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CHAPTER XI
ARYANS AND NON-ARYANS
THE great river systems of Northern India determined the course of Aryan conquests; when we survey the course of these rivers, we comprehend the history of Aryan conquests during ten centuries. And when we have traced the course of the Indus and its tributaries, and of the Ganges and the Jumna as far as Benares and North Behar, we have seen the whole extent of the Indo-Aryan world as it existed at the close of the Brahmanic and Epic Period, or about 1000 b. c. Beyond this wide tract of Hindu kingdoms, South Behar, Malwa, and a portion of the Deccan and the regions to the south of the Rajputana desert formed a wide semicircular belt of country, as yet not Hinduized, but becoming gradually known to the Hindus and therefore finding occasional mention in the latest works of the Brahmana literature. We can imagine hardy colonists penetrating into this encircling belt of unknown and uncivilized regions, obtaining a mastery
