ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF VEDIC STUDIES
 

(EJVS)

                           Vol. 7 (2001), issue 3 (May 25)

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(©) ISSN 1084-7561
 

                            CONTENTS

ARTICLE

Michael Witzel

Autochthonous Aryans?
The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts.
 

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                        EDITOR'S  NOTE

Some amount of confusion still reigns with regard to the terms 'Arya' or 'Aryans' that represent the language, the culture, the religion, the people, and for some, even the 'race' of a certain section of prehistoric South Asians. A clarification and discussion of the available data is in order.

The following paper deals with these issues and to a large degree, with the much debated question of the origin of the Arya: Either they are indigenous to early South Asia or their existence is due to a (partial) influx of a language and a culture that was of non-South Asian origins.

As in all the sciences, this debate should simply be a question of evidence and proof, -- in this case one based on linguistic, textual, archaeological, anthropological, genetic, etc. data. However, the issue has become increasingly politicized. By now, it is the focal issue of recent revisionist rewriting of old Indian history and even underlies much of contemporary Indian politics.

The present paper, however, is not concerned with these political aspects, but with the methods used and the facts that can be retrieved for an adequate description of the original Aryans (technically, 'Indo-Aryans') of early South Asia. Some of the questions asked here and answered below are the following.

How can the ancient Indo-Aryans ("Aryans") of South Asia be defined and what are their origins.? How were they described over the past one or two hundred years and what exactly is the new autochthonous or indigenist scenario? What are the arguments brought forward so far by the autochthonists? How do these arguments agree with each other in a complete, indigenous framework? And, perhaps more importantly, how does the new theory agree with  the evidence supplied by the various sciences and humanities?

In sum, do we have a "new paradigm" or not?

The answer will be found at the end of the paper. It is divided into three major sections, (and due to its length further subdivided for email delivery into seven sections):

1. The 'traditional'  immigration theory of the past two centuries. (§1-10)

2. The 'autochthonous Aryan' theory: evidence from language (§12-18), chronology (§19), archaeology and texts (§20-27), the texts and the sciences  (§28-31)

3.  Summary of results (§32)

Due to its importance, the linguistic section is quite extensive (§12-18). Linguisticially less inclined readers should skip most of it and proceed to the linguistic summary in §18.

MW
 

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A note on transcription.

Vedic and Sanskrit are transcribed here according to the Kyoto-Harvard system,  that is long a = A, retroflex t = T, palatal sh = z,  etc. In addition,  IIr and Dardic dental affricate  c  =  .c.,   and  z  =  .z.

The Avestan alphabet is represented here as follows:
long e = E, long o = O,  a topped by circle =  a^o,  nasal a = a,  velar nasal = ng (= Ved. G) ,  labial velar nasal = ngv;
implosive t =  t~; interdental  t (theta) = th, interdental  d (delta) = dh, bilabial w  (beta) = w,  velar g = g'; dental shibilant (with hacek) = s', dental sibilant with underdot =  S' = S~ ; labial velar affricate = xv.

For other languages, similar conventions are followed, e.g. French accented  e = e' (aigu), e` (grave), German umlaut  a" =  ae, o" = oe, u" = ue, etc.
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Michael Witzel
Harvard University
 
 

Autochthonous Aryans?

The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts.

INTRODUCTION

§1. Terminology
§ 2. Texts
§ 3. Dates
§4. Indo-Aryans in the RV
§5. Irano-Aryans in the Avesta
§6. The Indo-Iranians
§7. An ''Aryan'' Race?
§8. Immigration
§9. Remembrance of immigration
§10. Linguistic and cultural acculturation

THE AUTOCHTHONOUS ARYAN THEORY

§ 11. The ''Aryan Invasion'' and the "Out of India" theories

LANGUAGE

§12. Vedic, Iranian and  Indo-European
§13. Absence of Indian influences in Indo-Iranian
§14. Date of Indo-Aryan innovations
§15. Absence of retroflexes in Iranian
§16. Absence of 'Indian' words in Iranian
§17. Indo-European words in Indo-Iranian; Indo-European archaisms vs.  Indian innovations
§18. Absence of Indian influence in Mitanni Indo-Aryan

Summary: Linguistics

CHRONOLOGY

§19. Lack of agreement of autochthonous data with the rest of the historical evidence: dating of kings & teachers

ARCHAEOLOGY

§20. Archaeology and texts
§21. RV and the  Indus civilization: horses and chariots
§22. Absence of  towns in the RV
§23. Absence wheat and rice in the RV
§24. RV class society and the Indus civilization
§25. The SarasvatI and dating of the RV and the brAhmaNas
§26. Harappan fire rituals?
§27. Cultural continuity: pottery and the Indus script

VEDIC TEXTS AND SCIENCE

§28. The ''astronomical code of the RV''
§29. Astronomy: the equinoxes in ZB
§30. Astronomy: jyotiSa vedAGga and the solstices
§31. Geometry: zulba sUtras

SUMMARY

§32. The autochthonous theory
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 THE 'TRADITIONAL' IMMIGRATION THEORY

§1. Terminology

At the outset, it has to be underlined that the term Arya (whence, Aryan) is the self-designation of the ancient Iranians and of those Indian groups speaking Vedic Sanskrit and other Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) languages and dialects. Both peoples called themselves and their language Arya or arya:  The Persian King Darius (519 BCE ) was the first who wrote in ariya and a Late Vedic text, kauSItaki AraNyaka 8.9, defines the Vedic area as that where AryA vAc "Arya speech" (i.e. Vedic Sanskrit) is heard. The ancient Eastern Iranians, too, called themselves airiia: their assumed mythical 'homeland',[N.1] airiiana,m vaEjah, is described in the Avesta (vIdEvdAd 1); and the name of the country, irAn, is derived from this word as well. Speakers of Aryan (i.e. of the IIr. languages) occupied, e.g. in the first millennium BCE,  the vast area between Rumania and Mongolia, between the Urals and the Vindhya, and between N. Iraq/Syria and the Eastern fringes of N. India. They comprised the following, culturally quite diverse groups.
 (a) North Iranians:  Scythians in the vast steppes of the Ukraine and eastwards of it (surviving as the modern Ossete in the Caucasus), the Saka of Xinjiang (Khotanese and Tumshuq, mod. Sariqoli) and western Central Asia, the Saka tigraxauda (the "pointed cap" Saka) and the Saka haumavarga (''the soma pressing Saka'');
 (b)  West Iranians: the ancient Medes (mAda of  Rai and Azerbaijan), the mod. Kurds, Baluchis, and Persians (ancient pArsa of fArs) as well as the Tajik;
 (c) E. Iranians in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan: speakers of Avestan, Bactrian, mod. Pashto, the mod. Pamir languages, Sogdian (mod. Yaghnobi), and Choresmian;
  (d) The recently islamized Kafiri/Nuristani group in N.E. Afghanistan with the still non-Islamic Kalash in the Chitral valley of Pakistan; to this day they have preserved many old traits, such as the c. 2000 BCE pronunciation of  '10' (du.c.) and the old IIr. deity yama rAjA (imra^o);
 (e) The speakers of Indo-Aryan: from Afghanistan eastwards into the Panjab, and then into the  north Indian plains. By the time of the Buddha, the IA languages had spread all over the northern half of the subcontinent and had displaced almost completely the previously spoken languages of the area.
Linguists have used the term Arya from early on in the 19th cent. to designate the speakers of most Northern Indian as well as of all Iranian languages and to indicate the reconstructed language underlying both Old Iranian and Vedic Sanskrit. Nowadays this well-reconstructed language is  usually called Indo-Iranian (IIr.), while its Indic branch is called (Old) Indo-Aryan (IA). An independent third branch is represented by the Kafiri or Nuristani of N.E. Afghanistan. All these languages belong to the IIr. branch of the Eastern (or Satem) group of the Indo-Euroepan (IE) languages which differs from the phonetically more conservative western IE by a number of innovations. The IE languages (which, confusingly, sometimes were also called ''Aryan'') included, in ancient times, the vast group of tongues from Old Icelandic to Tocharian (in Xinjiang, China), from Old Prussian (Baltic) to Old Greek and Hittite, and from Old Irish and Latin to Vedic Sanskrit.
 However, the use of the word Arya or Aryan to designate the speakers of all Indo-European (IE) languages or as the designation of a particular "race" is an aberration of many writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and should be avoided. At least from Neolithic times onwards, language had little to do with "race"; language also cuts across ethnic groups and cultures,[N.2]  and had little to do with ancient states or with nationhood, as the use of Aramaic in the Persian empire, Latin in Medieval Europe and Persian in much of the Near East and in medieval India may indicate.
 It is clear that  in the India of the oldest Vedic text, the Rgveda (RV), Arya was a cultural term (Kuiper 1955, 1991, R. Thapar 1968, Southworth 1979, 1995) indicating the speakers of Vedic Sanskrit and the bearers of Vedic culture and Vedic ritual; it simply meant 'noble' by the time of the Buddha and of the early Sanskrit drama. It is also clear that the poets (RSi, brahma'n, vipra, kavi) of the Rgveda and their aristocratic patrons regarded themselves and their followers as arya/Arya. (Thieme 1938).
 In the sequel, I will carefully distinguish between the following usages: first, the Arya/ariya/airiia languages, which I will call by their technical name, Indo-Iranian (IIr).[N.3]  When referring to their Indian sub-branch, I will use Indo-Aryan (IA, or Old IA). However,  the tribes speaking Vedic Sanskrit and adhering to Vedic culture, I will call  Indo-Aryan or Arya. (In common parlance in India, however, Aryan is used both to refer to IA language as well as to the people speaking it and belonging to the sphere of Vedic culture, or even to an Aryan '"race'").

§ 2.  Texts

 Since most of our evidence on the ancient 'Aryans' comes from the texts and from the linguistic and cultural  data contained in them, it is necessary to give an outline what kind of texts we have for the early period.
 For India, we have the Vedas, a large collection of texts, orally composed  and orally transmitted well into this millennium. Tradition has taken care to ensure, with various techniques, that the wording and even tone accents, long lost from popular speech, have been preserved perfectly, almost like a tape recording. This includes several special ways of recitation, the padapATha (word-for-word recitation) and several complicated extensions and modifications (vikRti).[N.4]
 They contain mainly religious texts: hymns addressed to the gods (RV), other mantras in verse or prose (YV, SV, AV saMhitAs) which are used in the solemn Vedic (zrauta) ritual and the ''theological'' explanations (brAhmaNas and kRSNa YV saMhitAs), composed in the expository prose of the ritual, and the mantras used therein. The upaniSads contain (along with some late RV and AV  hymns) early speculation and philosophy, and the ritual is summed up in systematic form in the sUtras dealing with the solemn ritual (zrauta-S.), the domestic ritual (gRhya-S.) and proper Arya behavior (dharma-sUtras). The traditional division of the Four Vedas into four zruti levels of saMhitA, brAhmaNa, AraNyaka and upaniSad and the ensuing smRti level (with the sUtras), is somewhat misleading as far as the development of the texts are concerned. For, the Vedic texts show a clear linguistic development, just as any other living language; we can distinguish at least five clearly  separate levels of Vedic (Witzel 1989):
1. Rgvedic (with many hymns of RV 10 as a late addition);
2. 'mantra language' (AV, SV as far as differing from RV, YV mantras, RV Khila);
3. Prose of the kRSNa Yajurveda saMhitAs (MS, KS/KpS, TS);
4. brAhmaNa language, where the late (and mainly S.-E.)  level includes  the AraNyakas and the early upaniSads but also the early sUtras such as BZS;
5. sUtra language which gradually gives way to Epic/Classical Sanskrit.
This distinction is important as it represents, apart from a relative chronology based on quotations,  the only inner-textual way to establish a dating of these texts.
 The Iranians have a set-up of texts quite similar to that of the Vedas (though this is little observed).  However, only about a quarter of the original Avesta has been preserved after Iran became an Islamic country in the 7th c. CE.  The  5 long gAthA (with 17 individual gAthAs = yasna 28-53) are the RV-like poems of zarathus'tra himself; the contemporaneous ritual text embedded among the gAthAs, the yasna haptanghAiti, is a YV-like collection of mantras used for fire worship.
 The rest of the Avestan texts is post-Zoroastrian: some sections of Y 19.9-14, Y 20-21 are like a brAhmaNa passage; the Yas't pick up themes of RV style praise of certain gods (mithra, vAiiu, etc.), while the nirangistAn is of zrautasUtra style, the late vIdEvdAd reads like a gRhya/dharmasUtra, and the nighaNTu list of the nirukta has its echo in the farhang-I-Oim. Importantly, the whole Avesta has come down to us (just like the one surviving version of the RV) in padapATha fashion, with most of the sandhis dissolved. The list of genres and of the ordering of texts indicates how close both traditions really are, even after the reforms of zarathus'tra.
However, in spite of being geographically closer to the Mesopotamian cultures with datable historical information, the Avestan texts are as elusive to absolute dating as the Vedic ones. Mesopotamia (or early China) simply do not figure in these texts.

