the powerful pre-Aryan races of the south would be represented as many-headed ogres and blood-thirsty demons'.

1

We must be careful not to confound the great Dravidian races occupying the Madras Presidency and speaking Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese, and Malayālam, with the uncivilized aboriginal tribes found on the hills and in the jungles of India. The Dravidian races (probably symbolized by the Rāvanas and Vibhishanas of epic poetry) were the precursors of the Sanskrit-speaking Āryans, and possibly had their origin in the same districts of Central Asia, whence they immigrated by the same mountainpasses into the Panjab and Northern India. They may have partially amalgamated with the advancing Āryans, but were mostly driven southwards. There they attained a considerable independent civilization. Their languages, although eventually more or less intermingled with Sanskrit words, are agglutinating (commonly called Turanian) in structure, and possess an extensive and important literature of their own. On the other hand, the hill-tribes and others (such as were symbolized by the monkey-armies of Hanumat)-the Gonds of Central India, the Bhils of the hills to the west of the Gonds, the Khonds or Kus of the eastern districts of Gondvana and the ranges south of Orissa, the Santhals and Kols of the hills to the west of Bengal, the Khāsias and Gāros of the eastern border-are the present representatives of numerous wild Tartar tribes who swarmed into India at various epochs, some of them probably coming from Chinese Tartary and Tibet, and taking the course of the Brahma-putra into Bengal. These speak an infinite number of different dialects and are almost all mutually unintelligible. If the term Turanian is to embrace races so widely separated by language and customs as the Dravidians and various hill-tribes of India, the sooner it is expelled from the vocabulary of philologists and ethnologists the better. At any rate, there must be two great classes of Turanian languages, the North and the South; the former comprising the three sisters Tungusic (or Mantchu), Mongol, and Turkish, besides Samoyedic and Finnish, while the latter takes in Tibetan, Siamese, Burmese, and the Dravidian languages; the monosyllabic Chinese standing, as it were, between the two. Perhaps the dialects of the Himalayan tribes have, of all hill-dialects, the best title to be ranked among the South Turanian class. Dr. Caldwell, in his valuable Comparative Grammar of the SouthIndian Languages, has discussed the affiliation of the Dravidian family with great ability. He considers that the Dravidians were the first inhabitants of India, and that they were driven southwards by other invaders, who were afterwards subdued by the Āryans. The rude dialects

These races, who are called An-arya, 'ignoble,' in opposition to Ārya, 'noble,' had been gradually driven southwards or towards the hills by the Aryan settlers. They probably made great resistance in the North at the time the Rig-veda was composed. They are there called Dasyus, Yatudhānas, &c., and described as monstrous in form, godless, inhuman, haters of Brahmans, disturbers of sacred rites, eaters of human and horse flesh (Rig-veda X. 87, 16; Muir's Texts II. 435). In the epic poems they are generally called Rākshasas or evil demons, the relentless enemies of gods and good men and of all sacred rites1.

of the more southern hill-tribes are partially connected with the Drāviḍian, especially the Tuda, Kotu (two dialects of the Nil-giri hills), Gond, and Khond (Ku). The Ramūsies and most of the Korawars speak a patois of Telugu. The Male-arasars ('hill-kings') of the Southern Ghats speak partly corrupt Malayalam and corrupt Tamil. The Lambādies, or gipsies, speak a dialect of Hindūstānī. Among the barbarous tribes of the South are included the Vedārs of the forests of Ceylon.

1 In one place (Rāmāyaṇa III. i. 15) they are described as black, with woolly hair and thick lips. The following is from III. i. 22, &c.: 'Mendevouring Rakshasas of various shapes and wild-beasts dwell in this vast forest. They harass the devotees in the settlements. These shapeless and ill-looking monsters testify their abominable character by various cruel and terrific displays of it. These base-born wretches (an-ārya) perpetrate the greatest outrages. Changing their shapes and hiding in the thickets they delight in terrifying devotees. They cast away the sacrificial ladles and vessels (śrug-bhānḍam), pollute the cooked oblations, and defile the offerings with blood. They utter frightful sounds in the ears of the faithful.' Virādha, a Rākshasa, is said (Rāmāyaṇa III. vii. 5; Muir II. 427) to be 'like a mountain-peak, with long legs, a huge body, a crooked nose, hideous eyes, a long face, pendent belly, &c., like Death with an open mouth.' The Nishādas of the Purāņas, though described as dwarfish, have similar features, and are no doubt intended for the same race. In the same way, in describing races unknown to the Greeks, such as the Cyclopes, Laestrygones, Centauri, &c., Homer and other Grecian writers are given to exaggeration, and relate the most absurd fables.

It is to the subjugation of these non-Aryan races by heroic Aryan leaders who were Kshatriyas, as well as to the rivalry between different tribes of the settlers themselves, that we owę the circumstances out of which the two great Epics arose. Whether the celebrated Aryan warriors of the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahā-bhārata were identical with those of the Itihasas of which mention is made in the Grihya Sutras and in Manu (III. 232) cannot be proved; but this much is clear, that the exploits of the three Rāmas, Arjuna, &c., became, soon after Manu's time, the theme of song, and that these heroes were in the first instance represented as merely men of great strength and prowess, whose powers, however extraordinary, were not more than human. The oral descriptions of their deeds and adventures by public reciters formed the original basis of the two great Epics, and were naturally the peculiar property of the Kshatriya and conquering class. Probably these narratives were in the first instance delivered in prose, which became gradually interspersed with the simplest forms of metre, such as that called Anushṭubh or Śloka'.

