arbarian colour.' R. V. II. 4.

"Indra, again, 'Hatve Dasyun pra Aryam var[n.]am avat.'
'Having slain the Barbarians, helped the Aryan colour.'
R. V. III. 34.

"Again, in K. V. I. 104. They pray--

"'Te nas avaksa suvitaya var[n.]am.' 'May they bring our
colour to success.'

"In later times 'var[n.]a' is the regular word for
caste; and the Brahmins and the rest of the twice-born
who still represent the Aryan var[n.]a are much fairer
than the Cudras and Hill people.

"In the Ikhwan ussafa the black skin is one of the
results of the Fall to Adam and Hawa.

"'Aftab ki garmi se rang mutaghaiyar aur siah ho gaya.'
'From the heat of the sun their colour became changed
and black.'"

But I think the fact that the conquering races that invaded India from
the north were fair and ruddier than the aborigines, and that their
descendants, the high-caste natives, are to this day fairer than the
aborigines, though it explains the phrases, "he is only a black man,"
and "your cheeks are red," does not account for the golden hair and
fair skin of so many of our princes and princesses. I believe that
they all owe their characteristics to the fact that such are the
characteristics of the solar hero, although they cannot all lay claim
to a solar origin for themselves. For this golden hair and white skin,
at first the property of the shining sun-hero alone, would naturally
in the course of time be given to other Indian folk-lore heroes on
whose beauty and brightness it was necessary to lay a stress. Prince
Majnun, for instance, certainly has nothing solar about him, yet his
hair is described as red. Dunkni, in answer to a half incredulous,
half inquiring exclamation of mine when I heard this, asserted, "Red!
yes, it was red: red like gold."

The black-haired Maoris give their sea-nymphs yellow hair (_Old New
Zealand_, p. 19); and Sir George Grey in his _Polynesian Mythology_,
p. 295, writes thus of the Maori fairies: "Their appearance is that of
human beings, nearly resembling an European's; their hair being very
fair, and so is their skin. They are very different from the Maoris,
and do not resemble them at all." But as the Maoris do not seem to
have any myths of golden-haired solar heroes, these peculiarities of
hair and complexion cannot be referred to the same cause as those of
my little daughter's Indian princes and princesses.

I.--PHULMATI RANI.

1. Phulmati i