DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0063
INTRODUCTION.
11
other name, who were Tree and Serpent worshippers, before they
adopted any of the Hindu forms of faith. Nothing can be more
antagonistic to the thoughts and feelings of any Aryan race than such
forms of worship, and nothing more completely ante-Vedic than its
rites. It seems also to have no connection with Saivism.1 Nor is
there any trace of it found among the Dravidians. There appears, in
fact, no solution of the riddle possible, but to assume that it was an
aboriginal superstition in the north of India, and it was the conversion
of the people to whom it belonged that gave rise to that triarchy of
religions that have succeeded each other in the north during the last
two thousand years.
This solution of the difficulty has the further advantage that it
steps in at once clearly to explain what philology is only dimly
guessing at, though its whole tendency now seems in the same direction.
If this view of the mythology be correct, it seems certain that there
existed in the north of India, before the arrival of the Aryans, a
people whose affinities were all with the Thibetans, Burmese, Siamese,
and other trans-Himalayan populations, and who certainly were not
Dravidians, though they may have been intimately connected with one
division at least of the inhabitants of Ceylon.
Both the pre-Aryan races of India belonged, of course, to the
Turanian group; but my present impression is, as hinted above, that
the Dravidians belong to that branch of the great primordial family
of mankind that was developed in Mesopotamia and the countries to
the westward of the Caspian. The Dasyus, on the contrary, have all
their affinities with those to the eastward of that sea, and the two
might consequently be called the Western and the Eastern, or the
Scythian and Mongolian Turanians. Such a distinction would cer-
tainly represent our present knowledge of the subject better than
considering the whole as one family, which is too often the case at
the present day.
These, however, are speculations which hardly admit of proof in
the present state of our knowledge, and would consequently be quite
out of place here, were it not that some such theory seems indispensable
to explain the phenomena of the architectural history of India. That
of the north is so essentially different from that of the south that they
cannot possibly belong to the same people. Neither of them certainly
1 The BOrpent of Siv;i is always a cobra,
or poisonous snake, and used by hfan is
an awe-inspiring weapon, a very different
animal from the many-headed tutelary
Naga, the guardian angel of mankind,
and regarded only with feelings of love
and veneration by his votaries. It may
also he remarked that no tree is appro-
priated to Siva, and no trace of tree
worship mingled with the various forms
of adoration paid to this divinity—a
circumstance in itself qotbt sufficient to
distinguish this form of faith from that
of the Dasyu group which pervaded the
valley of the Ganges.
11
other name, who were Tree and Serpent worshippers, before they
adopted any of the Hindu forms of faith. Nothing can be more
antagonistic to the thoughts and feelings of any Aryan race than such
forms of worship, and nothing more completely ante-Vedic than its
rites. It seems also to have no connection with Saivism.1 Nor is
there any trace of it found among the Dravidians. There appears, in
fact, no solution of the riddle possible, but to assume that it was an
aboriginal superstition in the north of India, and it was the conversion
of the people to whom it belonged that gave rise to that triarchy of
religions that have succeeded each other in the north during the last
two thousand years.
This solution of the difficulty has the further advantage that it
steps in at once clearly to explain what philology is only dimly
guessing at, though its whole tendency now seems in the same direction.
If this view of the mythology be correct, it seems certain that there
existed in the north of India, before the arrival of the Aryans, a
people whose affinities were all with the Thibetans, Burmese, Siamese,
and other trans-Himalayan populations, and who certainly were not
Dravidians, though they may have been intimately connected with one
division at least of the inhabitants of Ceylon.
Both the pre-Aryan races of India belonged, of course, to the
Turanian group; but my present impression is, as hinted above, that
the Dravidians belong to that branch of the great primordial family
of mankind that was developed in Mesopotamia and the countries to
the westward of the Caspian. The Dasyus, on the contrary, have all
their affinities with those to the eastward of that sea, and the two
might consequently be called the Western and the Eastern, or the
Scythian and Mongolian Turanians. Such a distinction would cer-
tainly represent our present knowledge of the subject better than
considering the whole as one family, which is too often the case at
the present day.
These, however, are speculations which hardly admit of proof in
the present state of our knowledge, and would consequently be quite
out of place here, were it not that some such theory seems indispensable
to explain the phenomena of the architectural history of India. That
of the north is so essentially different from that of the south that they
cannot possibly belong to the same people. Neither of them certainly
1 The BOrpent of Siv;i is always a cobra,
or poisonous snake, and used by hfan is
an awe-inspiring weapon, a very different
animal from the many-headed tutelary
Naga, the guardian angel of mankind,
and regarded only with feelings of love
and veneration by his votaries. It may
also he remarked that no tree is appro-
priated to Siva, and no trace of tree
worship mingled with the various forms
of adoration paid to this divinity—a
circumstance in itself qotbt sufficient to
distinguish this form of faith from that
of the Dasyu group which pervaded the
valley of the Ganges.