Indo-Aryan Peoples

The Indo-Aryan People, also known as the Indic People are a diverse ethnolinguistic group native in modern and ancient times to the Indian subcontinent and South Asia.

However, the Indo-Aryan people are not native entirely native to the land of India in the same way that the Native American Indians are native to the Americas. The Indo-Aryans are a mixture of two distinct ethnic groups, the result of ancient migrations of so-called Aryan / Indo-Iranian peoples from the Near East and Central Asia into India. Thus they are a mixture of two predominant ancestral groups whom scholars refer to as Ancient North Indian (ANI) and Ancient South Indian (ASI) peoples.

Within their number the Indo-Aryan peoples combine an extensive variety of modern peoples found throughout Pakistan, India, the island of Sri Lanka just of the southern coast of India, Nepal to the northeast, and Bangladesh to the east between India and Myanmar.

Indo-European Roots of the Indo-Aryan Peoples

The Indo-Aryan people are a lineage within the greater Indo-European family, sharing bonds of blood and language, as well as certain cultural ties. What distinguishes the Indo-Aryan people from the Indo-European people is that the Aryan portion of their ancestry are direct descendants of the Indo-European people (the so-called Ancient North Indians) from the Near East and Central Asia. While the Ancient South Indian portion of their ancestry were already populated the Indian subcontinent when the Aryans arrived.

Through their Indo-European genetic and linguistic ancestry, the Indo-Aryans are directly related to peoples throughout the Near East, Europe, and Central Asia.

Other Indo-European people include the ancient Celtic, Germanic, and Nordic tribes of Europe (through groups such as the Corded-Ware People who hailed from the same Indo-European homeland) including the Greek and Latin peoples, Hittites, Persians, Iranians, and others.

The Indo-European homeland (the ancient motherland of all Indo-European people) is mostly likely to be found somewhere around the Caucasus Mountains which connect the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea just north of modern Turkey.

The Caucasus Mountains define the northern borders of modern Georgia, close to Armenia, and northern Iran. Though this is only a general region for this people. Their original homeland has yet to be irrefutably located.

Indo-European people migrated out of this nexus around the Caucasus for thousands of years in prehistory. This region is roughly central to the entire Eurasian & African continents, so their migrations took them in every direction. To northern, western, and southern Europe, into the Middle East, even into northwest China, and yes, into India.

After the Great Flood(s) punctuating the End of the Last Ice Age Indo-European descendants became, through migration, the various Germanic, Nordic, and Celtic peoples, later Hittites, Persians, and Indians, Russian, in later dates BCE even moving into northwest China. Major waves of migrations in prehistory took place over an estimated period of some 4,000 years from roughly 7000 BCE to 3000 BCE.

Indo-Aryans Enter India

There are a number of modern theories as to which archaeological and historical culture the Aryan or Indo-Iranian people belong to. The Persian scripture called the Avesta, the principal source of Zoroastrianism, recounts how a faction of the Persian people called the Aireyas (Aryans) migrated to the east from their Iranian homeland.

The Avesta is believed to have been composed around the same time as the Hindu scripture the Rig Veda, which recounts essentially the same story from the opposite perspective: the Avesta tells of a faction of Persian’s migrating east, while the Rig Veda tells of a people with the same name (aryā) entering India from the west. Estimated dates of composition for these texts are notoriously uncertain. A very tentive date may be c.1500 BCE. Though both could be older by many centuries, certain parts even potentially recalling events millennia past.

Therefore one theory is that the Aryans were part of the Indo-European Persians, the term Aryan being a name they used for their own people. With the same meaning of “noble” or “royal” as its Sanskrit rendition. So we may be able to associate the Aryans with cultures of the Middle East.

Though others identify the original migrating Aryan people who became the Indo-Aryan people with the Sintashta Culture (2100-1800 BCE), the Andronovo Culture (ca.1800-1400 BCE), and the Bactria-Margiana Culture / Oxus Civilization (c.2400-1600 BCE). These cultures thrived further northeast than the Persians’ Iranian homeland. They lived around the Aral Sea, to the east of the Caspian Sea, around modern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the northern borders of Afghanistan.

Proponents of this theory state that the members of the Oxus Civilization, who were somewhat representative of Central Asian cultures, migrated around 1800-1600 BCE entering northwestern India. These migrations, as is the general rule, were probably inspired by population pressures or changing environmental conditions. Oftentimes in history populations grew too large for the native land to support, thus they migrated, literally in search of greener pastures. Part of the argument for this chain of events is the similarity of religious and ritual practices between the Vedic Indian civilization and the Oxus Civilization.

From here they introduced their own high level of civilization including the technology such as the horse-drawn war-chariot drawn, cattle herding, knowledge of city-building technologies, and their rich spiritual, historical, and mythological traditions into India. This infusion is corroborated and thus remembered in the ancient epics and spiritual doctrines of India such as the great Mahabharata and its principle saga, the Rig Veda.

However, these dates are uncertain because we do not know exactly when the so-called Aryan Invasion or Indo-Aryan Migrations occurred. Scholarly tradition stemming from the 19th century proposes the date of c.1500 BCE. However, subtle details in the Hindu scriptures as well as the discoveries of highly developed ancient Vedic-based cities around northwest India (Harappa and Mohenjodaro) which were inhabited from close to 3000 BCE destabilize our uncertainty of this 1500 BCE date for the arrival of the Aryan peoples into India.

