what does Aryan mean?Am i of Aryan descent?Indo-Aryan?

Question

What does aryan mean?ive always thought it was something to do with pakistan,india,afghanistan,iran and the middle east?but recently i found out it was a race that never existed.it was apparently a race which hitler thought was the ''master race??''I'm Pakistani and i come from a tribe called the Gakhars also spelt Gakkars.The Gakhars are of irani/persian descent/ancestry which i am.so this means my great great great great great great grandparents were persian.i also found out that i also have afghan and turkish ancestors.has anyone heard of the Gakhars??if u have can u please tell me a bit more history on them and also what they look like?their physical features,eye colour,hair colour,personalities etc? it also says that the Gakhars are a Indo-aryan punjabi clan what does that mean?Does it mean Aryan?Thank You i would be so grateful if u could answer my questions!

Answer 1

You've already found out the really confusing aspect of this term - there's the ethnological term 'aryan' and then there's the bizarre, essentially made-up fantasy that Hitler took as his racial ideal for the German people to live up to. It kind of confused things for everybody. You know more than most people already; if I were you, I'd stick to the tribal names, as they're more likely going to be useful to you. Unfortunately, I can't help you with the Gakhars - interesting area, though; Alex the Great went through that way on his journey to India, and the tribes in that area (or maybe a bit to the south) gave him loads of trouble, as they've done to pretty much every outsider since. You may well have some Macedonian blood in you, too.. Turkish, too, eh? Wow - so you're covered; some of the toughest folks from the great steppes all the way across to the Black Sea are in your past. Make sure your husband knows not to give you any lip when you get married!

Answer 2

Many of the world's people are of Indo-Aryan descent. They are believed to be a people who lived in South and Central Asia thousands of years ago, and who spread and diversified over time into the peoples of that region as well as much of Europe and elsewhere. The evidence is mostly linguistic.

Hitler tried to create a mythology of Germans being the last pure "Aryan" people, which made it difficcult to use the term in its original sense. His notion of the Aryans as being blue-eyed blondes showed how little he understood.

As for the Gakkars, there is quite a bit of info available, although you might try alternate spellings.

Gakhar (also Gakkhar or Ghakhar or Ghakkar) (Urdu: گاکھر ): An ancient aristocratic and warlike clan now located in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Jhelum, Kashmir, Gilgit, Baltistan (Tibet), Chitral, and Khanpur regions in modern day Pakistan and India (in the latter case the majority are Hindu). According to the Gakhar legends, they are an Aryan clan (a racial designation first used by Darius the Great) of Persian descent. To quote from the reliable Gazetteer of the Rawalpindi District 1893-94: "from the moment where oral traditions give way to more authentic historical records, the history of the Potohar becomes that of the Gakhar clan. The Gakhars became prominent at the time of the early Muslim era and have more or less maintained their rule over the city of Rawalpindi and parts of Hazara and Jhelum districts, independent of the sovereign powers at Delhi and Agra, until being defeated at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the Sikhs." and from the reliable Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, " The Ghakkars seem to represent an early wave of conquest from the east, and they still inhabit the whole eastern slope of the district; while the Awans, who now cluster in the western plain, are apparently later invaders from the opposite quarter. The Ghakkars were the dominant race at the period of the first Mahommedan incursions, and long continued to retain their independence. During the flourishing period of the Mogul dynasty, the Ghakkar chieftains were prosperous and loyal vassals of the house of Babur; but after the collapse of the Delhi Empire Jhelum fell, like its neighbours, under the sway of the Sikhs. In 1765 Gujar Singh defeated the last independent Ghakkar prince, and reduced the wild mountaineers to subjection. His son succeeded to his dominions, until 1810, when he fell before the irresistible power of Ranjit Singh." Important sources for the Gakhars are their own tribal history, the "Kai-Gohar Nama", Ferishta's."The History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India Till The Year A.D. 1612" and Zahir-ud-din Mohammad Babur's, "Baburnama" although much is disputed for the earliest periods of their history.

Answer 3

The "Aryan race" is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendents up to the present day constitute a distinctive race. In its best-known incarnation, under Nazism, it was argued that the earliest Aryans were identical to Nordic people. Belief in the superiority of the "Aryan race" is sometimes referred to as Aryanism. This should not be confused with the unrelated Christian religious belief known as Arianism.

The term Aryan originates with the Indo-Iranian self-designation arya, attested in the ancient texts of Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, the Rigveda and the Gathas of Zoroaster.

Answer 4

Aryan is an English language word derived from Sanskrit and Avestan ārya- meaning "noble".[1] It is widely held to have been used as an ethnic self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Iranians. Since, in the 19th century, the Indo-Iranians were the most ancient known speakers of Indo-European languages, the word Aryan was adopted to refer not only to the Indo-Iranian people, but also to Indo-European speakers as a whole.

In Europe, the concept of an Aryan race became influential in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as linguists and ethnologists argued that speakers of these Indo-European languages constitute a distinctive race, descended from an ancient people, who were referred to as the "primitive Aryans", but are now known as Proto-Indo-Europeans. An understanding of the Proto-Indo-Iranians as an Aryan master race, as prominently expressed within Nazism and related ideologies, lacks any scientific basis, nor do any of the Vedic Sanskrit and Old Persian texts speak of 'racial purity'.[2]

In today's English, "Aryan", is merely synonymous to Indo-Iranian, the eastern extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages

Answer 5

it is impossible to say that ravana was a Dravidian because The majority of Sri Lankans are also Aryans (Singhalease) only tamils are the dravidians live in Sri Lanka.It is difficult to say that ravana was a dravidian king as sri lanka has only few of dravidians.And it is a very foolish thing to beleive too much on an epic it is only a Hindu literature text.

