14 The Ethnology of India. 



features lias been attained, in a great part of India, but gradually, and 

 that it is within the historical period that these features have alto- 

 gether preponderated, it is only necessary to look at the ancient 

 sculptures of the South and West. Take for instance the caves of 

 Elephanta near Bombay. Who, looking at the faces there cut in stone, 

 and observing the universal thick lip and peculiar feature, can doubt 

 that when those were cut, the non-Caucasian element was still large 

 even among the higher classes ? 



My scheme, however, is not to separate any of the tribes or castes 

 of modern Indian society, and to designate them as aboriginal. All 

 those people who have been either completely or partially amalga- 

 mated into Hindoo society, whether as proper Hindoos or as Helots 

 and outcasts, I regard as coming within the designations of ' Modern 

 Indians.' I shall class as Aborigines only those tribes which still live 

 apart, forming communities by themselves, under their own leaders, 

 and often speaking their own peculiar languages. 



As Modern Indians again I class together all the high-featured 

 northern races, and all the various tribes, castes, and nationalities 

 formed by them after absorbing so much of the aboriginal element 

 as has been amalgamated with them, whether they are now Hindoos, 

 Mahommedans, or of any other religion. Of course they are mainly 

 Hindoos. I draw no wide ethnological line between the Northern 

 and Southern countries of India, not recognising the separate Dravidian 

 classification of the latter as properly ethnological. It seems to me 

 that among all the Hindoo tribes the Arian element now prevails, and 

 that the presence, more or less, of the aboriginal element is only a 

 question of degree. As a question of degree, I do not think that 

 there is, at any geographical parallel, any decided line. It is remarked 

 by Max Muller that languages are seldom properly speaking mixed. 

 Vocables may be mixed, but a single grammar and structure usually 

 prevails. Therefore the change from one language to another must 

 in so far be sudden. It is still, I believe, open to dispute whether 

 the grammar of the present languages of Northern India is of Sanscrit 

 or of Aboriginal origin ; but at any rate this we know, that in the North 

 the Arians gained so rapid and complete an ascendancy as to introduce 

 their own radical words, numerals, &c, and to render the language 

 essentially Avian, while in the South the Aborigines held out 



