Page:Growth of Asamiya Language.pdf/42

 32 THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE ASAMYA LANGUAGE historical sources. The culture and physiognomy and all other features connected with the Kalitas betray their Aryan'origin to be sure; but the above facts and figures about them seem to prove at the same time that they were non-Vedic, if not anti-Vodic. This is further corrobora- ted by their manners and customs which are definitely peculiar to Indo- Aryan people. They positively belong to a high easte among the Aryans, but they ever refused to practise child marriage and to obey prohibition of widow marriage as Vedie Ayans of later age did. Perhaps they practised home in marriage at a later stage, probably in spite of them selves. "Assam is the home of the Kalitas, and its (Asam's) civili zation is pre-eminently a Kalila civilization. The other sub-eastes follow the Kalita social law and customs in their entirety". (AVB, Introdue- tion, p. XXXVI). It is hard to say when the Kalitas submitted them selves to the subjugation of the Vedic rules and rites, but even in it their supremacy is acknowledged; for any pronelyte from a non-Aryan group la finit placed in such a sub-caste as Koe with a promise to promote him through an intermediate class as Keot finally to a Kalita. Even then Kalitas try their level best to keep their blood unmixed as best as they can. Dalton says of them: "The Kaliths are to be found in every district of Assam and as no one appears to know how they got there or where they came from, we may infer that they are the rem- nant of the earliest (Aryan) colonists of the Valley. They are the people to whom the Assamese population generally owe the softening of feature which has so improved three of Mongolian dercent.... Colonel Hannay cbserved that many Kalitoa have the grey eye so frequently found amongst the Rajuts of western India.... I do not know of any castes corresponding to them in the western districts; but I find Buchanan Hamilton says that the Kalithis once had great sway in Rungpur, and many of those remaining there have sumed the title of Kists. As Rungpur was once part of the kingdom of Kamarupa, we might expect to find Kalitas there but a Hindu tebe, in every way resembling them and having the same name, Kalith, is to be found in the Sambalpur district and some of the Cuttack and Chat-Nagpur Tributary Mahal.... "I believe we have good grounds for supposing that Assam or Kama- rupa was amorest the earliest established of the Eastern Aryan settle ments. Bhagadatta king of Kimarupo, is mentioned as a warrior in the Mahabharata and in the antiquities and traditions of the country.. Wilson cbserves in the preface to his Vishnu Purene: "It is a singular and as yet uninvestigated circumstance that Assam or at least the north- east of Bengal seems to have been in a great degree the source from which the Tantrika and Sakta corruptions of the religion of the Vedas and Puranas proceeded"...It appears from the earliest notices of Kimarüpa that the Ayans who first eceupled it were sulweguently re- started as Infidels by their western brethren. were probably Kalitas... It appears certain that there were to Braons The older head-priests with the earlier colonists (Edmology of Bengal, pp. 77-82).