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Dr. B. R. AMBEDKAR 

OPEN UNIVERSITY 

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H YDERABAD-500 033 



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CALCUTTA 



F>ul>liH<x:l lyy tKc Author 
F 
The 



13. 



To 

The sacred memory of my mother, 
Niroda Sundari Dutt 



PREFACE 

For the period following the rise of Buddhism in the sixth 
century B. C. Dr. Vincent A. Smith has prepared in his 
Early History of India a highway, which has placed the whole 
world of travellers in the field of ancient Indian history under 
a deep debt of gratitude. Unfortunately, for the pre-Buddhist 
period no such book has yet been published, which gives us an 
outline of the political history based on a workable chronological 
framework, without which no history of art, religion, or society, 
however immense the materials available, can be definitely 
given shape to, like flesh and blood without a skeleton. The 
result is that though no other period of Indian history has attracted 
the attention of so many scholars, and has such an immense 
mass of literature written upon it as the Vedic period, it yet 
remains one of the most bewildering periods of human history, 
the breeding ground of wildest theories and fantastic calculations. 
Besides, tradition as recorded in religious literature being 
the principal source of history for the period in question, preju- 
dices run strong among the writers on the subject, between 
those who exaggerate the value of tradition and those who 
cannot judge anything of ancient India except in relation to, 
or by the standard of, Greek history. 

The greatest stumbling-block in the way of a historian of this 
period is the difficulty of harmonizing the Vedic with Pauranic 
tradition regarding the order of kings and succession of events. 
It has been the practice of scholars generally to accept only the 
Vedic and reject the Pauranic tradition, and to declare that the 
Veda "stands quite by itself, high up on an isolated peak of 
remote antiquity." A notable exception is Mr. F. E. Pargiter, 
who, however, goes to the other extreme by attaching too much 
importance to Pauranic writings and unduly depreciating Vedic 
tradition* The work so far done is only preliminary, and arduous 
labours of scholars in collaboration are needed to carefully sift 
and co-relate the materials obtained from both the sources. For 
further light on the subject we must await the researches of 



archaeology, which is still in an undeveloped condition in India. 
As thanks to the excavations and researches in the Aegean 
regions the Trojan war is -gradually coming within the purview 
of history, it will not do to treat the stories of the Puranas and 
the Epics as all purely mythical, and they must be made to yield 
their contributions to the causeway connecting the dim, isolated 
Vedic period with the historical Buddhist period. And the 
Vedic period, too, which has so long been the scrambling ground 
of philologists, anthropologists and philosophers, should cease 
to be treated as beyond the jurisdiction of history. 

The purpose of this book is to present within a short compass 
a chronological and geographical framework for the political history 
of India for the Vedic and Epic periods, together with an in- 
telligible account of the Aryan conquests so far as it can be made 
out of the confused mass of literature published on the subject. 
I know that in the absence of archaeological evidences and of 
any literature of the native Dravidians of the period the history 
is bound to be highly imperfect. But, circumstanced as we are, 
we cannot neglect the materials existing with which to construct 
even an one-sided history, the version of the Aryan conquerors, 
like that of the so-called Pathan rulers of India in the absence of 
any writings of the conquered Hindus. 

I take this opportunity of expressing my deep gratitude to my 
senior and old teacher, Principal R. B. Ramsbotham, M. B. E., 
M, A., B. Litt, L E. S., the example of whose industrious, scholarly 
life, no less than his wise directions and kind words of encourage- 
ment, has always been a source of inspiration and stimulation to 
me in my work. My thanks are due to Prof. B. K. Goswarai Sastri, 
M. A., Ph. D., for various suggestions and valuable bits of infor- 
mation. 

HOOGHLY, N K- n 

August, 1925 . K. u. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. The Aryans i 

Aryan Theory Comparative Philology Comparative 
Mythology Comparative Ethnology Comparative So- 
ciology Is India the cradle of the Aryans India not 
the original home Central Asian Theory 

II. Coming of the Aryans 25 

How the Aryans entered India Hoernle's Theory of 
Second Invasion Hoernle's Theory supported- 
Hoernle's Theory criticised Chanda's Theory Second 
Invasion Theory not necessary Except in Maharastra 

HI. Date of Indo-Aryan Invasions 39 

Date of Panini Writing in India Divisions of Vedic 
Literature Sutra Period Brahmana Period Rigvedic 
Period Date of Indo-Aryan Immigrations Evidences 
of the Puranas Aryans in Western Asia Pre-Aryan 
Civilisation in the Punjab 

IV. Expansion of the Indo-Aryans the Dasyus 66 

Extent of Arya land in the Rigveda Extension during 
Brahmana Period Indo-Aryan Expansion from 800 
to 500 B, C Extent in the time of Alexander's inva- 
sion Characteristics of Dasyu Dravidians Pre-Dravi* 
dians 

V. Nature of Aryan Colonisation 85 

In the Punjab- In the Madhyadesha In Eastern 
India In the Deccan 

VI. Tribes and Kingdoms of the Rigveda ioa 

Bharata Puru Krivi, Srinjaya Anu, Druhyu, Yadu, 
Turvasha Matsya Chedi, Usinara Dasa Tribei 
Pani Divodasa Sudas Santanu and Devapi 



Vlil 

Chapter Page 

VII. Later Developments of Tribes and Kingdoms 1 10 

Kurus-Parikshit and Janamejaya Kuru-Panchalas 
Matsya Kosala-Videha Kasi Magadha Eponymous 
Ancestors Anus Druhyus Turvashas Yadus Hai- 
hayas-Treta Age Ikshakus and Yadavas Kuru- 
Pandavas-Dwapara Age Kurus.Kali Age Avanti 
Janakas of Videha Kasi-Kosala 

Appendix I 129 

Appendix II - 140 

Index 153 



CHAPTER I. 
THE ARYANS. 

It was a memorable moment when Sir 
William Jones observed in 1786 that the Sans- 
krit language, the language of Persia, 
n**** the language of Greece and Rome, 
the language of the Celts and Germans 
were all closely connected, so much so "that 
no philologer could examine them all without 
believing them to have sprung from some 
common source, which perhaps no longer 
exists' 1 . These observations laid the foundation- 
stone of Comparative Philology, which was 
placed on a scientific footing by Bopp in his 
Comparative Grammar about fifty years later. 
At once the hypothesis arose that the ancestors 
of the persons speaking these connected lan- 
guages belonged to one stock which once 
lived in one place and spoke one language, the 
parent of this group of languages. One of the 
most famous advocates of this hypothesis was 
Max Muller, who in his Lectures on the Science 
of Language in 1861 asserted that there was 
a time "when the first ancestors of the Indians, 
the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the 
Slavs, the Celts, and the Germans were living 



2 THE ARYANISATTON OF INDIA 

together within the same enclosures, nay, under 
the same roof," and that that place was Central 
Asia from where "the ancestors of the Indians 
and Persians started for the South, and the 
leaders of the Greek, Roman, Celtic, Teutonic, 
and Slavonic colonies marched towards the 
shores of Europe." Since then iconoclastic 
critics have appeared, and with the aid of the 
sciences of Comparative Ethnology and Archaeo- 
logy have tried to tear to pieces the conclusions 
of Comparative Philology and to disprove the 
assumption of the philologists that a relation- 
ship of language implies relationship of blood. 
One of the most bitter critics of the Aryan 
Theory was Oppert, according to whom, "there 
are Aryan languages but there is no Aryan 
race/* During the fourth quarter of the last 
century the pendulum continued swinging rapidly 
from one extreme to the other. To-day, how- 
ever, though the noise of conflict is still heard, 
the dust raised by the clash of combatants has 
somewhat subsided, and the atmosphere has 
become sufficiently clear to enable one to take 
a dispassionate view of the whole thing. 

Philologists since the times of Sir William 
Jones and Bopp have noticed that there is a 
great affinity between the Sanskrit, 
Iranian, Armenian, Slavonic, Lettic, 
Greek, Latin, Celtic, and Teutonic 
languages, and that this affinity is not due 



THE ARYANS $ 

to accident, or temporary contact, or mutua 
borrowing. Among the various members of 
this group of languages we find words with 
common roots for father, mother, brother, sister, 
daughter, son, father-in-law, and some other 
words denoting family relationship ; cow, horse, 
dog, waggon, yoke, door, mead, copper, etc. ; 
numerals up to ten and hundred ; pronouns 
like ine, thou, he ; verbs like to be, eat, lick, 
stay, sew ; particles like inter, pra, pari. "It 
is," as Muir says, "precisely those words and 
forms which are the most primitive, the most 
fundamental, the most essential parts of each 
language which they have in common." Again 
this affinity is observed not only in simple words 
but in many grammatical rules, such as declen- 
sion of nouns and conjugation of verbs. Hom- 
mel and Delitzsch seek to establish primitive 
relations between the Aryan and Semitic lan- 
guages by identifying several Semitic roots 
with Aryan. But a few such words, as Taylor 
observes, "are not enough to base a theory on ; 
the phonetic resemblances may be accidental, 
or the words may be very early loan words 
due to Phoenician commerce,., But even if 
these identifications be accepted, it would 
not suffice, as it would be also necessary to 
show an agreement of grammatical formative 
elements ; and it is universally admitted 
that in grammatical structure the Semitic 



4 THE ARYANISATION Of INDIA 

and Aryan languages differ fundamentally/ 9 
Hence it is seen that no fundamental resem- 
blance can be traced between any language 
of this group and the other languages of the 
world,such as Chinese, Arabic, Negro, Austra- 
lian. From these the philologists have come 
to the conclusion that the ancestors of most 
of the modern European nations, the Persians, 
and the Indians (non-Dravidian) at one time 
must have lived together and spoken one lan- 
guage from which their modern languages are 
all descended. The name Aryan is often given 
to this family of nations, as the ancient Persians 
called themselves by that name, and the authors 
of the Rigvedic hymns are believed to have 
used that name to distinguish themselves from 
the aborigines. But as it is not known to have 
been used by the European members of the 
family, the word is sometimes used in a narrow 
sense to denote the Persian and Indian bran- 
ches only, while words like Indo-European and 
Indo-German (taking the two extreme members 
of the group) have been coined to denote the 
whole family. 

The philological arguments alone are not 
sufficient to establish the identity of races. The 
well-known anthropologist Broca points out that 
"races have frequently within the historic period 
changed their language without having apparent- 
ly changed the race or type. The Belgians, for 



THE ARYANS 5 

instance, speak a neo-Latin language, but of all 
races who have mingled their blood with that 
of the autochthones of Belgium it would be 
difficult to find one which has left less trace 
than the people of Rome. 5 ' Another good ins- 
tance is the imposition of a neo-Latin dialect on 
a vast American Indian population in more re- 
cent times. Still comparative philology has some 
value if its deductions are supported by other 
evidences. Besides, it is generally seen that the 
conquerors, if they are civilized, impose their 
language on the conquered, whether it is in 
Belgium or in South America. The analogy 
proves our point that some bands of Aryans 
migrated to Europe, and conquering and mingling 
with the aboriginal peoples Aryanised them as 
their brethren did the Dravidians in India. It is 
hopeless to look for a pure Aryan race in the 
modern world. 

The philological evidences which seek to 
establish the relationship between 
the Indians, the Persians, and the 
Europeans are supported to a 
certain extent by the coincidences which are 
observed in the mythologies of the Vedas, the 
earliest book of the Indians, and those of the 
Zend Avesta of Persia, and also, though in a 
smaller degree, in the mythologies of the ancient 
European nations. Scholars like Kuhn and Max 
Muller have identified the Erinys of the Greeks 



6 THE ARVANISATION OF INDIA 

with the Saranyu of the Vedas, the Centaurs 
with the Gandharvas, Helios and Sol with 
Surjya, Eos with Ushas, Uranus with Varuna, 
Zeus with Dyaus, Jupiter with Dyaus pitar, the 
Slavonic Bogu with Bhaga, and Perkunus or 
Perunu with the Vedic Parjanya. The commu- 
nity of mythologies between the Indians and the 
Iranians is more strongly marked. Both had in 
their mythologies Yarns, Trita, Mitra, Vayu, 
Sarva, Indra, Vitrahan, Nasatyas, Asura, etc., 
while both made Soma offerings in yajnas or 
sacrifices, and had common names for priests as 
hotri and atharvan. 

There are some scholars who express doubts 
about the inheritance of any common mytholo- 
gical traditions by the Aryan-speaking nations 
because of the fewness of resemblances and 
of the discrepancies of mythologies even when 
there are resemblances of names. But they do 
not seem to take into account the long centuries 
which separate the Rigvedic hymns from the 
Greek, Latin, and Teutonic literatures from which 
we draw our materials, and still more, which 
separate these all from the proto-Aryan period. 
Again, mythological and theological concep- 
tions are apt to change under external influences 
more quickly and radically than languages. 
How many ancient religious traditions are to 
be found in Christian Italy, Mahomedan Persia, 
or Buddhist Ceylon ? We can easily imagine 



THE ARYANS 7 

how the mythologies of the semi-barbarous 
Aryan immigrants into Europe were influenced 
through contact with the aborigines on one 
hand and the Phoenician culture bearers on 
the other. Professor Rhys remarks in his 
Hibbert Lectures "If the Aryans had attained 
to the idea of so transcendent a god..... .there 

would be difficulty in understanding how, as 
the Dyaus of Sanskrit literature, he should 
have become comparatively a lay figure, that 
as Tiu he should have been superseded by 
Woden and Thor among the Teutons, and that 
among the Gauls his pre-eminence should at 
anytime have been threatened by a Mercury.' 
The difficulty, however, disappears if we 
remember that considerable changes in mytho- 
logy can take place among the same people 
living under different physical conditions. Thus, 
for instance, the Indians living in tropical 
climate would welcome the clouds and naturally 
give pre-eminence to the cloud god, while the 
people of North Europe would favour the 
sun god. The action of time and foreign 
influences also in modifying the mythologies 
of a people can be observed in India and Egypt, 
where the great gods of the early Indo- Aryans 
and Egyptians could not maintain their pre-emi- 
nence and sometimes even their existence in 
later times, and new gods and beliefs arose 
from time to time, sometimes quite in antagonism 



$ THE ARYAtflSATlON OF WDIA 

to the old ones. In India Varuna and then 
Indra appropriated many of the attributes 
of the heaven god Dyaus, and in later times 
were themselves cast into the shade by Vishnu 
and Siva. The wonder is not the fewness 
of mythological resemblances between the 
nations of Europe and India, but that, inspite 
of centuries of separation and loss of contact 
before the days of Darius and Alexander, of the 
great differences in physical conditions and 
environments in which the different branches 
lived, and of the foreign cultural influences to 
which these semi-barbarous communities were 
exposed, such important resemblances can still 
be detected. 

Ethnologists state that inspite of the inter- 
mixture of races which has gone on more or less 
at all times, and the tendency of individuals to 
vary under the effects of climate 
anc * env i ronment there has always 
been a tendency to revert to the 
primitive types, viz, (i) the Caucasian, with 
usually a fair skin, soft, straight or wavy hair, 
full grown beard, long or broad headform, 
narrow face, and well-shaped nose ; (2) the 
Mongolian, with yellow or reddish complexion, 
coarse straight hair, scanty or no beard, broad 
head, broad and flat face with high cheek-bones, 
small and depressed nose, and slanting eyes; (3) 
the Ethiopian or Negroid, with black complexion, 



THE ARYANS 

black frizzly hair, long head, broad and flat 
nose, moderate beard, thick lips, large teeth, and 
long forearm. The Caucasians again are gener- 
ally subdivided into (a) Indo-Germans or Aryans, 
(b) Semites, (c) Hamites or Berbers. Peschel 
and many other ethnologists are agreed by ex- 
amining the head-form, nose, hair, skin, and other 
physical features of the Hindus (non-Dravidian) 
that they in common with the Persians and the 
Europeans belong to the Indo-Germanic group. 
This hypothesis of community of blood between 
the Indians and the Europeans is supported 
by evidences from the Vedas and the Epics, 
where the typical Aryan is described as a tall, 
generally fair-complexioned person, with narrow, 
prominent nose, good hair, large eyes, broad 
shoulders, and slim waist, features which even 
to-day are regarded in India as constituting an 
ideal physique. 

In Europe three different types have been 
clearly distinguished (i) the Nordic or 
Teutonic, tall, fair, dolichocephalic or long* 
headed, (2) the Alpine or Celto-Slav, fair, 
both short and tall, brachycephalic or broad- 
headed, (3) the Mediterranean, short, dark, 
dolichocephalic. Great acrimony is displayed in 
the discussion about the relationship of each of 
these types with the original Aryan stock, and is 
made more bitter by the national jealousy between 
the German and the French, the German 
2 



JO ' THE ARYANISATION OP INDIA 

scholars like Posche,Penka,and Hchn generally 
claiming direct descent for the Teuton from 
the original stock and tracing the brachycepha- 
lic Celt to Turanian or Mongolian origin, while 
the Gallic scholars like Chavee, De Mortillet, 
and Ujfalvy representing the primitive Aryans 
as brachy cephalic and assigning African origin 
to the dolichocephalic Teuton. The tendency, 
however, of modern scholars, as Feist in Ger- 
many and de Michelis in France, is to find a 
solution to this knotty problem by assuming 
that the primitive Aryans were not a pure 
race, but a mixture of different types, both 
dolichocephalic and brachycephalic, who in 
prehistoric times were welded together into a 
linguistic and cultural unity, as the present 
English have been formed from Iberians, Celts, 
and Teutons. Inspite of such obvious physical 
differences, the Indo-Germans can be grouped 
together in a single division because we recog- 
nise a common racial stamp in the facial 
expression, the shape of the nose, the structure 
of the hair, partly also the bodily proportions, 
in all of which points they agree more with 
each other than with the other divisions. 

From a comparative study of their social 

institutions it is found that there 

Cmgtritm are many customary laws and 

^ t ^ Qr * social rules peculiarly common to 

the Hindus and the ancient Europeans, which 



tH ARYAKS (| 

raises a strong supposition, irrespective of 
other considerations, that they had a common 
origin. "It does not appear to me a hazardous 
proposition that the Indian and the ancient 
European systems of enjoyment and tillage 
by men grouped in village communities are in 

all essential particulars identical There 

is the arable mark divided into separate lots 
but cultivated according to minute customary 

rules binding on all. There is the waste or 

common land, out of which the arable mark 
has been cut, enjoyed as pasture by all the 
community pro-indivisio. There is the village, 
consisting of habitatons each ruled by a des- 
potic pater familias. And there is constantly 
a council of government to determine disputes 
as to custom/' (Maine, Village Communities). 
Havell also notices that 4i the description of 
the old English village communities in Schles- 
wig and Jutland given by a well-known historian 
(J. R. Green), and the characteristics ascribed 
to the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
correspond closely with what is known of the 
early Aryan settlements in India from their 
literary records and from traditional evidence." 
And the resemblance becomes more striking 
when we compare them "with the more ancient 
Dravidian communal system of India in which 
mother instead of father was the head of the 
family, hunting and robbing were the principal 



12 THE ARYANISATIOK OF INDIA 

means of subsistence instead of agriculture and 
cattle farming, and civilization more mercantile 
than agricultural." According to Senart, even 
in social organisation in which the Hindus with 
their caste system differ most from the European 
branches of the Aryan family there is a great 
resemblance between the Hindu system and 
those of the Greeks and the Romans in the 
earlier stages of their national developments, 
e.g. the gens, curia, tribe at Rome, family, 
phratria in Greece, and family, gotra, caste in 
India. Endogamous and hypergamous rights 
were not unknown in ancient Greece and Rome, 
The resemblance is greater between the Hindu 
system and the ancient Iranian division of 
society into four classes priests, warriors, 
cultivators, and artisans especially when we 
find that the rule of endogamy prevailed at 
least among the highest class, the Athravans, 
corresponding to the Brahmins of India. 

*The offering of gifts to the gods in fire is 
Indo-European, as is shown by the agreement of 
the Greeks, Romans, and Indians. Indo-Euro- 
pean also is that part of the marriage ritual in 
which the newly wedded couple walk round the 
nuptial fire, the bridegroom presenting a burnt 
offering and the bride an offering of grain ; for 
among the Romans also the young pair walked 
round the altar from left to right before offering 
bread (for) in the fire. Indo-European, too, 



THE ARYANS (3 

most be the practice of scattering rice or grain 
(as a symbol of fertility) over the bride and 
bridegroom, as prescribed in the Sutras ; for it 
is widely diffused among peoples who cannot 
have borrowed it. Still older is the Indian 
ceremony of producing the sacrificial fire by 
the friction of two pieces of wood. Similarly 
the practice in the construction of the Indian 
fire-altar of walling up in the lowest layer of 
bricks the heads of five different victims, in- 
cluding that of a man, goes back to an ancient 
belief that a building can only be firmly erected 
when a man or an animal is buried with its 
foundations. 1 ' (Macdonell, Sanskrit literature). 
If it be a fact that the ancestors of a large 
section of the people of Europe, Persia, and 
India at one time lived in 
one Pl ace ' s Pke one language, 
and possessed one culture, 
the question that naturally arises is where that 
original home of the Aryans was. The 
orthodox Indian opinion is that India has ever 
been the home of the Hindus, and that if the 
Persians and the Europeans have been proved 
to be related to the Hindus, presumably they 
must have migrated from India. Apparently 
this point of view seems to be correct because 
it is in India that the earliest known Aryan 
literature, the Vedas, was composed and exists, 
and that the modem Hindu religion and social 



te THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

Vedag. Again, there are some roots, nominal 
and verbal, in which the Indian language appears 
to have lost the original form of the word, while 
it hat been preserved in Greek and Latin, or 
both. An example is the Sanskrit word tara, 
a star, which seems to have been originally 
stara, a form which has been preserved in the 
Greek aster and astron, in the Latin astrum, 
as well as in the Zend stara. Further there 
exist a number of Sanskrit nouns, which must 
have been derived from radicals which in their 
verbal form are not discoverable even in the 
Vedas. (Muir, Sanskrit Texts II.) 

(4) During the Rigvedic period the Indo- 
Aryans were evidently confined to the Punjab 
and the Gangetic Doab, because while almost 
all the rivers of North-west India and even 
Afghanistan are frequently mentioned, and the 
highest regard shown to the Indus and the Sara- 
swati, the Rigvedic hymns are silent with regard 
to any place or river name beyond the Ganges, 
and eyen^ the famous Ganges is _mentioioed 
? n ? e - That even the Punjab could 



not be the original home of the Aryan people 
is proved by the fact that during the Rigvedic 
period even in that land the Indo-Aryans were 
surrounded by peoples, Dasyus, Dasas, Rakhas, 
with whom they had very little in common, 
either in physique, language, or creed, and with 
whom they were carrying on ceaseless wars 



THE ARYAN1SAT10N OF INDIA 17 

of extermination. The Dasyus were the natives 
of the soil, whose towns and fortresses were 
captured and properties seized by the aggressive 
Indo- Aryans and who were gradually being 
pushed away from the country. It is impro- 
bable, if we assume the Aryans to be autoch- 
thonous in India, that two such entirely different 
types of people should have ever been living 
in the same limited area and developing on 
their own lines without any intermingling, 
Besides, the Vedic Aryans at that time seem 
not to have been very numerous, and even the 
Punjab, not to speak of the other parts of India, 
must have been very thinly peopled. Why 
then should a large number of them emigrate 
to the less hospitable lands in Persia and Europe 
while vast fertile fields and pleasanter climate 
remained in their own immediate neighbourhood 
in the Indian Peninsula ? The expansion of 
the Aryans over Eastern and Southern India 
took place in comparatively recent times. The 
diffusion of the Aryans from the Punjab gra- 
dually but steadily towards the interior also 
leads to the conclusion that they came from 
the north-west. 

(5). It is true that the Indian literature 
does not contain any distinct reference to a 
migration from a northern home. But there 
are passages here and there which appear in a 
way to point to the tradition of a foreign 
3 



; f THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

origin, (a) Expressions like Tokam pushyema 
tanayam shatam himah, May we cherish a son 
2nd progeny a hundred winters (Rig. 1,64.14.), 
and Pashyemasharadah shatam jivema sharadah 
shatam. May we see, may we live, a hundred 
autumns (Rig VII. 66. 16), might be reminiscent 
of the colder regions from which they had come, 
where the winter conditions having prevailed 
for the greater part of the year, the winter or 
autumn became synonymous with the year, (b) 
In Rig I. 30. 9 Indra is invoked to come from 
"the ancient abode," which might mean the 
ancient home of the Aryans, and connected 
with this is the tradition that Indralaya or the 
abode of Indra lay to the north of the Hindu- 
kush, as is mentioned in the Amarakosha and 
Sabdaratnavali. (c) Uttarakuru, the traditional 
Elysium of the Hindus, and Meru, the abode 
of their gods, lie far to the north. Why 
should they locate these places outside" India 
far to the north unless they had memories of 
a northern home of their own ? (d) The know- 
ledge of long polar days and nights, and horizon- 
tal movements of stars in the polar regions, 
as shown in their description of Meru and its 
denizens (Tait. Brahmana III. 9. 22. I ; Mhbh. 
Vanaparba ch. 163 ; Manu I, 67), has led some 
scholars to point to the polar regions as the 
cradle of the Aryan people, (e) Tilak points 
out that in the Rigveda great prominence is 



THE ARYANS 19 

given to the goddes Ushas (dawn), who is 
celebrated in about twenty hymns of the finest 
quality, and mentioned more than three hundred 
times, and that the period of dawn is divided 
in the Vedic literature into several parts with 
elaborate and intricate rites prescribed for 
each part. All these are out of all proportion 
to the short-lived and evanescent dawn of the 
Indian zone, and though Tilak has not been 
able to successfully establish his theory of an 
Artie home of the Aryans from this and other 
points, we may agree with him that the In do- 
Aryans came from a land where the morning 
twilight was of greater duration than in India, 
(f) In Kaushitaki Brahmana VII. 6. the lan- 
guage of the northern regions is said to be a 
model one, which might refer to the Aryan 
tongue being spoken in its purity in their ori- 
ginal home in the north. 

(6) In the first Fargard of the Vendidad 
where Ahura Mazda, the great god of the Ira- 
nians, is described as having created the different 
countries, including Hapta-Hendu or the Punjab, 
one after another, it is stated that Airyanavaejo, 
which was created first of all, had long winters, 
and that the ancestors of the Iranians started 
in their migrations from that country. Thus 
the Iranians, who are closely associated with 
the Indo-Aryans, point not to India or Hapta- 
Hendu but to Airyanavaejo, which could not 



JO THE ARYAHISATION OF INDIA 

have been a part of India, as their original 
home. 

If India be not the cradle of the Aryan race f 
where is that ? The question has not yet been 
satisfactorily answered. There is 
the greatest diversity of opinion 
among scholars, and various coun- 
tries, e.g. Central Asia, North Africa (Sergi, 
Zaborowski), South Russia (Benfey), North 
Germany (Kossinna, Hirt), Scandinavia (Penka, 
Rhys), Hungary (Giles), Eastern Europe (Fligier), 
Northern Europe (Cuno), North Pole (Warren, 
Tilak), Central and West Germany (Geiger), 
have been contended for as the primitive habitat 
of the Aryans with arguments which are more 
or less shadowy and inconclusive. Of these 
the Central Asian Theory was advocated by such 
eminent scholars of the last century as Rhode, 
Schlegel, Pott, Lassen, Jacob Grimm, Pictet, Max 
Muller, Schleicher, Mommsen, Sayce, Hale, and 
is even now more current and presents fewer 
objections than any other. It would, therefore, 
be not inappropriate to give a summary of 
their main arguments here. 

(i) The almost continuous extension of 
the Aryan-Speaking peoples from the Brahma- 
putra to the Atlantic naturally leads one to 
assume that there must have been a primitive 
centre of dispersion, and because of all the 
Aryan dialects Sanskrit and Zend may be 



THE ARYANS 21 

considered to have changed the least while 
Celtic in the extreme west has changed the most, 
the presumption is that the lands now occupied 
by Sanskrit and Zend must be the nearest to 
the primitive home, (Sayce, Science of Lan- 
guages II). 

{2) This hypothesis is supported by the 
Iranian tradition in the Zend Avesta which 
says that the first creation of man took place 
in Airyanavaejo, from which the Iranians spread 
over more than a dozen countries before reach- 
ing Persia. Now as most of these places are 
situate in or about Central Asia, Airyanavaejo 
or the original abode of the Iranians is believed 
to have existed somewhere between the Caucasus 
and the Oxus. 

(3). Sayce observes that the above tradition 
agrees with the finding of Comparative Philo- 
logy that the early Aryan home was a cold 
region, "where trees like birch and pine grew, and 
where winter was familiar with its snow and ice." 

(4). Here in Central Asia are found all 
the physical elements which zoologists and 
philologists demand for the great specialisations 
in language and culture made by the primitive 
Aryans before their dispersal, their numerous 
population with cows and horses a vast plain 
undivided by lofty mountains or deserts or 
impassable forests, a temperate climate, and 
abundance of food both for mpn and cattle. 



& THE ARYAHISATION OF INDIA 

(5) In the absence cf any common words 
for sea and salt in the different Aryan languages 
J it is inferred that the undivided Aryans lived 
in an inland country. 

(6). In later times it was Central Asia which 
was the breeding place of the numerous Tartar 
hordes which overflowed into Persia, India, 
the Euphrates valley, and even Europe, as the 
Aryans had done several milleniums ago. 

(7), A Babylonian tablet of about 2100 
B. C. indicates that the horse was a recent 
acquisition among the ass-using folk of Babylon, 
and describes it as "the ass_from the east", 
or "from the mountains." "Its arrival here 
is commonly referred to that irruption of fresh 
peoples from Iran or beyond, who founded 
the barbarian Kassite (Aryan) dynasty of 
Babylon ; as there is no reason to believe that 
the great plateau of Iran itself was even then 
in much better condition than now to support 
an indigenous pastoral civilization, it is probable 
that this irruption originated further to the north- 
east, and that it is to be connected, in its 

significance, if not precisely in date, with the 
irruption of Aryan-speaking folk into India from 
the same northern reservoir, and with that west- 
ward outflow of the 'tumulus folk' across the 
Dneiper, which broke up the painted-ware 
culture of Tripolje and penetrated through 
Galacia into Bohemia, and through the Balkan 



THE ARYANS 23 

lands into north-west Asia Minor/* (Cambridge 
Ancient History I. p. 107), 

(8). E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, 
1909, 1. 2, discussing the original home of the 
Indo-Europeans remarks (p. 800) that the 
discovery of Tocharish (a language spoken 
in north-eastern Afghanistan), a language belong- 
ing apparently to the centum (Western and 
European ) group, overthrows all earlier 
conceptions as to the distribution of the Indo- 
Germans and gives weight to the hypothesis 
of their Asiatic origin. 1 * (Keane and Haddon, 
Man : Past and Present, p. 441) 

One of the principal arguments urged 
against the Central Asian theory is that the 
dreary Central Asian steppes could not find 
subsistence for a numerous community as the 
proto-Aryans must have been before their 
dispersal. To this it may be said that the 
climate of Central Asia and Eastern Persia has 
undergone a material change for the worse 
even in historical times. Geologists like Blan- 
ford and Vredenburg have proved that the 
rainfall in Central Asia has fallen off greatly 
in comparatively modern times making vast 
areas un cultivable and practically uninhabi- 
table. (Mem. Geol. Survey of India XXXI pt. 2). 
Kirman is now an almost desert country with 
very scanty rainfall. But Strabo in the first 
century B. C. describes it as a fertile and well- 



34 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

wooded country with plenty of waters and 
producing everything. Sir Aurel Stein's 
discoveries show how the various ancient places 
in Chinese Turkestan were abandoned on 
account of the progressive desiccation during 
the first millenium A. D. 



CHAPTER II. 
COMING OF THE ARYANS. 

