Myth of Aryan Invasion Update 2005 - Page 5 PDF  | Print |  E-mail
Written by David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva)   
Article Index
Myth of Aryan Invasion Update 2005
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
All Pages
Page 5 of 5

Religion and Culture of Southeast Asia 

The Vedic religion of India has much in common with other Indo-European religions from Persia to Ireland in terms of practices, rituals and traditions. These include fire worship, ritual chanting, sacred plants and many other factors, such as has been the subject of many studies East and West.

However, similar connections exist between the Vedic and Southeast Asian religious and cultural traditions. While India and Southeast Asia shared Buddhist and Hindu traditions during the historical period, it is now becoming more likely they did so in the prehistoric era as well. We also need to examine the similarities between Vedic rituals, customs and yoga practices and older traditions of Southeast Asia, which, incidentally, also had fire worship and a cult of sacred plants (Soma).

One of the main mistakes of modern scholarship, relying uncritically on its own preconceptions about culture, is to not even bother to look for such connections. The artificial barriers put up by old theories that Indian civilization came from the West have to be eliminated. Southeast Asia has been regarded by western historians as an even more a cultural backwater than India because they regard it as having borrowed from India what India itself borrowed from the West! These ideas also need to be set aside. Southeast Asia may prove more important as a cradle for human populations and culture than the Middle East.

Many of the earliest agricultural sites have been found in Southeast Asia in the late Ice Age period more than ten thousand years ago. It is also likely that other cultural innovations usually credited to the Middle East may have arisen in this region. These were less likely to survive the course of time owing to sea level changes and the effects of a wet tropical climate, as well as probably building more with wood than stone.

The Hindu view that cycles of time are reflected in cycles of consciousness and civilization also deserves serious consideration. We cannot impose our current historical mindset on previous eras, particularly for eras thousands of years ago, and expect to understand them. Their mentality, culture and usage of language would have been according to the influences of their time and environment.

One of the great limitations of modern linguistics is that it tries to reconstruct ancient languages as if the ancients formed words and thought the way we did. In tracing ancient languages and their movement, we should also strive to be more sensitive as to their nature and symbolism. Similarly, when we use modern theories like Marxism, Freudian psychology or even monotheistic religions to understand the early ancient world, we are imposing alien ideas upon them that cannot reveal their true character.  

An Integrated Approach 

The tendency of modern scholarship of ancient India has been to make the culture, languages and peoples of the region into outsiders, coming fairly late in the ancient historical period. Such new and more scientific evidence shows that the peoples of India can no longer be made into recent immigrants. This makes it very difficult to superimpose their languages or cultures upon them at a late period as well. All these factors are intimately connected to the natural environment and natural history of the region.

In other words, in order to understand ancient India we must look at the natural history, languages, culture and peoples together.  We cannot attribute the languages, peoples or culture of India to groups from outside of India, which India absorbed like a vacuum. Languages, peoples and cultures were already there and in abundance, as India has always been a very fertile ground for human development. Nor can we have these cultures like the Harappan mysteriously disappear or become replaced in the late ancient period, particularly when there is no evidence to support it. There is nothing mysterious about Harappan civilization or it’s arise or it’s fall. It is very Indian much like the later classical cultures of the region in arts, crafts, town planning, agriculture, tools or religious symbolism. We cannot divide it off into another stream which left no trace.

It is better to look at India as it truly is, as a natural geographical, cultural, linguistic, and population zone. We must recognize an indigenous development of civilization in India relative to the factors of natural history and shared environment defined by the geography of the Himalayas to the sea that we find even in ancient texts. This connects India geographically more with Southeast Asia, and in terms of time frame, with movements of people and climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age, not in the 1500 BCE era.

What is most remarkable is that India preserves an ancient literature that with its knowledge of the ocean and the Sarasvati River accurately reflects the natural history. Putting all these factors together is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Instead of a puzzle with most pieces missing, as has been the recent western view of ancient India, it restores the picture to its whole.

