The following (Chapter II) on Aryans is reproduced from the famous history book,The Dravidian Element in Indian Culture, by Gilbert Slater, MA, D.Sc ., Professor of Indian Economics, Madras University, published in 1924 (pp.192) by Ernest Benn Lid ., London. It carries a foreword by H.J. Fleure, Professor of Geography and Anthropology, University College of Wales, UK. Slater says Aryans were “barbaric Invaders” while the Dravidians had a more advanced civilisation. Aryan Brahmins enslaved the Dravidians by manufacturing the karma theory. “The privileged position of the Brahman and the social degradation of the untouchables were caused by this karma theory. (p.99). He says the art of magic is a Dravidian contribution to Indian culture and not of Aryans (p.117). In Kerala, the Namboodiri Brahmins to protect their landed properties evolved a system by which only the eldest son can marry within the caste. All other sons enter into sambandham (sex) relations with Nair women by which the Nairs feel so honoured. The children of this marriage do not become Brahmins nor can they know the Identity of their fathers. Yet the Nairs are so proud of this obnoxious custom by which Naris are born to Brahmins.
Dr. T.M. Nair revolted against this inhuman custom and founded and organized South India’s first anti-Brahmin (p.139) political movement called Justice Party.
The great obstacle to a right appreciation of the Dravidian influence in the evolution of Indian culture is the wide currency and established position of what may be called “the Aryan myth”. Indians cling to the theory that they are “Aryans,” and that their religion and culture are “Aryan.” The word “Aryan” is legitimate enough, provided the definite meaning is attached to it, as a name for the invaders from the north-west who introduced. the Sanskrit language into India. It is illegitimate if used to imply the theory popularised by Max Muller, that an ancient “Aryan” race of men, superior to other races, spread from the original “Aryan home” somewhere in Europe or Asia, over India, Persia, and Europe, displacing the previous occupants, all regarded as inferior mentally, physically, and culturally, and bequeathing to their descendants the various languages of the Indo-Germanic family. All attempts to harmonise that theory with the facts have broken down hopelessly, and Max Muller himself was brought to admit that language is no test of race. Nevertheless it lingers on even in Europe. H.G. Wells, in his “History of Mankind”, talks of “Nordic Aryans”, though it is perfectly obvious that, whatever the racial affinities of the Aryans might have been, they could not have been characterized by the blue eyes and blond complexions which mark the Nordic race of North-western Europe. Blue or gray eyes are to be found, though very rarely, among Indians, but the place to look for them is on the west coast, and ancient sea traffic is the only possible explanation of their occurency.
In India the Aryan theory rests upon a solid basis of sentiment. Indian amour propre is gratified by the idea that Indian are Aryans, so to say, of the elder line, British, French, and German Aryans of the younger and till lately relatively uncivilized branch. Since very few Indians are aware of the facts set out in the previous chapter with regard to the racial affinities and ancient cultural contacts of the Dravidian race, it commonly appears to an Indian that to be regarded as a Dravidian rather than an Aryan is to be denied his kinship with the western European and relegated to an inferior category. This idea is, of course, groundless.
GREEK MYTH
The probable date, and essential character, of the Aryan intrusion has recently been argued by Myres in connection with the horse.
(Cambridge Ancient History, Vol.l ., pp.106-7) “The horse had been hunted for food since Paleolithic times, but there is no clear evidence even of its domestication, even as a milch animal, outside the high plate aux of Central Asia, until a comparatively late date.” In Europe the Halstatt culture is “the first great regional culture which made systematic use of the horse for riding as well as for driving.”
In Asia “the first positive record is in a Babylonian tablet of about 2100 B.C ., where it is described as the ‘ass from the east’ or. ‘from the mountains’, and it was therefore still a recent acquisition among the ass- using folk west of the Zagros range. Its arrival here is commonly referred to that irruption of fresh peoples from Iran and beyond who founded the barbarian Kassite dynasty of Babylon about 1750 B.C ., and as there is no reason to believe that the great plateau of Iran was even then in much better condition than now to support an indigenous pastoral civilisation, it is probable that this irruption originated further to the north-east, on the Sarmatian flat land, and that it is to be connected, in its significance, if not precisely in date, with the irruption of Aryan- speaking folk into India from the same northern reservoir,” and with westward movements into Europe across the Dnieper and via Galicia into Bohemia, as well as via the Balkan Peninsula into Asia Minor.
