Aryavarta - Ancient India - History To Know

The word Aryan comes from the Sanskrit word ārya, which is the self-designation used by the Vedic Indic people who migrated into the Indian subcontinent around 1500 BCE. The Sanskrit term has a cognate in the Iranian word arya, which is also a self-designation.

Both the Sanskrit and the Iranian terms descend from a form ārya that was used by the Indo-Iranian tribes to refer to themselves, a term which is also connected to the source of the country-name Iran, from a phrase meaning Kingdom of the Aryans. The term Aryan has had a history filled with controversy.

Before the time of the Aryan migration into the Indian subcontinent, Indus Valley Civilization was highly developed.

By 1500 BCE the Aryans migrated into the Indian subcontinent. Coming from central Asia, this large group of nomadic cattle herders crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains and came in contact with the Indus Valley Civilization

Linguistic studies have shown that as the Aryans migrated into the Indian subcontinent, the Aryan language gained ascendancy over the local languages. They also gradually adopted an agricultural lifestyle which was widely established by around 1000 BCE.

Despite the fact that we have no historical records of this periods, we have a mythical record in the form of religious literature, The Vedas, one of the most important religious books in Indian history. Stories about military conflicts and other hostilities are recorded in the Vedas, but the historical reliability of this episodes is uncertain.

Historically, India was known as Aryavarta, meaning the land of the Aryans. No other country, land, or region was historically known by that name. The ancestors of Aryans might have come from Africa or Central Asia, but the Aryan culture was distinctly indigenous and derived from the Kshatriya clans of the Vedic civilization.