Re: [tied] On horses chariots etc.

From: andrew jarrette
Message: 43189
Date: 2006-01-31

What then is the current accepted theory to explain the Aryanization of northern India?

 

 

Andrew

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
From: smykelkar@...
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 16:25:02 +0000
Subject: [tied] On horses chariots etc.

Agarwal, Vishal (2006), "HATING HINDUS IN A `SCHOLARLY' WAY Part IV,"
India Forum, Jan 26.


"18. But is it not true, as Michael Witzel says, that the Aryans came
from Central Asia into India with their horses, chariots and language
as said by him according to his interview in the Christian Science
Monitor article on 24 January 2006?

• This argument is just a regurgitation of Aryan fantasies straight
out of 1800s! Now that archaeology and many other scientific
disciplines have failed to produce any evidence corroborating the
Aryan invasion theory or its migration variant, this romantic
horse-chariot fantasy is the last fig leaf that is being used to
defend untenable theories under the guise that it sustains the `Elite
dominance' scenarios for explaining the `Aryanization' of India. When
even in modern times American tanks cannot traverse the Afghani
terrain easily, it is ridiculous to propose that Aryans could
heroically ride their chariots from Steppes or Central Asia across
Afghanistan (or the rivers of Punjab) into India.

• There is reason to believe that the technology to make chariots was
not absent in Harappan Indian. Archaeologists B. K. Thapar and Rafique
Mughal mention that a sherd depicting a canopied cart with spoked
wheels was unearthed from pre-Harappan levels at Banawali. R.S. Bisht
reports that at Banawali, a pot sherd depicting a canopied cart with
spoked wheels was found at pre-Indus levels. Bisht is the excavator of
the site. This shows that the Harappans apparently possessed the
relevant technology to fashion light vehicles with spoked wheels.
Chariots as such are not attested in the archaeological record of the
Indian subcontinent till about the middle of first millennium BCE, and
therefore their absence in Harappan contexts need not lead us to
conclude that they were absent in that civilization. In any case, it
should be noted that the introduction of the chariot and horse in
other cultures such as ancient Egypt, ancient China, ancient Iraq
etc., did not lead to a new civilization, language, religion and
culture. So why should India be an exception?

• It is often argued that Harappans could not have employed chariots
in warfare because they did not possess horses. However, the sum total
of evidence attests to the presence of horse in Harappan contexts, and
this is contested now only by very few zoo-archaeologists (e.g.,
Michael Witzel's colleague Richard Meadow with vested interests in
opposite theories that he has propagated for 3 decades). In summary,
horse bones have been found in Harappan and pre-Harappan levels at
Kuntasi, Surkotada, Lothal, Ropar, Kalibangan, Shikarpur, Malvan etc.
Horse figurines have emerged in Rakhigarhi, Lothal, Nausharo and
several other places, and painted horse on pottery sherds at Kunal.


• And horse remains have been unearthed not just in Harappan contexts,
but also in non-Harappan chalcolithic sites in the interior of India
from strata predating the supposed time of arrival or Aryans at or
after 1500 BCE. For instance, in Kayatha, a site in Central India
excavated in 1968, a part of a horse jaw was unearthed from a level
dated to 2000-1800 BC and a few other bones from levels dated from
1800-1600 BCE. Likewise, Hallur in Karnataka has yielded horse bones
at levels dated to 1500 BCE which is too early for the arrival of
Aryans in this part of India.
• Numerous other reports on Kayatha, Malwa and other chalcolithic
cultures in the interior of India attest the presence of horse between
2000-1500 BCE. So whether an Aryan migration took place or not, it is
clear that the elite dominance model cannot explain the Aryanization
of India because horse was already present in India and there is no
proof for the arrival of the chariot or horse only after 1500 BCE
(Agarwal 2006)."

posted by M. kelkar






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