[Compiled by: Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]
Indus valley
civilization first developed some
4,500-5,000 years ago.The Indus Valley people were most likely Dravidians,The
Aryans,Who as an illiterate,pastoral people,commenced their migrations to India
around 2,000 BC,probably used the Khyber Pass to cross the mountains during
their Indian invasion.Located in present day Pakistan.They apparently used
their advances in weaponry and skill in fighting to conquer the agricultural
and tribal peoples of the fading
Harappan culture & pushed down them into south India.Around 1800
BC,signs of a gradual decline began to emerge,and by around 1700 BC,most of the
cities were abandoned.In 1953,Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposed the above theory,
as evidence,he cited a group of 37 skeletons found in various parts of
Mohenjo-Daro.For example,a group of skeletons have been found which have been
thrown hastily in the burial chamber which indicates that the people who buried
them were pressed for time.There are also two skeletons,one male and one
female,who had been discovered on a staircase,obviously fleeing and examination
shows they had been murdered.Also archaeological evidences of the period of
Aryan invasion & abandonment of Indus valley civilization coincided &
support above theory further.Sir Mortimer Wheeler further said that Indra,.the
leader of the Devas was blamed for this attrocities
We came to know that
Aryans were initially settled in Indus valley areas that provided them with
pasture for their animals.They grouped in villages and built homes of bamboo or
light wood homes without statues or art.They began growing crops.Their environment
supplied them with all they needed,but,responding to their traditions and
perhaps impulses,tribes warred against each other – wars that might begin with
the stealing of cattle.The word for obtaining cattle, gosati, became synonymous
with making war. And their warring grew in scale, including a war between what
was said to be ten kings.Finally the Indo-Aryan people migrated to northwestern
parts of the Indian subcontinent and spread to the Ganges Plain around 1200
BC.Hence the above Sir Mortimer Wheeler's theory seems logical because the
Aryans came to power in the Ganges Valley shortly after the demise of the Indus
Valley Civilization.
Also more evidence of
who the Indus Valley people were found in the
translations of the Vedas ( which
were written by the Aryans who came to India some 3500 years ago) by H.H.
Wilson, Ralph Griffith, and A.A. McDonnell and A.B. Keith in English and by
M.R. Sambunatha Iyer in Tamil.The Indus Valley people are described as
noseless, black and godless barbarians. They are called Thasar, Thayook, Asurar, Arakkar, Rakshather
and Sutra.They are also described as anti-gods,chandalas,milechas,sons of
prostitutes and in many other derogatory terms. However,their courage and
fighting
abilities are praised.There are several reference to the town of
Hariyupa (later became Harappa).For example:the Rig Veda is dominated by hymns
praising the Aryan gods for giving them victories and wealth plundered from the
local Dasas through warfare.The passages in the Vedas referring to battles and forts
may be an evidence of this invasion.The Rig Veda comprises Hymns organised into
10 Books.I have selected verses which attest to the Aryan conquest of the
Dasyu or dasas- the inhabitants of
Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and the civilization of the Indus Valley,speakers of
Dravidian languages,ancestors of the Tamils of South India.Further,The Rig Veda
itself repeatedly boasts of the destruction of the Dasyus. The Harappan economy
was based on irrigation from the Indus river, like the Tigris-Euphrates
economies of Mesopotamia,and the Rig Veda records the Aryans' destruction of
the dams which were the basis of the economy.Most of the Rig Veda, like the
Jewish Bible[Hebrew Bible], has a mentality of "Religious Tribalism".
Towards the end, there are a few poems which reflect a universal
theme,obviously composed late,around 1000 BC.It was that change of thinking
which paved the way for the rise of the Jains,the Buddhists etc.The same is
also found in the Bible.
PART :51 WILL FOLLOW
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