Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to
thank particularly geneticists Steven Oppenheimer
and Premanand Priyadarshi for suggesting this approach. I will begin by saying that
the Aryan debate exists no more. Please look at the second
part of the 200 year question. Because there are
two points we've to worry about. First, why should
we know these things? First, especially to young people.. I will tell you,
you have been totally misled as I was misled for several decades. Probably centuries,
atleast as long as I can remember, that our origin, both as humans and
the origins of our civilizations goes back to
Central Asia and Europe. What science tells us today
is the exact opposite of that! So the first part
of the observation is that what these
supposedly linguistic and.. literary studies
have been telling us makes us and our languages
and culture move in one direction and what science tells us makes it move
in the opposite direction from India outwards,
not outwards to India. So origin and
spread of Indian civilization 60,000 to 3000
Before the Common Era. That's the title of my talk. So let me begin by looking
at what is the Aryan debate. I will call it a non-debate.
There is no debate anymore. Okay? People will keep
talking about it because they've been
doing it for years and You know, you cannot
teach an old dog new tricks. They've to keep saying
things that they were doing. The Aryan myth doesn't
need a debate anymore. What the Aryan myth
needs today is a burial! People will not let it go. Simply because there
are too many people involved with the interested
parties involved in that. Aryan in Sanskrit is an adjective,
it does not refer to a people. <i>'Maha-kula, kulina,
arya sajjana sabhya sadhavah'</i> This is what Amar Kosha says,
which is the authoritative thing and contrary to what you people
and I have been told for decades, the Arya concept was not very
important in the Vedic literature. It is simply
a polite form of address. In the Vedic literature,
the Rig Veda- When I say Vedic literature,
to me, Rig Veda is the most foundational work
and the most important. There are ten books and
more than ten thousand mantras, the word <i>Arya</i>
appears exactly 38 times. If you pick up
Hitler's <i>Mein Kampf</i>, you may see.. ..the word <i>Arya</i>
38 times in a single page. So it's a European obsession
and not an Indian obsession. Ok, please understand. It is neither a race. Race is
not a scientific concept anymore. For example, if I take
the genome of some person and give it to somebody and find out whether he is
an Aryan or Dravidian or somebody, no scientist can tell you.
Science cannot tell you that. Ok. It is not a language,
it is not a nation. And I will suggest
some modifications to the way we look at the people of India. After two centuries, methods based on
linguistics are giving way to science. Because they discovered similarities between Indian
and European languages, they took those similarities
and tried to find out where the movement was
and because they were in Europe and they were European scholars, they said the movement
came from Europe to India. What I have done,
is to reverse this. Now we've the scientific evidence. Genetics, fossil evidence and also the evidence of animals
and all those kinds of things, which allows us to
trace the movement of people. So once we have
the movement of people we can say that languages
also went in the same direction. Since the Pilgrim Fathers in England went from England to America it is very easy to explain,
why English came to America. Americans speak English.
The same is true of Australia. Why did English come to India?
Because the Englishmen came here and ruled for 200 years. Even then,
a very small proportion uses it. So what has allowed us
to achieve this breakthrough, again I have to thank
Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford for bringing it to my attention. There were two major
discoveries in natural history. One natural and
the other relating to humans. This has allowed us to push
the origins of human civilization, of Indian civilization in particular by more than 50,000 years. If you look at the standard textbooks, they will tell you
Rig Veda is 1200 years old, 1200 BC, something like that. What we are saying is that the origin should go back
at least 50,000 years more. This has scientific basis, I'm not making it up. I mean,
it's not based on superficial things. Human advance is
a gene mutation, 80,000 years ago, allowed humans
to become a speaking species. Another was a natural disaster,
a natural event a super volcanic eruption
73,000 - 74,000 years ago nearly wiped out all the humans. In fact it wiped out
all the humans in the world who were not our ancestors. That is, who were not
<i>Homo Sapiens Sapiens</i>. There were many other species. I mean there were
several other species of humans. Neanderthals were one
but then Neanderthals survived. We don't know if they spoke or not. So the message is
that history follows nature. So, human history is the record of the human response to changes in natural history. And natural history
changes tend to be both catastrophic and continual. Ok? And then another.. The first one was what
is known as a transcription gene, FoxP2 about 80,000 years or more.
