Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c9.97

c9.97

**Education of Non-Aryans and 'Depressed' Classes.** The non-Aryans are distinguished in the Rigveda by several characteristics, physical and cultural. They are described as (1) *krishṇa-garbha*, "a dusky brood," and (2) *anāsa*, "snub-nosed," recalling the proto-Australoids, the original inhabitants of India. It was thus a difference of race and colour (Varṇa) between the Aryan and the non-Aryan. The term *Varṇa* later came to be synonymous with caste. Culturally, the non-Aryan differed deeply from the Aryan, because he (1) spoke a different language (*mṛidhravāk*, ‘of hostile speech’), (2) did not follow Vedic rituals (*akarman*), or (3) Worship (*abrahman*), or (4) Ordinances (*avrata* and *anyavrata*), or (5) Deities (*adevayu*) whom he even reviled (*devapīyu*), nor (6) performed Vedic sacrifices (*ayajvan*). He was condemned as a worshipper of phallus (*Śiśnadeva*) [*Ṛv.* vii, 21, 5; x. 99, 3].