Mleccha
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Mleccha (from Vedic Sanskrit म्लेच्छ mleccha, meaning "non-Aryan, barbarian") is a derogatory term for people who did not conform with conventional Hindu beliefs and practices.
The term is not attested in the Vedas, but occurs for the first time in the late Vedic text Shatapatha Brahmana.
The law giver Baudhâyana defines a Mleccha as someone "who eats meat or indulges in self-contradictory statements or is devoid of righteousness and purity of conduct."
By its structure, the term is not natively Indo-Iranian, so that it would seem to be a loan of the ethnonym of a non-Aryan people so described, possibly Proto-Dravidian. It has been speculated that the term is related to Meluhha, the name of a trading partner of Bronze Age Sumer, tentatively identified with the Indus Valley civilization.
However all Mleccha were not treated uniformly. Some were able to attain the status of Hindus, if they fulfilled wishes and conformed to Hindu beliefs and practices. The Manusmriti recognises that caste-designations were often arbitrary. Foreign tribes were called anything spanning between Kshatriya and Shudra depending upon their domination and relationship with Brahmins. Many eventually became Brahmin too.
In the epic Mahabharata, some Mleccha warriors are described as having "heads completely shaved or half-shaved or covered with matted locks, [as being] impure in habits, and of crooked faces." They are "dwellers of hills" and "denizens of mountain-caves." See Mahabharata, Drona Parva, XCII.
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