Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate

✍ Scribed by Koenraad Elst

• Publisher: Voice of India
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 515
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Revisionist discussion of Aryan invasion, early Indian history (1999)

This book on the developing arguments concerning the Aryan Invasion Theory consists of adapted versions of papers I have read: the first at the World Association of Vedic Studies (WAVES) conference on the Indus-Saraswati civilization in Atlanta 1996, the third at the 1996 Annual South Asia conference in Madison, Wisconsin and in a lecture at the Linguistics Department in Madison; the fifth contains material used in my paper read at the second WAVES conference in Los Angeles 1998; the second and fourth were read at lectures for the Belgo-Indian Association, Brussels, and at the Etnografisch Museum, Antwerp. Overlaps have been kept to a minimum. Here and there, sections of my book Indigenous Indians (Voice of India 1993, outdated as far as the fast-moving Aryan invasion debate is concerned) have been reused in adapted form.

Table of Contents:-
Preface
1. Political Aspects of the Aryan Invasion Debate
1.1. Politicizing a Linguistic Theory
1.2. The Aryan Invasion Theory in Indian Politics
1.3. Politicization as an Obstacle to Research
1.4. A Case Study in Ait Polemic
1.5. Some Red Herrings
1.6. Conclusion
2. Astronomic Data and the Aryan Question
2.1. Dating the Rg-Veda
2.2. Ancient Hindu Astronomy
2.3. The Precession of the Equinox
2.4. Additional Astronomical Indications
2.5. Conclusion
3. Linguistic Aspects of the Indo-European Urheimat Question
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Origin of the Linguistic Argument
3.3. Direct Geographical Clues
3.4. Exchanges With Other Language Families
3.5. Conclusion
4. Miscellaneous Aspects of the Aryan Invasion Debate
4.1. Demographical Common Sense
4.2. Textual Evidence
4.3. Where Did the Kurgan People Come From?
4.4. The Horse Evidence
4.5. Vedic Aryans in West Asia
4.6. Memory of the Urheimat
4.7. Indra and Shiva
4.8. Invasionist Terms in the Vedas
4.9. The Evidence From Physical Anthropology
5. Some New Arguments
5.1. A Remarkable Book
5.2. Evidence Provided by Physical Anthropology
5.3. The Archaeological Evidence
5.4. Linguistic Arguments
5.5. The Evidence From Comparative Religion
5.6. Conclusion
6. Departing Thoughts
6.1. Some False Problems
6.2. Things to Do
6.3. The Non-Invasionist Model
References

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
1. Political Aspects of the Aryan Invasion Debate
1.1. Politicizing a Linguistic Theory
1.2. The Aryan Invasion Theory in Indian Politics
1.3. Politicization as an Obstacle to Research
1.4. A Case Study in Ait Polemic
1.5. Some Red Herrings
1.6. Conclusion
2. Astronomic Data and the Aryan Question
2.1. Dating the Rg-Veda
2.2. Ancient Hindu Astronomy
2.3. The Precession of the Equinox
2.4. Additional Astronomical Indications
2.5. Conclusion
3. Linguistic Aspects of the Indo-European Urheimat Question
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Origin of the Linguistic Argument
3.3. Direct Geographical Clues
3.4. Exchanges With Other Language Families
3.5. Conclusion
4. Miscellaneous Aspects of the Aryan Invasion Debate
4.1. Demographical Common Sense
4.2. Textual Evidence
4.3. Where Did the Kurgan People Come From?
4.4. The Horse Evidence
4.5. Vedic Aryans in West Asia
4.6. Memory of the Urheimat
4.7. Indra and Shiva
4.8. Invasionist Terms in the Vedas
4.9. The Evidence From Physical Anthropology
5. Some New Arguments
5.1. A Remarkable Book
5.2. Evidence Provided by Physical Anthropology
5.3. The Archaeological Evidence
5.4. Linguistic Arguments
5.5. The Evidence From Comparative Religion
5.6. Conclusion
6. Departing Thoughts
6.1. Some False Problems
6.2. Things to Do
6.3. The Non-Invasionist Model
References

✦ Subjects

Aryan Invasion Theory