sincerely

brian a brady
kamloops, b.c., canada

It was written by Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri), American Institute of Vedic Studies
PO Box 8357, Santa Fe NM 87504-8357
Ph: 505-983-9385, Fax: 505-982-5807
http://www.vedanet.com/

Etymology

Indo-Iranian ar-ya- descends from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root *ar “to assemble skillfully”, present in Greek harma “chariot”, Greek aristos, (as in “aristocracy”), Latin ars “art”, etc. Proto-Indo-Iranian *ar-ta- was a related concept of “properly joined” expressing a religious concept of cosmic order.

The adjective *aryo- was suggested as ascending to Proto-Indo-European times as the self-designation of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language itself. It was suggested that other words such as Éire, the Irish name of Ireland, and Ehre (German for “honour”) were related to it, but these are now widely regarded as untenable, and while *ar-yo- is certainly a well-formed PIE adjective, there is no evidence that it was used as an ethnic self-designation outside the Indo-Iranian branch. In the 1850s Max Müller theorized that the word originated as a denotation of farming populations, since he thought it likely that it was related to the root *arh3, meaning “to plough”. Other 19th century writers, such as Charles Morris, repeated this idea, linking the expansion of PIE speakers to the spread of agriculturalists. Most linguists now consider *arh3 to be unrelated.

The Old Persian form of *Aryāna- appears as Æryānam Väejāh “Aryan Expanse” in Avestan,[1] in Middle Persian as Ērān, and in Modern Persian as Īrān.[2] Similarly, Northern India was referred to by the tatpurusha Aryavarta “Arya-abode” in ancient times.

(A) They continue to hang on to the dead theory that the Indus
civilization is Aryan and indigenous.

(B) Despite the mountain of official documented and textual
evidence from various sources eg: Andronovan proven Indo-
Iranian sites, evidence from the Vedas itself, lack of evidence of
horses and chariots in ancient India before the advent of the
Aryans etc, Indian officials and historians still attempt to castigate
the authors and doubt the veracity of the documented and
archaeological evidence.

(C) The clear absence of archaeological and attestation of horse trade
between the Indus Civilization and its neighbors in the time period
of supposed finds of horse remains.

We begin from the beginning by placing the Aryans outside of India rather than being an indigenous people living thousands of years in India as so many Indian scholars believe. It is a fact that the Avesta places a home for the Aryans who sojourned outside India, which they called Airyana Vaejah or Aryan Homeland. The Aryans came through the Northwest of what is now today the state of Pakistan. That old natural pass called the Khyber. This same pass was used by different conquerors to conquer India in later times. This is a northwest route , not an east or west or south route and you can see from the geographical map where the Aryans forded and settled for a time calling it the Saptasindhu of which Five Rivers of the area were Shutudri called the Sutlej, the Vipasha or Vipash now called the Beas, the Parushini now called the Ravi, the Vitasta now called the Jhelum. Two main rivers were added called the Indus or Sindhu and the Sarasvati making it the Seven Rivers. The following points shows why the Aryans are intruders to India.

a) Despite, the writings and articles of Indian historians, archaeologists and Internet writers, these are the only rivers other than the Ganga and Yamuna mentioned in the Vedas. If the Aryans were indigenous people, why didn’t they mention the Kaveri, the Krishna, the Bhima, the Godavari, the Narmada, the Chambal and the others?

b) Why didn’t they mention all the other civilizations such as the Indus, and those of Southern India etc?

c) Some may have noticed that the Vedas descriptions of their life and society only is confined to the northwest of India. There is no mention of areas of Bengal, Tamil Nadu or Maharastra and other areas.

d) Do the historical departments of India and other such cultural organizations have the names of the original rivers , because these are mostly Rigvedic names. If the Harappans occupied the Indus civilizations for so long, surely they must have names for these rivers.

This is the only way the Aryans could have come into India and that is through the Khyber Pass between the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you look closely at the geographical map of the region, the SaptaSindhu area with all the headwaters of the seven rivers draining from the Siwalk and Himalayan mountains , and here is where the Aryans first come into India and Afghanistan with the rivers Kubha, Gomati and Krumu. It formed part of the culture of the Swat region with the rivers Suvastu, Gauri, Kusava and Trstama. The Swat culture is the first settlement or region occupied by the Aryans. If anyone whether it be Talageri or other revisionists who believe that the Aryans migrated out of India or that they were indigenous, is without archaeological foundation. Unlike the AIT theory which has some trace of Aryan intrusion into India, the OIT theory has not a single iota or fragment or sliver of any archaeological attestation of such a venture. In his book, ( The Rigveda, A Historical Analysis. Page 83 Internet Publication) Talageri writes :

that the evidence of the hymns of the Early Period of the Rigveda, as we have already
seen locates the Indo-Iranians further east: i.e in the area from (and including) Uttar Pradesh in the east to (and including) the Punjab in the west. It is not , therefore, Central Asia, but India, which is the original area from which the Iranians migrated to their later historical habitats.