Cultural Consequences of Indo-Aryan Migrations

Once the Aryan people entered India, their culture, language, and genes gradually bled through the Indian subcontinent. Their traditional homeland was in the north, attested by city names, and by the diffusion of Indo-European ancestry in India. Though in time their influence spread east to the Himalayas where Indo-Aryans are now found in Nepal and the presently Muslim country of Bangladesh, south throughout India, ultimately across the Gulf of Mannar to the island of Sri Lanka.

The Indo-Aryan language group is predominantly spoken in north India, as the more native Dravidian languages are spoken mostly in the south. Today more than 1/7 of the worlds population speak Indo-Aryan languages as their native tongue, totaling over 1 billion people.

The migrating Indo-Iranians referred to themselves as ārya, as the name of their people. In the Rig Veda these people were described as aryā which in Sanskrit has a meaning something akin to “noble” or “royal”. Yet such a translation might at first mask the subtleties of this designation.

This “nobility” or “royalty” of the arya people is a topic that deserves due consideration, not least to avoid any more dangerous misinterpretations of the meaning of the term. Firstly, it was a term by which the people referred to themselves as, and perhaps denotes an ancient Indo-European tradition where they at least believed themselves to be in some sense a noble lineage. What that really means is in and of itself uncertain. What constitutes the right to rule, the right to kingship, in any culture? Moreover, what distinguishes nobility from one culture to the next?

The term arya is actually the root of the word for the country of Iran, the name by which the ancient Iranians and Persians knew themselves by. The Persians also knew their language as the aryan tongue. Indo-European Hittites used the term simply to refer to others of their people, friends and family. Moreover, it is even the root of the word for the ancient name of Ireland Ériu, which is poetically known to modern Irish as Erin, though was originally the name of a goddess.

The Sanskrit word ārya seems to possess a more benign understanding of a person who is noble trough the morality and nobility of action. Certainly ārya was a literal name of the migrating Indo-Iranian / Persian peoples. Though on the other hand, and by the sheer diffusion of their culture, it also suggests that their status of nobility refers to the fact that they entered the land as a ruling class, an authority they exercised apparently with at least a degree of benevolence. Though this is very uncertain.

When the ārya moved into India, they brought with them a high level of civilization. It is reasonable to assume that this was a higher level of civilization presently in India at this time, perhaps equal to the heights seen in other contemporary cultures of the world. Among their contributions to Indic culture was the scriptures that gave birth to Hinduism, one of the worlds oldest and greatest spiritual traditions. Which to this day is undiminished in its intellectual and scholarly height, and possibly in the secrets and truths it guards.

The spiritual and social ideas presented resulted in a powerful and well-ordered civilization. They may have structured their society hierarchically into 4 main classes of varna (the priestly class), kshatriyas (warriors), vaishyas (merchants), and shudras (laborers), each with their own subdivisions.

On top of high-level societal, spiritual, and even scholarly ideas, we can also see that they brought other elements of civilization with them such as technology which had a great influence. If they did indeed build the cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, then their entrance into India was earlier than previously believed, and their influence was great indeed.

Genetic research also points to the fact that they entered India as a ruling elite. In India the Upper Caste of society traditionally has a higher concentration of Ancient North Indian ancestry, meaning that the ruling peoples were in ancient times the direct descendants of the migrating Indo-European or Aryan people.

We can also assume that the further we go back in Indian history, the lower the concentration of ASI blood within the ruling ANI population would have been. Almost to the point of being negligible, when ethnic differences were more pronounced, and society even more rigorously divided. Though after millennia of living together, bloodlines inevitably mingled into the more balanced and homogeneous Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group we see today.

On the other hand, the middle and lowers castes of Indian society have by socio-political tradition had a higher concentration of Ancient South Indian descent. This includes the speakers of the Dravidian language which are native to southern India, who generally possess less ANI ancestry and are related to the more ancient indigenous populations.

The dominance of the Indo-Iranian culture when it entered India is denoted by its profusion. While other cultures, beliefs, and traditions were no doubt infused into the original Aryan / Indo-Aryan culture, the dominance of their culture cannot be ignored.

Vedic tradition itself in the Sanskrit scriptures of the Hindu people recount unequivocally how these migrating peoples composed and brought with them the great epics that formed the foundation of Hindu thought. The cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro which seem to clearly show a culture based on the Vedas, also illustrate their towering technological prowess into the very design and lifestyle these cities speak of.

Let us completely refute at every turn any ideas of racial superiority. Yet at the same time, cultural superiority is a fact we have seen time and again throughout history. Which had the power, if carried by correctly tempered people, to positively influence and raise cultures it came into contact with. An example being the influence of East Asian Hinduism and Buddhism on American culture, which elevated scientists, artists, musicians, and hippies alike.

At the end of the day what cannot be denied is that the traditions, culture, civilization, and ideas brought by Indo-Iranians into India resulted directly in the wildly successful Indian culture and Hindu traditions in this modern era, which have had in ages past, and will continue to have, a profound effect on world culture.