The Ethnology of India. 63 



the other way, that the stream now called the Jumna then belonged 

 to the Saraswatee, but that those hill torrents from the Sewalik, 

 bringing down masses of sand and earth, raised between them and the 

 main stream a sort of James and Mary which eventually caused 

 the latter to break away to the south-east ? If the stream moved, 

 most of the Hindus would probably move forward too and find them- 

 selves in the G-angetic valley. 



The Saraswatee Bramins are also called (in the south at least) 

 " Kashastalee" a name which seems still to mark the time when they 

 were considered to be of Kashmeeree or Kasha origin. In fact there 

 seem to be several stages in the history of Braminism. The oldest 

 of the race may be the people of the upper hills who date from a time 

 altogether prior to Hinduism. The Kashmeerees were a civilised 

 and literary Braminical people not yet fully Hindu. The Saraswatee 

 Bramins (those Kasha settlers in the plains of India) were the earliest 

 and most simple and pure Hindus of Vedic faith, that faith being 

 now worked out and developed ; those of the Granges and the rest of 

 India are in various phases the types of modern Hinduism. 



From the Gulcheter down to Dehli and in the country about Dehli 

 Braniin villages are scattered about, but the Bramins cannot be said 

 to constitute a very large proportion of the agricultural population. 

 Wherever they are found in this country, they are capital cultivators, 

 quiet, industrious, intelligent ; there is no better population, and the 

 women work as well as the men. It was remarked by the fugitives 

 from Dehli at the time of the mutiny, that whenever they came to 

 a G-oojar village, they were always plundered ; whenever they came to 

 a Bramin village, they were always kindly treated ; while at any other 

 village their treatment was uncertain. These Bramins too are, I 

 should think, descendants of the Saraswatee Bramins. Some of the 

 less pure agricultural Bramins of these parts are called ' Tugas' or 

 { Gour Tugas.' South of Dehli, in the Jyepore country, Bramins seem 

 to be numerous, but I have not been able to ascertain if they are of the 

 same branch. In the Seharunpore district too there are a good many 

 Bramins of secular occupations, besides the priests of Hard war. 



Sir H. Elliott has remarked on the difficulty of accounting for the 

 fact that all the Dehli country is occupied by ' Gour' Bramins. They 

 can hardly, he thinks, have come from Gour in Bengal, from which 



