Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1. Charles Eliot
invasions. For the long interval between the defeat of the Huns in 526 A.D. and the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni about 1000 A.D. which was almost entirely free from foreign inroads, seems precisely the period when the want of political ideas and constructive capacity was most marked. Nor were the incursions always destructive and sterile. The invaders, though they had generally more valour than culture of their own, often brought with them foreign art and ideas, Hellenic, Persian or Mohammedan. Naturally the northern districts felt their violence most as well as the new influences which they brought, whereas the south became the focus of Hindu politics and culture which radiated thence northwards again. Yet, on the whole, seeing how vast is the area occupied by the Hindus, how great the differences not only of race but of language, it is remarkable how large a measure of uniformity exists among them (of course I exclude Mohammedans) in things religious and intellectual. Hinduism ranges from the lowest superstition to the highest philosophy but the stages are not distributed geographically. Pilgrims go from Badrinath to Ramesvaram: the Vaishnavism of Trichinopoly, Muttra and Bengal does not differ in essentials, the worship of the linga can be seen almost anywhere. And though India has often been receptive, this receptivity has been deliberate and discriminating. Great as was the advance of Islam, the resistance offered to it was even more remarkable and at the present day it cannot be said that in the things which most interest them Indian minds are specially hospitable to British ideas.
The relative absence of political unity seems due to want of interest in politics. It is often said that the history of India in pre-Mohammedan times is an unintelligible or, at least, unreadable, record of the complicated quarrels and varying frontiers of small states. Yet this is as true of the history of the Italian as of the Indian peninsula. The real reason why Indian history seems tedious and intricate is that large interests are involved only in the greatest struggles, such as the efforts to repulse the Huns or Mohammedans.
The ordinary wars, though conducted on no small scale, did not involve such causes or principles as the strife of Roundheads with Cavaliers. With rare exceptions, states and empires were regarded as the property of their monarchs. Religion claimed to advise kings, like other wealthy persons, as to their duties and opportunities, and ministers became the practical rulers of kingdoms just as a steward may get the management of an estate into his hands. But it rarely occurred to Hindus that other persons in the estate had any right to a share in the government, or that a Raja could be dispossessed by anybody but another Raja. Of that, indeed, there was no lack. Not only had every sovereign to defend himself against the enemies in his own house but external politics seemed based on the maxim that it is the duty of a powerful ruler to increase his territory by direct and unprovoked attacks on his neighbours. There is hardly a king of eminence who did not expand his power in this way, and the usual history of a royal house is successful aggression followed by collapse when weaker hands were unable to hold the inherited handful. Even moderately long intervals of peace are rare. Yet all the while we seem to be dealing not with the expansion or decadence of a nation, but with great nobles who add to their estates or go bankrupt.
These features of Indian politics are illustrated by the Arthaśâstra, a manual of state-craft attributed to Câṇakya, the minister of Candragupta and sometimes called the Indian Macchiavelli. Its authenticity has been disputed but it is now generally accepted by scholars as an ancient work composed if not in the fourth century, at least some time before the Christian era. It does not, like Manu and other Brahmanic law-books, give regulations for an ideal kingdom but frankly describes the practice of kings. The form of state contemplated is a small kingdom surrounded by others like it and war is assumed to be their almost normal relation, but due to the taste or policy of kings, not to national aspirations or economic causes. Towards the Brahmans a king has certain moral obligations, towards his subjects and fellow monarchs none. It is assumed that his object is to obtain money from his subjects, conquer his neighbours, and protect himself by espionage and severe punishments against the attacks to which he is continually exposed, especially at the hands of his sons. But the author does not allow his prince a life of pleasure: he is to work hard and the first things he has to attend to are religious matters.
The difficulty of writing historical epitomes which are either accurate or readable is well known and to outline the events which have occurred in the vast area called India during the last 2500 years is a specially arduous task, for it is almost impossible to frame a narrative which follows the fortunes of the best known Hindu kingdoms and also does justice to the influence of southern India and Islam. It may be useful to tabulate the principal periods, but the table is not continuous and even when there is no gap in chronology, it often happens that only one political area is illuminated amid the general darkness and that this area is not the same for many centuries.
1. From about 500 to 200 B.C. Magadha (the modern Bihar) was the principal state and the dominions of its great king Asoka were almost the same as British India to-day.
