India - Land And People

The specialty of India is that traces of the different races are found in India. The Dravidians were considered to be the most ancient people of India but the modern researchers of linguistics and anthropology have proved that even before the Dravidians came and settled in India six more tribes were also found form different lands. They also contributed to our culture diversity.

These people can be described as under:

(1) Negroid (Habsi People) :
Some historians believe that Negrate or Negros (Habsi) are the most ancient in Habitants of India. They came from Africa and via Baluchistan to India. They are black, having height of 4 to 5 feet and curly hair.

(2) Australoid (Nishad People) :
This tribe of people from South-East Asia. Their physical characteristics were : black skin, with broad head, flat nose short in height etc. The Aryans who came later on to India call them Nishad. The origins of the tribes like Kol and Munda, Khashi tribe of Assam the tribes of Nicobar and Myanmar have similarities to the Australoids. Their contributed in the development of India culture and civilization is immense.

They made clay utensils, wove cotton cloth and knew many other skills. They had great religious beliefs too.

(3) The Dravidians :
Before the Aryans the Dravidians used to live in India and they used to speak Dravidan-language. The Dravidians were the direct decendants of stone Age civilization and the creator of Mohan-jo-Daro culture The Indian culture is greatly indebted to the Dravidians just like the Aryans is many respects. The Dravidians gave the thought   of mother as a Goddess and father as a God; So the thought of parvati and shiva or mother and father developed.

Moreover the tradition of worshipping nature is the gift of the Dravidians. The tradition of worshipping with Dhup (incense stick) Deep (lamp) and Aarti  (worship with Aarti) are considered to be the gifts Dravidians. The Dravidians developed urban civilization by constructing houses with bricks. They matriarchal system of family. They progressed a lot in different like building of boat and raft weaving spinning dyeing arts etc.

Arrows spears and swords etc were their weapons. They were-versed in the art of weaving cotton cloth and making tools for agriculture. Due to the dominance of the Aryans in the north of the India the Dravidians shifted to south India and settled there. As a result today we can find the people speaking Dravidians –family languages like Tamil Kannada and Malayalam etc. in south India. 

(4) Other tribes :
A part from this Alpine Dinarik and Armenoid tribes are the tribes who migrated from central Asia. All those three tribes have some similarities. The origins (genes) of those tribes are found in a large number in Gujarat Saurashtra, Maharashtra Bengal and in Orissa.

(5) Mongoloid (Kirat) :
People possessed the physical characteristics like yellow complexion flat face chubby cheeks almond shaped eyes etc. They came to India from North East chia via Tibet and settled down at north Assam East Bengal sikkim Bhutan and they gradually Indianized themselves.

(6) The Aryans :
The Aryans were more developed people then any other contemporary tribes. They loves prayed and worshipped the trees, rivers, mountains, the sun, wind and rain. They had composed hymns (mantras) for praying various natural elements.

In due course of time, some religious ceremonies were originated out of them the Yagnayagaadi (related of Yajna) which observe the influence of the Aryans on Indian culture.

The Nordic - Aryans were the makers of Aryan culture in India. Excepting the distinguishing features of different tribes which came earlier in India and created a harmonious culture in India with passage of time all these tribes which came to India and settled there were amalgamated through inter tribe marriages. This process helped in the merging of all those tribes into one.

There was merging of those tribes with their specific style of living, different languages and thoughts in to one. So right from the beginning there was a creation of harmonious culture which gave India glorious and prosperous heritage. This great heritage of India attracted the attention amongst the people of the world in such a way that during the ancient period many foreigners came down in big number. In the beginning of the second century a new era began with the advent of the foreigners. This is because of Alexanderls invasion, the Greeks came to India later. The shakas kushnas pallavea and hunas etc. came and settled in different parts of India over a long period of time. India became their native land. They all then became Indian. Greek emperor Menander was recognized as milind, after his conversion to Buddhism. Thus the culture structure of India was strengthened in many ways. This made Indian culture variegated these tribes migrated in such a way that they lost their individual identity.

These foreigner and the Indian tribes were greatly influenced by languages, script names religions and beliefs etc. Religion played a vital role in indianizing these foreigners. Some of them accepted the Buddhism and some accepted Hinduism. The kushan emperor kanishka I adopted Buddhism and contributed notably in propagating Buddhism some pillar inscriptions coins cave inscriptions stone  inscription etc. are a witness to all these.

These foreign tribes adopted not only the religion but they also adopted language script social traditions etc. They also adopted Indian names and titles. In short in ancient India the amalgamation of various cultures enriched Indian culture by making it variegated and prosperous.