"THE ABORIGINES WERE THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF PRIMITIVE INDIA"...SUPREME COURT OF INDIA.

The dalit and tribal women folk dance around the Karma tree during Karma

India's prehistory lies in utter darkness. Scholars have always wanted us to believe  things which they believe; many things but the truth. Say as for instance we have always believed that Sanskrit was the language spoken by our primitives.  But is it feasible?

No, as Sanskrit was never the language of the masses.  We should realize Sanskrit is a very difficult and a very sophisticated language; something which needs to be learnt before applying it in our lives. Means, one was required to be educated to speak this supreme language.

Sadly, education  was not meant for the commons in archaic India but reserved for the Ksatryasand Brahmins and the multitude at large remained uneducated. Therefore the belief that such a complicated and a superior language as Sanskrit would have been the speech of the masses in the hoary past of India is surely unacceptable. Sanskrit therefore was undoubtedly the language of literature.

What were the languages of ancient India then ?

Scholars say that unlike today when we have specific communities speaking a particular language as the Bengali community would be speaking Bengali , the Oriya their own Oriya, in the ancient periods particular languages were spoken by specific castes and tribes.

Prakrit is believed to have been the main vernacular of ancient India. Prakrit speech was divided into languages like the Magadhi, Ardhmagadhi, Prachya, Sauraseni, Bahelika, Daksinatya, etc.Magadhi was assumed to have been used by servants and snake charmers. Merchants communicated in their ardhmagadhi speech. Avanti was the speech of the females. The warriors and gamblers spoke in Daksinatya vernaculars. Sauraseni was used in dramas.Prachya was similar to Sauraseni. 

Few more speeches are noted as sub-dialects of ancient India, they are; Chandali, Dravidi, Sakari, Abhiri, Sabari,Audri, Vanakasi and Vanachari, Dhakki etc.

Sabari was the speech of tribals in the forests. Sakari was spoken by the Sakas. Dravidi too was spoken by the forest dwellers. Chandali was the vernacular of the Pulkasas and the outcastes. 

Pali was the canonical language of the Prakrit family. Pali was much different from Sanskrit. Prakrit languages belonged to the Indo -Aryan group of the Indo-Europeon languages.These were the vernaculars of ancient India when India was gradually being Aryanised.

But how was India during pre-Vedic times and who were the denizens of this sacred land and and what languages were they speaking ? Remember here I am NOT  speaking of the Indus valley Civilisation, as much has been talked of it.I speak of mainland India at large from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Mizoram to Gujarat. No civilization to the magnitude of the Indus Valley Civilization has been found here therefore it is largely believed during the contemporary times of Harappa, India was primarily a land of clustered villages. But what dialects did these people communicate in?

Scholars stand differed.

The foremost vernacular of prehistoric India was indisputably the different variants of the austric Mundari. The eminent linguist Suniti.Kr.Chatterji firmly believed that the Mundari speech was once spread from Baluchistan to the Mekong valley.

What would this really mean ? Well  it's meaning is plain and simple; prior to its Aryanisation (which is also regarded as Sankritisation or Brahminisation) India was thoroughly tribal which conversed in tribal languages.

Are there evidences of such an assumption ? Well as a matter of fact there are many.

The tribal folklores  are a treasure chest of numerous events that have occured in the past in our country which also narrate episodes in the lands from where many of these tribals had migrated from. These folklores are in a way oral history which are not valued by modern science and history.

Sadly, scholars  appreciate ancient texts as they value them more than  folktales. We must realize that folktales are more authentic than the ancient texts as  books can be doctored. Traditional stories of ancient communities which are still spoken and sung by the adivasis even thousands of miles apart  are documents from the past which can be deemed as oral history hence their being false is less.

The Santals' and the Mundas' migratory stories suggest that they had entered India from the North West of India. Even the Dravidian Kurukh speaking Oraons firmly believe of their entrance  in to India from the North West of the country. From Afghanistan to the the East of India and beyond there are names of numerous towns,villages, hills and rivers which can still be found in tribal Jharkhand where eventually the Mundas, Oraons and the Santals settled. It could come as a surprise to many that the Santals' claim that they were one of the prime authors of the Harappan civilization. No one however takes their claim seriously. Obviously because of their aboriginal origin. One major book "Echoes of the Indus" revealed that the secret Khonds of the Santals had startling similarities with the so called scripts on the seals of the Indus and in fact many of them being absolutely identical.

