Links beyond boundaries (The Aryan debate rages on)

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 Links beyond boundaries (The Aryan debate rages on)

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• The Aryan debate : First we need to decide the time and space of the subject. Going back in time, modern boundaries mean little, and the archaeological and liguistic evidences are extensive. Distant cultures get involved.
• Evidence of Indus settlements : We find evidences from Shortughai in Pamirs extending upto the Arabian sea, and then westwards in Baluchistan and eastwards into Punjab and Haryana. Even in Oman, near copper mines, settlements are now found!
• People of the past : The Harappans had trade relations with many other cultures, and they travelled, migrated, traded and communicated. Possibly, many cultures interacted in this manner (given the vast space involved).
• Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian speakers : They can be given some approximate location only. Broadly we see that the Proto-Indo-European has a different direction from Harappan culture. The former are seen more in northern Syria and Anatolia.
• Indo-Aryan of the Rig Veda : Speakers of this are in the regionl of Indo-Iranian borderlands upto Punjab and Doab, overall a small area. Taken back in time, history of Indo-Aryan is linked with Central Asia.
• Harappan to the south and west : Geographical overlaps between the Harappan sites and those with Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian shows that the former go southwards and westwards (towards Persian Gulf), and the latter fo south-eastwards towards Ganga plains.
• Time brackets : They have different chronologies too.

1. Mature Harappan urban cultures date 2600 - 1700 BCE, and then urbanisation ends slowly.
2. The Rig Veda comes after that, approximately 1500 BCE or 1300 BCE.
3. Later Vedas (Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda) come later in early first millennium BCE (900 BCE etc.)

• No, we disagree : Some say that Rig Veda culture dates to 3000 BCE, and is identical with Harappan city culture itself.They claim that Aryans were indigenous and no migration (forget invasion) ever happened. And Rigvedic Aryans built the Indus culture.
• This seems incorrect : Rigvedic agro-pastoralism doesn't match with the Harappan urbanism. And if Rig Veda came 3000 BCE, then why did other Vedas come several millennia later? The archaeological evidences do not match up.
• Don't project the present to the past : Any such attempts will muddy the search for true history.
• Summary : The Aryan debate rages on, with two distinct views emerging regarding the dating of Rig Vedic times and the Indus Valley civilisation's time.

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