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The Aryan-Dravidian
Controversy by David Frawley
By David Frawley
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The British ruled India, as they did other lands, by a
divide-and-conquer
strategy. They promoted religious, ethnic and cultural divisions
among their
colonies to keep them under control. Unfortunately some of these
policies
also entered into the intellectual realm. The same simplistic and
divisive
ideas that were used for interpreting the culture and history of
India.
Regrettably many Hindus have come to believe these ideas, even
though a
deeper examination reveals they may have no real objective or
scientific
basis.
One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races - the
lighter-
skinned Aryans and the darker-skinned Dravidians - and that the
Dravidians
were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans
conquered
and dominated. From this came the additional idea that much of
what we call
Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian, and later borrowed by Aryans
who,
however, never gave the Dravidians proper credit for it. This idea
has been
used to turn the people of south India against the people of north
India, as
if the southern ers were a different race.
Racial Theories
The Nineteenth century was the era of Europeans imperialism. Many
Europeans
did in fact believe that they belonged to a superior race and that
their
religion, Christianity, was a superior religion and all other
religions were
barbaric, particularly a religion like Hinduism which uses many
idols. The
Europeans felt that it was their duty to convert non-Christians,
sometimes
even if it required intimidation, force or bribery.
Europeans thinkers of the era were dominated by a racial theory of
man,
which was interpreted primarily in terms of color. They saw
themselves as
belonging to a superior 'white' or Caucasian race. They had
enslaved the
Negroid or 'black' race. As Hindus were also dark or 'colored',
they were
similarly deemed inferior. The British thus, not surprisingly,
looked upon
the culture of India in a similar way as having been a land of a
light-skinned or Aryan race (the north Indians), ruling a dark or
Dravidian
race (the south Indians).
About this time in history the similarities betweeen Indo-European
languages
also became evident. Sanskrit and the languages of North India
were found to
be relatives of the languages of Europe, while the Dravidian
languages of
south India were found to be another language family. By the
racial theory,
Europeans natuarally felt that the original speakers of any root
Indo-European language must have been 'white', as they were not
prepared to
recognize that their languages could have been derived from the
darker-skinned Hindus. As all Hindus were dark compared to the
Europeans, it
was assumed that the original white Indo-European invadors of
India must
have been assimilated by the dark indigenous population, though
they left
their mark more on north India where people have a lighter
complexion.
Though the Nazis later took this idea of a white Aryan superior
race to its
extreme of brutality, they did not invent the idea, nor were they
the only
ones to use it for purposes of exploitation. They took what was a
common
idea of nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe, which many
other
Europeans shared. They perverted this idea further, but the
distortion of it
was already the basis of much exploitation and misunderstanding.
Racial Interpretation of Vedas
Europeans Vedic interpreters used this same racial idea to explain
the
Vedas. The Vedas speak of a battle between light and darkness.
This was
turned into a war between light skinned Aryans and dark skinned
Dravidians.
Such so-called scholars did not bother to examine the fact that
most
religions and mythologies including those of the ancient American
Indians,
Egyptians, Greeks and Persians have the idea of such a battle
between light
and darkness (which is the symbolic conflict between truth and
falsehood),
but we do not interpret their statements racially. In short, the
Europeans
projected racism into the history of India, and accused the Hindus
of the
very racism that they themselves were using to dominate the
Hindus.
European scholars also pointed out that caste in India was
originally
defined by color. Brahmins were said to be white, Kshatriyas red,
Vaishyas
yellow, and Shudras black. Hence the Brahmins were said to have
been
originally the white Aryans and the Dravidians the dark Shudras.
However,
what these colors refer to is the gunas or qualities of each
class. White is
the color of purity (sattvaguna), dark that of impurity (tamoguna),
red the
color of action (rajoguna), and yellow the color of trade (also
rajoguna).
To turn this into races is simplistic and incorrect. Where is the
red race
and where is the yellow race in India? And when have the
Kshatriyas been a
red race and the Vaishyas as yellow race?
The racial idea reached yet more ridiculous proportions. Vedic
passages
speaking of their enemies (mainly demons) as without nose (a-nasa),
were
interpreted as a racial slur against the snub-nosed Dravidians.
Now
Dravidians are not snub-nosed or low nosed people, as anyone can
see by
examining their facial features. And the Vedic demons are also
described as
footless (a-pada). Where is such a footless and noseless race and
what does
this have to do with the Dravidians? Moreover Vedic gods like Agni
(fire)
are described as footless and headless. Where are such headless
and footless
Aryans? Yet such 'scholar- ship' can be found in prominent Western
books on
the history of India, some published in India and used in schools
in India
to the present day.
