What DNA Says About Aryan Invasion Theory -2

[Bharatvarsh]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I am South Indian, Tamil to be precise, and in my experience, I've found North Indians to be light-skinned, how? Why is it  most SIs, especially tamils, are dark, whereas most NIs are light-skinned? And if at all there are light-skinned SIs, they happen to be Brahmin.

This is the question AIT sympathizers repeatedly ask me, and to be honest, I am beginning to find it puzzling too. Climate cannot be the reason, it may effect minor changes, but it can't alter skin color as such. So what could be the reason?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is generally true, NI tend to be lighter but it is not a hard and fast rule.

But if climate has no bearing then why are many Sinhalese (supposed to be from around Bengal-Orissa, not the south by any means) just as dark as many Tamils, as a sample look at their cricket team.

Also what AIT proponents cant seem to answer is why the Vedic Arya's have no memory of a homeland outside Bharat?

Now let us assume that they were trying to cover up this supposed "invasion", then we come to the Tamuzh Sangam literature, in there not one word is said about this alleged "invasion", infact there is no notion of invader vs native in the entire corpus, far from it the picture we glean from it is that of a society steeped in Puranic lore and varnashrama based on birth (i am not saying it was good, it may sound bad to our modern "egalitarian" ears but we have to keep in mind that no society was absolutely equal 2000 years ago).

Wouldn't we expect someone to remember this invasion, afterall we do remember the invasions of Ghori and Ghazni after nearly 1000 years don't we.

Here is something interesting I found:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Indian Self-Image in the Fourth Century B.C.

Greek and Latin sources provide indications of how the Greeks perceived the Indians, and how the Indians perceived themselves, in or around the fourth century B.C. Some of these accounts are pre-Alexandrian, but most of them were written in the wake of, and after, Alexander’s invasion of India.

The point which stands out clearly from these accounts is that the Indians are considered a diverse and polyglot people. It goes as far back as Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) who states that there “are many tribes of Indians who speak many different languages.”[1] This diversity is further recognized in the statement about the Indians “situated very far from the Persians, towards the south,” who, “never subject to Darius, have a complexion closely resembling the Ethiopians.”[2]

The next point worth noting is that Indians considered themselves to be indigenous to India. Diodorus Siculus (first century B.C.) has this to say on the point:

It is said that India, being of enormous size when taken as a whole, is peopled by races both numerous and diverse, of which not even one was originally of foreign descent, but all were evidently indigenous; and moreover that India neither received a colony from abroad, nor sent out a colony to any other nation. The legends further inform us that in primitive times the inhabitants subsisted on such fruits as the earth yielded spontaneously, and were clothed with the skins of the beasts found in the country, as was the case with the Greeks; and that, in like manner as with them, the arts and other appliances which improve human life were gradually invented, Necessity herself teaching them to an animal at once docile and furnished not only with hands ready to second all his efforts, but also with reason and a keen intelligence.[3]

As a third point, we might consider the belief the Indians had in their historical antiquity. Thus, according to Arrian:

From the time of Dionysus to Sandracottus the Indians counted 153 Kings and a period of 6042 years, but among these a republic was thrice established * * * * and another 300 years, and another 120 years. The Indians also tell us that Dionysus was earlier than Heracles by fifteen generations, and that except him no one made a hostile invasion of India – not even Cyrus the son of Cambyses, although he undertook an expedition against the Scythians, and otherwise showed himself the most enterprising monarch in all Asia; but that Alexander indeed came and overthrew in war all whom he attacked, and would even have conquered the whole world had his army been willing to follow him. On the other hand, a sense of justice, they say, prevented any Indian king from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India.[4]

It is clear then that already in the fourth century B.C. the Indian self-perception of being a diverse, indigenous and ancient people must have been firmly in place, and was reported as such by the Greeks. One might add that India then was also perceived as “the most populous of all the nations of the world”[5] – a status it seems headed towards regaining.

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[1] R.C. Majumdar, The Classical Accounts of India (Calcutta: Firma KLM Private LTD, 1981) p. 1.

[2] Ibid., p. 2.

[3] Ibid., p. 235.

[4] Ibid., p. 223.

[5] Ibid., p. 1.

http://arvindsharma.wordpress.com/2008/01/...rth-century-bc/<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I do not believe in AIT either (you know the one with barbaric "aryans" storming down in their chariots to destroy the peaceful "dravidians") simply because of lack of evidence, but if its proven at a later date that the Vedic people migrated into Bharat at a certain date, so what all of human race migrated at one point or another.

Nowadays they are postulating an earlier DIT (Dravidian Invasion Theory) of the South which supposedly displaced the languages of the "indigenous" people already there, i wonder what Karunanidhi has to say to that.