Ancient Indian Ethnography: Aryan Ethnic Classification
This article is an extract from ETHNOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT INDIA BY ROBERT SHAFER With 2 maps 1954 OTTO HARRAS SOWITZ . WIESBADEN Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor disagrees |
Aryan Attempts at Ethnic Classification
We cannot take the genealogies quite as literally as Pargiter. Instead we must consider the earlier generations as eponymous ancestors of the race. Everyone is familiar with the Biblical attempt at classification by dividing peoples into the sons of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah. I am not a Semitic scholar and I neither know nor care whether the Semitic classification was correct or not. We are interested here only in the accuracy of the Aryan attempt at classification, which only time will definitely decide.
The Aryans derived all the important races of India from Manu, literally "man." The fact that they did not derive the Nisadas from Manu is an indication that they were no longer important in epic times. Or, since the authors of the Rgveda regarded the Dasyus with contempt, they may have expressed this by excluding them from descent from Manu.
Saudyumnas. The Saudyumna stock was considered to be descend- ed from a biological freak, which may have been the Aryan means of expressing their feeling that this stock was not quite human. The identi- fication of the Saudyumna stock with the modern Mundic peoples seems reasonable, but it is not particularly important for our purposes because we can identify Mundic countries by other means.
Constable's Atlas, plate 9, shows the Munda race extending right up to Bhagalpur and within 75 miles of Patna. 1
1 For linguistic evidence that the Mundic stock has been in India a very long time, see Manfred Mayrhofer, "Neue Literatur zu den Substraten im Alt- indisehen," Archiv Orientdlnl, Vol. 18 (Symbolae Hrozny), no. 4 (1950), 367 371, with bibliographical references.
Hamit Kosay's "Tiirkische Elemonte in den Munda -sprachen (Munda diller- indeki Tiirkce unsurlar)," Belleten (Turk Tarih Kurumu) 3 (1939), p. 107-126, presents comparisons between Turkish and Finno-Ugrian and Mundic, some of them sufficiently close phonetically to warrant further study. The works of W. F. von Hevesy, Munda- Magyar -Maori, An Indian Link between the Antipodes; New Tracks of Hungarian Origins (London, 1928), under pseudonym F. A. Uxbond, and Finnisch-Ugrisches aus Indien; es gibt keine austrische Sprachenfamilie das vorarische Indien teilweise finnisch-ugrisch (Vienna, Manz, 1932) are not available to me. A review of von Hevesy's works is given by P. W. Schmidt, ,,Die Stellung der Munda- Sprachen", BSOS 1 (1935), 729 738. Since work on the so-called Ural-Altaic and Austroasian families is now progressing somewhat under various scholars, soon we may more competently decide whether the parallels presented by Kosay and von Hevesy are purely accidental, whether they are loan words
Manavas. The Aryans thought that the earliest race in India was the Manava, in two branches. That in the east, descended from Manu's son Iksvaku, occupied the kingdom of Ayodhya (later Kosala), and Videha, and still later Vaisali. The western branch, descended from Manu's son Saryati, occupied Anarta.
We have very good reasons for believing that this Aryan classification expresses historical truth, for we know that there was a great city at Ayodhya before the Aryans came, and, since the excavation at Mohenjo- daro, we find that there was a very early urban civilization in the west of India, anteceding that of the Aryans.
I am inclined to believe that the western Manavas at Anarta were Iranians. 1 The Iranians were the closest people on the west of India that we know anything about. And nearly half of the Mohenjo-daro skulls which could be classified belonged to the Mediterranean (Hamitic, Iranian) type, today a dominant element in the north of India and generally among the upper social classes. At Mohenjo-daro was found the sculptured head of a man with a short beard ("chin whiskers"). A "chin whisker" beard was a characteristic of many Persians in their sculptures, and the Pahlavas are distinguished in the Mahabharata from other people by their beards.
Pandey 2 has protested against Pargiter's separation of the Manavas from the other peoples of India: "the Manavas are not described as a people distinct and different from the Ailas . . . Both are described as a people similar in race, language and religion." If the Manavas were Iranians, they would be similar in race, language, and religion to the Indo-Aryans, one of the Aila peoples. Moreover, Pandey 3 shows the Manavas to be Iranians when he states that the Sakas were descended from Narisyanta, son of Manu.
If the Aryans were right in considering western and eastern Manavas as closely related, then the Kosalas, Videhas, and Vaisalas would also have been Iranians. But a past attempt to connect them with the Iranians
and, if so, from what period, or whether they signify distant genetic relationship. If either of the last two possibilities should prove correct, they would be of con- siderable importance for the prehistory of India.
1 Those inclined to daring geographical jumps may refer to P.-E. Dumont, "Indo- Aryan Names fromMitanni, Nuzi, and Syrian Documents," JAOS 67 (1947), 251 3, and G. Dumezil, "Dieux cassites et dieux v6diques a propos d'un bronze du Louristan," Revue Hittite et Asianique 11, fasc. 52 (1950), pp. 18 37; both have bibliographical references. The Near East and India are also discussed in many of the works referred to in Constantin R^gamey's "Bibliographic analytique des travaux relatifs aux 616ments anaryens dans la civilisation et les langues do I'lnde," BEFEO 34 (1934), pp. 429-566. See also Wilhelm Brandenstein, ,,Die alten Inder in Vorderasien und die Chronologie des Rigveda", in Brandenstoin, Frtihgeschichte und Sprachwissenschaft (Vienna, 1948), pp. 134145.
2 P. 101. 8 P. 96. was not well received. Some traditional stories link the Eastern Manavas with Tibet. 1 We shall return to this question below.
Ayava (Aila). The so-called Aila or Lunar race or, as I prefer to call it, the Ayava (from Ayu) appeared later, for there are two genera- tions between Manu and Ayu. Only the Kasis can be regarded as Ayava. Scholars have remarked ties between them and the Eastern Manavas, as Jala Jatukarnya, purohita of the kings of Kasi, Videha, and Kosala.
Amdvasava. This line at Kanyakubja was established at about the same time as the Ayava. One may guess from their geographical and genealogical position that both the Ayavas and Amavasavas were colonies sent out from Ayodhya.
