Ethnography (Ancient India): Linguistic Map
The Ethnography- Linguistic Map
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 |
For making a racial-linguistic map of India during the period of the Mahabharata we have two means: (1) the situation of the non- Aryan
1 We are hardly in a position at this time to distinguish carefully between race and language. We are fortunate to obtain clews to either. When one speaks of France I think of people of the "Latin race" speaking French. But after a moment's thought I realize that I can understand almost nothing of Provencal and can understand the older generation of Alsatians only with difficulty. I have no idea of the percentage of "Latin", "Germanic," and "Keltic" blood in the population in different parts of Franco. If we can approach the definition of peoples or languages today, and (2) the information that can be gleaned from the Mahabharata itself or from later sources.
In large areas of the south and east of India we still have non- Aryan languages spoken today and it is not too difficult to form at least a tentative surmise as to the race or language of the peoples occupying those areas in epic times. We may roughly state present locations: Dravidian in the Deccan, Bhils scattered along the west side of India, Tibeto-Burmans along the T-Emalayas and in the east, Khasic in the Khasi Hills of Assam, and Mundic along the Vindhya range and north to the Ganges in the middle east of India. But Indie languages, descended from Sanskrit or closely related ancient dialects, now cover most of northern India and extend for some distance south of the Vindhya range, and it is for this area that it is most difficult to determine the racial and linguistic origins of the peoples living there during the time of the Mahabharata. 1
The maps of even such late innovators as Pargiter 2 still make the greatest part of northern India Aryan, corresponding very closely to the areas where Indie languages are spoken today. Even a moment's reflection would lead to the obvious conclusion that such maps must be very far from representing the actual situation during the epic period. For since aryanization has been going on in India some 2000 years since the Mahabharata was written, and probably at a geometric rather than arithmetic rate, the pure Aryans must have been very few in epic times and the aryanization of the natives could not have been carried nearly so far down the social scale. 3 The power and influence of the Aryans was then no doubt out of all proportion to their numbers, probably something like that of the British in India until a few years ago.
It is generally held that the Aryans entered India from the northwest during vedic times and occupied the upper Panjab. But during the epic period they had their greatest power in the Ganges and Yamuna (Jumna) valleys and their sway in the northwest was very insecure. At the time of the Great Rebellion, and for some time following, the Aryan conquest of India was at its most critical period because of the overexpansion of power, the greed of the rulers, and the degredation of the natives. 4
"French" for the ordinary individual like myself we shall be fortunate in this initial essay. Some attempt to distinguish race and language is all we can make here.
””1 See the maps in the Linguistic Survey of India, ed. George A(braham) Grierson; Constable's Atlas; or Davies (see Bibliography), map no. 41.””
””2 See Bibliography.””
””3 Bhandarkar observed (p. 113) that "The Vedic Aryans took upwards of one thousand years to disseminate their faith and culture over East India although it was by no means an extensive area." And, one might add, it was by no means complete.””
””4 Pargiter, p. 285, believed that the slaughter of ksatriyas in the battles of the Mahabharata had so weakened the kingdoms that Nagas established themselves””
We may survey what this very thin Aryan superstructure was in epic India.
Castes or Varnas1
First we may note that the ethnography of ancient India is com- plicated by the system of caste. Some late scholars have protested against use of the term caste for the varnas of ancient India, so I shall use the latter word when referring to ancient Indian divisions of society.
Most of the work on the early Aryans seems to have been done for the period of the vedas, and particularly of the Rgveda, and it has frequently been stated that the brahmans, ksatriyas, and vaisyas were Aryan and only the 6udras were native. Perhaps that was more nearly true of the vedic period of Aryan penetration into the present Pan jab. But Pargiter has shown that many of the famous early brahmans were non- Aryan, and too many ksatriyas are mentioned as descendants of natives on one side of the house for us to believe that they were of pure Aryan descent. So the vaisyas are unlikely to have been of anything like pure Aryan stock even in that early period.
The very word varna ' 'color " is suggestive regarding the racial composition of the divisions of society. The Mahabharata 1 and other sources state that the brahmanas were white (sita), the ksatriyas red (lohita), the vaisyas yellow (pitaka), and the sudras black (asita). The passage explains that the ksatriyas were called red because of their red legs, but I have not seen a clear interpretation of this. Did they smear their legs with red or wear red over them? It is the only varna which the text considers it necessary to explain, and we may infer that the ksatriyas were not red-faced, while the members of the other varnas did have faces corresponding to the color ascribed to them. At least that has been the assumption of scholars.
It has long been held that if the brahmans were not entirely Aryan, they were at least the whitest race known in India. Even about JJ50JB.C., Patanjali described the brahmans as having a white complexion and yellow or red hair. 2
Also it has generally been accepted that the sudras were the black natives. But the only race in western India that could be called black is the Bhil, the ancient Nisada, not the non-existent Dravidians of
at Taksasila and assailed Hastinapura, then the outpost of the Hindu kingdoms of north India, the Panjab having been lost. Later, Janamojaya's fourth successor abandoned Hastinapura to make his capital at Kausambi, leaving all the northern part of the Ganges- Jumna doab to the enemy. A glance at the Panda va regions on Map 2 will show that this was approximately true even before the battles of the epic.
””1 XII. 188. 6934.””
””2 Mahabhasya, on Panini, V. I. 115.””
northern India. l Any doubt that it was the Nisadas who were made Sudras is dispelled by a passage in the Kausitaki Brahmana (XXV. 15) wKerelme was to dwell successively with_a_Naisada, a vaisya, a ksatriya, and a brahman;here in the sequence of varnas from lowest to highest a Naisada takes the place jof ajudra_bgcause the 3udras were Nisadas, the only difference being that the_former was partly aryanized. And again, Manu (x. 8) stated that the son of a brahman father and a sudra mother was a Nisada, the son taking the status of the mother in the tribe from which she came. And the commentator Mahidhara explained Nisada in the Vajasaneyisamhita as meaning a Bhil2.
As for the yellow vai^yas, the only "yellow" race living near, and even in, northwestern India and Nepal today is the Tibeto-Burman. 3
The Bhils or Dasyusor Nisadas have had a low state of culture since earliest Times ancTthey wefe~made slaves or sudras.* But from the very iact that the vaisyas~~were not given such a degraded status, we may infer that the yellow peoples had a higher state of culture, probably already carried on trade and agriculture, and so they continued to form the farmer-trader class.
This consideration of the varnas indicates that, even in the kingdoms considered Aryan, the Aryans were at most the priestly and ruling class, the farmer-trader class being Tibeto-Burman and the slaye class being Nisada Bhil). We shall find evidence below to indicate that the kingdoms that were even thought of as Aryan were probably actually very few.
The division into varnas and later into castes unusually complicates the determination of the racial and linguistic composition of any nation or tribe. And although we cannot hope to solve all such problems for early India, we can bear these classes in mind during this study.
