Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate is a book by Koenraad Elst. The book discusses various aspects of the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Dr. Koenraad Elst was born in Leuven, Belgium, on 7 August 1959, into a Flemish Catholic family. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

It was published in 1999 by Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi (ISBN 8186471774). 1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

In the preface to the book, K. Elst writes that "it hurts to release a book in mid-debate, knowing that much of it will be dated by the time a new consensus will have evolved", since "every hypothesis which is now carrying the day may be blown away by a new discovery tomorrow."

In this book, Koenraad Elst points out that the theory of an Aryan invasion of India has not been proven by prevalent standards and that all relevant facts can just as well be explained with alternative models. In the last chapter of the book, Koenraad Elst writes: "One thing which keeps on astonishing me in the present debate is the complete lack of doubt in both camps. Personally, I don’t think that either theory, of Aryan invasion and of Aryan indigenousness, can claim to have been “proven” by prevalent standards of proof; eventhough one of the contenders is getting closer. Indeed, while I have enjoyed pointing out the flaws in the AIT statements of the politicized Indian academic establishment and its American amplifiers, I cannot rule out the possibility that the theory which they are defending may still have its merits."

Contents

Political aspects of the Aryan Invasion Debate

• 1.1 Politicizing a Linguistic Theory
• 1.2 The Aryan Invasion Theory in Indian Politics
• 1.3 Politicization as an Obstacle to Research
• 1.4 A Case Study in AIT Polemic
• 1.5 Some Red Herrings
• 1.6 Conclusion

Astronomic Data and the Aryan Question

• 2.1 Dating the Rig Veda
• 2.2 Ancient Hindu Astronomy
• 2.3 The Precession of the Equinox
• 2.4 Additional Astronomical Indications
• 2.5 Conclusion

The Rig Veda ऋग्वेद (Sanskrit ṛc praise + veda knowledge) is the earliest of the four Hindu religious scriptures known as the Vedas. ... Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can still play an active role, especially in the discovery and monitoring of transient phenomena. ... Illumination of Earth by Sun on the day of equinox In astronomy, an equinox is defined as the moment when the sun reaches one of two intersections between the ecliptic and the celestial equator. ...

Linguistic aspects of the Indo-European Urheimat Question

• 3.1 Introduction
• 3.2 Origin of the Linguistic Argument
• 3.3 Direct Geographical Clues
• 3.4 Exchanges with other Languages Families
• 3.5 Conclusion

Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ...

Miscellaneous aspects of the Aryan Invasion Debate

• 4.1 Demographical common sense
• 4.2 Textual Evidence
• 4.3 Where did the Kurgan People come from?
• 4.4 The Horse Evidence
• 4.5 Vedic Aryans in West Asia
• 4.6 Memory of the Urheimat
• 4.7 Indra and Shiva
• 4.8 Invasionist terms in the Vedas
• 4.9 The Evidence from physical anthropology

This article is about Bronze Age burial mounds and the Kurgan culture. ... Binomial name Equus caballus The Horse (Equus caballus) is a sizeable ungulate mammal, one of the seven modern species of the genus Equus. ... Urheimat (German: ur- original, ancient; Heimat home, homeland) is a linguistic term denoting the original homeland of the speakers of a proto-language. ... Indra (इन्द्र), god of weather and war, and Lord of Heaven or Swargaloka, was the supreme deva of Hinduism during the early Vedic period. ... Lord Shiva. ... Physical anthropology, sometimes called biological anthropology, studies the mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of human evolution. ...

Some new Arguments

• 5.1 A Remarkable book
• 5.2 Evidence provided by physical anthropology
• 5.3 The Archaeological Evidence
• 5.4 Linguistic Arguments
• 5.5 The Evidence from Comparative Religion
• 5.6 Conclusion

Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ...

Departing thoughts

• 6.1 Some false problems
• 6.2 Things to do
• 6.3 The Non-invasionist Model

External links

• Online version, [1]
• Rewiew by N.S. Rajaram