Reality of aryan invasion
Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European family, in this family of languages comes many languages such as Persian,Assamese,Gujrati,Hindi,Sindhi,Kashmere,Greek,Spanish,German,French,English, Italian.Now let's talk about the similarities between the Rig veda and Avesta texts.Avesta is an religious book of zorastrianism.It was composed in Iran they refer themselves as 'Airiia' like 'Arya' in 'Rig veda'.The linguistic relationship between the two includes not just words but also concepts.The interchangeability between 'h' and 's' is one of the differences but there is consistency in this change such as hoama,daha,hepta hindu,ahura in 'Avestan',and soma,dasa,septa sindhu,asura in Rig-vedic sanskrit, on the basis of these evidences historians came to the conclusions that Indo-aryans came from Iran.Indo-aryan is an language label don't confuse it with the race, they are called Indo-aryans to distinguish them from the other migrants.Historians don't know the race of the people that migrated from Iran but we know, what they have became afterwards.
The migration of Indo-aryan speaking people takes place gradually.There are lots of evidences which suggested that their migration takes place after the decline of the famous 'Harappan civilization'.There are literary evidences (Rig veda) which gives us insight about the society which emerges after the migration of Indo-aryan people unlike the archaeological evidences of the 'Harappan civilization'.
Indo-aryans were pastoral nomads they had large herds of cattle and also they came in this region with their horses and chariots.Horses were absent in the 'Harappan civilization' ,archaeologists didn't find the bones of the horses and there were no representation of the horse on the seal also.They first settled in punjab and then slowly moved towards the south eastwards direction ,to the north of delhi ,near by the river saraswati used to flow ,where the composition of veda takes place.After sometime they moved eastward direction in ganga valley by clearing the thick forest from iron-axe.They were able to make use of iron but the people of 'Harappan civilization' were not familiar with the iron.Gradually, they started agriculture and settled down at one place.They were unfamiliar with the city life, it took centuries to build cities.They wrote long poems about their kings and heroes later these were collected and became 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata'.
The king and his officers
Aryans were divided into tribes, they often fight each other for the grassland so that their cattle could graze upon the land.Each tribe select their own chief or king usually they were brave and powerful but later it became hereditary.King had commander or senani who was always with him to assist.There was priest or purohita who advised the king and performed religious ceremonies.There were messengers to contact the neighbouring tribesman.King also consulted the headman of his tribe gramanis.But for something important to discussed king took advice of the whole tribe these assemblies were called sabha and the samiti.In the samiti anyone could speak his mind about the problem but sabha appears to be for selected people only.
Tribe was split into small unit which were known as gramas.When aryans started practise of agriculture the villages became larger, many more members of the tribe lived in one village.Group of villages were known as 'vish' and the people of tribe were known as 'jana'.Village was divided into the families and the family was patriarchal in nature.Women were respected,some girls were educated along with the boys.As the villages settled,specialists emerges and trading started but all of this were at the starting level.Village was fenced and outside the village they were ploughing the fields.They were using the water from well and channel, for the irrigation.Barley was widely grown ,later on, they also grew wheat and rice.Hunting was also common,they use bulls and ox for ploghing the fields.The cow held pride of place among the animals because aryans were dependent on the produce of cow.In fact,for special guests beef was served as a mark of honour.Man's life was valued equal to hundred cows if a man was killed by another man, he had to give hundred cows to the family of dead as punishment.
when aryans first arrived they had to fight for land with the people who were already living in india.They called them dasyus or dasas.The aryans were fair-skinned and dasyus are described as dark-skinned with flat nose.The dasyus did not worship the same gods as the aryans and speak different languages.The aryans who fought and defeated dasyus enslaved them,they had to do lowly and difficult work.Aryans made a rule that no aryan could marry dasyus.Aryans and dasyus lived in separate parts of the same village.
Aryans were also divided among themselves into three parts.The most powerful people were the king and his warriors called kshatriyas and equally important were priests or brahmans,and then came the craftsman and cultivators called vaishyas.There was in addition fourth group called shudras.It consisted dasyus and aryans who married to the dasyus.Each group had separate occupations , at starting boy could choose any occupation but later it gets fixed.Slowly brahmans from being equal to kshatriyas got up to first position by making religion very important.Aryans believed that gods would be pleased by religous sacrifices.Alters were built,animals were sacrificed and grain,cattle & cloth were given to priests and soma was drunk by all.Priest prayed to gods and became messenger between god and people ,so were naturally became important person.
