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Thread: Jats : Aryan or Scythian ?

  1. #1
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    Jats : Aryan or Scythian ?

    Bhai,

    this aryan and scythian business is very confusing. on one hand history opines that jats are scythians and on the other, arya samajis say we are aryans. who is right ? is the arya samaj presenting a convoluted form of history to justify it's existence among jats ? has the arya samaj twisted jat history to it's convenience ? we jats have fallen prey to outlandish theories and have forgotten our ancestry. is it too late ?

  2. #2
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    Satbir Grewal (Sep 17, 2004 11:40 a.m.):
    Bhai,

    this aryan and scythian business is very confusing. on one hand history opines that jats are scythians and on the other, arya samajis say we are aryans. who is right ? is the arya samaj presenting a convoluted form of history to justify it's existence among jats ? has the arya samaj twisted jat history to it's convenience ? we jats have fallen prey to outlandish theories and have forgotten our ancestry. is it too late ?
    Ram Ram!!

    Hi,

    With regard to the Arya Samajhis ... do they refer to Jats as Aryans in the sense Aryan=Noble (literal), OR, Jat as a foreign race (Aryan)??

    Please clarify.


    Regards,

  3. #3
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    Ramandeep ji,

    I'm not too sure what "arya" means but conventional / mainstream history sees it as a foreign race that invaded India about 2,500 years back. Now once we start convincing ourselves that we're Aryans, we've automatically disregarded our lineage which is supposed to be Scythian. The Scythians were supposed to be a nomadic, barbarous, volatile and fearsome race dwelling along the northern shores of the Black Sea. There is a Russian republic called Ossetia which prides in the fact that it's inhabitants are direct descendants of the Scythian tribes that defeated Darius the Great, a mighty emperoro of Persia. The Scythian have been described as tall, garceful looking people who had blade like noses.

    So, in whatever sense the term "aryan" is used, it certainly is not referring to Jats because then it makes us the blood brothers of Punjabi khatris (the trading class) who claim direct descent from the Aryans. Considering the fact that these khatris are quite fair looking and have, in some cases light eyes, the idea that they are Aryans may not be too far fetched whether we like it or not. So, I guess it's time we jats came clean on this one and took pride in our Scythian forefathers.

  4. #4
    Dear Satbir

    Why do you say the 'Sycthians' were barbaric ?


    Ravi

  5. #5
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    Ravi ji,

    I say that because history says so. The Scythians followed, what would seem to us today, very gruesome rituals. If two enemies wanted to mend fences, they would kill a mutual enemy and then drink his blood mixed with wine in his skull. Now, who wouldn't call that barbaric. Another custom was self-mutilation when people would slash themselves with knives to prove their loyalty and steadfastness to their ruler. They did this even when the ruler died. As a matter of fact, Ravi ji, most medieval civilizations were barbaric and the Scythians were no exception. The German Teutonic tribes were far worse than the Scythians but that didn't stop Germany from becoming a global powerhouse, economically and militarily. The Scythians were living in their own times and did what all humans of that age did in varying degrees. Nothing much to it, really. You might remember how lethal a Jat Sikh driven militancy in Punjab was. They were ruthless alright but they were very effective and it took another Jat Sikh, KPS Gill, to reign them in. It was just a small reminder to everybody as to how bad things can be when a Jat goes berserk. It almost brought the Indian government to it's knees. KPS Gill had said that we should thank God that the Sikh militants do not have a terrain like Kashmir to operate in. So ruthlessness is an integral part of Jat nature and it is put to good use when the time comes and we shouldn't be embarrased about it.

    Regards.

  6. #6
    Barbarian was a greco roman ternm for foreigner

    something like the Indic 'Mleccha'- foreigner, barbaric

    The rest, blood drinking etc could well be Herodutus's imagination running wild.

    Do you have another source for this except the Greeks?

    If you look closer I suspect you may find they were quite civilized, had huge agricultural complexes, irrigation canals, cities.

    Try and look at the Indo- Bactria complex, North West of Afghanistan, the Tarim Basin, for starters.

    That would suggest they had an advanced civilization, which would lead one to appreciate that their works of philosophy, literature and science, were quite advanced.

