Looking for the Aryans by R.S. Sharma

As a front-rank historian of post-independence India, he is a great scholar who effectively applied the Marxist method of analysis to historical research. In fifteen languages during his lifetime he wrote 115 books.

His major works on history were Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India, Sudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order Down to Circa AD 600, India’s Ancient Past, Looking for the Aryans, Indian Feudalism, Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in Feudalisation, Perspectives in Social and Economic History of Ancient India, Urban Decay in India c. 300- c. 1000 etc.

We have found his ideas and philosophy from his illustrious works. On the Aryans Sharma wrote two important books Looking for the Aryans and Advent of the Aryans in India. Through this work we want to give a short review on one his book Looking for the Aryans.

The book – Looking for the Aryans is divided into six chapters. In the introduction chapter the author tries to give the concept of Aryans. Here the author explains that in the discussion of the Indo-European problem, several terms are used. The Indo-Europeans are called Aryans although the term arya is found mainly in the eastern Indo-European languages.

This term may indicate the culture shared by the Avesta and the Rig Veda. The two terms Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan are frequently employed. Towards the end of the eighteenth century when William Jones discovered that Sanskrit was similar to Greek, Latin and other European languages, it was postulated that the Aryans lived in an area either in Central Asia or eastern Europe.

They were supposed to have descended from the same racial stock. This concept prevailed in the nineteenth century and was used as a powerful political weapon in Nazi Germany during the anti-Jewish campaign launched by Hitler. After 1933 it was declared that the German people constituted a pure Aryan race.

In the Nazi view, they occupied the highest place among the Aryans and hence were entitled to hegemony over the world. But scholars who have studied the Aryan problem deeply have come to the conclusion that those speaking the same language need not necessarily belong to the same racial or ethnic stock. Most scholars now think in terms of a Proto-Indo-European language rather than one single race.

In the discussion of the Indo-European problem, several terms are used. The Indo-Europeans are called Aryans, although the term arya is found mainly in the eastern Indo-European languages. This term may indicate the culture shared by the Avesta and the Rig Veda. The two terms Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan are frequently employed.

The term Indo-Iranian is used to signify the undifferentiated language which was spoken by the Aryans comprising the Indians and Iranians before their separation. The term arya is found in ancient texts belonging to the eastern branch of the ancient Indo-European languages. It occurs in both the Rig Veda and the Avesta.

The term arya also occurs in the Hittite language in which it signifies kinsmen or friend. Some scholars also link the name of Ireland with the term arya. A word cognate to arya occurs in German as well, but not in any other west Indo-European language.

In the Rig Veda, the worshippers of Indra were called arya. The term arya means master of a person of noble birth in the Avesta, and this meaning suits several references in the Rig Veda. Therefore, those leaders of the Vedic tribes who are lauded in the Rig Veda under the appellation of Arya were either prosperous or high-born.

Clearly, in the cattle rearing society, they owed their prosperity to cattle wealth which could be better accumulated and preserved by the horse-based aristocracy.

The second chapter deals with the use of the horse in India. To explain the use of horses in India the author gives some textual references in this chapter. It is notable that the horse played a crucial role in the life of the Indo-European. The term asva is mentioned 215 times in the Rig veda. The horse is praised in two complete hymns in the Rig veda.

Therefore, there is no doubt that the horse played a significant role in the area from south central Asia and Iran to the North-western part of the Indian subcontinent around the second millennium BC. According to the writer, there is no clear evidence of the presence of horses in the Indian subcontinent before 2000 BC.

The significance of the use of horses is also an important description of this chapter. The advent of the domesticated horse marked a great watershed in the history of humankind.

It transformed modes of subsistence, transport and warfare. Excavations in the area from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea show that horseflesh was used on a large scale, and both mares and male horses were butchered for food.

Further, horse riding enabled the people to hunt in a large area and made hunting far more effective. Hence the horse itself served as a source of food and also enlarged other sources of food supply. It dramatically increased the availability of the exploitative resources by expanding the area of operation. The use of the horse revolutionised the means of transport.