Two generations later, according to Pargiter, came the descendants of Yadu, Turvasu, Druhyu, Anu, and Puru. Pargiter assumed that the Anavas, Drauhyavas, Yadavas (and Haihayas), Taurvasavas, and Pauravas were all Aryan. But we have already noticed that Pargiter 's Aryans would leave little room for aryanization in northern India during the millenniums since the time of the Mahabharata. Direct evidence that these people were not Sanskrit-speaking Aryans is the fact that, according to the Rgveda, the Anus, Druhyus, Yadus, Turvasas, and Purus attacked the Aryans at the Parusni (the Ravi), so they must have been
1 According to these tales Iksvaku had a son Vikuksi who succeeded him at Ayodhya. In six puranas, Ik$vaku had other sons, 50 of whom were kings of Uttarapatha (northern India) and 48 in Daksinapatha (the Deccan). But accor- ding to the other version in four puranas, Vikuksi had 15 sons who were kings north of Mem and 114 others south of Mem (Pargiter).
Now, according to Tibetan tradition, the legendary kings of Tibet commenced with Gnya-k'ri Btsan-po, said to be a son of King Prasenajit of Kosala (Luciano Petech, "A Study on the Chronicles of Tibet," IHQ 13, sup. p. 19).
These traditions may go back to a common source. Vincent A. Smith concluded from ancient sculptures at Barhut (Bharhut) and Safici and from certain insti- tutions that the Tibetan type was much more prominent in the plains of northern India 1800 to 2000 years ago than it is today. He also remarked that polyandry, such as Draupadi's marriage to the five Pandava brothers, is still a Tibetan and Himalayan custom (Oxford History of India [Oxford, 1923], p. 7).
D. S. Trivoda seems to hold that the eastern Manavas were Aryans ("The Pre-Mauryan History of Bihar," JBRS 36 [1950], pts. 3-4, pp. 134-147; 37 [1951], pts. 1 2, pp. 127152). But Triveda's reference to vaisya kings and their marriage with vaisyas may be interpreted as indicating a considerable yellow- skinned population of some social importance among the eastern Manavas (pp. 131, 142).
Chatterji (p. 35), evidently basing his conclusions on Dines Chandra Sirkar in the Vaisali Volume not available to me, inclines to believe that the eastern Manavas were Mongoloid or people of mixed blood with a strong Mongoloid element, who had adopted or were adopting Aryan speech.
In the Vayupurana, MS e, the Ko&alas are regarded as foreign (Pargiter, Kali Age, pp. 2, 3). native tribes hostile to the Aryans. And in the Rgveda anu means a non- Aryan; 1 Druhyu is considered a derivative of druh- "be hostile to"; Turvada is a derivative of turv- "to overpower." No derivation has been found for Yadu and we may infer that it was a native name. Puru has been compared with purusa "man, people." Thus four of the five names indicate by their etymology or lack of etymology that they were applied to non- Aryan or hostile peoples.
Kangacharya has noted that the Yadus and Turvasas are called Dasas in the vedas, 2 and that the Dasas lived in fortified villages, which was not true of the Aryans.
And the Mahabharata states explicitly that the sons of Turvasu are the Yavanas and that the sons of Anu are the Mlecchas. 3 And no scholar has ever contended that the Yavanas or Mlecchas spoke Sanskrit.
If these peoples were not Sanskrit-speaking Aryans, what then? 4
We are hampered in this investigation by having almost no informa- tion about India's neighbors on the west or north. The only recent statement I have seen regarding the early population of Afghanistan is that of Antonio Pagliaro. He said that it was Iranian and that the earliest inhabitants were the Persian-speaking Tajiks. 5 The source of his information, however, seems to have been Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom ofCabaul (London, 1815). 6 Although Elphin- stone's conclusions seem to be based on some research and observation, one may doubt whether his conclusions would still stand after a modern investigation.
We do have, however, one bit of information regarding the early inhabitants of Afghanistan in Herodotus' statement that in 516 B. C. Skylax, a Karian of Karuanda, set out under Darius' orders from the
1 Since a number of Indian gods have been found in Near Eastern countries (see p. 16, n. 1), anyone interested in trying to connect Anu with the Babylonian sky god Anu of Uruk is welcome to the theory. Although I express another view of the Anavas below, our knowledge of ancient relationships is not so assured that one can be didactic.
2 Even Rangacharya, interested primarily in the Aryans as "carriers of culture," observed that the battle on the Paru$m was between Sudas and the rulers of Matsya, Sivas, and Yakus, and the kings Turvas"a, Druhyu, Puru, Anu, Vikarnika, and perhaps Yadu and others, and remarked "it is obvious that some of these tribes were non-Aryan" (pp. 192193).
8 Or. Ed. I. 80. 26; Boy I. 85.
4 Chanda, although holding to the usual view that the Yadus, Purus, Druhyus, Anus, TurvaSas, Bharatas, and others were Aryans, noted that they were tradi- tionally akin to the dark section of the rsis, the Kaiivas and Visvamitras (p. 25). This is a contradiction, for then they would be Aryans who wore not Aryans, or they would be at least a mixed breed.
6 Enciclopedia Italiana (Milan, 1929), under Afghanistan.
6 Pp. 309 ff. city of Kaspaturos 1 in the country of Paktu (naxTvixij yfj)- 2 This can hardly have been anything but the country of the Paxtus, the northern Afghan dialect corresponding to Pastu in the south. It indicates that these people were already in Afghanistan at least before the time when Hopkins would date the composition of the Mahabharata. 3
Yddavas. According to the 'Harivamsa, Yadu was the grandson of Iksvaku of the clan of Manu and of the daughter of the demon king Madhu, and Yadu had his capital in Anarta, which was part of the former kingdom of the demon Madhu. Madhu ruled at Madhu vana, but Satrughna slew his son Lavana, cut down Madhuvana forest and founded the city of Mathura. 4
Thus, according to the Yadavas' own history, they were descended from the first race in India, the Manava, and from the demon king Madhu. How should this be interpreted?
I have mentioned above that although I considered the Bhils to have once occupied all western India, I no longer believe they were dominant in that area at the time of the Mahabharata. For although proto-Austra- loid (pre-Dravida) skulls were found at Mohenjo-daro, they were in the minority in comparison with the Mediterranean (Iranian) type, and archaeologists have inferred that the former made up the slave or servant class. And, although a report on most of the burials at Harappa is still awaited, the dominant skull form in the earlier phase seems to have been the Australoid, but it does not appear to be dominant in the later phase. This would seem to indicate that the aborigines were being first subjected, then enslaved, and finally eliminated.
I think we must interpret the Yadavas' account of their origin as that the Manavas (Iranians) 5 were subjugating the Bhils, and that the Yadavas were their descendants who had conquered the Bhils from
1 But Kaspapuros in the country of the Gandarii in Hekataios frg. 295 (Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, pt. 1 [Berlin, 1923]). Instead of y I have written u throughout in transcribing Greek geographical names.