    It also fits in as to why 60 clans,and over 10 rishis in the Rig Veda ( 3000 CE to 2000 BCE) are Jat.

    Let us recognize and pay homage to their civilization,- bravery in war, does not mean drinking blood or getting drunk.

    One must take Herodutus, circa 3000 BCE with some salt.

  7. #7
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    Ravi ji,

    Speaking of history, here you go - (this might throw some light on our ancestors) they were not the noblest of people, I guess. Not that I'm not proud of my forefathers. Each race has it's history and the best part is you can't change it much. Denial is not the answer.

    "What sort of men are these!?" That question must have perplexed the Persian leader Darius when, in the midst of battle, he watched his Scythian enemies abandon the serious business of war in order to take off suddenly in chase of a hare they had spied. Well the same query persists in the minds of modern civilized men as scholarship adds to what we know about this strange custom of Eurasia's mounted nomad. New research and thousands of examined burial sites in the last 20 years in South Russia and the Altai have helped us to paint a much fuller picture of this vigorous nomad people with their unique animal art and love of the horse - an extraordinary race from whom the civilized world learned to wear trousers and riding horses.
    Land of Myth and Gold
    Perhaps the most striking feature of Scythians was the enormous amount of gold they wore and used. The ancient legend tells the story about the one-eyed people, Arimaspians in Scythia who had on-going battle with the griffins who guarded the gold. This gold undoubtedly came from the rich fields in the Altai district. It is common that the Scythians wore golden ornaments and belts. Gold plates were sewn to their garments and gold gleamed from their weapons. The archaeologists are consistently amazed by the amount of gold offerings deposited in the great burial- mounds of the Scythian kings.

    Where had they come from? The Scythians themselves had a legend that they sprang from the three sons of certain Targitaus, a person of supernatural birth who dwelled in the Black Sea domain. Together the three brothers ruled the land until four golden implements - a plow, a yoke, a battle-ax and a drinking cup - fell from the sky and suddenly began to blaze. Colaxais, the youngest, proved to be the only one of the brothers who could pick up the burning objects, and thus became sole ruler of the Scythian kingdom.

    Another Scythian creation story was told by the ancient Diodorus Siculus at the 1st century B.C. According to Diodorus, Scythians "lived in very small numbers at the Araks River....that they gained for themselves a country in the mountains up to the Caucasus, in the lowland on the coast of the Ocean (Caspian Sea) and the Meot Lake (Azov Sea) and other territories up to the Tanais River (Don River). Born in that land from the conjugal union of Zeus and a snake-legged goddess was a son Scyth who gave the name Scythian to the people." His descendants were named Pal and Naps and were the ancestors of two congenetic people - pals and naps. "They won for themselves a country "behind the Tanais River up to the Egyptian Nile River" (Diodorus II, 43).



    History
    Dating the earliest Scythians has been a problem since they did not develop their distinctive art style until the 6th century B.C. A. I. Melyukova suggested that the early Scythians were descendants of tribes of the Srubnaya culture who, between the middle of the 2nd millenium B.C. and the end of the 7th century B.C., moved in several waves from the Volga-Ural steppes into the north Black Sea area and assimilated the local Cimmerians. In history, the Scythians was first recorded in the 7th century B.C. as Assyria's ally against the Cimmerians, who had lost their homeland to the Scythians and moved south. The Scythian king, Partatua married an Assyrian princess in 674 B.C. and two nations remained allies. Scythians and Assyrians together conquered the Medes of the Caspian Sea; however the Medes was able to drive the Scythians out of western Asia and back to the Pontic Steppes by the turn of the century.

    In 514 BC. a very important event took place in the steppe. Herodotus described this account in full details. Darius, the third of the Persian great Kings, decided to invade Scythia. With Darius himself in command, the Persian army of 700,000 soldiers marched across the Danube to the Russian steppes. The Scythians steadily retreated while the Persians pursuit. Darius failed the attempt to force the Scythians to confront the Persians with head-on battle. The Scythians did not abandon their tactic of withdrawal and replied to Darius when he demanded an battle action:


    There is nothing new or strange in what we do. We follow our mode of life in peaceful times. We have neither towns nor cultivated lands in these parts which might induce us, through fear of their being ravaged, to be in any hurry to fight you. But if you must needs come to blows with us speedily, look about you, and behold our fathers' tombs. Attempt to meddle with them and you shall see whether or not we will fight with you."
    It was indeed very strange war to Darius. There was nothing to be captured and held - no citied, no buildings, no plunder, nothing but the rimless steppe. He was fighting air. Darius had no alternative but to turn back. All the way to the Danube the Scythians harassed his retreat. He never campaigned northward through Europe again and the Scythians prevailed on the south Russian steppe and kept expanding westward for the next century.

