DASA

also spelled Dasyu, member of an aboriginal people in India encountered and embattled by the invading Aryans (c. 1500 BC). They were described by the Aryans as a dark-skinned, harsh-spoken people who worshipped the phallus. This allusion has persuaded many scholars that worship of the linga, the Hindu religious symbol, originates with them; it may, however, have referred to their sexual practices. They lived in fortified places from which they sent out armies. They may be considered the original Sudras, or labourers, who served the three higher classes of Brahmin, Ksatriya (warrior), and Vaisya (mercantile), from whose ritual communion they were excluded.