Roots of Aryan Religion

The Aryans invaded India around 2000 BC. Historians tell us that just prior to this, the people in Harappa seemed to have been in fear of an invasion from the west. Why do they make this assumption? There was a wall surrounding Harappawhich was 35 – 40 feet thick at the base and was 35 feet tall. There were two gates. Close to the year 2000, they closed up one of the gates.

At Mohenjodaro, there were many big rooms which were divided into smaller rooms. Certain industries which were outside of the city moved within the city walls. They started to disregard city planning. They all knew there was danger from the Aryans. The Aryans had first attackedBaluchistan. The refugees were coming down intoIndiawhere they buries their gold and jewelry to protect it.

The enemy were horse riding soldiers. They had better weapons than the local people and wreaked havoc. They destroyed the advanced cultures of the ancient countries. The Aryans warpath ended with the destruction of Babalonia in 1000 BCE. Sir John Marshall believes that the invasion of theIndusvalley happened over a period of 200 years.

The invaders came throughPersiaandSyria, but they were spread through out Central Asia, all the way back toPoland. The group that came fromSyriawere called the Mitāni people. They came from northeastSyria. When the invasion came, the people ofHarappawere flood stricken and thus unable to resist.

The Mitāni had their gods called Indra, Urvin, Mitera and Nasatiya. In the holy book of the Aryans, the Rig Veda, the war between the Aryans and the indigenous people is described indirectly. Indra, the war god, fought against the Dasyus. The Dasyus probably represented theIndusValleypeople. The Dasyus were described as being black and flat nosed. Some historians say that this cannot describe theIndusValleypeople. However, if the description is correct, then those people were Dravidians.

In the Rig Veda, there is a term “purubhid” used to glorify Indra, the war god. “Puru” refers to “castle”; “bhid” means to “destroy’. This could mean the great walled cities of theIndusValley. There was another term for Indra called, “Jalasata” or, “he who gave freedom to water”. The IV people had built water reservoirs. They were cultivating farmers. The Aryans were hunter- gatherers. The Aryans destroyed the reservoirs in order to free the water from “captivity”.

A third term for Indra was “Vajasata” meaning, “freer of the animals”. The IV people had domesticated animals. The Aryan people thought this was terrible and chased the animals back to the wild.

The Aryans performed sacrifices or “yajvan”. They called the IV people “ayajvan,” or non-sacrificing people. The Aryans looked down upon the IV people for not speaking their language. They called both the group of Aryans left behind inSyriaand the IV people, “asuras” meaning, “non-human”. They called themselves the suras or sacred humans.

After the invasion, the Aryans settled down into villages. They were very simple people with two classes to their society. They were illiterate. When a less civilized group invades and suppresses a more civilized people, even though authority flows from invader to invaded, the culture flows the reverse way. The uncivilized Aryans started to learn from the IV people and eventually there was ethnic mixing.

Even though the Dasyus were black in color, there were intermarriages. The children of black and white parents came out dark. There were even special pujas to give birth to a black child. These were to hide the misdeeds of some married women. They would go to the Brahman to have the puja done. If the child came out black, they could say that the gods have blessed them.

Indus Valley Civilization

Samana-Brahman is the term used by the Buddha to refer to all other philosophical / religious systems. It is a compound term of the two main philosophies of the time. Buddhism took from both systems. At the time of the Buddha there were many philosophies.

Aryans were the white invaders who came from Syria and before that Poland. Prior to the invasion of the Aryans, the Indus civilization lived in the Indus Valley. Many scholars believe that the seeds of Buddhism are to be found in the Indus Valleycivilization, the pre-Vedic people, and not from Brahmanism. The Samanic beliefs, practices, etc. were more ancient than the Vedic.

Aryans are not the Bhumiputra (aboriginals) of India. Archaeological finds show an advanced civilization living in theIndusValley. Noted places are Mahenjodaro (next to the Indus River), Harappa (next to the Ravi River), Kalibangan (near the Sarasvati River) and Rupar (on the upper bank of theSutledgeRiver).

The civilization was spread over an area more than 1000 square kilometers. Yet, there were astounding similarities among the settlements. Even the sizes of the bricks were uniform. There were also a few places outside of India (ex.Baluchistan) that shared similar characteristics. These places were also destroyed by the Aryans.

The time of period of the destruction of the Indus Valley civilization was 2800 – 1800 BC.

The IV (Indus Valley) people had well developed cities with an outer wall and 30 foot wide roads. All of the houses were made of bricks and houses had at least two rooms each. Many houses had bathrooms. There was a municipal drainage system.

In Mahenjodaro, there is a pool 29 x 27 feet made of bricks with a tar sealant. There was the facility to drain and refill the pool. Anthropologists think that they may have practiced some kind of water purification rituals or religion.

The cities had granaries where they kept wheat, barley, mustard and so forth. There was no evidence of rice cultivation, but there was kapok (tree cotton) cultivation. There were domesticated animals: cows, buffalo, goats, lambs, pigs, donkeys, dogs and chickens.

There was national and international trade. Mahenjodaro traded with Mesopotamia and Babylonia. In Total, there is evidence of trade by ships.

They had an alphabet of 270 letters, which has not yet been deciphered. It was attempted unsuccessfully by Paranawithana. There are no books, or literature found.

The people had fine clothes and ornaments such as bangles, necklaces, etc. Looking at the figurines left, both males and females had long hair and hair ornaments.

They had toys for their children: small carts, small whistles shaped like birds, toys with moving parts and clay monkeys which could move up and down a string.

They had various precious stones and knew their value. They used color to decorate common objects.

In such a materially advanced civilization, naturally there is religion. There seemed to be a sophisticated religious system. However, there are no texts left which tell the details of the belief system.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who spearheaded the excavations, said that what remains is enough for us to surmise that they had a sophisticated religious culture which they passed down as an inheritance.

Archaeologists feel that the civilization at Mohenjodaro was not sophisticated in philosophy, but also not primitive. They had both State / great religion and folk /small religion. These could also be seen as religions and magic. These sowed the seeds for later development in Indian culture.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler say, “Even though they weren’t able to pass down their material advancements, they were successful at passing down their metaphysical thinking to the future generations.”

“The Nature of the Value Judgment (Buddhist Ethics)”

The word ‘Value’ can be used in more than one sense.

The word ‘value’ is used in philosophical sense. We used it in two fields of studies that are Ethics, and Aesthetics. Under Ethics we study human conduct; under Aesthetics we study what is beautiful and what is ugly.

 All these statements what we make can be categorized under different classifications, that is:-

o (1) Descriptive statement:- There is a University in Colombo city; it is descriptive statement. The descriptive statement is a statement that describes fact or facts, there one describes something.

o (2) Prescriptive statement: Don’t tell lie; it is prescriptive statement.

o (3) Evaluate statement: killing is bad; it is evaluative statement.

o (4) Exclamatory statement: what a nice day is; it is an exclamatory statement.

 The type of evidence that we used to test the truth of the disposition which is a descriptive statement is called ‘empirical evidence’ .To test the opinion, we can not used the empirical evidence, we have to seek other type of test which can be totally different criterion. Thus, it is left to Ethics (it is called aesthetics).