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Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c30: Chapter XXV. Inferences Suggested by Traditional History

Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c30

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Chapter XXV. Inferences Suggested by Traditional History

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WHAT the foregoing account based on tradition suggests may now be considered as regards the origins of the dynasties, Aryan and non-Aryan peoples and tribes, the Aryan occupation of India and how the Aryans entered India. Here also one must put away all preconceived ideas and see what tradition indicates.

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The whole of the myth regarding origins has been set out (pp. 253 f). In it there is no connexion between Manu’s nine sons and Purūravas Aila and Sudyumna except through Ilā 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, Purūravas and Sudyumna, and apparently constituting three separate stocks.

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Tradition thus alleged that at the earliest time all the kings and chiefs throughout India, with two exceptions, belonged to one common stock descended from Manu; and it says so doubly, because it declares, first, with regard to his sons that he divided the earth (that is, India) among them, and secondly, with regard to the offspring of his son Ikṣvāku that they were kings throughout the whole of India¹ according to both the versions given (p. 257). It also says that of that common stock four kingdoms were pre-eminent, namely, the Aikṣvākus at Ayodhyā, the Janakas in Videha, another (afterwards called the Vaiśālakas) in the country immediately north of Patna, and the Śāryātas at Kuśasthalī in Ānarta; with apparently three less prominent, the Kārūṣas in the country around Rewa, a kingdom at Māhiṣmatī on the R. Narbada, and another on the R. Payoṣṇī (p. 257, note ⁶); with perhaps an eighth, the Dhārṣṭakas in the Panjab (p. 256), and possibly a ninth, Nābhāga’s line, on the Jumna (p. 256). Those two exceptions were first, Purūravas Aila at Pratiṣṭhāna, and secondly, the Saudyumnas, who occupied the town Gayā, the country eastward of a line drawn roughly from Gayā to Cuttack, and the region north of the Ganges eastward of Videha and the Vaiśālaka kingdom.

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¹ Rām iv, 18, 6 has probably a reminiscence of this, where Rāma says to Bālin at Kiṣkindhā, ‘This earth belongs to the Ikṣvākus’.

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According to tradition then Purūravas Aila and his lineage at Pratiṣṭhāna formed one stock, the chieftains of Gayā and eastern India formed a second stock, and all the kings and chiefs of the rest of India belonged to a third stock with their principal dominion in Oudh and North Bihar. The first is the well-known Aila or Aida² race, often called the ‘Lunar race’ because myth derived it from Soma, ‘the moon’. The second may be distinguished as the Saudyumna race,³ as already mentioned (p. 255), but it never played any noteworthy part. The third has no definite common name in tradition, yet being derived from the sons of Manu, son of Vivasvant, ‘the sun,’ it might be designated the *Mānava* and ‘Solar’ race. The term *Mānava* is used sometimes to denote particularly Manu’s immediate descendants,¹ and so is applied in the myth to Sudyumna.² It is also extended to distant descendants more as a racial term than as a patronymic,³ and is used as a definite racial term in distinction from Aila.⁴ But *Mānava* commonly meant simply ‘man’, and became hardly characteristic. The title ‘Solar’ is generally restricted to the Ikṣvāku⁵ dynasty of Ayodhyā, and so cannot well be applied to the whole stock. A general term is however needed, and this stock may be described and distinguished by the name *Mānva*,⁶ which is equivalent to *Mānava*, but not being found in Sanskrit is a neutral term.

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² Aida Purūravas, Vā 2, 20; 56, 1, 5, 8; Bd i, 2, 20; ii, 28, 1, 9.

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³ Saudyumnas distinct from Ailas and Aikṣvākus, Vā 99, 266.

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¹ Applied to Karūṣa, Bhāg ix, 2, 16. To Śaryāta, Aitareya Brāhm viii, 21. To Sukanyā, Pad iv, 15, 1–2: v. 8, 106. To Manu’s sons, p. 84, note 2; Mat 12, 1, 8. Manu lord of the Mānavas, Rām i, 5, 6; 6, 20.

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² Vā 85, 16, 24. Bḍ iii, 60, 15, 22.

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³ To Marutta of the Vaiśālī kingdom, MBh xiii, 137, 6260. Also Pathyā Mānavī, in references, p. 218, note 1. Cf. vaṃśo Mānavānām, MBh i, 75, 3138–40; also ii, 20, 803. Certain rishis are called *Mānava* rishis, MBh xiii, 150, 7107–9.