It is easy indeed for the most cursory reader of the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahā-bhārata to trace a substratum or basis (mula) of simple heroic narration underlying the mass of more recent accretions. But to what date is this first frame-work of the poems to be referred? And again-When occurred that first process of brahmanizing which obscured and transformed its original character? And lastly-When was the structure completed and the

1 The oldest part of the Mahā-bhārata has a section entirely in prose (see note 1, p. 372). The invention of the Sloka is attributed to Valmiki, the reputed author of the Rāmāyaṇa, with the object doubtless of establishing his claims to be regarded as one of the earliest and most ancient of Indian poets. the Veda.

This metre is found in

whole work moulded into a form similar to that we now possess?

With regard to the first of these questions, I have now to submit five reasons in support of the view that the earliest or pre-brahmanical composition of both Epics took place at a period not later than the fifth century B. C., as follow:

1. The Rāmāyaṇa records no case of Sati. In the Maha-bhārata, Madri, wife of Pandu, is made to immolate herself with her husband', and the four wives of Vasu-deva and some of Krishna's wives do the same; but it is remarkable that none of the numerous widows of the slain heroes are represented as burning themselves in the same manner. This shows that the practice of Sati was beginning to be introduced in the North-west of India near the Panjab (where we know it prevailed about 300 years B. C.), but that it had not at the time of the earliest composition of the Rāmāyaṇa reached the more eastern districts. But if one Epic records no Satī, and the other only rare cases-notwithstanding the numerous opportunities for referring to the practice afforded by the circumstances of the plot-it follows that we ought to place the laying down of the first lines of both compositions before the third century B. C., when we know from Megasthenes that it prevailed generally even as far east as Magadha.

2. The first construction, or, so to speak, first casting' of the stories of Rāma and of the Pandavas as poems with definite plots, seems to have been pre-buddhistic quite as clearly as it was pre-brahmanical—by which I mean, that it took place anterior to the actual establishment of Buddhism as a rival system. Only one direct mention of Buddha and Buddhism occurs in the Rāmāyaṇa, and the verses in which it occurs (II. cviii. 30-38), and in which Buddha is compared to a thief, are admitted to be an interpolation and not part of the original poem. Nor can it be proved that any such direct reference occurs in the original Mahābharata. Nevertheless, there are numerous allusions (not bearing the stamp of later additions) in both Epics, especially the latter, to that development of rationalistic inquiry and Buddhistic scepticism, which we know commenced about 500 years B. C.3

1

Ādi-parvan 4896. See also 3030.

2 Mausala-parvan 194, 249.

3 Note particularly the infidel doctrines expressed by the Brahman Jāvāli (see p. 353), and Book I. 12. of the Bengali recension of the Rāmāyaṇa, where Sramanas, or Buddhist mendicants, are mentioned (see also p. 133).

3. It is evident from the Aśoka inscriptions that the language of the mass of the people in Hindustan in the third century B. C. was not pure Sanskrit. It consisted rather of a variety of provincial Sanskritic dialects, to which the general name of Prākṛit is applied. If, then, the first redaction of these popular poems had taken place as late as the third century, is it likely that some forms of Prākṛit would not have been introduced into the dialogues and allowed to remain there, as we find has been done in the dramas, the oldest of which-the Mriććhakaṭikā— can scarcely be much later than the second century B. C.? It is true that the language of the original story of both Epics, as traceable in the present texts, is generally simple Sanskrit, and by no means elaborate or artificial; but this is just what might have been understood by the majority of the people about five centuries B. C., before the language of the people had become generally prakriticized.

4. When the story of the poems was first put together in a continuous form, it is clear that the Dekhan and more westerly and southerly regions of India had not been occupied by the Aryans. But we know from the Asoka inscriptions that the empire of the kings of Magadha and Pālibothra in the third century radiated in all directions, as inscriptions are found in the Panjab, at Delhi, in Kuttack, and as far west as Gujarāt.

5. The Greek writer, Dion Chrysostomos, who was born about the middle of the first century, and was especially honoured by the emperor Trajan, mentions (Or. LIII. 555) that records existed in his time of epic poems, recited by the Hindus, which had been copied or translated from Homer. These statements, as Professor Lassen has shown (Ind. Alt. III. 346), must have been taken from the accounts of Megasthenes, who lived at the court of Candra-gupta (see note p. 231). They indicate that poems resembling the Iliad were current in India at least as early as the third or fourth century B. C., though it by no means follows that the Hindu poets borrowed a single idea from Homer 1.

1 The passage in Dion Chrysostomos is as follows: Οπότε καὶ παρ ̓ Ἰνδοῖς

ᾄδεσθαι φασὶ τὴν ̔Ομήρου ποίησιν, μεταβαλόντων αὐτὴν εἰς τὴν σφετέραν διάλεκτόν Te Kai pwvýv (Reiske's Edit. p. 253). There seems too great a disposition among European scholars to regard the Hindus as destitute of all originality. I cannot but agree with Professor Lassen that Megasthenes was mistaken, though obviously the story of the great war between the rival tribes, and that of the carrying off of Sita by a South-Indian chief, have, of course, points of resemblance to the Iliad, which may have suggested the idea of plagiarism. The sufferings of king Dhrita-rashtra are like those of Priam, and the lamentations of the wives of the slain heroes after the