Padmashri Dr. Nicholas Kazanas dispels a number of misunderstandings about the thesis of the Aryan Invasion Migration in an interview with The Eastern Report.

According to Dr. Nicholas Kazanas (Dr. NK), the Indo-European languages appeared much later and only in relation to Sanskrit. To understand the truths of Sanskrit—and by Sanskrit, old Indic or Vedic as well; the ancient language and its history—studying comparative linguistics was important.

He stated that he believed in the current Aryan invasion or immigration theory was something, but when he started seeking proof, no proof was discovered. “I consequently began researching the Indo-European languages in depth in the early history of India. And I found that every piece of evidence pointed to the presence of Indians in India as early as 3500 BCE. They did not arrive in India until about 2000 as the prevalent hypothesis suggests”, he stated,

He added, “I wrote several papers on that and I had a lot of professors, including my own at the School of Oriental Studies, who refused to even look at the evidence. Unfortunately, this is the case with most of the supporters of the Aryan Invasion theory. They don’t look at the evidence or they look at it very partially and continue as if there is no evidence.

Archaeologists for instance say that there is no evidence of any intrusion before 600 BCE, but they refuse to take it into account. But why do they do this? Why do they take linguistic evidence which means absolutely nothing? Because linguistic evidence can give you no dates. Anthropology and archaeology can give you dates. And they say nothing before 600. They refuse to look at this and go on and on about linguistic evidence, which gives no dates.

So, I started studying linguistics and went into Indo-European linguistics which is a mess. It isn’t true, it isn’t pragmatic. They have, for instance, a law that says phonemes, which is a specific sound, in the same given phonetic background will change in the same way. This is not true. The cerebral vowel Ra, Re or Ro as you pronounce it in India, doesn’t change in the same way in the same phonetic background.”

He gave an example that he collected 400 common cognitions in the Indo-European languages Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Russian, all the other Slavic languages, Baltic languages, and so on. Sanskrit does not have out of these only about 50, the next one does not have about 145 and then 200 and 250.

He added, “This is merely a concept that a few academics had, which other academics then replicated and continued to repeat. Greek lacks 145 of the 400 cognate words I looked at. It follows Germanic. The language of ancient Proto-Indo-Europeanism is not Greek. As a result, I disagree with these results.

Laryngeals were even created by them. Most Indo-European languages lack laryngeals as a sound. However, they occasionally added a laryngeal to help explain phenomena that don’t fit their preferred hypotheses. They formerly had ten, but today there are only three. They are not truly required, as can be seen when looking at the larynx.”

On being asked what proof he found in Rig Veda to show that Vedic culture is closer to Proto-Indo-European culture and languages and contrary to Western belief that Vedic culture originated from the Iranian language, Dr. Nicholas stated that in his book called Vedic and Avesta, he has mentioned reasons why Vedic is much older than Avesta.

He added, “I argue in great detail in these 40 pages why Iranians moved away from old Sapta Sindhu and its larger area which included Bactria and moved into Iran. The geography in the older parts of Avesta begins in the south of what is today Persia or Iran. Newer books of Avesta show a movement to the northwest which means Iranians were moving from south to north westwards.”

They actually say they passed from the Hindu land. They mention various places to which they had been in the Avesta and the very first place was the Hindu land. Hindu stands by itself in the Avesta and there is no other word connected to it in Avestan.

But in Sanskrit in Sindhi, Hind, and Sindhu have many other words connected to it. There is River Sindhu and other words which mean salt, horse, etc. So Avestan took the word Sindh and converted it into Hind like they converted the word Roma into Homa. It is a regular change, Sanskrit S becomes H in Avestan. Avestan has certain constructs that appear only in late Vedic and not early Vedic.

On the failure of western scholars to notice the parallel between India and Greece in terms of language and religion, Dr. NK said, “Greek has changed from ancient times just as Vedic has changed from old Vedic, there are more classical stuff and the language itself has changed to Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, and Gujarati among others. All these languages are derivatives of Sanskrit.”

Now, somebody who knows Sanskrit would recognize some words but not necessarily know the language of, say, Punjabi. Greek has changed as well but pronunciation has changed radically too. We have lost certain sounds and if you don’t know this change you’ll not recognize it immediately. The spelling and writing form has also changed.

We (Greeks) have become Christians, we no longer worship Surya and do not worship Daus and Prithvi. We worship christ and Jehova and we don’t worship the old Greek pantheon. That’s finished now, so you will not find that either. The culture has changed very radically.

Those who have knowledge of Vedic culture, if they come to Greece today will not find temples to the sun god, sky god, or mother goddess. They’ll find churches dedicated to father god, christ, and the saints of the Greek Orthodox church. That’s why they don’t notice any similarities.

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.