Hinduism: What Really Happenned in India (PDF) - Oration

Hinduism: What Really Happened in India – M. M. Ninan
“At one time, many argued for an authorship of the epic as early as
3100 B.C., or during the Early Harappan period. Some have even argued
that the Harappans themselves were the Aryans of the Rig-Veda.
However, more recent scholarship on the subject has suggested that the
writing of the Rig Veda was no earlier than 1200 B.C. Certain scholars
are inclined to accept a date of closer to 800 BC, while earlier dates,
some up to 1500 BC, are put forth by still other scholars. Either way,
several hundred years separate even this earliest estimate from the
ending date of the Mature Harappan Period, which lasted from ca. 2500
to 1700 B.C. In line with this dating, as well as the lack of evidence for
iron technology, hereditary social elites, not to mention warfare (three of
the primary diagnostic traits of the Aryans, according to the Rig-Veda),
most of the scholars of today are convinced that the Harappans were
neither Aryan, nor ever in contact with the Aryans (Srivastava 1984). In
fact, the archaeological record depicts a utopian world far different from
that of the Aryans described in the Rig-Veda. Thus Schaffer notes that
"in the Indus Valley, a technically advanced, urban, literate culture was
achieved without the usually associated social organization based on
hereditary elites, centralized political government (states, empires) and
warfare" (Schaffer 1982, 47) .
http://www.adventurecorps.com/collapse.html
The Demise of Utopia:
Contexts of Civilization Collapse in the Bronze Age Indus Valley
By Chris J.D. Kostman, M.A.
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