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The History of India

Chapter 1 – Early History to the Ghuzni Invasion

Boundaries and divisions of India

India is bounded on the north and the east by the Himalayu mountains, on the west by the Indus, and on the south by the sea. Its length from Cashmere to Cape Comorin is 1,900 miles; its breadth from Kurrachee to Sudiya, in Assam, 1,500 miles. The superficial contents are 1,287,000 miles, and the population, under British and native rule, is now estimated at 200,000,000. It is crossed from east to west by a chain of mountains called the Vindya, at the base of which flows the Nerbudda. The country to the north of this river is generally designated Hindostan, and that to the south of it the Deccan. Hindostan is composed of the basin of the Indus on one side, and of the Ganges on the other, with the great sandy desert on the west, and an elevated tract now called, from its position, Central India. The Deccan has on its northern boundary a chain of mountains running parallel with the Vindya, to the south of which stretches a table land of triangular form, terminating at Cape Comorin, with the western Ghauts, on the western coast, and the eastern Ghauts, of minor altitude, on the opposite coast. Between the Ghauts and the sea lies a narrow belt of land which runs round the whole peninsula.

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Chronology of the Hindoos

Of the ancient history or chronology of the Hindoos there are no credible memorials. The history was compiled by poets, who drew on their imagination for their facts, and the chronology was computed by astronomers, who have made the successive ages of the world to correspond with the conjunctions of the heavenly bodies. The age of the world is thus divided into four periods: the sutyu yogu, extending to 1,728,000, and the second, or treta yogu, to 1,296,000 years; the third, or the dwapur yogu, comprises 864,000 years; and the fourth, or kulee yogu, is predicted to last 432,000 years. A kulpa, or a day of Brumha, is composed of a thousand such periods, or 4,320,000,000 years. Extravagant as these calculations may appear, they are outdone by the Burmese, who affirm that the lives of the ancient inhabitants extended to a period equal to the sum of every drop of rain which falls on the surface of the globe in three years. The dates given for the first three ages must, therefore, be rejected as altogether imaginary, while the commencement of the fourth, or present age, which corresponds, to a certain degree, with the authentic eras of other nations, may be received as generally correct.

Early history of the Hindoos

India is designated by native writers Bharutvursu, from king Bharut, who is said to have reigned over the whole country. That he did not enjoy universal monarchy in India is certain, though he was doubtless one of the earliest and most renowned of its rulers; but this fact loses all historical value when we are told in the shasters that he reigned ten thousand years, and, on his death, was transformed into a deer. Thus do we plod our way through darkness and mystery; at every step fact is confounded with fable, and all our researches end only in conjecture. The original settlers are identified with the various tribes of Bheels, Coles, Goads, Meenas, and Chooars, still living in a state almost of nature, in the forests of the Soane, the Nerbudda, and the Muhanuddee, and in the hills of Surgooja and Chota Nagpore. Their languages have no

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affinity with the Sanscrit, and their religion differs from Hindooism. In those fastnesses, amidst all the revolutions which have convulsed India, they have continued to maintain, unchanged, their original simplicity of habits, creed, and speech. They were apparently driven from the plains by fresh colonies of emigrants; and these were in their turn conquered by the Hindoos, who brought their religion and language with them from regions beyond the Indus, and, having reduced the inhabitants to a servile condition, branded them with the name of soodras. Of the four Hindoo castes, three are designated the twice born, which seems to indicate that they all belonged to the conquering race, although the term is now applied exclusively to brahmins. In the Institutes of Munoo reference is also made to cities governed by soodras, which the twice born were forbidden to enter, and the allusion evidently applies to soodra chiefs, who continued to maintain their independence after the Hindoo invasion.

The Hindoos who originally crossed the Indus took possession of a small tract of land, 100 miles north-west of Delhi, about 65 miles by 30, which was considered the residence of gods and holy sages, while the brahmins appear to have subsequently occupied the country north of the Jumna and the Ganges, stretching to the confines of north Behar. The India of the Vedas, of Munoo, and the earliest writers was exclusively confined to the region north of the Nerbudda, and comprised but a small portion even of that limited quarter. It was in the north that the four places of greatest sanctity were situated during the early ages, though the Deccan now contains many places of distinguished merit. The north was also the seat of the solar and lunar races, the scene of chivalrous adventures, and the abode of all those who are celebrated in the legends, the mythology, and the philosophy of the Hindoos. Even in the polished age in which the Ramayun and the Muhabharut were composed, the south was the land of fable, the dwelling of bears and monkeys and it was not till a very late period that these apes and goblins and monsters

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were transformed into orthodox Hindoos. It must, therefore, be distinctly borne in mind that the revolutions described in the sacred books of the Hindoos belong to Hindostan, and not to the Deccan.

The ten divisions and languages

Some of the Poorans describe India as having been formerly divided into ten kingdoms; of these five were situated in Hindostan, – Suruswuttee, comprising the Punjab; Cunouj, embracing Delhi, Agra, and Oude; Tirhoot, from the Coosee to the Gunduk; Gour, or Bengal, with a portion of Behar; and Guzerat, which evidently included Candesh, and part of Malwa. Five are assigned to the Deccan, – Muharastru, or the Mahratta country on the western coast, and Orissa on the eastern coast; Telingana, lying between the Godavery and the Kistna; Dravira, or the Tamul country, stretching down to Cape Comorin; and Carnata on the western face of the peninsula. In correspondence with these divisions, which are comparatively modern, ten languages, of similar names, are enumerated as being current in them. Of these, the language of the five divisions of Hindostan, as well as the Mahratta and the Orissa are branches of the Sanscrit, modified by the mixture of local and foreign words, and new inflections. The Teloogoo – spoken in Telingana – as well as the Tamul and the Carnata belong, however, to a distinct family, and the only Sanscrit words found in them are those which have reference to religious observances. The brahmins, crossing the Indus, brought their own language from the west, where it was in constant use – as the ancient inscriptions in Persia testify – and diffused it through the north of India in connection with their religion. It thus became gradually mixed up with the dialects of the different provinces, which at length lost their original distinctions. The word Sanscrit signifies refined, and that language bears every indication of having received the improvements of the literati for many centuries, till it became the most exquisite medium of communication in the world.

