The Rig Veda records the Aryan invasion of Pakistan and northern India

This webpage uses the Rig Veda translation by Ralph T.H. Griffith in1889. That translation predates the discovery of the Harappan civilisation, and thus was not influenced by those discoveries, and can be compared with them.

In 2008 I visited India and Pakistan, despite warnings about terrorism. In Pakistan, I stayed at night at Harappa, and visited MohenjoDaro. The Aryans destroyed this great civilisation. The Rig-Veda (1889 edition) refers to a great battle at Hariyupiya; the ruins of Harappa were discovered in the 1920s. The British pillaged the bricks to build other structures; but MohenjoDaro is intact.

In India, the Brahmins mostly deny the Aryan invasion, treating the Rig Veda as a religious text. But in Pakistan, there is no such denial.

Geneticist Spencer Wells said that, although the Aryans displaced the Dravidians in north India, the Dravidians displaced the Tribals in south India. Some of those Tribals may have ended up in Australia; Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute found evidence of new arrivals in Australia, from India, about 4,000 years ago; they brought the dingo and more advanced stone-age technology; they in turn forced earlier arrivals south.

I wrote up the story of my visit at india-pakistan.html.

by Peter Gerard Myers

Date January 15, 2002; update August 16, 2023

My comments are shown {thus}.

Write to me at contact.html.

You are at http://mailstar.net/rig-veda.html.

The Greeks acquired civilization from Egypt, the Phoenicians, Babylon etc., i.e. the "Aryan myth" that Civilization is Aryan is wrong.

The Aryans were nomadic tribal peoples, barbarian invaders. They learned civilization from the people they conquered, in India, Iran and the Mediterranean.

But there was an Aryan invasion. The name for Persia, "Iran", is derived from the word "aryan", as is the word "Eire", the name of Ireland. The Brahmins of India still call themselves "aryan".

The Aryans invaded Western Europe, but they formed a ruling class, an aristocracy, not the whole body of the people. They imposed their languages, as Hungary and Turkey received non-Indo-European languages by invasion (Finland perhaps too).

Spencer Wells is a Geneticist, Director of the Genographic Project. In his book The Journey of Man, he shows that Europe's ancestry derives mainly from people in that continent around 30,000 years ago; not from early agriculturalists in the Middle East. He discovered a genetic marker, M17, which is the signature of the Aryan invaders from the steppe into east & central Europe and northern India: wells-genetics.html.

He says that Aryans displaced Dravidians in north India, but Dravidians displaced Tribals in south India. Some of those Tribals may have ended up in Australia: DNA studies by Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute showed that migrants from India reached northern Australia about 4,000 years ago, and brought more advanced tool-making techniques and the dingo. (Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry. by Ed Yong Nature (2013). https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.12219).

(1) Background to the Rig Veda
(2) The Rig Veda & the Aryan invasion of India
(3) Selections from the Rig Veda
(4) Qualification
(5) A reader's comment: do legends of the Centaurs refer to the Aryan invaders?
(6) Evidence from Elman R. Service, A. L. Basham, Bridget and Raymond Allchin, and William H. McNeill
(7) Views from Below: Studies on the Aryan Invasion, and Hinduism, by Sudras, Tamils & Dravidians
(8) The Dravidian-Tamil-Sudra-Dalit movement aiming to secede from India
(9) Martin Bernal on the Aryan Invasion
(10) A. L. Basham on the Aryan Invasion
(11) Jawaharlal Nehru on the Aryan Invasion
(12) ADDED April 9, 2012: Aryans displaced Dravidians in north India, but Dravidians displaced Tribals in south India

(1) Background to the Rig Veda

"The Rig Veda is a collection of more than a thousand hymns written between 1200 and 900 B.C. by people known as Aryans, who came to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India from the Eurasian steppes to the north. The Rig Veda is one of the earliest known writings written in any Indo-European language.

"Chariots were developed before 3000 B.C. and offered a warrior a stable platform from which to shoot arrows and cast spears at his enemies. The horse, which was domesticated probably a 1000 years earlier in the western steppes was also of great importance to the people who wrote the Rig Veda because the horse-riding warrior was able to easily maneuver around his foot-soldier enemy."

From the Hartwick College site, David Anthony and the Institute for Ancient Equestrian Studies: http://users.hartwick.edu/~hartleyc/surya.htm.

More from this source, at http://users.hartwick.edu/~iaes/Russia.htm:

In the Late Bronze Age (LBA), " ... between 2000 and 1700 BCE, a complex of broadly shared cultural traits spread across the Eurasian steppes. These traits included similar agro/pastoral economies, pottery and weapon styles, house and settlement types, and mortuary rituals. For the first time in history, broadly similar cultures occupied the steppes from the borders of China to the edges of Europe, creating a transcontinental interaction zone.

"The western aspect of this zone is known as the Timber-Grave (or Srubnaya) culture. The Srubnaya people were horse-riding cattle and sheep herders who occupied the steppes from the Ural Mts. westward to the Dnieper River in Ukraine between about 1900/1800-1300/1200 BCE (calibrated) ... most of the Srubnaya people lived most of the time in wagon and tent camps. The mobile way of life that created this archaeological pattern in the southern steppes was not new - it continued from the Early Bronze Age (EBA) and Middle Bronze Age (MBA). ... The earlier EBA and MBA cultures of this region are known only from their burial sites.

"Large-scale mining and metal production might have provided trade commodities that brought steppe populations into complex relations with each other and with settled societies beyond the steppe, creating a more stable pattern of regional LBA power centers and more permanent settlements within them."

Joseph Needham and David Anthony on Cultural Diffusion across the steppes ofter 2000 BC: needham-anthony.html.

One branch of the Indo-Europeans, the Tocharians, lived in Xinjiang; their "mummies" have been excavated. Through them, the chariot reached China. Later, ideas & techniques flowed the other way too (on the Silk Road).

See Victor H Mair (ed), The Bronze Age & Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia, volume 1 (1998). This book comprises the papers given by various experts at a recent symposium, which included Chinese scholars.

(2) The Rig Veda & the Aryan invasion of India

The Harappan civilization was bigger in extent than either Egypt's or Sumeria's. It was a literate civilization in communication with Sumeria. After the Aryan invasion, literacy was wiped out, and did not reappear for another 1,000 years or so, when a new script was borrowed from outside.

Thor Heyerdahl believed that Harappa had been in contact with both Sumeria and Egypt, the three consiituting a civilizational triangle. To show that it was possible, he sailed a reed boat from the Tigris River (Sumeria) to the Indus River (Harappa) and thence to Djibouti, where he stopped because of the war raging in the horn of Africa.

The story is the subject of his book The Tigris Expedition, and it's also part of his TV series. The marsh Arabs of Iraq helped to build the boat, but Heyerdahl also brought in four Aymara Indians from Lake Titicaca in South America, who retain the skills to build such a craft.

Heyerdahl points out in his book The Ra Expeditions (tr. Patricia Crampton, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1972, p. 263) that Pliny in his Natural History records the use of reed boats (Book VI, XXIV, 82). Pliny was quoting Eratosthenes, chief librarian of Alexandria. Pliny's book is available in English in the Loeb series:

Pliny, Natural History, tr. H. Rackham, Volume 2, Libri III-VII, William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1947, pp. 399 & 401:

{p. 399} XXIV. Ceylon, under the name of the Land of the Counterlanders, was long considered to be another world; but the epoch and the achievements of Alexander the Great supplied clear proof of its being an island. Onesicritus, a commander of Alexander's navy, writes that elephants are bred there of larger size and more warlike spirit than in India; and Megasthenes says that it is cut in two by a river, that the inhabitants have the name of Aborigines, and that they produce more gold and large pearls than the Indians. Eratosthenes further gives the dimensions of the island as 875 miles in length and 625 miles in breadth, and says that it contains no cities, but 700 villages. Beginning at the eastern sea it stretches along the side of India from east to west; and it was formerly believed to be a distance of 20 days' sail from the nation of the Prasii, {footnote: an Indian race on the Ganges} but at later times, inasmuch as the voyage to it used to be made with vessels contructed of

{p. 401} reeds and with the rigging used on the Nile, its distance was fixed with reference to the speeds made by our ships as seven days' sail. The sea between the island and the mainland is shallow, not more than 18 feet deep, but in certain channels so deep that no anchors hold the bottom: for this reason ships are used that have bows at each end, as to avoid the necessity of coming about while negotiating the narrows of the channel; the tonnage of these vessels is as much as three thousand barrels. The Cingalese take no observations of the stars in navigation Ñ indeed, the Great Bear is not visible; but they carry birds on board with them and at fairly frequent intervals set them free, and follow the course they take as they make for the land. They only use four months in the year for voyages, and they particularly avoid the hundred days following midsummer, when those seas are stormy. {end}

See Pliny's text at pliny-reed-boats.jpg.

The Rig Veda comprises Hymns organised into 10 Books. I have selected verses which attest to the Aryan conquest of the Dasyu - the inhabitants of Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and the civilization of the Indus Valley, speakers of Dravidian languages, ancestors of the Tamils of South India.

The Brahmans of India (allied to the BJP Government) deny that there was an Aryan invasion of India: it would undermine their legitimacy. Although many Western experts admit there was, there is a shortage of archaeological evidence that the Aryans destroyed the Harappa Civilization.

Stuart Piggott, some decades ago, wrote about the Rig Veda & the destruction of the Harappa Civilization. Since Piggott, the specialists have rejected the view that Mohenjo-Daro was destroyed by the Aryans, preferring an "Ecological" explanation. They say that the Aryans came in AFTER the end of the Harappa civilization.

I, however, argue Piggott was right. In his book Prehistoric Roots of Ancient India (Penguin, Harmondsworth 1950), Piggott wrote

"{p. 257} ... the Aryan advent in India was, in fact, the arrival of barbarians into a region already highly organized into an empire based on a long-

"{p. 258} established tradition of literate urban culture. ... the conquerors are seen to be less civilized than the conquered. In the Rigveda we see ... this conquest from the Aryan point of view alone: they are the heroes, and scant tribute is paid to their contemptible opponents, more skilled in the arts of peace than those of warfare".

"{p. 261} These opponents of the Aryan onslaught, the despicable enemy who dares deny Indra's supremacy in heaven and on earth, are referred to as the dasyus or dasas. They have black complexions, no noses to speak of (anasa), they are 'of unintelligible speech' and above all they are infidels. They have no 'rites', they are 'indifferent to the gods', they 'follow strange ordinances', they do not perform the Aryan sacrifices, and they probably worship the phallus. But they are wealthy, with great stores of gold, they are formed into groups or states, and they live in fortified strongholds."

For more of Piggott see eth-civ.html.

The Rig Veda itself repeatedly boasts of the destruction of the Dasyus. The Harappan economy was based on irrigation from the Indus river, like the Tigris-Euphrates economies of Mesopotamia, and the Rig Veda records the Aryans' destruction of the dams which were the basis of the economy.

It calls the inhabitants "black", "noseless", and "lewd", the latter probably a reference to the phallic god Shiva.

Here are some images of pages from the 1896 translation by T. H. Griffith:

6.27.5 (Book 6, Hymn 27, Verse 5) names the city of Harappa (calling it Hariyupiya). The site of the ruined city was not discovered until the 1920s, near a village bearing that name still. Yet in this 1896 translation of the Rig Veda, a major battle is described there, a devastating Aryan victory: rig-veda6.27.jpg.

This proves that "metaphorical" interpretations of the Rig Veda are false, and that "natural causes" i.e. "ecological change" is not the reason for the fall of the civilization.

1.100 and 1.101 (Book 1, Hymns 100 & 101) are hymns describing the Aryans as "fair-complexioned" and the Harappans as "the dusky brood": rig-veda1.100-101.jpg.

9. 41 (Book 9, Hymn 41) describes the defeated as people of "black skin": rig-veda9.41.jpg.

1.32 (Book 1, Hymn 32) boasts of the cruelty of the Aryan attackers: rig-veda1.32.jpg.

5.29.10 (Book 5, Hymn XXIX, Verse 10) says, "Thou slewest noseless Dasyus with thy weapon, and in their home oÕerthrewest hostile speakers."

Most of the Rig Veda, like the Jewish Bible, has a mentality of "Religious Tribalism". Towards the end, there are a few poems which reflect a universal theme, obviously composed late, around 1000 BC. It was that change of thinking which paved the way for the rise of the Jains, the Buddhists etc. The same is also found in the Bible.

The Aryans of the Rig Veda had migrated from the steppes between the Black Sea & the Caspian Sea, passing through Bactria & Margiana. Prior to settling in India, during their nomadic life in Central Asia, they probably lived in tents, and wagons pulled by cattle; they used horses for riding and for chariots.

Their invasion of India 4000 to 3000 years ago must have been very like the "white" settlers' invasion of the American West in the Nineteenth Century. The American settlers used wagons pulled by horses. They had the US cavalry to back them up; the Aryans had the military caste to do the same.

The settlers had the Protestant religion, the Aryans had the Indo-European Gods. In both cases, the Divinity sided (in the religion) with the conquerors, against those deemed irreligious. The supposed universalism of Christanity made no difference. Whether the gods were One or Many made no difference.

