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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

How do the comparative study of languages, archaeological sources and vast corpus of Vedic literature helps to determine the Aryan problem in Indian history. Discuss.

  • UPSC 2023
  • Aryans and Vedic Period

The "Aryan problem" — who the Vedic-speaking Aryans were, where they came from, and how they relate to the Indus civilisation's decline — has never been resolved by a single decisive discovery, because no one kind of evidence can answer it alone. Comparative philology reconstructs a language family but cannot identify the people who spoke…

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What the full answer covers

  • Clarifying the Term: A Linguistic Category, Not a Race
  • Comparative Philology: Mapping the Indo-European Family
  • Archaeology: Suggestive Correlations, No Decisive Proof
  • The Testimony of the Vedic Corpus Itself
  • Triangulation, Not Certainty

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