The Sarna in Banjha

Such a discovery is a testimony of these Kolarian tribals' presence in the region during hoary antiquity. Furthermore many Santali gurus and scholars claim names such as Harappa, Mohnejodaro and Lahore etc to be austric Mundaric or Santali (source "Sacred Stones in Indian Civilization". Kaveri Books) .  One of the the prime charterstics of tribal names are that they are created by combining two different names.

The name Harappa according to the Santals has been formed by combining  two  Santali (Santali is a variant of the Mundari speech) words HAR meaning bones and APPA meaning cremation.HARAPPA therefore means  Burning of Bones (a ritual). Harappa rhymes with the sacred temple site of Rajarappa (a famous  Hindu temple today  in Jharkhand), which has been derived from a Santali village of the same name in the vicinity. The meaning of Rajarappa therefore is the cremation of a Raja.

Similarly LAHORE is another name  which according to the Santals  is Mundari Santali in origin and has been named by them during their stay here in the deep past. They believe that the term Lahore  is derived from two ausrtric  Santali words LA which means to dig and HOR(e) means a road. LAHOR therfore means to dig to make a road.

There are countless names of villages and towns  in Pakistan around Harappa, Mohenjodaro , Himachal, Kashmir, Rajasthan,UP, MP and Chattisgarh as Gumla, Kunar, Chanhu, Daru, Jhumra, Muree, Kasmar , Bonga, Sindoor, Sirsi, Rohtas, Kud, Rewali etc and even in Punjab, Rajasthan  M.P, U.P, Chattisgarh which can still be found in tribal Jharkhand.

Many of these names like hundreds others are neither Sanskrit nor Urdu in origin but austric Mundari. The tribals must have  had named them during their presence here in course of their onward journey into Jharkhand.

The presence of a Dravidian Kurukh speaking Brahui  tribe in Baluchistan akin to the Pahariasand the Oraons of Jharkhand confirms the Kurukhs' migratory story of their entrance into India through this region. The presence of the Brahuis here also testifies that a faction of the Kurukh speaking tribe must have stayed on  in this region during much antiquity preserving their millenia old speech. However many linguists as Murray Emeneau and Hock  believes that the Kurukh language may have reached Balichistan very lately.

If their assumption is true then  how can one explain  the name KURUKHSHETRA in Haryana. Wouldn't KURUKHSHTERA in simple Hindi mean the KHESTRA (or region)  of theKURUKH (speaking) people? Doesn't the name of the place suggest the presence of Kurukhpeople in the region during ancient times and therefore it was so named?

A Santhal Budhi

What are other proofs that the tribals were the early people in India prior to the arrival of; say that of the Aryans ? The very primitive megaliths that are literally scattered all over the country from kashmir to Kerela and for Manipur to Gujarat are perhaps the first and the oldest archaeological relic of Indians which were created certainly by the tribals and not by the Aryans. Therefore megaliths are the first archaeological relic of India's prehistory that proves India's past was completely tribal prior to her Aryanisation/Sankritisation.

What more can a megalith speak? Megaliths articulates more than what we understand about them. Scholars suggest that megaliths are merely burials and memorials of the dead.  It is also so because they are raised today for sepulchral purposes and also for their excavations revealing burials . But there are many megaliths in India like their counterparts in UK, Europe and Japan which were created to function as observatories of the transits of the sun and also as calendars and for other astronomical significances.

The megaliths of Punkree Burwadih and megaliths of Rola in Jharkhand, Hanamsagar and Vibhuthihalli  in Karnataka are a few of these primitive temples which reveal that the stones within the complexes have been placed to acute mathematical and  accuracy. Many of the stones have  also been found to be oriented towards significant sunrises and sets,  cardinal points,  stars, constellations and even to major moon rises of  the18.5 year cycle and God knows to what else.

Megaliths therefore validates that maths was known to early tribals much prior to Aryan mathematician and astronomers as Bodhayana and Aryabhatta etc. This evidence of the presence of mathematics and astronomy in megalithic complexes is totally unaccepted by scholars  as perhaps it is objectionable to them that the aborigines in the past could have possessed such profound knowledge of these sciences. If this evidence is to be believed, then the Aryan supremacy would  immediately get suppressed and history would have to be rewritten.

An Oraon Budha

As a result of their tribal origin the prehistoric  megaliths linger in anonymity and obscurity .