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⁴ Vā 61, 86 and Bḍ ii, 35, 96, which say:—

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⁵ Pad vi, 274, 10–11 wrongly extends Ikṣvāku to Śaryāti’s line.

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⁶ After the analogy of Yādva from Yadu, and Mādhva from Madhu.

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According to these traditions royal power first developed mainly in the Gangetic plain, in the towns Ayodhyā, Mithilā, Pratiṣṭhāna and Gayā, with an off-lying branch at Kuśasthalī on the western sea-coast, and apparently two others on the rivers Narbadā and Tapti. The *Mānva* city Ayodhyā is made the most ancient,⁷ and these allegations imply that civilization was as far advanced (or perhaps more so) among the *Mānvas* as among the Ailas, when the latter entered India.

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⁷ Founded by Manu, Rām i, 5, 6: ii, 71, 18. He reigned there, id. i, 6, 20. So also Vikukṣi, Br 7, 46: Hv 11, 662.

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These traditions deal only with the ruling classes, the kings, chiefs and kṣatriyas, and not with brahmans nor the people generally. It is nowhere declared (as far as I am aware) that

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Mānave caiva ye vaṃśe Aila-vaṃśe ca ye nṛpāḥ.

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The Ikṣvāku race and Aila race are clearly distinguished as different, MBh ii, 13, 568–9: Vā 32, 47–8; 99, 266, 431–2, 438–9, 450–1: Bḍ iii, 74, 244–5, 263–4: Mat 50, 74; 273, 52–3, 57–8, 65, 68–9.

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brahmans, vaiśyas and śūdras generally were Manu’s offspring.¹ The brahmans expressly claimed other origin (chap. XVI). Nothing is said about the real origin of the vaiśyas, śūdras and populace generally. The brahmanical figment that the four castes were produced from different parts of Brahmā’s body in no wise asserts any common origin. There are, however, abundant indications that India contained many folk of rude culture or aboriginal stock, such as Niṣādas,² Dāsas and Pulindas. Powerful races of hostile character are often mentioned, such as Dānavas, Daityas, Rākṣasas, Nāgas and Dasyus. Some of these were partially civilized, while others were rude and savage and were sometimes cannibals. Those races were reduced to subjection and their barbarous practices were repressed; and, as they came under the influence of Aryan civilization, those names became opprobrious, until at length they ceased to possess any ethnological force and turned into purely evil appellations, just like the word asura, and all became synonymous with the meaning ‘demon’.³ This process has gone on continuously;⁴ thus, Piśāca was originally the name of a tribe⁵ and ultimately turned to mean an impish goblin. The following are instances.

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¹ Even MBh i, 75, 3138-9 does not imply that, which says—From Manu was the race of the Mānavas; the Mānavas were brahmans, kṣatriyas and others; brahmans were then united with kṣatriyas.

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² The Niṣādas were fabled to have sprung from Pṛthu, son of Vena. For references, see p. 16, note 6.

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³ e. g. Asuras (Mat 25, 8, 39), Dānavas (id. 17, 30, 39), Daityas (id. 26, 17) and Rākṣasas (id. 25, 37). Vā 68, 14. Bḍ iii, 6, 14.

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⁴ At the present day the caṇḍālas in some parts of Bengal repudiate that appellation and call themselves namaśūdra.

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⁵ ZDMG, lxvi, 49. JRAS, 1912, 711. Pad v, 74, 12.

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These names, Dānava, Daitya, &c., denoted peoples originally.⁶ Thus king Yayāti married Śarmiṣṭhā, daughter of Vṛṣaparvan (p. 87) who was king of the Dānavas and a Daitya.⁷ The Śālvas were a people of note, who occupied the country around Mt. Ābu,⁸ and they are called Dānavas and Daiteyas.⁹ Bhīma killed the Rākṣasa chief Hiḍimba, and had by his sister Hiḍimbā a son Ghaṭotkaca,¹ who was king of the Rākṣasas ² and took part and was killed in the Bhārata battle.³ Bhagadatta, king of Prāgjyotiṣa (north-east Bengal),⁴ took part in that battle with a contingent of Cīnas,⁵ and his kingdom is called mleccha,⁶ and it and his city belonged to Dānavas, Daityas and Dasyus.⁷ In all these cases these names obviously refer to human beings. Similarly the Rākṣasas in the story of Rāma were the inhabitants of Ceylon and the Godāvarī valley (p. 277).⁸

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⁶ See MBh xii, 228, 8359-413.

