agreed to publish the article in a "review format," inviting a series of relevant scholars to comment upon the article. The peer reviewers of the article were asked to only verify if the article had "made a case to answer." The article was eventually published in 2002, along with commentaries by nine scholars of Indo-European Studies, including Mallory himself. Kazanas was given an opportunity to write a final reply to the commentaries.

Summary
The main thesis of the article is that the Indo-Aryans are "indigenous" to India, having been present there at least since 4500 BC or, possibly, since 7000 BC. The Rigveda is said to be from the 4th millennium BC and perhaps before. India is also said to be the cradle of the Indo-European language family, all other languages having spread from there to their respective places.

Commentaries
Commentaries were included in the Journal from archaeologists D. P. Agarwal, E. E. Kuz'mina and J. P. Mallory, cultural historian Edwin Bryant, zooarchaeologist Richard Meadows and a series of linguists Martin Huld, Michael Witzel, Asko Parpola and Stefan Zimmer.

D. P. Agarwal
D. P. Agarwal is an Indian archaeologist and historian, formerly at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, who has written several books on the Indus Valley Civilisation.

In his commentary, he questions Kazanas' identification of the Vedic people with the Indus civilisation. He notes that the Indus civilisation declined with a distinct break around 2,000 BC, involving "multidimensional transformations." These transformations include the cultivation of new crops (sorghum, millets and rice) and the domestication of new animals (camel, horse and donkey). If there were no new elements that arrived around 2,000 BC, he wonders who would have introduced them. The disappearance of the Indus script and technologies like burnt bricks and ground-water usage, the termination of the long-distance trade in luxury goods, the abandonment or shrinking of the Indus civilisation centres like Lothal, while the increasing population of new areas like Punjab and Haryana, all indicate a distinctive transformation brought about by new arrivals. The Indian/Hindu culture has a "substratum" of Indus civilisation with elements such as the concepts of Shiva, nandi-bull and linga worship, pipal, swastika and water ablutions, and possibly yoga-like postures. If the Indus civilisation was itself Vedic, it would be hard to account for these features. A "drastically new settlement pattern" emerges after the decline of the Indus civilisation, with new agricultural innovations, disorganisation of international trade, drastic changes in social fabric and new cultural traits, which have to be attributed to new elements.

E. E. Kuzmina
Elena Efimovna Kuzmina is a senior Russian archaeologist who spent a large part of her career investigating the origin of Indo-Iranians, publishing a seminal book on the topic.

In her commentary, Kuzmina points out that the investigative method of comparative linguistics establishes that the Indo-Iranian family of of Indo-Europeans comprises the Indo-Aryans of India, the Mitanni and the Iranians. Based on the ethnogeny of the Indo-Iranians in the context of the Indo-Europeans as a whole, research into the genesis of each Indo-Iranian group in the context of the other groups, and the complex reconstruction of the "cultural and economic type" (CET) using paleo-ecological and archaeological data, the researchers have determined where and when the CET of the Indo-Iranians occurred.

She notes that the Indo-Iranians were familiar with wheeled vehicles, metals and farming, but their economy was predominantly pastoral. They bred sheep, horses and Bactrian camels, the last of which were unknown to other Indo-Europeans. They dwelt in large wooden houses with a gable roof, collapsible proto-yurts and covered carriages. They manufactured hand-made pottery and lacked the potter's wheel. This cultural and economic type had no parallels in India and West Asia, but had parallels in Eurasian steppes in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC.

Wheeled transport originated in Western Asia and spread to the pastoralists of the steppes in the 4th-3rd millennia BC, leading to the break-up of the continuum of the Indo-European dialects. This provides a terminus post quem for the arrival of Indo-Aryans in India. Secondly, spoked-wheel chariots originated in the Sintashta-Petrovka Proto-Indo-Iranian culture around 2000 BC and appear in Anatolia and Syria only in the 18th century BC. This dating of the chariots makes it impossible to assign the break-up of the Indo-Iranian culture (into Iranians and Indo-Aryans) prior to 2000 BC.

