Page:An introduction to Dravidian philology.djvu/47

Rh ed. We have also here & clue as to why all these tribes should have been brought together under the common contemptuous name of the Pisacas.

Why these were called the Pisacas can easily be surmised. We know that there was a great schism between the Iranians and the Aryans before they separated over religious and social practices. "Asura" in the Avesta is the mighty God, and "Daeva" the evil one, while the reverse is the case with the Aryans. There was a perpetual fight between the two, during the course of which some of the Asuras seems to have called truce and agreed to occupy a subordinate and yet important position in the Aryan fold. Varuna, for instance, is an Asura and get a god of the Aryans. How this came to pass may be accounted for by the fact that originally he was a powerful rival of Indra and passages can be quoted from the Rigveda to show