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⁷ MBh i, 80, 3337-8; 82, 3410; 83, 3455. Mat 30, 10; 31, 14. Yet he is called an asura, MBh i, 81, 3369; Mat 30, 11: and his daughter also, Vā 93, 16; Mat 27, 8; 31, 3; Hv 30, 1603; &c.

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⁸ MBh iv, 1, 12; 30, 972: v, 174, 5977-9.

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⁹ MBh iii, 14, 633-4; 17, 695, 710; 22, 885-6. Ag 275, 22.

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¹ MBh i, 152 to 155. ² MBh vi, 82, 3559; 84, 3663. ³ MBh v, 161, 5591 : vii, 180, 8171-2. ⁴ JASB, lxvi, Part I, p. 104. ⁵ MBh v, 18, 584 : cf. ii, 25, 1002. ⁶ With Yavanas, MBh ii, 50, 1834. ⁷ MBh v, 47, 1889 : xii, 341, 12956-7. Hv 121, 6791-6; 122, 6885-8. Yet he is called an asura, MBh vii, 29, 1290; and his kingdom, v, 47, 1887. ⁸ Rāvaṇa called an asura, Pad vi, 143, 3. ⁹ The passages cited in the preceding notes will illustrate this. Various classes of Rākṣasas are named, Vā 69, 164 f.: Bḍ iii, 7, 132 f. ¹⁰ Hv 175 to 177; 190. Pad vi, 277, 3-4, 17; and even ‘lord of the bhūtas’, ibid. 25/11. ¹¹ MBh xii, 341, 12954. ¹² So the Chinese called Europeans ‘foreign devils’, and Chinese Christians ‘secondary foreign devils’. ¹³ MBh xii, 341, 12960-1. ¹⁴ P.

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As these peoples were generally enemies, these names turned to mean alien and hated, hostile or savage, men.⁹ So Kṛṣṇa’s son Aniruddha married the daughter of Bāṇa, who is called king of the Daityas.¹⁰ These names next became terms of hatred, opprobrium and abuse. Thus the adherents of Kaṃsa, king of the Yādavas at Mathurā, are called Dānavas; ¹¹ and Madhu, the great king of the Yādavas, Kṛṣṇa’s ancestor, from whom he obtained the patronymic Mādhava, is styled a Daitya and king of the Dānavas, although his descent from Yayāti and Yadu is acknowledged (p. 66). This abusive use led to the attribution of evil characteristics to such people, who were then described as demonic beings, and so these terms approximated to asura in meaning.¹² Thus Madhu’s descendant, Lavaṇa Mādhava, is called Dānava, Rākṣasa and asura (p. 170); Jarāsandha, the great king of Magadha, who was a Bhārata, is stigmatized as an asura; ¹³ and the Buddhists and Jains are treated as asuras and Daityas.¹⁴

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⁶⁸ Br 160 seems to give similar expression to the contest between brahmanism and Dravidian religion in the south.

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Finally, in the latest stories and versions of stories all these names and *asura* became virtually synonymous and meant ‘demons’;¹ and are so used, as in the story of Kuvalayāśva,² and in the fables of devāsura wars.³ These changes in the application of these terms give some help towards discriminating tales and allusions as old or as late, while we remember, however, that older stories underwent modifications later, as pointed out (p. 74).

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¹ See also Mat 245, 1–34: Rām ii, 9, 11–13; 44, 11.

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² Mārk 20, 42 to 21, 89.

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³ e. g. Mat 129 to 140; 179: Lg i, 71; 94: Pad v, 38 to 41.

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By far the greater part of ancient historical tradition deals with the doings of the Aila stock, its growth and expansion. Quite different were the fortunes of the Mānva stock. It occupied the greatest part of India originally, but steadily lost ground before the Ailas. At two epochs it is said to have risen in the Ayodhyā realm to paramount dominion, first, in Māndhātṛ’s conquests, and again when Sagara overthrew the Haihayas and foreign tribes, but the supremacy was short-lived, and the Ailas renewed their progress. After Sagara’s time the three Mānva kingdoms of Ayodhyā, Videha and Vaiśālī played almost entirely a conservative part, influencing little the political development of India, which thenceforward was worked out by the two Aila branches, the Pauravas and Yādavas. The expansion of these two and the other branches has been explained in the last chapter. We may now take stock of the racial and political changes that had taken place, down to the time of the Bhārata battle.