The only thing wrong with the Talageri proposal is that the Iranians and Indo-Aryans had already separated from each other. The Indo-Aryans came into the Swat area thence to the Indus civilization. Most probably it was in Afghanistan that the Iranians branched off from the Indo-Aryans as the Aryans came into the Swat area. There they established their culture, bringing the first horse to India. Make no mistake the Iranians knew about the Seven Rivers area since they mentioned it in their Avesta book. Talager’s book as well as others are now outdated with the new discoveries on the Russian steppes of Central Asia. The archaeological sites of horses, chariots over a vast area are what now archaeologists and historians are now confirming are Indo-Iranians origins and recently the startling discovery on one of these sites of a human figure with a horse’s head as exactly written in the RV reveals one important thing. That it was an incident that occured during the former life and travels of the Aryans on their way to India. Treated as a myth and dismissed by some as such, it revealed the former home and culture of the Aryans and legend had become fact.

The article written by Brigadier Kaul Rattan Online called (Aryan Sarasvat Brahmin of Kashmir) states the following on the location of the early Aryans in India as they intruded into the subcontinent. He states:

Bharatvarsha was the ancient name for the geographical area South of the Indus
(Sindhu) extending from the Northern to Central Bharatvarsha (Hindustan) including.
geographical limits of Kashmir, East to the Western Sea and bounded on the North
and South by the Himalaya/ Hindukush/ Sindhu and Vindhya mountains
respectively.

Perhaps Talageri would like to explain what the Iranians were doing in India since they were supposed to be on their way to Persia to colonize that country. The earliest hymns reveal that the Aryans were traversing the foothills of the Siwalk and the headwaters of the Seven Rivers. That comes from Book 2 the oldest of the Aryan hymns. It is logical that the oldest hymns which contain the earliest travels of the Aryans is factual and uncontested and that early journey ended in the Swat culture in northwest India. From here at Pirak, was discovered the remains of the first horse and cremation, a custom and innovation never before experienced in India. It is baffling that Indian historians and writers continue to argue for an Aryan Indus when the evidence reveals that the Indus people practiced an Afro-Austric custom of inhumation whilst the new intrusion of a new people reveals the IE rite of cremation.

The Cemetery H Culture. This culture is the next stage of the continuation occupation of India from which the culture takes its name, area H at Harappa.This culture developed out of the northern part of the Punjab Seven Rivers system and occurs around the last stage of the Late Harappan civilization. or Localisation Era. The revisionists familiar writings of a continuity of civilization and ethnic biological theory is that the Aryans mixed and assimilated with the inhabitants which is expected and thus the skeletons discovered does not necessarily mean that the inhabitants are foreigners. The distinguishing features of this civilization are:

1) The use of cremation of human remains.

2) Expansion of settlements into the east.

3) Rice became the staple diet.

4) Urn burials which indicated the presence of a new people.

Here in this northwestern area of the Saptasindhu of India, the new intrusive people called the Aryans founded two cultures the Swat and Cemetery H still hugging the vast riverine system dominated by the Indus and Sarasvati, rivers which they worshipped in the Vedas. The Aryans spent a short sojourn in Afghanistan where they began to compose the Vedas and this is evidenced by the mention of the Kubha and Krumu rivers in the Vedas. Some historians say that there is no archaeological evidence that the Aryans but these rivers do flow into the Indus and left the name of Aryana, the Vedic name they gave to Afghanistan. Some sources believe that Harappan archaeology and Vedic are the same maybe so because the Aryans dominated and ruled the day. There is no such thing as Vedic Harappans. Why? The Harappans are a different people as well as their civilization for theirs are Dravidian in origin and did not practice the cultural rites and customs until it was imposed on them. Harappa was an Indus city built by an indigenous people of India. Historians cannot prove that the city of Harappa owned horses and chariots before the advent of the Aryans. How more foreign can one get?

