The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6). Duncker Max

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of these is the valley of Cashmere, surrounded by an oval of snowy mountains. To the west of Cashmere the Indus turns its course suddenly to the south; it breaks through the mountain ranges which bar its way, and from this point to the mouth accompanies the eastern slope of the table-land of Iran. As soon as the Himalayas are left behind, a hilly land commences on the left bank, of moderate warmth and fruitful vegetation, spreading out far to the east between the tributaries of the stream. The river now receives the Panjab, and the valley is narrowed in the west by the closer approach of the mountains of Iran; in the east by a wide, waterless steppe, descending from the spurs of the Himalayas to the sea, which affords nothing beyond a scanty maintenance for herds of buffaloes, asses, and camels. The heat becomes greater as the land becomes flatter, and the river more southerly in its course; in the dry months the earth cracks and vegetation is at a standstill. Any overflow from the river, which might give it new vigour, on the melting of the snow in the upper mountains, is prevented for long distances by the elevation of the banks. The Delta formed by the Indus at its mouth, after a course of 1500 miles, contains only a few islands of good marsh soil. The sea comes up over the flat shore for a long distance, and higher up the arms of the river a thick growth of reeds and rushes hinders cultivation, while the want of fresh water makes a numerous population impossible.

      Not far from the sources of the Indus, at the very nucleus of the highest summits of the Himalayas, rise the Yamuna (Jumna) and the Ganges. The Ganges flows out of fields of snow beneath unsurmountable summits of more than 20,000 feet in height, and breaking through the mountains to the south reaches the plains; here the course of the river is turned to the east by the broad and thickly-wooded girdle of the Vindhyas, the mountain range which rises to the south of the plains. Enlarged by a number of tributaries from north and south, it pours from year to year copious inundations over the low banks, and thus creates for the plains through which it flows a fruitful soil where tropic vegetation can flourish in the most luxuriant wildness. This is the land of rice, of cotton, of sugar-canes, of the blue lotus, the edible banana, the gigantic fig-tree. On the lower course of the river, where it approaches the Brahmaputra, which also at first flows between the parallel ranges of the Himalayas towards the east, in the same way as the Indus flows to the west, there commences a hot, moist, and luxuriant plain (Bengal) of enervating climate, covered with coco and arica palms, with the tendrils of the betel, and the stalks of the cinnamon, with endless creepers overgrowing the trunks of the trees, and ascending even to their topmost branches. Here the river is so broad that the eye can no longer reach from one bank to the other. In the region at the mouth, where the Ganges unites with the Brahmaputra, and then splits into many arms, the numerous waters create hot marshes; and here the vegetation is so abundant, the jungles of bamboo so thick and impenetrable, that they are abandoned to the rhinoceros, the elephant, and the tiger, whose proper home is in these wooded morasses.

      Into this wide region, which in length, from north to south, exceeds the distance from Cape Skagen to Cape Spartivento, and in breadth, from east to west, is about equal to the distance from Bayonne to Odessa, came a branch of the family, whose common origin has been noticed, and their civilisation previous to the separation of the members sketched. The members of this branch called themselves Arya, i. e. the noble, or the ruling. In the oldest existing monuments of their language and poetry these Aryas are found invoking their gods to grant them room against the Dasyus,2 to make a distinction between Arya and Dasyu, to place the Dasyus on the left hand, to turn away the arms of the Dasyus from the Aryas, to make the hostile nations of the Dasyus bow down before the Aryas, to increase the might and glory of the Aryas, to subjugate the "Black-skins" to them.3 In the epic poetry of the Indians we find mention of black inhabitants of Himavat (i. e. inhabitants of the snowy mountains, the Himalayas), and of "black Çudra" beyond the delta of the Indus. By the same name, Çudra, the Aryas designated the population which became subject to them in the valley of the Ganges; and when they advanced from the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges towards the south, to the coasts of the Deccan, they found there also populations of a similar kind. Even at the present day the inhabitants of India fall into two great masses, essentially distinguished from each other by the formation of their bodies and their language. In the broad and inaccessible belt of the Vindhya mountains, which separates the peninsula of the Deccan from the plains of the two rivers, are situated the tribes of the Gondas, men of a deep-black colour, with thick, long, and black hair, barbarous manners, and a peculiar language. Closely allied to these nations are the slim and black Bhillas, of small stature, who inhabit the western slopes of the Vindhyas to the sea; and the Kolas, who dwell in the mountainous district of Surashtra (Guzerat), and to this day form two-thirds of the inhabitants of this district.4 On the eastern declivities and spurs of the Vindhyas we find in the south the Kandas, in the north the Paharias, nations also of a dark colour and thick long hair. Distinct from these rude savages, less dark in colour, and exhibiting other modes of life, are the tribes which possess the coasts of the Deccan, the Carnatas, Tuluwas, and Malabars on the west, the Tamilas and Telingas on the east. Opposed to all these tribes are the Aryas, with their light colour and decisively Caucasian stamp. These once spoke Sanskrit, and are still acquainted with the language, and to them is due the development of civilisation in these wide districts.

      This juxtaposition of two populations, of which one is in possession of the best districts in the country, while of the other only fragments are in existence (combined masses are not found except in the most inaccessible regions), – the indications supplied by these invocations, according to which the light-coloured population on the Indus was in conflict with the "Black-skins," – the fact that the light-coloured population, both on the Ganges and the coasts of the Deccan, has always taken up an exclusive and contemptuous position towards the darker tribes existing there, justify the conclusion that the whole region from the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, once belonged to the dark population, and that the Aryas are immigrants. These immigrants partly drove back the ancient population, and confined it in hardly accessible mountains or morasses, partly forced it to submit to their rule and accept their civilisation, partly allowed it to live among them, as now, in a despicable and subordinate position. In historical times we can trace this process, by which the old population was driven back or civilised, on the coasts of the Deccan and in Ceylon. From the position of the remnant of this population on the Ganges, and these invocations of the Aryas, which spring from a time when they were not yet established in the land of the Ganges, we may conclude that a similar process went on in a severer form on the Indus. Following the example of the Indians, modern science collects the languages of these inhabitants of India, who are found under and among the Aryas, so far as they at present exist, under the names of the Nishada and Dravida languages.5 The language of the Brahuis to the west of the Indus, – they were settled there, or at least retired from thence, at the time of the immigration of the Aryas, – the Canaresian, the Malayalam, the language of the Tamilas, of the Telingas, the Badaga of the inhabitants of the Nilgiri, on the southern apex of the Deccan, are closely related, but to which of the great stems of language they are to be apportioned is not determined.6

      The immigration of the Aryas into India took place from the west. They stand in the closest relation to the inhabitants of the table-land of Iran, especially the inhabitants of the eastern half. These also call themselves Aryas, though among them the word becomes Airya, or Ariya, and among the Greeks Arioi. The language of the Aryas is in the closest connection with that of the Avesta, the religious books of Iran, and in very close connection with the language of the monuments of Darius and Xerxes, in the western half of that region. The religious conceptions of the Iranians and Indians exhibit striking traits of a homogeneous character. A considerable number of the names of gods, of myths, sacrifices, and customs, occurs in both nations, though the meaning is not always the same, and is sometimes diametrically opposed. Moreover, the Aryas in India are at first confined to the borders of Iran, the region of the Indus, and the Panjab. Here, in the west, the Aryas had their most extensive settlements, and their oldest monuments frequently mention the Indus, but not the Ganges.7 Even the name by which the Aryas denote the land to the south of the Vindhyas, Dakshinapatha (Deccan), i. e. path to the rightСкачать книгу