APPENDICES.

APPENDIX I.

The Nishádan or non-A'ryan Tribes of Hindustan, and some account of their Religion.

I.

It is now admitted on all hands that certain primary strata APPEN. of population, by whatever name they may be called, had long extended over all parts of India, when they were attacked and gradually dispersed by the incursions of the Aryan settlers. Remnants of such original population are still found in all the various mountain-tribes, and more especially among the natives of the Dekhan, to the south of the great Vindhya-chain. In the age of Manu, or rather at the time when laws and institutes which bear his name were promulgated, the Aryan had not been able to push further southward than the 22nd degree of north latitude, and beyond him lay a mass of human beings, who are there described as 'barbarians living in forests, and speaking an unknown tongue.' (See Journal of the Asiatic Society, XIII. 277, 278.) Abundant traces of their presence have been also brought to light by the publication of the Védas. In these ancient documents, one ordinary name for all who ventured to resist the onward march of the invaders, or the men of Aryan colour,' is that of Dasyus' (cf. above, p. 23, n. 1). The same uncouth and 'irreligious' tribes are also characterized as anagnitra: 'those who do not tend the fire,' or 'fail to worship Agni.' Another appellation of a similar import, is kravyád, or flesh-eaters,' («peopάyoi). In the following period, as represented in the literature of the Brahmanas, the aboriginal population are thrown into the same category with thieves and criminals, who attack men in forests, throw them into wells, and run away with their

I.

APPEN. goods' (Prof. Max Müller in Bunsen's Univ. Hist. 1. 346). In the Puránas 'the inhabitants of the Vindhya mountain,' called Nishádas, are said to be 'characterized by the exterior tokens of depravity' (Vishnu Pur. ed. Wilson, p. 100). The Matsya says, there were born outcast or barbarous races, Mléchchas, as black as collyrium. The Bhagavata describes an individual of dwarfish stature, with short arms and legs, of a complexion as black as a crow, with projecting chin, broad flat nose, red eyes, and tawny hair; whose descendants were mountaineers and foresters. The Padma has a similar description, adding to the dwarfish stature and black complexion, a wide mouth, large ears, and a protuberant belly. It also particularizes his posterity as Nishádas, Kirátas, Bhillas, Bahanakas, Bhramaras, Pulindas, and other barbarians, or Mléchchas, living in woods and on mountains.' 'These passages intend,' continues

Prof. Wilson (Ibid. p. 101, n.), 'and do not much exaggerate, the uncouth appearance of the Goands, Koles, Bhils, and other uncivilized tribes, scattered along the forests and mountains of central India, from Behar to Kandesh, and who are not improbably the predecessors of the present occupants of the cultivated portions of the country. They are always very black, ill-shapen and dwarfish, and have countenances of a very African character.' To these must also be applied the language of Herodotus, where he speaks of black and savage Indians (cf. Lassen, I. 389).

As the Aryans by the force of conquest gradually extended their original frontiers, they would either subjugate the old inhabitants entirely and reduce them to the state of Súdras, serfs and menials, or else would push them all into the mountainfastnesses, or lastly drive them forward to the southern part of the Peninsula.

1. In the first case, the position of the rude Nishádas would become most wretched and humiliating. As early as the laws of Manu (ch. x.) it was ordained that

Their abode must be outside the towns.

Their property must be restricted to dogs and asses.

Their clothes should be those left by the dead.

Their ornaments, rusty iron.

They must roam from place to place.

APPEN.
I.

No respectable person must hold intercourse with them.
They are to aid as public executioners, retaining the
clothes &c. of the criminals.

A class of serfs, who answer in the main to this description, still exist in almost every province of Hindustan: and the following contrasts, for which we are indebted to the pen of General Briggs (Journal of the Asiatic Society, XIII. 282, 283,) may serve to indicate how widely the aborigines had always differed from the A'ryan conquerors.

1. Hindus are divided into castes.

The aborigines have no such distinctions.
2. Hindu widows are forbidden to marry.

The widows of the aborigines not only do so, but
usually with the younger brother of the late hus-
band-a practice they follow in common with the
Scythian tribes.

3. The Hindus venerate the cow and abstain from eating
beef.

The aborigines feed alike on all flesh.

4. The Hindus abstain from the use of fermented liquors.
The aborigines drink to excess; and conceive no cere-
mony, civil or religious, complete without.

5. The Hindus partake of food prepared only by those of
their own caste.

The aborigines partake of food prepared by any one.

6. The Hindus abhor the spilling of blood.

The aborigines conceive no religious or domestic
ceremony complete without the spilling of blood and
offering up a live victim.

7. The Hindus have a Bráhmanical priesthood.

Their own

The indigenes do not venerate Bráhmans.
priests (who are self-created) are respected according to
their mode of life and their skill in magic and sorcery,