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 SOCIAL EVIDENCES OP EARLY ARYAN INVASIONS OF ASAM 31 Almost the same contention may apply also to the Vedie language. Macdonell in the History of Sanskrit Literature nates: "The beginnings of these (present day Indian dialects) go back to a great antiquity. Even at the times the Vedie hymns were composed they must have existed as popular languages". Uhlenbeck opines: "There is reason to be lieve that Sanskrit descended from another old Indian dialect than that of the Vedic". "The Vedic language was spoken in the Punjab in 1500 B.C.". "There is indeed no doubt that in the second century..... Sanskrit was actually spoken in the country....extended beyond the Brahmins". (H.S.L.). It may therefore be surmised that while an early Aryan invasion of Asam is a fact beyond dispute, the similarity of many Asamiya words of Vedie and post-Vedie vocabulary may be due also to the old Indian dialect prevalent in Kamara being contemporaneous and probably analogous, to the one from which the Vedic and post-Vedie vocabulary sprang. SIX SOCIAL EVIDENCES OF EARLY ARYAN INVASIONS OF ASAM Besides the fig tree and possibly a crude fertility cult and Invention of the bow and arrow by the Negritos laying the foundation of neolithic culture and introducing of the use of pottery and totemistie rites by the proto Australoids and founding almost a full agricultural civilization with almost all its luxuries by the Mongoloids, the three or more non- Aryan Invasions appear to have contributed not much to the intellectual or spiritual culture of India in general and Asam In particular. On the other hand, while the three or more Aryan invasions appear to have contributed not much on the material and secular side, almost the whole structure of intellectual and spiritual elvilization of Indin appears to be broad-based by them in more or less varying degrees. In Asam, the actions and reactions of the different Aryan cultures may be found embodied in one ethnic group called the Kalitas. Kalita, as there were occasions to observe is no easte name as it is so often supposed to be, but is really an ethnic group. It was first suggested by Rajani Kumar Padmapoti in his valuable paper, Purani Asamat Bhamuki, 1910 first published in Bahi, Vol. II, where he showed how this group embraced so many castes or sub-castes as potters and goldsmiths and blacksmiths, washermen and barbers, also priests within their fold. That these Kaliths were certainly regarded as Brah mans and they did the priestly business of the Koces, sometimes even in preference to Vedic priests, has been proved from authoritative and