In both cases, other cultures were destroyed, yet the invaders were insensible to the loss. Universalism arose later in both cases. King Asoka imposed Buddhism; Americans rejected slavery.

The Aryans of the steppe must have been like Vikings of the land; the Rig Veda probably presents a similar outlook to the tribes which ended the Roman Empire. Those Aryans had no sense of wrongdoing; on the contrary, they thought the Gods on their side.

Although Christians consider the Aryan religion "pagan", there are surprising similarities between the two: the notion of a Father in Heaven, God(s) as lawgivers, sin as breaking those laws, piety as devotion to the God(s), outsiders as fit for being conquered and incorporation within the religion at a lower level. The similarities are not surprising, since early Christianity was influenced by both Zoroastrianism, which repudiated yet developed from the Aryan religion of Persia, and Platonism, which rejected yet drew upon the Aryan religion of Greece.

One difference is that there is no "Devil" in the Aryan religion; mainstream Judaism and Platonism also lack this feature, which Christianity, via Jewish sects, acquired from Zoroastrianism.

(3) Selections from the Rig Veda (1896 translation by T. H. Griffith)

References to the Rig Veda comprise Book number, Hymn number, and verse number.

For example, the following verse shows that the Dasyus - the people the Aryans conquered - were of different appearance and language:

"10 One car-wheel of the Sun thou rolledst forward, and one thou settest free to move for Kutsa. Thou slewest noseless Dasyus with thy weapon, and in their home o'erthrewest hostile speakers." (5.29.10, i.e. book 5, hymn 29, verse 10).

The "car" of the Rig-Veda is the chariot.

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE FIRST

HYMN VII. Indra.

9 Indra who rules with single sway men, riches, and the fivefold race
Of those who dwell upon the earth.
10 For your sake from each side we call Indra away from other men:
Ours, and none others', may he be.

HYMN IX. Indra.

3 O Lord of all men, fair of cheek, rejoice thee in the gladdening lauds,
Present at these drink-offerings.

HYMN XXIV. Varuna and Others.

10 Whither by day depart the constellations that shine at night, set high in heaven above us
Varuna's holy laws remain unweakened, and through the night the Moon moves on in splendour.
11 I ask this of thee with my prayer adoring; thy worshipper craves this with his oblation.
Varuna, stay thou here and be not angry; steal not our life from us, O thou Wide-Ruler.
14 With bending down, oblations, sacrifices, O Varuna, we deprecate thine anger:
Wise Asura, thou King of wide dominion, loosen the bonds of sins by us committed.
15 Loosen the bonds, O Varuna, that hold me, loosen the bonds above, between, and under.
So in thy holy law may we made sinless belong to Aditi, O thou Aditya.

HYMN XXXII. Indra.

1 I WILL declare the manly deeds of Indra, the first that he achieved, the Thunder-wielder.
He slew the Dragon, then disclosed the waters, and cleft the channels of the mountain torrents. {verse 11, below, suggests the Aryans destroyed a dam on a river, a river which flowed to the ocean. Clearly, these are not inland rivers such as those of Bactria and Margiana, which drain to inland seas}
2 He slew the Dragon lying on the mountain: his heavenly bolt of thunder Tvastar fashioned.
Like lowing kine in rapid flow descending the waters glided downward to the ocean.
3 Impetuous as a bull, he chose the Soma and in three sacred beakers drank the juices.
Maghavan grasped the thunder for his weapon, and smote to death this firstborn of the dragons.
4 When, Indra, thou hadst slain the dragon's firstborn, and overcome the charms of the enchanters, {a reference to the religion of the Harappans}
Then, giving life to Sun and Dawn and Heaven, thou foundest not one foe to stand against thee.
5 Indra with his own great and deadly thunder smote into pieces Vrtra, worst of Vrtras.
As trunks of trees, what time the axe hath felled them, low on the earth so lies the prostrate Dragon.
6 He, like a mad weak warrior, challenged Indra, the great impetuous
many-slaying Hero.
He,  brooking not the clashing of the weapons, crushed - Indra's foe - the
shattered forts in falling.
7 Footless and handless still he challenged Indra, who smote him with his bolt between the shoulders.
Emasculate yet claiming manly vigour, thus Vrtra lay with scattered limbs dissevered.
8 There as he lies like a bank-bursting river, the waters taking courage
flow above him.
The Dragon lies beneath the feet of torrents which Vrtra with his greatness
had encompassed.
9 Then humbled was the strength of Vrtra's mother: Indra hath cast his
deadly bolt against her.
The mother was above, the son was under and like a cow beside her calf lay
Danu.
10 Rolled in the midst of never-ceasing currents flowing without a rest for
ever onward.
The waters bear off Vrtra's nameless body: the foe of Indra sank to during darkness.
11 Guarded by Ahi stood he thralls of Dasas, the waters stayed like kine
held by the robber.
But he, when he had smitten Vrtra, opened the cave wherein the floods had been imprisoned.

HYMN XXXIII. Indra.

4 Thou slewest with thy bolt the wealthy Dasyu, alone, yet going with thy helpers, Indra!
Far from the floor of heaven in all directions, the ancient riteless ones
fled to destruction. {riteless, i.e. irreligious, from the Aryan point of view, as the Jewish-derived religions consider others pagan or heathen}
5 Fighting with pious worshippers, the riteless turned and fled, Indra! with averted faces.
When thou, fierce Lord of the Bay Steeds, the Stayer, blewest from earth and
heaven and sky the godless.
6 They met in fight the army of the blameless: then the Navagvas put forth
all their power. {blameless, i.e. those loyal to the gods}
They, like emasculates with men contending, fled, conscious, by steep paths
from Indra, scattered.
7 Whether they weep or laugh, thou hast o'erthrown them, O Indra, on the sky's extremest limit.
The Dasyu thou hast burned from heaven, and welcomed the prayer of him who pours the juice and lauds thee. {i.e. those who win the gods' favour}
8 Adorned with their array of gold and jewels, they o'er the earth a covering veil extended. {gold & jewels ... the wealth of Harappa}
Although they hastened, they o'ercame not Indra: their spies he compassed with the Sun of morning.
9 As thou enjoyest heaven and earth, O Indra, on every side surrounded with thy greatness,
So thou with priests bast blown away the Dasyu, and those who worship not with those who worship.
14 Indra, thou helpest Kutsa whom thou lovedst, and guardedst brave Dagadyu
when he battled,
The dust of trampling horses rose to heaven, and Svitri's son stood up again
for conquest.

HYMN LI. Indra.

4 Thou hast unclosed the prisons of the waters; thou hast in the mountain seized the treasure rich in gifts. {mountain ... perhaps a temple?}
When thou hadst slain with might the dragon Vrtra, thou, Indra, didst raise the Sun in heaven for all to see.
5 With wondrous might thou blewest enchanter fiends away, with powers celestial those who called on thee in jest. {implies that the Harappans deride the gods}
Thou, hero-hearted, hast broken down Pipru's forts, and helped Rjisvan when the Dasyus were struck dead.
6 Thou savedst Kutsa when Susna was smitten down; to Atithigva gavest Sambara for a prey.
E'en mighty Arbuda thou troddest under foot: thou from of old wast born to strike the Dasyus dead.

HYMN LIII. Indra.

7 Thou goest on from fight to fight intrepidly, destroying castle after castle here with strength.
Thou, Indra, with thy friend who makes the foe bow down, slewest from far away the guileful Namuci.

8 Thou hast struck down in death Karanja, Parnaya, in Atithigva's very glorious going forth.
Unyielding, when Rjisvan compassed them with siege, thou hast destroyed the hundred forts of Vangrida.

9 With all-outstripping chariot-wheel, O Indra, thou far-famed, hast overthrown the twice ten Kings of men,
With sixty thousand nine-and-ninety followers, who came in arms to fight with friendless Susravas.

HYMN LIV. Indra.

10 There darkness stood, the vault that stayed the waters' flow: in Vrtra's hollow side the rain-cloud lay concealed.
But Indra smote the rivers which the obstructer stayed, flood following after flood, down steep declivities.

HYMN LXIII. Indra.

4 That, as a friend, thou furtheredst, O Indra, when, Thundcrer, strong in
act, thou crushedst Vrtra;
When, Hero, thou, great-souled, with easy conquest didst rend the Dasyus in
their distant dwelling.
7 Warring for Purukutsa thou, O Indra, Thunder-armed! breakest down the seven castles;
Easily, for Sudis, like grass didst rend them, and out of need, King, broughtest gain to Puru.

HYMN LXXI. Agni.

7 All sacrificial viands wait on Agni as the Seven mighty Rivers seek the ocean. {these are not the rivers of Bactria, which drain to inland seas}
Not by our brethren was our food discovered: find with the Gods care for us, thou who knowest.

HYMN LXXII. Agni.

8 Knowing the Law, the seven strong floods from heaven, full of good thought, discerned the doors of riches. {Good Thought: seems a Zoroastrian-like expression; riches: booty from the Harappans}
Sarama found the cattle's firm-built prison whereby the race of man is still supported. {men, i.e. the Aryans; cattle prison implies stock yards}

HYMN LXXX. Indra.

10 Indra hath smitten down the power of Vrtra, might with stronger might.
This was his manly exploit, he slew Vrtra and let loose the floods, lauding his own imperial sway.
13 When with the thunder thou didst make thy dart and Vrtra meet in war,
Thy might, O Indra, fain to slay the Dragon, was set firm in heaven, lauding thine own imperial sway.

HYMN C. Indra.

18 He, much invoked, hath slain Dasyus and Simyus, after his wont, and laid them low with arrows.
The mighty Thunderer with his fair-complexioned friends won the land, the sunlight, and the waters.

HYMN CI. Indra.

1. SING, with oblation, praise to him who maketh glad, who with Rjisvan drove the dusky brood away.
Fain for help, him the strong whose right hand wields the bolt, him girt by Maruts we invoke to be our Friend.

HYMN CII. Indra.

2 The Seven Rivers bear his glory far and wide, and heaven and sky and earth display his comely form.
The Sun and Moon in change alternate run their course, that we, O Indra, may behold and may have faith.
7 Thy glory, Maghavan, exceeds a hundred yea, more than a hundred, than a thousand mid the folk,
The great bowl hath inspirited thee boundlessly: so mayst thou slay the Vrtras, breaker-down of forts!
10 Thou hast prevailed, and hast not kept the booty back, in trifling battles or in those of great account.
We make thee keen, the Mighty One, succour us: inspire us, Maghavan, when we defy the foe.

HYMN CIII. Indra.

3 Armed with his bolt and trusting in his prowess he wandered shattering the forts of Dasas.
Cast thy dart, knowing, Thunderer, at the Dasyu; increase the Arya's might and glory, Indra.
4 For him who thus hath taught these human races, Maghavan, bearing a fame-worthy title,
Thunderer, drawing nigh to slay the Dasyus, hath given himself the name of Son for glory.

HYMN CIX. Indra-Agni.

8 Give, ye who shatter forts, whose hands wield thunder: Indra and Agni, save us in our battles.
This prayer of ours may Varuna grant, and Mitra, and Aditi and Sindhu, Earth and Heaven.

HYMN CXXX. Indra.

8 Indra in battles help his Aryan worshipper, he who hath hundred helps at hand in every fray, in frays that win the light of heaven.
Plaguing the lawless he gave up to Manu's seed the dusky skin; Blazing, 'twere, he burns each covetous man away, he burns, the tyrannous away.

HYMN CLXXIV. Indra.

2 Indra, thou humbledst tribes that spake with insult by breaking down seven
autumn forts, their refuge.
Thou stirredst, Blameless! billowy floods, and gavest his foe a prey to
youthful Purukutsa.
8 These thine old deeds new bards have sung, O Indra. Thou conqueredst,
boundest many tribes for ever.
Like castles thou hast crushed the godless races, and bowed the godless
scorner's deadly weapon.

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE SECOND.

HYMN XI. Indra.

2 Floods great and many, compassed by the Dragon, thou badest swell and settest free, O Hero.
Strengthened by songs of praise thou rentest piecemeal the Dasa, him who deemed himself immortal.
4 We who add strength to thine own splendid vigour, laying within thine arms the splendid thunder -
With us mayst thou, O Indra, waxen splendid, with Surya overcome the Dasa races.
9 Indra hath hurled down the magician Vrtra who lay beleaguering the mighty river.
Then both the heaven and earth trembled in terror at the strong Hero's thunder when he bellowed.

HYMN XII. Indra.

4 By whom this universe was made to tremble, who chased away the humbled brood of demons,
Who, like a gambler gathering his winnings seized the foe's riches, He, O men, is Indra.

HYMN XIII. Indra.

5 Thou hast created earth to look upon the sky: thou, slaying Ahi, settest free the river's paths.
Thee, such, a God, the Gods have quickened with their lauds, even as a steed with waters: meet for praise art thou.
10 All banks of rivers yielded to his manly might; to him they gave, to him, the Strong, gave up their wealth.
The six directions hast thou fixed, a five-fold view: thy victories reached afar. Worthy of lauds art thou.

HYMN XIV. Indra.

6 Ye ministers, to him who as with thunder demolished Sambara's hundred ancient castles;
Who cast down Varcin's sons, a hundred thousand, - to him, to Indra, offer ye the Soma.
7 Ye ministers, to him who slew a hundred thousand, and cast them down upon
earth's bosom;
Who quelled the valiant men of Atithigva, Kutsa, and Ayu, - bring to him the Soma.

