Ryan Dear

2734156
RELS204

Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence.

Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

During the period of colonial control of India that began late in the 17th century, the British
government invested in diverting Hindu followers from the practices of the Vedas and
instilled the values of Englishmen. They continued to do so until India gained independence
in July 1950. Like most imperialist efforts, elements of indigenous culture are marginalized
while new values are formulated and enforced, often with violent repercussions.
Colonialism was largely responsible for the marginalization of the Vedic texts, creating
what is still widely proliferated as fact from ad hoc dating “techniques” of Max Muller.
This paper is an attempt to overview the arguments that were made in the past, and how a
more contemporary body of evidence bluntly refutes the controversial scholarship and
pseudo-archeology performed under colonial influence. The evidence is cross-disciplinary:
linguistic, archeological, and geological, thus painting a more relevant and accurate picture
than exists in the current record.

Mythmaker Muller
Muller was of the first to propose that armies diffusing from a homeland were the
conquerors of the Indus Valley civilization. Max Muller formulated this theory to fit within
a Biblical context of time, which mirrored his own belief system. “Max Muller justified the
translation of the Vedas on the grounds that it would enhance Europeans’ understanding of
their own ancient Aryan heritage. In other words, the highly sacred status of the Vedas was
conventionally redirected to European cultural and political agendas, even as the conditions
of a “correct” translation were contested.” (Dodson, 2007) Max Muller’s personal biases
seriously undermine his portrayal of the Vedic literature. “European orientalists such as Max
Muller quite simply lacked such full training—a training, one can assume, which was available
only in India. In addition, orientalists most often laboured under a strong Christian prejudice,
which eliminated them as “impartial ” students of the Vedas. The propagation of such
misunderstandings had caused untold damage to Indian understandings of the Vedas. ”
(Dodson, 2007) Pompous rhetoric, “Sacrifice was a very natural occupation for the Vedic
savages, as it is among savages at the present day” (Muller, The Vedas) is prominent
throughout his literature. He gives no allowance for accuracy of transmitting oral traditions:
“when the Vedic texts existed in oral tradition only, they must have been exposed to many
vicissitudes. There are verbal emendations so palpable that we can hardly understand how

2
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

the mistakes could have arisen, and could have been tolerated for one moment.” (Muller,
The Vedas) Suffice to say this man thought very highly of his ability to translate Sanskrit
texts, “the evidence of language is irrefragable, and it is the only evidence worth listening to
with regard to ante-historical periods,” (Muller, The Vedas) and tried to discredit any
evidence from other disciplines, especially indigenous scholars.

Linguistic Evidence
How did this racial taboo come into being? Muller makes infinitely many references to
Aryan referring to a superior –yet nomadic – society throughout his work. The assumption
originated from his translation of the sanscrit word arya, which was interpreted
(erroneously) as a racial inference, based on Vedic passages referring to facial structure.
Without indulging the taboo too far, this has been referred to as a flattened nose of the
native Dravidian people: “Muller had construed the word (sipra) as a-nasa, ‘without nose’,
as opposed to an-as ‘without mouth or face’, as Sayana1 and construed it.” (Bryant, 2003)
No evidence exists to support this fact, and yet it is essential to Muller’s narrative of native
Dravidians existing as inferior people: “The Aryan nations who pursued a northwesterly
direction, stand before us in history as the principal nations of north western Asia and
Europe. They have been the prominent actors in the great drama of history… They have
perfected society and morals, and we learn from their literature and works of art the
elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy.” (Muller, The Vedas)
Despite Muller’s assertions that these “primitive natives” owe their entire knowledge base to
white invaders, the archeological evidence is completely amiss in this regard. Renfrew,
along with Kennoyer and Possehl examined later, collectively refute the entirety of Muller’s
theory, “As far as I can see there is nothing in the Hymns of the Rg Veda which
demonstrates that the Vedic speaking population were intrusive to the areas.” (Renfrew,
1987) Though he is reluctant to submit any alternative dates explicitly, we can certainly
assume the Vedas existed with the indigenous population of the time, or perhaps of a much
older time carried out and preserved through oral tradition. Perhaps the mysterious Indus
Valley script and the dialect of the Vedic people are similar to Latin, in that written forms

1
Sayana provided the starting block from which Muller’s racial speculations were
extrapolated.

3
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

and spoken forms are quite different but are the body of the same language. “Archeology
gives very little help in broadening the context for these hymns, since there is no clear
archeological link - the hymns themselves are not dateable other than on general linguistic
grounds, perhaps to around 1000 BC, perhaps rather earlier. Their importance should not to
be underestimated. They stand at the head of the whole body of Indian literature, and at the
very sources of the hindu religion.” (Renfrew, 1987) The clear archeological link might
exist in the future decoding of the Indus Valley script, though no definitive “rosetta stone”
has been found for an explicit translation. Muller offers absolutely no physical evidence to
support the conclusions drawn from his translations, and his translations alone. No evidence
to this day even hints at the existence of a homeland, but Muller’s hypothesis was further
twisted with pseudo-archeology.

