Essay on the Common Culture and Religion of Aryans

The common culture and religion developed by the Aryans in their earlier home is still reflected in the earliest texts of the Iranians and Indo-Aryans respectively. In the case of the latter the religious reforms of Zarathustra led to some remarkable alterations, which resulted, for instance, in the old word for ‘god’ (Skt. deva-) acquiring the meaning of ‘demon’ (Av. daeva-), while certain prominent gods in the Veda (e.g. Indra) have been reduced to the latter status in the Avesta.

In spite of this, a considerable amount of the common heritage remained. Although the name Indra came to be applied to a demon, his title Vrtrahan-, in its Iranian form Vrdragna-, designates an im­portant deity. The Iranian Mithra, corresponding to the Vedic Mitra, re­mained one of their most important gods, later to have a remarkable career in the Roman Empire. Fire-worship and the cult of Soma are a common in­heritance in both India and Iran.

A common mythology is illustrated by such figures as Vedic Yama the son of Vivasvant and Avestan Yima the son of Vivahvant. A basic religious terminology is shared, e.g. Vedic hotar- ‘priest’, yajha ‘sacrifice’, rta- ‘truth, divine order’: Av. zaotar-, yasna-, asa- (O. Pers. arta-).

Common terms occur likewise in the political (Skt. ksatra- ‘sove­reignty’: Av. xsaora), military (Skt. send ‘army’: Av. haena, O. Pers. haina), and economic spheres (Skt. ksetra- ‘field’, urvara ‘arable land’: Av. soiora- ‘ homestead’, urvara ‘crop’). A division of society into classes which in India crystallized into the four-caste system is closely paralleled in Iran.

The evolution of this common inherited culture may be held to have taken place, in its later stages, in the Central Asian homeland of the Aryans, and their residence there, prior to the Indian migration, may have lasted for a considerable period. At a still earlier period the evidence points to a local­ization of the Aryans much further to the west.

In the first place the Indo- European connections of the Aryan languages, which indicate that they originated in Europe, make it necessary to assume a still earlier migration which took them from Europe to Central Asia. In the second place interesting confirmation of an earlier Aryan homeland further to the west is provided by the evidence of Aryan loan-words in the Finno-Ugrian languages.

An ex­ample is the Finnish word sata ‘hundred’, which can be shown to represent phonetically sata- (i.e. the Indo-Aryan and Primitive Indo-Iranian form of the word, and not the later Iranian sata-). There is a considerable body of loans like this which cannot be derived from Iranian, and which must therefore have been taken over in the Primitive Indo-Iranian period.

At the time of these borrowings, therefore, the Aryans and the ancestors of the Finno-Ugrians must have been in close contact. In view of the present distribution of the Finno-Ugrian languages, and of their probable ancient situation, it is con­cluded that, when these words were borrowed, the primitive Aryans from whose language they were taken must have been situated not further east than the Volga and the Urals. It was only after the period of their influence on Finno-Ugrian that the main centre of the Aryans shifted towards Central Asia.

At this stage, which may be provisionally fixed towards the beginning of the second millennium B.C., we are already dealing with the Aryans as a separate community, already detached from the other branches of the Indo-Europeans.

At a still earlier stage, say the middle of the third millennium B.C., a situation must be assumed in which the speakers of the language from which the later Aryan tongues were derived were still members of the original Indo- European community, and their language was a dialect of Indo-European, not having developed into a separate language of the group, as it had done during the stage previously referred to (2000-1500 B.C.).

This assumption im­plies an original location still further to the west and for this also linguistic evidence can be produced. Out of all the languages of the Indo-European family, the Balto-Slavonic group shows signs of having had the closest rela­tionship with Indo-Iranian. Since these languages are not likely to have moved far from the region where they are first historically attested, this con­nection is a useful pointer to the earliest place of origin of the Indo-Iranian family.

In addition to many other special similarities the two groups are charac­terized by an early palatalization (illustrated by Skt. satam, Av. satam ‘hun­dred’, as opposed to Lat. centum), which is also found in Albanian and Armenian.

On the strength of this common innovation, these languages are usually considered to form a special group among the Indo-European lan­guages, and are termed the satam languages, after the Avestan word for ‘hundred’. It does in fact seem likely that this change took place at such an early period that the ancestors of all these languages were still in contact. In addition to these special relationships Indo-Iranian also shows evidence of a special relationship with Greek, which is particularly noticeable in the mor­phology of the verb.

