Group: | Indo-Aryan peoples |
Population: | ~1.5 billion |
Region1: | |
Pop1: | over 911 million |
Ref1: | [1] |
Region2: | |
Pop2: | over 190 million |
Ref2: | [2] |
Region3: | |
Pop3: | over 160 million |
Ref3: | [3] |
Region4: | |
Pop4: | over 26 million |
Region5: | |
Pop5: | over 14 million |
Region6: | |
Pop6: | over 2 million |
Region7: | |
Pop7: | over 725,400 |
Region8: | |
Pop8: | over 300,000 |
Region9: | |
Pop9: | over 240,000 |
Ref8: | [4] |
Langs: | Indo-Aryan languages |
Rels: | Indian religions (Mostly Hindu; with Buddhist, Sikh and Jain minorities) and Islam, Christians and some non-religious atheist/agnostic |
Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of peoples speaking Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia into South Asia and introduced the Proto-Indo-Aryan language.[5] [6] [7] The early Indo-Aryan peoples were known to be closely related and belonging to the same Indo-Iranian group that have resided north of the Indus River; an evident connection in cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Today, Indo-Aryan speakers are found south of the Indus, across the modern-day regions of Bangladesh, Nepal, eastern-Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and northern-India.[8]
See main article: Indo-Iranians, Proto-Indo-Europeans, Aryan, Indo-European migrations and Indo-Aryan migrations.
The introduction of the Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent was the result of a migration of Indo-Aryan people from Central Asia into the northern Indian subcontinent (modern-day Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). These migrations started approximately 1,800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. Another group of Indo-Aryans migrated further westward and founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria; (c. 1500–1300 BC) the other group was the Vedic people. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun, an Indo-European Caucasoid people of Inner Asia in antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin.
The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), and the Andronovo culture, which flourished ca. 1800–1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral Sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Proto-Indo-Aryan split off around 1800–1600 BCE from the Iranians, moved south through the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, borrowing some of their distinctive religious beliefs and practices from the BMAC, and then migrated further south into the Levant and north-western India.[9] The migration of the Indo-Aryans was part of the larger diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic–Caspian steppe which started in the 4th millennium BCE.[10] [11] The GGC, Cemetery H, Copper Hoard, OCP, and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryans.
The Indo-Aryans were united by shared cultural norms and language, referred to as aryā 'noble'. Over the last four millennia, the Indo-Aryan culture has evolved particularly inside India itself, but its origins are in the conflation of values and heritage of the Indo-Aryan and indigenous people groups of India.[12] Diffusion of this culture and language took place by patron-client systems, which allowed for the absorption and acculturation of other groups into this culture, and explains the strong influence on other cultures with which it interacted.
Genetically, most Indo-Aryan-speaking populations are descendants of a mix of Central Asian steppe pastoralists, Iranian hunter-gatherers, and, to a lesser extent, South Asian hunter-gatherers—commonly known as Ancient Ancestral South Indians (AASI). Dravidians are descendants of a mix of South Asian hunter-gatherers and Iranian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent, Central Asian steppe pastoralists. South Indian Tribal Dravidians descend majorly from South Asian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent Iranian hunter-gatherers.[13] Additionally, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burmese speaking people contributed to the genetic make-up of South Asia.
Indigenous Aryanism propagates the idea that the Indo-Aryans were indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages spread from there to central Asia and Europe. Contemporary support for this idea is ideologically driven, and has no basis in objective data and mainstream scholarship.
See also: List of ancient Indo-Aryan peoples and tribes.