The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.106

v1.c10.106

**Dasyus:** Mr. Fergusson has attempted to develop an ethnography of the races represented at Sāñcī and Amarāvati from their costume; but the deductions he has drawn do not appear to be well-founded, since the dresses depicted are, as I assume, themselves not always complete representations of what they originally [ 89 ] were when in use in a complete suit, and their evidence can go but little way to indicate the nationality of the figures on which they are placed. This remark applies particularly to the class which Mr. Fergusson denominates "the Dasyus". They "are⁶⁷ generally represented as people of the woods, living in thatched huts, wearing a small *dhuti* wrapped round the waist, and possessing no ornaments. Their head-dress consists occasionally of a plain skull-cap, but frequently of plaited or matted hair wound round the head, and tied on the crown in a conical form. Occasionally they allow the hair to hang behind in loose tresses. Most of them have beards: a few appear with shaven chins. They sit with their knees raised and legs crossed and tied round with a strip of cloth or a napkin, and are occupied in splitting wood or other domestic task; occasionally navigating in rude canoes; but they never seem to mix with the community at large, except for the observance of religious rites. They have invariably by them a chaffing dish with a blazing fire, a pair of tongs, and a bowl which, from its shape, appears to be made of the hard shell of the gourd. It was carried about hanging from the left hand. In one instance a man has a stand of the shape of a *moḍā*, over which he holds something which appears to me, from the tracing of writing on it, to be a scroll or a mass of written paper; a companion of his is folding or unfolding a similar scroll or bundle, and a third is taking up some burning charcoal with his tongs. Mr. Fergusson, following General Cunningham, takes the first scroll to be a flagon from which the man is pouring something into his fire-pot and the second a fan with which the owner is enlivening his fire; but the appearance of the scrolls and the position and action of the hands, according to several intelligent European gentlemen including two professional artists, are entirely against this supposition. Mr. Fergusson himself half suspects them to be hermits, and says they are repeated in the Amarāvatī sculptures, but attributes it to scarcity of Dasyus at the time.⁶⁸ Some of these figures are repeated on the temples of Bhuvanes'vara. They appear old and emaciated, having by their sides a pair of tongs, a gourd pot, and a chaffing dish. The scene is scrupulously true to life, and may be found to this day, not only in every part of India, but even beyond it, and everywhere it represents an Aryan of the third order, i. e., a hermit or ascetic (*Vānaprastha*) seated at his ease, reading his prayer book, or attending to his domestic occupations, and not a non-Aryan. Adverting to some of these hermits on the shores of the Caspian Sea, M. de Pauly observes: “Ou trouve en outre a Bakou quelques adorateurs du feu, dont la personnalité est particulierement entéressante. L'aspect de ces feux perpétuels, sortant spontanément de la terre offre un coup d'oeil vraiment magique, surtout pendant la nuit; dans le voisinage de ces feux se trouve une sorte de temple ou de couvent dans lequel les derniers débris des antiques adorateurs du feu, représentés par quelques vieux Indous desséchés, presque nus, semblables a des fantomes ambulants, pratiquent sur eux-memes leurs macérations contre nature, et célebrent leur culte idolatre, triste et misérable parodie de la doctrine de Tserdouchit”.⁶⁹