00:00Historian Sam Dalrymple, son of the famous William Dalrymple, dropped a thread about
00:03the Hindu gods of ancient Syria. Gods like Indra, Mitra, Varuna and the Nasatyas popping
00:09up in ancient Syria around 1350 BCE. But is this proof of ancient Indian influence abroad
00:16or something more complex? First, the backstory.
00:21In the 14th century BCE, the Mitanni kingdom ruled parts of modern-day Syria. They were
00:26mostly Hurrian-speaking, but the elite, their kings and warriors had Indo-Aryan names and invoked
00:31Vedic-like gods in treaties. A famous example, a clay tablet from Hittite Mitanni Pisteel,
00:36discovered in 1913, lists Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas as witnesses. These aren't full-blown
00:43Hindu temples in Syria. It's more like a cultural overlay from Indo-Aryan migrants who brought
00:48chariot tech and these deities from the Horatian steppes, according to many experts.
00:52Sam Dalrymple's thread, posted on August 17th, went viral with over close to half a million views,
00:586,000 likes and tons of replies. He calls it evidence that Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest
01:03surviving Indo-European language, found not in India but Syria. Kings like Tushratha,
01:09from Sanskrit atvesharatha, meaning fearsome chariot and terns for horse training, scream
01:14Indo-Aryan routes. He links it to migrations via steppi routes to the Euphrates, the long
01:19West Asian river that flows through Turkey, Syria and Iraq. But here's where it gets spicy. The
01:25comments section is a battlefield of ideas. With nearly 100 direct replies and tons of sub-threads,
01:30people are praising the thread for shining light on ancient connections but others are calling out
01:35inaccuracies. Let's break down the main contentious points. Contention 1. Calling these Hindu gods versus
01:41Vedic ones. Dalrymple uses Hindu in the title, which some absolutely love for making it relatable to modern
01:47audiences. It shows continuity in Indian traditions like how Vedic roots feed into Hinduism today.
01:53On the flip side, critics slam it as having gotten the timelines wrong.
01:56Hindu is a term from much later that the term itself was coined post-Islam.
02:01They say these are pre-Rigvedic Indo-Aryan gods, so call them Vedic for accuracy.
02:06Contention 2. The Aryan Migration Theory. Dalrymple implies Indo-Aryans migrated from the
02:11steppies, bringing gods like Indra to Syria and later India. But the out-of-India crowd fires back
02:18hard. Vedic culture started in India, they see. Vedas describe rivers like Godavari, not European
02:22ones. They call Aryan invasion a bogus colonial construct to divide Indians. No evidence of mass
02:28invasions. Mitanni? Proof of Indian expansion westward. Contention 3. The Indo-European Language
02:34Family. Dalrymple hails Vedic Sanskrit as the oldest surviving Indo-European language. Fans agree,
02:40tablets in Syria prove its antiquity with shared roots across Europe and Asia.
02:45Europe, Rome came later where the family predates. Shocking location but solid evidence,
02:49they say. Detractors deny the whole family. Indo-European? Well, Europe did not exist in
02:54history till the Romans came in. They view the tweet as Eurocentric propaganda. Sanskrit is native
03:00and independent, they say. So yeah, that's the buzz around Dalrymple's thread. A reminder that history
03:05sparks passion and debate. Whether it's migrations, terminology or wild theories, it shows ancient
03:10cultural flows shaped our world. What side are you on? Drop your thoughts in the comments. Like,
03:15share and subscribe for more episodes like this one. I'm Anish Adhikari.
03:19Thank you for watching The Culture Project on more.
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