The exact date doesn't matter. We're looking at
a very big time span, if you miss it
by one or 5000 years, doesn't make
a whole lot of difference. Another was the Toba explosion. A small group
of our African ancestors migrated to settle
in South Asia coast, including a few who were in Arabia,
we don't know if they survived. But they definitely did survive
in South Asia, that is, in India, the Indian subcontinent. This is the key finding
of the last 30 years of human population
genetics research. All non-African humans
in the world today Europeans, Australians,
Native Americans, all these are descended from
this group of humans in India, who survived here
for 50,000 and more years here. This is the evidence of science.
That has to be the starting point. You can disagree with other things. I mean, even here,
you can disagree in details and we may have to change
if we have more data available. On the basis of all
the data available today this is what we can
say with fair confidence. And the work is
mainly due to geneticists. So first, I will spend
about five minutes, pointing out, how we happen to get into this mess of this false history being taught
about Aryans, Dravidians and all that. So, why.. Of course, after William Jones
supposedly discovered ..Sanskrit in 1786.. Please understand the
relationship or the similarities between Indian
and European languages were known at least 200 years before William Jones. It was known to Steve Thompson. Another was Phillipo Asseti. These people had noted the same thing.
They were in Goa as traders and priests. The Aryan myth and the Aryan invasion
both have been demolished by science, but the search for the ancestor of Sanskrit, Greek and so on,
it remains a challenge. That is the real 200 years old question. Two things,
one of course, German nationalism and another was
the British colonial interest, to create an Indian elite that
would identify with the British masters so they gave
the Indian subjects an identity saying that you belong to
the same branch that we do. We are the same
long separated brothers. It is supported mainly by.. today, by academics with vested interests in the methodology
and teaching the subjects. Those departments are also closing. They're worried about
careers and reputations and of course,
Dravidian politicians. The Politics of Aryan Theory..
I'll take just 2 minutes because I have more important
and interesting things to talk about. But I want people
to have a very clear idea that this was
purely a political creation. Some of them believe it;
that does not make it any different. A lot of people
believe in the flat earth that doesn't make the earth flat. German nationalism
and British imperial interest. German nationalism is not relevant here. In Europe,
<i>Arya</i> is a dirty word, unfortunately,
like <i>Swastika</i>. We had nothing to do
with it, but it happened. German nationalism is not pertinent
to what we are talking about. So, let us look at
a very interesting statement. I wrote this as a part
of a press statement in England sometime back,
which came on the BBC. The Aryan Invasion Theory
gave a historical precedent to justify the role and
status of the British Raj, who couldn't argue that they
were transforming India for the better, in the same way that the Aryans
had done thousands of years earlier. So the British were a new
and improved brand of Aryans, of the Vedic people, who were here to improve
and to civilize India. And this was.. This was stated by the British
Prime Minster Stanley Baldwin in the Parliament, that is
the House of Commons, in 1959. <i>Now, after ages,
the two branches of the great</i> <i>Aryan ancestry have again been
brought together by providence.</i> <i>By establishing British rule in India,</i> <i>God said to the British, I have
brought you and the Indians together</i> <i>after a long separation.</i> <i>It is your duty to raise them to their own level</i> <i>as quickly as possible,
brothers as you are.</i> So the older brother
must lift the younger brother. I mean, all this has
been available, 1929.. What are Indian historians
been doing all these years? I mean, I'm an outsider.
