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COMPREHENSIVE

HISTORY OF INDIA.

BOOK lY.

OF THE INSTITUTIONS, LITERATURE, ARTS, AND MANNERS OF THE HINDOOS.

CHAPTER I.

Origin and Classification of the Hindoos,

HE Hindoos, though now forming tiie great body of the a.d. — population of India, do not seem to have been its earliest inhabitants. These, it is probable, are still represented Hindoos

. . not the

by some of the hill tribes, who after contending m vain aborigines against foreign invaders, quitted the plains, and found an

asylum among mountains and forests, into which the con- quering race could not or cared not to follow them. The tra- dition is that the Hindoos entered India from the north-west, and had their first settlement in a small tract lying about 100 miles north-west of Delhi, between the Guggur and the Soorsooty. In the Institutes of Menu this tract is said to have been named Brahmaverta, because it was " frequented by the gods," and the custom preserved in it by immemorial tradition is recommended as "approved usage." From this tract the Hindoos appear to have spread eastward, and occupied the whole country north of the Jumna and the Ganges. To distinguish this country from Brahmaverta it was called Brahmarshi, and from Brahmins born w^ithin it all men on earth are enjoined to learn their several usages. Besides these tracts Menu mentions two others — Medhyadesa, or the central region said to lie between Himayat (the Himalaya) and Vindhya; and Aryaverta, or the land of respectable men, described in rather indefinite terms, but meant apparently to include the countries stretching on each side of the central region, "as far as the eastern and the western oceans," in other words, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

Assuming that at the time when the Institutes of Menu were compiled, the whole territory included under the names of Brahmaverta, Brahmarshi,

— Vol. II.

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