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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1911.
(E) ferai IT HET EN
श्वाविध्यमथ गोधानां स चके वधबंधनम् ॥ The son of a Kshatriya woman from a Sudra is called a Mainda (Meda) or Kshatta.
(F) ATR fan arma t : 1
सा सूने यवनं पुत्रं तुरुषकः स प्रकीर्तितः ।।
प्रसिद्धो म्लेच्छ देको यो गोवधेनास्व वर्तनम् । The son of a Med woman by an Andhra is called a Yavana. He is a Turk, a foreigner, killer of cows.
All these quotations, containing allusions to the Meds, may be compared with the quotations from European scholars given above.
On the authority of the Mujmal-ul-tawarikh, the Jats and Meds are reputed to be the descendants of Ham, the son of Noah and that they occupied the banks of the Indus in Sindh. During the period of the Arab occa pation, Muhammad, son of Kasim, represented them as "seafarers and pirates, with whom the men of Basora were then at war."
Lord Carzon, in his Persia, states that the Province of Milan on the Caspian coast contains descendants of the ancient Medes, that the Province of Milan is the original seat of sericulture for which Persia was celebrated."
so strong is the attachment of the primitive man to his soil that it is not surprising to find in the lowest stratum of the population of a country the representatives of its earliest races in spite of revolutionary changes at the surface. The human wave of enigrants is often compared to the disturbances, on the surface of an ocean, which leave the mud or shells at the bottom u disturbed in spite of cyclones and ternpests. It is, therefore, quite possible that Milan, the ancient Medir, retains a part of its original residents to this day, that the Medes, originally a maritime nation ou the coast of the Caspian Sea, have, after being driver out, gone southwards, following the course of the Polver where they possibly had their agents trading with India in raw silk. Along the Western coast of India, Karachi, Tata, Cutch, Surat, Broach, and Thana, Sopara, and Cheul are well-known seats of silk manufacture, and it has been often recorded that the raw material came from Persia. Western India does not produce silk.
The modern Meds or the ancient Medes, an oceanic tribe, is, therefore, possibly the one that sapplied the raw material. It is more natural to suppose that these people came from Media where they could gel wood for building their ships and canoes than to accept the modern tradition of their having gone to Makran from Gandova simply because they worship a Pir from that place. The Pir, who first converted them, may have come from Gandova, but not the people. It would be interesting to find out if Gandova can produce timber for building ships. Makran surely does not. But the distinct link of the Meds from the Caspian coast or Milan to the Persian Gulf and from there, along the Makran coast, to India is plain enough.
Added to these surmises are the anthropometric measurements of the people. Their average Cephalic Index is 82, Nasal Index 68.1, their orbito-nasal Index 127.3. Their oval faces present a purer Persian cast than that the one seen among the half-Arab half-Persian Baloches of the Northern portion of that province, their heads are broader and noses more prominent, in spite of palpable intermixture with the African and Indian races. Their characteristic traits also coincide : (1) They belong to the Aryan race, (2) they resemble Persians, (3) they are pirates with whom the people of Basora were at war in the time of the Arab occupation and (4) they were considered out-castes (foreigners) in India by the ancient writers. Until, therefore, future investigation proves to the contrary, it would not be unreasonable to accept the theory that the Meds of the Makran Coast
1 Lord Curon's Persia, Vol. I, pp. 239 to 240.
