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The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c16: Appendix I. Archaeology and Tradition

The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c16

Language
English

Contents

Appendix I. Archaeology and Tradition

An approach to the problem of methods

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"To contend for immense antiquity for the earliest ages is discredited by the historical sense; and to push back the antiquity of those ages to vast figures is to weaken *pro tanto* the trustworthiness of the tradition about them when everything depended on memory alone."
—PARGITER.

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"Unfortunately, the Hindus do not pay much attention to the historical order of things; they are careless in relating the chronological succession of their kings and when they are pressed for information, and are at a loss not knowing what to say, they invariably take to tale-telling", laments the great Muslim historian Alberuni, who visited India in the 11th century.¹ This singular charge, representative of a legion, is true, if it means that Indians never developed history as a science and an art. But subjected to a critical study, material is not lacking for a reconstruction of our history—not merely the political history of kings and battles, but true cultural history of the people. Here we are more concerned with the Proto-historic period, when our sources of information are limited to the class of literature called the Puranas or the store houses of tradition and other semi-religious and secular literature, which may be tapped. The limitation of our traditional sources are discussed in this paper. The most urgent task is a synoptic study of all the Puranic texts and a proper correlation of Puranic, Vedic and Post-vedic literature.

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¹ This problem has been handled by the historians who have made several sincere attempts at using our traditional literature for reconstructing the history of India before the Sisunagas *i.e.* before 600 B.C. Unfortunately, the tendency has either been to ride rough shod over the material and condemn it or the other extreme of taking these as literally true histories. Hence the writer hesitated to treat it in the text and the following attempt is made as an experiment and to lay down certain suggestions for further work. One of the major handicaps in our Puranic studies has been the lack of a critical apparatus among those who can really scan these original texts and the dearth of this latter capacity among most of the historians who have tried to apply modern historical methods. For a detailed bibliography on this subject see: PUSALKAR, A. D. *Studies in Epics and Puranas of India*, Bombay, 1955. J. STEIN, A. (Ed.), *Kalhana's Raja Tarangini*—Introduction.

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Tradition has been defined by Daniel as the historical accounts mixed with fictitious accounts based on hear-say. Our puranic accounts can be compared to the accounts of Berosus about Mesopotamia, or to some extent of the Bible. Just as a judicious interpretation of these Western Asian accounts, in the light of archaeological and historical researches have yielded important results, hope can still be entertained about rescuing our history from tradition. European folk-lore has enabled Grahame Clark to interpret European Prehistory; and a cautious and patient approach to this problem is called for. But let us assess the limitations of our literary sources, so that no false hopes can be aroused.

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Firstly one of the major features of Indian civilization is the dominant role of religion and philosophy in the various spheres of life. Hence even *Itihasa* or history, which has been declared as one of the five essentials of a Purana, has been distorted. All the traditional works have been interpolated with extra material suitable to the various sects. Sukthankar, of the Mahabharata fame, has given us an interesting account of such sectarian interests in the texts. When P.C. Ray's Bengali vulgate edition of Mahabharata was published, a gentleman from the South complained that "many portions supporting the *Advaita* and *Visistadvaita* doctrines, but unfavourable to the *Sakti* worshippers of the north have been omitted......and many verses quoted by the great philosophers of the South in support of their doctrine are not to be found in Mr. Protapachandra Ray's edition".¹ This gives a classical example of the way in which each sect or religion in India has created its own version of the epics and puranas.

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¹ SUKTANKAR, V. S. "Some Problems of Textual dynamics", *Epic studies*, Vol. I.

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Another defect arises out of regional and linguistic factors. The scribes of the regions added their own passages to glorify the particular regions. A very interesting example was detected while going through the Telugu edition of the *Bhagavata Purana*. Both the *Harivamsa* and *Brahmanda* describe that Bali's five sons, and that *Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra* and *Suhma* were the eponymous ancestors of the five eastern kingdoms.² The Andhra scribe cleverly manipulated the verse to make it six sons instead of five, and added Andhra as one of the States founded by the Titikshu family.³ Such instances can be multiplied and some of the castes have their own versions, or added them as *upapuranas* to the main ones. For example, the Nagar brahmins of Gujarat have a *Nagarakhanda* as an *upapurana* of *Skanda* to deal with Vadnagar and their community.

