History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c8.s1.6

v1.c8.s1.6

The head, however, as we have said above and as has been observed by Sir H. Risley himself, is not the most distinctive sign of race. The feature most distinctive of race is the nose. The nose distinguishes the Aryan both from the Dravidian and the Mongolian types. The fine nose of the Aryan is distinct from the broad nose of the Dravidian and the flat nose of the Scythian. The flatness of the Scythian or Mongolian face strikes every observer as the root of the nose does not appreciably rise above the level of the eyes. To measure this rise the orbito-nasal index has been invented by anthropometrists and this index has been used, at Sir William Fowler's suggestion; especially where there is reason to suspect intermixture with the Mongolian type. (Census Report 1901 p. 497). To determine, therefore, if the Marathas have any Scythian or Mogolian blood in them we have to look to this index. Let us see what the indices are in this connection. The flat-faced Mongolians are called platyopic, their index being below 110 Those who have indices between 110 and 112.9 are called mesopic, while those whose index is 113 or above are called pro-opic. The last can have no mixture with Mongolian blood. Now all the members of the Indo-Aryan type are placed by their high averages in the pro-opic group (Census Report for 1901 page 602) and thus it is impossible that the Jats and the Gujars can have any Mongolian blood in them. The case of the Marathas apparently presents some difficulty. Their orbito-nasal index is medium, that is they are mesopic and hence it is difficult to decide whether they have Scythian blood in their veins. For this mesopic nature of their nose may as well be due to mixture with Dravidian blood.* Moreover Aryan characteristics do tend to assert themselves in the Marathas whenever their position unproves as may be observed by every careful observer. the nose getting finer and higher at the bridge. We have treated of this subject at greater length in our book "Epic India" and it is sufficient to further remark here that the Census Report for 1911 has given up the classification of Marathas by Sir H. Risley as Scytho-Dravidians and tends to treat them as Aryo-Dravidians i. e. born of mixture of a broad-headed Aryan type with the Dravidian type.