History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c8.s3.1

v1.c8.s3.1

In addition to these two great distinct and opposite nationalities, there exists in India a third, which, in pre-Buddhist times, was as numerous, perhaps even more so, than either the Aryans or the Dravidians, but of whose history we know even less than we do of the two others. Ethnologists have not agreed on a name by which to call them. I have suggested Dasyus,² a slave people, as that is the name by which the Aryans designated them when they found them there on their first entrance into India, and subjected them to their sway.³ Possibly they were partly of Mongol-Tibetan origin, and partly they may have been a mixed race allied to the Dravidians, and now represented by Gonds, Santâls, Bhîls, etc.