Superior Dravidas: The Aryans, then, must be regarded as relatively barbaric invaders, provided by their horses with an immense advantage for rapid and concerted movement, and so for military and political mastery of peoples, who as in the cases of the Sumerians and Dravidians lacked this equipment for victory and power, in spite of their superiority in those elements of culture which make for wealth and civilisation, and whose very superiority in wealth was an enticement to the invaders. The latter no doubt brought other new culture elements into India besides the horse, among them, we have reason to believe, the practice of burning the dead, and associated ideas with regard to life after death, which mingled with Dravidian beliefs without superseding them. An old Greek myth discusses the relative merits of the equine and pre-equine cultures. Poseidon and Athena disputed as to which was entitled, by having conferred the more valuable gift, to give a name to the city known to us as Athens. Poseidon gave the horse, Athena the olive, and the jury of gods gave the verdict to Athena, because her gift was associated with peaceful industry, and that of Poseidon with war. If, on similar principles, we reckon Egyptian above Hykso culture, and that of the Romano-Greek Empire above that of the Turks who overthrew it, we should also esteem Dravidian culture above the Aryan at the time of the irruption.
Naga State
Still more, it is necessary to approach with an open mind the question of the proportions in which the two elements entered into the make up of Indian civilisation as we know it. The analogy of the early history of Greece may be of some help; but to make the cases more closely parallel we must imagine what that history would have been if the barbarian invasions which presumably crushed the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures had never penetrated beyond the Gulf of Corinth, and the Peloponnesus had maintained its ancient language and traditions.
It is curious that for the most part even the foreign observers in India who have been struck with what may be termed the general racial homogeneity of the great majority of the people of India, and who have drawn the natural inference that Indians are, in the main, Dravidians by race, still tend to accept without scrutiny the popular doctrine that Indian culture, religion, and philosophy are of Aryan origin. Thus Mr. C.F. Oldham, whose striking and valuable book “The Sun and the Serpent” is largely devoted to showing the importance of the Dravidian element in the populations of North India, yet assumes that Brahmanism is Aryan in origin, and regards the mention in Sanskrit literature of Brahmans in a position of dominance in any Naga (Dravidian) state as an indication of its having been Aryanised. But there is less than no evidence of the superiority of the Brahman caste, or even of the caste system itself, being an Aryan institution.
DEGRADED SHUDRAS
Max Muller (“Chips,” Vol.II ., p.3ll) asks: “Does caste, as we find it in Manu, and at the present day, form a part of the most ancient religious teaching of the Vedas?
We can answer with an emphatic ‘No!’ There is no authority whatever in the hymns of the Veda for the complicated system of caste; no authority for the degraded position of the Sudras; there is no law to prohibit the different classes of the people from living together, from eating and drinking together; no law to prohibit the marriage of people belonging to different castes; no law to brand the offspring of such marriages with an indelible stigma … there is no trace in the Veda of the atrocities of Siva and Kali, nor of the licentiousness of Krishna, nor of the miraculous adventures of Vishnu. We find in it no law to sanction the blasphemous pretensions of a priesthood to divine honours, or the degradation of any human being to a state below the animals. There is no text to countenance laws which allow the marriage of children, and prohibit the marriage of child- widows; and the unhallowed rite of burning the widow with the corpse of her husband is both against the spirit and the letter of the Veda.”
BENGALI CASTE
The caste system, the sanctity of the Brahman, the worship of Kali, of Siva and Vishnu, of Parvati the consort, and Subrahmaniam and Ganesa, the sons of Siva, and of Krishna, the last incamation of Vishnu, these things are not mere alien and unimportant accretions to an Indian culture of Aryan and Vedic origin, they are of the innermost essence of Indian culture. If Kali and Siva and Vishnu are not Vedic deities, and certainly they are not, they can hardly be Aryan, and there seems no other possible alternative than to suppose they are Dravidian. And if caste is not an Aryan institution, is it Dravidian?
