Out of India it is, not Aryan Migration theory!

The Saraswati Civilisation. (2019)

(A Paradigm Shift in Ancient Indian History)
Author: Maj General Dr GD Bakshi

In secondary school history class, we were taught to believe that civilisation developed circa 1500 BCE around the Indus River. Then came mighty learned men from the Steppe Land on horsebacks to bring knowledge and wisdom to this region. The original inhabitants of this region ran helter-skelter, crossing the Vindhya Hills to root themselves in the Southern part of the subcontinent. We vaguely remember being told about the Aryan Invasion Theory and the clear demarcation between the Northern part of India and the South.

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Later in life, we were exposed to Mahabharata, Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita. What was taught as mythological tales, we later found out, was actually backed with scientific facts. For starters, the birth dates of specific icons could be fact-checked as their birthdates were described in relation to astronomical positions. These scriptures also illustrate a lush culture along the banks of a massive river with a width of up to 6-8km with torrents of glacier water, traversing 4,600km from the Himalayas. The scientific calculations of this event place it somewhere 5,000 to 6,000 years before the present, i.e. ~3000 BCE. It is also said to bear water from Yamuna and Sutlej.

Bunkum, say the Western historians and leftist-minded members of the academia. Even modern-day Indian historians, among which Romila Thapar is infamous, concur with the theory that Aryan Invasion is true and the Sarasvati River did not exist.

Since the 1970s, with the aid of satellite images, traces the presence of a large basin reminiscent of a dried-up river. We know Carbon C14 dating on archaeological finds is not easy. However, local archaeologists are confident that Indus-Saraswati could be as old as 9,500 years before the present. If that is true, the Indus-Saraswati must be the cradle of civilisation, preceding the Tigris-Euphrates one.

The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro
Indus Valley Civilisation
?2300-1750 BCE.

Archaeological excavation reveals they find spoils away from Indus, nearer to Saraswati River's 'mythical' placement. Perhaps, the descriptions of Rig Veda, about the glory of Saraswati and the glorious kingdom surrounding Saraswati, actually denote Harappa civilisation. Is it not amazing that cultural traditions, as seen in statues from Mohinjo-Daro and Harappa, are still practised in the sub-continent even today? 

Geologists suggest massive technotic plate movements that made the Yamuna and Salrej rivers change course between 4,600 and 2,700 years ago. Only during monsoons the Sarswati used to drain. Later, Saraswati water went underground, leaving pockets of pools. The Ganges became more prominent as Yamuna and Sutlej brought in a glacial stream of water. So, the Saraswathi described in Rig Veda corresponds to the lifeline of the scriptures.

If the Aryans did indeed move into Indus/Sarasvathi Valley, we would have been moving into a desiccated plain where the rivers had run dry by 1500 BCE. If the Aryans brought in culture, archaeological dating of Mohinjo-Daro and Harappa buildings would pre-date this timeline.

Now, who are these Aryans? Are they alien immigrants or indigenous to the area? Genetic tracking via maternal and paternal DNA to differentiate Aryans and Dravidians and to prove migration into India does not seem convincing. Its methodology is also allegedly flawed. Its sample failed to include subjects from essential groups. There is proof Aryans were local people who had evolved all through the Paleolithic (Stone Age) through to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic (Bronze) stages of civilisation. They had become farmers and domesticated plants and animals.

In fact, many now believe that, just like there was an 'Out of Africa' theory to explain the migration of primitive homosapiens, there is a convincing case for an 'Out of India' deduction to expanding human civilisation. There is ample proof that eco-catastrophe made them out of Indus/Saraswati.

It looks like the age-old Aryan Invasion Theory propagated by Max Müller, and Mortimer Wheeler will get the boot. There is evidence of genocide to convince us that Aryans butchered cultured Dravidians and drove them southwardly. The theory that came out later, Indo-Aryan Migration, says that Aryans supposedly came in droves to a desert land.

The colonial masters probably introduced the Aryan Invasion Theory to convince their subjects that they had indeed been colonised for aeons. In a way, it was their justification to rule over India and 'civilise' them. The British left long ago, but the push to maintain the status quo is ever so strong. Detractors have, in their sleeves, many deceptive ways to prove their point of Europe and Central Asia being the cradle of civilisation, which forms the basis of Judeo-Christian ideology, not Hinduism, not India. It is peculiar that features seen in the dancing girl of Mahinjo-Daro, like the multiple bangle adornment and the vermillion marking at the parting of the hair characteristic of married women in the subcontinent, are still present today.

