Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c30.67

c30.67

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.