The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.2

v1.c11.2

“The lowest savages”, says Sir John Lubbock, “have no idea of a deity at all. Those slightly more advanced, regard him as an enemy to be dreaded, but who may be resisted with a fair prospect of success ; who may be cheated by the cunning, and, defied by the strong. Thus the natives of the Nicobar islands endeavour to terrify their deity by scare-crows, and the Negro beats his fetish, if his prayers are not granted. As tribes advance in civilization, their deities advance in dignity ; but their power is still limited ; one governs the sea, another the land ; one reigns over the plains, another among the mountains. The most powerful are vindictive, cruel, and unjust. They require humiliating ceremonies and bloody sacrifices”.¹ There is nothing to show that the Uriyā does now, or ever did, form an exception to this rule. In his most primitive state, as represented by the Paṭuā,² he has to this day no idea of a deity at all ; and it would be no violent presumption to suppose that in early prehistoric times, he was no better than the Paṭuā of the present day. The first step in advance brought him to face gods, inimical, fierce and cruel, whom he had “to cheat by cunning, or defy by strength”, and in this form he is met with in the Śabaras of the present day. The next step brings us to the Khonds who appease their gods with human sacrifices and bloody offerings. It is probable that the Uriyā appeared in all these different forms in different parts of Orissa when the *Vrātya* or degraded Kṣatriyas of Manu first came among them, and gave a new impulse to progress, (*ante* p. 2). Two such markedly dissimilar forms of humanity as the ancient aboriginal Uriyā and the Hindu, could not abide together without causing a ferment. The strong must have told upon the weak, and it is to be presumed that thereupon, as in other parts of India, the history of Aryan civilization repeated itself driving the more obstinate and resolute, i. e. those who were most attached to independence among the aborigines, from their homes to the shelter of hill sides and forests, and amalgamating, though partially, with the more docile and tractable, by admitting them into the pale of Hinduism as a servile race. The intercourse thus established led, as elsewhere, to extensive miscegenation, and the result was a mixed race, who professed forms of Aryan religion, tinctured more or less with the ancient faith of the country, according to the social status of the different orders of the people. The lowest stratum probably remained, as they continue to this day, nearly unchanged; while the highest bore a close similitude to the ordinary run of the Brāhmaṇical order of Northern India. On the whole, the bulk of the people were Hindus, and professed a Hindu faith; at least such is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the mention of the *Vrātya Kṣatriyas* by Manu.