I'm primarily a mathematical physicist. If I could find out,
why couldn't they do it? Why're they writing those textbooks? And why are they
still using those textbooks? So the academic agenda today is, As well as that of
the DMK politicians, is to keep Harappan archaeology separated
from Vedic literature and ideas. Harappan archaeology
should have alerted them that their theory was wrong. I'll show you in one minute, why it is so. So.. They are supposed to have overcome the Dravidian identity
of the Harappans but Dravidian
is not merely Dravidian, it is non-Aryan. So, what the case is now.. You see, they've been
paying some Western scholars. They paid one million to Asko Parpola
of Finland, who claimed that.. who has been saying
that it is a version of Tamil. If it is Tamil then
why can't they read it? Even I read Tamil, so it's.. So this is now the agenda. to keep the North
and South separated by claiming that
the Harappan archaeology is, you know, represents Dravidian. I mean, to further
that they spent one million. If you pay somebody
100 million they will say that Punjabis built Mahabalipuram
or something of that kind or they built the Egyptian pyramids. So this kind of scholarship
should not be there. But Harappans were Vedic. It's very clear, the Vedic
influence on the Harappans. All you have to do is to
look at some of those icons. What are these? These are Vedic <i>Yogasanas</i>. And this is the famous Pashupati seal, which is in.. I am not a practitioner of yoga.
A yoga expert told me. It is known as <i>Mulabandhasana</i>. And this is the <i>Omkara Mudra</i>. It is the <i>Om</i> seal. And to show you
how it is related to <i>Om</i>, please see the one on the left, it is the Harappan <i>Om</i>, which is very similar to
<i>Om</i> in Kannada and Telugu. Many Kannada and Telugu letters, you get by rotating
the Devanagri letters by 90 degrees. And the second one
is the Devanagri <i>Om</i>, as you write
in Hindi and Sanskrit. All this has been
available for 90 years. And this is the
famous Pancha Svasti. And Jha's reading gives you,
Panca svasti mantra: <i>Pancha svasti vidmah.</i> <i>Vidmah </i>means knower and
<i>Admah</i> means nourished. <i>Svasti nah indro. Svasti nah pusa</i> <i>visvavedah...</i>
That's the famous opening lines of <i>Taittiriya Aranyaka.</i> So, a postulated
Indo-European homeland, from which its speakers
are said to have separated, etc. Linguistics moves language
in one direction. These linguistic theories
that is from Europe to India, but I will show you
in the rest of the lecture, our findings based on genetics,
moves it in the opposite direction. Revisiting Indian civilization, Vedic, Harappan, popular etc.
come from a common source. What is this common source? Before we talk
about Indo-Europeans, we should be able
to decide what is India? You know, the thing is,
without any definition.. These people are
not trained in sciences. And most of them were
theologians, priests, missionaries, government bureaucrats
and those kinds of people. They had no scientific training and 19th century science believed
that the world was created in 4004 BC 23rd of October, Sunday at 9 AM,
that's two hours something of that sort. And so it is pure conjecture.
That is all the science they knew. The main thing is, Indians have lived where they
are today for thousands of years with minimum external input. But have made several out-migrations. Even today,
India is densely populated; we have more people
leaving India than coming into India. Except during the medieval period. So what does
the genetic evidence say? The leading authority on Human Population Genetics
in the world today is Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza. He was a student of Ronald A. Fisher. Another famous student of R A Fisher was our own C R Rao,
the great statistician, who happened to be my teacher, when
I was there, we didn't discuss genetics, but the basics, once you understand
the mathematics, is the same. The M-17 genetic marker shows the greatest diversity
in South Asia, i.e., here. That means it's the oldest here. All non-Africans in the world today
are descended from.. Summary of evidence,
here is what Cavalli Sforza says, <i>Indian tribal and caste populations</i> <i>derive from
the same genetic heritage</i> <i>of Pleistocene Southern
and Western Asians</i> <i>and have received limited gene
from external sources.</i> That means,
50,000 years before present. Data now available
shows that our African ancestors first settled in coastal regions. If they came along the coast,
they must've settled in coastal regions. From there they moved to the interior. So there was no invasion from
the North but a spreading out and that was determined by climate. With this background, there is no need to
refute at every stage this Aryan myth
or any kind of.. Let us now start
with a clean slate. So.. India was a major centre for people,
plant and animal domestication, in the last 60,000 years. Especially in the last
10 to 12 thousand years. Most animal domestications, including
the horse, took place in India. Horse domestication took place
in several places, including Spain. And that determination.. All that took place
in the last 10,000 years, when the Ice Age ended. Peopling of the World,
this is a simplified map, I'll give you a better one. You start from this
slightly erroneous map. So it comes to India. From India it branches out
to other places; both to Australia. This is a more elaborate map by Bradshaw foundation, which has supported
Steven Oppenheimer's work. So this is the branching, I mean, this essentially including.. 35,000 - 40,000 years ago, people from India moved
to Central Asia and the West, further West, North and
North-West into Europe, to Eastern Europe,
Eurasia and Europe. Two Drivers of Human Movements One was spoken language
80,000 years before present. It doesn't matter whether
it was 80, 75 or 90 or something. It happened before the Toba explosion
of 74,000 years ago. 74,000 years ago. Toba explosion was the greatest
volcanic explosion in history, so I have some recreations. Obviously no cameras
were around at the time, and if there were
they wouldn't have survived. But anyway,
this is sufficiently dramatic. To give you an idea
how great it was, just look at the
comparative study. Most of you have
heard about Krakatoa. This was hundreds of times
more powerful. Saint Helens,
most recent famous explosion was unit 1. This was 2800.