With other Indo-European languages Indo-Iranian shows no sign of special connection. This is not to be expected in the case of the western Indo- European languages (Italic, Celtic, and Germanic) in view of their geographical situation. Hittite and the kindred languages of Asia Minor are in a special position, since they show such profound differences from the more familiar type of Indo-European that it is necessary to assume their very early separa­tion.

These peoples must have passed over from the Balkans into Asia Minor at a period long preceding their earliest appearances in the written historical record. More problematical is the case of the two closely related languages, conventionally styled Tocharian A and B, of which manuscript remains were discovered in Chinese Turkestan at the beginning of the present century. In view of their situation it might have been expected that they would have shown some signs of closer contact with Indo-Iranian, but of this there is no indication whatever.

They further show no sign of any particular connection with any other section of Indo-European, and these facts are best explained by the assumption of an early separation of this group (though not as early as the separation of Hittite, etc.).

The later eastward expansion of the Aryan tribes outlined above must have been responsible for pushing them further and further to the east, until they finally settled in Chinese Turkestan. There are no linguistic traces of early contacts between the two groups, and it is only much later that the influence of Iranian on Tocharian can be noted.

So far we have had to rely entirely on linguistic relationships to account for the origin and early movements of the Aryans. After about 1500 B.C. docu­mentary evidence becomes available, not from India and Iran, the countries of their permanent settlement, but from the Near East, where a section of Aryans established a temporary domination which was to have no lasting effects.

The documentary evidence from this quarter consists of a number of proper names, some names of gods, and some words, from which the pre­sence of Aryans in this region during the period 1500-1300 B.C. can be de­duced.

They appear always in connection with the Hurrians, a non-Indo- European people of local origin, who were also engaged in considerable ex­pansion at the time. In particular the Hurrian state of Mitanni, to judge by the names of its kings, was, during its most influential period, under the domination of Aryan kings backed up by an Aryan aristocracy. Other minor states in Syria had rulers with similar Aryan names.

These Aryans did not come in sufficient numbers to impose their own language and civilization on the country in which they had settled; they seem always to have used Hurrian as their official language, and after the end of this period they were absorbed into the native population without leaving any further trace.

The most important document is a treaty between the Hittite and Mitanni kings, in which appear four divine names familiar from the Veda, namely, Indra, Varuna, Mitra, and Nasatya. In addition Surias, meaning the sun-god, appears in a document of the Kassites (who other­wise show little trace of Aryan connections), and Agni the fire-god, attested in Hittite documents, seems to have been borrowed by them from the Aryans.

A treatise on horse-training, composed by the Mitannian Kikkuli in the Hittite language, contains some Aryan technical terms and a series of Aryan numerals. Other Aryan words occur sporadically in documents connected with the Hurrians.

The question as to whether the Aryans of the Near East were more closely connected with the Indo-Aryan or Iranian branch of the Aryans, or whether they represent the undivided Proto-Aryans, has been much discussed. At pre­sent the prevailing opinion is that they are to be connected with the Indo- Aryan branch.

This conclusion is based partly on linguistic considerations (e.g. the word aika- ‘one’ corresponds to Skt. eka-, and not to Iranian aiva-), but also on the fact that the above-mentioned gods are specifically Vedic gods, whereas in Iranian only Mitra among them appears as a god, and, as regards the Proto-Aryans, it is doubtful whether any of them except Mitra can be assumed for this stage.

If the Aryans of the Near East are to be connected specifically with the Indo-Aryans, some interesting conclusions emerge. In the first place we must conclude that the division of the Aryans into two branches was already in being before the Indo-Aryans invaded India or the Iranians came to occupy Iran.

Secondly we must conclude that the Proto-Indo-Aryans were in occupa­tion of north-eastern Iran before the migrations to India took place. Since the date of the appearance of the Aryans in the Near East corresponds roughly with that commonly assumed for the Aryan migration into India, it follows they both proceeded from the same base, i.e. north-eastern Iran, territory which was later to be taken over by the Iranians.

At the time of their greatest expansion the Aryans occupied a territory much greater than that of all other Indo-European peoples put together. Even before their major migrations which led to the occupation of India and Iran, while they were still confined to the Eurasian steppes, the territory involved was much greater than that of any other Indo-European people.

To account for the ‘later vast expansion we must assume that favourable climatic and other conditions had led to a continuous increase of population. Only on this basis can we account for their ability to colonize such extensive areas in Iran and north India. As already observed, it was during this period, in the cen­turies preceding 1500 B.C. that the characteristic features of Aryan civiliza­tion were evolved.