    From the end of the 7th century to the 3rd century BC, the Scythians occupied the steppe from the north Black Sea area, from the Don in the east to the Danube in the west. Among all those Scythians tribes, the most distinguishing tribe is called the Royal Scythians. With the Royal Scythians playing the dominant role, nomad Scythians, the Callipidae, the Alizones, agricultural Scythians and ploughing Scythians hold a submissive position. While the Royal and Nomad scythians led the nomadic lives, the Callipidae and Alizones lived in semi-nomadic style. Of course ploughing Scythians definitely were sedentary agriculturalists. According to Herodotus, the Callipidae or the Graeco-Scythians lived not far from Olbia, at the mouth of the Bug. To the north, there lived the Alizones; and further north the ploughing Scythians covered the area between the Dnieper and Bug. The Nomad Scythians occupied the steppes of the Azov Sea area and the left and right banks of the Dnieper. Most scholars believe that both banks of the lower Bug as far as the River Konka were the lands of the Nomad Scythians while the Royal Scythians roamed lands further east and south as far as the Don. Lastly the nomadic Scythians occupied at the Altai region of Siberia are called Kindred Scythians or Eastern Scythians.

    It was during the 4th century BC. that the Scythian kingdom reached the hightest economic, political, social and cultural development. Many nomads bacme sedentary in the north Black Sea and Kamenskoe Gorodishche was the economic, political and trading capital of Scythia in the 4th till the first half of the 3rd century BC. The great king Atheas united all the Scythian tribes and expanded his territory to Tracian border on the rigth bank of the Danube. In 339 B.C., Atheas was killed at age of 90 in the battle with Philip of Macedon. However the Scythian kingdom remained strong and wealthy. The outside threat did not disturb their stability until the Celts and the Thracians swept in from the west and the Sarmatians from the east starting at the second half of the 3rd century BC.; the Scythian kingdom was absorbed by other nomdic powers and pretty much disappeared in the history.

    Language
    Scythians are illiterate, there is no written record left. However few Scythian words survived by Herodotus. According to him, 'pata' meant 'to kill'; 'spou' meant 'eye', 'arima' meant 'one', 'oior' meant 'man'. From these words, the phiologists are able to define Scythian dialecte as a prehistoric Indo-European language.

    Taming the Horse
    The first of these mounted nomads to attract the attention of historians were the Scythians. If the Scythians were not the first to domesticate the horse they were among the earliest, if not the first of the Central Asian people to learn to ride it. Mounted soldiers was the Scythians' success in war; so when they penetrated into Asia, the technique of riding was rapidly adopted and mastered throughout the entire Middle Eastern area.

    Though the Scythian had elaborate bitted bridles, the stirrup was not known to them and they rode on saddleclothes, relying on grip and balance. Even so, they were formidable horsemen in battle.

    Life Style in the Steppes
    The Scythians were famous for their bloody tribal custom. Warriors not only cut off the heads of slain enemies but also made leather-bound drinking cups from their enemies' skulls. They lined these grisly trophies with gold and proudly displayed them to impress their guests. The Scythians were traditionally polygamous and male-dominated society. Even though the ancient Greeks' impression that Scythia was a matriarchy ,it is not supported by the archaeological evidence. A wealthy Scythian could take several wives, and upon his death a son or a brother would assume them as his own. Scythian women had little power beyond the confines of their households, unlike their neighboring tribe the Sarmatians, whose women not only rode but fought with the men equally. Scythian women travlled in waggons with their children instead. Some scholars suggest that the women may have lived a more active and influential life at one time.

