dec 6th, 2006
rather interesting take on the aryan fantasy.
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Novemeber 28, 2006
Here is the original (unedited) text of the feature review that
appeared in the Novemeber 5 issue of The Week.
An interesting development is the matter fact recognition of the Aryan
myth as a European racist/political/cultural phenomenon that has no
basis in fact. The focus now is an finding explanations for this
pathological brand of 'scholarship.' This means that we too should
shift our attention from refutation to diagnosing this phenomenon, and
its persistence in academica and politics under various guises.
N.S . Rajaram
Book review
A EUROPEAN LOOK AT THE ARYAN MYTH
Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science by Stefan
Arvidsson (2006), translated by Sonia Wichmann, The University of Chicago
Press.
Judged strictly on merit, the various Aryan theories rank
among the weakest examples of scholarship, riddled with
scientific contradictions and weighed down by political and
racial prejudices. But in influence and longevity, especially
in politics, they bid fair to compare with the theories of
Einstein and Darwin. The 'Aryan nation' became the mantra of
German unification, while in colonial India, Aryans became the
common ancestors of the Indians and the British, the latter
benevolently ruling over their degraded brothers. Neither
Relativity nor the Theory of Evolution can match this.
While the scientific, racial and political aspects of Aryan
theories have been debated threadbare, a basic question has
gone begging: what drove the Europeans, Germans in particular
to go to a land and a people so far removed from them in space
and time to define themselves? This question is effectively
answered by the Swedish scholar Stefan Arvidsson in his
remarkable book Aryan Idols. In the process, he has also shed
valuable light on the European cultural currents leading to
the persistence of these theories in Western academia as well
as their proneness to ideological abuse.
A useful point that Arvidsson makes is that the goal of this
discipline, now called Indo-European studies was not so much
to understand Indian origins as to "show that there existed a
rich 'German' mythology that could successfully compete with
classical Judeo-Christian traditions." It is hardly surprising
that anti-Semitism was tied up with it.
A little known aspect of Aryan theories, at least in India, is the major
contribution of German folklore. Wilhem and Jacob Grimm, who compiled
German folk tales were also philologists. "For over two hundred years, a
series of historians, linguists, folklorists, and archaeologists have
tried to re-create a lost culture. Using ancient texts, medieval records,
philological observations, and archaeological remains they have described
a world, a religion, and a people older than the Sumerians, with whom all
history is said to have begun."
There are of course no Indo-European texts. "No objects can definitely be
tied to them, nor do we know any 'Indo-European' by name. In spite of
that, scholars have stubbornly tried to reach back to the ancient
'Indo-Europeans,' with the help of bold historical, linguistic, and
archaeological reconstructions, in the hopes of finding the foundation of
their own culture and religion there."
This helps answer the question why some Western academics
react viscerally whenever their theories are thrown in doubt
by new findings in archaeology, natural history or genetics.
They strike at the very root their cherished ideas about their
identity. As Arvidsson notes: "There is something in the
nature of research about Indo-Europeans that makes it
especially prone to ideological abuse- perhaps something
related to the fact that for the past two centuries, the
majority of scholars who have done research on the
Indo-Europeans have considered themselves descendants of this
mythical race." This 'ideological abuse' reached its
culmination in Nazi regime. More recently, it raised its head
when California education authorities tried to change the
syllabus in elementary schools, replacing theories like the
Aryan invasion with more recent findings.
Speaking of Indology, the book observes: "The theory about
India as the original home of the Indo-Europeans, and the
Indians as a kind of model Aryans, lost supporters during the
nineteenth century, and other homelands and other model Aryans
took their place instead." The Aryans (or Indo-Europeans) and
their homeland were gradually moved westward until they were
made to settle in Eurasia and even Germany. In the hands of
German scholars, Aryans became "Indo-Germanische."
In summary, "The main reason why scholarship about the
Indo-Europeans has tended to produce myths is that so many who
have written (and read) about it have interpreted it as
concerning THEIR OWN ORIGIN." While this accounts for the
European attachment to the Aryan myth, it fails to explain why
many Indian scholars continue to cling to it. The answer will
have to come from an Indian scholar.
__________________
N.S. Rajaram's latest book is Sarasvati River and the Vedic
Civilization: History, science and politics. (Aditya
Prakashan, New Delhi)
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