By Avtk. Anandarama Ac.
The above picture shows the Aletsch Glacier viewed from Eggishorn at Fiesch, Valais, Switzerland.
Avadhutika Anandarama Acarya
The Alps are formed by the African and Eurasian plates which have been moving towards each other since 700 million years. The continental plates pushed to mountain heights and enclosed the Tethys Sea. The position of the Alpine mountains by 50 million years ago looked quite similar to that of today. Over time the mountains eroded and the valleys filled up so that now the highest peaks are half as high as the much recent Himalayas of 30 million years.
This ancient mountain range with snow and glaciers are the source of water for several main rivers and over fifty lakes. Major European rivers flow from the Alps, such as the Rhine, the Rhône, the Inn that flows into the Danube, and the Ticino that flows into the Po. They flow in all four cardinal directions from Switzerland into neighbouring countries, finally emptying into the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. The Danube is not far from the Alps and passes at the foot of the Swabian Alb of Germany and flows through ten countries to the Black Sea touching the Caucasus. The Alpine range is 1,200km long and 200km wide with several peaks reaching 4,000 meters. The Alpine highlands and valleys are in several of today’s countries – Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, Austria and Slovenia.
In 1979, Shrii Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar started his world tour in Switzerland. He was taken high up the mountains to the idyllic resort of Fiesch near the Aletsch Glacier, not far from the sources of Europe’s four great rivers.
Sitting on the snow, overlooking the Aletsch Glacier, Shrii P. R. Sarkar told, that the Alps were very old and were originally higher than the Himalayas. He highlighted the importance of the Alps as an ideal place for meditation (Master Units) and that its inhabitants are simple, honest and peaceful. This is echoed in their national anthem addressing God directly as they sense Him in the crimson dawn over the snowcapped mountains.
On an audio recording Shrii P. R. Sarkar said, “…there is many a thing to say regarding this ancient Alpine civilization…” From notes of his disciples in the book Baba in Fiesch, he said, ‘We are now treading over the valleys of the Alpine Heights, where the first human beings were born in prehistoric days. It is one of the first places on earth where civilization started. This Alpine land was the original abode of the Aryans who lived in these valleys surrounded by the icy summits of the Alps. At first human civilization was located in the Alps in these hills and then due to climatic changes some human beings could not adjust to the cold and moved out in different directions. Their original language was Vedic.‘
This was a surprising statement and here is a glimpse into more explanations from his writings to this startling claim. In his book History along the Way, he writes,
The Aryans who are known today as Caucasians originated from Switzerland. To escape from the snow in Switzerland, they turned eastwards to the Caucasus region to seek refuge in the first lap of their journey.
In his volumes Shabda Chayanika, Shrii Sarkar gives an example of the root sound that eventually becomes a verb and transformed into nouns:
The meaning of the root r is “to move forward”, from which the word árya, Aryan is derived.
He further explains,
One meaning of the word ra, derived from the root verb r, is “one who moves forward”. In ancient times when people started using horses to pull carts, they used to cry out “ra!” to urge the horse to move forward. They used to say “ra-ra-ra!” and the horse moved forward. And when they said tha, they were telling it to stop (tha-tha-tha, i.e., sthá + d́a = stha → tha). That cart or carriage or vehicle was called ratha.
In Geology and Human Civilization, he writes,
The word Arya has come from the root verb r plus suffix yat meaning “double march” or “moving speedily.”
