AUTHORITIES:
Lassen, Wilson, Weber, Max Müller, Pictet, Kuhn, etc.
The central region of Baktria was in all probability the cradle of the Aryas, the common progenitors of all the races and nations which now cover Europe. In times anterior to the great pre-historic division and separation of the Aryan races, they probably occupied the whole of the vast region stretching from the Hindu-Kush, the Belourtagh, to the river Oxus and the Caspian Sea. This, too, at a period of which it can only be said that time existed.
The antique Aryas led a pastoral life. The original signification of the words in the European languages denoting family and social relations, as well as the names of domestic and other animals, of grains and plants, of implements of husbandry and handicraft and the like, is elucidated by roots found in Sanscrit, which is supposed to have been the original language of the Aryas, or, at any rate, the one which most completely preserved the primitive impress of the Aryan character.
"Father" (in Sanscrit, pitri), signifies "the protecting one, or the protector;" "mother" (Sanscrit, matri), "she who regulates or sets in order;" "daughter"[Pg 82] (duhitri), "the milking one;" "son" (sunu), "the begotten;" "sister" (vastri), "she who takes care,"—subauditur, of household matters—also, "the bearer of a new family;" "brother" (brhatri), "the helper, or carrier;" "youth" (yavan) "the defender." So also, "horse" (a?va), signifies "swift, rapid;"[11] the name for the "bovine" genus, bull and cow (Sc., go, gaus), "to sound inarticulately," likewise (ukshan) "fecundating," besides other names with other significations; the "ovine" genus, or sheep kind (avi), implies "the loved, protected," etc.; the "dog" ('cvan, kvan), means "the yelper, barker;" but he has also other names denoting his qualities, as sucaka, "spy, informer," krtagna, the "recognizing," or "grateful one," etc.; "goose," (hansa, from Sc. has), "to laugh." So the roots for the general names of grains and fruits are to be found in the Sanscrit; thus, ad, "to eat;" adas, "nourishment;" gr, "to devour," whence garitra, "grain," "rice," etc. It may be noticed that derivatives from these and other roots became applied, in branch languages, to various special kinds of grain; thus, "oats," both in form and signification, is easily traced to a Sanscrit root. So, too, the names of many metals, trees, plants and wild animals, have their roots and descriptive meaning in the Aryan or Sanscrit language; and comparative[Pg 83] philology gives us the method of seizing the affiliations of form and of meaning.
Words of the character pointed one and their primitive significations—constituting the foundation of man's family and social existence—followed the various ethnic branches issuing from the Aryan and expanding over the ancient world. But no root, no name, no signification is to be found for a "servant" bearing the meaning of "slave" or "chattel," or expressive of a deprivation of the rights of manhood or of human dignity. The primitive Aryan mode of life was naturally patriarchal or clan-like, and the above-mentioned words show that household and rural functions were performed by the members of the family. What has been already said in another division (see "Hebrews"), applies even more forcibly to the Aryas. The Sanscrit word ibha, signified "family," "household," "servants," but never slaves or chattels. Both its sound and sense are still perfectly preserved in the Irish ibh, which signifies "country," or "clan;" not enslaved men! The names of weapons, and other words relating to warfare, which may be traced back to the Aryan speech, prove that the Aryas warred with other tribes—perhaps with the Tartars; and all such foreign enemies were comprehended under the collective Sanscrit denomination of barbara, varvara, or "barbarians." But even here, where we should most look for it, no hint or trace of slavery can be found.
The attempt, historically, to endow certain human[Pg 84] families or races with special fitness or capacity for freedom or slavery—or with a fatality toward the one or the other, or toward certain fixed social and political conditions—as well as the effort to divide the human family into distinct physiological or psychological races—all manifests a narrow appreciation of the course of human events; it evidences a very limited knowledge of positive history, and perhaps a still more limited philosophical comprehension of its spirit. If, however, such classifications had any scientific basis, assuredly the Aryas and the nations issuing from them had no natural, special propensity either to be slaves or slave-makers.
It win be hereafter pointed out, that among the various branches of the Aryas, or what are called Indo-Europeans, slavery was not a feature of their primitive life, but was the result of a long subsequent epoch of moral decay and degradation. It was at a comparatively late period of their history and under precisely the same conditions, that the Romans and Greeks began to enslave their own fellows. So was it with the Gaels or Celts, and so also with the Slavi. The Poles were free from serfdom till the thirteenth Christian century; the Russians only introduced it toward the close of the sixteenth—and in both cases after dissension, war, and desolation. The Teutons alone (Anglo-Saxons included), seen in the light of primitive history, had slavery in their household and in their national organism, and the slaves, too, of their own race and kin.
[Pg 85]
The Aryas descended the slopes of Hindu-Kush and the Himalayas, entering the region of the Five or of the Seven Rivers (Punjab), wandered along the river Jamuna, on the line between Attock and Delhi, successively spread over the whole region between the Indus and the Ganges—and here begins their historical existence as a people. In the course of this long march they conquered or drove before them—seemingly without any great trouble, at least in the first encounters, the aboriginal occupants of the Trans-Himalayan countries; and this, too, before they reached what may be called the threshold of history. Discords and wars early broke out among them, principally caused by the continual pressure of northern immigrants upon the possessors of the fertile countries in the south—caused, too, by the struggles for supremacy between families or dynasties, when the tents of the patriarchs had expanded into populous tribes, and almost into nations; and also by the struggles of classes created in the effort to subjugate the aboriginal inhabitants, especially those in the southern parts of India. All these wars took place at a very early epoch, and elude positive chronological division. Their history, as well as that of the primitive Aryan or Hindu mode of life, and their earliest spiritual conceptions, are pictured in the Vedas, which form the background of the whole Indian world.
The gray and venerable Vedaic age is now divided by critics into four periods: the Chhandas period,[Pg 86] the Mantra period, the Brahmana period, and the Sutra period.
The Chhandas period exhibits the purest patriarchal and peaceful condition of the family. There were then no priests and no division of classes; the father offered up simple sacrifices to heaven, and the simple hymns and songs of the family resounded over the offering. If the household contained any captive of the aboriginal race, such a one, by renouncing his ancient customs and creed, and accepting the language, the faith and the law of the conqueror, retained life and comparative liberty. And, moreover, all ethnological investigations confirm the belief that the aborigines of India were of the negro, or what is commonly called African family. On this American continent the kidnapped and enslaved African has accepted both the creed and the language of his oppressor—but for him there is neither liberty nor law.
Not to enslave, but only to subdue—preserving, at least partially, the rights of the conquered—was the policy of the Aryas in their encounter with barbarians. And in the domestic wars of tribes and dynasties which yet dimly echo through the second or Mantra period, no traces of the enslavement of their conquered enemies are to be found. In general, the first two periods not only do not show any shadow of slavery in the domestic and social relations, but even the division into classes or castes does not yet make its appearance. During the third or Brahmana period, the Vedas give an account of the terrible and bloody[Pg 87] struggle which ended in the social and religious victory of the Brahmas, or Brahmins, over the Kshatriyas, who had previously formed the ruling families.
The Brahmins now reorganized the religious and political structure of the Hindus. They divided society into four classes or castes: (it is to be noted here, however, that some modern exegetists assert that the true meaning of the Sanscrit word Varna, for "caste," is not yet clearly apprehended). These four castes were: 1. The Brahmins; 2. The Kshatriyas; 3. The Vaisyas; 4. The Soudras, or ?udras. The first three correspond to the classification already mentioned as existing among the Iranians. The ?udras were the lowest and most degraded caste; still they were not enslaved, not the property of any other caste, not even of the Brahmins—those spiritual and political chiefs of the Hindus. The labors of agriculture ennobled even the hands of the Brahmin, and could not be performed by slaves nor under the compulsory terrors of a master or driver.
As the word ?udras is not Sanscrit, it is supposed that it was the ethnic name of the subdued aborigines of which the fourth caste was composed. The offspring of a Brahmin and a ?udra was considered of pure blood. The Brahminic law authorized the enslavement of persons belonging to all the interior castes, for debt. Slaves may also have been made in the wars with the southward retreating aborigines and others; and slaves may occasionally have been sold in the markets, but their number must have been very[Pg 88] insignificant. Laws for the servitude of the ?udras—if such existed even—must very soon have fallen into disuse; for when Alexander brought Greece and Europe into contact with India, the astonished Greeks found scarcely any slavery then existing. Several of the Greek authors even assert that a positive law prohibited any kind of enslavement.
Budha, the great precursor of the Christ, was moved to tears, affected to inspiration, by the suffering and oppression which resulted from the division of society into castes, and by the misery of the poor, who were oppressed by the rich land-owner; but among the social and moral plagues, Budha and his disciples enumerate not human slavery. As far as the history of antiquity is known, Budha was the first whose religious teaching broke through the narrow conception of nationality, and taught universal emancipation and the brotherhood of all tribes and nations of men.
The oppression of the poor and of the landless, which then existed in India, exists there still. It was strengthened by the terrible Mahomedan and Mongol conquests, and by the iron rule of the British East India Company. But the imposition by the Mahomedans and Mongols of an oriental despotism over the Hindus did not implant domestic chattelhood, nor did the English tax-gatherers ever cause Hindu humanity to be exposed for sale in the markets or bazaars.