In may ways, the economic history of Nepal has been a history of a clear geographical and political division between

the pahar (hills) and the madhes (the Tarai plain) Geographically, madesh means midland, since the Tarai plain is situated in between the hills of Nepal and India, it is considered mid-land or frontier zone, this image of Tarai could have been originally linked to its deadly malaria and relatively not healthier environment. Such a division is aslo reflected in the demographic division particularly in terms of ethnic power structure and control. (Nanda R. Shrestha, Landlessness and Migration in Nepal, P. 166).12 First of all, Terai was opened for the immigrants of Bihar and Bangali. Indian people who heavily deforested the dense forest of Eastern & Mid-Tarai land of Nepal. Joshi and Rose (1966:10) accurately note that the most important group numerically, socially, and politically in much of Nepal is composed of Indo-Aryans, Migration from the plain as well as hill areas of northern India. They inhabited more fertile lower hills, river, valleys and plains. The second major group consists of communities of Mongolian origin, which inhabit the higher hills from the west to the east (also Caplan 1970). A third and much smaller stratum comprises a number of tribal communities such as the Tharus and the Dhimals of Tarai; they may be remnants of indigenous communities whose habitation predates the advent of Indo-Aryan and Mongolian elements. (Nand R. Shrestha p. 166).13 The Terai citizens are also viewed as having a closer affinity with India than with Nepal; their loyalty to the central authority of Nepal is always suspected rather than expected by the ruling elites. They are often called the madhesis. While the term madheshi literally means a Terai (plain) inhabitant, colloquially it has a demeaning connotation-an alien or an uncivilized immigrant from northern India (Ibid. p. 167).14 Vikramaditya's achievements, however, furnished no final de- Sdia or liverance,but merely form an episode in the long struggle between
Scythian

the Indian dynasties and new races from the north. Another a.d.
^

popular era, the Sdka, literally the Scythian, takes its commencement in 78 A.D.,3 and is supposed to commemorate the defeat of the Scythians by a king of Southern India, Salivahana.* During the seven centuries which followed, three powerful monarchies, the Senas, Guptas, and Valabhis, established themselves ^ Samvafsara, the 'Year.' The uncertainty which surrounds even this long-accepted finger-post in Indian chronology may be seen from Dr. J. Fergusson's paper * On the Saka and Samvat and Gupta eras ' {JourJial
Roy. As. Soc,
-

New

Series, vol, xii.

),

especially p. 172.

The Hushka, Jushka, and Kanishka family of the Rdjd Tarangini,

or Chronicles of Kashmir, are proved by inscriptions to belong to the 4th century of the Seleucidan era, or the 1st century a.d. ' Monday, 14th March 78 A.D., Julian style. * General Cunningham ; see also Mr. Edw. Thomas' letter, dated i6th September 1874, to The Academy, which brings this date within the period of the Kanishka family (2 B.C. to 87 A.D.).

i82

-'sCYTmC INROADS AND NAGA RACES.

Sena (Sah) in Northern and Western India. The Senas and Singhas, or 6o"^^^A Satraps of Surashtra, are traced by coins and inscriptions from 60 235 A.D. or 70 B.C. to after 235 a.d.^ After the Senas come the Guptas of Kanauj,2 in the North-Western Provinces, the Middle Land