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The Vedus

The worship taught in the Vedus was the earliest form of the Hindoo religion, and was introduced into Hindostan by a body of priests, who crossed the Indus either in the train of a conqueror or on a mission of proselytism, possibly 1,400 years before our era. The Vedus are a collection of hymns, prayers, and precepts, composed by different authors, at different periods, and were delivered down orally till the time of Vyasu, the bastard son of a fisher-woman, though, on his father’s side, of royal lineage, who employed four brahmins to collect and arrange them. Their leading doctrine is the unity of God, and the various divinities, the personification of the elements, whom the devotee is required to invoke, are manifestations of the Supreme Being. The gods are mentioned, it is true, but without any pre-eminence, and never as objects of adoration; and there is no trace of the legends of Krishnu and Sivu to be found in them. In that early age, indeed, there appears to have been no images, and no visible types of worship. Though the customs and habits of the Hindoos are said to be immutable, yet, strange to say, in a country which still regards the Vedus with profound veneration as the great fountain of religion, the ritual they prescribe has become so obsolete that the man who ventured to regulate his devotions by it would be considered in the light of an infidel.

Munoo

Next in order comes the work called the “Institutes of Munoo,” a code of rules and precepts, religious and secular, collected together about 900 years before our era, and attributed to Munoo. It inculcates the worship of the elements, of the heavenly bodies, and of inferior deities; but none of the objects of modern worship are alluded to. Brumha is mentioned more than once, but the names of Vishnoo and Sivu do not occur. Idols are noticed, and one passage enjoins that they shall be respected, but, the adoration of them is discountenanced. The caste of brahmins is in this code placed on an equality with the gods, and endowed with extraordinary privileges; but they were at the same time

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allowed to eat flesh, and even beef, when it had been offered in sacrifice – which was a daily practice – and to intermarry with soodras. The worship enjoined in Munoo appears to have been succeeded by that of Brumha, which was almost, if not altogether, spiritual. Then came the deification of heroes, with which the popular system of idolatry may be said to have commenced. Perhaps the creed of Boodh and of the Jains may have been next in succession; and there is every probability that it was not till the boodhists had been expelled from the soil of India that the Hindoo pantheon was completed to its full complement of three hundred and thirty-three millions of gods; and this was apparently effected under the authority of the Poorans, of which the oldest is only a thousand years old, and the latest about four hundred and fifty.

The solar and lunar race

The Hindoo annals describe two races of kings as having reigned in India, that is, in Hindostan, from the earliest age, the race of the sun and the race of the moon. Ikswakoo, the progenitor of the former, founded the kingdom of Oude, and Boodh, the ancestor of the latter, made Priyag, the modern Allahabad, the seat of his government. We are, moreover, told that there was constant war between the brahmins, the champions of the solar race, and the military tribe of the kshetriyus, the adherents of the lunar race, until Purusramu, a great solar prince, arose and extinguished the warriors. They are said to have recovered their strength, and chased king Sagur up into the Himalayu. Sagur was evidently the sea-king of the Bay of Bengal, who engaged largely in maritime expeditions, and extended his power, and with it probably his religion, to the islands of the eastern archipelago, in one of which, Bali, he is still worshipped as the god of the ocean.

Ramu

The Hindoo writers assign fifty-seven reigns to the period between Ikswakoo and Ramu, the great hero and ornament of the solar race, whose deeds have been immortalized in the great epic of Valmeeki. He was

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married at an early age to Seeta, the daughter of the king of Mithila, another branch of the solar line, whose capital lay within a hundred miles of Oude. He passed many years with her in religious retirement in the forest till she was carried off by Ravunu, the king of Ceylon. Ramu assembled a large army, and having in his progress secured the assistance of the ling of the monkeys, marched southward through the great forest of Dunduku, which terminated on the banks of the Cavery. That forest is described as the abode of holy sages and devotees, and of apes and bears. Crossing the Cavery, Ramu entered on Junustan, or the abode of men – the continental territory of Ravunu. The expedition was crowned with success, and Ramu recovered his wife; but having inadvertently caused the death of his brother, he cast himself into a river, and as the Hindoo writers affirm, was reunited to the deity. The expedition of Ramu was the most chivalrous exploit of that age, more especially when we consider the very limited resources of the kingdom of Oude, with two independent sovereigns – one at Mithila, and the other at Benares, – within a hundred and fifty miles of his capital. He is, perhaps, the earliest of deified heroes, as his age is generally fixed at 1,200 years before our era, though on calculations by no means satisfactory.

The Muhabharut

The next great event in the heroic age of India was the great war, celebrated in another Hindoo epic, the Muhabharut. The main object of this poem is to commemorate the exploits of Krishnu, another deified hero, who took a prominent part in the contest between the Pandoos and the Kooroos, two branches of the lunar line, for the possession of Hustinapore, situated in the neighbourhood of Delhi. Yoodistheer, the chief of the Pandoos, was resolved, it is said, to celebrate the sacrifice of the horse, which implied the possession of supreme dominion. The Kooroos burned with indignation at this arrogant assumption; and their chief, unable to prevent it, had recourse to artifice. He engaged Yoodistheer in deep play, and led him on to stake his wife and

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his kingdom, both of which were lost at one throw of the dice, and he was obliged to go into exile for twelve years. Krishnu, a scion of the royal family at Muttra, on the Ganges, had already signalized himself in a conflict with the king of Mugudu, in south Behar, and now, in conjunction with Buluram, accompanied Yoodistheer and his four brothers in their exile. The heroes wandered through the various provinces of India, performing notable feats of valour, and leaving some memorial of their romantic adventures in every direction. At the close of the period of exile Yoodistheer returned with his companions to the banks of the Jumna, and demanded the restoration of his kingdom. His opponent, Dooryudhun, refused his claim, and declared that he should not have as much land as could be covered by the point of a needle. There remained, therefore, no alternative but to decide the question by an appeal to arms.

The battle of Kooroo-kshetru

In this great battle fought on the plain, where, in after time, the last decisive battle between the Hindoos and the Mahomedans took place, all the tribes in northern India were ranged on one side or the other. Chiefs from Culinga, the sea-coast of Orissa, and even the Yuvunsthe name generally given to the residents beyond the Indus – are said to have taken a share in it. It lasted eighteen days, and the carnage on both sides was prodigious. Dooryudhun was at length slain, and victory declared for the Pandoos; but when Yoodistheer beheld the field covered with the bodies of friends and foes, all descended from a common ancestor, he became disgusted with the world and determined to withdraw from it. He entered Hustinapore and performed the funeral obsequies of his rival; after which he placed the grandson of his brother Urjoon on the throne, and retired to Dwarka, in Guzerat, in company with Krishnu, who had founded a kingdom there. That hero was soon after slain “at the fountain of the lotus,” by one of the wild foresters of the tribe of the Bheels. Yoodistheer proceeded through Sinde towards the north, and is supposed to have perished in

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the snowy range. According to the popular notion, he ascended to heaven, which was by no means incredible, as the paradise of more than one of the Hindoo deities is placed on the inaccessible peaks of the Himalayu.

Influence of these two events

These two events, the expedition of Ramu, and the battle of Kooroo-kshetru, are the most important in the annals of the lunar and the solar race. The genius of poetry has fixed the admiration of a hundred generations on them, and supplied a rich mine of images from age to age. The author of the Ramayun was Valmeeki, whom the gratitude of his fellow countrymen has crowned with the wreath of immortality, by ranking him among those who never die. He is supposed to have flourished in the second century before our era. The same period has also been assigned to the composer of the Muhabharut. Indeed, from the terms in which he describes the Yuvun Usoor, the demon or giant who engaged in combat with Krishnu, it has been conjectured that the poem must have been written after the invasion of Alexander the Great. The author was Vyasu, who has been confounded, through ignorance or flattery, with the great man who collected the Vedus, which is chronologically impossible. It is, moreover said, that a Vyasu appears in every age, though it is certain that no second Vyasu has since appeared among the poets of India. Krishnu was deified after his death. His adventures, and more particularly his flirtations with the milkmaids, have rendered him the most popular of gods among an amorous people; but the sects founded on the worship of Rarngu, Krishnu, and other deities, are among the more modern innovations of Hindooism. Buluram, the brother of Krishnu, is said to have founded a kingdom, of which Palibothra, the capital, became the wonder of India, though even the site of it is now matter of conjecture.

The Takshuk invasion

The annals of Hindostan for several centuries after the assumed period of the great war, are involved in impenetrable obscurity, but it would appear that

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about six centuries before our era, a new swarm from the teeming hive of Scythia poured across the Indus upon the plains of India. Another swarm is supposed to have moved down at the same time on the north of Europe, and settled in Scandinavia, the cradle of the English nation. This simultaneous emigration to the east and to the west, may assist in explaining that similarity of manners and customs which has been discovered on many points between the Scandinavians and the natives of India. These invaders were denominated the Takshuk, or serpent race, because the serpent was said to be their national emblem. Under their chief, Suhesnag, they probably overran the northern provinces of Hindostan, and became gradually incorporated with the tribes which had preceded them. They flourished for ten generations, and appear to have professed the Boodhist creed. Of this dynasty was Nundu, or Muhanundu, who was seated on the throne when Alexander the Great appeared on the banks of the Sutlege, and was denominated by the Grecian historians, the king of the Prasii, or of the east.

The expedition of Darius

The first expedition to India from the west of which we have anything like an authentic record, is that of Darius, the king of Persia, who ascended the throne of Cyrus, in the year 518 before our era, and extended his conquests from the sea of Greece to the confines of India. His admiral, Scylax, was then directed to construct a flotilla on the higher Indus, and proceed down that stream to the ocean. The report which he made of the wealth and magnificence of the country through which he passed, determined Darius to attempt the conquest of it. He crossed the Indus with a large army, and succeeded in annexing the countries bordering on that river to his great empire. The precise extent of his conquest cannot be determined, but there is every reason to conclude that his Indian province must have been of no inconsiderable magnitude, since it was esteemed more valuable than any other satrapy, and is said to have furnished one-third the revenues of the Persian empire. This

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tribute, moreover. is said to have been paid in gold, while that from the other divisions west of the Indus was delivered in silver.