Answer 6

The "Aryan race" is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendents up to the present day constitute a distinctive race. In its best-known incarnation, under Nazism, it was argued that the earliest Aryans were identical to Nordic people. Belief in the superiority of the "Aryan race" is sometimes referred to as Aryanism. This should not be confused with the unrelated Christian religious belief known as Arianism.

The term Aryan originates with the Indo-Iranian self-designation arya, attested in the ancient texts of Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, the Rigveda and the Gathas of Zoroaster.

Since, in the 19th century, the Indo-Iranians were the most ancient known speakers of "Indo-European" languages, the word Aryan was adopted to refer not only to the Indo-Iranian people, but also to Indo-European speakers as a whole, including the Armenians,Romans, Greeks, the Germans, Balts, Celts and Slavs. It was argued that all of these languages originated from a common root — now known as Proto-Indo-European — spoken by an ancient people who must have been the original ancestors of the European, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan peoples. The ethnic group composed of the Proto-Indo Europeans and their modern descendants was termed the Aryans with the idea of distinctive behavioral and ancestral ethnicity marked by language distribution. This usage was common in the late 19th and early 20th century. An example of an influential best-selling book that reflects this usage is the 1920 book The Outline of History by H. G. Wells[1]. In it he wrote of the accomplishments of the Aryan people, stating how they "learned methods of civilization" while "Sargon II and Sardanapalus were ruling in Assyria and fighting with Babylonia and Syria and Egypt". As such, Wells suggested that the Aryans had eventually "subjugated the whole ancient world, Semitic, Aegean and Egyptian alike".[2]

The usage of Aryan to mean "all Indo-Europeans" is now regarded by most scholars as obsolete, though it is still seen occasionally and some people continue this usage.[3] In today's English, "Aryan", if used at all, is normally synonymous to Indo-Iranian, or Proto-Indo-Iranian. The idea that the north Europeans were the "purest" of these people was later theorized by the Comte de Gobineau and by other writers, most notably his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who wrote of an "Aryan race"—those who spoke Indo-European languages and were claimed to be the "noblest" of people.

The theory of the Northern origins of the "Aryans" was particularly influential in Germany. It was widely believed that the "Vedic Aryans" were ethnically identical to the Goths, Vandals and other ancient Germanic peoples of the Völkerwanderung. This idea was often intertwined with anti-Semitic ideas. The distinctions between the "Aryan" and "Semitic" peoples were based on the linguistic and ethnic history described above. In this way Semitic peoples came to be seen as a foreign presence within "Aryans" societies, and the Semitic peoples were often pointed to as the cause of conversion and destruction of social order and values leading to culture and civilization's downfall by proto-Nazi and Nazi theorists such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Alfred Rosenberg.

In India, under the British Empire, the British rulers also used the idea of a distinct Aryan race in order to ally British power with the Indian caste system. It was widely claimed that the Aryans were white people who had invaded India in ancient times,[4] subordinating the darker skinned native Dravidian peoples, who were pushed to the south. Thus the foundation of Hinduism was ascribed to northern invaders who had established themselves as the dominant castes, and who were supposed to have created the sophisticated Vedic texts. Much of these theories were simply conjecture fueled by European imperialism (see white man's burden). This styling of an "Aryan invasion" by British colonial fantasies of racial supremacy lies at the origin of the fact that all discussion of historical Indo-Aryan migrations or Aryan and Dravidian "races" remains highly controversial in India to this day, and does continue to affect political and religious debate. Some Dravidians, and supporters of the Dalit movement, most commonly Tamils, claim that the worship of Shiva is a distinct Dravidian religion going back to the Indus Civilization,[5] to be distinguished from Brahminical "Aryan" Hinduism. In contrast, the Indian nationalist Hindutva movement argues that no Aryan invasion or migration ever occurred, asserting that Vedic beliefs emerged from the Indus Valley Civilisation,[6] which pre-dated the supposed advent of the Indo-Aryans in India, and is identified as a likely candidate for a Proto-Dravidian culture.

Some Indians were also influenced by the debate about the Aryan race. The Indian nationalist V. D. Savarkar believed in the theory that an "Aryan race" migrated to India,[7] but he didn't find much value in a racialized interpretation of the "Aryan race".[8] Some Indian nationalists supported the theory because it gave them the prestige of common descent with the ruling British class.[9]

According to the adherents to Ariosophy, the Aryan was a "master race" that built a civilization that dominated the world from Atlantis about ten thousand years ago. This alleged civilization declined when other parts of the world were colonized after the 8,000 BC destruction of Atlantis because the inferior races mixed with the "Aryans" but it left traces of their civilization in Tibet (via Buddhism), and even in Central America, South America, and Ancient Egypt. (The date of 8,000 BC for the destruction of Atlantis in Ariosophy is 2,000 years later than the date of 10,000 BC given for this event in Theosophy.) These theories affected the more esotericist strand of Nazism.

Since the military defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies in 1945, Neo-Nazi ideologues have expanded their concept of the "Aryan Race" from the Nazi concept that the purest Aryans were the Teutonics or Nordics of Northern Europe to the idea that the true Aryans are everyone descended from the Western or European branch of the Indo-European peoples. This is sometimes referred to as "pan-Aryanism". The degree of inclusivity varies between factions.[19] This usage totally inverts the meaning of "Aryan" from the way it is used by most non-Neo-Nazis today, i.e., to refer to the Eastern or Asian (Indo-Iranian) branch of the Indo-European peoples. However, as noted above and below in the references, some people still use the term Aryan in its earlier sense as denoting all Indo-Europeans.

Answer 7

If I were you, I'd forget these ideas.