    Since fish and game are abundant the tribesmen were never short of food. Their staple diet consisted of kumis, a form of fermented mare's milk which is still popular in Central Asia, a good deal of cheese, and vegetables such as onions, garlic and beans. They cooked their meat as a stew. As for cleaning, Herodotus noted that the Scythians did not use water for washing. Instead the women used a paste of pounded cypress, cedar and frankincense that, according to Herodotus, they applied to the face and body: A sweet odor is thereby imparted to them, and when they take off the plaster on the day following, their skin is clean and glossy." Scythians are said to be passionate people - bearded men with dark, deep set eyes with long, wind-snarled hair. They are one of the earlist races wore trousers, reflecting their horseback lifestyle. They wore pliable boots with heels. From the 2000-years-old frozen body recovered in 1947 in Siberia, we learned that Scythians liked to cover themselves with elaborate tattoos.

    Religion
    The Scythians had no temples, or altars or religious images, and evidently no priests. It is known that the northern nomads including the Scythians practiced Shamanism in their religion: they used shamans to deal with the world of spirits and gave advice to the kings and chiefs. Being superstitious people, they believed in witchcraft, magic and the power of amulets. The most highly honoured of the Scythian shamans came from certain specific families. They are effeminate males called 'enarees' - meant 'men-women' or 'halfmen'. They spoke with high-pitched voices and wore women's clothes.

    Rites of Death
    Prolonged and demonstrative grieving followed the death of every Scythian tribesman. At the death of a king all Scythian tribes joined a show of stupendous grief that last 40 days. Men of the dominant tribe, the Royal Scythians, cropped their hair, lacerated their ears, forehead, noses and arms. After the king was buried with the best of all his weapons and possessions, the funeral party strangled one of his concubines, his cupbearer, his cook, his lackey, his messenger and his best horses and place all the bodies by him. Then the grave was to be covered with 60-feet hight mound.

    Even then, the funeral was not over. One year later as many as 50 Scythian youths might be selected from among those who had directly served the king. They would be strangled and buried in a circle around the royal tomb.

    Animal Art Style
    One thing that Herodotus failed to report about these Scythian warriors is that they produced art of stunning force and vitality. Around the 6th century B.C., the Scythian created an art of pattern and ornament with naturalistic motifs based on animals. The favorite animals of the Scythian style are the stag, the horse, the ibex, the boar, the bear, the wolf, the felines, the eagle and the fish. The Scythian animal art style was adopted by all the mounted nomads as far as the borders of China by the end of the first millennium BC. During last two centuries, many rich and extraordinary finds were excavated from Scythian tombs and graves such as Pazyryk site in the Altai mountain of south-central Siberia, Kul Oba in the Kuban basin of the northern Black Sea.

  8. #8
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    Ravi ji,

    Here's more of it.

    Scythians/Sacae

    The Central-Asian steppe has been the home of nomad tribes for centuries. Being nomads, they roamed across the plains, incidentally attacking the urbanized countries to the south, east and west.
    The first to describe the life style of these tribes was a Greek researcher, Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century BCE. Although he concentrates on the tribes living in modern Ukraine, which he calls Scythians, we may extrapolate his description to people in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and possibly Mongolia, even though Herodotus usually calls these eastern nomads 'Sacae'. In fact, just as the Scythians and the Sacae shared the same life style, they had the same name: in their own language, which belonged to the Indo-iranian family, they called themselves Skudat ('archers'?). The Persians rendered this name as Sakâ and the Greeks as Skythai. The Chinese called them, at a later stage in history, Sai.
    Related subjects:
    - Armenia;
    - Behistun
    inscription;
    - Herodotus;
    - Skunkha.