Looking at the map of the SaptaSindhu with its riverine system I sometimes wonder why the Aryans chose that area to make their first settlements. Of all the places in India why did the Aryans chose to come here? Why this particular northwestern area? What routes did they follow? Why not any other area of India, say in Bengal or south in Tamil Nadu? Perhaps there are some solid reasons why they did choose this northwestern part of India due to easy access and that one easy access was the Khyber Pass which is the only available pass in the area. The Khyber Pass opens up to the vast plains of the Pontic region which in turn leads to the steppes of the huge Russian grasslands. A glance at the map shows that it is the only logical route from the Sintashta/ Androvono burial sites. How did they hear of the SaptaSindhu with its fertile alluvial valleys and plains? Perhaps by accident they did happen onto the subcontinent or it is possible that these northern tribes heard of the rich empires of the south and came for its booty. Indeed , they came as freebooters. The south with its prosperous empires were attractive targets for these nomads. If the Aryans are an indigenous people , why did they just develop in the northwestern corner of India alone and not in other parts of India? Why are the other tribal peoples of India silent in their chronicles of their presence in their midst? All these considerations only point to their foreign nature and customs which is quite different from those indigenous tribes already living in India. The Aryans most likely came from the Mittani territories which is the general opinion of experts who reject the possibility that they came from the Indian subcontinent. Their association with the horse, fire cult and worship, cremation and the worship and resemblances of gods similar to IE and Greek gods points to an outside migration and not an indigenous one.

Time and again the readers and followers of revisionist scholars question the presence of the Aryans in India and seem baffled that a nomadic people as they should produce such a brilliant religious doctrine and language. This is nothing new since skeptics of all colors are found in all disciplines and studies of history , the arts and other such academic fields. Well, the Indus people did produce an astonishing civilization far in advance of its time and very modern and exquisitely built in retrospect to its time and people. The Indus people are Stone Age people using more or less primitive stone tools, and yet they produced something of value remarkable for such an age traded, maintained it and also produced or invented writing without attending scholastic classes. Thus, they used their intelligence and wit to match their brilliance, a remarkable achievement for a people still living in the mists of antiquity. They proved that the Age does not matter but the ability to imagine and to comprehend what to do with the tools at hand and those were very primitive tools so to speak.

Yet the readers and revisionist followers never seem to question the Indus civilization and its achievements but in most Internet articles and publications , they question the Aryans’ ability to produce such religious hymns and near perfect language. These readers can’t believe or don’t want to believe that the Aryans composed and wrote down such beautiful verses for religious purposes in a matter of centuries. So why can’t they? The Indus people used their imagination and resources to build a civilization out of the mists of antiquity. Then, why can’t the Aryans despite being nomads gave India its great religious legacy so too did the Prophet Mohamed gave Arabia , Islam and they were all nomads on the move.

The Aryans after they entered Afghanistan began to compose the Vedas and from the moment they left Afghanistan , for India they continue to compose the verses of the Vedas. The method they used , they were masters at. They chanted everything from memory led by the Artharvans, the high priests. Chanting the Vedas for thousands of years is the method the Rigvedic Aryans used to preserve their legacy. Yes, for those readers who doubt that the Aryans could not have created such beautiful poetry whilst on the move , that is the method they used. They committed it to memory. They used their ability and natural human recources even though they were nomads just like the nomads coming out of the sands of Arabia. Those Indian doubters should be aware of this since this legacy were passed down to them from their forefathers. The rivers they encountered in India from the headwaters of the mountains they named and having known the Sarasvati in Afghanistan , they gave the Sarasvati its name. As the river began to dry up the name remained in the Vedas simply because it was taboo to change the sacred hymns. And this brings us to the area already dominated by the Aryans. The oldest books of the Vedas which contain the early intrusion of the Aryans contain one natural phenomena which seemed to have bedeviled the Aryans as they struggled to make a living in the Seven Rivers area. And that is the rampaging floods that they wrote so much about India’s raging rivers pumped up by the Monsoons every year are mentioned by the Aryans. Here are a few from Bk 2 alone:

Book 2 Hymn V11 Verse 3 through streaming water floods.

