1 THE ARYAN CONQUEST. ~ 23
2 Predial slavery was enforced in nearly every part of India, and such of
3 the aborigines as escaped death, or were not driven to the mountains and
4 deserts, were forced to labour for their Hindu masters. In some places
5 they still work as serfs of the soil, in others they pay heavy rents to the
6 Hindu owners, Yet a remarkable feeling pervades nearly all these aborigines,
7 who consider themselves to be the real proprietors of the land. The Minas
8 of Rajputdnd remind each other of their right by the following distich :-—
9 7? Tho 9d 1D Pd — 9 TD ad Sly
10 ‘¢ The Rajah is the proprietor of his share;
11 I am the proprietor of the land.”
12 The primeval title of these tribes is to this day admitted by the Hin-
13 dus in a striking manner. When a new Raja in Mewar takes his seat on the
14 masnad, the ceremony of applying the tilok on his forehead; as the symbol
15 of royalty, is performed by a Mina, He marks the Rajas forehead with the
16 red spot, which is the blood drawn from a Mina’s toe. The same ceremony
17 is performed by a Bhil on the installation of the Rajput Raja of Udaipur,
18 the most ancient of the Hindu princes. This shows that the inherent Tight
19 of the aborigines as the original owners of the soil is still admitted by
20 Hindu sovereigns of the first rank, who consider their title to sovereign
21 power incomplete until the original lord of the soil is willing to acknow-
22 ledge it by shedding his own blood for him. As aconquered race, however,
23 they are despised and doomed to live in servitude and bondage to their con-
24 querors and lords. The Aryans differed from these barbarians in both mind
25 and disposition. They felt this difference most acutely, carefully excluded
26 them from the Indian commonwealth and regarded them as beasts, rather
27 than as human beings. In Chapter X. of the Institutes of Manu, the great
28 Hindu legislator, it was ordained that—(1) “Their abodes should be out of
29 towns. (2) Their sole property is to consist of dogs and asses. (8) Their
30 only clothes should be those left by the dead. (4) Their ornaments should
31 be rusty iron. (5) They should wander from place to place. (6) No re-
32 spectable man should hold intercourse with them. (7) They were to per-
33 form the office of executioners in the case of criminals condemned to
34 death by the King. For this duty they might retain the bedding, clothes
35 and ornaments of those executed.” Their condition was in every case one of
36 perpetual slavery. In Chapter VIII. Mant says: “The Chandala, or impure,
37 can never be relieved from bondage though he be emancipated by his master.
38 How can he whom God has destined to be the slave of Brahmins ever be re-
39 leased from his destiny by man?” The site of every new building should be
40 carefully cleaned of bones of dead animals, particularly of those of Chan-
41 dalas, reckoned to be highly injurious to buildings.
42 CHAPTER IV.
43 THE ARYAN CONQUEST OF THE PANJAB.
44 A™ authorities agree in pointing to the mountains in the north-west (the
45 direction of the Hindu Kush mountains, the true Caucasus) as the
46 primitive home of the fairer and more powerful race who first. migrated into
47 the Panjab. Bands of these immigrants penetrated into the Panjéb through
48 the Himalayan passes. Being fresh from a cold northern country, they were
49 fair in colour and they called themselves“ Arya, viz., the “noble,” the
50 But they are
51 despised as a
52 conquered race,
53 And are excluded
54 from the Indian
55 commonwealth,
56 They are called Chan-
57 dalas, or impure.
58 The primitive home
59 of the Aryans.
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