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6. Departing thoughts
6.2. THINGS TO DO
6.2.1. The archaeological
job
Not being
an archaeologist, I do not want to evaluate the status quaestionis
of the archaeological search for IE origins. All I can do is note
that the archaeologists themselves don’t seem to have mapped out the trail
of the early Indo-Europeans in South and Central Asia with a convincing
amount of detail. Asko Parpola and Bernard Sergent have made a valiant
attempt, and invasionists are hopeful that if pursued further, these efforts
should lead to the definitive proof of the AIT. However, we have
seen that the interpretation which Parpola and Sergent give to the crucial
Bactrian Bronze Age culture as Indo-Aryan is uncertain, and that their
own data could better support the identification of that culture as Iranian.
More importantly, we have seen that they have not succeeded in getting
the Bactrians into India, i.e. in proving an actual migration of people
and of a culture into India.
The Bactrian
Bronze Age culture is a rather late affair in IE history, which started
at least 3,000 years earlier. The focus should be on the origins
of the Kurgan culture in ca. 5000 BC. There
is sufficient evidence to conclude provisionally that it originated in
Asia, to the east of the Caspian Sea, e.g. Russian scholar N. Merpert traces
the Kurgan culture to the “Volga-Ural region, developing there under the
influence of Neolithic cultures of the south-east Caspian zone”.11
And where do we go back to from there? If India is the homeland of
the IE family, there should be traces of a cultural expansion or migration
from India to the Caspian region around 5,000 BC, the pre-Vedic age.
Another
thing to do is to dig up the ancient settlements in the Ganga basin.
Unlike the mighty Indus-Saraswati cities, these won’t be readily visible,
nor are they easily accessible as abandoned ruins: many of them lie underneath
bustling cities. But there, as much as in the Harappan area, a very
important part of India’s (and possibly the Indo-European language family’s)
history lies waiting for discovery.
6.2.2. Literary testimony
to Harappan decline
If it
is true that Harappan civilization was prominently Indo-Aryan and that
much of Sanskrit literature was written in the Harappan period, then a
certain chronological stage in this literary tradition should correspond
to the decline and ruination of the Harappan cities. So far, the
only literary reference to this process that I’ve heard of, is a Mahabharata
line mentioning the sinking and drying up of the Saraswati river, and attributing
it to the goddess’s disgust with the decline in moral and cultural standards
among the population. That hardly suffices as literary testimony
to such a vast civilizational crisis as the abandonment of the Harappan
cities. So, this will become an object of mockery for the skeptics,
unless the non-invasionists meet the challenge and present the literary
evidence.
6.2.3. Let us keep on
doubting
One thing
which keeps on astonishing me in the present debate is the complete lack
of doubt in both camps. Personally, I don’t think that either theory,
of Aryan invasion and of Aryan indigenousness, can claim to have been “proven”
by prevalent standards of proof; eventhough one of the contenders is getting
closer. Indeed, while I have enjoyed pointing out the flaws in the
AIT statements of the politicized Indian academic establishment and its
American amplifiers, I cannot rule out the possibility that the theory
which they are defending may still have its merits.
On both
sides, I have seen so much self-satisfaction, the conceit of the academic
establishment disdaining the contributions of “amateurs”, the bad faith
among the Indian Marxists dismissing every word uttered by “Hindu chauvinists”,
the triumphalism among the non-invasionists about having exposed “the myth
of the Aryan invasion”. Many seem to think that all the questions
have been answered, that only mad or evil people can still adhere to the
rivalling school of thought, so that there is also no need to listen to
their objections; but what I see is that at least many parts of the question
are still waiting for an answer.
For example,
the non-invasionists should recognize the merits in the invasionist skepticism
of the horse evidence found in the Harappan cities. It is one thing
for Prof. B.B. Lal (one of those healthy doubters who only came to dismiss
the “myth of the Aryan invasion” gradually) to cite recent finds of horse
bones as proving that “the horse was duly known to the Harappans”
and to quote archaeozoologist Prof. Sandor Bokonyi as confirming that the
horses found in Surkotada were indeed horses (which some had refused to
believe due to their AIT bias), and that “the domestic nature of the Surkotada
horses is undoubtful”.12 It is another to
deduce that the horse was simply part of Harappan life rather than an exotic
curiosity; AIT defenders have a point when they maintain that the horse
was not part of the Harappan lifestyle the way it was in the Kurgan culture.
More work is to be done, both in digging and incorrectly interpreting the
data.
Likewise,
invasionists reproach non-invasionists for disregarding the fact of kinship
between IE languages, and for behaving as if the presence of IE languages
in both India and Europe needs no explanation. They really have a
point: most Indian publications focus exclusively on Indian history, and
show absolutely no interest in explaining how, if IE was native to India,
it made its way to distant countries. True, research is also guided
by the actual facts which are being discovered, i.c. findings in India
which undermine the AIT, so it is normal to focus on India. But a
scholar must not be satisfied with giving some answers; he must
aim for a theory which answers all relevant questions.
Footnotes:
11Paraphrase
by J.P. Mallory: “The chronology of the early Kurgan tradition”, Journal
of Indo-European Studies, 1977/4, p.339, with reference to a Russian article
by N. Merpert, Moscow 1974.
12Sandor
Bokonyi: letter to the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of
India, 13-12-1993, quoted in B.B. Lal: The Myth of Aryan Invasion: Some
Reflections on the Authorship of the Harappan Civilization, inaugural address
delivered at the Second International Conference of the World Association
for Vedic Studies, Los Angeles, 7-8-1998.
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