Dasa

Dasa (Sanskrit: दास, Dāsa) is a Sanskrit language term found in ancient Hindu texts, such as the Rigveda and Arthashastra. It usually means enemy or servant. In some contexts, dasa is interchangeable with the Sanskrit words dasyu and asura.

• Knowing that nothing can prove the superiority of the Aryan race better than invasion and conquest of the native races, the Western writers have proceeded to invent the story of the invasion of India by the Aryans, and the conquest by them of the Dasas and Dasyus.
  • Ambedkar, B. R. 1946. Who Were the Sudras? Bombay: Thacker. (pp 72-75). [1] Quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 3

• That the Dasas and Dasyus were the same as the Shudras is a pure figment of imagination. It is only a wild guess. It is tolerated because persons who make it are respectable scholars. So far as evidence is concerned, there is no particle of it, which can be cited in support of it.
  • Ambedkar, B. R. 1946. Who Were the Sudras? page 111

• It is urged that the Dasyus are described as black of skin and noseless in opposition to the fair and high-nosed Aryans. But the former distinction is certainly applied to the Aryan Gods and the Dasa Powers in the sense of light and darkness, and the word anasah does not mean noseless. Even if it did, it would be wholly inapplicable to the Dravidian races; for the Southern nose can give as good an account of itself as any "Aryan" proboscis in the North.
  • Sri Aurobindo. The Secret of the Veda. Pondicherry: Shri Aurobindo Ashram. (1971, page 24), quoted from Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 3

• Evidence for the characterization of Dasas and Dasyus as black is tenuous in the extreme.... Even apparently clear indications of historical struggles between dark aborigines and Arya conquerors turn out to be misleading.... [The Dasas and Dasyus] appear to be demonic rather than human enemies.... It is a cosmic struggle which is described in detailed accounts that are consistent with one another.
  • George Erdosy, “The meaning of Rgvedic pur: Notes on the Vedic landscape,” in From Sumer to Meluhha, ed. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 1994), p. 230-232.
  • quoted in Danino, M. (2009). A BRIEF NOTE ON THE ARYAN INVASION THEORY. PRAGATI| April-June 2009

• The Iranian identity of Dasas and Dasyus is now well-established, a development which should at least put an end to the talk of the Dasas being ‘the dark-skinned aboriginals enslaved by the Aryan invaders’.
  • Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

• Very obviously, the enemies of the Vedic people at that time, when Rg-Vedic books 7 and 4 and the contemporaneous parts of books 1 and 9 were composed, were Iranian, not “black aboriginal”. This is attested from so many angles that one tends to wonder how this mistake could have been made at all, and how the true Iranian identity of the Dāsas (Greek Dahai) could have been missed.
  • Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins.

• The racial interpretation of the notions light/white and dark/black found in Geldner's translations and echoed or precedented in numerous other publications must be considered dubious. Where there is sufficient context for interpretation, we find that the notions can at least equally well be read as an ‘ideological’ distinction between the ‘dark/black’ world of the dāsas/dasyus and the ‘light/white’ world of the āryas.
  • About the racial interpretation of the Arya-Dasa dichotomy
  • Hans Hock, Through a glass darkly: Modern racial interpretations vs. textual and general prehistoric evidence on arya and dasa/dasyu in Vedic society. 145-174. Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, interpretation, and ideology, Proceedings of the International Seminar on Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 25-27 October, 1996, ed. by Johannes Bronkhorst and Madhav M. Deshpande. Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, 3. 1999

• The Dasyus or Dasas were those who were opposed to the Indra Agni cult and are explicitly described thus in those passages where human Dasyus are clearly meant. They are avtata without (the Arya) rites, anyavrata of different rites, ayajavdna, non-sacrificers, abrahma without prayers, also not having Brahmana priests, anrichah without Riks, brahmadvisha, haters of prayers to Brahmanas, and anindra without Indra, despisers of Indra. They pour no milky draughts, they heat no cauldron. They give no gifts to the Brahmana. . . . Their worship was but enchantment, sorcery, unlike the sacred law of fire-worship, wiles and magic. In all this we hear but the echo of a war of rite with rite, cult with cult and not one of race with race.
  • Srinivas lyengar, in 1914, quoted from Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 3, p 61
  • lyengar, S. 1914. "Did the Dravidians of India Obtain Their Culture from Aryan Immigrant [sic]." Anthropos 1-15.