§ 3. Dates

 An approximation to an absolute dating of Vedic texts, however, can be reached by the following considerations:[N.5]
 (1.) The Rgveda whose geographical horizon is limited to the Panjab and its surroundings does not yet know of iron but only of the hard metal copper/bronze (W. Rau 1974, 1983; ayas = Avest. aiiah 'copper/bronze'). Since iron is only found later on in Vedic texts (it is called, just as in Drav. *cir-umpu),  the ''black metal'' (zyAma, kRSNa ayas) and as makes its appearance in S. Asia only by c. 1200 or 1000 BCE,[N.6 the RV must be earlier than that.[N.7]  The RV also does not know of large cities such as that of the Indus civilization but only of  ruins (armaka, Falk 1981) and of small forts (pur, Rau 1976). Therefore, it must be later than the disintegration of the Indus cities in the Panjab, at c. 1900  BCE  A good, possible date ad quem would be that of the Mitanni documents of N. Iraq/Syria of c. 1400 BCE that mention the Rgvedic gods and some other Old IA words (however, in a form slightly preceding that of the RV).[N.8]
 (2.) The mantra language texts (AV etc.) whose geographical horizon stretches from Bactria (balhika) to aGga (NW Bengal) mention iron for the first time and therefore should be contemporaneous or slightly rather later than 1200/1000 BCE.
 (3.) The YV saMhitA prose texts have a narrow horizon focusing on Haryana, U.P. and the Chambal area; they and  (4a.) the early Br. texts seem to overlap in geographical spread and cultural inventory with the archaeologically attested Painted Gray Ware culture, an elite pottery ware of the nobility, and may therefore be dated after c. 1200 BCE (until c. 800 BCE).
 (4b.) The end of the Vedic period is marked by the spread of the Vedic culture of the confederate kuru-paJcAla state of Haryana/U.P. (but generally, not of its people) eastwards into Bihar (ZB, late AB, etc.) and  by a sudden widening of the geographical horizon to an area from GandhAra to Andhra (Witzel 1989). This is, again, matched  by the sudden emergence of  the NBP luxury ware (700-300 BCE, Kennedy 1995: 229) and the emergence of the first eastern kingdoms such as Kosala (but not yet of Magadha, that still is off limits to Brahmins). The early upaniSads precede the date of the Buddha, now considered to be around 400 BCE (Bechert 1982, 1991 sqq.), of mahAvIra, and of the re-emergence of cities around 450 BCE (Erdosy 1988). In short, the period of the four Vedas seems to fall roughly between c. 1500 BCE[N.9] and c. 500 BCE.  (For other and quite divergent dates and considerations, see below § 11 sqq).

Old Iranian texts

 Dating the Avestan texts is equally difficult. Internal evidence (Skjaervo 1995) of the older Avestan texts (gAthAs/yasna haptanghAiti) points to a copper/bronze (aiiah) culture quite similar to that of the RV. The younger texts  might to some extent overlap with the expansion eastwards of the Median realm (c. 700-550 BCE), while parts of the vIdEvdAd were probably composed only in the post-Alexandrian, Arsacide  kingdom.  An indication of the date of younger Avestan dialects is the name of Bactria, is Y.Av. bAxdhI, which corresponds to AV balhika; this would indicate a Y.Av. dialect at the time of the AV, c. 1200/1000 BCE (Witzel 1980). zarathus'tra who spoke Old Avestan should be dated well before this time. Current estimates range from the 14th to the 7th c. BCE. An early date is confirmed by linguistic arguments: The name of ahuramazdA  appears, in O.Av. as mazdA ahura (or ahura mazdA), but in Y.Av. as ahura mazdA, and  in Old Persian (519 BCE) already as one word, a[h]uramazdA, with a new grammatical inflexion. The long history of the word points to an early date of zarathus'tra and his gAthAs.[N.10]

§4. Indo-Aryans in the RV

 A short characterization of the early Indo-Aryans based on the text of the RV can be attempted as follows.  The Indo-Aryans (Arya) spoke a variety IIr., Vedic Sanskrit, and produced a large volume of orally composed and orally transmitted literature.
 They form a patri-linear society with an incipient class (varNa) structure (nobles, priest/poets, the 'people'), organized in exogamic clans (gotra), tribes and occasional  tribal unions (anu-druhyu, yadu-turvaza, pUru-bharata, the Ten Kings' coalition of RV 7.18, the bharata-sRJjaya, etc.)  The tribes are lead by chieftains (rAjan), and occasional Great Chieftains, elected from the high nobility, and often from the same family. The tribes constantly fight with each other and with the with the non-IA dasyu, mostly about ''free space'' (loka, grazing land), cattle, and water rights: the Arya are primarily half-nomadic cattle-herders (horses, cows, sheep, goats), with a little agriculture on the side (of barley, yava). In sport and in warfare they use horse-drawn chariots (ratha) on even ground and the vipatha (AV+) for rough off-track travel.
 Their religion has a complicated pantheon: some gods of nature (the wind god vAyu, the male fire deity agni, and the female deities of water ApaH, father heaven/mother earth dyauH pitA/pRthivI [mAtA], the goddess of dawn, uSas etc.). These deities,  however, are not simple forces of nature but have a complex character and their own mythology. They are part of a larger system which includes the moral gods of  'law and order': the Aditya such as varuNa, mitra, aryaman, bhaga, and sometimes even indra, the prototypical IA warrior; they keep the cosmic and human realms functioning and in order. All deities, however, are subservient to the abstract, but active positive 'force of truth'  (Rta, similar to though not identical with the later Hindu concept of dharma), which pervades the universe and all actions of the gods and humans. The gods are depicted as engaging in constant and yearly contest with their --originally also divine-- adversaries, the asura, a contest which the gods always win, until next time.[N.11] zarathus'tra used this particular old IIr. concept to establish his dualistic religion of a fight between the forces of  good and evil.
 All gods, in the Veda especially indra and agni,  are worshipped in elaborate rituals (e.g. the complicated New Year soma sacrifice). The rituals  follow the course of the year and are  celebrated with the help of many priests; they are of a more public nature than the simple domestic (gRhya) rituals or rites of passage. In these rituals, the gods are invited, in pUjA-like fashion, to the offering ground, are seated on grass next to the sacred fires, fed with meat or grain cakes and with the sacred drink of soma (and also, the alcoholic surA), are entertained by well-trained, bard-like poets (brahma'n, RSi, vipra). These compose hymns (sUkta), after long concentration (dhI) but often also on the spot, meant to invite the gods and to praise the nobility (dAnastuti), that is the patrons of the ritual. In the few philosophical hymns of the RV  the poets speculate about the origin of the universe, the gods, and the humans, the forces that keep the world moving (Rta, yajJa, zraddhA, or poetic speech, vAc).
 The rites of passage are less visible in the RV (except for marriage and death); it is clear, however, that a period of training in traditional knowledge (veda 'knowledge'), interspersed with periods of roaming the countryside in search of a start capital of cattle (gaviSTi) as vrAta/vrAtya (Falk 1986), is followed by the full admission to adult society and marriage. However, there is no varNAzrama system yet.

§5. Irano-Aryans in the Avesta

 Like the Rgvedic society, with its three Arya classes (RV 10.90), the Avestan texts, especially the later Y.Av., know of three classes, the priests, noblemen, and the ''farmers'', for by then agriculture has become more important. However, just like the RV, the Y.Av. also knows of an artisan class (corresponding to the Rgvedic zUdra). The O.Av. texts, however, still indicate a half-nomadic cattle-based tribal culture with small tribal units (airiiaman) occupying a larger territory (dax'iiu). The younger texts,  have a clear view of all of Eastern Iran: Choresmia, Sogdia, Bactria, Margiana, Arachosia, the Helmand valley, Xn@nta (Gorgan), Rag'a (Rai), Varna (Bannu, NWFP), ''The Seven Rivers'' (Greater Panjab, see Witzel 2000). Even in the fairly late list of V. 1, the west (Persis and maybe even Media) are conspicuously absent.  Many of these tribal areas/incipient states  reappear as Persian provinces (dahayu), but  pArsa is not called so as it not a ''foreign (dasyu) territory''.
 Some definite historical information exists about the W. Iranians (Persians, Medes) as they were close neighbors of the Mesopotamian civilizations. They are first mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions at 835 BCE as the 27 pars'uwas'  tribes and the Medes (c. 744/727 BCE). Thus, the W. Iranian appear early in the first millennium, while the E. Iranians can be dated only with reference to the Veda and to the early Iranian empires.
 The Zoroastrian reform of the Old IIr. religion had erroneously been regarded, around the turn of the 19th/20th c.,  as caused by a split between the two peoples. This is still echoed nowadays in some writings but the situation is much more complex. Early IIr. religion focused  on  the contrast between the deva and the asura:  IIr *daiua, Av. daEuua, OP. daiva :: IIr. *asura, Av. ahura, OP. a[h]ura-(mazda). In the RV both groups are regarded as are 'gods' --probably due to their equal status in the New Year contests -- and only in the post-Rgvedic texts, the asura have definitely become demon-like. Of the major asura (or, Aditya) varuNa, sometimes called asura and medhira/medhA  in the RV[N.12] appears  in the Avesta as ahura mazdA (cf. ahura and mithra, Y. 17.10), mitra as mithra, aryaman as airiiaman,  bhaga as bag'a, vivasvant (mArtANda) as vIvanghuuant, and mArtANda's brother indra as the demon indara.
 While zarathus'tra kept ahura mazdA as (sole and supreme) deity, the ahura, all other IIr. deva  (Av. daEuua) are relegated to the ranks of demons, e.g. indara, gandar@wa (gandharva), na^onghaithiia (nAsatya = azvin).  A few devas and asuras were retained, apparently after zarathus'tra, as divine helpers of the Lord: mithra, airiiaman, Atar (standing in for agni), haoma (soma) etc.  The old state of contest between the deva and asura was amalgamated with the another old opposition, that of  between Rta (Av. aS~a) and druh (Av. druj), Active Truth and Deceit. The Ahura(s) are the champions of Truth, the daEuuas those of Deceit. The righteous must choose between aS~a and druj, between ahuramazdA and the daEuuas,  and will be rewarded in ahura mazdA's heaven. -- Many of the old IIr. rituals are, however, continued in Zoroastrianism as well: there is a daily fire ritual (text in yasna haptanghAiti), a soma (haoma) ritual, even animal sacrifice.
 

§6. The Indo-Iranians

 The preceding sketch indicates the very close relationship between the two peoples calling themselves Arya. Not only are their languages so closely related that their oldest attested forms might often be taken as dialects of the same language, but their society, their rituals, their religion and their traditional poetry resemble each other so closely that it has always been regarded as certain that the Vedic Indo-Aryans, the Iranians and the Kafiri (Nuristani) are but offshoots of one group speaking IIr., a few hundred years before the RV and the Old Avestan texts.
 The IIr. language, as a branch of Eastern IE,  shares many peculiarities with other E. IE. languages such as Balto-Slavic: in sounds (*k' > s'/z :  Latin equus 'horse', O.Irish ech, Toch. yuk, yakwe ::  Lithuanian as'va` (fem.), IIr *ac'ua > E.Ir. aspa, Vedic azva), but also in vocabulary (Sanskrit dina 'day', O. Slav. dini :: Lat. dies, cf. Schrader 1890: 312), and perhaps even in mythology:  Ved. bhaga ''God 'Share' '', Iran. (Med.) baga 'god', Sogd. bag'a 'Lord, Sir', O. Slav. bogu 'god' (though probably from N. Iranian *baga), Skt. parjanya, Lith. perku'nas, O. Slav. perunu (Schrader 1890: 414). Iranian and Vedic are so close that frequently whole sentences can be reconstructed:  IIr. *tam *mitram *yaj'Amadhai > Ved. tam mitraM yajAmahe, Avest. t@m mithr@m yazamaide. (For more on Central and North Asian connections, see below § 12.1, 12.2., 12.6).
 An IIr. parent language and large parts of the IIr. spiritual and material culture can be reconstructed by carefully using the method of linguistic palaeontology.[N.13] A very brief summary of  IIr. would then  include: These tribes spoke the IIr. language, had a common archaic poetry  (e.g. triSTubh-like poems), with many common expressions such as 'nondecaying fame'. They had the same type of priests and rituals (Ved. hotR : Avest. zaotar, soma : haoma),  the same set of gods and a similar mythology:  yama (yima) and manu descend from vivasvant (vIvanghuuant). Some of these deities are IIr. innovations (the asura / Aditya), others go back to IE times (agni, Latin ignis; hutam, Greek khuto'n  'sacrificial libation' :: Engl. god).
 IIr. society had a patriarchal, exogamic  system of  three classes, with tribal chieftains, and a priest/poet class.  They were semi-nomadic cattle (pazu :  fs'u) herders, constantly in search for water and open pastures (uru gavyUti : vouru.gaoiiaoiti), and with just a little agriculture (yava : yauuan). At the New Year rituals they engaged in chariot races (ratha/ratha 'chariot', ratheSTha : rathaes'tA- 'charioteer'), and other sports (muSTihan), and speech contests (Kuiper 1960).
 Their society was governed by set of strict moral principles, including adherence to truth (satya : haithiia), oaths (touching or drinking water, kozam pA) and other oral agreements between individuals (arya-man : airiia-man, especially for marriage and guest friendship) and between  tribes (mitra : mithra) which regulated water rights and pasture.
 In sum, all the linguistic and textual data mentioned so far link the Indo-Aryans of the Rgvedic Panjab with languages spoken in areas to the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, even if local South Asian elements already figure prominently in the RV.
 

§7. An "Aryan" Race?

