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contrast to this androcratic and patriarchal order we find, in the oldest pre-Semitic and pre-Indo-European civilizations of the Me-difcerranean basin and Western Asia, traces of family organisation based on matriarchat order, wifch an entirely different conception of the rank and status of woman. Traces of a similar, not patriarchal, organisation are not lacking in India, and there is no doubt that they should be linked with the pre-Aryan substratum of Indian population. The inverse statement that, wherever patriarchal form are met with, we are in presence of Indo-Euro-pean elements, would be groundless as a generał rule. We know that the same or analogical patriarchal order characterises some civilizations which are not Indo-European, such as, for instance, Semitic civilizations. But in pre-Aryan India the intervention of Semitic elements is out of ąuestion, and there remains only the possibility of some earlier Indian patriarchal civilizations having existed in pre-matriarchal times. We cannot a priori exclude such possibility, but it possesses no practical significance as far as our problem is concerned. It is a fact that patriarchal organisation in Northern India, and conseąuently in the territory on which Buddhism arose, is historically related to Vedic tradition. Pre-Aryan patriarchal civilizations, which had been entirely buried under matriarchal institutions, might have co-operated with this tradition, but it is certain that tliey did not give rise to it. Conseąuently we can accept, as far as Indian civilization is concerned, a double correlation: 1) between the Indo-European element and the patriarchate, and 2) between the pre-Indo-European element and the matriarchate¹. In this way a problem, which at first sight seemed fairly hopeless, can be brought down to relatively concrete and tangible data.

One of the most salient features of pre-Semitic and pre-Indo-European civilizations of the Ancient East is endogamy sanc-tionning even marriages between parents and children, brothers and sisters. This custom is found among noble families in Asia Minor, Egypt, Iran and especially in Elam ². Through the medium

1

P. W. Koppera worka from 9imilar premiaea in this interesting atudy, Kulturkreislehre und Buddhiamu9, Anthropoa, vol. XVI—XVII, 1921—1922, p. 442.

2

¹ In Elam the crown was inherited by the oldeat daughter born in *normal« wedlock between the prince-brother and the princeaa-aiater. When