The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c15.187

v1.c15.187

The Āryo-Dravidian type occupies the ancient Madhyadeça, or ‘the Midland Country,’ extending, according to Manu (II, 21) from Vinaçana, where the river Sarasvatī loses itself in the Great Desert, to Allahābād, together with some five degrees of the country farther east. It is a mixed type caused apparently by the Indo-Āryan colonisation of a region previously held by a population mainly Dravidian. The Indo-Āryan type does not, as might have been expected from analogous instances, shade by imperceptible degrees into the Āryo-Dravidian type; but a marked change from the former to the latter is observable about the longitude of Sirhind. It is evident, then, that the waves of tribal migration must have been impeded at this point, and that the Indo-Āryan influence farther east must be due rather to warlike or peaceful penetration than to the wholesale encroachment of multitudes.