    Shield emblem in the form of
    a panther, made of gold, 7-6th
    century BCE.
    Hermitage, Petersburg.
    Tribes are, almost by definition, very loose organizations. Every now and then, new tribal coalitions came into being, and sometimes, new languages became prominent among the nomads from the Central-Asian steppe.
    The oldest group we know of, is usually called Indo-Iranian. (The old name 'Aryan' is no longer used.) There are no contemporary reports about their migration, but it can be reconstructed from their language. It is reasonably certain that at the beginning of the second millennium BCE, the speakers of the Proto-Indo-Iranian language moved from Ukraine to the southeast. From an archaeological point of view, their migration is attested in the change from the Yamnaya culture into the Andronovo culture.
    A Scythian archer with bow
    and 'pointed hat'.
    They invaded the country that was later called Afghanistan, where they separated in an Iranian and an Indian branch. The first group settled in Aria, a name that lives on in our word 'Iran', where they settled after 1000 BCE; the second group reached the Punjab c.1500 BCE. From the second millennium on, three groups of languages can be discerned: the Indian group (Vedic, Sanskrit...), the Scythian group (in the homeland on the steppe), and the Iranian group (Gathic, Persian...). Even when, in the sixth century, the Achaemenid empire was at its most powerful and the Persians lived in comfortable towns, they still remembered their earlier, nomadic life style:
    The Persian nation contains a number of tribes, and the ones which Cyrus assembled and persuaded to revolt were the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished; they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the remainder -the Dahae, Mardi, Dropici, Sagarti, being nomadic.
    [Herodotus, Histories 1.125
    tr. Aubrey de Selincourt]

    Sakâ tigrakhaudâ
    (relief from Persepolis) The second group of nomads known to have gone south, is the tribe of the Cimmerians. Their name Gimirru -given to them by the Assyrians- means 'people traveling back and forth'; this name still exists in our word 'Crimea'. The Cimmerians destroyed the kingdoms of Urartu (an old name for Armenia) and Phrygia (in Turkey) in the first quarter of the seventh century BCE; other Scythians reached Ascalon in Palestine. According to Herodotus, they ruled the northwest of Iran (which Herodotus calls Media) for twenty-eight years.
    In the sixth, fifth and fourth centuries BCE, the Persians discerned several nomad tribes on the Central-Asian steppe. As we have seem, they called them Sakâ. We know the names of these tribes from Persian royal inscriptions and can add information from Herodotus and other Greek authors.

    The Sakâ haumavargâ ('haoma-drinking Sacae') were subjected by Cyrus the Great. Herodotus calls them Amyrgian Scythians. Haoma was a trance inducing drink, made from fly agaric. This mushroom does not occur south of the river Amudar'ya (Oxus). Consequently, we may assume that these nomads lived in Uzbekistan. Herodotus informs us that they wore trousers and pointed caps; they fought as archers. He also mentions their use of the battle ax (which they called sagaris).
    The Sakâ tigrakhaudâ ('Sacae with pointed hats') were defeated in 520/519 BCE by the Persian king Darius I the Great, who gave this tribe a new leader. One of the earlier leaders was killed, the other, named Skunkha, was taken captive and is visible on the relief at Behistun. (It is possible that Darius created a new tribe from several earlier tribes.) Herodotus calls the Sakâ tigrakhaudâ the Orthocorybantians ('pointed hat men'), and informs us that they lived in the same tax district as the Medes. This suggests that the Sakâ tigrakhaudâ lived on the banks of the ancient lower reaches of the Amudar'ya, which used to have a mouth in the Caspian Sea south of Krasnovodsk. The pointed hat is a kind of turban.
    The Apâ Sakâ ('Water Sacae') are also known as the Pausikoi, as Herodotus prefers to call them. Later authors, like Arrian of Nicomedia (in his Anabasis) and Ammianus Marcellinus (in his Roman history) call them the Abian Scythians; still later, we encounter them as the Apasiaki, first east and later southwest of Lake Aral. They must be situated along the ancient lower reaches of the Amudar'ya.
    The tribe that Herodotus calls 'Massagetes' must have been called something like Mâh-Sakâ in Persian, which means 'Moon Sacae', but this is confusing. Ma-Sakâ means Moon Sacae, and it is known that the Massagetes venerated only one god, the Sun. The Massagetes were responsible for the death of the Persian king Cyrus the Great (in December 530). From Herodotus' description, it is clear that they lived along the Syrdar'ya (Jaxartes).
    The nomad tribe known as Dahâ, which means 'robbers', is mentioned for the first time in the Daiva inscription of Xerxes; he must have subjected them. Herodotus calls the Dai a Persian nomad tribe (above), but they can not have lived in Persia proper, because they are mentioned in the Anabasis of Arrian as living along the lower reaches of the Syrdar'ya. In the days of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, they were famous for their mounted archers. It is possible that this tribe desintegrated after the fall of the Achaemenid empire; one of the tribes that came into being, was that of the Parni, who went south in the third century BCE and founded the Parthian empire.
    The Sakâ paradrayâ ('Sacae across the sea') were living in Ukraine. These are the nomads that the Greeks called Scythians. In (514 or) 513 BCE, king Darius launched a disastrous campaign against the Sakâ paradrayâ. Herodotus gives a long description of their way of life and discerns many tribes in the neighborhood.
    The Royal Scythians lived in the southern part of Ukraine, immediately north of the Greek towns.
    The Scythian-Farmers seem to be identical with the archaeological culture known as Chernoles, which has been identified with the Iron Age Slavs.
    Probably, we may identify the Neuri with the so-called Milograd culture, the archaeological remains of which have been found on the confluence of the rivers Dnepr and Pripyat, north of modern Kiev. They may be the ancestors of the Balts.
    Herodotus' story about the Man-eaters received some confirmation with the excavation of human remains that were gnawed at by human jaws; these excavations were along the river Sula, to the southeast of Kiev.
    The Argippaeans are sometimes identified with the ancestors of the Calmucs.
    The Issedones may be identical to the Wu-sun who (according to Chinese texts) lived on the shore of Lake Balchash.
    The Sauromatae are mentioned by Herodotus as the descendants of Scythian fathers and Amazon mothers. Of course, this is a legend, but the tribe did exist and was to move to the west after 130 BCE. In the process, they assimilated the Royal Scythians (above). In the late first century BCE, the Sarmatian coalition consisted of four tribes:
    The Iazyges, which had once lived on the shores of the Sea of Azov, were now living on the northern bank of the Danube. They were to move to what is now eastern Hungary, where they settled in c.50 CE. They were defeated by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (in 175).
    The Urgi lived on the banks of the Dnepr, south of Kiev.
    The Royal Scythians were still living in the south of Ukraine and had become the most important Sarmatian tribe. They and the Urgi became known as the Sarmati. The Romans seem to have accepted their settlement in Hungary, but the situation was sometimes tense. The Sarmati were, for example, responsible for the destruction of the Twenty-first legion Rapax in 92.
    The Roxolani initially lived between the Don and the Dnepr but settled on the lower reaches of the Danube, where the Iazyges had been living before they migrated to Hungary.


