Lactose tolerance, the ability to digest milk sugar into adulthood, is a genetic mutation that arose among pastoralists in Eurasia, who tamed the horse for its milk, around 5000 BC. By 3000 BC, they spread to Europe and by 1000 BC to South Asia. These were the same people who spread their language, patriarchy, and technologies—horse-drawn spoked-wheel chariots and composite bows—across continents. The Rig Veda and the Mahabharata echo this Steppe inheritance. Rig Veda and Mahabharata tell stories of North India, where 80 per cent of adults can digest lactose. In the south, only 20 per cent can.
Yet a recent map on the internet claimed that the Mahabharata war involved the entire subcontinent, from the Himalayas to the southern seas. This is a political fantasy. The epic itself never mentions the rivers Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, or Kaveri. Its geography is much narrower: Hastinapur in western Uttar Pradesh, Kurukshetra in Haryana, Matsya near Jaipur, Trigarta in Punjab, Panchala between the Ganga and Yamuna. Horses came from Sindh, Madra, and Gandhara; elephants from Magadha. The events took place long before the Brahmin migration to South India after 300 AD, an event captured in the myth of Agastya and proven by the presence of Brahmin land-grants (brahmadeya).
In Jain retellings, the war is not even between Pandavas and Kauravas of Haryana but between Krishna of Dwarka (Gujarat) and Jarasandha of Magadha (Bihar) over Mathura—a trade war between western and eastern powers for control of the Ganga-Yamuna routes. Archaeology supports a great flood around 800 BC at Hastinapur, echoed in the Purana story of Nichakshu, who moved the capital after the deluge.
Krishna’s bow Sharanga, made of horn, indicates a composite weapon typical of the Eurasian steppes around 1500 BC. The chariot of Arjuna with spoked wheels and horse power reflects the same technology seen in Egypt, Greece, and China, in the late Bronze Age. Late Vedic Brahmana texts say elephants were tamed in India around 1000 BC, and the Puranas place the Nanda dynasty of Magadha roughly 25 generations after the great war—suggesting that the Mahabharata events were remembered from around 1000 BCE. This is when South India was famous for Megalithic sites, where iron was smelted.
Claims that the “Mahabharata chariot” found at Baghpat, dated to 1800 BCE, as proof of the war are misplaced. The vehicle has solid wheels—too heavy for early horses, fit only for oxen—just like the wagons depicted in Oxus (Central Asian) civilisation artefacts.
The war as originally told knew of chariots but not horse riders—for cavalry emerged in the Near East only after 700 BC and came to India with Alexander’s armies around 350 BC. The story of the war expanded over a millennium, absorbing later additions. Tribes like Shakas and Kushanas, who appeared in India around 100 BC and 100 AD, are mentioned by later scribes of the Mahabharata. As Brahmins moved south seeking royal patronage, they carried the Mahabharata with them. Southern kings soon claimed connection to the northern war. Chera rulers of Kerala said they fed the Kurukshetra armies as did kings of Udupi. Pallavas of Kanchipuram claimed descent from Ashwatthama. These claims show the growing prestige of the epic and the desire of southern dynasties to be woven into the northern mythic fabric.
Those who argue that the Mahabharata was a pan-Indian nationalist war often support the discredited “Out of India” theory—the idea that Indo-European speakers spread from India to Iran and Europe. Their arguments rely on the ignorance of their audience. The Mahabharata links the region of Balkh (Central Asia) to the brother of Shantanu, ancestor of Pandavas and Kauravas, indicating the story-tellers were familiar with the trade route by which horses came into India, traded for local iron.
After 2010, scientists were able to analyse ancient DNA. These show that the so-called ‘Aryan’ gene (Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a-Z93) started entering India only five centuries after Harappan cities ceased to exist, so after 1500 BC. By 100 BC, it was widespread amongst Indo-Aryan-speaking North Indians where intermarriage was common. After 300 AD, it spread to the south, but still remains restricted amongst Brahmins and a few landed elites, due to strict caste endogamy rules that began around this time.
Thus, the genetic story matches the digestive and mythic one. Men from the Steppes brought their horses, chariots, milk-drinking habits, and patriarchal gods. They merged with local communities, married local women, descendents of Harappans. Their children composed the hymns of the Rig Veda and sang of the war at Kurukshetra. The warriors and their children may have been able to digest milk but their mothers would have preferred curds. In all probability, these mothers would have been the first to manufacture ghee, using butter from curds, as they still do in the south, not milk.