A History of Aryans

1. Aryans are Indians.

2. They have predominantly lived in north India (Indo-Gangetic plain) roughly from the time of the end of the Harappan civilization (c 3500-1500 BC)

3. They were introduced to Sanskrit and Rig Veda by the nomads who came from Northwest India/Afghanistan/Persia. Sanskrit adopted the Devanagari script in India. [There is a possibility that Rig Veda may have originated in India and was later recycled back from Persia. But that is a mere conjuncture with current evidence.]

4. In the Vedic age, people used to worship both Devas and Asuras. The Vedic Brahmins sided with Devas (Indra, Maruti, Vayu et al) and the Zoroastrians sided with Asuras. (Varuna/Mithra - Ahura Mazda). Ahura Mazda is worshiped by Parsis to this day.

5. The earliest converts to Aryan thought were the Indian priest class and aristocracy. [Aryan thought - controlling people's access to Gods because of the exclusive ownership of knowledge by the Priest class.] They started taking converts and branded them as either Kshtriya or Vaishya . Thus the Varna system was introduced. Other native Indians, too ‘uncultured’ for Brahmins were branded as Shudras.

6. Aryans adopted a pantheon of Indian and Vedic Gods as their own. Indian Gods include Shiva (bull) and Vishnu (Unicorn - Horse) from Harappa. Murugan, Perumal, Indran, Varunan and Kottravai from the Tamil country. Gods of the animist religions of the north east. There were apparently 33 Vedic Gods. They include Indra, Vayu, Agni etc

7. Aryans then started expanding to other parts of India. According to Ramayana, Rama a racist Aryan King from Ayodhya or its vicinity who supposedly invaded the Tamil Country and Sri Lanka. [There is a parallel thought that, though Ramayana is an allegory of the aryan war on aborigines, Rama himself may have be been an imaginary character.] This Rama as was custom then, declared himself to be an incarnation of Vishnu. (Other examples of God Kings are the Guptas of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and King Gyanendra of Nepal.) Valmiki's Ramayan is among the many versions of this story.

8. Aryan religion which by now was at the clutches of Brahmins was shelled by the Carvakas (atheists), Buddha and Mahavira around 500 BC.

9. Aryans survived the onslaught by writing down lots of Philosophical work (which were known even before) into books. Hindu schools of thought like Samkhya, Yoga etc came into being.

10. Aryans introduced a mythical God called Krishna into the Mahabharata story which was already common knowledge. Bhagwat Gita gave Philosophical solidity to the Hindu-Aryan religion.

11. But this recovery was not eternal. Gupta’s who encouraged King-worship further weakened the Aryan religion by inadvertently ignoring Philosophical advancement.

12. From 7th century onwards North India stopped producing any meaningful work on religion. It came up with more Puranas and other bull-crap stories about Aryan gods like Ram and Krishna. However South India which was still multi-religious (Buddhism, Jainism, Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Brahmanism) continued to produce philosophical works by Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhvacharya etc. The bhakti-cult started in Tamil country by Aalwars and Nayanmars allowed all the people, irrespective of their caste, access to Gods.

13. The Muslim invasion of north-India completely nullified any revival of Philospohical work in North India. To counter the Allah/Koran combination, Aryans embraced Ram/Ramayan. Mahabharatha which was much smarter than Ramayan because of its Philosophical content failed to gain popularity. Ramayan whose racist intent was reduced by branding South Indians as Vanar Sena, Ravan as Brahmin etc gained popularity even among the Shudras of North-India.

14. Following the lifting of Muslim/Christian rule over India, Hindus wanted to revive their religion. Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, Prabupada etc contributed to this effort. But since Aryan's philosophical acumen was long lost, they could only resort to imposing dubious Gods like Rama on others. They demolished the Babri Mosque (which may have been built on the birth place of King Rama) to assuage the hurt Hindu-Aryan pride.

15. To this day, Aryan onslaught on India’s other indigenous faiths continues in places like Tamilnadu and the North east. Latest such attempt to impose Aryan Gods on Tamils is the mindless Ramar Sethu controversy.

Disclaimers:

1. If you don't understand the word 'Aryan' and are confused by its usage in European texts, thats not my problem. May be you should read this.

2. I cannot care less about the Aryan Invasion/Migration theory or the 'Out of India ' theory. Such theories are for addled minds who have no patience to read Indian History.

3. Brahamins became a caste/varna from about 1000 BC.

4. The nomads along the indo-iranian border lands spoke Sanskrit and worshiped a pantheon of esoteric gods. There was rivalry between the worshipers of Indra and Ahura Mazda. The definition of Aryans in this post doesn't include those nomads.