Aryan: Encyclopedia - Aryan

Aryan

Aryan is an English word derived from the Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit and Iranian Avestan terms ari-, arya-, ārya-, and/or the extended form aryāna-. The Old Persian ariya- is a cognate as well. Beyond its use as the ethnic self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Iranians, the meaning "noble" has been attached to it in Sanskrit. During the 19th century, following Max Müller's 'Aryan invasion theory', the term gained an added meaning, being used in the West to refer to what are now called the 'Proto-Indo-Europeans', and, by extension, to the Indo-European speaking peoples as a whole. In linguistics, the term Aryan currently refers only to the Indo-Iranian language sub-family.

The Proto-Indo-Iranian language evolved into the family of Indo-Iranian languages, of which the oldest-known members are Avestan, Vedic, and another Indo-Aryan language, known only from loan-words found in the Mitanni language, the latter which was itself a dialect of Hurrian.

To prevent confusion because of its several meanings, the term is often avoided today in the Western World. It has been replaced by the well-defined Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Indo-Iranian, Iranian or Indo-Aryan terms.

See Arya for the Sanskrit term used in the context of the Dharmic religions (Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism).

Aryan - Etymology and History of the Term

Indo-Iranian arya- descends from PIE *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root *ar "to assemble skillfully", present in Greek harma "chariot", Latin ars "art" etc.

The adjective *aryo- was suggested as ascending to Proto-Indo-European as the self-designation of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European itself, and Éire, the Irish name of Ireland, was considered a cognate. This latter suggestion is now widely regarded as untenable, and while *ar-yo- is certainly a well-formed PIE adjective, there is no evidence that it was used as an ethnic self-designation outside the Indo-Iranian branch. In the 1850s Max Müller theorized that the word originated as a denotation of farming populations, since he assumed that it was related to the root *arh₃, meaning "to plough". Other 19th century writers, such as Charles Morris, repeated this idea, linking the expansion of PIE speakers to the spread of agriculturalists. Most linguists now consider *arh₃ to be unrelated.

The important Sanskrit lexicon Amarakosha (ca. 450 AD) defines Arya as: "An Arya is one who hails from a noble family, of gentle behavior and demeanor, good-natured and of righteous conduct. (mahakula kulinarya sabhya sajjana sadhavah.)" However it does earlier seem to have been used to identify certain populations in distinction from others, in particular those clans who accepted proto-Vedic and proto-Zoroastrian beliefs.

The word arya may have then developed in later times its more modern usage as a general term of respect, signifying nobility, in Hinduism (the descendant of Vedic religion), Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Jainism. It has also been suggested that the Greek word "aristos", as in "aristocracy" and other words such as "heir" may be related to it, but this is not generally accepted. In Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is called the Arya Astangika Marga, the Four Noble Truths are called the Arya-Satya.

By the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, Indo-Aryans are believed to have arrived on the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent (see Indo-Aryan migration). Indeed, the term Iran – in full Iran Shahr – is the modern outcome of an ancient Aryānām Xšaθra- meaning "realm of the Aryans." The Aryan, or Indo-Iranian group of languages is divided into three branches: Indo-Aryan, Nuristani, and Iranian. In Middle Persian, we find the term "Aryāna-" as "Ērān" and in Modern Persian as "Īrān."

Aryan - Proto-Indo-European

Max Müller and other 19th century linguists (see also Indo-European studies) theorised that the term *arya was used as the self-description of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

The nomadic Iranians of the north western steppes, however, especially those settled in Europe, are extensively covered by the classical writers; they are also attested in a very large number of archaeological excavations in Eastern Europe; these Iranian peoples are known in the West as Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, and finally Ossets; it must be emphasised that all these names refer to the successive migratory waves of the same people, who probably called themselves by a name derived from the word Airya, as the Alans did, and the Ossets still do.

Aryan - Indo-Iranian

Main article: Indo-Iranians.

The most probable date for Proto-Indo-Iranian unity is roughly around 2500 BC. In this sense of the word Aryan, the Aryans were an ancient culture preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures. Candidates for an archaeological identification of this culture are the Andronovo and/or Srubnaya Archaeological Complexes.