Now they are saying 3200. So you can imagine the magnitude
of the damage it could have done. So in comparison is Tambora 1815,
because it is in recorded history. It caused global climate
anomalies and vegetation loss; a long volcanic winter and then it became known as the year without
summer in North America and Europe. Crops failed and livestock died. Toba explosion was about
a thousand times more effective; six to ten year
volcanic winter in India followed by 6000
to 10,000 years freeze. All pre-Toba
human populations wiped out. Most of them could not speak. A small group from Africa
settled in India. We are all
descendants of that group. All non-African humans
descended from this group, dating to about
50,000 years before present, maybe 60,000 years.
We don't know exactly. They have not yet
reconciled the fossil evidence. Evidence in India. Archaeologists discovered buried
layers of Toba ash in Narmada valley, not far from here; at Bori and Morgaon
sites near Pune, Southern Andhra Pradesh, as far away as Thar desert. Toba was two orders of magnitude,
that means 100 times more destructive than Tambora. Ash layer was around
15 cm, i.e., is 6 inches. All human and
related humanoid species were eliminated. India was totally depopulated.
People lived in India. Palaeolithic people lived
in India 200,000 years ago, but none of them existed anymore. So this is what the scenario
of ash dispersal looks like. Here is one more,
ash dispersal scenario. See how extensive it is. Recently, one of.. There are some who dispute
it could do any damage, but we know how much
damage Tambora did. So something that
is hundred times great would do a lot more damage. Only a few Africans survived. And what did Toba do? It wiped out as much as 99%
of the global human population, reducing the population
from a possible 60 million to less than 10,000. All human species except.. Of these about a thousand
or so made it to India, along the Arabian coast.
Please understand what it means. India is the source of all
non-Africans in the world today, but only a thousand people
existed in all of India. Why only a thousand people?
Not only that. They lived in such small numbers
for the next 10,000 years during the post-Toba freeze, why? They lived in a very small area, so a single language
was sufficient for them. So that means the number of people
you have within one square kilometre that was the total population
of India at that time. All of us are descended from that. Our genes tell you that.
You see the extraordinary thing. That means one language
would have been enough. Hindi is enough for Indore;
one language. So that one language was the language
because they already had language because the..
what you call it.. the transcription gene,
FoxP2 mutation had taken place. We already had language. That shows evolution must have
taken place in only one place. Because every human species today, every human population
today can speak. It is genetically ingrained. So that means,
the same mutation. we're all products
of the same mutation. So the human evolution
could not have taken place, at least of our species,
in different places, at different times of exactly the same type.
Probability of that is very small. So that one mutation.. And there was
a huge survival advantage. So of these, a thousand or two
are our ancestors, etcetera. 80,000 BP Eurasia.. Many that migrated earlier
did not survive. Only Neanderthals survived
until about 25,000 years ago. There are minor differences. Neanderthals might have
been able to speak. They might've interbred with humans.