Archeological Evidence
Sir Mortimer Wheeler also supported an Aryan invasion theory, but asserted that war
mongering Aryan nomads delivered the final blow to a civilization already in decline. It
seems Wheeler believed the skeletons he recovered were the final remaining citizens of a lost
native people: “The general inference from the thirty or more derelict corpses at Mohenjo-
daro is that from the moment of death the place was uninhabited.” (Wheeler, 1966, pg 83)
These corpses were found at different strata, (Rao, 1991) which means they died at different
times and not in the instant that Wheeler suggests. This is sloppy archeology, plain and
simple. Other archeologists agree: “Harappans do not appear to have constructed any
memorials to military campaigns; nowhere is any battle damage reflected in physical
structures; and human remains reveal no evidence of violent death” (Kennoyer 1998,15;
Possehl 1998, 269-71). Furthermore, Aryan invaders were described in Wheeler’s fantasy to
have rode in with horses and chariots. But no osteological evidence exists of these ancient
horses, nor of any chariots respectively: “... during Harappan times neither horse nor camel
riding was as yet remotely common in the world, and second because there were likely never
any horses in the area at all, or any camels, at least until era's end.” (Kennoyer 1998) The
evidence that was recovered, however, suggests an entirely different story.

4
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

One of the seals found at Mohenjo-daro, dated to about 2700 BC (Sharma, 2000) clearly
depicts a sage or Rishii in a yoga position similar to that of mulabandhasana. Wheeler
originally skimmed over these connections, “three examples from Mohejo-daro have a
special interest in that they appear to represent a prototype of the great god Siva of the later
Hindu religion,” (Wheeler, 1966) but others were not so quick to dismiss their importance,
including Renfrew. Western scholar Jonathan Kennoyer is also reluctant to attach a
definitive proto-shiva figure to the seal, as the symbolism may have represented something
different from shiva worship: “There are similarities in the iconography but the meaning
relayed may have been significantly different.” (Kennoyer, 1991) Different how? It
appears that archeologists are afraid to attach themselves to the seemingly obvious fact that
the Indus Valley knew of advanced forms of yoga by 2700 BC. The structures themselves
are also indicative of early Hindu culture, not only resembling hierarchy in society (Rao,
1991), but the “Great Bath” too has been associated with ancient purification rituals
(Wheeler, 1968) of proto-hinduism.

Wheeler also made reference to the exhaustion of resources, (Wheeler, 1968) which
assumes the indigenous people had no concept of sustainability: water, food, and trade.
Although there is some logic to this aspect contributing to the demise of a civilization, it
does not seem logical when considering archeological evidence. Wheeler knew that even the
ruins of Mohenjo-daro exhibited the use of cisterns and early forms of sewer systems.
(Wheeler, 1968) But these people were highly skilled masons, perhaps even the first
plumbers. These people had a clear sense of how to preserve resources – perhaps born out of
necessity after long periods of drought. This would have been a logical and necessary
component of living in a region of ever changing climate, but to abandon such sites – there
must have been a more dramatic cause for a literate civilization (Renfrew, 1987) to leave a
massive expanse of buildings behind. The source for their water must have disappeared, or
in the very least changed its course.

Geological Evidence
The Sarasvati river is mentioned 72 times within the Vedas. Other locations outside India