The IndoAryans of the Rigvedic time, 
though very little acquainted with the country 
beyond the Ganges, which is 
mentioned directly but once in 
the whole Rigveda, are closely 
associated with lands beyond the Indus on the 
west The river Kubha (Greek Cophu) or , 
Kabul is mentioned several times, and even 
its small tributary Suvastu (Greek Soastos) 
or modern Swat. Gandhara, which lay to the 
west of the Indus, was an integral part of 
Rigvedic India (Rig I. 126. 7). The Aryans 
had begun to enter into India at a time when 
the regions between the Indus and the heart 
of Persia were still fairly well-watered and 
fertile. So it was possible for the early invaders 
to come in large numbers and bring with them 
their women and cattle over these districts. 
It was an immigration en masse, and when they 
entered the Punjab they made an almost clean 
sweep of the native races and were able to 
keep their blood comparatively pure. Hence 
we find even to-day in the Punjab a people who 
are fairer, taller, and with the cephalic, nasal, 
and orbito-nasal indices more similar to certain 
4 



2$ THE ARYANISATOON OF INDIA 

European races than the people of any other 
part of India. It may seem strange that the 
people of the Punjab, which is the gate of 
India, have been able to retain for thousand s 
of years their original Aryan type in spite of 
being exposed to countless waves of invasion 
by various races from the north and west. But 
we are to remember that the climate has con- 
siderably changed in Central Asia, Afghanistan, 
and Beluchistan since the Aryans first invaded 
India. The rainfall has greatly fallen off, 
the rivers and streams have slowly dried up, 
and desert claims as its own the once fertile 
lands. It is now not possible for a tribal 
migration across the north-western frontiers 
of India. The road is practically closed except 
to swiftly moving troops in comparatively 
small numbers who can no doubt fight and 
conquer, but cannot effect any appreciable 
change in the racial characteristics of the 
people of India. 

According to the late Dr. A. F. R. Hoernle, 
after the first stream of Aryan invaders had 
settled in the Punjab a second 
ban <* fr om Central Asia, find- 
ing the usual route by the 
Kabul valley barred, pushed their way through 
Gilghit and Chitral, keeping close to the 
northern mountains, and entered like a wedge 
into the Midland country or Madhyadesha 



COMING OF THE ARYANS 27 

(which extended from the Himalayas on the 
north to the Vindhyas on the south, and from 
Sirhind in the Eastern Punjab on the west 
to the confluence of the Ganges and the 
Jumna on the east). There they split asunder 
the first immigrants, and forced them outwards 
in three directions, to the east, south, and 
west. It was among the second group on the 
Saraswati, Jumna, and Ganges that sacerdotal 
rites and caste system were more fully 
developed, which distinguish the classical 
Brahmanic from the earlier Rigvedic culture. 
Hence we find that the Punjab, though it was 
the earliest Aryan settlement in India, was 
in later times regarded as unholy land and the 
people as barbarians. In the Mahabharata the 
Punjabese are regarded as the offspring of 
Pishachas or demons. On the other hand, 
the land between the Saraswati and the 
Drishadvati, Brahmavarta, is described as the 
most sacred, the next in importance being 
Brahmarshidesha which extended as far the 
confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna (Manu, 

II. 17-19)- 

Hoernle's theory has received the weighty 
support of Sir George Grierson and Sir Herbert 
Risley, and bears the stamp of 
official recognition of the Govern- 
ment of India. Sir George Grier- 
son, who as Director of the Linguistic Survey 



2d THE ARYAHISATION OF INDIA 

of India possesses a unique knowledge of the 
languages spoken in the different parts of India, 
finds on careful examination that there are 
radical differences between the Western Hin- 
dustani, which is spoken in its purest form in 
the Gangetic Doab, in an almost pure form in 
the Eastern Punjab, and in a modified form 
in Oudh, Rajputana, Gujarat, and Central India, 
and the dialects of the Outer Band, namely, 
Kashmiri, Sindhi, Mahratta, Behari, Bengali, 
Assamese, Oriya, dialects which are all more 
closely related to each other than any of them 
to the language of the Midland, "In fact, at 
an early period of the linguistic history of India 
there must have been two sets of Indo- Aryan 
dialects one the language of the Midland, and 
the other the group of dialects forming the 
Outer Band. From this it has been argued, 
and the contention is entirely borne out by the 
results of the ethnological enquiries, that the 
inhabitants of the Midland represent the latest 
stage of Indo- Aryan immigration." Sir Herbert 
Risley supports this theory as otherwise "it is 
difficult to account for the marked divergence 
of type that distinguishes the people of the 
Eastern Punjab from the people of Western 
Hindustan. If there had been no second and 
distinct incursion coming in like a wedge behind 
the original colonists, no such sharp contrast 
would now be discernible. One type would 



COMING OF THE ARYANS 29 

melt into the other by imperceptible gradations, 
and scientific observation and popular im- 
pressions would not occur, as they do, in affirm* 
ing that a marked change takes place some* 
where about the longitude of Sirhind a name 
which itself preserves the tradition of an ethnic 
frontier. Nor is this the only point in favour 
of Dr. Hoernle's hypothesis. That theory 
further explains how it is that the Vedic hymns 
contain no reference to the route by which the 
Aryans entered India or to their earlier settle- 
ments on the Indus ; and it accounts for the 
antagonism between the eastern and western 
sections and for the fact that the latter were 
regarded as comparative barbarians by the more 
cultured inhabitants of the Middle-land." (Peo- 
ple of India, pp. 54-55). 

Mr. C. V. Vaidya in his Epic India seems 
to find in the Pandavas and their kinsmen the 
later Aryan immigrants, and thinks that the 
Kurukshetra war marks the victory of the new- 
comers over the old. The custom of polyandry, 
which is represented by Yudhisthira as "our 
family custom/* seems to distinguish them from 
the Kurus in whose family there was no such 
practice, and accords very well with the hypo- 
thesis that the later immigrants, travelling by a 
very difficult route, could bring with them few 
women, and so had to practise polyandry, and 
also to mingle more freely with the aboriginal 



30 THE ARYAN1SATION OF INDIA 

population than the earlier conquerors, which 
accounts for such a sudden divergence in physical 
type between the people of the Punjab and 
those of the Gangetic valley. The Pandava 
brothers, too, had little distaste for marriage 
with girls of the aboriginal races, Rakshasa or 
Naga. 

Hoernle's theory, however, has not passed 
unchallenged. Prof. Rapson writing 
in the Cambridge History of India 
I (p. 45) observes, "This theory is 
made improbable by the physical difficulties of 
the route suggested, and some of the arguments 
adduced in its favour are demonstrably mistaken. 
There is no such break of continuity between 
the tribes of the Rigveda and the peoples of the 

later literature as it presupposes Both 

of the facts mentioned above the abrupt transi- 
tion from the Indo- Aryan to the Aryo-Dravidian 
type, and the extension of Aryan influence from 
Brahmavarta to Brahmarshidesha are best un- 
derstood if we remember the natural feature 
which connects the plain of the Indus with the 
plain of the Ganges. This is the strait of habitable 
land which lies between the desert and the 
mountains. Its historical significance has al- 
ready been noticed. It is in this strait that the 
decisive battles, on which the fate of India has 
depended, have been fought; and here too we may 
suppose that the progress of racial migrations 



COMING OF THE ARYANS 31 

from the north-west in prehistoric times must 
have been checked. Both politically and ethno- 
graphically it forms a natural boundary. In the 
age of the Rigveda the Aryans had not broken 
through the barrier, though the Jumna is men- 
tioned in a hymn (VII. 18.19) * n ^ch a way as 
to indicate that a battle had been won on its 
banks. It was only at some later date that the 
country between the Upper Jumna and Ganges 

and the district of Delhi were occupied The 

epoch of Indo-Aryan tribal migration was defi- 
nitely closed. It was succeeded by the epoch 
of Indo-Aryan colonisation." 

Prof. Chanda in his Indo-Aryan Races 
tries to demolish Hoernle's theory and set 

* j *n up a theory of his own. "To 

Chanda s Theory. , . ,, ,. ... t 

explain the peculiar position of 

the mixed or intermediate Indo-Aryan lan- 
guages, Grierson assumes that the population 
and power of the Midland increased and its 
armies and its settlers carried its language to 
the Eastern Punjab, Gujarat, and Oudh. But 
the Vedic, the Pali-Buddhist, and Pauranic 
literatures preserve no tradition relating to 
the conquest and annexation of Usinara on 
the one hand, Kosala and Kasi on the other, 
by the Kurus, Panchalas, Matsyas or Vasas. 
According to the Aitareya Brahmana (VIII. 14) 
while the kings (rajas) of the Middle country 
of Usinara, Kuru, Panchala, and Vasa were 



n THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

consecrated to ''kingdom'' (rajyaya), in the 
eastern country (prachyam disi) the rulers 
(rajas) of the eastern peoples of the Kosalas 
and Videhas wpre consecrated to empire 
(samrajyaya). This seems to indicate that at the 
time of the composioion of this Brahmana 
the rulers of the East were much more 
powerful than the rulers of the Middle country. 
The dynasties and clans that held sway 
contemporaneously in the Middle and Outer 
countries of Northern India according to the 
Brahmanas and the Upanishads survived down 
to about a century after Buddha. ...The tide 
of conquest, when it started, started not from 
the west but from the east from Magadha," 
by the Sisunagas, the Nandas, the Mauryas, 
and the Guptas. "It was not, therefore, the 
conquering armies of the Midland, but the 
armies and settlers from Magadha and other 
Outer countries that carried their languages 
to Oudh and other places where mixed 
languages are now spoken/' After thus 
criticising the theory of Hoernle and Grierson 
Chanda goes on to propound a new theory, 
according to which later Aryan invaders of 
the brachycephalic Celtic type finding the 
greater part of Upper Hindustan in possession 
of the dolichocephalic Vedic Aryans found 
their way some to the lower Gangetic plain 
across the tableland of Central India, and 



COMING OF THE ARYANS 33 

some into the Kathiwar Peninsula and the 
Deccan, thus occupying the Outer countries 
from Kashmir to Bengal. This theory, however, 
as Barnett remarks, seems on the whole less 
probable than the other. It does not account 
for the predominance of long-head in the 
Punjab, the change of head-form towards 
broadness from the Punjab to the Gangetic 
valley, and the gradual, not sharp, change in 
head-form and nose-shape from the Jumna to 
the lower Gangetic valley, and also for the 
anthropometric diversities between the 
of Kashmir, the Punjab, Sind, Gujarat, 
rastra, and Bengal, though they are said *&< 
belong to one race. .v 

The problem of a second invasion still" 
remains a puzzle. It is not unlikely that the 

Second Invasion Indo ' Ar y ans did not com all at 

Theory not one time and by one route only. 

necessary. Some seem to find evidences in 

the Rigveda of the tribes Yadu and Turvasha 

coming by sea. We are told in Rig. VI. 20. 12, 

"O hero (Indra), thou broughtest in safety 

over the sea (samudra) Turvasha and Yadu," 

though the word samudra is interpreted by many 

scholars as meaning not sea but a mass of 

waters only. But it is almost impossible to 

disentangle the descendants of the later immi- - 

grants, if any, from those of the earlier in the 

greater part of the country. In, order to 

5 



$4 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

find an explanation for the cultural difference 
between the peoples of the Inner and Outer 
Bands we have a clue in some Epic and 
Pauranic traditions. The Anus, one of the 
Rigvedic tribes living in the Punjab, are said to 
have been divided into two branches, one the 
Usinaras with their offshoots, the Yaudheyas, 
Kekayas, Madrakas, Sivis, Sauviras and others, 
ruling in the Punjab and Sind, and the other 
the Titikshus under the sons of Bali ruling 
orer Bengal, East Behar, and Orissa (Anga, 
Kalinga, Pundra, Suhma). Or in other 
pan conquerors of Eastern India 
ly from the Punjab and not the Midland 
The differences in physical type 
treen the Punjab and the Eastern countries 
not so unusual as to be incapable of being 
explained by the ordinary effect of Dravidian 
and Mongolian influences upon a thinning stream 
of Aryan conquerors. In Northern India, I 
agree with Risley^ tfeat the tendency towards 
broad-head was the result not so much of 
the immigration of brachycephalic Aryan 
tribes as of the admixture of Mongolian 
blood, which becomes more pronounced 
as one goes farther to the east. The statement 
of the late Dr. Smith, even if we do not 
agree with him as regards the extraction of 
the Sakyas and the Lichchhavis, seems true 
that the Mongolian element played a more 




COMING OF THE ARYANS 35 

important part in Northern India than is 
generally realised. Besides the cephalic and 
nasal indices, a blue patch in the lower sacral 
region of the new born, which is characteristic 
of the South Mongol races (Keane and Haddon, 
Man Past and Present p. 164), betrays Mon- 
golian strain in many a child even among the 
higher classes in the lower Gangetic valley. 
The differences in language between the Midland 
group and the Outer group can be easily ex- 
plained it we remember that the Brahmanic 
literature and institutions as distinguished from 
the Rigvedic grew up in the Kuru-Panchala 
country, while the people of the Punjab remained 
backward or primitive. So there were two types 
of culture the older of the Punjab and the 
later of the Midland. It is the former type 
which with the Anus spread to Eastern India 
and with the Yadus to the Deccan. Later the 
Midland culture began to conquer its way to 
the west through Malwa, Rajputana, and Gujarat, 
while on the east, in Videha, Kasi, and Oudh, 
it somewhat receded before the conquering 
armies of Southern and Eastern Behar. 

The only case which still baffles the 
anthropologists is the Mahratta people with 

their broad heads. The modern 
Ihhinttau pure Dravidians are long-headed, 

and the Vedic Aryans too are 
believed to have been long-headed, and so also 



36 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

are the Pre-Dravidian Munda and Mon-Khmer 
races. How then to account for the broad 
head of the Mahratta ? According to Chanda 
the second stream of Aryan people who 
encircled the first group on three sides belonged 
to the brachycephalic Celtic type. Without 
going so far as to assume a ring of cognate 
races belonging to one type from one end of 
India to the other, we can agree with him 
in the assumption that a tribe of Aryans of the 
Celtic type came and settled in the Mahratta 
districts only. At least this is more probable than 
Risley's theory of Scytho-Dravidian origin 
of the Mahratta people because it seems 
unlikely that the Scythian invaders could come 
through the dreary north-western frontiers, 
and through the Punjab, Malwa, Gujarat to 
the Mahratta country in such large numbers 
as to be able to strongly influence the ethnic 
characteristics of the vast Aryo-Dravidian 
population already settled there ; or than Dr. 
Barnett's too bold assumption (Antiquities of 
India p. 32) that "the Dravidian blood vanished 
in that of the old native stocks (Munda and 
Mon-khmer races) in most districts, but preserved 
some of its old characteristics in the 
Mahratta country (traditionally Dravidian). 11 
If we remember that broad-headed Aryan- 
speaking peoples are to be found in Persia 
and Afghanistan and that there was frequent 



COMING OF THE ARYANS 37 

intercourse between the Persian Gulf and the 
western coasts of India even in prehistoric times, 
it is not difficult to conceive of a migration 
of broad-headed tribes, either Aryan of the 
Celtic type, or mixed Aryan and South 
Semitic, or Aryanised aborigines, from Iran 
to Western India (like that of the Parsees 
in historical times) at a time when the native 
Dravidian population was not very dense and 
when the Vedic Aryans had not extended 
their influence beyond the Nerbudda. So 
when the latter came and imposed their culture, 
the population had already received an indelible 
stamp of the brachycephalic type, which was 
kept alive by the likely influx of small groups 
from the Persian Gulf from time to time 
in the wake of commerce and colonisation. 
So instead of the name Scytho-Dravidian given 
by Risley we may call the Mahratta type 
Irano-Dravidian.* According to most scholars, 

* "Overlooking later Mongolo-Turki encroachments, a 
general survey will, I think, show that from the earliest times 
the whole of this region (Irania) has formed part of the Cauca- 
sic domain; that the bulk of the indigenous populations must 
have belonged to the dark, round-headed Alpine type; that 
these, still found in compact masses in many places, were 
apparently conquered, but certainly Aryanised in speech, in 
very remote prehistoric times by long-headed blond Aryans of 
the Iranic and Galchic branches, who arrived in large numbers 
from the contiguous Eurasian steppe, mingled generally with 
the brachy aborigines, but also kept aloof in several districts, 



38 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

including Grierson and Rapson, the Pishacha 
languages in the north-western frontier districts 
were evolved through contact between the Indo- 
Aryan and Iranian languages. It is well-known 
that at one time one form of Pishacha language 
prevailed in the Mahratta country, which too 
lends colour to the hypothesis of Iranian element 
in the Mahratta blood. Again, the name Ratti- 
kas ; or Rattas of the people of the country which 
was in use at least as early as the time of Asoka 
sounds very similar to that of the warrior class 
of Iran, Rathaesthas. 

where they still survive with more or less modified proto- 

Aryan features Both Iranic and Galchic are thus rather 

linguistic than ethnic terms, and so true is this that a philo- 
logist always knows what is meant by an Iranic language, 
while the anthropologist is unable to define or form any dear 
conception of an Iranian, who may be either of long-headed 
Nordic or round-headed Alpine type/ 1 (Keane and Haddon, 
Man Past and Present pp. 541 542). 

According to F. v. Luschan (The Early Inhabitants of 
Asia), the primitive people of Western Asia were brachyce- 
phalic and dark. 

Seligman (The Physical Characters of the Arabs) has shown 
that the Semites of Southern Arabia are predominantly 
brachycephalic, the cephalic index ranging from 71 to 92, with 
an average of about 82. 



CHAPTER 1 1 L 
DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS. 

In order to construct a workable chronology 
of the Vedic period we must first ascertain 

n * ^ D 'he approximate dates of the 
Date of ranini. f . , . -> . . . 

celebrated grammarian Pamm, and 

of the adoption of writing for the expression of 
the Sanskrit language. We know definitely that 
Patanjali, the great commentator on Panini's 
grammar, lived in the middle of the 2nd century 
B. C. Between Patanjali and Katyayana, the 
great critic commentator, there arose a large 
number of grammarians, authors of Varttikas 
and Karikas, such as Bharadvajiyas, Saunagas 
and others, who have been noticed in Patan- 
jali 1 s book, and hence we may reasonably put 
Katyayana two centuries earlier, in the middle 
of the 4th century B. C. Now that is exactly 
the time assigned to Katyayana by Indian 
tradition according to which he was minister to 
a Nanda king.* We cannot, however, accept 

* Mr. Jayaswal (Indian Antiquary XLVII p. 138) seems to 
find in Katyayana's note Sakaparthivadinamupasankhyanam 
on Panini II. z. 60. a reference to the Arsacidae kings of 
Parthia, and so assigns Katyayana to the latter half of the 
third century B.C. But if the word Saka here was used to 
denote a race, Patanjali, who from his date was expected to 



40 THE ARYAKISATION OF INDIA 

tbe story of the Kathasaritsagara, written in the 
1 2th century A. D., about the defeat of Panini 
by Katyayana, except as an allegory to describe 
the extremely learned and destructive criticism 
of Katyayana 1 s Varttikas upon Panini's book. 
Against that tradition may be set another in 
the recently discovered drama Padmapravritakam 
by Sudraka, which contains a character, Katya- 
yana, which is evidently a caricature of the 
famous grammarian, and makes him a con- 
temporary not of Panini, but of a descendant of 
his. That Panini was anterior to, and not a 
contemporary of, Katyayana is indicated by 
Patanjali's reference of Panini as a Rishi, who 
"sees" (pashyati) i. e., to whom is revealed a 
particular rule, as distinguished from what 
others like Katyayana "say" ( bakshyati ). 
Secondly, had 'they been contemporaries, Panini's 
Sutras, about half of which had been attacked by 
Katyayana, could not have survived the very 
learned and bitter criticism of the rival, and 
gained universal fame as the greatest authority 
in grammar. "How could India," Goldstucker 

be more acquainted with the Sakas, could not have explained 
it as Sakabhoji, vegetable-eating and Bhattoji Dikshit as 
Sakapriya, fond of power. If, however, the word Saka must 
be made to denote a proper name, there is no necessity to 
go to Persia, as Saka was quite a common pame among tbe 
Vedic Indians, e. g., Sakadasa Bhaditayana of the Vamsa 
Bnhmana, Sakayana of Kathaka Samhita. 



DATE OF INDOARYAN INVASIONS 41 

observes, "resound with the fame of a work 
which was so imperfect as to contain at least 
10,000 inaccuracies, omissions, and mistakes 

(as pointed out by Katyayana) ? .If he had 

bungled along, as he must appear to have done, 
had he been a contemporary of Katyayana, 
not he, but the author of the Varttikas, would 
have been the inspired Rishi and the reputed 
father of the Vyakarana. 1 ' This perplexity 
vanishes if we assume that Panini and Katyayana 
belonged to different periods, and that the 
supposed mistakes or omissions were not really so, 
but were due to the fact that many grammatical 
forms and words and meanings of words which 
were current in the time of Panini had become 
obsolete or incorrect in the time of Katyayana, 
and that words and grammatical forms unknown 
to Panini had come into use in the time of his 
critic. The omission of Panini to deal with 
such peculiar words as Pandya, Chola, Kerala, 
which necessitated the making of supplementary 
rules by Katyayana, can only be explained by 
the assumption that in Panini's time the Indo- 
Aryans had not come into touch with Southern 
India. Thirdly, some Karikas and Paribhashas 
can be traced in the work of Patanjali which 
had been written before the time of Katyayana 
but certainly after that of Panini. Fourthly,there 
is an indirect reference to Panini being regarded 
as of distant past in Katyayana' s Varttika 
6 



42 THE ARYANISAT10N OF INDIA 

Julyakalatvat on Panini's rule Puranaprokteshu 
brahmanakalpeshu (IV. 3. 105). Under these 
circumstances it is not unreasonable to place 
Panini a century and a half earlier than Katya- 
yana, i. e. in about 500 B. C. This date is 
not irreconcilable with the reference in Panini's 
book to Yavanani or Greek writing (IV. 1.49) 
and to female Sramanas, probably Buddhist nuns 
(II. i. 70), the Gandhara country having been 
' conquered in about 516 B. C. by Darius with the 
aid of Greek officers like Sky lax from Ionia and 
and Caria, and Gautama Buddha having passed 
away about 543 B. C. (Smith, The Oxford 
History of India, p. 48). Goldstucker's argument 
for referring Panini to a date before Buddha 
on the strength of Nirvana vate (VIII. 2. 50) 
is not conclusive because Panini either dealt 
with the root meaning of the word nirvana 
without caring for technical meanings, or more 
probably deliberately ignored Buddhism. 
"Doubtless this ( Yavanani) means Greek (Ionian) 
writing, but it does not necessarily follow that 
the word dates from after the invasion of 
Alexander. Indeed . the probability seems to 
me against this being the case. For it is 
certainly remarkable that Ionian should be 
the name given to the Greeks if first made 
known to India through the invasion of 
Alexander, whose army was certainly in no 
conceivable sense Ionian/' On the other 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 43 

band, we know that the Persians under Cyrus 
came into touch first with the Ionian Greeks 
after the fall of Croesus (546 B. C,), and that 
the first Greek resistance to Darius came 
from the lonians who burned Sardis about 
500 B. C. "If it is borne in mind that Panini 
was a native of Gandhara according to Hiuen 
Tsang, a view confirmed by the references in 
his grammar, it will not seem far-fetched to 
consider that it was most probably from the 
older tradition that the name Yavanani was 
derived. 55 (Keith, Ait. Aranyaka, p. 23.). 

According to Buhler writing was introduced I 
into India about 800 B. C. 'The palaeo-1 

m - i j- graphical evidence of the Asoka 
Writing in India, r . . , , , , 

inscriptions clearly shows that 

writing was no recent invention in the third 
century B. C., for the most of the letters 
have several, often very divergent forms, 
sometimes as many as nine or ten. A consi- 
derable length of time was, moreover, needed 
to elaborate from the twenty-two borrowed 
Semitic symbols the full Brahmi alphabet of 
forty-six letters. This complete alphabet, 1 
which was evidently worked out by learned 
Brahmins on phonetic principles, must have 
existed by 500 B. C, according to the strong 
arguments adduced by Prof. Buhler. This 
is the alphabet which is recognised in Panini' s 
great Sanskrit grammar. 1 ' (Macdonell, Sanskrit 



44 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

Literature, pp. 16, 17). Again, the manner 
of Asoka's address to the people direct, 
the employment of local dialects in his 
inscriptions, and the locations of the inscrip- 
tions, all indicate a wide-spread literacy of 
the people in the third century B. C., 
a thing impossible of attainment in such 
a vast country as India in less than five 
centuries. Further, we know that the Kharosti 
script had been a product of Darius' conquest of 
the Indus valley at the end of the sixth century 
B. C. If by that time the Brahmi script had 
not been fully developed in India the Kharosti 
script must have spread widely over the country 
instead of remaining confined to the Persian 
province only. All these prove that writing 
must have been adopted for the expression of 
the Sanskrit language in the 8th century B. C. 
at the latest. 

Every student of the Vedic literature knows 
that it is divided into two parts the earlier 
part, the Sruti or revealed literar 



Lit tar ture 

and the Brahmanas including the 

Aranyakas and the Upanishads ; and the later 
part, the Smriti or literature based on tradition, 
written in the form of Sutras, the most impor- 
tant of which are the six Vedangas. Again 
the Sruti literature falls into three clearly sun- 
dered groups (i) the original Vedic hymns, 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 45 

the bulk of which are to be found collected in 
the Rigveda ; (2) the later compilations and 
classifications of the hymns as in the three other 
Vedas, and the elaborate commentaries on the 
Vedic hymns to explain the mutual relation of 
the sacred text and the ceremonial, especially 
in connection with the great sacrifices, as in the 
Brahmanas proper ; (3) the development of the 
philosophical ideas as in the Aranyakas and the 
Upanisbads, which generally come at the end 
of the Brahmanas. From an examination of 
language and thought too we find that the 
Upanishads generally succeeded the Aranyakas, t 
which in their turn succeeded the Brahmanas 
proper. Of course a clear line of demarcation 
is not possible between the period of the Brah- 
manas and the period of the Aranyakas and Upa- 
nishads, and there are instances of a Brahmana, 
or parts of a Brahmana, being a later produc- 
tion than many of the Aranyakas and Upanishads. 
But these are exceptions, which do not nullify 
the general three-fold divisions of the Brahmana 
period. 

The Sutras presuppose the existence of the 
Brahmanas, whose complicated system of theo- 

n j lgy an< * ceremonial they sought 
Sutra renod. . Vf ,, , , . 

to simplify. The dogmas and be- 
liefs embodied in the Sutras and their language 
which stands midway between the language 
of the Brahmanas and the classical Sanskrit 



46 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

prove their continuity without any break from 
the Brahmana literature. Max Muller and his 
followers including Macdonell and Keith fix 
B, C. 600 to 200 for the Sutra period. But 
the beginning must be pushed back by at least 
two centuries, (i). The Sutras in their com- 
position show a freedom which is hardly con- 
ceivable after the period of Panini, and so a 
great many of them must have been composed 
and the literature standardised before 500 B. C. 
(2). The Sutras in their inception were intended 
to satisfy the needs of a system of oral instruc- 
tion in all branches of knowledge, and in their 
form point to an origin at a period when writing 
was not known, i.e. before the 8th century B. C. 
(3). The Sutra style had been so long estab- 
lished in the country and so possessed the 
minds of the literary classes that the early 
Buddhist writers in the 5th century B. C. could 
not get rid of it, but made a useless imitation of 
this style in their books, sometimes with ludi- 
crous effect. (4). Between Panini and Yaska, 
the famous author of Nirukta, there must be an 
interval of at least two hundred years if we 
take into account the great changes in language 
and the great development of grammar which 
had taken place, and the considerable number 
of important grammarians who had arisen during 
the intervening period. On no account, there- 
fore, we can put Yaska later than 700 B. C. 



DATB OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 47 

And Yaska's book is not certainly the earliest 
work of the Sutra period. Thus the beginnings 
of the Sutra period may be reasonably dated 
about 800 B. C. 

This date, B. C, 800, may then be taken 
as marking the end of the Brahmana period, 
which preceded the Sutra period. 
That this is a fair estimate can be 
judged from a consideration of the 
relations between the philosophical doctrines 
of Gautama Buddha, of the Sankhya school 
and of the Upanishads (Keith, Ait. Aranyaka, 
pp. 47-49). Gautama Buddha flourished in the 
6th century B. C. His teachings presuppose 
the Sankhya school of philosophy. "It is 
I think correct to assume that these doc- 
trines are descended from a Sankhya view 
of existence which fell into pessimism by its 
unsatisfactory dualistic metaphysics. However 
open to criticism Jacobi's detailed derivation 
of the doctrines of Buddhism from the Sankhya 
may be, yet it is clear that it was from the 
Sankhya that Buddhism derived its theory of 
the soulless entity which yet goes through 
transmigration" (Keith). The Sankhya doc- 
trines are to a great extent criticisms on and 
supplements to the Upanishad doctrines, 
and show a more developed thought than the 
latter. The development of Sankhya might 
have begun in the 8th century B. C., and it 



46 TUB ARVANISATION Of INDIA 

\ 

* V 

is therefore that we do not meet with any 
but indirect mention of the Sankhya system 
in the Upanishads, and that also in the latest 
ones. Buddhist tradition too allows a respec- 
table distance of time between Kapila, the 
founder of the Sankhya system, and Gautama 
Buddha. Moreover, as the beginnings of the 
Sutra writing are anterior to Panini and as 
the language of the Upanishads is more 
archaic than even the language of the Sutras, 
the end of the Brahmana period may be 
believed to be about three hundred years 
before Panini's time. Again, the Brahmanas, 
the Aranyakas, and the Upanishads betray 
not the slightest trace of any knowledge of 
writing, and must, therefore, belong to a period 
before 800 B. C. Some of the Upanishads 
like the Maitrayaniya may be of later date, 
but the bulk of them were composed before 
800 B. C. 

If we calculate back the length of the 
Brahmana period from 800 B. C. we can arrive 
at the beginning of the Brahmana period and 
the end of the Mantra or hymn period. The 
immense mass of Brahmana literature extant, 
whioh again is only a fraction of what has been 
lost, as appears from the numerous names and 
quotations from Brahmanas unknown to us 
occurring in works extant ; the number of stages 
which are clearly perceptible in the domain of 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 49 

thought spreading over the Brahmanas, the 
Aranyakas and the Upanishads ; the rise of so 
many different schools of thought and ritualism ; 
and the endless genealogical lists of teachers 
can hardly be accommodated within a space of 
less than five or six hundred years. This 
estimate will appear not liberal if we take into 
consideration the fact that the Brahmana litera- 
ture represents a period of intellectual 
decadence after the creative energies of the 
Indo- Aryan mind had exhausted themselves by 
the end of the hymn period, and that, therefore, 
the progress of thought was comparatively slow. 
Besides, we know that in ritualism and phi- 
losophy a people, unless subjected to strong 
external influences, makes progress at a much 
slower rate than in other fields of literary 
activity. Again, as Winternitz justly observes, 
"a written literature can develop in a shorter 
time than one that is only handed down by word 
of mouth, when each single text requires genera- 
tions of teachers and disciples in order to be 
preserved at all." So the estimate of two or 
three hundred years for the Brahmana period 
made by Max Muller, Keith and others does 
not seem reasonable. Indeed, Max Muller 
himself admits that "the chronological limits 
assigned to the Sutra and Brahmana periods 
will seem to most Sanskrit scholars too narrow 
rather than too wide." All these considerations 
7 



99 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

may well lead us to find the beginning of the 
Aranyaka compositions at about 1200 B. C. and 
that of the Upanishad at 1000 B.C. 

