DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0034
12
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
habitants of Babylonia, we may detect affinities wliicli may throw some
light on tins very obscure part of history. At present, however, the
indications are much too hazy to be at all relied upon. Geograhpically,
however, one thing seems tolerably clear. If the Dravidians came into
India in historical times, it was not from Central Asia that they
migrated, but from Babylonia, or some such southern region of the
Asiatic continent.
Dasyus.
In addition to these two great distinct and opposite nationalities,
there exists in India a third, which, in pre-Buddhist times, was as
numerous, perhaps even more so, than either the Aryans or Dravidians,
but of whose history we know even less than we do of the two others.
Ethnologists have not yet been even able to agree on a name by
which to call them. I have suggested Dasyus,1 a slave people, as
that is the name by which the 'Aryans designated them when they
found them there on their first entrance into India, and subjected them
to their sway. Whoever they were, they seem to have been a people
of a very inferior intellectual capacity to either the Aryans or Dra-
vidians, and it is by no means clear that they could ever of them-
selves have risen to such a status as either to form a great community
capable of governing themselves, and consequently having a history,2
or whether they must always have remained in the low and barbarous
position in which we now find some of their branches. When the
Aryans first entered India they seem to have found them occupying
the whole valley of the Ganges—the whole country in fact between
the Yindhva and the Himalayan Mountains.3 At present they are
only found in anything like purity in the mountain ranges that bound
that great plain. There they are known as Bhils, Coles, Sontals,
Nagas, and other mountain tribes. But they certainly form the
lowest underlying stratum of the population over the whole of the
Gangetic plain.4 So far as their affinities have been ascertained, they
1 1 Tice and Serpent Worship,' pp. 244-
247.
1 In Arrian there is a curious passage
which seems certainly to refer to this
people. " During the space," he says," of
6042 years in which the 153 monarchs
reigned, the Indians had the liberty of
being governed by their own laws only
twice, once for about 200 years, and after
that for about 120 years."—' Iudica,' ch.
ix. The Pnranai, as may be supposed,
do not help us to identify these two
periods.
:l I cannot help fancying that they
occupied some parts of southern India,
and even Ceylon, before the arrival of the
Dravidians. It seems difficult otherw ise
to account for the connection between
liehar and Ceylon in early ages, and the
■ spread of Buddhism in that island leap-
' ing over the countries which had been
Dravidianised.
4 I cannot help suspecting that the
Oonds also belong to this northern race.
It is true they speak a language closely
allied to the Tamil : but language, though
HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.
habitants of Babylonia, we may detect affinities wliicli may throw some
light on tins very obscure part of history. At present, however, the
indications are much too hazy to be at all relied upon. Geograhpically,
however, one thing seems tolerably clear. If the Dravidians came into
India in historical times, it was not from Central Asia that they
migrated, but from Babylonia, or some such southern region of the
Asiatic continent.
Dasyus.
In addition to these two great distinct and opposite nationalities,
there exists in India a third, which, in pre-Buddhist times, was as
numerous, perhaps even more so, than either the Aryans or Dravidians,
but of whose history we know even less than we do of the two others.
Ethnologists have not yet been even able to agree on a name by
which to call them. I have suggested Dasyus,1 a slave people, as
that is the name by which the 'Aryans designated them when they
found them there on their first entrance into India, and subjected them
to their sway. Whoever they were, they seem to have been a people
of a very inferior intellectual capacity to either the Aryans or Dra-
vidians, and it is by no means clear that they could ever of them-
selves have risen to such a status as either to form a great community
capable of governing themselves, and consequently having a history,2
or whether they must always have remained in the low and barbarous
position in which we now find some of their branches. When the
Aryans first entered India they seem to have found them occupying
the whole valley of the Ganges—the whole country in fact between
the Yindhva and the Himalayan Mountains.3 At present they are
only found in anything like purity in the mountain ranges that bound
that great plain. There they are known as Bhils, Coles, Sontals,
Nagas, and other mountain tribes. But they certainly form the
lowest underlying stratum of the population over the whole of the
Gangetic plain.4 So far as their affinities have been ascertained, they
1 1 Tice and Serpent Worship,' pp. 244-
247.
1 In Arrian there is a curious passage
which seems certainly to refer to this
people. " During the space," he says," of
6042 years in which the 153 monarchs
reigned, the Indians had the liberty of
being governed by their own laws only
twice, once for about 200 years, and after
that for about 120 years."—' Iudica,' ch.
ix. The Pnranai, as may be supposed,
do not help us to identify these two
periods.
:l I cannot help fancying that they
occupied some parts of southern India,
and even Ceylon, before the arrival of the
Dravidians. It seems difficult otherw ise
to account for the connection between
liehar and Ceylon in early ages, and the
■ spread of Buddhism in that island leap-
' ing over the countries which had been
Dravidianised.
4 I cannot help suspecting that the
Oonds also belong to this northern race.
It is true they speak a language closely
allied to the Tamil : but language, though