BENGALI CASTE
Here the question is a little more complicated. The theory generally accepted among Indians is that caste is an institution that arose among the Aryans after they had settled in India and had developed a more highly organised industrial life based on agriculture; and that its basis is economic; it provided a simple, but advantageous, division of labour, and the principle of hereditary occupations was the easiest and most natural way of providing technical instruction. And in support of the view that caste did originally arise in some such way as this, the fact may be cited that new castes are thus brought into being. Prof. Radhakamal Mukerjee gives an interesting example in “The Foundations of Indian Economics.” The oil-pressers of Bengal were all one caste until the device came in of making a hole at the bottom of the mortar in which oil seeds are pressed. Then the oil-pressers who adopted the new device became a separate caste, socially inferior to the caste that continued to use the old method of baling out the oil and of moping it up with a cloth.
ORIGIN OF CASTE
European observers commonly hold that the origins of caste are political rather than economic. Laying, perhaps, too great emphasis on the social stratification of the caste system, and on the association of caste superiority with relatively fair colouration, they attribute the whole institution to a succession of invasions of India by the passes of the North- west, the invaders being in each case fairer, physically bigger and more war-like than the previous inhabitants. Each fresh body of invaders spread itself over the country, and selected wives from the native young women, but, actuated by racial pride, imposed on their children, and especially on their daughters, a strict prohibition of any further intermarriage. Hence their descendants became an exclusive caste.
There are doubtless elements of truth in both these theories, but they require modification to suit the facts. On either theory North India rather than South India should be the special home of the caste system; for the first theory because it is more highly Aryanised, and for the second, because it is the part whose history has been most dominated by successive invasions. But notoriously the caste system is much stronger, much more elaborate, and plays a much larger part in social life in South India than in North India; and it reaches its highest development in that part of India which is most effectively cut off from land invasions from the north, the narrow strip of land between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea. This fact is by itself sufficient to prove that caste is of Dravidian rather than of Aryan origin. The question of the probable manner of its evolution will be dealt with later.
ROLE OF RIG VEDA
In the work previously referred to, “The Sun and the Serpent,” Mr Oldham collects the passages in the Vedas and Sanskrit epics which throw light upon the civilisation of Dravidian India at the time of the Aryan invasion. That the Aryans themselves were then essentially nomadic pastoralists, though possibly not altogether unacquainted with agriculture, is undisputed; the Dravidians were probably in a much more advanced stage of civilisation. It is only necessary to reproduce some of Mr Oldham’s quotations from the Rig Veda, that being the most ancient, and therefore the source on which we can best rely as indicating conditions at the actual time of the invasion rather than later. We have:
“Indra shattered, for Divodasa, the hundred castles of Sambara.” “Indra, wielder of the thunderbolt, warring on behalf of Purukutsa, thou didst overthrow the seven cities; thou didst cut off, for Sudas, the wealth of Anhas.”
“Benevolent to man, thou hast broken the cities of Pipru; and protected Rijisvan in his battles with the Dasyus.”
“Thou didst boldly sweep away the wealth of Sushna; thou didst shatter his castles.”
Castles, cities and wealth-these are sufficiently significant. “In addition,” says Mr Oldham, “Sanskrit writings ascribe to the Dravidian Asuras ‘Luxury, the use of magic, superior architectural skill, and ability to restore the dead to life.”
DRAVIDIAN INDIA
We must not let the full significance of these facts escape. They imply in pre-Aryan Dravidian India the existence of a priest-magician class or caste, such as apparently did not exist among the Aryans, but which is one of the most important features of Hinduism. It points directly to the conclusion that the Brahman caste itself, and its position of dominance over even the Kshattriya or warrior caste is a Dravidian institution. This conclusion is borne out by detailed evidence quoted by Mr Oldham, though he fails to draw the obvious inference.
