332 Major-General John Briggs on the 



The Hindus are universally acknowledged to be of that 

 branch of the human family denominated by Blumenbach 

 Caucasian, and they believe they invaded India from the 

 north-west. They were at one time further advanced in 

 literature, in philosophy, in the science of mathematics, in 

 anatomy, in surgery, in medicine in all its branches, in legis- 

 lation, and even in purity of religious doctrines, than their 

 contemporaries in other regions of the globe. 



This description will be readily admitted, if it can be 

 shown that the Vedas, or holy scriptures of this people, date, 

 as is asserted, fourteen centuries before our own era ; and 

 that the commentaries on a code of civil and criminal law 

 (of a more ancient date) were written about twenty- seven 

 centuries ago. At that period, it appears, from the latter 

 work, that the Hindus had not yet penetrated further south 

 than the twenty-second parallel of north latitude, beyond 

 which (the work states) there then existed " extensive forests, 

 inhabited by a wild and impure race, speaking barbarous 

 tongues." 



Here we find an aboriginal race clearly alluded to, and 

 subsequent inquiries and monumental remains prove that 

 they were a numerous people, having established forms of 

 government, though living in a very simple and rude state of 

 society. 



My investigations lead me to believe that these abnormal 

 tribes, probably of one common stock, had previously occu- 

 pied the whole of the extensive region of India, in successive 

 incursions made from some other remote country. Though 

 the religious tenets and civil institutions of these aborigines 

 were alike, yet two separate hordes subsisted by different 

 means. The one obtained their food by the chase, dwell- 

 ing in or near the forests abounding with game ; the other, 

 occupying the open plains, subsisted on the milk of their 

 cattle (cows and buffaloes), and fed on the flesh of their flocks 

 of sheep. 



These two classes were eternally at war, and the same 

 aversion and innate hostility against each other exist at the 

 present day. At the time the Hindus entered India, both 

 classes of this race appear to have been spread over the whole 