That the above estimate is nearer the mark 
is proved by the absence of any mention of the 
epoch-making Kurukshetra war, of the Pandavas, 
the heroes of the Mahabharata, and of Arjuna, 
except as meaning the god Indra, in the Brah- 
manas, which indicates their composition, at 
least of the bulk of them,before the Kurukshetra 
war, which, according to the calculation of Mr. 
Pargiter from Pauranic genealogical lists, took 
place about the middle of the roth century 
B. C. Moreover, according to the Puranas, there 
is the space of 1050 years between Mahapadma 
Nanda (about 400 B.C.) and Parikshit (Pargiter, 
Kali Age, p. 58), and if we assume the latter to 
be Pariksbitl, who is mentioned in the Atharva- 
veda, Aitareya Brahmana and Satapatha Brah- 
mana, instead of Parikshit II, the grandson of 
Arjuna, we reach the 15th century B.C. for the 
beginning of the Brahmana period. 41 

* Dhritarastra of the Brahmanas was not identical with 
Dhritarastra, the ancestor of the Kuru-Pandavas, the former 
being a king of Kasi who was defeated by the Kurus. Simi- 
larly, Parikshit and Janamejaya of the Brahmanas were the 
ancestors and not descendants of the Pandavas. The identifica- 
tion of the Vedic Parikshit with the son of Abhimanyu (Poli- 
tical History of Ancient India) by Prof. H. C. Ray Choudhury, 
which goes against the findings of Macdonell and Kp*th (Vedic 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 51 

"Another and, at first sight, more promising 
attempt has made to fix a date from internal 
evidence. It has been argued by Jacobi on 
the strength of two hymns in the Rigveda that 

Index, Vol. I. p. 494) and of Pargiter( Ancient Indian Historical 
Tradition, p. 114), does not seem probable. The Vishupurana 
(IV. 20. i.) makes the four brothers, Janamejaya, Srutasena, 
Ugrasena, Bhimasena, sons of Parikshit I and ancestors of the 
Pandavas. It is always risky to attempt the identification of 
kings or the fixing of their dates from an examination of their 
teacher-priests' names. Identity of names does not necessari- 
ly imply identity of persons. Different persons of the same 
name but living in different times were often confused in later 
writings. Besides, there could not be want of motives in later 
times on the part of the authors belonging to rival families 
and schools to associate a certain teacher-priest with a famous 
king of old so as to enhance the prestige of a particular priest- 
ly family or a particular school, and to ascribe the authorship 
of well-known doctrines and theories to particular persons 
which might shed lustre upon their descendants or disciples. 
The Vamsas or genealogies of teachers, from which Prof. Ray 
Choudhury draws his materials, were often composed long 
after the actual composition of the books in which they are 
included. The commentators never enter into any explana- 
tion of these Vamsas, as doubtless they regarded them as 
later and not very reliable writings. The Vamsa appended 
at the close of the tenth book of Satapatha Brahmana differs 
from the general Vamsa of the entire Brahmana at the dose 
of the fourteenth book in not referring the work to Yajna- 
valkya, but to Sandilya and Tura Kavasheya. In the Khila- 
kanda of the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad Uddalaka is re- 
presented as the teacher of Yajnavalkya, while in the Yajna- 
valkyakanda Uddalaka is treated with as scant courtesy by 
Yajnavaikya as is shown to the other Brahmanas who axe pot 



5$ THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

the year then began with the summer solstice, 
and that at that solstice the sun was in con* 

to silence by the hero of the book, and there is not the slight- 
est indication that one was the pupil of the other. 

An excellent instance of the confusion which arises from 
the identity of names may be cited. "One Suka had a daughter 
Krtvi or Kirtti, who married Anuha king of South Panchala 
and was mother of king Brahmadatta. The other was Vyasa's 
son, far later. It will be shown in chapter XIII that Brahma- 
datta was a contemporary of the Kaurava king Pratipa, and 
that his great great grandson Janamejaya was a contemporary 
of Pratipa's great grandson Bhisma and of Prsata (Drupada's 
father). Bhisma was of about the same age as Satyavati, the 
maiden mother of Vyasa, for he was a youth when his father 
married young Satyavati; hence Vyasa was younger than 
Bhisma, and his son Suka was therefore at least a generation 
later. From Brahmadatta's grandfather Suka down to Vyasa's 
son Suka there were therefore some six generations. The 
ksatriya genealogies and traditions keep the two Sukas distinct, 
but the brahmanical vamsas in their attempt to construct 
Vyasa's family identify the two, give Vyasa's son Suka a 
daughter Kirtimati, say she was Anuha's queen and Brahma- 
datta's mother, and so make Brahmadatta great grandson of 
Vyasa, thus misplacing Anuha and Brahmadatta from their 
true position to one some six generations later." (Pargiter, Anc, 
Ind. Hist. Trad, pp 64-65). There are numerous instances to 
show that persons who were widely separated in time are 
brought together as contemporaries in later writings. The 
Santiparva says that Bhisma learnt dharma from among others 
Bhargava Chyavana, and Rama Jamadagnya, as if these three 
lived in the same age. According to Pargiter, there were 
several Yajnavalkyas, Jaiminis and Vaisampayanas (Ibid, 
Chapter XXVII). So it is difficult to fix the chronological 
position of a king from his association with the name of 
a particular sage, unless there are corroborative evidences. 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 53 

junction with the lunar mansion Phalguni. 
Now the later astronomy shows that the lunar 
mansions were, in the sixth century A* D., 
arranged so as to begin for purposes of reckoning 
with that called Acvini, because at the vernal 
equinox at that date the sun was in conjunction 
with the star Piscium. Given this datum, the 
precession of the equinoxes allows us to cal- 
culate that the beginning of the year with the 
summer solstice in Phalguni took place about 

4000 B. C It (the argument) rests upon 

two wholly improbable assumptions, first that 
the hymns really assert that the year began 
at the summer solstice, and, second, that the sun 
was then brought into any connexion at all with 
the Nakshatras, for which there is no evidence 
whatever. The Nakshatras are, as their name 
indicates and as all the evidence of the later 
Samhitas shows,lunar mansions pure and simple" 
(Cambridge History of India I, pp. 111-112). 
But more definite is a notice in the Kaushitaki 
Brahmana (XIX. 3), which is repeated in the 
Jyotisha, that the winter solstice took place at 
the new moon in Magha. Though scholars are 
not all agreed in accepting the assumptions 
involved (Keith, Rigveda Brahmanas Translated, 
p. 49), the objections are not as strong as in the 
previous case, and we may with some justification 
accept the results obtained from this datum. 
The results, however, vary from 1391 to 1181 



54 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

B. 9 and fit in with our estimate of the Brah- 
mana period. The cumulative effect of all 
the above considerations is practically decisive 
of a date for the beginning of the Brahmana 
period about the middle of the second 
millenium B. C. * 

Max Muller assigns 400 years to the com- 
position and compilation of the Samhitas, 
R . ,. p .. "under the supposition that during 
the early periods of history, the 
growth of the human mind was more luxuriant 
than in later times, and that the layers of thought 
were framed less slowly in the primary than 
in the tertiary ages of the worlcT.t This 
is no doubt an underestimate, and considering 
the great variety of the contents of the Rigveda, 
which again is only a small remnant of a vast 

*Keith (Aitareya Aranyaka, pp. 21 seq) argues from work 
to work, taking the lower limit in each case "Panini, who 
cannot well be dated later than 300 B. C.," "Yaska, who can 
hardly be brought down lower than 550 500 B.C.," and so 
on. But he does not assign any reason why these dates can 
not be pushed back by two centuries. Again, he fixes the 
date of the Aitareya Aranyaka as between 700 and 600 B. C, 
and admits that the "upper date may perhaps be pushed 
further back" (p. 50), yet he sticks to the lower date. 

f That Max Muller himself regarded his chronology as 
tentative is expressed in his Gifford Lectures on Physical 
Religion (1890) where he says : "Whether the Vedic hymns 
were composed 1000 or 1500 or aooo or 3000 years B. C. no 
power on earth will ever determine," 



DATE OF INDQ- ARYAN INVASIONS 35 

hymn literature most of which has been irre- 
trievably lost, the perceptible changes in 
language which had taken place during the 
hymn period, distinguishing the earlier from 
the later strata of hymns, the references in the 
Rigveda itself to "sages of olden times" and 
"old hymns being clothed in newer garbs," 
"hymns composed in the old way," the period 
of composition alone of the Rigvedic hymns 
must have extended over many centuries and 
may be fixed from 2000 to 1400 B. C. One 
of the reasons of Max Muller for adopting a 
later date for the Rigvedic period is that be 
observes a coincidence in language between 
the Vedic hymns and the Avestan Gathas 
similar to that between the Homeric Greek 
and the Classical Greek, and he dates the Gathas 
from the sixth century B. C. But the difficulty 
is that there is yet no agreement among scholars 
about the date of the earliest Gathas. Accord- 
ing to Dr. Moulton, "the traditional date (of 
Zoroaster, 660-583 B. C.) is a minimum, but 
there are strong reasons for placing Zarathustra 
and his Gathas some generations earlier still." 
Again, the comparison between the development 
of language from the Vedic hymns to the 
Gathas and that from the Homeric Greek to 
Classical Greek is not fair. The period in 
question is the most eventful in the history of 
Greece, when the rapid political and commercial 



56 THE ARYAN1SATION OF INDIA 

growth of the Greeks exercised a great influence 
upon the development of their language, and 
conditions were certainly different in India and 
Persia. And even at the same time Attic Greek 
was further from the primitive Hellenic language 
than Doric or Aeolic. The changes of literary 
Greek from the Attic days down to the present 
day have been much less rapid. In any case, 
it is to be feared that we attain from such a 
comparison no result of value for Vedic 
chronology. 

"We do not hesitate to assign the composi- 
tion of the bulk of the Brahmanas to the years 
1400-1200 B. C., for the Samhita we require a 
period of at least 500600 years with an interval 
of about two hundred years between the end 
of the proper Brahmana period. Thus we obtain 
for the bulk of the Samhita the space from 
1400-2000. If we consider the completely 
authenticated antiquity of several of the sacred 
books of the Chinese, such as the original 
documents, of which the Shu-king or Book of 
History is composed, and the antiquity of the 
sacrificial songs of the. Shi-king, which all carry 
us back to 17002200 B. C. it will certainly not 
be surprising that we assign a similar antiquity 
to the most ancient parts of the Vedas." (Haug, 
The Aitareya Brahmana). 

41 An estimate (i. e. of Haug) which, if we 
take everything into account, is certainly not 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 57 

too high, and which has the greatest claims to 
probability, is that of Whitney OL St. i, 21, and 
elsewhere, of 2000-1500 B. C. the first half of 
the second thousand years B. C.; " (Kaegi, The 
Rigveda), 

"The close relationship between the language 
of the Vedic Samhitas on the one hand and 
Avesta and old Persian on the other does not 
allow us to date the beginning of the Vedic 
period back into a hoary age of many thousands, 
to say nothing of millions of years B. C. 

On the other hand, the facts of political, 
religious and literary history require a period 
of at least a thousand years and probably more 
between the earliest hymns of the Rigveda, 
and the latest parts of the old Upanishads and 
the rise of Buddhism." (Winternitz). 

When the bulk of the Rigvedic hymns were 

composed the Indo- Aryans had not advanced 

much beyond the Jumna, were 

Inf AT TnnA 

Aryan Immi- having a deadly struggle with the 
gration. natives of the soil, and evidently 

had not entered India very long ago. At the 
same time we must allow sufficient time for the 
practically thorough occupation of the Punjab, 
and the loss of memories about any outside 
home as is revealed in the hymns. If the bulk 
of the hymns were composed between 2000*1400 
B. C., we shall not be very wrong ff we believe 
that the Aryans began to enter into India about 
8 



56 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

23<x> or 2200 B. C. JLet us see if there are any 
other evidences to support this hypothesis. 

Pargiter points out in his Dynasties of the 
Kali Age that according to Pauranic accounts 
there were 30 Paurava, 29 Ikshaku 
and 37 Magadhan kings in the in- 
terval between the Kurukshetra 
war and the accession of Mahapadma Nanda. 
"Here we have safer ground, for the number of 
kings in a dynasty was a much simpler matter 
and more easily remembered than figures of the 
lengths of reigns and dynasties; and this infor- 
mation about ten contemporary dynasties elimi- 
nates peculiarities and extravagances about 
single dynasties and enables us to make prudent 
calculations by means of averages of all ten." 
(Pargiter, Anc. Ind. Hist. Tr, p. 180). By cal- 
culating backward from the date of Mahapadma 
(about 400 B. c.) at the rate of 18 years for an 
average reign, an average obtained by comparing 
more than 20 genealogical tables of Asia and 
Europe,* one arrives at the date 950 B. G. ap- 
proximately for the Kurukshetra battle. More- 
over, Jaina traditions represent the Tirthankara 
Aristanemi as a contemporary of Krishna Vasu- 
deva, and if we assume an interval of two 
hundred years, which seems on general grounds 
reasonable, between the Tirthankaras, Mahavira, 

* 30 Andhra kings reigned for 450 years, and 20 Vijay- 
nagtr kings for 950 years. 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 59, 

Parsvanath, and Aristanemi, we get the tenth 
century B. C. as the date of Aristanemi and so 
of Krishna and of the Kurukshetra war. 

"If we should seek to make an estimate of 
the ages before the battle, it would be prudent 
to take a smaller length for the average reign, 
because only one line, that of Ayodhya, is 
practically complete, while there are gaps in 
the other dynasties so that there is little 
scope for taking medium averages of all 
the dynasties and eliminating peculiarities/' 
(Pargiter, Anc. Ind. Hist. Tradition, p. 183). 
In the absence of any checking means it is im- 
possible to find out additions, omissions, and 
overlappings. Even in historical times the men- 
tion of the Andhra dynasty as succeeding the 
Kanva dynasty and the inclusion of the Sakya 
family and the Pradyota family in the dynasties 
of Kosala and Magadha respectively in the 
Puranas gave rise to not a little confusion 
among the earlier investigators. So it is better 
to take a lower average, say 12 years, for the 
period before the Kurukshetra war. Now as the 
Puranas give 93 kings to the Ikshaku dynasty 
from Ikshaku the founder to Brihadbala, the 
contemporary of the Kurukshetra war, the 
approximate date of Ikshaku and the foundation 
of the dynasty may be supposed to be about 
2100 B. C. Of the princes of the Ikshaku 
dynasty known to the Vedic hymn-makers are 



69 THE ARYAWSATION 07 INDIA 

Mandhatri, Purukutsa, Trasadasyu, Tryaruna, 
etc., princes who number according to the 
Puranas from the twentieth to thirtieth in 
descent from the founder, and who, therefore, 
may be believed to have flourished in the 
igth and i8th centuries B. C. This also gives 
a clue to Vedic chronology, and, if we suppose 
Ikshaku to be the leader of an important, but 
not necessarily the earliest, Indo-Aryan group 
of settlers in India (as Cerdic or Ida in Eng- 
land), a clue to the date of the coming of the 
Indo- Aryans. 

About the middle of the 2Oth century B. C., 
according to Dr. H. R. Hall, a 

Aryans in tr ib e o f men known as the Kassites 
Western Ana. 

or Kossaeans with Surias (Sanskrit 

Surjyas) and Maryttas (Sanskrit Marut) as their 
principal gods and speaking an Aryan dialect 
conquered Babylon and ruled there till the 
middle of the I3th century B.C., when they were 
overwhelmed by the Assyrian king Tukultini- 
niv. About the same time another Aryan tribe 
established themselves to the north-west in the 
upper valley of the Euphrates under the name 
of Mitanni. Their kings bore names like Arta- 
tama, Dusratta (Sanskrit Dasaratha), etc., and 
f worshipped the gods Mitra, Varuna, Indra, 
Nasatyas. They remained in power till the 
middle of the I4th century B.C. when they were 
conquered by the Hittites. As regards the 



DATE OF INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 61 ' 

powerful Hittites or Khatti of Asia Minor, who 
for several centuries terrorised both Egypt and 
Mesopotamia, it is still not certain to which race 
they belonged. The suggestion has been made 
that their language, which unfortunately has not 
yet been deciphered, bears certain Indo-Euro- 
pean characteristics. Anthropologists like Von 
Luschan are inclined to connect the Hittites 
with the Alpine race or the Celto-Slav peoples 
of Europe. Hall points out that "the Hittite 
deities are often accompanied by animals in quite 
Indian fashion, and sometimes stand upon them. 
...It may be that it was a feature borrowed from 
Aryan religion." These Hittites, who were 
either Aryans or Aryanised natives, but certain- 
ly not Semites, appear for the first time in his- 
tory in the 2oth century B. C., when they were 
powerful enough to attack Babylon. In the 
Tell-el-Amarna inscriptions we find such Aryan 
names of princes as Artamanyu, Subandu, Su- 
wardata, Sutarna, Jasadata and so forth, who 
ruled in Palestine and Syria in the isth century 
B.C., but who had not been there before the 2oth 
century B. C., as we know from the Romance 
ofSinehu and the inscriptions of the Middle 
Kingdom of Egypt. Even after their downfall 
in Mesopotamia and Syria the Aryans survived 
in the east, and one of their family, the Medes, 
remained long a thorn in the side of Assyria 
until the overthrow of the latter and the estab- 



62 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

lishment of the Medo-Persian empire in West- 
ern Asia. 

From the history of Egypt too we learn that 
the period from the 2Oth to the i6th century 
B.C was one of great turmoil and disturbances 
in Western Asia, when strange peoples appeared 
dislodging or conquering the old ones, and old 
kingdoms tottered and fell like houses of cards. 
The rapidity and violence of these irruptions, 
far exceeding in extent and effect all earlier 
movements of which we have any knowledge, 
were probably due to the use of the horse by 
the invaders both as steed and as milk-giver 
to annihilate distance and commissariat diffi- 
culties. The Egyptians and the Babylonians 
became acquainted with the horse only after 
these barbarian invasions. The picture present- 
ed is similar to that which Europe witnessed 
in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. on the appear- 
ance of the Hun hordes and the rising of the 
barbarians. The fate of Rome befell Egypt 
too, and Egypt lay groaning and bleeding 
under the heels of the conquering barbarians 
from Asia from the i8th to the 16th century 
B. C. These barbarians, the Hyksos or She- 
pherds as the Egyptian historians call them, 
were, so far as is known, a mixed Semitic 
people from Syria who being pushed from 
behind by new men, and probably mingled 
with them, played a part in the history of 



DATE OF 1NDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 63 

Egypt almost similar to that of the Goths in 
Roman history under the pressure of the Huns. 
But, unlike the Romans, the Egyptians were 
not yet rotten to the core, and after two centuries 
of sufferings succeeded in shaking off the bar* 
barian yoke and establishing the mighty New 
Kingdom, which once more advanced upon 
Syria and the Euphrates punishing and enslaving 
their erstwhile conquerors. It is then when 
the veil of darkness is lifted by the conquering 
marches of the Thutmoseses that a new scene 
presents itself to us in the i5th century 
Aryan dynasties ruling practically over the 
whole of Western Asia from the Mediterranean 
to the Persian Gulf, in Mesopotamia, Syria, 
Palestine, and, if we accept the Hittitesas Aryan, 
in Asia Minor. But as in Egypt so in Meso- 
potamia the barbarian conquerors imposed them- 
selves upon a highly organised and numerous 
community with a hoary civilization behind 
them, and, therefore, could not long maintain 
themselves against a revival of national feeling. 
The Semites soon found a champion in the king 
of Assyria who put an end to the Aryan rule 
in Babylon. Then between the two grindstones 
of Egypt and Assyria the smaller Aryan ruler- 
ships in Western Asia were crushed out of 
existence. Thus all Aryan trace was lost in 
Syria and Mesopotamia and the Semite there 
became as supreme ever. 



64 THE ARYANISATION Of INDIA 

Now what do all these signify ? First of 
all, the names of their gods Surjya, Mitra, Indra, 
Nasatya suggest a very close affinity with the 
Vedic Indians and very little with the other 
branches of the Aryan family. It is certain that 
they separated themselves from the Indo-Aryan 
branch in the time of the Rigveda when the 
older gods like Dyaus, Ushas of the Indo- 
European period were passing into the back- 
ground and the later gods like Vishnu and 
Siva had not become important. Indra is a 
typical god of the Rigvedic Indians. The word 
Nasatya is truly Rigvedic. So the time of the 
appearance of the Kassites and the Mitannians, 
i. e. the 2Oth century B. C., must fall within the 
Rigvedic period. And consequently the Rigvedic 
period, which is believed to have lasted for five or 
six hundred years, could not have begun earlier 
than 2500 B. C., and ended later than 1500 
B. C. Again, we know that the split between 
the Indians and the Iranians took place in the 
early Vedic, if not in the pre- Vedic, period, 
and that in consequence there was such bitter- 
ness caused that the Iranians deliberately 
changed the Vedic gods into demons. If, as 
some scholars assert, the Kassites and the 
Mitannians betrayed in their dialects close 
relationship with the Iranians, the fact that 
they still worshipped Vedic gods and had not 
in their language changed s into h showed 



DATE Of INDO-ARYAN INVASIONS 65 

that the Indo-Iranian split had either not 
occurred in the aoth or aist century B. C., or, 
if it had, not much before that time. 

From all these above considerations we 

may infer that the Aryans began to pour 

into India about the middle of 

E*^1i| C Sc the third millennium B - c - The 
Punjab. recent finds of the Archaeological 

Department at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa 
prove the existence of a civilisation in the 
Punjab and Sind,which was not Aryan in charac- 
teristics, but allied to the Sumerian of about 
3000 B.. C. (Illustrated London News, October 
1924). As it has been suggested from a compari- 
son of their physical types, burial customs, and J 
matriarchal systems* that the Stimerians belonged 
to the Dravidian stock, it is quite reasonable 
to believe that in the early part of the third 
millennium B. C. the Aryans had not come and 
driven away the Dravidians from the Punjab. 

* Prof. Morgan in his Ancient Society and Prof. Sayce 
in his Babylonians and Assyrians show that in Sumerian times 
the woman was the head of the family. 



CHAPTER IV 

EXPANSION OF THE INDO-ARYANS 
THE DASYUS. 

From the geographical names mentioned 
in the Rigveda we learn that the Indo- Aryans 
were at that time in possession 
rith^5- of P arts of Af g hani stan, the Punjab, 
?eda. Kashmir, parts of Rajputana and 

Sind, and had advanced as far as the Ganges. 
Some twenty-five streams are mentioned, of which 
the principal are the Sindhu (Indus), Vitasta 
(Jhelum), Asikni (Chenab), Parushni (Ravi), 
Vipasha ( Beas ), Satudru (Sutlej), Kubha 
(Kabul), Suvastu (Swat), Krumu (Kurram), 
Saraswati, Drishadvati, Yamuna, and Ganga. 
The Himavanta or Himalayas were well-known 
to the hymn-makers, but not the Vindhyas 
and the Nerbudda, showing that they had not 
advanced as far as these. Another evidence of 
their unacqaintance with the eastern countries is 
that the tiger, a characteristic animal of Eastern 
India, is unknown, and that rice too is little 
known. The important river Ganges is mentioned 
directly but once, and probably marked the 
easternmost limit of the Indo-Aryan advance. 
Though some of the Vedic hymns were com- 
posed on the banks of the Indus, e.g. the hymns 



EXPANSION OF THE INDO-ARYANS 67 

to Ushas, which, if composed in India, must 
have been done in the western Punjab, where the 
dawn is comparatively a glorious phenomenon, 
yet the centre of Rigvedic life lay to the east, on 
the banks of the Saraswati, where the bulk of 
the hymns were composed, and which river was 
regarded as the most sacred and superseded 
in importance even the Indus. 

During the period of the later Samhitas 

and the Brahmanas the Indo-Aryans had spread 

over the land as far as the Vin- 

Eitension daring dhyas on the south, and the con- 

the Brahmana J f ^ t ' 

Period. fines of Bengal on the east, and in 

some points had penetrated into the Deccan on 
the western side by way of Malwa and Gujarat. 
The centre of life shifted eastward, and com- 
prised the whole country between the Saraswati 
and the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna, 
which is called Madhyadesha or Middle Country. 
While the eastern regions like Kosala (Oudh), 
Kasi (Benares), and Videha (N. Behar) are 
brought under Aryan influences and come into 
prominence, the Punjab and the western coun- 
tries correspondingly recede in importance, 
and their tribes and their customs receive but 
scant respect in the Brahmana literature. 

(i). In the Satapatha Brahmana (1.4. 1.14- 17) 
there is a curious legend of Mathava the 
Videgha carrying the sacrificial fire (i.e. sacri- 
ficial worship of the Brahmins) from the banks 



68 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

of the Saraswati over Kosala as far as the 
Sadanira (modern Gandak), and after crossing 
it, laying the foundation of a settlement 
which came to be known as Videha after the 
name of the tribe to which Mathava belonged. 
The story probably indicates how the country 
as far as the Sadanira was conquered in one 
sweep, how the progress was checked for a 
while, and how slowly an Aryan colony, Videha, 
was founded across the river. 

(2). In a well-known hymn of the Atharva- 
veda (V.22) takman or fever is delivered over 
to the Gandharis, the Mujavants, the Angas, 
and the Magadhas. The Vedic Aryans had 
at that time evidently come into collision with 
the non-Aryan tribes, Angas and Magadhas. 
The Magadhas are associated in chapter XV of 
the same book with Vratyas ( i. e. nomadic 
peoples with strange languages and laws). The 
Angas and the Magadhas were still resisting the 
Aryans, and hence the great indignation of the 
author. On the other hand, this passage shows 
that the Brahmanical culture of the Indo- 
Aryans of the Middle Country has already led 
them to despise their more primitive brethren 
of the west in the Indus valley. 

(3). In the Aitareya Brahmana (VII. 18) 
Viswamitra speaks of the Andhras, Pundras, 
Sabayas, Pulindas, and Mutibas as living on the 
borders of the Aryan settlements. Of these the 



EXPANSION OF THE INDO- ARYANS 69 

Andhras, Sabaras and Pulindas are known from 
the Mahabharata and the Puranas to have been 
tribes of the Deccan, and the Pundras are 
known in historical times to have their home 
in Bengal In modern times the Andhras are 
the Telegu-speaking people of the Deccan, the 
Sabaras are still found in a savage state on the 
frontiers of Orissa, and the Pundras have 
developed into the Pod caste of Bengal. 

(4). In the Aitareya Aranyaka (II.i.i) the 
Vangas, Vagadhas and Cheras are called birds, 
i.e. non- Aryans speaking languages which were . 
not intelligible to the Aryans. The Vangas 
were certainly the inhabitants of Vangadesha or 
Bengal, the Vagadha is either a misreading or 
different reading of the word Magadha, and the 
Cheras are known to be a wild tribe of the 
Vindhya regions. 

(5). The Kaushitaki Upanishad (VI. i.) 
gives a list of the principal Aryan tribes living in 
India, viz, the Usinaras, the Vasas, the Matsyas, 
the Kurus, the Panchalas, the Kasis, and the 
Videhas. The land of the Usinaras in the 
eastern Punjab and the land of the Videhas 
in North Behar marked the western and 
eastern boundaries respectively of the Indo- 
Aryan world of the time. The western Punjab 
and the trans-Indus lands by this time had come 
to be regarded as barbarian. 

(6).,Vidarbha, or modern Berar, is mentioned 



f& THS ARYAMISATIOM OF INDIA 

in the Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana (II. 
440), and a Bhima, prince of Vidarbha, in the 
Aitareya Brahmana (VIL 34. 9), proving that 
the Aryans had during the Brahmana period 
penetrated into the Deccan as far as Berar. 

Thus before the close of the Brahmana 
period in about 800 B. C. the whole of Northern 
India as far as South Behar had been conquered, 
and the Aryans had begun to penetrate into the 
Deccan where at least one kingdom, that of 
Vidarbha, had been established. The process 
of conquest and colonisation is clearly observed 
in Behar. 

During the period from 800 B. C. to 500 
B. C. the whole of Northern India had been 

Indo-Aryan Ex- P ract i ca ^y Aryanised, though the 
fuanm from 800 process was still incomplete in 

* _ CAA D f* 

TO wu o. v. t j le ou tiyi n g parts, Sind, Kathiwar, 
Gujarat on the west, and Bengal and Kalinga 
(Orissa) on the east. The Punjab had farther 
fallen from orthodoxy and in the estimation 
of the Brahmins. Little headway was made in 
the Deccan, where, besides Vidarbha, one or 
two settlements had arisen on the Godavery. 
Anga and Magadha had been completely 
brought within the circle of Indo-Aryan 
politics and culture. 

(i). Baudhayana quotes older authorities 
to state that the people of Sindhu, Sauvira, 
and Surastra were of mixed origin, and also 



EXPANSION OF THE INDO-ARYANS 71 

directs that any one travelling to the countries 
of the Kalingas, Pundras, Vangas, and Arattas 
(Punjab) must perform a purificatory sacrifice. 

(2). In the Ramayana* Dasaratha is 
advised by his priest Vasistha to invite among 
others the kings of Anga, Magadha, Sindhu, 
Sauvira,and Surastra to his horse sacrifice. There 
are mentions in the book of Kalinga and 
Vidarbha, but the knowledge shown about 
the geography of the Deccan and Southern 
India is very scanty, most of the area being 
called Dandakaranya, which was inhabited by 
Rakshasas and J^anaras, i.e. various non-Aryan 
communities. 

(3). Panini is acquainted with the names 
of Kachchha (Cutch), Kalinga, and Asmaka 
(on the Godavery), but evidently not with the 
names of Pandya, Chola, Kerala, as otherwise 
he could not have failed to give explanations 
of the formation of such peculiar words, a 
task undertaken by his commentators in later 
times. 

(4). For the period just before the rise 
of Buddhism (i. e. the seventh century B. C.) 
we know from the Nikayas, which are assigned 

* It is always unsafe to refer to the epics for the geogra- 
phy of the epic period, as they received considerable additions 
and modifications in later times. In this respect the 
Mahabharata is worse than the Ramayana, and so I abstain 
from referring to it for the political geography of the period. 



72 THE ARYANISATIQN OF INDIA 

by scholars like Rhys Davids to a time not 
much later than Gautama Buddha, that the 
following were the principal nations in 
India Anga, Magadha, Kasi, Kosala, Vajji, 
Malla, Chedi, Vamsa, Kuru, Panchala, Machha, 
Surasena, Assaka, Avanti, Gandhara, Kamboja. 
Vanga and Kalinga are not mentioned, though 
the latter name finds a place in the list in later 
Buddhist Texts. 

(5). From the Chronicles of Ceylon it is 
learnt that about the time of Gautama Buddha's 
birth Bejoy Sinha, a prince of Bengal, conquered 
Ceylon and settled there. The Chronicles were 
composed about one thousand years after the 
event, and so we cannot rely much on this 
tradition to show that Bengal had been 
Aryanised in the 7th century B.C. 

At the time of Alexander's invasion, i.e. 

Extent in the time in the latter half of the 4th 
of Alexander's century B.C., the Aryan influence 
iHTaiion. ^ad S p rea( j over t h e w hole of 

India, including the extreme south, and 
Ceylon. 

(i). Katyayana's explanations with regard 
to the words Pandya, Chola, and Kerala, 
supplementing the rules of Panini, show that 
the Aryans had come into contact with these 
peoples of Southern India during the time 
f intervening between Panini (about SooB.C.) 
and Katyayana (about 350 B.C.) 



EXPANSION OF THE INDO-ARYANS 73 

(2). The accounts in the Arthasastra of 
Kautilya, the well-known minister of Chandra- 
gupta, giving details of trade dealings in the 
products of such countries as Vanga, Pundra, 
Sindhu, Tamraparni (Ceylon), and the Tamil 
countries of the south, show that all parts of 
India were bound to each other by ties of 
commercial relations and intimately known to 
each other. 