Paleo-zoologists established that the horse was domesticated in Pontic-Caspian steppes in the 4th millennium BC. The horse cult, typified by the aswamedha, is represented in the steppes between the 4th-2nd millennium BC. In India, the horse was absent up to 1700 BC. India's petroglyphs displaying horse-drawn chariots bear similarity to those of the steppes. So, horses and chariots, as well as the Bactrian camels, were brought to India from the north in mid-2nd millennium BC.

An important argument against the thesis of the Indian origin for the Aryans is that the Finno-Ugric languages, originally located on both sides of the Ural mountains, have loan words from both Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages. The north Eurasian rivers Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, Don etc. have names derived from Iranian whereas the rivers of the basin of the Volga, the Urals and southern Siberia are of Indo-Aryan origin (Rangha for Volga and Ripa for Ural etc.) These facts support the thesis that the Indo-Iranians were originally in the Ural mountain region close to the Finno-Ugric homeland, and split into the Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches before migrating southwards.

Countering Kazanas' argument that there is no evidence of the migration of Indo-Aryans to India, Kuzmina notes that the Indo-Aryans produced hand-made ritual vessels (kumbha), which have analogies only in the Andronovo culture. They did so even while the sudras of India were producing wheel-made pottery. The Indo-Aryans show evidence of their foreign ecological niche having borrowed numerous words for flora and fauna, irrigation farming and material culture. Andronovo pottery and metal articles have already been found in Afghanistan and the post-Harappan Shortugai settlement. At all other locations, the Aryans appear to have been "semi-migrants" and left short-term sites with hand-made pottery. An international expedition with Russian participation at all the rivers mentioned in the Indo-Aryan sources would be able to uncover the path of migrating Aryans, providing a final resolution to the issue.

J. P. Mallory
J. P. Mallory is an Indo-European archaeologist at the Queen's University, Belfast and a leading researcher of the Indo-European Studies, serving as the General Editor of the Journal of Indo-European Studies. He has authored an authoritative volume In Search of Indo-Europeans, which is a standard piece of work in Indo-European Studies. In his commentary, ...

Edwin Bryant
Edwin Bryant is a Hinduism scholar at the Rutgers University who has authored a book on the Indo-Aryan migration debate.. In his commentary, ...

Richard H. Meadow
Richard H. Meadow is the Director of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory at the Peabody Museum of the Harvard University, who has been involved in excavation of Indus Valley Civilization sites since 1974. In his commentary, ...

Martin Huld
Martin Huld is an Indo-European linguist at the California State University in Los Angeles. In his commentary, ...

Michael Witzel
Michael Witzel is a philologist and Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, who has been a regular contributor to the debate on the origins of Indo-Aryans. In his commentary, ...

Asko Parpola
Asko Parpola is a Professor Emeritus of Indology at the University of Helsinki, who is acknowledge as the world's expert on the Indus script. In his commentary, ...

Stefan Zimmer
Stefan Zimmer is an Indo-European linguist at the University of Bonn.

In his commentary, Zimmer characterises Kazanas' article as a defence of an "obsolete theory," long regarded as highly unlikely. He finds Kazanas "very badly prepared" to the task. He seems unable to read German and so unaware of the considerable work about India that exists in that language. He seems to lack an understanding of comparative grammar (part of historical linguistics) and unaware of its explanatory power. Many of his reasonings appear "naive."

Zimmer notes that the Rigvedic hymns should be regarded as religious poetry, not historical records. The theories of the Indo-European languages are based on their comparative grammar, developed over 180 years, by recognising the principles of language change according to sound-laws that have stood the test of time. Kazanas is quick to dismiss the linguistics-based theories because he is not competent in the field. He preaches the principle "the people or culture that has preserved most ceteris paribus has moved least," which is easily countered by examples such as the Icelandic, Spanish versus Italian or the Alemannic German.

Kazanas gives utmost importance to archaeoastronomy, citing the thesis "heaven does not lie." Zimmer agrees that archaeoastronomy can indeed be a very useful tool for dating historical events, but it is of doubtful significance when applied to religious texts.

Historical comparative linguistics would have no insurmountable problems if the Urheimat of the Indo-Europeans were to be in northern India. However, the thesis has been abandoned for being highly unlikely. The reconstructed proto-Indo-European language suggests an environment quite different from India. Moreover, since the language has undergone significant innovations in reaching Sanskrit, it is unlikely all that all such transformations were localised to India.