It drives home the point that Indian or Hindu culture, as that was how the way of life practised in this part of the world was referred to, still stand tall despite all the external forces and invaders that permeated and tried to dominate over theirs.

[P.S. The analysis of DNA samples extracted from the skeleton of a woman buried in Rakhigarhi, Haryana, four to five millennia ago rejected the theory of Steppe pastoral or ancient Iranian farmers as a source of ancestry to the Harappan population. It demolished the hypothesis about mass human migration during Harappan time from outside south Asian genes. The sample had traces of genes of Iranian lineage. Since the pieces were as old as 11,000 to 12,000 years ago, it is way before Harappan.]

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The blind leading the blind!

Sathyathai Thedi  (Seeking the Truth; @Asothoma Sathgamaya, 2013)

First, it was Zakir Naik who was heard telling his congregants that the old Hindu scriptures did indeed quote of the arrival of a messenger of God. In his usual style, he went on ranting his references to the said inscriptions. Just that people are too set in their mindsets to accept that, he alleged.

Now I hear the same pitch being repeated. This Christian evangelist film tries to sell the idea that the Ama Veda did hint of Prajapathi, the Lord of the Universe, being Jesus Christ himself. Somewhere in it, it was apparently mentioned of the Creator who needed to be sacrificed for atonement. In their eyes, it fits perfectly in their narrative that Jesus, who is God himself, had to be sacrificed to wash the sins of Man.

The whole film can be described as a hermeneutical gymnastic as the protagonist goes on rattling verses after verses from the Veda, Upanishads and even Kural to drive home the message that the Bible is indeed version 2.0 of the ultimate Truth.  

Imagine the audacity...

The alternative title of the film is Asotha Sathgama. As we know, it is an ancient mantra, also named Pavamana Mantra, is from the Upanishad. It is recited during offerings, and it encourages us to open our inner realisation to come out of our ignorance to embrace the transcendental reality. A fourth line of 'Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shantihi' is often added to emphasise us to be at peace with the Universe.

asato mā sad gamaya,tamaso mā jyotir gamaya, mṛtyor māmṛtaṃ gamaya

"from the unreal lead me to Truth, from the darkness lead me to the light, from death, lead me to immortality."

I gather that the makers of the film refer them to belong to a new denomination called 'Indian Christians'. Unlike the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Churches or Protestants who garnered knowledge from the respective areas that they prospered, these Indian Christian have no qualms in appropriating pearls of wisdom of the Hindu tradition. After all, Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. Hindu, in ancient times, referred to the civilisation around the Indus Valley. 'Indians Christians' just cherry-pick the knowledge of their ancestors to seek their perceived ultimate Truth of their Maker.

St Thomas' arrival 53AD

The story revolves around a retired Brahmin Sanskrit scholar who comes out from being a closet Christian, much to the ire of his son with whom he is staying. His conversion soon becomes an embarrassment to his family and the members of the Brahmin community where he is respected. The scholar slowly teaches everyone in the community his own understanding of his new religion. Pretty soon, everyone in the community sees the light and embrace Christianity one by one, including the short-fused son.

The filmmakers are hoping to connect to the segment of the population who see the practice of Hinduism as a ritual filled archaic meaningless practice. These ignoramuses, in the lowest ebb of their lives, when they are vulnerable and are looking for straws to clutch, see evangelists as their saviours. Unlike practitioners of the Hindu faith who are seekers of knowledge, these Christian soldiers are out in the field to attend to the nitty-gritty nut-and-bolt issues of daily life. With the threat of death or sickness, a hand in prayer goes a long way in gratitude and seeing things in a different light. This is how faithful lieutenants are made.

All these do not make sense. We claim to respect each other's religion, but yet we are quick to run each other's faith down to proclaim that our's is superior. In reality, we are all groping in the dark trying to put two to two to paint a composite picture is what life, the journey and the reason for our existence are all about...

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Humanity or rules: which takes precedence?

Unnal Mudiyum Thambi (உன்னால் முடியும் தம்பி, You can do it Brother, Tamil; 1988)
Direction: K. Balachander

A young Brahmin boy is busy chanting hymns under his breath as he walks to the temple lake to perform his daily abolitions. He sees a blind, hungry beggar struggling to pick up a piece of banana thrown for her. He can see that she is going to fall off the stairs, but he does not help her. He does not want to break his ritual. Another beggar who sees the whole scenario helps her but admonishes the boy for giving more importance to rituals than humanity. Herein lies the dilemma that plagued the adolescent for the rest of his life. One one hand, his father, is a dogmatic stickler of Vedantic scripture and a classical Indian music maestro who would rather die than to have the age-old Hindu traditions desecrated. One the other hand, the boy, Udayamurthi (Kamalhasan), can see so much social injustice around him that his father, a big man in the society, is turning a blind eye.

