Aryan
The Aryans, far from being a "race," were speakers of Vedic Sanskrit in India, the earliest form of that classical Indo-European language. These people entered India from the northwest about 1500 BCE, and their descendants today form most of the population of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and northern India, although these people do not identify themselves primarily as Aryans.
The term arya in Sanskrit means "noble" and doubtless refers to these people's high position in the Iron Age society they established. This term has been used, and largely misused, by European writers since 1835 and has fallen into disfavor among scholars because of the Nazi propagandists' assumptions that a community of speakers was equivalent to a biological race and that the mixed populations of northern and central Europe were the purest representatives of an "Aryan race."
Aryan speakers were certainly a major civilizing force in India (as they were in Iran), though not the first. They built the cities of the north from about 700 BCE and laid the foundation for the liturgy and theology of Hinduism, the caste organization of Indian society, and the flowering of the first among many Indian literatures. Their mark has been indelible.
Further Reading
Burrow, Thomas. (1975) "The Early Aryans." In A Cultural History of India, edited by A. L. Basham. Oxford: Clarendon, 20–29.
Childe, Vere Gordon. ([1926] 1987) The Aryans: A Study of Indo-European Origins. Reprint ed. New York: Dorset.
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