ARYANS

WHO WHERE THE DRAVIDIAN?

• The basic bisection of the Indian society is of Ayrans and Dravidians.
• According to this Bisection,about 72% percent of Indians are Aryans and 28% are Dravidians.
• The North Indians are the descendants of Aryan's and the South Indians are Dravidians.

WHERE WERE THE ARYANS FROM?

• The original Aryan's are known as Proto-Indo European,"Primitive Aryans",they all believed to have originated from the Indus Valley/India.
• From there they spread to the North present day Europe effecting the culture and language of people possessing Europe
• Most present day European languages are derived from Proto-Aryans,and these languages are classified as Indo-European.

WHAT WERE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ARYAN CIVILIZATION?

• Felt superior to the people they conquered
• Polytheistic
• Nomadic warriors
• The two main cities of this civilization were Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.
• It is clear that this civilization covered a large area and had well-planned cities.

HOW WERE THE ARYANS POLITICALLY SETUP?

• The Harappans and the Aryans had very distinct societies.
• One of the distinctions about their cultures would be a caste system.
• The Aryan castes were originally called varna, which translates to color but known as castes in English today.
• The Aryans had a society based on four basic classes: priests, warriors, merchant/artisans, and laborers.

WHAT WAS THE ARYAN WRITING SYSTEM AND HOW DID IT AFFECT THEIR SOCIAL CLASSES?

• Ancient India had two main scripts in which Indo-Aryan languages were written.
• Kharoṣṭi, used in the northwest, is of Aramaic origin and is written from right to left.
• Brāhmī, of North Semitic origin, is written from left to right and appears earliest on Aśokan inscriptions in areas other than the northwest.
• Middle Indo-Aryan shows evidence of the influence of linguistically more advanced vernaculars on literary compositions.
• The Old Indo-Aryan and Middle Indo-Aryan stages, then, present a picture of concurrent vernaculars with dialects