1 THE ABORIGINES. _ 21
2 The non-Aryan races of India are commonly divided into three stocks.
3 The first stock, comprising the Thibeto-Burman tribes, which cling to the
4 skirts of the Himalayas, penetrated into India by the north-eastern passes.
5 The second, styled the Kolarian, entered Bengal also by the north-eastern
6 passes, and the Dravidian, or third stock, found its way into the Panjab from
7 the north-west.*
8 The Dravidians now inhabit the southern part of India as far down as
9 Cape Comorin. Their languages are found by philologists to be akin to
10 the ancient Turanian or Scythian. This fact, coupled with the discovery of
11 imperishable prehistoric monuments of Scythian styles, already referred to,
12 proves the settlement of a Turanian or Scythian race in the south of India
13 long before the Aryan conquest of the country. It proves successive waves
14 of invasions by tribes undoubtedly of Scythian origin.
15 The aborigines who inhabited India at the time of the early Hindu
16 invasion are called in the Rig Veda Astras, Rakshasas, Syums, Dasyus,
17 Dasas or slaves.. Toe Aryans are found in the Rig Veda invoking their gods
18 to grant them room against the Dasyus, who are described as a dark-blue
19 cloud, to keep them distinct from themselves, to place the Dasyus on the
20 left hand, to turn aside their arms, to increase the might and glory of the
21 Aryas, to crush the hostile Dasyus, and to bring the “ black skins ” under the
22 sway of the Aryas. The Dasyus are styled “enemies” and “ evil spirits.”
23 The Aryan gods are thanked for “ having dispersed the slave enemies of black
24 descent.” They are described as “ flat-nosed” or “ noseless ” monsters, and
25 despised as a “ godless black-faced tribe,” without rites or sacrifice. They
26 are described as living in cities and well-built dwellings, a circumstance
27 which makes it clear that, at that remote time, the aborigines had made
28 fair progress in civilization and that they have now greatly degenerated.
29 Thus, the ancient Hindu god Indra is described as “ destroying the perennial
30 cities of the Astras and humiliating their defenders,” “ destroying the cities
31 of the Dasyus” and “ demolishing the hostile and ungoldly cities.” He is
32 given the credit of demolishing “a hundred cities of stone for the pious
33 Divodasa.” Agni is likewise celebrated as “having destroyed the spacious
34 iron walled cities of the Dasyus” and having slain them. In several places
35 he is described as the “destroyer of the cities.” He is praised as having
36 “quickly demolished the strongholds and seven-walled cities of Srukta and
37 other Astras.” He is invoked “to repair to the cities inhabited by the
38 Rakshasas.” He is praised as having “bowed down the thunderbolt of
39 the ungodly Asura,” and as “having, with the adamantine thunderbolt,
40 demolished the hundred ancient cities of Sambara,” said to be one of the
41 Asuras or aborigines. Sarasvati is praised as “ being as firm as a city built of
42 iron.” In their Vedic hymns mention is made of the “wealthy Rakshasas”
43 and of their “seven towers” and “ninety forts.” There is no means of
44 ascertaining the exact period of their moral and spiritual decay. Yet the
45 perfection of the Tamil language of Southern India, so free from Sanskrit
46 intrusion, and admitted to have attained its maturity before the introduction
47 of Sanskrit, which language it has survived, leads to the inference that,
48 before the descent of the great Aryan race, more than three thousand
49 years ago, the aborigines of India had reached a degree of civilization by
50 no means inferior to that possessed by their conquerors.
51 In the Hindi language a tenth of the words used are of other than
52 Sanskrit origin, and the same has been found with regard to a fifth of the
53 * According to Dr. Hunter, the Dravidians of the north-west and the Kolarians of the
54 north-east crossed each other in Central India, and the Dravidians, advancing in mighty hosts
55 from the north to the south, dispersed the Kolarians to the east and west.
56 The three divisions
57 of the non-Aryan
58 races,
59 Affinity of the
60 Dravidian with the
61 Turani language.
62 Scornful epithets for
63 the primitive tribes in
64 the Vedic hymns.
65 They are described
66 as living in cities,
67 And as possessing
68 forts and towers.
69 Their civilization.
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