We Had Before Us Representatives Of Five Different Peoples, Five
Different Types Of Costume, Each Quite Unlike The Others.
All
five are known to us in ethnography under the generic name of Hindus.
Similarly eagles, condors, hawks, vultures, and owls are known to
ornithology as "birds of prey," but the analogous differences are
as great.
Each of these five companions, a Rajput, a Bengali, a
Madrasi, a Sinhalese and a Mahratti, is a descendant of a race,
the origin of which European scientists have discussed for over
half a century without coming to any agreement.
- - - - - -
Rajputs are called Hindus and are said to belong to the Aryan race;
but they call themselves Suryavansa, that is to say, descendants
of Surya or the sun.
The Brahmans derive their origin from Indu, the moon, and are called
Induvansa; Indu, Soma, or Chandra, meaning moon in Sanskrit. If
the first Aryans, appearing in the prologue of universal history,
are Brahmans, that is to say, the people who, according to Max Muller,
having crossed the Himalayas conquered the country of the five rivers,
then the Rajputs are no Aryans; and if they are Aryans they are not
Brahmans, as all their genealogies and sacred books (Puranas) show
that they are much older than the Brahmans; and, in this case,
moreover, the Aryan tribes had an actual existence in other countries
of our globe than the much renowned district of the Oxus, the cradle
of the Germanic race, the ancestors of Aryans and Hindus, in the
fancy of the scientist we have named and his German school.
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