In another book Psycho-Acoustic and Inferential Acoustic Notes, Discourse 9, Varńa Vijiṋána, he explains the word ‘Aryan’, while referring to the Aryans already not only from the Alps and Europe but also distinctly from the Caucasus as their home land. And furthermore, he is mentioning how the Aryans evolved into three distinct groups by the time they entered Northern India. He is also implying that German has retained Vedic vocabulary:
The Nordic people have high noses, blond hair, ruddy complexion and are tall in stature. The Alpine people are relatively short in stature. They are not so ruddy in complexion, have bluish hair and blue eyes. The Mediterranean people are fair-complexioned with black hair, black eyes and are somewhat shorter than the Alpine people. The collective name for these three branches is Aryan. The English word Aryan comes from German and originally from the Vedic word árya. As far as it can be determined, the word árya comes from the Vedic verbal root r which means “to cultivate” or “to plough”, so the meaning of the word árya becomes “that person or community whose culture thrives through cultivation”. The original homeland of the Aryans was Europe and the areas lying near the Caucasian mountains in central Russia. In northwest India and in Kashmir there is a good number of people of Aryan lineage, however their numbers in the rest of India is quite insignificant. The few who are there are mostly of mixed blood. Trying to search and pick them out would be quite difficult.
In Ananda Vacanamrtam Part 15, he explains how the Aryans upon entering Iran on their spreading over continents, named the land as their country. While in Iran, they discovered an abundance of food materials, and the climate was also congenial. Hence, they liked that place very much. When these people were moving and moving joyfully, they named their country Aryanavraja – that is, the Aryans lived in that country happily. Aryanavraja got changed in the ancient Iranian language into Iranveja. At present it is Iran.
Those who assert that the Iran is the land of the Aryans, are correct in this sense. Some clans of Aryans settled and mingled with the locals. It is noteworthy that the root verb r was later used also for the verb ‘to cultivate’ and ‘to plough.’ This must have been at the time of the development of agriculture which they started to some extent in the Caucasus region and more extensively in Anatolia and Iran during the Neolithic period. The Aryans trickled into India over several thousand years in smaller groups long before Shiva’s time of 7000 years and in time in increasingly larger groups, mostly from the Mediterranean, after Shiva’s era.
In Discourses on the Mahabharata, Shrii P. R. Sarkar further elaborates how the word Aryan changed,
In the Vedic age the expression of address was Bho árya – árya means respectable. In the Mahábhárata age (1500 BCE), that is, in Prákrta, árya became ájja. In the Shaorasenii language, the natural language of Krśńa, the grandmother of Hindi (which is a matter of glory for Hindi) árya became ájja. After that, when Shaorasenii died, ájja became ájjii in Ardha Shaorasenii, the mother of Hindi. Ájjii became jii in present Hindi.
But let us revert back to the ancient prehistoric origins of the ‘ancient Alpine civilization’ as Shrii Sarkar respectfully addresses our early European ancestors. The Alps were an area that was accessible and ideal for supporting life, as it is today, a sheltering abode in warm periods and in cold intervals people could move into the lowlands along the river.
Early civilizations started in the mountains where small clans were protected in caves or overhanging rocks, near boulders, in small valleys and favorable open hills where they could see far and could fight off wild animals and hostile groups. With time they moved along the rivers down to the plains to the big river deltas and beyond.
Considering Shrii Sarkar’s outstanding claim about the Aryans and their Vedic language originating in the Alps, we must reach far back into prehistory and imagine that it is well possibility that the early homo species found a congenial living space in the Alps and from there spread throughout Europe. All the archaeological findings of our human evolution in Europe of the Neanderthals, the Cro Magnon and other Homo sapiens are termed by him as the ‘Ancient Alpine Civilization’ in honor of their achievements after hundreds of thousands of years.
There are wonderfully researched fossils and tools in various places, from Iberia to Russia and the Caucasus. Eventually one Homo sapiens species survived, adapted to changes, developed intelligence and gained skills to advance step by step. They were forced by natural conditions to live in groups to fend better for themselves, to form early society and move to new horizons. In the last glacial period (LGP) of 125,000 years ago until 14,000 years ago, this Alpine source population could have survived in sparsely wooded areas and on the grass steppe in the valleys and low lands while avoiding dense forest cover.
