What I write below is derived from random readings over the
decades and not from any systematic research.
Homo Sapiens from the middle east spread out to reach the
corners of the world in the old stone age and this was probably from successive
migrations occurring over 50,000 years and probably reached their final
locations before 10,000 BC. In their local areas, they evolved to suit their
local requirements. While it is difficult to be certain, probably the original
homo sapiens of the middle east looked pretty much as the middle eastern people
look today i.e dark hair and eyes, whitish skin colour. Any humans reaching
close to the Equator whether in Africa, India or South East Asia would quickly
evolve to get dark skin which protect against UV radiation and skin cancer. Retention of white skin in areas without so
much sun would be required for making Vitamin D – and would become a greater
survival advantage the further north you go. So the original European population
would have evolved white skinned. The
blond hair and blue hair either evolved due to random mutations which improved
exposure to sun in cold climates requiring most of the skin to be covered
except the face. Or as has been suggested
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-women-evolved-blond-hair-to-win-cavemens-hearts-467901.html
could have been a
result of sexual selection. In any case, most of the European hunter gatherer
settlements before 10,000 BC would have been white skinned and have variably
light hair and eyes.
The spread of agriculture started from the middle east (again)
in 7-6000 BC and resulted in a population explosion of those practicing
agriculture when compared to hunter gatherers. A great survival advantage. Along
with the spread of any survival advantage like agriculture or horse raising spread
the various language groups.
Indo European language group spread out from the area around
the Caspian (Azerbaijan to Ukraine) into Europe, Russia and Steppes of
Khazakhstan. This spread of technology
and language could have occurred without much population transfer – i.e the
hunter gatherer groups adopted agriculture and horse raising progressively as
they encountered it – and the transfer of the technology occurred with transfer
of the language as well. More likely,
the technological advantage gave rise to a population explosion which made migrations and new settlements in large numbers possible.
Agriculture in middle east developed in Mesopotamia and Turkey (Catal Huyuk, Jericho etc) and
also spread into Syria, Iraq and Egypt, carrying with it the language which was
non Indo European. And hence the original local evolution of people according
to climate remained intact. i.e The middle eastern people were white skinned
with dark hair and the Europeans remained white skinned and light haired –
probably the later people who migrated into Europe faced similar selection pressures for
white skin and hair as the earlier migrations and hence after mixing with the
local population the advantaged phenotype emerged dominant.
Agriculture developed independently in China and Indus
Valley civilization (IVC) at the same time as Caspian Sea,Turkey and
Mesopotamia. They also developed their own local language without infusion from
an outside influence or migration – and hence the dissimilarity with the Indo
Aryan language group. Other places like Gangetic and South India and South East
Asia developed agriculture at a much later period and hence doesn’t figure in
these early histories.
By 2000 BC, there were big agricultural settlements in
Mesopotamia and Egypt with their own written scripts. IVC may or may not have
had a written language (existing seal symbols notwithstanding), but definitely
had big agricultural settlements and definitely show localized development of
agriculture from Neolithic to chalcolithic development into Bronze age from
6000 BC to 1800 BC. There were no agricultural settlements in Gangetic India or
South India and South East Asia where any people living would have been stone
age/chalcolithic hunter gatherers in
2000 BC.
I believe that the
BMAC complex of Bronze age civilization between 2300 BC and 1800 BC with Neolithic
and chalcolithic beginnings going back to the 4000 BC is another example of localized
development of agriculture and whose language is lost (like that of the IVC).
The Indo-European Aryans come from East of the Urals around
the Chelyabinsk region of Russia bordering Khazakhstan, from a group of tribal people who had settled down in
the Eurasian Steppes before the Bronze Age. At this time, whole of Khazakhstan (and
Ukraine) was peopled by light skinned Caucasian type of people with light hair
and blue eyes, if we are to believe some of the genetic analysis. They spoke in
Indo European languages and herded
animals (pretty much all you can do in the steppes). They entered the Bronze Age around 2100 BC and formed
the Sintashta culture, the earliest and
most developed of the larger group of the Andronovo culture, existing around
2100-1300 BC. The Petrovka-Sintashta culture was the most advanced of these cultures with advanced metallurgy of copper from 2000 to 1600 BC and
centered around Arkaim in the Urals. Some of these early Sintashta people migrated
eastwards into Khazakhstan to form the other Andronovo cultures, which
regressed into animal herders given the nature of the steppes.