Religion of Boodh

It was about the period of the Persian invasion, that Goutumu gave a fixed character to the institutions of Boodhism. It has been supposed that all the fifty-six tribes of the lunar race professed that creed, and Goutumu was reckoned the seventh Boodh. He was born at Bupilu, but the seat of the religion was planted at Gya, in the kingdom of Mugudu, or Behar, which the Chinese and Indo-Chinese nations consider the most sacred spot in the world. The Boodhists rejected the whole of the brahminical system of gods and goddesses, repudiated the doctrine of caste, and adhered exclusively to the spiritual worship of the Vedus. The priesthood amongst them was not hereditary, but formed a distinct community, recruited from the secular ranks, bound to observe a vow of celibacy, and to renounce the pleasures of sense. The hereditary priesthood of the brahmins, on the contrary, admitted no accessions from the lay classes, and considered marriage as indispensable as investiture with the thread, in the hope of giving birth to a son who should perform the funeral rites of his father, and secure him a seat in paradise. The death of Goutumu, is fixed by the general concurrence of authorities, in the year 550 before our era.

Spread of Boodhism

The religion of Boodh made prodigious progress after the death of Goutumu, while the creed of the brahmins was confined to the small kingdom of Cunouj. Two centuries later, in the reign of Asoca, Boodhism was triumphant through Hindostan. His edicts are still to be seen inscribed on the celebrated column at Delhi, on a similar column in Guzerat, and on a third in Cuttack, as well as in numerous caves and rocks. Boodhism was introduced into Ceylon about the end of the third century before our era. Shortly after, it spread through Tibet and Tartary, and was carried into China about the year 65. In Hindostan the brahmins exhibited the most rancorous hostility to their powerful rivals; and we

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learn from the report of a Chinese pilgrim to the shrine at Gya, in the fifth century, that the strength of Boodhism had materially declined. But it appears subsequently to have recovered some of its pristine vigour, and was not finally expelled from India till the tenth century; though we have the assurance that it was the prevailing creed at Benares a century later, and was predominant in Guzerat as late as the twelfth century. At the present time its votaries throughout Asia are more numerous than those of any other religion.

Alexander the Great

The empire of Persia was broken up by Alexander the Great, the Grecian king of Macedon, and the greatest military genius of antiquity. After the defeat and death of Darius, the last Persian monarch of his dynasty, the troops of Alexander were engaged for three years in the most arduous military enterprises, and suffered incredible hardships in their winter campaigns, amidst mountains covered with snow. As a recompense for these toils their commander held out to them the spoils of India; and, having subjugated Cabul, arrived on the banks of the Indus, in the year 331 before our era, at the. age of thirty. Hindostan was ill-prepared to resist the legions of this mighty conqueror. It was split up into a number of independent states, oftener at war than at peace with each other; and a Greek historian affirms that there were no fewer than a hundred and eighteen different kingdoms in the north. Alexander, after having sent envoys to demand the submission of the princes in the Punjab, crossed the Indus, like all previous invaders, at Attok, and entered India with 120,000 troops. Of the principal chiefs of the country, Abissares, whose territory lay in the mountainous region, probably of Cashmere, sent his brother with rich presents to conciliate the invader. Taxiles, who ruled the country between the Indus and the Hydaspes, or Jelum, entertained him with great hospitality at his capital, Taxila, where Alexander left his invalids. But Porus, whose dominions stretched eastward in the direction of Hustinapore, or Delhi, resolved to offer the most determined resistance to the progress of Alexander, and

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assembled his whole force on the banks of the Jelum. The river, swelled by the periodical rains, and at the time a mile broad, rolled impetuously between the two camps. Porus planted a long line of elephants on the margin of the stream, and presented an impenetrable line of defence to his opponent. But Alexander discovered an island in the river, about ten miles above the camp, and took advantage of a dark and tempestuous night to cross over to it with 11,000 men, who were landed on the opposite bank before dawn. The main body of the Grecian army was in the meantime drawn up as usual, facing the Indian camp, and Porus was thus led to believe that the troops who had crossed consisted only of a small brigade. But he was speedily undeceived by the rout of the force which he had sent to meet it, and the death of his son who was in command, and being now certain that it was Alexander himself who had crossed the river, prepared to encounter him with 4,000 horse and 30,000 foot, all of the kshetriyu tribe; warriors by birth and profession. Alexander’s small army was composed of veterans, strangers to defeat, and, under such a leader, invincible. The field was obstinately contested, but nothing could withstand the charge of Alexander’s cavalry. Porus continued to maintain the conflict long after the great body of his troops had deserted him, but was at length persuaded to yield Alexander, who always honoured valour in an enemy, received him with distinguished courtesy; and not only restored his kingdom, but made considerable additions to it. Porus did not abuse this confidence, but remained ever after faithful to his generous victor.

Progress and return of Alexander

After the defeat of Porus, Alexander crossed the Chenab and the Ravee, and came in contact with a body of Cathaians, probably Tartar immigrants, who maintained an obstinate struggle, which is said to have terminated only after the slaughter of 16,000, and the captivity of 70,000 of their number. On reaching the banks of the Sutlege Alexander heard of the great Gangetic kingdom of Mugudu, the king of which, it was reported, could bring

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80,000 cavalry, and 600,000 foot, and 9,000 elephants into the field. He determined to march down and plant his standard on the battlements of its magnificent capital, Palibothra, which was nine miles in length; and his troops received orders to prepare for crossing the river. But they were worn out with the fatigue and wounds of eight campaigns; their spirits had moreover been depressed by the deluge of rain to which they had been exposed during the monsoon, and they refused to accompany him any farther. He employed menace and flattery by turns, but nothing could shake their resolution, and he was reluctantly obliged to make the Sutlege the limit of his expedition, and return to the Indus, where he caused a large flotilla to be constructed, and sailed down the stream with all the pomp of a conqueror.