Between the northern edge of the ice cover and the Alpine ice layer there were the lowlands of the Alps, the open wide steppe with grass stretching from Western Europe to the Caucasus and the Ural Mountains. This tundra like landscape was full of grazing animals and nearly empty of people. There were the wild animals, mammoth, reindeer, aurochs, rhinoceros, bison, wild horses, marmot, snow-hen, snow-hare and red deer. The ibex and chamois were higher up in the Alps. Most of the animals were grass eaters, even the cave lions. The early clan societies lived in this vast stretch of land from west to east Europe. Their lives were fully occupied with hunting and gathering edibles. They were dominated by constant fear of survival.
Women folk lived together and the women who gave birth to new clan members were revered. They struggled to improve their ability to produce fire and to cook their food and heal their sick members. Their food became more palatable by roasting it over fire or boiling it in animal hide. This contributed to their body energy and better health and improved intellect. They invented the bone needle to make clothes to cover their bodies and even produced intricate jewelry some 40,000 years ago.
Due to necessity the men invented useful skills, tools and weapons and eventually became the celebrated clan leaders. Leaders controlled and made rules. The more organized they were the more their clans benefitted. Strong and skillful members could protect the clan mothers and children.
The oldest hunting weapons in the world found until today were discovered in Schoeningen, Germany (near Timmern where Shrii Sarkar visited). The spears were well preserved for 300,000 years and astonishingly skillfully made for the purpose of hunting from a distance. They are testi-mony of the earliest humans living in this wide area.
Many more traces of their presence were found in wider Europe from 50,000 years ago, such as tools made of stone, bones and deer antlers and jewelry. These cultural activities have been classified as archaeological industries named after the sites of findings. Some cultures stretched over vast areas and over thousands of years. The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation about 40,000 years ago. The Venus of Willendorf in Austria is dated to 30,000 years ago and a similar small figurine out of mammoth ivory called the Venus of Hohle Fels is from a cave near Schelklingen of the Swabian Alb, near Ulm. This figurine was a pendant venerating the clan mother as the giver of life. Other figurines of the matriarchal antiquity have been found in various places in Europe such as the Venus of Lespugue, Venus of Laussel, Venus of Dolní Věstonice and the Venus of Brassempouy. In the Vogelherd cave near Stetten, Germany a small wild horse figurine made out of mammoth ivory was found and dated to be 35,000 years ago. Also in the in Hohle Fels cave and the Geissenklösterle cave near Blaubeuren they found flutes made of swan, vulture and mammoth bones, 35,000 to 43,000 years old.
There is no doubt that a subtle form of artistic creative intellect of these forebears was at work. The Lionman from Hohlenstein in Germany is another testimony to cultural expression dating back 40,000 years. This figurine may have been a symbol of their thoughts on incorporating transpersonal shamanism.
There are about 350 caves in Europe many with beautiful cave art that depicts animals and scenes of their lives. In those caves over thirty abstract symbols are recurring. In the Grotta del Cavallo in Chieti, Abruzzo Italy fossils identified as human teeth, dated to 45,000–43,000 years ago, are thought to be the oldest known remains of modern humans in Europe.
Some of the magnificent cave paintings in France, Northern Spain and the Iberian Mediterranean Basin tell of refined artistic ability. There are many caves in Calabria, such as of El Castillo caves at Puente Viesgo, which date back to 40,000 years ago and tell of ancient people. The beautiful art at Altamira from 37,000 years ago is a sign of advancement of our early human family. The Chauvet caves in France date back to 36,000 years and have beautiful art work. The under-water cave of Cosquer near Marseille, France is stunning, showing unusual sea animals besides the land animals, 27,000 years old. The world’s oldest known portrait was found in the Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême and is thought to be 27,000 years old.
Solutre was a place near the Alps where relatively advanced flint tool-making was found in a cave with 20,000 years of occupation. The ancient industry was at its peak from around 22,000 to 17,000 years ago. It includes tools, ornamental beads and bone pins as well as prehistoric art. The most impressive Lascaux cave paintings of 17,000 years ago in southwestern France may have been painted by those Alpine Aryans who didn’t migrate to the Caucasus during the height of the Ice Age but remained in the shelter of the caves and milder areas of coastal Iberia and south-west France.