(3). The Aryan influence had so much 
spread in Southern India that, according to 
Megasthenes ( about 300 B.C.), the Pandyas 
called themselves the descendants of a daughter 
of the Indian Hercules or Krishna. The name 
Madura or Mathura of the Pandya capital lends 
colour to this tradition, as Mathura in Northern 
India was connected with the Yadavas and the 
early life of Krishna, who belonged to the 
Yadava family. 

A good deal of confusion seems to have 
arisen over the words Arya and Dasyu as they 
were used in the Rigveda. This 

is due not a little to the fact that 

the original distinction between the 
two in course of time became lost and Vedic 
commentators in later times attached fanciful 
meanings to them. Yaska explains the word 
Arya as Iswaraputra, son of God, and Sayana 
explains it as one who is learned and performs, 
the sacrifices, and the word Dasyu as a demon. 
10 



74 THE AJRYANISATION OF INDIA 

In later literature Arya came to mean noble, 
and Dasyu a robber. But even then the 
original meaning sometimes peeps out, as in 
words like Arya-dharma and Aryavarta. The 
Manusmriti preserves clear traces of the word 
Arya being used to denote a distinct race. Thus 
in the tenth book it is said, "All who are born 
outside the castes produced from the head, arm, 
thigh and foot of Brahma, whether they speak 
Aryan or Mlechchha languages, are known to 
be Dasyus." Again, "A person begotten on a 
non-Aryan woman by an Arya is an Arya in 
qualities, while it is certain that a person be- 
gotten on an Arya woman by a non- Aryan is a 
non-Aryan." In order to find out the original 
meanings of the words we should look into the 
Rigveda itself instead of depending on com-' 
mentators who wrote hundreds of years after 
the composition of the hymns. The manner 
in which the two words are used at once 
suggests a contrast and distinction between two 
species. Thus in Rig 1.51.8 Indra is invoked 
to distinguish between the Aryas and those 
who are Dasyus." In I. 103. 3 "Cast thy dart, 
Thunderer, at the Dasyu, increase the Arya's 
might and glory, Indra." In X.86.I9 Indra says, 
"I come looking about me and distinguishing the 
Dasas and the Aryas. 1 ' In 1. 100.18 Indra is said 
to have destroyed the Dasyus and shared their 
lands with the whites, and in II.ii.i8 "disclosed 



THE DASYU 75 

the light to light the Arya, and on the left 
hand sank the Dasyu." In 11.11.19 the Arya 
gains wealth subduing with the help of Indra 
the foes, the Dasyus. In X.83.I Manyu is 
invoked to help the worshippers to successfully 
fight their enemies, whether Arya or Dasyu. 
From these and many other passages it becomes 
clear to us that the word Arya and Dasyu 
originally bore different meanings from those 
suggested by later commentators. In some 
places, however, the terms are applied to celes- 
tial foes, demons, and not mortals, but that is a 
secondary meaning. Evidently the hymn-makers 
were Aryas who worshipped Indra and other 
gods and prayed for the destruction of their foes, 
the Dasyus. That these Dasyus or Dasas were 
men of a different type, with different physical 
characters and institutions, is obvious from their 
being described as "black-skinned/* "devoid of * 
religious rites," "of different rites/' "of imperfect 
speech", "noseless" or flat-nosed, "rawflesh- 
eaters," etc. In Rig X,22. 8 the Rishi says, "We 
live in the midst of the Dasyu tribes who do not 
perform sacrifices, nor believe anything. They 
have their own rites, and are not entitled to be 
called 'men.' Thou Destroyer of enemies, 
annihilate them and injure the Dasas.* 1 Yet 
the Dasas were not savages and mean foes of 
the Aryas. There are many references to their 
fortresses of stone, their wealth, their powerful 



n THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

tribes and kings* The combined efforts of Indra 
and Agni demolish ninety fortified towns 
(purah) ruled over by the Dasas (III. 12. 6). In 
VIII. 40. 6 Indra is invoked to humble the 
Dasa and distribute his accumulated treasure 
among His worshippers. There was a Dasyu 
king, Krishna, who lived on the banks of the 
Jumna, and harrassed the Aryas with ten 
thousand followers (VIII. 85. 1315). The 
Dasas are sometimes called "mayaban", i.e. pos- 
sessed of magical power or stratagem. The 
Aryas were often hard-pressed and in their dis- 
tress had to invoke the assistance of their gods 
for victory. 

Who were these Dasyus or Dasas f Hillebrandt 
Dravi- seems to think the word Dasa originally 
i dians. denoted the Dahae people of the Caspian 
j Steppes, who gave much troubles to the Aryans 
\ in Iran, and so came to signify a foe, a robber, 
in which sense it is used in the Rigveda. What- 
ever might have been the original meaning of 
the word, it is certain that the word, except 
where it is not used to denote a celestial foe, 
is used in the Rigveda to denote a different race 
of men, evidently natives of the soil as the 
Aryans have been shown to have come to India 
from outside. What race or races of men were 
these Dasas ? There are strong reasons to think 
that many of those whom the Aryans encountered 
in the Indus and Ganges valleys wereDravidians. 



THEDASVU 77 

(1) Their physical characteristics, as given 
in the Rigveda, namely, black skin and flat nose, 
agree with those of the modern Dravidians. 

(2) That the Dravidians at one time lived 
in the Punjab and neighbouring countries is 
inferred from the existence of a Dravidian- 
speaking tribe, the Brahui, in Beluchistan, which 
is the last remnant of an once prevailing Dravi- 
dian population of Northern India, and not the 
survival of a Dravidian colony from the distant 
Deccan, "as a remote mountainous district may 
be expected to retain the survivals of ancient 
races while it is not likely to have been colo- 
nized." 

(3) The changes which the Aryan language 
underwent in India even when the Aryans were 
confined to Northern India betray strong Dra- 
vidian influences and support the inference that 
the aboriginal Dasyus and Rakhas whom the 
Indo- Aryans met in the Punjab and elsewhere 
were mostly of the Dravidian race. Thus the 
chief point which distinguishes the Vedic lan- 
guage from the Avestan and other Indo-Euro- 
pean languages is the presence of a second 
series of dental letters, the so-called cerebrals, 
"These play an increasingly impoi;j 

the development of Indo-Aryan i 
phases. They are foreign 
languages generally and they 
of Dravidian/ 1 (Cam. Ind. 




78 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

consonants are essential component elements of 
a large number of primitive Dravidian roots, 
and are often necessary, especially in Tamil, for 
the descrimination of one ,root from another ; 
whereas in most cases in Sanskrit, the use of 
cerebral consonants instead of dental, es- 
pecially the use of the cerebral n instead of 
the dental n, is merely euphonic" (Caldwell). 
Again, the presence of good many Dravidian 
words in classical Sanskrit and even in Vedic 
language, not to speak of modern dialects of 
Northern India, is well-known. Thus the word 
Matachi which occurs in the Chhandogya 
Upanishad(1. 10. i.)is nothing but a Sanskritised 
form of the Dravidian word midiche, meaning a 
locust. And this Upanishad was composed at a 
time when the Indo-Aryans had scarcely entered 
the Deccan. Words like Khatta, couch or cot, 
Kukkura, dog, Keyura, bracelet, Markata, monkey, 
and many others have been traced to Dravidian 
origin (Caldwell, Dravidian Languages, pp. 567 
579). The Bengali language is indebted for a no 
small portion of its vocabulary and structural 
peculiarities to Drayidian languages. Thus the 
commonplace words like Khoka (son), Talu 
(scalp), Nola (tongue), Meye (daughter), Minmin 
(glimmering), Pillei (child), and plural suffixes 
guli and gula have come from Dravidian sources. 
Even in Hindi, many words of Dravidian 
origin can be traced, such as jhagra^^ta^ etc. 



THE DASYU 79 

Hence there cannot be any doubt that the Dra* 
vidians once constituted the main elements 
of the population of Northern India before the 
Aryanisation was effected. (Bhandarkar Lec- 
tures). 

(4). The Dravidian influence is traceable 
in religion too. The Rigvedic religion is 
an almost pure Aryan religion, as a comparison 
with the rites and ceremonies of the Iranians 
and ancient Europeans would reveal. Of the 
many innovations which the religion received 
in later times the most important are beliefs 
in spells and magic, phallus-worship and 
snake-worship. Of these the first is a character- 1 
istic of any demon-worshipping religion, and 
cannot be precisely traced to Dravidian origin 
alone, though we know that the religion of 
the Dravidians even as late as the beginning 
of the Christian era was a form of demon- 
worship. But the other two can with more 
precision be traced to the Dravidians in 
whose religion they played a prominent part. 
The Rigvedic Indians hated the phallus-worship- 
pers, Sisnadevah, which evidently referred to 
the Dasyus (VII. 21. 5), and their god Indra 
killed the Serpent-demon Ahi (I. 103. 2). 

(5). The absence of any reference in the 
Rigveda to the story of the Deluge, which 
is vaguely mentioned for the first time in the 
Atharvaveda, and later more fully described in 



80 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

the Satapatha Brahmana, raises a suspicion that 
it was not a part of the Indo-Aryan mythology 
during the Rigvedic period. The story except 
in minor details shows wonderful resemblance 
to the story of the Deluge as was current 
among the Sumerians and their cultural 
successors, the Semites. Now the current 
opinion, which is strengthened by the recent 
discoveries at Mahenjo Daro and Harappa in 
the Indus valley, is that the Sumerians and 
the Dravidians belonged to the same stock, 
and so we may believe that the Deluge story, 
whether it referred to the submerging of the 
continent of Lemuria or not, originally existed 
with those peoples, from whom it was borrowed 
by others. This belief finds support from an 
examination of the details of the story in the 
Sanskrit literature. The two principal elements 
in the story are the mina, fish, and nira, 
.water, and, curiously, both these words 
are of Dravidian origin(Caldwell, pp.43>57i,573). 
The word for fish, Matsya, occurs only once in 
the Rigveda, though various kinds of animals, 
birds and insects, are so frequently mentioned 
(Macdonell, Sanskrit Literature, p. 143), while 
fish played an important part in the mythology 
of the Sumerians, and also in the pre-Vedic 
Punjab, as evidenced by the recent discoveries 
of fish representations there. Again, Satyavrata 
Manu,the Indian Noah, is called in the Bhagavata 



THE DASYU 4t 

and other Puranas "the lord of Dravida/* 
Further, in the accounts of the Deluge, as given 
in the Matsya Purana, of all the rivers only the 
Nerbudda, and not the more famous Ganges, 
Jumna, Saraswati, or Indus, is preserved at the 
Dissolution, and the mountain Malaya in the 
extreme south is mentioned as the scene of 
Manu's austerities and of the apparition of the 
fish. (Muir, Sanskrit Texts I, pzig). 

(6). The use of matronymic surname is almost 
unknown among the Rigvedic sages and kings, 
while patronymic is frequent, as in Purukutsa 
Gairikshit, Kakshivant Ausija, Sudasa Paijavana. 
But the frequent use during the Brahmana 
period of matronymic surname, as in Satyakama 
Jabala, Mahidasa Aitareya, Prasniputra Asuri- 
vasin, Sanjiviputra, Krishna Devakiputra, along 
with patronymic, as in Dhritarastra Vaichi- 
travirya, Tura Kavasheya, Para Atnara, indi- 
cates a growing influence upon the Aryan 
society even while in the Gangetic valley of 
the matriarchal Dravidian system. 

From all these we may conclude that the 
Dasas or Dasyus, who stubbornly, though un- 

successfully, resisted the Aryan 
Pre-Drtridians. i nvasions ofthe p una b an< j 



Gangetic valley, were predominantly Dravidian 
in culture. At the same time we must not 
think that the Dravidians were the only natives 
of Northern India at that time. Anthropometry 
ii 



82 THE ARYANBATION OF INDIA 

has revealed a 'large Mongolian admixture in the 
blood of the people of Eastern India and also, 
to a smaller extent, of the upper Gangetic 
valley. We know that immigrations from the 
side of Thibet and Burma have taken place in 
historical times. But then the people of North- 
ern India, the descendants of Aryan conquerors 
and Dravidian or Dravidianised natives, had 
become so settled that no appreciable change 
could have been effected in type by the new- 
comers, who could not, as Risley observes, 
descend much below the mountain heights 
except in North-eastern Bengal and Assam. 
So in order to explain the tendency towards 
broad-head in Northern India we must 
assume that a good percentage of the native 
population of the Gangetic valley, especially near 
the Himalayan ranges, at the time of the Aryan 
invasions were Mongolian in blood. Side by 
side with, and more important than, the Mongo- 
lian element was another, which may be called 
the oldest of the Indian population, the Munda- 
Monkhmer race. Thurston, an authority on the 
subject, says : "It is the Pre-Dravidian abori- 
gines, and not the later and more cultured Dra- 
vidians, who must be regarded as the primitive 
existing race.... These Pre-Dravidians are differ- 
entiated from the Dravidian classes by their 
short stature and broad (platyrhine) noses* There 
is strong ground for the belief that the Pre- 



THE DASYU ft) 

Dravidians are ethnically related to the Veddas 
of Ceylon, the Toalas of the Celebes, the Batin 
of Sumatra, and possibly the Australians." 
(The Madras Presidency, pp. 124-125.) But 
by the time of the coming of the Aryans they 
had been conquered by the Dravidians, who 
formed the ruling classes against whom the 
Aryans generally fought, and had mostly be- 
come Dravidianised in culture. To-day the 
Gonds and the vast majority of the Pre-Dravi- 
dian tribes speak Dravidian languages, which 
they must have adopted before the coming of 
the Aryans, while few like the Bhils speak 
Aryan dialects, and fewer still like the Mundas 
have retained anything like their primitive Ian- 
guage. Hence it is that the main influence 
upon the conquering Aryan culture is found to 
be Dravidian, and not Mongolian or Munda. 
There were different strata of culture among 
the mixed native population, from that of the 
Dravidian Dasyu chiefs, who lived in towns and 
fortresses, had an advanced political system, 
and in intelligence were not inferior to 
the Aryans, to that of the savage tribes with 
filthy habits, ugly features, nomadic life, still 
not advanced beyond the hunting and fishing 
stage, men who were given the names of 
Nishada, Chandala, etc. by the Aryans, and were 
regarded as untouchables even at a time when 
the restrictions regarding marriage and food had 



64 788 ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

beea Very slight among the Aryan folk. They 
had been as it were the Sudras of the Dravidian 
society, and when the Dravidians themselves 
were reduced to the position of Sudras by the 
conquering Aryans the older Sudras descended 
to the position of Panchamas or fifth varna. 
The Pauranic description of the Nishadas as 
"black like crow, very low-statured, short-armed, 
/ having high cheek bones, low-topped nose, red 
eyes and copper-coloured hair, living in hills 
and forests/' (Padma Purana II. 27. 42-43; 
Bhag. Pur. IV. 14. 44; Mhb. XII. 59. 94-97), 
agrees more with what we know of the Gonds, 
Bhils, Oraons, Mundas, etc. than with that of 
the more cultured Dravidians. (Chanda, Indo- 
Aryan Races). 



CHAPTER V 
NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION. 

From what we have already said it would 
appear that the first wave of Indo- Aryan invasion 
was in the nature of a tribal 
In the ja . m jg rat i on f rom t h e s [fo of Af- 
ghanistan, when a vast horde with their women, 
children and cattle entered India, and at once 
began an exterminating war with the natives 
of the soil, like the Anglo-Saxons in South- 
eastern Britain about three thousand years 
later (the parallelism would have been more 
apt bad the Britons belonged to a non-Aryan 
stock). Their knowledge of harder metals and 
y horse-riding, together with their superior physical 
strength, gave them a great advantage over their 
foes. But the latter inspite of their disadvan- 
tages offered, like the Britons, a very stout, 
though unavailing, resistance to the invaders, 
and many Anderidas were witnessed on the 
soil of the Punjab, as hinted in Rigveda IV. 
16.13, where Indra is said to have killed fifty 
thousand black foes, and VII. 5.3, where 
fire is said to have pierced the citadel 
of the enemy, when the black people came out 
pellmell through consternation and distress, 
leaving all their belongings. Those who escaped' 



86 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

the fire and sword of the invaders must have 
fled to the east and south leaving a clean 
country to them as far as the modern Sirhind, 
where the Indus plain ends and Gangetic plain 
begins. This is the first stage of the Indo- 
Aryan colonisation, when, like the Anglo- 
Saxons in South-eastern Britain, the invaders 
made a clean sweep of their foes and received 
very little admixture of native blood, as is 
evident from the prevailing Indo-Aryan type 
in the Punjab even in modern times. Very 
few of the Rigvedic hymns can be traced to 
this period. 

When the bulk of the hymns were composed, 
the second stage had begun. The Indo- Aryans 
had been thoroughly settled in 
the p un j a b an a had lost touch 
with their kinsmen abroad. In 
their new home different tribes had settled in 
the different parts of the country, and, besides 
fighting with the Dasyus, had begun to fight 
among themselves for supremacy. The force of 
bursting flood had abated no doubt, but was still 
strong enough to impel the Indo-Aryan chieftains 
towards the east and south-east conquering 
fresh lands from the aborigines. The number of 
conquerors, however, was not sufficient to 
effectively occupy the conquered lands, and as 
specially the conquerors felt the need of women 
and labourers in their new settlements the 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 87 

original ferocity and the ruthless policy of 
extermination were to a certain extent modified. 
They began to make slaves, mostly of the wives) 
and children of the fallen natives. Even in ! 
the Rigvedic period towards its close the word 
Dasa gradually came to be synonymous with 
a slave, as in" the proper name Divodasa, "the 
slave of heaven." In the next period the word 1 
Dasi regularly denoted a female slave. Slaves, 
sometimes in large numbers, are often alluded 
to in the Rigveda, and to the native slaves may 
be attributed the marked Dravidian influence 
upon the Vedic language. 

Whether it was a later immigration of 
Indo-Aryans who could not on account of the 
difficult route bring their womenfolk with them 
and so had to marry Dravidian wives in the 
Gangetic regions as is the theory of Hoernle, 
supported by Grierson and Risley or, as is 
more probable, it was the natural expansion 
of the Indo-Aryans from the Punjab after the 
tribal immigration had ceased from outside, 
and was more of conquest than of colonisation, 
the fact remains that in the Gangetic regions 
the Indo-Aryans received a large admixture 
of Dravidian blood, which accounts for the 
lower stature, darker complexion, and broader 
nose of the Gangetic Indian than those of the 
Punjabese. In the later Rigvedic period the 
original hatred of the conquerors towards the 



68 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

Datives bad so far abated that it was not rare 
tbat treaties and alliances were made and one 
or more Indo-Aryan tribes allied themselves 
with Dasa chiefs against the foes of their own 
race. A Dasa tribe, the Simyu, was among 
the foes of the famous Sudas in the battle of 
^the ten kings (VII. 18.5). A priest celebrates 
the generosity of a Dasa chief, Balbutha (VIII. 
46.32). In short, the scene presented by the 
Rigveda is not much unlike that of the Hep- 
tarchic period of English history, when the 
Anglo-Saxons were no more coming from the 
Baltic shores, were settled under different 
tribal chiefs in different parts of the country 
from which the British elements were practically 
wiped out, were still encroaching upon 
British lands and winning victories, like those 
of Deorham and Chester, but absorbing more 
and more British blood as they advanced 
more and more towards the west, and not unoften 
making alliances with British chiefs like 
Cadwallon in their own intertribal wars. By 
the end of the Rigvedic period the Indo- Aryans 
had advanced as far as the Ganges and were 
engaged in subjugating the country between 
the Jumna and the Ganges. The principal 
tribes still lived to the west of the Jumna. 
But in the next period we find that the more 
important of the tribes were planted in the land 
between the Saraswati and the Ganges. 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 89 

Thus it is seen that there was a marked 
contrast between the Indo-Aryan settlement 
in the Punjab and that in the Gangetic regions 
as far as North Behar. While in the Punjab 
it was a settlement en masse by clearing thei 
country thoroughly of all non- Aryan elements, 
in the Gangetic regions it was a matter of* 
conquest in which the non- Aryan system was 
destroyed, their fighting forces broken, and their 
women and children enslaved. But even in 
the latter the predominant element was Aryan. 
Aryan tribes like Panchala, Vamsa, Chedi, 
Kosala, Videha settled themselves as rulers and 
absorbed the native population. Yet in this 
process of absorption the Indo-Aryan social 
system underwent a great change. It may be j 
paradoxical to hear that the more contact there ) 
was between the Aryan and the non- Aryan the ( 
greater was the barrier imposed against their 
mingling. In the Punjab, where the non-Aryan 
element was practically wiped out, there was 
no danger of the purity of Aryan blood being 
affected, and so we do not find any regulations 
in the Rigveda forbidding intermarriage between 
an Aryan and a Dasyu, between a master and 
a slave, though, of course, such intermarriages 
must have been rare because of the hatred and 
contempt with which the conquerors regarded 
the natives. But the case became otherwise 
in the Gangetic regions. There were numerous 

12 



90 THE ARYAKISAT10N OF INDIA 

non-Aryans still in the country both as slaves 
^and enemies, and if free intercourse were not 
checked, the danger was the swamping of the 
conquerors by the conquered. The question 
was the same as that of colour in the modern 
European colonies in Africa and America. 
Two courses were open to the Indo-Aryan 
conquerors, either to exterminate the natives 
wholesale, or to Aryanise them but with a 
careful eye to prevent themselves being bar- 
barised in the course of their work. They 
adopted the latter policy and solved their 
difficulty by evolving the caste system. Already 
there were three classes in the Indo-Aryan 
society in the Punjab the priest, the ruler, 
the cultivator and artisan. To these a fourth class, 
that of the slaves or Sudras, was added, and 
eventually a fifth, the Nishada, comprising the 
savage peoples of the hills and forests. While 
there were still free intercourses between the 
first three classes, there was a barrier raised bet- 
ween the first three and the fourth, not to speak 
of the fifth. Thus the non-Aryans were given a 
status in society and prevented from extermina- 
tion, but they were not to spoil the purity of 
their rulers' blood. It was all right in theory, 
but it ran the risk of almost breaking down in 
practice. While you allow the Aryans and the 
non- Aryans to live together in society you can 
not altogether prevent intercourse, say, between 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 91 

file masters and the female slaves, especially 
among the ordinary people. Thus the Vaisya 
caste become largely affected by non- Aryan 
blood, and less so were the Kshatriya* and the 
Brahmin. Hence the caste system became 
rigid in the Gangetic plains, which gave a new 
turn to the Indo-Aryan social organisation. 
The Punjabee Aryan was not so circumstanced 
and so could not keep pace with the social 
changes which were going on in the Madhya^ 
desha, and in course of time came to be regarded 
as unorthodox. Again, the Brahmins becoming 
more and more exclusive devoted more time to 
the elaboration and development of their ritua- 
lism, on which rested their claims to superiority 
and power. So the rites and ceremonies became 
extremely elaborate, complicated and mechanical, 
and tended to make the cleavage between a Brah- 
min and a layman still greater. Hence the Madhya- 
desha or the Upper Gangetic regions evolved the 
peculiar Brahmanical religion and social structure, 
and became the model country for all ages. 

The story of the conquest of Magadha, 
Anga, Vanga, Pundra, Kalinga, etc. was al- 
together different. There were 
ntaitern n a. p Ower f u j non-Aryan communities 

in these lands (which are named after them) who 
are mentioned as independent in some of the 

*The Vedic Kshatriya meant a member of the ruling or 
princely class and not an ordinary warrior. 



n ?HB ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

Brahmanas. How these conquests were made 
is not known to us. But this much we know that 
no powerful Aryan tribe settled and absorbed 
the conquered in any considerable part of these 
lands. Let me again draw an analogy from Eng- 
lish history. We know how the two Wales' were 
conquered, how to the main Celtic population 
a sprinkling of Anglo-Saxon blood was added, 
how the population and the soqial structure 
remained in the main Celtic. Magadha was 
something like the March land where the ab- 
sorption of the conquerors' blood was more 
than in other parts. The non- Aryans of East- 
ern India were no doubt conquered, and, so far 
as their language and religion were concerned, 
Aryanised, but they had not become slaves 
en masse of their conquerors as in the upper 
valley of the Ganges, and had not wholly lost 
their old tribal and social organisations. We hear 
of the same Vangas, Pundras, Kalingas, etc. in 
historical times as before their conquest in the 
later Vedic period. Even in language, such as 
in the modern Bengali dialect, the Dravidian 
traces are to be found to a greater extent than 
in the languages of Upper India. In social 
structure Eastern India could never adapt itself 
to the models of the Madhyadesha, and hence 
we find the population mainly divided between 
the Brahmins and the Sudras with no inter- 
mediate castes between them. 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 9J 

The fact that Eastern India was imperfectly 
Aryanised partly accounts for the rise of the 
two great protestant religions, Jainism and 
Buddhism, in that quarter about the time when 
the process of conquest was still going on. 
The protests against the Brahminical hierarchy 
and rituals so boldly preached by Mahavira and 
Gautama Buddha in Behar can easily be inter- 
preted as a reaction against the imposition of 
Brahminical belief and institutions upon a not 
very willing people, conquered but not van- 
quished. Hence it is why we find Behar 
as the earliest land to accept the new creeds, 
and as the last stronghold of Buddhism 
before it finally disappeared from India. It is 
here in Eastern India that we find the develop- 
ment of the un-Vedic Tantric religion, and here 
that Islam which knocked itself in vain against the 
Brahminical sacerdotalism of the Madhyadesha 
found the greatest number of converts. 

The non- Aryan protest did not spend itself/ 
up only in religion and social matters. Maha- 
padma Nanda rose as their champion to over- 
throw the rule of the Kshatriya families in 
Magadha. He was admittedly of Sudra or non- 
Aryan origin, and he so terribly punished the 
Aryan ruling classes that he has been described 
in the Puranas as "the exterminator of the 
Kshatriya race like a second Parasurama." 
Certainly he did not do so in the interest of the 



94 * THE ARVANISATION OF INDIA 

Brahmin caste, as in that case the Brahmin writers 
of the Puranas would not have poured their choi- 
cest invectives upon him, and the whole period 
of Nanda rule would not have been omitted 
from the Calendar (Ananda era). Such was 
the havoc he caused among the Kshatriya 
families of the Gangetic valley that the Brah- 
mins could only overthrow his family by 
setting up another Sudra, Chandragupta Maurya. 
For a time, of course, Chandragupta acted 
under the influence of his patron Brahmin 
minister, Kautilya or Chanakya, but it is very 
probable that he too in his later life dissociated 
himself from Brahminism and became a convert 
to Jainism. And it was his grandson Asoka 
who by vigorously espousing the cause of 
Buddhism gave the greatest blow which Brah- 
minism had yet received in India. Only four 
centuries ago another strong attack against 
Brahminical hierarchy and ritualism was made 
by Chaitanya in Bengal. The spirit of protest 
is still strong in the Bengalee blood, which 
manifests itself from time to time, as in the 
Brahmo Samaj Movement of only half a century 
ago. But inspite of these actions and reactions 
the non- Aryan in Eastern India has been slowly 
and unconsciously drawn within the octopus 
clutches of Brahminism, and to-day no Bengalee 
would like to regard himself as any but des- 
cended from the pure Aryan stock. 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 95 

With regard to Northern India it may be 

said with more or less truth that the Aryani- 

sation was effected principally 

In the Deccan. ^j^g^ conquest. But the case 

seems to be entirely different in the south, 
Of course there were migrations of Aryan tribes 
or families from Northern India who established 
themselves as conquerors over the native 
population in some parts of the country. Thus 
we learn from the Brahmanas that the Bhojas 
ruled in Vidarbha or Berar, from the Artha- 
sastra that the Bhojas once ruled over the 
Dandaka or Maharastra country, and from the 
Jagayyapeta inscriptions that an Ikshaku dynas- 
ty governed in the Kistna District in the third 
century A. D. Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar holds 
that the Pandyas were emigrants from the 
Muttra District. Yet on the whole the process 
of Aryanisation was carried on mostly by peace- 
ful means. The route from Northern India to 
the Deccan across the hilly and forest regions 
of Chota Nagpur and the Central Provinces 
being extremely difficult, the Aryan stream 
gradually thinning the more it moved from its 
base in Upper India, and, above all, the Dravi- 
dian community in possession of the 
being too strong to be forcibly subjiy 
parts of the Deccan remained pi 
pendent under their own Dravidi^ idlers. B\ 
it cannot be said that to-day thej 




% THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

is less Aryan in sentiment than other parts of 
India. Who, then, brought the Aryan culture, 
to the Dravidians of Southern India ? 

If we may believe in the tradition as record- 
ed in the Epics, the Rishis or Brahmin sages 
took a most prominent part in the diffusion of 
Aryan culture in the south often at considerable 
risks to their lives. Thus when Rama went to 
the south he found in many places the asramas 
or hermitages of Brahmin sages far away from 
j Aryan land and constantly harrassed by the 
Rakshasas or the native non-Aryans. These 
Aryan missionaries did not resort to physical 
force, and went on with their work with the 
utmost patience, courage and unselfishness. In 
course of time some of the n on- Aryans must 
have been attracted by their superior wisdom 
and virtuous lives, and become their worshipful 
allies. Thus, though the Rakhasas in general 
were in hostile opposition to Brahminical insti- 
tutions, not so was Vibhisana, brother of 
Ravana, nor were the Banaras of Kiskindhya, 
one of the non-Aryan tribes. Among such 
missionary sages the most prominent was 
Agastya, who was met by Rama in a hermitage 
to the south of the Vindhyas. He became so 
successful in spreading culture among the Dra- 
vidians of Southern India that in later times he 
came to be regarded by the Tamil people as 
the founder of their language and to be 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 91 

known as Tamirmuni or Tamilian sage, 
(Bhandarkar Lectures). 

In the Deccan, therefore, there are three 
different shades of Aryan permeation. In the 
first place are the Maharastra country and 
Berar. They were conquered, and Indo-Aryan 
ruling families, chiefly of the Yadu tribe, settled 
there, imposing their tongue and creed upon 
the mass of Dravidian population, who had been 
already conquered by brachycephalic tribes 
probably from Iran. The latter formed the upper 
classes in the land, and when it was conquered 
by the Indo-Aryans were entirely amal- 
gamated with them. Hence we see that the 
higher classes, the Brahmins and the ruling 
castes, are more brachycephalic, but in other 
respects, as in nose form, tallness and com- 
plexion, approximate more to the people of the 
Gangetic valley than the mass of the people 
who approximate more to the Dravidian type. 
(Risley, People of India, Appendix IV). 

In the second place comes the Telegu-speak- 
ing or Andhra country. This land did not long 
remain under Aryan rule, but being exposed 
to Aryan influences from two sides, Berar and 
Kalinga, became Aryanised not only in creed 
but also to a certain extent in language. The 
bulk of the population is almost pure Dravidian, 
but the language has about a third of its voca- 
bulary derived from Aryan roots. Most of the 

'3 



ARYANISAT10N OF IKDIA 

borrowed words relate to abstract or scientific 
and religious terms, which supports the tradition 
of the missionary work by Brahmin sages. 
x That the contact was slight is proved by the 
fact that the words relating to common-place 
things and ideas are mostly Dravidian, and that 
the grammatical rules are entirely different from 
those of Sanskrit, and this inspite of the well- 
known fact that u when an Aryan tongue comes 
into contact with an uncivilized aboriginal one, 
it is invariably the latter which goes to the 
wall" ( Grierson ), a fact which is amply 
corroborated by the cases of imperfectly Arya- 
nised Bengal, Assam and Maharastra. 