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² PARGITER. *Ancient Indian Historical Tradition*. Oxford, p. 109. (B.R. 13; 152-53 and H.V. 32; 1840-41)

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³ 23rd Adhyaya of *Srimadbhagavatam*, 9th Skanda, verses 5-6.

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Similarly some of the later States invented fictitious genealogies to glorify their families and tacked on later dynasties to the earlier ones *i.e.*, Saryata of the Haihayas with Saryata son of Manu; and the most glaring instance is that of tacking Chola, Chera, Pandya and Kulya with Andira of the Turvasa line. Are we not familiar with some of the States of Rajasthan, who claim even to-day their descent from Rama, Lakshmana etc., and other traditional heroes? Suniti Kumar Chatterji⁴ has given a very nice analogy between the Homeric wars of Greece and the Mahabharata war. Just as it was considered a great matter of pride to be associated with those heroic legends, many claims were added at a later period. For example, Schafer's list of participants in the Great Battle includes most of the later South Indian States.

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⁴ CHATTERJI, *op. cit.*

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A similar effort was made by the foreigners who chose to stay and rule in India. Most of the Puranas, describing Sakas, Yavanas etc., state that they were not anointed (*naiva murdha-bhishiktaste*) according to Hindu rites. Then, they adopted to Hindu religion and rituals. The tradition of the Rajaputs and the Agnikula legend is a very interesting example. This phenomenon, which the sociologists call " the movement " among the social groups, is an ever-recurrent practice adopted by the lower strata of the society to attain higher status by adopting the rituals and customs of the higher strata.

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Before turning to the contents, let us dispose of the textual problem. While elaborate precautions like *Pada patha* (text of independent phonetically unmodified forms of words), *Krama patha* (every word of the pada patha occurs twice, being pronounced after the preceding word, and before the following) and indexes, were devised to preserve the textual purity of the Vedic texts, no care was taken to preserve the puranic texts.

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Similarly, chronology of the texts is the worst bane of Indian traditional literature. Very few of our literary texts could even be approximately dated without arousing a controversy. Hence, as it happens very often, most of our accounts—historical and geographical—are anachronisms. We have already described the horizontal expansion of peoples and cultures. Hence, if we compare the Vedic and puranic accounts, we find the earlier members of a family stationed in the *Brahmavarta* being associated with the later homes of their successors. Uncritical acceptance by Pargiter, and some of the subsequent writers, gives us the fantastic picture of the early Aryan settlements spread over the whole of Northern India right from the 3rd or the 4th generation from Manu, the ancestral founder of all the Hindu Royal families. Similarly the Mahabharata lists most of the States of the Early centuries of the Christian Era, as taking part in the Great War; and Sahadeva is supposed to know every nook and corner of India and even Antioch and Rome! *Thus if we are allowed to use the term, these are not only anachronistic in time, but also in space.*

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The problem of general chronology is still worse. The whole scheme of ancient Indian chronology hinges on the *Mahabharata* war and the death of Krishna, which according to the *Bhagavata* took place 37 years after the great battle. With the death of Krishna and the passing of such a great personage, a darkness is supposed to descend, and an era of evil begins; and this new age is Kali yuga. This basic historic fact was mixed up later with astronomy and with the determination of a cycle of 3600 years marked by a certain planetary combination, observed by Varahamihira in the 5th century A.D. A backward calculation seems to have been made, fixing the beginning of the Kali yuga at 3102 B.C. It is very interesting to recall that the first inscription mentioning a date in the Kali Era is Pulakesin's Inscription of 634 A.D.¹ A heroic attempt was made by Sengupta² to make some scientific calculations of the astronomical data from the Puranas and other works. The very inconsistency and arbitrariness of his results nullifies their value. As Raychowdhary puts it; "Astronomical Kaliyuga-reckoning is a pure astronomical fiction created for facilitating the Hindu astronomical calculations and was designed to be correct only for 499 A.D."³

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¹ Epigraphia Indica, VI, pp. 11-12

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² SENGUPTA, PRABODHCHANDRA, Ancient Indian Chronology, University of Calcutta, 1947.