HYMN XX. Indra.

7 Indra the Vrtra-slayer, Fort-destroyer, scattered the Dasa hosts who dwelt in darkness. {Prof. Uthaya Naidu translates this as "who sprang from a black womb."}
For men hath he created earth and waters, and ever helped the prayer of him who worships.
8 To him in might the Gods have ever yielded, to Indra in the tumult of the battle. {the Gods of the Harappans yielded to Indra}
When in his arms they laid the bolt, he slaughtered the Dasyus and cast down their forts of iron.

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE THIRD

HYMN XII. Indra-Agni.

6 Indra and Agni, ye cast down the ninety forts which Dasas held,
Together, with one mighty deed.

HYMN XXX. Indra.

16 A cry is beard from enemies most near us: against them send thy fiercest-flaming weapon.
Rend them from under, crush them and subdue them. Slay, Maghavan, and make the fiends our booty.
17 Root up the race of Raksasas, O Indra rend it in front and crush it in the middle.
How long hast thou behaved as one who wavers? Cast thy hot dart at him who hates devotion:

HYMN XXXI. Indra.

21 His kine their Lord hath shown, e'en Vrtra's slayer, through the black
hosts he passed with red attendants.
Teaching us pleasant things by holy Order, to, us hath he thrown open all
his portals.

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE FOURTH

HYMN XVI. Indra.

13 Thou to the son of Vidathin, Rjisvan, gavest up mighty Mrgaya and Pipru.
Thou smotest down the swarthy fifty thousand, and rentest forts as age consumes a garment.

HYMN XXX. Indra.

13 Valiantly didst thou seize and take the store which Susna had amassed,
When thou didst crush his fortresses.
14 Thou, Indra, also smotest down Kulitara's son Sambara,
The Dasa, from the lofty hill.
15 Of Dasa Varcin's thou didst slay the hundred thousand and the five,
Crushed like the fellies, of a car. {car, i.e. chariot}
20 For Divodasa, him who brought oblation, Indra overthrew
A hundred fortresses of stone. {Stuart Piggot says this could also refer to mudbrick}
21 The thirty thousand Dasas he with magic power and weapons sent
To slumber, for Dabhiti's sake.

HYMN V. Agni.

4 May he with sharpened teeth, the Bounteous Giver, Agni, consume with flame
most fiercely glowing.
Those who regard not Varuna's commandments and the dear stedfast laws of
sapient Mitra.
5 Like youthful women without brothers, straying, like dames who hate their lords, of evil conduct,
They who are full of sin, untrue, unfaithful, they have engendered this
abysmal station.

HYMN XXXII. Indra.

10 We will declare thy hero deeds, what Disa forts thou brakest down,
Attacking them in rapturous joy.

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE FIFTH

HYMN XXIX. Agni.

2 What time the Maruts sang their song to Indra, joyous when he had drunk of Soma juices,
He grasped his thunderbolt to slay the Dragon, and loosed, that they might flow, the youthful Waters.
6 When Maghavan with the thunderbolt demolished his nine-and-ninety castles all together,
The Maruts, where they met, glorified Indra: ye with the Trstup hymn obstructed heaven.
10 One car-wheel of the Sun thou rolledst forward, and one thou settest free to move for Kutsa.
Thou slewest noseless Dasyus with thy weapon, and in their home o'erthrewest hostile speakers.

HYMN XXX. Indra.

5 When thou wast born supremest at a distance, bearing a name renowned in far-off regions,
Since then e'en Gods have been afraid of Indra: he conquered all the floods which served the Dasa.
6 These blissful Maruts sing their psalm to praise thee, and pour to thee libation of the Soma.
Indra with wondrous powers subdued the Dragon, the guileful lurker who beset the waters.
7 Thou, Maghavan, from the first didst scatter foemen, speeding, while joying in the milk, the Giver.
There, seeking man's prosperity, thou torest away the head of Namuci the Dasa.
8 Pounding the head of Namuci the Dasa, me, too thou madest thine associate, Indra!
Yea, and the rolling stone that is in heaven both worlds, as on a car, brought to the Maruts.
9 Women for weapons hath the Dasa taken, What injury can his feeble armies To me?
Well he distinguished his two different voices, and Indra then advanced to fight the Dasyu. {Indra heard the prayers of the Aryans, rejecting those of the Harappans}

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE SIXTH

HYMN XXVII. Indra.

5 In aid of Abhyavartin Cayamana, Indra destroyed the seed of Varasikha.
At Hariyupiya he smote the vanguard of the Vrcivans, and the rear fled frighted. {"At Hariyupiyah he smote the vanguard of the Vrcivans ... This Hariyupiyah is the Harappa excavated in the 1920s.}

6 Three thousand, mailed, in quest of fame, together, on the Yavyavati, O much-sought Indra,
Vrcivan's sons, falling before the arrow, like bursting vessels went to their destruction.

7 He, whose two red Steers, seeking goodly pasture, plying their tongues move on 'twixt earth and heaven,
Gave Turvasa to Srnjaya, and, to aid him, gave the Vrcivans up to Daivavata.

8 Two wagon-teams, with damsels, twenty oxen, O Agni, Abhydvartin Cayamdna,
The liberal Sovran, giveth me. This guerdon of Prthu's seed is hard to win from others.

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE SEVENTH

HYMN I. Agni.

1. THE men from fire-sticks, with their hands' swift movement, have, in deep thought, engendered glorious Agni, {lighting the sacred fire; this implies a field situation, since temples probably had permanent fires}
Far-seen, with pointed flame, Lord of the homestead.
10 Let these men, heroes in the fight with foemen, prevail against all godless arts of magic, - {i.e. the rites of the Harappans}
These who approve the noble song I sing thee.

HYMN XVIII. Indra.

13 Indra at once with conquering might demolished all their strong places and their seven castles.
The goods of Anu's son he gave to Trtsu. May we in sacrifice conquer scorned Puru.
14 The Anavas and Druhyus, seeking booty, have slept, the sixty hundred, yea, six thousand,
And six-and-sixty heroes. For the pious were all these mighty exploits done by Indra.
15 These Trtsus under Indra's careful guidance came speeding like loosed waters rushing downward.
The foemen, measuring exceeding closely, abandoned to Sudas all their provisions.
16 The hero's side who drank the bressed oblation, Indra's denier far o'er earth he scattered.
Indra brought down the fierce destroyer's fury. He gave them various roads, the path's Controller.
17 E'en with the weak he wrought this matchless exploit: e'en with a goat he did to death a lion.
He pared the pillar's angles with a needle. Thus to Sudas Indra gave all provisions.
18 To thee have all thine enemies submitted: e'en the fierce Bheda hast thou made thy subject.
Cast down thy sharpened thunderbolt, O Indra, on him who harms the men who sing thy praises.
19 Yamuna and the Trtsus aided Indra. There he stripped Bheda bare of all his treasures.
The Ajas and the Sigrus and the Yaksus brought in to him as tribute heads of
horses.
20 Not to be scroned, but like Dawns past and recent, O Indra, are thy favours and thy riches,
Devaka, Manyamana's son, thou slewest, and smotest Sambara from the lofty mountain.

HYMN XXI. Indra.

3 Indra, thou settest free the many waters that were encompassed, Hero, by the Dragon.
Down rolled, as if on chariots borne, the rivers: through fear of thee all things created tremble.
5 No evil spirits have impelled us, Indra, nor fiends, O Mightiest God, with their devices.
Let our true God subdue the hostile rabble: let not the lewd approach our holy worship. {"the lewd" probably refers to the phallic god Shiva of the Harappans (Dasyu).  Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Siva: the Erotic Ascetic, OUP, London 1973, p. 9; also see Rig Veda 10.xcix.3}

HYMN XCIX. Visnu.

4 Ye have made spacious room for sacrificing by generating Surya, Dawn, and Agni.
O Heroes, ye have conquered in your battles even the bull-jawed Dasa's wiles and magic.
5 Ye have destroyed, thou, Indra, and thou Visnu, Sambara's nine-and-ninety fenced castles.
Ye Twain smote down a hundred times a thousand resistless heroes of the royal Varcin.

HYMN C. Visnu.

4 Over this earth with mighty step strode Visnu, ready to give it for a home to Manu.
In him the humble people trust for safety: he, nobly born, hath made them spacious dwellings.
5 To-day I laud this name, O Sipivista, I, skilled in rules, the name of thee the Noble.
Yea, I the poor and weak praise thee the Mighty who dwellest in the realm beyond this region.
6 What was there to be blamed in thee, O Visnu, when thou declaredst, I am Sipivista?
Hide not this form from us, nor keep it secret, since thou didst wear another shape in battle.
7 O Visnu, unto thee my lips cry Vasat! Let this mine offering, Sipivista, please thee.
May these my songs of eulogy exalt thee. Preserve us evermore, ye Gods, with blessings.

HYMN CIII. Frogs.

1. THEY who lay quiet for a year, the Brahmans who fulfil their vows,
The Frogs have lifted up their voice, the voice Parjanya hath inspired.
2 What time on these, as on a dry skin lying in the pool's bed, the floods of heaven descended,
The music of the Frogs comes forth in concert like the cows lowing with their calves beside them.
3 When at the coming of the Rains the water has poured upon them as they yearned and thirsted,
One seeks another as he talks and greets him with cries of pleasure as a son his father.
4 Each of these twain receives the other kindly, while they are revelling in the flow of waters,
When the Frog moistened by the rain springs forward, and Green and Spotty both combine their voices.
5 When one of these repeats the other's language, as he who learns the lesson of the teacher,
Your every limb seems to be growing larger as ye converse with eloquence on the waters.
6 One is Cow-bellow and Goat-bleat the other, one Frog is Green and one of them is Spotty.
They bear one common name, and yet they vary, and, talking, modulate the voice diversely.
7 As Brahmans, sitting round the brimful vessel, talk at the Soma-rite of Atiratra,
So, Frogs, ye gather round the pool to honour this day of all the year, the first of Rain-time.
8 These Brahmans with the Soma juice, performing their year-long rite, have lifted up their voices;
And these Adhvaryus, sweating with their kettles, come forth and show themselves, and none are hidden.
9 They keep the twelve month's God-appointed order, and never do the men neglect the season.
Soon as the Rain-time in the year returneth, these who were heated kettles gain their freedom.
10 Cow-bellow and Goat-bleat have granted riches, and Green and Spotty have vouchsafed us treasure.
The Frogs who give us cows in hundreds lengthen our lives in this most fertilizing season.

HYMN CIV. Indra-Soma.

1. INDRA and Soma, burn, destroy the demon foe, send downward, O ye Bulls, those who add gloom to gloom.
Annihilate the fools, slay them and burn them up: chase them away from us, pierce the voracious ones.
2 Indra and Soma, let sin round the wicked boil like as a caldron set amid the flames of fire.
Against the foe of prayer, devourer of raw flesh, the vile fiend fierce of eye, keep ye perpetual hate. {perhaps an accusation of cannibalism}
3 Indra and Soma, plunge the wicked in the depth, yea, cast them into darkness that hath no support,
So that not one of them may ever thence return: so may your wrathful might prevail and conquer them.
4 Indra and Soma, hurl your deadly crushing bolt down on the wicked fiend from heaven and from the earth.
Yea, forge out of the mountains your celestial dart wherewith ye burn to death the waxing demon race. {implies a missile of some sort, perhaps carrying fire}
24 Slay the male demon, Indra! slay the female, joying and triumphing in arts of magic. {accuses the Harappans of practising magic}
Let the fools' gods with bent necks fall and perish, and see no more the Sun when he arises.
25 Look each one hither, look around Indra and Soma, watch ye well.
Cast forth your weapon at the fiends; against the sorcerers hurt your bolt. {brands the Harappans sorcerers}

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE EIGHTH

HYMN XIX. Agni.

36 A gift of fifty female slaves hath Trasadasyu given me, Purukutsa's son,
Most liberal, kind, lord of the brave. {probably wives of the defeated Harappans}
37 And Syava too for me led forth a strong steed at Suvastu's ford:
A herd of three times seventy kine, good lord of gifts, he gave to me.

HYMN XXIV. Indra.

19 Come, sing we praise to Indra, friends, the Hero who deserves the laud,
Him who with none to aid o'ercomes all tribes of men.
22 As Vyasva did, praise Indra, praise the Strong unfluctuating Guide,
Who gives the foe's possessions to the worshipper.

HYMN XXXI. Various Deities.

17 None in his action equals him, none holds him far or keeps him off.
The man who, sacrificing, strives to win the heart of Deities will conquer those who worship not.

HYMN XL. Indra-Agni.

6 Tear thou asunder, as of old, like tangles of a creeping plant,
Demolish thou the Dasa's might. May we with Indra's help divide the treasure he hath gathered up.

HYMN LXII. Asvins.

17 He looked upon the Asvins, as an axearmed man upon a tree:
Let your protecting help be near.
18 By the black band encompassed round, break it down, bold one, like a
fort. {implies that the Harappans were black}

HYMN LXXIV. Asvins.

