Obviously this creates problems for the Aryan Invasion theorists. So an attempt was made to trace it to Bos Nomadicus, the ancestor of the European/West Asian Bos Taurus cattle. This was simply a suggestion, but as so often was the case with Indological scholarship, it was not long before it began to be treated as an established fact. This is a familiar pattern that underlies much of the methodology that led to (and derives from) the AIT.

But this pretence could not be sustained in the face of conclusions following detailed scientific analysis. Studies based on mitochondrial DNA in 1994 and 1999 showed that the Indian and the taurine (Eurasian) cattle were separated by something like 600,000 years of evolution.

The conclusion was inevitable: The zebu (Indian) and the taurine (West Asian-European) cattle were "domesticated separately in different regions of the world," as Manansala puts it. Later studies showed that the zebu is close to banteng and may indeed have had a common ancestor.

Further, the Indian cattle or the zebu (Bos Indicus) was domesticated separately in South Asia. In other words, Indian cattle are a completely different animal both biologically and in their domestication history. It could not have been introduced from West Asia or Europe. So the ‘invading Aryans’ could not have brought their cattle from the northwest.

The horse myth

It is a similar story with the horse. Of late, with archaeology contradicting the AIT, the horse — or the supposed absence of it in Harappa — has become the evidence of last resort for the supporters of the Aryan invasion.

The claim of the AIT proponents is that the horse was unknown in India until it was brought by the invading Aryans. Thus the absence of the horse in prehistoric India is crucial for the survival of the AIT. In fact it is so to such an extent that any attempt to suggest the possibility of horse as native to South Asia can lead to high emotion and vehement denunciations by the AIT proponents. (This writer can attest to it from recent personal experience when he produced evidence showing that the horse was known to the Harappans.)

But the fact is that considerable confusion has been created due to sloppy data handling, scientific ignorance and what Manansala has called "shoddy scholarship". It is a complex issue, but here is the story in brief.

The first point is that despite repeated assertions by AIT advocates of "No horse at Harappa," horse bones have been found at Harappan sites at all levels. It is also not true that artistic representations of the horse have not been found among the Harappan artifacts.

There are terra-cotta figurines representing the horse. Also Jha and this writer have shown that there is at least one seal from Mohenjo-Daro that contains a slightly damaged image of a horse. (It was this that gave to vehement reactions and denunciations from a few AIT advocates.) Later, I showed that the horse was depicted on at least one other seal.

In any event, the absence of the horse in artistic representations — especially among the small fraction that have survived over thousands of years — does not prove their absence altogether. Also, horse representations are relatively rare in Indian iconography. Iconography, including the seals, contains people’s ideas— not a record of zoological specimens.

This is still not the full story, for horse remains have been found in Central India, at places like Koldihwa and Mahagara, dating to before 6000 BC. But even more significant is the following fact: The Indian domesticated horse, like Indian cattle, is different from the Central Asian variety. As Manansala puts it in his masterly study:

Deep in the specialized literature on horse classification, we can find that Indian and other horses extending to insular Southeast Asia were peculiar from other breed. All showed anatomical traces of admixture with the ancient equid known as Equus Sivalensis. …However, like that equid, the horse of southeastern Asia has peculiar zebra-like dentition. Also both were distinguished by a pre-orbital depression.

The orbital region is important because it has been demonstrated as useful in classifying different species of equids. Finally, and most importantly in relation to the Vedic literature, the Indian horse has, like Equus Sivalensis, only 17 pairs of ribs. (Emphasis added.)

In contrast the West Asian, Central Asian and the European varieties had 18 pairs of ribs. So the horse of India and Southeast Asia is a distinct variety native to the region. So the Indian horse could not have been brought into India by any invading people from the northwest— Aryan or not.

So the Harappan horse is irrelevant— seal or no seal. What the advocates of the Aryan invasion have to show is demonstrate an archaeological trail of horses from Central Asia that became the Rigvedic horse. But this is impossible for the following reason.

But what is amazing and most significant is that this horse with 34 ribs (or 17 pairs) is what is described in the Rigveda during the Ashvamedha sacrifice. Here is verse 18 from hymn I.162, which is devoted to the sacrifice (author’s translation):

The horse of victory has thirty-four ribs on the two sides that face threat in the battle. O skilled men, treat these uninjured parts with skill, so they may recover their energy! (RV, I. 162.18)

So the horse evidence, far from supporting the Aryan invasion, actually refutes it.

The human imprint

This should settle the issue of the horse, showing that the Rigveda knew the South and Southeast Asian horse long before the Central Asian variety appeared in India. It is a similar story when we examine the human imprint on the region. As Manansala points out: "Genetic studies have often focused more on establishing the validity of Western theories concerning the subcontinent like the AI [Aryan invasion]… However these same studies often provide evidence that supports our own theory."

