Aryan /ˈɛərjən/ is an English language loanword derived from the Sanskrit ārya ('Noble').^[1][2][3] In present-day academia, the terms "Indo-Iranian" and "Indo-European" have, according to many, made most uses of the term 'Aryan' minimal, and 'Aryan' is now mostly limited to its appearance in the term "Indo-Aryan" to represent (speakers of) North, West and Central Indian languages.

Western notions of an "Aryan race" rose to prominence in late-19th and early-20th century racialist thought, an idea most notably embraced by Nazi ideology (see master race). The Nazis believed that the "Nordic peoples" (who were also referred to as the "Germanic peoples") represent an ideal and "pure race" that was the purest representation of the original racial stock of those who were then called the Proto-Aryans.^[4] The Nazis declared that the Nordics were the true Aryans because they claimed that they were more "pure" (less racially mixed with non-native Indo-European peoples) than other people of what were then called the Aryan peoples (now generally called the Indo-European peoples).^[5]

Etymology[link]

Usage of Aryan[link]

Scholarly usage[link]

• Indo-Iranian languages (Indo-Aryan (Indian) and Iranian)^[2][6][7]

Contemporary usage[link]

• Among Hindu nationalists, the Hindu/Indian people ^[8][9][10]

Dated usage[link]

• The "Aryan race" taken to correspond to the original speakers of Indo-European languages and their present day descendants.^[11]
• within the ideology of white supremacy, the "White race", i.e., Caucasians who are native Indo-Europeans of the Western or European branch of the Indo-European peoples, as opposed to the Eastern or Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European peoples.

Derivation of the word "Aryan"[link]

The English word "Aryan" is borrowed from the Sanskrit word ārya meaning 'Noble';^[1] it was used initially as a national name to designate the worshippers of the Hindu deities and especially Indra according to Brahmanical principles (performance of sacrifice, Yajna).^[1][12] The Zend airya 'venerable' and Old Persian ariya are also considered as national names.^[1][13]

In colloquial English, the word has been adopted in accordance with Nazi racial theory's appropriation of the term to describe persons corresponding to the "Nordic" physical ideal of Nazi Germany (the "master race" ideology).^{[n 1]}

In Iranian context the original self-identifier lives on in ethnic names like "Alani", "Ir".^[15] Similarly, The word Iran is the Persian word for land/place of the Aryans^[16](see also Iranian peoples).

Possible derivations from Proto-Indo-European[link]

According to a 1957 theory by Laroche, Indo-Iranian ar-ya- descends from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root *ar "to assemble skillfully", present in Greek harma "chariot", Greek aristos, (as in "aristocracy"), Latin ars "art", etc. Thus, according to this theory, an Aryan is "one who skillfully assembles". Proto-Indo-Iranian *ar-ta- was a related concept of "properly joined" expressing a religious concept of cosmic order.^[17]

Various attempts to find an etymon are as follows:

• Before 1950 – all are reductions of the historical variety to an original unity:^{[clarification needed]}
  • Bopp (1830): ar- "to go, to move", read as "one who roams" (like a nomad)
  • Müller (1862): ar- "to plough", read as "cultivator of the land" ^[18]
  • Güntert (1924): ar- "to fit", read as "allied, friendly"
  • Thieme (1938): ar- "to give, allot, share", read as "hospitable"
• After 1950 – all treat the autonym as distinct from similar-looking words:^{[clarification needed]}
  • Laroche (1957): ara- "to fit", read as "fitting, proper"
  • Dumézil (1958): ar- "to share", read as a uniting property of "appartenant au monde aryen"
  • Bailey (1959): ar- "to beget", read as "born, nurturing"
  • Benveniste (1969): ar- "to fit", read as "companionable"

A review of these and numerous other ideas, and the various problems with each is given by Oswald Szemerényi.^[19]

Usage and adaptation in other languages[link]

In Indian/Sanskrit literature[link]

In Sanskrit and related Indic languages, Arya refers to one who does Noble deeds . Āryāvarta (Sanskrit: आर्यावर्त, "abode of the Aryans") is a name for Northern India in classical Sanskrit literature. The Manu Smriti (2.22) gives the name to "the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the eastern to the Western Sea"^[20]The title of Arya was used with various modifications throughout the Indian Subcontinent. Kharavela, the Emperor of Kalinga around 1 BCE is referred as an Arya in the Hatigumpha inscriptions of the Khandagiri–Udaigiri cave complex in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. The Gurjara Pratihara rulers in the tenth century was entitled as Maharajadhiraja of Āryāvarta ('the lord of great kings of the land of the Aryans').^[21] Various Indian religions, chiefly Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism use the term Arya as an epithet of honour and it occurs as such in their religious texts and groups such as the Arya Samaj.

In the Ramayana and Mahabharata, Arya is used as an honorific for many characters including Hanuman and Ravana.

