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ORIGIN OF BRAHMIN. GOTRAS
duism never developed an established church, and that the Brahmin caste began to serve the general population by ritual, rather than the warrior class by yajña, only after the rise of Buddhism. In the carliest days (as in Rome and Greece), it was the right as well as the duty of every head of a patriarchal family to perform priestly functions later reserved for Brahmins; and knowledge of vedic Sanskrit was common without the prolonged study it necessitated later. If, under such circumstances, we find the beginning at least of endogamous castes, it is necessary to inquire what external forces would lead to and accelerate this type of partition. The major feature is the conquest; it will be shown that this docs account for the fudra caste. But it is difficult to believe that no other portion of the conquered population survived besides the helots; that we should nevertheless find the reappearance of Indus Valley motifs, including multiplcheaded and many-armed deities-particularly Brahma. That cities like Mohenjo-daro could exist without class divisions is quite incredible in view of what is known of ancient society, and if their armament does not appear from known excavations (which are certainly incomplete) to have been very good, it implies the existence of some other method than pure force for maintaining the class division. This method, so far as known, can only be religion, and that in turn implies the existence of a strong, fully-developed, and well-organized priesthood. I may point out in this connection the importance of the desert bordering the river (as in Egypt and Mesopotamia) for this not only makes the development of agriculture, and later of the city-state, possible as well as necessary, but also cconomizes the energy spent upon defence against wild animals, barbarians, and in cutting down forests. The intervening desert is an excellent natural barrier against external enemies till they learn the advanced military technique necessary for crossing it and taking walled cities. The need for internal force is minimized by the priesthood. After the Aryan conquest, nothing would be casier than the absorption of some upper layers of the conquered society, and the most attractive would be the priesthood, even more important than the technicians in any primitive society. Of course, this would greatly intensify the development of classes aniong the conquerors as soon as they began to settle down; which is precisely what we find on comparing the Rgveda with the Taittiriya Samhita and later documents. As further support, I might point out that a considerable number of ancient storics appear rather late, albeit with claim to antiquity-as for example the flood legends and the puranas in general, though some of the material is undoubtedly pre-Aryan.
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In this direction, it is also necessary to remark that matriarchy survives only among the least Aryanized of the people found in India today. If the conquered had even a remnant of this system, it would be casy for them to preserve their group structure for a while after adoption into various patriarchal gentes. Thus we should not be surprised at finding Dirghatamas called
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