170 REPORT—1850. 
from the Koles ; Bengala, from the Bengies ; Behar, from the Bhars ; Merwar 
or Marwar, from the Mérs; as also the forts of Ajmere, Jessalmere, Com- 
belmere, so called after chieftains of the Mér race, and Ahirwara from the 
Ahirs. 
At what precise period the Hindu invasion from the west first occurred it 
is impossible to say, but the geography of India indicates at once, that that 
race necessarily came through Afghanistan and the Punjab, ere it turned the 
borders of the Great Desert and penetrated in the direction of Dehli. 
One of the ancient Hindu works left to us, indicates that at a very remote 
period a great war broke out between the Sovereign Princes of the Punjab 
and those of the Plain, including Hastnapoor, since called Dehli, and the 
latter people, aided by the Princes of Mathura and others, maintained on the 
field of Panipeet a long and desperate conflict. 
There is every reason to believe that the Hindu race gradually overspread 
the territory of Upper India east and west, between the Himalaya mountains 
and the Great Desert, without penetrating to the south for many centuries ; 
that it enslaved the aboriginal races as it subdued them, compelling them to 
till their own Jands as serfs, and took from the latter the whole produce, 
except what was actually required as food for the tillers of the soil. 
The Hindu race introduced into India municipal institutions wherever they 
formed townships. To each of these were attached a certain number of 
families of the aboriginal tribes, as villains or preedial servants of the com- 
munity. The Hindis brought with them also the Sanscrit language, not in 
its present highly refined state, but as a colloquial tongue. Hence it comes 
that the language of the aborigines has in many parts gradually disappeared. 
The historical as well as the religious works of the Hindus, of a compara- 
tively modern date, together with monumental remains existing in sculptured 
edifices and rock caves, all tend to show that no portion of the Peninsula of 
India was subdued by them anterior to the fifth century of the Christian era. 
About that time it is supposed that the Peninsula became gradually over- 
spread by the Bramanical race. They seem to have entered in two direc- 
tions; the one from Guzerat, gradually extending over Khandeish and Berar 
till they reached to the forests which fringe the banks of the river Wurda, 
where it meets with the Godavery ; the other invasion, according to tradition, 
occurred about the same time. It passed from the valley of the Ganges and 
penetrated southward along the line of coast of the Bay of Bengal, keeping 
within the range of mountains on the east and the Ocean, till after reaching 
the embouchures of the Godavery and the Kistna, the invaders spread out 
over the plain and proceeded southward. It has been assumed that about the 
same period, the Bhudists, a peculiar sect of Hindts, reached the shores of 
Ceylon and Southern India from the opposite coast, and thence proceeding 
northward spread their religious doctrines among the aborigines. About 
the ninth or tenth century the Bhudists and Bramans appear to have met 
from opposite directions, which led to deadly conflicts, and ended in the 
Bramans putting down the Bhudist tenets. 
We have historical proof that the island of Bombay was not subjugated 
to the Hindu rule till the fourteenth century ; and that in the beginning of 
the next century the Mahommedans found princes of the aboriginal race 
occupying in force several strongholds not far from Poona. The town and 
district of Sorapoor, lying between Hydrabad and the Western Mountains, is 
still held by an aboriginal chief with a portion of his tribe; and within the 
memory of man the kingdom of Mysore contained several principalities of 
the Béder race. Further south, the Morawas and Collars obtained celebrity 
in modern times by their adhesion to one or other of the European belligerent 