 This close resemblance in language, customs and beliefs does not, of course, imply or involve, nor  does it solve the question of who exactly the people(s) were that called themselves arya/Arya, whom they included, or even how they looked. The question of physical appearance or 'race'[N.14] is of the least importance in describing the early Arya, but since race has always been injected into the discussion,[N.15] a few words are in order.
 The combination of a specific language with any 'racial' type is not maintained by linguists. At this late, post-Meso-/Neolithic stage in human development,  language no longer has any very close relation to 'race'. Even the early Indo-Europeans were a quite mixed lot, as has been stressed for decades.[N.16] Recently developed methods of genetic testing (mtDNA, non-recombinant Y chromosome) have and will shed further light on this (Cavalli-Sforza 1994, 1955, Kivisild 1999, Semino 2000, Underhill 2000, Bamshad 2001, etc.). It must be pointed out that genetic evidence, though still in its  infancy, is often superior to (even multi-variate) palaeontological evidence as it more specific than distinguishing types reflected in osteology, based on the simple phenotype adaptation to living conditions. Genetic evidence frequently allows to pinpoint (sub-)branches in the cladistic tree at a particular point in time and space.
 In the present context, however, it is not important to find out what the outward appearance (''race'') of the those speaking Indo-Aryan languages was, but how they lived, worshipped, thought, and especially what kind of poetical texts they composed. The rest is interpretation, but it is already the interpretation of the Rgvedic puruSa hymn (RV 10.90) with its four classes, varNa (''colors''), which seem to  be related to the traditional colors of the three IE classes, white-red-blue/green. (Puhvel 1987,  cf. now also Hock 1999: 155).  The term is attested since RV 2.12.4, etc. The RV often makes a distinction between light : darkness, good : evil, between Arya : dasyu. In many cases this is just a cultural distinction, defining the boundaries between 'Us' and the 'Others' (Witzel 1995).[N.17] However, many scholars of the past two centuries automatically assumed that the immigrating Indo-Aryans (coming from somewhere to the North of India/Iran) were light-skinned people. All such terms are relative, yet, the Kashmirian author kSemendra (11th c.) speaks of a Bengali student in Kashmir as a 'black skeleton, monkeying about' and the cult of lighter skin still is undeniable, as a look at Indian marriage advertisements will indicate.
 Such 'racial' characterizations tell us little about the look of contemporary people, and as indicated above, this is not important for our investigations.[N.18] The speakers of (pre-)Old Indo-Aryan (pre-Vedic) might have been quite a diverse group from the very beginning, and even if many of the original immigrant bands might rather have looked more like Kashmiris or Afghanis and not at all like their various European linguistic relatives or the 'typical' North Indian[N.19] of today. Again, outward appearance, whatever it might have been, is of no consequence for our studies.
 So far archaeology and palaeontlogy, based on multi-variate analysis of skeletal features, have not found a new wave of immigration into the subcontinent after 4500 BCE (a separation between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic populations of Mehrgarh), and up to 800 BCE: ''Aryan bones'' have not been discovered (Kennedy 1995: 49-54, 2000), not even of the Gandhara Grave culture which is usually believed to have been IA.[N.20] There are of course minor differences between the various areas of the northwestern subcontinent (such as Sarai Khola : Harappa, or even Harappa: Mohenjo Daro). Anyhow, the genetic and therefore, skeletal contribution of the various IA bands and tribes may have been relatively negligible (cf. n. 21,23). However, a single excavation can change the picture. Even the large invading force of the Huns was not attested in European archaeology until some graves were found in Hungary some two decades ago.[N.21] The cemeteries (if any at all in Rgvedic times) of the small, semi-sedentary pastoral IA groups were composed, according to the texts, of 3-6 yard high grave mounds; they are not likely to be found easily in the alluvium of the constantly shifting rivers of the Panjab.[N.22]
 Once genetic testing will have provided us with more samples of the (few not cremated) skeletal remains from contemporary burials and of modern populations we may be in a better position to judge the phsyical character of previous and modern populations. This will become apparent even more, once not just mtDNA (inherited by females) but also the male Y chromosome (some of it likely that of immigrating tribesmen) will have been studied.[N.23] Only then we will be able to tell which particular strains, corresponding to which neighboring areas,[N.24] were present in the Northwest of the subcontinent at that time.[N.25]
 In the end, to be absolutely clear, what counts is the Indo-Aryan culture, their social system, their texts, their rituals, and the frame of mind they brought into the subcontinent. These items are treated at some length below; in addition, we have to take into account the facts from archaeology, human palaeontology, genetics, history of technology, and incidental features from astronomy to zoology.[N.26]
 

§8.  Immigration

 Immigration, however, has often been denied in India especially during the past two decades, and more recently also by some western archaeologists. How likely is an immigration scenario on the basis of comparable cases from Indian and non-Indian history? Leaving aside the prehistoric migrations starting with the move of Homo Sapiens 'Out of Africa' some 50,000 years ago, we actually do know that one group after the other has entered the Indian subcontinent, as immigrants or as invaders, in historical times. They include tribal groups such as the  Saka, the Yue Ji (Tukhara), Kushana, abhIra, gurjara as well as large armies, such as those of Darius' Persians, of Alexander's and the Bactrian Greeks in the first mill. BCE, of both the Chinese via Tibet, Ladakh and Nepal, and the Arabs into Sindh in the 7-8th c. CE; further the Ahom Tai in Assam, and the Huns, Turks, Moghuls, Iranians, and Afghans via the northwestern passes in the first and second mill. CE. In addition, small-scale semi-annual transhumance movements between the Indus plains and the Afghan and Baluchi highlands continue to this day (Witzel 1995: 322, 2000). Why, then, should all immigration, or even mere transhumance trickling in, be excluded in the single case of the Indo-Aryans, especially when the linguistic evidence, below §10 sqq., so clearly speaks for it?  Just one "Afghan" Indo-Aryan tribe that did not return to the highlands but stayed in their Panjab winter quarters in spring was needed to set off a wave of acculturation in the plains, by transmitting its 'status kit' (Ehret) to its neighbors.[N.27] The vehement denial of any such possibility (see below §11 sqq) is simply unreasonable, given the frequency of movements, large and small, into South Asia via the northwestern corridors.
 The important, clinching factor (§ 10) to decide the question is the following: the Indo-Aryans, as described in the RV, represent something definitely new in the subcontinent. Both their spiritual and much of their material culture are new; these and their language link them to the areas west and northwest of the subcontinent, and to some extent beyond, to the Ural area and to S. Russia/Ukraine. The obvious conclusion should be that these new elements somehow came from the outside.
 It is indeed historically attested that the Pars'umas' (Persians) moved from northwestern to southwestern Iran, but this is limited to a relatively small area only. More important are the 'Mitanni' Indo-Aryans in N. Iraq and Syria (c. 1460-1330 BCE), who clearly show IA, not Iranian influences (aika 'one' instead of Iranian aiva), and the Kassites who, as a first wave, preceded them in Mesopotamia. They dislodged the local Akkadian kings for several centuries, c. 1677-1152 BCE, and they have preserved names such as z'uriias' (Ved. sUrya) or abirat(t)as' (abhiratha).[N.28] All these groups that are in various ways culturally related to the IIr.s are intrusive in their respective areas of settlement. The same may be assumed as far as the Greater Panjab is concerned.
 For, the massive cultural changes in the subcontinent could not have spontaneously developed locally in the Panjab, even assuming an amalgamation (why, by whom, how?) of various components that had been there before. Instead, it easier to assume that a new element actually brought in new items such as the domesticated horse and the horse-drawn chariot (§21), and IE/IA style poetry, religion and ritual. Also, it is not very likely and, indeed, not visible that leaders of the Indus civilization or rather their 'Panjabi' village level successors planned and executed such a universal shift of the cultural paradigm themselves. A massive, if gradual introduction of (some, if not all) IA traits seems the only viable conclusion (see below, on Ehret's model).
 The denial of immigration into the area of an already existing culture has recently been proposed by some archaeologists as well; they posit a purely local, indigenous development of cultures, e.g. by the British archaeologist Lord Renfrew (1987)[N.29] and by some Americans such as Shaffer (1984, 1999) who think that new  languages were introduced by way of trade and by taking over of new models  of society.
 If there was immigration, who then were the indigenous inhabitants of the subcontinent? They can in fact still be traced in the substrates of the RV and of modern languages: an unknown Indo-Gangetic language has  supplied the c. 40% of the agricultural terminology in Hindi (typical already for the RV, Kuiper 1955,  1991). A clear hint is provided by Nahali, a small IA language spoken on the Tapti River, NW of Ellichpur in Madhya Pradesh. At successively "lower" levels of Nahali vocabulary,  36% are of Kurku (Munda) and 9% of Dravidian origin, while the oldest level, some 24%, do not have any cognates (Kuiper 1962: 50, 1966: 96-192, but see now Mother Tongue II-III, 1996-7) and belong to the oldest language traceable in India (Witzel 1999a,b). Clearly, Munda, Dravidian and IA are consecutive(?) overlays on pre-existing languages. Again, such a scenario is met with in many other areas of the world.

§9.  Remembrance of immigration

 It has frequently been denied [N.30] that the RV contains any memory or information about the former homeland(s) of the Indo-Aryans. It is, indeed, typical for immigrant peoples to forget about their original homeland after a number of generations (e.g., the European Gypsies claim to have come, not from India, but from Egypt and Biblical Ur in S. Iraq), and to retain only the vaguest notion about a foreign origin. Or, they construct prestigious lines of descent (Virgil in his Aeneid makes the Romans descendants of the heroes of Troy).[N.31] However, in the RV there are quite a few vague reminiscences of former habitats, that is, of the Bactria-Margiana area, situated to the north of Iran and Afghanistan, and even from further afield.
 Such a connection can be detected in the retention by the Iranians of IIr./IA river names (Witzel 1987, 1999, Hintze 1998) and in the many references in the RV to mountains and mountain passes.[N.32] The mythical IIr. river *rasA corresponds in name to the Vedic rasA (RV, JB), the E.Ir. (Avest.) ranghA, and the N.Ir. *rahA that is preserved in Greek as rhA and designates the R. Volga.[N.33] Further, there are the (Grk.) sindoi people on the R. Kuban, north of the Caucasus, and there is the (Grk.) sindEs, the R. Murghab/Tedzhen on the borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan (Tacitus, Annales X.10). It divides the (Lat.) dahae (Ved. dasa/dAsa) from the (Lat.) arii (Humbach 1991), -- a statement that almost looks as if it was taken from the RV. Both sindoi and sindEs preserve, with their s-,  a pre-Iranian form of the name (details in Witzel 1999)[N.34] that reminds of Vedic sindhu and Iran. hindu, the border river of Iran and India and of the habitable world in general (Witzel 1984).
 Another N. Iranian tribe, the (Lat.) dahae, (Grk.) daai,  occurs in Vedic as dAsa or dasa. Related forms are Skt. dAsa "slave", the Avest. tribe of the da^ongha (next to the airiia), (N.)Iran. (a demon, az'i) dAha-ka, cf. Ved. dAsa ahIzu (Witzel 1995, Hock 1999), and the Uralic loan word (Vogul. Mansi) tas 'stranger', as well as IE > PGrk. *doselo- > Mycenean Grk. doero, Grk. doulos "slave"; note further: Ved. das-yu 'enemy, foreigner', OIr. *dah-yu, O.P. dahayu 'province', Avest.  daingvhu- "foreign country, enemy".[N.35] Apparently, foreign or conquered territory was regarded as that of the enemy and caught enemies became slaves. Conversely, one of the many loan words from IA in Finno-Ugrian is the Finnish word for slaves, captured in raids into Southern territory, orja, "Aryans",[N.36] confirming that the North Iranians, just like the Scythian alan (the mod. Ossetes) called themselves 'Arya' as well.
 Another N. Iranian tribe were the (Grk.) parnoi, Ir. *parna. They have for long been connected with another traditional enemy of the Aryans, the paNi (RV+). Their vara-like forts with their sturdy cow stables have been compared with the impressive forts of the Bactria-Margiana (BMAC) and the eastern Ural Sintashta cultures (Parpola 1988, Witzel 2000), while similar ones are still found today in the Hindukush. The RV regards the cattle-rich paNi, with their walled forts (pur, Rau 1976, Elizarenkova 1995), as the traditional, albeit intentionally semi-mythical enemies. A Rgvedic myth locates the primordial cows in a cave (vala, cf. Avest. vara) on an island (JB) in the rasA, where they were guarded by the demoniac paNis. Against the background sketched above, this myth looks like a semi-historical 'update' (but still, a myth) involving the great/mythical border river, past foes of the BMAC area, and contemporaneous, very real enemies of the Greater Panjab.
 Further traces of an Iranian connection can be seen in the hydronomical evidence discussed above and in the many references in the RV to mountains and mountain passes.[N.37] Also, the retention and adaptation by the Iranians of earlier pre-Rgvedic river names points to an earlier IA settlement in Afghanistan (sarasvatI = haraxvaitI / Arachosia, sarayu = harOiiu-/harE =  Herat R., gomatI = Gomal R., sindhu = hindu/h@Ndu, etc.,  Witzel 1999, cf. Hintze 1998). One of the semi-demonic enemies in the (Afghani) mountains is zambara, son of kulitara, with his many fortresses (pur, cf. above on Hindukush forts).
 Such names (studied at least since Brunnhofer 1910, Hillebrandt 1913; now Parpola 1988, Witzel 1999) retain pre-Old Iranian forms and they clearly lead back into Central Asia and Greater Iran. They also retain some vague reminiscences of former enemies (*parna, dAsa, zambara) and of place names (rasA, sindEs, sarasvatI,[N.38] sarayu, gomatI, sindhu), all aligned along the expected route of immigration into the subcontinent,[N.39] from the northern steppes (such as those of the Volga/Urals) via Margiana/Bactria to Herat/Arachosia and E. Afghanistan (Gomal R.)[N.40] Then, there are the many instances  in the RV which speak about actual transhumance movement of tribes through mountain passes and into the land of the 'seven rivers' (Witzel 1995) that were more open to extensive pastoralism after the decline of the Indus civilization.[N.41] Individuals such as the great RSi vasiSTha and his clan (RV 7.33.1-3), and whole tribes such as the bharata and ikSvAku (JB 3.237-8 : Caland §204), are described as crossing the sindhu. (Incidentally, nowhere in the Vedas do we hear of a westward movement, as some 'Out of India' proponents would have it nowadays).[N.42]
 The early YV saMhitAs (KS 26.2, MS 4.7.9), however,  continue to report such movements into the subcontinent. They state that the Kurus move eastwards or southwards victoriously, and TB 1.8.4.1 adds information about raiding expeditions of the kuru-paJcAlas into the east (no longer practiced by the time of ZB 5.5.2.3-5). The YV saMhitAs clearly belong to the post-copper/bronze age period, as they know of the use of iron. In other words, we hear about eastward/southward raids and movements of Vedic tribes towards Bihar and the Vindhya at about/after c. 1000 BCE; the same middle Vedic texts actually speak of the necessity to constantly watch one's back (Rau 1957).
 Finally, in the same vein, there also is a so far neglected passage from a late Vedic text in brAhmaNa style, BZS 18.44: 397.9 sqq. It plays on the etymologies of ay/i 'to go' and amA vas 'to stay at home', and actually seems to speak, once we apply brAhmaNa style logic and (etymological) argumentation style,[N.43] of a migration from the Afghani borderland of gandhAra and parzu (mod. Pashto) to Haryana/Uttar Pradesh and Bihar: prAG AyuH pravavrAja. tasyaite kuru-paJcAlAH kAzi-videhA ity. etad Ayavam. pratyaG amAvasus. tasyaite gAndhArayas +parzavo[N.44] 'rATTA ity. etad AmAvasyavam. "Ayu went (ay/i) eastwards. His (people) are the (well-known) kuru-paJcAla and the kAzi-videha. That is the Ayava (group). amAvasu (stayed at home,[N.45] amA vas) in the West. His (people) are the (well-known) gAndhAri, parzu and arATTa. That is the AmAvasyava (group)."[N.46]
 The last account is quite different in tone and content from the well known tale of videgha mAthava (ZB 1.4.10-18), which is not a 'history of the settlement of Bihar' but a myth about the importation of kuru orthopraxy and Brahmanism[N.47] into N. Bihar. (Witzel 1989, 1995, 1997). Such tales of authorization, empowerment and justification of rule, spiritual authority and social set-up (the videgha or the zunaHzepa legends)[N.48] have to be carefully separated from the rather unintentional mentioning of little understood, dim memories of earlier homelands, notions which are fading already in the RV itself. However, these tales are perpetuated for several hundred years as far as movements further into the subcontinent are concerned.
 All these data cannot be just accidental or due to the imagination of Rgvedic and brAhmaNa authors who looked for a prestigious origin of their lineage, tribe or culture: why should they look outwards to the 'barbaric' countries of Central Asia/Iran/Afghanistan?[N.49] The center of the world was, even according to the later parts of the RV (3.53), on the sarasvatI in Haryana. This attitude continued to be the norm in the brAhmaNa period, and it is vaguely remembered in the pAli canon; it clearly referred to even in the manu-smRti (ch. 2). The northwest, denigrated by the AV (5.22, PS 12.1-2), and depicted in nirukta 2.2, cf. 3.18 and in pataJjali's mahAbhASya (ed. Kielhorn, I p. 9) as occupied by Avestan speakers of the Kamboja land in S.E. Afghanistan (Witzel 1980: 92), is regarded as non-Arya.
 Rather, the data mentioned above seem to reflect very dim memories of people and places much further west than the Panjab. Or, if one still wants to be even more cautious, one may say that the texts preserve some no little or longer understood words and phrases that point to Central Asia. In other words, there is no reason to dismiss this kind of evidence that involves a number of bands and tribes who spoke a language closely allied with Iranian, Slavic, etc., who followed customs, beliefs and rituals, and used a poetic tradition all of which go back to Indo-European sources. Just because a theory involving an initial IA immigration, or even a gradual trickling in of some bands and tribes is disliked now, regarded as historically tainted or as 'politically incorrect', this does not discredit the actual data.[N.50]
 The Iranian textual materials on immigration are even more meager but they provide similar indirect reminiscences (rahA, dahayu/daingvhu, h@Ndu/handu, parna, daha, etc.). These texts make, like the RV, a clear difference between the Arya and their enemies, e.g. anairiiO dang'hAuuO 'the non-Arya lands' (Yt 18.2 etc.) some of whose people, doubtless war captives, are described as concubines in the houses of the mazdA worshippers (Geiger 1882: 176). The opposition between airiia :: tUra :: sairima :: sAina :: da^ongha[N.51] (Yt. 13.143-5) is remarkable, though all these tribes are already described as having  Zoroastrians among them.
 airiiana,m vaEjah, the first country in the list of Iranian countries (V.1) has usually been understood as the 'original' (northern, e.g. Choresmian) home of all airiia (a term indicating only the Eastern Iranians, Witzel 2000) However, this "best of all places and settlements" has ten winter months and only two cool summer months; such a description does not correspond to the hot summers of Choresmia etc., but refers to the climate of the mountain pastures with their numerous 'Aryan springs', that is central Afghanistan. This is an area right in the center of all the 'Iranian' lands of the Avesta, a region typical for transhumance pastoralism, which is nowadays inhabited, in part, by the Moghol descendants of the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. This so-called "homeland of the Aryans" thus occupies, for the Avesta, a central position: for the contemporary East Iranians it is the central xvaniratha region ('the one having particular pleasures of its own'), similar to that of madhyadeza, "the Middle Country" of Manu. airiiana,m vaEjah is certainly not located inside India (Misra 1992: 39, Elst 1999: 197 sq., Talageri 2000), nor does it have any bearing on the original home of all Iranians,[N.52] or even of the speakers of Indo-Iranian (Witzel 2000).
 

