Continuity of IA from IE

My interpretation of the evidence is that the IA tradition is in most part contiguous with the steppe IE tradition. However, I would qualify it thus:

• 1. The steppe IE tradition was not a monolith itself. It had a “mainstream” a version of the aindra religion& several more focal cults. For example I’ve indicated what we call prAjApatya, shaiva& vaiShNava were not entirely neomorphisms but had deep roots in such focal cults in the old IE world.
• 2. The religion of RV (Old vedic) was v.close to the ancestral IE (leaving out Hittite & Tocharian for now) mainstream system. However, it was not an unmodified descendant of that. It had undergone some developments specific to the shatam branch of IE like the deity parjanya and the trifurcation in the indra-class.
• 3. Several white indologists have suggests that the soma cult was a neomorphism that the I-Ir acquired from the BMAC. Going against the grain, I’ve held that to not be the case. There was an ancestral IE beverage sacrament, but the exact beverage itself has undergone divergence (& perhaps loss of soma in Greeks). The new aDNA evidence supports the idea of limited genetic introgression with BMAC. This is in line with my contention that BMAC was unlikely the source of the soma cult among I-Ir but it was an independent development in their midst or earlier. My statistical analysis points to clear soma-poor vs soma-rich +++(regions of Rgveda)+++ however, does hint the possibility that the soma-saMskAra was a later development on already defined tradition.
• 4. The middle and late vedic traditions show two distinct influences.
  • 5. One of those is the Harappan influence mainly in the form of faunal/floral elements. The importance of specific Indian fig trees, the use of fig products in rituals like sImantonnayana, porcupine quill, certain strains of the tree cult (chaitya-vR^ikSha-s) were clearly Harappan. There are some elements in the late brAhmaNa/upaniShat sections which betray an Egyptian feel to it. Were these direct Egyptian influences via trade or long-range military connections remain unclear. But they could also be via a broad Harappan-West Asian sphere of influence which also came from or went to Egypt.
  • 6.The second major influence was IE in origin but came from a para-Vedic tradition rather than main wave of IA invaders. This brought important elements like the cults of the great god skanda & a new presentation of the transfunctional goddessas durgA. The later might have been influenced in iconographic terms by West Asian goddess traditions. Those likewise impinged on the Iranic and Greek IE goddess iconography.
  • 7. There might have been a minor influence from a trans-Himalayan “Altaic source” that brought the goddess umA.
• 8. As the IA horizon expanded in India, several hunter-gatherer groups came into it. It is conceivable that some elements of their goddess cults were incorporated into the great IA transfunctional goddess tradition, just like the above mentioned ones. The best case I can make for this relates to the goddess chAmuNDA & statements relating goddesses like vindhyavAsinI to tribal worship – absorption – e.g. see vAkpatirAja’s kAvya describing tribal human sacrifice.
• 9. IA tradition evolved extensively within India as an organic extension (not due to lateral transfers) of the old IA religion, e.g. the origin of the new god gaNesha with deep roots in the old religion. The same holds for various evolutionary events marking the rise of the Agamika register of the IA religion. This event melded with another development, i.e. the expansion of the older iconic worship into the temple cult.
• 10. I’ve over the past 33 years done some investigations in comparative religion & find it remarkable that the IE tradition retained its original “spirit” & core features with little “syncreticism” but much internal evolution in contrast to West Asia, China, Mongolia and Japan.