The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c16.6

v1.c16.6

From these data is it possible to locate the primitive habitat from which the speakers of these languages derived their origin? It is not likely to be India, as some of the earlier investigators assumed, for neither flora nor fauna, as determined by their language, is characteristic of this area, though some forest trees like the birch are more magnificent on Kinchinjunga than in any part of the Western world. Still less probable is the district of the Pāmīrs, one of the most cheerless regions on the face of the earth. Central Asia, which has also been contended for as their home, is not probable, even if we admit that its conspicuous lack of water, and consequent sterility in many areas, is of later development. If indeed these early men knew the beech, they must have lived to the west of a line drawn from Königsberg in Prussia to the Crimea and continued thence through Asia Minor. In the Northern plains of Europe there is no area which will satisfactorily fulfil the conditions. As we know it in primitive times it is a land of great forests. No country, however, which had not much variety of geographical features could have been the habitat of both the horse and the cow. The horse is a native of the open plain; the foal is able to run by its mother from the first, and accompanies her always in her wanderings. The calf, on the other hand, is at first feeble, unable to walk or see its way distinctly, and therefore is hidden by its mother in a brake while she goes further afield to find suitable pasture. Is there any part of Europe which combines pastoral and agricultural country in close connexion, which has in combination hot low-lying plains suitable for the growth of grain, and rich upland pasture suitable for flocks and herds, and at the same time trees and birds of the character already described? There is apparently only one such area in Europe, the area which is bounded on its eastern side by the Carpathians, on its south by the Balkans, on its western side by the Austrian Alps and the Böhmer Wald, and on the north by the Erzgebirge and the mountains which link them up with the Carpathians. This is a fertile and well-watered land with great corn plains in the low-lying levels of Hungary, but also possessing steppe-like areas which make it one of the best horse-breeding areas in Europe, while, in the uplands which surround it and run across it, as in the case of the Bakony Wald, south-west of Buda-Pesth, and still more markedly in Bohemia, there is high ground suitable for the pasturing of sheep. The forests of the mountains which engirdle it supply excellent mast for the maintenance of swine whether wild or tame. The beech which dies out further south is found here and all the other great forest trees which have been already mentioned. The country is large enough to maintain a very considerable population which however was likely in primitive times to migrate from it only under the stress of dire necessity, because it is so well bounded on all sides by lofty mountains with comparatively few passes, that exit from it even in more advanced ages has not been easy. If this area indeed were the original habitat—and, curiously enough, though it fulfils so many of the conditions, it seems not before to have been suggested—the spread of the Indo-Germanic languages becomes easily intelligible. No doubt the most inviting direction from which to issue from this land in search of new homes would be along the course of the Danube into Wallachia, from which it is not difficult to pass south towards the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.