Expert: Aupmanyav - 10/10/2007

Question
What is the origin place of Aryans or Dravidians? and what documentation is avaliable to support that theory?

Thanks

Answer
Aryans were well spread all over Central Asia and later in North India. Zoroastrians called themselves Aryans, they have the four-fold varna division as found among the hindus, Avesta is very similar to the Vedas and mentions Hapta-Hendu as the fifteenth homeland of Aryans (this means Zarathrushta's tribe once lived in Sapta-Sindhu but returned to Central Asia, Avesta mentions heat and fever as the reason, all the other homelands mentioned are in Central Asia). RigVeda mentions many Aryan tribes including the Tusharas (Tocharians) of Xinziang, China. There have been finds of 'soma' (Iranian 'Haoma') pots in Southern Russia. The Andronovo culture is supposed to have been Aryan. Alexander met the Arians in the valley of River Oxus.

Where they originated from is not very clear. More research is required. There are clear references in Vedas showing that they originated in Arctic region (a year with sun-shine for seven months, a long night lasting up to a hundred days, dawns and dusks extending to one month, priests who completed their Satra, cycle of yagnas, in nine or ten months). But the DNA of Aryans does not match the DNA of people who live in those areas.

We know even less about the Dravidians (if by that you mean the Tamil speaking people). Surely just like Aryans, Scythians, Ionians, Parthians, Kuashanas, and Hunas; Dravidians preceded them. People have opined that Davidian languages resemble the Semitic languages, but nothing has been proved beyond doubt. Most probably, they would have come along the Mekran coast and through the regular route for incoming tribes to India, the Charikar, Kabul, and Khyber Pass. Before the Dravidians, the australoid people were perhaps the first modern humans in India.

B. G. Tilak's 'Arctic Homes in Vedas' is a good book to start with for Aryan history. It is available at http://www.vaidilute.com/books/tilak/tilak-contents.html