X I Verse 2 floods great and many

XII Verse 12 Seven great floods to flow at pleasure

XIII Verse 1 rapidly the floods wherein it grows

XIII Verse 12 Turviti heldest still the flowing floods

XV Verse 5 the mighty roaring flood he stayed from flowing

XIX Verse 3 sent forth the flood of waters to the ocean

XXI Verse 5 from him who speeds the flood

XXV Verse 3 He, mighty like a raving billowy flood

XXXV Verse 3 Some floods unite themselves, On every side the bright
floods have encompassed

Book 3 Hymn 1 Verse 4 Him , Blessed One, the Seven strong Floods

LIII Verse 9 … restrained the billowy river etc

With the above , one can imagine the conditions and wild landscape , huge raging rivers and deep forested jungle and craggy mountains and fertile plains that the Aryans enountered in the land of the Seven Rivers. The constant stream of overflowing rivers and raging tides and flooding the land must have tested the faith of these people. The monsoons of India must have created havoc with the beliefs of the Aryans since these heavy downpours flooded the land and the rivers making them deadly, especially the Indus and the Sarasvati. In parts the Sarasvati must dried up during the years but the monsoons torrential downpours which is phenomenal and extensive surely would have created awe in the world of the Aryans. The Sarasvati’s name was transferred to this great river in India for as the people of the Indus disappeared from history, the newly intrusive Aryans must have applied the name to the river. With the fall and decline of the Indus civilization , the river which probably had a name was unknown to the newly arrived Aryans and so they gave it the name of Sarasvati, which they knew in Afghanistan. I have read somewhere that revisionist Frawley once said that it was not possible that the Aryans could have brought horse and chariots to the northwest of India. Well, they did and the earliest books from 2–7 is full of horses and chariots. The northwest of India also contain fertile which would have accommodate horses and chariots and Frawley’s et al have sought to disinform readers and supporters of the migration theory that the horses and chariots mentioned in the Vedas were symbolic connected with their religion. How come the Aryans of the Tarim basin used chariots and horses to occupy parts of this area surrounded by rugged mountains and built a civilization? But that is another matter. Despite, being troubled by rising flood waters, monsoons, cold weather, the Aryans continue to invoke their most popular god Indra to help them fight off enemies and foul weather. Time and again Indra is called upon to help Aryan prayers to persevere and we divert here for a moment for a chronology of the prehistoric Aryan origin. The ridiculous Frawley et al theory of an indigenous Indus Aryan civilization does not have any foundation whatsoever. Lets begin with the Vedas and the Avesta. Vedas means Vedic Hymns so too do the Zend Avesta. which implies or stipulates that the Indo-Aryans and the Iranians were one people living somewhere before in an ancient homeland. This suggests :

a) They are new nomadic tribes to the subcontinent.

b) The lifestyles of the Vedas and the Avesta are the same

c) They shared the same language, customs, rites, etc.

d) They used the same technology such as horses and chariots, which was
unknown at that time in the region.

e) They worshipped the same gods and both religions were alike in their
formative stages.

f) They belong to the same IE family of languages and ethnicity etc.

g) Scanning the pages of the Vedas and Avesta in detail exposes the fact that
the people does not have any knowledge of a vast subcontinent.

h) Their immediate geography is limited to certain areas and there is no
knowledge of other parts of India in that earliest period.

i) The presence of names of areas and rivers in Afghanistan reveals that they
knew the geography of the country and is the only other country they knew.

j) Whereas, the Indus people knew of other countries such as Sumer,
Mesopotamia, Dilmun, Magan, and some Arabian countries.

k) There is not mention or knowledge of the above mentioned countries in the
Vedas or the Avesta.

l) We can compare the invasion of the Aryans like the migratory methods of the
Mexicans to the US, the only difference is the Aryans took over India.

m) The Aryans had to come from somewhere , they just could not have
evolved from the vast subcontinent. There is no evidence to support
that, especially in the south, where the population is very much darker
than those in the north. It is reasonable that if the Aryans were in India
for thousands of years, interbreeding would have produced a uniform
white skinned or fair skinned nation. America is only two hundred years
old and the Black population is turning white skinned already. With its
thousands of years of history, one can imagine India would be like.

n) The Aryans who tarried in the north and northwest for thousands of years
were a segregated lot and very clannish. To make it worse their caste
system for a while preserved their color. So we can see that the north
bore the brunt of the migration as they assimilated.

