114 
Pow hit hie NOE, PAY) BY Gre 
CHANTS TIN INDIAN RELIGION 
AN EAs, 
(ij) LEGENDARY AND HISTORICAL. 
When and how the cult of the chank asa religious 
symbol originated in India are questions which go back 
so far beyond any traditions now existing that the utmost 
difficulty confronts us when we seek to find their solution. 
One main fact alone seems certain and that is the non- 
Aryan origin of this symbol. The Aryan-speaking 
hordes which descended upon the Punjab through the 
norta-west passes perhaps 2,000 years or more B.C., 
certainly did not bring the custom with them. They, the 
warrior ploughmen and herdsmen of the plains of 
Eastern Europe and Western Asia had never seen the 
sea ; they knew not as yet the deep sonorous boom of the 
snow-white chank—a note on a curved cattle-horn was 
with them the signal between scattered bands, while 
tacir hymns tell us that in music they used the drum, the 
flute and the lute. Vishnu, the God whose emblems 
include the chank, is barely mentioned in the Rig-Veda 
and the few Vedic hymns to him were probably com- 
posed after long intercourse had been established with 
the Dravidians, the chief race whom the invaders found 
in possession of the new land. He is almost certainly 
one of the gods borrowed from the indigenous people as 
his complexion is characteristically represented as dark- 
hued whenever his image is shown in colour. 
When the hungry swarms of Aryan tribesmen 
descended upon north-west India, the whole land with the 
exception ot the north-east corner, was occupied by a 
long-settled Dravidian population, split into many states 
and tribes vastly d-ffering in civilization. Many tribes, 
particularly those living in the mountains and dense 
forests and less accessible districts, were in the lowest 
possible stage, naked savages living on fruits and smail 
game and maintaining a precarious defence against wild 
beasts by means o/ rade stone weapons and cudgels. In 
the south, particularly in the maritime districts, a high 
civilization developed at a comparatively early date and 
