The Aryans

But what of the modern Vedic perspective? Sri Aurobindo's book of 1967 is a good guide;

"ARYAN; He who does the work of sacrifice, finds the sacred word of illumination, desires the gods and increases them and is increased by them into the largeness of the true existence; He is the warrior of the light and the traveller of the truth. The Aryans are the thinkers of the world, 'mayamanah', holders of the thought, the thought-mind and the seer-knowledge. The Aryans are desirers of the god-head; they seek to increase their own being and the godheads in them by sacrifice, the word, the thought. To Indra, Agni, and Surya among the gods is especially applied the term ARYA, which describes with an untranslatable compactness those who rise to the Noble aspiration and who do the great labour as an offering in order to arrive at the good and the bliss". ['Key to Vedic Symbolism', Aurobindo]

ARYAN, ARIAN: Indo-European, also Indo-Iranian. From Sanskrit 'aryas' [Vedic 'aria'], 'Noble'. Applied earlier as a National name-cf. Latin 'Ariana', eastern region of Persian kingdom, Greek 'Arioi',Medes [in Herodotus], 'Ariane' [in Strabo], 'Arianoi'; cf. Avesta, 'Airyana', whence modern Iran. [Oxford Etymological Dictionary] posted by WilliamNietzsche Tuesday, December 20, 2005 at 10:28 AM