Aryan

This word is derived from the Sanskrit
word arya (“noble”), which is used in the
earliest Hindu sacred literature, the
Vedas, to describe a certain group of
people that believed the Vedas were
sacred. In the beginning this word simply designated “our group” from “other
people,” whom the Veda names Dasyus
(“slaves”). These provide a description of
the slaves as having flat noses and curly
hair. Throughout history Hindu writers
have often described themselves as
“Arya,” although it is important to note
that this need not be understood as a
racial designation, since it could merely
be intended to mean “noble.”
Who were these Aryans? Nineteenthcentury European philological
research discovered structural relationships between Sanskrit and
classical European languages and
speculated that all these languages
came from a common parent. Based
on further analysis, these researchers
hypothesized that people speaking
this parent language originated in
Central Asia, somewhere near the
Caspian Sea. From there, some went
west to Europe, some went southwest
to Turkey, and some went south
toward Iran and later to India. The
conclusion that these Indian pilgrims
came from Iran is based on comparisons between the Avesta and the
Veda, the Iranian and Indian religious
texts. These texts show broad linguistic similarities and indicate that the
people speaking the languages were
closely related. This entire theory is
thus based solely on the observed
similarities between languages and on
how they changed.
For the nineteenth-century philologists, “Aryan” was a linguistic category
used to designate people speaking
certain languages and involved no
assumptions about the speakers’
racial identity. Despite this fact,
the word quickly assumed a racial
connotation in European discourse,
with terrible consequences.
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Arundhati
The Aryan movement was once
described as an “invasion,” but in recent
years it has become more common to
describe it as a “migration.” According to
the accounts in the Vedas, the Aryans
were a pastoral people, and although
some Vedic passages mention war
chariots, the majority describe herds of
cattle. Given this picture of nomads following their cattle to pasture, the image
of an invading army seems improbable.
The Aryan migration theory
accounts for the dissemination of various languages but is not universally
accepted. Many modern Indians
subscribe to the Indigenous Aryan (IA)
theory, which maintains that the Aryans
are the original inhabitants of India and
as proof points to the artifacts found in
the Indus Valley civilization. Some of
the people that believe the IA theory may
be reacting against the Aryan migration
theory’s perceived colonialist bias, since
the theory was developed by Europeans
and assumes that the dominant groups
in modern India must have come from
outside. Other supporters are the proponents of Hindutva, who claim that all
Indians are “really” Hindus and thus one
social group, whatever their particular
religious beliefs.
This assertion has profound political
implications in modern India, where
Christians and Muslims are not only
religious communities but social and
political ones as well. By connecting
Hindu identity with good Indian
citizenship, Hindutva proponents are
marginalizing Christians and Muslims
as outsiders.