Indian culture and social life at the time of the Turkish invasions

3>S

HII

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Date Due

nun's 3 ft 1 C

P.I v -

[IM

Ha§ilKN

.ft,

m^

L.ISPt B F-

llll 0(

rWHt*

•

J43t* 41

4q|"Ji

py *w u

■sn

k ••

-

Cornell University Library
DS 421.H11

Indian culture and social life at the ti

3 1924 024 114 336

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024114336

Indian Culture and Sopial Life

At the time of

"the Turkish Invasions

BY

MOHAMMAD HABIB,

"' ■ ' ' ' ' '* '< - '
V B. A. (0*oft) n Bar-at-Law,

Erofessor of History, MttsUm~Uni , Oersity } Aligarh

-•'''- £UBLiSHBp>Y ;

." The Aligarh Historical Research
'"'■■-: fnstitm^,

AMGABM,

SHAIKH MUHAMMAD ASHRAF

KASHMIRI BAZAAR * LAHORE ' ; ,»

-h 5

^ifjrf'b

CONTENTS ^ 3/,,

Foreword

1. The Puzzle of the G-horian Conquest 1

2. Categories of Hindu Thought 6

3. Sanskrit Literature 25

4. Popular Hinduism 39

5. Hindu Nationalism 60
G. The Brahmans 65

7. The Kshattriyas 81

8. The Masses 83

9. Dress and Manners 49
1.0. Laws and Customs 98

JOURNAL

OF THE

Aligarh Historical Research Institute

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE AT THE
TIME OF THE TURKISH INVASIONS

I. The Puzzle of the Ghorian Conquest

The last decade of the twelfth and the first decade
of the thirteenth century in India were marked by the
clash of two degenerate and decaying social systems —
the Turkish and the Rajput. In this clash the former
proved itself to be decisively superior; for in war, as
in peace, success depends upon comparative efficiency.
The Ghorians were defeated by the Khwarazmians,
and the larger part of Afghanistan passed into the
hands of Alauddin Khwarazmshah. But the weakness
of the Khwarazmian Empire was patent to all keen
observers long before it was extinguished by Chengiz
Khan ; lack of morality among the people led to lack of
'morale in the administration and the army, and two
good Mongol campaigns were sufficient to expose the
hollowness of Turkish power in Central Asia and
Persia. And yet in this very period of moral and
spiritual decay in Muslim Asian countries, the Turkish
race, soon to be crushed and humiliated in its own

2 INDIAN CULTTJKE AND SOCIAL LIFE

homelands, subdued the whole of northern India.
Between the defeat of Shahabuddin at the first battle
of Tarain in 1191 and the retreat of Bakhtiar Khilji
from the banks of the Brahmaputra in 1205, there
intervenes the brief period of thirteen or fourteen
years. It sufficed not only for the conquest
but also for the consolidation of Turkish rule in
the Punjab, Sind, Oudh, Doab, Bihar, Bengal and
a part of Rajputana. The rapidity as well as the
permanence of the Turkish conquest stands in sharp
contrast with the slow, uphill progress of British rule
in India, specially if it is remembered that the Turkish
generals, as compared with the great British Pro-con-
suls, had no superiority (apart from military organisa-
tion) over their Rajput opponents ; no navy to place
their communications beyond the enemy's reach, no
artillery-parks which the enemy could not match and
above all no home-government with its practically
unlimited resources. The regime of the Turkish slaves
of Shahabuddin Ghori was completely annihilated by
Alauddin Khilji in the early years of his reign but the
Empire of Delhi, founded with such rapidity, lasted
with varying fortunes till the middle of the eighteenth
century and was not formally extinguished till after
the Mutiny of 1857. And never, if we except the
Khilji Revolution, had the Delhi Empire to face any
extensive movement that even belated communalism
or patriotism can consider religious or national. The
oddest part of the Turkish conquest was its general
acceptance by the country — acceptance temporarily of
the Turkish bureaucracy and permanently of the cen-
tralised government of the Empire of Delhi which they

INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 3

had inaugurated. It is one of the most puzzling facts
of Indian history.