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Of the Mānva kingdoms, that existed originally, three remained, those of Ayodhyā, Videha and Vaiśālī; and all the Dekhan except the NW. part remained unchanged, though it is said that the ruling families in Pāṇḍya, Cola and Kerala were offshoots from the Turvasu branch of the Ailas (p. 108).

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The Saudyumnas had been almost overwhelmed by the Ānavas and Pauravas, and were restricted to the Utkalas and other clans which occupied the hilly tracts from Gayā to Orissa. All North and East Bengal was held by the Prāgjyotiṣa kingdom, which is nowhere connected with any of these races and would seem to have been founded by an invasion of Mongolians from the north-east, though tradition is silent about this outlying development. The configuration of the five Ānava kingdoms in the east, the Aṅgas, Vaṅgas, Puṇḍras, Suhmas and Kaliṅgas, which held all the sea-coast from Ganjam to the Ganges delta, and formed a long compact curved wedge with its base on the sea-coast and its point above Bhāgalpur, suggests that there had also been an invasion from the sea, that penetrated up the Ganges valley, leaving the hilly tracts on its west and east alone;¹ and this conjecture, if reasonable, would mean that the invaders had driven the Saudyumna stock into those hilly tracts, and that that had taken place before those five kingdoms were formed. But there is no trace in tradition of any such invasion of this distant region.

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¹ JRAS, 1908, p. 851.

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All the rest of North India and the north-west part of the Dekhan had been dominated by the Aila stock and was held thus:—

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The Pauravas ruled the whole of the Ganges and Jumna plain from the Siwalik hills to Magadha, except Śūrasena (which was Yādava) and Kāśi, namely, the kingdoms of Hastināpura, Pañcāla, Cedi, Vatsa, Karūṣa and Magadha (in all of which the ruling families were Bhāratas), and possibly Matsya. Kāśi was an Aila kingdom of earlier foundation (p. 258).

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The Yādavas held all the country between the Rajputana desert and a line drawn roughly from Bombay to SE. Berar and then north to the Jumna, excluding petty chieftainships in the hills and probably Matsya.

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The Ānavas held (1) all the Panjab (except the NW. corner), comprising the kingdoms of Sindhu, Sauvīra, Kaikeya, Madra, Vāhlīka, Śivi and Ambaṣṭha; and (2) all East Bihar, Bengal proper (except the north and east) and Orissa, comprising the kingdoms of Aṅga, Vaṅga, Puṇḍra, Suhma and Kaliṅga.

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The Druhyus held the Gāndhāra kingdom and the NW. frontier, and are said to have spread out beyond that and established kingdoms in the mleccha countries outside in early times.

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The Turvasu line had disappeared, except that the Pāṇḍya, Cola and Kerala dynasties claimed descent from it.

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These results are exhibited in the annexed table and map.² They do not mean that the Aila stock constituted the bulk of the population, but that it had conquered those lands and was the dominant body in them. It supplied the kṣatriya class, which would have influenced the bulk of the people profoundly, so that the higher classes were no doubt largely leavened with Aila blood, though the lower grades would have remained racially the same, namely, the various groups of pre-existing folk.

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² Published in JRAS, 1914, p. 290: now revised.

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Dvaraka

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Prabhasa

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R. Sindhu

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35

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30

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25

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20

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15

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10

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70

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F.W.

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ANCIENT INDIA

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English Miles 0 100 200 300 400

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Ailas

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Mānvas

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Saudyumnas

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Other races

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The broad result stands out clear that the Aila stock, which began in a small principality at Allahabad, had dominated the whole of North India and down to Vidarbha, with the exception of the three Mānva kingdoms of Ayodhyā, Videha and Vaiśālī; and these had been influenced by the Ailas. So it is said, the earth was dominated by the five races (*vamśa*) descended from Yayāti.¹ This result agrees exactly with the Aryan occupation of India, so that what we call the Aryan race is what Indian tradition calls the Aila race, and so Aila = Aryan. The Saud-yumna stock would no doubt be the Muṇḍā race and its branch the Mōn-Khmēr folk in the east;² and in the intervening region it would have been subjugated by the Ānava occupation, and also by a prior invasion of Bengal by new-comers from the sea if the above surmise of such an invasion be true. The Mānva stock, which held all the rest of India including the above three kingdoms, seems naturally to declare itself Dravidian.³ These conclusions are not put forward anywhere in the genealogies or Puranas. True, it is said that the earth was dominated by the five races⁴ descended from Yayāti, but the ethnical significance of this statement is nowhere noticed, and no precedence is accorded to those Aila families, for in the genealogical accounts the post of honour in being described first is always given to the Solar or Mānva race. The unintentional way in which these conclusions present themselves from those accounts lends strong support to their truth, and those who maintain other views about the Aryan occupation of India must explain how such accounts arose, possessing no ethnical bias and yet enshrining real ethnical facts.