Udaya is the younger of the two sons of the maestro (Gemini Ganesan). The pressure is mounting on him to continue the family tradition as the older brother is vocally challenged. Conflicts arise as the father has set his bar too high to achieve, and Udaya is just not cut for it. His attention is in social work. To make matters worse, he falls for a firebrand same-minded girl who is from the untouchable caste.

The rest of the story is how Udaya reforms the working class people of his area. He gets the men to stop drinking and getting the kids going to school again instead of working as child labours in an illicit match factory nearby to finance their fathers' unquenchable appetite to the bottle.

This social motivational movie is a feel good one to impress upon the masses that their fate is within their control. They should not surrender everything to fate but instead, grab the bull by their horns and change things for the better. It hints that traditional rituals are selfish in that it is only to prosper one's own self for their afterlife or karmic cycle, not for the present life on earth. As to serve the needy is divine, there is no need to search far to seek the real purpose of life. It is staring right at our faces.

Keeping with the times, the 80s, when there was a renaissance of sorts to revive the richness of South Indian music, the various ragas and talas are highlighted here. The doyens, Gemini, Manorama (as Udaya's sister-in-law) and Kamal himself gave sterling performances.

The burning question remains. Are we living for the now or is our sole purpose of survival here is to accumulate points for the afterlife which is a mighty long time? Is living a hedonistic process of self-indulgence, self-gratification, being happy and self-centred? Or is a life dedicated to other fellow human beings need? We will never know in our lifetime just like the many who have tried and left their thoughts behind for us to ponder and stay ever confused and non-wiser!

It is all point of view!

The Hindus, An Alternative History
Author: Wendy Doniger

Everything that happens in life is seen from a particular perspective. One can say that a cup is half full or half empty, both indicating the same thing. A tiny structure that we see from the corner of our eye over the horizon is actually a mammoth ocean liner that dwarfs everything adjacent to it. It is all in its interpretation. It also depends on our understanding fueled by our past experiences and know how. We see what we want to see. We sometimes are blind to the elephant in the room. And the senses do not appreciate what the mind does not know!

From the outset, the author, a holder of doctorates in Sanskrit and India studies, qualifies her work as an alternative interpretation of the history of Hinduism in India.

Just like the picture of the markings on the moon which is depicted below, the impression on the moon can be interpreted as a man (Cain the wanderer and murderer), rabbit or duck, depending on his background, exposure and culture.

The author explores alternative narratives from the disadvantaged groups of the land, the non-Brahmins, the tribes, the second-class citizens like women and the outcasts of society. The Brahmins and the rulings clans were the privileged groups who had the access to knowledge and wrote the doctrines on how things should run in kingdoms. In essence, they decided what law is and what is divinity.

The kings and members of the warrior castes must have felt remorseful with all killings and the sufferings by people at their hands. The Brahmins, with their vast know-how on how to appease the Divine Forces, must have had pacified their bosses that recourse can be made via prayers which only the Brahmin can handle. In return, they received remunerations in the form of (holy) cows. Cows were revered commodities, and the priests were paid in cows. The success of a Brahmin is measured by the number of cows that he owned. They put divinity on it, prohibiting culling and consumption of its flesh.

Sacrifice, of the animal kind, is as old as politics. And politics is known as the second oldest profession in the world. Horse sacrifice is mentioned in the Rig Veda as the highest form of sacrifice that Man can perform for the Gods. The only caveat is that it can only be done by the King, and only the Brahmins have the knowledge this ritual. One can understand where this liaison is leading. The horse must be a white one, is let loose to roam freely for a year, under the watchful eyes of the royal henchmen. No one (peasants/ landowners) is allowed to disturb the movement of this 'sacrificial lamb' or bear the prospect of having his land possessed by the King's men. One can see where this ritual is going. It appears like a legitimate way to spread the Ruler's influence.

Little juicy snippets like these which easily excite troublemakers must have incurred the wrath the Hindutva movements which have been undergoing a renaissance of late. Hence, this book was withdrawn from the shelf after many legal wrangles. It only created a ready market and demand for it (Streisand effect). Hail internet marketing!

From the Sanskrit scriptures and oral traditions, the author managed to pen down, in a 770+ page paperback, the events that were supposed to have happened in a land blessed with rivers that started a civilisation way back about 4500 years ago all through the Invasion of foreign powers and dissemination of different faiths.

