There are a whole series of standard opinions in the Indological literature, which are regarded as expressions of proven research results and are ado… - Maria Schetelich

Considering context and construction of the verses the term cited ‘dark skin’ should not merely be taken as a reference to the complexion of certain non-vedic people but as a quantity of its own, a symbolic expression for the darkness, the embodiment of the forces impairing the well-being of the Aryan tribes. As such, it fits into a complex of mythological motifs centered on the polarity of evil and good which plays an important role in the world-view of the Vedic tribes. Criterion for the qualification of a phenomenon as good was the relation to .society, religion and cult of the Vedic Aryan. As good the Rgvedic hymns classify the light, bright, goldencolourcd, the sun, heaven and large space, well-being and security, the right (religio-rnoral) norms and behaviour [suvrala), the arya or aryavarna Indra. Soma and their adoration by sacrificing to them, to the sphere of evil belong darkness, the night, the black colour, the unbelieving and non-sacrificing (to Indra and Soma) people, the dilsa, the dasyu, a bad or no vrata at all {apa- anya or avrata), the ‘black skin’, the depth, danger, narrowness. It was already in the middle of the former century that Christian Lassen qualified the opposition of arya and dasyu or dasa as a contrast between different religions expressed by the age-old symbolism of black opposed to white and not as a contrast of dark- complexioned to white coloured men.

And so a gap is definitely apparent: there is a lack of a scientific history of the term “Aryan” that would illuminate the entire breadth of meaning that the term has been given since its inception, and it is the classical Indologists familiar with the field of research who are in demand here.

This spreading of light is a frequent motif in Rgvedic hymns. The motif is worked out by the poets on two different levels, the human, and the super-human. On the human level it is the succour Indra lends to his adorants (the drya or dryavarm) in their combats against the non-vedic dasa-or dasyu tribes. On the super- human level, Indra’s (and the Aryan’s adversaries are evil-doing, demonical beings like Susna, Pipru, Vrtra, Vala, Sambara or the above-mentioned Arsasana. They also are called dasa or dasyu, their symbol is darkness, night, the depth, the lowest region of the world.