DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0095
PHYSICAL TYPES
6i
entering India at a date when the Indo-Aryans had long been
an organized community, should have been absorbed by them
so completely as to take rank among their most typical repre-
sentatives, while the form of their heads, the most persistent of
racial distinctions, was transformed from the extreme of one
type to the extreme of another without leaving any trace ol
the transitional forms involved in the process. Such are the
contradictions which beset the attempt to identify the Scythians
with the Jats and Rajputs. The only escape from them seems
to lie in an alternative hypothesis which is suggested by the
measurements summarised in the Scytho-Dravidian table.
These data show that a zone of broad-headed people may still
be traced southwards from the region of the Western Punjab,
in which we lose sight of the Scythians, right through the
Deccan till it attains its furthest extension among the Coorgs.
Is it not conceivable that this may mark the track of the
Scythians who first occupied the great grazing country of the
Western Punjab and then, pressed upon by later invaders and
finding their progress eastward blocked by the Indo-Aryans,
turned towards the south, mingled with the Dravidian popula-
tion and became the ancestors of the Marathas ? The physical
type of the people of the Deccan accords fairly well with this
theory, while the arguments derived from language and religion
do not seem to conflict with it. For, after entering India the
Scythians readily adopted an Aryan language written in the
Kharosthi character and accepted Buddhism as their religion.
These they would have carried with them to the south. Their
Prakrit speech would have developed into Marathi, while their
Buddhistic doctrines would have been absorbed in that fusion
of magic and metaphysics which has resulted in popular
Hinduism. Nor is it wholly fanciful to discover some aspects
of Maratha history which lend it incidental support. On this
view the wide-ranging forays of the Marathas; their guerrilla
methods of warfare; their unscrupulous dealings with friend
and foe ; their genius for intrigue, and their consequent failure
to build up an enduring dominion; and finally the individuality
of character and tenacity of purpose which distinguish them at
the present day—all these may be regarded as part of the
inheritance which has come to them from their Scythian
ancestors.
6i
entering India at a date when the Indo-Aryans had long been
an organized community, should have been absorbed by them
so completely as to take rank among their most typical repre-
sentatives, while the form of their heads, the most persistent of
racial distinctions, was transformed from the extreme of one
type to the extreme of another without leaving any trace ol
the transitional forms involved in the process. Such are the
contradictions which beset the attempt to identify the Scythians
with the Jats and Rajputs. The only escape from them seems
to lie in an alternative hypothesis which is suggested by the
measurements summarised in the Scytho-Dravidian table.
These data show that a zone of broad-headed people may still
be traced southwards from the region of the Western Punjab,
in which we lose sight of the Scythians, right through the
Deccan till it attains its furthest extension among the Coorgs.
Is it not conceivable that this may mark the track of the
Scythians who first occupied the great grazing country of the
Western Punjab and then, pressed upon by later invaders and
finding their progress eastward blocked by the Indo-Aryans,
turned towards the south, mingled with the Dravidian popula-
tion and became the ancestors of the Marathas ? The physical
type of the people of the Deccan accords fairly well with this
theory, while the arguments derived from language and religion
do not seem to conflict with it. For, after entering India the
Scythians readily adopted an Aryan language written in the
Kharosthi character and accepted Buddhism as their religion.
These they would have carried with them to the south. Their
Prakrit speech would have developed into Marathi, while their
Buddhistic doctrines would have been absorbed in that fusion
of magic and metaphysics which has resulted in popular
Hinduism. Nor is it wholly fanciful to discover some aspects
of Maratha history which lend it incidental support. On this
view the wide-ranging forays of the Marathas; their guerrilla
methods of warfare; their unscrupulous dealings with friend
and foe ; their genius for intrigue, and their consequent failure
to build up an enduring dominion; and finally the individuality
of character and tenacity of purpose which distinguish them at
the present day—all these may be regarded as part of the
inheritance which has come to them from their Scythian
ancestors.