This juxtaposition of two populations, of which one is in possession of the best districts in the country, while of the other only fragments are in existence (combined masses are not found except in the most inaccessible regions), – the indications supplied by these invocations, according to which the light-coloured population on the Indus was in conflict with the "Black-skins," – the fact that the light-coloured population, both on the Ganges and the coasts of the Deccan, has always taken up an exclusive and contemptuous position towards the darker tribes existing there, justify the conclusion that the whole region from the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, once belonged to the dark population, and that the Aryas are immigrants. These immigrants partly drove back the ancient population, and confined it in hardly accessible mountains or morasses, partly forced it to submit to their rule and accept their civilisation, partly allowed it to live among them, as now, in a despicable and subordinate position. In historical times we can trace this process, by which the old population was driven back or civilised, on the coasts of the Deccan and in Ceylon. From the position of the remnant of this population on the Ganges, and these invocations of the Aryas, which spring from a time when they were not yet established in the land of the Ganges, we may conclude that a similar process went on in a severer form on the Indus. Following the example of the Indians, modern science collects the languages of these inhabitants of India, who are found under and among the Aryas, so far as they at present exist, under the names of the Nishada and Dravida languages.⁵ The language of the Brahuis to the west of the Indus, – they were settled there, or at least retired from thence, at the time of the immigration of the Aryas, – the Canaresian, the Malayalam, the language of the Tamilas, of the Telingas, the Badaga of the inhabitants of the Nilgiri, on the southern apex of the Deccan, are closely related, but to which of the great stems of language they are to be apportioned is not determined.⁶

The immigration of the Aryas into India took place from the west. They stand in the closest relation to the inhabitants of the table-land of Iran, especially the inhabitants of the eastern half. These also call themselves Aryas, though among them the word becomes Airya, or Ariya, and among the Greeks Arioi. The language of the Aryas is in the closest connection with that of the Avesta, the religious books of Iran, and in very close connection with the language of the monuments of Darius and Xerxes, in the western half of that region. The religious conceptions of the Iranians and Indians exhibit striking traits of a homogeneous character. A considerable number of the names of gods, of myths, sacrifices, and customs, occurs in both nations, though the meaning is not always the same, and is sometimes diametrically opposed. Moreover, the Aryas in India are at first confined to the borders of Iran, the region of the Indus, and the Panjab. Here, in the west, the Aryas had their most extensive settlements, and their oldest monuments frequently mention the Indus, but not the Ganges.⁷ Even the name by which the Aryas denote the land to the south of the Vindhyas, Dakshinapatha (Deccan), i. e. path to the right⁸, confirms the fact already established, that the Aryas came from the west.

From this it is beyond a doubt that the Aryas, descending from the heights of Iran, first occupied the valley of the Indus and the five tributary streams, which combine and flow into the river from the north-east, and they spread as far as they found pastures and arable land, i. e. as far eastward as the desert which separates the valley of the Indus from the Ganges. The river which irrigated their land, watered their pastures, and shaped the course of their lives they called Sindhu (in Pliny, Sindus), i. e. the river⁹. It is, no doubt, the region of the Indus, with the Panjab, which is meant in the Avesta by the land hapta hindu (hendu), i. e. the seven streams. The inscriptions of Darius call the dwellers on the Indus Idhus. These names the Greeks render by Indos and Indoi.