5
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

have been proposed based on linguistic studies,2 but there seems to be some agreement that
it once ran parallel to the Indus River, and was the mightiest river of its time: “in a much
larger number of passages of the Rigveda the Saraswati is referred to as “the foremost of
rivers.” (Gupta, 1995) Most of the geological surveys indicate that this river actually
existed in the Indus Valley region, flowing in its prime long before 3000 BC. “It is certain
that in at least 3 passages of the Rigveda and in a large number of later texts the modern
Saraswati or Sarsuti is referred to. It will suffice to mention among the former a verse of the
hymn of the Nadistuti (R.V. X.75) which with a precision unfortunately exceptional in
Vedic literature enumerates all important rivers from the Ganges to the western limit of the
Punjab in strict geographical order.” (Gupta, 1995) Prior to the unveiling of satellite
imaging technology, these discoveries would have been impossible: “Interpretation of
LANDSAT imagery and field investigation in the western part of Jaisalmer district in India
have revealed some hitherto unknown abandoned courses of the former Sarasvati river. It has
been suggested that these courses were alive before the Sarasvati occupied the Raini or the
Wahinda courses, and contributed to the alluviation of the region. The subsurface water in the
region is contributed mainly by the Himalayan precipitation flowing subterraneously through
the former courses of the Sarasvati” (Grose et al, 1979) The correlation to the former course
of this river and the concentration of archeological settlements found in immediate
proximity is undeniable, with literally hundreds of sites along the former course of the
Sarasvati. (Gupta, 1995) This drastic difference in dating suggests that those who wrote the
Vedas and spoke of the Sarasvati river were inhabitants of the Indus Valley long before the
popularly accepted dates of 1200-1500 BC. The dating of these rivers is particularly
important, for that reason I have quoted Valdiya’s comments in length:
“A major river known as the Sarasvati and formed by the confluence of the Shatadru (Satluj)
and the Yamuna (of the past) flowed through Haryana, southern Panjab, northwestern
Rajasthan and eastern Sindh and emptied itself in the Gulf of Kutch. This river was much
revered by the Rigvedic scholars; and it nurtured the Harappan civilization until it
disappeared during the Late Holocene time 3000 to 4000 yr Before Present. The
disappearance of the Sarasvati is a case of river piracy by branches of the Ganga and the
Sindhu rivers. Weaving together various threads of evidence adduced from archaeological,
geomorphological and drainage-related studies, and gleaning relevant information from satellite

2
Namely Afghanistan in the case of the Sarasvati, but many different locations have been
proposed for the Ganges. For more information refer to (Gupta, 1995)

6
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

imageries, it is surmised that the Sarasvati River rose in the snowy realm of the Himadri in
northwestern Uttarakhand, flowed southwest through one of the tributaries of the present-day
Ghaggar River of the foothills and met the-then southeast flowing Satluj at Shatrana about 15
km south of Patiala. At the confluence, the channel was 6 to 8 km wide, pointing to a very
high discharge of the Sarasvati. The Ghaggar river is known as the Hakra in its middle reaches
and as the Nara in the lower reaches. Significantly, the ground water recovered in the middle
reaches from tubewells deeper than 60 m was found to be 22000 to 6000 years old, whereas
in the shallow-well water carbon has been dated at 5000 to 1800 years. The age of the water
increases downstream from Kishangarh. Since the tritium value is negligible, these waters do
not represent the rainwater fed through contemporary recharge by rainwater. The deeper - and
older - water must be attributed to the ancient river that flowed in the time earlier than 5000
yr BP.” (Valdiya, 2002) Though it may be a jagged pill to swallow, there seems to be an
increasing possibility that the Vedas are much older than originally hypothesized and were not
introduced by foreign influence. How did the ancients know of this river flowing in its glory
at 1200 BC? The hymns must be from an earlier time, at least before the Sarasvati dried up
around 3000 BC. Certainly there had been a civilization nurtured by this river before it had
dried or changed its course.

Contemporary Evidence from Marine Archeology

Some of the most promising discoveries reside in marine archeology, or at the bottom of the
sea more appropriately. On Saturday May 19th, 2001 The Times of India published a report
that never made international headlines.3 Ruins of a Harrapan-like society were uncovered,
along with many artifacts including human teeth, carved wood, pottery, beads and the like.
By January 16th, 2002 these artifacts had been dated even earlier than the mysterious
Sumerian civilization.4 Unfortunately, no information has been released beyond 2002 with
regards to this discovery, though it is certainly exciting to look forward to. Marine
archeology in India is still in the developing stages, most explorations taking place a few
kilometers from the existing shoreline. Since this particular science is still growing in its
organization and technology complexity, it seems entirely likely that marine archeology in
India will reveal many secrets recovered from the deep, perhaps only kilometers away from
well known archeological dive sites.

