The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization

Asko Parpola

Jul 2015 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.

Ratings and reviews

Hindu is Not a Religious term. Its a Geographical term, indicating people living by the river Indus. The religion is Vedantic religion. But today's so called Hindus neither follow Vedas nor do they know about themselves. Read Vedas and you will know All religions are one, God is One.

When even eminent western scholars are debating whether stands came from west Asia or not, and the theory of Aryan invasion had been discarded in large numbers, this idiot it's still harping on a western source or origination for the Aryans. Biased people like him should be jailed.

The Book is very well written. Highly recommend it if you are interested in Indus Valley Civilization.

About the author

Asko Parpola is Professor Emeritus of Indology and South Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki.