THE UNTOUCHABLES : RACIAL DIFFERENCE ... 297
once held a great portion of the valley of the Ganges, which, as we have already seen, was occupied in very early times by Naga tribes. The Cherus appear to have been gradually ousted from their lands, during the troublous times of the Mohammedan invasions, and they are now poor and almost landless. There can be little doubt that these people are kinsmen of the Dravidian Cheras.
The Cherus have several peculiar customs and amongst them one which seems to connect them with the Lichhavis, as well as with the Newars of Nepal. This is the election of a raja for every five or six houses, and his investiture, in due form, with the tilak or royal frontal mark. [1] Both Lichavis and Newars had many customs in common with the Dravidians of the South. Each venerated the serpent, Karkotaka Naga being to Nepal what Nila Naga was to Kashmir. A Naga, too, was the tutelary deity of Vaisali, the Lichavi capital. The marital relations of Newars and Lichavis closely resembled those of the Tamil people, and go far to show a common origin.
Property amongst the Newars descended in the female line, as it once did amongst the Arattas, Bahikas or Takhas of the Punjab, whose sisters’ sons, and not their own, were their heirs. [2] This is still a Dravidian custom. In short, a recent Dravidian writer, Mr. Balakrishna Nair, says that his people ‘appear to be, in nearly every particular, the kinsfolk of the Newars.’ [3]
Besides all this, however, there are other links connecting the Naga people of the South with those of the north of India. In an inscription discovered by Colonel Tod at Kanswah near the river Chambal, a Raja, called Salindra, ‘of the race of Sarya, a tribe renowned amongst the tribes of the mighty’ is said to be ruler of Takhya. [4]
This was evidently the Takhya or Takha kingdom of the Punjab, which was visited by Hiou-en-Tsiang, [5] and which has been already referred to. It seems, therefore, that the Naga people of Takhya were known also by the name of Sarya.
Again, in the outer Himalaya, between the Sutlej and Beas Valleys, is a tract of country called Sara, or Scoraj. In this district the Naga demigods are the chief deities worshipped.
There is another Seoraj in the Upper Chinab Valley, and this too is occupied by a Naga worshiping people.
The name Saraj, or Seoraj, appears to be the same as the Sarya of Colonel Tod’s inscription and as Seori, which is the alternative name of the Cherus of the Ganges Valley. It also seems to be identical with Sarai, which we have already seen, is the old Tamil name for the Chera or Naga. Apparently, therefore, the Saryas or Takhya, the Saraj people of the Sutlej Valley, the Seoris or Cherus of the valley of the Ganges, and the Cheras, Seras, or Keralas of Southern India, are but different branches of the same Naga-worshipping people.
It may be noted, too, that in some of the Himalayan dialects, Kira or Kiri means a serpent. This name, from which was perhaps derived the term Kirate
Sherring Races of N.W.P., 376,377
Mahabharata, Karna, p. xiv
Calcutta Review, July, 1896
Annals of Rajasthan, i. 795
Hiouen Tsiang, Beal, i. 165