Re: Aryan invasion theory and race

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "shivkhokra" <shivkhokra@...> wrote:

> Francesco quoted Hindu mythology texts to support his thesis of
> foreigners marrying with Indians.

No, you're again misrepresenting me. I did not quote "Hindu mythology" texts in support of my thesis. The Mahabharata, indeed, which is not even a "Hindu mythology" text in a strict sense (as a matter of fact, it is much more than that!), is not the sole piece of evidence I have used during this discussion. I also quoted the Laws of Manu (10.43-44), which isn't a "Hindu mythology" text at all but, rather, the most authoritative ancient Brahmanical laws code, and which says that the Yavanas (Indo-Greeks), Sakas (Indo-Scythians) and Pahlavas (Indo-Parthians) were "ksatriya[s] [by] birth [who] have gradually reached in the world the level of shudras." The same concept is repeated in various doctrinal passages of the Mahabharata which affirm that the Sakas, Yavanas etc. were "fallen" or "degraded" kshatriyas. The Gautama Dharmasutra (4.21) states that Yavanas are born of shudra women and kshatriya men. Other evidence is provided by Patanjali who, in his comments on Panini 2.4.10, tells us that Sakas and Yavanas were regarded as shudras with whom "twice-born" Aryas could interdine. This means that, by Patanjali's time, Sakas and Yavanas had already been absorbed into the social hierarchy established by the Aryas. Why couldn't they have been allowed to take Hindu wives, from shudra castes at least? That's all what was needed to secure them a 'mixed' progeny on the Indian soil. And mind that I am not speaking only of the kings: indeed, their nobles, warriors, and their foreign retinue in general, who was presumably numerous, probably followed the example provided by their kings and married Indian (only shudra?) women. Why should these people, once they had got acculturated on the Indian soil, only have married women from their ethnic stock (i.e. Saka women, Yavana women etc.)? Their kings had largely embraced Indian faiths (Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Buddhism, Jainism) in course of time; why should the kings' administrative and militarey retinue have done the same? In fact, the Laws of Manu tell us that the Sakas, Yavanas, Pahlavas *in general* -- not only the kings! -- were kshatriyas "fallen" to the position of shudras. They, thus, had a place in the caste system, and there is no reason why they could not have married women from Hindu castes who bore children to them.

It is true that there appears to be very few epigraphical sources testifying to intermarriage between Yavanas, Sakas, Hunas and Hindu women. The ones I have traced so far relate to the Western Satrap Rudradaman (c. 150 CE), a Hinduized Saka king who claims in his Junagarh rock insctiption to have "wreathed with many garlands at the svayamvaras [a special form of marriage confined to royal
families -- FB] of kings' daughters", and who "established matrimonial relations with a number of Hindu ruling houses, specially the Satavahanas, the Ikshvakus and probably also the Lichchhavis" (see at http://tinyurl.com/lzseb7). Therefore, after a couple of centuries of acculturation in India the Sakas (at least their rulers), defined "degraded kshatriyas" in the previous epoch, could finally marry Hindu kshatriya princesses? This seems likely, according to the historians.

> I merely pointed out that if we are using these Sanskrit texts
> then we have to use all references of Yavans in such texts and
> then decide what the text is trying to say. We cannot just grab
> the word Yavana from Mbh, without the context it occurs in, and
> say it stands for Greeks when Mbh itself says these Yavanas were
> an Indic people from Assam.

The Mbh does not tell this. Before uttering one more single word on this particular topic, read again my post of today archived at

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64833

> If it is ok for Francesco to quote Sanskrit texts to support his
> theory why can't I rebut him using the same sources?

You can't do that if you make a distorted use of these sources.

> Genetic data is not showing foreign influx on Indian genes because
> there were practically no social ties between these two groups.
> Scientific data from various labs across the world are echoing the
> above. FB thought science was wrong.

What I wrote, and this is the last time I repeat it to you, is that genomic research *evidently* still hasn't the proper instruments to detect traces of "foreign blood" in Hindu caste populations. The resolution of these genetic studies is still too low. And you have still to reply to my big question:

What was the fate of the descendants of the Yavana, Saka, Pahlava, Kushana, Huna etc. invaders of India, if they never intermarried with Hindu caste populations as per your hypothesis? Where they estinguished, exterminated, exiled by the "pure Hindu race", or did all of them become sterile so that they left no progeny, or what else?

Francesco