That is, still disputed. But they have not survived. There were no Neanderthals in India,
at least no traces have been found. If any fossils are found then
we'll have to change our opinion. We can't stick like, you know,
these Aryan Invasion theories. Alright there is no evidence,
but still there was an invasion, that kind of thing. As a scientist you can't
take that kind of an attitude. Neanderthals, we're now clear. This I already mentioned and.. The world entered
a 10,000 years or longer Ice Age and then a dramatic warming
began about 52,000 years ago. Please note that all these
are facts of science. We have evidence for this. This allowed
vegetation, animals and human population to expand
and move about in India, which is the only
country populated now. Humans in India survived
as a very small group, of 1000 or less,
for 15,000 years. This is known as genetic drift. Some of you,
I'm sure, are aware of it. So, they developed
the first modern language. The language which
our African ancestors brought here, we have called it Afro-Indian. Then the Indian language
came into existence because the population was small. In a small area a single
language would have sufficed. This is what we have
called proto-Gauda-Dravida. Here, I have an appeal
to all scholars, please do not use the word 'Arya'
to mean North India, or any geographical region. North India,
the traditional name is Gauda; Dravida means south India, whether it is language
or people or geography. Gauda Desha is North India, more often applied to Bengal proper. Gauda Brahmins are Panch-Gaudas. Dravida Brahmins are Panch-Dravidas. They lived by fishing and as hunter-gatherer tribes
during this period. Language made civilization possible. Now we are in South Asia,
i.e., the Indian subcontinent. We already saw that 99% of humans.. Only.. The important effect of Toba is, only speaking humans survived. Other human populations,
humanoid populations disappeared. As the freeze began to thaw, the population and territory,
both expanded. That means, they lived as a.. Animals populations also increased
due to improved climate. A combination of over-exploitation
and faunal extinction forced them to move North
in search of better hunting grounds. This happened about 45,000 years ago. Ok, the first wave after that was about 45,000 years before present. Small groups moved
into Eurasia and Europe taking the Northern route, i.e., the Khyber Bolan passes to Central Asia, Eastern Europe,
Western Europe and all that. They took also the language; this language that had evolved
maybe one, more than one, this was the first
Proto-Indo European (PIE). Not 5000 years old,
45,000 years old. We have no idea
what that language was like. No matter what it was,
but you see the the orders of magnitude,
you see the time scale involved are thousands, ten, twenty and thirty thousand years; ten times more than what
linguists have been telling us. This was the first
Proto-Indo European (PIE). No traces of it survive. But we do have
some interesting things. You have art remains in Bhimbetka,
not far from here, near Bhopal. And you have art remains
of the same people when they went to France
and created similar art in France. Whether it can give some glimpse
into their language, I don't know. Ok, we have no trace
of their language. All we know is they had language,
which they took with them. Because they had language
before they came here. This was the first Indo-European or more properly,
Afro-Indo European brought into India
by their ancestors, and their offshoot
that moved into Europe. That does not explain the similarity
between Indian and European languages; I will get to that next. Ok.. Here is something
very important and radical. We must recognize that North Indian languages,
which we call Gauda family and the Douth Indian languages,
which we call Dravida family are more intimately related than Indian and European languages. There, the vocabularies
are somewhat similar; here the words
are pretty much the same. I come from the South, I speak Kannada at home. I have a smattering
of Tamil and Telugu also. The vocabularies are very similar. Hindi vocabulary is not very
different from Kannada vocabulary; the grammars of North and South
Indian languages are very similar. You can take a good sentence
in Kannada and translate into Hindi. It becomes a good sentence. That is not possible
with European languages. The grammars are different. And.. Then the next major movement was around 10,000 years ago
when the Ice Age ended. ok, in that..