§10.  Acculturation: linguistic and cultural

 While there are some such vague reminiscences of an immigration and of older homelands, it must be underlined that even the earliest RV hymns clearly reflect South Asian realities, in other words, they were already composed in the Greater Panjab. However, they also include many non-Sanskritic words and names. There are those of non-Aryan ''foreigners'' (kIkaTa, pramaganda, etc.,) and demons (zambara, cumuri, etc.) but also those of noblemen and chiefs (balbUtha, bRbu) and occasionally of poets (kavaSa, kaNva, agastya, kazyapa). All these non-IA words do not have a Vedic or IE background (see below), something that can be determined by purely linguistic means; such words are neither possible in Vedic nor in IIr or Indo-European in general (Mayrhofer 1986:95,  Szemere'nyi 1970 : 90sqq.); this is a point almost universally neglected by the advocates of the autochthonous theory (§ 11 sqq).
 The appearance of such names among the groups belonging to the Indo-Aryans indicates, that arya/Arya does not mean a particular ''people'' or even a particular 'racial' group but all those who had joined the tribes speaking Vedic Sanskrit and adhering to their cultural norms (such as ritual, poetry, etc.)  -- as has been underlined for decades (Kuiper 1955, 1991, Southworth 1979, 1995, Thapar 1968, Witzel 1995).  The Others such as the kIkaTa (RV 3.53), who inhabit the greater Panjab together with the Arya, are even declared ''not to be fit to deal with cows.'' They form the amorphous group of the dasyu ''the foreigner, the enemy.'' While the Arya frequently fight among themselves, their main enemy are the dasyu who are portrayed in typical half-mythical fashion as ''foreign devils'' and  demons.
 In short, the Rgvedic evidence does not supports a clear-cut division between the various tribes/populations of  those originally external, non-South Asian (i.e. Indo-Aryan) and of autochthonous  nature, but it distinguishes between Arya and dasyu; it also does not allow for a happy co-existence (Kalyanaraman 1999) between speakers of Vedic IA (the 'cultural' Arya) and those who oppose them (kIkaTa, and the other dasyu). While it was a matter of (tribal) choice to which cultural group one belonged and which model of society and religion one followed, this choice had serious consequences for one's status and, ultimately, for the  cultural survival of one's group.
 This picture, clearly visible in the middle and later strata of the Rgveda (books 3, 7, 2, 8; 1, 10), is supported by the evidence from the older books (4-6). There must have been a long period of acculturation between the local population and the ''original'' immigrants speaking Indo-Aryan. Indeed, the bulk of the RV represents only some 5 generations of chieftains (and some 5 generations of  poets, Witzel 1987, 1995; Talageri's claims (2000) of some two thousand years of RV composition are fantastic, see Witzel 2001). These sets of five generations are rather late within the framework of the RV; the famous chieftain of the bharata, sudAs, is one of the latest mentioned. On the other hand, a number of tribal federations (anu-druhyu, yadu-turvaza, etc.) preceded that of the pUru and the bharata who were dominant in the middle RV period (Witzel 1995, 1997). It is during the long period of initial acculturation that some of the linguistic (and cultural) features (Kuiper 1991, 1955) of the early (pre-)Rgvedic period must have evolved. They include new grammatical formations such as the absolutives in -tvA, tvI (based on the archaic suffix -tu, as in gatvA)[N.53] and its correspondent form in -ya for verbs with preverbs (saM-gamya) (Kuiper 1967, Tikkanen 1987). This split in absolutive formation corresponds, e.g., to Dravidian verbal structure, but absolutives are not found in Iranian. Significantly, vasiSTha the self-proclaimed immigrant author of much of book 7, avoids them. The speakers of Indo-Aryan and the local population must therefore have interacted on a bilingual basis for a long period, before the composition of the present RV hymns with their highly hieratic, poetical speech (Kuiper 1991, and 2000).[N.54] An absolute date for this extended period can be inferred from the linguistic peculiarities of Mitanni-IA (c. 1400 BCE) that slightly predate those of the extant RV. Constant contact and bilingualism between speakers of OIA and of the local language(s) of the Greater Panjab produced such calques as the absolutives, or the use of iti, and perhaps even the rapid change to some Prakrit-like forms (jyotiS, muhur, etc., which have been disputed as such, see Kuiper 1991:2, 27 sqq., 79; 2000, aan de Wiel 2000).
   Local influence is indeed what the non-IE part of RV vocabulary suggests, by Kuiper's count some 380 words or about 3.8% of the vocabulary of the RV (Kuiper 1991, 1995: 261). Such local substrate words can easily be identified because of their isolation within the IE-derived IA vocabulary, i.e. they always do not have Iranian, Slavic, etc. counterparts. Frequently, their sounds and syllable structure are non-IE as well. This is a point so far completely neglected or simply derided,[N.55] even when the evidence stares into their faces, by the advocates of the autochthonous theory (with the --only very partial-- exception of Elst 1999, Talageri 1993, 2000).[N.56]
  Since the very concept of a substrate is often misunderstood (see the discussion by Bryant 1999), a brief characterization is in order (Witzel, forthc. b). Most words in early Vedic that do not conform to IE/IIr word structure (including sounds, root structure and word formation) and have no clear IE/IIr etymology must belong to a preceding language, a non-IA substrate; some of them, however, are loans from a neighboring non-IA language (adstrate, the favored position by those indigenists who recognize that they actually have a problem, see e.g. Lal 1997). It is, however,  important to underline that it is the factor of phonetic and grammatical structure that does not fit in these cases the IE/IIr/IA one of Vedic Sanskrit. Not just etymology (which may remain unsolvable in many cases[N.57] and is, in others, not even necessary),[N.58] but all the structural features are of equal importance here. [N.59]
 A word that superficially looks IE/IA, such as kosala, is simply disqualified linguistically by its -s- (pace the out of hand dismissal by Talageri 2000: 248, 299); or, words such as kInAza, kIkaTa, pramaganda, balbUtha, bRsaya can by no means be explained in terms of IE: (1) there are no IE/IA roots such as  kIn, kIk,[N.60] mag, balb, bRs as only roots of the format {(s)(C) (R) e (R) (C/s)} are allowed[N.61] and (2) the sound  b is very rare in IE;  (3) suffixes such as -A-z, -T, -an-d/-a-nd-, -bUth-/-bU-th- are not found in IE/IA; (4) only S (but not s) is allowed in Vedic after i,u,r,k.  In addition, these words do not have any cogent IE/IA etymologies.[N.62]
 The use of such formal, structural categories immediately allows to detect many words as being non-IE, and as originally non-IA. Just as for IE and IA, similar structural rules exist Drav. and for Munda. The basic Dravidian word structure (in the sequel @  = long or short vowel) is  (C)@(C), and suffixes have the structure:  -C, -C@, -CC@, -CCC@;  after a root -C the vowels -a-, -i-, or -u are inserted, thus   @C-a-C etc.,   C@C-a-C etc..;  and with base final -C-u,  C@C-a-C-u (Krishnamurti, forthc. 2001). While the present Munda word structure includes  (Pinnow 1959: 449 sqq.) C@C@, C@@C, C@C@, @CC@, @VV@C, C@CC@, C@CC@C, the oldest word structure was: (C)@(C), C@-C@C, C@C-C@*C, C@C-@C, C@C-C@*C-@C. Clearly, both Drav. and Munda words are frequently enough quite different from IE ones with: (prefix) + (C)(R)e(R)(C) + (suffix + ending). While Drav. and Munda share  C@C, C@C@C, Munda words can often be distinguished, as C@- in C@-C@c is a prefix, something that does not exist in Drav.; and while C@C@c may exist in IE/IA (even with a prefix C@-), normally, C@C- will be the IA root and -@C a suffix.
 A comparison of these data frequently allows to narrow down the origin of a word,[N.63] though this has not generally been done in practice (Witzel, forthc. b). IA etymologies are now discussed at a high level of sophistication, with a complete explanation of all of their constituent parts, of related roots and of suffixes employed. However, the  Dravidian dictionaries  DED/DEDR still consist only of lists of related words without further explanation; a Munda etymological dictionary still is only in the planning and collection stage, not to speak of Burushaski and other languages of the subcontinent.
 Instead, etymological discussions deal, by and large, with vague similarities of ancient Vedic, old Dravidian and modern Munda words which, to quote (pseudo-)Voltaire:  etymologies, "where consonants count little and vowels nothing." How complex it is to establish a proper etymology actually can be checked by taking a look at K. Hoffmann's and E. Tichy's 36 rules of procedure (Hoffmann 1992).
  In sum, there are clear and decisive rules in place that allow to narrow down, and in many instances even to determine the origin of Vedic words. Throwing up one's hands in post-modern despair (Bryant 1999), and certainly, the haughty, non-technical dismissal (Talageri 2000) are misguided.
 The range of the non-Indo-Aryan words of the RV is perhaps even more interesting than their number. They include names for local plants and animals,[N.64] and also a large number of terms for agriculture -- precisely those terms which are not expected in the vocabulary of the largely pastoralist Indo-Aryans who left the tedious job of the ploughman (kinAza) and farming in general (tilvila, phala, pippala, khala, lAGgala, etc.) to the local people. Instead, they preserved only a few general IE terms, such as yava 'barley, grain', kRS 'to scratch, plough', sA 'to sow', sItA 'furrow', sIra 'plough' (see however, EWA II 733 for the problematics of the root sA). Some local river names, always a very resistant part of the vocabulary,  were preserved as well.[N.65]
 In sum, an early wave of acculturation of the immigrant speakers of Old IA (Vedic) and the local population has seriously influenced even the IA poetic language and many other aspects of their traditional IIr. culture, religion and ritual. This ''Indianization'' of the Indo-Aryans began even before our extant RV texts (Kuiper 1967, 1991). A certain amount of codification of this process can be detected with the formulation, in the puruSa hymn (RV 10.90), of  the system of the four classes (varNa) instead of the more common IE three, which system has been called, by P. Mus,  ''the first constitution of India''.

