1922.] Indian Science Congress. I.S.G, l5t 
science has, however, developed very little in India and it is only 
recently that it has been taken up in right earnest in some quar- 
ters. And the most important problem to be solved by it is 
whether the Dravidians are autochthones. Sir Herbert Risley 
has introduced a confusion in the racial terminology of this 
country by including all Mundari-speaking people into Dravi- 
dian which was formerly restricted to people speaking Tamilian 
and kindred languages. In fact Tamilian is a mere variant of 
Dravidian and I think it is best to continue to use the word in 
its old sense, since Risley’s theory of racial distribution has not 
been universally accepted. The well-known Dravidian tribes 
number about a crore as against a crore and a quarter belong- 
ing to the Kolarian or Munda races. These do not include castes 
formed by fusion with later immigrants such as the Aryans or 
those wholly absorbed by Hinduism. The aborigines apparent- 
ly had no regular tribes as is evident from their names which 
are merely equivalents of ‘ man’ in their languages, as distin- 
guished from other animals. For instance, those calling them- 
selves Korku derive the name from Kor a ‘ Man,’ ku being the 
plural suffix. Similarly the biggest tribe in Central India is 
named Gond, but in its own language its name is Koitur which 
means‘ man.’ By the way it may be remarked that the 
Aryans being the dominant race, went so far as to impose 
contemptuous names on the wild people which, at any rate in 
the case of bigger tribes, gained currency over the proper 
tribal names. The name Gond is one of that class and is de- 
rived from Sanskrit meaning an ox or cattle, Gonds being 
regarded as no better than cattle. As a matter of fact in 
And the reply was “ yes, we are really . : 
language Orbe: but the Uriyas (meaning Orissa agen 
us Kharias and we are therefore obliged hee ‘hay a ly 
Kharias in order to prevent misunderstanding as | sin Bt 
the naine Oraon to Khare’ The Rene ee 
admitted to me that they were really Bibel iuite, 
primitive people have not only accepted sit but have even 
the etymology of which they did not now, ® rs in accept- 
condescended to yield to the whims of their superio 