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³ RAYCHOWDHARY, H. Political history of Ancient India, Calcutta University 6th edition, p. 27, 1954. According to Surya Siddhanta (Ardharatrika system) as described by Brahmagupta (Khandakhadyaka), 17th February, 3102 B.C.

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At one time, it was the fashion to talk of this 3139 B.C., as the "New sheet anchor of Indian chronology", as Dr. S. Trivedi put it, being the year of the Mahabharata battle. Since all the historical and genealogical accounts of the Puranas, called the "Kaliyuga raja vrittanta" (history of the kings of the Kali Age), began with Parikshit, the yeas 3102 B.C. was taken as the starting point.

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Fortunately, the real "sheet anchor of Indian chronology", as Smith described earlier, the invasion of Alexander in 327 B.C., stood firm. Now a welcome change is coming. It is the acceptance of most of our historians, of a scheme of short chronology suggested by Pargiter, and modified by a number of writers. It is the general concensus of opinion now, that this Mahabharata battle took somewhere about 1200-1000 B.C. As will be explained, archaeological evidence generally supports it indirectly.

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But Pusalkar⁴ has revived this Kali Era in a very ingenious way. Now he connects it with Manu, the ancestral founder of all the Hindu Royal families and the hero of the Indian "flood legend". Counting the traditional 95 generations between the Mahabharata battle and Manu, he arrives at 3110 B.C. for Manu. Then he jumps at this concidence with Woolley's calculations of the flood at Ur as at about 3000 B.C. and connects both these stories. It would neither be possible, nor proper, to go into the details of this speculation, but we close it with the two main objections:

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⁴ MAJUMDAR and PUSALKAR (Ed.), The Vedic Age, Bombay, 1953.

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(1) It is doubtful whether and where the Aryans were about 3000 B.C. Their advent into Western Asia has been generally dated to about 2000 B.C. or later. Hence it is still more doubtful for that period, as far as India is concerned.

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(2) The coincidence of the Kali Era and flood dates of Woolley is too much to be credible. One fiction, based on later astronomical works, cannot be used to support another fiction viz., the flood legend. The floods are ubiquitous, and it is very risky to infer a universal flood from one or two sites in the Euphrates and Tigris basin. Even for Mesopotamia, Woolley's floods have become suspect!

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Now turning to the problem of genealogies, we find a tendency to inflate the chronology and accept the longer lists ignoring the basic weaknesses of the texts themselves. We have already pointed out the anachronisms in time, as well as space, of our Puranic accounts. Hence this has resulted in a jumbling of dynastic lists on some doubtful synchronisms. Pargiter, the pioneer of Puranic studies in India, first collated all the available texts and compiled the genealogies on the basis of five major synchronisms. But his computation suffers from the fact that he ignored the geographic background of Aryan expansion in India and distributed his dynasties all over Northern India. Secondly, he depended on the Ikshvaku lists which are supposed to be complete and on the basis of his synchronisms, he spaced out the names at his disposal in an arbitrary way. Thus he established the existence of 95 generations of rulers before the Mahabharata war, beginning with the traditional Manu. Thirdly, there is a conflict between the Vedic and Puranic writers on some of the names of rulers. Thus whenever there was some doubt, ancestral names and family names were repeated, making the relation still more difficult to find out. The possibility of collateral lines being treated in a genealogical order has to be taken into consideration. Bhargava¹ and Pargiter² discussed atlength the difference between the Ramayana text on the one hand, and the Puranic texts on the other. While the former contains only 35 names before Rama, the later make it 63. But Pargiter dismisses Ramayana and says that "it is very improbable that the Ramayana alone should be right."³ Inspite of the fact that it omits to mention a number of well-known names, it is worth while re-examining, in view of the equally well-known fact, that the king lists of the Puranas are blindly copied from the earlier text. Secondly, a short chronology is our manifest need, and we need not be carried away by the prejudices of Pargiter against the so-called Brahmanical sources. It is again a textual problem.