Can we fix the time at which the Aryas immigrated into India and occupied the valley of the Indus? As we proceed it will become clear that it was not till a late period that the nation began to record the names of the kings of their states, that they never wrote down in a satisfactory matter their legends and the facts of their history, and that we cannot find among them any trustworthy chronology. Even with the assistance of the statements of western writers, we can only go back with any certainty to the year 800 B.C. for the dynasties of the kingdom of Magadha, the most important kingdom in ancient times on the Ganges. But if at this period the Aryas held sway not on the upper Ganges only, but also on the lower, they must have been already settled on the Indus for centuries. If the narratives already given of the foundation of the Assyrian kingdom and the war of Semiramis on the Indus (II. 9 ff) were historical, the Aryas must have been settled in that country even at this date, i. e. about 1500 B.C. They must have lived there under a monarchy which could place great forces in the field, and they must have been already acquainted with the use of elephants in war. Stabrobates, the name of the king of the Indians who met Semiramis and repulsed her, would become Çtaorapati, i. e. lord of oxen, in the language of the Aryas. But after what has been previously said (II. 19 ff), we can only allow this narrative to have a value for the conceptions existing in Persian epic poetry about the foundation of the empire of Assyria, and the campaigns of Assyrian rulers to the distant East. In their statements about India we can only, at most, expect to find a repetition of the information existing about that country in the western half of Iran in the seventh or sixth century, and even this takes a form corresponding to the views expressed in the poems. In the monuments of the kings of Assyria we found the elephant and the rhinoceros among the tribute offered to Shalmanesar II., who reigned from 859-823 B.C. (II. 320); the inscriptions of Bin-nirar III. (810-781 B.C.) pointed to campaigns of this king extending as far as Bactria (II. 328); we were able to follow the marches of Tiglath Pilesar II. (745-727 B.C.) in the table-land of Iran as far as Arachosia (III. 4). Hence the Assyrian tablets do not as yet supply any definite information about the land of the Indus. Arrian has preserved a notice according to which the Astacenes and Assacanes, Indian nations on the right bank of the Indus, between the river and Cophen (Cabul), were once subject to the Assyrians.¹⁰ The Indian epics extol the horses of the Açvakas, who, in them also, are an Indian nation, and we may venture to regard them as the Assacenes of Arrian. Alexander of Macedon found them in that region; they could place many warriors in the field against him on their high mountain uplands. But the observation in Arrian, even if we attach weight to it, does not carry us far in answering the question when the Aryas came into the valley of the Indus, for it does not make it clear at what period the Açvakas were subject to the Assyrians. More may be gained, perhaps, from the Hebrew scriptures. We saw that about 1000 B.C. Solomon of Israel and Hiram of Tyre caused ships to be built and equipped at Elath, on the north-east point of the Arabian Gulf. These ships were to visit the lands of the south, and we saw what wealth they brought back from Ophir after an absence of three years (II. 188). They are laden with gold, silver, precious stones, and sandal-wood in abundance, the like of which was not seen afterwards; peacocks, apes, and ivory.¹¹ Now ivory, sandal-wood, apes, and peacocks are the products of India, and peacocks and sandal-wood belong to that land exclusively. It is true that they might have been transported to the south coast of Arabia or the Somali coast of East Africa by the trade of the Arabians, or even of the Indians (I. 321); but the ships of Solomon and Hiram would not need to be absent for three years in order to obtain them there. For our question it is decisive that the names with which the Hebrews denote apes, peacocks, and sandal-wood, kophim, tukijim, almugim, are Sanskrit (kapi, çikhi, valgu), and from this it follows that the Aryas must have been in possession, at any rate, of the land of the Indus and the coast of that region as early as 1000 B.C. The book of the law of the Aryas mentions a nation Abhira. According to the Aryan epics this nation possessed cows, goats, sheep, and camels. Ptolemy places a land Abiria at the mouth of the Indus, and to this day a tribe of the name of Ahir possesses the coast of the peninsula of Cashtha (Kattywar).¹² These Abhiras may therefore have been meant by the Ophir of the Hebrews. It is true that the genealogical table in Genesis puts Ophir among the tribes which are said to spring from Joktan, but no doubt it includes under the name of Joktan all the nations of the south-east known to the Hebrews. If the ships of Hiram brought back gold in abundance from their voyages to the mouth of the Indus, this can only have been conveyed to the lower Indus, where there is no gold, from the upper Indus, which is rich in gold, and from other upland valleys in the Himalayas, where the mountain streams carry down this metal. Hence about the year 1000 B.C. there must have been a lively trade between the upper and lower Indus. Further, if the Phenicians and Hebrews purchased sandal-wood among the Abhiras, this can only have been transported to the mouth of the Indus by sea, and the coast navigation, which is rendered easy in the Indian Sea by the regular occurrence of the monsoons, for sandal-wood nowhere flourishes except in the glowing sun of the Malabar coast. Whatever may have been the case with this trade, products of India, and among them such as do not belong to the land of the Indus, were exported from the land about 1000 B.C., under names given to them by the Aryas, and therefore the Aryas must have been settled there for centuries previously. For this reason, and it is confirmed by facts which will appear further on, we may assume that the Aryas descended into the valley of the Indus about the year 2000 B.C., i. e. about the time when the kingdom of Elam was predominant in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, when Assyria still stood under the dominion of Babylon, and the kingdom of Memphis was ruled by the Hyksos.

We have no further accounts from the West about the Aryas till the year 500 B.C., and later. It is not improbable that the arms of Cyrus reached the Indus. The Astacenes and Assacanes are said to have been subject to the Medes after the Assyrians; then Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, imposed tribute upon them.¹³ As Cyrus subjugated Bactria, fought in Arachosia, and marched through Gedrosia, we may assume that he compelled the nations of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus to pay tribute. It was in conflict with the Derbiccians, to whom the Indians sent elephants as auxiliaries, that Cyrus, according to the account of Ctesias, was slain. Darius, as Herodotus tells us, sent messengers to explore the land of the Indus. Setting out from Arachosia, they proceeded from Caspapyrus (Kaçpapura), a city which, according to Hecatæus, belonged to the Gandarii¹⁴—i. e.