The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate

Very good read

This is a response to "Lunnotar"'s review. The Indo Aryan invasion / immigration debate is not settled by far, despite his claims. And this book serves the extremely important purpose of organizing a debate despite important western indologists wanting to shut down one. There is absolutely zero archaeological evidence of either an invasion or a significant immigration with a change of language, gods etc. Once again, no archaeological evidence at all. More than ample philological evidence of Rig Veda predating 1500 BC by several hundred or a thousand years. Even the genetic research and findings themselves have way more questions than conclusions. Even with linguists - it is just a hypothesis at best in the face of alternative hypothesis and hundred questions that they refuse to address. The ruse, the bad guy called Hindu Nationalism that has got nothing to do with addressing this question. OTOH, Aryan Invasion / Migration theory actually has a fascist in their camp - you guessed it right - Mr. Adolf Hitler. In this context, this book is extremely important and does justice to its purpose.

I am not an academic in this specific area but very interested in the subject. With that in mind - I found the book fascinating. Wealth of information, very comprehensive and informative. The language is somewhat dry (which one would anyway expect from an academic publication) but still very readable for non-specialist in the field. If it is substance you are after, this book is excellent and very intellectually stimulating.

I am an Indian and a practicing Hindu. I respect all religions and believe in the dictum "If you are a Christian, be a good Christian. If you are a Muslim, be a good Muslim. If you are a Hindu, be a good Hindu..Above all be a good human being." Having said that, let me say a few words about the book.Edwin Bryant makes a superhuman effort to show all sides of an extremely emotional and complex story where several mutually opposing parties are involved without showing any bias towards any group. He goes after truth like no one else did before. He refuses to brand anyone but let one brand oneself by quoting what one said or wrote on the "Indo-Aryans" subject. Also, he completely refrains from the cheap trick - selective quoting. Now, that is scholarlship.As a whole Bryant comes out as not only a brilliant scholar who can capture the essence of what has been said on this subject in the last 200 years which in by itself is no small accomplishment but more importantly in doing so establishes himself as a mature, sensitive and a decent human being. Now, that is beyond sholarship.He doesn't hesitate to go after the establishment when he sees fit. As an example, see Bryant's response to Harvard professor, Michael Witzel, who believes in Aryan Immigration/Acculuturation Theory, on the subject of river names. Just to be sure, Bryant agrees with Witzel on several other readings. I am just using this as an example to show Bryant's fearlessness, integrity and personal resolve to stand firm.See page 100Witzel's reading (1999) of the evidence of hydronomy is as follows:"...Indo-Aryans influence...was from early on powerful enough to replace the local...rive names...One would expect, just as in the Near East or in Europe, a survival of older names and adoption of them by the IA newcomers upon entering the territories of the people(s) of the Induscivilization and its successor cultures..."To this Bryant counters in the same page: "Such conservatism is, indeed, extremely surprising, especially since the Indo-Aryans did not enter in sufficient numbers to be perceivable in the skeletal record of the subcontinent...One also wonders how such small numbers of immigration could have eradicated the names of rivers and places in the Northwest of the subcontinent in the few hundred years..."This book will go down in history as a great contribution to the subject. A must read for anyone who is interested in knowing more about the vedic peple. I won't call them Indo-Aryans. I oppose the word 'Aryan' as after all the abuse it sounds racist. I would just call them "RigVedic people."

