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western tribes 42 and "the Vratya is derived from the word vrata" (troop) the chief of a band of wanderers of Aryan extraction, but absolutely independent, free from the fetters of Brahmanical heirarchy and not following the Aryan way of life.43
According to Dr. Karmarkar,, "(the institution), being the earliest organisation of the proto-Indians, pervading through the whole of India, to nullify the effects of which the Aryans started a parallel institution of the caturvārṇyam".44
Griffith holds the view that Vratya was a heretical nomad, a human wanderer in search of food and lodging, a religious mendicant, regarded as a being of peculiar sanctity,45 while Zimmer maintains that the Vratyas were a classless people outside the pale of Brahmanical social polity46 of the Aryans, although they were Aryans.
Some scholars maintain the view that the Indo-Aryans who emerged as a result of the racial synthesis of the Vedic Aryans, the Dravidas and the Nisadas with the Alpines and Bahiraryas47 or the outer-band IndoAryans living outside the jurisdiction of the Vedic Aryans were the Vratyas. They were not the Vedic Aryans. They have been called Vratya in the Srutis.48
Conclusion
The Vratya is said to have been derived from the two words 'vrata and vrata' as discussed above, in the derivation of which there arise some difficulties. But it is certain that the Vratyas were a people located at some particular place, having their own culture. Since the very question of the Vedic Aryans and their original home is not yet satisfactorily solved, it is not possible to identify the Vratyas with either one group of the Aryans or with the Non-Aryans at the present state of our knowledge
42
History of Indian Literature, p. 78.
cf. Vi II 344. Weber. 51, 121-40.
Weber, Indische Studies, 1. 35, vide Vratyas in Ancient India, p. 14.
A. P. Karmarkar, The Religion of India, Vol. I, p. 19, Vide Vratyas in Ancient India, p. 14, Fn. No. 22.
The Hymns of Atharvaveda, and also its preface, p. 199, Vol. II, Griffith, vide
Vratyas in Ancient India, p. 15.
All-Indisches, Leben, p. 256.
Indo-Aryan Races, p. 75.
48 Ibid., vide Bharatiya Saktisadhana by Dr. Upendra Kumar Das, p. 43.
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