History of Indian and Eastern Architecture — John Shaqi
History of Indian and Eastern ArchitectureFergusson, James
History
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture
Fergusson, James
Architecture -- India; Architecture, Asian
Their settlement in India extends to such remote pre-historic times,
that we cannot feel even sure that we should regard them as immigrants,
or, at least, as either conquerors or colonists on a large scale, but
rather as aboriginal in the sense in which that term is usually
understood. Generally it is assumed that they entered India across the
Lower Indus, leaving the cognate Brahui in Belochistan as a mark of the
road by which they came, and, as the affinities of their language seem
to be with the Ugrians and northern Turanian tongues, this view seems
probable.[8] But they have certainly left no trace of their migrations
anywhere between the Indus and the Nerbudda, and all the facts of their
history, so far as they are known, would seem to lead to an opposite
conclusion. The hypothesis that would represent what we know of their
history most correctly would place their original seat in the extreme
south, somewhere probably not far from Madura or Tanjore, and thence
spreading fan-like towards the north, till they met the Aryans on the
Vindhya Mountains. The question, again, is not of much importance for
our present purposes, as they do not seem to have reached that degree of
civilisation at any period anterior to the Christian Era which would
enable them to practise any of the arts of civilised life with success,
so as to bring them within the scope of a work devoted to the history of
art.
It may be that at some future period, when we know more of the ancient
arts of these Dravidians than we now do, and have become familiar with
the remains of the Accadians or early Turanian inhabitants of
Babylonia, we may detect affinities which may throw some light on this
very obscure part of history. At present, however, the indications are
much too hazy to be at all relied upon. Geographically, however, one
thing seems tolerably clear. If the Dravidians came into India in
historical times, it was not from Central Asia that they migrated, but
from Babylonia, or some such southern region of the Asiatic continent.
DASYUS.
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