The concept of Aryans requires setting the stage of Vedic India. In Rig Veda, Manu is described as the first human being. The idea of first human being doesn’t mean that he was the first man put on the planet. Rather, Manu was the first human being who did something worthy to find a mention in the Rig Veda. He gave some preliminary laws to live our lives by. This body of work is known as the Manu Samhita (मनु संहिता) or Manu Smriti (मनु स्मृति). Given the nature of work and his mention in Rig Veda, he was probably a king. That would make most of the Indians a descendant of Manu. The preeminence of Manu can be judged from the fact that the Sanskrit word for human beings is Manu-shya (मनुष्य).
A prominent descendant of Manu is Nahusha, who had five grandsons – sons of Yayati. These were Turvasha, Yadu, Puru, Druhyu, and Anu. Being the prominent kings that these folks were, they each owned territory that put together covered the area from Gandhar (Druhyu) to Bengal (Turvasha), and Punjab (Anu) to Gujarat (Yadu). Puru got the center of it all, the core that spans the modern day Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in India. During the Vedic times, descendants of Manu ruled a major chunk of modern India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
As per Rig Veda, there was a way of life which was considered spiritual and had its own associated practices. Turvasha, Yadu, Puru, Druhyu, and Anu’s descendents were primarily followers of a spiritual way of life. Any human being who followed those practices and the way of life was an Aryan. Others, by definition, were un-Aryan. This is why Aryans are primarily associated with India.
The un-Aryans had no sense of the divine and were considered ultra-materialistic in their mental disposition and perhaps even evil. So, we had two groups of people; Aryans, which encompassed Brahmins and Kshatriyas, and un-Aryans comprised of Dasyus, Panis and Asuras during different Vedic periods. Thus, the concept of Aryan was not a racial system. It was a values system.
Aryan, as a spirituality metaphor, was so prevalent that Buddha came to call his belief system Aryan Dharma (later identified as Buddhism). During the time when the Rig Veda originated human civilization was centered around the river Saraswati, which dried up by the time of Mahabharata. The center of humanity then shifted towards the river Ganga and the next five prominent rivers – Sutlej, Ravi, Beas, Indus, and Jhelum. Thus the Aryans came to be associated with the lands around these rivers. The un-Aryans were driven out towards the East, but primarily to the West (Middle East). The most prominent un-Aryan group, the Panis, were driven out all the way to modern Syria and Lebanon. They are today know as the Phoenicians and Assyrians.
In the contemporary world, the name of Persia was changed to Iran by Reza Shah The Great in 1935 – Iran is the land of Aryans. There is quite a bit of evidence emerging that associates the Egyptians, the Kelts, and the Balkhs to Aryan people. Of these the Egyptian, with their sun worship, Solar dynasties, and god names are becoming an area of interest for those who study the Aryans. A related topic of study could be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
With this history of Aryans and the exposition of the meaning of being Aryan, what do we think about the Aryan Invasion of India? More on that in another byte.
धार्मिक छवियाँ 