Still more free from Aryan influences is the 
Tamil country. Even as late as the times of 
the Mauryas the ordinary religion of the Tami- 
lians was a form of demon-worship, and Brahmi- 
nism had not made much headway among them. 
The first great Aryan influence came with the 
spread of Buddhism and Jainism together with 
their literature from Northern India, and by the 
time these two religions gave way to Hinduism 
the creed of the Tamil land had been practically 
Aryanised, and Brahminical institutions laid on 
a solid foundation. The language, however, 
has not been much influenced. It contains a 
very small number of Sanskrit words, and a 
Tamil composition is regarded as refined and 
classical not in proportion to the amount of 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 90 

Sanskrit it contains but in proportion to the 
absence of Sanskrit. It is worthy of note, too, 
that while in other parts of India the authors 
were mostly Brahmins, most of the compositions 
in classical Tamil literature were the works of 
Sudras. While the Telegu-speaking peoples 
might have received a sprinkling of Aryan blood, 
the Tamilian non-Brahmins are almost all of 
pure Dravidian origin. The Brahmins in general 
still retain memories of their immigrations from 
the north and have jealously guarded themselves 
against contact with the natives. 

There are, however, evidences that the Aryan 
influences were stronger in the Deccan in the 
first few centuries of the Christian era than in 
modern times. Thanks to the conquest of the 
Deccan by the Mauryas and the spread of 
Buddhism there, a Prakrit dialect obtained wide 
currency even in those parts where Dravidian 
languages are spoken at the present day. Thus 
Asoka's Minor Rock Edicts found in the Chi- 
taldurg District, the donative inscriptions in 
some Buddhist stupas in the Kistna District (150 
B. C. to 200 A. D.), the Malavalli stone inscrip- 
tion in the Kanarese country, and some copper- 
plate grants of the Pallava kings of Kanchi, all 
prove that an Indo-Aryan dialect, Prakrit, in 
which these inscriptions are written was the 
official language and was at least intelligible 
to all classes of people in many parts of even 



100 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

Southern India. The instructions of Asoka 
were intended for all classes of men, high and 
low, and must have been couched in a language 
which was generally understood. The dona- 
tions mentioned in the stupa inscriptions of 
Kistna concerned even such low-class people 
as leather-workers. One of the Pallava char- 
ters issues instructions not only to the higher 
officials but to ordinary free holders and even 
cowherds. Such was the Aryan influence in 
Southern India at that time that Aryan proper 
names were used not only by many rulers, as 
thePallavas of Kanchi, but even among the 
I lower classes, as in the Kistna inscriptions. 
The spread of Aryan language and ideas and the 
infiltration of Aryan blood had been steadily 
proceeding, and there was every likelihood that 
Southern India would be as much Aryanised 
as Bengal or Maharastra, and that the Dravidian 
culture would be completely lost except where 
it was incorporated in the conquering one. 
But the failure of the northerners to maintain 
their political suzerainty over the south for a 
considerable length of time, the rise of strong 
Dravidian powers like the Andhras, the Pallavas, 
the Cholas, who instead of submitting to Aryan 
rule even carried their victorious arms into the 
north, and, above all, the Mahomedan conquest 
of Northern India which destroyed the fountain- 
spring of Aryan colonisation and inspiration, 



NATURE OF ARYAN COLONISATION 101 

not only checked the progress of Aryanisation 
but even caused the loss of some vantage 
ground which had been won by the Indo- 
Aryans in the south. Hence there is a greater 
self-assertion of the Dravidian in modern times* 



CHAPTER VI 

TRIBES AND KINGDOMS OF 
THE RIGVEDA, 

The most important of the Rigvedic tribes 
serais to he the Bharatas, who in afterages 
have given the name to the whole 
country, Bharatavarsha or India. 
They were settled in the country between the 
Saraswati and the Jumna, and fought both 
against their Aryan rivals on the west and 
non- Aryan foes on the east. Their princes 
are found sacrificing on the Saraswati, on 
the Drishadvati, on the Apaya, in the 
land which afterwards became celebrated as 
Kurukshetra. The victories of the Bharata 
princes and the poetical fame of their Rishis 
together served to acquire for the cult of 
the Bharata people a kind of acknowledged 
supremacy. Agni is Bharata, i.e. belonging to 
the Bharatas. Bharati is the protecting deity 
of the Bharatas, in connection with whom the 
sacred river Saraswati is constantly mentioned. 

The next in importance were the Purus, 

who lived on either side of the Saraswati and 

.. were neighbours and rivals of 

the Bharatas. In later Rigvedic 

times these two rival tribes became thoroughly 

amalgamated, and under the name of Kuru, 



TRIBES AND KINGDOMS OF THE RIGVED A 1 03 

a name not directly mentioned in the Rigveda, 
became the chief bearers of the Vedic culture 
during the later Vedic period. According to 
Pargiter, who follows the Epic and Pauranic 
tradition, the Purus and the Bharatas were two 
branches of one family who were engaged in 
rivalry when some of the Rigvedic hymns 
were composed. They were united under 
Samvarana and his son, the famous Kuru, who 
gave the name to his family and also to the 
people. (Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, 
p. 281). 

There was a comparatively unimportant 
tribe known as the Krivi, who at first might 
. . - . . have lived on the Indus and the 
Chenab, but later moved to the 
east across the Jumna to the land which after- 
wards became known as Panchala (S. P. Br. 
XIII. 5.4.7). Closely connected with the Bha- 
ratas was the tribe of Srinjaya, who lived in 
the neighbourhood of the Bharatas, probably in 
the Panchala country,i.e. the modern Rohilkhand 
tract. 

Among the allies of the Purus against the 
Bharatas were the Anus who dwelt on the 
Parushni or Ravi, and the kindred 
Druhyus who lived to their west, 
and the two allied tribes of Yadu 
and Turvasha, who lived in the southern Punjab, 
and probably further south as the traditional 



04 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

home of the Yadavas in the Epics and Puranas 
lay from Gujarat to Muttra. 

Another people were the Matsyas whose 
wealth drew upon them an attack of the Tur- 
vashas (Rig VIL 18.6). The 
riches of the Matsyas, especially 
their wealth of cows, made them victims even 
in Epic times of predatory raids by the Tri- 
garttas and the Kurus. We know that in later 
times the Matsyas lived in the neighbourhood 
of the Surasenas of Mathura to the west, i.e. 
in modern Alwar and Jaypur, and that was 
probably their home even in the Rigvedic age. 

Among the lesser tribes were the Alinas, 
Pakthas and Bhalanases, all living in the 

OfidL Utmife. fr nt * er regions. In the later Rig- 
vedic period two peoples, who 
played rather important parts in the Brahmana 
and Epic periods, first come into notice the 
Chedis who dwelt in the land between the Jumna 
and the Vindbyas,and theUsinaras in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Saraswati. The Chedi king 
Kasu is praised in a Danastuti (VIII. 5.37-39). 
He seems to be a very powerful king who 
made a gift of ten rajas as slaves to his priest. 
In the Pauranic tradition the Chedis are 
represented as an offshoot of the Yadus, and 
the Usinaras of the Anus, and there is nothing 
in the Rigveda to indicate that the Chedis 
or the Usinaras were a tribe and not a clan. 



TRIBES AND KINGDOMS OF THE RIGVED A 105 

Among the Dasa tribes were the Kikatas, 
Simyus, Ajas, Yakshus, and Sigrus, who were 

_ - ,. mostly inhabitants of the XJangetic 
Data Tribes. in J , ^ . * , 

valley, and were contesting the 

advance of the Bharatas towards the east and 
south-east. Individual Dasa kings were I libisha, 
Dhuni, Chumuri, Sambara, Varchin, Dribhika, 
Rudbikra, Anarsani, Sribinda, etc., some of 
whom later received demoniacal attributes and 
became celestial foes of Indra and other gods. 

A curious people were the Panis, who arej 
described in the Rigveda as "greedy like the ] 

PanL W lf> " " extremel y elfish," "nig- 

gardly," "non-sacrificing, 11 "of 
cruel speech/' "Dasyus" (VII.6.3). They 
were also notorious cattle-possessors (i.e. 
wealthy, cattle constituting the main wealth 
and currency of the time), and cattle-lifters, 
and the name is often used to denote a class 
of demons who withheld the water of the 
clouds like cows from the Aryans. The word 
seems to live in such Sanskrit words as Panik 
or Vanik (merchant), Panya (merchandise), 
itfpani (shop), etc., from which we may infer 
that the Panis were the merchants par excellence 
in the Rigvedic age. Their patron god seems 
to be Yala>_ whom Indra pierced when he 
robbed the Pani of his cows (Rig 1.624 5 X.67.6). 
One of their kings was Brijai ^1.45.31). 
The phonetic resemblances of the words Pani 

4 



106 . THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

and Punic, Vala and the Phoenician god Baal, 
Bribu and Baberu or Babylon, together with 
their peculiar characteristics and the fact of their 
being chased back towards the west (VII.6.3), 
may well tempt us to identify the Panis with 
the Phoenicians, who formerly lived near the 
Persian Gulf and traded in the Arabian Sea 
before their migration to the Mediterranean 
coast. 

Divodasa, "the servant of heaven," the Ati- 

thigva, "the sacrificer of cows for guests,'* was 

a great king of the Bharata tribe,* 

who successfully fought against 

the Purus, Yadus and Turvashas on one hand, 

and the Dasa chief Sambara, the Panis etc. on 

the other. He was the patron of the priestly 

family of the Bharadvajas, the authors of the 

sixth book of the Rigveda. 

His descendant was the famous king Sudas, 
son of Pijavana. At first Sudas' priest was Viswa- 
mitra, who himself was a scion of 
the Kusika family of the Bharata 
tribe (Ait. Br. VIL 1718), and who led him 
to victories on the Vipasha and Satudru, as 
described in the third book of the Rigveda, the 
whole of which is attributed to the Viswamitra 



* For the identification of the Tritsus with the Bharatas 
see Oldenberg, Buddha, pp. 405-406, Macdonell and Keith, 
Vedic Index 1^363. 



TRIBES AND KINGDOMS OF THE RIGVEDA 107 

family. But for some reason or other, probably 
on account of the superior Brahminical know- 
ledge of the Vasisthas (Kath. Br. XXXVIL 17. 
117 ; S. P. Br. XII. 6. 1. 38), Sudas appointed 
Vasistha in place of Viswamitra as his priest. 
Hence arose the long and bitter rivalry between 
the two families, and the imprecations uttered by 
Viswamitra (Rig III. 53. 21 24). The Vasis- 
thas in the seventh book of the Rigveda pray 
for the prosperity of Sudas and celebrate his 
glorious victories on the Parushni over the ten 
allied tribes, the Purus, Yadus, Turvashas, 
Anus, Druhyus, Alinas, Pakthas, Bhalanases, 
Sivas, and Vishanins. Such was the bloody and 
decisive victory that the Anu and Druhyu kings 
fell in the battle, and so also probably Puru- 
kutsa, the Puru king, whose wife was reduced 
to great distress, from which she was afterwards 
relieved by her son Trasadasyu. Sudas also 
turned his victorious arms against the non- Aryan 
tribes, the Ajas, Sigrus and Yakshus, who were 
united under a king, Bheda, who attacked the 
kingdom of Sudas from the east while probably 
the latter was fighting against his Aryan foes 
on the west. Sudas quickly returned and de- 
feated them with great slaughter on the Jumna. 
Sudas was not only a great warrior but also a 
scholar, as tradition credits him with the com- 
position of the hymn 133 of the tenth book. 
All this while Viswamitra had not remained 



146 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

idle. He was assisted in acquiring more Brah- 
minical knowledge by the priestly family of 
Jamadagni to whom he expresses his indebted- 
ness in Rig III. 53. 1516. He then began 
to accuse Vasistha of various heinous crimes, 
which the latter denies on oath in Rig VII. 
104. 12 1 6. Yet Viswamitra seems to have 
regained ascendancy in the Bharata court. 
According to the Taittiriya Samhita (Ashtaka 
VII ) and the Kaushitaki Brahmana (4th 
Adhaya) the sons of Sudas killed a son of 
Vasistha and were destroyed by the indig- 
nant father. Manu is evidently mistaken 
when he charges Sudas instead of bis sons 
with outrages committed upon Brahmins (VII. 
41). Vasistha probably effected the destruction 
of the family of Sudas with the help of the 
Purus, as henceforth the Puru kings like 
Trasadasyu, Trikshi, Kurusravana, Upamasravas, 
etc. come into more prominence. This fact 
can be traced in the confused accounts in the 
Mahabharata (Adiparva, verses 3725-37) of the 
Puru king Samvarana being assisted by Vasistha 
in recovering his power and defeating his 
enemy, the Bharata king of Panchala. Sam- 
varana 's son was the famous Kuru after whom 
his family and the people ruled by him came 
to be known. Curiously, the names of Bharata 
and Puru were merged in the name Kuru 
within a few generations from Sudas and 



TRIBES AND KINGDOMS OF THE RIGVEDA 109 

Trasadasyu, as is found in the later Samhitas 

and the Brahmanas. 

A later king is Santanu for whom Devapi 

performed a rain-inducing sacrifice (Rig X. 98). 
The Mahabharata and the Puranas 
describe Santanu as the Kuru 



king of Hastinapur and the grand* 
father of the Pandavas, and Devapi as his elder 
brother who became an ascetic (Adiparva, 
3750 ; Vishnu Purana IV.2O.7). Weber (In- 
dische Studien, 1.203), however, considers that 
the Santanu and Devapi of the Mahabharata 
and the Puranas cannot be the Same persons 
as those alluded to in the Rigveda, because 
their father was Pratipa, not Rishtisena as 
mentioned in the above hymn, and because 
it is doubtful whether a prince who was so 
near to the Mahabharata war in point of time 
could have been named in a Rigvedic hymn. 
There is nothing in the Rigveda to indicate that 
Devapi was a prince. 



CHAPTER VI I 

LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF 
TRIBES AND KINGDOMS. 

During the period of the later Samhitas 
and the Brahmanas the Bharatas and the Purus 
have disappeared as separate tribes 

and are found united under a 
new name, Kuru. Reminiscenes, 

however, of the past greatness of the Bharata 
tribe are met with here and there, as in the 
accounts in theSatapatha Brahmana(XIII. 5.4.11 - 
12) of Bharata Dauhshanti who performed a 
horse sacrifice and defeated his enemies on the 
Ganges and the Jumna. The first great Kuru 
king is Parikshit (a descendant of Kuru ac- 
cording to Epic and Pauranic traditions), who is 
mentioned in the Atharvaveda (XX. 127.7-10), 
and in whose reign, it is said, the Kuru kingdom 
flourished exceedingly. "Listen ye to the high 
praise of the king who rules over all peoples, 
the god who is above mortals, of Vaisvanara 
Parikshit ! Parikshit has procured for us a 
secure dwelling when he, the most excellent 
one, went, to his seat. (Thus) the husband in 
Kuru land, when he founds his household, 
converses with his wife. 
. ."What mfcyJL -bring [to thee, curds, stirred 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 111 

drink or liquor ? (Thus) the wife asks her 
husband in the kingdom of king Parikshit. 

"Like light the ripe barley runs over beyond 
the mouth (of the vessels). The people thrive 
merrily in the kingdom of king Parikshit." 
(Bloomfield, Atharvaveda, pp. 197-198). 

A son of his was Janamejaya, whose horse 
sacrifice is celebrated in the Satapatha Brah- 
mana (XIII.5.4.) and Aitareya Brahmana (VIII. 
21), and whose brothers Ugrasena, Bhimasena 
and Srutasena by the same sacrifice purified 
themselves of the sin of Brahmin killing. The 
capital of Janamejaya was Asandivanta. This 
Parikshit Janamejaya must not be confused 
with the descendants of the Pandavas. It 
seems that the main Kuru line fell into distress 
after Janamejaya and remained in darkness for 
several generations until a descendant of his, 
the famous Pratipa, revived the power and 
greatness of the family (Mhb. V. 148.5053). 
Hence in most places in the Puranas the names 
of the kings between Janamejaya and Pratipa 
are omitted from the genealogies. From Pratipa 
to the Pandavas the history of the Kurusis 
unchequered. 

Closely allied to the Kurus 

Panchalas, a composite tribe as the 

_ . According to the Sat 

mana the older 
Panchalas was Krivi, and accorj 




(12 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

Mahabharata the Srinjayas were connected with 
the royal family of North Panchala. We may, 
therefore, believe that the Krivis and Srinjayas 
of the early Vedic period and three other tribes, 
who cannot be clearly traced, together formed 
the later Panchala people. The Kuru-Panchalas 
are described in the Brahmanas as the models 
of good form, their kings as the greatest sacrifi- 
cers, and their priestly class the most learned 
in the knowledge of the Vedas. "Speech 
sounds higher here among the Kuru-Panchalas." 
The later Samhitas and the Brahmanas seem 
mostly to have taken definite form in the land 
of the Kuru-Panchalas. In the Rajsuya cere- 
mony as described in the Yajurveda the king 
is presented to the people as that of the Kurus 
or Panchalas or Kuru-Panchalas. Of the 
Panchala kings we hear of Kraivya, Sona 
Satrasaha, Durmukha, a great conqueror, and 
Pravahana Jaivali, a philosopher king of the 
Chhandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. 

The Matsyas seem to have occupied an 
important position, though within a limited space, 
during the Brahmana period. One of 
their kings, Dhvasan Dvaitavana per- 
formed a horse sacrifice where there is the lake 
Dvaitavana (S.P.Br.XIII.5.4.9). The well-known 
sage, Gargya Balaki lived for sometime among 
them (Kaus, Br. IV. i). Their activities, how- 
ever, remained confined to alliances and rivalries 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 

with the neighbouring powers like the Kuru* 
Panchalas, the Surasenas and the Chedis, and did 
not operate on the wider stage of Aryavarta, 
unlike those of the Kurus, Kosalas, Yadus and 
others. In the Mahabharata war the Matsyas 
were one of the secondary powers who led their 
hosts to the assistance of the more important 
combatants. 

To the east of the Kuru-Panchala land lay 
the realms of Kosala and Videha. A family of 
princes bearing the name of 
Ikshaku is known from the Rigveda 
(X.6o.4), and it is likely that the ruling dynasty 
of Kosala may have been descended from this 
family. "In the Panchavimsa Brahmana mention 
is made of Tryaruna Aiksbaka who is identical 
with the Tryaruna Traivrishna of the Brihaddeva- 
ta and with Tryaruna Trasadasyu in the Rigveda. 
The connection of Trasadasyu with the Ikshakus 
is confirmed by the fact that Purukutsa was an 
Aikshaka, according to Satapatha Brahmana. 
Thus the Ikshaku line was originally a line of the 
Puru kings." (Vedic Index). Epic and Pauranic 
traditions describe the royal dynasty of Videha as 
a branch of the Ikshaku dynasty of Kosala, Nimi 
the founder of the former being a son of Ikshaku. 
The tradition, as recorded in the Satapatha 
Brahmana, about the founding of the kingdom 
of Videba by Videgha Mathava accompanied by 
his priest Gotama Rahugana, appears to be more 
15 



||4 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

reliable, though the existence of a king by name 
Nimi may be assumed from the occurrence of 
the name Nami Sapya the Videhan in the Vedic 
Texts. Probably Nimi was the founder not of 
the kingdom but of the greatness of the king- 
dom. Even without accepting the Pauranic 
traditions we may find evidences in the Brah- 
manas to show that the Kosalas and the Videhas 
were allied tribes and that there was some 
rivalry existing between the Kosala- Videhas and 
the Kuru-Panchalas. Sometimes Kosala and 
Videha were united under one rule, as under 
Para Atnara Hairanyanabha (S.P.Br.XIII. 5.4.4). 
It is said that the sage Jala Jatukarnya was 
the priest of the Kosalas, Videhas and Kasis at 
one time (Sankhayana Srauta Sutra XVI.29.5), 
which indicates at least a temporary league. 
Brahminism was not as strong in Kosala as 
in the Kuru-Panchala land, as is revealed in the 
verdict given by the people in favour of their 
king against his priest (Jaiminiya Brahmana 
III. 94-95). It appears from all these that 
the Aryan tribes who occupied Oudh and 
North Behar might or might not be a branch 
of the Kuru-Panchalas, but it is certain that 
politically and to some extent culturally there 
was some difference and rivalry between the 
eastern group of Kosala, Videha and Kasi, 
and the western group of Kuru-Panchala, 
Matsya, Surasena, etc. 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 

Some uncertainty exists with regard to the 
Kasis. Pauranic tradition traces the descent 
of the Kasi dynasty from the Paurava 
king Nahusha, grandson of Pururavas, 
and thereby connects the Kasis with the 
Kuru-Panchalas. But whatever might have 
been their origin, we find in the Brahmanas 
and the Upanishads that the Kasis were more 
allied to the Kosala-Videhas and were often 
fighting against the Kura-Panchalas. Dhrita- 
rastra Vaichitravirya, king of Kasi, was 
defeated by the Kuru king Satanika Satrajita 
with the result that the Kasis down to the 
time of the Satapatha Brahmana ceased to 
keep up the sacrificial fire (S. P. Br. XIII. 
54.I9)- 

That there is some consistency in the Pauranic 

traditions can not be denied when we learn 

from them that not only the Kasis 

mm ]|_ J 

Maga but the Aryan colonists of Magadha, 
at least the royal family, belonged to the Kuru- 
Panchala tribes. It is said that the first 
conquest was made by Amurtarayas, a younger 
son of Kusa, king of Kanyakubja or Kanouj, and 
descended from Pururavas. Afterwards Vasu, a 
descendant of king Kuru, conquered the country 
and gave it to his eldest son, Brihadratha, 
the founder of the famous Barhadratha dynasty. 
In the Puranas tribal names are often 



ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

inserted in the genealogies under the disguise 
of eponymous ancestors, and we 
1^7 believe in the relationship 

f *. 

of such and such tribes when 
their eponymous ancestors are descended from 
a common father. Thus Puru, Anu, Druhyu, 
Yadu, Turvasha are the eponymous ancestors 
of the five allied tribes of the Rigveda. There 
is nothing in the Rigveda to indicate any 
blood relation between these tribes. Of these 
the Anu and Druhyu, the Yadu and Turvasha 
are sometimes mentioned as pairs, indicating 
closer relations between the two. But for 
the time being these five tribes were in con- 
federacy against the powerful Bharatas. 
Probably this fact accounts for the statement 
in the Puranas that the five eponymous heroes 
were brothers, being the sons of the mythical 
king Yajati. Yajati, it is said, divided his 
kingdom among his five sons, Puru receiving 
the middle region, Anu north, Druhyu west, 
Yadu south-west, and Turvasha south-east. 
The Pauranic location of the tribes, if we put 
the Purus on the Saras wati, accords well 
with what we know from the Rigveda. 

Of these five tribes the Purus, as we have 
seen, united with the Bharatas and other tribes 
and became the founders of the 
famous Kuru-Panchala tribes. It is 
also likely that the ruling families of Kosala, 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 117 

Kasi and Magadha belonged to this stock. The 
Anus were divided into two branches, Usinara 
and Titikshu. The Usinaras in course of time 
were subdivided into Usinara proper, Yaudheya, 
Madraka, Kekaya,* Sauvira, etc., the tribes 
whom we find in occupation of the Punjab and 
Sind in more recent times. From Titukshu 
descended after several generations the famous 
king Bali, who divided his territories among 
his five sons, Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, 
Pundra and Suhma. Thus the Puranas under 
the disguise of fables, mythical kings and 
eponymous ancestors seek to connect the tribes 
of the Punjab and the Aryan colonists of the 
eastern countries, Anga ( E. Behar), Vanga 
(E. Bengal ), Pundra ( N. Bengal), Suhma ( W. 
Bengal), Kalinga (Orissa), all belonging to the 
Anu stock of the Rigveda. This tradition 
accords very well with the findings of Grierson 
as to the near relations of the dialects of the 
Punjab and the eastern provinces as distin- 
guished from those of the Midland. 

In the Rigveda we find the Druhyus living to 

* From the Ramayana (II. 68. 19-22 ; VII. 113-114) 
we learn that the Kekaya country lay between the Beas 
and the Gandhara country. Asvapati, a king of Kekaya 
in the Upanishad period, is a famous person, who taught 
a number of well-known Brahmin scholars the principles of 
the knowledge of Brahma (Chhandogya Upanishad V. ix. 
4 et seq). 



1 16 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

the west of the Anus, i.e. in the Indus region. 
The Puranas make Gandhara, an 
eponymous king, a descendant of 
Druhyu, showing that the Druhyus inhabited 
the Gandhara land. Unlike the other tribes 
the Druhyus did not seek to expand towards 
the interior of India. Their way towards the 
east and south-east was barred by the Anus. 
Hence they sent their overflowings to the coun- 
tries to the west and north-west, a fact recorded 
in the Puranas which tell us that the hundred 
sons of Pracheta, a later descendant of Druhyu 
and Gandhara, established themselves as kings 
in the Mlechchha countries to the north. 

The Turvashas lived, according to Pauranic 
tradition, to the south-east of the Purus. In 
T . the Brahmana period they have 

practically disappeared from his- 
tory. The Satapatha Brahmana (XIII. 5. 4. 16) 
suggests that they formed one of the elements 
of the composite Panchala tribe. The Puranas 
declare that the Turvashas were merged into the 
Purus as their last king Marutta adopted the Puru 
king Dushyanta as his . successor. Anyway, the 
Turvashas were absorbed by the Kuru-Panchalas. 
Unlike their old allies, the Turvashas, the 
Yadus displayed a remarkable power of growth 
. and expansion, and became in 

the Epic age no mean rivals 
of the Kurus and the Ikshakus. Out of the 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 1 19 

confused accounts, different versions, wrong 
arrangements and omissions of the different 
Puranas one fact stands clear, viz., that the 
Yadus in course of time branched off into the 
Yadavas, Satvatas, Haihayas, Kukuras, Bhojas, 
Andhakas, Chedis, Vrishnis and other smaller 
clans. For the history of the Yadus we 
have to depend entirely on the Puranas as 
the names of Yadu kings except the Bhojas 
are almost unknown to the Samhitas and the 
Brahmanas. Of the important Yadu kingdoms 
may be mentioned the Haihaya kingdom of 
Mahismati or Malwa, Kukura kingdom of 
Surasena or Muttra,* Vrishni kingdom of 
Dwaraka in Kathiwar, Bhoja kingdom of Martti- 
kavata in Rajputana, Yadava kingdom of 
Vidarbha or Berar (otherwise known as the 
Bhoja kingdom, the name Bhoja being often 
applied to the Yadus in general), Chedi 
kingdom to the south of the Jumna (till its 
conquest by Vasu Chaidya the Paurava). From 
Kautilya's Arthasastra we know that the 
Bhojas at one time ruled in the Dandaka or 
Maharasta country, probably supplanting a 
small Ikshaku colony there, the remembrance 
of which gave origin to the eponymous king 

* The country obtained its name from Surasena, son of 
Satrugna, who had conquered it from the Yadava king Lavana 
of Madhtfs family. The Yadavas seem to have regained it 
after Surasena's death. Mathura is a corruption of Madhupura. 



120 THE ARYAN1SATION OF INDIA 

Danda, a son of Ikshaku. In short, we see that 
tbe Yadus prevailed over practically the whole 
land from the Gulf of Cambay and the Godavery 
to the Jumna. 

The Haihayas were the Mahrattas of the/ 
Epics during the Treta age. It seems that at first/ 
the Pauravas attained supremacy in the 

TrcU A^L Middle Countr y and that that period 
of their greatness is associated in the 
Puranas with such mythical kings as Pururavas, 
Ayu, Nahusha and Yajati. After the death of 
Yajati the Paurava kingdom was broken up 
into small principalities, and the kingdom of 
Oudh rose to supremacy under its kings, 
Yuvanasva and his son Mandhatri. Under 
Mandhatri and his sons, one of whom was 
Muchukunda, the Ikshakus conquered the 
country as far as the Punjab on one side 
and the Nerbudda on the other. The 
Haihayas, who were settled in Malwa, and 
who were pressed under the heels of the 
Ikshakus, soon rose against them, and taking 
advantage of the weakness of Muchukunda 1 s 
successors, not only cleared their country of 
the enemies but, like the Mahrattas under Baji 
Rao, boldly appeared in the Gangetic regions, 
and fell upon the small kingdom of Kasi. They 
ravaged and conquered it and made it their base 
for raiding Northern India. The greatest king 
of the Haihaya dynasty was Arjuna, son of 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 

Kritavirya, who is known as a Samraj and a 
Chakravartin. He defeated and took prisoner a 
Havana* or a Dravidian king, who had come 
northward on conquest. He, like Balaji Rao, 
extended his conquests from the Nerbudda 
to the Himalayas overruning the kingdom of 
Oudh. In his pride of power he began to oppress 
the Brahmin family of Bhargava who dwelt in 
the lower region of the Nerbudda. The Bhar- 
gavas fled to the Gangetic Doab, and with a 
view to avenge themselves on the Haihayas 
entered into matrimonial alliances with the royal 
families of Kanouj and Oudh. Arjuna raided 
Jamadagni Bhargava' s hermitage, and in the 
melee which took place both of them were 
killed. Jamadagni' s son, the terrible Parasu- 
rama, swore vengeance and with the assistance 
of the princes of Oudh and Kanouj, both of 
whom were suffering from the raids of the 
Haihayas, defeated and killed many of the 
Haihayas. The Haihaya power, like that of the 
Mahrattas after the third battle of Panipat, 
received a set-back but was not crushed. The 
central power was destroyed, and on its ruins 
rose five powers in five different centres 
Vitihotra, Saryata, Bhoja, Avanti, Tundikera, all 
of whom were collectively known as Talajanghas 

* Havana is probably not a personal name but a Sans* 
kritized form of the Tamil word ireivan or iraivan, 'God, king, 
sovereign, lord. 9 (Pargiter, Anc.Ind.His. Tpd^fcta). 
16 



122 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

from the name of the grandson of Arjuna, 
This confederacy of Haihaya powers gradually 
recovered from the great blow inflicted by 
Parasurama and again began their raids into 
Northern India. The kingdom of Kanouj fell, 
and Bahu, king of Oudh, was compelled to 
leave his capital and take shelter in the hermi- 
tage of Aurva Bhargava, where he died. The 
Haihayas then attacked the eastern kingdoms 
of Vaisali and Videha. But Vaisali was for- 
tunate enough to have three generations of very 
able princes at the time, Karandhama, Aviksit 
and Marutta, who successfully repulsed the 
Haihaya attacks. The Kasi kings too, who had 
.been carrying on a long struggle from the 
eastern portion of their territory, attained some 
success, and Pratardana and his son Vatsa even 
annexed the district of Kausambi, which was 
thence named the Vatsa country. 

Meanwhile Sagara, son of Bahu, had 
reached manhood and made careful prepara- 
tions to fight the Haihayas. He 
defeated them, regained the throne 
of Oudh, and soon established 
his supremacy in Northern India. He then 
invaded the territories of the Haihayas and 
crushed their power so effectively that we 
do not hear of them till long afterwards. He 
advanced as far as Vidarbha, whose king had 
to buy peace by giving his daughter in marriage 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 12J 

with him. After Sagara's death Oudh failed 
to maintain her suzerainty over the vast empire 
built up by him, and though from time to time 
kings like Dilipa, Raghu, Aja, Dasaratha went 
out on conquering expeditions and achieved some 
successes } yet on the whole the Oudh kings 
confined themselves to their own territories. 
The Yadavas of Vidarbha availing themselves 
of the friendship of Oudh gradually extended 
their power over a part of the Haihaya country 
and over the Chedi country. Meanwhile the 
Paurava realm, which had been overthrown in 
Mandhatri's time,* regained its independence 
and the land from the Saraswati to the Ganges 
came under the rule of Paurava princes from 
different centres, one of which was Hastinapur. 
The Yadavas stepped into the place of the 
Haihayas and established several kingdoms 
in the land from the Jumna to the Gulf of 
Cambay, the more important of which were 
Surasena and Dwaraka. 

