J. The Vedic Night


Although archaeological evidence has been cited to prove the advent of Aryans into India, the subsequent period of acculturation, or further eastward migrations is marked by a stark paucity of material remains. Elizarenkova sums up this observation, and follows Wilhelm Rau in explaining why the archaeological record of this period is so scanty:



One is struck first of all by the fact that in contradistinction to the majority of the great ancient cultures (such as in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia minor, Ancient Balkans, the Aegean and Hellenic world, Italy, China etc.) which relatively well preserve traces of “material” life, the Vedic culture is rather mute from the archaeological viewpoint, even more so mute that one of the best authorities (= Wilhelm Rau) in this field seriously puts the question: “Is the Vedic archaeology possible?” There is a striking contrast between the muteness of the Vedic archaeology and the “eloquence” of archaeological testimonies of a much earlier urban civilization of the Indus valley. After the decay of this civilization, approximately in the middle of the XVIII century B.C., there was an epoch called the “Vedic night” which had lasted almost 1200 years up to the time of Buddha. This night had been illuminated by such flashes of creative spirit and marked by such prominent achievements of religious speculations and poetry, that nobody could doubt the greatness of the Vedic culture. But the creators of this culture seem not to have left any traces on earth. [pg. 2]

The scarcity of material culture of the Vedic tribes is evident, though Vedic archaeology is still “not impossible”. But to make this phantom acquire a real shape, it is necessary to know where one has to look for its ‘flesh’, and what it might be like….Rau stresses that the Vedic archaeology should not have any hopes to find Vedic dwellings made of stone or of bricks and that the graves and altars found in a certain chronological layer can be identified as Vedic only a happy exception. Dwellings of Vedic Aryans were kind of huts made of wood (First of all bamboo), thatch, skins of beasts, that is of materials of very short duration. Carriages that were playing such a prominent part in the life of Vedic Aryans were also made of wood, and only war chariots had metallic ornaments and rims of the wheels. But metallic things (at least those made of gold, silver and copper) were usually smelted anew. Vedic graves are not known as a rule, if not to take into consideration some rare and ambiguous cases. Therefore, archaeologists have to limit the Vedic heritage with rather a few things: pits of bearing posts and pits for baking of pots, cavities for smelting of copper and forms for moulding, clay crocks and imprints of tracts of cattle on clay in places where it was kept in enclosures; small things made of stone, baked clay, and partly also of metal could remain in principle as well. [pg. 3-4]



Ratnagar [1999] also admits that Aryan migrations are not attested in the archaeological record. However, she argues why the Aryan migrations cannot leave any material traces - her hypothesis is that chariot driving Aryan warrior aristocrats migrated in small numbers in periodic movements (involving fission and fusion, and also encompassing non IA-speaking members) over several generations and transferred their language to the non-IA speaking Indians via elite dominance, starting occasional domino effects before the cultures of the two categories of people fused. She holds that such migrations cannot leave any archaeological record.