The Aryan Debate
Contents: Preface. Introduction. I. Starting points: the three discoveries: 1. Indo-European/William Jones. 2. The Dravidian Proof/F.W. Ellis. 3. The Indus Civilization/John Marshall. II. Aryans and Dravidians: 4. Linguistic prehistory of India/M.B. Emeneau. 5. Indo-Aryans, Indo-Iranians and Indo-Europeans/M.A. Mehendale. 6. Vedic Aryans, Non-Vedic Aryans and Non-Aryans: Judging the linguistic evidence of the Veda/Madhav M. Deshpande. 7. Constructing the racial theory of Indian Civilization/Thomas R. Trautmann. 8. Some appropriations of the theory of Aryan race relating to the beginnings of Indian history/Romila Thapar. III. The Veda and the Indus Civilization: i. Archaeology: 9. The end of the Harappan civilization/Shereen Ratnagar. 10. It is time to rethink/B.B. Lal. 11. The Indus-Sarasvati Civilization beginnings and developments/S.P. Gupta. 12. Archaeology and language/Colin Renfrew. ii. Horses: 13. The Truant horse clears the hurdles/B.B. Lal. 14. The horse and the language of the Indus Civilization/Asko Parpola. 15. Horse remains from Surkatada/Sandor Bokonyi. 16. Comment on \'horse remains from Surkotada\'/Richard H. Meadow and Ajita Patel. 17. The domestication of the horse in Asia/David Anthony. iii. The Indus script: 18. Decipherments of the Indus script/Kamil V. Zvelebil. Index.
"Did the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans come into India from the Northwest, or were they indigenous to India and identical with the people of the Indus Civilization? This volume brings together significant writings to illustrate the historical development of the Aryan debate. The selection includes early discussants of the idea, such as William Jones, and also modern archaeologists, historians and modern interrogators such as Romila Thapar, Shereen Ratnagar, M.B. Emeneau and M.A. Mehendale. Trautmann describes the opposing interpretations in their political context, demonstrating clearly why the Aryan debate is such contested territory in the academia as well as in the public domain.
This volume will interest scholars, teachers and students of ancient Indian history, archaeology, linguistics and the informed general public."