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¹ BHARGAVA, PURUSHOTTAMLAL. India in the Vedic Age, Lucknow, 1956. pp. 56-57.

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² PARGITER, F. E. Ancient Indian Historical Tradition Oxford, 1922.

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³ Ibid. pp. 90-95.

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Pargiter's great work was followed by a number of attempts at tackling this problem of Puranic genealogies. But the very sincere efforts of Dr. Pusalkar must be mentioned specially.⁴ As far as the king lists are concerned, he made very few changes from Pargiter's. But his new attempt, as far as chronology is concerned, is his *Manu-flood-Kali synchronism*. He went a step further and divided this period from 3110-1400 B.C. into four periods and even suggested that they corresponded to the four yugas of Indian tradition. In spite of this attempt, it must be said to the credit of Pusalkar, that he was aware that these traditional accounts ignored the geographic background. In a counsel of despair, he remarked : "it is impossible to rely on the traditional account as recorded in the epics and Puranas, at least in respect of those particulars which are so flatly contradicted by the evidence of the earlier texts—an evidence which is all the more valuable as it is based upon incidental notices not likely to be fabricated in order to serve any pre-conceived notion. Whatever we might think, therefore, of the kings and dynasties mentioned in the traditional accounts, we can hardly accept without demur, the location of their principalities as described in the Epics and Puranas".¹

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⁴ PUSALKAR, A. D. "Traditional History from the Earliest Time to the Accession of Parikshit" in Pusalkar and Majumdar (Ed.), The Vedic Age. Bombay, 1953.

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¹ *Ibid.* p. 313.

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This admitted inconsistency between the Vedic and the Puranic evidence is exactly tackled by Bhargava, with very important results for future work.² Only defect, if any, of this pioneer effort is a somewhat uncritical acceptance of the *Manu-flood-Kali synchronism*. His genealogical list closely follows the lists of Pargiter and Pusalkar. But the greatest merit of Bhargava's work lies in the use of the Vedic and the Later Vedic literature to locate the ancestral homes of the later descendants of the main royal families that spread and established kingdoms all over Northern India. Secondly he has mustered the entire literary evidence to show a nice time-space co-ordinate for the Aryan expansion for the first time. In this attempt he made slight modifications of the genealogical lists and rounded it off by making it 100 generations before Parikshit. Since his data has more interesting possibilities than probably what Bhargava ever thought, we use his serial number of generations as a sort of sequence dating to make his time-space co-ordinate intelligible. He divides this period into :

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² BHARGAVA, *op. cit.*

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1. Era of Sapta Sindhu
2. Era of Conquest
3. Era of Expansion
4. Era of Settlement.

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In the first period, 27 generations of the main families stayed in the land of Sapta Sindhu. Yayati, Marutta and Mandhata made their conquests upto Jamuna and made their sacrifices on its banks.

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In the second period, we see the first eastward migration of Bharata Daushanti (23) into the region upto the Ganga³ from the Sarasvati. King Jahnu of the Bharatas established Kanyakubja and Kasi ( Benaras ). But both these advanced outposts were obliterated. Vishvamitra, contemporary of Sudas ( 38 ) became a Rishi. By the time of Sudas ( 38 ) Jamuna region was in the hands of a non-Aryan Bheda. Probably as a result of the victory of Sudas in the famous battle of Ten kings ( Dasa Rajna ), Yadava king named Vidarbha ( 37 ) migrated from Saptasindhu to Vidarbha and found a new kingdom. One of his sons Chidi founded Chedi.¹ Haihayas were in Saptasindhu upto Supratika ( 46 ) who was probably defeated by Sagara. Of the Haihaya sub-branches—Saryata established a kingdom at Anarta, and Avanti was established with Mahishmati as the capital. The last of the Haihayas, Punika was defeated by Chanda Pradyota who shifted the capital to ujjain. Satvatas, Kuru, Panchalas settled in the Doab and the Saurasena country.

