History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c23.22

v1.c23.22

Such in short is the history of the Aryan settlement of India down to the days of the last recasting of the Mahābhārata, which as we have shown elsewhere was contemporaneous with the invasion of Alexander. India was certainly fully populated in his days. It contained even then as the Mahābhārata Bhīshmaparva chap. 9 itself states, an Aryan, a mixed-Aryan, and a Mlechha population. The Aryans were in the Panjab and Oudh. The mixed Aryans were in U. P., C. P. C. I. and Mahārāshtra and in Aparanta (or modern Konkan) and even in Āndhra which the Mahābhārata list of countries includes among the Bharata-khanda peoples. To the south of this were the Dravidian Mlechhas (Pandya, Chola, Kerala, and others) and beyond India to the north were the other Mlechhas, Śaka, Barbara, Kāmboja and so on. It is necessary to add that Bengal (Anga, Vanga, Kalinga and Odra) was also included among Indian countries and had probably mixed Aryan populations. Let us now see what happened when inroads of foreign Mlechhas began to come, in the wake of Alexandre's invasion and almost destroyed all the Kshatriya kingdoms in the Panjab. We know from verified history that though after Alexander the Panjab was for a time included in the Maurya empire of Pātaliputra yet from 200 B. C. successive waves of foreign Mlechhas came into the Panjab and established strong kingdoms there. First came the Bactrian Greeks, then the Sakas, then the Yue-chi who under Kanishka had a wide empire over lands as well beyond the Panjab to the north as extending southwards into the present United Provinces. Naturally all Aryan ruling families in the Panjab were either destroyed; or were forced southwards. The Mālavas and other warlike independence-loving Kshatriyas in this way migrated into the plains of Central India. But the settled population of the Panjab remained Indo-Aryan as before. As water poured over a pot full of water cannot enter or disturb the water within, so the successive waves of invaders passed over the head of the settled population of the province. It no doubt carried away the ruling families but could not disturb or destroy the settled population of the country.