It is this culture which we find in the earliest Indian and Iranian literature, and which, on account of the great similarities between the two traditions, must be regarded as a common inheritance. The culture which we find in the Rigveda was not developed in India, but, in most essentials, im­ported, already formed, from outside.

A frequent misconception which should be mentioned arises from the mis­use of the term Aryan. This name can be applied properly only to the Indo- Iranians, since it was the name they used to designate themselves. Its use should not be extended to apply to the Indo-Europeans in general, as has too frequently been done. The result of this extension of usage has been a confu­sion, which is often encountered, between the early Aryans and the primitive

Indo-Europeans as a result the Russian and Central Asian steppes, which were the habitat of the Aryans, i.e. the Indo-Iranians, in the period preceding the migrations to India, etc., that is to say for an unspecified, but no doubt considerable period before about 1500 B.C., have often been regarded as the home of the original Indo-Europeans, The result has been that Greeks, Hittites, etc. are represented as migrating from this region at a time when only the Aryan branch of the Indo-Europeans was in occupation of it.

On the con­trary the evidence is that the European branches of the Indo-European family are native to Europe, and that after separating from them the Aryans extended to the east. As already observed, during this period, between their separation from the other Indo-Europeans and the later migration beginning about 1500 B.C., the characteristic features of their civilization were evolved.

It has been observed that the Aryan invasion of India seems to have taken place some considerable time before the composition of the Vedic hymns, since no clear recollection this migration is to be found in them. On the other hand references are frequent to the struggle with the previous inhabit­ants, the Dasas or Dasyus, and to the occupation of their land and the capture of their possessions.

As to the identity of these people who were dis­placed or subjugated, the predominant and the most likely view is that they were the authors of the Indus civilization. This civilization, which was quite unexpected when it was first discovered, was certainly earlier than the Vedic period, but there has been some argument as to whether its fall was brought about by the invading Aryans, or whether some period of time elapsed be­tween the end of the Indus civilization and the appearance of the Aryans.

The evidence of the Vedic texts themselves is decidedly in favour of the former view, notably on account of the frequent references to the destruction of cities, the war-god Indra being known as puramdara, ‘destroyer of cities’. Agni, the fire-god is also prominently mentioned in this capacity, understand­ably, since many of the Indus cities appear to have been destroyed by fire. In view of these repeated references the conclusion seems inescapable that the destruction of the Indus cities was the work of the Aryans.

It is clear from the material remains that the Indus civilization was in cer­tain respects superior to that of the Aryans. In particular it was a city civiliza­tion of a highly developed type, while by contrast city life was unfamiliar to the Aryans. The superiority of the Aryans lay in the military field, in which their use of the light horse-chariot played a prominent part. Their victory re­sulted in the almost complete abandonment of the cities, in much the same way as the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain put an end to Romano-British city life.

Not only had the Aryans no interest in using the cities they con­quered, but also they lacked the technical ability to keep them going. The Aryans built their settlements of wood and they were distributed in small units, villages rather than towns, during most of the Vedic period.

Since their houses and furniture were made mainly of wood and other perishable materials, not much has remained for the archaeologists to record, and until very recently the Vedic period in India remained archaeologically almost a complete blank. Even now the position has not advanced far beyond this. It was only towards the end of the Vedic period that the development of cities was resumed.

Whereas for the Indus civilization archaeology is the only source of our knowledge, information concerning the Vedic Aryans depends entirely on literary texts which were handed down by oral tradition. These do not provide any proper historical account, since that is not their concern, but a good deal of incidental information of a historical or semi-historical character emerges, and also a fairly clear and consistent picture of the life and civilization of the period.

It is a much-discussed question to what extent the Indus civilization in­fluenced that of the Aryans, and opinions on this matter have considerably diverged. On the whole the Vedic texts themselves give the impression that such influence, if it existed, was not of great importance. In the first place, the attitude of the Vedic poets towards the Dasas and their civilization was one of uncompromising hostility, and was distinctly unreceptive to any influences in the religious field, which might otherwise have had some effect.

Furthermore the physical destruction and depopulation of most of the Indus cities, which is attested by archaeology, must have effectively removed most of the bases from which such influence could spread. Later, of course, as Aryan civiliza­tion developed into Hindu civilization, many non-Aryan influences appeared, but they are not prominent in the Vedic period, and they do not seem to have had any direct connection with the prehistoric civilization of the Indus cities.