For a person who had been brought in the Hindu tradition who is receptive to logical explanations to the rituals, I found this book utterly enlightening. Some quarters who claim to be guardians of the religion look at the practice from a totally Brahmanic Northern Indian perspective. Lest one forgets that many non-Brahmins have inputs to enrich it. The Puranic movements and even the members of the lower rung of the society, through their the devotion did the same.

Many of the Hindu practices evolved over time in tandem with the change of times. In keeping with the growing influences of Jaina and Buddhists movement which provided an alternative to the Hindu's dogmatic social closeting, its practices were altered as a reactionary gesture.

An interesting thing that crops so often is the escape clause in the pre-destined journey of life. The soul is said to be paying back for the sins committed in previous births, and it cannot be altered. At the same time, the scriptures promise of certain prayers and ritual sacrifices (of milk and grain) that can offset this destiny!

Offshoots from the main way of life sprung in India over time. People who were unhappy with certain practices and explanations ventured to other belief systems. There was a time when kshatriyas started doing what the Brahmins were doing. Siddharta Gautama and Mahavir, both of fighters' stock, renounced their power to find the real meaning of life. Their path gained popularity, authority and wealth for some time till they began too big for their own shoes. Hinduism started modifying their way of doing things to draw back deserters. Even within Hinduism, Shaivaites and Vaishvanites were engaged in a popularity contest. A little later, invaders from the North brought in Islam to join in the foray to enjoy a piece of the action. These quests did, however, has its plus points. They each contributed in their own ways in the fields of literature, architecture, engineering, economy, knowledge, philosophy and much more.

The British Raj era bared open the long lost mysteries of this ancient civilisation. Not only they squandered this sub-continent of its gems and wealth, there destroyed an unusual symbiotic relationship that its people had shared over generations. On the other hand, they brought in industrialisation (?for self-interest) and re-discover lost ancient knowledge. The British archaeologists painstakingly found the lost kingdom of Shakya, the birthplace of Buddha and many Buddhist scripts.

Fast forward into the twenty-first century, the unique relationship that the ancient dwellers of Indus shared with his hostile environment and all the puzzling occurrences around him have changed course. Priorities have changed. From a feudalistic society where there were humans, sub-humans and barbarians existed, we have or try to put up an image of being an egalitarian society. Economic prowess is given precedence over matters like karma and after-life. Their ideology, have, on the other hand, fascinated people outside the subcontinent.

This book is an exhaustive overall of everything Indian. It is written in a very tongue-in-the-cheek way which picked a raw nerve with the ultra Hindutva. They feel that the sanctity of the religion held in high esteem for centuries is ridiculed. What they fail to understand is that Hinduism had never been known to be inclusive or to be over sensitive to barking dogs. Like in the stance of a deeply meditating Shiva, believers used to be turning a blind eye to temptations and distractions whilst trying to explore their own third eye. What gave? In the way of Jesus, Gandhi used to say, "Forgive them for they know not what they do!"

[P.S. It is such a compact book with so much knowledge. I would be doing a great disservice by trying to summarise it. Pick up a book, form your own opinion. You will never look at organised religion the same way again, ever!]

Political manoeuvring in the name of religion

The manipulation by the practitioners of the second oldest profession in the world can be seen as early as the Rig Vedic times. Hoodwinking of the public by invoking pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo traditions can be seen even here. The unholy union of the warrior class and the educated class seem to legitimise the ritual of horse sacrifice to appease the divine powers to prosper the kingdom.

A white horse is let to run loose in the wild for a whole year under the hawk-eyed scrutiny of the kings men and officials. The animal would graze with impunity on peasants’ land. Any form of resistance or resentment would be a good enough reason for the ruling clansmen to rage war and take over possession of the property. Sure, this ritual smells prosperity from the word go.

During one of these God-name invoking expansion exercise, King Rama met his long lost twin sons Luv and Kush. The scriptures tell of the fate of Sita, who was rescued by Ram and his Tamilian friends down south. Doubts about her chastity forced Ram to send his wife, whom he had hardly spent much of his wedded life in a palatial environment, back to the jungles to stay with the sage who wrote Ramayana, Valmiki. Fate had it that the twins had to retaliate to protect their land and to fight valiantly to defeat the henchmen.

Cut the long story short, Ram discovered the true identity of the twins. Nectar (amrit) was used to treat the wounded and nurse them back to health. Drops of nectar fell on the land which was eventually named Amritsar!

