Despite vast evidence to the contrary, many textbooks in India keep referring to the ‘Aryan invasion’ from the West into the Indus Valley. Neither Vedic hymns dated to 1500 BCE nor Puranic chronicles dated from 300 CE speak of such a movement. But the Puranas are full of stories that speak of movements from the North to the South. It is never clear whether these movements from North to South are physical, or metaphorical.

The most obvious of these stories is the Ramayana which speaks of Ram of Ayodhya moving south where he encounters vanars or monkey people in Kishkinda (Deccan plateau) and then rakshasas in the far south.u00a0