In the West, in the north Caspian and Ukraine area, people
developed domestication of the horse from 4500 to 2500 BC, which then went East
to the Sintashta region and into the Andronovo Kazakhstan. From there the
domesticated horse reached the Mongols, who (like the Native Americans with
their Mustangs) became expert riders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronovo_culture
http://www.csen.org/Koryakova/korya.andronovo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkaim
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintashta_culture
East of the Khazakhstan Steppes, in Mongolia lived the
mongoloid tribals. They domesticated the wild horses found in the region around
2500 BC and ever since then they started warfare against the Andronovo and Sintashta
tribals, as well as the Chinese. The
Mongolians were ethnically different from the Andronovo cultures and of course
their horsemanship is legendary. Their peculiar way of life meant continuous
conflict of the Indo European speaking Andronovo people who were forced into
continuous Westward migration along with the horse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_horse
Within the various Andronovo Bronze Age cultures, because of the improved metallurgy
from the Ural mountain derived copper ores, the Sintashta culture became the
most advanced among the Andronovo and other Caspean Sea Indo Aryan cultures. The
most advanced city within the East Urals was Arkaim. This was an Aryan
settlement where people spoke an Indo European language, did fire sacrifice and buried their
dead . With further development of this culture, these copper using people
adopted the horse raising practices derived from the other Andronovo people,
who had assimilated and intermixed with the Mongols. Around 2000 BC, the Sintashta culture with large
cities like Arkaim and other large urban settlements were the only large urban
settlements ever formed by Indo Aryan people in this region (in 2000 BC). They
not only practiced horse raising and copper smelting, they developed the use of
horse drawn chariots and special bows and arrows for use in a specialized form
of warfare based on horse drawn chariots.
In other words, they have almost every common attribute of
the Rig Vedic people. It is reasonable to assume that the Rig Vedic people
originated from the Sintashta culture.
The Sintashta people traded with the BMAC civilization and
mainly exported copper ore. However the new development of Chariot warfare made these Indo-Aryan
people the most advanced warriors this side of the Mongols. Intitially, before
the development of defensive methods against chariots (which came within 100
years in Egypt after the Hykso period) - the Chariots were the ancient equivalents of
tanks and the horse an unknown animal of tremendous power. Pressed continuously
by Mongol raids, Khazakhstan was never at peace. Arkaim itself shows evidence
of burning towards the end.
Please note that without the stirrup, using just a rope tied
around the horse, it is difficult to have a cavalry. Only the Mongols, wedded
to the horse, could use large scale cavalry warfare. Hence use of a narrow war
chariot is a better way to conduct warfare using fast moving horses by more
normal warriors than the Mongols. And stirrups are a much later development
probably around 500 BC, when large scale cavalry warfare became possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirrup
So it is likely that in from 1800 to 1500 BC the Sintashta
people migrated using their superior chariot warfare, monopoly of the horse in
these parts and their superior copper based weaponry. The first people whom
they displaced or invaded were the BMAC cultures or Uzbek/Tajik/East Caspian
sea), which is well established from archeological records.
We know that the Anatolian, Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi
regions had Hittite, Mitanni, Kassite and Hykso rule respectively for a five
hundred year period from 1800 to 1300 BC and beyond. That these were horse
raising people and practiced chariot warfare is evident from different types of
pictures available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hittites
The Hittites themselves were probably derived from related Indo Aryan people closer to the West bank Caspian sea (Ukraine, Azerbaijan etc) but in
direct continuity with the Kazakh people to the east.
