Author: N.S. Rajaram
Publication: Organiser
Date: December 10, 2000
The Rig Veda and 'horse
science' show there was no invasion from Central Asia
No horse at Harappa Michael
Witzel, the Wales Professor of Sanskrit, is now the leading spokesman for
the scientifically discredited theory known as the Aryan Invasion Theory
of India (AIT), though of late it is being called 'migration' instead of
'invasion' (AMT). Central to this is the claim that the horse was
unknown in India until the invading Aryans brought it from Central Asia
in the second millennium. As a corollary, any suggestion that the
horse was known to the Harappans is seen as a threat to the theory and
fiercely resisted.
This is what is behind
Witzel's extraordinary propaganda blitz claiming that the horse seal printed
in the book The Deciphered Indus Script by N. Jha and N.S.
Rajaram (Aditya Prakashan) must be a fake. (We may leave out Steve
Farmer, who has no locus standi.) In his attempts to demolish any suggestion
of horses in the Harappan Civilization, Witzel is obfuscating an important
point: what is at issue is not the Harappan horse, but whether or not the
invading Aryans brought horses into India in the second millennium.
As neither Witzel (nor anyone else) can produce any archaeological trail
of horses into India in the second millennium, he is holding up the negative
statement of 'No horse at Harappa' as positive evidence for his theory
that otherwise has no evidence! The fact is that horse bones have been
found at all levels at Harappan sites. Jha and I mention this is
in a footnote, the same one that mentions the horse seal. But Witzel
refers only to the seal part, while ignoring the part of the footnote referring
to horse bones. This is typical of the kind of 'scholarship' that
pervades the work of those trying to save the Aryan Invasion Theory from
sinking.
Be as it may. Leaving
that subterfuge aside, I will next demonstrate that there is in fact positive
evidence in the Rig Veda to show that horses were known in Vedic India
that were not brought from Central Asia. In fact, the Rig Veda, far
from supporting any invasion from Central Asia, actually demolishes his
horse argument. The Rig Vedic horse Let us first understand what
is involved in this 'no horse' logic. Witzel seems to think that
the survivability of the Aryan invasion rests on the 'no horse at Harappa'
doctrine. With all his eggs in the 'no horse basket' he simply cannot
affort to acknowledge the existence of the Harappan horse. This accounts
for his near hysterical reaction to our identification of the horse seal.
Therein lies his great fallacy: in his obsession with the horse seal, Witzel
overlooked a very simple scientific fact that the Rig Vedic horse is not
the Centra Asian horse. This is clear from the horse anatomy described
in the Rig Veda itself. Evidence for this comes from verse I.162.18
of the Rig Veda describing the Ashvamedha horse: "The horse of victory
has thirty-four ribs on the two sides that face threat in the battle.
O skilled men, treat these uninjured parts with skill, so they may recover
their energy!" (RV, I. 162.18) This clearly states that it has 34
ribs on two sides (or 17 on each side).
In contrast, the Central
Asian horse, which according to Witzel (and others) was brought into India
by the invading Aryans, had 36 ribs (18 on each side)! What does this mean?
The horse of Vedic India like that of South-East Asia is a distinct variety
and not the Central Asian horse. So the Rig Vedic horse could not
have been brought into India by any invading people from the northwest.
The Harappan horse is irrelevant-on the seal or in anatomical remains.
What is relevant is that the horse described by the Rig Veda is not the
Central Asian horse. Then which horse is the Rig Veda describing?
Where did it come from? Here is how one expert (Paul Kekai Manansala) puts
it: "Deep in the specialized literature on horse classification, we can
find that Indian and other horses extending to insular South-East Asia
were peculiar from other breed. All showed anatomical traces of admixture
with the ancient equid known as Equus Sivalensis. ... However,
like that equid, the horse of South-Eastern Asia has peculiar zebra-like
dentition. Also both were distinguished by a pre-orbital depression.
The orbital region is important because it has been demonstrated as useful
in classifying different species of equids. Finally, and most importantly
in relation to the Vedic literature, the Indian horse has, like Equus Sivalensis,
only 17 pairs of ribs." The seventeen-ribbed Equus Sivalensis is the scientific
name for 'Horse of the Siwaliks'. The Siwaliks of course are the
Himalayan foothills adjacent to Haryana and Punjab-the original Vedic heartland.
So the horse described
in the Rig Veda is in all probability this Siwalik horse or a close relative,
and certainly not the Central Asian horse. This is a fruitful area
of research, but what we can definitely say is that the Central Asian horse,
descended from the Equus Przevaalskii (with 18 pairs of ribs) was not the
one described by the Rig Veda. This means the Vedic Aryans knew the
horse long before anyone brought the larger Central Asiatic breed into
India. So where does all this leave Witzel (and others) of the 'no
Harappan horse' theory? Nowhere. First, the Harappan horse is irrelevant-seal
or no seal. Second, their 'No horse' doctrine becomes: 'No Central
Asian horse'. To sustain their invasion scenario they must produce
an archaeological trail of Central Asian horses coming into India in the
second millennium, which went on to become the Rig Vedic horse. This
is demolished by the anatomical description given in the Rig Veda.
Their theory has crashed, and they better accept this reality. To
sum up: the Aryan invasion theory (or the Aryan migration theory) represents
one of the great intellectual blunders in the history of scholarship.
This was supplemented and sustained by shoddy scholarship as evidenced
by Witzel's own blunders in Sanskrit grammar and his confusion in the horse
debate. A major theory cannot be built on negative evidence like
'No horse at Harappa'. It is time to give up this theory-and this
methodology-and rebuild history on a solid foundation of positive evidence
and multidisciplinary research. A drowning man may grasp at straws
to save himself, but he cannot save the ship from sinking.
