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Indian Council of Historical Research to publish composite volume on Aryans
The ICHR launches 'The Arya: History & Culture' project to publish comprehensive research on Aryans, moving beyond colonial theories
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New Delhi: The Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has launched a project to publish a composite volume by including previous and latest scholarly works on the Aryans, that seeks to move beyond “outdated colonial frameworks” and contribute to an emerging scholarly consensus rather than “merely refuting” various Aryan-related theories and hypotheses.
Titled ‘The Arya: History & Culture’, the project seeks to present a more nuanced, evidence-based understanding of early Indian history, society, and culture. Approved at the ICHR’s General Council meeting in October, the volume is expected to be completed within the next six months.
ICHR chairperson Prof. Raghuvendra Tanwar said one of key roles of the council is to address historical gaps and revisit themes neglected due to earlier approaches, especially those relating to the foundations of Indian civilization.
“Aryan civilizational ideas are central to the Indian context. Our civilisation evolved over centuries, and the Arya tradition played a significant role in that long process. This composite volume is intended to bring that importance into clearer focus,” Tanwar told HT.
ICHR member secretary (officiating) Om Jee Upadhyay said the volume will compile three kinds of papers on Aryans– past published works from Indian and international experts over the past 50–60 years; updated versions of earlier papers, revised in light of new research; and entirely new research papers. These papers will be arranged across ten sub-themes, including historicity, linguistics, literature, archaeology, archaeometry, geology, society and culture, the Saraswati river, genetics, and the environment, he said.
Upadhyay said the volume will include works of prominent scholars including Kapil Kapoor, an Indian scholar of history, linguistics, and literature; David Frawley, an American writer on Hindu traditions; archaeologists Vasant Shinde and Sanjay Manjul; and Indologist Michel Danino, among others.
“This volume aims to collate critical research across disciplines—spanning literary sources, archaeology, geology, genetics, and linguistics etc. —to advance a more nuanced, evidence-based understanding of early Indian history, society, and culture. Rather than merely refuting the Aryan invasion/migration/tourism hypothesis, the volume seeks to move beyond outdated colonial frameworks and contribute to an emerging scholarly consensus,” reads the minutes of the ICHR’s general council meeting.
Upadhyay said there is no need to refute existing theories because many have already been revised by their own authors, shifting from invasion to migration to other models based on limited evidence.
Upadhyay explained that the old Aryan invasion theory—a colonial-era idea—claimed that around 1500 BCE, Aryans entered the subcontinent, displaced the Indus Valley people, and introduced Vedic culture and Sanskrit. Later scholarship proposed the migration theory, arguing that Aryans arrived gradually over centuries rather than through a violent invasion. A softer “tourism theory” suggests they only visited the region periodically for trade or cultural exchanges without settling permanently. A competing view, the Indigenous Aryans theory, holds that Aryans originated in India itself and spread outward to other regions.
“The aim of the project is instead to examine all relevant dimensions of Aryans including archaeology, archaeometry, linguistics, literature, and scientific data and bring together 40–55 solid papers with a foreword to present the full picture in one volume,” Upadhyay said.
In September 2019, HT reported that a DNA study on skeletal remains from Rakhigarhi– one of the largest ancient city sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation, located in Hisar district of Haryana– found no evidence supporting the Aryan invasion theory. The study argued that the Aryan invasion theory rests on “flimsy” evidence and concluded that Harappan people were likely the same as those of Vedic times.
Last year, NCERT updated its Class 12 history textbook to include DNA findings from Rakhigarhi. The revised book states that Harappans and early Vedic people may have been closely connected.
Indologist Danino said the “Aryan problem” has two separate dimensions that are often wrongly mixed up. One is its colonial and racial—sometimes openly racist—legacy, which still persists in some textbooks, scholarship, and political narratives and other is the actual scholarly debate involving linguistic, literary, archaeological, genetic, and cultural evidence on the origins of Sanskritic languages and culture.
“With a few exceptions, even well-intentioned scholars across “both sides” often address these issues without fully understanding their complexities and the concepts behind them. Despite quite a few studies over the past two decades, there remains ample room for new perspectives and further research,” he said.
