The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t2.28

c14.s1.t2.28

Finally, a third claim has been put forward by B. B. Lal on the basis of a very substantial body of evidence. If the story of the Aryans, as revealed by our literary sources, has any validity, it speaks of a people who established their first homeland in the valleys of Sarasvati and Drishadvati after consolidating their hold in the upper valleys of the Indus basin. It was in this Brahmavarta that... gave us the Rigveda. Gradually, they spread into the Gangetic basin. On the strength of his excavations at Hastinapur and his extensive exploration in the upper Gangetic basin, he found a pottery called the "Painted Grey Ware at the lower levels of a number of sites, associated with Indian literary tradition. Since these settlers formed part of the early Aryan stock in India, he ascribed this ware to the Aryans. "May it, however, be emphasized", warns the author, "that the evidence is entirely circumstantial and until and unless positive ethnographic and epigraphic proofs are obtained to substantiate the conclusions they cannot but be considered provisional."¹