 On the Iranian side, however, one has observed, so far, very little of linguistic and other acculturation (Skaervo 1995). It would indeed be surprising, how little O.Pers. and the other Iranian languages seem to have been affected by the preceding (substrate) languages of great cultures such as those of the BMAC area,  Shahr-i Sokhta, Mundigak, Yahya Tepe and Elam, all of which amounts to nothing that would be comparable to the influx of Dravidian, Munda or other local words into Rgvedic Sanskrit. However, this is an erroneous impression, due to the surprising neglect by Iranists of etymological studies of Old Iranian (not to speak of Middle Iranian where we even do not have comprehensive dictionaries). There are, indeed, quite a number of words that are foreign even in Indo-Iranian (Witzel 1995, 1999 a,b, Lubotsky, forthc.)[N.66] and there is a host of unstudied Iranian words taken from the various local substrates (Witzel 1999 a,b, forthc. b).
 While we can observe the changes common to all Iranian languages (s > h,  p, t, k + consonant  > f, th, x + cons.,  etc.), even Y. Avestan often seems quite archaic, both in grammar and also in vocabulary, while Vedic seems to have progressed much more, towards Epic and Classical Sanskrit (loss of injunctive, moods of the perfect, aorist etc.). Iranian, for whatever reasons and in spite of the influx of local words, simply was less affected by the substrate than Vedic Sanskrit. This feature is of extreme importance in evaluating the linguistic materials that speak for the immigration of speakers of Old Indo-Aryan into the subcontinent.
 

 While the intrusive traits of Indo-Aryan language, poetics, large parts of IA religion, ritual and some aspects  of IA material culture are transparent, the obvious continuity of local cultures in South Asia, as seen in archaeology,  is another matter.  Yet, the question to be asked,  is: how much of the culture of semi-sedentary tribes on the move (Scythians, Huns, Turks, Mongols) would indeed be visible in the archaeological record? The remnants of the Huns, for example, have been found only recently in some Hungarian graves; otherwise we would only know about them from the extensive literary and historical record. To put it facetiously, the Huns have been in Europe only for some 20 years.[N.67]  Secondly, the constantly shifting river courses in the Panjab may have obscured many of the shallow remnants of the Indo-Aryan settlements: temporary, rather rickety resting places (armaka, Rau 1983), not big brick buildings.
 Thirdly, the Indo-Aryans are known, from their own texts, to employ the services of the local populations for agriculture (RV, Kuiper 1955, 1991; for washing (Witzel 1986), and especially for pottery (Rau 1983): only sacred vessels are made by Brahmins in the most archaic fashion, without the use of a wheel (as is still done in the Hindukush!) Such Vedic pottery, always executed in the same traditional manner, is therefore undatable simply by style, even if found. Everyday vessels, on the other hand, were made by low class (zUdra) workmen (see below § 24). Continuity of local styles thus is to be expected a priori. However, when traditional style pottery with traditional paintings, such as in the early post-Indus Cemetery H culture, appears together with a new burial style, that is cremation or exposition and subsequent deposition of the bones in urns, and with a new motif painted on them, i.e. a small human, a 'soul',  drawn inside a traditionally painted peacock, then all of this draws our attention. The bird-soul motif seems to reflect Vedic beliefs about the souls of the ancestors moving about in the form of birds (Vats 1940, Witzel 1984, Falk 1986). While this assemblage seems to indicate early acculturation, more data would be necessary in order to turn the still little known Cemetery H culture in Harappa and Cholistan into one that would definitely reflect Indo-Aryan presence.
  Presence of Indo-Aryan speakers would rather be indicated by the introduction of their specialty, the horse drawn chariots with spoked wheels, horse furnishings, etc. When such items are found, there is a good chance that this represents Indo-Aryans, but alternative scenarios cannot be excluded: tribes that were influenced and/or pushed forward in front of them, such as the Mitanni and Kassites in Mesopotamia and the Hyksos in Egypt; or, simply, neighboring local tribes that early on adopted Indo-Aryan material culture.
 Ideally, an ''Aryan'' archaeological site would include the remnants of horses and chariots, horse furnishings, a Vedic ritual site with three fire places nearby (preferably west of a river), a rather primitive settlement pattern with bamboo huts, implements made of stone and copper (bronze), some gold and silver ornaments,  but with local pottery, evidence of food that includes barley, milk products, meat of cattle, sheep and goat, and of some wild animals. However,  this particular archaeological set (or part of it) has not yet been discovered, unless we think of the Swat Valley finds,  c. 1400 BCE. Swat is an area known in the RV 8.19.37 as Indo-Aryan territory, suvAstu ''good ground,'' however, with sponsors of sacrifice that bear strange names: vayiyu, prayiyu.[N.68]
 In sum, we have to look out for a 'Leitfosssil', clear indicators of Indo-Aryan culture such as the chariot and Vedic ritual sites. The obvious continuity of pottery styles, taken alone,  tells little. Some archaeologists such as Shaffer simply restrict themselves to report the findings of archaeology and intentionally neglect all the linguistic and spiritual data of the texts; in fact, some denounce them as 'linguistic tyranny' (Shaffer 1984). While this procedure may be perfectly in order for someone who simply wants to do archaeology, this approach is not sufficient to approach the early history of the subcontinent. All aspects of material and spiritual culture, of linguistics as well as genetics, have to be taken into account.

 Advocates of the autochthonous theory, however,  also maintain that there is not any evidence of demographic discontinuity in archaeological remains during the period from 4500 to 800 BCE,[N.69] and that an influx of foreign populations is not visible in the archaeological record. The remnants of the Harappans, the Harappan Cemetery H people etc., all are physically very close to each other, while the people of Mohenjo Daro stand somewhat apart. In other words: 'Aryan bones' have not been found. (Kennedy 1995, 2000,  cf. Meadow 1991, 1997,1998).
 The revisionists and indigenists overlook, however, that such refutations of an immigration by 'racially' determined Indo-Aryans still depend on the old, 19th century  idea of a massive invasion of outsiders who would have left a definite mark on the genetic set-up of the local Panjab population. In fact, we do not presently know how large this particular influx of linguistically attested outsiders was. It can have been relatively small, if we apply Ehret's model (1988, derived from Africa, cf. Diakonoff 1985) which stresses the osmosis (or a 'billiard ball', or Mallory's Kulturkugel) effect of cultural transmission.
 Ehret (1988) underlines the relative ease with which ethnicity and language shift in small societies, due to the cultural/economic/military choices made by the local population in question. The intruding/influencing group bringing new traits may initially be small and the features it contributes can be fewer in number than those of the pre-existing local culture. The newly formed, combined ethnic group may then initiate a recurrent, expansionist process of ethnic and language shift. The material record of such shifts is visible only insofar as new prestige equipment or animals (the "status kit", with new, intrusive vocabulary!) are concerned. This is especially so if pottery -- normally culture-specific -- continues to be made by local specialists of a class-based society.
 Similarly, Anthony (1995): "Language shift can be understood  best as a social strategy through which individuals and groups compete for positions of prestige, power, and domestic security... What is   important, then, is not just dominance, but vertical social mobility and a linkage between language and access to positions of prestige and power... A relatively small immigrant elite population can encourage widespread language shift among numerically   dominant indigenes in a non-state or pre-state context if the elite employs a specific combination of encouragements and punishments. Ethnohistorical cases ... demonstrate that small elite groups have successfully imposed their languages in non-state situations."
 Furthermore, even when direct evidence for immigration and concurrent language takeover is absent, the texts often allow such deductions, as has been well articulated by W. von Soden (1985: 12, my transl.) with regard to the much better known history of Mesopotamia: "The study of languages and the comparison of language provide better possibilities for conclusions with regard to migrations in prehistoric times. New languages never are successful without the immigration of another group of people [different from the local one]. Influences of [such] other languages can be determined in vocabulary and certain grammatical formations. The older languages of an area, even when they are no longer spoken, continue to influence the younger languages as substrates, not in the least in their sound system; new, dominant classes influence the language of the conquered as superstrates in many ways. In the early period, the influences of substrates and superstrates are always discernible only to a certain degree."
 Similar things could be said about Ancient Greece, but that would lead to far here. As will be seen below, the three descriptions given just now fit the Indus/Vedic evidence perfectly.

 

THE AUTOCHTHONOUS ARYAN THEORY

 The preceding sketch presupposes that groups speaking Old IA (Vedic) were an intrusive element in the North-West of the subcontinent. Since language is of crucial importance for this argument, it needs to be addressed here in great detail. However, the revisionists and autochthonists have almost completely overlooked this type of evidence, or they have outrightly denied it. Recently, some have begun to pay attention (see discussion by Bryant 1999, cf. also Elst 1999), however, still in an unprofessional manner (Talageri 1993, 2000).[N.70] Unfortunately, this was in large measure even true for the apparently lone Indo-European scholar in India, S.S. Misra[N.71] (1992).
 Any immigration scenario is strenuously denied by two groups of Indian scholars: first, the revisionists, who genuinely try to reconsider the writing of ancient Indian history which they believe was very much the creation of 19th century British political ideology, and second, the autochthonists who try to show (or who simply believe in) an indigenous origin of the 'Aryans' in the subcontinent. Of course, one can find various combinations of these two strands in any person's writing (see Bryant 1999).[N.72]
 The theories of advocates of an autochthonous origin of the Indo-Aryans (always  called "Aryans") range from (1) a mild version, insisting on the origin of the Rgvedic Indo-Aryans in the Panjab, the ''autochthonous'' or indigenous school (Aurobindo, Waradpande 1993, S. Kak 1994a, etc., see Elst 1999: 119, Talageri 2000: 406 sqq, Lal 1997: 281 sqq.), (2) a  more  stringent  but increasingly popular ''Out  of India'' school (S.S. Misra, Talageri, Frawley, Elst, etc.) which views the Iranians and even all Indo-Europeans emigrating from the Panjab, to the (3) most intense version, which has all languages of the world  derived from Sanskrit: the ''devabhASA school'', which is mostly -but not solely-  restricted to traditional Pandits.[N.73] (For summaries see Hock 1999, Talageri 2000.)
 In these views,[N.74] though often for quite different reasons, any immigration or trickling in (nearly always called ''invasion'') of the (Indo-)Aryans into the subcontinent is suspect or simply denied: The Arya of the RV are supposed  to be just another tribe or group of tribes that always have been resident in India, next to the Dravidians, Mundas, etc. The theory of an immigration of IA speaking Arya (''Aryan invasion'') is seen as a means of British policy to justify their own intrusion into India and their subsequent colonial rule: in both cases, a 'white race' was seen as subduing the local darker-colored population.
 The irony of this line of reasoning is that the British themselves have been subject to numerous IE immigrations and invasions (Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Danish, and Normans -- and now Caribbeans and South Asians). Even more ironically, there is a strong non-Indo-European substratum in English which has left such common words as sheep.[N.75] The "Proto-Anglo-Saxons", and in fact all of Europe, have been subject to the same kind of Indo-European "invasions". Europeans and Indians alike could thus complain, for example with M. Gimbutas (1991, 1994), about the domination of a "peaceful matriarchal agricultural community" by half-barbaric, patriarchal, semi-nomadic and warlike invaders. However, this is not an issue in Europe (e.g., my own, predominantly  Basque genes do not protest loudly against having been subjected to an IE language and culture several millennia ago), while religious and nationalistic attitudes in India have made such "invasions" the issue in recent years. European Indologists, and American or Japanese even less, do not have an axe to grind, here and now. Even less so, after the recent genetic discoveries that link all present humans to a fairly recent origin and all non-Africans to an even more recent emigration by some 10,000 people Out of Africa, 50,000 years ago: the problem of an "Aryan invasion" into India is as relevant or irrelevant to Indologists as a Bantu "invasion" of central, east and southern Africa, or an Austronesian immigration into the Pacific or a Na-Dene one into North America.

