26.07.10

Beyond Hinduism and the culture crime of the Aryans

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:47 pm by nemo

The Aryan Invasion Theory and Hindu Politics

David Frawley is one of the biggest windbags on the subject of the AIT.
I think that we are seeing the last phase of ‘hinduism’ and the rebirth of the real Indian tradition for a new age of modernity.
The AIT is not ultimately a Eurocentric viewpoint, and cannot be done away with ideological denunciations.
In fact, the real indignation should be against the monumental theft of the Indian tradition by Aryans.

The Aryan invasion theory, as Schaffer notes, arose from a Eurocentric view that was hostile to an Indic basis for Western civilization or peoples. The discovery of close affinities between the Indo-European languages in the eighteenth century required an explanation. By placing the original Aryans in Europe, who later migrated to India where they got absorbed by the indigenous population, it took away any need to connect the ancient Europeans with India, which was not pleasing to the colonial mindset of the time. The theory eventually developed an antisemetic tone. It was used to trace Western culture not to the Jews and their Biblical accounts but to an proposed European homeland dominated by Nordic peoples. Thus the invasion theory eventually became one of the pillars for Nazi historians (yet strangely the communists in India have become strong supporters of the theory and accuse those who question it of being fascists!).

Unfortunately some scholars today, particularly Indian leftists, argue that the rejection of the Aryan invasion theory is just a political ploy of Hindu fanatics.They point out how Hindu texts like the Vedas and Puranas, though mentioning different regions and rulers, contain many fanciful and unscientific ideas. How therefore can we take their history seriously? They fail to note that all ancient accounts like the Bible, Egyptian, Greek, or Sumerian records have their mythic and legendary elements and this is not used to so completely reject them. They similarly argue that Hindus today have many fanciful ideas about history, like placing the events of the Ramayana over a million years ago, as if this barred any Hindus from ever having valid historical notions.

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