Origins of the Vedic Religion.....

Origins of the Vedic Religion

And

Indus-Ghaggar Civilisation

By

Sanjay Sonawani

Brief introduction:

The highly debated issue of the Aryan or proto-Indo-European language speaker’s homeland is still nowhere near to any resolve. The European and Indian scholars have been proposing drastically opposite theories to prove either Eurasia or India as the homeland. Sometimes they dramatically stretch the timelines leaving one wondering as to how the scholars can play around with the archaeological proofs and indications provided by ancient scriptures just to derive suitable meanings to meet their needs.

In his book, Mr. Sonawani attempts to have a look at the ‘homeland’ scenario. While doing so, he takes cognizance of all the theories forwarded by the scholars so far from fresh angle and postulates that;

1. The Indo-European language group theory is based upon migrations of the proto Indo-European language speakers from some homeland. The author challenges the hypotheses’ of such migration and using the available archaeological, anthropological and scriptural evidences goes on to prove that there were no massive migrations from any place since 10,000 BC which may have caused substantial impact on other cultures. Using the archaeological evidences, he proves that the people all over the globe started settling down by 15,000 BC with the invention of early agriculture. The process was gradually completed by before 10,000 BC. Therefore, it is out of the question that the so-called PIE speakers started migrating from the hypothetical homelands at about 2000 BC or 5000 BC and impacted the linguistic and cultural features of other civilisations, as postulated by the scholars.

2. The author further proves that the early humans were foragers during the period ranging from 60,000 BC till 15,000 BC when they already had learnt to move around in the known territories and developed geographical consciousness. By then they had already shared, developed rudimentary languages having common features. These rudimentary languages took separate paths after he settled down in the respective regions. However, the early vocabulary and grammatical traits survived, which is why there are some similarities even today in the territories in question. These similarities are owed to the early human life and not to the movement of so-called Proto-Indo-European people.

3. Author proves that from all the results pouring in from the geological explorations at Ghaggar basin, and from the careful analysis of Rig Vedic/mythological descriptions of the Saraswati River, the Ghaggar river cannot be at all equated with the Rig Vedic Saraswati.  

4. Mr. Sonawani, in this book, proves that many personalities, including Zarathustra and his patrons, were contemporary to the early phase of Rig Vedic compositions and have been mentioned in both the Rig Veda and the Avesta. This sheds light on the possible date of the Rig Veda and Gathas of the Avesta. Further, the author proves, with in depth analysis of numerous scriptural and archaeological evidences, that the Rig Vedic geography is that of nowhere else but Helmand valley, Southern Afghanistan. Using references from the Rig Veda and the Avesta, he has proved that most of the identifiable tribes mentioned were and still are located in Iran, Afghanistan and north-east India( now Pakistan), and are speaking the descendent languages even today.

5. The author also proves that the indigenous Vedic Aryan theory is unfounded since there is no slightest affinity between the Vedic and Indus culture. He explains diligently that, how, even if Rig Vedic period is stretched back substantially, i.e. from presently accepted period of about 1500 BC, to as back as 3000 BC or even far before, any association of the Vedic people with Indus-Ghaggar Civilisation is improbable.

6. Since Indus-Ghaggar Valley have not experienced any intruding immigrants from minimum of 7000+ BC, there is no any genetic or archeological proof to prove any foreign influx since then. Therefore, there is total absence of any proofs to prove the migration of so-called Vedic Aryans from India to West. The vital questions raised by Mr. Sonawani are: How the Vedic religion was introduced to India? How it found space here to become a major sect in the later course of time? The revelations, supported by substantial proofs may help us change the traditional perspective of our ancient socio-cultural and religious history.

7. Importantly, the author points out at the sever social harm caused by the supremacist views taken by the European and Vedicist scholars over the last two hundred years to solve non-existent mystery of origin, either of the Aryan race or of the PIE language.

8. This book explains the roots of the original Rig Vedic language and how it was gradually modified in ancient times to suite the changed linguistic environments, while providing the internal proofs from the Rig Veda and from the observations of Indian as well as European Sanskrit scholars. As a result, the myth of the Vedic dialect being mother of Sanskrit and other Prakrit languages crumbles.  

Rather the author of this book has referred to almost all the living and dead renowned scholars whose works have been related with a wide range of topics such as the myth of the Aryans or the PIE speakers hypotheses, archaeology, geology, linguistics, anthropology to religion.

Mr. Sonawani stresses through this book that distorting the human history to prove that some humans are superior over others, racially or linguistically, is not the way to solve the puzzles of our ancient past.

“Origin of the Vedic Religion and Indus-Ghaggar Civilization” is an attempt to help us look back at our past with clean and unprejudiced vision.