§ 11.1. Procedure

 Like all scientific theories, however, the theory of an immigration into South Asia by speakers of IA has to be constantly and thoroughly (re-)investigated, and it has to be established whether (all) aspects of it and/or the theory itself are correct or not. But this must be done on the basis of  hard facts, not, due to a dislike of earlier historical writing, by a selective use of or by twisting of facts, or simply by sophistic argumentation (see below, on current use of long-refuted propositions). It also has to be done independently both from the present climate in India, and from the present western post-modern/deconstructionist fashion of seeing political motives behind all texts; both attitudes are not conducive in this kind of investigation.
 Scholars of the 19th/20 cent. obviously did not have the present discussion in mind when they wrote.  The best ones among them may have come to certain conclusions quite independently of their 'ideological' background. At any rate, the better scholars of the 19th century were not colonialists or racists. They all were, however, limited to some extent by the general zeitgeist of the period, but so are present day scholars. We, too, must constantly strive to overcome this bias (Witzel 1999d), and we also must not to follow one current trend or momentary fashion after another. We can only approach a solution by patiently investigating the pros and contras of the various points that have been made -- or still are to be made. Scholarship is an ongoing dialectical process.
 One should avoid, therefore, to revert to long-refuted propositions. Natural scientists, other than historians, do not seriously discuss pre-Copernican or pre-Darwinian systems any longer. In the subsequent sections, all too frequently old and long given up positions are brought up and juxtaposed to recent ones in order to show 'contradictions' in what is called 'the western approach'. This is improper procedure. In the same way, one should also not confound the autochthonous theories of the past two centuries (Dayanand Sarasvati, etc.) with the present wave of indigenism, and one cannot, therefore, accuse the present autochthonous and 'Out of India' movement for contradictions with the older position of Tilak of an original Arctic home of the Aryans, (even though it has been repeated quite recently in Ganapati's SV-translation (1982) where the 'Aryans' are portrayed as having lived "on the Polar circle").
 In the natural sciences and in scholarship at large, old conclusions are constantly reviewed on the basis of new evidence. But such new evidence has to fit in with the general framework established by the many, completely unrelated observations in the various branches of scholarship; otherwise a particular theory is revised or discarded. For example, when certain irregularities in the course of the planets were noticed, it did not mean that post-Renaissance astronomy was wrong but that this observation was due to the mass of another planet, Pluto, that was correctly predicted and, then, actually discovered in the early 20th century. But, the opposite procedure, deducing a "paradigm shift" based on isolated facts, is quite common in the contemporary effort to rewrite Indian (pre-)history.
 Unfortunately, thus, the subsequent discussion is studded with examples that explain away older theories and even hard scientific facts with the help of new, auxiliary, ad hoc assumptions. All of which are then used  to insist that we are due for a "paradigm shift". Consequently, it will unfortunately take much more space even to merely describe and then to evaluate the arguments of the autochthonous school(s) than to describe the older, general consensus. All too frequently, we have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak,  and have to restate, and sometimes even to prove, well-known and well-tested principles and facts: this includes those of comparative linguistics (summaries by Hock 1986, Anttila 1989, Szemere'nyi 1970, 1996, Beekes 1995), comparative epic studies (Parry 1930, 1971, Lord 1991), of S. Asian archaeology (Allchin 1995, Kenoyer 1998, Possehl 1999), Indus epigraphy (Possehl 1996), of zoology and botany (Meadow 1997,1998), or the evidence contained in the texts, as established by philology over the past two centuries (Witzel 1997).

§ 11.2. Evidence

 For the subsequent discussion, is also very important that each single item be scrutinized well before it is brought forward.  At present, we can observe a cult of 'science' in India, --I have even  seen 'scientific tax forms.'  However, this is part of an inclusivistic belief system that  encapsulates, in facile fashion, older mythical and religious ideas (Witzel 1986, 1992, 1998). Further, in spite of the stress on the 'hard sciences', all too frequently 'scientific facts' are quoted which, on closer observation, are not hard facts at all. For example, an unsuspecting reader may take for granted that  "LANDSAT photos show the drying up of the sarasvatI river in 1900 BCE" (Kak 1994, cf. S.P. Gupta 1995). But LANDSAT or aerial photos cannot by themselves indicate historical dates. (For an update, with much more cautious claims by scientists, see now Radhakrishnan and Merh 1999). Or, some selected linguistic data, such as a supposed (but demonstrably wrong!) change from an older azva- 'horse' (as in Skt.) to Latin equu-s (S.S. Misra 1992), are used to indicate an Iranian and IE emigration from India. This does not only contradict standard (IE and non-IE) linguistic knowledge (see now Hock 1999). It also neglects a whole range of further  contradictory evidence, e.g. the host of local, non-IA loan words in Vedic Skt. that are missing in the supposedly 'emigrating' languages such as Iranian, Slavic, etc. (Witzel 1999 a,b; for details, below § 13 sqq.)
 Other inconsistencies derive from the evidence of the texts. If the RV is to be located in the Panjab, and supposedly to be dated well before the supposed 1900 BCE drying up of the sarasvatI, at 4-5000 BCE (Kak 1994, Misra 1992), the text should not contain evidence of the domesticated horse (not found in the subcontinent before c. 1700 BCE, see Meadow 1997,1998, Anreiter 1998: 675 sqq.), of the horse drawn chariot (developed only about 2000 BCE in S. Russia, Anthony and Vinogradov 1995, or Mesopotamia), of well developed copper/bronze technology, etc. If the brAhmaNas are supposedly to be dated about 1900 BCE (Kak 1994), they should not contain evidence of the use of iron which makes it appearance in India only at the end of the millennium, about 1200 BCE at the earliest (Chakrabarti 1979, 1992, see now Possehl-Gullapalli 1999 for a much later date of c. 1000/900 BCE). The list could be prolonged, and some of these items will be discussed below (§ 11 sqq.)

§ 11.3. Proof

 In short, the facts adduced from the various sciences that have been operating independently from each other and independently  from the present 'Aryan' question -- in most cases actually without any knowledge of the Aryan discussion, -- must match, before a certain theory can be accepted. If the linguistic, textual, archaeological, anthropological, geological, etc. facts contradict each other, the theory is in serious difficulty. All exceptions have to be explained, and well within plausible range; if they cannot, the theory does not hold. It never is proper working procedure that such inconsistencies are explained away by ad hoc assumptions and new theories, in other words, by special pleading. Occam's razor applies. We can no longer maintain, for example, that the earth is flat and then explain away the evidence of aerial or space photos by assuming, e.g., some effect of light refraction in the upper strata of the atmosphere, or worse, by using one conspiracy theory or the other.

§ 11.4.  The term "invasion"

 To begin, in any discussion of the 'Aryan problem', one has to stress vehemently that the ''invasion model'' which was still prominent in the work of archaeologists such as Wheeler (1966: "Indra stands accused"), has been supplanted by much more sophisticated models[N.76] over the past few decades (see Kuiper 1955 sqq., Witzel 1995, Thapar 1968). It must also be underlined that this development has not occurred because Indologists were reacting, as is now frequently alleged, to current Indian criticism of the older theory.[N.77] Rather, philologists first, and archaeologists somewhat later, noticed certain inconsistencies in the older theory and tried to find new explanations, thereby discovering new facts and proposing a new version of the immigration theories.
 For some decades already, linguists and philologists such as Kuiper 1955, 1991, Emeneau 1956, Southworth 1979, archaeologists such as Allchin 1982, 1995, and historians such as R. Thapar 1968, have maintained that the Indo-Aryans and the older local inhabitants ('Dravidians', 'Mundas', etc.) have mutually interacted from early on, that many of them were in fact frequently bilingual, and that even the RV already bears witness to that. They also think, whether explicitly following Ehret's model (1988, cf. Diakonoff 1985) or not, of smaller infiltrating groups (Witzel 1989: 249, 1995, Allchin 1995), not of mass migrations or military invasions. However, linguists and philologists still maintain, and for good reasons, that some IA speaking groups actually entered from the outside, via some of the (north)western corridors of the subcontinent.
 The autochthonous theory, however, maintains that there has not been any influx at all, of Indo-Aryans or of other people from outside, conveniently forgetting that most humans have emigrated out of Africa only 50,000 years ago. On the contrary, some of its adherents simply reverse the 'colonial' invasion theory, with post-colonial one-up-manship, as an emigration from India (the 'Out of India Theory, OIT). Its advocates like to utilize some of the arguments of current archaeology, for example those of J. Shaffer (1984, 1995, 1999). He stresses indigenous cultural continuity from c. 7000 BCE well into the semi-historic times of the first millennium, as is evident according to  the present state of  archaeology. Consequently, he protests the ''linguistic tyranny'' of earlier models. This  is a much too narrow, purely archaeological view that neglects many other aspects, such as all of spiritual and some of material culture, but it is grist on the mills of the autochthonists.
 To get, finally, to some concrete, be it necessarily often torturous, detail: opponents of the theory of an IA immigration or trickling in, whether revisionists, indigenists, or OIT adherents must especially explain the following linguistic, textual, archaeological, geographical, astronomical, and other scientific  data  (§12-31) to become credible.

§ 11.5. Linguistics

 As has been mentioned above, linguistic data have generally been neglected by advocates of the autochthonous theory. The only exception so far is a thin book by the Indian linguist S.S. Misra (1992) which bristles with inaccuracies and mistakes (see below) and some, though incomplete discussion by Elst (1999).[N.78] Others such as Rajaram (1995: 144, 217) or Waradpande (1993), though completely lacking linguistic expertise, simply reject linguistics as "pseudo-science" with "none of the checks and balances of a real science". They simply overlook the fact that a good theory predicts, as has occurred in IE linguistics several times (i.e., in predicting pre-Greek *kw or the IE laryngeals, see below  §12.1). On the other hand one may still consult, with profit, the solid discussion of early Sanskrit by Bh. Ghosh (1937).
 The linguistic evidence, available since the earliest forms of Sanskrit (Rgvedic OIA), is crucial, as the materials transmitted by language obviously point to the culture of its speakers and also to their original and subsequent physical surroundings. Language has, just as history, its own 'archaeology'; the various subsequent historical 'layers' of a particular language can be uncovered when painstakingly using well-developed linguistic procedures.
 Language study, however, is not something  that can be carried out by amateurs, even though a 'everyone can do' attitude is widespread. This is especially pervasive when it comes to etymology and the (often assumed) origin and the (frequently lacking) history of  individual words. Here, total amateurism is the rule. "Oakish" etymologies, such as  England from aGguli 'finger', or abAd from bath (Gupt@ 1990) have a long tradition both in occidental as well as in Indian culture. Plato's Kratylos propounds the same kind of unscientific explanations as yAska does in his nirukta. This has been tradition ever since the brAhmaNa texts (rudra from rud 'to cry', putra from the nonexistent word  *put 'hell', bhairava from bhI+rav+vam, etc.) A look into any recent or contemporary book on Indian history or literature will bring to light many examples: Assyria from asura, Syria from sura, Phoenicians from paNi, Hittites (Khet) from kaTha, Mitanni from maitrAyaNIya, etc. (Bhagavad Datta repr. 1974, Surya Kanta 1943, Gupt@ 1990, etc.).
 In the South Asian context, cross-family comparison (Dravidian and IA, IA and Arabic, etc.) is especially widespread and usually completely wrong, as such comparisons are simply based on overt similarities between words. In comparative linguistics, however, it is not similarity that counts but the regularity of (albeit outwardly, non-intuitive) sound correspondences, for example Vedic zv in azva 'horse' : Avest. -sp- : O.Pers. -s- :  Lith. -sw-,  Latin -qu- [kw] : Gothic -hv- OHG -h-, O.Irish -ch-, Gaul. -p-,  Toch. -k/kw- < IE *k'w, an equation repeated in many other words; or, to quote one of the most hackneyed, non-intuitive examples: the correct equation, sound by sound, of Skt. dvA(u), Latin duo  = Armenian  erku  < IE  *dwO(u).
 Since language and (the necessarily closely connected) spiritual culture are crucial for any theory of an influx of speakers of OIA into the subcontinent --whatever form this influx might have taken initially--  the linguistic evidence will be dealt with in detail in the following sections. Unfortunately, since the linguistic ideas and 'arguments' of the autochthonists are far off the accepted norms and procedures, a discussion of their proposals and beliefs does not only take up much space but must be convoluted and torturous; in addition, it must be, in its very nature, often very technical. (The non-linguistically inclined reader may therefore prefer to jump to the concluding sections of
§18).
 

§12. Vedic, Iranian and Indo-European

 It is undeniable and has indeed hardly been denied even by most stalwart advocates of the autochthonous theory, that Vedic Sanskrit is closely related to Old Iranian and the other IE languages.[N.79] However, this relationship is explained in a manner markedly differing from the standard IE theories, that is by an emigration westwards of the Iranians and the other Indo-Europeans from the Panjab (see below).
 Vedic Sanskrit is indeed so closely  related to Old Iranian that both often look more like two dialects than two separate languages (e.g.  tam mitram yajAmahe : t@m mithr@m yazamaide 'we worship Mitra'). Any Avestan speaker staying for a few weeks in the Panjab would have been able to speak Vedic well and --with some more difficulty - vice versa. However, that does not necessitate at all that the Old Iranian dialects were introduced to into Iran from the east, from India, as the autochthonist would have it. As will be seen below (§ 12 sqq.), there are a number of features of Old Iranian (such as lack of typical South Asian substrate words, § 13 sqq.) which actually exclude an Indian origin. Such data have not been discussed yet by the autochthonists.

