Rasta

Is anybody knowledgeable about this topic? This theory seems to be fairly controversial in India, but also seems to be fairly accepted by scholars outside of India.

What are the arguments for or against this theory? What evidence do we have that supports or contradicts this theory?

Wikipedia does not have a topic under this classification and instead just has an article on Indo-Aryan migration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migration

As a starting point for discussion, I offer a portion of the said wiki article.

corrocamino

It seems that radiative spread of Indo-European languages from a region northwest of India is on firm scholarly footing. The advent of the horse in India followed the same path, apparently. But there's a difference between migration and invasion in the sense of armies destroying towns and villages, for which archaeologists find little or no evidence. (I'm no expert; that's "my take".)

Rasta

Cheers. I don't know much about this topic.

scholar

In Sassanian Persia, there was an entire cast devoted to the descendants of the Aryans. They were among the nobility and made up the core of their eastern armies and had many dealings with India. After the Sassanian dynasty was crushed most people who decided to remain true to their faith, a very large number of them would be members of this cast, fled to India and a small amount fled to China and the Turkish regions north of the Silk road. So even if there is debate over Aryan migration during the conquest, there can be no doubt about it during the 600s A.D. during rise of the Caliphate.

Rasputin1234

Hitler was just a poser! Ghandi was the real Aryan leader!

The Imperial

Aryan INVASION is wrong, but we can say, Aryans migrating to India is correct.

Bart Dale

The opposition to the Aryan invastion (i.e., invastion or migration of Indo-European language speaking group) in India probably has to due with Indian Nationalism. A lot of Indians would like to believe that the roots of current Indian civilization go back to the Indus Valley civilization, one of the oldest in the world. The Aryan invasion theory would seem to indicate that current India civilization is more recent, dating only back the Aryan Invastion itself, which is postulated after the collaspe of the Indus Valley Civilization. That is why the non-Aryan theory isn't taken too seriously outside of India. I suspect that most non Indian scholars just assume that the theory is inspired primarily by Indian nationalism, rather than the scientific evidence. I am sure the Indian scholars pushping the Non migration/invasion theory would disagree.

beorna

yes, the indo-european invasion was not like D-Day. It was of course a migration with military accidents. The harappa culture existed from 2800-1800. there was a lot of trade, even with the North and North-Eastern areas. But already since since 2000 BC this culture was declining, different regional cultures evolved. The reasons for it are unknown. a lot of reasons are discussed. One is the climatic change around 1800 BC. It became dryer, which could have destroyed the economical ressources together with a increasing desertification as a cause of the destruction of the environment by the people (e.g. like the decline of the mayas). The Vedic era exists since 1500 BC, they probably migrated from Baktria, where they settled since around 2000 BC. So we should expect, that smaller groups arrived in the old Harappa culture at the end of it in several waves and became dominant since 1500.

blacksmit049

It has been said that the northern Indians are distinguished from the southern Indians because of skin complexion. I don't if this is true, I just remembered it. Probably it could be true.

The Imperial

No, it aint true.