Aryan Invasion Theory and the Decline of Harappan Civilization : Its Origin and Historical Controversies

Abstract

Aryan Invasion Theory was once an academic proposal suggested by the orientalists during C19th. The British Raj usually adopted this imagination in order to justify themselves as a decent ruler of India and to make the mainstream explanation on the indigenous people gaining their consciousness and getting no cultural achievement at all prior to the invasion of the Aryan. The indigenous were never a pioneer of their own identities but mostly were aryanised. Anyways, as Sir John Marshall, a general director of Archaeological Survey of India had excavated the site of Harappan in 1920s which indicated the idea that the indigenous had once created their own achievements and, they were urbanized during 3300-1300 BC. These discoveries might gain enough creditability and accuracy to controvert the Aryan Invasion Theory. On the contrary, the theory is still accepted among both foreign orientalists and local scholars. This article aims to discuss the emergence of Aryan Invasion Theory, the interpretation and the controversies proposed by contemporary scholars.