Horses could be used for travelling long distances and for carrying goods as pack animals in much less time. Ordinarily, the saddle horse would cover 60 to 70 miles a day in the steppe area or more in the plains, and a pack horse would do 15 to 20 miles a day. Compared to pedestrians, the speed of horse riders increased five times. The great speed and physical strength of the horse enormously increased the war potential of its users.

Whatever be the equipment of the non-horse users in the late Neolithic or Bronze Ages, they could be easily overcome by the horse users. Since the Indo-Europeans were great horse-users, they spread rapidly in the late third and second millennia BC. The possession of the horse and chariot gave rise to a horse-centred aristocracy which provided leadership to the community.

Thus, the introduction of the horse initiated the process of social differentiation in previously egalitarian communities.

In the third chapter of the book the author describes the Language and Inscriptional evidence of Aryans. According to the writer, the eastern branch of the Indo-European language appears in inscriptions towards the end of the third millennium BC in lower Mesopotamia or Iraq and almost continuously from the sixth century BC onwards in Iran.

The Indo-Europeans did not have their own script and, therefore, their language appears in the cuneiform script prevalent in Mesopotamia. Words belonging to the western branch of the Indo-European language occur in Hittite inscriptions in Anatolia from the nineteenth to the seventeenth centuries BC and show that the Hittites spoke this language.

Words belonging to the western branch of the Indo-European language also appear around 1600 BC in Mycenae in Greece, which was not very far from Anatolia. However, inscriptions from Mycenae contain many names of persons and places which are non-Indo-European. Inscriptions may throw some light on the routes of the speakers of the Indo-European language.

It is likely that the Indo-Europeans came to Anatolia from the region of the Black Sea. But there is no clear evidence about the route taken by the speakers of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language who appear in ancient Iraq and Syria. In all probability, the Proto-Indo-Aryan language was developed in the phase of the Andronovo culture extending from the Volga in the west to the Chinese border in the east.

Another important discussion of the book is Rituals of the Aryans. The certain texts belonging to the eastern branch of the Indo-European language attest to the prevalence of the different types of rituals. The author mentions that animal sacrifice appears not only in India and Iran but also in Greece and Rome. The author also mentions and explains some important rituals of Aryans like the horse sacrifice, the soma cult, the fire altar, cremation etc.

The cult of fire is the most significant cult in the Avesta, but although Agni is an important god in the Rig Veda, burning fire was not independently worshipped in Vedic times. Fire was treated in Vedic times as an intermediary who carried the libations offered to him to the gods. Though the fire altar is not clearly mentioned in the Rig Veda, it is discussed in great detail in later Vedic texts.

Fire was worshipped in the fire altar, which also served as an oven or chulha in which food was prepared for the gods. The cult of soma, called haoma in the Avestan language, was typical of both the Vedic and the Iranian people. It occupies an important place in Vedic rituals, because having drunk soma, Indra is thought to have performed extraordinary feats.

On the other hand, Cremation is a method of finalising a dead body through burning. Cremation can serve as an alternative to a funeral or after a funeral and to burial. Cremation was practised by the Vedic people along with burial. It became more typical of the Vedic Indians and was probably also practised by the proto-Iranians.

The archaeology of animal sacrifice including the horse, cremation, fire rituals and soma cult, leaves little doubt that these had long been used in Central Asia and parts of Europe before they became common in the Indian subcontinent on account of the advent of the Vedic people.

Social and Economic aspects of the Aryans also is an important discussion of this book. Specially male dominance and the different economic activities of the Aryan people are the main two topics of this chapter. The author argues that male dominance is an important trait of Indo-European society. Anthropologists attribute patriarchy to the masculine qualities needed in plough agriculture and to the control of female sexuality.

But since horse riding also required masculine qualities, it may equally, together with ploughing, have led to male dominance. The primacy of paternity is attested to by early Indo-European terms and laws. In Latin, the term fatherland, i.e., patria, is created from pater. The adjective patrius is derived from pater and refers exclusively to the world of the father. There is no co-relative term for mother, and the word matrius does not exist.