Alexander’s projects and death

The views of Alexander were gigantic and beneficial beyond those of every other ruler in ancient times. He had erected the port of Alexandria on the Mediterranean shore of Egypt, and at the end of twenty-two centuries it still continues to attest the grandeur of his plans. He now resolved to establish a commercial intercourse between the coast of India, the rivers of Persia and the Red Sea. For this object he built a city and harbour at the estuary of the Indus, and fitted out a large fleet, which he entrusted to his admiral, Nearchus, with orders to proceed to the mouth of the Euphrates. The voyage, though tedious, proved successful, and was justly considered one of the greatest naval achievements of the age. In the midst of these great projects Alexander caught a jungle fever in the marshes of Babylon, and died two years after his return from India, at the early age of thirty-two. He was fully bent on returning to it; and there eau be little doubt that if he had succeeded in crossing the Sutlege he would have made a complete conquest of the country, and given it the benefit of European civilization. His name does not appear in any Hindoo work – a proof of the lamentable imperfection of the records which have come down to us; but his fame was widely

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diffused through India by the Mahomedan conquerors, among whom he was esteemed a magnificent hero. It was carried far and wide on the ocean with the stream of their conquests; and the distant islander of Java and Sumatra may be found singing the deeds of the mighty “Iscander.”

Nundu, Chundra-goopta

At the period of Alexander’s invasion, Nunda, a prince of the Takshuk race. was seated on the Mugudu throne at Palibothra. He was assassinated by his prime minister, and is said to have been succeeded by eight sons in succession. Their illegitimate brother, Chundra-goopta, the offspring of a barber’s wife, was expelled from the kingdom, and wandered for some years through the various provinces of Hindostan. He was at length placed upon the throne through the efforts of the minister, Chanikya, who put all the members of the royal family to death, and afterwards endeavoured to atone for the crime by penances so severe, that after the lapse of 2,000 years, the “remorse of Chanikya,” is still the popular emblem of penitence. Chundra-goopta was a prince of extraordinary energy and talent, and, though a soodra, is stated in the hyperbolical language of the Poorans to have “brought the whole earth under one umbrella.” The empire of Alexander the Great was, on his death, divided among his generals, of whom Seleucus, one of the ablest and most enterprising, obtained the province of Babylon, which comprised all the territory up to the Indus which had been subjugated by his master. Having determined to carry out his ambitious views on the east, he crossed the Indus with a powerful army, and was opposed by Chundra-goopta and the whole strength of the Mugudu empire. According to the Greek historians, Seleucus was completely victorious, which it is difficult to reconcile with the, fact that in the treaty he made with the Indian prince, he resigned all the territory which had been acquired east of the Indus for an annual subsidy of fifty elephants, and likewise bestowed his daughter in marriage on him. Megasthenes was at the same time appointed his representative at the court of Palibothra, and it is from his reports

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that the Greek writers chiefly derived their knowledge of India.

The Mugudu kingdom

After a reign of twenty-four years, Chundra-goopta was succeeded by his son, Mitra-goopta, with whom Seleucus renewed the treaty. The great kingdom of Mugudu maintained its pre-eminence in the valley of the Ganges, under a succession of royal families who appear to have been either soodras or boodhists, for a period of eight centuries from the year 350 before our era to 450 after it. Under their government the country is said to have attained the highest prosperity. A royal road extended from Palibothra to the Indus, with a small column at every stage. Another road stretched across the country to Broach, at that time the great emporium of commerce on the western coast. They encouraged learning with great munificence, and it is recorded that they endeavoured to diffuse it among the common people by the cultivation of the vernacular tongues; and this, as it would seem, at the period when the Sanscrit had reached the summit of perfection in the two epics of the Muhabharut and the Ramayun. They appear also to have given every encouragement to trade, both domestic and foreign. While the silent Indus, as at present, exhibited no sign of commercial activity, the Ganges was covered with sails, and the produce of its various provinces was brought down to the sea-coast and conveyed across the ocean to the east and the west. The kingdom of Mugudu embraced what is designated in history the three Culingas; that is, the northern section of the Coromandel coast; – the sea face of Bengal from Balasore to Chittagong, – then the abode of men and not of tigers, – and the coast of Arracan. Its subjects were thus stimulated to engage in maritime enterprise, and the Mugudu fleet crossed the bay of Bengal to the island of Java, and introduced the Hindoo religion to its inhabitants either in the current of conquest or of commerce. The native historians of that island fix the year To before our era as the time when they received Hindooism from India. Many magnificent

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monuments attest the diffusion of this religion, besides the fact that the language of literature and devotion in Java is a form of the Sanscrit. In the fourth century a Chinese pilgrim recorded that the island was peopled by Hindoos; that in its ports he found vessels manned by Hindoo sailors which had sailed from the mouth of the Ganges to Ceylon, and from thence to Java, and were preparing to proceed on to China. A Hindoo government existed in Java till within the last 400 years, when it was subverted by the Mahomedans. Hindooism still continues to flourish in the neighbouring island of Bali, where the fourfold division of caste still survives, and widows are said still to ascend the funeral pile. Yet so signal has been the mutation of habits and opinions among the Hindoos of India, that any Hindoo who might visit the country to which his ancestors carried the institutes of his religion, and in which they exist in greater integrity than in India itself, would not be permitted to remain within the pale of the caste.

