Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.116

c14.116

While tangible archaeological evidence of the Aryan conquest of India consists of nothing but the ruins of the cities they wrecked, with a few flimsy huts that may have been made by camp-followers after the battle had moved on, nevertheless we have, I think, been able to piece together a reasonably coherent picture of some aspects of their material culture from the *Rigveda*. There remains one outstanding problem to be discussed - what was the relation between victors and vanquished after the entrance phase of the invasion? Have we any evidence to suggest that the impression so sedulously propagated by the Aryans themselves in their literature, that they conquered utterly the wretched dasyas and that all that follows after is the glorious tale of Indra's darlings going on from strength to strength, may be tinged with partisan feeling, to say the least? On the face of it, such extermination is surely improbable. The people the Aryans attacked were not barbarous forest tribes or simple hill-men, but members of an ancient and elaborate civilization that, however unprepared it might be for its violent end, could hardly have vanished away without tingeing profoundly the thoughts and literature of the conquerors. It is unlikely that the Mycenaean bards had much good to say of the Minoans, but we know enough of ancient history to realize that the Indo-European strain is not the only one that combined to form the eventual pattern of Greek life and thought.