 The comparison of the many common features found in Vedic Indo-Aryan and Old Iranian have led to the reconstruction of a common 'mother' tongue, Indo-Iranian, spoken (at least) around 2000 BCE, by a group of people that shared a common spiritual and material culture (see § 4-5). Beyond that, the comparison of Indo-Iranian and other IE languages has allowed similar reconstructions for all IE languages from Iceland and Ireland to Xinjiang (Tocharian) and  from the Baltic Sea (Lithuanian etc.) to Turkey (Hittite) and the Panjab (Vedic IA). This theory was first developed in the early 19th century and has been tested extensively. If there were still need of proof, one may point to the many predictions the theory has made, especially after its more developed form had emerged, about 1870 CE, with the establishment of regular sound correspondences (Lautgesetze) by the Leipzig Junggrammatiker school. Such cases include the rather old prediction of early Greek/pre-Greek *kw which was  discovered in writing when Mycenean Greek was deciphered in 1952, or the prediction by the young F. de Saussure more than a century ago (1879), of a set of unknown sounds. These were later called laryngeals (h1, h2, h3). They have disappeared in all known IE languages but have affected their surroundings in typical, to a large extent even then predictable ways. When Hittite finally was read in 1916, h2 was still found written (in words such as peHur = Gk. pUr = Engl. fire).
 Yet, some revisionists and indigenists even call into question the theories and well-tested methods of comparative linguistics. Some of them clearly do so because of a considerable lack of understanding of the principles at work (Waradpande 1989, Kak 1994a, Talageri 2000, etc.; discussion in Bryant 1999, cf. Elst 1999). In addition, they make use of the expected scholarly differences of opinion between linguists to show the whole "theory of (IE) linguistics" does not work or is an "unproved theory" (Rajaram 1995: 144, 217), thereby neglecting such well known facts as: (a) that any science progresses and that certain opinions of the 19th cent. cannot be juxtaposed to those of the 20th,  and (b) that in any contemporary field of science[N.80] there is a certain range of generally agreed facts but also a certain range of difference of opinion, such as between traditionalists, radical skeptics,[N.81] and those proposing new solutions to old or recently noticed problems. In short, there always are conflicting interpretations of the materials at hand that are discussed in dialectical fashion. Some interpretations are merely possible, others probable, and still others have actually been proved and have subsequently been shown to be correct. In present day genetics, for example, some still hold that the recently developed theory of an origin of all humans from one or from a small group of African ancestors is not valid as it involves misinterpretation of statistical data and the wrong type of computer models. However, nobody has claimed that genetic investigation as such is invalid, as has been done with regard to comparative linguistics by autochthonists on and off, or  who  say that it remains an 'unproved theory at best'. Unfortunately for this view, historical linguistics, just like any good science, has made a number of predictions that later on, with the discovery of new materials, have been shown to be correct (see above).
 

§ 12.1.  The Misra case

 Worse, the recent book of an Indian  linguist, S.S. Misra (1992), is even a step back beyond what is demonstrable and, strangely for a linguist, often beyond the hard facts, i.e. his denial of PIE laryngeals as precursors of the actually written Hittite laryngeal sounds (Misra 1974, 1992). He simply rewrites, on an ad hoc basis, much of IE (and general) linguistics. The discussion and explanation of his examples (e.g., his supposed IE *z > k', *a > e, o, a etc.) would have to be quite technical and is not pursued here in detail. (It has now been discussed by Hock, 1999). It is however, obvious even to an uninitiated observer that forms such as Skt. cakAra (instead of *kakAra) must rely on the palatalizing effect of an e-like sound  in ca-; cf. the Romance development from c [k] as seen in old loan-words, German Kaiser, Greek  kaisar (whence Urdu kaisar), to Romance  c [ts'], as seen in Ital. Cesare or even to [s] as in  Engl. Cesar;  cf. also the separate development Vulgar Latin caballus 'horse' > French cheval, etc., again before -e-. These changes are a feature known from many languages. Why should it only have been different for pre-Rgvedic (and pre-Old Iranian, in other worlds, for Indo-Iranian) as Misra maintains? A case of special pleading.
 The whole matter of Misra's IE reconstructions has been discussed adequately by H.H. Hock (1999) and there is no need to go into further details here. In  sum, Misra's ad hoc rules do not make for a new system,[N.82] they are, in fact, a throwback, a regression to the early stages of IE comparative linguistics when strict rules of sound correspondences (Lautgesetze) had not yet been established by the Leipzig Junggrammnatiker School of c. 1870.
  His dating of the RV, based on this "new" reconstruction, simply rests on the similarity of his "early 19th cent." Proto-IE (looking altogether like Sanskrit) with reconstructed Proto-Finno-Ugric (Uralic) forms,  for which he accepts the guess of Uralic linguists, a date of 5000 BCE. That guess is not any better than the various guesses for PIE, at 3000 or 4500 BCE. Misra's whole system rests on guesswork and on demonstrably faulty reconstructions.
  It simply is uncontested among linguists of any persuasion that the remarkable grammatically regular features of Proto-IE (underlying, e.g., the differences in the present tense formation of Sanskrit, German, French asti, ist, est :: santi, sind, sont, < IE *h1e's-ti :: *h1s-o'nti) are part and parcel of the parent language, the original PIE. This was at first confined to an unknown area in a temperate (not a tropical!) climate.[N.83]  This scenario is in stark contrast to the certainty with which autochthonist place the homeland of IE inside South Asia or even inside certain parts of India (Misra 1992), even more precisely in the Gangetic basin (Talageri 1993, 2000),  not exactly unexpectedly,[N.84] in their own home land, India. (For this familiar 'principle' used in deciding the Urheimat, see Witzel 2000, and below).
  On the other hand, the autochthonous school maintains that the very assumptions at the basis of the genealogical, family tree model of the Indo-European language family, deride it (cf. Elst 1999: 119, see discussion by Bryant 1999), or contest it just for the Indian linguistic area (see below). This is quite old news: various models have been proposed and tested for the development from Proto-Indo-European to the individual languages: the ''family tree'' model (A. Schleicher's Stammbaumtheorie, 1861-2), a theory of dialectal waves of innovation emanating from a certain center (Joh. Schmidt's Wellentheorie, 1872). Further, socio-linguistic theories include the development of Proto-Indo-European as a sort of camp  language (another Urdu, so to speak), a new Pidgin, based on diverse original languages that eventually spread beyond its own rather limited boundaries, for example with the introduction of horse-based pastoralism (Anthony and Vinogradov 1995, Kuz'mina 1994, etc.).
 Some advocates of the autochthonous theory (Kak 1994, Talageri 1993, 2000, Elst 1999: 159) use rather simplistic linguistic models, such as the suggestion that population increase, trade, the emergence of agriculture,[N.85] and large-scale political integration led to the extinction of certain languages and to a transfer of other languages across ethnic groups. However, all such factors have been considered over the past two hundred years or so; none of them, in isolation, nor a combination of all of them, lead to the surprising spread of Indo-European languages inside and outside the subcontinent. In fact, most of the factors just mentioned were not present during the early Vedic period which saw the introduction and spread of IA all over the Greater Panjab.
 Autochthonists further neglect that language replacement, such as visible during the Vedic period, depends on a range of various socio-linguistic factors and not simply on the presence of nomads, increasing population density, etc. Rather, the situation differs from case to case, and the important factors for any particular replacement must be demonstrated. For example, Renfrew's (1987) model of a very gradual spread of IE from Anatolia, along with agriculture, has not generally been accepted. If this agriculturally induced spread had taken place, I would be writing this paper in a descendent language of the non-IE Hattic of Turkey, and not in IE English. In the case of early India, the change from the language(s) of the urbanized Indus civilization to that of the pastoralist Indo-Aryans must be explained. It certainly cannot be done (see below) by positioning the homeland of the 'non-tropical' IE language inside India (Talageri 1993, 2000, Elst 1999: 118 sqq.) and make its speakers emigrate, across the Indus area, towards Iran and  Europe.

§12.2  Language and 'Out of India' theories

 Theoretically, a scenario of IE emigration from the Panjab is of course possible, --- the direction of the spread of languages and linguistic innovations cannot easily be determined, unless we have written materials (preferably inscriptions). However, some linguistic observations such as the distribution of languages, dialect features, substrate languages, linguistic palaeontology, etc. allow to argue against the  Out of India scenarios.
 The Out of India theorists such as  Elst (1999:122, 124 etc.), Talageri (1993, 2000) envision an IE homeland in South Asia, to be more precise, in the Gangetic basin. Talageri simply assumes, without any linguistic (or archaeological, palaeontological) sources and proof,  that in "prehistoric times  the distribution of the languages in India may have been roughly the same as it is today: viz. the Dravidian languages being spoken in the south, Austric in the east, the Andamanese languages in the Andaman Islands, the Burushaski language in N. Kashmir, Sino-Tibetan languages in the Himalayan and far eastern border areas, and the Indo-European languages certainly in more or less their present habitat in most of northern India" (1993: 407).  The rest follows logically: ..."a major part of the Indo-Europeans of southeastern Uttar Pradesh migrated to the west and settled down in the northwestern areas --- Punjab, Kashmir and the further north-west, where they differentiated into three groups: the pÒrus (in the Punjab), the anus (in Kashmir) and the druhyus (in northwestern and Afghanistan)", (cf. Talageri 1993: 196, 212, 334, 344-5, 2000: 328, 263).[N.86] Of course, all of this is based on data about peoples "clearly mentioned and described in the Puranas." Needless to say, this kind of writing prehistory smacks of early 19th cent. writing of early European and Near Eastern  history  according to the Bible and Herodotos, before the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts could be read. It  is based on a naive reliance on texts that were composed millennia after the facts, and that are the product of a lively Bardic tradition (L. Rocher 1986, Brockington 1998, Parry 1971, Lord 1991), influenced by Brahmanical redactors (Soehnen 1986, Horsch 1966). In spite of what Pargiter (1913) and even Morton Smith (1973) have tried to establish --obviously, without taking the later investigations into account-- we cannot write the history of archaic and ancient India based on the legendary and late Epic and Puranic accounts of the middle ages (Witzel 1990, 1995, 2001).
 Talageri (1993: 407) continues his Puranic tale as follows: "...  major sections of anus ... developed into the various Iranian cultures. The druhyus spread out into Europe in two installments." He actually knows, somehow, which IE group moved first and which later, and by which route: "the speakers of the proto-Germanic dialect first migrated northwards and then westwards, and then later the speakers of the proto-Hellenic and proto-Italo-Celtic dialects moved into Europe by a different, more southern, route. It is possible that the speakers of proto-Baltic and proto-Slavonic (or proto-Balto-Slavonic) ... of proto-Illyrian and proto-Thraco-Phrygian ... were anus and not druhyus, the anus and druhyus thus being, respectively, the speakers of proto- Satem and proto-Kentum." (1993:407-8)
 Or slightly differently (2000: 263): "The two emigrations ...  from an original homeland in India:  ...  The first series of migrations, of the druhyus, took place.... with major sections of druhyus migrating northwards from Afghanistan into Central Asia in different waves.  From Central Asia many druhyu tribes, in the course of time, migrated westwards, reaching as far as western Europe. These migrations must have included the ancestors of the following branches...  a. Hittite. b. Tocharian. c. Italic. d. Celtic. e. Germanic. f. Baltic. g. Slavonic.
 .... The second series of migrations of anus and druhyus, took place much later, in the Early Period of the Rigveda, with various tribes migrating westwards from the Punjab into Afghanistan, many later on migrating further westwards as far as West Asia and southwestern Europe. These migrations must have included the ancestors of the following branches (which are mentioned in the dAzrAjJa battle hymns): a. Iranian. b. Thraco-Phrygian (Armenian). c. Illyrian (Albanian).  d. Hellenic."
 The strange or outdated terminology (Slavonic, etc. --his source may be Misra's diction, see below--  Italo-Celtic, Kentum) indicates the limited linguistic background of the author sufficiently enough. Nevertheless, we also can learn of the solution to the long-standing enigma of the Indus language (Parpola 1994, Witzel 1999 a,b): "The Indus Valley culture was a mixed culture of purus and anus" (1993: 408). Nothing less, perhaps, could be expected, as the book is self-described as: "This whole description is based on the most logical and in many respects the only possible, interpretation of the facts... Any further research, and any new material discovered on the subject, can only confirm this description... there is no possible way in which the location of the Original Homeland in the interior of northern India, so faithfully recorded in the Puranas and confirmed in the Rigveda, can ever be disproved" (1993: 408). Luckily for us, the author names his two main sources: the purANas and the Rgveda. The reliability of Puranic and Epic sources is discussed below (§19, Witzel 1990, 1995), and the RV does not support his theory either (it simply does not know of, or refer to central and eastern Northern India).[N.87]

