Art. III.—Account of the Wáralís and Kátodís,—two of the Forest Tribes of the northern Konkan

Extract

That India is not the cradle of the Brahmanical faith, may be a proposition startling to many who are not acquainted with its ancient literature. To the orientalíst of the humblest pretension, however, it needs no proof. The predecessors of the Brahmans, it is admitted by all who hare considered their records and traditions, were first associated together as a religious fraternity in a country beyond the Indus, or exterior to the Himálaya mountains. Our greatest men are divided in their opinions as to the country from which they came. Sir William Jones brings them from Iran, or Central Asia; Adelung from a similar locality; Klaproth, from the Caucasian mountains; Kennedy, from the plains of the Euphrates; and Schlegel, from the borders of the Caspian Sea. The theories of these scholars are all plausibly supported; and they generally agree in this respect, that they take it for granted, that the Brahmans in ancient times were found in the territories immediately north of India. The occurrence of about three hundred Sanskrit words in the Persian language, the Hindú notion of the northern position of the residences of the gods, the situation of the Manusarovar, or Lake of Intelligence, still a celebrated place of religious pilgrimage, and the source of the river Brahmaputra, whose etymological meaning, the “son of Brahma,” is similar to that of the usual designation of the priestly class to whom I refer, are in favour of this agreement. After the Brahmans entered India, they continued for a considerable time to inhabit its northern territories. The “Holy Land” of Manu, which is of no great extent, lies between the Drishadwatí and Saraswatí. On the banks of the latter river, according to some authorities, lived Vyása, the reputed compiler of the Vedas and Puránas. In the north are to be found the shrines, junctions of rivers, and lakes, esteemed most sacred by the Hindús in all ages.