Āryans: Patrons of the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization
By: Shubham Kewaliya
What was the connection between the ancient civilization that flourished along the Saraswati-Sindhu Rivers and the Āryans, has been a question of intrigue and debate in Bharatiya Historical discourse for over a century?
The answer, it turns out, is embedded in the findings of scientific archaeological excavations and their careful study. In the last three decades, new excavations have shed light on this long-standing mystery.
The Ṛgveda, regarded as humanity’s oldest text, is a work of the Āryans. Analyzing the Ṛgveda reveals that the settlements of the Āryans were established along the banks of the now vanished Saraswati, and Sindhu (Indus) rivers. Some historians have proposed that Āryan society was purely rural and agrarian; however, it is notable that the word “city” appears in the Ṛgveda more often than “village.”
In the 46th Sukt of the Sixth Mandal of Ṛgveda, we find a yearning for a house made of bricks – an advanced form of architecture evident only in settlements along the Saraswati and Sindhu rivers. The Āryan, then, were not merely cultivators of a rural culture; their civilization integrated both urban and rural spaces.
We know that ritual worship, or yajna, was central to the Āryan religion. Interestingly, one of the largest archaeological sites of this civilization, Rakhigarhi (in modern-day Haryana), yielded multiple fire altars or yajnavedi during excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India in the late 20th century.
The dating of these ritual artefacts places them around 4,500 years ago, pointing to a well-rooted Vedic tradition in the Saraswati Sindhu civilization. These findings suggest that the people of Rakhigarhi and the broader civilization were practitioners of Vedic customs directly connected to the Āryan.
It is also well-established that the Āryans were known for their association with horses, which they employed as swift means of transportation. Excavations from various sites of the Saraswati-Sindhu civilization have revealed terracotta figurines and other depictions of horses. Archaeologists in Bharat have found plenty of evidence of horses from ancient sites like Surkotada, Lothal, Rangpur,
Rakhigarhi, and Kunal, thus challenging the idea that the Saraswati-Sindhu civilization lacked horses. To claim that the Āryans were unrelated to this civilization on the basis of horse absence is simply unsubstantiated. Horses were indeed present in this civilization, as confirmed by ample archaeological evidence.
Some historians believe that after the decline of the Saraswati-Sindhu civilization, the Āryans came to Bharat from Central Asia, a theory shaped largely by outdated prejudices. Renowned American anthropologists have concluded through their research that from 6500 BCE to 2800 BCE, no significant demographic displacement occurred in Bharat’s northwest region.
Therefore, claims by some scholars that a group called the Āryans migrated to India from Central Asia around 3500 years ago are scientifically baseless. The recent discovery of a 4,000-year-old wooden and copper-covered chariot in Sinauli (Baghpat) decisively defeats the Āryan migration or invasion theory, and knocks “aryans brought chariots” discussion out of the equation.
The archaeological evidence thus strongly supports the view that the Āryans were indeed the founders of Bharat’s oldest civilization, the Saraswati-Sindhu, and that the people who thrived within it were connected to the Āryan heritage. To exclude the Āryans from the identity of this civilization or to claim that they came from Central Asia disregards scientific and archaeological facts.
(The author is an Assistant ProfessorDepartment of History, Bhagat Singh College, Delhi University)
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