4 List, Heroes, to the singer's call, the call of Krsna lauding you,
To drink the savoury Soma juice.

HYMN LXXXV. Indra.

9 A sharpened weapon is the host of Maruts. Who, Indra, dares withstand thy bolt of thunder?
Weaponless are the Asuras, the godless: scatter them with thy wheel, Impetuous Hero.
15 And then the Drop in Amsumati's bosom, splendid with light, assumed its proper body;
And Indra, with Brhaspati to aid him, conquered the godless tribes that came against him.
18 Then wast thou, Chieftain of all living mortals, the very mighty slayer of the Vrtras.
Then didst thou set the obstructed rivers flowing, and win the floods that were enthralled by Dasas.

BOOK IX {Book Nine}

HYMN XLI. Soma Pavamana.

1. ACTIVE and bright have they come forth, impetuous in speed like bulls,
Driving the black skin far away.
2 Quelling the riteless Dasyu, may we think upon the bridge of bliss,
Leaving the bridge of woe behind.

HYMN LXXIII. Soma Pavamana.

5 O'er Sire and Mother they have roared in unison bright with the verse of praise, burning up riteless men,
Blowing away with supernatural might from earth and from the heavens the swarthy skin which Indra hates.

RIG VEDA - BOOK THE TENTH

{this later book contains some philosophical hymns of universal interest, passing beyond the tribal ethic of the rest of the Rig Veda, and leading towards the Upanishads, Jainism & Buddhism}

HYMN XXXIV. Dice, Etc. {Gambling}

1. SPRUNG from tall trees on windy heights, these rollers transport me as they turn upon the table.
Dearer to me the die that never slumbers than the deep draught of Mujavan's own Soma.
2 She never vexed me nor was angry with me, but to my friends and me was ever gracious.
For the die's sake, whose single point is final, mine own devoted wife I alienated.
3 My wife holds me aloof, her mother hates me: the wretched man finds none
to give him comfort.
As of a costly horse grown old and feeble, I find not any profit of the gamester.
4 Others caress the wife of him whose riches the die hath coveted, that
rapid courser:
Of him speak father, mother, brothers saying, We know him not: bind him and take him with you.
5 When I resolve to play with these no longer, my friends depart from me and
leave me lonely.
When the brown dice, thrown on the board, have rattled, like a fond girl I seek the place of meeting.
6 The gamester seeks the gambling-house, and wonders, his body all afire, Shall I be lucky?
Still do the dice extend his eager longing, staking his gains against his adversary.
7 Dice, verily, are armed with goads and driving-hooks, deceiving and tormenting, causing grievous woe.
They give frail gifts and then destroy the man who wins, thickly anointed with the player's fairest good.
9 Downward they roll, and then spring quickly upward, and, handless, force the man with hands to serve them.
Cast on the board, like lumps of magic charcoal, though cold themselves they burn the heart to ashes.
10 The gambler's wife is left forlorn and wretched: the mother mourns the son who wanders homeless.
In constant fear, in debt, and seeking riches, he goes by night unto the home of others.
11 Sad is the gambler when he sees a matron, another's wife, and his well-ordered dwelling.
He yokes the brown steeds in the early morning, and when the fire is cold sinks down an outcast.
13 Play not with dice: no, cultivate thy corn-land. Enjoy the gain, and deem that wealth sufficient.
There are thy cattle, there thy wife, O gambler. So this good Savitar himself hath told me.
14 Make me your friend: show us some little mercy. Assail us not with your terrific fierceness.
Appeased be your malignity and anger, and let the brown dice snare some other captive.

HYMN XC. Purusa. {The 4 castes are actually mentioned here}

The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rajanya made.
His thighs became the Vaisya, from his feet the Sudra was produced.

{This shows that the caste system was brought by the conquerors. The defeated became sudras. Rajanya = Ksatriya, the military caste; Vaisya = the farmer and trader}

HYMN XCIX. Indra.

3 On most auspicious path he goes to battle he toiled to win heaven's light, full fain to gain it;
He seized the hundred-gated castle's treasure by craft, unchecked, and slew the lustful demons. {by craft .. burning arrows? "lustful" probably refers to the phallic god Shiva of the Harappans (Dasyu).  Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Siva: the Erotic Ascetic, OUP, London 1973, p. 9; also see Rig Veda 7.xxi.5}
6 Lord of the dwelling, he subdued the demon who roared aloud, six-eyed and triple-headed.
Trta, made stronger by the might he lent him, struck down the boar with shaft whose point was iron.
7 He raised himself on high and shot his arrow against the guileful and oppressive foeman.
Strong, glorious, manliest, for us he shattered the forts of Nabus when he slew the Dasyus.
8 He, like a cloud that rains upon the pasture, hath found for us the way to dwell in safety.
When the Hawk comes in body to the Soma, armed with his iron claws he slays the Dasyus.
9 He with his potent Friends gave up the mighty, gave Susnia up to Kutsa for affliction.
He led the lauded Kavi, he delivered Atka as prey to him and to his heroes.
10 He, with his Gods who love mankind, the Wondrous, giving like Varuna who works with magic,
Was known, yet young as guardian of the seasons; and he quelled Araru, four-footed demon.
11 Through lauds of him hath Ausija Rjisvan burst, with the Mighty's aid, the stall of Pipru.
When the saint pressed the juice and shone as singer, he seized the forts and with his craft subdued them.
12 So, swiftly Asura, for exaltation, hath the great Vamraka come nigh to Indra.
He will, when supplicated, bring him blessing: he hath brought all, food, strength, a happy dwelling.

HYMN CV. Indra.

8 Grind off our sins: with song will we conquer the men who sing no hymns:
Not easily art thou pleased with prayerless sacrifice.
11 As hundreds, O Immortal God, have sung to thee, so hath Sumitra, yea, Durmitra praised thee here,
What time thou holpest Kutsa's son, when Dasyus fell, yea, holpest Kutsa's darling when the Dasyus died.

HYMN CXXIX. Creation. {this most-quoted hymn shows great reflection, the admission of ignorance; it therefore approaches the Upanishads}

1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2 Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
3 Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
4 Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
5 Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

HYMN CXXXVIII. Indra.

3 In the mid-way of heaven the Sun unyoked his car: the Arya found a match to meet his Dasa foe.
Associate with Rjisvan Indra overthrew the solid forts of Pipru, conjuring Asura.
4 He boldly cast down forts which none had e'er assailed: unwearied he destroyed the godless treasure-stores.
Like Sun and Moon he took the stronghold's wealth away, and, praised in song, demolished foes with flashing dart.

{end of quotes from the Rig Veda}

(4) Qualification

Destruction of a civilization is very traumatic. Many in the West feel (like me) that ours is being destroyed at present; now we know what it feels like.

The New Left message is, that "we" don't own this country - we stole it. The communist movement has partly "undone" the European invasion of the world.

However, Utopia is never an option. In the creation of a different society, the Left must be judged by its own record. The Soviet Union had some dastardly features right from the start. We would not want a world where such a system became dominant.

Ignazio Silone writes in The God That Failed, Harper & Brothers NY 1949:

"{p. 106} Between 1921 and 1927 I had repeated occasions to go to Moscow and take part, as a member of Italian Communist delegations, in a number ot congresses and meetings of the Executive. What struck me most about the Russian Communists, even in such really exceptional personalities as Lenin and Trotsky, was their utter incapacity to be fair in discussing opinions that conflicted with their own. The adversary, simply for daring to contradict, at once became a traitor, an opportunist, a hireling. An adversary in good faith is inconceivable to the Russian Communists. What an aberration of conscience this is, for so-called materialists and rationalists to uphold absolutely in their polemics the primacy of morals

"{p. 107} over intelligence. To find a comparable infatuation one has to go back to the Inquisition. Just as I was leaving Moscow, in 1922, Alexandra Kollontaj said to me: 'If you happen to read in the papers that Lenin has had me arrested for stealing the silver spoons in the Kremlin, that simply means that I'm not entirely in agreement with him about some little problem of agricultural or industrial policy.' Kollontaj had acquired her sense of irony in the West and so only used it with people from the West. But even then, in those feverish years of building the new regime, when the new orthodoxy had not yet taken complete possession of cultural life, how difficult it was to reach an understanding with a Russian Communist on the simplest, and for us most obvious, questions; how difficult, I don't say to agree but at least to understand each other, when talking of what liberty means for a man of the West, even for a worker. I spent hours one day trying to explain to one of the directors of the State publishing house why she ought at least to be ashamed of the atmosphere of discouragement and intimidation in which Soviet writers lived. She could not understand what I was trying to tell her.

"'Liberty,' I had to give examples, 'is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying no to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social, and even political.' 'But that,' murmured this eminent functionary of Soviet culture in horror, 'that is counterrevolution.' Then she added, to get a little of her own back: 'We're glad we haven't got your liberty, but we've got the sanatoria in exchange.' When I observed that the expression 'in exchange' had no meaning, 'liberty not being merchandise that could be exchanged,' and that I had seen sanatoria in other countries, she laughed in my face. 'You're in the mood for joking with me to-day,' she said to me. And I was so taken aback by her candour that I no longer dared to contradict her."

More from Silone: koestler.html.

I advocate facing the facts about "Aryanism", not to bring the system crashing down around us, but (1) to show that universal values often co-exist with particularism (2) to empathisise with those whose civilization is destroyed (we have some idea what it's like, now that it's happening to us) (3) noting the Soviet alternative, whose true nature is largely unknown in the West, cautions us that there are only limited options for change; change may not be an improvement (4) to, whilst rejecting the Open-Door One-Worldist policy, accept a more racially and culturally mixed society than we had in the past, meeting other people as equals (5) this requires finding a different standpoint for judging our own past history.

(5) A reader's comment: do legends of the Centaurs refer to the Aryan invaders?

VM writes,

"Just had to put in a good word, for the people of the centaurs as I call them, I would like to believe that the legend of the centaurs, was an expression of the dim memory of their invasion of north eastern Europe. The centaurs, are both horse and man, swift in movement, and natural archers, which seems to be a hint at two things that the Aryan invaders, had over the settled cultures that they attacked, mobility, and fire power. Now the greatest of the centaurs was Chiron, who taught mankind medicine, and was famous for his wisdom. So here you have the two, elements, of the Aryan ethos, both destroyers, and creators. breakers up of the old insular cultures, and disseminators, of all that is best in those cultures, and destroyers of that which caused there insularity. I wonder if the Chinese have similar legends, of such wild creatures, in there wonderful body of legend, and history, can anyone tell me."

Are Communists & Free Traders the "Creative Destroyers" of today?

(6) Evidence from Elman R. Service, A. L. Basham, Bridget and Raymond Allchin, and William H. McNeill

Elman R. Service, Origins of the State and Civilization, W. W. Norton & Co, NY 1973.

{p. 238} FOR ABOUT one thousand years, beginning about 2500 B.C., a civilization of the classic type prevailed over the valley of the Indus River and its tributaries. It had writing (as yet not deciphered) and a decimal mathematical notation, specialized skilled crafts (including metallurgy in bronze), two planned cities as large as any in Sumer, irrigation and flood control, monumental architecturc, vast systems of transport, all of which were similar to those of Sumer and at least as good. The valley succumbed to invasions of barbaric pastoralists (believed by some to be "Aryans") around 1500 B.C., never to recover its independence. ...

{p. 239} The Indus Valley civilization occupied a larger territory than either Egypt or Sumer. The two large cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, were about three hundred fifty miles apart, and the most distant lesser sites were about a thousand miles apart. The valley was similar to Mesopotamia in that low rainfall necessitated irrigation, but was unlike Egypt in that the flooding of the plains was not regular. Hence, it could not be occupied successfully except on the basis of manmade irrigation. For this reason alone, a Formative stage of development, in which an irrigation system grew to near-maturity, must have taken place elsewhere before the plains were occupied. The Indus Valley dwellers would have needed such a system not only to irrigate crops, but also to control the irregular floods.

Further indirect evidence strongly supports the theory that a full-fledged culture was imported to the valley of the Indus. From top to bottom (over a thousand miles) and up the five tributaries, the occupied area is uniform in culture, even in minor stylistic features (Allchin 1968, p. 136). Moreover, the large cities apparently were geometrically planned and then built to the plan, rather than growing randomly by accretion like the Mesopotamian cities. {end}

A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, Grove Press, NY 1954.

{p. 27} Sporadic traces of contact can be found between the Indus cities and Sumeria, and there is some reason to believe that these contacts continued under the First

{p. 28} dynasty of Babylon, which produced the great lawgiver Hammurabi. This dynasty was also overwhelmed by barbarians, the Kassites, who came from the hills of Iran and conquered by virtue of their horse-drawn chariots. After the Kassite invasion no trace of contact with the Indus can be found in Mesopotamia, and it is therefore likely that the Indus cities fell at about the same time as the dynasty of Hammurabi. Earlier authorities placed the latter event in the first centuries of the 2nd millennium B.C,, but new evidence, which appeared shortly before the outbreak of the Second VVorld War, has resulted in a revised chronology. The fall of the First Babylonian Dynasty is now thought to have taken place about 1600 B.C.