Like as in yesteryears as mentioned in our sacred texts even today the tribal suffers. On contrary to usher respect on them for being the early inhabitants of our country and for who gave us such magnanimous creations as these megaliths we  strip them naked, beat them, mock at them, cheat and usurp  their lands  forcefully or deceitfully like we have been doing to them since the Vedic days.

But the tribals have opposed in the hoary antiquity. One  practice still prevalent among them is testimony of one  such a  resistance by them in the deep past which was conveyed to me by one of the primitive tribals.  The opposition to the very unfair and deceitful demand of the thumb of the tribal Ekalabya  by the Aryan Brahmin Dronacharya in the Mahabharata as agurudakshina which curtailed Eklabya from archery all his life was  met by the tribals in entire India byreplacing the earlier practice of shooting  arrows by using the thumb and the first finger  with shooting arrows using the first and the second fingers. This practice of archery still continues among the tribals even today as a protest to the deed of Dronacharya.

What does our Honourable Supreme Court think of this entire drama as who were original inhabnitants of India? The answer lies in the following excerpts of its decision  came in Criminal Appeal No. 11 of 2011, arising out of Special Leave Petition No. 10367 of 2010 Kailas & Others versus State of Maharashtra TR. Taluka P.S (http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/india-largely-a-country-of-immigrants/article1081343.ece :

"Who were the original inhabitants of India? At one time it was believed that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants. However, this view has been considerably modified subsequently, and now the generally accepted belief is that the original inhabitants of India were the pre-Dravidian aborigines, that is, the ancestors of the present tribals or Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes).

The Cambridge History of India (Volume I), Ancient India, says:

“It must be remembered, however, that, when the term ‘Dravidian' is thus used ethnographically, it is nothing more than a convenient label. It must not be assumed that the speakers of the Dravidian languages are aborigines. In Southern India, as in the North, the same general distinction exists between the more primitive tribes of the hills and jungles and the civilised inhabitants of the fertile tracts; and some ethnologists hold that the difference is racial and not merely the result of culture…

“It would seem probable, then, that the original speakers of the Dravidian languages were outsiders, and that the ethnographical Dravidians are a mixed race. In the more habitable regions the two elements have fused, while representatives of the aborigines are still in the fastnesses (in hills and forests) to which they retired before the encroachments of the newcomers. If this view be correct, we must suppose that these aborigines have, in the course of long ages, lost their ancient languages and adopted those of their conquerors. The process of linguistic transformation, which may still be observed in other parts of India, would seem to have been carried out more completely in the South than elsewhere.

"The theory that the Dravidian element is the most ancient which we can discover in the population of Northern India, must also be modified by what we now know of the Munda languages, the Indian representatives of the Austric family of speech, and the mixed languages in which their influence has been traced. Here, according to the evidence now available, it would seem that the Austric element is the oldest, and that it has been overlaid in different regions by successive waves of Dravidian and Indo-European on the one hand, and by Tibeto-Chinese on the other…

“At the same time, there can be little doubt that Dravidian languages were actually flourishing in the western regions of Northern India at the period when languages of the Indo-European type were introduced by the Aryan invasions from the north-west. Dravidian characteristics have been traced alike in Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, in the Prakrits, or early popular dialects, and in the modern vernaculars derived from them. The linguistic strata would thus appear to be arranged in the order-Austric, Dravidian, Indo-European.

“There is good ground, then, for supposing that, before the coming of the Indo-Aryans speakers the Dravidian languages predominated both in Northern and in Southern India; but, as we have seen, older elements are discoverable in the populations of both regions, and therefore the assumption that the Dravidians are aboriginal is no longer tenable. Is there any evidence to show whence they came into India?

“No theory of their origin can be maintained which does not account for the existence of Brahui, the large island of Dravidian speech in the mountainous regions of distant Baluchistan which lie near the western routes into India. Is Brahui a surviving trace of the immigration of Dravidian-speaking peoples into India from the West? Or does it mark the limits of an overflow form India into Baluchistan? Both theories have been held; but as all the great movements of peoples have been into India and not out of India, and as a remote mountainous district may be expected to retain the survivals of ancient races while it is not likely to have been colonised, the former view would a prioriseem to be by far the more probable.”

Thus the generally accepted view now is that the original inhabitants of India were not the Dravidians but the pre-Dravidian Munda aborigines whose descendants now live in parts of Chotanagpur (Jharkhand), Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, etc., the Todas of the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu, the tribals in the Andaman Islands, the Adivasis in various parts of India (especially in the forests and hills), for example the Gonds, Santhals, Bhils, etc.

