CHAPTER SIX

DID SOME VEDIC PEOPLE EMIGRATE WESTWARDS,

OUT OF INDIA ?

The answer to the above-mentioned question is an

unhesitating ëYesí. It comes from three, completely
independent, areas, two of which are separated from each
other by thousands of kilometres, while the third one lies in
between them. These areas are: (i) Turkey in the west;
(ii) India in the east; and (iii) Iran in the middle.
Turkey has yielded incontrovertible inscriptional
evidence about the presence of the Aryans in that region at
least as far back as the 14th century BCE. The entire community
of historians and archaeologists was struck with surprise
when in the first decade of the 20th century Hugo Winckler
discovered in his excavations at Bogazkoy certain inscribed
clay tablets on which was recorded a treaty between a
Mitanni king named Matiwaza and a Hittite king,
Suppiluliuma, ascribable to circa 1380 BCE. As witnesses to
this treaty the two rulers invoked the following Vedic gods:
Indara (=Vedic Indra), Mitras (il) (=Vedic Mitra), Nasatia(nna)
(=Vedic Nåsatya) and Uruvanass(il) (=Vedic Varuƒa).
And the treaty is only a chip of the large block. From this
region and its neighbourhood more than a hundred names
have come to light which have a Sanskrit stamp on them:
such as: Biridasva (=Vedic Væidhå‹va); Urud∂ti, a Hurrian king
(=Skt. Urud∂ti); Artasumara, another Mitanni king (=Vedic

DID SOME VEDIC PEOPLE EMIGRATE WESTWARDS, OUT OF INDIA ? X 129

 ° R itasmara, in addition to Matiwaza = Mativåja, already
mentioned), and so on. The context of some of these names
goes back to the seventeenth century BCE. Then there is
another remarkable document. It deals with the technique
of horse-training and mentions Sanskrit numerals like
ekavartana, trivartana, etc. meaning thereby that the horse
under training should be made to make one round, three
rounds and so on of the race-course.
Though the foregoing data are enough to establish the
presence of Vedic Aryans in ancient Turkey, there is yet
another kind of evidence to which attention may be drawn.
In the Mitannian art, dating at least to the 16th-17th century
BCE (perhaps even to circa 2100 BCE), there is the portrayal of
the peacock ñ a bird typical of India. This couldnít have been
the case unless Indians were behind the inspiration.
Commenting on the Bogazkoy evidence, the renowned
Indologist T. Burrow observed (1955): ëThe Ayrans appear
in Mitanni from 1500 BC as the ruling dynasty, which means
that they must have entered the country as conquerors.í
ëConquerors from whereí, may not one ask? At that point of
time there was no other country in the entire world except
India where the above-mentioned gods were worshipped.
And since, as has already been shown earlier, the °Rigveda
decidedly belonged to a period prior to 2000 BCE, there is no
chronological obstacle in such a hypothesis.
In this context, let the reader be told that this very
Bogazkoy evidence was given a different twist by certain
scholars in the past. While admitting that the gods mentioned
in the treaty were Indo-Aryan, they argued that these people
were on their way to India. They took this stand because in
those days, as per Max Mullerís fatwa, the Vedas were
considered to have been only as old as 1200 BCE whereas the
Bogazkoy inscription was dated to the 14th century BCE. Now
that we know full well that the Vedas are in no case posterior
to 2000 BCE, that kind of argument is no longer valid.
Again, some scholars have even gone to the extent of
saying that this very region was the ëoriginal homeí of the
Aryans. But this stand, again, is fundamentally incorrect.
Why? Because when we say that such and such area was the
ëoriginal homeí of a people called X, we mean that the local
population was by and large that of X and was rooted in the
area. But this was not the case with the Bogazkoy region.

