Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 17:68 (Oct 1860)
Article: The Aborigines Of India
Author: Anonymous

BSac 17:68 (Oct 1860) p. 709

The Aborigines Of India

Herodotus was the first to introduce India to the acquaintance of the western world. Following the report of Scylax, who at the instance of Darius had explored the river Indus, he enumerates at least four classes of men who had their abode about the mouth of that river.

1. Fishermen, who inhabited the marshes of the Indus, the description of whose habits and methods of fishing would apply, with equal accuracy, to the fishermen of Scinde today. 2. Pastoral tribes, called Padaeans. 3. People who ate no flesh, but lived upon vegetable diet, whom no one can fail to recognize. 4. Calatians. These classes he speaks of

BSac 17:68 (Oct 1860) p. 710

in general, as having straight black hair, as “alike black and resembling the Egyptians.”1

This diversity among the inhabitants of India, thus vaguely alluded to by Scylax the Persian, and which has been noticed and more definitely stated by all travellers, from the time of Scylax and of Alexander to the present, finds its only historical solution in the sacred writings of the Hindus themselves. The authors of the earliest writings — the Vedic Hymns—who style themselves “Aryas” (honorable ones), and who constitute one of the oldest members of the great Arian or Indo-European family, did not, as is well known, probably originate in India. Having a birth-place, as we suppose, somewhere in the highlands of Asia, that “hive of all nations,” they early left their ancestral seat to seek adventure or a less contracted dwelling-place in the wide world about them. They were a bold, spirited, and freedom-loving race. Others of their family had gone, before them, to the north and west; they turned to the south; and, crossing the snowy barriers of the Himalaya or Hindu Kush, gradually poured down along the many streams which find their origin among those lofty hills, until they found a more inviting resting-place in the sunny plains of the Panjab — the country of the five rivers.

If, however, we read aright their ancient hymns, offered either in praise of the gods, or as supplications to them, and which lucidly reflect the passing life, the varying feeling of these children of nature, they did not find these spacious tracts which opened so invitingly before them, wholly unpeopled.

We read in these hymns, of Dasyus, of Asuras, of Rakshas, of Flesh-eaters, etc.; all, terms evidently designating enemies to these new comers, who everywhere opposed their progress. And they indicate, usually at least, enemies from without their own ranks, and of different stock, as seen from their differences of speech, color, and faith; while the same opprobrious epithets are occasionally applied to Aryan...