Since I sent in my first chapter of a book last year to my publisher that says the same thing as Jerry Bentley just did, I must say I agree with him completely! However, there is a big however!
Teachers and scholars of the early Vedic Age must address several other issues:
First, there is no demonstrable break between the later cities of Harappan civilization near the head of the Gangetic Plain and the early Vedic Age. This not only means that there was no classic Invasion but:
Second, Harappan culture was not erased and its people were not all driven away or merely enslaved. Much of their culture (how much is a matter of debate) survived, as the history of near-contemporary conflict between Akkadians and Sumerians suggest. (In that case Sumerians recovered their power, but retained the name Akkadian!). Which leads to:
Third: Early Vedic Conflict with whom? Compare the Bible’s assertion of the burning of Jericho and its admonition to kill all the Cannanites, especially Moabites (and most explicitly, the execution of those who have sexual intercourse with them) to Vedic accounts of warfare: the city of Jericho was never burnt, yet the Bible tells us so, and the Vedas tell us of the destruction of walls, but we have yet to find evidence of that in the Indus. Worse, Jesse, King David’s father, is the son of a Moabite woman, so apparently Moabites and Israelites could marry!
Hindutva writers say the Vedas are about conflict within Aryan society over who was truly Aryan (noble), not between migrant Indo-European speakers and indigenous people. Was that struggle perhaps owed to uneven rates of cultural change among groups? One could reasonably argue that it occurred between waves of migrants (Hindutva scholars, of course, do not so argue). A similar debate once occurred over whether later Polynesian migrants to Hawaii made the early ones kapu or tapu. Those late comers who went up the Manoa Valley (for example) to see them or otherwise encountered the first wave were to be executed.
Sacred oral history is fine, but hotly debated as to accuracy. Hindutva writers may be wrong about everything, but scholars now face the challenge of replacing the invasion theory with something backed by strong evidence or by default it could pass to Hindutva propagandists whose evidence is, to be polite, questionable, as Jerry, less politely, points out (and cites the scholarship holding that this is the case!)
Early and later Vedic India may thus not be easily reducible at the moment, but, as the Chinese symbol for trouble is also the symbol for opportunity (or so it is said), world historians can use this material to demonstrate before their students the humility so lacking in both Aryan Invasion and Hindutva writing. Moreover, the Aryan Invasion theory and the Hindutva riposte makes a great lesson in how the past is politicized. And that debate is easily Googled! As to what that history may have been, we are not so sure. In the West, Aryan Invasion theory was gospel and central to racist European imperialist ideology (though its progenitor, F. Max Muller, may have other goals). It took a century of sound archeology to kill it. May the resolution of what may come to replace it come sooner and be more benign!
Om, Shanti, Om!
Marc
Jerry’ also draws attention to the Bantu migration. There is much debate over whether Bantu migration can be attributed to human agency as is attributed to the Aryan migration. Mande peoples etc from West Africa may not have physically transferred their language–it spread due to its efficiency. Any advice from Africanists the list on this?
—–Original Message—–
From: Jerry Bentley [mailto:jbentley@hawaii.edu]
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 12:46 PM
To: AP World History
Subject: Re: [ap-world] Aryan Invasion of India
From: Jerry H. Bentley
University of Hawaii
jbentley@hawaii.edu
You might say that two quite different and separate debates have gotten mingled.
The older of the two debates deals with the question of invasion. At one point, some scholars believed that warlike Aryans invaded India, killed Harappan society, and built a new order on its grave. One prominent archaeologist found a group of unburied skeletons in a Harappan building and luridly speculated about their violent deaths at the hands of rude invaders. Gradually, though, a much less dramatic view developed. As Jonathan Burack mentioned, the prevailing view now is that Harappan society was already in deep decline when Indo-European speakers arrived, and furthermore, there was no ‘invasion’ in any meaningful sense of the term. There were waves of migrations, and a great deal of violence undoubtedly resulted from conflicts between older populations and new arrivals. But we are talking about migratory processes lasting centuries, like the Bantu or Germanic migrations, rather than a planned invasion.
A more recent debate arises from Hindu nationalist ideology that conflicts with serious scholarship. Generally speaking, and recognizing that there will be differences from one position to another, Hindutva exponents hold there was no invasion or migration at all, rather that Hindus descend from the earliest Indian populations of the Indus River valley (aka Harappan) society. Their reasoning is sloppy, and on more than a few occasions they have irresponsibly and quite transparently manufactured or distorted evidence in arguing their cases. Their position reflects propaganda or mythology rather than respectable history. It is about as persuasive as Holocaust denial. Nevertheless, their arguments play well among some Hindu nationalists in India. They are also popular within some diaspora communities in which there is a strong sense of Hindu identity.
Don’t just take my word for this. Consult the following works for critiques of Hindutva views:
Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer, ‘Horseplay in Harappa: The Indus Valley Decipherment Hoax,’ Frontline: India’s National Magazine, 13 October 2000, pp. 4-14 (accessible on the internet).
Romila Thapar, ‘Hindutva and History,’ Frontline: India’s National Magazine, 13 October 2000, pp. 15-16 (accessible on the internet).
Sumit Sarkar, Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2002).
Kristen M. Romey, ‘Flashpoint Ayodhya,’ Archaeology 57 (July/August 2004): 48-55.
William Dalrymple, ‘India: The War over History,’ New York Review of Books 52:6 (7 April 2005): 62-65.
My own view: There was no ‘Aryan invasion’ of India, but there certainly were waves of migrations into India by Indo-European speakers who called themselves Aryans. Harappan society was already in decline when Indo-European speakers made their way into India, so the migrants did not topple or kill off the earlier society, but there was undoubtedly plenty of violence as peoples from different communities clashed over lands and resources.
Cheers,
Jerry B.
Jerry H. Bentley
Department of History
University of Hawaii
2530 Dole Street
Honolulu, HI 96822
Telephone: (808) 956-8505
Fax: (808) 956-9600
