Description
For the first time in a single volume, this book presents the various arguments in the Indo-Aryan controversy. It also provides a template for the basic issues addressing four major areas: archaeological research, linguistic issues, the interpretation of Vedic texts in their historical contexts, and ideological roots. The volume ends with a plea for a return to civility in the debates which have become increasingly, and unproductively, politicized, and suggests a program of research and inquiry upon which scholars from all sides of the debate might embark.
Table of Contents
Introduction Part 1: Archaeology 1. Culture Change During the Late Harappan Period at Harappa: New Insights on Vedic Aryan Issues 2. Aryan Invasion of India: Perpetuation of a Myth 3. South Asian Archaeology and the Myth of Indo-Aryan Invasions Part 2: Archaeology and Linguistics 4. The Cultural Counterparts to Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Aryan: matching the Dispersal and Contact Patterns in the Linguistic and Archaeological Record 5. Archaeology and Language: The Case of the Bronze Age Indo-Iranians Part 3: Philology and Linguistics 6. The Date of the Rigveda and the Aryan Migration (Fresh Linguistic Evidence) 7. Linguistic Aspects of the Aryan Non-Invasion Theory 8. Philology and the Historical Interpretation of the Vedic Texts 9. Vedic Astronomy and Early Indian Chronology 10. The Textual Evidence: The Rigveda as a Source of Indo-European History 11. Indocentrism: Autochthonous Visions of Ancient India Part 4: Historiography 12. Aryan Origins: Arguments from 19th Century Maharashtra 13. Aryan Past and Post-Colonial Present: The Polemics and Politics of Indigenous Aryanism. Concluding Remarks