These facts lend support to the view that about 92 per cent of the people living in India are descendants of immigrants (though more research is required).

It is for this reason that there is such tremendous diversity in India. This diversity is a significant feature of our country, and the only way to explain it is to accept that India is largely a country of immigrants.

 The Megaliths of Chokahatu ; the largest burial ground of the Mundas

There are a large number of religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups, cultures etc., in our country, which is due to the fact that India is a country of immigrants. Somebody is tall, somebody is short, some are dark, some are fair complexioned, with all kinds of shades in between, someone has Caucasian features, someone has Mongoloid features, someone has Negroid features, etc. There are differences in dress, food habits and various other matters.

We may compare India with China, which is larger both in population and in land area than India. China has a population of about 1.3 billion whereas our population is roughly 1.1 billion. Also, China has more than twice our land area. However, all Chinese have Mongoloid features; they have a common written script (Mandarin Chinese), and 95 per cent of them belong to one ethnic group, called the Han Chinese. Hence there is a broad (though not absolute) homogeneity in China.

On the other hand, India has tremendous diversity and this is due to the large-scale migrations and invasions into India over thousands of years. The various immigrants/invaders who came into India brought with them their different cultures, languages, religions, etc., which accounts for the tremendous diversity in India.

Since India is a country of great diversity, it is absolutely essential if we wish to keep our country united to have tolerance and equal respect for all communities and sects. It was due to the wisdom of our founding fathers that we have a Constitution which is secular in character, and which caters to the tremendous diversity in our country.

Thus it is the Constitution of India which is keeping us together despite all our tremendous diversity, because the Constitution gives equal respect to all communities, sects, lingual and ethnic groups, etc. The Constitution guarantees to all citizens freedom of speech (Article 19), freedom of religion (Article 25), equality (Articles 14 to 17), liberty (Article 21), etc.

However, giving formal equality to all groups or communities in India would not result in genuine equality. The historically disadvantaged groups must be given special protection and help so that they can be uplifted from their poverty and low social status. It is for this reason that special provisions have been made in our Constitution in Articles 15(4), 15(5), 16(4), 16(4A), 46, etc., for the uplift of these groups. Among these disadvantaged groups, the most disadvantaged and marginalised in India are the Adivasis (STs), who, as already mentioned, are the descendants of the original inhabitants of India, and are the most marginalised and living in terrible poverty with high rates of illiteracy, disease, early mortality etc. Their plight has been described by this Court in Samatha vs. State of Andhra Pradesh and Ors. (AIR 1997 SC 3297, Para 12 to 15). Hence, it is the duty of all people who love our country to see that no harm is done to the Scheduled Tribes and that they are given all help to bring them up in their economic and social status, since they have been victimised for thousands of years by terrible oppression and atrocities. The mentality of our countrymen towards these tribals must change, and they must be given the respect they deserve as the original inhabitants of India."

On the tortures inflicted upon these Anarya tribals since ancient times the Honorable court lashes out at our society and even lambasts Dronacharya for deceitfully compelling Eklabya to donate his thumb.... read on...

"The injustice done to the tribal people of India is a shameful chapter in our country's history. The tribals were called ‘rakshas' (demons), ‘asuras', and what not. They were slaughtered in large numbers, and the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of atrocities inflicted on them for centuries. They were deprived of their lands, and pushed into forests and hills where they eke out a miserable existence of poverty, illiteracy, disease, etc. And now efforts are being made by some people to deprive them even of their forest and hill land where they are living, and the forest produce on which they survive.

The well-known example of injustice to tribals is the story of Eklavya in the Adiparva of the Mahabharata. Eklavya wanted to learn archery, but Dronacharya refused to teach him, regarding him as lowborn. Eklavya then built a statue of Dronacharya and practised archery before the statue. He would have perhaps become a better archer than Arjun, but since Arjun was Dronacharya's favourite pupil Dronacharya told Eklavya to cut off his right thumb and give it to him as guru dakshina (gift to the teacher given traditionally by the student after his study is complete). In his simplicity Eklavya did what he was told.

This was a shameful act on the part of Dronacharya. He had not even taught Eklavya, so what right had he to demand guru dakshina, and that too of the right thumb of Eklavya so that the latter may not become a better archer than his favourite pupil Arjun?"

Therefore if we really wish to know more of our country's deep past we need to learn and know more of these tribals and their amazing creations, the megaliths without which our country's past is incomplete.