The Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization

The Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization PDF Author: Navaratna Srinivasa Rajaram
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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The Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization

The Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization PDF Author: Navaratna Srinivasa Rajaram
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : India
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description


The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture

The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture PDF Author: Edwin Bryant
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195169476
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This work studies how Indian scholars have rejected the idea of an external origin of the Indo-Aryans, by questioning the logic assumptions and methods upon which the theory is based.

The Roots of Hinduism

The Roots of Hinduism PDF Author: Asko Parpola
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190226935
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.

The Origin of the Aryans

The Origin of the Aryans PDF Author: Isaac Taylor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aryans
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Aryans, Jews, Brahmins

Aryans, Jews, Brahmins PDF Author: Dorothy M. Figueira
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791487830
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
In Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, Dorothy M. Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West's Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain "pure." As Figueira demonstrates, the history of the Aryan myth is also a history of reading, interpretation, and imaginative construction. Initially, the ideology of the Aryan was imposed upon absent or false texts. Over time, it involved strategies of constructing, evoking, or distorting the canon. Each construction of racial identity was concerned with key issues of reading: canonicity, textual accessibility, interpretive strategies of reading, and ideal readers. The book's cross-cultural investigation demonstrates how identities can be and are created from texts and illuminates an engrossing, often disturbing history that arose from these creations.

The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia

The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia PDF Author: George Erdosy
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110816431
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Which of Us are Aryans?

Which of Us are Aryans? PDF Author: Romila Thapar
Publisher: Rupa Publications
ISBN: 9789388292382
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
The question of which of us is Aryan is one of the most contentious in India today. In this eye-opening book, scholars and experts critically examine the Aryan issue by analysing history, genetics, early Vedic scriptures, archaeology and linguistics to test and debunk various hypotheses, myths, facts and theories that are currently in vogue.

March of the Aryans

March of the Aryans PDF Author: Bhagwan S Gidwani
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 8184756844
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 654

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Book Description
In a remarkable feat of imagination and research, bhagwan S. Gidwani takes us back to the dawn of civilization (8000 BCE) to vividly recreate the world of the Aryans. He tells us why the Aryans left India - their native land - for foreign shores and shows us their triumphant return to their homeland. Here are characters like the gentle god Sindhu Putra, spreading his message of love; the hermit Bharat, who inspired the dream of unity, equality, human rights and dignity for all; the physician - sage Dhanawantar and his wife Dhanawantari; peace-loving Kashi after whom the holy city of Varanasi is named; and Nila who gave his name to the rive Nile. Vast and absorbing, with a cast of thousands, March of the Aryans is a gripping tale of kings and poets, seers and gods, battles and romance, and the rise and fall of civilisations, from the bestselling author of The Sword of Tipu Sultan.

The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet, Disclosing the Sumero-Phoenician Parentage of Our Letters Ancient & Modern

The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet, Disclosing the Sumero-Phoenician Parentage of Our Letters Ancient & Modern PDF Author: Laurence Austine Waddell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Alphabet
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
"Abbreviations for references": pages vii-viii.

The Luwians

The Luwians PDF Author: Craig Melchert
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047402146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
The Luwians played at least as important a role as the Hittites in the history of the Ancient Near East during the second and first millennia BCE, but for various reasons they have been overshadowed by and even confused with their more famous relatives and neighbours. Redressing this imbalance, the present volume by an international team of scholars offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art appraisal of the Luwians, the first of its kind in English. A brief introduction sets the context and confronts the problem of defining 'the Luwians'. Following chapters describe their prehistory, history, writing and language, religion, and material culture.