§ 12.3.  Emigration

 In order to achieve his new U.P. homeland, Talageri has not only to rely on the purANas,  he also has to read them into his RV evidence, though pretending to use only the RV to interpret the RV (Talageri 2000) -- in fact one of  the basic requirements of philology (Witzel 1995, 1997). In casu, the single two appearances of jahnAvI in the RV at 1.116.19 and 3.56.6 are made out to refer to the Ganges. However, both passages clearly refer to a jahnAvI which translators and commentators (including sAyaNa) have taken as a tribal designation (cf., indeed, such an 'ancestral goddess' next to  hotrA, bhAratI, iDA and sarasvatI at RV 2.1.11, etc.). It is, thus,  by no means clear that jahnAvI refers to a river, and certainly not to the Ganges in particular (Witzel 2001). That is an Epic/Puranic conceit. Instead, it can simply be derived from the jahnu clan. Yet, it  is in this way that Talageri tries to strengthen his case for a Gangetic homeland: the Ganges is otherwise only mentioned twice in the RV, once in a late hymn directly (10.75.5), and once by a derived word, gAGgya  (6.45.31, in a tRca that could be an even later addition to this additional  hymn, which is too long to fit the order of the arrangement of the RV, see Oldenberg 1888). However, nothing in the RV points to knowledge of the Gangetic basin, or even of the lower Doab. The medieval and modern Doab rivers sarayu and gomatI[N.88] have sometimes been mentioned but the context of these RV rivers is one of the western hills and mountains, in  Afghanistan.[N.89] Talageri's identification of jahnAvI with gaGgA is clearly based on post-Vedic identifications;[N.90] the RV passages only speak about an ancient clan (deity) which could have 'settled' anywhere.[N.91]
 The evidence set forth by Talageri is not conclusive even for the tribes of the RV, -- in fact the location of the yadu-turvaza, anu-druhyu and pUru is not very clear for most of the Rgvedic period (Macdonell & Keith 1912).[N.92] One hardly does have to mention the features that would not agree with a 'tropical' PIE language in the Gangetic Basin (see § 12.6). As a curiosity, it might be added, however, that we certainly would expect tribal names such as druhyu (or anu) in Europe, -- just as the Gypsies have carried their tribal/caste name Domba to Europe, where they still call themselves roma. However, we do not find any IE tribe or people  in Europe derived from Ved. druh / IE *dhreugh: there are no tribes called, e.g., German Trug, Be-trueger, Engl. *Tray, Be-trayer -- we only find spirits: 'ghost' and  'apparition' (Pokorny 1959:  276).
 In passing, it should be mentioned that the Epic and Puranic accounts of the western neighbors of India are based on a view, already found in ZB and BZS 18.13: 357.6 sqq, 18.44:397.8 sqq, that regards all tribes and peoples outside the Center, the kuru(-paJcAla) realm, as 'outsiders' (bAhIka ZB 1.7.3.8, udantya, mleccha, asurya). They are characterized by their 'incorrect' speech and obnoxious behavior (ZB 9.3.1.24, Panjabis) and lack of proper zrauta ritual (ZB 13.5.4.19, kAzi).
 Consequently, both the Panjabis (bAhIka)  as well as the Benares (kAzi) and S. Bihar (aGga) people are denigrated by middle Vedic texts.[N.93] This attitude mellowed somewhat with regard to eastern North India (AB 7.18 where the andhra, puNDra, zabara, pulinda, etc. are included as vizvAmitra's sons, Witzel 1997) but it continued with respect to the west which was under constant and continuing threat of immigration, incursion and actual invasion from the Afghan highlands (cf. Rau 1957: 14). In fact, the Panjabis have been regarded as outsiders since the AV and ZB and pataJjali's mahAbhASya has preserved the oldest "Sikh joke", gaur bAhIkaH 'the Panjabi is an ox'. There is nothing new under the Indian sun.
 There is, on the other hand, nothing particularly Indian about this attitude, it is reflected not only in manu's concept of madhyadeza (>  mod. Nepali mades 'lowlands'), but also in ancient and modern China (chung kuo, 'the middle land'), and elsewhere. Ritual, world wide, often regards one's own location as the center of the universe (or its navel/eye, o mata o te henua, in Polynesian).
 The Epic and Puranic accounts simply build on such Vedic precedents: the Panjabis are regarded as 'fallen Arya', or in the words of BZS, the gandhAri have emigrated [from the center].[N.94] This is "the view from the center", kurukSetra,  a view that was not yet present in Rgvedic times.[N.95] All of this is, incidentally, another indication of the (post-Rg)Vedic attitude against 'outsiders', the Other. To regard the alleged, actually mistranslated Puranic story (contra Witzel 2001, cf. n. 42, 86) about an emigration from India as statement of facts is as far-fetched and mythological as the Roman insistence of their descent from the heroes of Troy (Virgil's Aeneid, see above §9), or as the many tales about the lost tribes of Israel (note that the Pashtos, in spite of the E. Iranian language and pre-Muslim IIr culture, claimed to be one of them). It is completely anachronistic, and in fact unscientific, to use such legends, concocted long after the fact, as indications of actual historical events. (The Gypsies, who actually have emigrated from India, rather claim origins in S. Iraq or Egypt).

§12.4.  Linguistics and 'Emigration'.

 In addition, Talageri's new book merely restates, with the addition of Epic-Puranic legends, what S.S. Misra had written before him in 1992, just as so much of  present autochthonous writing is nothing more than a cottage industry exploitation of a now popular trend. Misra's small book[N.96] of 110 pages, however, is a curious collection of linguistic data spanning the Eurasian continent, from Tamil to Uralic (Finno-Ugric), and from IE, Vedic and  Mitanni Indo-Aryan to European Gypsy (Romani). All of this with an equally curious  conclusion:  "the original home of the Proto-Indo-European speech community... was searched in Pamir, Caspian Sea etc. in spite of the fact that the most original and orthodox Indo-European speech, Sanskrit, was spoken in India.... The following ground may be assumed for dropping India. This was a nice place to live. People would not like to go to places like Europe... On the other hand, there is definite evidence of spread of Aryans (or Indo-Europeans) in different parts of Europe... A brief sketch may be.... The Greeks were invaders and came to Greece from outside... there was a vast substratum of pre-Greek languages... the Celtic people came from outside to Europe... That the Italic peoples were invaders is well-known... before the Hittite invasion to the area [Turkey] it was peopled by another tribe called Hattic... the Hittite speakers might have gone there in very early days  from an original home (which was perhaps India)... The Slavonic people ... were invaders... at the expense of Finno-Ugrian and Baltic languages... The Germanic speaking Indo-Europeans... coming from an outside world...  the movement of Iranians from India to Iran...  The Finno-Ugrian contact with Indo-Aryans speaks of the movement of Vedic Aryans from India to that area. Therefore it is likely that Pre-Vedic Aryans also might have gone out of India in several waves. The migrations from India to the outside world might have taken the following order: The Centum speakers... in several waves... Out of Sat@m speakers, Armenian first, the Albanian, next Baltic  followed by Slavonic. The Iranian people were the last to leave... based on the linguistic analysis or relative affinity with Sanskrit. Similarly out of the Centum groups Greek might have left India last of all." (Misra 1992: 100 sqq.) A lot of invasions into and all over Europe -- quite politically incorrect now, it might be added, -- but no "invasion", not even an 'immigration"  or a meager "trickling" into India.
 There is no need to belabor Misra's wording, such as 'orthodox' (which language is 'orthodox'?), strange from the pen of a linguist. However, Misra's main thesis, emigration from India, has already been refuted, on linguistic grounds, by Hock (1999, see below) and I can be relatively brief here; however, many ingredients and conclusions of Misra's book are faulty as well. Since he is now quoted by OIT advocates as the major linguistic authority who has provided proof for the OIT,  these  must be discussed and summed up.

§ 12.5 Finno-Ugric data

 Misra maintains (1992: 94) "the borrowed elements in the Uralic languages show borrowed Rgvedic forms in 5000 BC." Unfortunately, his discussion is based on two wrong premises: Harmatta's list of IA/Iranian loans in Uralic[N.97] and Misra's own 'unorthodox' but faulty reinterpretation of  IIr and IA data.
 To begin with, the date given by Misra to the RV "must be beyond 5000 BC" (1992) is based on the guess of Finno-Ugric scholars for Proto-FU, a date just as good or bad as any given for PIE at 4500 or 3500 BCE. What is of greater importance here is the exact form of IIr. that the various loan words in PFU have preserved. In addition to Harmatta, some other scholars, not mentioned by Misra, have worked on this problem as well, most recently Joki 1973, Re'dei 1986, Katz (Habilschrift 1985).
 Unfortunately, Harmatta has chosen to divide his materials into eleven stages, ranging from 4500 - 1000 BCE, with an arbitrary length for each period of 300 years. Worse, some of them have been placed at various unlikely dates within that time frame, e.g.,  the development is > is', which is already E. IE (Slavic, IIr, etc.) has been placed at 2000 BCE (as iz!), that is 600 later than the related changes rs > rs', ks > ks',  and the same development appears again as PIIr iz > is' at 1700 BCE.  However, it is on this arrangement that Misra based his conclusions. Though he corrects some of Harmatta's mistakes (such as misclassifying IIr forms as PIran.),  Misra makes things worse due to his clearly faulty, 19th cent. type  reconstruction of IE (see Hock 1999): "most of the loan words ... are in fact to be traced to Indo-Aryan. Of special importance is the borrowing traced to the earliest period (5000 BCE), which is clearly Vedic Sanskrit" (1992: 24). This refers to words such as  Harmatta's FU *aja 'to drive, to hunt', *porc'as, porzas 'piglet',  *oc'tara 'whip', *c'aka 'goat', *erze 'male', *rezme 'strap', *meks'e 'honey bee', *mete 'honey' (from Harmatta's stages 1-7). Most of these are actually pre-IA as they retain c' > Ved. z, or s' instead of Ved. S, or the IE vowels e, o instead of Common IIr and Ved. a.[N.98] His use of Harmatta's list and that quoted from Burrow (1973: 23-27) and Abaev (1992: 27-32) suffer from the same methodological fault: forms that easily can be derived from IIr, such as Mordw. purtsos, purts (reflecting IIr *parc'as [partsas]) are declared by Misra as having come from the much later OIA (Vedic), in spite of their retaining the old pronunciation c' [ts]; this is, in fact,  still found in Nuristani, e.g. du.c. [duts],  < PIIr dac'a < PIE dek'm, but not in the linguistically already younger, but historically speaking c. 3000 years older forms Ved. daza, OIran. dasa! In short, this kind of combination produces a great, but confused and confusing scenario.
 Most of the acceptable evidence derived from Harmatta's data[N.99] fall  right into the Proto-IIr period. The shibboleth is the development of PIE labiovelars to velars: *kw, kwh, gw, gwh >  k, kh, g, gh, something that is clearly seen in PFU *werkas 'wolf' <  PIIr *vRka-s < PIE *wlkwo-s (Misra, of course, takes this word as RV Sanskrit!). About the same time, the PIE  *k', k'h, g', g'h developed to c', c'h, j', j'h. This development is clearly seen in the majority of the loans into PFU, as in for example in *porc'as 'piglet', *c'aka 'goat', *aja 'to drive'. (Misra derives these sounds from Skt. c, j, see Hock 1999). However, the PIIr affricates are represented in PFU in two forms, either as  expected by c', or in the younger (= Vedic) form, by z[N.100] (late PIIr, not yet OIran. s, and z preserved  in Vedic).
 Some confusion is raised by the various representations of PIIr *a by PFU e, ae, o, a. This  could, again, point to the pre-PIIr period when the differences between  e, o, a as  inherited from PIE were still preserved. In fact, -o- in these loan-words seems to be limited to initial syllables, while other syllables have -a- or -e-. The problem will be treated at length elsewhere (Witzel, forthc. b)[N.101].
 The important result is, quite differently from that of Misra's Sanskrit-like loans into PFU, the following: it was at the stage of PIIr (perhaps even at that of late PIE) but certainly not that of Rgvedic Sanskrit, that PFU has taken over a substantial number of loan words ranging from plants and animals to customs, religion and the economy.[N.102]

§ 12.6.  Dating of RV

 The last section has, of course, serious consequences for Misra's new dating of the RV, at 5000 BCE,  which is anyhow impossible due to internal contradictions (relating to the horse, chariot, etc., see below). As the PFU loan-words point to pre-Rgvedic, PIIr. and even some (pre-)PIIr. forms,  the RV must be considerable later than the reconstructed PFU (at 5000 BCE). All of which fits in well with the 'traditional' date for this text, in the 2nd mill. BCE, roughly contemporary with Hittite, Mitanni IA, and early, Mycenean Greek texts inscribed on tablets.

§ 12.7. Mitanni data

 Misra's use of the Mitanni Indo-Aryan materials is clearly faulty as well. They seem to fit in well (at dates around 1400 BCE) with his theory of an early RV at 5000 BCE because he regards some of the Mitanni words as representing Post-Vedic, Middle Indo-Aryan developments. He assumes (repeated faithfully by Elst 1999:183) that there is MIA assimilation of clusters in Mit. satta < Ved. sapta 'seven' (see n. 148), or replacement of v- by b- as in biriya- < Ved. vIrya (rather, to be read as priya-, see EWA I 139). However,  such forms are due to the exigencies of cuneiform writing and Hurrite pronunciation found in the Mitanni realm (for details, see below  §18). In sum, Misra's data are based on his insufficient knowledge of near Eastern languages and their writing systems.
 However, it can even be shown that  Mitanni IA  words belong to a pre-Rgvedic stage of IA as they have retained -zdh- > RV edh and ai > RV e, and even IIr. j'h > Ved. h  (see below §15, 18). Thus, Misra's early "Middle Indo-Aryan" at 1400 BCE simply evaporates, along with his early RV at 5000 BCE.[N.103] We are back to the 'traditional' dates.

§ 12.8. Gypsy language

 Though a detailed study of data from the Gypsy (Romany) language seems to be beyond the scope of the present discussion, some words are necessary as Misra has used the example of Gypsy as  support for his theory of sound changes that affected the hypothetical IE emigrants from India when they entered the Near East and Europe. No matter that the two movements, thousands of  years apart,  would refer to one of PIE and the other to an MIA or ealry NIA language, and no matter that Romany is not as well studied as PIE. While it is clear that "the Gypsy languages are of Indo-Aryan origin is no more controversial..." it is not correct to say that "the Gypsy dialects present sufficient evidence which shows that Indo-Aryan a changed into a,e,o in European Gypsy..." (Misra 1992)
 First of all, the emigrant Gypsies, probably first attested as migrant musicians in records of the Sasanide kingdom of Iran (at 420 CE), have retained a fairly old form of IA which looks, often enough, like MIA, for example in the northwestern MIA retention of Cr (bhrAtA > phral 'brother'), or the present tense of 'to do' (kara'v, kara's, kara'l, etc.) Misra hinted at the reason why certain cases of MIA a have changed into Eur. Romani e,a,o : their distribution seems to be based on occurrence of -a- in an originally open syllable (in MIA, OIA) whence > e, or in a non-open syllable whence > a. However, this change is by no means universal even in European Romani. Its archaic Balkan version (of Bulgaria, etc., which I know from personal experience) has kar-, kara'v etc. 'to do' (from karomi, as quoted above). In short, Misra's data are again incomplete, faulty and misinterpreted.
 Second, his contention that "Thus in a way the linguistic change in Gypsy, suggests a clear picture of an assumption for a similar change in Proto-Indo-European stage, of Indo-European a (as shown by Sanskrit and as reconstructed by Bopp, Sleicher [sic!] etc.) into dialectical a, e, o (as shown by Gk. etc.).  Uptil now no evidence to the contrary is available that Proto-Indo-European a, e, o (as reconstructed by Brugmann etc.) have merged in India" (Misra 1992: 81) can easily be refuted by any Indo-Europeanist (Hock 1999). In Greek, for example, we do not have a 'dialectal' change, whatever that may mean,  of Misra's IE *a > e, a, o but a clearly regulated one, in