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³ *Aitareya Brahmana* 39.9.

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¹ Rigveda. VII, 18, 9.

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The third period is an era of expansion on a large scale. The Aikshvakus under Bhagiratha ( 50 ) moved into Kosala and founded Ayodhya. Nimi Mathava or Videha Mathava ( 50 ), in the company of his priest Gautama Rahugana crossed Sadanira ( Gandak ) and established the kingdom of Videha. One of his descendants Visala founded Vaisali. Parikshit I ( 83 ) separated Kuru kingdom from Panchala. Magadha and Anga were established very late ( 84 ). The final period, described as the Era of settlements represents the Mahabharata period.

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As already commented, this story gives in brief, but absolutely unrelated to any definite chronology, and to use an archaeological analogy, a relative sequence of Aryan expansion in space and incidentally in time. Its value lies at that and no more.

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The other fundamental error of the Puranic works is about their geographic horizon. Hence the geographic horizon at the Mahabharata war, as given in the Mahabharata as well as the Puranas are defective. Hence Bhargava's sequence of Aryan expansion is also defective and it does not refer to the age of the Great Battle, but to a much later period. Law has made a fine analysis, taking the geographic account of Markandeya Purana as the basis.² He has also shown how the geographic accounts of the peoples and countries were stereotyped, as it appeared in the Vayu and Matsya, the earliest Puranas. Later these were copied with all sorts of defects and we find sometimes the same people mentioned in the different cardinal regions of India. Motichandra³ and Schafer⁴ have also attempted analysis of the geographic names. With the mention of Antioch and Rome, as suggested by Edgerton, and the intimate knowledge of places of Central Asia, their date cannot be earlier than the Kushan, and Motichandra admits that it should be around the Christian era or later. Finally, Paninian and Early Buddhist ignorance of Peninsular India south of Godavary; the smriti definitions of Aryavarta, as being north of Vindhyas, certainly shatter the theories of Pusalkar and Bhargava. Hence an ideal solution is to put the lower limit of Aryan expansion (Era of Settlement) at about the beginning of the Christian era when most of the puranic material was incorporated in Vayu and Matsya Puranas.

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² LAW, B. C. "Countries and peoples of India—Epic and puranic sources". Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute. XVII. 1935-36. pp: 217-42 and 319-39.

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³ MOTICHANDRA. Geographie and Economic studies in the Mahabharata-Upayana parva. Published by the U.P. Historical Society. Lucknow. 1945.

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⁴ SCHAFER. ROBERT. Ethnagraphy of Ancient India, Wiesbaden ( Germany ), 1955, See also : CHOWDHARY, SASHIBHUSHAN, Ethnic Settlements in Ancient India. Calcutta. 1955.

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Pargiter also attempted a very interesting correlation of tradition with linguistic and ethnological data. But one of his basic premises was his strong conviction that the Aryans came into India or at least were greatly attached to the Central Himalayan region and hence according to him, Ayodhya was very ancient. He justified the narration of the rivers of the Saptasindhu in the famous nadistuti from east to west. This theory was revived and put forward very vigorously by Schafer. This again raises issues, which we will comment at the end.

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A very close analysis of the accounts of the Puranas by Pargiter showed him three unrelated traditions about the origin of the three main elements Ailas, Manvas and Sudyumnas. "In it (the myth regarding the origins), there is no connection between Manu's nine sons and Pururava Aila and Sudyumna except through Ila with her fabulous changes of form. It seems probable that three different myths have been blended together in an attempt to unify the origins of three different dominant races, said to have been derived from Manu, Pururavas and Sudyumna, and apparently constituting three separate stocks."¹ He suggested the very interesting possibility that the Ailas represent the Aryan, the Manavas represent the Dravidian and that the Sudyumnas represent the Austro-Asiatic (Munda and Mon-khmer).

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¹ PARGITER, op. cit. 287-88 also p. 295.

