Evening star., 1927-10-09

The history of India is far more obscure
than that of China. The Hindus loved poetry
more than history, and before Buddha We have
hardly anything but legend. The Rig-Veda is
a vast collection of folklore dating from 1400
Be. and telling, with Oriental color and imagi
nation, the story Of the Aryan conquest of
India We know nothing Of these origins ex
cept that they were a fair-sknned, warke and
nonladic people, who came from central Asia
over the Hinalayas into India. conquered the
Dravidians and established themselves as the
ruling caste Of the land. Their high birth
rate forced them to seek pastures; their
word for war meant "a desire for more cows
which is sincerer name than our dealisaic
phrase for incorporated homicide. Their Ian
guage. Sanskrit, became the speech of most
of the people of India, and formed the origin
of those European" tongues to which our
own English, like Greek and Latin and their
derivatives belongs.
That process of the north sweeping down
with irresistible violence upon the settled and
easy-going south has been the main stream of
history. which each civilization has risen
and fallen like epochal undulations. The Mon
gols poured down upon Peking, the Aryans
upon the Dravidians, the Achaeans and Dorians
upon the Cretans and Aegeans the Latins upon
the aborigines of Italy. the Romans upon the
Cartha ginlans, the Germans upon the Romans
the Lombards upon the Italians the French
upon the Spanish, the English upon the world
Forever the north produces warriors and the
south produces saints. and the weak inherit
Heaven.
So the conquered natives retreated into the
Deccan. and titled the soil, and as long as they
paid the tithe their conquerors left them in
peace. There was little slavery in the viii
lage and little serfdom; each family held and
bequeathed it's land in common. and partook
through it's head. in the village rule. Great
distances and primitive transport left more
local autonomy and freedom under ancient
despotisnls than narrow world, crossed
and bound with rails and wires and winged
speech, know again under the shbboleths
Of liberty.
But though there slavery there was
caste. The white-skinned handsome conquerors
refused to marry with the almost negroid
Dravidians: caste meant color; it meant purity
OF blood. fidelity to ones ancestors and to their
traditional occupations. The lowest caste was
OF the black and simple Sudras-servants, or
propertyless peasantry; above them the Vasyas
owners of land and other wealth. above these
the NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. and at the pinnacle
the Brahmans-prests. 1t was civilization
or form OF savagery, not all the world unlike
the partition of classes in Plato's ideal state
And to this day the mystery remains how the
man of war and the man of wealth could have
been for so many centuries subject to the
priest.
Who these omnipotent Brahmans?
They were, first of all, the only terate class
among the Hindus, and essentially they are
that now. 1t was they who had carried down
ny memory, across many generations. the
legends and poetry Of their race; they who had
transmitted those terrible epics. the Maha
bharata and the Ramayana which run to a
million words; they who had put together the
Upanishads Tor secret conferences in which
for the first time in history the problems Of
metaphysics and theology We're elaborated into
a system of cosmic thought.
* x !:
Long before Parmenides and Plato these
Brahman priests played with delight the game
Oh philosophy. Gradually, under their hands,
the faith of the Hindus had developed from
simple anmsm to the subtlest theology Their
sacred books, the Nedas, reveal primitive
pantheon OF nature gods-sun, fire. light wind
water. trees. sex-all were divine, and all were
worshiped; in the end there were 10000 600
gods. Here in this congested metropolis of
delties most of our Western gods took their
origin; even Zeus Jupiter, Dios Deus, deity.
divinity was originally the Sanskrit Dyaus god