Hello friends.
I hope you all can help me. I am of European descent, and have been interested in the general history of the world for quite some time now. I see references to the Aryans a lot, and have noticed conceptions of who this group is and what they've done have changed quite a bit in scholarship, or at least there are different opinions about them, it seems.
For example, I've noticed some people into Aryan history (some racist, some academic) have included things like the Bhagavad Gita in their analysis, claiming that somehow the Aryans are involved in ancient Indian society. This is very confusing to me, as I've been a student of Buddhism and Hinduism for quite some time and always imagined I was learning about people that looked relatively like modern Indians?
I'm hoping someone here can set me straight. Who were the Aryans? What is their role in ancient India? Did they roam around the world basically founding different civilizations, or is that a modern fantasy?
The Aryans are a hypothetical people, posited to be the speakers of an archaic language which served as the basis for Sanskrit (an early language of the Indian subcontinent), and also for many European languages. There are many words that have similar roots in Sanskrit and European languages, and this is explained by the theory that the ancient speakers arose someplace north of India and east of Europe, and then migrated to both of those regions. The word Aryan is from a Proto-Indian-Iranian root, which also serves as the basis for the word "Iran", the country. Nobody knows what a speaker of this archaic language might have looked like. There is considerable controversy about the possible movement of such persons into Northern India, and their relationship to the people of the Indus Valley civilization (who had a highly developed civilization along sites in northwest India / Pakistan).
These linguistic theories were hijacked by Nazis and white supremacists and used to support certain racial superiority ideas which have no known basis in reality, and have led to even the term "Aryan" having a disreputable odor.
I found "The Hindus: An Alternative History" by Wendy Doniger to be a quite interesting read and it gives some background regarding these thorny issues.
hi! there was a similar question a couple of years ago with some lengthy responses; check it out:
This post has been long archived, so if you have follow-up questions for any of the users, just ask them here & mention their username to notify them
'Arya' is basically an adjective (for an overall 'good' person) in indian history/prehistory texts which are in Sanskrit. (note that it's pronounced with a schwa for the final a, not like Arya from game of thrones).
People hired by England (1700-1900) who read Indian history/prehistory became obsessed with the term 'arya/aryan' and wanted to explain how Sanskrit has so many similarities to European languages. so came up with a theory of 'Aryan invasion/migration theory into India'. These people were driven by their prejudice and money.
So anyways, these are the same people who translated ancient indian texts into English and so other scholars all over the world have to trust their translations and their theories.
The fact is, the languages of north india, europe and iran are similar so must have had a common ancestor. The characters and stories of early india (rigved) are also mentioned in ancient iran and european (greek) cultures. There have always been for a long time, thriving cultures in south india that were isolated from all of this. There was the indus valley civilization which is seen as the 'start' of indian history/prehistory.
These are the facts, but what is unknown is where the common ancestor lived for the ancient north india, ancient iranian and ancient european (greek) people. these are the people whom you can refer to as 'aryans'