Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c46.2
Indische Paläographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c46.2
- Language
- German
c46.2.1
§ 2. It should be borne in mind from the outset, that but for the fact that this vast aggregate is spread over a continuous area between Cape Comorin and the Himālaya, and is politically under one rule, the population does not contain, as a whole, any of the essential elements of Nationality. Irrespective of racial differences, which, for reasons which will appear below, are to a great extent outside the Census inquiry, the Language, falling under no less than 147 heads, varies from Province to Province, each of the principal tongues having its dialects whose Shibboleth infallibly denotes the stranger a hundred miles or so from his native village. Society, again, is split up into almost innumerable self-contained divisions, under sacerdotal prohibition from intermarriage and domestic intercourse with each other. Religion, moreover, constitutes a well-defined distinction only in the case of creeds introduced from abroad, and the Faith returned under a single title, itself of foreign origin, by nearly three fourths of the population covers a vast and incoherent collection of beliefs and forms of worship, from the tribal animism of the primitive denizens of the forest to those involving the most refined metaphysical conceptions. Neither religion nor language, then will be here discussed more than cursorily, and solely in their bearings upon the ethnography of the country.
c46.2.2
Full information upon the philology and the main currents of religious belief of India will be found in special treatises upon those subjects in other volumes of this Encyclopaedia. Moreover, neither creed nor mother-tongue affords an adequate, or even an approximate indication of the great fundamental variety of race, a subject which also escapes the Census inquiry since the latter takes cognisance, perforce, of existing facts only, whilst race has been for centuries obscured by the operation of the two most prevalent forms of religious profession. The plastic and assimilative nature of Brāhmanism absorbs, whilst the uncompromising tendencies of Islam obliterate, distinctions of race equally with those of doctrine and ceremonial, and both have their effect in diminishing the popularity of the more restricted vernaculars. The veil of superficial uniformity which has thus been drawn over the actual elements from which Indian society has been formed can only be removed, and then but partially and on conjecture perhaps, by recourse to such ethnological evidence as may be gleaned from tradition and literature, with the aid, in certain directions, of anthropometrical investigation, so far as it has yet been carried. Purity of descent is no more a general characteristic of the population of India than it is of any other old civilisation in the Eastern Hemisphere in which geographical conformation admits of access from the North.
c46.2.3
In the Upper, or Continental, portion of India that purity is probably found in the upper classes of the Panjāb and Rājputāna. It exists, too, at the opposite end of the social ladder, amongst the Hill tribes of the Belt dividing the above portion of India from the Peninsula. South of that barrier, again, the population, except along parts of the West Coast, is comparatively homogeneous, and the main variations noticeable in it are not more marked than those which may reasonably be attributed to secular differences in habits and pursuits. The principal physical features of the country have to be taken into account in connection with its ethnography, as they have played a highly important part in determining the racial distribution of the population. To put it briefly, India can only be entered from the north by any considerable body of men by passes through the outlying ranges running southwards from the Himalaya in the western extension of that great system. In early times, no doubt, access was comparatively easy by routes debouching on the middle and lower Indus, over country which is now sandy desert, but which was once the abode of a considerable population. Similarly, on the eastern flank of the Himalaya, the trend of the lower ranges renders it possible for those accustomed to forest and mountain life to enter, though not in large bodies, the valley of the Brahmaputra or the eastern Gangetic Delta.
c46.2.4
Between the mountains and the next obstacle, the ranges of Central India, lie the vast alluvial plain of the Ganges and its tributaries and the open plains of the Five Rivers. The Central Belt, of considerable width in both hill and forest, though of insignificant height in comparison with the Himalaya, is yet sufficiently difficult to have proved an effective obstacle in the infancy of means of communication and of protective government. It also affords shelter to a considerable population of the wilder tribes, of old the guardians of the routes through their territory. As in the case of the Himālaya, however, the flank can be turned on both east and west, as the hills do not reach either coast, and the narrow strips intervening between the ranges and the sea consist of fertile and low-lying country, presenting little or no difficulty of passage on the East, at all events, to the great southern plains and the Dekkan plateau. These prominent natural features have now to be coordinated with the ethnology of India, so far as our knowledge of the latter extends.