________________
770
D. D. KOSAMBI
w
or morc cultures which were thercafter fused. In India, this fusion did not go to the extent of continuing the urban lifc of thc older period, though that was cssentially what other Aryans did further to the west. Had the amalgamation achicved nothing more than the formation of a hclotage (thc sūdra caste) from the conqucrcd black Dasyus, there would be no such indelible mark Icft upon the Brahmin priesthood and tradition. Morcover, there is ample cvidence for the existence of dark-skinncd Brahmins in antiquity, the possiblity being also admitted by Buddhists (Digha Nikāya 4) but not by Brahmins from the northwest (7BBRAS vol.23, 1947, pp.39-46); such clcar cvidence of racial admixture did not lead to any loss of caste. This completes the alternative line of reasoning, bringing us to the samc point as before.
SURVIVALS OF MOTHER-RIGHT IN THE RGVEDA
13. The question of matriarchy* and group-marriagc has only becn skirtcd in the previous sections. I now propose to show that even in our oldest available documents there exists clear cvidence to support our arguments, without violence to logic and with improved meaning. Such re-interpretation is necessary as the original simple meaning had become incomprchensible in the intervening millennia of a totally different form of society. Following the vedas, cpics, purīņas, gļhya-sūtras, and smstis in chronological order, we find at times a reversal in the accepted scqucncc of development. Matriarchal features appcar later, as for example strīdhana (property inherited in the female line), and recognition of consanguinity on the mother's side. These are duc not to retrogression in the means of production but to absorption of the remaining pre-Aryans by comparatively peaceful methods. Matriarchy and the most primitive forms of exogamy are known to survive only among thc lcast Aryanized of India's tribes. The leading Rgvedic gods Agni, Vāyu, Varuna, Mitra have no real consorts, for Varuņāni, Agnāyi etc. (like the male Sarasvat for Sarasvati) are palpablc fictions which ncvcr took hold; the noticcable fact is that they should have been thought ncccssary at all. The slightly better drawn Indrāni (x.86) never establishes herself in the panthcon. Vişnu develops his supreme importance only in the latcr pcriod when he has already marricd the
ahorn Laksmi. Siva-Rudra can becomc the great god because of his wife Parvati: he has often to appear as a hermaphrodite assuming half her body,
Polis her cult. The conclusion is irresistiblc that these divine marriages only represent the fusion of the invaders with a sct of predominantly ma
This is treated to some cxtcnt (1or modern Dravidian India) by O.R. Ehrenf
an India) by O.R. Ehrenfels : Mother-Right
. M. 1941). In India (Oxford 1041). The autior's cit
The autior's citations of our oldest sources are perfunctory, second-hand,
ause of conscqucnt misinterpretation. od irrelevant or inaccurate because of conscqucnt misinterpretation. The
The comparison on pp.180-81 What Marshall imagined to be the essential features of the Indus Valley cuine
have been Nayar civilization at is height is particularly superficial and misleading. Ehrenfels belicvcs to have been Nayar civiliza the supposed features not being exclusive.