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Since he believed in a westward expansion of the Aryans from Pratishtana (Allahabad), he felt, that the Ailas, being the Aryans, would represent the speakers of the Inner group of the Indo-Aryan languages. Since the Aryans expanded in all directions, they gave rise to the 'Outer Band' of the Indo-Aryan languages. In support of this he quoted Grierson who declared that the ancient Madhya Desa (Mid-Land) was the home of the Inner Group of Indo-Aryan languages.

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Thus we have summarized the merits and defects of the best contributions so far to the studies of our Tradition. Now we will make an attempt to see how far our recent knowledge of Indian archaeology stands in relation to the hypotheses stated above. In making these suggestions for consideration of the scholars interested in the problem, and of sanskritists in particular, certain lines of research are indicated with a view to verify the possibilities and throw more light on this problem. Before we go further a few general comments would be useful.

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(1) The genealogies, specially in view of the small number of synchronisms are subject to doubt. Similarly the confusion of names; for example Pusalkar questions the identification of Sudas, son of Pijavana with Sudas of the *Dasarajna*. Raychowdhary identifies Parikshit of the Epic with Vedic Parikshit. The latter formula again, by the by, can cut the time lag.

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(2) On the question of chronology, the main conflict is with archaeological dating of the Aryans. Giving the most liberal margin, we cannot take them earlier than 2000 B.C., unless, as is claimed by certain writers, our Indus Valley civilization proves to be Aryan. The widespread distribution of this civilization from the foot-hills of the Himalayas to the Arabian sea certainly conflicts with the traditions of the land-locked Aryans, of the Rigvedic period, who did not know the sea. But the generality of opinion seems to favour the theory that Harappan is Pre-Aryan and non-Aryan.

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Finally the recent attempt of Lal to identify the Grey Ware folk with the Aryans has set in motion various attempts to identify the authors of the various strands of cultures. We have already discussed the dangers of any premature identifications, as in the case of Prof. Haimendorf. But the investigation of ancient city sites associated in tradition like Hastinapur, Mahishmati, Somnath opens a more safer line of study. Lal has made a very sound case for identifying the Grey Ware folk with the Aryans, and as far as our present knowledge is concerned, his hypothesis is more valid than the rest.

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Similarly the large areas of Central Gangetic basin and the Vindhyan and Chota-Nagpur plateaux show a wide distribution of Copper hoards and Neolithic culture with shouldered celts and square axes with contacts and affinities to the Far eastern Copper bronze age civilizations. In view of the fact that we have extensive deposits of copper in the region also, we are on a fairly safe ground in inferring that there was a great epi-centre for a Copper-bronze Age civilization in the Gangetic basin. As we have pointed out already, the clearance of the luxuriant tropical forests of the Gangetic basin and the draining of the marshes, pre-supposes a higher technology. Since we have a vague hint from Hastinapur and other explorations of Lal, we are justified in identifying them as another major element of Indian culture. In this connection, it is very significant to recall that the five eastern kingdoms *Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Suhma* and *Pundra* belong to the *Saudyumnas* of our tradition. This is the region with a predominance or a strong substratum of Proto-Australoid and Mongolid elements (Gondid of Von Eickstedt). Hence we are justified in supporting the suggestion of Pargiter that Sudyumnas represent the Austric (Munda-Mon-Khmer) group.

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About the Dravidian, more caution is needed. Prof. Von Eickstedt, in a personal communication, suggested that we are more justified in treating this as a linguistic term, than as an ethnic one. At one time, Dravidian had a much greater distribution, since it influenced the Sanskrit language at a very early age. Burrow has pointed that this contact could not be in the south, where we have the Dravidian speakers today. If we take that in a broad sense, there are only two possible claimants:

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(1) the Widespread Peninsular Neolithic cultures characterized by the celt with elliptical section with a wide-distribution in the Gangetic basin; or

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(2) the Central Indian Chalcolithic cultures, which, though not genetically, are related to the Harappan as well as certain new elements coming from Iran in the second half of the II Millennium B.C. Pargiter's identification of Manavas with Dravidians attains some significance.