2 IV. 44.
3 See above, p. 4, n. 2, 2d paragraph. Perhaps these people were the same as the Pakthas ( < *Pakhtu), who fought in the Battle of the Ten Kings of the Rgvoda. For the Sanskrit substitution of final -a for peoples for the final -u of the root of foreign names, see Huna in Index.
4 Harivam6a 54.
6 Sir Herbert Risloy attributed the broad, round-headed elements among the Gujaratis, Mara^his, and Coorgs to Sythian admixture (The People of India, 2d ed., Calcutta and London, 1915).
And J. H. Hutton thought the distribution of brachycephalics worked out by Guha in 1931 indicated a third millennium B. C. invasion from the direction of the Iranian plateau which penetrated down the west coast of India as far as Coorg and apparently threw out offshoots down the Jumna and Ganges valleys to the Ganges delta (Man 43 [1943], p. 44). The Yadavas covered most of the area out- lined by Hutton, but did not, apparently, extend as far east as the delta of the Ganges. Anarta to Mathura and married their women. For we must take the demon Madhu to symbolize some primitive people who occupied at an early period all the territory from Mathura (i.e., from the Tibeto-Burman occupied Ganges valley?) to Anarta. The only non- Aryan people to occupy any of this territory today are the Bhils. And Krsna "black" was the great Yadava prince of Anarta, formerly of Mathura.
Yadu founded seven clans, according to the Yadava history, the Bhaima, l Kaukura or Satvata, Bhoja, Andjhaka, Yadava, Dasarha, and Vrsni. The Vrsnis and Andhakas were branded as vratyas in the Maha- bharata 2 and Krsna himself was so regarded, 3 and the Surastra kings were considered vratya and mostly sudra (i.e., black) in the puranas. 4 Baudhayana states in his Dharmasutra 5 that the inhabitants of Anarta and Surastra are of mixed origin. Devala 6 said that he who visited the Saurastras should be initiated anew. The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea calls either the Saurastras, or the Abhiras, or both, men of great stature and black in color, 7 which would indicate a mixture of a tall race with the black Nisadas (Bhils), and further absorption of the latter.
The Yadavas occupied former Madhava territory at Surastra, Anarta, and Mathura, and the outcast status was no doubt due to their inter- mixture with the Bhils.
That some of these Yadavas of Manava-Madhava (Iranic-Bhil) descent had become aryanized, but not completely by the time of the Mahabharata is indicated by the statement of Karna that "the Salva cannot comprehend until the whole speech is uttered," the Salva being Yadavas.
Haihayas. The Haihayas are considered a branch of the Yadavas, and we find Pahlavas, Sakas, and Kambojas (all Iranians) associated with the Haihayas in an attack on Ayodhya.
The branches of the Haihayas were: Vitihotras, Bhojas, Saryatas, Avantis, Tundikeras, and Talajangas. The Vitihotras were thought of as foreign in the Vayupurana, MS e, 8 and the king of the Avantis as vratya and mostly sudra. 9
From the position of the Haihayas within and north of the Vindhya range, I would infer that the base of the population was not Bhil, as
1 Descendants of Bhima, who ruled over Surastra.
2 VII. 143. 15.
3 MRK, p. 95.
4 Pargitor, Kali Age, pp. 54 55.
5 I. 1.32-33.
6 Quoted by Vijfianevara on Yajiiavalkya III. 292.
7 Par. 41. Hjalmar Frisk gives the original Greek text in "Le P6riple do la mer Erythr6e," GOteborgs HOgskolas Ars skrift 33 (1927), 1 145. The text is in- definite in reference to the people.
8 Pargiter, Kali Age, pp. 2, 3.
9 Op. cit., 54-55. with the Yadavas, but either Kol or Gond, and hence the distinction between Haihayas and Yadavas.
When the racial-linguistic map in this work had been filled in, it appeared that there were only a few scattered Nisada tribes left, and that the Yadavas, Haihayas, and Anavas had occupied nearly all the west. Hence we must assume that the Nisada-Madhava (Bhil) natives had become subjected and largely absorbed.
Anavas. One of the most important non-Aryan groups in India was the Anava. The eastern Anava included Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra, and Suhma. The first three of these occupied territory farthest to the east, territory which we would expect most likely to be Tibeto- Burmic. x But Pundra looks more like a Mundic word and the country adjoined Mundic territory; it was probably occupied by Mundic peoples under a Tibeto-Burmic ruling caste. Kalinga itself was probably occupied by Tibeto-Burmans who drove the native Mundic speakers north from the seacoast before the period of the Mahabharata. Suhma and the variant Svaksa could be Tibeto-Burmic compounds, Su-hma, Swak-sa, but there is nothing particularly Tibeto-Burmic about their appearance. 2
The western Anavas were the Yaudheyas, Ambasthas, Sibis, Sindhus, Sauviras, Kaikeyas, Madrakas, Vrsadarbhas, the kings of Navarastra, the lords of the city of Krmila, 3 and, according to some, the Bahlikas. The names of the western Anavas do not have the final -hga so characte- ristic of the names of the eastern Anavas. Hence one may doubt that the western Anavas spoke a Tibeto-Burmic language.
But, although the East Himalayish dialect names usually end in -n, 4 none of the West Himalayish names of dialects end in -n, 5 so it may be due to similar reasons that the West Anava names did not end in -nga. Moreover, Karna said to &alya: "The regions are called by
1 Baudhayana in his Dharmasutra (I. 1.32 33) said that the inhabitants of Ariga were of mixed origin, and that anyone who visited the Pundras, Varigas, or Kalirigas should offer a punastoma or sarvaprsthi. Devala (op. cit. in n. 6, p. 20 above) said anyone visiting the Arigas, Varigas, or Kalirigas should be ini- tiated anew.
Risley attributed the broad, round-headed elements among Bengalis and Oriyas to a Mongoloid race (op. cit. in n. 5, p. 19 above).
2 Almost any word can be Tibeto-Burmic if we assume it is a compound.
3 Dines Chandra Sircar, "The Ancient City and District of Krmila," IHQ 17 (1950), 138141, identified Krmila as probably the modern village of Valgudar, near Luckeosarai in the west of the Monghyr district. But Sircar does not state that this was the Western Anava city, and I doubt that the latter would be so far east.
4 See p. 14 above.
6 I have not investigated why none of these names end in -?i, whether they are all native names that by accident end in some other phoneme than -?i, whether they are native names that have been aryanized, or whether they are names bestowed on them by others. Whichever it might be, the same may have been true of the western Anava names. the name of the Arattas. The people residing there are called Bahllkas." 1 We can understand that. Dakota is an American Indian name, but the Dakotans of today are practically all Americans without a drop of Indian blood.