Gupta of ancient Brahmanism. The Guptas introduced an era of "1^0-170 ^^^^^^ ^^^'"' commencing in 319 a.d. ; and ruled in person or A.I). by viceroys over Northern India during 150 years, as far to the south-west as Kathiawar. The Gupta dynasty was overthrown by foreign invaders, apparently a new influx of Huns or Tartars from the north-west (450-470 a.d.). Valabhi The Valabhis succeeded the Guptas, and ruled over Cutch, ^^^^^y north-western Bombay,3and Malwa, from 480 to after 722 a.d.* A.D. The Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Tsiang, gives a full account of the court and people of Valabhi (630-640 a.d.). Buddhism was the State religion, but heretics, i.e. Brahmans, abounded ; and the Buddhists themselves were divided between the northern school of the Scythian dynasties, and the southern or Indian school of Asoka. The Valabhis seem to have been overthrown by the early Arab invaders of Sind in the 8th century. Long The relations of these three Indian dynasties, the Senas, struggle Guptas, and Valabhis, to the successive hordes of Scythians, Scythic who poured down on Northern India, are obscure. There invaders, is abundant evidence of a long-continued struggle, but the 544 A. i). efforts to affix dates to its chief episodes have not yet produced results which can be accepted as final. Two Vikramaditya Sakaris, or vanquishers of the Scythians, are required for the purposes of chronology ; and the great battle of Koriir near Miiltan, in which the Scythian hosts perished, has been shifted backwards and forwards from 78 to 544 a.d.-^ The truth seems to be that, during the first six centuries of the Christian era, the fortunes of the Scythian or Tartar races rose and fell from time to time in Northern India. They more than once sustained great defeats ; and they more than once overthrew the native dynasties. Their presence is popularly ^ By Mr. Newton. See Mr. E. Thomas on the Coins of the Sah Kings, Archtjcol. Kep. Western India, p. 44 (1876) ; and Dr. J. Fergusson, 'Journal
Roy. As. Soc., 1880. ^ Now a town of only 16,646 inhabitants in Farukhabad District, but with ruins extending over a semicircle of 4 miles in diameter. ^ Lat-desha, including the collectorates of Surat, Broach, Kaira, and parts of Baroda territory. * The genealogy is worked out in detail by Mr. E. Thomas, / sitp-a, pp. 80-82. * 78 A.D. was the popularly received date, commemorated by the Sd^-a era ; 'between 524 and 544 a.d.' is suggested by Dr. Fergusson (p. 284 K)\ 'Journal Roy. As. Soc, vol. xii.) in 1880.

PRE-AR VANS IN INDL

attested during the century before Christ by Vikramaditya (57 B.C. ?); during the ist century After Christ, it is represented by the Kanishka family (2 B.C. to 87 a.d.) ; it was noted by

Cosmas Indicopleustes, about 535 a.d. A recent writer on the subject ^ believes that it was the white Huns who overthrew the Guptas between 465 and 470 A.D. He places the great battles of Korur and Maushari, which 'freed India from the Sakas and Hiinas,' between 524 and 544 A.D. But these dates still lie in the domain of inductive, indeed almost of conjectural, history. Cosmas Indicopleustes, who traded in the Red Sea about 535 a.d., speaks of the Huns as a powerful nation in Northern India in his days.^ While Greek and Scythic influences had thus been at work in The Northern India during nine centuries (327 B.C. to 544 a.d.),
^^J^^"
.

pre-

another (so-called indigenous) element was profoundly aff"ecting ancient the future of the Indian people. A previous chapter has traced India, the fortunes, and sketched the present condition, of the preAryan 'aborigines.' The Brahmanical Aryans never accomplished a complete subjugation of these earlier races. The tribes and castes of non-Aryan origin numbered in 1872 about 18 millions in British territory; while the castes who claim a pure Aryan descent are under 16 millions.^ The pre-Aryans have influenced the popular dialects of every Province, and in Southern India they still give their speech to 28 millions of people. The Vedic setdements along the five rivers of the Punjab were merely colonies or confederacies of Aryan tribes, who had pushed in among a non-Aryan population. When an Aryan Their family advanced to a new territory, it had often, as in the case j'^^tmg of the Pandava brethren, to clear the forest and drive out the aboriginal people. This double process constantly repeated itself; and as late as 1657, when the Hindu Rajd founded the present city of Bareilly, his first work was to cut down the jungle and expel the old Katheriyas. The ancient Brahmanical kingdoms of the Middle Land {Madhya-desha), in the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh, were surrounded by non-Aryan tribes. All the legendary advances beyond the northern centre of Aryan civilisation, narrated in the epic poets, were made into ^ Dr. J. Fergusson, Journal Roy. As. Soc, pp. 282-284, etc. (1880). ^ Topographia Christiana^ lib. xi. p. 338 ; apiid Fergusson, ut supra. * This latter number included both Brahmans (10,574,444) and Kshattriyas and Rajputs (5,240,495). But, as we have just seen, some of the Rajput tribes are believed to ])e of Scythic origin, while others have been incorporated from confessedly non- Aryan tribes (z/zV/^ a/^, p. 91). Such non-Aryan Rajputs more than outnumber any survivals of the Vaisyas of pure Aryan descent.

i84
Pre-

SCYTHIC INROADS AND NAGA RACES.

