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Indo-Aryan peoples

1978 map showing geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages. (Urdu is included under Hindi. Romani, Domari, and Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.) Dotted/striped areas indicate where multilingualism is common.   Central   Dardic   Eastern   Northern   Northwestern   Western   Southern
Total population
~1.5 billion
Regions with significant populations
India	over 911 million
Pakistan	over 190 million
Bangladesh	over 160 million
Nepal	over 26 million
Sri Lanka	over 14 million
Afghanistan	over 2 million
Mauritius	over 725,400
Maldives	over 300,000
Bhutan	over 240,000
Languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Religion
Indian religions (Mostly Hindu; with Buddhist, Sikh and Jain minorities) and Islam, Christians and some non-religious atheist/agnostic

Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of peoples predominantly found in South Asia, who (traditionally) speak Indo-Aryan languages. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia into South Asia and introduced the Proto-Indo-Aryan language. The early Indo-Aryan peoples were known to be closely related to the Indo-Iranian group that have resided north of the Indus River; an evident connection in cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Today, Indo-Aryan speakers are found south of the Indus, across the modern-day regions of Bangladesh, Nepal, eastern-Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and northern-India.

History

Proto-Indo-Iranians

The introduction of the Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent was the result of a migration of Indo-Aryan people from Central Asia into the northern Indian subcontinent (modern-day Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). These migrations started approximately 1,800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. Another group of Indo-Aryans migrated further westward and founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria (c. 1500–1300 BC); the other group was the Vedic people. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun, an Indo-European Caucasoid people of Inner Asia in antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin.

The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), and the Andronovo culture, which flourished ca. 1800–1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral Sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Proto-Indo-Aryan split off around 1800–1600 BCE from the Iranians, moved south through the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, borrowing some of their distinctive religious beliefs and practices from the BMAC, and then migrated further south into the Levant and north-western India. The migration of the Indo-Aryans was part of the larger diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic–Caspian steppe which started in the 4th millennium BCE. The GGC, Cemetery H, Copper Hoard, OCP, and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryans.

The Indo-Aryans were united by shared cultural norms and language, referred to as aryā 'noble'. Over the last four millennia, the Indo-Aryan culture has evolved particularly inside India itself, but its origins are in the conflation of values and heritage of the Indo-Aryan and indigenous people groups of India. Diffusion of this culture and language took place by patron-client systems, which allowed for the absorption and acculturation of other groups into this culture, and explains the strong influence on other cultures with which it interacted.

Genetically, most Indo-Aryan-speaking populations are descendants of a mix of Central Asian steppe pastoralists, Iranian hunter-gatherers, and, to a lesser extent, South Asian hunter-gatherers—commonly known as Ancient Ancestral South Indians (AASI). Dravidians are descendants of a mix of South Asian hunter-gatherers and Iranian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent, Central Asian steppe pastoralists. South Indian Tribal Dravidians descend majorly from South Asian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent Iranian hunter-gatherers. Additionally, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burmese speaking people contributed to the genetic make-up of South Asia.

Indigenous Aryanism propagates the idea that the Indo-Aryans were indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages spread from there to central Asia and Europe. Contemporary support for this idea is ideologically driven, and has no basis in objective data and mainstream scholarship.

List of historical Indo-Aryan peoples

• Anga
• Bahlikas
• Bharatas
• Caidyas
• Dewa
• Gāndhārīs
• Gangaridai
• Gupta
• Gurjara-Pratihara
• Kambojas
• Kalinga
• Kasmira
• Kekaya
• Khasas
• Kikata
• Koliya
• Kosala
• Kurus
• Licchavis
• Madra
• Magadhis
• Malavas
• Mallakas
• Mātsyeyas
• Moriya
• Nishadhas
• Odra
• Pakthas
• Pala
• Panchala
• Paundra
• Puru
• Salva
• Salwa
• Saraswata
• Sauvira
• Shakya
• Shunga
• Sindhu
• Sudra
• Surasena
• Trigarta
• Utkala
• Vanga
• Vatsa
• Vidarbha
• Videha
• Vrishni
• Yadava
• Yadu
• Yaudheya

Contemporary Indo-Aryan people

• Assamese people
• Awadhi people
• Banjara people
• Bengali people
• Bhil people
• Bhojpuri people
• Bishnupriya Manipuri people
• Brokpa people
• Chakma people
• Dhivehi people
• Dogra people
• Garhwali people
• Gujarati people
• Halba people
• Haryanvi people
• Jaunsari people
• Kalash people
• Kashmiri people
• Khas people
• Kho people
• Kohistani people
• Konkani people
• Kumauni people
• Kutchi people
• Magahi people
• Maithil people
• Marathi people
• Marwari people
• Nagpuria people
• Odia people
• Palula people
• Pashayi people
• Pahari people
• Punjabi people
• Rajasthani people
• Romani people
• Rohingya people
• Sadan people
• Saraiki people
• Saurashtra people
• Shina people
• Sindhi people
• Sinhalese people
• Thari people
• Tharu people
• Tirahi people
• Torwali people
• Warli people

