Aryan

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

For research-work on the Aryan origin of the Jats, please visit Indo-Aryan origin of the Jats.

Swastika symbol of Aryans

The term Aryan (आर्य) originates from the Sanskrit word ārya, in origin an ethnic self-designation, in Classical Sanskrit meaning "honourable, respectable, noble".[1][2] In the 18th century, the most ancient known Indo-European languages were those of the Indo-Iranians' ancestors. The word Aryan was therefore adopted to refer not only to the Indo-Iranian people, but also to native Indo-European speakers as a whole, including the Greeks, Latins, and Germans. It was soon recognised that Armenians, Balts, Celts, and Slavs also belonged to the same group. It was argued that all of these languages originated from a common root—now known as Proto-Indo-European—spoken by an ancient people. The ethnic group composed of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their modern descendants was termed the "Aryans".

Aryan city discovered in Russia

Russian archaeologists have unearthed some ancient and virtually unknown settlements, which they believe were built by the original Aryan race about 4,000 years ago.[3]

According to the team which has discovered 20 spiral-shaped settlements in remote Russia steppe in southern Siberia bordering Kazakhstan, the buildings date back to the beginning of the Western civilisation in Europe.

The Bronze Age settlements, experts said, could have been built shortly after the Great Pyramid, some 4,000 years ago, by the original Aryan race whose swastika symbol was later adopted by the Nazis in the 1930s.

TV historian Bettany Hughes, who explored the desolate part of the steppe for BBC programme ‘Tracking The Aryans,' said, “Potentially, this could rival ancient Greece in the Age of the Heroes.”

Unknown till now

The remains of the ancient city were explored for the first time around 20 years ago, shortly after the then-Soviet officials relaxed the laws banning non-military aerial photography.

But, as the region is so remote, the incredible cities remained unknown until now, the archaeologists said. The cities are about the same size as several of the city states of ancient Greece and would have housed between 1,000 and 2,00 people.

The Aryan's language has been identified as the precursor to a number of modern European tongues. Many English words such as brother, oxen and guest have all been tracked to the Aryans.

Swasika all over

Items that have been dug up at the sites include make-up equipment, a chariot, and numerous pieces of pottery.

The artefacts were daubed in Swastikas, which were used in ancient times as symbols of the sun and eternal life. The Swastika and Aryan race were later adopted by Hitler and the Nazis as symbols of their so-called master race.

Ancient texts unearthed

Evidence of ritual horse burials were found at the site, with ancient Aryan texts that describe the animals being sliced up and buried with their masters.

Ms. Hughes, a visiting research fellow at King's College London, said that ancient Indian texts and hymns described sacrifices of horses and burials and the way the meat was cut off and the way the horse was buried with its master.

“If you match this with the way the skeletons and graves are being dug up in Russia, they are a millimetre-perfect match.”

Rakhigarhi DNA study questions Aryan invasion theory

Article by Anubhuti Vishnoi in Economic Times, 6.9.2019[4] mentions the first study of the DNA samples of the skeletal remains excavated from Rakhigarhi, an Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) site in Haryana, has found no traces of Iranian farmer or steppe pastoralist ancestry, which according to the lead archaeologist in the team raises doubt over the long-held theory of Aryan invasion or migration into South Asia.

“The paper indicates that there was no Aryan invasion and no Aryan migration and that all the developments right from the hunting-gathering stage to modern times in South Asia were done by indigenous people,” Prof Vasant Shinde, lead author of the paper, told ET.

The findings of the study, which took over three years to complete, authored by a team of Indian archaeologists and DNA experts from Harvard Medical School was published on Thursday in the scientific journal ‘Cell’ under the title: ‘An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Pastoralists and Iranian Farmers’. The paper concludes Indians came from a genetic pool predominantly belonging to an indigenous ancient civilisation. The findings are based on the study of the ancient genome in the skeletons excavated from a burial site at Rakhigarhi, which is among the biggest Indus Valley locations, spread across 300 hectares near Hisar. It belongs to the mature phase of the Harappan period, dating back to about 2800-2300 BC.


The paper makes three key points: The skeletal remains from the Rakhigarhi individual was from a population that is “the largest source of ancestry for South Asians”; the “Iranian related ancestry in South Asia split from Iranian plateau lineage over 12,000 years ago”; the “first farmers of the fertile crescents contributed little to no ancestry to later south Asians”.

The paper is authored by Vasant Shinde of Deccan College of Pune, Vageesh Narasimhan and David Reich of Harvard Medical School and Niraj Rai of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences among others. The paper claims Iranian genetic traits in the Indus Valley period and in present day South Asians come from ancient Iranian and South East Asian hunter-gatherers, much before the advent of large-scale farming. “The Iranian related ancestry in IVC derives from a lineage leading to early Iranian farmers, herders and hunter-gatherers before their ancestors separated, contradicting the hypothesis that the shared ancestry between early Iranians and South Asians reflects a large-scale spread of western Iranian farmers east. Instead, sampled ancient genomes from the Iranian plateau and IVC descend from different groups of hunter gatherers who began farming without being connected by substantial movement of people,” the paper states.

The study suggests farming skills have been developed indigenously contrary to prevalent theories that these came with migrants from the Steppes and Anatolian farmers. As the paper states: “(These findings) in South Asia as in Europe, the advent of farming was not mediated directly by descendants of the world’s first farmers who lived in the fertile crescent. Instead populations of hunter-gatherers — in Eastern Anatolia in the case of Europe and in a yet unsampled location in the case of South Asia — began farming without large-scale movement of people into these regions.”

See also

References

  1. Monier-Williams (1899).
  2. "Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (2008 revision)"
  3. http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article812961.ece
  4. Article by Anubhuti Vishnoi in Economic Times, 6.9.2019

External links


Author लेखक: Laxman Burdak लक्ष्मण बुरड़क


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