2. In the immediately succeeding period many invaders entered from the north-west. Some were Greeks and some Iranians but the most important were the Kushans who ruled over an Empire embracing both north-western India and regions beyond it in Afghanistan and Central Asia. This Empire came to an end in the third century A.D. but the causes of its collapse are obscure.
3. The native Hindu dynasty of the Guptas began to rule in 320 A.D. Its dominions included nearly all northern India but it was destroyed by the invasions of the Huns in the fifth and sixth centuries.
4. The Hindu Emperor Harsha (606-647 A.D.) practically reconstituted the Gupta Empire but his dominions split up after his death. At the same time another Empire which extended from Gujarat to Madras was founded by Pulakeśin, a prince from the south, a region which though by no means uncivilized had hitherto played a small part in the general history of India.
5. From 650 to 1000 A.D. India was divided among numerous independent kingdoms. There was no central power but Bengal and the Deccan were more prominent than previously.
6. After 1000 A.D. the conquests of Mohammedan invaders became important and the Hindu states of northern and central India collapsed or grew weak. But the Hindus held out in Rajputana, Orissa, and above all in Vijayanagar.
7. In 1526 came the invasion of the Mughals, who founded an Empire which at its zenith (1556-1707) included all India except the extreme south. In its decadence the Marathas and Sikhs became powerful and Europeans began to intervene.
It is generally agreed that at a period which, though not fixed, was anterior to 1000 B.C.108 a body of invaders known as Aryans and nearly akin to the ancient Iranians entered India through the north-western mountains. They found there other tribes not deficient in civilization but unable to offer any effective resistance. These tribes who retired southwards are commonly known as Dravidians109 and possibly represent an earlier invasion of central-Asiatic tribes allied to the remote ancestors of the Turks and Mongols110. At the time when the earlier hymns of the Rig Veda were composed, the Aryans apparently lived in the Panjab and did not know the sea, the Vindhya mountains or the Narbudda river. They included several tribes, among whom five are specially mentioned, and we hear that a great battle was fought on the Ravi, in which a confederation of ten kings who wished to force a passage to the east was repulsed by Sudas, chief of the Tritsus. Still the south-eastern movement, across the modern United Provinces to the borders of Bengal, continued and, so far as our records go, it was in this direction rather than due south or south-west, that the Aryans chiefly advanced111. When the Brâhmaṇas and earlier Upanishads were composed (c. 800-600 B.C.) the principal political units were the kingdoms of the Pancâlas and Kurus in the region of Delhi. The city of Ayodhyâ (Oudh) is also credited with a very ancient but legendary history.
The real history of India begins with the life of the Buddha who lived in the sixth century B.C.112 At that time the small states of northern India, which were apparently oligarchies or monarchies restricted by the powers of a tribal council, were in process of being absorbed by larger states which were absolute monarchies and this remained the normal form of government in both Hindu and Moslim times. Thus Kosala (or Oudh) absorbed the kingdom of Benares but was itself conquered by Magadha or Bihar, the chief city
0Very different opinions have been held as to whether this date should be approximately 1500 B.C. or 3000 B.C. The strong resemblance of the hymns of the Ṛig Veda to those of the Avesta is in favour of the less ancient date, but the date of the Gathas can hardly be regarded as certain.
1Linguistically there seems to be two distinct divisions, the Dravidians and the Munda (Kolarian).
1The affinity between the Dravidian and Ural-Altaic groups of languages has often been suggested but has met with scepticism. Any adequate treatment of this question demands a comparison of the earliest forms known in both groups and as to this I have no pretension to speak. But circumstances have led me to acquire at different times some practical acquaintance with Turkish and Finnish as well as a slight literary knowledge of Tamil and having these data I cannot help being struck by the general similarity shown in the structure both of words and of sentences (particularly the use of gerunds and the constructions which replace relative sentences) and by some resemblances in vocabulary. On the other hand the pronouns and consequently the conjugation of verbs show remarkable differences. But the curious Brahui language, which is classed as Dravidian, has negative forms in which
1See the legend in the Śat. Brâh. I. 4. 1. 14 ff.
1This much seems sure but whereas European scholars were till recently agreed that he died about 487 B.C. it is now suggested that 543 may be nearer the true date. See Vincent Smith in