CHAPTER II.
PEOPLE AND LAND.
The Aryan Hindus, whose religions we describe in this volume[1], formed one of the Aryan or so-called Indo-European peoples.

To the other peoples of this stock, Persians, Armenians, Greeks, Italians, Kelts, Teutons, Slavs, the Hindus were related closely by language, but very remotely from the point of view of their primitive religion.
Into India the Aryans brought little that was retained in their religious systems.

A few waning gods, the worship of ancestors, and some simple rites are common to them and their western relations; but with the exception of the Iranians (Persians), their religious connection with cis-Indic peoples is of the slightest.

With the Iranians, the Hindus (that were to be) appear to have lived longest in common after the other members of the Aryan host were dispersed to west and south[2].

They stand in closer religious touch with these, their nearest neighbors, and in the time of the Rig Veda (the Hindus' earliest literature) there are traces of a connection comparatively recent between the pantheons of the two nations.
According to their own, rather uncertain, testimony, the Aryans of the Rig Veda appear to have consisted of five tribal groups[3].