* We find in the Ramayana (1.13.31-28) that Vasistha 
advised Dasaratha, king of Ajodhya, to invite the kings of 
Mithila, Kasi, Kckaya, Anga, Magadha, Sindhu, Sauvira, 
Surastra, etc., but did not mention any king of the Middle 
Country. This passage is cited by some scholars to prove 
that there was cultural difference between the kingdoms of 
the Outer Band and those of the Middle Country. But 
it need not be interpreted in that way, and the meaning 
becomes clear if we remember that the Kuru-Panchala 
land was directly subject to the king of Oudh, 



124 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

After the death of Rama, the hero of the 

Ramayana, the power of Oudh began to 

decline and the centre of political 

KwEM&m ac tivity shifted to the Kuru- 

**^ Panchala country. The Kurus 
and the Pandavas were certainly the most 
powerful princes of their time and their 
domestic quarrels brought the whole of India 
from one extremity to the other into the 
vortex of blood in the Kurukshetra war. 
Almost all the ruling families suffered so much 
that for a long time^ after there was a spirit 
of stupor in the country and the wars and 
rivalries of the succeeding generations bespeak 
only pettiness and weakness of the contending 
parties. Kshatriya India could never recover 
from the awful carnage of the Kurukshetra war. 

During the following age, though the 
Ikshaku and Kuru lines of kings continued to 
Knruf rule in their respective realms, 
Kali Age. the kingdom of the future was 
Magadha^ the Prussia of Aryavarta, and detailed 
dynastic tables are given in the Puranas of 
these three kingdoms only, the other kingdoms 
being incidentally mentioned. Shortly after 
the Kurukshetra war it seems that a non- 
Aryan tribe, the Nagas, established themselves 
at Takshasila or Taxila and attacked the 
grandson of the Pandavas, Parikshit II, who was 
killed. His son Janamejaya III was a vigorous 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 125 

ruler, who defeated the Nagas but failed to 
annihilate their power. In the reign of Nichak- 
shus, the fourth in descent from Janamejay, 
Hastinapur (in the Meerut District), the Kuru 
capital, was destroyed by an inundation of the 
Ganges. This, together with the pressure of 
the barbarians from the north-west, compelled 
the Kurus to transfer their headquarters to 
Kausambi (near Allahabad). One of the latest 
kings was Udayana the Vatsaraj, who was a 
contemporary of Gautama Buddha. He is 
a favourite hero of later romance writers. 
His descent from the Bharata family is attested 
to by Bhasa in the Svapnavasavadatta. He 
was the son-in-law and also a rival of Pradyqta, 
king of Avanti. -He was at first unfriendly 
to the Buddhist preachers, one of whom he 
tortured in a fit of drunken jealousy by having 
a sack of brown ants tied to his body. But 
afterwards he repented and professed himself 
a disciple of the tortured monk. The dynasty 
came to an end with Kshemaka, the fourth 
in descent from Udayana. Kautilya writes 
in the 4th century B. C. that the Kurus 
were governed by a republican constitution. 
The existence of the Kurus can be traced as 
late as the time of king Dharmapala of Bengal 
(800 A. D.), who installed Chakrayudha on the 
throne of Kanouj in consultation with the 
Kurus among others. 



136 THE ARYAHISATION OF INDIA 

About the time of Gautama Buddha's birth the 
most prominent of the kingdoms of Western India 
was Avanti, the Vrishni kingdom of Dwaraka 

having been ruined by fratricidal 
fatth * strifes after the Kurukshetra war. 
The Vrishnis, however, reappear in history as 
one of the powers which arose on the ruins of 
the Maurya empire in the second century B. C., 
and continued their fitful existence till at least 
the time of Bana (yth century A. D.), who 
mentions them in his Harshacharita. The 
smaller branches of Surasena and Asmaka were 
in dependent alliance with the Pradyota kings 
of Avanti. Pradyota, whose father Punika 
seems to be a usurper, was the most powerful 
prince of his time. He pressed hard Udayana 
the Vatsa king and threatened Ajatasatru, the 
powerful king of Magadha, who is said to have 
fortified his capital shortly after the death of 
Buddha in anticipation of an attack by the 
Avanti king. 

The most notable figure of the age which 
followed the decline of the Kuru kingdom was 

Janaka, the famous king of Videha. 

There were so many Janakas in 

the dynasty of Videha that the 
family was called Janakavamsa (Vayu Pur. 89, 
33). But the most celebrated of them was the 
one who is mentioned in the Brihadaranyaka 
Upanishad as the patron of Uddalaka Aruni 



LATER TRIBES AND KINGDOMS 127 

and Yajnavalkya. The memories of the great- 
ness of the Kurus were still fresh in men's 
minds, and their fate was discussed as a subject 
of controversy in the court of Mithila, the capital 
of Videha. A rival of Yajnavalkya asks the 
question, "whither have the Parikshitas gone ?" 
to which the latter quickly replies, "Thither 
where all Aswamedha-sacrificers go" (Br. Up. 
III). Janaka is called a "Samrat" or one 
greater than a king, and in Asvalayana Srauta 
Sutra (X. 3. 14) is mentioned as a great sacri- 
ficer. His court was thronged with learned 
Brahmins from the western countries (i. e. the 
Middle Country), whose discussions materially 
contributed to the growth of the Upanishad 
philosophy. "The king of the east, who has a 
leaning to the culture of the west, collects the 
celebrities of the west at his court much as the 
intellects of Athens gathered at the court of 
Macedonian princes." (Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 
398). Both according to Kautilya's Arthasastra 
and Nimi Jataka, the last king of Videha was 
Kalara or Karala Janaka who brought destruc- 
tion on himself and his family by making a las- 
civious attempt on a Brahmin maiden/ 1 By 
the time of Gautama Buddha (600 B. C.) the 
Videhas had become a member of the well- 
known Vajjian confederacy of republican states 
of North Behar f of which the Lichchhavis of 
Vaisali were the head. 



128 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

The small kingdom of Kasi continued its 
existence for several centuries after the Maha- 
bharata war. often under the sway 



But it seems to have asserted its independence 
and for a time played a prominent part on the 
stage of Northern India. Under its most 
famous king Brahmadatta it carried on success- 
ful war,s against the then most powerful state 
of Kosala, which was compelled to acknowledge 
his suzerainty. For four generations the two 
kingdoms fought with varying results, but 
eventually the greater resources of Kosala 
wore out the power of Kasi, which was com- 
pletely subjugated by Kamsa, king of Kosala. 
With the decline of Vatsa and the conquest of 
Kasi, Kosala became the dominant power in 
Northern India, which position it retained till 
the time of Prasenajit, a contemporary of Gau- 
tama Buddha. The Sakyas, the people of Gau- 
tama Buddha, as well as other republican tribes 
of the Nepal regions, were vassals of the Kosala 
king. Shortly after the death of Prasenajit 
Kosala was conquered by Ajatasatru, king of 
Magadha. By the time of the Nandas (400 B.C.) 
the Kurus, the Ikshakus, the Avantis, the 
Vajjis, the Kasis, all had been swallowed up by 
the Magadhan empire. 



APPENDIX I 

Orthodox Indian Pundits relying on the authority of Pauranic 
traditions maintain that the Vedic Aryans had ever been living in 
India, which is the centre of the earth, that the other civili- 
zations of the world are only offshoots of the Indian civilization, 
and that the age of the Vedas must be counted by millions of 
years ( Durgadas Lahiri, Prithivir Itihasha I ). All the arguments 
and theories of European scholars have not been able to 
undermine their beliefs, and, though unable to produce counter- 
arguments of a rational character, they have remained ensconced 
in the scepticism born of ignorance and false pride. When, however, 
Dr. Abinas Chandra Das in his Rigvedic India entered the 
lists to fight the European scholars with modern weapons instead 
of simply citing the authority of the Sastras, there rose at once 
a chorus of joy from the orthodox and he was acclaimed as the 
champion of their cause. Because of his advocacy of the old 
beliefs of the Pundits and his arguments to demolish the modern 
theories regarding the origin of the Aryan folk, their primitive 
home, and the date of the Rigveda, his book has caught popular 
fancy and hardened the prejudices of the Pundits, For the 
benefit of ordinary Indian readers I shall discuss at length his 
theories and the data on which those theories are based, and 
thereby indirectly deal with the orthodox school of which be is 
regarded as the mouth-piece. 

The principal argument of Dr. Das is that there are references 
in the Rigveda to four seas, as in IX.33.6, and to seismic distur- 
bances of great intensity, as in ILu.a, which prove that 



THE ARYAN1SAT10N OTf IKD1A 

hymns were composed at a time when the Punjab was surrounded 
by seas almost on all sides, in Central Asia, Sind, Rajputana, 
and the Gangetic valley, and when the earth was still passing 
through the Tertiary era. It is assumed that the Punjab had 
become long habitable when the Gangetic valley was still a sea. 
Now geologists assume the existence of two seas side by side, 
the Gangetic trough and the Indus trough, which were gradually 
filled up by alluvium brought by the Ganges and the Indus 
respectively. As the alluvial deposit in the Punjab generally 
is of smaller thickness than in the Gangetic valley, it is suggested 
that the former was older than the latter. But it is also found 
that some parts of the Indus trough, as at Ludhiana, have "a 
depth which is comparable with, and possibly quite as great as, 
that of the much broader trough in the Gangetic region," In 
other words, when the Gangetic region was a sea, the eastern 
Punjab too was a sea, and the Vedic Saptasindbava (land of 
the seven rivers) was a misnomer. Secondly, it has not been 
calculated as to how much older even the western Punjab land 
was than the Gangetic region, whether the difference in age 
between the two lands was sufficient for the purpose of the 
birth of lower mammalia and then of man (it is assumed by Dr. 
Das that the Aryan was .autochthonous in the Punjab), and of 
the gradual evolution of man from his primitive condition unaided 
by any external influences to the civilized state of the Vedic age, 
Le. whether the Punjab land was older than the Gangetic region 
by hundreds of thousands of years. Thirdly, we know that 
the Gangetic ;sea had become land in Miocene times (Bncy. 
Brit XII, p. 736). So according to Dr. Das's hypothesis, the 
Vedic hymns referring to the four seas and the eastern and 



APPENDIX |3| 

western seas must have been composed jt least in Miocene 

times, if not in Oligocene and Eocene, or at least two million 

years ago. Now it is a matter of dispute among geologists and 

anthropologists as to whether man lived in Miocene times (Keith, 

The Antiquity of Man), Even if we admit that man existed 

in Miocene times, it was not man as we understand him to be, 

but man in the embryonic stage, nearer to the ape than to 

modern man, as is proved by the human bones so far discovered 

of the pliocene and even early pleistocene periods. Even 

Professor Rutot, the great champion of the theory of extreme 

antiquity of man, has to assume that "Man was in a state of 

stagnation throughout the ages which witnessed the rise and fall 

of whole genera of other mammals," Under these circumstances 

Dr, Das would have us believe that in the Punjab the Vedic 

Aryans had passed through the palaeolithic and neolithic stages, 

and were in the Iron age with a highly developed civilization 

even in the Miocene period. Again, we are asked to believe 

that the Vedic Aryans were an iron-using people in the Punjab 

hundreds of thousands of years ago, and though it is admitted 

that they had trade relations with other peoples near and far, 

the use of iron remained confined to them and did not spread 

anywhere beyond their land till only about 2000 B. C, in China 

and about 1500 B, C. in Western Asia and Egypt, though the 

Babylonians and the Egyptians had already far advanced in 

civilization, and their ruling classes, if we agree with Dr. Das, 

had been colonists from India. 

Dr. Das agrees with Tilak that some of the hymns were 
composed about 4500 B.C. (p 48), but states that the early hymns 
were composed in Miocene times. In other words, the Rigvedic 



THE ARYAmSATION OF INDIA 

age cowed about 2 million years. It is of course admitted 
that the hymns were not composed at the same time, and 
that the composition and collection must have taken rather a 
long time. Now how to measure that length of time ? Competent 
scholars have come to the conclusion that the Rigvedic age 
lasted for about 500 years. What is in hymns like Rig VII. 95. 2 
and X. 136. 5 which demonstrates their extreme antiquity? 
Are the thoughts very different, are the gods and goddesses 
different, is the mode of prayer different from those of the so- 
called later hymns like those composed in 4500 B.C. ? Again, 
comparatively old as the hymns of the Rigveda may be, even 
the earliest hymns represent thoughts, manners and customs, 
which are not so different from those of the Brahmanic or 
Epic period that we can separate them from the later 
literatures even by thousands, not to say of hundreds of 
thousands of years. Further, whatever changes might take place 
in the language during the whole Rigvedic period, there are 
no fundamental differences observed between the languages of any 
two hymns and the whole literature inspite of stages of development 
constitutes one type. Now this type is not so different from the 
old Persian of the 6th or 7th century B.C. and from the classical 
Sanskrit literature of the 4th century B.C. that we can believe, 
whatever allowances might be made for stagnation of language, that 
the Rigvedic literature was distant from these literatures by even 
three thousand years. So from the linguistic and sociological 
points of view the theory of Dr. Dai seferas absurd (Winternitz). 

In order to prove his theory Dr. Das has had recourse to all 
sorts of ingenious explanations about Dasas, Rakshas, Panis, 
and the origins of western nations. One of the arguments urged 



APPENDIX 133 

against the Indian origin of the Aryan race is that in the Rigreda 
we find a struggle going on between the Aryans and the Dasyus who 
had strong cultural and physical differences, and that it is improbable 
that two such distinct types of men had been living and developing 
in the same land without intermingling. To this it is replied 
by Dr. Das that the Dasyus and the Rakshas were not non- 
Aryans, but "either Aryan nomads in a savage condition, or 
Aryan dissenters from the orthodox Vedic faith." The black skin 
is explained away as being used in a spiritual sense, noselessness 
or ilWormed nose as indicative of imperfect speech, and so forth. 
Now he admits that the Dasas and Rakshas had different gods, 
different religious rites, different dialects, and different ways of 
living from those of the Vedic hymn-makers, and seeks to explain 
these radical differences by assuming that while one section of the 
Aryan race had been highly civilized another section remained 
still in a savage, nomadic state. We can realise the weight or 
otherwise of this assumption if we recollect that the Vedic 
Aryans had already reached a high level of civilization in Miocene 
times, and for hundreds of thousands of years had been fight- 
ing with their nomadic brethren without in any way improving 
them, and that in a limited area like that of the Punjab. These 
savage nomads then, it is said, were expelled from the country 
and mingling with the Turanians in Central Asia went to settle 
in Europe. As the Aryan-speaking Europeans are known to 
have been not iron-using when they went to settle there, and 
as the absence of any common root for the word "sea" in their 
languages proves that their forefathers had no knowledge of sea, 
it is assumed by Dr. Das that the nomadic Aryans in the Punjab 
born of the same stock as the Vedic Aryans and in dose contact 



134 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

with them for hundreds of thousands of years were still ignorant 
of the use of metals, and, nomadic as they were, were ignorant 
of the existence of seas which, it is stated, surrounded the 
country on four sides. The assumptions and inferences area 
little too bold to be accepted. To explain away the Iranian 
tradition of their origin in Airyana Vaejo Dr. Das assumes that 
as the Iranians had quarrelled with the Indians they were reluctant 
to point to Saptasindhu as their original home. But one would 
have been convinced if the name of Saptasindhu had been altoge- 
ther omitted from the list of countries created by Ahura Mazda. 
But the name stands there, and also the description as to how 
the climate of the place, which had been at first good, was 
changed. 

Dr. Das holds that the Deccan peninsula had been inhabited 
by the Dravidians from time immemorial, but that there being no 
land connection between the Punjab and the southern continent, 
they did not come into contact with the Aryans. But those autho- 
rities which he has quoted to prove the existence of theGangetic 
trough state that even when the Indus trough had not been filled 
there was a tongue of solid land separating the two seas. Certainly 
this narrow strip of land had considerably widened, if we look to 
the depth of alluvial deposit on and near the Delhi Ridge, when 
the Punjab became terra firma. How can he then assume the 
existence of a sea entirely cutting off theVindhya regions from 
the Punjab ? 

Now let us examine the data which have led Dr. Das to these 
astounding conclusions. The first is that in Rig VII, 95,2 the 
Saraawati is said to flow from the mountains into the sea. To 
explain this one need not go back to the time when Rajputant 



APPENDIX t# 

was A sea. It might imply either that the Saraawati met the Indus 
and the united waters flowed into the sea or that the Saraswati 
was an independent river flowing into the Arabian Sea. Even aft 
late as the time of Alexander a large part of Lower Sind was still 
under water and the Indus delta was considerably higher up than 
the present position. So it is not difficult to imagine that in Rig- 
Vedic times the Indus delta was still higher up and the Saraswati 
was an independent river. In fact, the old bed of the Saraswati- 
Sutlej (Hakra) can even now be seen for a considerable length 
through the Bhawalpur state, which does not prove that "the 
disappearance of the Saraswati was synchronous with that of the 
Rajputana sea." 

Dr. Das lays considerable stress upon the reference to four 
seas, as in Rig IX. 33.6. That the four seas are more imaginary 
than real is apparent from the fact that unlike the rivers and the 
mountains the seas have got no names of their own in the Rigveda. 
I agree with Dr. Das in holding that the Aryans while in the 
Punjab were acquainted with the Arabian Sea. For one sailing 
upon the vast expanse of the sea it is not unnatural to think it 
limitless and surrounding the land on all the four sides. What- 
ever might have been the cause, the Indians of the Epic period 
regarded the world as consisting of seven islands and seven con* 
centric rings of seas. Can any one at the present time try to locate 
the seven seas surrounding the seven islands relying upon the old 
tradition ? The Rigvedic mention of the four seas only shows the 
origin of the later and more developed Pauranic tradition. The 
sight of sunrise and sunset from on board a ship by the hymn* 
makers, associated with the conception of four seas surrounding the 
land, can well account for the description of the sun dwelling in 



136 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

the eastern and western seas, as in Rig X. 136.5. Moreover, 
there is ample justification for modern scholars saying that the 
word Samudra (sea) in the Rigveda was often figuratively used to 
mean the vast, limitless expanse of the sky, and that the reference 
to eastern and western seas in connection with the rising 
and setting of the sun was used to mean nothing but eastern 
and western sky. 

*' Another evidence of the antiquity of the Rigveda and the 
Aryans of Sapta-Sindhu, s> says Dr. Das, "is the reference in some 
of the hymns to extensive seismic disturbances, causing upheavals 
and depressions of land and frequent earthquakes of great inten- 
sity. 1 ' As for instance, in Rig II. 17.5, "By his strength he 
(Indra) fixed the wandering mountains ; he ordained the down- 
ward course of the water." Evidently, as Dr. Das himself admits, 
the wandering mountains here means clouds which were at first 
made motionless and then made to pour down waters. In Rig II. 
12.2, "He who fixed firm the earth that staggered ; who made the 
moving mountains rest; who spread the spacious firmament; who 
consolidated the heaven; he, men, is Indra. 11 Dr. Das forgets 
that the meanings of many words changed from the Vedic to 
the classical literature. He makes a muddle by translating 
prakupitan parvatan as angry mountains, thereby thinking it 
as referring to volcanic eruptions. If he had cared to consult 
Sayana and other commentators he would have found that pra- 
kupitan means here not angry but moving from the original mean- 
ing of the root kup> to move. The allusion is as follows (cf. Maitr, 
Sam* 1.10.13) "The mountains are the eldest children of Proja- 
pati They had wings. They flew about and descended whenever 
they liked. The earth thus tottered. Indra cut off their wings, 



APPENDIX 

and made fast the earth by means of them. 11 Thus by no stretch 
of imagination can any of the passages quoted be made to refer to 
any "extensive seismic disturbances/ 1 characteristic of the Tertiary 
era. 

The fourth evidence, according to Dr. Das, is that as Indra was 
one of the oldest gods of the Aryans, and as the great exploits of 
Indra are said to have taken place on the banks of the Saraswati, 
that place must have been the primitive home of the Aryans, The 
same argument with respect to the old god Zeus and his residence 
on the Olympus would Ipad one to the conclusion that the Hel- 
lenes were autochthonous in Greece. Besides, Indra is certainly 
not one of the oldest gods of the Aryans as he can not be traced 
beyond the Indo-Iranian period. 

The fifth evidence is "that the total absence of the mention of 
the Deluge in the Rigveda proves the period of the composition of 
the hymns to be anterior to that event", and the Deluge is said to be 
nothing but the raising of the Rajputana sea-bed by volcanic action 
and consequent flooding of the Punjab. Dr. Das himself admits the 
weakness of arguraentum ex silentio. He says that the Atharva- 
veda "is admittedly a later work than the Rigveda," and also agrees 
with Tilak that some of the Rig hymns were composed about 
4500 B. C. So it follows from his own argument that the 
Deluge or the upheaval of the Rajputana sea-bed, which is not 
mentioned in the Rigveda but is in the Atharvaveda, must have 
taken place sometime after 4500 B. C. Will geologists agree ? 
Cannot a better explanation be found for the absence of 
reference to the Deluge in the Rigveda ? The story of the 
Deluge was probably borrowed from the Dravidians, and hence 
its absence in the Rigveda (See ante pp. 8081). 
18 



THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

the copious rainCaU in the Punjab, which, as Dr. Das says, 
is alluded to in the Rigveda, was, according to him, an evidence 
.of a very ancient date of the Rigveda, when there were seas on 
all sides of the Punjab. But it is not necessary to go back to 
prehistoric times to explain more abundant rainfall in the Punjab. 
When Alexander came, the Punjab as well as large parts of 
Beluchistan and Eastern Persia had not become so dry and hot 
(Vredenburg, Mem. Geo. Surv. Ind. XXXI, pt 2). There were 
an equable climate and good forest growths sustained by copious 
rainfall Without difficulty Alexander succeeded in building up 
a large navy out of the trees that grew on the banks of the 
Hydaspes (Jhelum), a thing which is impossible at the present 
time on account of the drier climate which prevails. Then and 
also at the time of Arab invasions there was dense population in the 
lower Punjab and Sind, which implies that the soil had not 
become so desertlike as it is at the present day. 

Lastly, one of the evidences of the Indian origin of the Aryans 
is "that the Soma sacrifice was admittedly the oldest sacrifice 
among the Aryans and the genuine Soma plant grew nowhere 
else excepting the Himalaya and Saptasindhu." First, the Soma\ 
sacrifice was certainly not the oldest sacrifice among the Aryans, 
as no such word or sacrifice can be traced in the European 
languages and mythologies. It belonged to Indo-Iranian period, 
but not to Indo-European, Secondly, it is not known that the 
real plant did not grow anywhere else than the Himalayas and 
Saptasindhu. It is certain that the plant grew best in cold 
regions like the Himalayas, and did not grow as well when the 
Aryans attemped to grow it on the banks of the Indus and the 
Saiaswati Hence a regular trade had to be carried on 



APPENDIX |# 

in Soma plant from the Himalayas, and curiously, the trade 
was in the hands of the barbarians. In other words, instead 
of proving the Punjab origin of the Aryans, the Soma references, 
if they prove anything, only prove the contrary, as certainly 
the custom of Soma sacrifice could not originate in a country 
where the plant did not grow so well, and as the place where it 
grew well was inhabited not by Aryans but by barbarians. Do they 
not fit in more properly with the theory that the Aryans originally 
lived in a cold country where Soma was an indigenous plant, and 
that when they came to the Punjab they could grow only plants 
of an inferior quality on the hotter Punjab soil, and had to depend 
for good quality upon the Himalayan products, which were beyond 
their reach, but which were brought down to them by the 
barbarous hillmen ? 



APPENDIX II 

Mr. F. E. Pargiter rqlying on Pauranic traditions has propounded 
in his learned book Ancient Indian Historical Tradition three start* 
ling theories which tend to upset all the theories and inferences 
of the Vedic scholars, and which, if proved, would compel a 
complete rewriting of the ancient Indian history. His first theory 
is that the word Aila, the patronymic of Pururavas, is the same 
as the word Arya or Aryan and that the history of the growth 
of the Aila family is that of the expansion of the Indo-Aryan 
race. Now the first thing which passes beyond our comprehension 
is that while the Vedic rishis always distinguished themselves 
as Aryas why Pururavas is called the Aila (Rig X. 95.18) and 
not Arya. The word Aila is never used either in the Rigveda 
or in later literature as denoting a race as the word Arya did. 
A more reasonable explanation of the word can be obtained 
from the story of the Deluge in the Satapatha Brahmana, where 
Ha, from whom the Aila or Lunar family is derived, personifies, 
MS the flame denotes, the sacrificial offering made by Mann. 

%ecB&&9, *e cannot agree with his views that the Aihs or 
Aryans entered India through the mid-Himalayan region and 
at first established themselves in Pratisthana, near Allahabad, 
from whence they gradually spread towards the north-west and 
eventually to Persia and Mesopotamia. There cannot be any 
question about the tribal immigration of the Aryans into India 
which was powerful enough to influence not only the languages 
of the country but also to a great extent the ethnical type. Now 
ii or wai it powible for a numerous community to come to India 



APPENDIX 141 

by way of the mid-Himalayas? The physical difficulties are 
insuperable* Again, why should the Aryans, when they came, 
choose to settle not in the upper Gangetic valley, but traversing 
a long way and rounding a large part of the so-called non-Aryan 
kingdom of Ajodhya or Oudh ultimately settled near Allahabad ? 

Thirdly, it is inferred by Mr. Pargiter that in the time of the 
Rigveda the Aryans had already spread over the greater part of 
Northern India. The chief difficulty in accepting this is that 
the geography of the Rigveda is confined only to the north- 
western parts of India. Mr. Pargiter would not accept any 
argumentum ex silentio, and cites the instance of the banyan 
tree which could not have been unknown to the Indo-Aryans 
but which is not mentioned in the Rigveda. Though the tree 
is not mentioned by name in the Rigveda, it appears to have 
been known as its characteristics are recognised. The sister 
tree Asvattha occurs in the Rigveda (Vedic Index). The analogy 
would have been convincing if there had been any hymn in the 
Rigveda addressed to the principal trees, and the banyan not 
included in the list. But that is not the case. While there are v 
especial nadi-stutis 01 hymns addressed to t\veis> it u ^fflfifiu& , 
that the names of no river beyond the Ganges are mentioned. 
Again, while very small rivers of the Punjab are repeatedly 
mentioned the river Ganges, on which, according to Mr. Paigiter, 
the Aryans were first settled, is directly mentioned only once. 
The Rigveda, according to him, was composed long after the 
Aryans had been settled in the Gangetic valley and even after 
the king Bhagiratha with whom the name and sacredness of the 
river are associated in the Puranas, And yet the hymn-makers 
would not pay due respect to the river, while the river Indus, 



112 THE ARVAN1SAT10N OF INDIA 

which is said to be far away from the scene of Vedic life, is repeat* 
edly addressed to with reverence. While even such a small river 
as Suvastu or Swat or a remote district like Gandhara does not 
escape notice, it is strange that such large rivers as Nerbudda 
and Chambal, such a large mountain as the Vindhya, and the 
homes of the famous Haihayas, who, it is said, had established 
their greatness before the Rigvedic time, and who were related 
to the Pauravas and connected with the hymn-making Bhargava 
family, are not mentioned at all. The argumentum ex silentio 
cannot be easily disposed of in this case. 

One of the chief arguments of Mr. Pargiter against the theory 
of the advance of the Indo- Aryans from the north-west is that "the 
list of rivers in Rigveda X. 75 is in regular order from the east to 
the north-westnot the order of entrance from the north-west, but 
the reverse." There is nothing strange in it if we remember that 
most of the hymns were composed on the eastern side of the river 
Saraswati, and that, therefore, the hymn-maker commences from 
the easternmost limit and traverses towards the known north-west. 

"Moreover," says Mr. Pargiter, "these conclusions are entirely 
supported by the evidence of language, as set out by Sir G. 
Grierson," How? Mr. Pargiter makes the Kuru-Panchalas or the 
inhabitants of the Middle Country, the Yadus of Western India 
and the Deccan, and the Anus of Bengal and the Punjab related 
to one another, all being of the stock of Pumravas. In other 
.words, he goes entirely against the conclusions of Grierson about 
the fundamental difference between the Midland Indo-Aryan lan- 
guage occupying the Gangetic Doab and the band of Outer lan- 
guages occupying Kashmir, the Punjab, Sind, the Maratha country, 
Orissa, Behar, Bengal and Assam. 



APPENDIX ; 143 

Mr. Pargiter's second theory is that the Vedic hymns were 
composed long after the Aryans had established themselves over 
the greater part of India, and that Sudas of Rigvcdic fame was a 
king of North Fanchala, who lived posterior to most of the kings 
of Pauranic fame, as Bharata Daushyanti, Harischandra, Sagara, 
Raghu, Dasaratha, Rama, Kartavirya Arjuna, Pratardana, etc. 
Now, it has been shown in the previous paragraphs that the Vedic 
hymns of which Sudas is a hero could not have been composed 
when the Indo-Aryans had advanced beyond the Ganges and the 
Vindhyas, and hence the Vedic Sudas could not have been post- 
erior to kings like Sagara, Arjuna and Rama whose exploits are 
mostly associated in the Puranas with Oudh, Malwa and the 
Deccan. Secondly, the Vedic Sudas is distinctly called the son of 
Pijavana, while the father of the Pauranic Sudas is Chyavana- 
Panchajana. Mr. Pargiter says, "Panchajana appears to be a 
mistake for the Vedic Pijavana." How can we believe it to be a 
mistake when we know that Pijavana as the father of the Vedic 
Sudas is known to Yaska, the Mahabharata, and even Manu. 
Evidently, the Puranas speak of a different Sudas who is the son 
of Chyavana, Thirdly, the names of about a score of tribes, both 
important and unimpoitant, are mentioned in the Rigveda in con- 
nection with Sudas as friends and foes, including the Turvashas 
who, according to Mr, Pargiter, had long ceased to exist. Had 
he been the same as the Pauranic Sudas, on no accojm^ggkl the 
names of the Ikshakus, the Videhas, the 
most important of the tribes of the tim< 
mentioned. Of course the Yadus are m 
Yadus had been split up into so many 
extensive an area from the Godavery to 




THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

not be the lame as the Rigvedic Yadus, just as the word Teutort i 
is not used to-day to denote any political power, such as the 

English, the Austrian, the Dane, each of which possesses a separate 

\ 
entity of its own. From all these it is clear that the Pauranic 

Sudas is a different person from the Vedic Sudas. Mr. Pargiter 
himself warns us against hasty conclusions drawn from sameness 
of name. "Sameness of name was well-known among kings and 
princes, for it is expressly declared that there were a hundred 
Prativindhyas, Nagas, Haihayas, Dhritarastras, Brahmadattas, 
Paulas, Svetas, Kasis and Kusas, eighty Janamejayas, a thousand 
Sasabindus and two hundred Bhismas and Bhimas ; also that there 
were two Nalas, one king of Ajodhya and the other the hero of the 
'Story of Nala'. So there were two famous Arjunas, Kartavirya 
and Pandava, and a third in Rigveda I. 222, 5. The genealogical 
lists in chapter XII show that other names were not uncommon, 
such as Divodasa, Srnjaya and Sahadeva; and the number 
of duplicates is very large." (Anc, Ind. Hist. Tr. p. 130), 
Again, he points out that "there were thus two Purukutsas with 
sons named Trasadasyu. Those of Ajodhya were well-known, as 
even the Satapatha Brahmana shows. Those in the Rigveda were 
apparently Puru kings and probably belonged to some minor dy- 
nasty descended from Bharata." So why should we be led to believe 
in the identity of the Vedic and Pauranic Sudases simply because 
both had as their ancestors, though not immediate, Vadhryasva 
and Divodasa ? The names of Mudgala and Srinjaya occur in the 
Rigveda, but there is nothing to prove that they were connected 
by relationship with Sudas, So it is very difficult to prove the 
identity of the two Sudases on these slender bases, especially when 
there are very strong arguments to the contrary. It would be far 



APPENDIX 145 

easier to bold that the Sudas dynasty of the Rigveda was remem- 
bered in later times, and that some kings of the North Panchala 
dynasty adopted the well-known names of the Vedic dynasty, and 
that later writers sometimes attributed to the Panchala dynasty 
some of the fects relating to the Vedic dynasty, as they did with 
regard to Paijavana Saudasa and Kalmasapada Saudasa (Ibid, p. 
209). 