That means for 30,000 years, from the time of
the Proto-Indo-European, the languages in India
continued evolving and that was the period in which
Sanskrit and Vedic were created. Please note that
these are not natural languages, but that's why it is called Sanskrit. Two important developments: One, agriculture made
much larger populations possible and many areas that were
uninhabitable became habitable. So, domestication.. Pigs were domesticated in India. Cattle sheep and horse also
was probably domesticated in India and consolidation
of languages by fusion. Vedic Sanskrit
was created by a fusion of Gauda and Dravida languages. The great perfection
of Sanskrit language and grammar is because
of this very great care taken, as you create
a branch of mathematics. Sanskrit means
compiled or constructed. The population of India expanded
into several regional languages and then we called them Gauda (Northern)
languages and Dravida languages. The word 'Arya' should never
be applied to a language, because it represents not languages
nor geography, nor people. The sages created
a composite language by combining elements from all
existing languages. It is a fusion. Ok. So this is the reason why South
and North Indian languages share many of their
grammatical features and vocabulary. The second wave of
Indo-Europeans was towards the end and
after the Ice Age ended and they took with them the languages
which by then were close to Sanskrit. That is the reason
you find Sanskritic elements in Greek Latin and
all those languages. So, impact of the
second wave is perceptible. We find the influence of the
second wave out of India in animals of Indian origin,
including parasites like mice. Mice also being a parasite,
moved with agriculture. And the European mice, genetics tells you,
is the descendent of Indian mouse. So it's an interesting
piece of evidence. And of course,
you find it in mythology which is more nebulous but
in vocabulary of European languages. More interesting instances were when
some Russian friends came there, and pointed out that the word vodka comes from the Sanskrit uddaka,
and both means the same thing. Means, water. Let me summarize
what we have seen so far. Toba in 73,000 years before present;
Toba destroys humans and vegetation in South Asia,
giving rise to a 6000 years volcanic winter. Groups of Africans settle in South Asia
and along the Arabian coast. This raises an interesting point. The Arabian coast,
a small group, founder group, might have prospered giving rise
to languages like Babylonian, the Semitic languages, which are quite different
from Indian languages. But we haven't yet made
a comparative study of the roots. And.. Then there was the cold period from 65 to 52 thousand years ago, the population
and habitation increased. There was migration
to East Asia, Australia etc. There is another story to be told,
about East Asia. Because what happened was
people moving to Europe and Eurasia gave rise to Indo-European. Similarly was the case in East Asia,
but not the more recent ones. Now, of course,
when you go to East Asia, Indonesia, Cambodia
and all that, it's practically.. You know,
it is like being in India. Then first Indo-Europeans
around 45,000 years ago, migrated in groups North and West
in search of better hunting. Ice Age and second wave
of Indo-Europeans, animals, agriculture and
also Sanskrit and related languages into Central Asia and Europe. So.. What happened..
this we've already seen. The people spread
as determined by science. So this is the spread of people
according to science. Two questions we've to answer,
why was India so pivotal? One reason was, of course, fortune.
The blessings of nature. Somehow they managed to survive
because it's a tropical climate. The freeze didn't kill people
the way it killed in other places, but geographically
land and sea routes, both East-West and North-South
are accessible from India. That has made India
always a very important thing and because of its long coastline
India has been a maritime nation. The climate is subtropical. It can support both tropical
and temperate flora and fauna. If you come to a place like Bangalore,
you will find alpine varieties like pines and all that
being able to grow. Or go to Nilgiris. Okay. Though a subcontinent, it has a long coastline and
a long standing maritime tradition. It has fertile soil
and abundant rainfall. Summary of methodology. I would say from now on
what we should do. Linguists have tried to
explain Indo-European family by a migration based
on language theories. Here the process is reversed. Science is used to account for
movements of people and languages in response to natural events. Details can change
but no linguistic theory can violate
the scientific framework, unless a new framework is built based on data that is more
reliable and more extensive. On the basis of existing data,
almost to the date, this is the framework
in which it has to go. In conclusion,
I would say that Sanskrit has influenced
both Indian and Eurasian languages. Indian languages can hardly
exist without Sanskrit. So there must have been a very ancient
Gauda-Dravida language family from which Vedic and Sanskrit
evolved, or were created. They did not evolve naturally. Indo-Europeans moved
in two major waves. So.. This one, final word. This is the current picture
of civilization according to science. A gene mutation 80,000 years ago
and a super volcano 73,000 years ago created conditions
for civilization to evolve. All non-Africans and their languages
can be traces to a thousand or so survivors in India
60,000 years ago. This is my basic message and thank you very much
for your patience.
