Aryan Migration To India

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The invaders of India called themselves Aryas, a word generally anglicized into Aryans. The name was also used by the ancient Persians, and survives in the word Iran.

Eire, the name of the most westerly land reached by Indo-European peoples in ancient times, is also cognate.

The origin of the Aryans is still an unsettled affair. Much heated controversy has raged around this question. The multiplicity of conflicting theories has created chaos in academic circles. Hence, we have discussed only those theories which seem most reasonable.

About 2000 B.C. the great steppes land which stretches from Poland to Central Asia was inhabited by semi-nomadic barbarians, who were tall, comparatively fair, and mostly long-headed.

They had tamed the horse, which they harnessed to light chariots with spoked wheels, of a much faster and better type than the lumbering ass drawn carts with four solid wheels which were the best means of transport known to contemporary Sumer.

They were whether from pressure of population, dessication of pasture lands, or from both causes, were on the move. They migrated in bands westwards, southwards and eastwards, conquering local populations, and inter-marrying with them to form a ruling class.

They brought with them their patrilinear tribal organization, their worship of sky gods, and their horses and chariots. In most of the lands in which they settled their original language gradually adapted itself to tongues of the conquered peoples.

The marauding tribesmen gradually merged with the older populations of the Middle East, and the ancient civilizations, invigorated by fresh blood and ideas, rose to new heights of material culture.

The Aryan invasion of India was not a single concerned action, but one covering centuries and involving many tribes, perhaps not all of the same race and language. The course of Aryan expansion cannot be plotted, owing to the paucity of material remains.

Evidently the invaders did not take to living in cities, and after the fall of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the Punjab and Sind became a land of little villages, with buildings of wood and reed the remains of which have long since perished.

For over a thousand years from the fall of Harappa, India is almost an archaeological blank, which at present can only be filled by literary sources.

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Tags: ancient time, aryan migration, aryas, harappa, india, little village, Mohenjodaro