• The great difference between the Dasyus and the Aryans was their religion... It is significant that constant reference is made to difference in religion between Aryans and Dasa and Dasyu.
  • Macdonell, A.A. and Keith, A.B. 1912. The Vedic Index of Names and Subjects.

• I have gone over the names of the Dasyus or Asuras, mentioned in the Rigveda, with the view of discovering whether any of them could be regarded as being of non-Aryan or indigenous origin, but I have not observed any to be of that character.
  • John Muir. Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the People of India, by John Muir, Trübner and Co., London, 3rd edition, 1874. p. 387. [2]

• According to Aurobindo,... there are passages in which the spiritual interpretation of the Dasas, Dasyus and Panis is the sole one possible and all others are completely excluded. There are no passages in which we lack a choice either between this interpretation and a nature-poetry or between this interpretation and the reading of human enemies.
  • The Problem of Aryan Origins by K.D. Sethna, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1992.

• It was already in the middle of the former century that Christian Lassen qualified the opposition of arya and dasyu or dasa as a contrast between different religions expressed by the age-old symbolism of black opposed to white and not as a contrast of dark complexioned to white coloured men.
  • Maria Schetelich, in Visva-bharati Annals,new Series 3. THE PROBLEM OF THE ‘‘DARK SKIN” (KRSNA TVAC) IN THE RGVEDA

• Thou, O Indra, advancing singly, hast slain the wealthy Dasyu, together with his allies, with thy destructive weapon.
  • Rigveda, I, 33, 4, as translated by John Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the People of India (1868)

• Agni born shone out slaying the Dasyus, the darkness by the Light; he found the Cows, the Waters, Swar.
  • Rigveda, V, 14, 4, as translated by Sri Aurobindo, "The Secret of the Veda", Arya, no. 2 (15 August 1915), p. 618

• Far far away hath Agni chased those Dasyus, and, in the east, hath turned the godless westward.
  • Rigveda, VII, 6, 3, as translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (1889)

• Root up, as of old, like (a tree) overgrown by a creeping plant; subdue the might of the Dasa; may we through [or with] Indra divide his collected wealth.
  • Rigveda, VIII, 40, 6, as translated by John Muir (1868)

• Around us is the Dasyu, riteless, void of sense, inhuman, keeping alien laws.
  Baffle, thou Slayer of the foe, the weapon which this Dasa wields.
  • Rigveda, X, 22, 8, as translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith (1870); or, as translated by H. H. Wilson (1850–88): "The Dasyu practising no religious rites, not knowing us thoroughly, following other observances, obeying no human laws, baffle, destroyer of enemies, the weapon of that Dasa."

• May this Manu (Sávarni) quickly be born, may he increase like (well-watered) seed, who sends me at once a thousand and a hundred horses for a present. ... Yadu and Indra speaking auspiciously, and possessed of numerous cattle, gave them like (appointed) servants, for the enjoyment (of Manu Sávarni).
  • Rigveda, X, 62, 10, as translated by H. H. Wilson (1850–88)

• Thou hast conquered the property, whether situated in the plains or hills, (thou hast conquered) the Dasa and the Ārya enemies.
  • Rigveda, X, 69, 6, as translated by John Muir (1868)

• The sovereign Indra attacking him overcame the loud-shouting, six-eyed, three-headed Dása,
  Trita invigorated by his strength, smote the cloud with his iron-tipped finger.
  • Rigveda, X, 99, 6, as translated by H. H. Wilson (1850–88)

• Armed with the thunderbolt, and confident in his strength, he has gone on destroying the cities of the Dasyus. Thunderer, acknowledging (the praises of thy worshipper), cast, for his sake, thy shaft against the Dasyu, and augment the strength and glory of the A′rya.
  • From the Rigveda, as translated by H. H. Wilson (1850–88)

• The amulet created by Pragâpati has subjected those that hate me. The Atharvans did tie it on, the descendants of the Atharvans did tie it on; with these allied, the Angiras cleft the castles of the Dasyus. With it those that hate me do thou slay!
  • Atharvaveda, X, 6, 20, as translated by Maurice Bloomfield (1897)