Hence I am tentatively giving the author of the passage in the Mahabharata the benefit of the doubt when he considered the western and eastern Anavas closely related and both Mleccha. When he remarked that the sons of Anu were the Mlecchas but the sons of Turvasu were Yavanas, he was evidently trying to make a racial-linguistic distinction. He did not consider the Yavanas to be Mlecchas. And when he called people of the Panjab and of Bengal both Mlecchas, I assume that the Aryans' idea of race and speech was at least fair and that he had reason for it, perhaps Mongoloid features, perhaps a difference of tones in their languages as compared with the tones of Sanskrit or Dardic.
Pandey says that Anu occupied the northern Ganga-Yamuna doab, but that the Anavas were forced to the northwest in the Panjab by Emperor Mandhatr of Ayodhya. We have seen above that the Tibeto- Burmic peoples occupied at least the eastern part of the Ganges valley. If Anu occupied the upper Ganges in very early times, it would narrow the geographical gap between the eastern and the western Anavas.
We have also noted above that the vaisyas were yellow, so enough Mongoloid types must have lived in the north of India at the time of the Aryan invasions to form a yellow varna. And, according to Ranga- charya, 2 Sudas annexed the territory of the Anus after the battle on the Parusm, so the Anavas would already be living in the Panjab at the time of the Rgveda.
As far south as Mohenjo-daro one burial was found where the skull clearly belongs to the Mongolian type, comparable to the modern Naga type. This is what we should expect when Mohenjo-daro fell from power the gradual infiltration of western Tibeto-Burmans (western Anavas) down the Indus valley.
Pargiter has noted that the Aryans were losing their grip on their vedic home on the upper tributaries of the Indus toward the close of the epic period and even before that, and the most likely non- Aryan invaders, we may guess, would be Tibeto-Burmic tribes now living in the hills north of there. 3
1 Mbh. VIII. 45.
2 P. 194.
3 For the Mongolian element in northern India today, see B. S. Guha, Racial Elements in the Population, Oxford Pamphlets on Indian Affairs, no. 22 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1944), map on inside covers.
I do not insist that the western Anavas were Tibeto-Burmans. They may have been Turks, Mongols, or some other people. During the last century it was customary for scholars to call any unclassified central Asians Turanians, now it is the custom of ethnologists to call them Mongoloid. I have not too much confidence in either, It is true that we have no outside evidence that Tibeto-Burmans inhabited the western part of southern Tibet at the time of the Maha- bharata.
From a manuscript of the 2an-zun language from Tun-huang, ca. 8th century, F. W. Thomas inferred that the language was West Himalayish. 1 If his interpretation of scattered words proves correct, I would classify it more narrowly as being closest genetically to the Almora branch of West Himalayish. Thomas believed the speakers of this language occupied the Kailasa region before 644 A.D. 2 From Kailasa a branch of this people could have followed the present upper Sutlej to the Himalayas in early times.
One bit of evidence comes closer to epic times. In the Sogdian " Ancient Letters", referring to the region in Tibet north of the Panjab, occurs the word 'nkp; which Pelliot interpreted Ang-pa 3 This certainly looks like a Tibeto-Burmic word, the postposition -pa occuring very frequently with Tibetan stems.
Baudhayana 4 said that the Sindhus and Sauviras are of mixed origin and that he who visited the Sauviras should offer a punastoma or sarvaprsthi; and Devala said anyone who had visited the Sindhus or Sauviras should be initiated anew. The fact that only the Sindhu- Sauviras were singled out from all the western Anavas indicates that all but those on the western border had been aryanized by the time the above works were written.
The word Mleccha was used to refer to both the eastern and western Anavas. Although Mleccha came in time to be used for almost any non-Aryan and even for Aryans of impure speech, I have the impression that in the Mahabharata it was most often used for people living in close proximity to regions now occupied by peoples speaking Tibeto- Burmic languages, and that it originally referred to these peoples. In time it came to mean something like "foreigner," but that was after most of the Anavas had become assimilated.
I suspect that skr. Mleccha, referring to the indistinct speech of some non-Aryans, is taken from proto-Bodish (proto-Tibetan) *mlte "tongue," Old Bodish lte, Kukish generally *mlei, the combination of initial consonants (*mltd-) being simplified hi various ways in different Tibeto-Burmic languages. Aspiration cannot occur after / in Old Bodish, and the proto-Bodish form may have been *mlts f e for all we know, so
but we can hardly expect the ancient Aryans classification to be more precise than that of modern scientists. And such evidence as we have seems to indicate that the western Anavas were more likely Tibeto-Burmans than Turks or Mongols.
1 JRAS, 1926, p. 506.
2 Nam, An Ancient Language of the Sino-Tibetan Borderland (London, 1948), p. 14 and map at end of volume.
3 See Clna in Index.
4 Dharmasutra I. 1. 32 33: ca. 4th century B.C., according to Bhandarkar. the cch of Skr. Mleccha may come nearer the primitive affricate than anything preserved in the Tibeto-Burmic languages. Since *mlcche would be an impossible combination in Sanskrit, mleccha would be as close as a Sanskrit speaker could come to it.
Tibet is the one country outside of India that the Aryans knew something about. During the Mahabharata period the hill tribes of the Himalayas were continually having to be subdued. And as late as A. D. 646 7, Chinese and Tibetan forces invaded northern India through Nepal. 1 But early contacts between the two lands have been almost entirely neglected by scholars, 2 so I shall add a few observations.
At the beginning of Tibetan history the capital was south of Lhasa at Yar-kluns (Yar-lun), almost at the border of Bhutan and on the edge of a valley at the head of which is a pass leading toward Assam and the Brahmaputra valley. My suggestion of the Tamralipta being the ( 'red-faced' ' Tibetans is therefore not improbable for the epic period.
The word for "horse" provides an interesting example of early contacts between Tibeto-Burmans and India. Vedic adva has been re- placed in most of the Indie languages by Skr. ghota or its phonetic equivalent, which appears in the Srautasutra of Apastamba.
William Ridgeway concluded from the description of the coloring of horses in the Rgveda that they had chestnut heads and backs, shading off into dun on the lower parts of the body in the manner of the wild horse of the steppes known as Przewalski's horse, and that they were of Mongolian or Upper Asiatic stock. 3 And Agrawala said horses of partridge color came from the Uttara Kuru country.
