A History of Assam c7.s1.10

c7.s1.10

From the opposite corner of India, through Assam and the eastern Himalayas, there was a similar influx of tribes of Mongolian origin, whose main physical characteristics are a short head, a broad nose, a flat and comparatively hairless face, a short but muscular figure and a yellow skin. In Assam (excluding the Surma valley) and North-East Bengal the Dravidian type has to a great extent been replaced by the Mongolian, while in the Surma valley and the rest of Bengal a mixture of races has taken place in which the recognizable Mongolian element diminishes towards the west and disappears altogether before Bihar is reached. The Aryan invaders spoke languages of the “Aryan” or Indo-European linguistic family, and languages of this family have now become the speech of the vast majority of the inhabitants of Northern India, where they have displaced, not only those previously spoken by the Dravidian races but also, to a great extent, those of the later Mongolian immigrants. Except in the south of India, non-Aryan languages survive only in limited areas (chiefly hills and uplands) which were, until recent times, covered with forest and difficult of access.