The earliest Indian literary source we possess is the Rg Veda, most of which was composed in the second half of the 2nd millennium. It is evidently the work of an invading people, who have not yet fully subjugated the original inhabitants of N.-W. India. In his great report on the excavations at Mohenjo Daro, Sir John Marshall maintained that some two centuries or more elapsed between the fall of the Indus cities and the invasion of the Aryans; but the more recent excavations at Harappa and elsewhere, the revision of the chronology of Babylon, and indications in the Rg Veda itself, have all tended to reduce the gap. Many competent authorities, led by Sir R. Mortimer Wheeler, now believe that Harappa was overthrown by the Aryans. It is suggested that the interments in the later cemetery at Harappa are those of "true Vedic Aryans", and that the forts or citadels which the Vedic war-god Indra is said to have destroyed included Harappa in their number. There is not enough evidence to say with certainty that the destroyers of the Indus cities were members of the group of related tribes whose priests composed the Rg Veda, but it is probable that the fall of this great civilization was an episode in the movement of charioteering peoples which altered the face of the whole civilized world in the 2nd millennium B.C.

INDO-EUROPEANS AND ARYANS

The invaders of India called themselves Aryas, a word generally anglicized into Aryans. The name was also used by the ancient Persians, and survives in the word Iran, while Eire, the name of the most westerly land reached by Indo-European peoples in ancient times, is also cognate. {endquote}

Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Birth of Indian Civilization, Penguin, Hammondsworth UK, 1968.

{p. 153} It is believed that the Veda - on account of its great sanctity - was not reduced to writing until the time of Sayana (in the fourteenth century A.D.), and thus that it was passed down in oral traditions for about thirty centuries. None the less, from the time when its hymns were collected and arranged, probably before 1000 B.C. they have been preserved syllable by syllable with incredible accuracy, and while the language changed with time so that their original meaning became more and more obscure, the hymns were passed down immutably from Brahman teacher to pupil. The picture the hymns present is of barbarian tribes, glorying in their swift horses and light chariots, with sheep, goats and cattle, cultivating at first barley and wheat and later rice. They made tools and weapons of ayas, a metal which, being occasionally described as red in colour, must have been either copper or bronze. Iron (at first known as black metal

{p. 154} to distinguish it) is not mentioned in the Rigveda, but in later Vedic literature, from the time of the Atharvaveda and the Samhitas of the Yajurveda, it becomes increasingly common.

The Vedic hymns are addressed to Indo-European gods such as Indra, the warrior charioteer whose thunderbolt destroyed their enemies and who brags of his inebriation on the sacred soma drink; Agni, the fire god, who also shares something of this warlike character as the consumer of the enemy, as well as being the intermediary between gods and men; Varuna, the Asura or righteous king; Mitra, with solar characteristics, and so on. Their cult revolved around the fire sacrifice. The Aryan funeral rites are of interest: cremation and burial were evidently both in vogue.

The geographical horizons of the Rigveda are relevant to our inquiry. On the west they are bounded by the western tributaries of the Indus, the Gomat; (modern Gomal), the Krumu (modern Kurram) and the Kubha (modern Kabul) rivers. Other rivers are mentioned even to the north of the Kabul, notably Suvastu, the modern Swat. This latter signifies 'fair dwellings' and may therefore indicate Aryan settlements in this beautiful valley. The centre of Rigvedic geography is the Punjab. The rivers most often referred to are the Indus itself, the Sarasvatl and the Drishadvati and the five streams which collectively gave their name to the Punjab (five waters), the S~ltudr; (Sutlej), Vipas (Beas), Parushm (Ravi), Asiknl (Chenab), and Vitasta (Jhelum). The eastern horizons are the Jamuna river and at the end of the period the Ganges.

From the Veda it is evident that the Aryans were not the only inhabitants of the region, for which they themselyes used the name Sapta-Sindhava or land of seven Indus rivers, and that their original stay was not entirely peaceful. We learn of a people called Da-sas or Dasyu (the word later means 'slave') who were dark-complexioned, snub-nosed, worshippers of the phallus (s'is'na deva), etc. They were rich in cattle and lived in fortified strongholds, pura. We learn of another people, the Panis, who were also wealthy in cattle and treasures. Although many of the hymns refer to battles between one Aryan tribe and another there is an underlying sense of solidarity in the

{p. 155} fight against the Dasas, and Indra is named Purandara, the 'breaker of cities'. Already in the Veda the first encounters of Indra (the Aryan people personified) and the fortified settlements of the Dasas were being forgotten and the Dasa rulers were regarded as demons. We hear of a city named Narmini destroyed by fire, and of a battle on the banks of the Ravi at a place named Hariyupiya (which Indologists are ever more confidently identifying with Harappa). Professor Burrow has recently shown the unambiguous character of such references as, 'Through fear of thee the dark-coloured inhabitants fled, not waiting for battle, abandoning their possessions, when, O Agni [fire], burning brightly for Puru [an Aryan tribe], and destroying the cities, thou didst shine' (VII. 5.3). He has further recognized the importance in both the Rigveda and later Vedic texts of the word arma, armaka, meaning ruin. For instance, in the Rigveda we read, 'Strike down, O Maghavan [Indra], the host of sorceresses in the ruined city of Vailasthanaka, in the ruined city of Mahavailastha [Great Vailastha]' (I.133.3) There were then, in the time of the Rigveda, great ruin-mounds which the Aryans associated with the earlier inhabitants of the area. The same idea recurs in a later Vedic text, the Taittiriya Brahmana (II. 4, 6, 8), in the statement that, 'The people to whom these ruined sites belonged, lacking posts, these many settlements, widely distributed, they, O Agni, having been expelled by thee, have migrated to another land.' Also in one of the later Vedic texts we read, 'On the Sarasvatl there are ruined sites called Naitandhava; Vyarna is one of these'; and, for the archaeologist perhaps even more suggestively, 'He should proceed along the right bank of the Drishadvatl, having reached the ruined site near its source he should proceed towards the right,' etc. {endquote}

William H. McNeill, A World History, OUP, NY 1979.

{p. 104} Chronological relationships are compatible with the idea of diffusion of chariot technology eastward as well as west and south, for there is about a two-hundred-vear gap between the time when conquering charioteers first appeared in the Middle East and the time when similar military equipment is known to have reached China. ...

Later tradition gave the name Hsia to the first human rulers of China. No archaeological finds can be definitely attached to the Hsia, unless, indeed, the Black pottery villages represent the material remains of that age. Anyang, on the other hand, definitely belongs to the second dynasty recorded in Chinese history, the Shang. The shorter of the two traditional chronologies assigns the dates 1523-1028 B.C. to the Shang dynasty, and modern scholarship can find no reason to question the correctness of this record.

Clearly, caution is called for in interpreting incomplete archaeological data. Conquerors, if indeed they came by the oasis route through central Asia, probably intermarried with local women, sent their sons' sons onward to the next oasis and the next, during a period of some two centuries. Hence one need not assume any massive influx of Indo-Euronean barbarians, such as flooded into India at about the time the Shang dynasty established itself in China. Moreover, it seems clear that the conquerors soon adopted much of the culture of their new subjects; or to express the matter more precisely, it seems probable that when the Shang aristocracy established itself over the farming populations of the Yellow river valley, the rulers began to collect rents and used part of their income to support a body of artisans, whose skills rapidly improved as thev became professional. Some of the

{p. 105} skills seem to have been new to China, e.g. bronze-founding and wheel-making - both of them vital to the charioteers' arrnament. {endquote}

(7) Views from Below: Studies on the Aryan Invasion, and Hinduism, by Sudras, Tamils & Dravidians

From The Bible of Aryan Invasions at http://www.dalitstan.org/books/bibai/.

{start of quotes}

This is a memorial dedicated to the countless lives lost during the greatest genocide in ancient history, that perpetrated by more than 20 waves of Aryan invaders upon the natives of India. ------------------------------------

The Bible of Aryan Invasions 1500 BC - 1000 AD by Prof. Uthaya Naidu

Preface

The discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization in the 1920s brought to light a suppressed chapter of Indian history, namely the large-scale destruction and genocide perpetrated over 1000 years by the Aryan invaders on indigenous Negroid Sudras, Mongoloids and Semites. However, this episode is blatantly denied by the Brahmin-controlled press of India, which propagates highly distorted versions of history, and even goes to the extent of denying that any genocide took place

3. Negationism & Denial of Aryan Invasions

Genocide has been a recurring event in human history. Thus, the genocide of the Native Americans by invading Latin Europeans, the mass murders of Communism, and the massacres of ethnic Palestinians by Isreali Jews are all historically documented events. Yet, each episode has its own brand of deniers and negationists. ...

Firstly, most of the Communists and other leftists are Brahmins. Pandit Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi (who married the Iranian Brahmin, or `Parsi', Feroze Gandhi) and his grandson (technically still a Brahmin) Rajiv Gandhi were all Brahmins. Namboodirpad, the leader of the first democratically elected Communist government in the world, was a Kerala Brahmin. Virtually the entire hierarchy of Indian Communism, including Marxism and Leninism, consists of Brahmins. More than 60 % of leaders of all Communist organisations in India are Brahmins. Only Maoism, of Chinese origin, is not. ...

In this Communist framework, the Holocaust is denied by asserting that `natural causes' led to its downfall, or that `internal decay' were the reasons. Again, the motive is the same as in the case of the Brahmin supremacist Hindutva movement, namely to deny the Sudra Genocide. However, since it is not as obviously wrong, this point of view is widely held, even amongst scholars and requires much more effort to disprove. ...

The only reason for the fall of the Harappan civilization is due to Aryan invasions. ...

There are signs of flooding in the Indus cities, and climate changes also occurred. The Kautilyanists hence often attribute the demise of the IVC (Indus Valley Civilization) to flooding. Yet the Aryan researchers do not state why these changes occurred. The fact is, as vividly displayed in the book, these changes were brought about by Aryanist environmental destruction. The annihilation of the Indus dam and irrigation system and the fact that Rajastan and the Punjab are now one Great Thar Desert, are all due to the catastrophic environmental degradation caused by the Aryan marauders. ...

Destruction of the Indus Dam System & Flooding

The larger metropolises of the Indus managed to withstand the Aryan onslaught due to the protection of massive walls. To force their capitulation, the Aryans smashed the sophisticated Indus dam and irrigation system, no trace of which now remains. This led to widepread monsoonal flooding, causing slit {silt} deposits which are still to be found in the ruins of the Indus cities, and destruction of the fertile topsoil. This meant the end of settled agriculture in the Indus basin. Thus the Vedas proudly praise Indra as the destroyer of this irrigation system, no trace of which now remains (vrtra=dam in Sanskrit) :

+ He smote Vrtra who encompassed the waters [ RgV.VI.20.2 ] + He smote Vrtra who enclosed the waters, like a tree with the bolt [ RgV.II.14.2 ] + He is referred to as `conquering the waters' ( apsujit ), which is his prime attribute. + Indra let loose the streams after slaying Vrtra [ RgV.IV.19.8 ] + He cleaves the mountian, making the streams flow [ RgV.I.57.6; X.89.7 ], even with the sound of his bolt [ RgV VI.27.1] -- [ RgV I.57.6; II.14.2; IV.19.8; VI.20.2; VI.27.1; X.89.7 ] [ S+T.368 ]

In Sanskrit, `vrtra' is an `obstacle', and denotes a barrage or blockage [ Kos.70-71]. It is thus a word for `dam'. Dams now called Gebr-band are found on many water-courses of the western parts of the Indus region. Aryans shattered the dam system of the Indus, leading to silt deposits in Mohenjo-daro [ S+T.369]. This is vividly described in the Rig Veda:

+ When he [Indra] laid open the great mountain, he let loose the torrents and slew the Danava, he set free the pent up springs, the udder of the mountain. [ RgV V.32.1-2 ] + He slew the Danava, shattered the great mountian, broke open the well, set free the pent up waters. [ RgV I.57.6; V.33.1 ] + He releases the streams which are like impisoned cows [ RgV I.61.10 ] + He won the cows and soma and made the 7 rivers flow. [ RgV I.32.12; II.12.12 ] + He releases the imprisoned waters [ RgV I.57.6; I.103.2 ] + He dug out channels for the streams with his bolt [ RgV II.15.3 ], let the flood of waterrs flow into the sea. [ RgV II.19.3 ] + He caused the waters pent up by Vrtra to flow [ RgV III.26.6; IV.17.1 ] -- [ Mac ] [ S+T.368-9 quotg Macdonell ]

Another verse explicitly mentions him as a destroyer of dams:

rinag rodhamsi krtrimani = " he removed artificial barriers" -- [ RgV 2.15.8 ]

Now, rodhas = "dam" elsewhere in the Rig Veda and in later Sanskrit [ S+T.369 ]. The above evidence, taken directly from the Rig Veda and not from any secondary source, is sufficient to implacate the Aryans as the destroyers of the dam systems of the ancient Indus.

Fall of Harappa

The larger Indus cities, their agricultural supply base gone, and crowded with refugees fleeing the Aryan onslaught, finally fell to the barbarian invader. Indra besieged Harappa, defeated the Indian army at their last stand, and then sacked Harappa itself, the queen of cities with massive ziggurats and large-scale industries. Such was the carnage that, despite monsoonal downpourings, the fractured skulls and thick ash layers survive in the upper layers of the Indus cities. The inhabitants were then butchered, as recounted in the famous Rig Vedic Harappa hymn :

" In aid of Abhyavartin Cayamana, Indra destroyed the seed of Virasakha." "At Hariyupiyah he smote the vanguard of the Vrcivans, and the rear fled frighted." -- [ Rg.V. XXVII.5 ] {Book 6, Hymn 27, verse 5}

This Hariyupiyah is the Harappa excavated in the 1920s. ...