The territory occupied by the Aryans at the time of the Rigveda can be de­fined with reference to the river names mentioned in the text. These are, in the first place the Indus (Sindhu) and its main tributaries, the five rivers of the Panjab. To the west of this there is mention of the Krumu, GomatI, and Kubha (the Kurram, Gomal, and Kabul rivers) and of Suvastu (Swat), show­ing that the Aryans extended to within the boundaries of present Afghanistan.

To the east the SarasvatI, Drsadvati, and Yamuna are in Aryan territory, and the Ganga is mentioned in one late hymn. Most of this territory had lain with­in the sphere of the Indus civilization. On the other hand little is heard of the regions of the lower Indus where that civilization had equally flourished.

The Aryans were divided into a large number of independent tribes, norm­ally ruled by kings, who, when not fighting the Dasas or Dasyus, were fre­quently engaged in fighting each other. Nevertheless, the Aryans were highly conscious of their ethnic unity, based on a common language, a common re­ligion, and a common way of life, and of the contrast between themselves and earlier inhabitants. The latter were partly absorbed into the Aryan com­munity in the capacity of sudras, and partly they withdrew to regions tem­porarily out of the reach of the Aryans.

The fact that the Aryans were able to retain their identity and maintain their culture so completely, in a country which had previously been both well populated and highly civilized, implies that they must have come in great numbers, not in one campaign of conquest, but in a series of waves lasting over a long period, sufficient to provide a numerous population which in turn could form the basis of further expansion.

The situation was just the opposite of that which prevailed in the Near East, where conquests affected by small bands of warriors resulted in temporary domination, but where their numbers were too small to prevent their absorp­tion after a few generations into the native population.

The area occupied by the Aryans continued to expand in the period repre­sented by the later Vedic texts, and there was a shift eastwards in the centre of gravity. By the time of the Brahmanas the centre of Aryan civilization had be­come the country of the Kurus and Paiicalas, corresponding roughly to modern Uttar Pradesh, while the western settlements in the Panjab were less important. Further expansion to the east had taken place and the most im­portant states in this region were Kosala, KasI, and Videha.

The main Aryan advance at this period was down the Ganga valley, keeping primarily to the north of the river. It is likely that the main route of migration followed the foot-hills of the Himalaya, avoiding in the first instance the densely forested country surrounding the river itself. By far the greater number of tribes and kingdoms mentioned in the texts of this period lay to the north of the Ganga.

Those lying to the south, e.g. the Cedis, the Satvants, and the kingdom of Vidarbha, were much fewer, and more rarely mentioned. The Aryans were at this time surrounded by a variety of non-Aryan tribes, of which a list is pro­vided by the Aitareya Brahmana: Andhras, Pundras, Mutibas, Pulindas, and Sabaras. The countries of Anga and Magadha appear from the sources to have been only partially Aryanized.

In the Rigveda the conflict between Arya and Dasyu figured prominently, reflecting, as we have seen, a prolonged armed struggle in which the Aryans finally emerged as the undisputed victors. Such references cease in the later Vedic literature, and the term Dasyu, as applied to non-Aryan peoples, is comparatively rare. On the other hand the term Nisada, applied to primitive forest-dwellers, is comparatively frequent.

The explanation is that the nature of the Aryan advance and settlement had changed. Once the Indus civiliza­tion had been overthrown, and the greater part of its territory occupied, there remained no advanced civilized states to contend with. The Ganga valley seems at this time to have been thinly populated by forest tribes, possessing no advanced civilization and unable to offer any coherent resistance to the Aryans.

The colonization that took place down the valley, at first principally to the north of the river, was mainly a matter of clearing forests and founding agricultural settlements, a continuous and prolonged process extending over centuries. In the unclear forest regions the primitive tribes of Nifadas con­tinued to reside in the midst of Aryan territory, and relations between the two seem to have been established on a basis of mutual toleration. Naturally as the activity of forest-clearing proceeded the scope for the independent existence of the forest-tribes became more’ limited, and sections of them, under such names as Pukkasa and Candala, attached themselves to the fringe of Aryan society, forming the nucleus of what were to become eventually the depressed classes.

The third stage in the Aryan occupation of India falls within the period 800-550 B.C. It has been observed that at the beginning of this period, accord­ing to the evidence of the Brahmanas, the portion of India occupied by the Aryans was still comparatively limited, and that they were surrounded by a ring of non-Aryan peoples, some of whose names are mentioned.

A very much wider extension of Aryan language and culture can be observed at the lime of the rise of Buddhism and Jainism, towards the end of the sixth century B.C. Obviously the intervening period had been one of extensive migration and colonization. The result was that the boundaries of Aryavarta, the country of the Aryans, were defined as the Himalaya and Vindhya mountains to the north and south, and the eastern and western oceans.