The idea of India as a cultural patchwork is the result of poor or preliminary scholarship that has been unable to reconstruct the whole, like the blind man who cannot see the elephant as a whole. Once we add in the complete picture as revealed both by the natural history and the literature of the region, what we see instead is India as one of the most important centers not only for human spirituality through its great religions, but also of populations, languages and culture back to the period of prehistory. This is new view of India that will replace the current old worn distortions that are held up more by politics and by inertia than by anything else.

In other words, in order to understand ancient India we must look at the natural history, languages, culture and peoples together.  We cannot attribute the languages, peoples or culture of India to groups from outside of India, which India absorbed like a vacuum. Languages, peoples and cultures were already there and in abundance, as India has always been a very fertile ground for human development. Nor can we have these cultures like the Harappan mysteriously disappear or become replaced in the late ancient period, particularly when there is no evidence to support it. There is nothing mysterious about Harappan civilization or it’s arise or it’s fall. It is very Indian much like the later classical cultures of the region in arts, crafts, town planning, agriculture, tools or religious symbolism. We cannot divide it off into another stream which left no trace.

It is better to look at India as it truly is, as a natural geographical, cultural, linguistic, and population zone. We must recognize an indigenous development of civilization in India relative to the factors of natural history and shared environment defined by the geography of the Himalayas to the sea that we find even in ancient texts. This connects India geographically more with Southeast Asia, and in terms of time frame, with movements of people and climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age, not in the 1500 BCE era.

What is most remarkable is that India preserves an ancient literature that with its knowledge of the ocean and the Sarasvati River accurately reflects the natural history. Putting all these factors together is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Instead of a puzzle with most pieces missing, as has been the recent western view of ancient India, it restores the picture to its whole.

The idea of India as a cultural patchwork is the result of poor or preliminary scholarship that has been unable to reconstruct the whole, like the blind man who cannot see the elephant as a whole. Once we add in the complete picture as revealed both by the natural history and the literature of the region, what we see instead is India as one of the most important centers not only for human spirituality through its great religions, but also of populations, languages and culture back to the period of prehistory. This is new view of India that will replace the current old worn distortions that are held up more by politics and by inertia than by anything else.

In other words, in order to understand ancient India we must look at the natural history, languages, culture and peoples together.  We cannot attribute the languages, peoples or culture of India to groups from outside of India, which India absorbed like a vacuum. Languages, peoples and cultures were already there and in abundance, as India has always been a very fertile ground for human development. Nor can we have these cultures like the Harappan mysteriously disappear or become replaced in the late ancient period, particularly when there is no evidence to support it. There is nothing mysterious about Harappan civilization or it’s arise or it’s fall. It is very Indian much like the later classical cultures of the region in arts, crafts, town planning, agriculture, tools or religious symbolism. We cannot divide it off into another stream which left no trace.

It is better to look at India as it truly is, as a natural geographical, cultural, linguistic, and population zone. We must recognize an indigenous development of civilization in India relative to the factors of natural history and shared environment defined by the geography of the Himalayas to the sea that we find even in ancient texts. This connects India geographically more with Southeast Asia, and in terms of time frame, with movements of people and climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age, not in the 1500 BCE era.

What is most remarkable is that India preserves an ancient literature that with its knowledge of the ocean and the Sarasvati River accurately reflects the natural history. Putting all these factors together is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Instead of a puzzle with most pieces missing, as has been the recent western view of ancient India, it restores the picture to its whole.

The idea of India as a cultural patchwork is the result of poor or preliminary scholarship that has been unable to reconstruct the whole, like the blind man who cannot see the elephant as a whole. Once we add in the complete picture as revealed both by the natural history and the literature of the region, what we see instead is India as one of the most important centers not only for human spirituality through its great religions, but also of populations, languages and culture back to the period of prehistory. This is new view of India that will replace the current old worn distortions that are held up more by politics and by inertia than by anything else.
<< Prev - Next