What follows is the eidence from the horse's mouth, for it was considered a source of merit to have killed the black aboriginals, and the military leaders involved are proudly praised for these deeds :

* " Thou, Indra, art the destroyer of all the cities, the slayer of the Dasyus, the prosperer of man, the lord of the sky." < " Tvam hi shasvatinam Indra daita puram asi hanta dasyor manor vridhah patir divah " - Sans. > -- [ RgV.VIII.87.6 ] [ Muir I.175 ] * " Indra, the slayer of Vrittra, the destroyer of cities, has scattered the Dasyu (hosts) sprang from a black womb. " -- [ RgV. II.20.6 {this should be II.20.7}] [ Muir I.174 ] * The ancient singer praises the god who "destroyed the Dasyans and protected the Aryan colour." [ Rg.V. III.34.9 ] [ Ann. 114 ] and "the thunderer who bestowed on his white friends the fields, bestowed the sun, bestowed the waters." [ Rg.V. I.100.18 ] [ Ann. 114 ] Numerous are the references to "the black skin" `Krishnam Vacham' [ RgV. IX.41.1, Sam.V. I.491, II.242 ] [ Ann. 114 ] which is mentioned with abhorrence. * Again " stormy gods who rush on like furious bulls and scatter the black skin." [ RgV.IX.73.5 ] * The singers mention "the black skin, the hated of Indra", being swept ourtof heaven [ RgV.IX.73.5 ] * "Indra protected in battle the Aryan worshipper, he subdued the lawless for Manu, he conqured the black skin." [ Rg.V. I.130.8 ] [ Ann.114 ] * The sacrificer poured out thanks to his god for "scattering the slave bands of black descent", and for stamping out " the vile Dasyan colour." [ Rg.V. II.20.7, II.12.4 ] [ Ann. 115 ] * "Black skin is impious" <"Dasam varnam adharam" -Sans.> [ Rg.V. II.12.4 ] [ Muir Pt.I, p.43, II, p.284, 323 etc. ] [ Ann. 114 ff ]. * "[Indra] made the impious varNa of the dAsas lower and hidden." <"[i'ndro] dA'saM va'rNaM a'dharaM gu'hA'kaH" - Sans> [ RV. II.12.4 ] ...

Especially common was the surrounding of a town by Aryan forces so that no escape was possible, followed by the firing of the city. Those blacks not burnt alive & who managed to escape into the surrounding fields were slaughtered by the Aryans :

" Thou, a hero, a benefactor, hast impelled the character of man; vicotiruos, thou hast burnt up the rite-less Dasyu, as a vessel is consumed by a blaze" -- [ RgV. I.175.3 ] [ Muir I.174 ] ...

Genocide of Semites

Although Negroids (Dravidians and Kolarians) represent the original inhabitants of India, large number of Semites (referred to as `Panis' or Phoenicians in Aryan records) immigrated into the Indus Valley. They introduced features of Mesopotamian civilization, eg. seals, ziggurats etc. and eventually came to form nearly half of the population of the Indus Valley.

These Semites were also subject to genocide by the Aryans. No regard was shown to the life of these non-Aryans. During the height of the slaughter, an Aryan poet encourages his brethren to continue the genocide of Semites:

" Ye mighty ones [ Aryan Asvins ] what do you do there; why do you stay there among the people who are held in high esteem through not offering sacrifices; ignore them, destroy the life of the Panis " -- [ RgV I.83.3 ] [ S+T.365 ] ...

A summary that the Panis represent a branch of Semitic Phoenicians that migrated to India in prehistoric times is given below :

* Trade: The Panis are referred to as traders, the traditional profession of Phoenicians and Semites. * Currency: In fact, a currency, the pana, is current in India much later during Maurya times. It is named after this merchant race. * Pani and Phoenician are cognate terms. {end of quotes}

(8) The Dravidian-Tamil-Sudra-Dalit movement aiming to secede from India

Here are some items on the connection between the Tamils, the Dravidian language, the Dalit (untouchable) resistance movement, the Tamil Tigers, & the "black consciousness" movement. This movement wants to split (Black) south & east India from the (Aryan-dominated) north: http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/elango2.html#bio.

Dalitstan Journal: http://www.dalitstan.org/journal/. A map of its territorial claims: http://www.dalitstan.org/journal/genocide/dalits/dalits.html.

Its material on the Aryan Invasions (in India) is perhaps the first scholarly work on this topic, by those who identify with the defeated Harappa civilization: http://www.dalitstan.org/books/bibai/.

Pan-Negroism + Islam vs. Aryanism + Judaism/Christianity? Note that, in this scenario, the Aryanists & the Zionists are in the same camp.

Myth of One Hindu Religion Exploded by Dr. Hadwa Dom http://dalitstan.org/books/mohr/.

{start of quotes}

I was a representative of the original Sudroid inhabitants of this country before it was invaded by the Aryans. I realised that my religion was not `Hinduism' but Shaivism or Dalit religion, and that the Aryan Vaishnavas were trying to destroy that faith. Indeed, I have realised that all the suffering that exists in India today have been inflicted by Brahmin-invented institutions ... . The Muslims, far from being invaders who killed Hindus, were liberators who uplifted the masses from two millenia of Brahmin oppression and slavery.

It is imperative for the survival of the Shaiva, Dravidian, Dalit, Shakta, Tantric and Adivasi religions that the Sudras realise their religious distinctiveness, and that these faiths be recognised as separate religions rather that as mere sects of Hindus. Under the guise of Hindutva, we are being made to follow Brahmanism, more specifically the sect of Aryan Vaishnavism, a faith alien to one-half of India's population. In order to save the Sudric religions, it is necessary to follow the following points :

(1). Sudroids must stay united as one people. All Dalits, Dravidians, Adivasis and Kols must realise that they spring from the same one stock, the Sudra race of Negroes. We have to all understand that we originally spoke one language, the Proto-Dravido-Kolarian, or Sudroid, language before the Aryan invasion. We have to understand that our ancestral religion was the Sudric religion, from which all the sects of Dravidian, Dalit, Adivasis and Shaiva religions have sprung, and that the bulk of us still follow one of these faiths. Nor are we a minority: Sudroids form one-third of the population of the sub-continent. We must also support the related Mongol-invented religions of Buddhism and Tantrism, for these faiths face the same threat from the 6 astika schools of Brahmanism.

(2). Sudroids must unite with their black brothers all across the world. From the US South to South Africa to South India, Blacks have been oppressed by white races. More understanding and greater awareness of our common racial bonds is necessary for our survival. Indeed, Pan-Negroism is the only answer to all problems faced by Blacks around the world. The Australoid Aboriginal has already lost the conflict, and only unity through the Global Negroland movement can save the rest of us. Having listened to the speeches of Runoko Rashidi, an Afro-American Nationalist and noted Pan-Negroist who visited India recently, there is a real chance that we can make it.

(3). Unity with our Afro-American brothers, many of whom follow the Nation of Islam implies that we accept unity with Islam. Islam is also the enemy of the Aryan Vaishnavas, and credit must be given to Babur for having destroyed the memorial to the Aryan monster Ram in Ayodhya. We must realise that Islam, by destroying caste in North India, liberated countless millions of Sudras from the Vedic apartheid system. Sudras were free to practice Shaivism during the Islamic era, and one can see the fundamental unity of Shaivism and Islam by noting that the Veerashaiva Lingayat movement of Kannada Shaivas opposes idolatry. Although most of the Muslims in the North are of Mughal race, (ie. they are Caucasoids from Turkestan, Afghanistan and Iran), they follow the egalitarian religion of Islam, and do not support the racist Vedas. Union with Islam means that the Aryan Vaishnavas shall be caught between the pincer movement of a pan-Sudra Dalit-Dravida-Kolarian revival from the south and a Mughal Islamic invasion from the North. The formation of Dalitstan in Central India comprising Gondwana, Jharkhand and Bhilwarra, of Dravidistan in the South, perhaps with a Sudrastan federation comprising both Dalitstan and Dravidistan, as well as the birth of the Mughalstan Islamci homeland in the Indus-Ganges basin shall ensure mutual survival of South Asian Islam and Sudroids from the Brahmin menace.

May this book, the fruit of several years of labour, help to achieve that goal. Liberation of the Dravidian, Dalit, Adivasi and Shaiva religions from the Brahmin Hindu yoke is the only way to ensure their survival.

Jharkhand, Dalitstan 1999. {end of quotes} http://dalitstan.org/books/mohr/.

Actually, I think both the Brahmins and the Dalitstans are wrong. Hinduism today is not the religion of the Aryan invaders. Theirs was a religion of sacrifice, especially horse sacrifice, and of invader gods such as Indra, with big egos.

Today's Hinduism shrinks the ego. There is no sacrifice in Hindu temples today; and the gods are, in the main, different from those Vedic ones. Gods of the defeated peoples - Shiva, Ganesha, probably Kali, and others - have been incorporated into the pantheon.

And a philosophical and ascetic reaction arose to prominence around 1000 BC, viewing divinity in impersonal terms. The Upanishad literature of that time was associated with the Jains & Buddhists. This, I believe, later led to Pythagoreanism.

So I think that the Brahmins should stop stressing continuity with the Vedic religion; equally the South Indians should recognise that Hinduism is a fusion of many religions. It's no more a single entity than was the religion of Ancient Egypt.

(9) Martin Bernal on the Aryan Invasion

Martin Bernal, Black Athena, Volume 2 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991):

{p. 322} This 'professional-liberal' current of thought became dominant in the anti-racialist atmosphere after the Second World War. After 1950, the Hyksos 'invasion' was generally demoted to a slow and undramatic infiltration of Semitic speakers, who had had the collaboration of many Egyptians. One of the most effective ways of discrediting the old Hurrian hypothesis was to use the generally accepted middle or low chronologies for Mesopotamian history to show that, as there were no Hurrian movements in Northern Mesopotamia until the late 17th century BC, Hurrians could hardly have been involved much farther south in Egypt a hundred years earlier. However, the acceptance of the 'long' or high chronology for Mesopotamia removes this objection to the Hurrian hypothesis.

Hurrians and Indo-Aryans have also been linked to the development and use of the light war chariot, and diffusionists have tended to see this as the secret of their military success. This seemed plausible as there is little or no trace of horses and chariots in Middle Kingdom Egypt, while they played an important role in the 15th and later Dynasties. Against this attempt to link the Hurrians and Hyksos scholars were able to argue, until recently, that, as chariots were first mentioned in Egypt at the end of the Hyksos period, there is no reason to suppose that they had been present at its beginning. In the 1960s, however, horses or at least 'equids' were found buried in association with Hyksos graves dating from the second half of the 18th century BC. Thus, there would seem no reason to deny the inherently plausible notion that horses and chariots came in with the Hyksos, and that the Hyksos 'invasion' was directly or indirectly connected to the Hurrian expansion and further that there may have been Indo-Aryan speakers involved in the movement.

All this looks disturbingly like the Aryanist or even Nazi image of the Indo-Europeans as a 'master race'. However, I am convinced that

{p. 323} one should clearly distinguish between what one likes and what is likely. I argued in Volume I that the fact that arguments suit or are even created for distasteful or immoral reasons does not in itself falsify them. Here, as in Northern India but unlike in Ancient Greece, there seems to be a case where the Aryan Model works.

However, 'works' is a relative term: the importance of the presence of any Hurrians and Indo-Aryans in the Hyksos migration seems to have been largely confined to military technology; the Huns had no long-term influence on Europe and the Turks who formed the core of the Moghuls in India left virtually no trace there. What these farranging movements did achieve was the breakdown of existing political structures and the mixing of neighbouring cultures - German language and 'culture' entered the Western Roman Empire and Persian civilization came into India. Similarly, the material and linguistic culture introduced by the Hyksos into Egypt seems to have been overwhelmingly that of the neighbouring Canaanites and it was this Egypto-Levantine civilization with some 'barbaric' elements that dominated Lower Egypt between 1750 and 1570 BC.

{endquote}

(10) A. L. Basham on the Aryan Invasion

A. L. Basham wrote in The Wonder That Was India (Grove Press, New York, 1959):

{p. 22} The Mother Goddess, for instance, reappears only after the lapse of over a thousand years from the fall of Harappa.

{p. 24} Phallic worship was an important element of Harappa religion. Many cone-shaped objects have been found, which are almost certainly formalized representations of the phallus. The linga or phallic emblem in later Hinduism is the symbol of the god Siva ...

Who were the people who built this great civilization? Some Indian historians have tried to prove that they were the Aryans, the people who composed the Rg Veda, but this is quite impossible. From the skeletal remains so far examined it appears that some of the Harappans were people of the long-headed, narrow-nosed, slender Mediterranean type, found all over the ancient Middle East and in Egypt, and forming an important element of the Indian population at the present day. A second element was the Proto-Australoid, with flat nose and thick lips, related to the Australian aborigines and to some of the wild hill-tribes of modern India. A single skull of Mongolian type has been found, and one of the short-headed Alpine type. The bearded steatite head to wllich we have referred shows elements of both the latter types, while the bronze dancing girl seems certainly Proto-Australoid. Then as now, N.-W. India was the meeting-place of many races.