But in a detailed examination of the question of the taming of the horse, Bengt Lundholm 4 agreed with the assertion of B. T. Rumiantseff that there was no connection between Przewalski's horse and the Mon-
1 For map, see Helmut Hoffmann, "Tibets Eintritt in die Universalgeschichte," Saeculum, Vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 268 269.
2 Notable exceptions are Banikanta Kakati, Assamese, Its Formation and Development (Gauhati, 1941), pp. 47 53, 55 56; and Suniti Kumar Chatterji, "Kirata-jana-krti, The Indo -Mongoloids: Their Contribution to the History and Culture of India," JEASB-Let. 16 (1950), no. 2. And Jules Bloch observed: "In India gender disappears completely from the eastern (Aryan) languages only, and in fact there and there only the question is undoubtedly of the action of a Tibeto-Burman substratum" (Pre- Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in India, Calcutta, 1929, pp. 44-45).
3 The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 150ff.
4 "Abstammung und Domestikation des Hauspferdes," Zoologiska bidrag frdn Uppsala 27 (1947), 1 287; see especially section on "Die Frage der zentral- asiatischen Zahmung," pp. 160ff. His conclusions are based largely upon the work he refers to as B. T. Rumjancev, 1936, "Origin of the Domestic Horse," Bull. Ac. Sci. UR SS, 2-3, which I have not been able to find. golian domestic horse, but that the Tarpan was the ancestor of the Asiatic domestic horse.
Ridgeway remarked that the modern ponies of Bhutan, Nepal, and Spiti are in the main Mongolian, and that the Mongolian breed from the Himalayas kept steadily streaming into Hindustan in the thirteenth century and that we do not know how long previously.
Since Ridgeway presented no such detailed analysis as Lundholm and Lundholm presented no detailed analysis of the horses of India, no definite conclusions can be drawn here. But the two points of view do not seem in the main to be irreconcilable with each other or with the linguistic evidence.
From the little we know about horses in early India, Ridgeway could be right about the northwestern horses of the Rgveda being the Prze- walski horse of the steppes, which was called asva, a term of Indo- European origin. And later the Mongolian horse was brought down from the north and called by its northern name.
For in Tsangla, the language closest genetically to Tibetan and spoken in Bhutan just south of Tibet, the word for "horse" is kurtd. In Tibetan itself, only the final part of the word, rta, has been preserved, probably because of an accent on the original final syllable. But the full form is preserved in Mundic: Savara kurtd, Gadaba krutd (with metathesis of u and r). The reconstruction *ghurta seems preferable for the forms outside of Dravidian, rather than Jules Bloch's *ghutr-, 1 not only because of the Tibeto-Burmic and Mundic forms but also because Wackernagel more often derives Skr. t from *liquid + t rather than the reverse.
Thus the linguistic evidence indicates that the Sanskrit (not vedic) horse was introduced into India by way of Tibet.
Kaikeyas. The Kaikeyas are usually reckoned as Western Anavas. But Jaina writers tell us that half of Kekaya was Aryan, 2 while late vedic literature refers to the Kaikeyas as a very ancient people. 3 These statements account for seeming inconsistencies in the Mahabharata, where the Kaikeyas fought on both sides in the Great Rebellion. The Kaikeyas referred to in vedic literature were Western Anava. But Sudas had annexed the Anava territory and Aryans had lived in the Panjab in vedic times and apparently some remained in Kekaya. The princes of Kekaya were Aryans who went over to the Pandavas, but the Kaikeya population was predominantly Anava and fought on the side of the Kauravas.
Taurvasavas. Pargiter inferred that since Turvasu received the territory in the southeast he must have ruled the area around Rewa, having subdued the Karusas. But Pandey wrote that although Turvasu
1 Op. cit. (p. 24, n. 2 above), pp. 46 ff.
2 Indian Antiquary (1891), p. 375. 3 Rang. 185. was given the southeast, his descendants moved northwest. This agrees with the statement in the Mahabharata that the sons of Turvasu were the Yavanas, whom scholars have generally placed in the northwest. Pargiter must have missed this reference in the epic, for no scholar has suggested that the Yavanas were Karusas or had any connection with the latter.
Since the Turvasas took part in the vedic battle on the Parusni they lived in the Pan jab or near there. The Harivamsa leads to the inference that the Yavanas lived in the Himalayas: King Mucukunda slept in a cave in the Himalayas until awakened by Kalayavana, king of the Yavanas and son of Gargya, priest of the king of Trigarta, and of a milkmaid, really an apsara. 1 And in another tale, $alva, king of the Soubhas, was going to fly back to his capital anyway so he was selected to take the message to Kalayavana. Many tribes such as the Sakas, Tusaras, Daradas, Tanganas, Paradas, Khasas, Pandavas, etc., who dwelt in the hills, went over to Kalayavana's army. 2 Hence I believe that previous investigators have correctly placed the Yavanas in the upper Panjab.
But while we can place the Taurvasava-Yavanas fairly accurately on the map, we have a problem in trying to define them ethnically. It has generally been held that the Yavanas were Greeks, because the peoples of the Near East referred to the Greeks by this or very similar forms. But if the Turvasus were Yavanas and the Yavanas were Greeks, the Turvasas of the Rgveda could not have been Alexander's Greeks fighting the Indo- Aryans on the Parusni in the battle of the ten kings.
There would seem to be a broken link somewhere : either the vedic Turvasas were not the same as the epic Turvasus, or the Yavanas were not the sons of Turvasu, or the Yavanas were not Greeks. A good many scholars have accepted the latter solution, with some justification, I believe. For it is no more likely that all the population that went by the name of Yavana was Greek than that all the population of an "Aryan" kingdom was in fact Aryan. Previous scholars have noted that the Yavanas were most often associated with Sakas and Kambojas, both speakers of Iranic languages, and it is probable that the Yavanas ruled over some subject Iranians. 3
But one may doubt that this is the solution of our problem. Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya has remarked 4 that Panini formulated the rule that the feminine of Yavana is Yavandni, that this was commented on by Katyayana, and the comment paraphrased by Patafijali. The author
1 Chap. 35.
2 Chaps. 109-114.
3 This rule over subject Iranians would need to be very ancient to account for the close association of Yadu and TurvaSa in vedic times.
4 "The Tribal Immigrations in Achaemenid India/* IHQ 25 (1949), 272. postulates that Panini lived in the pre-Alexandrian period, possibly in the 5th century B. C. How, then could Panini formulate a rule about Yavana if the Yavanas only entered India with Alexander after Panini's death? Chattopadhyaya concluded that the grammarian must either have heard of the lonians from the Persians or that there was a Greek colony in India by Panini's time.
