From where and when, did the Aryans come to India?
When was the Aryan theory first propounded?
Similarities in language first noticed by Sir William Jones, British Judge at High Court Calcutta, 1786.
Sir William Jones, High Court Calcutta, 1786
It was the Orientalist, Lassen in his book History of Ancient India written in 1847, who 1st used the term 'Arian' as the race.
John Wilson, the President of Asian Society of Bombay, 1856, in his speech starting with "India 3000 years ago..." mooted the concept of Aryan race.
In London on 9th August 1866 in the Royal Asiatic Society, Edward Thomas launched the Aryan immigration theory.
From there the theory of Aryan invasion took its course.
Views of the protagonists of the theory, and their reasoning.
Some of the well known protagonists are
- Max Muller,
- Wheeler,
- Hitler,
- Stanley Baldwin
- Hugo Winclker
- The British Government in India
- Romilla Thapar
In the 20th century under Hitler the Germans was most influenced by this Aryan theory and Aryan supremacy. With the defeat of Germany in World War II and the consequent debunking of the Aryan theory by the European scholars the theory has been totally disparaged from European history. The antagonists to this theory felt that this theory did not have validity in India.
The primary antagonist have been
- Swami Dayananda
- Aurobindo
- Swami Vivekananda
- B.R. Ambedkar
- K.V. Sarma
- Michel Danino
- Salomon Reineck
- Colin Renfrew
- Mountstuart Elphinstone
- Huxley
- Trautmann
- David Diringer
- David Frawley
- Stephen Oppenheimer
- Toynbee
- Cavalli
- Mark Kenoyer
- Kenneth Kennedy
- Braj Basi Lal
- Genetic Scientists
- Navaratna S. Raja Ram
- S. Kalyanaraman
All these eminent scholars through their extensive research debunk the Aryan invasion theory totally.
Apart from this we also look at the information we find in the native literature of Aryan, Dravidian, Central Asian and European on the Aryan invasion theory or the lack of it.
What is the present view of the European scholars with regard to the Aryan theory which was forcefully propounded by them in the previous century?
The need now is for a modern, scientific, historiographic understanding of migration, in the Indian context for the Indian mind. Was there a migration into India or from India to other parts of the world over the last 5 millennia? Infact what is coming out clearer in the research over the last few decades is the migration from India to other parts of the World.
Some aspects of this migration out of India, especially to Ancient Central America, by ocean going ships navigating eastwards over the Pacific ocean, is discussed in good detail in our book, “2012 The Real Story” which is available in this link to read.