That is to say, they support the indigenous origin of Indians with links to East Asia. This has been the experience of this writer also: a recent genetic study that purported to show that high caste Hindus came from the Caucasus ended up showing that, if anything, they indicated a movement out of India. When we look at studies that use older methods like cranial measurements we get the following picture (Manansla):

According to the old standard of cephalometry, or measurement of skulls, the situation in India had always presented problems to AIT proponents. The theory requires that the Vedic Aryans have some biological relationship with the old Persians of Iran.

However, the evidence available shows that Iranians are and were a markedly broad-headed people while the peoples in India including the northwest were strongly long-headed. Broad-headed people appeared in pockets in western India around Maharastra and Gujarat and in eastern India, but the expected high frequency of such types in the northwest was not found.

The discrepancy led to AI theorists to claim that the earlier invasion had come from long-headed 'Nordics', the cousins of the broad-headed Iranians. The theory suffered some obvious weaknesses as the supposed separation of the two groups from the hypothetical Central Asian homeland was not that great— certainly not great enough to allow divergence into broad and long head categories from a proposed proto-Indo-Iranian people.

Manaslala goes on to observe that the evidence is even more revealing when the skeletal remains are examined more thoroughly. "Kenneth Kennedy, who has done extensive research on early Indian crania, has stated that the "Aryan" is missing from the early skeletal record." By ‘Aryan’ is meant here a group that would cluster with Central Asians or Eurasians believed to be Indo-Europeans.

The skeletal record shows that in most ways the Indian population is quite unique. As a result, one thing that can quickly be dismissed: Indians are ancient inhabitants of India and not recent immigrants. The idea that they are recent immigrants due to an Aryan invasion’ or anything else represents a theoretical fancy that is contradicted by hard evidence.

It is a similar story when we examine the genetic record. "The overall genetic picture indicates a very old biological relationship, probably extending in part to at least to the original migration out of Africa.” In this context it may be pointed out that the current theory is that Africa was the home of the entire human population now distributed all over the world.

The genetic picture of Indians is that they are closely related to the Southeast Asians, going back tens of thousands of years. Genetic studies have also shown that the contribution of Central Asia or Eurasia to Indian populations is insignificant to non-existent. All this has been confirmed by more recent studies relating to the human genome project.

It is a similar story when we look at Indian and Southeast Asian mythologies. As Manasala notes: "When we delve more deeply into mythology…, we will find that Indian tradition, preserved in the Puranas, epics and other works, assigns the origin of a great many things to the East. In the story of the churning of the Milky Ocean, the divine cow Surabhi arises from the sea after it becomes milk. The Milky Ocean, as we will see, is located geographically


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to the east of Mt. Meru. Likewise, in the Satapatha Brahmana, the priesthood is also connected with the East, although here east could refer to eastern India."

So, ties to the East and to the ocean are much stronger than those going west or northwest. A fundamental problem in the theories advanced by AIT proponents is the almost total incomprehension on their part of the time scale involved in biological change. Two thousand or four thousand years is a long time span in the historical sense but insignificant when viewed in context of biological evolution.

As a result, developments that must have taken tens of thousands of years are compressed into centuries leading to scientific absurdities. As their main goal was to justify a Eurocentric vision of civilization, they violated fundamental laws of nature, often resulting in what scientifically knowledgeable scholars have termed "shoddy scholarship" and repeated and dogmatic assertion of discredited positions.

Rigveda and the ocean

It is clear from the discussion so far that the version of history found in textbooks is not merely wrong but catastrophically wrong. It is wrong in every respect— in history, chronology, literary interpretation, as well as identifying the regional flora and fauna.

It may safely be said that the Aryan Invasion version of history represents one of the great blunders in the history of scholarship— a blunder that may be classed with Christian Creationism and the Flat Earth Theory. Before we get to suggest an alternative approach to history we may first note that the Rigveda is the product strictly of an Indian milieu.

There are occasional references to lands beyond the Indus — notably Afghanistan — but these are greatly exceeded by references to oceans and seafaring. This is clear from the numerous references to oceans and the use of oceanic symbolism found in the Rigveda. Here are some examples. (Translations by David Frawley.)

In the beginning, there was darkness hidden in darkness, all this universe was an unillumined sea.

Rigveda X.129.3

The Gods stood together in the sea. Then as dancers they generated a swirl of dust.

When, like ascetics, the Gods overflowed the world, then from hidden in the ocean they brought forth the Sun.

Rigveda X.72.6-7

The creative Sun upheld the Earth with lines of force. He strengthened the Heaven where there was no support.

As a powerful horse he drew out the atmosphere. He bound fast the ocean in the boundless realm.

Thence came the world and the upper region, thence Heaven and Earth were extended.

Rigveda X.149. 1-2

Law and truth from the power of meditation were enkindled. Thence the night was born and then the flooding ocean.

From the flooding ocean the year was born. The Lord of all that moves ordained the days and nights.

The Creator formed the Sun and Moon according to previous worlds; Heaven and Earth, the atmosphere and the realm of light.