Aryan - Indo-Aryan

See also Arya, Indo-Aryans, Indo-Aryan languages, Aryan Invasion Theory.

There is evidence of speakers of Indo-Aryan in Mesopotamia around 1500 BC in the form of loanwords in the Mitanni dialect of Hurrian, the speakers of which, it is speculated, may have once had an Indo-Aryan ruling class.

Aryan - Iranian

See also Iranian peoples, Achaemenid dynasty

Since ancient times, Persians (Iranians) used the term Aryan to describe their lineage and their language, and this tradition has continued into the present day amongst modern Iranians. In fact the name Iran is a cognate of Aryan and means "Land of the Aryans."

Darius the Great, King of Persia (521–486 BC), in an inscription in Naqshe Rostam (near Shiraz in present-day Iran), proclaims: "I am Darius the great King… A Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage...". He also calls his language the "Aryan language", commonly known today as Old Persian.

The word has become a technical term in the theologies of Zoroastrian, but has always been used by Iranians in the ethnic sense as well. In 1967, Iran's Pahlavi dynasty added the title Āryāmehr "Light of the Aryans" to those of the monarch, known at the time as the Shahanshah (The King of Kings).

Aryan - Racist connotations

The Aryan race was a term used in the nineteenth century by European racial theorists who believed strongly in the division of humanity into biologically distinct races with differing characteristics. Such writers took the view that the Proto-Indo-Europeans consituted a specific race that had expanded across Europe, Iran and India. This meaning was, and still is, common in theories of racial superiority which were embraced by Nazi Germany. This usage tends to merge the Avestan/Sanskrit meaning of "noble" or "elevated" with the idea of distinctive ancestral ethnicity marked by language distribution. In this interpretation, the Aryan Race is both the highest representative of mankind and the purest descendent of the Proto-Indo-European population.

From the 1880s a number of writers had argued that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had been of "Nordic" race. This idea was taken up by the Nazis. According to Alfred Rosenberg's ideology the "Aryan-Nordic" (arisch-nordisch) or "Nordic-Atlantean" (nordisch-atlantisch) race was thus a master race, at the top of a racial hierarchy, pitted against a "Jewish-Semitic" (jüdisch-semitisch) race, deemed to be a racial threat to Germany's homogeneous Aryan civilization, thus rationalizing Nazi anti-Semitism. Nazism portrayed their interpretation of an "Aryan race" as the only race capable of, or with an interest in, creating and maintaining culture and civilizations, while other races are merely capable of conversion, or destruction, of culture. These arguments derived from late nineteenth century racial hierarchies. Some Nazis were also influenced by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine (1888) where she postulates "Aryans" as the fifth of her "Root Races", dating them to about a million years ago, tracing them to Atlantis, an idea also repeated by Rosenberg, and held as doctrine by the Thule Society. Such theories were used to justify the introduction of the so-called "Aryan laws" by the Nazis, depriving "non-Aryans" of citizenship and employment rights, and prohibiting marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans. Though Mussolini's fascism was not originally characterised by explicit anti-Semitism, he too eventually introduced laws pressed upon him by Hitler, prohibiting mixed-race marriages between "Aryans" and Jews.

Because of historical racist use of Aryan, and especially use of Aryan race in connection with the myths and propaganda of Nazism, the word is sometimes avoided in the West as being tainted. The same is true of the swastika symbol, which is common in India. It was chosen by Hitler for its perceived Aryan significance after it had been found by archaeologists in Troy, Iran and other sites. Hence it was associated with the ancient migrations of Aryans, by providing a link between Indian imagery and similar ancient European motifs.

As a linguistic technical term, Aryan is in continued use without any ideological implication. Likewise, many Indians regard the term "Arya" as part of their history, do not associate the term with the Nazis, and continue using it (for example the "Arya Samaj").

See also

• Aryan race
• Indo-Iranians
• Proto-Indo-European
• Kurgan
• Kushan Empire
• Aryavarta
• Japhetic

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Aryan", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki