The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Social Scientist is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Scientist. This is an expanded version of the text of a lecture delivered at the 40th International Conference of Eastern Studies in Tokyo, 26 May 1995. The text is reproduced with the permission of the Toho Gakkai, the sponsor of the Conference. Social Scientist, Vol. 24, Nos. 1-3, January-March 19 4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST awareness of new worlds entered the consciousness of Europe, but knowledge as an aspect of the Enlightenment was thought to provide access to power. Governing a colony involved familiaritywith what had preceded the arrival of the colonial power on the Indian scene. The focus therefore was on languages, law and religion. The belief that history was essential to this knowledge was thwarted by the seeming absence of histories of early India. That the beginnings of Indian history would have to be rediscovered through European methods of historical scholarship, with an emphasis on chronology and sequential narrative, became the challenge.These early explorations were dominated by the need to construct a chronology for the Indian past. Attempts were made to trace parallels with Biblical theories and chronology. But the exploration with the maximum potential lay in the study of languages and particularly Sanskrit. Similarities between Greek and Latin and Sanskrit, noticed even earlier, were clinched with William Jones' reading of Sandracottos as Candragupta. Two other developments took place. One was the suggestion of a monogenesis or single origin of all related languages, an idea which was extended to the speakers of the languages as well.3 The second was the emergence of comparative philology, which aroused considerable interest, especially after the availability of Vedic texts in the early nineteenth century. Vedic studies were hospitably received in Europe where there was already both enthusiasm for or criticism of, Indian culture. German romanticism and the writings of Herder and Schlegel suggested that the roots of human history might go back to these early beginnings recorded in Sanskrit texts.4 James Mill on the other hand, had a different view in his highly influential History of British India, where he described India as backward and stagnant and Hindu civilisation as inimical to progress.5Comparative philologists, such as E. Burnouf and F. Bopp were primarily interested in the technicalities of language. Vedic Sanskrit, as the earliest form of Sanskrit, had primacy. Monogenesis was strengthened with the notion of an ancestral language, Indo-Germanic or Indo-European as it came to be called, as also in the origins of some European languages and their speakers being tra...

Contested past

“…Thus Frawley and Rajaram, in near-Saidian style, write that it would be by no means too coarse a simplification to say that "the Germans" (in particular Max Müller) "created the Aryan-invasion theory and the British used it" (Rajaram & Frawley 1995: 5). With this critique the revisionists have hit upon a sore point, one with which moreover Thapar is in agreement (e.g., Thapar 1996). Moreover, a very interesting side-effect of this discourse is that, following this confrontation, established Indologists and South Asian archaeologists have to give stronger account of the methodology of their theoretical constructions.…”

“…65. See on the following Thapar (1989Thapar ( , 1992Thapar ( , 1996. Thapar, who most recently worked as a Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, is an Indian historian specialising in prehistorical and early South Asia.…”

Untitled

“…On the eve of WW1 secular German nationalists, most notably the Social Democrats recognised the importance of winning over Indian nationalists for Germany's war efforts to succeed (Fraser 1977;Jones 2014;Liebau 2011). European social scientists invented theories of superiority of the Aryan races (Thapar 1996). Aryan race theories allowed the inclusion of Iranians and Indians, the most strategically important allies for Germany outside Europe, without diluting race-based German nationalism.…”

Parenting as Activism: Identity Alignment and Activist Persistence in the White Power Movement

“… We use the term “Aryan” throughout the article as a short hand reference to white power movement members. The term “Aryan” has a long history and signifies a specific geocultural group (see Thapar :3–29). Aryan was a name widely used during Nazi Germany as part of the Third Reich's “master race” theory.…”