CHAPTER III THE ARYAN MIGRATIONS : RISE OF THE HELLENES AND OF PERSIA While these empires of Western Asia were growing and changing, there was going on all round them the expansion of that other race, not akin, so far as we know, to lt The Aryan any of those with whom we have been concerned Migrations, hitherto. Of this other race one branch made its way into India, where it remained almost entirely cut off from the main stream of the world's history ; as happened also to the Mon- golian race which created the remote Empire of China. A second branch was to win the lordship over all the lands whose history has been related ; this conquering race, however, was not to absorb the conquered, but to be absorbed by them. A third group was to develop the most fruitful of all civilisations, and was to become the bulwark of the West against the ex- pansion of the East. Of the Aryan migration into India we may content ourselves for the present with saying that the conquering race burst through the mountain passes probably at about The Aryans the time when Hammurabi was flourishing at ** India. Babylon. By degrees they made themselves masters of the north-west corner of India which is called the Punjab, which means the land of the five rivers — the Indus and its tributaries. They set up kingdoms just as long ages afterwards Angles and Saxons set up various kingdoms in England. They went on expanding, conquering, and setting up more kingdoms till they ruled over the whole basin of the great river Ganges and its 27
