Book Reviewed: The quest for the origins of Vedic culture, by Edwin Bryant

Book Reviewed: The quest for the origins of Vedic culture, by Edwin Bryant

The ancient history of Vedic ancestors

The Indo-Aryan migration debate has been going on ever since European scholars claimed (in later part of 19 century) that the practitioners of the Vedic rituals and the authors of RgVeda were “Aryans” of European ancestry. Despite the images of tall blonde, soma belching Germanic supermen riding their chariots, hooting and tooting their trumpets as they trampled the inferior aboriginal dasas of ancient India, numerous Indian scholars have challenged this theory. This debate is not over since the evidence obtained from philology, archeology and internal evidences gleaned from RgVeda provides a forum for contrasting interpretations.

A brief summary of the book is as follows: This book may be broadly classified into two sections that deal with the discussions about the identity of the Vedic ancestors, and the date of the earliest writings of RgVeda. Scholars are divided over the earliest writings of RgVeda but some estimates put this date to be around 1500 BCE. At this time, the Indo-Aryans were a separate entity from Iranians that descended from a larger Indo-Iranian population. This conclusion is largely based on the similarities in the linguistics of RgVeda and Avesta (sacred texts of Zoroastrianism). The separation of two populations may have occurred as early as 2200 BCE. In contrast to this theory, some authors have suggested, based on astronomical data of RgVeda, the earliest writings to an earlier date of 2500 BCE. The references to the river Sarasvati in RgVeda makes the strongest suggestion that Vedic ancestors were present in the mature Harappan period.

With regards to the origin of Vedic people, more far reaching conclusions could be drawn based recent genetic studies and the origin of the Indo-European language (1). Most indigenous tongues spoken today, from Hindi to Italian, English to Russian and Spanish to Greek belong to one parent Indo-European language. This classification is based on shared features of vocabulary and grammar. To identify indigenous population in ancient Eurasia, archeologists used distinctive types of pottery and cultural practices associated with burials and settlements into individual "archaeological cultures". Significantly, animal grave offerings were made (cattle, sheep, goats and horse), a feature associated with Proto-Indo-Europeans, and later by the Vedic ancestors. However, it hasn't been clear whether there is a genetic basis for these group boundaries or whether they're just cultural. Recent genetic analysis reveal that this group of pastoralists with domestic horses and oxen-drawn wheeled carts were responsible for up to 75% of the genomic DNA seen in Indo- European cultures about 4,500 years ago. The study identified a massive migration of herders and farmers from the Yamna culture of the north of the Black and Caspian Seas (Ukraine). This is called the “Steppe hypothesis.” This would have favored the expansion of at least of few of these Indo-European languages throughout the Eurasia. This “steppe” expansion explains the intriguing link of modern Indo-European languages to one mother language. It is also quite likely that the Indo-European languages spoken in India and Iran were probably diverged from those spoken by the Yamna people before they blazed a trail into Eastern and Central Europe. Recent archeological evidences also favor these findings. In 2009, a 6,000-year-old ancient 'cathedral' was discovered in Ukraine near modern-day Nebelivka. The place of worship contained altars and burnt bones of lambs as well as humanlike figurines (gods) shedding light on practices within a huge prehistoric settlement. Some of these practices were carried though the Vedic period in India. Another genetic analysis suggest that humanity’s most recent common male ancestor, the "father" of us all, would have lived between 174,000 and 321,000 years ago (2). These studies give an overall picture of human evolution and population migrations. Perhaps in few short years to come, we can solve the puzzle of the ancestry of Indo-Aryans more precisely.

The author reviews the literature thoroughly and presents a contrasting picture that emerges in the ancient history of India and the roots of Vedic culture. This book is of great interest for those interested in the ancient history of India and the earliest period of modern Hinduism.

Reference:
1. Wolfgang Haak et al. Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe. Nature, 2015; DOI: 10.1038/nature14317
2. Agnar Helgason, et al. The Y-chromosome point mutation rate in humans. Nature Genetics, 2015; DOI: 10.1038/ng 3171