Vedic Records on Early Aryans

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

The author holds there was no Aryan race. Followers of Aryan Cult were called Aryan. Dasas were made Aryan. Others were made Aryans. On their learning to kindle fire and articulate Aum, the Deva, who according to Vedic records were human beings, were the first to be called Aryans. They conducted many important experiments. There was a spilt on the performance of yagnas. The non-performs were forced not to call themselves Avratas. The non-violent among them become Shudras. The Aryan cult spread all over the country and abroad.

A group of Ahis settled in a tract which was called Ahiganasthana, now Afghanistan. The tract where Usa settled was called 'Usabhagasthana', the modern Uzbegistan. Panis settled in Panisthana which was later called Phoenicia. The land where Asuras settled was called Asuria, the modern Syria. Shambara's one hundred resorts were on Sahyadri.

Some groups retained totemic names like Suryavanshis and Chandravanshis.. Jats are the progeny of Jatayu.

The author says that there was one Veda to start with underwent various editions the sixth of which was in the well-known four parts. These parts also underwent various editions called Shakhas, only a dozen of which are available today.

Vedic Aryans were very much Indians and never did Aryan hordes descend into India from central Asia or some other part of the world as is assumed by Western scholars, says the author in this book.

In Shri Renu's view there never was an Aryan race but only an Aryan cult which originated in India soil and found acceptance in all corners of the land, its followers were called Aryans.

Those who prescribe history text-book which teach the Aryan invasion theory as a settled fact should take note of this study supported by a fund of data.

Shri Renu wrote a series a articles on this subject of Bhavan's Journal which were published in its issues in 1980s.

The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has decided to publish this book in the hope that this will lead to a national-wide dispassionate debate among scholars and students of Indian history and culture.

Shri L.N. Renu who hails from Meerut, was educated in Allahabad and Bombay. He is a Member of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Vishveshvaranand Vaidik Research Institute. Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and Asiatic Society of Bombay. He is the author of Indian Ancestors of Vedic Aryans", His findings in the present volume are based on vedic Samhitas and Brahmanas.

As I wrote in Indian Ancestors of Vedic Aryans. It is an often forgotten fact that the colonization of the American and Australian continents by the Europeans and its dazzling success, played a vital role in the formation of the Aryan invasion theory. The speed with which these continents then got transformed, created an epiphenomenal conviction that development was possible only in the American Australian way of an invasion by a superior race with a superior technology, its forced occupation and settlement in India too was due to similar invasions by white races, if not now, then in the remote past. The history of the existence of a central Asian race of Aryans which invaded India, destroyed native forts, massacred local inhabitants and Aryanised the land was a subconsciously drawn photocopy of the American-Australian operations which was a historical fact. The basic evidence centred round the word Arya, the earliest use of which was found in the Vedas.

Opinions are often expressed about one place or the other outside India being the cradle of the Vedas and the Aryan, because a few words and their formations as well as a few place names used there are akin to those in the vedic literature. But if the same yardstick is applied to measure the claim of India, it would are in use in the current Indian languages in their undiluted forms and many more Vedic place names are currents in india, some in their original vedic forms. It would be found that Sanskrit is a living languages not in those lands but in India, where there are people who still converse in it. While people in the places outside India have no knowledge of the Vedas in India they are in current use in their emerges as the land which was the cradle of the Aryans and their Vedas. The few words and place names used in the countries outside India are only the remnants of the language of the Indian émigrés, which found currency in the local dialects. It also applies to all the other evidence put forward by them.

There is a vocal section of Indian intellectuals which views these views as its own and wants everyday else to accept them. Since the Vedas are the earliest source of information on the Aryans, I am giving in this book a bird's eye view of the Vedic data on their origin and a few mantras and passages on Indians emigration to Central Asia and the Middle East. Examining the question whether there was an Aryan race. I have quoted Vedic mantras and Brahmana passages like those on a Dasyu calling himself on Aryan, on Dasas being made Aryans, on Asuras, Ahis, Panis following the Aryan cult, on their willingly joining each other's group and on dissident Aryans becoming Dasyus.

I have highlighted the distinction between the Anyavratas who were followers of other cults and the Avratas and Vratyas who were Aryans avoiding the performances stop yagnas, like the Aryans of Iran whose performances short of yagnas.

I learn that Rasa on a bank of which panis were staying is a Tributory of Indus.

The descriptions in the mantras quoted by me belong to a period prior to the text available Vedic Samhitas. I have collected evidence of there having been earlier editions of the Vedas, the first a single-letter edition, the second a grammarless edition the Third a grammatised edition the forth in Daivi Sanskrit the fifth in Vedic Sanskrit and the sixth edition in four parts called the Rgveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda, each of which in turn underwent periodical revision. The available Samhitas are the latest of those versions.

I have limited my narrative to the activities of the human Devas during the Daivi era only which started with the formation of the Devas' cadre and continued till they were put on a divine pedestal. While doing so, I have kept it in view that I do not transgress the limits set by the scholars for a description of the human exploits of personalities like Rama, Krsna, Buddha etc. I have formulated my views after carefully considering the viewpoints of the authors listed in the bibliography.

On the whole I have relied on the authority of the Rsis who were the drastas of the mantras included in the fourth edition and whose names have been retained in the available versions of the Vedas. They were meticulous in their descriptions and as reliable as any objective historian can be being nearer to the remote past then we are.

I am grateful to Dipak Bhattacharya of Santiniketan for leading me towards tracing L.C. Barrett's misconstrction of a word in a PS mantra when I was searching for its source. I also feel indebted to him for the gift of his Paippalada Samhita and for offering his comments whenever I sought them. I am grateful to Moreshwar Dinkar Paradkar for checking my gratitude to those scholars whose writings impelled me to include certain mantras in my selection and some of whose expressions me so much that they have got unintentionally repeated by me verbatim. Faribourz Nariman did me the favour of telling me the meanings of the Pahalvi words which I have used in my book. I express my gratitude to him. To Gayatri Madan Dutt I am grateful for dotting the 'i' s and crossing the 't' of my manuscript for helping me in collecting material on Kashmiri place names, in index and collecting information from various sources. To my wife Indira I am grateful for that every facility that I required was available to me. I am indebted to Lalita Gajanan Kulkarni for keeping me supplied with books from the library of the Asiatic Society of Bombay and different bookstalls and for providing me facilities.

I seek the blessings of my grandparents Shiv Charan Das and Champa Devi who along with my parents Raghubar Dayal and Saranidevi alias Yashodadevi, encouraged me to get interested in the Epic, Puranic and Vedic lores.