Alexander, the Great, retired sulkily to his tent
after leading the most heroic expedition in the history
of mankind because his war-worn veterans refused to
follow him further east in the Panjab. Mahmud of
Ghaznin, in spite of twenty-six years of brilliant
campaigning — and for sheer military genius our coun-
try has never seen anything like them — 'never attempt-
ed to annex any territory beyond the Eavi. It was
left to Shahabuddin Ghori, the hero of the three
stupendous defeats^-Gujrat, Tarainand Andkhud —
to achieve what the Greeks and the Kushans, the
Hunas and the Ghaznevides had hardly dared ;to
dream of. The Ghorian conquest of India might
have been dismissed as a fable were the evidence for
it not so absolutely convincing and complete. On
the face of it the thing seems palpably absurd. The
Ghorian dynasty had lost its power in Central Asia
and even its homelands had been trampled by hostile
troops ; nevertheless its Turkish slave-officers succeeded
in establishing one of the greatest empires of the
middle ages. The economic resources of the Ghorian
state even at the height of its power — about the
year 1202 — could hardly have been equal to those of a
second rate Indian raja whose state covered five or six
districts. The territory of Ghor and Gharjistan,
though equal in area to an Indian province, is a bleak
widlerness of rocky mountains, swept by a bitterly
cold north- wind, where the snow lies thick on the
ground for more than half the year ; its reputed valleys

4 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

of a 'thousand springs' are only charming to eyes that
have seen nothing better. 1 The comparatively fertile
regions to the south and east of Ghor — Bamian, Kabul,
Zabulistan, Nimroz, Sijistan, etc. — annexed by Ghias-
uddin and Shahabuddin in the earlier years of their
reigns had been thoroughly ransacked and plundered
by the Ghazz Turks. Ghaznin, shorn of its earlier
glories, had become a small citj r of mud houses all
traces of which have now disappeared. The resources
of the Ghorian state in man-power were equally
meagre. Counting both Turks and non-Turks, the
Ghorian brothers may have ruled at the most over a
million families, possibly less, certainly not more.
Unlike Mahmud, Shahabuddin could enroll few re-
cruits, volunteers or professionals, from outside his
territory. He was intensely unpopular in Persia,
specially in Khorasan which he had repeatedly ravaged.
Khwarazm ( the Trans-Caspian region ), Mawaraun-
Nahr and Turkistan were in the hands of hostile
powers. Nor was meagreness of resources compensated
by the extraordinary ability of those in command.
Shahabuddin had, undeniably, that sort of genius
which Carlyle defines as 'the infinite capacity for
taking pains', but nothing more. As a general he
was industrious but incompetent. A resolute foe
could always drive him away from the battle-field ; in
the face of a competent strategist, like Alauddin
Khawarazmshah or Taniku Taraz, he completely lost
his nerve and became panicky, confused and muddle-
headed. Nor do the recorded achievements of his

Henoa probably the name Hazara (thousand) by which Ghor
is now known.

INDIAN OULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 5

principal generals show any remarkable strategic
capacity — apart from their bull-dog capacity for per-
sistent endeavour in the face of repeated defeats —
which might explain their- undeniable success. They
were brave, but not braver than most men brought
up in the profession of arms.

Nor had Ghor any of those moral or constitutional
virtues which have enabled small states, like Rome,
Medina or England, to establish extensive dominions.
The hold of the Ghorian monarchy over its sub-
ordinate officers was very weak ; in the hour of trial
and gloom, most generals of Shahabuddin proved
untrue to their master, and after his death they proved
even more faithless to his legitimate successor and to
each other. The victorious Ghorian state was rotten
with intrigues to the core. That was the primary
reason for its collapse. Shahabuddin himself had set
the example of chicanery and fraud in the realm of
diplomacy. He never hesitated to break his plighted
word whenever it suited his plans. Like many of his
contemporaries in that demoralised age, he seems to
have considered the assassination of political opponents
a justifiable, if not a commendable, measure of public
policy. His generals, needless to add, improved
upon his example. Add to it, while the Shansabania
Dynasty of Ghor represented a stock of respectable
Turkish •hill-chiefs, the officers of the state were
Turkish slaves purchased in the market. Whatever
the strength of their loyalty to their master so long
as he was strong enough to command them, they had
no loyalty to the Ghorian Dynasty, and proceeded

C) INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

to appropriate, or misappropriate, the dominions of
Shahabuddin to the exclusion of Shahabuddin's legiti-
mate heirs.