Aryan kingdoms

in

Northern
India.

The
'lakshaks of Rawal rindi
District.

The
Takshaks.
Sixth Century B.C.; 327 R-C. the territory of non-Aryan races. When we begin to catch historical glimpses of India, we find .the countries even around the northern Aryan centre ruled by non-Aryan princes. The

Nandas, whom Chandra Gupta succeeded in Behar, appear as a Siidra or non-Aryan dynasty; and according to one account, Chandra Gupta and his grandson Asoka came of the same stock.^ The Buddhist religion did much to incorporate the pre-Aryan tribes into the Indian polity. During the long struggle of the Indo-Aryans against Grseco-Bactrian and Scythian inroads (627 B.C. to 544 A.D.), the Indian aboriginal races must have had an increasing importance, whether as enemies or allies. At the end of that struggle, we discover them ruling in some of the fairest tracts of Northern India. In almost every District throughout Oudh and the North-Western Provinces, ruined towns and forts are ascribed to aboriginal races who ruled at different periods, according to the local legends, between the 5th and nth centuries a.d. When the Muhammadan conquest supplies a firmer historical footing, after 1000 a.d., non-Aryan tribes were still in possession of several of these Districts, and had only been lately ousted from others. The Statistical Survey of India has brought together many survivals of these obscure races. It is impossible to follow that survey through each locality ; the following paragraphs indicate, with the utmost brevity, a few of the results. Starting from the West, Alexander the Great found Rawal Pindi District in the hands of the Takkas or Takshaks, from whom its Greek name of Taxila was derived. This people has been traced to a Scythian migration about the 6th century b.c.^ Their settlements in the 4th century b.c. seem to have extended from the Paropamisan range ^ in Afghanistan to deep into Northern India. Their Punjab capital, Takshasila, or Taxila, was the largest city which Alexander met with between the Indus and the Jehlam (327 b.c.).^ Salihdvana, from whom the Sdka ^ The Mudrd-rdkshasa represents Chandra Gupta as related to the last of the Nandas ; the Commentator of the Vishnu Purdna says he was the

son of a Nanda by a low-caste woman. Prof. Dowson's Did. Hindu Mythology, etc., p. 68 (Triibner, 1879). * Such dates have no pretension to be anything more than intelligent conjectures based on very inadequate evidence. With regard to the Takshaks, see Colonel Tod and the authorities which he quotes, Rdjdsthduy vol. i. p. $1 passim, pp. 93 et scij. (Madras Reprint, 1873).

Where Alexander found them as the Parae-takae pahari or Hill Takae(?). * Arrian. The Brahman mythol(^ists, of course, produce an Aryan pedigree for so important a person as King Taksha, and make him the son of Bharata and nephew of Rama-chandra.
3

NAGAS AND TAKSHAKS.

185

or Scythian era took its commencement (78 a.d.), is held by The some authorities to have been of Takshak descent. ^ In the Takshaks 7th century a.d., Taki,^ perhaps derived from the same race, was the capital of the Punjab. The Scythic Takshaks, indeed,
^^

are supposed to have been the source of the great Serpent Race, 1881
a.d.

who figure so prominently in Sanskrit literature and art, and whose name is still borne by the Naga tribes of our own day. The Takkas remaining to the present time are found only in the Districts of Delhi and Karnal.
the Takshakas or Nagi.s,

