On the Original Inhabitants of Bharatavarsa or India / Gustav Oppert.

Part 1. Introduction. Part 2: The Gaudians Part 3: Indian Theogony. Part 4: The Bharatas

"The main object of this work is to prove from existing sources, so far as they are available to me, that the original inhabitants if India, with the exception of a small minority of foreign immigrants, belong all to one and the same race, branches of which are spread over the continents of Asia and Europe, and which is also known as Finnish Ugrian or Turanian. The branch which is domiciled in India should, according to my opinion, be called Bharatan, because the Bharatas were in olden times its most numerous and most honoured representatives, after whom the country received its name Bharatavarsa or Bharatavarsa. The favoured spots in which, in primeval periods, men preferred to select their dwellings, were the highlands, hills, and mountains; for these regions afforded greater protection not only against the attacks of men and of wild beats, but also against the fury of the unfettered elements, especially against the ravages of sudden and disastrous inundations. Though the plains were not altogether uninhabited, still the bulk of the population preferred, where obtainable, the higher and more secure places. I believe that the Bharatas were essentially a race of mountaineers, and that their name is intimately connected with the Gauda-Dravidian root para, parai, mountain, a circumstance to which I draw attention. "