The Ethnology of India. 7 



Cashmeeree Bramins. The real cause of all these stories, I take to be 

 this. The Hindoos, as Hindoos and from an orthodox Hindoo point 

 of view, did not attain their highest religious, literary, and political 

 development, till they were settled in the plains of India ; consequently 

 the early Bramins of the valleys of the Himalayas are not considered 

 nearly so orthodox, so sacred, or in the Hindoo scale so high, as the 

 more famous Bramins of the plains. And the Rajpoots of the Pun- 

 jab and the adjoining hills, are not so high in the scale of strict 

 Rajpoot orthodoxy as the Solar and Lunar races of Ajoodea. 

 Hence it is that the races, really earlier and purer, think it necessary 

 to claim descent from those who, in our point of view, are really very 

 inferior. 



Again, most tribes which have been for many centuries converted 

 to Mahommedanism, set up some origin founded on the traditions and 

 literature of the dominant Mahommedan races. They are generally 

 descended from Soleiman or Nooshervan, or something of that kind. 

 Jewish names and traditions are particularly in vogue among the 

 Mahommedans (Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and many others known to 

 us, are their most common names, in the form of Ibraheem, Yacoob, 

 Yoosoof, &c. &c.) and it has been pointed out, that the Affghan asser- 

 tion of Jewish descent loses most of its significance, when we find 

 how many other tribes have stories of the same kind. I have not been 

 able to ascertain whether the " Soleiman's Throne" met with in so 

 many places is to be specially referred to the Jewish Solomon, or 

 whether the term is merely the " Suleh-man" or wise man of the East. 

 At any rate I believe that most of the pretended Mahommedan 

 genealogies are in brief ' bosh.' 



I do not mean that popular traditions are to be neglected, on the 

 contrary, I think that they often lead us far towards the truth ; but I say 

 that we must use caution and discrimination, to sift the wheat from 

 the merest chaff. 



I should add that I believe that the claim of aboriginal and other 

 tribes to Rajpoot and such like origin, is not always without some 

 foundation in fact. The Rajpoots seem, like the Normans, to have 

 frequently found their way in small numbers among inferior races, and 

 there amalgamating and intermarrying with them, to have acquired 

 by force of character a leadership over them, and to have considerably 



