Debating the facts of history

THE SMS comment “History in film” by Dr Citizen Pajam ( The Star, Feb 10) is referred. I did not write about the “Aryan invasion” and “genocide” of the Dravidians simply because no such invasion occurred. Dr Citizen’s view is based on a discredited 19th Century theory. One must note that there is no “Dravidian race” but only a “Dravidian language group”.

Having studied the Vedas, I could not find a shred of evidence that would lead me to the conclusion that there was such an invasion and genocide. As far back as 1964, Professor George F. Dales, an expert in the Indus Valley civilization, had castigated the invasion theory as a “mythical massacre”.

The Vedas advocate love and equality among mankind, and state that every living being is part of the formless Brahman. Even the caste system does not exist in the Vedas. How could a genocide occur then?

The colonial power wanted to portray to the Hindus that the Vedas were inferior, barbaric and a recent invention. Philologist Max Muller erroneously arrived at 1200 BCE as the date the Vedas were composed. This date became entrenched in the colonist mind. Subsequently, when the Harappan civilization was discovered and was dated to the third millennium BCE, the problem arose.

Since Max Muller had given the date of the Vedas as 1200 BCE, albeit wrongly, they thought the Harappan civilization could not be associated with the Aryan or Arya people. So they concluded that the “Dravidian language group” of people were living in the Indus valley before the arrival of the so-called Aryan invaders around 1200 BCE.

However, Max Muller in 1890 finally acknowledged his error and stated: “Whether the Vedic hymns were composed (in) 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.”

Despite this surrender by Max Muller, when ex-Army Brigadier Mortimer Wheeler discovered a fortification wall around one of the mounds in Harrappa, he quickly jumped to the conclusion that the Vedic Purandara Indra was the destroyer of the Indus cities. The names Indra, Agni, Vayu and Varuna are, according to the Vedas, the different names of the one formless Brahman.

Indra was not an invader. The skeletal remains found there were not the result of a massacre and neither did they come from the same stratum. Furthermore, no remnants of armour or weapons were found there or in any other Harappan site.

The Rig Veda praises the Saraswati River in its hymns. The river dried up around 1900 BC, which means Hinduism and those who composed the Rig Veda existed there before 1900 BC. If the Aryans arrived in India around 1500 to 1200 BC, how did they know about this river if it no loner existed?

It is a misconceived belief that the Indus people were defeated and chased down south because there is no site in South India that can be associated with the Harappan civilization. It is also impossible for an advanced people to suddenly revert to the neolithic culture that was prevailing in South India during that period.

Were the Harappans the actual Arya people who composed the Vedas? From the evidence gathered, it may seem that the Vedic people were the Harappans. ARIFF SHAH R. K Penang