I found this book slightly disturbing. It attempts to give an even-handed account of the "debate" between "Indigenous Aryanism" and advocates of the "Aryan Invasion Theory", and in some ways it succeeds. It presents a lot of information relevant to the matter. The underlying problem is, there is no real "debate". No-one has seriously believed in the "Aryan Invasion Theory" for many decades! The battle being fought is one that was won long ago!The background to the so-called "debate" is as follows. Towards the end of the 18th century, it was realised that Latin, Greek and Sanskrit showed such similarities that they had to be descendants of a common language. Eventually it was established that most of the languages of Europe and several of western Asia belonged to this group. The family was called Indo-European, and sometimes Aryan, as the people who composed the Rig Veda, the oldest collection of Indo-European literature, called themselves Aryas. Unfortunately, in the second half of the 19th century, the idea of an Indo-European language family morphed into the idea of an Aryan race, supposedly superior to everyone else, who spread their languages by conquest. So it was assumed that Sanskrit had been brought to India in the same way. It should be pointed out that there was nothing unique to India in the idea of an Aryan invasion - it was assumed that the languages had arrived through invasion in every place that they were spoken. Nonetheless, this silly fantasy was used by some people to justify colonial rule.But knowledge moves on, and no-one now believes that Sanskrit was brought to India by invasion. It's long been realised that the Indus Valley cities were abandoned because of climate change, and that there is no evidence for a change in "racial" type either. The book rightly presents the evidence for this. This does not mean that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, or that there were no cultural or religious changes which happened after the Indus Valley civilisation collapsed. Nowadays, there are much more sophisticated models of how languages and cultural changes take place. (As an example, the spread of the Celtic languages into Britain was probably not the result of invasion, but the fact that they were bringing high-status, desirable objects like iron and horses from the continent.)Indigenous Aryanists seem to think that linguists and archaeologists still believe what they believe in the 19th century.And in fact, even in the 19th century, it was far from true that everyone tried to use the concept of Indo-European as a tool of imperialist control. Most of the donkey work that estalished the existence of the family was done by continental scholars, who were not at all interested in colonial ambitions. Max Muller, the well-known 19th century Indo-Europeanist, was quite vocal in his opposition to the idea of an "Aryan" race (and isn't it about time that this term was finally put to sleep?) I don't feel that the book deals with the linguistic evidence adequately, evidence which is quite overwhelming against the idea that Sanskrit is native to India.So I find this book a bit disturbing because it seems to me to that it is too sympathetic to a position that is rooted wholly in opposition to beliefs that no longer exist. Furthermore, indigenous Aryanism is often linked to quite disturbing nationalist and fundamentalist agendas, and these things too, are rooted in 19th century ideas about "essences" of nations, races and religions, that somehow remain unchanged over vast periods of time. But in reality, cultures, languages and religions change. A 19th century mindset is opposed with ideas that are wholly rooted in 19th century mindsets! (As an aside, it's interesting that people who "oppose" things, very often accept exactly the same assumptions as the things they oppose are based on!) What difference does it make now where a language was spoken 6,000 years ago? The Indo-European languages must have been introduced to Europe from somewhere else, somewhere further east. Is that of more than historical interest now? I feel that this book would have been more valuable if it had pointed out that "indigenous Aryanism" is fighting a battle that no longer exists.

Il testo è una ristampa fatta in Italia del testo originale in inglese che sicuramente per ragioni commerciali e di risparmio, è stata fatta con caratteri così piccoli da renderlo faticosamente leggibile anche con gli occhiali, (per capirci circa grandezza bugiardino medicine) di conseguenza con grande affaticamento della vista.Tutto ciò inficia ovviamente il piacere e il desiderio della lettura.

For someone to understand what has happened to the Indian Education System they need to read this book. I am stating something different here compared to what the books intend to do, but that is exactly what has happened due to the colonial rule. This book covers (or tries to) who are the 'Aryans'. Are they indigenous Indians or did they come from Europe? And due to the fact that the last 200 years we have had an English system of learning and have studied history from their perspective we have tended to believe that the Aryans come from Europe.This book does not answer the question comprehensively. But, brings forward arguments from both angles. It is a well balanced note.Slightly heavy read, but that is to be expected.

Bryant explained the work on reconstruction of the history of the Subcontinent South Asia since last two hundred years. Since ancient Indian were very poor to record their history, what we know today about Indo-Pak is the result of efforts by Philologists, Linguists, Archaelogists to piece togather the history of the Subcontinent. Recently, scholars in India started questining the Aryan Migration theory. Bryant presented point of views of Indigionists very well. I enjoyed this book, and it strenthen my view as Migrationist. Farhat Gurdaspuri

I am very anti AIT person. However this book has given me more deeper insight on the views of the Pro-AIT (now called the AMT) Scholars. Thought It hasn't convinced me to change my mind regarding the fallacy of the AMT theory, I am willing to concede some ground on some of the point raised by the pro-AMT on linguistics and the discrepancies between the Indus valley beliefs and Vedic literature.very thoroughly researched work by Ed Bryant

A brilliant book on the politics of discourse in the colonial era and how it is working even today. Really a lot of good thinking material.