Ario

relying on this erroneous view, present-day academia prefers the terms "Indo-Iranian" and "Indo-European" to "Aryan." The latter is now mostly limited to its appearance in the term "Indo-Aryan," to represent speakers of North, West and Central Indian languages.

Theosophical usage

H. P. Blavatsky protested against the erroneous use of the word "Aryan" by the scholars of her time (19th century) to denominate all Indo-European peoples. She argued that this term was traditionally used by the Indian Rishis and the Hindu Brahmins:

Ârya (Sk.) Lit., “the holy”; originally the title of Rishis, those who had mastered the “Âryasatyâni” (q.v.) and entered the Âryanimârga path to Nirvâna or Moksha, the great “four-fold” path. But now the name has become the epithet of a race, and our Orientalists, depriving the Hindu Brahmans of their birth-right, have made Aryans of all Europeans.

Ultimately, Blavatsky accepted the academic use of "Aryan" to denominate the Indo-European stock that constituted the fifth Root-Race. That she did this reluctantly can be seen in her statement, "the Fifth Root-Race [is] generally, though hardly correctly, called the Aryan race." In describing the variety of ethnicities included in this Root-Race, she wrote:

The Aryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are yet all of one and the same stock—the Fifth Root-Race.

Additional resources

• Aryan Race in Theosophy World