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Time of India

No evidence of Aryan invasion, says DU prof

Patna: Delhi University teacher of ancient history, Vishwa Mohan Jha , on Tuesday refuted the century-old Aryan invasion theory (AIT), which claims that Aryans entered India violently, conquering and killing the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation . Speaking at the second Professor Surendra Gopal Memorial Lecture at the Bihar State Archives auditorium, Jha said, "There is no incontrovertible evidence to support this theory. Cuts found on skulls at archaeological sites were likely due to unprofessional excavations." Instead, citing recent research, Jha supported the Aryan Emigration Theory (AET), which posits a slow and peaceful migration of Aryans from the Bactria-Azerbaijan region of Central Asia into India. "The new evidence supports the emigration of Aryans into India through gradual movement and settlement from the west towards eastern regions, including modern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar," he said. "We have been in so much awe of the Aryan Invasion Theory, first propounded by Sir Mortimer Wheeler around 1924, that historians have continued to believe in it despite the lack of evidence," he added. Jha added that the word 'Aryan' refers both to the people and their language. He said three types of evidence – linguistic, archaeological and genetic – support the AET or Out of India Theory (OIT). "Massive human movement from Central Asia gave rise to two linguistic branches – Indo-Europeans, whose Greek and Latin languages resemble Sanskrit and Indo-Aryans, who spoke Sanskrit and its later variants like Prakrit and Magadhi," he said. Jha added that Indo-Aryans likely entered India via two routes – through the west of Punjab and via the Pamir mountains into Kashmir. "Archaeology has yielded evidence of settlement and artefacts like beads in Kashmir and the Pamir region," he said. He also referenced anthropologist H H Risley's classification and said, "People in western India, including Kashmir, share physical traits – tall, fair, long-nosed – that resemble the Aryans."