The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate

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Oxford University Press, 2001 - History - 387 pages
Western scholars have argued that Indian civilization was the joint product of an invading Indo-European people--the "Indo-Aryans"--and indigenous non-Indo European peoples. Although Indian scholars reject this European reconstruction of their country's history, Western scholarship gives little heed to their argument. In this book, Edwin Bryant explores the nature and origins of this fascinating debate.
 

Contents

Introduction
3
Europe and the Aryan Homeland Quest
13
2 Early Indian Responses
46
3 Vedic Philology
57
The Dethronement of Sanskrit
68
5 Linguistic Substrata in Sanskrit Texts
76
6 Linguistic Paleontology
108
7 Linguistic Evidence from outside of India
124
The Evidence outside the Subcontinent
197
The Evidence inside the Subcontinent
224
12 The Date of the Veda
238
13 Aryan Origins and Modern Nationalist Discourse
267
Conclusion
298
Notes
311
Works Cited
349
Index
381

8 The Viability of a South Asian Homeland
140
9 The Indus Valley Civilization
157

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About the author (2001)

Edwin Bryant is at Harvard University.

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