History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c8.s1.4

v1.c8.s1.4

From this passage we clearly see that while the people of the Panjab and Rajputana are unquestionably Aryan by race, those of the Bombay Presidency including the Marathas, and of Bengal and the U.P. are distinctly so. And the Gujars of the Panjab stand first with regard to the fineness of the nose their index (66·9) being lower than that of even the Parisians. And yet the Gujars are looked upon by some as Scythians. The similarity of sound has often misled antiquarians into strange theories and the attempt to identify the Gujars with the Khizar is not less strange than the now generally abandoned identification of the Jats with the Gætæ. It is here that anthropometry and also history should step in to correct such wrong identification, That they do serve to dispel such misconception in the case of Jats and Gujars we have not the smallest doubt. The Jats are distinctly included by Sir H. Risley among the Indo-Aryans as their "type approaches most closely to that ascribed to the traditional Aryan colonists of India viz. heads long and noses narrow and prominent but not specially long." (Census R. 1901 p. 500.) Their stature is also tall, and their complexion is fair and as Nesfield has observed if appearance goes for anything, the Jats could not but be Aryans." The case of the Gujars also falls in the same category, They are men with finest noses in India and with long heads and tall statures. They are no doubt dark in complexion but complexion does not count much in the determination of race. "The most important points to be observed in the Indo-Aryan series of measurements are the great uniformity of type, and the very slight differences between the higher and lower groups." And this type is so persistent that the Jats and the Gujars wherever they are found present the same characteristics of head, nose and stature and even complexion. Under these circumstances ethnologically speaking the Jats and the Gujars are decidedly Aryan in race and similarity of sound in names ought not to mislead us into believing them to be descendants of the Gætæ or Khizars who were undoubtedly Mongolian in race.