On Hindu Sociology  
By V.Nagarajan
Excerpts from his Book - Origins of Hindu Social System.

The entire subcontinent has been called Hind, India or Hindustan, though earlier the terms Jambudvipa and Bharatkhanda were in vogue. The land of the Hindus covered Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Tibet and East Afghanistan.

There are no cultural, linguistic, religious, ethnic, national or regional overtones in the use of the two terms, Indian and Hindu, or interchangeable, as the rest of the world does without political interests or intents.

Before the British, the Maurayas, the Khiljis, the Tughalaks, and the Mughals had for brief periods excercised suzerainty over the entire subcontinent. But the Tamil kingdoms and Sri Lanka were outside their empires. The arguments that Hindu India was never united politically and only the British advanced the concept of a nation-state and that when it was introduced, it was an ‘Indian nation" comprising Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Tribals etc., have promoted only separatist elements and not unity. The dream to rule over the entire subcontinent had been cherished by many rulers even prior to the Maurayas.

There were numerous small nation-states and the attempt to conquer more and more land was not encouraged by the then social thinkers. But later, Kautilya felt that exercise of such suzerainty was desirable, feasible, and even inevitable. Kautilya described the whole of the sub-continent from the Himalayas in the north to the seas in the south as Chakravarti-Kshetra. Bringing the entire sub-continent under one Chakra, with its units enjoying varying degrees of autonomy was feasible, according to Kautilya. Economic and topographical restraints rather than ethnic or religious cleavages prevented the realisation of the dream.

Hinduness:
Who is a Hindu? Is one ‘born’ a Hindu?

All residents of this sub-continent are Hindus or Indian. They are Hindus, not because they call themselves so, but because they have been recognised so for several centuries. They all heirs to the culture that is traced to the pre-Vedic times.

The Race Issue:

During the last two centuries, the postulate that the Aryans with physical affinity to the Caucasians and the Dravidians with similar affinity to the Negroids constitute the two major racial types spread over this subcontinent had been influencing Indian thinkers. The north is predominantly Aryan and the south, Dravidian, it is stressed by them. The Mongoloids of the Himalyan slopes and the north-east constitute a third type, it is added.
The white, black and red colors of the present Americans became the model to trace white, black and yellow races in India and to promote the notion of racial imcompatibility. The Red Indians of America were a branch of the yellow Mongols, it has been urged. Even as all the racial types were migrants to America, they were migrants to the Indian subcontinent, it was suggested. The social and cultural disparities were highlighted by them in terms of the racial differences.

What were presented as ‘authentic’ anthropological findings were only motivated subversive propaganda stuff.
The issue of origins of Aryans and the claims of the Dravidians to greater antiquity as ‘natives’ of India and the hypothesis on the ‘rise and destruction’ of the Indus Valley Civilization were only diversionary tactics and not academic interpretations.

Divide and Rule:

Aryans and Dravidians were not races even as Hindus are not a race. It is not academcially valid to speak in terms of an Aryan heritage as distinct from a Dravidian heritage. The assumption that these two were ‘races’ and that some of the social divergences were because of ‘racial differences’ is unsound. Cultural anthropology has been misguided. During the last two hundred years, some socio-political movements inspired by western colonial powers have pitted groups against one another Aryans vs. Dravidians, North vs South, Brahmans vs Non-Brahmans. Higher Varnas vs. Lower, Caste Hindus vs Untouchables, Hindus vs Muslims, and so on. Some of these movements were intended to correct social aberrations, but they became tools in the hands of the imperialists who adopted the policy of divide and rule. Social and cultural history of India was systematically distorted by some Western Indologists.

Unwarranted Postulate:

Under the influence of these Indologists, Indian history began with the unwarranted postulates that Aryans entered the Punjab through the north-west passes, settled there as agricultural communities, composed the Rg Vedic hymns said to contain reminiscences of their earlier experiences, then moved eastwards to the Gangetic plains and later to the south across the Vindhyas. The conquest and expansion led to the eviction of the ‘native black people’ known as Dravidas and hence the subjugation of Dasyus, slaves. The Aryans were declared to be invaders and as being different from the natives racially, culturally and linguistically. These postulates were successful in letting loose virulent and malicious attacks on the Aryans. Canard is not History.

Distortions:

None of the above postulates has any base in the pre- 18^th century literary works of India.
The Aryan invasion is a fiction, not history.  Distortions aimed at Indian unity and nationalism, languages, religious beliefs and practices, Vedas, Smritis, Hindu culture and civilization were passed on as ‘authentic’ history.
Some distortions were deliberate and were intended to serve the needs of the British administration, company as well as crown and of the churches engaged in proselytization. But many were the results of the failure to grasp the meanings of the Vedic hymns. The extant literary works of the ancient civilizations do not describe any of the branches of the so-called ‘Aryan’ race as ‘Arya’ it is pointed here.

Arya-Religion-Language:

It is Max Muller who first explained ‘Arya’ as a ‘ national name’ comprising the worshippers of the ‘gods’ of the Brahmans. The country of the Aryans is called ‘Aryavarta’. They worshipped the ‘gods’ invoked by the Rshis, sages in the hymns. This simple line of argument got faltered when Max Muller defined ‘Arya’ as a term denoting a ‘nation’ and referred to the ‘gods of the Brahmans’. The 19^th century writers used the terms, ‘race’, ‘society’. ‘nation’, ‘community’ and ‘people’ indiscriminately. During the 1840’s, ‘Arya’ was understood to mean one belonging to or descended from the ancient people who spoke the parent Aryan language. Thus the stress was on language or religion or both. It was misguided.

Note of Caution:

The term ‘Arya’ occurs only in about 30 among the extant 1000 Rg Vedic hymns. Nowhere among these hymns does ‘Arya’ denote an ethnic unit distinguished by a linguistic identity or religious persuasion or anthropological peculiarities or even claims to cultural superiority. European Indologists who popularised the concept of superiority of the white Aryan race were abetting racism. Indian writers have to beware the tragic error involved in continuing to swear by those Indologists.

Racial Types:

Anthropologists have tried to establish ‘racial types’. The tragedies caused by racism during the last few centuries should be an eye-opener. There are no ‘pure’ racial types. Racial mixtures had begun several millenia before the so called Aryan civilization began. There is nothing sacrosanct in belonging to a ‘pure’ race nor anything objectionable.

Isolationism – Harmful:

Isolationism is not helpful and may even be detrimental. India had kept the doors and windows wide open for fresh winds of thoughts and practices and the winds blew from the West and blew towards the East from India. Dogmatism and doctrinaire approaches do not help. Facts are sacred. They are to be relentlessly searched for.

No color conflict:

The view that the Aryas were white in color and that they were divided into 3 classes – Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas was proposed by some Western Indologists who telescoped race, color and varna. There is only one reference to Arya varna in Rg Veda. The context (3-34-9) does not support the interpretations dallied with by Griffith, the translator. Griffith deliberately introduced the notion of a racial conflict between the Aryas and the Dravidas based on color.

The Vedic hymns have not made such a distinction nor implied any conflict between the two. Nor have the post-Vedic writings in Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and Tamil mentioned such a conflict. Indian writings have not attributed white color to Aryas or black to Dravidas. The color and racial conflict is a Western concoction.

Any objective search for facts will explode several myths propagated by Western Indologists and their Indian fans.   

Copyright © 2001 - All Rights Reserved.

a r t i c l e s    o n    a r y a n    i n v a s i o n