Caste and Race in India c9.57

Language: English

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The Indo-Aryan type: The first objection against this type is that the term used to denote it in the scheme proposed by Risley is unsatisfactory. In the case of the other types the names are compound terms composed of the names for the two physical types from which the particular type is supposed to be derived. Thus what is meant by the term Aryo-Dravidian is that the type is considered to be a mixture of the Aryan type and the Dravidian type. But in the case of the Indo-Aryan type no such mixture is meant. The Indo-Aryan type is not to be understood to be a mixture of the Indian and Aryan but to be a pure type. Indo-Aryan means nothing more than the Aryan of India as opposed to the Aryan of Iran. Thus it will be seen that in Risley's scheme the term is rather misleading. Nevertheless, as in our treatment of the subject we wish to avoid all compound terms we shall retain the term Indo-Aryan to denote the Aryan type of India. Instead we cannot use the term Aryan, for in philology it is generally applied to the Iranians as well as the Indians. By Indo-Aryan, then, we mean the physical type to which the Vedic Indians largely contributed. The physical characteristics of this type are solely inferred from those of the present population of the Punjab. We have no reason to think that after the Aryan immigration into India and before Darius' dominion there was any considerable influx of foreigners.

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When Darius held sway over a part of the Punjab the country appears to have been already very populous and prosperous.¹ The physical type of the Punjab is so uniform as to preclude any possibility of large mixture. Hence we can reasonably assume that a large bulk of the present inhabitants of the Punjab are the descendants of the Vedic Aryans. Their number might have swollen by later immigrants whose physical type must have been similar to theirs but whose cultural affinities we may not be able to trace. Secondly, an objection has been levelled at Risley's classification of the Rajputs as Indo-Aryans.² It has been contended that some of the clan-names of the Rajputs are the same as those of the Gurjara tribe or caste and that the reigning dynasty of Kanauj during the ninth century and after was of the Gurjara stock. Hence it is argued that some of the Rajput clans are of non-Aryan descent.³ Even the Minas and Meos of Rajputana are not physically much differentiated from the Rajputs.⁴ The Rajputs are thus of the same race as the other peoples of Rajputana. We cannot hold that Rajputana was untenanted before the foreign tribes entered it in the sixth century A.D. Perhaps it will be said that the Gurjaras were of the same physical type as the population of Rajputana and hence their presence cannot be detected by physical anthropology, though they had come in large numbers and produced the present population of Rajputana. This supposition is not tenable;

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for the Gurjaras are believed to be allied in blood to the White Huns,⁵ who seem to have been a brachycephalic people.⁶ It is reasonable therefore to assume that a few ruling families of the Gujaras with a small band of followers succeeded in gaining ascendance and imposing their culture over the then population of Rajputana. It is also urged that some of the Rajput clans "are descended from the so-called aboriginal tribes—Gonds, Bhars, Kols and the like",¹ apparently because both the Rajputs and the aboriginal tribes have certain clan-names in common. In physical characteristics these tribes are sharply distinguished from the Rajputs, and yet we are asked to believe that they are essentially the same because some features of social organization are common to both. The common clan-names can better be explained as a borrowing by the lowly castes or tribes from the dominant Rajputs. Thus there does not appear to be any serious objection to the Rajputs being classed as Indo-Aryans. Thirdly, there does not seem to be any foundation for Risley's classification of the Kashmiris as Indo-Aryans. The Kashmiris appear to be a mesaticephalic people, perhaps a mixture of the Alpine folk of Central Asia and the Indo-Aryans of the Punjab. Lastly, we have made it clear that Risley was not right in restricting the type to the Punjab and Rajputana. The type includes one or two high castes of Hindustan as well.