Caste and Race in India c9.57.1

c9.57.1

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.