Rigveda X.190

All these passages are pervaded by the image of the ocean. And there are literally hundreds of them. As David Frawley has pointed out, a society totally ignorant of the sea does not visualize the process of creation itself in terms of the ocean. Can anyone believe this to be the poetry of a nomadic people from Eurasia who had never seen the ocean? What trust are we to place in a scholarship that missed all this for over a century while insisting that its creators were nomadic invaders ignorant of the sea?

So to understand the origins of the Vedas, we need to look not West to Central Asia or Eurasia, but East and South — and possibly to Africa — which have always been close to India until European colonialism interrupted this natural connection. There were movements West, but it was usual from India westward— to Iran, Central Asia, Anatolia and even Europe. There is even archaeological evidence to support this. The figures below show just one example— of the symbolism of the ‘Yogi’ finding its representation both in West Asia and Europe later. This suggests a westward trail out of India.

In this context it worth noting that the ancients never denied India’s contribution to knowledge, including the sciences. As late as in the 11th century AD, the Spanish Arab scholar Sa’id ibn Ahmad al-Andalusi (1029 – 1070 AD) wrote in his Tabaqat al-umam: "The first nation to have cultivated science is India… Over many centuries, all the kings of the past have recognized the ability of the Indians in all the branches of knowledge...

The Indians known to all nations for many centuries, are the essence of wisdom, the source of fairness and objectivity… To their credit Indians have made great strides in the study of numbers and geometry. They have acquired immense information and reached the zenith in their knowledge of the movements of the stars… After all that they have surpassed all others in their knowledge of medical sciences."

The same was true of the Greeks, even after the coming of Christianity. Greek sages beginning with Pythagoros looked to India as the Land of Wisdom. Some like Pythagoros are believed to have studied in India. But the Eurocentric bias of colonial and missionary interests — and their later followers in India — turned all this upside down. In the process, they overturned also the history and culture of the region. The Aryan Invasion Theory was a tool of this colonial enterprise. It is time to set it right.

A new foundation for history

The idea of the Aryan invasion, related to such concepts as the ‘Aryan race’ and the ‘Aryan nation’, has more to do with Europe than India. Like the German Nationalist Movement that gave rise to it, the ‘Aryan race’ concept should be seen as part of European history.

It became part of Indian historiography only because it could be used to impose a Eurocentric version of Indian history to go with European colonialism. Its creators and beneficiaries were mainly colonial scholars and Christian missionaries. They made no secret of their intentions.

Lord Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay, once said: "Divide and rule was Roman policy and it should also be ours." This was put into practice in the form of the invading fair-skinned Aryans colonizing the dark-skinned Dravidians— little more than a copy of European colonization of Asia and Africa.

And W.W. Hunter, a leading Indologist of the nineteenth century wrote: "Scholarship is warmed with the holy flame of Christian zeal." It was such scholars who created the version of history that went into textbooks in colonial India.

This is understandable from the colonial point of view, but why are they still taught in Indian schools and colleges fifty years after independence, especially when they are entirely without a scientific foundation or even rudimentary evidence? To understand this, it helps to recognize that British education left behind an elite that was cut off from Indian tradition but uncritically accepted anything coming from the West as valid.

This elite soon gained monopoly of the Indian intellectual and educational establishment. This allowed a ‘colonial hangover’ to continue, with the same version of history becoming the version favored by the Indian ‘establishment’. This was supplemented by another Eurocentric ideology called Marxism, which became the official position of the Indian establishment.

This had been anticipated by Sri Aurobindo long ago when he wrote: "That Indian scholars have not been able to form themselves into a great and independent school of learning is due to two causes: the miserable scantiness of the mastery in Sanskrit provided by our universities, crippling to all but born scholars, and our lack of sturdy independence which makes us over-ready to defer to European [and Western] authority."

This colonial-Marxist elite dominated the history establishment, leading to stifling of debate and rejection of alternative viewpoints. In the circumstances, it is no accident that the most significant advances in Indian history — from the discovery of the Vedic Sarasvati River to the decipherment of the Harappan script — should have come from the work of non-establishment scholars.

As for as the Harappan civilization is concerned— we now have conclusive evidence to show that it was Vedic. What is presented in the present article is a small part of the new picture. The deciphered readings make it even more conclusive. (For details see The Deciphered Indus Script by N. Jha and N.S. Rajaram, Aditya Prakashan, Delhi.)

The two great weaknesses of the Indian history establishment — apart from their lack of independence — are ignorance of the scientific method and ignorance of the primary languages. These weaknesses have led its members to apply modern trappings like Christian prejudices and Marxism to people and cultures that lived thousands of years ago.

This suggests that a new school of scholarship needs to be built that combines traditional learning like Vedic scholarship and the modern scientific method. They provide a firm foundation for ancient Indian history by linking archaeology to ancient literature, beginning with the Rigveda. Such an approach has already yielded dividends in solving the demanding problem of deciphering the Indus script.

The present article provides other examples of such a mix. The study of ancient Indian can now begin in real earnest, based on science and the primary sources rather than on the whims and fancies of colonial and missionary interests. This has been long overdue.