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¹ P. 124. Cf. Mat 24, 20-1: Pad v, 12, 72.

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² Grierson, *Linguistic Survey of India*, iv, pp. 8, 21.

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³ The fact that many of the names of the early kings of the Mānva stock have a Sanskrit appearance does not necessarily militate against this, because they would have naturally been Sanskritized in the course of time. Daityas, Dānavas and Rākṣasas also have Sanskritic names. Later kings no doubt adopted Aryan names.

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⁴ The term ‘the five peoples’ often used in Rigv and other Vedic literature has received three explanations; (1) the five tribes descended from Yayāti; (2) the five families of the Pañcālas; and (3) all people: *Vedic Index* i, p. 466. This last is possible, for in the present day ‘five’ is used to convey general comprehensiveness, thus *pāñc jan* often means ‘everybody’. It is hardly necessary that the term should have the same meaning everywhere, and it may be suggested that all three are possible. It may have the first meaning in Rigv i, 7, 9; vi, 14, 4; 46, 7; ix, 65, 23 and x, 45, 6, for these hymns are attributed to rishis who lived before the Pañcālas existed. It may have the second meaning in iii, 53, 16 and iv, 38, 10; and possibly in viii, 9, 2; 32, 22 and x, 60, 4; but not probably in i, 176, 3 or ix, 92, 3. As regards other passages in Rigv there appear to be no chronological indications.

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Moreover, these conclusions are entirely supported by the evidence of language, as set out by Sir G. Grierson.¹

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¹ Imp. Gaz. of India (1907), i, pp. 349 f.

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According to tradition in chapter XXIV the Ailas or Aryans began at Allahabad, conquered and spread out north-west, west and south, and had by Yayāti’s time occupied precisely the region famed as Madhyadeśa. They possessed that Mid-land definitely and made it their own thoroughly, so that it was ‘their true pure home’, as Sir G. Grierson describes it linguistically.² They expanded afterwards into the Panjab and East Afghanistan, into West India and the north-west Dekhan, into East and South Bihar and into Bengal—precisely as he finds the Aryans did linguistically in those very regions, which he calls the ‘Outer Band’. ³ Also it has been pointed out that the Ayodhyā realm was non-Aila, was not subdued by the Ailas and was only influenced by them. This agrees exactly with his linguistic inference, that in Oudh ‘there is a mixture [of language] of the same nature, although here the Midland language has not established itself so firmly as it has in the west and south’. ⁴

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² Id. p. 357.

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³ Id. p. 358.

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⁴ Id. p. 359.

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Thus the political account as tradition reveals it accords precisely with Sir G. Grierson’s linguistic exposition, and explains the linguistic facts simply and fully. Current opinion, in order to explain those facts, postulates not only an invasion of Aryans from the north-west, but even a double invasion, and the theory is that ‘the inhabitants of the Midland represent the latest stage of Indo-Aryan immigration’, and that the latest invaders entered ‘into the heart of the country already occupied by the first immigrants, forcing the latter outwards in three directions, to the east, to the south and to the west’. ⁵ This theory is improbable in itself, and certainly implies a severe and bitter struggle between the second and the first immigrants, of which one would expect to find some echo in tradition, for it concerned the very heart of India, yet there is absolutely none. It is wholly unnecessary according to tradition.

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⁵ Id. p. 358.

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Moreover, as will be shown in the next chapter, the bulk of the Rigveda was composed in the great development of brahmanism that arose under the successors of king Bharata who reigned in the upper Ganges-Jumna doab and plain. The language of the Rigveda, as Sir G. Grierson holds, represents the archaic dialect of the upper doab, and that was the region in which the Aryan speech was the purest and whence it spread outwards.¹ The two agree.

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¹ *Imp. Gaz. of India* (1907), p. 357.

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Lastly, there was some connexion between Sudyumna and the Uttara Kurus and Kimpuruṣas,² and that accords with the connexion which Sir G. Grierson notices between the Muṇḍā language and the ‘Pronominalized Himalayan languages’.³ In every respect therefore the evidence of language accords with the Puranic accounts, and is strong testimony to the value of tradition.