I have found no evidence to indicate that the early Indians gained any knowledge about the peoples west of Kabul from the Persians or anyone else. And Chattopadhyaya himself decided in favour of his second alternative when he pointed out that Arrian said that the Nysians were not of the Indian race but were descended from men who came into India with Dionysos. And the next year, S. B. Chaudhuri also thought 1 that the Yavanas were presumably known to India before Alexander's time, judging by Panini's reference to the writing of the Yavanas, Arrian's account of Nysa between the Kophen (Kabul) River and the Indus pointing to a Greek colony on the frontiers of India before the invasion of Alexander, 2 and the numismatic evidence that a Greek colony existed in some outlying province of India about 550 B.C.
The weakness of this Indian theory would seem to be that western scholars have generally accepted a later date for Panini than the fifth century B.C. I have impression that British scholars have generally accepted ca. 400 B.C., and German scholars ca. 350 B.C. These dates are sometimes given with great assurance and no authority. But where an authority is cited, it always seems to be Bohtlingk. The Kathasarit- sagara (beginning of 12th cent.) mentions Panini as a pupil of Varsa and Varsa as living under the rule of king Nanda, father of Chandragupta ; and from this BGhtlingk deduced "DaB Panini im 4. Jahrhundert gelebt hat, ist, wie wir spater sehen werden, nicht ganz unwahrscheinlich". 3 Bohtlingk suggested this date with more reserves than even the above citation suggests. 4 But if we take the dates ca. 400 B.C. or 350 B.C., which have been accepted by western scholars upon so insecure a basis, still it is rather surprising to find Panini making rules for the formation of the feminine of Yavana if the Yavanas only came to India with Alexander in 326 B.C., for Bohtlingk himself thought Yavanas must have been known in India for some time for Panini to make rules about their name. To allow for that we should have to date the great gram- marian's work at least as late as 300 B.C., and we should have to assume that he, Katyayana, and Patanjali were hastily recording a dying
1 "Huns, Yavanas and Kambojas," IHQ 26 (1950), p. 120, n. 23.
2 Strabo, 15. 1. 6 9; Arrian, index Dionysus.
3 Panini's Orammatik (Leipzig, 1887), p. viii.
4 Albrecht Weber criticized Bohtlingk's dating but his own date of A. D. 140 rests partly on tales and the assumption that Yavanas came to India only with Alexander (The History of Indian Literature [London, 1882], p. 217).
28 Aryan Attempts at Ethnic Classification
language, since Asoka erected his pillar and rock edicts about 250 B.C. in the local prakrits. If we cannot definitely date Panini's life at present, we have at least seen that if we do not accept the early dating of Indian scholars, we still have difficulties with ' 'accepted western dating and problems if we date the grammarian after Alexander.
Since we know almost nothing of the ancient history of Central Asia, we cannot superciliously dismiss evidence presented by both Sanskrit (vedic, epic, Panini?) and Greek sources that Greeks were in India before the time of Alexander. We shall consider the matter further below. 1
Since Skr. Yavana corresponds best with the hypothetical Homeric form *'lafoves, the later Sanskrit Yauna with the earliest actual Greek form 'laoves, and the Prakrit Yona with classical Greek "loves, one might deduce that Sanskrit must have borrowed Yavana, at least by the time of Homer long before Alexander brought Greeks to India.
Perhaps that is true. But I incline to believe that the evidence from the names is entirely inconclusive. Since the name had a rather wide extension in southern Asia, the question is one of some importance not only in India but in the Near East as well, and it seems worth while to digress long enough to review it briefly.
The old Sanskrit pronunciation of Yavana was Yawana or Yauana, 2 which corresponds very well with Hebrew Ydwdn, Assyrian Idmanu 3 (pronounced lauanu) 4 as the name of the Greeks. The assumption has been that the Asiatics applied the name of one branch of the Greeks the lonians to all the Greeks.
The oldest Greek forms were *Iaove$ for the people (Iliad), 'laovin for the territory. 5 Since the digamma had disappeared in Ionic by the eighth century, the reconstructions * y lafoves; and **Idfovia have been generally accepted. As these would be phonetically idwones and iawonia, the correspondence with Hebrew Yawan, Skr. Yavana (i.e., Yawana) is nearly perfect except for the o in Greek, which has not been explained.
However, we shall see below 6 that the Greeks transcribed Skr. va as o, and I have noted elsewhere that they transcribed Lycian wa as o and Lycian awa as w 7 The indications are, then, that Greek o and o> were not simple vowels but a diphthong and triphthong respectively: wa or 09, and awa or aoe. Thus 'Idoves was actually pronounced idwanes
1 Pp. 45 f.
2 Whitney, Skr. Gram., 2d ed., sec. 57.
3 la-a-ma-nu.
4 m after vowel > u in Babylonian; Brockelmann, Semitische Sprachwissen- schafi, p. 67.
' 5 Solon by Ar. Pol. Ath. 5.
6 P. 115.
7 "Greek Transcription of Lukian," Jahrbuch f. kleinasiatische Forschung 2 (1951), 5. or iaoenes'lowei; was actually pronounced iawanes or iaovnes, almost the only difference being the position of the accent. That the last vowel of the stem was a schwa best explains the Assyrian lamnaia 1 (pro- nounced iaunaia), Old Persian Yauna, Elam. (i)-ia-u-na, compared with Skr. Yavana, Hebrew Ydwdn. The Hebrews and Indians heard the schwa as d; the Persians and Elamites did not "hear" it.
The Sanskrit form Yauna would then probably be a loan word from Persian, Prakrit Yona by regular phonetic shift.
Thus the evidence from the name Yavana in old Sanskrit is neither favourable nor unfavourable to Greeks being in India before Alexander. The Greeks changed the spelling of the name for lonians, but not the pronunciation from the time of Homer to Alexander, and hence the Indians would have had the same transcription of the word Yavana.
Drauhyavas. The Druhyus founded Gandhara in the northwest where the native population was Dardic, and one might expect the Drauhyavas also to be Dardic. But the Mahabharata states that they were Bhojas, by which one may infer that the author was trying to imply that by origin they were Iranic. Since Dardic is linguistically between Indie and Iranic, it would require a better linguist than could be found among the early Aryans to make such a fine distinction. To them Dards were probably considered so close to Iranians that the nearest thing to a synonym they could think of was Bhoja (Yadava, Haihaya).