This idea was taken further and Hindu gods like Krishna, whose
name means
dark, or Shiva who is portrayed as dark, were said to have
originally been
Dravidian gods taken over by the invading Aryans (under the
simplistic idea
that Dravidians as dark-skinned people must have worshipped dark
colored
gods). Yet Krishna and Shiva are not black but dark blue. Where is
such a
dark blue race? Moreover the different Hindu gods, like the
classes of Manu,
have diffe- rent colors relative to their qualities. Lakshmi is
portrayed as
pink, Saras- wati as white, Kali as blue-black, or Yama, the God
of death,
as green. Where have such races been in India or elsewhere?
In a similar light, some scholars pointed out that Vedic gods like
Savitar
have golden hair and golden skin, thus showing blond and
fair-skinned people
living in ancient India. However, Savitar is a sun-god and sun-god
are
usually gold in color, as has been the case of the ancient
Egyptian, Mayan,
and Inca and other sun-gods. Who has a black or blue sun-god? This
is from
the simple fact that the sun has a golden color. What does this
have to do
with race? And why should it be racial statement in the Vedas but
not
elsewhere?
The Term Aryan
A number of European scholars of the 19th century, such as Max
Muller, did
state that Aryan is not a racial term and there is no evidence
that it ever
was so used in the Vedas, but their views on this were largely
ignored. We
should clearly note that there is no place in Hindu literature
wherein Aryan
has ever been equated with a race or with a particular set of
physical
charac- teristics. The term Arya means "noble" or
"spiritual", and has been
so used by Buddhists, Jains and Zoroastrians as well as Hindus.
Religions
that have called themselves Aryan, like all of these, have had
members of
many different races. Race was never a bar for anyone joining some
form of
the Arya Dharma or teaching of noble people.
Aryan is a term similar in meaning to the Sanskrit word Sri, an
epithet of
respect. We could equate it with the English word Sir. We cannot
imagine
that a race of men named sir took over England in the Middle Ages
and
dominated a different race because most of the people in power in
the
country were called sir. Yet this is the kind of thinking that was
superimposed upon the history of India.
New Evidence on the Indus Culture
The Indus Civilization - the ancient urban culture of north India
in the
third millenniem BC - has been interpreted as Dravidian or
non-Aryan
culture. Though this has never been proved, it has been taken by
many people
to be a fact. However, new archaelogiocal evidence shows that the
so-called
Indus culture was a Vedic culture, centered not on the Indus but
on the
banks of the Saraswati river of Vedic fame (the culture should be
renamed
not the Indus but the "Saraswati Culture"), and that its
language was also
related to Sanskrit. The ancient Saraswati dried up around 1900
BC. Hence
the Vedic texts that speaks so eloquently of this river must
predate this
period.
The racial types found in the Indus civilization are now found to
have been
generally the same as those of north India today, and that there
is no
evidence of any significant intrusive population into India in the
Indus or
post-Indus era.
This new information tends to either dismiss the Aryan invasion
thoery or to
place it back at such an early point in history (before 3000 BC or
even 6000
BC), that it has little bearing on what we know as the culture of
India.
Aryan and Dravidian Races
The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an
unscientific,
culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of
color. There
are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian
races. The
three primary races are Caucasian, the Mangolian and the Negroid.
Both the
Aryans and Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race
generally
placed in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. The difference
between the
so-called Aryans of the north and Dravidians of the south is not a
racial
division. Biologically bo th the north and south Indians are of
the same
Caucasian race, only when closer to the equator the skin becomes
darker, and
under the influence of constant heat the bodily frame tends to
become a
little smaller. While we can speak of some racial differences
between north
and south Indian people, they are only secondary.
For example, if we take a typical person from Punjab, another from
Maharash-
tra, and a third from Tamilnadu we will find that the
Maharashtrians
generally fall in between the other two in terms of build and skin
color. We
see a gradual shift of characteristics from north to south, but no
real
different race. An Aryan and Dravidian race in India is no more
real than a
north and a south European race. Those who use such terms are
misusing
language. We would just as well place the blond Swede of Europe in
a
different race from the darker haired and skinned person of
southern Italy.
Nor is the Caucasian race the "white" race. Caucasians
can be of any color
from pure white to almost pure black, with every shade of brown in
between.
The predominent Caucasian type found in the world is not the
blond-blue-eyes
northern European but the black hair, brown-eyed darker skinned
Mediterranean type that we find from southern Europe to north
India.
Similarly the Mongolian race is not yellow. Many Chinese have skin
whiter
than many so-called Cauca- sians. In fact of all the races, the
Caucasian is
the most variable in its skin color. Yet many identification forms
that
people fill out today in the world still define race in terms of
color.