In Fiesch, on casual walks, Shrii Sarkar talked on different occasions about the fabulous culture of Atlantis. He said that old Atlantis was a very vast continent, stretching from Iberia to Iceland. It is now underwater except for parts of Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Iceland. The Bay of Basque was originally a part of Atlantis that’s why it is so shallow. Shrii P. R. Sarkar then added that Atlantis was a developed culture and that the Basque people and their culture have a link with Atlantis. It would be possible to find proof of Atlantis by studying the flora and geology of the Basque country, especially around the Bay of Biscay. There should be cultural, geological, zoological and other surveys along the Iberian coast, so that some new clues may be found about Atlantis. He casually told that the society of Atlantis may have been physically advanced to survive but mentally they were still primitive and could not get along and caused their own destruction.
Atlantis must have existed before a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami swept it under water most probably around 11,600 years ago, a date for the great flood myths told by many cultures.
The Alpine Aryans moved on in the flow of natural nomadic evolution and steadily advanced in their psychic development through constant struggle and fight against all adversities.
During the last maximum glaciation (LMG) in the Alps around 22,000 years ago, when the temperature dropped, the majority of the ancient Alpine civilization clans could have moved towards the east hoping for a warmer climate to follow the thought of Shrii Sarkar saying that due to the cold, they moved on to the Caucasus. A few clans may have taken shelter in caves of Europe. Others moved closer to coastal lands of France, Basque, Iberia and the Mediterranean region. From 37,000 to 14,000 years ago, the population of Europe consisted of a small number of isolated clans descended from the ancient Alpine founding population.
Thus, the wider Caucasus area became their second home and today the original ancient Alpine civilization are mostly known as the Aryans originating in the Caucasus. They settled in the Caucasus region up to the Ural Mountains. Shrii Sarkar more often refers to the Aryans as originating in Europe and the Caucasus.
The original homeland of the Aryans was Europe and the areas lying near the Caucasian mountains in central Russia. (Psycho-Acoustic and Inferential Acoustic Notes, Discourse 9, Varna Vijinana)
The original home of the Aryans was southern Russia, west of the Ural Mountains, now known as the Caucasus. (Developmental Planning, Prout Economics)
The original homeland of the Aryans was Central Asia, in the central and southern portion of modern USSR. (A Few Problems Solved, 5)
The Aryans were people of cold countries, the people of the Caucasus region of Russia. (Ananda Vacanamrtam, 15)
The wider Caucasus includes the geography of the Ponto-Caspian region with its flora and fauna of temperate steppe lands. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea to as far east as the Caspian Sea, from Bulgaria in the southeast to Romania in the northeast through Moldova, Ukraine and Southern Russia. It includes the Caucasus Mountain region, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the lower Volga Basin, southern Ural area and western Kazakhstan. It is bordered by the East European and Russian forest steppe to the north which is a transitional zone of mixed grasslands and temperate broadleaf forests when not under ice.
Pockets of clans of the ancient Alpine civilization stock had disbursed throughout Europe many thousands of years ago and had remained in these areas. Artifacts have been found in south-central and eastern Europe at the site of Brno-Bohuniace, Stranska skala, Bacho Kiro, at the Temnate Kave in Bulgaria, Dzierzyslaw, in Poland and others dating back to 43,000 to 26,000 years ago.
The Szeleta culture in Austria, in Moravia, northern Hungary and southern Poland are dated between 41,000 to 37,000 years ago. Similar findings were made at the Russian Kostyonki and Borshchyovo sites on the western middle bank of the Don River near the city of Voronezh.