The Ghorian conquest of northern India, when all
factors are kept in mind, can be explained by one fact
only — the caste-system and all that it entails ; the
degeneration of the oppressor and the degeneration of
the oppressed, priest-craft, king-craft, idol-worship
with its degrading cults, the economic and spiritual ex-
ploitation of themultitude, the division of the people
into small water-tight sub-caste groups resulting in the
total annihilation of any sense of common citizenship
or of loyalty to the country as a whole.

II. Categories of Hindu Thought

Indian historians have often deplored the lack of
historical material after the death of Harshavardhana.
Competent experts may, with the advance of time, be
able to piece together a more consecutive narrative
than we have at present on the basis of copper-plates
and coins. So far as Muslim records are concerned,
a flood of light is thrown on the condition of Sind by
the Chach Nama (or Tarihh-i Hind wa Sind), the
Arabic original of which, there is every reason to
believe, was compiled on the basis of government
records and personal investigations by no less a person
than Mohammad ibn-i Kasha's Qazi of Multan. The
Arab travellers in India have left records of their
impressions, some of which were translated by Sir
Henry Elliot in the first volume of his History of
India, and later scholars have improved upon Elliot's

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 7

work. But the Arab travellers were neither Sans-
kritists nor trained observers ; their primary business
was import and export, and they very often completely
misunderstood the significance of what they saw. On
the other hand, the great scientific works of the Gupta
era, specially the Brahma- Siddhauta (known as the
Sind-Hind), became current in Muslim countries and
were widely used by Muslim scientists along with
Greek treatises on astronomy and mathematics. But
the translations were inaccurate to start with ; and
after several generations of incompetent copyists had
added to the errors of the translators, the manuscripts
became a sheer jumble of nonsensical figures and
diagrams, which no assiduity on the part of a mere
Arabic scholar could put into form and order. Lastly,
as we can well understand, owing to that innate
tendency of human nature to misunderstand and
misrepresent one's opponents, the wildest and the
most impossible stories about India were current in
Muslim lands. Abu Bihan Alberuni, the greatest
Muslim scholar whom India has seen, protested
against all this and after years of patient investigation
produced the Eitabul Hind 1 , 'a simple historic record
of facts'. For us the great importance of the Kitabul
Hind or India depends upon its methodology — a fine
modification of the dialectical system of Socrates, in
which Alberuni had been trained at Khwarazm, to
suit the subject-matter of bis inquiries. He gives us a
unique survey, unsurpassed by anything yet written

1 Alberuni' s India, translated and edited with notes by Pro-
fessor E. S. Saehau; Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., London, .1910.

8 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

in its comprehension of general sociological and philo-
sophical principles as well as minute scientific details,
of the achievements of Hindu thought in ages gone by ;
specially the Gupta period. During his ' internment '
in India he associated extensively with Hindu pandils.
whose habitual contempt for the mlechcha changed
ultimately to one of deep reverence for Alberuni
personally. It was, apparently, his habit during these
discussions to drive his pandit friends by repeated
examinations and cross-examinations, conducted after
the manner of Socrates, to the most consistent state-
ment of the basic doctrines of their faith. Though
intimately acquainted with the works of Plato,
Alberuni has ( very wisely ) not given us a record of
his discussions but only brief, lucid and remarkably
accurate definitions of the ' fundamental categories
of Hindu thought ' — the iveltanscliaung or world-
outlook of the educated upper-classes of his day.
"The main and most essential point of the Hindu
world of thought is that which the Brahmans think
and believe, for they are specially trained for pre-
serving and maintaining their religion. And this is
what we shall explain, viz., the belief of the
Brahmans." Critical scholarship, however, necessi-
tated a careful comparison of the faith of the educated
classes with the sacred texts on the 'one hand and
with the 'silly notions of the multitude' on the other.
A student of comparative religion and philosophy was
further bound to put the thought of various peoples
side by side. All this comes within the compass of
Alberuni's work. "I shall mention in connection with
them similar theories of the Greeks in order to show

tNt)IAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 9

the relationship existing between them Besides

the Greek ideas we shall only now and then mention
those of the sicfis or of some one or other Christian
sect, because in their notions regarding the transmi-
gration of souls and the pantheistic doctrine of the
unity of God with creation there is much in common
between these systems."