In Iranian literature[link]

Unlike the several meanings connected with ārya- in Old Indic, the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning.^[22][23] That is in contrast to Indian usage, in which several secondary meanings evolved, the meaning of ar- as a self-identifier is preserved in Iranian usage, hence the words "Iran"/"Iranian" themselves. Iranian airya meant and means "Iranian", and Iranian anairya ^[13][15] meant and means "Un-Iranian".Arya may also be found as an ethnonym in newer Iranian languages, e.g., Alan/Persian Iran and Ossetian Ir/Iron^[15]

The name Iran, Iranian is itself equivalent to Aryan, where Iran means "land of the Aryans,"^{[6][13][13][15][23][24][25][26]} and has been in use since Sassanid times^[24][25]

The Avesta clearly uses airya/airyan as an ethnic name (Vd. 1; Yt. 13.143-44, etc.), where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi; daiŋˊhāvō "Iranian lands, peoples", airyō.šayanəm "land inhabited by Iranians", and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi; dāityayāfi; "Iranian stretch of the good Dāityā", the river Oxus, the modern Āmū Daryā.^[23] Old Persian sources also use this term for Iranians. Old Persian which is a testament to the antiquity of the Persian language and which is related to most of the languages/dialects spoken in Iran including modern Persian, Kurdish, Gilaki and Baluchi makes it clear that Iranians referred to themselves as Arya.

The term "Airya/Airyan" appears in the royal Old Persian inscriptions in three different contexts:

1. As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius the Great in Behistun
2. As the ethnic background of Darius in inscriptions at Naqsh-e-Rostam and Susa (Dna, Dse) and Xerxes in the inscription from Persepolis (Xph)
3. As the definition of the God of Aryan people, Ahuramazda, in the Elamite version of the Behistun inscription.^[13][15][23]

For example in the Dna and Dse Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as "An Achaemenian, A Persian son of a Persian and an Aryan, of Aryan stock".^[27] Although Darius the Great called his language the Aryan language,^[27] modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian^[27] because it is the ancestor of modern Persian language.^[28]

The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by the Greek sources".^[23] Herodotus in his Histories remarks about the Iranian Medes that: "These Medes were called anciently by all people Arians; " (7.62).^[13][15][23] In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Aryans.^[29] Eudemus of Rhodes apud Damascius (Dubitationes et solutiones in Platonis Parmenidem 125 bis) refers to "the Magi and all those of Iranian (áreion) lineage"; Diodorus Siculus (1.94.2) considers Zoroaster (Zathraustēs) as one of the Arianoi.^[23]

Strabo, in his "Geography", mentions the unity of Medes, Persians, Bactrians and Sogdians^[6]:

The name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations.

— Geography, 15.8

The trilingual inscription erected by Shapur's command gives us a more clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian and Greek. In Greek the inscription says: "ego ... tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi" which translates to "I am the king of the Aryans". In the Middle Persian Shapour says: "I am the Lord of the EranShahr" and in Parthian he says: "I am the Lord of AryanShahr".^[24][30]

The Bactrian language (an Middle Iranian language) inscription of Kanishka the founder of the Kushan empire at Rabatak, which was discovered in 1993 in an unexcavated site in the Afghanistan province of Baghlan clearly refers to this Eastern Iranian language as Arya^[31][32] In the post-Islamic era one can still see a clear usage of the term Aryan (Iran) in the work of the 10th century historian Hamzeh Isfahani. In his famous book "the history of Prophets and Kings" writes: "Aryan which is also called Pars(Persia) is in the middle of these countries and these six countries surround it because the South East is in the hands China, the North of the Turks, the middle South is India, the middle North is Rome, and the South West and the North West is the Sudan and Berber lands".^[33] All this evidence shows that the name arya "Iranian" was a collective definition, denoting peoples (Geiger, pp. 167 f.; Schmitt, 1978, p. 31) who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that centered on the cult of Ahura Mazdā.^[23]

In Iranian context the original self-identifier lives on in ethnic names like "Alani", "Ir".^[15] Similarly, The word Iran is the Persian word for land/place of the Aryan^[16](see also Iranian peoples). In present-day academia, the terms "Indo-Iranian" and "Indo-European" have, according to many, made most uses of the term 'Aryan' obsolete, and 'Aryan' is now mostly limited to its appearance in the term "Indo-Aryan" to represent (speakers of) North, West and Central Indian languages. Notions of an "Aryan race" defined as being composed of those of the Western or European branch of the Indo-European peoples is used in the context of fascist nationalism, an ideology of nationhood defined by ancestry.

In Latin literature[link]

As an adaptation of Latin Arianus referring to Ariana, 'Arian' has "long been in English language use".^[34] Its history as a loan word began in the late 18th century, when the word was borrowed from Sanskrit ārya^[1] to refer to speakers of North Indian languages.^[34] When it was determined that Iranian languages — both living and ancient — used a similar term in much the same way (but in the Iranian context as a self-identifier of Iranian peoples), it became apparent that the shared meaning had to derive from the ancestor language of the shared past, and so, by the early 19th century, the word 'Aryan' came to refer to the group of languages deriving from that ancestor language, and by extension, the speakers of those languages.^[13]

In European languages[link]

Then, in the 1830s, partly based on the theory (now regarded as erroneous & completely baseless) that words like "Aryan" could also be found in European languages (such as the idea that "Éire" derived from "Aryan"), the term "Aryan" came to be used as the term for the Indo-European language group, and by extension, the original speakers of those languages. In the 19th century, "language" was considered a property of "ethnicity", and thus the speakers of the Indo-Persian or Indo-European languages came to be called the "Aryan race", as contradistinguished from what came to be called the "Semitic race". By the late 19th century, among some people, the notions of an "Aryan race" became closely linked to Nordicism, which posited Northern European racial superiority over all other peoples (including Indians and Iranians). This "master race" ideal engendered both the "Aryanization" programs of Nazi Germany, in which the classification of people as "Aryan" and "non-Aryan" was most emphatically directed towards the exclusion of Jews.^{[35][n 2]} By the end of World War II, the word 'Aryan' had become associated by many with the racial theories and atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.

History[link]

Before the 19th century[link]