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 INTRODUCTION. 13 probably not far from Madura or Tanjor, and thence spread- ing fan-like towards the north, till they met the Aryans in the northern Dekhan. The question, again, is not of much importance for our present purposes, as we do not know to what degree of civilisation they had reached anterior to the Christian Era, or when they were first able to practise the arts of civilised life with such success as to bring them within the scope of a work devoted to the history of art. 1 It may be that at some future period, when we know more of the ancient arts of these Dravidians than we now do, some fresh light may be thrown on this very obscure part of history. Geographically, however, one thing seems tolerably clear. If the Dravidians came into India in historical times it was not from Central Asia that they migrated, but from Persia, or some southern region of the Asiatic continent. DASYUS. In addition to these two great distinct and opposite nationa- lities, there exists in India a third, which, in pre-Buddhist times, was as numerous, perhaps even more so, than either the Aryans or the Dravidians, but of whose history we know even less than we do of the two others. Ethnologists have not agreed on a name by which to call them. I have suggested Dasyus, 2 a slave people, as that is the name by which the Aryans designated them when they found them there on their first entrance into India, and subjected them to their sway. 3 Possibly they were partly of Mongol-Tibetan origin, and partly they may have been a mixed race allied to the Dravidians, and now represented by Gonds, Santals, Bhils, etc. The Dasyus, however, were not mere barbarians ; for they had towns, and traces of at least a partial civilisation ; they had leaders or chiefs possessed of strong fortified retreats, and they possessed treasures of gold and rich jewels. 4 Whoever they were they seem to have been a people of less intellectual capacity, less muscular, and less united than their invaders. When the Aryans first entered India they seem to have found them occupying the whole valley of the Ganges the whole 1 In the ' Ramayana ' the monkey- soldiers are directed to the countries of the Andhras, Pandyas, Cholas, and Keralas, in the south, and are told they will there see the gate of the city of the Pandyas adorned with gold and jewels. 2 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' pp. 244-247. 1 ' Dasyu ' probably meant 'provincial,' 'aboriginal,' and was used much as 'Gentiles,' 'Pagans,' 'Barbarians,' in early times. They are also termed Yadvas, of which we may have a survival in the 'Jats.' A 4 Vivian de Saint Martin's ' Etude sur la Geographic et les populations primi- tives du Nord-ouest de 1'Inde, d'apres les Hymnes vediques.'