Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s7.11

c48.s7.11

married with Jāṭ and Balūc, and have even admitted adult recruits from these races into their tribes. Nevertheless, they have preserved their distinct physical features, being shorter and more swarthy than their neighbours; and, though, as remarked in the Introduction, their language has been overlaid with Sindhī and Balūcī, they keep, for domestic use at all events, a tongue undoubtedly Dravidian in its main characteristics. In common with their neighbours, from whom they have perhaps borrowed it, they hold the tradition of Arab descent, Aleppo being their chosen seat of origin. On the other hand, they are equally certain that they have never lived in any other country but that which they now occupy. Setting on one side the conjecture that the Brāhūī are of Scythian race, for which there is little corroborative evidence, it is known that there was of yore a considerable Indian population settled along the hill-country west of Sindh, with its own customs and temples. It is possible, therefore, that the Brāhūī may denote the high-water mark of the Dravidian extension northwards, left derelict and isolated under the protection of the desert, after the Indus had changed its course and the tide of Āryan occupation had absorbed the bulk of the darker race. In the present day the Brāhūī are specially addicted to the rearing and tending of camels. They enjoy a good social position in Balūcistān, but are rarely found far from their wide pastures, except for purposes connected with their occupation.