Pauravas. We have not yet discussed who the Pauravas were. One can only say that they were not Aryans. The Purus w r ere fighting the Aryans at Parusni and they were described in the Rgveda as mrdhravdcah "of hostile speech," otherwise applied only to Dasyus. 2 The Vayupurana MS e, held the Pauravas to be foreigners. 3 In the royal Paurava line were names such as Dhundhu, Kuru, and Jahnu for which no certain derivation has been found and others which seem out of line with the usual Sanskrit names of persons.
The Bharatas were also against Sudas, and he humiliated them along with the Turvasas and Druhyus. The Harivamsa regarded the Bharatas as Talajanghas (i.e., Haihayas) along with Vitihotras, Avantis, Bhojas, and Tundikeras.
There were many generations between Puru and Ajamidha, whose four sons founded royal lines in Hastinapura, Northern Paiicala, Southern Paiicala, and Kanyakubja. And it was some generations later before Kuru was king at Hastinapura, and then 16 more down to Dhrtarastra and Pandu. This gave a good deal of time for aryanization. Both the Kauravas and Panda vas claimed descent from Puru, and the Panda vas were almost certainly Aryans, probably the latest and fairest to enter
la-am-na-a-a. 2 MRK, p. 26. 3 Pargiter, Kali Age, pp. 2 3.
India, one may infer from their name. 1 But an upstart monarchy must attach its genealogy where it commands respect, and the Kurus had been the greatest power in India before the Great Rebellion, so it was logical for the Pandavas to claim descent from them. 2
The Kurus are generally accepted as Aryans, and scholars went to the Kuru-Paiicala country to study the purest speech. 3 Let us assume that the upper varnas of the Kurus were Aryan. But how about the greater part of the population? I have heard that the best English in the world is spoken at Trinity College, Dublin, but one cannot say that the Irish as a whole speak the purest English.
A strong reason for doubting that the bulk of the population of the Kaurava nation was Aryan is that the Kauravas rallied the support of nearly all the non- Aryans, the Pandavas the support of nearly all the Aryans.
After the battle of the Mahabharata the Pancalas seem to have annexed the honored name of the Kurus. 4 The name Kuru and Kaurava seems to have soon disappeared from the political map of India. What became of the Kuru people ? If one looks at a modern linguistic map one may note three small patches labeled Kur, which one may compare with ancient Kuru, and the larger patch labeled Kur-ku\ also Korwa which we may compare with ancient Kaurava.^
These are Mundic languages. Edward Tuite Dalton wrote 6 that, although the various divisions of the Kaurs or Kauravas were much
1 After the Aryans had won the war, they revised the Kuru epic to make themselves the heroes. So certainly they were not glorifying foreigners above all others when they praised the Pandavas as their leaders. It is true the epic does make a foreigner, or semi-foreigner, Krsna, into a god; but that, according to Hopkins, occurred in a still later revision (see p. 4, n. 2, par. 2). And one may suggest that Krsna's deification took place after enough of the native population had been accepted by the Aryans and had attained a position in society strong enough to force acceptance of one of its heroes as a god.
Some scholars have been misled by the Pandavas practice of polyandry to the inference that they were not Aryans. Anthropologists are continually warning that we must distinguish between race, language, and culture and then are constantly using one to back up their assertions about the other. Their advice is sound, however, if they seldom practice it. Professor Kirfel has pointed out to me that polyandry is found in Tibet and in the Nilgiris, and probably no scholar will contend that the inhabitants of the Nilgiris are Tibetans.
2 As Rangacharya (p. 198) remarked of the Bharatas "traditions came to be invented by the chroniclers of this and later epochs to prove that the Bharatas were the progenitors of all the important dynasties of India".
3 Vedic Index, II, p. 279. 4 See Geography, entry no. 1.
6 See Constable's Hand Atlas of India, ed. John George Bartholomew (West- minster, 1893), plate 10. Korwa is a dialect of Kherwari spoken in Chota Nagpur and South Midnapur. Kurku is spoken in the Satpura and Mahadeo Hills. One may also note that a vagrant tribe of Madras is called both Kurru and Korava.
6 Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872), p. 136. scattered and had little contact with each other, they all tenaciously clung to the tradition that they are descended from the Kauravas of the Mahabharata who had taken refuge in the hill country of Central India, and that this was firmly believed by all castes of their Hindu neighbors, and that the latter regarded them as their brethren. 1 Dalton thought that only the upper castes of the Kauravas were Aryan. From the line-up of the non- Aryans on the side of the Kurus I had concluded that the upper Kuru varnas were more likely aryanized natives. At any rate the ksatriya varna of the Kurus had been almost exterminated, leaving only the base of the population. What was the race or language of this base? A(lfred) Ludwig first interpreted kuru as "red," 2 later as "brown." 3 And one may note that two of Sudyumna's sons ruled over Utkala and Gaya, the first Mundic down to the present time and the second Mundic in early times, while the third son ruled over the east, including the Northern Kurus. 4 This would lead to the inference that the Northern Kurus were also Mundic.
The Aryan genealogies are the most confused and imperfect of any. Since the Aryans were an uncultured people without writing and since the system of writing they found in India was not the type easy to learn, some of the people of India may have had a literature in which they recorded their genealogies, while the Aryans had to transmit their traditions orally and this was more faulty. When the Aryans had developed as far as the period of the Great Epic we can understand the anxiety of their rulers to attach their family tree to one of a family of higher culture and greater antiquity. By that time they were taking over the literature of their once more civilized neighbors. The Panda vas attached their folklore to that of the Kauravas, and at the same time attached their genealogy to that of their former enemies. 5 Modern archaeological work has just begun in India, and we should not assume that blanks in our knowledge were blanks in fact. Some of the gaps in our knowledge of the development of writing in India between the Indus civilization
1 Dalton hit close to the truth when he suggested that the war of the Pandavas and Kauravas was not a family quarrel but a struggle for supremacy between an Aryan and a "Turanian" nation, bvit he was ahead of his time and his suggestion went unheeded.
2 "uber die mythische Grundlago des Mahabharata," Vestnik Kralovske Ceske Spoletnosti Nduk (Sitzungsber. kgl. bohmischen Qesellschaft der Wiss.), 1895, no. 9, p. 4.