    The Khan (leader) of the
    Tatars. Note the bow and
    the pointed hat.
    The steppe nomads frequently attacked the urbanized regions to the east, south or west. Usually, this created great havoc, but after some time, they went back to their homeland. However, it was necessary for the attacked states to defend themselves. The Indians thought that they did not need walls because they were was protected by the Himalayas; c.110 BCE, the valley of the Indus was run over. The Chinese built the 'Wall of ten thousand miles' to protect themselves. The rulers of the Achaemenid empire, from Cyrus the Great to Alexander the Great, may have built walls as well. These walls are mentioned in the eighteenth sura of the Quran and in medieval legend, but cannot be identified with known archaeological remains. It is certain, however, that both Cyrus and Alexander built garrison towns along the river Syrdar'ya or Jaxartes; our sources call them Cyreschata and Alexandria Eschatê.
    Nomadism continued to exist into the first and second millennium CE. Several tribes may be mentioned. The Alani -whose language lives on in modern Ossetian- are known from the first century CE; they lived in modern Kazakhstan. Later, they moved to the west, being pushed forward by the Huns, which are known from Chinese texts as the Xiung-nu. Later tribal formations were the Avars, the Chasars, the Bulgars, the Turks, the Magyars, the Cumans, the Tatars, the Mongols and the Cossacks.

    Literature

    J. Harmatta, 'Herodotus, historian of the Cimmerians and the Scythians' in: Hérodote et les peuples non Grecs. Neuf exposés suivis de discussions (Entretiens sur l' Antiquité classique, tome XXV) (1990 Genève), pages 115-130.
    Renate Rolle, Die Welt der Skythen. Stutenmelker und Pferdebogner: ein antikes Reitervolk in neuer Sicht, 1980 Lucerne
    T. Sulimivski, 'The Scyths' in: Ilya Gershevitch (ed.): The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. II: The Median and Achaemenian Periods, 1985 Cambridge, pages 149-199.
    Stephanie West, "Scythians" in: Egbert Bakker, Irene de Jong and Hans van Wees (eds.), Brill's Companion to Herodotus (2002 Leiden), pages 437-456

  9. #9
    could darius collect 700,000 soldiers.