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 The local population was different and the Aryans were only
the rulers, coming from outside, as shown by Burrow. Had
they constituted the core or base of the population, they and
their language would have ëlived on and oní, which is not
the case.
The evidence from Iran is no less revealing. The sacred
book of the Zoroastrians, viz. the Åvestå, is language-wise
very close to but later than the °Rigveda. A conspicuous
difference is that the °Rigvedic ësí becomes ëhí in the Åvestå.
Content-wise, the Åvestan religion reflects a kind of dissent
from that of the °Rigveda. The concepts of Devas and Asuras
get reversed. Nevertheless, there is a genetic relationship
between the two. All this shows that the Åvestan people are
closely related but posterior to the °Rigvedic people ñ a
situation which can only be explained by some of the
°Rigvedic people having moved to the land of the Åvestå.
There are many pieces of internal evidence in the Åvestå itself
which testify to this. For example, the Åvestå refers to Yoi
hapta Hendu which is none else than the Sapta Sindhu of the
°Rigveda. Such a mention of the °Rigvedic land of ëSeven Riversí
(Sapta Sindhu) in the Åvestå can only mean that the Åvestan
people continued to cherish the memory of that °Rigvedic
land ñ a clear indication of the westward movement of the
°Rigvedic people.
However, it is not unlikely that the section of the °Rigvedic
people that finally settled down in Persia, may have, on the
way, sojourned for some time in Afghanistan, during which
period the aforesaid linguistic and religious changes would
have taken place.
It may not be out of place to have a word about the make-
up, region of the composition and the date of the Åvestå. The
Åvestå has two major divisions, generally referred to as ëOldí
and ëYoungí. The ëOldí comprises Gåthås which are believed
to have been composed by Zarathustra himself. It also has a
part known as Yasna Haptanghaiti of which the authorship is
not known. The ëYoungí Åvestå comprises many an item such
as religio-legal texts, hymns devoted to certain deities, etc.
All available evidence suggests that the Åvestå was composed
most probably in northeastern Iran. As regards the date, the
issue is somewhat controversial. According to one view, it
may well go back to circa 14th-11th century BCE, while another
view would bring it down to 8th-7th century BCE.

DID SOME VEDIC PEOPLE EMIGRATE WESTWARDS, OUT OF INDIA ? X 131

 While the debate about the exact date of the Åvestå would
continue until some clinching evidence becomes available,
it may interest the reader that the region mentioned as
Par‹va¨ in a Vedic text, Baudhåyana ›rautasµ u tra (to be
discussed next), is also mentioned by almost the same name
in a completely independent document thousands of
kilometres west of India. Dated to 835 BCE, it states that king
Shalmaneser of Assyria received tributes from 27 kings of
Parsuwas. That would imply that by the ninth century BCE,
the Pår‹vas had fully established themselves in the region
and had evidently reached there several centuries before ñ
maybe by the middle of the second millennium BCE. All this
would give legitimacy to the above-mentioned early date
both for the Åvestå as well as for the migration of the Pår‹vas
from India to Iran some time in the second millennium BCE.
Finally, to come to the evidence from India itself,
endorsing an emigration of the Vedic Aryans out of India,
to three contiguous regions towards the west. A Vedic text,
namely the Baudhåyana ›rautasµutra (18.44), runs as follows
(cf. Fig. 6.1 for the original):
Pråƒåyau¨ pravavråja tasyaite Kurµu-Pa¤chålå¨ Kå‹∂-Videhå ity
etad
Åyavam pravråjam Pratya∆ Amåvasus tasyaite Gåndhårayas
Par‹vo Ar墢å itya etad Åmåvasavam
Translated into English, the Sanskrit text avers:
Åyu migrated eastwards. His (progeny) are the Kurµu-
På¤chålas and Kå‹i-Videhas. This is Åyava migration.
Amåvasu migrated westwards. His (progeny) are the
Gåndhår∂, Para‹u and Åra¢¢a. This is the Amåvasva
migration.
The details of these migrations are as follows. Aila
Pururavas and Urva‹∂ had two sons, named Åyu and
Amåvasu. They migrated, respectively to the east and west.
The former, moving eastwards, gave rise to the Kurµu-
På¤chåla and Kå‹i-Videha dynasties, while the latter, moving
out to the west, went over to Gåndhåra, Par‹u and Ara¢¢a.
This bifurcation evidently took place in an area which was
between the Kurµu region on the east and the Gåndhåra region
on the west. In other words, the scene of partition lay
somewhere in Panjab.