The Ugnikools

The Hindoo annalists affirm that about two centuries before our era, the brahmins “regenerated the Ugnikools,” literally the fiery generation, to fight their battles with the boodhists. The real origin of this race is lost in hopeless obscurity, and we have only a poetical version of their appearance, which may serve as an example of the mode in which historical facts have been bequeathed to posterity, and of the difficulty of separating them from allegory. Ignorance and infidelity, we are told, had spread over the land; the sacred books were trampled under foot, and mankind had no refuge from the monstrous brood – of boodhists. At the summit of Mount Aboo dwelt the holy sages who had carried their complaints to the sea of curds, on which the father of creation was floating on the back of a hydra. He commanded them to return to Mount Aboo, and recreate the race of the kshetriyas – whom Purusramu, an incarnation of the deity, had exterminated. They returned accordingly with the four chief divinities, and a multitude of

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secondary gods. The fountain of fire was purified with water brought from the sacred stream of the Ganges. After the performance of expiatory rites, each of the four gods formed an image and cast it into the fountain, and there sprung up the four men who became the founders of Rajpoot greatness. They were sent out to combat the monsters, who were slaughtered in great numbers, but as their blood touched the ground fresh demons arose; upon which, the four gods stopped the multiplication of the race, by drinking up their blood. The infidels thus became extinct; shouts of joy rent the skies; ambrosial showers descended from above, and the gods drove about the firmament in their cars, exulting in the victory they had gained.

Expulsion of the boodhists

This allegory of the regeneration of the Ugnikools at the fire fountain, evidently points to some religious conversion, or some political revolution. Of the four divisions into which they branched, the Prumuras became the most powerful. Their dominions extended beyond the Nerbudda, and comprehended all central and western India. The Indus formed their boundary on the west. They carried their arms into the Deccan, and appear, in fact, to have been the first to extend the Hindoo religion and power to the south of the Nerbudda. As brahminism did not become predominant till after many bloody conflicts with boodhism, it is not improbable that it was the alliance with the Ugnikools, which rendered the brahmins triumphant, and enabled them to extend their religious power from the kingdom of Cunouj to the southern extremities of the peninsula. The boodhists retreated in great numbers to Ceylon, carrying with them that passion for cave temples, for which they were distinguished. In that island they raised one of the most stupendous monuments of human labour in the world. Excavated by their exertions from the solid rock, we discover a series of temples, of which the largest is 140 feet long, 90 wide, and 45 in height, and which contains a recumbent image of Boodh, 30 feet in length. The temples which the

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boodhists were constrained to relinquish were speedily occupied by the brahmins, and Vishnoo and Sivu displaced Boodh.

Cave temples in India

Under the brahmins, the construction of these cave temples was extended and improved. Those which they erected at Ellora, in the Deccan, exceed in magnificence anything to be seen elsewhere. In a range of hills which extend five miles in the form of a horse shoe, we discover a range of grotto temples, two and often three stories in height. The most remarkable of them is the temple of Koilas, or the palace of Muhadevu. Here is to be found whatever is splendid in architecture, or exquisite in sculpture. The scene is crowded with staircases, bridges, chapels, columns, porticoes, obelisks, and colossal statues, all chiselled out of the solid rock. The sides of these wonderful chambers are covered with figures of the Hindoo gods and goddesses, and representations from the Ramayun and the Muhabharut. The pantheon of Ellora seems to have been the citadel of Hindooism when it spread into the Deccan. The precise age of these magnificent excavations it is impossible to fix, but it must have been at some period during the ten or twelve centuries which elapsed between the subjugation of the boodhists, and the arrival of the Mahomedans, in the high and palmy state of Hindooism, when the brahmins swayed the ecclesiastical sceptre of India without a rival or an enemy.

Vikramadityu

The age of Vikramadityu follows the supposed subjection of the boodhists. He is said to have been descended from one of the Ugnikool chieftains, the Prumura, now contracted to Puar. His reign began fifty-six years before our era, and the ancient city of Oojein was his capital. He is described as the greatest monarch of his age, of which there is the most satisfactory proof in the fact that his era is still current throughout Hindostan. He encouraged literature beyond all former example. He invited learned brahmins from every part of India, and rewarded them with magnificent presents, and they have repaid him by investing

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him with immortality. They have exhausted the resources of flattery in their attempt to describe the magnitude of his power, and have assured us, that without his permission the loadstone had no power over iron, or amber on the chaff of the field. So exemplary was his temperance, that while in the enjoyment of supreme power, he constantly slept on a mat, which, with a waterpot replenished from the spring, formed the whole furniture of his chamber. It is stated that while he extended his patronage to the worship of the gods and goddesses, then rising into popularity, he himself continued to profess the old creed, and adored the one infinite and invisible God.

The birth of Jesus Christ

Fifty-six years after the accession of Vikramadityu, Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, became incarnate in the land of Judea, and made an atonement for the sins of men, by offering himself as a sacrifice. On the third day he rose from the dead, and after giving his disciples a commission to proclaim to mankind the glad tidings of salvation through his redemption, ascended to heaven. One of his disciples, St. Thomas, is generally supposed to have introduced Christianity into India, where he obtained many converts. The Hindoo legends present so many points of similarity with the facts of the New Testament, as to leave little doubt that the events connected with the life and death of the Saviour of mankind were widely disseminated through India, and embodied, though in a distorted form, in the writings of Hindoo poets and sages.

