--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@...> wrote:
> Francesco,
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@>
> wrote:
>
> > Yet, if we take the conclusions of these genetic studies
> > literally, then they would indicate not only that there was no
> > Indo-Aryan immigration in the second millennium BCE, but that
> > there were no Saka, Kushana, Huna, and later on Afghan-cum-Turk
> > Muslim invaders (nor any other invaders) into India in historical
> > times either. And given all the historical evidence to the
> > contrary, that would be patently absurd!
>
> No. You have made a bad assumption. Please understand Panini's
> Sutra: Sudranam aniravasitanam (2 4.10). With Mllecha, i.e
> foreigners, Hindus did not intermarry. This continued from the
> first contact with foreigners thru the times of the Islamic
> invasions, British invasions and is true even today. It is a rule
> (and if you dig hard you will find few exceptions here and there).
This alleged "rule" for the preservation of a genetically pure and uncontaminated "Hindu race" in India does not match with what most historians have written about this subject.
From c. 500 BCE onwards, caste Hindus had intimate and prolonged contacts with Persians (West Iranians), Greeks, Sakas (Scythian Iranians), Kushans (mostly Bactrian Iranians), Hunas, and later on Muslim Afghans (again, of Iranian origin) and Turks. Particularly in the north-western quadrant of the Indian sub-continent, this resulted in a multilateral population and cultural admixture reflected in physical and cultural heterogeneity. The newcomers, perhaps to the exception of those practising Islam as their own religion (whose genetic descendants normally continued to practise Islam and are, therefore, excluded from the genetic studies on Hindu caste groups we are talking about), merged with the local Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina populations and were absorbed like a drop of water in the ocean -- not, however, without leaving their genetic imprint on certain Hindu caste groups. The ruling classes of both the Sakas and the Kushans, when they became Hinduized, were admitted to ranks as kshatriyas in the Hindu caste system and could, therefore, intermarry with native Indian women. This assimilation process posed a problem for Brahman theorists who either ignored or downgraded such people, whom they labelled as "fallen kshatriyas". Conversion of these foreign ruling elites to Vaishnavism or Shaivism was theoretically difficult, yet these sects found their ways around this problem. It was, however, easier for the incoming Greeks, Kushans, etc. to become Buddhists. If Brahmanical orthodoxy maintained a distance from the foreign ruling elites, the presence in India of such people, prominent in political and economic spheres, gave some Hindu people belonging to lower castes an opportunity to move up the scale by intermarrying with the newcomers. The resulting mixed castes were known as sankirna-jatis.
To deny this historical reality would require the ad hoc assumption that *all* of the genetic descendants of the Persians, Greeks, Sakas, Kushans, Hunas etc. who immigrated into the Indian sub-continent are by now extinct, or that the Indians somehow managed to exile *all* of them from the sub-continent.
Even the Muslim Afghans and Turks who settled in the Indian sub-continent starting from c. 1000 CE most likely left their genetic imprint on modern Hindu caste populations by means of *rape* of Hindu women (these guys were mostly rulers and soldiers!). Or, should one assume that *all* of the Hindu women having been raped by those Muslims in the course of centuries aborted the children they may have conceived further to their being raped, or that they committed ritual suicide (sati) to avoid the dishonour associated with such illegitimate births? It seems more reasonable to assume that many children born to Hindu women having been raped by Muslim rulers or soldiers were regularly given birth, and that they were admitted into the caste of their mothers.
Thus, the question again arises: Why are the genetic studies we are discussing unable to detect the genetic imprint of the above listed foreign invaders in the overall genetic pool oh Hindu caste populations? And, if they are unable to do so, cannot we conclude they are *also* unable to detect the genetic imprint of the Indo-Aryans who, according to mainstream scholarship, immigrated into the north-western part of the Indian sub-continent in the second millennium BCE?
Regards,
Francesco