THE PEOPLES OF INDIA.—AS the population of India consists of many diverse elements, and as there is a remarkably close connection between the different geographical regions of the country and the inhabitants of each, it may be as well to sketch briefly their distribution before proceeding to divide India into natural regions. The scheme here adopted is that suggested by Sir H. H. Risley in the Report on the Census of India, but it must always be borne in mind that the study of ethnical questions has not advanced sufficiently far to allow absolutely definite statements to be made.
It is believed that at one time the whole of India was occupied by people of Dravidian stock who have gradually been pushed back into the most inaccessible and least fertile parts of peninsular India. These people are distinguished physically by their black skin, long head, broad nose, and low stature, and mentally by their primitive social and religious ideas. It would seem that they represent the earlier inhabitants of the country.
The invading race is supposed to have entered India by the north west. In the Punjab and Rajputana there is found an entirely different type from the Dravidian—a people of light brown colour, with a relatively long head, straight, finely cut nose, a long narrow face, high stature, and well-proportioned figure. To this people the name Indo-Aryan has been given, and they are probably con• nected with the Mediterranean race. In the plains of the Ganges and the Jumna, from the eastern frontier of the Punjab to the southern extremity of Bihar, the prevailing type suggests an inter mixture of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian blood. The upper classes approach the former in physical characteristics, the lower classes the latter. It is noteworthy, too, that it is among the Aryo Dravidian peoples that the caste system has been most fully developed.
While many invasions took place by way of the north-west borderland, the Himalayas prevented anything but a slow infiltra tion of the Mongol peoples, who are found along its lower slopes.
Further east, however, where the Brahmaputra and the rivers of Burma offered easier means of access, there was a larger influx, and Burma has an essentially Mongol population. The delta of the Ganges, on the other hand, is occupied by a Mongolo-Dravidian people. It would appear that the Dravidians, retreating before the Aryan invaders, were driven into the swampy lands of Bengal, where they intermingled with Mongol tribes entering India by the Brahmaputra.
An area of broad-headedness extends along the west of India from the western Punjab through the Deccan southwards as far as Coorg. In many places it coincides in a remarkable degree with the more fertile districts of the Black Soil region. Here it is evident that the original Dravidian stock has been powerfully modified by the infusion of a foreign element, and it has been suggested that, after the settlement of the Indo-Aryans in the Punjab and Rajputana, various nomadic peoples, generally known as Scythians, made their way into India from the steppe-lands of Asia, and, finding their progress eastwards barred by the earlier invaders, pushed their way to the south, where they seized the best lands still left to the Dravidians, and to a certain extent intermingled with that people, forming what is now known as the Scytho-Dravidian type.
Lastly, in the regions of the north-west borderland are the Turko Iranian peoples, formed by an intermixture of Turki and Persian elements. They are broadheaded, but have a fair complexion, stature above the average, and a prominent but moderately narrow nose. They represent the invading tribes who came last and had their further progress into India barred by the earlier settlers.
In conclusion, it must be noticed that, although the peoples of India are distributed on a geographical basis, no one type is in exclusive possession of the region to which it is referred.