A careful examination of Alberuni's India leaves
upon one the impression that the philosophical, reli-
gious and scientific ideas of the educated classes were
all they could have been ; that the mass of the people
wallowed in mud and mire, raising the dirtiest, filthiest
and crudest fancies of the day to the dignity of reli-
gion and enshrining that religion in temples none
too clean ; that educated Brahmans of the better sort
were horrified at this degradation of their beloved
faith but were too weak or too disorganised to make
an effective protest ; that less scrupulous Brahmans
not only earned their livelihood but established their
authority by preying upon the weaknesses and the
fears of the multitude ; and that the rajas or chiefs,
instead of joining the reformers, consciously promot-
ed many vicious institutions for the benefit of their
government and their treasury. And, consequently,
the governing classes, willy-nilly, were dragged down
to the moral and intellectual level of the governed.

First as to the categories of contemporary Brah-
manical thought which Alberuni regards with such
tender reverence : —

1. Idea of God — "The Hindus believe with regard
to God that he is one, eternal, without beginning

2

10 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

and end, acting by freewill, almighty, all-wise, living,
giving life, ruling, preserving, one who in his so-
vereignty is unique, beyond all likeness and unlike-
ness, and that he does not resemble anything nor does
anything resemble him." This assertion is supported by
quotations from the Patavjali and the Gita. 1 "This is
what the educated believe about God. They call him
Isvara, i.e., self-sufficing, beneficent, who gives without
receiving. They consider the unity of God as absolute,
but that everything besides God which may appear as
a unity is really a plurality of things. The existence
of God they consider as a real existence, because every-
thing that exists, exists through Hum It isjiot impos-
sible to think that the existing beings are not and that
He is, but it is impossible to think that He is not and
that they are." "If we now pass from the ideas of
the educated people among the Hindus to those of the
common people, we must first state that they present
a great variety. Some of them are simply abomin-
able, but similar errors also occur in other religions.
Nay, even in Islam, we must decidedly disapprove of
the anthropomorphic doctrines, the teachings of the
Jabriyya sect, the prohibition of the discussion of
religious topics, and such like." 2 "The educated
among the Hindus abhor anthropomorphisms of this
kind, but the crowd and the members of the single sects
use them most extensively. They go even beyond all
we have hitherto mentioned, and speak of wife, son,
daughter, of the rendering pregnant and other physical
processes, all in connection with God." 3

1 Alberuni's India, edited by Saohau, vol. I, p. 27.

a Ibid., p. 31.

8 Ibid., vol. I. p. 39.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 11

2. Noumena and Phenomena. — Hindu ideas on
this question are difficult to interpret, but Alberuni's
account may be summarised as follows.- The whole
creation is a unity; and the totality of 'the twenty-
five' elements, called tattva, may be classified into
the soul, purusha ; the general matter, called avyakta,
i.e., absolute matter; vyakta, i.e., concrete matter;
ahankara, or nature ; mahabhuta or five elements —
heaven, wind, fire, water and earth ; pancha matras,
i.e., five qualities or the functions of the senses ;
indriyani or the five senses ; manas or the will ; and
karmedriyani, i.e., the sense of action or the five
necessary functions. "Therefore Vyasa, son of Para-
sara, speaks, 'Learn the twenty-five (elements or agents)
by distinctions, definitions and divisions, as you learn
a logical syllogism, and something which is a certainty
and not merely studying with the tongue ; afterwards
adhere to whatever religion you; like, your end will be
salvation'.* The Hindus are not decided among
themselves on the question of the cause of action ; they
attribute action to different causes like nature, the soul,
or time but the truth is that action belongs to matter,
for the latter binds the soul, causes it to wander about
in different shapes and then sets it free ; so the "Vishnu
Purana says, 'Matter is the origin of the world." All
Indian systems, except Buddhism, admit the existence
of a permanent entity variously called atman, purusha
or jiva. As to the exact nature of this soul there are,
indeed, divergences of views. But all agree in holding
that it is pure and unsullied in its nature. According
to Vasudeva,, the soul is 'something stable and cons-
1 Alberuni's India, by Saohau, vol. L p. 44.