They number 14,305, of whom about three

fourths have

adopted the faith of Islam. The words Naga and Takshaka in Sanskrit both mean The^ a * snake,' or tailed monster. As the Takshakas have been ^'^g^s. questionably connected with the Scythian Takkas, so the Nagas have been derived, by conjecture in the absence of evidence, from the Tartar patriarch Nagas, the second son of Elkhan.^ Both the terms, Nagas and Takshakas, seem to have been loosely applied by the Sanskrit writers to a variety of non-Aryan peoples in India, whose religion was of an anti-Aryan type. We learn, for example, how the five Pandava brethren of the Mahabharata burned out the snake-king Takshaka from his primeval Khandava forest The Takshaks and Nagas were the tree and serpent worshippers, whose rites and objects of adoration have impressed themselves deeply on the architecture and sculptures of India. They included, in a confused manner, several different races of Scythic origin. The chief authority on Tree and Serpent Worship in India Indohas deliberately selected the term ' Scythian ' for the anti-Aryan Jr'^'^^?'^. elements, which entered so largely into the Indian religions both in ancient and in modern times.^ The Chinese records give a full account of the Naga geography of ancient India. The Naga kingdoms were both numerous and powerful, and Buddhism derived many of its royal converts from them. The

i. p. 95 (ed. 1873). Taki, or Asarur, 45 miles west of Lahore. General Cunningham, Anc. Geog. of India, p. 191, and Map vi. (ed. 1871). This Taki lies, however, considerably to the south-east of the Takshasila of Alexander's expedition. ' Tod, Kdjdsthdn, vol. i. p. 53 (ed. 1873) 5 ^ ^^^ doubtful authority. * Dr. J. Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship, pp. 71, 72 (India Museum, 4to, 1868). For the results of more recent local research, see Mr. Rivett-Carnac's papers in the Journal of the As. Soc, Bengal, 'The Snake Symbol in India,' 'Ancient Sculpturings on Rocks,' 'Stone Carvings at Mainpuri,' etc. ; the Honourable Rao Sahib Vishvanaks Narayan Mandlik's 'Serpent-Worship in Western India,' and other essays in the Bombay As. Soc. Journal; also, Reports of Archteological Survey, Western India.

Tod, Rdjdsthdji, vol.

i86 SCYTHIC INROADS AND NAGA RACES. Chinese chroniclers, indeed, classify the Nagd, princes of India into two great divisions, as Buddhists and non - Buddhists. The serpent-worship, which formed so typical a characteristic of the Indo-Scythic races, led the Chinese to confound those tribes with the objects of their adorations ; and the fierce Indohecome Scythic Nagas would almost seem to be the originals of the Dragon- Dragon races of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese art. The races of compromises to which Buddhism submitted, with a view to China. winning the support of the Naga peoples, will be referred to in the following chapter, on the Rise of Hinduism. As the Greek invaders found Rd,wal Pindi District in possession of a Scythic race of Takkas in 327 b.c, so the Musalman conqueror found it inhabited by a fierce non-Aryan The race of Ghakkars thirteen hundred years later. The Ghakkars
of^RdwaT ^^ ^ ^^"^^ imperilled the safety of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1008. Pindi, Farishta describes them as savages, addicted to polyandry and 1008-1857 infanticide. The tide of Muhammadan conquest rolled on, but the Ghakkars remained in possession of their sub-Himalayan tract.i In 1205 they ravaged the Punjab to the gates of Lahore; in 1206 they stabbed the Muhammadan Sultan in his tent ; and in spite of conversion to Islam by the sword, it was not till 1525 that they made their submission to the Emperor Babar in return for a grant of territory. During the next two centuries they rendered great services to the Mughal dynasty against the Afghan usurpers, and rose to high influence in the Punjab. Driven from the plains by the Sikhs in 1765 A.D., the Ghakkar chiefs maintained their independence in the Murree (Marri) Hills till 1830, when they were crushed after a bloody struggle. In 1849, Rd.wal Pindi passed, with the rest of the Sikh territories, under British rule. But the Ghakkars revolted four years afterwards, and threatened Murree, the summer capital of the Punjab, as lately as 1857.

