ABSTRACT
THE barbarians who speak Austro-Asiatic tongues of Munda type form the lowest substratum of the population of India. Not only were they the original inhabitants, but vast reservoirs of "uncivilized" mankind still survive in the hill districts, away from the great roads and centres of culture. The Santals of Chota Nagpur and the Kols are at this stage to-day. Students of India were too long blind to the permanent influence of this factor, both racial and linguistic. It needed the curiosity of Sylvain Lévi, directed to place-names, to raise the question in all its bearings, and it needed the competence in Austro-Asiatic philology of his disciple J. Przyluski to produce definite results which are already very remarkable. It is established that the most ancient element in India is of the same race as the peoples of the Nicobar Islands and Malacca.
