Mountstuart Elphinstone on Indigenous Aryans

“There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present.”

“It is opposed to their foreign origin that neither in the code [of Manu], nor, I believe, in the Vedas, nor in any book that is certainly older than the code, is there any allusion to a prior residence.”

“The common origin of the Sanscrit language with those of the west leaves no doubt that there was once a connection between the nations by whom they are used; but it proves nothing regarding the place where such a connection subsisted, nor about the time. (…) To say that it spread from a central point is a gratuitous assumption.”