North and South Indian Religions
Scholars dominated by the Aryan Dravidian racial idea have tried
to make
some Hindu gods Dravidian and other gods Aryan, even though there
has been
no such division within Hindu culture. This is based upon a
superficial
identifi- cation of deities with color i.e. Krishna as black and
therefore
Dravidian, which we have already shown the incorrectness of. In
the
Mahabharat, Krishna traces his lineage through the Vedic line of
the Yadus,
a famous Aryan people of the north and west of India, and there
are
instances as far back as the Rig Veda of seers whose names meant
dark (like
Krishna Angiras or Shyava Atreya).
Others say that Shiva is a Dravidian god because Shaivism is more
prominent
in south than in north India. However, the most sacred sites of
Shiva are
Kailash in Tibet, Kashmir, and the city of Varanasi in the north.
There
never was any limitation of the worship of Shiva to one part of
India.
Shiva is also said not to be a Vedic god because he is not
prominent in the
Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, where deities like Indra, Agni
and Soma are
more prevalent than Rudra (the Vedic form of Shiva). However,
Rudra-Shiva is
dominent in the Atharva and Yajur Vedas, as well as the Brahmanas,
which are
also very old Vedic texts. And Vedic gods like Indra and Agni are
often
identi- fied with Rudra and have many similar characteristics (Indra
as the
dancer, the destroyer of the cities, and the Lord of power, for
example).
While some differences in nomenclature do exist between Vedic and
Shaivite
or Vedic and any other later teachings like the Vaishnava or
Shakta - and we
would expect a religion to undergo some development through time -
there is
nothing to show any division between Vedic and Shaivite
traditions, and
certainly nothing to show that it is a racial division. Shiva in
fact is the
deity most associated with Vedic ritual and fire offerings. He is
adorned
with the ashes, the bhasma, of the Vedic fire.
Early investigators also thought they saw a Shaivite element in
the so-call
ed Dravidian Indus Valey civilization, with the existence of
Shivalinga like
sacred objects, and seals resembling Shiva. However, further
examination has
also found large numbers of Vedic like fire-altars replete with
all the
tradi- tional offers as found in the Hindu Brahmanas, thus again
refuting
such simplistic divisions. The religion of the Indus (Saraswati)
culture
appears to include many Vedic as well as Puranic elements.
Some hold that Shaivism is a south Indian religion and the Vedic
religion is
north Indian. However, the greatest supporter of Vedanta,
Shankaracharya,
was a Dravidian Shaivite from Kerala. Meanwhile many south Indian
kings have
been Vaishnavites or worshippers of Vishnu (who is by the same
confused
logic considered to be a north Indian god). In short there is no
real
division of India into such rigid compartments as north and south
Indian
religions, though naturally regional variations do exist.
Aryan and Dravidian Languages
The Indo-European languages and the Dravidian do have important
differences.
Their ways of developing words and grammer are different. However,
it is a
misnomer to call all Indo-European languages Aryan. The Sanskrit
term Aryan
would not apply to European languages, which are materialistic in
orientation, bacause Aryan in Sanskrit means spiritual. When the
term Aryan
is used as indicating certain languages, the term is being used in
a Western
or European sense that we should remember is quite apart from its
traditional Sanskrit meaning, and implies a racial bias that the
Sanskrit
term does not have.
We can speak of Indo-European and Dravidian languages, but this
does not
necessarily mean that Aryan and Dravidian must differ in culture,
race or
religion. The Hungarians and Finns of Europe are of a different
language
group than the other Europeans, but we do not speak of them as of
a Finnish
race, or the Finns as being non-Europeans, nor do we consider that
their
religious beliefs must therefore be unrelated to those of the rest
of
Europe.
Even though Dravidian languages are based on a different model
than Sanskrit
there are thirty to seventy per cent Sanskrit words in south
Indian
languages like Telugu and Tamil, which is much higher percentage
than north
Indian languages like Hindi. In addition both north and south
Indian
languages have a similar construction and phraseology that links
them close
together, which European languages often do not share. This has
caused some
linguists even to propose that Hindi was a Dravidian language. In
short, the
language compart- ments, like the racial ones, are not as rigid as
has been
thought.
In fact if we examine the oldest Vedic Sanskrit, we find similar
sounds to
Dravidian languages (the cerebral letters, for example), which are
not
present in other Indo-European tongues. This shows either that
there were
already Drvidians in the same region as the Vedic people, and part
of the
same culture with them, or that Dravidian languages could also
have been
early off-shoots of Sanskrit, which was the theory of the modern
rishi, Sri
Aurobindo. In addition the traditional inventor of the Dravidian
languages
was said to have been none other than Agastya, one of the most
important
rishis of the Rig Veda, the oldest Sanskrit text.
