ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF VEDIC STUDIES (EJVS) Vol. 7 (2001), issue 3 (May 25) http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/EJVS-7-3.htm ======================================================================== () ISSN 1084-7561 CONTENTS EDITOR'S NOTE ARTICLE Michael Witzel Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts. ======================================================================== EDITOR'S NOTE This issue deals with the perennial "Aryan question". 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 there major sections, (and due to its length further subdivided for email delivery into six 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 ================================================================================ 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. ================================================================================ 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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- THE 'TRADITIONAL' IMMIGRATION THEORY The* ''Aryan question'' is concerned with the immigration of a population speaking an archaic Indo-European language, Vedic Sanskrit, who celebrate their gods and chieftains in the poems of the oldest Indian literature, the Rgveda, and who subsequently spread their language, religion, ritual and social organization throughout the subcontinent. Who were the 'Aryans'? What was their spiritual and material culture and their outlook on life? Did they ever enter the Indian subcontinent from the outside? Or did this people develop indigenously in the Greater Panjab? This, the 'Aryan' question, has kept minds -- and politicians -- busy for the past 200 years; it has been used and misused in many ways. And, its discussion has become a cottage industry in India during recent years. In this paper, it will be attempted to present the pros and contras for the (non-)occurrence of a movement of an 'Aryan' population and its consequences. First, a summary of the traditional 'western' theory, then the recent Indian counter-theories; this is followed by an evaluation of its merits; the paper concludes with some deliberations on the special kind of 'discourse' that informs and drives the present autochthonous trend. 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. (continues with sections b- g) ======================================================== Michael Witzel Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages) home page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies: http://nautilus.shore.net/~india/ejvs/