From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: The Indus Tradition and the Indo-Aryans
Organization: LLNL
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 00:06:15 GMT

In article <i762402@pro-nbs.acme.fred.org> dkarma@pro-nbs.acme.fred.org (Druta Karma) writes:
@ I am very interested in how this topic will develop and have also been
@ doing some research into it. Just a note: the Uttara Pradesha state in
@ India has a Bharatiya Janata Party government, and I have read in the
@ Indian newspapers that high school textbooks in the UP schools are now
@ giving students information that the Aryan invasion idea propagated for so
@ long by European Indologists (and their Indian followers) is not very well
@ supported by evidence and that the best hypothesis is that the Aryan Vedic
@ culture is indigenous to India.

	This seems to be a case of replacing an alleged example of
cultural chauvinism with a clear example of it.

In the latest issue of Science News (whicvh
@ I loaned to a friend and therefore cannot give the exact citation) there is
@ a report on a genetic study of European racial-linguistic groups that the
@ author says supports neither of the 2 currently popular views on the
@ origins of the Indo-Europeans (Turkey, about 7500 BC or southern Russia,
@ about 4,500 BC).

	Why don't you get that issue back, and give details and what
studies it referred to.

	The only study of European genetics that I've seen that
addressed this question concluded that Europe is a mixture of a
population from western Turkey and an indigenous population, and that
the more of the former population there was, the longer the time that
agriculture has been around. This is consistent with the view that
agriculture spread in Europe by an incoming population outbreeding the
native population and absorbing it, thus making this genetic mixture.
The original agriculturalists' genes would gradually get more and more
diluted the farther along their descendants went.

	The Kurgan invasions of later times from South Russia did make
some genetic impact, though a rather localized one in Eastern Europe.

	This would seem to be consistent with Colin Renfrew's
hypothesis that the original Indo-European speakers were the European
Neolithic agriculturalists who spread westward from southern Turkey.

	However, this hypothesis involves disregarding the abundance
of cultural inferences that can be drawn from the reconstructed
Indo-European vocabulary. These include horses, wheeled vehicles and
their parts, and metal usage; none of these are found in the European
Neolithic, though they are associated with the Kurgans. There are
serious differences in symbolism and burial style as Marija Gimbutas
has investigated in rather gory detail. The Neolithic and Copper Age
"Old Europeans" had an earth-goddess-oriented religion featuring a
rich artistic tradition, one that partially survived in later times.
The Kurgans bequeathed much less art, but what is apparent suggests
some sort of cults of sky and sun gods. This is consistent with an
important deity name that can be reconstructed:

	*dye:us p@te:r ("Father Sky")

	Greek _Zeus Pate:r_ ("Father Zeus")

	Roman _Jovis Pater_ > _Juppiter_

	Old Norse _Tyr_ (Old English _Tiu_) [a god of war; Old Norse
_Odhinn_, (Old English _Woden_, Old German _Wotan_) is a celestial
father-god]

	Vedic _Dyauh. Pita:_ (or "Dyaus Pitar", literally, "Father Sky")

	Illyrian _Dei Patyros_

	Gimbutas proposes that the historic European pagan religions
were a mixture of Old European and Indo-European religions; the same
would seem to be true of India. Of Hindu deities, such biggies as
Shiva and Kali are not mentioned in the Vedas; they are very likely
pre-Aryan. Example: a "Master of Animals" (just like Shiva) in some
Harappan art. Furthermore, Kali seems like some European legendary
witches such as the Slavic Baba Yaga, whom Gimbutas considers a
survival of an Old European goddess of death and regeneration.

The author suggests no alternative hypothesis, but it is
@ interesting that the Vedic histories say that renegade kshatriyas
@ (warriors) were driven from Bharata-varsha (India) in ancient times and
@ then migrated to the European countries, where they interbred with native
@ populations.

	I'm not aware that the Vedas mentioned Europe. How is that?

	And don't tell me that Sanskrit was the original Indo-European
language. That used to be thought by some scholars, but it is now
rejected for linguistic reasons. Examples: Sanskrit and its close
relative Old Persian confuse three vowels reconstructed as *e, *a, and
*o from the other IE languages as "a".

	And what do the Vedas say about the Harappans? :-)

	You might find J.P. Mallory's _In Search of the
Indo-Europeans_ an interesting read on this question.

/Loren