On the other hand, in the field of economy, agriculture was the chief profession of Aryans. The earliest farmers lived in Anatolia in the seventh millennium BC and the Indo-European language spread to other parts of the world with the diffusion of agriculture. But the seventh and sixth millennia BC show several other centres of agriculture including Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Baluchistan.

In fact, the cognate terms for animals and the earliest texts (the Rig Veda, the Avesta and Homer’s works), show that stock breeding was far more important among the Indo-Europeans than agriculture which may have contributed to animal husbandry. According to the author, the ancient texts also consider stock breeding to be more important. The Rig Veda is full of references to cattle raids and booty and wealth in cattle.

The Avesta shows great concern for pasturelands from which both herds of animals and communities of people received sustenance.

In the use of tools the author marks that the copper tools may have been used by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The Sanskrit term ayas has its parallels in Latin, Gothic and Old German. Generally, it is taken to indicate copper and the meanings bronze and iron are seen as later semantic developments.

Cultivation and stock breeding together with the use of copper are attested archaeologically since 4500 BC from eastern Europe through Central Asia to northern India. It is very difficult to attribute these sources of subsistence to any particular territory or time.

Finally, the author makes a comparative study between the Aryans and the Harappan culture. Through his study he argues that the mature Harappan culture is placed between 2500 and 1700 BC. While the Vedic people appear on the scene later. Despite indications of contact between the Harappans and the outsiders there is nothing to show that the elements of material culture prominently associated with the Aryans dominated Harappan civilisation.

It is significant that the Rig Vedic culture was pastoral and horse-centred, while the Harappan culture was neither horse-centred nor pastoral. Whatever evidence we have for the remains of the horse belong to later Harappan times. The culture which has been reconstructed on the basis of the Avesta and the Rig Veda does not have its counterpart in the Harappan culture.

The Harappan centres show a well-planned city and provide strong evidence of crafts, commerce and store houses. Harappan monuments were built of burnt bricks and the lanes in the city were covered with them. The Rig Veda on the other hand, does not show any trace of these elements.

Some scholars argue that the later Vedic Aryans created the Harappan culture. But the author R.S. Sharma doesn’t accept this opinion. According to him, the later Vedic culture does not match the Harappan culture. In later Vedic texts the cattle rearing society of the Rig Veda became primarily agricultural. The people use iron though its use is confined mainly to war and hunting. Iron is clearly attested in the Vedic texts.

Iron is not used in the Harappan culture which employs bronze and stone implements. Further, the types of crafts, trade and urban life typical of Harappa are clearly lacking in the later Vedic texts. Almost all the leading scholars of the history literature hold that the later Vedic period started after 1000 BC. Since the mature Harappan culture ends around 1600 BC, it cannot be attributed to the later Vedic people.

However, from the above discussion we have seen that this book is mainly concerned with the cultural dimension of the problem. It identifies and analyses the important markers of the Aryan culture and discusses the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of these markers.

It deals with the use of the horse and the spoked wheel, cremation, the fire and soma cults, animal sacrifice, especially horse sacrifice and the mode of subsistence, and male dominance etc.

It provides specimens of the Aryan language found in Indo-European inscriptions from West Asia and Greece.

Bibliography

Agrawal, D.P., The Archeology of India, Select Book Service Syndicate, New Delhi, 1984

Bashan, A.L., The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism, Oxford University, New Delhi, 19990

Sreedharan, E., A Textbook of Historiography 500 BC to AD 2000, Orient Blackswan private limited, Hyderabad, 2004

Sharma, R.S., Looking for the Aryans, Orient Blackswan Private Limited, Hyderabad, 1995

…….. Material Culture and Social Formations in Ancient India, Macmillan, New Delhi, 1992

…….. Origin of the State in India, University of Bombay, Bombay, 1989

…….. Aspects of Political and Institutions in Ancient India, third edn., Motilal Banarasidass, New Delhi, 1991

…….. Sudras in Ancient India, third edn., Motilal Banarasidass, New Delhi, 1990

(About Writer/Reviewer: M.A, M.Phil, UGC NET/SLET, PhD Scholar in History, Dibrugarh University & Faculty Member of History Deptt, Rabindranath Tagore University.)

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