Krishna is Dravida: He notes (p.80) that Krishna is recorded as the special protector of Brahmans, and as making a practice of washing their feet. That Krishna was a dark- skinned non-Aryan is a tradition which Indian pictorial art has faithfully preserved; he is always painted blue. And the story of his descent is that besides being an incarnation of Vishnu, he was the son of Vasudeva, who was the great-grandson of Aryaka, a Naga chief. The word Naga means Serpent, or,applied to human beings, serpent-worshipper, and in Sanskrit Epic literature it replaces the terms Asura, Dasyu, Daitya and Danava, as the ordinary term for the still unconquered Dravidians of North India.
Asuras were Dravidas: Again (9p.78), “Balarama, the elder brother of Krishna, is represented as having his head sheltered by the hoods of many serpents. He is said to have been an incarnation of sesha Naga, and at his death his soul, in the form of a great serpent, escaped from his mouth”.
From the Mahabharata we learn (p. 68) that “Sakra, the chief priest of the Asuras” (Dravidians), “divided himself by the power of asceticism and became the spiritual guide of both the Daityas” (Dravidians) “and the Devas” (Aryans). This obviously records the success of the priestly caste of the Dravidians in imposing their spiritual authority on the Aryans also.
SACRED THREAD
The Vishnu Purana yields the information that one Usanas or Sakra lighted fires, said mantras and recited the Atharva Veda for the success of the Asuras, or Dravidians, against Indra, the god of the Aryans. He also restored to life Dravidian Danavas, who had been killed by the Aryan Devas; so clearly he was a Dravidian priest-magician. He was a son of the great rishi Bhrigu, who therefore was presumbly also a Dravidian priest-magician. But the sons of Bhrigu were Brahmans, and were the spiritual guides of the Daitya (Dravidian) chief Hiranyakasipu.
To this evidence, for which I am indebted to Mr Oldham, I must add two observations founded on familiar facts: (i) If the Brahmans had been originally an Aryan priestly caste, the worship of the Vedic deities, Varuna, Indra and the rest, would have become as dominant in Hindu religion as the Brahmans are in Hindu society. Actually their worship has, in spite of the continual influence of the religious use of the Vedas, practically disappeared, being replaced by that of non-Vedic deities; and (ii) the distinguishing mark of the Brahman caste is the cord of cotton thread wom over one shoulder and under the opposite arm, which indicates an original association of the caste with cotton spinning, which certainly was no art of the Vedic Aryans.
The Aryan invasion may reasonably be regarded as one of the long series of exoduses of pastoral tribes from Asiatic steppes that have repeatedly devastated surrounding agricultural districts. The paradox is now established on a pretty solid basis of evidence that intensive agriculture among the first pioneers of progress preceded extensive agriculture, and that agriculture was practised before the pastoral stage was reached. But cattle and sheep having been domesticated by the agriculturists of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the breeding of such animals can hardly fail to have spread more rapidly among neighbouring hunting tribes than the more laborious art of cereal cultivation. The change from the hunting to the pastoral life involves an immediate increase of births and decrease of deaths.
A supply of milk for infants makes earlier weaning possible, together with a reduction of child mortality and a more vigorous growth.
A supply of milk for the mother reduces the strain of child-bearing, prolongs the period of fertility, and, combined with a shortening of the duration of suckling after each birth, leads to a shortening of the intervals between successive births. For a limited number of generations the rapidly increasing population can be maintained by the same area of land, used as pasture, as had previously been required for much smaller numbers as hunting ground, but the time comes when the pasture grounds are fully exploited and still the population grows. Then something has to happen, and Hykso or Hun or Mogul or Turkish treks, great floods of conquiering hordes overwhelming even powerful empires, are examples of what has happened. Where the pastoralists are horse-breeders these movements become most devastating. India, though relatively remote and difficult of access, has undergone such pastoralist invasions repeatedly; the Mogul invasion under Babur was the last, the Aryan invasion, led according to the Vedas by the god Indra, was the first; but there were many in between.
