What great Indians thought about the “Aryan Invasion theory” « Hindu focus

• What great Indians thought about the “Aryan Invasion theory” « Hindu focus

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  • By Devan Nair
    

    (Devan Nair, former President of Singapore, has sent the following message to be posted to the ECIT egroup. As an intellectual, a follower of Sri Aurobindo, and student of the recent re-evaluation of the Aryan-Invasion Theory, his message is very interesting to ponder.)

  • Even India’s present national anthem perpetuates the Aryan/Dravidian divide by referring to ‘Dravida’. It was a wrong-headed decision to discard the original national anthem “Vande Mataram” (’Salutation to the Mother’ Ð for the land of Bharatmata was originally conceived, not as a merely secular/geographical abstraction, but as Mother India Herself).
  • Even India’s present national anthem perpetuates the Aryan/Dravidian divide by referring to ‘Dravida’.
  • This plan misfired largely due to the great Indian savants (not academics, mind you!). The first to dispute the Aryan myth was Dayananda Saraswati. He rejected out of hand the whole 19th Century European view of the Veda. Here Michael Danino quotes Sri Aurobindo: “Dayananda seized justly on the Veda as India’s Rock of Ages. In the matter of Vedic interpretation I am convinced that whatever may be the final complete interpretation, Dayananda will be honored as the first discoverer of the right clues.”

  • My conclusions are:

    1. The Vedas do not know any such race as the Aryan race.

    2. There is no evidence in the Vedas of any invasion of India by the Aryan race and it having conquered the Dasas and Dasyus supposed to be the natives of India.

    3. There is no evidence to show that the distinction between Aryans, Dasas and Dasyus was a racial distinction.

    4. The Vedas do not support the contention that the Aryans were different in colour from the Dasas and Dasyus…..If anthropometry is a science which can be depended upon to determine the race of a people….. (then its) measurements establish that the Brahmins and the Untouchables belong to the same race. From this it follows that if the Brahmins are Aryans the Untouchables are also Aryans. If the Brahmins are Dravidians, the Untouchables are also Dravidians…..’

    (B. R. Ambedkar, ‘Writings and Speeches’