THE Indian Empire is (was) the abode of a vast collection of peoples who differ(ed) from one another in physical characteristics, in language, and in culture more widely than the peoples of Europe. Among them the three primary ethnographical divisions of mankind—the Caucasian or white type, with its subdivisions of blonde and dark, the Mongolian or yellow type, and the Ethiopian or black type—are all represented: the first two by various races in the subcontinent itself, and the last by the inhabitants of the Andaman Isles.

Four of the great families of human speech—the Austric, the Tibeto-Chinese, the Dravidian, and the Indo-European—are directly represented among the living languages of India, of which no fewer than two hundred and twenty are recorded in the Census Report for 1911; while a fifth great family, the Semitic, which has been introduced by Muhammadan conquerors in historical times, has, through the medium of Arabic and Persian, greatly modified some of the Indian vernaculars.

The Austric, Tibeto-Chinese, and Indo-European families are widely spread elsewhere over the face of the earth. The Dravidian has not been traced with absolute certainty beyond the limits of the Indian Empire; but there is evidence which seems to indicate that it was introduced into India in prehistoric times.

The drama of Indian history, then, is one in which many peoples of very diverse origin have played their parts. In all ages the fertility and the riches of certain regions, above all the plain of the Ganges, have attracted invaders from the outside world; while overpopulation and the desiccation of the land have given an impulse to the movements of peoples from the adjacent regions of Asia. Thus both the attracting and the expulsive forces which determine migrations have acted in the same direction.

It is true indeed that the civilizations which have been developed in India have reacted, and that Indian religions, Indian literature, and Indian art have spread out of India and produced a deep and far-reaching influence on the countries of Further Asia; but the migrations and the conquests which provided the human energy with which these civilizations were created have invariably come into India from the outside. And the peninsular character of the subcontinent has retained invaders within its borders, with the result that racial conditions have tended to become ever more and more complex. The outcome of the struggle for existence between so many peoples possessing different traditions and different ideals is to be seen in the almost infinite variety of degrees of culture which exists at the present day. Some types of civilization have been progressive; others have remained stationary. So that we now find, at one extreme of the social scale, communities whose members are contributing to the advancement of the literature, science, and art of the twentieth century, and, at the other extreme, tribes still governed by their primitive constitutions, still using the implements and weapons, and still retaining the religious ideas and customs of their remote ancestors in the Stone Age.

The Himalayas form an effective barrier against direct invasions from the north: the exceedingly toilsome passes in their centre are traversed only by a few patient traders or adventurous explorers. But at the western and eastern extremities, river valleys and more practicable mountain passes afford easier means of access. Through these gateways swarms of nomads and conquering armies, from the direction of Persia on the one hand and from the direction of China on the other, have poured into India from time immemorial.

By routes passing through Baluchistan on the west and Afghanistan on the north-west, the country of the Indus has been repeatedly invaded by peoples belonging to the Caucasian race from Western Asia, and by peoples belonging to the Northern or Mongolo-Altaic group of the Mongolian race from Central Asia.

But these immigrations were not all of the same nature, nor did they all produce the same effect on the population of India. In the course of time their character became transformed.

At the most remote period they were slow persistent movements of whole tribes, or collections of tribes, with their women and children, their flocks and herds: at a later date they were little more than organized expeditions of armed men. The former exercised a permanent influence on the racial conditions of the country which they invaded: the influence of the latter was political or social rather than racial.

This change in the nature of invasions was the gradual effect of natural causes. Over large tracts of Asia the climate has changed within the historical period. The rainfall has diminished or ceased; and once fruitful lands have been converted into impassable deserts. Both Iran and Turkestan, the two reservoirs from which the streams of migration flowed into the Indus valley, have been affected by this desiccation of the land. Archaeological investigations in Seistan and in Chinese Turkestan have brought to light the monuments of ancient civilizations which had long ago passed into oblivion. Especially valuable from the historical point of view are the accounts given by Sir Aurel Stein of his wonderful discoveries in Chinese Turkestan. From the chronological evidence, which he has so carefully collected from the documents and monuments discovered, we are enabled to ascertain the dates, at which the various ancient sites were abandoned because of the progressive desiccation during a period of about a thousand years (first century BC to ninth century AD). We may thus realize how it has come to pass that a region which once formed a means of communication not only between China and India, but also between China and Europe, has now become an almost insuperable barrier. The same causes have tended to separate India from Iran. The last irruption which penetrated to Delhi, the heart of India, through the north-western gateway was the Persian expedition of Nadir Shah in 1739.

The routes which lead from the east into the country of the Ganges seem not to have been affected to the same extent by climatic changes. The invaders from this quarter belonged to the Southern group of the Mongolian race, the home of which was probably in N.W. China. They came into India partly from Tibet down the valley of the Brahmaputra, and partly from China through Burma by the Mekong, the Salween, and the Irrawaddy. To other obstacles which impeded their progress were added the dense growth of the jungle and its wild inhabitants. Tribal migrations from these regions can scarcely be said to have ceased altogether even now. But they are held in check by the British occupation of Upper Burma. The movements to the south-west and south of the Kachins, a Tibeto-Burman tribe, from the north of Upper Burma have in recent times afforded an illustration of the nature of these migrations.

Thus have foreign races and foreign civilizations been brought into India, the history of which is in a large measure the story of the struggle between newcomers and the earlier inhabitants. Such invasions may be compared to waves breaking on the shore. Their force becomes less the farther they proceed, and their direction is determined by the obstacles with which they come in contact. The most effective of these obstacles, even when human effort is the direct means of resistance, are the geographical barriers which nature itself has set up. We shall therefore best understand the distribution of races in the sub-continent if we remember its chief natural divisions.

The ranges of the Vindhya system with their almost impenetrable forests have in all ages formed the great dividing line between Northern and Southern India. In early Brahman literature they mark the limits beyond which Aryan civilization had not yet penetrated, and at the present day the two great regions which they separate continue to offer the most striking contrasts in racial character, in language, and in social institutions. But the Vindhyas can be passed without difficulty at their western and eastern extremities, where lowlands form connecting links with the plains of the Indus and the Ganges. The coastal regions are therefore transitional. They have been more directly affected by movements from the north than the central plateau of the Deccan.

In Northern India, natural boundaries are marked by the river Indus, by the Thar or Great Desert of Rajputana, and by the sub-Himalayan fringe which is connected on the east with Assam and Burma.

The seven geographical regions thus indicated form the basis for the ethnographical classification of the peoples of India which is now generally accepted. The scheme was propounded by the late Sir Herbert Risley in the Census Report for 1901. Its details are the result of careful measurements and observations extending over many years. It is conveniently summarized in the Imperial Gazetteer from which the descriptions in the following account are quoted. The physical types are here enumerated in an order beginning from the south, instead of from the north-west as in the original scheme:

 

THE ORIGIN OF RACES IN INDIA

The species known as Ramapithecus was found in the Siwalik foothills of the northwestern Himalayas. This species believed to be the first in the line of hominids lived some 14 million years ago....