History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c14.s6.21

v1.c14.s6.21

Now the question naturally occurs why was the large tract of the country to the north sparsely populated compared with the tract to the south, of the Tungabhadrā? Answer to this natural question is supplied by the story of the Rāmāyana interpreted historically. The whole of this tract was certainly covered with forest and was called Dandakāranya. From Chitrakūta down to Rishyamūka in the Malaya mountains (i. e. from Rewa down to Mysore) was Dandakāranya clearly enough. For Rāma could not have taken his abode on Chitrakūta if it was not in Dandakāranya. Now it is possible that the hilly portion of this country was covered with forest in those ancient days down to about 1000 B. C. For it was still covered with forests at the beginning of the British rule; the Vindhya, the Satapuda and the Mahendra mountainous tracts were under forest even so late as 1858 A. D. But why should the level country in Berar or about Paithana and in the Deccan be under forest? It should have been and still is an open country. The explanation is that it was infested by Rākshasas or in historical language by cannibals. Sociology tells us that the man-eating tribes do not prosper and hence this country was only sparsely populated. The Mahārs and the Māngs who subsist on carrion, appear also to be other old inhabitants of this land. The invading and settling Aryans felled the jungle and brought the land under cultivation, retaining the Mahārs and the Māngs (Sanskrit Mātangas) as an out-cast people. It may, therefore, be said that the Aryans did not so much conquer the Deccan as settle it. They killed the few cannibals, cleared the forests and founded towns and villages compelling the Māngs to live as out-casts outside each village. It is thus that the cultivating population of the Deccan is Aryan. The significance of this fact we shall notice elsewhere. They were not perhaps pure Aryans but mixed Aryans or Yaduvaṁśi Aryans of the second race of invaders called the Lunar race which first settled in Kurukshetra, and then in Śūrasena, Surāṣṭra etc. These had already taken Nāga women to wife and were therefore mixed to a large extent.