132 x HOW DEEP ARE THE ROOTS OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION ?

 Fig. 6.1. Photocopy of
the relevant Sanskrit
text from the
Baudhåyana
›rautasµutra.

The identification of the destinations arrived at by the

two branches poses no problem. The Kurµu-På¤chåla territory
lay in eastern Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. The Kå‹i-
Videhas were settled in eastern Uttar Pradesh and western
Bihar. Of the territories reached by the western branch,
Gåndhåra is straightaway identifiable. It is the Kandahar

DID SOME VEDIC PEOPLE EMIGRATE WESTWARDS, OUT OF INDIA ? X 133

Fig. 6.2. Migration of
People as mentioned province of Afghanistan. Likewise, Par‹u is identifiable with
in the Baudhåyana Persia, which was renamed ëIraní only as recently as 1935. It
›rautasµutra. is only the location of Ara¢¢a that has caused some debate.
This place (Ara¢¢a) is mentioned not only in the above-
referred-to Vedic text but also in an epic thousands of
kilometres away in the west, in Iraq. The epic, ascribable to
the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, mentions that Enmerkar,
king of Uruk, sent a messenger, making certain demands, to
Ensuhgiranna, the ruler of Ara¢¢a. We are not concerned here
with the other details of the story, but only with the
identification of Ara¢¢a. Some scholars identify it with Ziroft,
while some others with Ararat. Fed up with the unending
debate, some even go to extent of calling it unreal and a mere
ëconcoctioní by the composer of the epic. Our failure to arrive
at a consensus regarding the identification of the place is no
justification for calling it a ëconcoctioní. You canít throw the
baby away with the bath-tub. Black, Cunningham, et al. (in

134 x HOW DEEP ARE THE ROOTS OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION ?

an Internet presentation) place Ara¢¢a in ëthe snow-capped
mountains that border Mesopotamiaí. Further, in a section
of the poem, the ruler of Ara¢¢a tells the messenger: ë... The
queen of heaven and earth, the goddess of the numerous
me, holy Inana, has brought to Ara¢¢a, the mountain of
shining me, I whom she has let bar the entrance of the
mountains as if with a great door. ..í. From the foregoing
account it would appear that Ara¢¢a was located close to an
opening (pass) in the mountains which the ruler of Ara¢¢a
could easily seal. All this enhances the claim of the Ararat
region, located close on the north of Iraq, in a mountainous
terrain, as being Ara¢¢a of the Sumerian epic. Further, if on
grounds of phonetic similarity Gåndhåra and Par‹u of the
Vedic text can be identified respectively with Kandahar and
Persia, and Susin and Ansan, mentioned in the Sumerian
epic, with Susa and Ansan, what, may one ask, is the reason
to discard that very principle in the case Ara¢¢a? It, therefore,
stands to reason that the proposed identification by some
scholars of Ara¢¢a with Ararat in the Armenian region, to
the northwest of Persia, may be in order. In that case, the
Vedic Aryans, emigrating out of India travelled via Kandahar
and Persia (Iran) to Ararat, following a south-of-the-Caspian-
Sea route. And since from Ararat to Turkey is just a next-
door affair, the immigration of the Vedic Aryans into Turkey
becomes self-explained. Further, as there are enough dated
records on the Turkey side, the emigration from India is
easily assignable to the first half of the second millennium
BCE. (Cf. Fig. 6.2.)

DID SOME VEDIC PEOPLE EMIGRATE WESTWARDS, OUT OF INDIA ? X 135