PEGGY Mohan’s recent book—Wanderers, Kings, Merchants…The Story of India through its Languages—is a masterly exploration of a very complex subject. Those of us who know more than high school history and the colourful myths of itihas know that the well-watered but mostly sparsely populated lands of ancient India attracted scores of migrant tribes from the barren lands of Central Asia and the inhospitable jungles of Burma and beyond.
Many of us know that Dravidians, Aryas (not Aryans), Jats, Persians, Scythians, Parthians, Kushans and others came from the West. Some of us know that a few Thai and Shan tribes migrated from the East, but very few know that the Tibetan kingdom of Songsten Gampo once ruled huge tracts of modern Bihar and Bengal. Very few of us also know much about prehistoric ethnic groups like the first Negrito and Austroasiatic people who may have migrated from Africa through India about 57,000 years ago to reach East Asia and Australia from where some tribes may have migrated back to central India about 4,000 years ago. Few may also know the possible influence of ancient Acadian, Sumerian and other ancient cultures.
Most of what we know has been gleaned from archaeology that has tried to trace the evolution of human artefacts like pottery, coins, foods and weapons and from the more controversial science of DNA mapping. These findings have, however, often clashed with the myths of the land with its legends created by the vivid imagination of their numerous storytellers.
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