The modern South Indian is usually a blend of Mediterranean and Proto-Australoid, the two chief factors in the Harappa culture;

{p. 25} moreover the Harappa religion seems to show many similarities with those elements of Hinduism which are specially popular in the Dravidian country. ...

{p. 28} Many competent authorities, led by Sir R. Mortimer Wheeler, now believe that Harappa was overthrown by the Aryans. ...

The invaders of India called themselves Aryas, a word generally anglicized into Aryans. The name was also used by the ancient Persians, and survives in the word Iran, while Eire, the name of the most westerly land reached by Indo-European peoples in ancient times, is also cognate.

{p. 33} No doubt the invaders often married indigenous women, whose children would be bilingual, and after a few generations the Aryans' original language would show the effect of the admixture of aboriginal blood. Numerous words in the Rg Veda are not connected with any known Indo-European roots, and were evidently borrowed from the natives. Non-Aryan influence on religion and culture must also have been felt very early, and the gradual disappearance of much of the original Indo-European heritage beneath successive layers of non-Aryan innovations can be traced through the early religious literature of India.

{endquote} More at gimbutas.html.

(11) Jawaharlal Nehru on the Aryan Invasion

Jawaharlal Nehru, before becoming Prime Minister of India, wrote a book The Discovery of India (Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1961), in which he accepted the Aryan Invasion. In no sense did he make it a political issue:

{p. 72} These people of the Indus Valley had many contacts with the Sumerian civilization of that period, and there is even some evidence of an Indian colony, probably of merchants, at Akkad. 'Manufactures from the Indus cities reached even the markets on the Tigris and Euphrates. Conversely, a few Sumerian devices in art, Mesopotamian toilet sets, and a cylinder seal were copied on the Indus. Trade was not confined to raw materials and luxury artices; fish, regularly imported from the Arabian Sea coasts, augmented the food supplies of Mohenjo-daro.'¥

Cotton was used for textiles even at that remote period in India. Marshall compares and contrasts the Indus Valley civilization with those of contemporary Egypt and Mesopotamia: 'Thus, to mention only a few salient points, the use of cotton for textiles was exclusively restricted at this period to India and

¥ Gordon Childe. 'What Happened in History' p. 2 (Pelican Books 1943)

{p. 73} was not extended to the western world until 2,000 or 3,000 years later. Again, there is nothing that we know of in prehistoric Egypt or Mesopotamia or anywhere else in western Asia to ompare with the well-built baths and commodious houses of the citizens of Mohenjo-daro. ... ' These public and private baths, as well as the excellent drainage system we find at Mohenjo-daro, are the first of their kind yet discovered anywhere. Thereare also two-storied private houses, made of baked bricks, with bathrooms and a porter's lodge, as well as tenements. ...

{p. 74} The Coming of the Aryans

Who were these people of the Indus Valley civilization and whence had they come? We do not know yet. It is quite possible, and even probable, that their culture was an indignous culture and its roots and offshoots may be found even in southern India. Some scholars find an essential similarity between these people and the Dravidian races and culture of south India. Even if there was some ancient migration to India, this could only have taken place some thousands of years before the date assigned to Mohenjo-daro. For all practical purposes we can treat them as the indigenous inhabitants of India.

{p. 76} We might say that the first great cultural synthesis and fusion took place between the incoming Aryans and the Dravidians, who were probably the representatives of the Indus Valley civilization. Out of this synthesis and fusion grew the Indian races and the basic Indian culture, which had distinctive elements of both. In the age that followed there came many other races: Iranians,

{p. 77} Greeks, Parthians, Bactrians, Scythians, Huns, Turks (before Islam), early Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians; they came, made a difference, and were absorbed. India, was, according to Dodwell, 'infinitely absorbent like the ocean.' It is odd to think of India, with her caste system and exclusiveness, having this astonishing inclusive capacity to absorb foreign races and cultures. ...

{p. 87} Synthesis and Adjustment. The Beginnings of the Caste System

The coming of the Aryans into India raised new problems Ñ racial and political. The conquered race, the Dravidians, had a long background of civilization behind them, but there is little doubt that the Aryans considered themselves vastly superior and a wide gulf separated the two races. Then there were also the backward aboriginal tribes, nomads or forest-dwellers. Out of this conflict and interaction of races gradually arose the caste system, which, in the course of succeeding centuries, was to affect Indian life so profoundly. Probably caste was neither Aryan nor Dravidian. It was an attempt at the social organization of diiferent races, a rationalization of the facts as they existed at the time. It brought degradation in its train afterwards, and it is still a burden and a curse; but we can hardly judge it from subsequent standards or later developments. It was in keeping with the spirit of the times and some such grad- ing took place in most of the ancient civilizations, though apparently China was free from it. There was a four-fold division in that other branch of the Aryans, the Iranians, during the Sassanian period, but it did not petrify into caste. Many of these old civilizations, including that of Greece, were entirely dependent on mass slavery. There was no such mass or large-scale labour slavery in India, although there were relatively small numbers of domestic slaves. Plato in his 'Republic' refers to a division similar to that of the four principal castes. Medieval catholicism knew this division also.

Caste began with a hard and fast division between Aryans and non-Aryans, the latter again being divided into the Dravidian races and the aboriginal tribes.

{endquote}

(12) Aryans displaced Dravidians in north India, but Dravidians displaced Tribals in south India

(12.1) Persons sharing a genetic marker eg M9 or M52 are assigned to haplogroups.

Male lines of descent are traced through the Y chromosome; female lines through mitochondrial DNA.

Spencer Wells is a genetic anthropologist who leads The Genographic Project (an initiative of the National Geographic Society and IBM).

His two books on human ancestry, The Journey of Man (2002) and Deep Ancestry (2006), lay out the genetic evidence for the Aryan invasion of India - a displacement of Dravidian peoples in north India.

But Wells also uncovers an earlier Dravidian displacement of Tribals in south India. They were bearers of the M130 genetic marker; they arrived much earlier as part of the coastal migration eastwards from Africa to South-East Asia to Australia..

The Dravidians entered India, and the Europeans entered Europe, by way of Central Asia.

Please consult this map to follow the argument: wells-Y-marker-map.jpg.

To follow up the Wells quotes, please visit wells-genetics.html.

(12.2) Europeans are mainly of Cro-Magnon ancestry (Journey of Man, p. 154), with admixture from Mid-East farmers (<20%) and Aryan invaders from the steppes.

- The Cro Magnon Y haplogroup is R1b; its defining genetic marker is M343. For R1b, the ancestral line is "Adam" -> M168 -> M89 -> M9 -> M207 -> M173 -> M343 (Deep Ancestry p. 226).

- The Aryan (invaders from the steppes) Y haplogroup is R1a1; its defining genetic marker is M17. For R1a1, the ancestral line is "Adam" -> M168 -> M89 -> M9 -> M45 -> M207 -> M173 -> M17 (Deep Ancestry pp. 224-6). They bequeathed their languages (the Indo-European languages) to Europe and western Asia.

- The farmers (from the Middle East) Y haplogroup is J2; ; its defining genetic marker is M172 (Journey of Man, p. 154). For haplogroup J2, the Ancestral line is: "Adam" -> M168 -> M89 -> M304 -> M172 (Deep Ancestry p. 215).

"The marker M172, associated with the spread of agriculture, is found throughout India - consistent with an early introduction from the Middle East, most likely during the Neolithic. But the frequency is comparable in Indo-European and Dravidian speakers, suggesting that the introduction of agriculture pre-dated that of the Indo-European languages. {Journey of Man, pp. 167-8}

About 30% of Jews belong to Haplogroup J and its subgroup J2 (Deep Ancestry, p. 215); 15% belong to J2 (see the Wikipedia article below). But in the female line Ashkenazi Jews mostly belong to Haplogroups K (p. 201) or N1 (p. 187).

The distribution of J2 among Middle-Eastern peoples is described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J2_(Y-DNA), and a map of it is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000px-Distribution_Haplogroup_J2_Y-DNA.jpg

(12.3) M20 is the marker of the speakers of Dravidian languages in India; they belong to Haplogroup L (Deep Ancestry p. 217). They migrated into India about 30,000 years ago (Journey of Man, p. 166).

The Tribals, descendants of the coastal migration out of Africa, belong to the M mtDNA cluster and bear the M130 Y-marker (Journey of Man, p. 72).

The Aryans invaded Dravidian India, but Dravidian speakers had earlier committed a genocide of the Tribals:

"The ancestors of the Indian clan, who moved into southern India around 30,000 years ago, would have encountered the earlier coastal migrants still living there. ... mitochondrial DNA retains strong evidence of the coastal migrants in the form of haplogroup M, while the Y-chromosome primarily shows evidence of later migrants from the north. Thinking back to the scenario we imagined for the birth of the Upper Palaeolithic in Africa, this is the pattern we would expect to see if the invaders took wives from the coastal population, but the coastal men were largely driven away, killed, or simply not given the chance to reproduce. The result would be the widespread introduction of M mtDNA lineages into the Indian population, while the Coastal Y-chromosome lineages would not be nearly as common - precisely the pattern we see." (Journey of Man, p. 113)

Wells says that the Tribals themselves may have committed a genocide of other hominids - eg Java Man (p. 76). In Australia, they wiped out the Megafauna (giant kangaroos, diprotodons i.e. giant wombats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diprotodon.

(12.4) The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

by Spencer Wells

ALLEN LANE an imprint of PENGUIN BOOKS

London 2002

For more detail see wells-genetics.html

{p. 74} ... M130 provides us with a clear fingerprint of the coastal migration out of Africa. ...

{p. 164} Gordon Childe, who coined the term 'Neolithic revolution', proposed in the 1920s that the Indo-European homeland should be identified with a culture originating north of the Black Sea that had distinctive 'corded' pottery - marks that resembled impressions left by cord or twine. The theory was revived by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in a series of articles published in the 1970s. Gimbutas argued that the remains left by nomadic horsemen of the southern Russian steppes, dating from around 6,000 years ago, mark the earliest signs of a culture that can be identified as proto-Indo-European (PIE), which included Childe's Corded Ware people. The Kurgan culture, as she called it, left enormous burial mounds (known as kurgans) that are still dotted across the entirety of the Eurasian steppe, from Ukraine to Mongolia and south to Afghanistan. The golden treasure hoards recovered from kurgan excavations in the twentieth century confirmed the existence of a people who were known to Herodotus as the Scythians - fearsome horsemen of the Asian grasslands, and previously thought by many scholars to be mythical.

The evidence that the Kurgan people spoke PIE is based on an analysis of words common throughout Indo-European languages. ...

But while the evidence in favour of the Kurgan people being early Indo-Europeans was compelling, there was no archaeological evidence for the spread of their culture into western Europe. Their culture, dominated by horses, was ideal for the steppes, but it was not well suited to European forests and mountains. It was difficult to see why the steppe horsemen would have been able to conquer Europe and

{p. 165} impose their language upon its inhabitants. For this reason, Colin Renfrew proposed in his 1987 book Archaeology and Language that the Kurgan culture did not mark the origins of Indo-European, but rather a later, eastern extension of it. Renfrew suggested that PIE had been a Middle Eastern language, originally spoken 9,000 years ago, which spread with the agricultural Wave of Advance into Europe. ...

Of course, as the name suggests, Indo-European languages are spoken not only in Europe. Modern Iran, Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent all have a majority of Indo-European speakers. How did they come to speak languages related to Irish Gaelic, thousands of miles away? Again, there are competing hypotheses. The first, advanced by Childe, Gimbutas and others, is that the early steppe horsemen carried their language from central Asia into India when they invaded around 1500 BC. The Rig Veda, an early Indian religious text, records the conquest of India by mounted warriors from the north. This received corroboration in the 1920s when Sir John Marshall and his colleague excavated Mohenjo Daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley. These great cities date from around 3500 BC and by the second millennium BC they were massive settlements with thousands of houses, extensive agriculture and enormous populations. Then, around 1500 BC they entered a period of decline, and by AD 1,000 the Harappan culture had

{p. 166} disbanded, its cities abandoned. What caused this sudden cultural collapse? To the archaeologists, it seemed to correlate perfectly with an invading force of Aryans from the Steppes. Archaeology seemed to be reinforcing Childe's argument, and corroborating the Rig Veda. ...

The test of the Childe-Gimbutas and Renfrew hypotheses awaited the development of markers that were capable of distinguishing between populations from the steppe and the indigenous Indian gene pool. As we saw in Chapter 6, M20 defines the first major wave of migration into India from the Middle East, around 30,000 years ago. It is found at highest frequency in the populations of the south, who speak Dravidian languages - a language family completely unrelated to Indo-European. In some southern populations, M20 reaches a frequency of over 50 per cent, while it is found only sporadically outside India. Thus, for our purposes, it is an indigenous Indian marker. What was needed to complete the analysis was a steppe marker, in order to see what contribution it may have made to the genetic diversity present in India.