    Do you know what it takes to feed 700,000 soldiers , everyday?

    What the population of then Iran?
    ravi

  10. #10
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    You seriously believe that the Persian empire was confined to modern day Iran and the soldiers of Darius' army were from that geographical area alone.

    In any case, what source do exactly rely upon when it comes to Scythian history. You can't be sitting on a computer table and debunking centuries' worth of scholarship and historical accounts. I don't think that some Scythian warrior is going to get up from his Kurgan and narrate his times. I don't mean to suggest for a moment that ancient scholars did not have a prediliction for exaggeration but then you'll have to grant them that they often relied upon word of mouth for their accounts. They didn't have CNN beaming in live pictures from the battlefields of Ulski and Maikop. For instance, "an army of 700,000" usually meant a very large army and not that some historian had gone into the rank and file to conduct a census. It was mostly figure of speech.

    Having said that, the fact remains that the Scythians were by and large nomads with a barbarous inclination. You have to come up something better to prove otherwise.

  11. #11
    Ramandeep (Sep 17, 2004 06:01 p.m.):
    Satbir Grewal (Sep 17, 2004 11:40 a.m.):
    Bhai,

    this aryan and scythian business is very confusing. on one hand history opines that jats are scythians and on the other, arya samajis say we are aryans. who is right ? is the arya samaj presenting a convoluted form of history to justify it's existence among jats ? has the arya samaj twisted jat history to it's convenience ? we jats have fallen prey to outlandish theories and have forgotten our ancestry. is it too late ?
    Ram Ram!!

    Hi,

    With regard to the Arya Samajhis ... do they refer to Jats as Aryans in the sense Aryan=Noble (literal), OR, Jat as a foreign race (Aryan)??

    Please clarify.


    Regards,
    As I understand 'Arya' was also used liberaly in Ancient India to address a person of royal descent.

    In any case, all these long cut and paste (or quoted) theories here are still just what they are; THEORIES...
    There is no conclusive evidence on either. I hardly see what the debate is about? Also, isn't it true that it's not only us, the Jats, but more than half of the North Indian region people in some way or the other relying on the authenticity (or not) of these theories?....
    ...Wouldn't follow the trodden path, but shall leave a blazing trail!!!...

  12. #12
    Hi Mr. Grewal,

    “we jats have fallen prey to outlandish theories and have forgotten our ancestry. is it too late ?”

    I agree wholeheartedly. Can you tell me a bit about your ancestry – the Grewal tribe.?

  13. #13
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    Mr Sunny Singh,

    I'll tell you all about the Grewals if you can just tell me your goth. I hope I'm not asking for too much because usually when a man ends his name with just a "singh", I'm afraid he might not have much ahead of it anyway. So, if you can do everbody a favour by elaborating "sunny singh.......... what????

    cheers

  14. #14
    Hi Mr. Grewal,

    I didn’t know the prerequisite to sharing your knowledge about Grewals was requiring full knowledge about the origins of the person posing the original question?

    I am a Jat from the Hoshiarpur District. I am also a Sikh, and have noted a great many Grewal Jat Sikhs.

    Best Wishes,

  15. #15
    Satbir

    why do you not start a separate topic for Grewals ?

    Many of us will be interested

    Ravi Chaudhary

  16. #16
    Dear All:
    would it help us in any way to establish that we are outsiders.
    It seems like a brahman's conspiracy to segregate the kaum from the rest of india to strip the advantageous position we have despite our small numbers.
    The aryan invasion theory has been attacked because of the discomfort of brahman with something that establishes his exploitative past and tactics.
    Please think for a while before we add fuel to this matter.
    We are indians, the sons of the soil and holders of her honour and anyone trying to alienate us with our land is not a friend.As lord krishna has said it is important to say the right thing not necessarily the truth, even if there is some truth in this matter.
    Anmol.
    Best.