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² P. 255. *Mat* 12, 16–19. *Pad* v, 8, 121–4. *Lg* i, 65, 22.

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³ *Imp. Gaz. of India*, i, pp. 386–7. *JRAS*, 1907, p. 188.

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These conclusions raise the question, what does tradition say about the origin of the Ailas or Aryans? It makes the Aila power begin at Allahabad, and yet distinctly suggests that they came from outside India. The legends and fables about the progenitor Purūravas Aila all connect him with the middle Himalayan region.⁴ He was closely associated with the Gandharvas. His wife Urvaśī was a Gandharvī, as well as called an apsaras.⁵ The places he frequented were the river Mandākinī, Alakā, the Caitraratha and Nandana forests, the mountains Gandhamādana and Meru, and the land of the Uttara Kurus—regions to which the Gandharvas were assigned.⁶ From the Gandharvas he obtained sacrificial fire; his sons were known in the Gandharva world;⁷ and he ultimately became united with the Gandharvas.⁸ Further, the fables about his birth (pp. 253–4) point to that region, and two accounts connect his alleged parent Ila with the northern country Ilāvṛta, which they say was named after him.¹

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⁴ Except one fable in *Mat* 115 to 120 about him as king of Madra in a former birth.

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⁵ *Vā* 91, 9, 25. *Bd* iii, 66, 9. *Hv* 26, 1374.

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⁶ *Mat* 114, 82. *MBh* v, 110, 3830–1: vi, 6, 212. *Vā* 39 to 41. For the geography, see *Mat* 113; 114, 59 f; 121; *Vā* 35; 41; 47.

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⁷ They all married Gandharva maidens, *Kūr* i, 23, 46: but not Āyu.

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⁸ *Vā* 91, 5–8, 40–8, 51. *Bd* iii, 66, 5–8, 19, 22. *Hv* 26, 1367–70, 1402–10. *Br* 10, 5–8, 11. *Ag* 273, 14. *Lg* i, 66, 57. *MBh* i, 75, 3148. *Mat* 24, 19. *Pad* v, 12, 70–1. *Śatapatha Brāhm* xi, 5, 1, 13–17. *Viṣ* iv, 6, 38 f. Cf. *Vā* 1, 189. Similarly Yayāti, *MBh* i, 75, 3172; 85, 3508; 119, 4637: v, 110, 3831.

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¹ Mat 12, 14. Pad v, 8, 119.

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Now these tales are mythical,² and tradition becomes mythical when it reaches back to origins, yet such mythical tales can hardly have sprung from pure imagination, and must have been developed from some germ of reality. They certainly suggest that Purūravas's origin was in that north region; and this agrees with and explains the fact that that region, the countries in and beyond the middle of the Himalayas, has always been the sacred land of the Indians. Indian tradition knows nothing of any Aila or Aryan invasion of India from Afghanistan, nor of any gradual advance from thence eastwards. On the other hand it distinctly asserts that there was an Aila outflow of the Druhyus through the north-west into the countries beyond, where they founded various kingdoms and so introduced their own Indian religion among those nations.³

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² Other mythical details; MBh i, 75, 3144: Vā 2, 15: Bḍ i, 2, 15.

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³ P. 264. JRAS, 1919, pp. 358–61.

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The north-west frontier never had any ancient sacred memories, and was never regarded with reverence. All ancient Indian belief and veneration were directed to the mid-Himalayan region, the only original sacred outside land;⁴ and it was thither that rishis and kings turned their steps in devotion, never to the north-west. The list of rivers in Rigveda x, 75 is in regular order from the east to the north-west⁵—not the order of entrance from the north-west, but the reverse. If the Aryans entered India from the north-west, and had advanced eastward through the Panjab only as far as the Sarasvatī or Jumna when the Rigvedic hymns were composed, it is very surprising that the hymn arranges the rivers, not according to their progress, but reversely from the Ganges which they had hardly reached.⁶ This agrees better with the course of the Aila expansion and its outflow beyond the north-west.⁷ It was, however, a route for any one travelling from the Ganges to the north-west, as the author of the hymn perhaps did.¹ Again, Sudās’s battle with the ten kings had (as shown in the last chapter) nothing to do with the progress of the Aryans from the north-west into India, for he was an Aila king of North Pañcāla, and the Ailas (or Aryans) had entered and dominated North India long before his time. It was part of his conquests westward into the Panjab (p. 2). Further remarks that go to corroborate these conclusions will be found in the next chapter.