12 INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

tant'. The soul, in pursuit of knowledge, unites itself
with matter by means of the 'spirit' ; and matter, on
its part, seeking perfection, carries its pupil, the soul,
through all stages of vegetable and animal life. The
soul gives life to matter, and action is thus derived
from the latter.

3. Reincarnation.— The distinctive feature of
Hinduism or, to be more exact, of all Indian cults, is
not belief in one God, which is found in all faiths, but
the peculiar path of salvation prescribed. Alberuni's
statement of the doctrine of metempsychosis or
reincarnation deserves to be carefully considered:
"As the word of confession, 'There is no god but Allah
and Muhammad is his prophet', is the shibboleth (basis)
of Islam, the Trinity that of Christianity, and the
institute of the Sabbath that of Judaism, so metempsy-
chosis is the shibboleth of the Hindu religion. There-
fore he who does not believe in it does not belong to
them, and is not reckoned as one of them. For they
hold the following belief : —

"The soul, as long as it has not risen to the highest
absolute intelligence, does not comprehend the to-
tality of objects at once, or, as it were, in no time.
Therefore it must explore all particular beings
and examine all the possibilities of existence ; and
as their number is, though not unlimited, still an
enormous one, the soul wants an enormous space
of time in order to finish the contemplation of
such a multiplicity of objects. The soul acquires
knowledge only by the contemplation of the in-
dividuals and the species, and of their peculiar

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 13

actions and conditions. It gains experience from
each object, and gathers thereby new knowledge.

"However, these actions differ in the same measure as
the three primary forces differ. Besides, the world
is not left without some direction, being led, as it
were, by a bridle and directed towards a definite
goal. Therefore the imperishable souls wander
about in perishable bodies conformably to the
difference of their actions, as they prove to be good
or bad. The object of the migration through the
world of reward (i.e., heaven) is to direct the atten-
tion of the soul to the good, that it should become
desirous of acquiring as much of it as possible.
The object of its migration through the world of
punishment ( i.e., hell ) is to direct its attention to
the bad and abominable, that it should strive to
keep as far as possible aloof from it.

"The migration begins from low stages, and rises to
higher and better ones, not the contrary, as we
state on purpose, since the one is a priori as possi-
ble as the other. The difference of these lower
and higher stages depends upon the difference of
the actions, and this again results from the quantita-
tive and qualitative diversity of the temperaments
and the various degrees of combinations in which
they appear.

"This migration lasts until the object aimed at has
been completely attained both for the soul and
matter ; the lower aim being the disappearance of
the shape of matter, except any such new forma-
tion as may appear desirable ; . the higher aim

14 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

being the ceasing of the desire of the soul to learn
what it did not know before, the insight of the
soul into the nobility of its own being and its
independent existence, its knowing that it can
dispense with matter after it has become acquaint-
ed with the mean nature of matter and the in-
stability of its shapes, with all that which matter
offers to the senses, and with the truth of the
tales about its delights. Then the soul turns away
from matter ; the connecting links are broken ;
the union is dissolved. Separation and dissolution
take place, and the soul returns to its home,
carrying with itself the bliss of knowledge as
sesame develops grains and blossoms, afterwards
never separating from its oil. The intelligent
being, intelligence and its object, are united and
become one."