  17. #17
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    Dear Anmol,

    Whenever we indulge in history, we cannot afford to be sentimental or mytho-religious about it. It always has to be a logical and critical pursuit. As far as the Brahmans are concerned, they certainly have no right to dub somebody a foreigner because they themselves claim descent from the Aryans, who, by all accounts were a pastoral, central asian race that invaded India about 2,500 years back. So, no issue here, really.

    As far as the use of the term 'arya' is concerned, it certainly meant 'noble' in Rig Vedic language but it also denoted an ethno-linguistic meaning. The stark ethno-cultural differences between the people of Southern and Eastern India as compared to North-Western India certainly hint towards an influx if not invasion of foreign races into the fertile plains of Pakistani and Indian Punjab (this most certainly includes Haryana and Delhi). The Aryans, Scythians, Bactrians, Persians, Turks, Mongols, Huns, Mughals and Arabs have invaded India on a regular basis. It's no use wallowing in a denial syndrome. Mythological and neo-religious balderdash is for the consumption of the gullible rustic masses. It's no use burying our heads in the sands of ignorance and befooling ourselves to glory. I'm a Jat and I like talking straight. We should have the nerve to face the truth.

    Regards.

  18. #18
    Satbir Grewal (Sep 24, 2004 03:59 a.m.):
    As far as the use of the term 'arya' is concerned, it certainly meant 'noble' in Rig Vedic language but it also denoted an ethno-linguistic meaning.

    Regards.

    Dear Satbir

    That is what I understand 'Arya' to mean- "noble", exactly as the Rig veda, and the other Vedas too for that matter say- the oldest sources that we have incidently.

    Could you clarify the second part ..".ethno linguistic".

    Are you cliaming that the Rig Veda and the Jats have no connection?

    Ravi

  19. #19
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    Ethno-linguistic basically means that the Aryans, were ethnically (I suppose I can hazard calling it racially) different from the original (again, curiously a subject of fierce debate on this site) inhabitants of north-western India. There was also a very evident lingual difference. The Aryans simply spoke a different tongue which was more akin to Iranian (Avestan) than to, say, Tamil or maybe Nagamese. These were the two major factors which set the Aryans apart from the aboriginal inhabitants (by the way, even today, 'adivasi' means aboriginal).

    Coming on to the Rig Vedic connection of the Jats, well, I'll have to say yes, there is no clear mention of anything called Jat in the Rig Veda and if there is then Mr Max Mueller was probably sleeping when he translated the Rig Veda. Unless, of course if you take in to account the mention of some obscure tribe called Jatrika in the Mahabharata. Now, calling them Jats will be stretching it a bit too far I'm afraid.

    Whatever fictitious connections have been manufactured regarding Jats and the Rig Veda are tales spun by wily Brahmans to assimilate a powerful section of society firmly into the Brah'maniac'al fold. Otherwise, who's going to get havans done and who's going to pay them their 'dakshina'. Do you think a Jat fully aware of his Indo-Scythian ancestry is going to care two hoots about the Brahman. So these tales are just a survival tool of the priesthood. We possess this unique knack
    of accepting mythology as history without much delay. These are signs of collective ignorance. Associating ourselves with one sage/rishi or the other gives us immense satisfaction while we can't even tell somebody about the name of our own ancestor three generations up the tree. But, yes, we're pretty sure of the fact that we're direct descendants of some celestial sage. We also hear stories of some goth springing from the bones of God knows what. Since when have bones started bearing children. Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to tell a lie. So, Ravi ji, I'm afraid you can't convince me on this one. I would prefer a much more down to earth central Asian origin of the Jats. My ancestors were no sages and friends of Lord Krishna, they were just poor farmers and soldiers trying to eke out a living in this world ridden with cockeyed myths and fantasies.

    Regards.

  20. #20
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    Sunny Singh (Sep 22, 2004 07:37 p.m.):
    Hi Mr. Grewal,

    I didn’t know the prerequisite to sharing your knowledge about Grewals was requiring full knowledge about the origins of the person posing the original question?

    I am a Jat from the Hoshiarpur District. I am also a Sikh, and have noted a great many Grewal Jat Sikhs.

    Best Wishes,
    o kidhan doabeya?

    kithe gaya si?

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