The concept of Arya or Aryan

The Indo-Europeans are called Aryans although the term arya is found mainly in the eastern Indo-European languages. This term may indicate the culture shared by the Avesta and the Rig Veda. The two terms Indo-Iranian and Indo Aryan does frequently used.The term Indo-Iranian is used to signify the undifferentiated language which was spoken by the Aryans comprise the Indians and Iranians before their separation. The term Indo-Aryan means the speech and its speakers who appear in India sometimes the term Proto-Indian is used to denote the same. The term arya occurs in both the Rig veda and avesta.Since Afghanistan was occupied by the Indo Aryans and the Iranian Aryans for some time a part of this country came to be known as Araiya or Haraiva.In the sixth century BC King Darius I of Persia called himself an Aryan. In the Rig Veda the term arya connotes a cultural community. Speakers of both the Indo Aryan and the Indo Iranian languages are called Aryans. The Avesta mentions the country of the Aryans where Zoroastrianism began. This might indicate the 'Aria' or 'Ariana'mentioned by classical writers. It covered a large area including Afghanistan and a part of Persia. It also included parts of Bactria and Sogdia to its north.Megasthenes speaks of Arianois as one of the three peoples inhabiting the countries adjacent to India.

In the Rig Veda the worshippers of Indra were called arya.When this text speaks of the struggle between the Aryans on the one hand and the dasas and the dasyus on the other it does not consider the former to be indigenous and the latter to be foreigners. The struggle takes place between two cultures one observing the vrata and the other violating it. At that stage there is no perception of India as a country or a nation and therefore the notion of indigenous and foreigner do not arise. On the basis of the colour of the skin some hymns of the Rig Veda show that Aryans to be a separate community. Their enemies are described as black skinned.

The Aryans are called Manusi Praja who worshipped Agni Vaisvanara and who sometimes set fire to the houses of black skinned people. It is also stated that the Aryan God Soma killed black people. But Bailey argues that all the references to the term arya in the Rig Veda cannot be taken in the sense of race or caste. The term arya means master or a person of noble birth in the Avesta and this meaning suit several references in the Rig Veda. Therefore those leaders of the Vedic tribes who are lauded in the Rig Veda under the appellation of arya were either prosperous or high born. In cattle rearing society they owed their prosperity to cattle wealth which could be better accumulated and preserved by the horse backed aristocracy. In the later Vedic and post Vedic times the term arya came to cover people of the three higher varnas who were also called dvija.The Sudras were never placed in the rank of the Aryans. The Aryans were considered to be free. The Sudras on the other hand were not free