o) The Androvono, BMAC and other cultures smacks of the strong smell of an Indo-
Iranian origin with its vast burial and cremation sites of horses, chariots, wheels
and other practices mentioned in the Vedas. The Dadhanyac horse head legend
now brought back to life with its discovery on the steppes of Russia. The burial
relics associated with this cultures fits nicely with IE customs and rites and
the migration route from the shores of the Black Sea to the Hindukush to the
Swat culture and the only mention of a foreign country called Afghanistan. The
Aryans knew the Kubha river and others. The Swat culture is the most
likely locus of the earliest IE presence east of the Hindus Kush of the bearers of
the Rigvedic culture (Wikipedia Page 5 Textual References.Internet Article)

p) The Aryans in the Vedas have not mentioned any knowledge of being familiar
with any people or tribes or their customs to suggest a past habitation.

q) As proven outsiders and the clinching evidence that the Aryans were that is the
evidence portrayed by the Swat Culture. Here there is a major change in the
Swat Valley with the introduction of new ceramics, burial sites and cremation
remains in urns which is a custom of the early Vedic people from the Sapta
Sindhu which is reminiscent of the Trojan cremation urns. IE people are known
to practice this custom and not people descended from Afro-Austric lineage.
Then, there are horse burials and trappings. Do the revisionists accept this?
Thus, attempts of proponents of continuity to portray the Rigvedic culture as
native to the subcontinent, such as identification of horses and chariots in the
Indus art have little or not acceptance from Indologists. (Horse and chariot,
Page 11 Wikipedia. Internet Article)

r) For those who like to quote the Nadistuti Sukta and its praise of rivers to base
their argument for an indigenous Aryan civilization, should look again. The sages
who compiled this list, suggests that the Aryans only knew these rivers in
northwest India and Afghanistan. Nothing here suggests a hinterland geographic
knowledge of the rest of the subcontinent.

The migration into India as shown above is ironclad and I will now go on to change topic and
make a few comments here on the supposed theory of the Out of India model as presented by Mr. Elst’s emerging model as presented in Wikipedia page 3. Internet Article.
Mr. Koenraad Elst writes:

The Out of India theory as suggested by him holds that the Indo-Iranians were
remnants of the Proto-Indo Europeans culture that resided with the Indian
subcontinent in the 5th millennium BC. After the split of the Proto-Indo-
Iranians. The Iranians would have migrated towards the Hindu Kush and
eventually towards the Central Asia making their discovery of the chariot during
this period.

I am amused by his speculation which also include a map showing his theory how the
PIE language spread from the Indus Valley outwards from India! Mr. Elst and his colleagues still believe in an Aryan Indus and and indigenous IE civilization of India and that it spreaded outwards despite the lack of convincing evidence of habitation, custom, rites etc that these people supposed to have left behind in Indian burial sites such as horses, chariots, pottery language etc. Mr. Elst’s emerging model is weak and has no foundation. Lets see:

According to Mr. Elst a very highly educated and disciplined person in this craft, believed that the PIE originated in the Indus, that the Aryans left India to discover the chariot in Asia and spread the language in Europe etc. Then,

a) How can a people of India migrated outside to Asia to discover the chariot,
when 6,000 years ago the sites of the Russian steppes such as Sintashta and
Petrovka and Kazakhstan were already buried in their burnt graves?

b) If and when they got back to India why are there no evidence of horse burials
or evidence of of chariot usage in India before the advent of the Aryans?

c) Why did they not have evidence of the use of the horse and chariot in the
Indus which is a complete blank in its archaeological sites. Did they come
to India and used the horse and chariot excluding the Indus?

d) How can PIE originate from the Indus civilization when the seals and script
does not represent a spoken language per se?

e) New analysis of material from the graves from this area shows that these
chariots were built more than 4000 years ago , strengthening their case
for their origin in the steppes rather than the Middle East. ( Remaking the
Wheel-Evolution of the Chariot. Science Times Book of Archaeology. NY
Edited by Nicholas Wade 1999. by John Noble Wilford 1994)