Thus stated the doctrine of metempsychosis leaves
little to be desired. It is the best theory of salvation
mankind has yet found. The pandits with whom
Alberuni associated must have been singularly free
from superstitions and spiritual weaknesses. The
theory had begun to influence Muslim thought
more than a century before Alberuni. And one
question was inevitably asked : Cannot nirwana,
moksha or fana be attained in the course of a single
life — -or, even, in one moment of thought ? If so,
why this needless wandering from form to form ?
If God, the ultimate Eeality, is immanent in all
things — if 'He is the First and the Last, the Appear-
ance and the Reality' — why this senseless and tiresome
story of transmigrations ? Abu Said Kharraz, after

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 15

careful consideration, defined fana or uirivana in
terms that make no reference to metempsychosis. 1
"If a man turns towards Allah and attaches him-
self to Allah and lives near to Allah and forgets
his own self and everything except Allah — 'then if
you ask him, 'Wherefrom are you and what is the
object of your desire' there will be no answer for
him except, 'Allah'." But opinions differed. "The
same doctrine ( of metempsychosis )," says Alberuni,
"is professed by those sufis who teach that this
world is a sleeping soul and yonder world a soul
awake, and who at the same time admit that God
is immanent in certain places, — e.g., in heaven,
in the 'seat' ( kursi ) and the 'throne' ( 'arsh ) of
God ( mentioned in the Koran ). But then there
are others ,who admit that God is immanent in the
whole world, in animals, trees, and the inanimate
world, which they call his universal appearance.
To those who hold this view, the entering of the
souls into various beings in the course of metemp-
sychosis is of no consequence." Orthodox Muslim
mysticism has, nevertheless, talked of eight 'worlds'
( alams ), such as jabarut, lahut, etc. No material
connotation is intended ; the alams are really spirit-
ual stages or spheres. The Hindu equivalent of the
Sufi's alam is loha, but three lohas are considered
enough. "The Hindus call the world loha. Its
primary division consists of the upper, the lower, and
the middle. The upper one is called swaryaloka, i.e.,
paradise; the lower, nagaloha, i.e., the world of the

1 The Tazkiratul Aulia of Shaikh Eariduddin Attar, No. 45,
Newal Kishore text, p. 256.

16 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

serpents, which is hell ; besides they call it aaraloha
and sometimes also patala, i.e., the lowest world. The
middle world, that one in which we live, is called
madflhyaloka and manushyaloka, i.e., the world of
men. In the latter, man has to earn, in the upper
to receive his reward ; in the lower to receive punish-
ment. A man who deserves to come to swaryaloka or
nagaloka receives there the full recompense of his
deeds during a certain length of time corresponding
to the duration of his deeds, but in either of them
there is only the soul, the soul free from the body."

"For those who do not deserve to rise to heaven
and to sink as low as hell there is another world
called tiryagloka, the irrational world of plants and
animals, through the individuals of which the soul
has to wander in the metempsychosis until it reaches
the human being, rising by degrees from the lowest
kinds of the vegetable world to the highest classes
of the sensitive world." 1

4. Moksha. — Hindu and Muslim mystics have
again and again tried to define nirwana, fana or
moksha. The task is difficult for, as Shaikh Sadi
points out, those who speak do not know and those who
know do not speak. And even if the latter spoke, they
could not succeed in making themselves intelligible to
the public. The real character of moksha can only be
explained by a man who has attained it to another
man who has been equally fortunate. But in that
case no explanation would be necessary. Be this as

x Alberuni : India, vol. I. p. 59.

INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 17

it may, Alberuni attempts the following definition of
molcsha with profuse quotations from the Patanjali
and the Gita. "If the soul is free from matter, it is
knowing; but as long as it -is clad in matter, the soul
is not-knowing on account of the turbid nature 1 of
matter. It thinks that it is an agent, and that the.
actions of the world are prepared for its sake. There-
fore it clings to them, and it is stamped with the
impressions of the senses. When, therefore, ■ the soul
leaves the body, the traces of the impressions of the
senses remain in it, and are not completely eradicated,
as it longs for the world of sense and returns towards
it. And since it in these stages undergoes changes
entirely opposed to each other, it is thereby subject
to the influences of the three primary forces. 1 "

