Author:
Publication: Hinduism Today
Date: July, 1996
In Search of the cradle of Civilization,
New Light on Ancient India by Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak and David Frawley,
1995. 341 pages, hb., US$24.95. ISBN: 0-8356- 0720-8.
Quest Books, 306 W. Geneva Road, P.O. Box 270, Wheaton, Illinois,
60189-0270, USA. Phone: 708-665-0130, fax: 708-665-8791.
A lot of fine scholars of Indian
history are going to detest this book. The reason can be traced to
their urge not just to report history, but to speculate "why" events happened
as they did. In the case of Indian history, the Great Explanation
for the last 150 years has been the "Aryan Invasion of India." Never mind
that it was at best a wild guess to start with. With steely dedication
and true scholarly acumen, generations of PhDs have studiously and ingeniously
(and not always ingenuously) invoked this concocted theory to explain just
about everything in Indian history. Facts which contradicted the
theory failed to thwart its application to any given event. But times
change, and as we find out in this excellent book by three determined researchers
of Indian history, even ancient times can change. Page by page they
present the current evidence regarding ancient India and make a convincing
argument that the Aryan invasion of India simply never happened.
This poses a major problem for a lot of academics, as well as those who
rely upon them, such as children's textbook writers. These embarrassed
scholars have to rethink all sorts of things. If the Aryans didn't
invade India, who wrote the Vedas? If the Aryans didn't invade India, how
did those Dravidians get to the South? If the Aryans didn't invade India,
how did the caste system start? If the Aryans didn't invade India on horseback,
how did the horse get there? If the Aryans didn't invade India, why was
Mohenjodharo abandoned in ancient times? The list goes on and on.
There will be so much embarrassment as all those tidy "The Aryans caused
it" explanations don't work anymore. Take any book on Indian history
and count how many developments in Indian history are attributed to this
one now-discredited theory -- it is shocking. The fun part of this
book for Hindus is Chapter 9, "Why the Aryan Invasion Never Happened: Seventeen
Arguments." Warning: This book is not suitable reading for the closed-minded.
