Page:The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 4-1875.djvu/180

 RVATIOXS OH TTTE KUDFMt Xenophon, by the Lakeda*monians. It may be doubted, however, if the Greeks or Ionians ever shaved the hej»d completely. The practice pre- amongst the Mubamin. universal. The Sakas, Skythians, or Tatars shave the fore part of the head, gatherir; hair at the hack into a long- tail, as do the Chinese. The mountaineers of the Himalaya shave the crown of the head, as do the people of K.'ifristan, with the exception of a single tuft. What Oriental people WOrfl their hair loug ex- cept at the hack of the head is questionable, an J the usage would bo characteristic rather of the Teutonic and Gothic nations. The ancient Persians had long bushy beards, as the Perse- politan sculptures demonstrate." The attentive reader of the above extract from the Vishnu Parana, and Professor Wilson's note thereupon, cannot fail to perceive that the dif- ferent modes in which the hair was ordered to be worn by S agar a were intended to be, and were regarded as, signs of nationality or race, not as signs of religion ; and this is confirmed by the separate enumeration, in a subsequent part of the paragraph, of the distinctively religious privileges which were prohibited to the races referred to. The conquered races and al niil tribes were to be distinguished from "the regenerate tribes," that is, from the BrAhmans, riya-;. and Yaisyas, called collectively the dvijft, "[• twice- born castes, by two sets of differences,— one a differs ang their nationality, race, or caste,— taking the sense— and consisting in the mode of wearing the hsdr and beard ; the other a dif- ference marking their religious degradation, and j| nit; in the prohibition of the A c h a r as, or established usages, of oh. ■• fire, the oi the Vedcu, and the residence amongst ttii-iii of llnilinian priests. only niodo of wearing the hair not de- scribed in tixns is that which was already in use amongst bhe Aryas, or j, Sanskrit-speaking race, — that is, the three twice-born castes mentioned above, — via. ng the bead leaving a lock, and leaving a moustache; but as we know from other authorities that thi fche Aryan fashion, and as it was for the pur- ^nigui-shiug the conquered races and aboriginal barba ria n* from the Aryas ofpnre blood that their various modes of weurii. hair and beard were enjoined upon them, it is evident that the Aryan fashion, the only other n then known in India, though not ex- !y mentioned in the injunctions, is tinctly referred to as that from which those modes were distinguished ; and it is equally evident, therefore, that this fashion was rega by the Aryas as a sign of their own nation- ality, it was with this idea tl 9 retained by themselves, it was proh to all other races. s unnecessary to hold it to be historically triif that this mode of d thing the differ- ent races inhabiting ancient India was first in- troduced by S a g a r a. Though S a g a r a was one of the ear £ the Solar line, it cannot be doubted that the different modes of wearing the hair referred to, including the Aryan mode, had already come into use, in accordance with the practice of all ancient nations to dis- tinguish themselves from their neighbours by such external differences, ami that what Sa- gara is represented as commanding the differ- ent races to do is merely what they had already been in the habit of il he Tatar inhabitants of Central Asia, called Sakai Sanskrit writers, have always been inthehabit, as Professor Wilson remarks, of "sharing the fore part of the head, gathering the hair at the hack inese>" This mode of wearing the hair is identical with the k u d u- m i of the Aryas, with the exception of the length of the tail ; and as it bat) prevailed from the earliest times to the present day amongst three contiguous races, the Tatars, the Hindus, and the Chinese, and as it is certain that the Hindus had their origin in Central Asia, it is much more reasonable to suppose that the Hin- dus brought the kudanii with them from then* original abodes, like the horse-sacrifice, tho worship of fire, and various other usages, that they invented it after their arrival in India. This makes no difference, however, with Spect to the light in whieh differences in wear- in- the hair were regarded in India in an Whether those differences were intro- I by king Sag ara, or whether they hud already been in existence, we learn from the passage quoted above that they were regarded as ' distinguishing marks," not of religion but of nationality. The kudu mi was the "distin- guishing mark"' of the Aryas, and the other