See also

• Proto-Indo-Europeans
• Indo-Iranians
• Dardic peoples
• Aryan
• Indo-Aryan languages
• Indo-Aryan migrations
• Indigenous Aryanism
• Aryan race
• Aryavarta
• Dasa
• Dravidian peoples
• Early Indians
• South Asian diaspora
• Northern South Asia

References

1. "India". The World Factbook. 16 November 2021.
2. "Pakistan". The World Factbook. 4 February 2022.
3. "Bangladesh". The World Factbook. 4 February 2022.
4. "Population of Lhotshampas in Bhutan". UNHCR. 2004. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
5. ^ Anthony 2007.
6. Erdosy 2012.
7. "How ancient DNA may rewrite prehistory in India". bbc. 23 December 2018. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
8. "New reports clearly confirm 'Arya' migration into India". thehindu. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
9. "Aryans or Harappans—Who drove the creation of caste system? DNA holds a clue". theprint. 29 June 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
10. Danesh Jain, George Cardona (2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 2.
11. Anthony 2007, p. 454.
12. Beckwith 2009, p. 33 note 20.
13. Beckwith 2009, p. 376-7.
14. Anthony 2007, p. 390 (fig. 15.9), 405–411.
15. Kuz'mina 2007, p. 222.
16. Anthony 2007, p. 408.
17. George Erdosy (1995). "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity", p. 279
18. Johannes Krause mit Thomas Trappe: Die Reise unserer Gene. Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 148 ff.
19. "All Indo-European Languages May Have Originated From This One Place". IFLScience. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
20. Avari, Burjor (11 June 2007). India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Sub-Continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200. Routledge. pp. xvii. ISBN 978-1-134-25161-2.
21. Reich et al. 2009.
22. Narasimhan et al. 2019.
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24. Basu et al. 2016.
25. Witzel 2001, p. 95.
26. Jamison 2006.
27. Guha 2007, p. 341.
28. Fosse 2005, p. 438.
29. Olson 2016, p. 136.

Sources

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• Basu A, Sarkar-Roy N, Majumder PP (February 2016). "Genomic reconstruction of the history of extant populations of India reveals five distinct ancestral components and a complex structure". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (6): 1594–9. Bibcode:2016PNAS..113.1594B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1513197113. PMC 4760789. PMID 26811443.
• Beckwith, Christopher I. (16 March 2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1400829941. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
• Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513777-9.
• Erdosy, George, ed. (2012), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, Walter de Gruyter
• Fosse, Lars Martin (2005), "ARYAN PAST AND POST-COLONIAL PRESENT. The polemics and politics of indigenous Aryanism", in Bryant, Edwin; Patton, Laurie L. (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Controversy. Evidence and inference in Indian history, Routledge
• Guha, Sudeshna (2007), "Review. Reviewed Work: The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History by Edwin F. Bryant, Laurie Patton", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, 17 (3): 340–343, doi:10.1017/S135618630700733X, S2CID 163092658
• Jamison, Stephanie W. (2006). "The Indo-Aryan controversy: Evidence and inference in Indian history (Book review)" (PDF). Journal of Indo-European Studies. 34: 255–261.
• Kuz'mina, Elena Efimovna (2007), J. P. Mallory (ed.), The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, Brill, ISBN 978-9004160545
• Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1999). The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge University Press. pp. 87–88. ISBN 0-5214-7030-7. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
• Mallory, JP. 1998. "A European Perspective on Indo-Europeans in Asia". In The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern and Central Asia. Ed. Mair. Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
• Narasimhan, Vagheesh M.; Patterson, N.J.; Moorjani, Priya; Rohland, Nadin; et al. (2019), "The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia", Science, 365 (6457): 7487, doi:10.1126/science.aat7487, PMC 6822619, PMID 31488661
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• Reich, David; Thangaraj, Kumarasamy; Patterson, Nick; Price, Alkes L.; Singh, Lalji (2009), "Reconstructing Indian population history", Nature, 461 (7263): 489–494, Bibcode:2009Natur.461..489R, doi:10.1038/nature08365, ISSN 0028-0836, PMC 2842210, PMID 19779445
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External links

• Horseplay at Harappa – People Fas Harvard – Harvard University (PDF)
• A tale of two horses – Frontline

• Indo-Aryan peoples
• Indo-Iranian peoples
• Ancient peoples of India
• Ancient peoples of Pakistan
• Ancient peoples of Nepal