The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s7.42

v2.c41.s7.42

An effort to determine the characteristics of the pre-Dravidians has been made by Professor Giuffrida Ruggeri,⁵ who holds that India was successively occupied by Negritos apparently platyrrhine; pre-Dravidians (Australo-Veddahic); Dravidians (akin to Homo Indo-Africanus Aethiopicus); tall dolichocephalic (Mesopotamaic?) elements seen in the Todas; dolichocephalic Aryans; and brachycephalic Leukoderms—presumably of the Alpine type. The pre-Dravidians, on his view, were numerically preponderant, as held by Chanda, but the Dravidians imposed their language on large bodies of them, though the Muṇḍā languages persisted. The Dravidians were mesorrhine as opposed to the pre-Dravidian platyrrhines, the Niṣādas of Vedic texts, the ‘noseless’ enemies of the Rigveda. Similarly he assumes that the pre-Dravidians imposed their language on the Negritos, thus accounting for the fact that the speeches kindred to the Muṇḍā are spoken by tribes of Negrito as well as of pre-Dravidian type.¹ It must be admitted, however, that despite the ingenuity of this reconstruction evidence for it of any decisive character is wholly lacking, as it is based on recent anthropometrical data, whence conjectures are made for events of some four thousand years ago.²