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⁴ See the eulogy of the Northern region, MBh v, 110: vi, 12.

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⁵ So Sir M. A. Stein, JRAS, 1917, p. 91.

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⁶ Macdonell, Sansk. Lit. pp. 143, 145.

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⁷ Perhaps the arguments used to prove the advance of the Aryans from Afghanistan into the Panjab might simply be reversed.

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¹ He, Sindhukṣit Praiyamedha, would have been a descendant of Ajamīḍha (p. 226), the Bhārata (p. 146), who reigned on the Ganges.

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The notices of rivers in the Rigveda are no certain guide as to all that the Aryans knew of the geography of India then, for, while the Sindhu and Sarasvatī are mentioned often, no other rivers in N. India are alluded to more than once, twice or thrice.² The Sindhu no doubt attracted attention because of its immense size, and the Sarasvatī because of its sanctity,³ which was largely due to its being in the territory of the Bhārata kings of Hastināpura, among whom (and not in the Panjab⁴) the development of Rigvedic brahmanism took place, as will be explained in the next chapter.⁵ The Rigveda knows of the Sarayu, and there is no good reason for doubting that that is the river of Oudh. Its silence about the Vindhya Mts. and other geographical features proves no ignorance, when one considers its silence about the banyan (p. 125), about salt,⁶ and about the Pāriyātra hills (the Aravalli range), which the Aryans had actually reached according to the current view.

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² See *Vedic Index*, names of rivers.

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³ See remarks about it in next chapter.

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⁴ *Vedic Index*, ii, p. 295, s.v. Vitastā, note 2.

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⁵ If the southern part of the Rajputana desert was a very shallow sea in early times (p. 260), the Sarasvatī flowed into it (*Vedic Index* ii, 436). A small rise in the level of that area would have turned the sea into desert and affected the river.

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⁶ Macdonell, *Sansk. Lit.* p. 150.

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Tradition or myth thus directly indicates that the Ailas (or Aryans) entered India from the mid-Himalayan region, and its attitude towards the NW. frontier lends no support to any invasion from that quarter.⁷ These are very noteworthy facts. Myth suggests the country Ilāvṛta in the north as the region from which they came. Purūravas's name Aila occurs in the Rigveda and appears to be more ancient than the fable of Manu's daughter Ilā,¹ which seems to have been devised in order to explain that name, for such explanatory tales were common (p. 75). The suggested connexion between Ila and Ilāvṛta may be ancient and may merit credence.² In this regard it may be noted that Sudyumna, the male form of Ilā, is said to have been a Kimpuruṣa and ultimately departed to Ilāvṛta. The Kimpuruṣas were placed in that same north region;³ so that myth connects the Saudyumna stock with that land, and in some Puranas with the Northern Kurus (p. 297). If then the Ailas did not enter India from the north-west, we must, in considering tradition and the conclusions it suggests, put away all ideas drawn from that hypothesis.

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⁷ The only passages which may lend support to the theory of a north-western invasion are the two in the Rām, which make Ila king of Bālhi or Bālhīka (p. 254, note 4), if these words mean Balkh; but they might mean the Vāhlika country in the Panjab (Mārk, my translation, p. 311), and the Rām is quite untrustworthy in its traditions when uncorroborated elsewhere (pp. 82, 93).

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¹ See Professor Keith, JRAS, 1913, pp. 412 f.

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² Cf. the formation of Ilāvṛta with Brahmāvarta and Āryāvarta.

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³ e. g. Vā 46, 4-18; Lg i, 52, 33-43: Mat 121, 71.

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Further light is thrown on this matter by a treaty between a Hittite king and a king of Mitanni found at Boghazkeui. It mentions, as noticed by Professor Jacobi,⁴ certain gods who can be none other than Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra and the Nāsatyas (Aśvins). These are Indian Aryan gods,⁵ and he has shown that they could not belong to the period prior (according to the current theory) to the separation of the Indian and Iranian branches. The date of the treaty has been fixed reliably now about 1400 B.C., and therefore the folk of Mitanni who worshipped these gods had arrived there earlier, probably late in the sixteenth century. These facts prove (1) that there was an outflow of people from India before the fifteenth century B.C.; (2) that they brought Aryan gods from India; (3) that therefore Aryans and their gods existed in India before the sixteenth century; and (4) that the Aryans had entered India earlier still. These facts and conclusions are hardly reconcilable with the current theory about the entrance of the Aryans into NW. India and the composition of the hymns of the Rigveda.⁶

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⁴ JRAS, 1909, p. 723. The published text is in Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi, vol. i, No. 1, Rev. 55-6. I have to thank Professor Langdon for information on this matter.