Similarly, there is no harm in believing that kings like 
Pururavas, Bharata, Nahusha, Mandhatri, Ajamidha, etc., 
mentioned in the Rigveda might have been historical persons. 
But we cannot associate them with the localities and dynasties 
which are assigned to them in the Puranas. If they existed, they 
must have reigned somewhere in the Punjab and in the early 
Vedic or pre- Vedic period. Either there were kings in the 
well-known dynasties who bore these names and were confused 
by later writers with the earlier ones, or these names which had 
become legendary in later times were put in the genealogies to 
add to the glories of the dynasties by connecting them with 
those famous heroes, as was often done in more modern genealogies* 
"How those pedigrees have been elaborated, even at a 
comparatively late date, by court poets who sought to magnify the 
the ancient lineage of their lord, may sometimes be seen at a 
glance. For example, in the genealogy of the Ikshakus of Kosala 
the immediate predecessors of Prasenajit, the contemporary of 
Buddha, are Sakya, Suddhodana, Siddhartha, and Rahula. That 
is to say, the eponymous hero of Budda's clan, Buddha's father, 
Buddha himself, and his son have all been incorporated in 
the dynastic list of the kings of Kosala. 1 ' (Cam. Ind. Hist. L 0,306). 
Even in historical times we find, for instance, one Vikramaditya 
'9 



M6 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

appropriating the stories of several kings of different times* 
Moreover, Bloorafield in his Rigveda Repetitions (^634) warns 
us against putting absolute trust on later traditions, as embodied 
in books like Anukramanika, assigning such and such hymn to 
such and such person, unless corroborated by internal evidences. 
On the other hand, the Pauranic kings cannot all be called 
mythical, the descriptions regarding some of them at least being 
so realistic inspite of exaggerations. 

One thing strikes me as important. It is about a century 
after the Kurukshetra war that the "past" and its traditions are 
dosed and the "future" begun. I agree with Mr. Pargiter that at 
that time the qld traditions were collated and put in a definite form* 
Formerly, perhaps, the traditions remained scattered in different 
forms in the mouths of the Sutas or bards, and as the system of 
writing was not in use, the genealogies often got confused, especially 
with regard to the distant past, and were sometimes spurious. We 
may believe that when the collection took place every effort was 
made to critically examine the existing traditions. But still a good 
deal of confused and false matters escaped detection and were 
embodied in the collection. This collection then became 
stereotyped, and was the principal source of later Epic and 
Pauranic traditions. The false matters, along with the genuine, 
thus obtained wide currency, and cannot be regarded as true 
because of repetitions in different books, which are all inheritors 
of the same stock. 

The third theory of Mr. Pargiter is that the Ikshakusof 
Ajodhya were a non- Aryan people and that Brahminism was first 
an institution of the non-Aryans, which was adopted and modi- 
fied .by the Aryans, The theory is impossible on the very face of 



APPENDIX 

it As regards the Ikshakus, what do the philologists, ethnologists 
and tradition say ? According to Sir G. Grierson, the people of 
Ajodhya stand nearer in relation to the people of the Gangetic 
Doab, who, according to Mr. Pargiter, are descended of the pure 
Aila stock, than the people of Behar, Bengal, Berar, the Punjab, 
who are said to be descendants of the family of Pururavas. 
According to Sir H. Risley, the people of Ajodhya betray less 
non-Aryan characteristics than the people of eastern and southern 
provinces. This is the more striking as, according to Mr, 
Pargiter, the kingdom of Ajodhya was never subjugated by the 
Ailas, and retained its greatness till the time of Ajatasatru and 
Gautama Buddha, and even then the conquest was made not by 
the pure Aryans of the Gangetic Doab but by the mixed Aryans 
of Magadha. What does tradition say about the Ikshakus ? 
Though Mr. Pargiter is such a vigorous champion of tradition 
and seeks to build up his theory on tradition, he ignores all 
traditions, Brahmin and Kshatriya, as regards the origin of the 
Ikshakus. First, almost all traditions agree in making Ikshaku a 
son and Pururavas a grandson of Manu, thus making them 
related to each other, The only passage in the Rigveda where, 
the word Ikshaku occurs indicates the relationship of Ikshaku 
with the Purus, If we are to reject the common descent of the 
Ikshakus and the Purus from Manu, how can we accept the 
common descent of Puru, Yadu, Turvasha, Anu and Druhyu from 
Yajati, who is as mythical or as historical as Vaivaswata Manu ? 
Again, though tradition calls such Aryan kings as Madhu, Kamsa, 
Jarasandha, etc. Danavas or non-Aryans, how many of the 
Ikshaku kings are called by such names ? In the Rigveda we find 



mention of many Dasyu kings and tribes, bat it is surprising that 



MS THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

there should be no mention of the Ikshakus in that connection, 
though hundreds of hymns were composed by the Vasisthas, who, 
according to Mr. Pargiter, had been connected with them from 
the beginning. 

Mr. Pargiter seems to think that a vast mass of Pauranic 
tradition relates to pre-Vedic history, and that the Rigveda is a 
comparatively recent composition which contains many non-Aryan 
ideas and institutions and even hymns disguised in Aryan garb. 
The fact that those earliest Manva (non-Aryan) hymns appear 
now in Sanskrit does not disprove their non-Aila origin, for 
they would naturally have been Sanskritized in course of time, 
as has been noticed above with regard to non-Aryan names" 
(p. 313). Here, too, Mr. Pargiter ignores the almost unanimous 
tradition that the Rigvedic hymns were among the earliest 
creations of Brahma. With the exception of a few possibly later 
hymns, it is admitted by European scholars as well as Indian 
tradition that the hymns in general are of extreme antiquity, so 
far as India is concerned, much earlier in point of time than the 
so-called Treta age from which time the traditional history 
begins. Even the solitary statement in the Puranas (Vayu 57, 
3#; Bithmanda 11.29.43; Matsya 142, 4of), quoted by Mr. 
Pargiter to show that the Rigveda was not one of the earliest 
creations, more disproves than proves his conclusions. For it 
is said there that the mantras or hymns were put together (not 
composed) at the beginning of the Treta age. His attempts to 
prove the comparatively recent age of the Rigveda mostly turn 
on the question of the identity of the Rigvedic Sudas and the 
North Panchala Sudis and of the correctness of the place assigned 
to him is the genealogical tables, Unfortunately, when the pro- 



APPENDIX 149 

raises are more than doubtful the conclusions cannot be accepted 
as true. 

When it is stated that the In do- Aryans received the Brahmimcal 
institution and even hymns from the conquered non-Aryans, it is 
assumed that they adopted the principal religious rites also. It is 
improbable that the Aryans retained their own religious rites, 
but selected non-Aryan priests, and not only entrusted them with 
the custody of their religion but made them the highest class in 
society. So if they selected their priests from among non-Aryans it 
mast be that they had accepted the creed of those people, the proper 
practices of which were little known to them and which, therefore, 
necessitated the services of non-Aryan priests. For the Indo-Aryans 
to have received their creed and priesthood from the conquered 
non- Aryans is by itself too big an assumption, especially when it is 
known that the Indo- Aryan tongue and social institutions practically 
ousted the non-Aryan in Northern India. Moreover, if the Indo- 
Aryans had borrowed the Brahminical creed from the non-Aryans, ' 
the religious literature of the Indo-Aryans like the Vedas and the 
Brahmanas must have contained a large percentage of non-Aryan 
words and phrases. The Europeans in accepting Christianity have 
absorbed a large number of Hebrew words in their literatures.* 
Similarly, the Dravidians in Southern India have with the religion 
borrowed a good many words of the Aryan language* The 
Mahometans in India and elsewhere use good many Arabic words. 
But it is strange that, though the Brahminical institution is said to 
be a borrowed one and many of the hymns to have been composed 
by non-Aryan priests, there are so few non-Aryan words even 
in the earliest Sanskritized Brahminical literature, the Vedas, 
Further, is the religion of the Rigveda so fundamentally different 



150 THE ARYANISATION OF INDIA 

from that of the IndoEuropeans, both in ideas and mythologies ? 
'Which part of the Vedic religion can be called foreign to Aryan 
genius ? Again, if the conquerors had adopted the creed of the 
conquered, why are the latter called in the Rigveda "devoid of 
religion," "without religion," "unsacrificing," and "godless" ? The 
Vasisthas are regarded by Mr. Pargiter as the non- Aryan priests 
to the Ikshaku kings, who joined the Alias when the latter had 
conquered the greater par* of Northern India. "In fact, in the 
Ganges- Jumna doab, the region specially occupied by the Alias, it 
is not until Dusyanta's and Bharata's period that any brahman 
became connected with them as priests" ( p. 310 ). And the 
Vasistha family for the first time came into connection with the 
Ailas in the time of Paijavana Sudas (p. 207). Now let us see 
what we can learn about these Vasisthas from the Rigveda itself. 
Practically the whole of the Vllth book of the Rigveda is the 
composition of the Vasisthas. Though they are said to have 
been connected with the Ikshaku family from the earliest times, 
is it not surprising that in the whole book there is not a single 
mention of the Ikshakus ? Again, if there can be traced any 
difference as to creed between the so-called non-Aryan Vasistha 
and Aryan Viswamitra of the time, it is that Vasistha is a special 
worshipper of Varuna (Rig VII. 88), who is called his father (Rig 
VIL 33.11), and Viswamitra of Agni, to whom alone about half 
the number of hymns composed by the Viswamitra family are 
addressed. Now if there be any god besides Dyaus in the Vedic 
mythology who can claim to belong to the Indo-European period, 
i.e. before the separation of the European and Indian branches 
of the Aryan family, it is undoubtedly Varuna. Then though 
himielfa non- Aryan, Vasistha utters bitterest imprecations against 



APPENDIX 151 

the Rakshas, a name which, as Mr. Pargiter knows, was given 

in ._ii r~- __ y ii-ii _ i ii , -* -i -"'-- -C-^ r-_ i ^ ~~^^ f ^f~~**\*' Mn ~*^***<^>**^ f ^'**^^~>-" J 

by the Indo-Aryans to non-Aryans (p. 290) and evil spirits, He 
invokes Indra and Varuna to kill the Dasa enemies of Sudas. More* 
over, in the hundreds of hymns addressed by the Vasistha family, 
how many words and ideas are there which can be traced to non- 
Aryan sources ? On the contrary, scholars like Max Muller regard 
Vasistha as "the very type of the Arian Brahmin.' 1 

It has been shown that at one time the Dravidians formed the 
main population of Northern India before the coming of the 
Aryans. If that be so, the non- Aryan Ikshakus must have been 
either Dravidians or Mongolians, who might have shared lands 
with the Dravidians. Now we know that Brahminism is not an 
indigenous institution among either of these races, as can be seen 
from the existing institutions of the survivors in the north and 
south, or outside India. Of course, there were medicine men 
among all savage races, but there was no Brahmin caste. If the 
Brahminical institution had been a pre- Aryan one in India we 
must expect to find its survival, even in a corrupt form, among one 
or other of the various non- Aryan races of India. But unfortunate- 
ly there is nothing of the sort, no Brahminical hierarchy, no Brah- 
minical yajna or sacrifice. On the contrary, we find that the chief 
enemies of the Brahminical institutions were the Dasas or Dasyus of 
the Rigveda and Rakshasas of the Ramayana and the Puranas. 

The chief argument of Mr. Pargiter is that the earliest Brahmin 
families were all attached to non- Aryan courts, as the Vasisthas in 
Ajodhya, Chyavanas in the Saryata country, the Usanas-Sukras at 
the Daitya court, the Agastyas in the Deccan, and that the earliest 
Aila kings had no priests, and were rather antagonistic to the 
Brahmins (pp. 304-305). The first part of his argument stands 



IS! THE ARYAOTSATION OF INDIA 

only m the supposition that the Ikshakus and thcSaryatas were non- 
Aryans, whkh has been proved to be untenable. The second part 
is based on the traditional list of kings who were enemies of, and 
were destroyed by, Brahmins. In this list are to be found Puru- 
ravas and Nahusha, the first and third king of the Aila dynasty. 
Bat ire they the only kings who were the enemies of the Brahmins? 
In the list of such bad kings as given in Manu (VII. 41) we do not 
come across the name of Pururavas, but we find the names of 
Vena and Nimi along with Nahusha. Vena was of the race of 
Airi (Harivamsa, V.), and Nimi was a son of Ikshaku, i.e. both , 
of them were, according to the classification of Mr* Pargiter, non- 
Aryan. Another name is that of Sudas, who is called in Manu 
the son of Pijavana, but who is really Kalmasapada Saudasa, an 
Ikshaku king, who destroyed the sons of the priest Vasistha, Thus 
it is seen that enmities with Brahmins were not a monopoly of the 
Aila kings. Again, the Viswamitras are held to be of the Aila race, 
How is it that long before the Aila kings came into connection 
with Brahmin priests, which is stated to be in the time of Dusyanta, 
a scion of the Aila family had become so Brahminised that he exer- 
cised equal influence with their hereditary priests, the Vasisthas, 
at the Ikshaku courts of Trisanku and Harischandra ? 

I fully believe that Hinduism owes a large part of its substance 
to Dravidian influences, and it is difficult to say whether in its 
modern form it is more Dravidian than Aryan. I can concede 
that some of the prevailing cults, of Phallic Siva, Radha-Krishna, 
Ganesha, Naga, etc., betray strong Dravidian characteristics. But as 
regards the Vedic religion one cannot believe that it is a Dravidian 
creed, only modified by Aryan influences. Rather, the Vedic 
institutions are Aryan in the main foundation, but absorbing more 
and more Dravidian ideas and practices as the Aryans advance 
more into the interior of the country. It is likely that in the 
transformation of the Vedic religion into modern Hinduism the 
original Aryan basis has been largely buried under non-Aryan 
superstructure, but that is a different topic and has nothing to do 
with Mr. Parptert hypothesis of the Dravidian origin of Vedic 
Brahixunism* 



INDEX 



Abhimanyu, 50, 

Acvini, 53, 

Aeolic, 56. 

Afghanistan, 16, 23, a6, 36, 66, 85. 

I Africa, 20, 90. 

\African, 10. 
Agastya, 96, 151. 
Agni, 76, 102, 150. 
Ahura Mazda, 19, 134. 
Aikshaka, 113, 
Aila, 140, 147, 150-52. 
Airyanavaejo, 19, 21, 134. 
Aitareya Aranyaka, 43, 47, 54, 

69. 
Aitareya Brahmana, 50, 56, 68, 

70, in. 

Aja, 105, 107, 123. 
Ajamidha, 145. 
Ajatasatru, 126, 128, 147. 
Alexander, 8, 42, 72, 135, 138. 
Alinas, 104, 107. 
Allahabad, 125, 140, 141. 
Alpine, 9, 37, 38, 61. 
Alwar, 104. 
Amarakosha, 18. 

/America, 5, 90. 

\American, 5. 
Amurtarayas, 115. 
Ananda era, 94. 
Anarsani, 105. 
Anderida, 85. 
Andhaka, 119. 
Andhra, 59, 68, 69, 97, 100. 
Anga, 34, 68, 70-2,91, 117, 123. 
Anglo-Saxon, n, 85, 86, 88, 92- 
Ami, 34, 35, 103, 107, 116-18, 

143, 147- 
Anuha, 52. 
Anukramanika, 146. 
Apaya, 102, 

(Arab, 38, 138. 

I Arabia, 38. 

1 Arabian, 106, 135, 

I Arabic, 4, 149. 

20 



Aranyaka, 44, 45, 48-50. 

Aratta, 71. 

Arctic, 19. 

Aristanemi, 58, 59. 

Arjuna, 50, 120-22, 143, See also 
Kartavirya. 

Armenian, 2. 

Arsacidae, 39. 

Artamanyu, 61. 

Artatama, 60, 

Arthasastra, 73,95, 119, 127. 

Aruni Uddalaka, 126. 
Arya, 66, 73-76, 140. 
Aryan, 1-7, 9, 10-23, *5-3 2 34' 
38, 57* 60-1, 64-5, 67-70, 
72-4, 76-7. 79 81-4,89* 
102, 105, 107,114-15,117, 

124, 129-3!) 133-41) 43t 
146-52. 

Aryadharma, 74. 
Aryavarta, 74, 113, 124. 
Aryo-Dravidian, 30, 36. 
Asandivanta, in. 

f Asia, 58, 62, 63, 131. 

\Asiatic, 23. 
Asia Minor, 23, 61, 63. 
Asikni, 66. 

Asmaka or Assaka, 71, 72, 126. 
Asoka, 38, 43, 44, 94, 99, 100. 

f Assam, 82, 98, 142. 

\Assamese, 28. 

/Assyria, 61, 63. 

lAssyrian, 60, 65, 
Asura, 6. 
Asurivasin, 81. 

Asvalayana Srauta Sutra, 127. 
Asvapati, 117. 
Aswamedha, 127. 
Atharvan, 12. 
Atharvaveda, 50,68, 79, no, m, 

137- 

Athens, 127. 
Atlantic, ao. 
Atri, 152. 



154 



Attic, 56. 

Aurva Bfaargava, 122. 

Ausija Kakshivant, 81, 

Australian, 4, 83. 

Austrian, 144. 

Avanti, 72, 121, 125, 126, 128. 

A?esta, 5, 5S> 57.77- See also 

Zend. 

Avikshit, 122* 
Ayodhya, 59, 123, 141, 144, 146, 

147, 151. See also Oudh. 
Ayu, 120. 

Baal, 106. 

(Baberu, 106. 

< Babylon, 22, 60, 61, 63, 106. 

(Babylonian, 22, 62, 65, 13* 
Bahut 122. 
BajiRao, 120. 
Balaji Rao, 121. 
Balbutha, 88. 
Bali, 34, H7 
Balkan, 22. 
Baltic, 88. 
Bana, 126. 
Banara, 71, 96- 
Barhadratha dynasty, 115, 
Bainett, 33, 36. 
Batin, 83. 
Baudhayana, 70. 
Beas, 66, 117. 

(Behar, 34, 35, 67, 69, 70, 89, 
1 93, 114, 117, 127, 142, 147. 
(Behari, 28, 
Bejoy Sinha, 72. 
/Belgian, 4. 
\Belgiura, 5* 
Beluchistan, 26, 77, 138. 
Benares, 67. See also Kasi. 
Benfey, ,20. 

Bengal, 33, 34, 67, 69, 70,72,82, 
94, 98, 100, 117, 142, 147. 

Bengalee, 94. 

Bengali, 28, 78, 92- 

Berar, 69, 70, 95, 97. "9> H7- 

See also Vidarbha. 
Berbers, 9. 



Bhaga, 6. 

Bhagavata Purana, 80, 84. 

Bhagiratba, 141. 

Bhalanases, 104, 107. 

Bhandarkar, 79, 95, 97- 

Bharadvaja, 106. 

Bharadvajiyas, 39. 

f Bharata, 102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 

j no, 116, 125, 144, 145, 150. 

(Bharata Dauhshanti, no, 143. 

Bharatavarsha, 102. 

Bharati, 102, 

Bhargava, 52, 121, 122, 142. 

Bhasa, 125. 

Bhattoji Dikshit, 40. 

Bhawalpur, 135. 

Bheda, 107. 

Bhils, 83, 84. 

Bhima, 70, 144. 

Bhimasena, 51, in. 

Bhisma, 52, 144. 

Bhoja, 95, 119, 121, 143. 

Blanford, 23. 

Bloomfield, in, 146. 

Bogu, 6. 

Bohemia, 22. 

Bopp, i, 2. 

Brahma, 74, 117, 148. 

Brahmadatta, 52, 128, 144. 

("Brahmana, 19, 31, 32, 44-51,531 
54 5 6 6 7 7o 81, 92, 95,104, 
108-10, 112, 114, 115, 118, 

ii9) 149- 

Biahmanic, 27, 35, 132. 
[ Brahma nical, 68, 91. 
Brahmanda Parana, 148. 
Brahmaputra, 20. 
Brahmarshidesha, 27, 30. 
Brahmavarta, 27, 30. 
Brahmi, 43, 44, 

" Brahmin, 12, 43, 67, 70, 91, 92, 
94,96-9, 108, in, 117, 121, 

7> i47i IS 1 * IS** 
Brahminical, 93, 94, 96, 98, 107, 
. 108, 149, 151. 
i Brahminism, 94, 981 114, 146, 
| 151, 152. 
Brahmo Samaj, 94. 



INDEX 



155 



Brahui, 77. I 

Bribu, 105, 106. 
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 51, 

112, 126. 
Brihadbala, 59. 
Brihaddevata, 113. 
Brihadratha, 115. 
(Britain, 85, 86. 
] British, 88. 
(Briton, 85, 
Broca, 4, 
Buddha, 32, 42, 48, 72, 93, 106, 

125-28, 145, 147. See also 

Gautama, 
f Buddhism, 42, 47, 57, 71, 93, 



194^ 9&i 99' 
Buddl 



(Buddhist, 6, 42, 46, 48, 72, 99> 
125. 

Buhler, 43. 
Burma, 82. 

Cadwallon, 88. 

Caldwell, 78, 80. 

Cambay, Gulf of, 120, 123. 

Caria, 42. 

Caspian Steppes, 76. 

/Caucasian, 8, 9. 

\Caucasic, 37. 

Caucasus, 21. 

Celebes, 83. 

fCelts, i, 10. 

\Celtic, 2, 21, 32, 36, 37, 92. 

Celto-Slav, 9, 61. 

Centaurs, 6. 

Central Asia, 2, 20-3, 26, 130, 

J 33- 
Central Provinces, 95. 

Cerdic, 60, 

Ceylon, 6, 72, 73, 83. 

Chaitanya, 94. 

Chakrayudha, 125. 

Chambal, 142, 

Chanakya, 94. 

Chanda, 31, 32, 36, 84. 

Chandala, 83. 

Chandogya Upanishad, 78, na, 

117. 
Chandragupta, 73, 94. 



Chavee, 10. 

Chedi, 72, 89, 104, 113, 119, i3- 
Chenab, 66, 103. 
Cheras, 69. 
Chester, 88. 
/China, 131. 
\Chinese, 4, 56. 
Chitaldurg, 99. 
ChitraL 26. 

Chola, 41, 71, 72, zoo. 
Chota Nagpur, 95. 
Christian, 6. 
Christian era, 79, 99. 
Christianity, 149. 
Chumuri, $05. 
Chyavana, 52, 143, 151. 
Comparative Ethnology, 2, 8, 
Comparative Grammar, i. 
Comparative Mythology, 5. 
Comparative Philology, i,2,5 21 * 
Comparative Sociology, 10. 
Cophu, 25. See also Kabul and 

Kubha. 
Croesus, 43. 
Cuno, 20, 
Cutch, 71. 
Cyrus, 43, 

Dahae, 76. 
Daitya, 151. 
Danastuti, 104. 
Danava, 147. 
Danda, 120. 
Dandaka, 95, 119. 
Dandakaranya, 71. 
Dane, 144. 
Darius, 8, 42, 43, 44- 
Das, Dr. Abinaschandra, 129-38. 
Dasa or Dasyu, 16, 17, 73-7, 79> 
81, 83, 86-9, 105, 132, 133, 

I47> 151- 

Dasaratha, 60, 123, 143. 
Dasi, 87. 

Dauhshanti Bharata, no, 143. 
Deccan, 33, 35, 67, 69-71, 77-8, 

9Si 99i i34 !4 
Delhi, 31, 134. 



INDEX 



I&fage, 79:81, i37t 14' 

De Michelis, xo, 

De Mortillet, 10. 

Deorham, 83, 

Devakiputra Krishna, 81. 

Devapi, 109, 

Dharmapala, 125. 

Dhvasan Dvaitavana, 112. 

Dhritarastra, 50, 81, 115, 144. 

Dhuni, 105. 

Dilipa, 123. 

Divodasa, 87, 106, 144. 

Dneiper, 22. 

Doab Gangetic, 16, 28, 121, 142, 

147, 150. 
Doric, 56. 
Dravida, 81. 
Dravidian, 5, 11, 34-7, 65, 76-84, 

87, 92, 96-101, 121, 134, 137, 

149, 151, 152. 
Dribhika, 105. 
Drishadvati, 27, 66, 102. 
Druhyu, 103, 107, 116-18, 147. 
Drupada, 52. 
Durmukha, 112. 
Dushyanta, 118, 150, 152. 
Dvaitavana, 112. See also Dvasan. 
Dwapara, 124. 
Dwaraka, 123, 126. 
Dyaus, 6-8, 64, 150. 

/Egypt, 7, 61-3, 131." 
\Egyptian, 7, 62, 63, 131. 
Elysium, 18. 

{England, 60. 
English, 10, 11, 88, 92, 144. 
Eocene, 131. 
Eos, 6. 

Epic, 9, 29, 34,96, 103, 104, i io f 
113, 118, 120, 132, 135, 146. 
Erinys, 5. 
Ethiopian, ft. 
Euphrates, 22, 60, 63. 
Eurasian, 37. 

(Europe,,*, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 17, 
1 20, 22, 58, 61, 62, 133, 
(European, 4, 5, 9-14, 23, 26, 79, 
90, 129, i3 



Feist, 10* 
Fligier, 20. 

fFrance, 10. 

\French, 9. 

Gairikshit Purukutsa, 81. 

Galacia, 22. 

Galchic, 37, 38, 

Gallic, 10. 

Gandak, 68. 

(Gandhara, 25, 42, 43, 72, 117, 
j 118, 142. 
CGandharis, 68. 

Gandharvas, 6. 

Ganesha, 152. 

'Ganges, 16, 25, 27, 30,' 31, 66, 
67, 76, 81, 88, 92, 1 10, 123, 
"5, 130, 141, 143, 150. 
Gangetic, 16, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, 
81, 82,86, 87,91,94,97, 105, 
120, 121, 130, 134, 141, 142, 
147. 

Gargya Balaki, 112. 

Gauls, 7. 

Gautama, 42, 47, 48, 72, 93, 125- 
28, 147. See also Buddha. 

Geiger, 20. 

/German, i, 9, 
(Germany, 10, 20. 

Gifford Lectures, 54. 

Giles, 20. 

Gilghit, 26. 

Godavery, 70, 71, 120, 143. 

Goldstucker, 40, 42. 

Gonds, 83, 84. 

Gotama Rahugana, 113. 

Goths, 63. 

/Greece, i, 12, 55, 137. 

\Greek, 1,2,5,6, 12,15,16, 25, 

42. 43 55* 5 6 - 
Green, J. R,, n. 
Grierson, Sir George, 27, 31, 32, 

38,87,98, 117, 142, 147. 
Grimm, Jacob, 20. 
Gujarat, 28, 31, 33, 35, 36, 70, 104, 
Guptas, 32. 

Haddon, 23, 35, 38. 
Haihaya, ii9-3i X 4* 144- 



INDEX 



137 



Hairanyanabha, 114. See also 

Para Atnara, 
Hakra, 135. 
Hale, 20. 

Hall, H. R., 60, 61. 
Hamites, 9, 
Hapta-Hendu, 19, See also 

Sapta-Sindhava. 
Harappa, 65, 80, 
Harischandra, 143, 152, 
Harivamsa, 152. 
Harshacharita, 126. 
Hastinapur, 109, 123, 125. 
Haug, 56. 
Havell, n. 
Hebrew, 149, 
Hehn, 10. 
Helios, 6. 
Hellenes, 137. 
Heptarchic, 88. 
Hercules, 73. 
Hibbert Lectures, 7. 
Hillebrandt, 76. 
[Himalayas, 27, 66, 121, 138, 
139, 141. 

i Himalayan, 82, 139, 140. 
Himavanta, 66. 
indi, 78. 

Hindus, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 
Hinduism, 98, 152. 
Hindukush, 18. 
Hindustan, 28, 32. 
Hindustani, 28. 
Hirt, 20. 

Hittites, 60, 61, 63. 
Hiuen Tsang, 43. 
Hoernle, A. F. R., 26, 27, 29-32, 

87. 

Homeric, 55. 
Horn ro el, 3. 
Huns, 63. 
Hungary, 20. 

Hydaspes, 138. See also Jhelum. 
Hyksos, 62. 

Iberians, 10. 

Ida, 60. 

Ikshaku, 58-60, 95, 113, 118-20, 



124, 128, 143, 145-8, 150-2, 
See also Aikshaka. 
Ila, 140. 
Ilibisha, 105. 

India, 7-9, 11-20, 22,25-30, 32, 
34-7, 4-4,57, 60, 65-7, 69- 
73, 76-9, 81-2, 85, 91-100, 
102, 1 1 8, 120,122,124, 126, 
128, 129, 131, 138, 140-3, 

148-5*. 

Indian, i, 2, 4-7, 9, ii-T7 19, 
39, 40, 61, 64, 73, 77 79 82, 
103, 121, 129, i33-35 r 3 8 

L 140* J 45 i4&i i5- 
Indo-Aryan, 7, 16, 17, 19, 25, 

28, 30, 31, 33, 38, 39 4* 49 
57, 60, 64, 66-8, 70, 77i 
78, 80, 84-91, 97, 99 i' 



i t w *tj *T7 -*J-- 

Indo-European, 4, 12, 23, 61, 

64, 77, 138, 150. 
flndo-German, 4, 9, 10, 23. 
\Indo-Germanic, 9, 14- 
Indo-lranian, 65, 137, 138* 
Indra, 6, 8, 18, 33, 50, 60, 64, 

74-6, 79> 8 5, i5. !36, I37>i5 1- 
Indralaya, 18. 
Indus, 16, 25, 29, 30, 44, 66-8, 

70, 71, 76, 80, 81, 86, 103, 

118, 130, 134, 135, J 38i 141- 
/Ionia, 42. 
^Ionian, 42, 43. 
f Iran, 22, 37, 38, 76, 97- 
| Irania, 37. 

i Iranian, 2, 6, 12, 15, 19, 21, 3 8 
I 64, 79, 134- 
[Iranic, 37, 38. 
Irano-Dravidian, 37. 
Islam, 93. 
Iswaraputra, 73. 
Italy, 6. 

Jacobi, 47, 51. 
Jagayyapeta, 95. 
Jaimini, 52. 

Jaiminiya Brahmana, 114. 
Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana, 
70. 



156 



INDEX 



ainism, 93, 94* 9 
amadagni, 108, 121. 
amadagnya Rama, 52. 
anaka, 126, 127. 
anamejaya, 50-2, no-n, 124-3, 

144 ' ^ 
arasandha, 147* 

asadata, 61. 

ayaswal, 39. 
pur, 104. 

helum, 66, 138. 
I ones. Sir William, i, 2, 
Jumna, 27, 31, 57, 66, 67, 76, 

81, 88, 102, 103, 104, 107, 1 10, 

119, 120, 123, 143, 150. 
Jupiter, 6. 
Jutland, ii. 
Jyotisha, 53, 



Kabul, 25, 26,66. See also Kubha, 
Kachchha, 71. 

Kaegi, S7- 
Kakshivant Ausija, 81. 

Kalara, 127. 

Kali Age, 50, 58, 124. 

Kaiinga, 34, 70-2, 9 r 9 2 97> JI 7 

Kalmasapada Saudasa, 145, 152. 

Kamboja, 72. 

Kamsa, 128, 147. 

Kanarese, 99. 

Kanchi, 99, 100. 

Kanouj, 115, 121, 122, 125. 

Kanva, 59. 

Kanyakubja, 115. 

Kapila, 48. 

Karala, 127. 

