Upamanyu Das

Migration out of India seeded the ancient world. Two hills in southwest Ireland are named after a Rig Veda goddess. They are called the Paps of Danu. Every spring, farmers lit fires around them and drove cattle between the flames for protection. The Vedas describe the same ritual. Danu is the Rig Veda mother goddess of the flowing waters. Her name is written into the geography of half of Eurasia. The Danube. The Dniester. The Dnieper. The Don. The Donau. Greek Demeter. Northern Greeks once called themselves the Dannuni. In Ireland, the pre-Christian pantheon called itself the Tuatha de Danaan. Children of Danu. The mainstream story that pale steppe nomads invaded India around 1500 BC and imposed Sanskrit on a dying Indus Valley civilisation has been steadily dismantled over the last thirty years. The recent genetic and linguistic papers still cited in its defence describe contact at the edges, not replacement at the centre. The direction of travel runs the other way. Out of India, in pulses, over thousands of years. Iran took the name of the people, Aryans. Ahura Mazda is the Vedic Asura. The magi are the Vedic magoi. The Germanic and Slavic pulse moved overland from the ninth millennium BC. They carried the sky-father Dyaius, who became Tyr in Scandinavia, Zeus in Greece, Deus in Rome. The Italo-Celtic pulse moved by sea from the seventh millennium. When the Celtic branch turned up the Atlantic coast around 5,400 BC, it left place names all the way from Iberia to Ireland. Portugal. Galicia. Gaul. Pays de Galles. Cornwall. Galloway. Galway. Then the Sarasvati river dried around 2000 BC. A military wave moved west into the Near East. The Kassites ruled Babylonia for 500 years. The Mitanni signed a treaty with the Hittite king Suppiluliuma in 1380 BC swearing by Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas. Four Vedic gods, on a Hittite tablet, thirteen centuries before the earliest date the invasion theory allows for the Vedas. The Greeks came in the same window. Zeus is Dyaius. When Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush he met people at Nysa claiming descent from Dionysus. Some of their heroes, they said, had come this way. Link to full Substack essay, with sources, in the comments below.