52 THE HIGHLANDS OF CEXTKAL I^s^DlA. 



the circumstance that the Aryan Language, customs, and 

 beliefs appear to have been carried far beyond any 

 perceptible influence of the Aryan blood, so that whole 

 races, who show little or nothing of the latter, have 

 become thoroughly imbued with the former. 



Not, however, without notable modification have the 

 Aryan language, religion, and customs thus permeated 

 the masses of the inferior races. In lanoruagje, while the 

 tongue of the most northern high-caste races has changed 

 from the classical Sanscrit scarcely more than was in- 

 evitable from the wear and tear of use throug-h such lonsj 

 ages, that spoken by the masses of lower physical type 

 has suffered so radical an alteration that a large proportion 

 of its vocables, in some parts as much as half, are not 

 traceable to Sanscrit at all ; while in Southern India, 

 where the aboriginal type has been little modified, purely 

 aboriginal languages, unconnected with Sanscrit, are still 

 spoken. Still greater has been the effect on the Aryan 

 religion of contact with these lower races. The gods of 

 the primitive Aryans have almost disappeared from 

 practical recognition. The backbone of the original 

 system survives in its priesthood and ceremonial, just as 

 the backbone of the language survives in the gram- 

 matical forms of the invaders. But, as the vocables 

 of the tongue have frequently been adopted from the 

 aborigines, so probably have the popular gods of the 

 pantheon been largely drawn from aboriginal sources. 

 No religious system possesses such facility for prose- 

 lytising as a polytheism ; and history shows that when 

 two such systems meet, there is nothing to stand in the 

 way of their coalescing but the rivalry of their priests. 

 Here there probably was no such rivalry. To judge 

 from those which remain, the aborimnal tribes had no 



