The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.173

v1.c15.173

No theory of their origin can be maintained which does not account for the existence of Brāhūī, the large island of Dravidian speech in the mountainous regions of distant Baluchistān which lie near the western routes into India. Is Brāhūī a surviving trace of the immigration of Dravidian-speaking peoples into India from the west? Or does it mark the limits of an overflow from India into Baluchistān? Both theories have been held; but, as all the great movements of peoples have been into India and not out of India, and as a remote mountainous district may be expected to retain the survivals of ancient races while it is not likely to have been colonised, the former view would *a priori* seem to be by far the more probable. The reasons why it has not been universally accepted is that the racial character of the Brāhūis is now mainly Irānian, and not Dravidian in the Indian sense of the term. But the argument from race is not so conclusive as may appear at first sight. The area in which the Dravidian Brāhūī is still spoken forms part of the region which is occupied by Turko-Irānian peoples; and the peculiar tribal constitution of the Brāhūis is one which, unlike the caste-system, does not insist on social exclusiveness, but, on the contrary, definitely invites recruitment from outside. This is clear from the account given in the *Gazetteer* of the ‘Baloch and Brāhūi type of tribe’: