Who were the Aryans?

The Term ‘Aryan’

Derived from the ancient Indian language Sanskrit for ‘noble’:

Scholars have found passages in the Rig Vedas that seemed to describe the Aryans as invaders who conquered their way into the Punjab

•Aryans defined themselves as a religious-linguistic group. •The Aryans were very much like the apostles of the Rig Veda. They wrote its poems and passages. •Some Sanskrit speak chiefs and poets of the Rig Veda had names such as Bulbutha or Brbu that were foreign to Sanskrit; the Aryan’s of the Rig Vedas were thus not ‘genetically pure’•However, the ‘Aryan’ people DID exist – but to not confuse them with the authors of the Hindu Rig Veda and for obvious political reasons, most scholars now refer to the ‘Aryans’ as the ‘Indo-Europeans’.

More on the Aryans...

Indo-Europeans The Indo Europeans and the

ancestors of most Europeans, the Iranian peoples and to some degree the Northern peoples of India:

Who were they?

A Farming people who lived in the Eurasian Steppe between 4000BC to around 2500BC

They spoke Proto-Indo-European, the mother of hundreds of languages

They are believed to have been a fair skinned people, much like the Europeans of today

They are known to have domesticated the horse by 4000BC, which would prompt their migrations into Asia and Europe

Proto Indo European

Proto Indo European was a fully developed language by 4000-3500BC.

Overtime, different Indo-European communities would naturally mutate the language, forming their own e.g proto-Albanian, proto-Slavic etc

Due to language re-construction, linguistic scholars have been able to recreate some Proto Indo European Words:

Swéḱs – sixNas – noseÉḱwos – horseLeuk – light

Proto-Indo –European Language Family

Indo – European Religion

The Indo-European’s pagan religion, is known to have had a priestly caste

Was a polytheistic religion Believed in: Sun God ‘Dyeus’ – later became Greek ‘Zeus’ God of lightning ‘Perkwunos’ – later became

Slavic ‘Perun’ Protector of flocks ‘Welnos’ – Anglo-Saxon

‘Wuldor’ The Indo – European’s therefore had a profound

impact on the polytheistic religions which formed after the migration; most notably Hinduism.

Evidence for Migrations

Language Religion (until Christianisation of

Europe) Mythology Archaeology Rig Vedas DNA