3
See Appendix 2
4
See Appendix 3

7
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

Closing Remarks:
Perhaps the paradoxical scenario of advanced culture without literature can be reconciled
with a stage of social evolution lost to the sea. This cross disciplinary data set paints a very
different picture: a sophisticated, spiritual group of literate individuals forced out of their
homeland from compounding environmental issues, rather than racial violence echoing in
the pipedreams of colonial scholars during colonial times. More importantly, would it not
fundamentally change the history of Hinduism? Especially when we consider the disservice
done to India’s history in the past, it may be all the more necessary to find definitive
answers to have these faulty theories dissolved. Without exposing myself to the pitfalls of
revisionism, I would like to propose that dating the Vedas would be inappropriate until the
results from the marine archeology are finalized and published. Astronomy is another
relevant field to consider when studying Vedic history, but admittedly the content seemed
far too complex to present in this paper, although B. Tilak’s work “The Orion or
Researched into the Antiquity of the Vedas” is a fascinating relic full of astronomical
calculations. As modern technology advances and more archeological reports are circulated,
we should have a much more accurate theory explaining their disappearance. Surely we can
conclude the life of the Indus Valley people planted the seeds for many of the symbols of
what we know as modern Hinduism, and that they certainly never encountered blonde, blue-
eyed men on invisible horses.
5 Be careful not to delete this 5, or else the entire bibliography will disappear!

8
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

Bibliography

Bryant, E. (2003). Quest for the origins of vedic culture: The indo-aryan migration debate.
New York: Oxford Univ Press.

Dodson, S. Michael. (2007). Contesting Translations: Orientalism and the Interpretation of

the Vedas, Modern Intellectual History, 4, 1 (2007), pp. 43–59 Cambridge University Press

Ghose, B., Kar, A., Husain, Z., (1979) The lost courses of the Sarasvati river in the Great
Indian Desert: New evidence from Landsat Imagery, Geographical Journal, 145: 446-451.

Gupta, S. P., (1995). The ‘Lost’ Sarasvati & the Indus Civilization. Indian History and
Culture Society. Prakashan, Jodhpur Pg 10

Kennoyer, J. M., (1998). Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, American Institute
of Pakistan Studies, Oxford

Muller, M. F. (1956). The Vedas, First Edition. pg 2, Susil Gupta (India) Limited, Calcutta

Rao, S.R., (1991). Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization, Aditya Prakashan, New
Delhi.

Renfrew, Colin. (1987). Archeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins,
pages 82-183, pg 190, pg 190 par 4, Jonathan Cape Ltd, London

Sharma, D. P. (2000). Harappan Seals, Sealings and Copper Tablets, 20-21, National
Museum, New Delhi
Valdiya, K. S. ( 2002). Sarasvati, the river that disappeared, Hyderabad, Universities
Press

Wheeler, Sir Mortimer. (1968). The Indus Civilization. 3rd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press

Wheeler, Sir Mortimer. (1966). Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond. McGraw-Hill
Book Company, New York

Winternitz, M. (1981). A History of Vedic Literature, Vol. 1, (New Delhi: Motilal

Banarsidass, pp. 270-288, p.273.)

9
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

10
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

Appendix 1

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 82, NO. 4, 25 FEBRUARY 2002

Appendix - 2
http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/2001/05/20/stories/0220000u.htm

11
Vedic Literature and Colonial Influence

Appendix 3 - Archive for January 16th, 2002

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1808-drowned-indian-city-could-be-worlds-oldest.html
Drowned Indian city could be world's oldest
16:03 18 January 2002 by Emma Young
Evidence of an ancient "lost river civilisation" has been uncovered off the west coast of India, the country's minister
for science and technology has announced. Local archaeologists claim the find could push back currently accepted
dates of the emergence of the world's first cities.
Underwater archaeologists at the National Institute of Ocean Technology first detected signs of an ancient submerged
settlement in the Gulf of Cambay, off Gujarat, in May 2001. They have now conducted further acoustic imaging
surveys and have carbon dated one of the finds.
The acoustic imaging has identified a nine-kilometre-long stretch of what was once a river but is now 40 metres
beneath the sea. The site is surrounded by evidence of extensive human settlement. Carved wood, pottery, beads,
broken pieces of sculpture and human teeth have been retrieved from along the river banks, according to a report in
the Indian Express newspaper. Carbon dating of one of the wooden samples has dated the site to around 7500 BC.
"The carbon dating of 7500 BC obtained for the wooden piece recovered from the site changes the earlier held view
that the first cities appeared in the Sumer Valley [in Mesopotamia] around 3000 BC," said B Sasisekaran of India's
National Science Academy.
Tom Higham of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit says submerged wood is often well-preserved and
should be relatively straightforward to carbon date. "I don't see how you could get it grossly wrong," he says. "In the
past, it has been said that you shouldn't pin all your interpretations on a date from one sample. But that's not so true
these days. And dating a sample that's between 5000 and 10,000 years old is pretty easy."

12