Karandhama, 122. 

Karikas, 39,41. 

Kartavirya, 143, 144. 

f Kashmir, 33, 66, 142. 

\Kashmiri, 28. 
KaAi, 3* 35 5 6 7> 69. 7 

115, ii7i " I22 " 



Kassite, 12, 60, 64. 
Kami* 104. 
Kathfcka Samhita, 40. 



Kathasaritsagara, 40. 
Kathiwar, 33, 70, 119. 
Katyayana, 39-42, 72. 
Kaurava, 52. 
Kausarabi, 122, 125, 128. 
Kaushitaki Brahmana, 19, 53, 

108,112. 

Kaushitaki Upanishad, 69. 
Kautilya, 73, 94, 119, 125, 127. 
Keane, 23, 35, 38. 
Keith, 43, 46, 47, 49, So, 53 S4 

106, 131. 

Kekaya, 34, 117, 123. 
Kerala, 41, 71, 72, 
Kharosti, 44. 

Khatti, 6 1. See also Hittite. 
Kikata, 105. 
Kirman, 23, 
Kirtti or Krtvi, 52. 
Kiskindhya, 96. 
Kistna, 95, 99, 100. 
Kosala, 31, 32, 59, 67, 68, 72, 
89, 114-16, 128, 145. 
Kossaeans, 60. See also Kassite. 
Kossinna, 20. 
Kraivya, 112. 

Krishna, 58, 59, 73 7 6 &i, *S 2 - 
Kritavirya, lai. 
Krivi, 103, in, Ji2, 
Krumu, 66. 

Kshatriya, 91, 93, 94, 124, 147. 
Kshemaka, 125. 
Kubha, 25, 66. See also Kabul. 
Kuhn, 5. 
Kukura, 119. 
Kurram, 66. 
Kuru, 29, 31, 50, 69, 72, 102-4, 

108-11, 113, 115, 118, 124, 

125, 127, 128. 
Kuru-Panchala, 35, 111-16, 118, 

123, 124, 142. 
Kuru-Pandavas, 50, 124, 
Kurukshetra, 29, 50, 58, 59, 102, 

124, 126, 146. 
Kurusravana, 108. 
Kusa, 115, 144. 
Kusika, 106, 



INDEX 



Lahiri, Durgadas, 129, 
Lassen, 15, 20. 
Latin, 2, 6, 15, 16. 
Lavana, 119. 
Lemuria, So* 
Lettic, 2. 

Lichchhavis, 34, 127. 
Ludhiana, 130. 
Lunar family, 140. 
Luschan, 38, 6 1. 

Macdonell, 13, 43, 46, 50,80, 106. 
Macedonian, 127. 
Machha, 72. 
Madhu, 119, 147. 
Madhupura, 119. 
Madhyadesha, 26, 67, 86, 91-3. 

See also Midland. 
Madraka, 34, 117. 
Madura, 73. 

Magadha, 32, 58, 59, 68-72, 9*-3> 
115, 117, 123, 124, 126, 128, 
147. 

Magha, 53. 

Mahabharata, 18, 27, 50, 69, 71, 
84, 108, 109, 111-13, 128, 143 
Mahapadma Nanda, 50, 58, 93. 

f Maharastra, 33, 35, 95, 97 98, 

< TOO, 119. 

(Mahratta, 28, 35-8, 120-1, 142. 
Mahavira, 58, 93. 
Mahidasa Aitareya, 81. 
Mahismati, 119. 
Mahomedan, 6, 100, 149, 
Maine, 11. 

Maitrayaniy Samhita, 136. 
Maitrayaniya Upanishad, 48. 
Malavalli, 99. 
Malaya, 81. 
Malla, 72. 

Malwa, 35, 36, 67, 119, 120, 143. 
Mandhatri, 60, 120, 123, 145. 
Mantra period, 48. 
Manu, 18, 27, 80, 81, 140, 147. 
Manusmriti, 74, 108, 143, 152. 
Manva, 148. 
Manyu, 75, 
March, 92. 



Marttikavata, 119. 

Marut or Maryttas, 60. 

Marutta, 118, 122. 

Matachi, 78. 

Mathava, 67, 68. 

Mathura, 73,95, 104, 119. 

Matsya, 31, 69, 80, 104, 112-14, 

Matsya Purana, 81, 148. 

Maurya, 32, 94, 98, 126. 

Max Muller, i, 5, 20, 46, 49, 54, 

55. IS*- 

Medes, 61. 

Mediterranean, 9, 63, 106. 

Medo-Persian, 62. 

Megasthenes, 73. 

Meerut, 125. 

Mercury, 7. 

Meru, 1 8. 

Mesopotamia, 61, 63, 140. 

Midland, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 
35, 1 1 7, 142. See also Ma- 
dhyadesha. 

Miocene, 130, 131, 133. 

Mitanni, 60, 64. 

Mithila, 123, 127. 

Mitra, 6, 60, 64. 

Mlechchha, 74i "8. 

Mohenjo Daro, 65, 80, 

Mommsen, 20. 
(Mongol, 35. 

^ Mongolian, 8, 10, 34, 35, 82, 
( 83, 151- 

Mongolo-Turki, 37. 

Mon-Khmer, 36, 82. 

Morgan, 65. 

Moulton, 55. 

Muchukunda, 120. 

Mudgala, 144. 

Muir, 3, 16, 81. 

Mujavant, 68. 

Munda, 36, 82, 83. 

Mutibas, 68. 

Myer, E M 23. 

Naga, 30, 124, 125, 144, 152. 
Nahusha, 115, 120, 145, 
Nakshatras, 53. 
Nala, 144* 



INDEX 



Kfcnda, 32, 39, 5<> S^ 93* 94. ** 8 
Ifosaiyas, 6 t 60, 64. 

fNegro, 4* 

\Negroid, 8. 
neo-Latin, 5, 
Nepal, 128. 
Nerbudda, 37, 66, 8x, 120, 121, 

Nicbakshus, 125. 
Nikayas, 71. 

/Nimi, 113, 114, 152. 

\Nimi Jataka, 127. 
Nirukta, 46. See also Yaska. 
Nishada, 83, 84, 90. 
Noah, 80. 
non-Aila, 148. 
non-Aryan, 69, 71,74* &5 8 9'94 

96, 141, 146,148-52. 
non-Brahmin, 99. 
non-Dravidian, 4, 9*. 
Nordic, 9, 38. 

Oldenberg, 106, 127. 
Oligocene, 131. 
Olympus, 137. 
Oppert, 2. 
Oraons, 84. 

/Orissa, 34,69, 70, 117, 142. 

\0riya, 28. 

Oudh, 28,31, 32, 35, 67, 114, 
120-4, 141, 143. See also 
Ayodhya. 

OXUS, 21. 

Padmapravritakam, 40. 

Padma Purana, 84. 

Paijavana, 145. See also Sudas, 

Paktbas, 104, 107. 

Palestine, 61, 63. 

PaH-Buddhist, 31. 

Pallava, 99, 100. 

Pancbajana, 143. 

Pancbala, 31, 52, 69, 72, 89, 103, 
108, 112, 114, 118, 143, 145, 
148* See also Kuru-Panchala. 

Pancbama, 84* 

Panchavimsa Brahmana, 113. 

Pandavas, 29, 50, 51, 109, in, 



124, 144. See also Kuru- 

Pandavas. 

Pandya, 41, 71-3, 95. 
Pani, 105, 106, 132. 
Panik, 105. 

Panini, 39-43, 46, 48, 54, 71, 72. 
Panipat, 121. 
Para Atnara, 81, 114. 
Parasurama, 93, 121, 122. 
Pargiter, F. E., 50, 52, 58, 59, 

103, 121, 140-4, 146-8, I5O-2. 

Paribbasbas, 41. 

Parikshit, 50, 51, 110, in, 124, 

127. 

Parjanya, 6. 
Parsees, 37. 
Parsvanath, 59. 
Parthia, 39. 

Parushni or Ravi, 66, 103, 107. 
Patanjali, 39, 40, 41. 
Paula, 144. 
Pauranic, 31, 34, 50, 84, 103, 

104, no, 113-116, 118, 129, 
135, 140, 143, 144, 146, 148. 

Paurava, 58, 115, 119, 123, 142, 

147- 

Penka, 10, 20. 
Perkunus, 6. 
Persia, i, 5, 6, 13, 17, 21-3, 25, 

36, 40, 56, 138, 140. 
Persian, i, 2, 4, 5, 9, 13, 43, 44, 

. 57, 13*- 

Persian Gulf, 37, 63, 106. 

Perunu, 6. 

Peschel, 9. 

Phalguni, 53. 

/Phallic, 152. 

\Phallus-worshipper, 79. 

Phoenician, 3, 7, 106. 

Pictet, 20. 

Pijayana, 106, 143, 152. 

Piscium, 53. 

Pisbacha, 27, 38. 

Posche, 10. 

Pott, 20. 

Pracheta, 118. 

Pradyota, 59, 125, 126. 

Prakrit, 99. 



INDEX 



161 



Prasenajit, 128, 145* 

Prasniputra, 81. 

Pratardana, 122, 143. 

Pratipa, 52, 109, in. . 

Pratisthana, 140. 

Prativindhya, 144, 

Pravahana Jaivali, 112. 

Pre- Aryan. 65, 151. 

Pre-Drayidian, 36, 81-3. 

Pre-Vedic, 64, 80, 145, 148. 

Projapati, 136. 

Prsata, 52. 

Prussia, 124. 

Pulindas, 68, 69. 

Pundra, 34, 68, 69, 73, 91, 92, 
117. 

Punic, 1 06. 

Punika, 126. 

[Punjab, 16, 17,25-8, 30, 31* 33' 
6, 57, 65-7, 69, 70, 71, 77, 80, 
81, 85-7, 89, 90, 103, 117, 

. 120, 130, 131, 133, 134 137, 

I 138, 139, MI, 14*, H5, 147- 

Punjabee, 91. 
[Punjabese, 27, 87. 
Purana, 50, 58-60, 69, 81, 84, 93, 

94, 104, 109, in, 115-19, 124, 

141, 143, 145, 148, 151. See 

also Pauranic. 
Puru, 102, 103, 106-8, no, 113, 

116, 118, 144, 147. See also 

Paurava. 

Purukutsa, 60, 81, 107, 113, 144. 
Pururavas, 115, 120, 140, 142, 

MS, 147, i5*- 

Radha-Krishna, 152. 

Raghu, 123, 143. 

Rahula, 145. 

Rakhas or Rakshasas, 1 6, 30, 71, 

77, 96, 132, 133, 151. 
Rajasuya, 112. 
Rajputana, 28, 35, 66, 119, 130, 

134, i35 137- 
Rama, 52, 96, 143. 
Ramayana, 71, 117, 123, 124, 151 
Rapson, 30, 38. 
Rathaesthas, 38. 



Rattikas or Rattas, 38. 
Ravana, 96, 121. 
Ravi, 66, 103. See also ParushnL 
RayChoudhury,Prof. H. C*>$o 9 51, 
Rhode, 20. 
Rhys, 7, 20, 
Rhys Davidas, 72. 
'Rigveda, 18, 25, 30, 31,33, 

45 5 1) 53-557,64, 66, 73-7, 
79, 80, 85, 87-9, 102, 103, 



8, 140-51- 

Rigvedic, 46, 15, 16, 25, 27, 

34, 35, 54, 55, 57, 64, 67, 79- 

81, 86-88 102, 104, 105, 109, 

129, 131, 132, 135, 142-4, 148. 

Ristisena, 109, 

Risley, Sir Herbert, 27, 28, 34, 

36, 37, 82, 87, 97, 147. 
Rohilkhund, 103. 
f Roman, i, 2, 12, 63. 
\Rome, i, 5, 12, 62, 
Rudhikra, 105. 
Russia, 20. 
Rutot, 131. 

Sabara, 68, 69. 

Sabdaratnavali, 18, 

Sadanira, 68. 

Sagara, 122, 123, 143. 

Sahadeva, 144. 

Saka, 39, 40. 

Sakabhoji, 40. 

Sakadasa Bhaditayana, 40. 

Sakaparthivadinam, 39. 

Sakapriya, 40. 

Sakya, 34, 59, 128, 145. 

Sambara, 105, 106, 

Samhita, 53, 54, 56, 109, no, 

112, 119. 

Samvarana, 103, 108, 

Sandilya, 51. 

Sanjiviputra, 81. 

Sankhayana Srauta Sutra, 114. 

Sankhya, 47, 48. 

Sanskut, i, 2, 7, 13, 16, 20, 21, 

39, 43. 44, 4S 7* 
99, 105, Ui, 133, 



162 



INDEX 



SanUnu, 109. 

Stpta-Sindhava, 130, 134, 136, 

138. See also Hapta-Hendu, 
S&ranyu, 6, 
Saraswati, 16, 27, 66, 67, 68, 81, 

88, 102, 104, 116, 123, 134, 

135. i37. I3 8 * 14* 



Sam, 6, 

Saryata, 121, 151, 152. 

Sasabindu, 144, 

Sastras, 129. 

Satanika Satrajita, 115. 

Satapatha Brahmana, 50, 51, 67, 

80, 110-15, " 8 M * r 44 
Satrughna, 119. 

Satudru, 66, 106. See also Sutiej. 
Satvatas, 119, 143. 
Satyakama Jabala, 81. 
Satyavati, 52. 
Satyavrata Manu, 80. 
Saudasa, 145, 152. 
Saunagas, 39. 
Sauvira, 34, 7o ?i "7 
Sayana, 73, 136. 
Sayce, 20, 21, 65, 
Scandinavia, 20. 
Schlegel, 14, 20. 
Schleicher, 20. 
Schleswig, n. 
Scythian, 36. 
Scytho-Dravidian, 36, 37. 
Seligman, 38, 

fSemites, 9, 61, 63, 8o 

\Semitic, 3, 37, 43, 62. 
Senart, 12. 
Sergi, ^o. 

Shepherds, 62. See also Hyksos. 
Shu-king, 56. 
Siddhartha, 145. See also Buddha 

and Gautama, 
Signis, 105, 107. 
Simyu,88, 105. 
1 33, 34, 65, 66, 70, 130, 



66, 70, 71* 73> 
Smehu, 6i 



Sirhind, ^7, 29, 86. 

Sisnadevab, 79. 

Sisunagas, 32, 

Siva, 8, 64, 152. 

Sivas, 107. 

Sivis, 34. 

Skylax, 42. 
fSiav, i. 

\Slavonic, 2, 6. 

Smith, Dr. V. A,, 34, 42. 

Smriti, 44. 

Soastos, 25. See alsoSuvastu. 

Sol, 6. 

Soma, 6, 138, 139. 

Sona Satrasaha, 112, 

Sramanas, 42. 

Sribinda, 105. 

Srinjaya, 103, 112, 144, 

Srutasena, 51, in. 

Sruti, 44. 

Stein, Sir Aurel, 24, 

Strabo, 23, 

Subandu, 61. 

Sudas, 81, 88, 106-8, 143-5, 148, 
150^?. 

Suddhodana, 145. 

Sudra, 84, 90, 92-4, 99. 

Sudraka, 40. 

Suhma, 34, n7 

Suka, 52. 

Sumatra, 83. 

Sumerian, 65, 80. 

Surasena, 72, 104, 113, 114, 119, 
123, 126. 

Surastra, 70, 71, 123, 

Surjya or Suria, 6, 60, 64. 

Sutarna, 61. 

Sutas, 146. 

Sutiej, 66, 135, See also Satudru. 

Sutra, 13, 40, 44, 46-9, 114, 127. 

Suvastu, 25, 66, 142. See also 
Swat 

Suwardata, 61. 

Svapnavasavadatta, 125* 

Sveta, 144. 

Swat, 25, 66, 142. See also Su- 
vastu. 

Syria, 61, 62, 63. 



INDEX 



163 



Taittiriya Brahmana, 18, 
Taittiriya Samhita, 108. 
Takshasila or Taxila, 124. 
Talajangha, 12 1. 
/Tamil, 73. 9<5, 98, 99> m- 
\Tamilian, 97-9. 
Tamirmuni, 97. 
Tantric, 93. 
Tartar, 22. 
Taylor, 3. 
Teiegu, 69, 97, 99. 
Teil-el-Amarna, 61. 
Tertiary, 54, 130, 137. 
/Teuton, 7, 10, 144. 
\Teutonic, 2, 6, 9, 
Thibet, 82. 
Thor, 7. 
Thunderer, 74. 
Thurston, 82. 
Thutmose, 63. 
Tilak, 18, 19,20, 131, 137, 
Tirthankara, 58. 
Titikshu, 34, 117. 
Tiu, 7. 
Toalas, 83. 
Tocharish, 23. 
Traivrishna, 113. 
Trasadasyu, 60, 107-9, 113, 144. 
Treta Age, 120. 
Trigarttas, 104. 
Trikshi, 108. 
Tripolje, 22. 
. Trisanku, 152. 
Trjta, 6. 
Tritsu, 106. 
Tryaruna, 60, 113. 
Tukultininiv, 60. 
Tundikera, 12 r. 
Tura Kavasheya, 51* 81. 
Turanian, 10, 133. 
Turkestan, 24. 

Turvasha, 33, 103, 104, 106, 107, 
116, 1 1 8, 143, 147. 

Udayana, 125, 126. 
Uddalaka, 51, 126. 
Ugrasena, 51, in. 
Ujfalvy, 10. 



[Jn-Vedic, 93. 

LJpamasravas, 108. 

Upanishad, 32, 44, 45, 47-51, 

57, 78, 115, 117, 127, 
Jranus, 6. 
Jsanas-Sukra, 151. 
Ushas, 6, 19, 64, 67. 
Usinara, 31, 34, 69, 104, 117. 
Uttarakuru, 18. 

Vadhryasva, 144. 

Vagadha, 69. 

Vaichitravirya, 81, 115, See also 

Dhritarastra. 
Vaidya, C. V., 29. 
Vaisali, 122, 127. 
Vaisampayana, 52. 
Vaisvanara, no. 
Vaisya, 91. 
Vaivaswata, 147. 
/Vajji, 72, 128. 
\Vajjian, 127. 
Vala, 105, 106. 
Vamsa, 72, 89. 
Vamsa Brahmana, 40. 
Vanga, 34, 69, 71-3, 91* 9 IJ 7 
Varchin, 105. 
Varttikas, 39-41. 
Varuna, 6, 8, 150, 151. 
Vasas, 31, 69. 
Vasistha, 71, 107, 108, 133, 148, 

150-2. 

Vasu, 115, 119. 
Vasudeva, 58. 
/Vatsa, 122, 126, 128. 
\Vatsaraj, 125. 
[Vayu, 6. 

Vayu Purana, 126, 148. 
'Veda, 5, 6, 9, 13-16, 45, 56 
iia, i29,j4fe^efijlso Rig 
veda 





INDEX 



69, 70, 71, 95, "9. 
, 113. See also Berar. 
Videgh. Mathava, 113. 

5, 67-9, 89, 113, 




Vraiwtya, 145 

Vindhyas, 27, 66, 67, 69, 96, 104, 

134, *4* i43- 

Vipasha, 66, 106. See also Beas. 
Vishanins, 107. 

/Vishnu, 8, 64. 

\Vishnu Purana, 51, 109, 
Vfewamitra, 68, 106-8, 150, 152. 
yitasta,66.SeealsoJhelum. 
Vitihotra, 121, 
Titrahan, 6. 
Vnttyas, 68. 
Videnbwg, 23, 138. 
Vrishni, 119, 126. 



Wales, 9 2. 
Warren, 10. 
Weber, 109. 
Whitney, 57. 
Winternitz, 49, 57, 132. 
Woden, 7. 

Yadava, 73, 119, 123. 

Yadu 33 35 97> 103, 104, 106, 

107, 113, 116, 118, 119, 142- 

4 147- 
Yajati, 116, 120, 147. 

|Yajnavalkya S i,52,i2 7 . 

lYajnavalkyakanda, 51. 
Yajurveda, 112. 
Yakshu, 105, 107. 
Yama, 6. 

Yaska 46, 47, 54, 73 , 143 , 
Yaudheyas, 34, 117. 
Yavanani, 42. 
Yudhisthira, 29. 
Yuvanasva, 120. 

Zaborowski, 20. 
JJarathustra or Zoroaster, 55. 
Zend, 5, 16, 20, 21, See also 

Avesta. 
Zeus, 6, 137. 



A few opinions on Prof. N, K. Dutt's 
The Aryanisation of India. 

EXTRACTS 

Prof. E. Washburn Hopkins, Yale University, U. S. A. 
"I have read with great pleasure and profit your very 
admirable Aryanisation of India, a copy of which you were 
good enough to send me last autumn. The chapter on 
chronology is by far the best presentation of the 
subject that I have seen, and your appendix on Dr. A. C. 
Das's book is in itself a most valuable contribution to 
sane scientific history. The whole book is in my opinion 
a most excellent study and a great credit to Hindu 
scholarship." (20.2.1926). 

Prof, H. Jacob!, Bonn University, Germany. ''It is 
very well written and gives all essential information 
on the interesting and difficult problem. You state fairly 
and exactly disputed points and decide them with sound 
judgment. I make no doubt that your countrymen will 
welcome your book as a trustworthy guide in a field of 
research beset with so many difficulties." (10.10,1925), 

Prof. Sten Konow, Oslo, Norway 

"I have read it with the utmost interest, and I congratu- 
late you on your achievement* Your views are sound 
and your way of arguing scholarlike. I differ from you in 
details, but I am quite convinced that your main line of 
argument is unassailable." (21.1.1926). 

Prof. A, Hillebrandt, Breslau University, Germany.- 

"The subject has been treated by you in a manner which 
will not fail to attract the attention of the reader, the more 
so as no other work, as far as I know -exists that treats 
this theme in its full extension/' (19,10.1925). 

Prof. E. Rapson, Cambridge University, England 
"The book is well written and well informed." (1.10,1925) 



Dr. L D Barnett, British Museum, England 

u lt seems to me a thoughtful and sensible survey of 

the facts, and on several important points I am pleased to find 
that your views agree with mine." (5.10.1925). 

Prof. A. B. Keith, Edinburgh University, Scotland "It 
is decidedly advantageous to have a statement of the issues 
regarding the Aryan invasion set forth clearly and effec- 
tively, and lam glad to note that you have exercised a sober 
and independent judgment on the various issues. While 
the theories of Dr. Das and Mr. Pargiter are doubtless unaccep- 
table, it is interesting to have their defects exposed in your 
Appendices, because statements left uncontradicted are apt 
to mislead those who are not expert at the outset of their 
studies and to lead them into false paths of investigation. 11 
(*. 10. 1925). 

Prof. J. Jolly, Warzburg University, Germany "Your 
valuable work on the Aryanisation of India has been duly 
received and it seems to be very useful, as it contains a 
critical examination of all the various theories concerning 
the immigration of the Aryans into India. The nature of 
Aryan colonisation and of the Dravidian element of Indian 
culture has been carefully analysed The political history 
of the country has been traced back to the Vedas. The 
copious Index shows what a large field has been 
covered by your researches as contained in this volume. 1 ' 
(6. 10. 1925). 

Prof. M. Winternitz, Prague University, Czechoslovakia 
"I am greatly obliged to you for your kindness in sending 
me your interesting book on the Aryanisation of India. I 
agree tfith you on most points, especially in. your criticisms of 
Dr. Das's Rigvedic India and of Mr. Pargiter's theories in the 
Appendix. Of course, there is still much in these questions 
that must remain doubtful." (20. xo. 1925) 

Prof. M. Bioomfield, Johns Hopkins University, U.&A. 
"Fine book.' 1 



M The Minister wishes to thnk YOU for bringing to bis 

> ;' ^n", -v;; fj>- tf/>r / ?"V v t > t /') ; "''i%C* ;*' '^* r 

notice most interesting information on a topic about 
wiiich cortiparHt^eiy very Ht'rle is known at present, fife i 

ttat your book will create gret 

ly i-eid even in South Africa." 



H, E. Stapleton, Esq., Offg. Director of Bufcite 
tion, Bengal 



"...your extremely interesting and 

book 'The Ary^nisation of India/ I onl^ >yish metre qf5ors, 
in the pepartment woi\l<l devote their leisure to producing r 
both scholarly a,nd rea,4a,bl^ books such as yours is." 
(29.9.216) 

Principal A- C. Wooinier, Deanqf the Un,iversky,of 
the Panjab 

"it seems to ma a cle&r and rr^oderatQ statement o the 
main problems and a quite possible narrative." (261.4.27) 

Dr. G. N- ChakraTartji, Vice-Chancellor of the University 
of LucknoW; 

"It bears marks of scholarship and research " (i i-9- 2 ^) 

S- Stiltaq Ahmed, Esq., Vice-Chancellbr, 
sity 

< ( {t contains thoughtful and critical examination 

of. various theories regarding th(3 immigration of the Aryans into 
India. I canaqt help cqn^ratukting you upon the manner in 
whiph you have, treated your subject and the schrjiairiiifc 
HiflLnner in which yo^ ha?e pressed yowt>pont8 arid ^he l^abct- 
manner ic \vhjch you have criticised ;the various ^h^k)ries from ^ 
whicn you h^ve differed. The book is exceedingly itrtis^st-. 
ing and I am sure it will be Utefui tCr Schdiart ks Wffll ^ 
students." 



Bengal- 

* it fc iatisfactpry to note that the college statf made 
two valuable contributions to learning. Principal 
Kamsbotbam's Studies in the Land Revenue History of Bengal, 
*7$9T-*? *ad Profe&sor N. K. Dutt's Aryan! sation of India 
are clear evidence that scholarship can flourish in a mofussil 
college as well as in Calcutta." (Report on Public Instruction 
in Bengal, 192536) 

Director of Public Instruction, Madras 

"The Director desires to bring the book ' Aryanisation of 
India' by Professor N. K, Dutt, tlughly College, to the notice 
of the Principals of First Grade Arts Colleges and to state that 
it is deserving of a place in the college libraries." (Dis, 
No. 1052/27 dated xath March 1927). 

" Director of Public Instruction, Central Provinces 

"Sanctioned for use as a Prize and Library book," (Order 
No. 488, Nagpur, the 24th January 1927) 

Times Literary Supplement, London 

" he has done to rehabilitate, so far as he can, 

the orthodox theories of Aryan civilization in India, He 
rejects Dr. Giles's suggestion of the Aryan hoaie in Mid-Europe 
and Mr. Tjlak's theory of an Arctic home ; he will have none 
of Mr, Pargiter's contention that the Aryans came into India 
by the mid-Himalayan route ; he demolishes Dr. Das's 
patriotic idea that the Aryans were indigenous in the Punjab, 
that the Vedic period goes back twenty centuries (?)or 
more before Christ and that the Dasyus were a more uncivilised 
asption ot Aryans .... Mr, Dutt's most interesting 
chapters deal with the Dasyus and with the nature of 
Aryan civili$uion...and he distinguishes very clearly 
the differences in the Aryan colonizing influence in the 
Pjjpjab, in ,the M*tdhyadesa oc Central India, in Eastern 
India, and in the Deccton. The book is useful , - , and - 
U well -reasoned." (22,4.26; 



Prof. Jarl Charpentier, University of Upsala. 

In The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, 
Jan., 1927 

* 'This book of Professor Dutt deals with a problem 
which ever fascinates us ; partly, perhaps, because in our 
inmost heart we feel convinced that it can never wholly 
be solved. Let us say, at once, that Professor Dutt has 
made a good start, and that his theories seem to us, as 
a whole, to be quite reasonable. The present writer 
himself has had reason to suggest that the date of Panini 
falls about 500 B.C. ; and the much-misused Yavanani 
argument proves nothing to the contrary, . . 

Journal de Geneve 

**.... En presentant son ouvrage. M. N. K. Dutt 
rntend moms se prononcer que fournir la base chrono- 
logique et geographique a 1'histoire politique de 1* Inde 
aux epoques vedique et epique. Par la meme occasion il 
sort de la masse litteraire assez confuse le developpement 
de la conquete aryenne. II reste entendu qu'il ne le 
rend que conditionnellement puisque, encore un coup, 
des travaux archeologiques et Htteraires sur les anciens 
Dravidiens font totalement defaut. Avec lui on suit avec 
facilite la theorie aryenne. 1' invasion, sa date. 1* expan- 
sion dans la peninsula hindoue. la nature de la colonisa- 
tion. I'etablissement des tribus et la formation des 
royaumes. * * (1 6-4-26) 

Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesells- 
chaft, Leipzig, 1927- 

"Ein flei jSiger kompilator, der sogar deutsehe 
Gelehrte wie Feist, Hirt, Ed. Meyer anzufiihren wei& 
und dem zugut gerechnet werden soli, da/J er vor 
kritikloser Benutzung der Epen als Oeschichtsquellen 
warnt, gegen Pargiter's auf den Puranas aufgefiihrtes 
Hypothesengebaude angeht und seinen phantasievollen 
Landsmann Abinas Chandra Das abtut, der die altesten 
Rigveda Hymnen vorsintflutlicher Weise ins Miocan 
verlegt (also noch vor J. G. Andersson's neuen Homo 
primigenius Pekinensis). Anderwarts fehlt es freiiich an 
Rritik und die neueste Mode, Sumerer und Draviden in 
einen Topf zu werfen, wird frohlich mitgemacht. ..." 



Hi* Statettnan, Calcutta (29-5- 1 927>~ 

The author ha* tried to present within a short compass a 
chronological and geographical framework of the political history of 
India during the Vedic and Pauranic periods and along with it an 
account of the Aryan conquest. The book is in seven chapters, 
and in the first one die author has intelligently discussed the com- 
parative philology, mythology, ethnology and sociology of the Aryans. 
Nest he has critically examined the different theories regarding the 
Aryan invasion, and subsequently dealt with the nature of Aryan 
colonization. Readers will find the chapter on colonization interest- 
ing and the author's research regarding the tribes and kingdoms of 
Rigveda beginning with Bharat and ending with Santami will appeal 
to those who want a glimpse of the early history of India. The 
development of tribes and kingdoms in India in later days has been 
traced with skill. In the appendix the author has rather timidly con- 
tradicted the theory of the old Pundits, which in recent days has 
been so enthusiastically preached by Dr. Abinas Chandra Das, that 
the home of the Aryans has always been in India. Scholars of the 
West have always repudiated this theory, and it is not too much to 
say that it has been rejected by antiquarians of all descriptions almost 
unanimously. It is abundantly clear that the young author has studied 
the subject thoroughly, and the book will prove to be a most valuable 
addition to the antiquarian literature of India. 

The Englishman, Calcutta (8-8-1927) 

The book under review is a complete thesis on the history of 
Aryan immigration into India, the different stages in the diffusion 
of Aryan culture in the different parts of the country and the 
political history of India from the Rig- Vedic times to the rise of 
Buddhism. It is an attempt to construct history out of the Pauranik 
materials and the author has succeeded in presenting a systematic 
and connected account of the whole period based on a workable 
chronological arrangement. He has also proved his ability in clipping 
or demolishing other theories and in making original contributions. 

The chief merit of the book is that it is suitable not only to 
the most advanced scholars who may gain new light upon many 
hitherto obscure points but to the ordinary students of ancient Indian 
history. The attempt to harmonise Vedic tradition with Pauranik 
in the matter of political history, the tracing of the Mahratta race 
to Iranian origin, the finding of the dates of the Vedic kings like 
Purukutsa and Trasadasyu, the observations upon the story of the 
deluge and the untouchable castes, are some of the contributions to 
Indian history worth reading. The author's thorough grasp of the 
subject and nis refreshing style have made the book, though full of 
controversial matter, very delightful reading. The chapter on chrono- 
logy is particularly interesting and reveals the constructive ability of 
the author. The author while dealing with such an abstruse subject 
has not sacrified clarity and charm and there is no gainsaying the 
fact mat it has been a valuable contribution to learning and a work 
of great scholarship.