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⁵ The names of the gods and kings are discussed seriatim in Amer. Journal of Sem. Lang. vol. 33, p. 261. The names of the gods might not be significant singly, but the four combined give cumulative evidence of Indian origin that cannot be explained away.

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⁶ Professor Jacobi's remarks, loc. cit.; Professor Keith, JRAS, 1914, p. 737 f.

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But these facts and conclusions are in full agreement with what tradition says about the outspread of the Druhyus beyond the north-west of India (p. 264), for that is assigned to about the time No. 40 in the genealogical table (p. 146), namely, some 55 steps earlier than the Bhārata battle of 950 B. C. (p. 182); and if we allow 12 years per step (p. 183), that outflow would have begun 950 + 660, that is, about 1600 B. C., and would have spread gradually to allow of the appearance of Indian gods in the treaty of 1400 B. C. Tradition shows that the Ailas or Aryans had entered North India earlier still, and had dominated the greater part of it by the time of that outflow. Their entry, calculated on the 92 steps from Purūravas to the Bhārata battle, according to the same scale, would be placed 950 + 1104, that is, about 2050 B. C. Indian tradition and the facts of that treaty are thus in complete harmony, and the former furnishes a simple and sufficient explanation of the latter. This is testimony to the value of Indian tradition, and goes to show that the genealogies are substantial and may supply a scale for approximate chronological computation. Those migrants kept the names of their gods correctly, but the kings naturally modified their own names as they and their language became more separated from India.

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Further, if we accept the current theory, the above conclusions from the treaty would require that the assumed Indo-Iranian period should be placed much earlier than the sixteenth century B. C.—a result that would render the theory hardly tenable. The above tradition suggests that there may have been no such period, and that the Iranians may have been an offshoot from India, for the outspread from India can not only account for the existence of gods with Indian names and kings with Iranian-like names in the treaty, but may also have led to the genesis of the Iranians. The linguistic and religious differences of Iran may be explained quite as well in this way as by the current theory.¹

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¹ Imp. Gaz. of India (1907), i, pp. 352 f. It may be noticed that Druhyu's descendants are said to have been Bhojas (p. 260, note ¹), and sun-worshipping priests were called Bhojakas (Bhaviṣya i, 117).

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Vedic literature says, I believe, nothing about the entrance of the Aryans from the north-west into India. If one starts with that view, arguments for it may no doubt be discovered in the Rigveda; but if one puts aside all preconceived ideas and examines the hymns in the light of historical tradition, nothing will, I think, be found in them really incompatible with traditional history, and a great deal is elucidated thereby. Moreover, tradition explains why the sacred land of the Aryans was the region north of the mid-Himalayas—a fact which the prevalent view does not account for; and the connexion of Persia with India does not prove that the Aryans entered India from that direction, for it may find a quite possible explanation reversely in the outflow of Druhyus as just shown.

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The current theory, that the Aryans invaded India through the north-west after separating from the Iranians, and entered in two streams, must face and account for the following facts and considerations: (1) Indian tradition knows nothing whatever of that. (2) The north-west and the Panjab were not regarded as an ancient home, nor with veneration or special esteem. (3) Tradition has preserved copious and definite accounts giving an entirely different description of the earliest Ailas (Aryans) and their beginnings in India. (4) The mid-Himalayan region was the sacred land, and those accounts reveal why. (5) They elucidate the Aila domination of India so that it agrees with the Aryan occupation, geographically and linguistically, altogether accurately yet quite unostentatiously. (6) Tradition makes the brahmans originally a non-Aryan institution, ascribes the earliest of the Rigvedic hymns to non-Aryan kings and rishis, and makes the earliest connexion of the Vedas to be with the eastern region and not with the Panjab, as will appear in the next chapter. (7) All this copious tradition was falsely fabricated, and the truth has been absolutely lost, if the current theory is right; is this probable? (8) If all this tradition is false, why, how, and in whose interests was it all fabricated? (9) If it is false, how comes it that the fifth point above is right? (10) Indian tradition suggests a reverse origin for the Iranians, which is linguistically tenable, which harmonizes with the Boghaz-keui treaty, and which can account for their language and religion.

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