Dravidians in Vedic/Puranic Lore
Some Vedic texts, like the Aitareya Brahmana or Manu Samhita, have
looked at
the Dravidians as people outside of the Vedic culture. However,
they do not
look at them as indigenous or different people but as fallen
descendants of
Vedic kings, notably Vishwamitra. These same texts look upon some
people of
north India, including some groups from Bengal, as also outside of
Vedic
culture, even though such people were Indo-European in language.
Other texts like the Ramayana portray the Dravidians, the
inhabitants of
Kishkindha (modern Karnataka), as allies of Aryan kings like Rama.
The Vedic
rishi Agastya is also often portrayed as one of the progenitors of
the
Dravid- ian peoples. Hence there appears to have been periods in
history
when the Dravidians or some portion of them were not looked on
with favour
by some followers of Vedic culture, but this was largely
temporary.
If we look through the history of India, there has been some time
when
almost every part of India has been dominated for a period by
unorthodox
traditions like Buddhist, Jain or Persian (Zoroastrian), not to
mention
outside religions like Islam or Christianity, or dominated by
other foreign
conquerors, like the Greeks, the Scythians (Shakas) or the Huns.
That
Gujarat was a once suspect land to Vedic people when it was under
Jain
domination does not cause us to turn the Gujaratis into another
race or
religion. That something similar happened to the Dravidians at
some point in
history does not require making something permanently non-Aryan
about them.
In the history of Europe for example, that Austria once went
through a
protestant phase, does not cause modern Austrians to consider that
they
cannot be Catholics.
The kings of south India, like the Chola and Pandya dynsties,
relate their
lineages back to Manu. The Matsya Purana moreover makes Manu, the
progenitor
of all the Aryas, originally a south Indian king, Satyavrata.
Hence there
are not only traditions that make the Dravidians descendants of
Vedic rishis
and kings, but those that make the Aryans of north India
descendants of
Dravidian kings. The two cultures are so intimately related that
it is
difficult to say which came first. Any differences between them
appear to be
secondary, and nothing like the great racial divide that the
Aryan-Dravidian
idea has promoted.
Dravidians as Preservers of Vedic Culture
Through the long and cruel Islamic assault on India, south India
became the
land of refuge for Vedic culture, and to a great extent remains so
to the
present day. The best Vedic chanting, rituals and other traditions
are
preser- ved in south India. It is ironic therefore that the best
preservers
of Aryan culture in India have been branded as non-Aryan. This
again was not
something part of the Aryan tradition of India, as part of the
misinterpretation of the term Aryan fostered by European thought
which often
had a political or religi- ous bias, and which led to the Nazis.
To equate
such racism and violence with the Vedic and Hindu religion, the
least
aggressive of all religions, is a rather sad thing, not to say
very
questionable scholarship.
Dravidians do not have to feel that Vedic culture is any more
foreign to
them than it is to the people of north India. They need not feel
that they
are racially different than the people of the north. They need not
feel that
they are losing their culture by using Sanskrit. Nor need they
feel that
they have to assert themselves against north India or Vedic
culture to
protect their real heritage.
Vedic and Hindu culture has never suppressed indigenous cultures
or been
opposed to cultral variations, as have the monolithic conversion
religions
of Christianity and Islam. The Vedic rishis and yogis encouraged
the
develop- ment of local traditions. They established sacred places
in all the
regions in which their culture spread. They did not make everyone
have to
visit a single holy place like Meca, Rome or Jerusalem. Nor did
they find
local or tribal deities as something to be eliminated as heathen
or pagan.
They respected the common human aspiration for the Divine that we
find in
all cultures and encouraged diversity and uniqueness in our
approach to it.
Meanwhile the people of north India also need not take this
north-south
division as something fundamental. It is not a racial difference
that makes
the skin of south Indians darker but merely the effect of climate.
Any
Caucasian race group living in the tropics for some centuries or
millennia
would eventually turn dark. And whatever color a person's skin may
be has
nothing to do with their true nature according to the Vedas that
see the
same Self or Atman in all.
It is also not necessary to turn various Vedic gods into Dravidian
gods to
give the Dravidians equality with the so-called Aryans in terms of
the
numbers or antiquity of their gods. This only gives credence to
what is
superficial distinction in the first place. What is necessary is
to assert
what is truly Aryan in the culture of India, north or south, which
is high
or spiritual values in character and action. These occur not only
in the
Vedas but also the Agamas and other scriptures within the greater
tradition.
The Aryans and Dravidians are part of the came culture and we need
not speak
of them as separate. Dividing them and placing them at odds with
each other
serves the interests of neither but only serves to damage their
common
culture (which is what most of those who propound these ideas are
often
seek- ing). Perhaps the saddest thing is that modern Indian
politicians have
also used this division to promote their own ambitions, though it
is harmful
to the unity of the country.
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