common national designation with the Arilor "Aptot, as the'
Medes were termed according to HeroddfflSy arid this
designation, slightly modified^ 'was appropriated by- thl>
Brahmans, who were called Ary as, or and the,
middle orders or Aryas, of the Vaisya tribe.*
The Arian race of India or Aryavarta differ in physical
characters from the Medo-Persian Arians*. The-difference is
most striking in complexion, the Hindoos being black while
the Persians are comparatively fair with black hair and eyes*'
The cause which has given rise to this diversity can appaa
rently he nothing else than the influence of the hot clip ate
of Hindustan. Every historical indication is against the supposition,
that the dark complexion of the Hindoos has
arisen from the intermixture of an Iranian-ancestry with
the aborigines of India. The ’ purity of the, Sanskrit
language, which would on that supposition have;, been
merged in the idiom of th e great mass of the ^communityr
precludes the notion that the Ariameolonists were but a band
of conquerors. All the historical traditions and .the writteqf
histories which go back to the date of the Manava Sastra
are, as we have already had occasion, to observeydecisive
against that notion. Neither are the physical characters of
the Hindoos such as would be produced in a mi x_ed jiff spring
of Iranians with the tribes resembling the Bhihs or the Raja-
mahal Paharias. And if we were to adopt the notidny that
the Brahmans and Xatriyas alone were foreigners, and that
they conquered and reduced the aboriginal people and condemned
them to an inferior rank, we have still to account for
the black complexion of the Brahman tribe. It is true that
the Brahmans are generally a comparatively fair, people.
But there are Brahmans extremely black, and the social regulations
of the Indian community j which go back to the first
ages of India, perclude the supposition, that this race at least
has been intermixed with the barbarous aboriginal tribes.
That the black colour of the Hindoos who live in the
hot plains near the tropics is a result from the agency of
temperature, is rendered extremely probable by the con-
* Burnouf, Comment, sur leYa^na.
sideaation that'thevnorthera colonies; of these very people,
and the families who dwell near the sources of the sacred
rivers^ to which we may add the Siah-P6 sh of the Hindd-
Khixh, are extremely fair and xanthous, with blue eyes
and all the characteristics of a northern and even of a
Teutonic race.?