Three people buried 32,000 years ago at Sungir, two hundred kilometers east of Moscow, were adorned in a grave with spears, clothing and more than 13,000 items of ivory-beaded jewelry which would have taken 10,000 hours to produce. Red ochre, an important ritual material associated with burials at this time, covered the burials. They are closely connected to the remains found at Kosteni and Vestonice in the Czech Republic from 26,000 years ago. The largest Paleolithic sculpture of a bison and two Venus figurines made from mammoth ivory were found in Zaraysk near Moscow from 20,000 years ago.
There are many sites in this area with traces of developed people. At Kamyana Mohyla, north of the Black Sea in the Ukraine, there is a large stone kurgan, similar to many kurgans in the south Ural-Caucasus area. According to Dr. Shilov in his book Ancient History of Aratta-Ukraine this is a sanctuary-observatory that has over sixty underground caves with over a thousand of ancient petro-glyphs with symbolic, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images. The oldest dating back 14,000 years depicts a mammoth. The petroglyphs call this place Shu-nan in their land of Aratta according to A.G. Kafishin, a Ukrainian scholar who was specialized in Sumerian culture. He could see a connection between the petroglyph at this place dating between 9,000 to 24,000 years ago and the Sumerian encoded texts of 5,000 years ago. According to him the culture of Sumer has its origins here predating the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures by several thousands of years. The petro-glyphs tell an elaborate story of our ancient ancest-ors, about their life, rituals, social codes and social structures. They depict scenes of their beliefs about the underworld, living world and heaven. An ancient inscription on a mammoth skull from the site of Mezhyrich dates back to 20,000–14,000 years ago.
The oldest swastika in the world was found at Mezine, Ukraine. It was carved on a bird figurine made of mammoth bone dated to 15,000 years ago.
The Vedic language of the ancient Alpine civilization advanced with their struggle; their vocabulary expanded as they lived and moved. By the time they arrived and had been settled in the Caucasus area for a few thousand years their language had achieved maturity of expression.
When the Aryans began to spread out in all directions from their original homeland, their vocabulary also began to develop and their language began to flourish. (The Faculty of Knowledge)
Humanity’s journey on the path of civilization started only 15,000 years ago. This can be inferred from the fact that human beings began evolving language around this time. (Geology and Human Civilization.”)
The ancient Vedic language, which was originally spoken in central Russia by the Aryans, gradually developed as the Aryans moved from country to country, undergoing innumerable experiences and realizations as they went. The natural outcome was the enormous development of their vocabulary.(Faculty of Knowledge 1)
This enormous Vedic vocabulary was the gift of the Aryans to the local Sanskrit of ancient India which had evolved in Rarh, the cradle of civilization of ancient India also around the same time of 15,000 years ago. The Vedic language survived for 10,000 years only because it was carrying the spiritual message of the Vedas. By the time of its arrival in India the Vedic language was dying but its vocabulary was absorbed by Sanskrit which was systematized from 7000 years ago by Sadashiva to 2600 years ago by Panini. Vedic was an oral language until 5600 years ago when it was written down in the Indus Valley civilization.
The journey of the Vedic language began approximately 15,000 years ago and it attained its full development about 10,000 years ago. In other words, it walked its road for about 5000 years. In very ancient times the pace of language was very slow, so Vedic needed 5000 years of dedicated effort to attain maturity.
With regard to civilization, there has been little progress during the long span of 985,000 thousand years. All the progress has taken place within the last 15,000 years, from the time of the Rgveda, the oldest unwritten book of the world.
We can roughly say that civilization first started sprouting after the prehistoric age of the human race, that is, from the days of the first composition of the Rgveda, about 15,000 years ago. A major change took place during the days of Shiva (7000 years ago) towards the end of the Rgvedic period.
The composition of the Rgveda began about 15,000 years ago. Scripts were totally unknown in those days. It would not be incorrect to say that although the human race came onto the earth about a million years ago, its civilization started only about 15,000 years ago. This shows that human civilization and human culture are not very old in relation to the antiquity of the human race. We should not belittle civilization for being so recent, but neither can we venerate it as being very old. (Namah Shivaya Shantaya, Discourse 1)
The sages meditated and composed hymns invoking the divine powers in fire, wind and nature. The hymns were recited in strict meter and memorized by selected students. These hymns were called “Veda” or spiritual knowledge and new verses were added in the course of time. The oldest portion of the Veda is the Rgveda.
