the Aryan invasion. It is a story that has been adapted from pre-Aryan sources."27 Dr. Berriedale Keith had already anticipated this view seventeen years before: "Whatever amount of Dravidian influence is to be traced in the religion of the Vedic texts, it is certain that the epic already cannot be regarded as representing pure Aryan religion and that indeed Dravidian influence may have been of great importance."28 Prof. Ojha, after studying the Indra-Vṛtra myth of the Ŗgveda in comparison with its parallels in other civilizations, does not hesitate in affirming: "It seems very probable that the origin of this myth is pre-Aryan, and thus the greatest of the Vedic myths is, most probably, pre-Aryan."29 From a totally different point of view Prof. Sten Konow concludes that the Vedic god Indra is "not an Aryan, pre-Indian deity."30 Hence we are not allowed any more to question "the predominance of the pre-Aryan element in the cultural structure of what we call 'Hinduism.'"31 II This borrowing of Dravidian culture by the Aryas, which proves the mythical character of the Aryanization of India, was doubtlessly fostered by the free mixture of both the races.32 "The Indo-Aryans," says Prof. Rakhal Das Banerji, "came to India in very small numbers, and they did not make any attempt at preserving the purity of their stock. From the very beginning they admitted tribes of foreign or mixed origin into their communities and the statements of the present-day Brahmanical writers about the racial purity of the Indo-Aryans and the rigidity of their marriage regulations are inaccurate."33 Thus, Purukutsa, of Ŗgvedic fame, was not a pure Aryan, but connected with the Dravidians.34 Vyāsa, the supposed author of the Mahābhārata, was the son of a Mātsya (Mīna) princess, of an undoubtedly Dravidian family.35 The Pāṇḍavas and Kṛṣṇa are said ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 27 Letter dated Poona, November 22nd, 1942, two months before Dr Sukthankar's death (Archives of the Indian Historical Research Institute), Cf. Heras, "The Age of the Mahābhārata War", J.I.H., XXV (1948), pp. 1-20. 28Keith, op. cit, I. p. 54. 29 Ojha, "The Indra-Vṛtra War and the 'Serpent People'", J.B.O.R.S., XXVIII, p. 59. 30 Konow, The Aryan Gods of the Mitani People, p. 37. 31 Ehrenfels, Mother-right in India, p. 1. 32 "The task of organizing and Aryanizing so vast a mass of Dravldians along wholly Aryan lines would have been immense; it is difficult to conceive how it could have been accomplished." Brown, op. cit., p. 77. 33 Banerji, op. cit., p. 24. 34 Hewitt, op. cit, pp. 214-215. 35Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, 4222-4273. |