Edwin BryantThe Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate

For someone to understand what has happened to the Indian Education System they need to read this book. I am stating something different here compared to what the books intend to do, but that is exactly what has happened due to the colonial rule. This book covers (or tries to) who are the 'Aryans'. Are they indigenous Indians or did they come from Europe? And due to the fact that the last 200 years we have had an English system of learning and have studied history from their perspective we have tended to believe that the Aryans come from Europe.This book does not answer the question comprehensively. But, brings forward arguments from both angles. It is a well balanced note.Slightly heavy read, but that is to be expected.

A brilliant book on the politics of discourse in the colonial era and how it is working even today. Really a lot of good thinking material.

Personally, I'm neither convinced by the AMT or Out of India theory as the source of vedic culture. As of now, I place my bets on a healthy cross-migration with the Iranian plateau. But this is without doubt the only book on the Indo-Aryan debate that I can wholeheartedly recommend without too many qualifiers. It's the perfect foundation for, if you desire, learning more about one particular side of the fence, building your own ideas or diverging into alternative theories altogether.Apart from being impressed by the way he's handled such a complex topic, I feel it is an excellent case study in how to play fair and correctly represent all points of view, while also proposing your own opinions. On this last point, he has demonstrated the ancient Indian respect for proper argumentation and presentation better than even some current Indian thinkers do. i.e correctly quoting authority, source, commentators, paraphrasing with integrity and understanding, and then presenting your interpretations or refinements respectfully. This attitude is seen even in his excellent translation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.Almost docked a star as it sorely needs an update with sections on the recent genetic studies and other archaeological finds. But since that is not exactly the author's fault, it seemed like nitpicking!

I recommend this book to everybody interested in Ancient history, Indian history, and historiography. The book is very well written, extremely informative, and also objective and neutral. Another book of the same calibre that I highly recoommend is Koenraad Elst's "Update on the Aryan invassion debate".There are many other books in addition that one should read, including Talageri's "the Rigveda", Nicholas Kazanas' works, and the books by B.B. Lal on the topic.

Painstaking and conscientious it is but there is nothing new. It is a summary of secondary literature on the subject. One will only learn what others haven writing about this vexed issue without adding anything new. This is understandable since the author knows neither science nor languages other than English. So he is limited to reviewing what others have written in English. There is no discussion of important topics like recent developments in natural history and population genetics.

Il testo è una ristampa fatta in Italia del testo originale in inglese che sicuramente per ragioni commerciali e di risparmio, è stata fatta con caratteri così piccoli da renderlo faticosamente leggibile anche con gli occhiali, (per capirci circa grandezza bugiardino medicine) di conseguenza con grande affaticamento della vista.Tutto ciò inficia ovviamente il piacere e il desiderio della lettura.

Very good read

Bryant bravely undertook a review of a hotly contested subject and I am very impressed with his ability to navigate it with dignity and fairness. He is a well respected Sanskrit scholar, and as such is well informed about the difficulties and debates that abound in the scholarly field and beyond about who wrote the Vedas and when. He undertakes a review of the literature and fairly makes his assessment. Everyone interested in the topic should read this. A shame it is so expensive.

Bryant explained the work on reconstruction of the history of the Subcontinent South Asia since last two hundred years. Since ancient Indian were very poor to record their history, what we know today about Indo-Pak is the result of efforts by Philologists, Linguists, Archaelogists to piece togather the history of the Subcontinent. Recently, scholars in India started questining the Aryan Migration theory. Bryant presented point of views of Indigionists very well. I enjoyed this book, and it strenthen my view as Migrationist. Farhat Gurdaspuri

I am very anti AIT person. However this book has given me more deeper insight on the views of the Pro-AIT (now called the AMT) Scholars. Thought It hasn't convinced me to change my mind regarding the fallacy of the AMT theory, I am willing to concede some ground on some of the point raised by the pro-AMT on linguistics and the discrepancies between the Indus valley beliefs and Vedic literature.very thoroughly researched work by Ed Bryant