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institutions, popular festivals, and several arts; they deal even with subjects like grammar, prosody, rhetoric, archery and care of horses and elephants; many of them also describe places of pilgrimage. At one time their historical value was discounted but it is now being gradually appreciated.
IX.11 Fusion with non-Aryans
The Aryans marched en masse, guided by a leader who was often a poet, and came into contact with the Dasas and the Dasyus. The point to be noted is the speedy fusion of the Aryans with the non- Aryans. The process had three phases: (I) The elevation of non-Aryans and aboriginals by intermarriages with Aryans. (2) The incorporation of non-Aryans into Aryan society in various other ways. (3) Social reactions by which forms of life and modes of thought of the two groups under went a kind of osmosis, intensified by the Buddhist reformation.
The Aitareya Brahmanas gives an example of the manner in which progressive leaders of the Aryans facilitated the assimilation of other communities. A Rsi was performing a sacrifice on the banks of the Saraswathi; and to this sacrifice was admitted one Kesava, a Shudra, whose learning is stated to have put all the Brahmins to shame. The Vajasaneyi Samhita condemned intercommunal marriage, but it is narrated in that work that a Sudra was the lover of an Arya woman. By the time of the Mahabharata such great personages as Vyasa and Vidura were
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