Poor Mr. Elst et al , they cannot seem to account properly for the absence of the horse
and chariot at the Indus, hence an OIT. This subject of the horse and chariot has thrown
their axis out of tilt and they can’t seem to get it straight.
I’d like to make a point on the subject of horses to those who believe that the Indus was a center for horse breeding from the inception of the Indus civilization circa 3500BC. Indian historians and some archaeologists have written a host of articles of horses at the Indus and reported findings of bones and remains. Also, we hear how the Indus empire was far flung in its trading with other nations such as Sumer, Mesopotamia and Arab lands. We read of the vast trading commerce of the Indus people with their sailing ships and we read of the products they traded with other people. Also , most of the Indian writers and historians state how vast deposits of horse bones are found in most Indus cities. If all this is true , then why in the trading documents are there no mention of horse trading of Indus ships with the other nations? Where are the detailed descriptions of the color of the horse, the breed of the horse etc in the trading lists of the Indus traders? Where are the parts of the chariots that was traded from the Indus to other cities and civilizations? Why are there no details of horse trading from the other lands , especially from the Arabs? How is it that the Indus ALONE possessed the horse from 3500BC, and no other civilization or city has no textual evidence of its presence within that time? The Indus was indeed overflowing with bones, asses and onagers. The Indus civilization drew on an inexhausted supply of asses and onagers from the Rann Of Kutch where the ass is known as khurs. This is where the Indus people derived the source of their transport , because the Rann OF Kutch was overflowing with asses and onagers and they were used for transport, pack animals, dray carts along with the oxen and bulls. Even today the area still depends on the Rann Of Kutch for its pack animals. So the Indian historians and archaeologists should stop looking in every nook and cranny of the Indus for horses. They didn’t exist. If any Indian archaeologist or historian could find any textual evidence that the Indus traded in horses with their neighbors , I’d recommend him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Indian scholars and historians who fervently believe in an Aryan Indus love to include in their books and pieces supposed evidence of horse bones, remains and fauna in the cities and sites of the ancient Indus. But none so far can prove that evidence exists that the Indus possessed this technology and as I have said above that if the Indus people knew this animal , they would have left evidence of horse trading in those ancient times. It is amazing that several historians and scholars give glowing accounts of reasons why the Indus is of Aryan origin but omits the main animal– the horse and worse yet go into detail about Indus trade and yet cannot produce attestation of horse trading. Every conceivable item, article and artifact is detailed for the trade industry for the Indus but the trade in horses is missing. Dr. Subhash Kak, a devotee of Aryan Indus in his article: “Vedic Elements In the Ancient Iranian Religion of Zarathushtra” ( Pages 51-56) makes a comparison of the two religions but ominiously leaves out the horse and chariot but includes the cow. This is cynical of the writings of historical revisionists who write and publish articles as the true history of India arguing for an Aryan Indus but omits the horse and chariot. This kind of argument never clinches their theories. Or if they do mention the horse and chariot, they rely on the false layer of deposits of ass bones found in the Indus as evidence of the animal’s existence. A horse rich Aryan Indus existing from 3500BC should leave us and archaeologists a vast amount of remains of a horse culture, a culture of attestation which should exhibit the training and breeding of horses, textual evidence of horse management, use of the horse as a mode of transport or for martial purposes and written documents of horse trade with the surrounding empires. None of this is available in the ruins of the Indus and while the Aryans and Trojans are superb examples of horse breeding, of which the evidence attests to this, the Indus are not known to have seen a horse and therefore are not horse breeders. There is no pictorial evidence of interaction or integration of the horse and chariot in the evidence produced so far in the Indus. There are no seals or scripts attesting to people of the Indus driving chariots pulled by horses as we have seen in other societies. If any animals were used in the Indus civilization , they were amply supplied by the limitless herds of asses and onagers roaming the Rann Of Kutch, known as khurs. As G.L Possehl the archaeologist said,

“As far as I can tell, there are lots of asses documented at the Indus
settlements , but not domestic horses.”

Who else can be more right? All this has been confirmed by Meadow and Kenoyer the two leading archaeologists in the Indus excavations and most times they are irritated by the revisionist scholars whose enthusiasm carries they them away. This is what the various Hindunet articles are trying to suggest that the donkey carts of the Indus is a point of origin for the development of lightly rolling war chariots of the Vedas. They are employing lexemes, morphemes, phonemes and various other subtle ingenuous and insidious word building in these articles in order to fit the Aryans war machine for an Aryan Indus society when the archaeological evidence does not produce such a picture. Other internet articles state that:

Carts were pulled by oxen and asses in Sumeria between 3000 and 2750 BC
By the time of the Copper Age , 3000BC solid wheels and axles were used.
There are records of two four wheeled carts pulled by oxen and asses in
Sumeria and Mesopotamia between the above date. Also many model carts
have been dug up. (www. Techitouk.com)

The King of Sumer rides out in cart pulled by 4 donkeys for war.
(www.answerbag.com)

If the reader notices , these are the same time period which so called horse bones are found in the Indus and this brings up the following questions , which I am sure no historian or scholar of a revisionist nature will attempt to answer.

