RACE, a term used by ethnologists to distin guish different branches of the human family. The term is not in use amongst the Europeans in British India, by whom the people of the country are collectively called natives, and the several races castes, this being derived from Casta, a Portuguese word. The people themselves use the word zat or jat, meaning race, and distinguish their various divisions by the word varna or colour. These terms also indicate the religious denominations and race of the idol-worshippers and monotheists. The languages and physical conformation of the many nationalities show that tbe Brahman, Kshatriya, Khatri, Rajput, Vaisya, and Sudra Hindu, the Moghul, Syud, Shaikh, Persian and Pathan Muhammadan, the Burman, Karen, 'Mon, Isfalay, Chinese, Mongol, Manchu, Papuan and the Polynesian, the Jut, the Baluch, the Brahui, the Parsee, and the Bengali, are of varied descents, as also are many of the non Aryan tribes of India, the Pariah, Dher, Mhar, Chakili, Mhang or Madhara, the Dom, and hun dreds more. The Khatri is a race numerous in the Upper Panjab, and about Dehli and Hardwar, and found along the Ganges as far south-east as Benares and Patna. They divide themselves into three principal classes,-1. the Charjati, or four clans, viz. Seth, Marhota, Khunna, and Kuppur ; 2. Barajati, viz. Chopra, Talwar, Tunnuhu, Seigul, Kukker, Meibta, etc. ; 3. Bawun-jati, or fifty-two clans, amongst whom are Bundari, Meinclrao, Sehti, Suri, Sani, Unnud, Buhseen, Sohdi, Behdi, Teehuu, Bhulleh, etc. The Rupshu people again, are of a different race from the Bhot, and' winter and summer live in their black tents with their flocks and herds of sheep, goats, and yaks. They are very ugly, with Tartar faces, mad the men let their coarse black hair hang in one pigtail behind.
Arnongst the commercial communities of the south of India are British, French, Parsees, Armenians, and Persian, Labbai and Moplah Muhammadans ; also the entire Vaisya Hindus known as Komati and Chetty, the Marwari of North - Western India, and the Gujerati. In Central Asia the martial Lohanna are the great traders.
On the N., India has been in contact with several races, which have advanced into it and affected its ethnic character. But races may blend without the different types being effaced, and while certain exclusive or excluded castes or sequestered geo graphical sections of the population may preserve one type better than another, all rnay continue for some thousands of years to be'reproduced in softened and modified forms even in the least secluded positions. The physical characters of a I race constitute the race ; language is a mere acquirement. Races and languages must bc classified independently of each other. Dolicho cephalic and brachycephalic tribes arc found among all races, nor are the peculiarities of the hair a sufficient foundation for a truly scientific classification. Fliedrich Muller and Hiickel,
relying on trichological and glottological indica tions, proposed a division of the human race into 12 races, and of language into 100 families. But Lepsius showed, on the authority of A. B. Meyer, the absence of Biischelhaar among the Papuans, and the complete divergence of the grammars of the Hottentots and Papuans, which Friedrich Midler feels inclined to refer to one and the same class. Some of the races occupying the south east of Asia have obtained their present positions as immigrants, others seem to have been thrust into them by wars, but of the origin of many of them there is no record.
The earliest political change to which we can go back in the history of the Indian Peninsula is the expedition of Rama into the forests of Danda karanya, an event coeval with the hero-worship of the Pandava, and the myths of the Maha bharata and Ramayana. The Aryan expedition of which Rama was the leader, scattered the aboriginal races, styled Rakshasa or demons, driv ing some into the mountain and forest retreats, where we still find them living in barbarous freedom, and reducing others to the state of agrarian slavery in which we see the Pariah, Puller, Chamar, and other helot races residing in the plains. Each province has still its peculiar race of helots ; each range of mountains and every tract of forests its own tribes of wild savages, either wholly independent, or partially subject to their more civilised neighbours in the open country. From the Pahari (undoubtedly a remnant of the great Dravidian family) of the Rajtnahal Hills on the banks of the Ganges, through the extensive regions of Gondwana, embracing the Khond, Saurah, and Chenchwar of the Eastern Ghats, the Yanadi, Irular, Kurumbar (at one period apparently a numerous and power ful race) in the midland provinces, to the Bedar, Maravar, Kallar, and several tribes comprised under the general term of Maleali, or mountaineers, in the south, we find an infinite succession of races professing customs and speaking languages differ ing, and in many instances distinct, from those of the modern Hindus. The same peculiarities may be observed in several of the homeless castes roving over the plains in the more civilised portions of the country, such as the Korchewar, Waddewar, Yerkali, Dumar, Pardi, etc. A careful and systematic investigation of these remnants of the former population, of their customs and religious observances, etc., with the preparation of copious vocabularies of the peculiar dialects or jargons in use amongst them; are among the most important objects to which attention should be directed, because the study of these tribes, of their language, manners, and customs, form nearly the only available source from which we can glean a. knowledge of the earlier inhabitants of India.