This came with the discovery of a marker known as M17, which is

{p. 167} present at high frequency (40 per cent plus) from the Czech Republic across to the Altai Mountains in Siberia and south throughout central Asia. Absolute dating methods suggest that this marker is 10-15,000 years old, and the microsatellite diversity is greatest in southern Russia and Ukraine, suggesting that it arose there. M17 is a descendant of M173, which is consistent with a European origin. The origin, distribution and age of M17 strongly suggest that it was spread by the Kurgan people in their expansion across the Eurasian steppe. The key to solving our language puzzle is to see what it looks like in India and the Middle East.

The answer is that M17 in India is found at high frequency in those groups speaking Indo-European languages. In the Hindi-speaking population of Delhi, for example, around 35 per cent of men have this marker. Indo-European-speaking groups from the south also show similarly high frequencies, while the neighbouring Dravidian speakers show much lower frequencies - 10 per cent or less. This strongly suggests that M17 is an Indo-European marker, and shows that there was a massive genetic influx into India from the steppes within the past 10,000 years. Taken with the archaeological data, we can say that the old hypothesis of an invasion of people - not merely their language - from the steppe appears to be true.

And what of the Middle East? Interestingly, M17 is not found at high frequency there - it is present in only 5-10 per cent of Middle Eastern men. This is true even for the population of Iran, speaking Farsi, a major Indo-European language. Those living in the western part of the country have low frequencies of M17, while those living further east have frequencies more like those seen in India. What lies between the two regions is, as we learned in Chapter 6, an inhospitable tract of desert. The results suggest that the great Iranian deserts were barriers to the movement of Indo-Europeans in much the same way that they had been to late Upper Palaeolithic migration.

The Y-chromosome results from Iran and the Middle East also suggest that early Middle Eastern agriculturalists did not spread Indo-European languages eastward as they moved into the Indus Valley. The marker M172, associated with the spread of agriculture, is found throughout India - consistent with an early introduction from the Middle East, most likely during the Neolithic. But the frequency is

{p. 168} comparable in Indo-European and Dravidian speakers, suggesting that the introduction of agriculture pre-dated that of the Indo-European languages. Thinking in terms of actual behaviour, many Indian descendants of Neolithic farmers have learned to speak Indo-European languages, while fewer M17-carrying Indo-European speakers - up to this point - have given up their language in favour of Dravidian.

The low frequency of M17 in western Iran suggests that, in this case, exactly the sort of scenario envisaged by Renfrew in his second model has occurred. It is likely that a few invading Indo-European speakers were able to impose their language on an indigenous Iranian population by a process Renfrew calls elite dominance. In this model, something - be it military power, economic might, or perhaps organizational ability - allowed the Indo-Europeans of the steppes to achieve cultural hegemony over the ancient, settled civilizations of western Iran. One candidate for this 'something' was their use of horses in warfare, either to pull chariots or as mounts. Cavalry and chariots, both steppe inventions, would have given the early nomadic Indo- Europeans a distinct advantage over their adversaries' infantry. The use of horses would provide a major technological advantage to armies over the next three millennia. It is not difficult to imagine that it gave an early advantage to the people of the Eurasian steppe.

Thus, while we see substantial genetic and archaeological evidence for an Indo-European migration originating in the southern Russian steppes, there is little evidence for a similarly massive Indo-European migration from the Middle East to Europe. One possibility is that, as a much earlier migration (8,000 years old, as opposed to 4,000), the genetic signals carried by Indo-European-speaking farmers may simply have dispersed over the years. There is clearly some genetic evidence for migration from the Middle East, as Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues showed, but the signal is not strong enough for us to trace the distribution of Neolithic lineages throughout the entirety of Indo-European- speaking Europe. Cavalli-Sforza has suggested that an initial migration of Neolithic pre-PIE speakers from the Middle East could have introduced a language to Europe, including our Kurgan people, which later became PIE. There is nothing to contradict this model, although the genetic patterns do not provide clear support either.

There is another possibility, which comes from the distribution and

{p. 169} relationships among extinct languages in the Middle East and Europe. What if the language of the first farmers was not Indo-European, but another language entirely? The Basques, who live in north-eastern Spain, speak a language unrelated to any other in the world. Jared Diamond, in his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee, suggested that it might be a remnant of the agricultural Wave of Advance from the Middle East. Interestingly, some linguists have suggested that Basque is related to languages spoken in the Caucasus, while others find similarities to Burushaski, a language isolate spoken in a remote part of Pakistan. Similarly, there were other now-extinct languages spoken throughout the Mediterranean world, in south-eastern Spain (Tartessian and Iberian), Italy (Etruscan and Lemnian and Sardinia (there is a non-Indo-European source for many place names). Place names in southern France similarly suggest that Basque was much more widely spoken in the past than it is today, and Greek place names indicate the presence of a pre-Indo-European element there as well. Overall, there is reasonable evidence for a 'Mediterranean' collection of pre-Indo-European languages that were later replaced by the expansion of Greek and Latin.

Taken at face value, then, we have a set of languages that were once widespread around the Mediterranean and Middle East, extending eastward into Pakistan. This is precisely the territory colonized by early Neolithic farmers during the period between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago. One possibility is that these early farmers spread 'Mediterranean' languages as they expanded their populations. The Palaeolithic populations of Europe took on the language of farming, and its culture, even if (as in the case of the Basques) there was hardly any genetic influx. These languages also spread to the east, introducing farming throughout the river valleys of central Asia and Pakistan. Later migrations, of Dravidian and Indo-European speakers in the case of Pakistan, and Indo-Europeans in the case of Europe, would have reduced the current speakers of the Mediterranean languages to the isolated pockets we see today.

Of course, this scenario is purely speculative, but it may be a plausible alternative to Renfrew's Indo-European farmers and Cavalli-Sforza's pre-PIE farmers. Furthermore, the genetic data shows some correlations: most of the regions mentioned, from the Mediterranean

{p. 170} to the Caucasus to Pakistan, have substantial frequencies of M172, our canonical Neolithic marker. This is particularly true for populations from the Caucasus, some of which have frequencies of M172 in excess of 90 per cent. The generally close genetic similarly between Caucasian populations and those from the Middle East suggests that there was a substantial influx of people during the Neolithic, who may have introduced languages related to Sumerian to the region.

{p. 173} The spread of languages is a special case of cultural diffusion, or change. Unfortunately, the attempt to identify cultural change with the migration of people is now seen as old-fashioned in many archaeological circles. Instead, modern archaeologists stress indigenous reasons for the development of cultural attributes, or their borrowing from other cultures. The old school of diffusionism, which attempted to trace the expansion of particular cultures from a single place of origin, has fallen out of favour. However, the genetic results show that in some cases, this has clearly occurred. ...

{p. 113} [...] M20 ... marks the earliest significant settlement of India, forming a uniquely Indian genetic substratum - which we can call the Indian clan - that pre-dates later migrations from the north. The ancestors of the Indian clan, who moved into southern India around 30,000 years ago, would have encountered the earlier coastal migrants still living there. From the genetic pattern, it seems likely that any admixture with them was not reciprocal: as we saw in Chapter 4, mitochondrial DNA retains strong evidence of the coastal migrants in the form of haplogroup M, while the Y-chromosome primarily shows evidence of later migrants from the north. Thinking back to the scenario we imagined for the birth of the Upper Palaeolithic in Africa, this is the pattern we woul expect to see if the invaders took wives from the coastal population, but the coastal men were largely driven away, killed, or simply not given the chance to reproduce. The result would be the widespread introduction of M mtDNA lineages into the Indian population, while the Coastal Y-chromosome lineages would not be nearly as common - precisely the pattern we see. Today, the frequency of the Coastal marker is only around 5 per cent in southern India, and it falls in frequency as we move northward. This pattern suggests that the contribution from the coastal populations was minimal, at least on the male side.

{p. 75} The suggestion made by many anthropologists, particularly Peter Bellwood of the Australian National University, is that the population of south-east Asia prior to 6,000 years ago was composed largely of groups of hunter-gatherers very similar to modern Negritos. Migrations from north-east Asia over the past few millennia have erased the evidence of these early south-east Asians, except in the case of small groups living deep in the jungles or - in the case of the Andamanese - on remote islands. ...

{p. 76} As we have seen, though, there were other hominids living along the route followed by these beach dwellers. They also made stone tools, and these have been found throughout Eurasia. The easternmost extension of the range of Homo erectus was Java, and it is possible that they even survived until around 40-5,0000 years ago - long enough for the coastal migrants to have encountered them as they moved through the Indonesian archipelago. It is clear, though, that they must have become extinct almost immediately after the arrival of the Moderns, if not before.

{p. 178} If there are fewer men than women in a population, then the rate at which Y-chromosome lineages are lost will be greater. But this can't be true, you might be saying - the birth ratio is 50: 50. Surely there are the same number of men and women in every population? Surprisingly, while this is true in terms of numbers, it is not true for the number that pass on their genes by leaving offspring. In the genetic sense, those who don't reproduce don't count, and should be excluded from the equation. What we are interested in, then, is what is known as the effective population size - the number of breeding men and women. This is where we see the difference.

The likely explanation for why there is a greater rate of lineage loss for the Y-chromosome is that a few men tend to do most of the mating. Furthermore, their sons - who inherit their wealth and social standing - also tend to do most of the mating in the next generation. Carried through a few generations, this social quirk will produce exactly the sort of pattern we see for the Y-chromosome: a few lineages within populations, and different lineages in neighbouring populations.

{endquotes} more at wells-genetics.html

(12.5) Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project, by Spencer Wells

Spencer Wells' follow-up book is Deep Ancestry (2006).

It goes into greater detail about haplogroups (of both mtDNA and Y Chromosome). Persons sharing a genetic marker eg M9 or M52 are assigned to haplogroups.

The major Y chromosome haplogroups for Europe are R1a1, R1b, I1a, I1b, J2, N and E36. Major mitochondrial haplogroups for Europe are H, K, T, U, V and J.

Y chromosome Haplogroup J is a genetic signature from the first Neoloithic agriculturalists in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago; they expanded outwards from there, east as far as the Indus Valley, and also into east and central Europe, but the lineages carried by these Neolithic expansions are found today at low frequencies.

MtDNA Haplogroup J is also a signature of the Neolithic farmers' expansion; its ancestral line is "Eve" -> L1/L0 -> L2 -> L3 -> N -> R -> J.

For R1b, the ancestral line is "Adam" -> M168 -> M89 -> M9 -> M207 -> M173 -> M343. Persons in R1b are descendants of the Cro-Magnon people, some of whom created the cave paintings in southern France. M343 is the defining marker of haplogroup R1b.

For R1a1, the ancestral line is "Adam" -> M168 -> M89 -> M9 -> M45 -> M207 -> M173 -> M17. M17 is the defining marker of haplogroup R1a1; its bearers were the Aryan invaders from the steppes. ...

For more detail see wells-genetics.html

{end Genetics material}

The entire Rig Veda (10 Books, tr. T. H. Griffith, 1896) is at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/index.htm.

The (Trotskyist) Socialist Equality Party (SEP) supports the Tamil Tigers (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam): http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/may2000/kum-m15.shtml and http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/news/as-lanka.shtml.

Underwater city discovered west of India & south of Pakistan: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-2002031818,00.html. Lost city a likely ancestor of the Harappan civilization: http://www.atributetohinduism.com/articles_aryan_invasion_theory/34.htm.

Also see http://www.arabia.com/afp/tech/health/article/english/0,11448,144354,00.html.

This Civilization would have been inundated at the end of the Ice Age, as the sea level suddenly rose. Might such catastrophes might have given rise to the Flood stories?

I believe that the people would have been dark-skinned: the people of Harappa were black, according to the Rig-Veda.

Jared Diamond summarises the case for an Indo-European expansion covering the last 5000 years, spreading East, South & West from the Steppes: diamond.html.

Spencer Wells is a Geneticist, Director of the Genographic Project. In his book The Journey of Man, he shows that Europe's ancestry derives mainly from people in that continent around 30,000 years ago; not from early agriculturalists in the Middle East. He discovered a genetic marker, M17, which is the signature of the Aryan invaders from the steppe into east & central Europe and northern India: wells-genetics.html.

Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent, on how Mossad trained both sides (Tamils and Sinhalese) in the Sri Lankan civil war:

Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy, By Way of Deception S(t Martin's Press, New York 1990):

{p. 130} ...  the Sri Lankan government has accused Indian officials of arming and training the Tamils. They should be accusing the Mossad.

The Tamils were training at the commando naval base, learning penetration techniques, mining landings, communications, and how to sabotage ships similar to the Devora. There were about 28 men in each group, so it was decided that Yosy should take the Tamils to Haifa that night while I took the Sinhalese to Tel Aviv, thus avoiding any chance encounters.

The real problem started about two weeks into the courses, when both the Tamils and Sinhalese - unknown to each other, of course - were training at Kfar Sirkin. It is a fairly large base, but even so, on one occasion the two groups passed within a few yards of each other while they were out jogging. After their basic training routine at Kfar Sirkin, the Sinhalese were taken to the naval base to be taught essentially how to deal with all the techniques the Israelis had just taught the Tamils. {end}
ostrovsky.html.

Write to me at contact.html.