Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/22



The Invasion.―At the time of the great Aryan migration (see p.4), some Aryan bands, journeying from the northwest, settled first the plains of the Indus and then occupied the valley of the Ganges. They reached the banks of the latter river as early probably as 1500 B.C.

These fair-skinned invaders found the land occupied by a dark-skinned, non-Aryan race, whom they either subjugated and reduced to serfdom, or drove out of the great river valleys into the mountains and the half-desert plains of the peninsula.

The Origin of .―The conflict of races in Northern India gave rise to what is known as the system of castes; that is, society became divided into a number of rigid hereditary classes. There arose gradually four chief castes: (1), or priests; (2) warriors; (3) agriculturists and traders; and (4) serfs, or. The Brahmans were those of pure Aryan blood, while the Sudras were the despised and oppressed non-Aryan aborigines. The two middle classes, the warriors and the cultivators of the soil, were of mixed Aryan and non-Aryan blood. Below these several