Don’t kill but enslave: The Aryan descent into India was probably by the Khyber Pass. which gave entrance to the northern corner of the Punjab. The invaders probably found at first only thinly inhabited lands, on which they and their stock could increase and multiply. Later came the time of inter-racial conflict with Dravidians and Pre-Dravidians which must have passed through three stages. The first, indicated by the Rig-Veda, was the stage of slaughter and devastation, the superior mobility of the invaders enabling them to concentrate an . overwhelming force against each centre of resistance; Uritsa was devoured, Bala was overthrown, the seven cities, the cities of Pipru were rased, the castles of Sushna were shattered, and his wealth became the booty of the worshippers of Indra. The second stage came with the realisation that has always come to such invaders sooner or later, that it was more profitable to ensalve than to kill; and then Aryan kingdoms were established, guarded by an Aryan solidery, and sustained by the labours of Dravidian peasants and artisans. Thirdly came the stage depicted in the Epics, when Aryan kingdoms warred and made alliances indiscriminately with one another and with the Dravidian states surrounding them that still maintained their independence.
Brahmins master English: During the second stage, and still more during the third, a mutual action and reaction was taking place. Intercourse included intermarriage; it involved a struggle for survival between languages. That the more brawny but thicker-witted Aryan should learn the extraordinarily difficult language of “the ill-speaking man,”as the Vedas term the Dravidian, was not to be supposed. The Dravidian instead had to learn Sanskrit.
What happened then we can infer from the experience of South India in recent times. In the eighteenth century, with the overthrow of Dupleix, the English East India Company became the ruling power in the Carnatic. Mastery of the English language became a means to profit, influence and power. The Brahman caste, habituated to an intellectual life, and trained in the exercise of verbal memory to an astonishing degree, found here an opportunity. At the present day, though there still remain in the Tamil country some “temple Brahmans” who are more familiar with Sanskrit than with English, with the Vedas than with Shakespeare, they are a very small minority of the caste. The ordinary Tamil Brahman speaks English more accurately than Tamil, writes it more easily and rapidly, reads it much more frequently, and has practically adopted English literature as his own; and, accordingly, the staffs both of Government offices and those of mercaantile houses consist almost entirely of Brahmans, and they almost monopolise the legal and journalistic professions.
SANSKRIT
Similar motives existed from the time of the establishment of Aryan predominance in the Punjab to induce the Dravidian Brahmans of that and neighbouring districts to adopt Sanskrit as their language, and to constitute themselves the guardians and exponents of the Vedas. They had behind them the traditions of magic and of priestcraft, of which the underlying principle of the quest for any sort of recondite or esoteric learning that either tends to differentiate the sacred caste from the common people, or in any other way tends to the acquisition of power and influence. And the Brahmans having thus taken the initiative in spreading the use of Sanskrit, or Sanskrit derivatives, among the Dravidian population, others less eagerly and with greater difficulty followed by degrees, just as has happened with the spread of English in the Madras Presidency.
Brahmin domination: While the Dravidians were thus Aryanised in language, the Aryans were Dravidised in culture. What that meant is a question to be dealt with below. But one feature of the change must be mentioned here. They were brought under Brahman dominance. The immediate effect of the incursion into India of conquering tribes that had no specialised priestly caste, and of the period of fierce warfare that ensued, was to depose the priestly caste temporarily from its supremacy, and to make it yield precedence to the warrior caste. Not until many generations had passed, centuries during which the Indian environment had worked its effect, the terrific heat of the summer sun, the monsoon deluges, hurricanes, pestilences, famines, all combining to teach men to honour rather those who asserted their power to control the elements and conciliate angry deities than those who yielded the sword, did the Brahman caste succeed in re- establishing its primacy. To this deposition and restoration we have a later parallel in the history of the Mogul Empire; and the nature of the social forces at work is also illustrated by the speedy domination of the descendants of Sivaji by their Brahman ministers. After Brahman ascendancy had been re-established, it may possibly be conjectured that the Brahman caste became largely Aryanised in blood, as the most powerful men were able to secure in marriage the fairest brides.