One of the main lines of expansion at this time lay to the south-west, embracing Avanti and adjacent regions, and extending as far as Mtilaka in the region of the upper Godavari. The advance to the east continued with the occupation of the greater part of Bengal (Pundra, Suhma, Vanga, etc.) and Orissa (Kalinga).

The areas to the south of the Ganga connecting these two lines of advance were also progressively brought within the Aryan fold. References to these events can be found scattered throughout the epics and Puranas, of which it will be sufficient to mention the foundation of Dvaraka on the west coast ascribed to and the activities of the Haihayas and allied tribes in Avanti.

The over-all result was that by the end of the sixth century B.C. the portion of India occupied by Aryans was vastly increased, and the currency of the Indo-Aryan language was correspondingly extended. A map repre­senting the extent of the Aryan occupation at the end of this period would probably show a general correspondence with the boundaries of Indo-Aryan in a modern linguistic map. After this, Aryan influence further south, in Dravidian India, was a matter of cultural penetration, not, as previously, of conquest and settlement.

During the Brahmaria period the Aryans maintained in essentials their ethnic identity and their Vedic culture. There was considerable internal de­velopment, and, in particular, the brahinans increased their status and strengthened their organization. The ritual was enormously developed, and the texts on which we depend for a picture of the period are mainly concerned with this.

This state organization was stabilized and developed, and a variety of offices are recorded, even though their precise functions are not always clear. The political units became larger and the state began to replace the tribe. There were considerable advances in material culture, as attested by both literature and archaeology. City life began again in a small way, since a number of places mentioned, e.g. Kampilya, Paricakra, Asandivant, appear to have been towns rather than villages.

The rapid expansion during the period 800-550 B.C. had the result that in the new territories the Aryans were much more thinly spread than in the old, and they were to a greater extent mixed with the pre-existing population.

This fact is noted in some ancient texts. For instance the Baudhayana Dharmasutra says that the peoples of Avanti, Anga, Magadha, Surastra, Daksinapatha, Upavft, Sindhu, and Sauvlra are of mixed origin (sankirna-yoni-), and further lays down an offering of atonement for those who visit the countries of the Arattas, the Karaskaras, the Pundras, the Sauviras, the Vangas, the Kalingas, and the Pranunas.

These lists cover a large part of the territories colonized during the period 800-550 B.C., and attest to the fact that these territories were only imperfectly Aryanized in contrast to what had happened in the earlier periods. The lists also contain the names of a number of non-Aryan tribes, many of which still no doubt retained their identity and language.

The influence of the pre-Aryans on Aryan culture should probably be regarded as having begun to take effect during this period, and it is associated with the transition from the Vedic civilization to the later Hindu civilization.

This was probably also the time when the epic traditions, later to culminate in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, began to take shape. New developments in religion which eventually evolved into the later Hinduism, which contrasts in many ways with the Vedic religion, also had their first beginnings in this period.

The great increase in the complexity of the caste system which charac­terizes later Hindu civilization was also stimulated at this time by the neces­sity of somehow fitting into the framework of Aryan society a large variety of previously independent tribes, who in many parts of the newly conquered area must have formed the majority of the population. The Aryan culture, based on the Vedic culture, remained the centralizing factor, but from now on it was more subject to non-Aryan influences.

The influence of Aryan civiliza­tion was felt latest in the Dravidian south. The first Aryan colonization of Ceylon is supposed to have taken place about the time of Buddha, and the earliest Aryan penetration in south India is likely to have occurred about the same time. Later the Maurya Empire was in control of most of the Deccan, only the Tamil princes of the extreme south remaining independent.

The Satavahana Empire which followed also represented Aryan domination and penetration in this region, as can be seen from the fact that the official lang­uage of this dynasty and of some of its immediate successors was Middle Indo-Aryan. This political influence was associated with the spread of reli­gions from north India, both Brahmanical and Buddhist or Jaina.

In contrast, however, to the previous stages of expansion, the Aryan language was not permanently imposed on this region, and after about A.D. 500 Kannada, and later Telugu, began to be used in inscriptions.

Gradually the native Dravidian element gained the upper hand, and the boundaries between Aryan and Dravidian India were restored to a line representing the limit of Aryan con­quests about 500 B.C. At the same time the whole subcontinent was united by a common culture, of which the Aryans were the original founders, but to which Dravidians and others also made their contributions.