CHAPTER-11
Identity of Aryan Culture
Revision or Short Notes (PRELIMS + MAINS)
Texts for Traits of Aryan Culture
- The principal traits of Aryan culture are set out by Vedic, Iranian, and Greek literary texts and cognate terms found in the proto-Indo-European languages.
- The texts that help us to reconstruct the material and other aspects of Aryan culture comprise the Rig Veda, the Zend-Avesta, and Homer’s Iliad and
- The Rig Veda is assigned to roughly 1500 BC, although the later additions might be as late as 1000 BC. The earliest parts of the Zend- Avesta are roughly attributed to 1400 BC, and Homer’s works are assigned to 900–800 BC.
- The cultural contents of the texts date roughly to the late Neolithic and early Bronze ages. The contents seem to cover Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which are geographically linked to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, and Greece.
- A genetic marker called M 17, which prevails in 40 per cent people of Central Asian steppes, is also found frequently in the Indo-Aryan speakers. In the Hindi-speaking area of Delhi, it is found in 35 per cent people. This suggests migration of the Indo-Aryans from Central Asia.
The Horse, its Domestication and Diffusion
- The term asva (horse) in the Rig Veda and its cognates appears in Sanskrit, Avestan, Greek, Latin, and other Indo-European languages.
- The aspa or horse forms part of the name of several Iranian chiefs in the Avesta. Some Iranian tribes mentioned by Herodotus are also named after the horse. In its various forms, the term asva occurs 215 times in the Rig Veda; no other animal is mentioned so frequently. The term go (cow) occurs 176 times, and the term vrsabha (bull) 170 times.
- The largest number of horses appear to have been in the area between the Dnieper river in the west and the Volga river in the east. The earliest evidence of the horse is found in the south Ural region and the Black Sea area in the sixth millennium BC. In the fourth millennium BC, the horse is found in Anatolia which lay close to the Black Sea.
- By the third millennium BC, horses are found in large numbers in south Siberia. Although its existence was known around 6000 BC in the area between the Black Sea and south Ural, it came into general use in Eurasia only in around 2000 BC.
- The earliest inscriptional evidence of the use of the horse in western Asia is in Anatolia in the second half of the nineteenth century BC. Its effective use in western Asia is ascribed to the Kassite invasion of Babylonia in 1595 BC. When the horse first figures in Babylonia, it was called the ass from the mountain.
The War Chariot
- The Indo-Europeans widely used horse-drawn chariots which are well known to the Vedic, Avestan, and Homeric texts. The chariot race prescribed in the vajapeya sacrifice of the later Vedic texts was also a Greek practice, and is fully described by Homer.
- The existence of horse-drawn chariots is also indicated by the names of the Mitanni rulers around 1400 BC and later.
Spoked Wheels
- Spoked wheels appear in Hissar in Iran and in the north Caucasus around 2300 BC. A six-spoked wheeled chariot depicted on a cylindrical seal is attributed to Hissar around 1800 BC.
- War chariots with spoked wheels appear in the Sintashta region in the south Ural area adjoining western Kazakhistan. By 1500 BC, spoked wheels are in existence at several places in eastern Europe and western Asia. The remains of horses of the second millennium BC have been found in south Central Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan.
- By 1500 BC the horse and the chariot are represented in Kirgizia, the Altai zone, Mongolia, the Pamir mountain ranges and, above all, in south Tajikistan.
Horse Remains in the Subcontinent
- The Pirak complex located near the Bolan pass in the Kachi plains of Baluchistan shows the earliest true horse in South Asia around 1700 BC. The remains of horse and horse furnishings dating to 1400 BC and later appear in the burials of the Gandhara grave culture in the Swat valley situated in the North-West Frontier in Pakistan.
- The existence of the horse in the north-west may have helped its spread in north India. Horse bones have been found in the overlapping layers of the Painted Grey Ware and the Harappan cultures at Bhagwanpura in Haryana attributed to 1600–1000 BC.
- The Surkotada horse from the Kutch area may have been contemporaneous with the Pirak horse. The horse also appears in the later or the post-urban Harappan phase at Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Lothal, and Ropar.
Pit-dwelling
- The pit-dwelling can also be associated with the Aryan culture, and may have originated in cold conditions. Around 4500 BC, the horse-users of Ukraine lived in semi-subterranean houses in addition to surface ones. With their eastward advance, pit-dwelling began in the Ural–Volga region in the fourth and third millennia BC, and in the Andronovo culture of Central Asia in the second millennium BC.
- Burial seems to have developed in imitation of pit-dwelling. In the Swat valley some villages show large pit-dwellings dating to around 1500 BC. The practice of pit-dwelling prevailed in Burzahom near Srinagar in Kashmir and also in Haryana. This may be due to the Central Asian influence on the borders of Kashmir.
Birch
- The use of birch-wood seems to be an Aryan feature along with underground houses. The birch is called bhurja in Sanskrit, and it has cognates in six Indo- European languages.
Cremation
- Post-cremation burial is in evidence at several sites in the extension area of the Harappan culture in Gujarat, but it is difficult to date it in this area.
The Fire Cult
- The fire altar or vedi is mentioned in the Rig Veda, and fire worship is very important in the Avesta. Some scholars consider the fire cult to be Harappan, but the veracity of the ‘fire altars’ found in Lothal in Gujarat and Kalibangan in Rajasthan is doubted by the excavators themselves.
Animal Sacrifice
- Animal sacrifice was an important Aryan ritual.
Horse Sacrifice
- Animal sacrifice may have prevailed among many tribal peoples, but the horse sacrifice was typical of the Indo-Europeans, particularly of the Vedic people.
- Though two hymns are devoted to the horse sacrifice in the tenth book of the Rig Veda, the later Vedic texts transform the sacrifice into asvamedha.
- Buffalo sacrifice became an important ritual in the worship of the various forms of goddess Shakti, but because of the rarity of this animal in East Europe and Central Asia.
The Cult of Soma
- The cult of soma, called haoma in the Avestan language, was confined to only the Iranian and Vedic peoples. The identification of the soma plant has been long debated, but now a plant called ephedra, small twigs of which have been found in vessels used for drinking rituals on the premises of the temple of Togolok-21 in Margiana in south-eastern Turkmenistan, is considered to be soma.
The Svastika
- The svastika, an ancient symbol formed by a cross with equal arms, is conceived of as a mark of Aryanism. According to Mackay, the svastika symbol originated in Elam much earlier than 2000 BC when it figured in the Harappan culture. In south Tajikistan it figured around 1200 BC.
Language and Inscriptional Evidence
- Language is the most important attribute of the Aryan culture. Linguists have reconstructed the proto-Indo-European language, which started around the seventh or the sixth millennium BC. The Indo-European language is divided into eastern and western branches, and from c. 4500 BC marked phonetic development took place in the eastern branch, that is, proto-Indo-Iranian.
- The first linguistic traces of it figure on a tablet of the dynasty of Agade in Iraq. This inscription mentions two names reconstructed as Arisena and Somasena.
- Hittite inscriptions from Anatolia indicate speakers of the western branch of the Indo-European language in this area from the nineteenth to the seventeenth century BC.
- Mycenaean inscriptions from Greece indicate the arrival of speakers of this branch in the fourteenth century BC. The speakers of the eastern branch are represented in the inscriptions of the Kassites and the Mittanis in Mesopotamia from the sixteenth to the fourteenth century BC.
Dispersal of the Indo-Aryans
- Linguists can better explore Russian links with Indo-Aryan languages, but the genetic evidence about the Indo-Aryan migration is decisive.
हिन्दी