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In this light, a novel interpretation can be placed on the famous Battle of Ten Kings of the Vedic Age. It is very significant that Sudas, the hero, comes from the heart of the Brahmavarta. The princes aligned against him were Anus, Dhruyus, Turvasas, Yadus and the Purus in coalition with certain Aryan and non-Aryan tribes—Alinas (modern Kafiristan), Pakthas, Bhalanases, Sivas. The success of Sudas marks the supremacy of the eastern wing of the Aryans settled in the Sarasvati, Drishadvati and the Ganga-Yamuna doab. We have already described the movement of Yadavas, Haihayas and the Anavas south-eastwards into Central India, leaving the Gangetic basin to the Bharatas etc. In the light of the recent evidence of Archaeology and the strong mutual influences which each of the three main Proto-historic cultures exercised on each other, the large scale colonization of Central India and the Deccan might represent the movement of a branch of Aryans who absorbed and mixed sufficiently with the Pre-Aryan people of the Indus basin. Manavas, might in that case, represent Aryans, Dravidians or both mixed up.

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There is another major linguistic problem, which deserves the attention of the archaeologist and the historians, who have up to now divorced themselves from the linguists. It is well-known that we have two broad divisions within the Indo-Aryan and very significantly, they have a geographic contiguity. One of the suggestions made by Grierson was that there were two waves of Aryan movement. In this connection, we have discussed the Indo-Iranian contacts of the Post-Harappan period: and the two important elements: Shahi-Tump, Jhukkar with affinities to Hissar III and the Londo. Piggot, while reviewing the article of Lal threw a very significant hint that either one or both might be Aryan. In that case another very interesting possible interpretation will be as follows :

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The Grey ware with its affinities to that from Shah Tepe (Iran) might suggest the first wave of the Aryans who settled for a longer time in the Sarasvati valley. It is reported by Lal that there are slight differences between the Grey ware of Gangetic basin and the Bikaner region in forms and patterns. This fact, if true, will be very significant. In that case the 2nd wave will be represented by the Londo, Jiwanri etc., with affinities to Sialk cemetery B. The battle of the Ten Kings after all represents this struggle for power, resulting in a south-eastward deflection of the other Aryan wave. Grierson described the relation between the Inner and Outer bands in this way : Round the Midland or Madhya desa, "on three sides—west, south and east—lay a country inhabited in vedic times, by other Indo-Aryan tribes. This tract included the modern Punjab, Sind, Gujarat, Rajaputana and the country to the Oudh and Bihar. Over this band were scattered different tribes, each with its own dialect ; but it is important to note that a comparison of the modern vernaculars shows that these outer dialects were all more closely related to each other than any of them was to the languages of the midland".¹ In making this suggestion, I know the limitations of our knowledge and the state of our studies. It is very easy to slip from a legitimate inference into the realms of speculation. I submit that my speculation is as valid as any and plead for further examination of this hypothesis.

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¹ Imperial Gazetteer Vol. I. Ch. 8. New edition, 1907. Section on languages by G. A. Grierson.

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Now we close this discussion with one general observation. If we are prepared to agree that the Pre-Aryan languages, particularly the Dravidian and Austric influenced Sanskrit, and also that there was a cultural synthesis of all the elements, is it wrong to assume that the traditions which are handed over and preserved by the Aryans also contain certain non-Aryan and Pre-Aryan elements ? Then there is much less scope for breaking our bones on these various issues.

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Rigveda is full of references to the Aryans and the non-Aryan dasyus and we have references even to the non-Aryan princes taking part in the Dasarajna. We have already seen in chapter IX (p. 156) the overlaps of the Proto-historic cultures and their inter-relations and movements. Thus the very home of the Rigvedic people was the scene where these Pre-Aryan and Aryan peoples lived and influenced each other.

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After all the Sumerian flood-legend, which got transformed into various versions like Babylonian, Hebrew etc., might have one more in the Sanskrit version. Could it not be that the Manavas represent the Pre-Aryan or Dravidian, as suggested by Pargiter? This miscegenation could only result from a long co-existence and contacts between the various cultural elements. Archaeology certainly points to that; and what has been described in this book as the Proto-historic tri-junction, is the area to look for it.

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