The Andras

It is about this period that we find the Andras dynasty enjoying great power in the Gangetic provinces, and their fame extending even to Rome. They were probably one of the families which successively filled the Mugudu throne. They appear to have gained it about twenty years before our era, and to have held it on till the year 436. The only notice of any of the monarchs of this line which has survived their extinction refers to Kurnu, whose fame was spread to the islands of the eastern archipelago, which were

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probably visited by his fleet. He still lives in the memory of posterity, and a man of extraordinary liberality is always compared to king Kurnu. The centuries which elapsed between the decay of the Andras and the invasion of the Mahomedans are filled up by the historians with barren lists of dynasties and kings which can be turned to no account; and we turn therefore from the history of Hindostan to the annals of the Deccan.

Early history of the Deccan

The early history of the Deccan is less obscure and less romantic than that of the northern division of India. All the traditions and records recognise in every province of it a period when the inhabitants did not profess the Hindoo religion. The brahminical writers describe them as mountaineers and foresters, goblins, and monsters; but there is every reason to conclude that they had reached a high degree of civilization at a very early age. Ravunu, when attacked by Ramu, was the sovereign of a powerful and civilized state, which embraced not only the island of Ceylon, but the whole of the southern division of the peninsula; and his subjects were, doubtless, far more advanced in the arts and literature than the invaders. A Tamul literature existed before the introduction of brahminism; and some of the best authors in that language were of the tribe now stigmatised as pariars, which incontestibly proves that the pariars were the aborigines of the country, and a highly cultivated people, who were reduced to subjection and degraded by the triumphant brahmins. This remark applies to the group of tribes comprised in the ancient Telingana, Draviru and Kerulu.

The Pandyas and the Cholas

The most ancient kingdoms of the Deccan appear to have been those of the Pandyas and the Cholas, established in the extreme south, where the Tamul language prevailed. Of the former, the seat of government, after having been twice removed, was fixed at Madura, where it was in existence in the time of Ptolemy, the great geographer of antiquity. In the ninth century the reigning family lost its consequence, but continued to linger in the

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scene of its early power till 1736, when the last of that royal line was conquered by the nabob of Arcot. The kingdom of Chola – which some identify with Coromandel – had Canchi, or Conjeveram, for its capital, and retained its vigour for many centuries, and, about the eighth century, appears to have extended its authority over a considerable portion of Carnata and Telingana. But its princes were driven back and confined to their former limits about the tenth century, and maintained a feeble existence, either as independent sovereigns, or as tributaries to the great Hindoo monarchy of Beejuynugur, till the province was subdued in the middle of the seventeenth century by Shahjee, the father of Sevajee, the founder of Mahratta greatness.

Kerulu and Telingana

The ancient division of Kerulu included Malabar and Carnata, which are said to have been miraculously peopled with brahmins by their champion Purusramu, the renowned destroyer of the kshetriyus. Apart from this legend, it would appear that about the second century a colony of brahmins introduced themselves and their religion into this province, which they divided into sixty-four districts, and governed for a time by an ecclesiastical senate, over which a brahmin was chosen to preside every three years; but they were subsequently subjected to the Pandya kingdom. About the ninth century the country was broken into various principalities; one of the most important of which, Calicut, was under the government of the Hindoo Zamorin when the Europeans first landed in India, under Vasco de Gama, in 1498. Of the history of Telingana no authentic records have been discovered, but it appears that about the eleventh century the Bellal dynasty attained paramount power in this region. They dignified themselves with the title of Rajpoots, of the Yadoo branch, and at one period extended their authority over the whole of Carnata, Malabar, and Telingana; but it was extinguished by the Mahomedans in and 1310.

Orissa and Maharastra

The early annals of Orissa are equally indistinct. The authentic history of the province

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does not commence before the year 473. when the Kesari family obtained the throne, and held it till 1131. They were succeeded by the line of Gungu-bungsu, who maintained their power till it was subverted by the Mahomedan in 1568. Of the Mahratta province there are only two facts distinctly visible in history; the existence, more than twenty centuries ago, of the great commercial mart of Tagara, so well known to the Romans, which has been identified with Deogur, the modern Dowlutabad, and was the capital of a long line of monarchs. The other event is the reign of Salivahun. All that is known of that prince, however, is that he was the son of a potter, that he headed a successful insurrection, dethroned the reigning family, and established a monarchy so powerful and extensive that it gave rise to an era which has survived him for eighteen centuries, and still continues current in the Deccan.

The Rajpoot family of Chittore

While the Gangetic empire of the Andras was crumbling to pieces, the Rajpoot family of Chittore, now settled at Oodypore, was rising into notice. By the general suffrage of the Hindoos in the western provinces its descent is traced from Loh, the eldest son of Ramu, the hero of the Rumayun, and it, therefore, claims pre-eminence among the Hindoo princes of India. The family originally migrated to the country of Surat, and fixed their capital at Balabhipore, in the Gulf of Cambay. The town was sacked about the year 524 by the son of Noshirvan the just, king of Persia, but the Rajpoot queen escaped the general destruction and took refuge in a cave, where she gave birth to a son, Goha. The youth subsequently established a kingdom at Edur, and married the granddaughter of the Persian king, and of his queen, the daughter of Maurice, the Christian emperor of Constantinople. From Goha are lineally descended the rajas of Oodypore. “Thus,” remarks the historian of Rajpootana, “we are led to the singular conclusion that the Hindoo sooruj, or sun, the descendant of a hundred kings, the undisputed possessor of the honours of Ramu, the patriarch