Mittanni is
definitely Indo European speaking and prayed to Mitra Varuna and Indra (roughly 90% of the Rig Veda is devoted to
these same Gods). Any link between Rig Veda and Mitanni has to be umbilical to
my mind. The Mitanni were a super class who ruled the Hurrians and probably the
lingua franca of Mitanni would not have been Indo Aryan at all – it would just
have been a language of the upper class in scriptures (like Latin or Sanskrit)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni
Around the same time,
Kassite rule in Iraq and Hykso rule in Egypt overthrowing the previous regimes
also occurred. It would be easy to say that Hyksos and Kassites were also
Indo-Aryan. However, most people currently believe that although Hyksos and
Kassites used the horse chariots, they might not have been Indo-European speakers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassite_deities
The only recognizable Kassite deity is the Maruts. So
perhaps these people learnt chariot warfare from the Hittites and were
themselves non Indo Aryan in origin, language and religion. But they seem to
fit well into a scheme of Mesopotamia being ruled by an elite speaking Indo
Aryan but coming from the Steppes and practicing a different religion.
The earlier Hykso conquest and rule in Egypt in 1800 BC and
their worship of a storm God Seth definitely harks to an Indo Aryan theme,
although most people do not believe that the Hyksos were Indo Aryan in origin,
despite their horse chariot warfare and use of the compound bow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos
Continuing to be pressed from their homeland in the Urals
and Khazakhstan, other Indo-Iranian tribals migrated at other later times. The
most important of these is the Iranians who settled Persia around 1200 BC
(Medes and Persians). Scythians and
Parthians are other big Indo Iranian Aryan migrations occurring much later.
Most of these migrations must have been in stages – from Khazakhstan to Azerbaijan
or Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and then West into Persia and East into Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
So the homeland of the Indo Aryans is in the plains north of
the Caspian Sea and into the Russian and Khazakh Steppes, from where they
migrated to Turkey and Mesopotamia in 1800 to 1300 BC. Archeological evidence
from Sintashta culture strongly suggests that it is closely linked to the Rig
Veda. Linguistics also suggests the same. The Mitanni are definitely related to
the Rig Vedic people based on names of Kings and people as well as their known deities
and must have existed in close proximity by 1500 BC – since that is the time
frame of the Mitanni. These Indo Aryan people are likely to have a European phenotype initially, but would have
quickly lost it because of intermixing with the native much larger population.
The next issue is – When, where and by whom was the Rig Veda
Samhita written? If we don’t know who wrote it, dating it becomes difficult.
But some features are worthy of note.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/index.htm
1. It is impossible
that it was composed without writing. One look at it and it is evident that a non literate people could not have composed
it. There is no precedence or comparison to any other such vast composition
2. Vast majority of the hymns are devoted to Mitra, Varuna,
Indra and Agni.
3. To me most of the internal evidence suggesting origin
from only the Punjab area seems quite thin – it could have been composed
anywhere from Sintashta to Syria to Iraq to Iran to Pakistan.
3. It is impossible that such a vast body of text could
survive without writing and based only on oral transmission. Nobody has that
good a memory and there is no other historic parallel of super human memory
feats. My experience of the memory of Hindu priests in modern times for even
very short pieces of text (1/10,000 of what is there in the Veda) doesn’t encourage
this theory of super human memory feats.
4. Even more so – the other Vedic texts – the Brahmanas and
Aranyakas are more voluminous and complex and again could not have been
composed, compiled or transmitted without writing. Much of the Sutras are also
of equal volume (despite the name Sutra) and any superhuman feats of
composition and transmission of even a simple single text like the Apasthamba
Sulba sutra is impossible without writing.
5. Even a superficial reading of Rig Veda Samhita in English
translation gives a very alien sense from Hindu thought, description, geography
and religion. But a similar superficial reading of the Satapatha Brahmana is very much reassuringly
Indian/Hindu in thought process and thinking. This was my main personal opinion
each time I have read it.
6. Reading the Rig Veda Samhita in Sanskrit (by my father’s
account) is very frustrating and it seems like an alien language and its
meaning pure guess work. Brahmanas, Upanishads and Sutras are at least more
familiar and comprehensible (or at least well commented upon). It might be
useful to re-investigate the meaning of the Rig Vedic hymns again to get better
sense out of it.
If writing is necessary for the Veda, who was writing in
2000 to 500 BC?
1. Sintashta people did not have writing.
2. BMAC people did not have writing
3. Mesopotamia and Egypt had a long tradition of writing.
4. Hittites, Mitanni, Kassites were writing based on the
earlier local people who were literate and over whom they ruled.