The composition of the Rgveda started 15,000 years ago and ended 5,000 years ago, thus the entire composition was done over 10,000 years. The Yajurveda between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago and the Atharvaveda between 7000 and 5,000 years ago.
From the study of history, it is known that the Rgveda was composed outside of India, mainly in Central Asia and Russia. The Yajurveda was written mostly outside of India (in Iran); only a portion was written in India. And the Atharvaveda was composed in Afghanistan and India. (Namah Shivayah Shantaya)
The Sámaveda is not a separate Veda by itself but is the compilation of the lyrical and musical portions of the different Vedas. By the time the Veda was written down only sixty percent of the Vedas remained, and forty percent was lost and will never be recovered.
Although the Rgveda is mainly concerned with hymns, it also contains various tales and anecdotes. While not all of these stories and tales carry equal spiritual value, they are representative of the cultural heritage of those ancient humans. They paint a portrait of the gradual advancement of human thinking and the structure of society. When considered from this pint of view, the language, literature and expression of the Rgveada is of special value to the world. (Shabda Chayanika, 2)
After the Younger Dryas, around 11,600 years ago there was congenial climate for disbursal and exploring new horizons. From the Caucasus, clans of Aryans moved in all directions, back to Europe, to the North, South and East.
The Aryans first moved from West Asia and migrated to different areas from the Black Sea to the Danube Valley and then to Central and West Europe. They advanced and settled in Iran, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa and Spain, and along the Mediterranean coast. They spread out from western France to the British Isles, and later spread to Afghanistan, the Indus Valley, the Red River Valley, and Korea and Japan in the Far East. (Human Society is One and Indivisible)
In Iran, sages composed the Yajurveda about 10,000 years ago which was more subtle and invoked one Supreme Being above all natural phenomena. It was the first conception of Monotheism. The Aryans came in contact with the indigenous Tantric civili-zation of ancient India as they moved further East.
The original Rgvedic civilization belonged, in spirit and language, to the non-Indian Aryans. However, the Yajurveda was composed by a particular branch of the Vedic Aryans who, when the Aryans later began to spread out in search of food (especially wheat), migrated to India via Iran (Áryańya Vraja) and Afghanistan. When we say “Indo-Aryan civilization”, we basically mean the civilization of these people. (Inception and evolution of the Vedas, Tantra and Indo-Aryan Civilization)
By the time of 7000 years ago there was a grand confluence of people at the foothill lands of the Himalayas, the food basket of the world, named Bharata Varsa (land that feeds its people) by the Aryans, holding the greatest number of people since ancient times and still does today.
There were huge clashes between the war-faring Aryans and the local Tantric civilization of the Tibetan-Chinese and the Austric-Dravidians of India. Lord Shiva emerged as a liberator and grand guide uniting all people under his epoch-making new cultural and social direction.
The ancient Alpine civilization evolved into the Vedic civilization of the Caucasus which evolved further on its way towards the East and finally experienced its climax in contact with Tantra and became transformed into the grand Indo-Aryan civilization at the heart of the ancient world. The modern Vedic age lingered on into the present age with various forms and colours. Shrii Sarkar needed to tell his story knowing that it is hard to research and find evidence into the hoary past. This tale of an extraordinary seer may be useful as a foundation and as a hypothesis to guide efforts of modern research in new directions.
Avadhutika Anandarama is a yogic nun and meditation teacher with the Ananda Marga order for the past fifty years. She has worked in SE Asia and in the Middle East in various Neohumanist education projects besides teaching meditation and related practices. Presently, she is assisting in the establishment of the Uma Nivas Women’s College in rural Purulia, India.
Published in Neohumanist Review, Issue 5, September 2025, pp 40-47.