But not all people were satisfied with religion and sacrifices.They wanted to know how the world was created,who were gods,who made man and so on.These philosophers wandered to quit place in forest to hold discussions among themselves.Their ideas were memorised by their pupils and later recorded in writing these were upanishads which are part of vedas.These teachers are called rishis.
The migration of Indo-aryan speaking people takes place gradually.There are lots of evidences which suggested that their migration takes place after the decline of the famous 'Harappan civilization'.There are literary evidences (Rig veda) which gives us insight about the society which emerges after the migration of Indo-aryan people unlike the archaeological evidences of the 'Harappan civilization'.
Indo-aryans were pastoral nomads they had large herds of cattle and also they came in this region with their horses and chariots.Horses were absent in the 'Harappan civilization' ,archaeologists didn't find the bones of the horses and there were no representation of the horse on the seal also.They first settled in punjab and then slowly moved towards the south eastwards direction ,to the north of delhi ,near by the river saraswati used to flow ,where the composition of veda takes place.After sometime they moved eastward direction in ganga valley by clearing the thick forest from iron-axe.They were able to make use of iron but the people of 'Harappan civilization' were not familiar with the iron.Gradually, they started agriculture and settled down at one place.They were unfamiliar with the city life, it took centuries to build cities.They wrote long poems about their kings and heroes later these were collected and became 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata'.
The king and his officers
Aryans were divided into tribes, they often fight each other for the grassland so that their cattle could graze upon the land.Each tribe select their own chief or king usually they were brave and powerful but later it became hereditary.King had commander or senani who was always with him to assist.There was priest or purohita who advised the king and performed religious ceremonies.There were messengers to contact the neighbouring tribesman.King also consulted the headman of his tribe gramanis.But for something important to discussed king took advice of the whole tribe these assemblies were called sabha and the samiti.In the samiti anyone could speak his mind about the problem but sabha appears to be for selected people only.
Tribe was split into small unit which were known as gramas.When aryans started practise of agriculture the villages became larger, many more members of the tribe lived in one village.Group of villages were known as 'vish' and the people of tribe were known as 'jana'.Village was divided into the families and the family was patriarchal in nature.Women were respected,some girls were educated along with the boys.As the villages settled,specialists emerges and trading started but all of this were at the starting level.Village was fenced and outside the village they were ploughing the fields.They were using the water from well and channel, for the irrigation.Barley was widely grown ,later on, they also grew wheat and rice.Hunting was also common,they use bulls and ox for ploghing the fields.The cow held pride of place among the animals because aryans were dependent on the produce of cow.In fact,for special guests beef was served as a mark of honour.Man's life was valued equal to hundred cows if a man was killed by another man, he had to give hundred cows to the family of dead as punishment.
when aryans first arrived they had to fight for land with the people who were already living in india.They called them dasyus or dasas.The aryans were fair-skinned and dasyus are described as dark-skinned with flat nose.The dasyus did not worship the same gods as the aryans and speak different languages.The aryans who fought and defeated dasyus enslaved them,they had to do lowly and difficult work.Aryans made a rule that no aryan could marry dasyus.Aryans and dasyus lived in separate parts of the same village.
Aryans were also divided among themselves into three parts.The most powerful people were the king and his warriors called kshatriyas and equally important were priests or brahmans,and then came the craftsman and cultivators called vaishyas.There was in addition fourth group called shudras.It consisted dasyus and aryans who married to the dasyus.Each group had separate occupations , at starting boy could choose any occupation but later it gets fixed.Slowly brahmans from being equal to kshatriyas got up to first position by making religion very important.Aryans believed that gods would be pleased by religous sacrifices.Alters were built,animals were sacrificed and grain,cattle & cloth were given to priests and soma was drunk by all.Priest prayed to gods and became messenger between god and people ,so were naturally became important person.
But not all people were satisfied with religion and sacrifices.They wanted to know how the world was created,who were gods,who made man and so on.These philosophers wandered to quit place in forest to hold discussions among themselves.Their ideas were memorised by their pupils and later recorded in writing these were upanishads which are part of vedas.These teachers are called rishis.
This is how the aryans used to live their life.Now let's talk about the studies which have been done on this topic.In rakhigarhi which is an harappan site, scientist have taken out the DNA sample from a skeleton and found out that r1a1 gene is absent in this skeleton.It is a gene, which is present in north indians.There were two papers ,which were released in 2018-19 on this topic tells the same thing that Indo-aryans were migrants.
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