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CHAPTER II.

PEOPLE AND LAND.


The Aryan Hindus, whose religions we describe in this volume[1],
formed one of the Aryan or so-called Indo-European peoples. To the
other peoples of this stock, Persians, Armenians, Greeks, Italians,
Kelts, Teutons, Slavs, the Hindus were related closely by language,
but very remotely from the point of view of their primitive religion.
Into India the Aryans brought little that was retained in their
religious systems. A few waning gods, the worship of ancestors, and
some simple rites are common to them and their western relations; but
with the exception of the Iranians (Persians), their religious
connection with cis-Indic peoples is of the slightest. With the
Iranians, the Hindus (that were to be) appear to have lived longest in
common after the other members of the Aryan host were dispersed to
west and south[2]. They stand in closer religious touch with these,
their nearest neighbors, and in the time of the Rig Veda (the Hindus'
earliest literature) there are traces of a connection comparatively
recent between the pantheons of the two nations.

According to their own, rather uncertain, testimony, the Aryans of the
Rig Veda appear to have consisted of five tribal groups[3]. These
groups, _janas_, Latin gens, are subdivided into _viças_, Latin vicus,