3 In a review of Das Mahabharata als Epos und als Rechtsbuch ... by Joseph Dahlmann, in ibid., 1896, no. 5, p. 104.
4 Pusalker, p. 273.
5 If the early Kuru epic was in a non- Aryan language, Vyasa was particularly capable of translating it ; for he was the son of a brahman-rsi and a Dasa princess and he had married the Kuru queens of his step-brother, and was no doubt polyglot (Suniti Kumar Chatterji, "Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa and Krishna Vasudeva," JRASB-Let. 16 [1950], 80). and Asoka will no doubt be filled and we shall find that some of the people of India had written records. l
Although I am very sceptical of the Pauravas and their supposed descendants, the Bharatas and Kauravas, being Aryans, I think their upper classes were probably aryanized, and on the ethnic-linguistic map I have given these people the benefit of the doubt and regarded them as Aryan.
Arattas. Scholars have generally assumed that Dasas and Dasyus referred to natives in general. This is erroneous. The Dasyus are referred to contemptuously. They are slaughtered or thrown down; they are made servile. They were identified above with the Bhils. But, while the Dasas are enemies who may be hated, dispersed, overcome, or slain, they are never held in contempt. Hence the vedic hymns frequently refer to Indra overcoming foes, Dasa and / or Arya. 2 The Dasas and Aryas were on a social level, above the Dasyu-Bhils.
Sudas destroyed all strongholds and seven castles after the battle on the Parusm (Ravi). 3 And while some of the people of the Panjab were primitive people fighting with clubs, we know the Dasas had both forts and wealth. 4 We may now connect the ancient Harappa civili-
1 Professor Kirfel suggested to me that remains of the Kurus may bo found in the present people of Kulu, the r of Kuru having been changed to /. This is a brilliant suggestion; for Kulu is just across the Sutlej from where I placed Kuru-Jarigala on Map 1. Professor Kirfel remarked "Der Wandel von r in I ist weit verbreitet. Nach einem Aufsatz von Karl Ammer ... findot sich das I schon im Rgveda hi vielen Worten, wo man eigentlich ein r erwarten wiirde. Wenn ich nicht irre, findet sich in den A6oka-Inschriften das I uberall da, wo man ein r erwarten wiirde. In sprachlicher Hinsicht wiirde also wohl keine Schwierigkeit vorliegen."
Professor Kirfel referred to the works of Karl Eugen von Ujfalvy, Aus dem westlichen Himalaya. Erlebnisse und Forschungen (Leipzig, 1884), 34ff., and Karl Ammer, "Die L-Formen im Rgveda," WZKM (1948). Unfortunately neither of these are available to me, but the suggestion should certainly be further investi- gated.
2 See Muir, Vol. 2, p. 361. 3 Rgv. VII. 18. 13. 4 See Vedic Index, I, pp. 356, 358.
The only reference I have seen as to whom the Indo- Aryans thought of as Dasas is by Manu, who is so late and so formal that 1 do not believe he can be generally accepted as more than suggestive regarding actual conditions during the vedic period. He said that the sons of a sudra (i.e., black) father and vaisya (i.e., yellow) mother was an Ayogava (x. 12), and that the son of a Nisada (black) father and an Ayogava mother was a Margava or Dasa. About all we can conclude from this is that, in Manu's time, a good many centuries after the term arose with the Aryan invasion of India, the people called Dasas were more black than yellow.
But it is interesting to compare Manu's other term for this people, Margava, with the Iranian name *Maryu, Margava "Merv." And the Brhatsarhhita has a Margara, which may be an error for Margava, in the south-west (i.e., northwest).
Phonetically corresponding to Skr. Ddsa, the Iranians had the word Dahae, zation on the Ravi with the vedic Dasas and the epic Arattas. For Kama stated that the regions were called by the names of the Arattas but that the people residing there were called Bahlikas. One might infer from this that the Arattas were extinct, and that the Bahlikas were occupying their territory, but that was not true. Rangacharya 1 has summed up the evidence on the Arattas, noting that Baudhayana in his Srautasutra 2 "clearly says that the lands of the Arattas and Gandharis in the Panjab and further west were not suitable for orthodox Aryans, and that those who went there should perform the catustoma. In his Karmasutras he is even plainer. He says they were of mixed blood . . . The Mahabharata says that none should spend more than two days in the land of the Arattas."
The report of the biggest find of Harappa burials has not yet been published, so that it would be premature to attempt to define the ethnic composition of the Arattas here. On other grounds the writer had conclud- ed that the Bahlikas were a mixture of Manava and Anava. One may now tentatively interpret this as the partial absorption of the Arattas, centered around Harappa, by the western Anavas coming down from the north.
But, some reader may object, you have made nearly all the nations of India non- Aryan.
Well, I believe that is as it should be. One cannot expect some tens of thousands of Aryan invaders to have subjugated and aryanized a land of perhaps some tens of millions in a few centuries. But in India, where classes were divided, we must look at things somewhat differently. The Aryans were at the time of the Mahabharata still the invaders and conquerers.
When the Mongols conquered India and China, the people still remained Hindu and Chinese, and the situation of the Aryans in India at the time of the Mahabharata was not very dissimilar to that of the later Mongols. When I state that a certain people was Yadava, hence Bhil-Iranian, I am referring to the greater part of the population; the the name of a people living in Alexander's time on the southwest shore of the Caspian Sea (see Davies, map 3). But Tacitus wrote ad flumen Sinden, quod Dahas Ariosque disterminat (Ann. XI. 10), and Paul Kretschmer thought Tacitus was referring to the Sindhu as the boundary between the Aryas and the Dahae (KZ 55 [1927], pp. 102 103). If so, the question arises who was on which side of the Indus and when.
In the Avesta, dahaka refers to impious persons and Azi Dahaka was an impious dragon (A. Christensen, Danske Vidensk. Sels. Medd. 27, no. 1, pp. 24f., 20ff.). They seem, therefore, not to have followed the Iranian religion.
1 P. 197.
2 XIII. 13. At I. 1. 33 he said that anyone who has visited the Arattas shall offer a punastoma or sarvaprsthi. ruling classes may have been aryanized natives, of mixed race, or pure Aryan. * And in designating a kingdom as Anava I am suggesting that the bulk of the population was Mleccha (Tibeto-Burman) although the ksatriyas and brahmans may have been of Aryan descent or aryanized natives. For I believe the early genealogies were trying to express what the people were, not the ruling classes.
When the Aryans conquered a native people, it did not necessarily mean that they followed an Aryan policy thereafter. When the Normans conquered England, they continued to talk French but their policies were no longer French but English and often anti-French. And so if the Yadavas and Anavas had Aryan rulers, they usually did not line up with other Aryan rulers in the Great Rebellion but united against them.
1 In his study of "Vedic, Sanskrit, and Prakrit" (JAGS 32 [1912], 414-428), Walter Petersen concluded that Sanskrit was a caste language from the beginning meaning, no doubt, from the earliest record of it.