The Ghakkars are now found

in the Punjab Districts of Rdwal Pindi, Jehlam, and Hazdra. Their total number was returned at 25,789 in 1881. They are described by their British officers as * a fine spirited race, gentlemen in ancestry and bearing, and clinging under all reverses to the traditions of noble blood.'
^

District has been selected to BareinV ^^^"^trate the long-continued presence and vitality of the preUistrict. Aryan element in India. Other parts of the country must be * For a summary of their later history, see article on Rawal Pindi DlSTVUCT, The Impei'ial Gazetteer of India. 2 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, article Rawal Pindi District.
Pre-

The population of Rawal Pindi

THE BHARS AND KOCH.

187

more briefly dealt with. Proceeding inwards into the NorthWestern Provinces, we everywhere find traces of an early Buddhist civilisation in contact with, or overturned by, rude non-Aryan tribes. In Bareilly District, for example, the wild Ahi'rs from the north, the Bhils from the south, and the Bhars from the east, seem to have expelled highly-developed Aryan communities at some period before 1000 a.d. Still farther to the east, all remains of pre-historic masonry in Oudh and the North-Western Provinces are assigned to the ancient Buddhists or to a non-Aryan race of Bhars. The Bhars appear to have possessed the north Gangetic The Bhars plains in the centuries coeval with the fall of Buddhism. ^" Oudh. Their kingdoms extended over most of Oudh. Lofty mounds covered with ancient groves mark the sites of their forgotten cities ; and they are the mysterious * fort-builders ' to whom the peasantry ascribe any ruin of unusual size. In the central valley of the Ganges, their power is said to have been crushed by the Sharki dynasty of Jaunpur in the end injaunof the 14th century. In the Districts north of the Gan- P^'"getic plain, the Bhars figure still more prominently in local traditions, and an attempt has been made to trace their continuous
history. In

Gorakhpur District, the aboriginal inGorakh-

Tharus and Bhars seem to have overwhelmed the early P^^^outposts of Aryan civilisation several centuries before Christ. Their appearance on the scene is connected with the rise of Buddhism. They became vassals of the Buddhist kingdom of Behar on the south-east; and on the fall of that power, about 550 A.D., they regained their independence. The Chinese pilgrim in the 7th century comments in this region

on the large number of monasteries and towersthe latter probably a monument of the struggle with the aboriginal Bhars, who were here finally crushed between the 7th and the loth centuries a.d. In 1881, the total Bhar population of

Oudh and the North-Western Provinces numbered 349,113. As we advance still farther eastwards into Bengal, we find
that the non-Aryan races have within historical time supplied a large part of the Hindu population. In the north, the Koch The Koch established their dominion upon the ruins of the Aryan ?; , kingdom of Kamrup, which the Afghan King of Bengal had Bengal, overthrown in 1489. The Koch gave their name to the Native State of Kuch Behar ; and their descendants, together In Kuch with those of other non-Aryan tribes, form the mass of the ^^^^^ people in the neighbouring British Districts, such as Rangpur. In RangIn 1 88 1, they numbered \\ million in Northern Bengal and P"""'

SCYTHIC INROADS AND NAGA RACES.

Kuch
Behar
Rajas.

Behar. One part of them got rid of their low origin by becoming Musalmans, and thus obtained the social equality which Islam grants to all mankind. The rest have merged more or less imperfectly into the Hindu population ; and about threequarters of a million of them claim, in virtue of their position as an old dominant race, to belong to the Kshattriya caste. They call themselves Rajbansis, a term exactly corresponding to the Rajputs of Western India. The Hinduized Rajas of Kuch Behar obtained for their ancestors a divine origin from their Brahman genealogists, in order to efface their aboriginal descent ; and among the nobility all mention of the Koch tribe was avoided. The present Maharaja married the daughter of the celebrated theistic apostle, Keshab Chandra Sen, the leader of the Brahmo Samaj. He is an honorary major in the British army, and takes a prominent part in Calcutta and Simla society.