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Principles
and Practice of Hindu Religion A
Comprehensive Study of the Ancient Tradition and
the Perennial Philosophy |
Chapter
- III : A Historical Approach to the Hindu Traditions | A
Study of the History and Evolution of the Faith along with
the
Beliefs and Culture of India over the Time of Several Millinea. |
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Lesson
- 37 : The Racial and Ethnic Groups of Community Who
are the "Aryans" and "Dravidians"? |
Most
readers and researchers of Hindu Religion and South Asian cultures often mention
about "Aryan" and "Dravidian" groups in India. Some scholars said
all groups in the Northern part of India as Aryans and those in the South as Dravidians.
Some mistakenly regarded all belonging to the Upper Castes as Aryans. There is
no real dividing line separating the groups as only Aryans and Dravidians. In
fact, there does not seem to be a Dravidian race in any research books, only a
mention of Culture, Architecture and Language styles listed as Dravidian. Germans
under Adolph Hitler and Persians and some Central Asians claimed themselves to
be "Aryan" race, when they had no other ancient history of a civilization to adhere
to. For the sake of simplicity of understanding these terms were used in this
articles to separate two distinctive cultural and ethnic groups that existed in
India from ancient times though they were well mixed all over the land.
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In the
most ancient times, several thousands of years back, the Indian subcontinent
was occupied and populated by an ancient group of aboriginal dark skinned people
and traces of some of them are still said to be living in many remote areas of
the land. They were the nomadic hunters belonging to the later stone age. After
this period, there were agricultural groups using copper tools, domesticated animals
and a distinctive cultural practice in groups with religious prayer and burial
rituals noted among them. These were the original ancient "Indian Ethnic groups".
There were the people with a mixture of Australoid racial features, similar to
the Australian aboriginal and Indonesians, Caucasian ethnic groups like the Central
Asians, Mongolians from the East and Negroid ethnic groups with African racial
characters. There were also migrations from the Italian and other Mediterranean
areas to the west coast, northwest and southern parts of India. The Sumerians,
Greeks, Central Asians and Eastern Europeans from the West also came. They are
all believed by some to be the origin of the so called "Aryan" and "Dravidian"
groups. |
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Sanãthana
Dharma ãsthra |
| Lessons:
- 33
, 34 , 35 , 36
, 37 , 38 , 39
, 40 , 41 , 42
, 43 , 44 , 45
, 46, 47 , 48
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