a) If there was an Aryan indigenous civilization with the above dates, where are the
cremation sites or urns from this time period? The Trojan civilization produced
cremation sites and urns from this early period.

b) Why is there no evidence of a deep and vast horse culture in the Indus?

c) Why are there no remains of sacrifice and buried chariots which is the custom of
Aryan people?

d) If the Aryans were indigenous to India why is there an absence of such
documentation in the texts and chronicles of other neighboring clans and tribes?

e) Why is there only mention of cremation in the Vedas and not in other
chronicles?

f) Why is there only mention of horse sacrifice only in the Vedas and not in other
chronicles of the other people?

g) Most important of all, how can the Indus possess horses in a vaccum at a time
when other empires did not have them? Did the Indus alone have them? If so
why are there no evidence of trade?

h) The Indus as a civilization has failed to demonstrate or illustrate its familiarity with
horses in a two fold manner:

The absence of interaction and integration of its people, history and
archaeological remains with the horse and chariot.
There is no pictorial or illustrative carvings, engravings or writings that allude to it
familiarity of the horse with its people. eg. there is no pictures of people
together with horses and chariots, no writings or seals that reveal the
breedings, categories or worshipful reverence of the horse or allusions to rich
people owning horses or horses used as transport in the cities.

Secondly, the Indus civilization as a cluster for habitation for survival has no
evidence that the horse existed as an integrative icon in its religion, culture ,
lifestyle or as a tool for transport or for martial purposes. Its absence as an
integrative icon or symbol in the society of the Indus is complete. Historians
and archaeologists as AK . Sharma and Bonkoyi are dead wrong. They cannot
prove that the horse was used for trading nor can anyone else connected with
the Indus. The Indus has no evidence of trading in horses and thus its
integrative absence is true. Also, had the horse existed in the Indus , its rulers
would have certainly traded its value, used it for personal and martial purposes
etc. I challenge anyone to provide evidence that the Indus traded horses with its
neighbors between 3500BC-2500BC when supposedly horse bones and
remains were found in its soils of its cities.

I once posed this question to Mr. Elst about the question of evidence of horse trade from the Indus with their neighbors. His answer was not satisfactory nor was his attitude conducive to me in his reply. The trading of horses as an industry or occupation in the Indus is non-existent and revisionist writers bask in the glory of the greatness of the Indus in their trading relations with their neighbors. Dozens of books , articles and publications are devoted to the huge trading industry of the Indus with the distant empires and cities in faraway lands. We also read about the Indus people , especially sailors and merchants and traders lived in Sumer, Mesopotamia and other foreign lands and carried on trade with their counterparts. This is the time period that where most revisionist theories date the supposedly Aryan Indus from 3500BC to 2700BC in which horse remains and bones are plentiful in the Indus cities from Ropar in the north to Surkotada down south.and even further. Then there is the familiar terracota finds of horse figurines and such things that some archaeologists and historians label as true findings of the existence of the horse at the Indus. Mr. Elst’s long list of horse bones and remains is grand and convincing if one does not delve further into the history of the Indus. Here is a piece from the Internet dated July 9 2003. titled

Trade and Economics of the Indus: The Harappan Tradition.

A complex system of trade networks made the Harappans rich and guaranteed
access to exotic goods. Internal networks moved every imaginable good throughout
the Civilization. Shell, dried fish, and pearls from the coast; copper, tin, chert,
precious metals and semiprecious stone from the hill country, and grain, animals,
and wood from the rural areas flowed from one area to another, resulting in a
nearly homogenous distribution of goods across the face of the civilization irrespective
of origin. Networks extended into Central Asia, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian
Peninsula. These networks exported every good and luxury available in the
Harappan Civilization. It is unclear what was being imported, but it is likely to be
wool , fish and grain.