What happens to the sacrificial horse? If it could talk in the after-life, it would speak volumes of the ceremonial carving of the torso with lessons of symbolism imbibed in the funeral ceremony graced with liberal usage of intoxicating effect of the some plant and tinge of beastiality thrown in for good measure!

Humbled by a pig!

“It is 5.23 am,” I told myself as I glanced at my watch. “I guess I got up early. Anyway, SK should be here right about now, right on the dot at 5.30am, as he has always been. Today is not going to be any different.”

I plugged on my earphones to hear the continuation of a podcast that I listened to all through the previous week. It was a day before the full moon, but the cloudy skies and the lack of street lights made the street look pretty dark. I sat on the raised stone fence as the auto-gate slowly closed from inside.

Far behind a parked car, I could see a moving shadow. It looked like the silhouette of two stocky legs pacing haphazardly as if they were swaying. At once, I thought that it must be the neighbour’s son who must be struggling back to his home after a long Saturday night out with the guys.

“Wow!” I was thinking as I symbolically pat myself on the back for keeping up with the routine all these years despite the raging inner demons and concerned naysayers who keep advising me to slow down on account of being a half-centurion! “Only madmen would be running on a Sunday morning when the sane recovers from a stuporous night-out!” they say.

Just as I was drowning in the nectar of my self-praise, I realised that the shadow cast under the car was not that of a man. The contour of two legs soon became four, and a greyish horrendously ugly looking face with a tinge of what appeared like thick whiskers soon manifested. I was 10 feet away, looking eye to eye at Vishnu’s third avatar, Varaha, a wild boar!

Here I was, I thought, at the comfort of city living, enjoying the fruit of my lifelong struggle to benefit from the support of privacy and security of the gated community, I felt I had had it all. Within the luxury of economic independence and intellectual reasoning, the brutal combat of our ancient ancestors and the street smartness of the lesser beings have taken a back seat. Even in my wildest dream, I never envisaged a moment I had to face off a wild beast!

It was the stare between two worlds; one of the modern domesticated kind who had fight-or-flight response limited to his autonomic nervous system versus one who had to fight to stay alive and keep his place in the hierarchy of the pecking order of the jungle.

Hey, they knew even then that the Earth
 was spherical, even before Galleili!

The stare looked like it lasted for eternity. The boar, of course, hungry and desperate for food, did not want a competitor. As if he knew that I was not interested in his food, thank you very much. Negotiation naturally was out the question, so did all civil niceties. 

I turned around to ring the bell to my house as I did not have the gate key. The sudden movement must have startled the beast. It gave a low-pitched snorting grunt as if it was showing its displeasure. Interesting, it was my neighbourhood, and the visitor or rather an intruder, was displeased! Well, that is the law of the jungle. Might is right, and there is no place for logic. This is the ‘id’ that Freud is trying to tell that is put under check by societal pressure and would manifest in a mob situation or when enforcement crumbles.

Just when I thought that nay was near, of me being gored by a wild beast, a beacon of hope came in the form of a beam of light from an SUV. My ride arrived right on the dot just in time to turn the table on the aggressor. Awed by, all it knows could be a more giant animal and a louder roar, its fight mode downgraded to flight as it turned its back to return to where it came from. It retreated.

As we drove along, we saw a humbled pig strutting its behind with its tail between its legs heading towards the secondary jungle. Probably my friend must have been reminded of the carefree days of his childhood when sauteed and spiced wild boar meat with toddy was a delicacy among friends.

That is why we are repeatedly advised by wise men to get back to Nature. Nature gives a purpose to our existence. Its massive structures like the trees, the mountains and elements of Nature awe us to the ground. It impresses upon us our deficiencies and our feebleness. It drills unto us that we are nothing, just a passerby who makes a cursory presence while Mother Nature and the Universe goes on and on without a gap. We are not even a single fragment of a tiny dot in the Milky Way, what more in the ever-expanding dimensions of the Universe.

Lord Vishnu’s bodyguards were cursed to be demons by 4 Brahmans for refusing their entry. These guards (demons) terrorised Earth and submerged it into the ocean. Through Lord Brahma’s breath came a boar. With Vishnu’s powers, it became Varaha Avatar. It valiantly fought the demons and scooped Earth out with its horns. The wild boar, being the third in Vishnu’s 9 Avatars, after fish (water creature) and the tortoise (both land and water creature), is said to be the most primitive of the firmly footed land animal. Long before the Darwinian theory of Evolution, the Avatars actually describe the slow transformation of mankind, from a water creature slowly evolving to gain wisdom and finally achieving priestly states.