5. IVC was writing (at least on seals) and exists from
antiquity till 1800 BC. The people there have none of the attributes of the
people written about in the Rig Veda. But since we know neither the language
nor the script of IVC, we cannot say anything more. But question is – did their
writing survive in the region? Was it adopted by its own descendents or by the
Indo Aryans? Or did the depleted IVC people migrate east into the Ganges and
carry their writing with them? We unfortunately have no evidence of either of
these possibilities.
6. Painted greyware people were not writing. They were iron
age settlements and most people believe that they represent the Rig Vedic people
pushing into the Punjab region from 1200 BC to 600 BC. So the time is right but
they are iron age, non chariot using pottery making people who have not left
any written records.
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=pmAuAsi4ePIC&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=painted+gray+ware&source=bl&ots=8y2fyU-AJ-&sig=y6IZQ2lWK6x92SNzQwFqAWiaE5o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qVz2UPGtE87_rAeKroCwCw&sqi=2&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=painted%20gray%20ware&f=false
7. By 500 BC we have neared the end of the Vedic period.
Evidence for writing in Bihar at that time is quite absent in terms of surviving
written material on pottery, seals or rock cuttings.
8. Brahmi script is from 300 BC only despite some remnants
dated (doubtful in my mind) to 500 BC. So were they writing in any script in 500
BC in Pataliputra?
9. Taxila is again dated around 300 BC and later and so does
the Kharaoshti script.
So nobody was writing and yet the Rig Veda was written,
arranged, compiled, Brahmanas were composed, Aranyakas, Upanishads and Sutras
were written – probably a ten foot stack of literature – but nobody was
writing.
Or were they writing on perishable materials like animal
skin? What was their script? It’s a mystery still.
Let us look at it in another way. What are the other
examples of a people who have fanatically preserved their religious scriptures
through millennia?
1. Zend Avesta of Zorashtranism is the best example –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avesta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_dynasty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian
The Avesta was written in its final form during the Achemenid
empire (pre-500 BC). The actual hymns are perhaps many centuries more ancient maybe from
1000 BC. But the final form was during the height of the Acheminid empire which had writing - and plenty of it - not only old Persian but
Akkadian and Aramaic. Avesta is of course of Indo European language
derivation, the Persians probably coming from the East Caspian region after the
Medes who also came from the same area between 1200 and 600 BC in successive
waves. However, after composition and inscription of the Avesta into royal tablets (possibly written in old Persian
and now lost – destroyed by Greek invasion according to fable) they were then
committed to the memory of priests who preserved it by oral tradition for a few
hundred centuries – without writing - until
they were again written down in Pehlavi and later after the Parsis came to
India, in scripts derived from Brahmi.
Doesn’t it sound familiar? In fact, isn’t it likely that the
Rig Veda had an identical history?
2. Old testament of the Jews was also passed on in script
(which existed at inception) and really never went through oral tradition. But
other features of Jewish people is similar – a memory of ancient glory, fierce
adherence to the ancient texts which defined and dictated their existence and
refusal to assimilate.
3. I cant think of a third.
Possibilities and Questions:
1. Rig Veda could not
have been composed without writing.
2. The Sintashta, Indo Aryan, most likely archeological site
resembling Rig Veda, doesn’t have writing and existed from 2100BC to 1800 BC
after which it moved West under Mongol invasions. Definite evidence of BMAC
being replaced by Andronovo cultures around 1800 BC exists – proving the
migration and its date.
3. Direct migration of the Sintashta people from Steppes into
Pakistan is unlikely since no writing present and unlikely to compose or
preserve Rig Veda or form such a large oral tradition in the absence of initial
writing – and no evidence of any large urban settlements or empires between
1800 to 1200 AD in Pakistan.
4. Direct migration of Sintashta people into IVC and its
destruction in 1800 BC and co-optation of their writing is possible but unlikely
since no evidence of further writing using IVC script or the baked seal
technology is present and no urban settlements.
5. Rig Veda describes
horse chariot and sacrifice. Hittites, Mitanni, Kassites and Hyksos from 1800
to 1500 BC over-ran large swathes of the middle east using horses and war
chariots.