Subsistence and Trade

Subsistence and trade settlements lay on the flood plains of the Indus and Gha
riverss, where fertile land was annually refreshed by innundation. Recent research
has shown wheat, barley, pulses, millets, fibers/ oilseed, melons ,coucumbers,
squashes , and water buffalo, goat and sheep provided animal products.Floodplains
lack raw materials, urban economies provided surplus for exchange to oil. Kenoyer
proposed a series of trade or resource routes linking the urbanized centers with
areas of lapis lazulli, carnelian, steatite, shells, chert, tin, copper and gold. These
materials processed were redistributed within the Indus region and the surplus was
traded to the Persian Gulf states as far as Elam and Mesopotamia.
(Welcome to the Human Past Page 5&6 Internet Article 12/14/06)

I will now continue with the Indus and its trading partners from the Internet article which is quite a thick document and has the following headlines. Of course, I am only extending the discoveries of the trade of the Indus and the neighboring cites and empires. I am doing this to point out a few instances where trade is claimed by the authors of this document dated 12/5/06 and has three separate titles. This will show precisely what was traded for the three different regions. viz:

Central Asia, Mesopotamia and Sarasvati Sindhu civilization

Sarasvati Sindhu civilization is one tip of the triangle linking
with the Central Asian and Mesopotamian cultural areas.

Bactrian - Margian - Archaeological - Complex BMAC

From Bactria peculiarly the article does not say that trade was done with the Indus and the author assumed that,

” there is every ground to assume the dissemination from it of metal-works (celts, daggers,
pins) and specific forms of earthenware (stemmed vases, saucers etc) in the eastern
direction down to the valley of the Indus, by way of exchange, trade and cultural
contacts. This period embraces the existence of the Harappan civilization and does
not presuppose the arrival of new tribes. This is strikingly proved by the Harappa
culture itself, which demonstrates a continuous line of development without any
invasions from outside. We shall merely remark that southwestern Iran and possibly
Caucasus emerge as a zpne where numerous metal articles come to be produced(mid
2nd millennium BC) while Iranian Khorassan is doubtlessly the main venue for their
penetration into the southern areas of central Asia, Bactria and possibly the valley of
the Indus.
(Viktor I. Sarianidi, 1979, New Finds in Bactria and Indo-Iranian Connections, pp 643-659, South Asian Archaeology 1977, Naples)

The above information as I said looks peculiar to me. Here we have an assume trading of goods between BMAC region, Iran, and the Caucasus in the 2nd Millennium and only the mention of metal articles are noted for trade. This region is famous for horses because this is where the Aryans came down from the Black Sea area

The Horse in Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization

States dating Tepe Hissar IIIB a little before 2000 BC … skull of horse found and
furthermore the horse is alleged to have been domesticated at Sha Tepe much
earlier still thus anticipating it appearance at Boghazkoy in Central Asia Minor in the
Hittite period…..

What does this tell you? The theme running through this paragraph is that the skull is found at Hissar IIIB and domesticated at Shah Tepe says just that and nothing else. It does not say anything about the Indus. It does not connect the Indus with ShahTepe nor does it say that the horse was known at the Indus. The next few paragraphs from:

AK Sharma, The Harappan horse was buried under the dunes of … in
Puratattva…..In the Harrapan levels over here have been found clearly
identifiable terracota figurines of this animal.

(Pages 3,4,5 and 6.Mackay FEM , MEL Mellowan 1965 Early Mesopotamian and
Iran, London Thames and Hudson p. 123

Vol 1, page 289, Ak Sharma, Bulletin of the Indian Archaeological Society No 23,
1992-93 pp. 30-34, Mackay FEM Vol 1 p 289 Wheeler Indus Civilization 1968
p. 92 Cambridge. Prof. S Bokonyl, Director Archaeological Institute Budapest 13
Dec 1993 , Dr Joshi,. Archaeological Survey of India, S. Rao, and B Nauth of
the Zoological Survey of India 1985 p. 641, Lal, 1998 p. 112 , Gupta 1979,
Vol. 2

The professional names quoted above have put their signature and approval to the supposed horse finds at Surkotada, Mohenjodaro, Kolidhwa, Mahagara, Kachchha, northern
Baluchistan, Lothal, Nausharo, and other areas. The carbon dating for these finds are from 3500 BC to 2315 BC and further down. Finds include supposedly, teeth, bones of true horse, terracota figurines, upper and lower cheek, incisors and phalanges or to bones, intermaxilla fragment , crib biting, faunal remains, cheek teeth, spur or protocone and upper molars of these supposed horses. What a find! Now, let us for argument sake say that all these finds are true, then we can come to only one conclusion and that is the following:

a) Why aren’t there evidence of horse trade with the neighbors ot the Indus?

b) The bloody place seemed to be overrunning with horses and yet we can’t
find one engraving or etching on the seals and script. Why?

c) How come the Indus have so many horses and her neighbors don’t have no
evidence of trading in horses, no documentation to attest to this activity with
the Indus.
d) Horse tra