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of the solar race, from whom other Hindoo princes, before they can succeed to the throne of their fathers, must obtain the teluk, or sign of royalty and investiture, is in fact the offspring of a Christian princess.” Eight princes succeeded Goha on the throne of Edur, the last of whom was put to death by his sons while hunting, but his infant son, Bappa, was conveyed to the fortress of Bhandere, and brought up among the shepherds. His mother aroused his ambition by revealing to him the secret of his royal birth, and he immediately proceeded to the court of Chittore, together with the followers he had been able to collect, and was favourably received by the king, but the nobles took umbrage at the favour shown to an unknown youth. At this juncture a formidable foe came down upon the country, and the chiefs refused to furnish their feudal contingents, but Bappa offered without any hesitation to lead the national troops into the field. That enemy was the Mahomedans, who now for the first time advanced into the heart of a country destined in after times to form one of their most magnificent empires.

Rise of Mahomedan power

Mahomed was born at Mecca, in Arabia, in the year 569, and at the age of forty, announced himself a prophet commissioned by God to convert the human race to the “true faith,” by the agency of the sword. Having, by the force of his genius and eloquence, gained many proselytes in his native land, he raised an army of Arabs to subjugate the surrounding nations to his power and his creed, and commenced that career of conquest which was pursued by his successors with unexampled vigour and rapidity. Province after province, and kingdom after kingdom submitted to their arms, and in the brief period of half a century, they had subverted or shaken the political institutions of the west. From the birth of Mahomedanism, its votaries were animated with the resolution to establish, by force of arms, a universal monarchy in which there should be but one law civil and religious, one prophet and one creed. Every Musulman who fell in this warfare, was promised a residence

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in paradise in the society of the black-eyed houris. It was not to be expected, that when the “Faithful,” as they were termed, had conquered Africa and Spain, subverted the Persian empire, and looked on Europe as already their own, the rich provinces of India, which had been for ages the prey of every invader, should escape their notice.

First Mahomedan invasion

Within a few years after the death of Mahomed, the Caliph Omar founded Bussorah, at the estuary of the Tigris, and despatched an army into the province of Sinde. The invasion was repeated under his successors, but it was not till the days of Walid, that any successful effort was made to obtain a footing in the country. Between the years 705 and 715, he not only made an entire conquest of the province, but carried his victorious army to the banks of the Ganges. It was the generals of this caliph who crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, planted the standard of the crescent on the soil of Europe, and subdued Spain in a single campaign. So lofty was the ambition which animated the early successors of Mahomed, that their arms were triumphant at the same time on the banks of the Ebro and the Ganges, and they aspired to the conquest both of Europe and India. Three years after the invasion of Walid, his general Mahomed ben Cossim overran the kingdom of Guzerat, and called on every city either to embrace the creed of the prophet, or to pay tribute. In case of refusal, the fighting men were put to the sword, and the women and children reduced to slavery, but the cultivators, artizans, and merchants are said to have suffered little molestation. Cossim at length advanced to Chittore, when the young Bappa placed himself at the head of the Rajpoot army, and not only completely defeated him, but expelled him from India. On his return to Chittore, Bappa was hailed by the nobles and people as their deliverer, and advanced to the throne, and from him are descended the rajas who now reign at Oodypore. After having governed the country for many years with great success, he abandoned his kingdom and his religion, and marched with his troops

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across the Indus to Khorasan, where he married many Mahomedan wives, and left a numerous progeny.

Renewed attack on Chittore

It was about this period that the Prumura family, which had ruled for many centuries at Oojein, is supposed to have lost its authority in the north of India, and other kingdoms rose on its ruins. The Tuars occupied the districts around Delhi, and made that city their capital. Guzerat became independent, and was governed at first by the Chouras and then by the Solankis. The Rajpoot annalists state, that in the days of Khoman, the great grandson of Bappa, whose reign extended from 812 to 836, Chittore was again invaded by the Mahomedans under Mahmoon, the governor of Khorasan, probably the son of the celebrated Caliph, Haroun-ul-Rashid, the contemporary and friend of Charlemagne. The other princes in the north of India hastened to the assistance of the Rajpoots against the common enemy, and the national bard gives an animated description of the different tribes who composed the chivalry of the north on this occasion. With the aid of these allies, Khoman defeated and expelled the Musulmans, with whom he is said to have fought no fewer than twenty-four engagements. For a century and a half after this period, we hear of no further Mahomedan invasion, and it cannot but appear a very notable circumstance, that while the followers of the Prophet completely subjugated Persia and Spain in two or three campaigns, the resistance which they met in their early encounters with the Hindoos was so compact and resolute, that nearly three centuries elapsed after the first invasion, before they could make any permanent impression on India.

The Cunouj brahmins in Bengal

The only authentic event to be further noticed previous to the irruption of Mahmood of Ghuzni, relates to the kingdom of Bengal. Cunouj, the cradle and the citadel of Hindooism, had recovered its importance under a new dynasty. Adisoor, of the Vidyu, or medical race of kings then ruling Bengal, and holding its court at Nuddea, became dissatisfied with the ignorance of his priests,

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and applied to the king of Cunouj for a supply of brahmins well versed in the Hindoo shasters and observances. That monarch, about nine centuries ago sent him five brahmins, from whom all the brahminical families in Bengal trace their descent; while the kayusts, the next in order, derive their origin from the five servants who attended the priests.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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