6. Mitanni were Indo Europeans who prayed to Indra, Varuna
and Mitra. They had a large kingdom for a couple of centuries. Isnt it likely
that they were derived from the Sintashta migrations rather than the Hittite
migrations, given the differences between the Hitttites and the Mitanni?
7. How did the Mitanni pray – isn’t it likely that they had
a liturgy similar to the Avesta which was written down and compiled during
their imperial reign, when writing was available at hand? And that it was
compiled and committed to memory by a priesthood? The Avesta proves that this
is possible.
8. What happened to the Mitanni after they lost their
kingdom? We know that they never followed the Hurrian traditions within Mitanni
and preserved their Indo Aryan traditions although genetic mixing probably
diluted their Indo European origin to vanishing point. Would they have
abandoned their traditions?
9. Isnt it likely that they migrated East to less inhabited
and less fertile lands like Iran, Baluchistan and Pakistan as so many others
have done before and after ? Would they not have held on to their priesthood
and their hymns in this time of adversity – like the Jews and Avestans?
10. Could they have kept their sacred writings in perishable
materials like animal skins and thus had a tradition of continuous writing and
transcribing of their texts – similar to the Jews? Could they have continuously
added to it in their centuries of exile? This would explain the multiple recensions,
and compilations of the Vedic scriptures – and their enlargement – since without
an empire to govern, what could they do but expand their only source of past identity?
This activity is impossible without writing.
11. If the Sintashta (or similar Indo European) people came
directly to Pakistan, why would they have such a big affinity to their past
glory – since Sintashta is a very small
set of urban settlements? Would they have writing? Would they have such
a complex collection of hymns and complex methods of prayer? Would they not
have lost their identity as the Scythians, Parthians, Indo Greeks, Kushans and
Huns have done – by assimilating locally?
12. The Satapatha Brahmana has very definite evidence of
Mesopotamian influence including the story of a flood with a giant fish – That is
Gilgamesh (and the much later Matsya avatara story of Puranic Hinduism)
13. The Upanishads give definite evidence of a forest life –
quite like the Rig Veda but unlike the Satapatha Brahmana.
To me the simple conclusion would be most probably correct.
The Rig Vedic people were from Sintashta culture, cousins to the Hittites in
the north Caspian area, in 2100 BC. The early stories of the Rig Veda set in
the mountains probably describe life of these people as they migrated from the
Urals to the fringes of the BMAC (where some cousins probably settled) from
1800 to 1600 BC and then to Syria where they became the Mitanni with the help
of copper metallurgy, horse raising, horse chariot fighting and composite bows.
The Rig Veda Samhita was initially compiled in Mitanni in 1500 BC and also the
Satapatha Brahmana and some of the Sutras, by a large Royal Priesthood with
access to writing materials. Vashishta must have lived during this period. By
1200 BC they were a dispossessed people who migrated to Pakistan, now having
iron age weapons and carrying the vestiges of writing, probably on animal skins,
as well as strong oral traditions for preserving their hymns. From 1200 to 600 BC they formed the Painted
Gray Ware iron age people of Punjab and here composed the Aranyakas, Upanishads
and other versions of the Brahmanas. The Rig Veda and the Yajur and Sama were
probably rearranged with interpolations during this period (and later) and the
Atharva Veda was composed. By 800 BC they were at their most advanced and the Jayam
was probably written around this time. By 600 BC they had reached Bihar and
there formed the first large urban settlements of Pataliputra. With the advent
of Budha, the Royals gave up this tradition and converted to Budhism. But the
Rig Vedic religion and scriptures were preserved by the Brahmins. By the 400
AD, the Royals were of local blood and not even Rig Vedic in origin leave alone religion (Nandas).
With the re-invention of writing (the Brahmi script) the
original Vedas were now open to much larger enlargements and additions, which
mostly occurred in the Epics and Puranas (since change in the Vedas was always
resisted by tradition). Despite this, I am sure the Brahmanas and Sutras were
re-written in different versions and also enlarged from 300 BC to recent
history.
No comments:
Post a Comment