And further : "According to the Hindus, liberation
is union with God ; for they describe God as a being
who can dispense with hoping for a recompense or with
fearing opposition, unattainable to thought, because He
is sublime beyond all unlikeness which is abhorrent
and all likeness which is sympathetic, knowing Himself
not by a knowledge which comes to him like an
accident,.... And this same description the Hindus apply
to the liberated one, for he is equal to God in all these
things except in the matter of beginning, since he has
not existed from all eternity, and except this, that
before liberation he existed in the world of entangle-
ment, knowing the objects of knowledge only by a
phantasmagoric kind of knowing which he had acquired
by absolute exertion, whilst the object of his knowing

1 Alberuni: India, vol. I, p. 53, quoting Vasudeva.

3

18 INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

is still covered, as it were, by a veil. On the contrary,
in the world of liberation all veils are lifted, all covers
taken off, and obstacles removed. There the being is
absolutely knowing, not desirous of learning anything
unknown, separated from the soiled perceptions of the

senses, united with the everlasting ideas Therefore,

at the end of the book of Patanjali, after the pupil has
asked about the nature of liberation, the master says :
'If you wish, say, Liberation is the cessation of the
functions of the three forces, and their returning to that
home whence they had come. Or if you wish, say, It
is the return of the soul as a knowing being into its
own nature." 1 The similarity of Hindu and Muslim
thought on this matter could hardly escape the
notice of a scholar like Alberuni. "The doctrine of
Patanjali" he says, "is akin to that of the sufis
regarding being occupied in meditation on the Truth
(i.e., God), for they say, ' As long as you point to
something, you are not a monist ; but when the Truth
seizes upon the object of your pointing and annihilates
it, then there is no longer an indicating person nor an
object indicated.' Abu-Bekr ash-Sbibli says : 'Cast off
all, and you will attain to Us completely. Then you
will exist ; but you will not report about Us to others
as long as your doing is like Ours.' Abu-Yazid
al-Bistami once being asked how he had attained his
stage in sufism, answered : 'I cast off my own self as
a serpent casts off its skin. Then I considered my
own self, and found that I was He, i.e., God' 2 .

1 Alberuni : India, -vol. I, p. 81.

2 Alberuni : India, vol. I, pp. 87-88

INDIAN CttLTtJRE ANn SOCIAL LIFfc lQ

5. The Nine Commandments. — Those who wish
to tread the path of liberation must lead a life of
renunciation, virtue and meditation. Hence the nine
commandments, thus summarised : "This goal is attain-
ed either in a single shape, i.e., a single stage of
metempsychosis, or in several shapes, in this way, that
a man perpetually practises virtuous behaviour and
accustoms the soul thereto, so that this virtuous
behaviour becomes to it a nature and an essential
quality.

"Virtuous behaviour is that which is described by
the religious law. Its principal laws, from which they
derive many secondary ones, may be summed up in
the following nine rules :—

( 1 ) A man shall not kill.

( 2 ) Nor lie.

( 3 ) Nor whore.

( 4 ) Nor steal.

( 5 ) Nor hoard up treasures.

( 6 ) He is perpetually to practise holiness and
purity.

' ( 7 ) He is to perforin the prescribed fasting without
any interruption and to dress poorly.

( 8 ) He is to hold fast to the adoration of God
with praise and thanks,

( 9 ) He is always to have in mind the word Om,
the word of creation, without pronouncing it.

"The injunction to abstain from killing as regards
animals (No. 1) is only a special part of the general

20 INDIAN CULTTJKE AND SOCIAL LIFE

order to abstain from doing anything hurtful. Under
this head fall also the robbing of another man's goods
(No. 4), and the telling of lies (No. 2), not to mention
the foulness and baseness of so doing.

"The abstaining from hoarding up (No. 5) means
that a man is to give up toil and fatigue ; that he who
seeks the bounty of God feels sure that he is provided
for ; and that, starting from the base slavery of
material life, we may by the noble liberty of cogitation
attain to eternal bliss.

"Practising purity (No. 6) implies that a man
knows the filth of the body, and that he feels called
upon to hate it, and to love cleanness of soul. Tor-
menting oneself by poor dress (No. 7) means that a
man should reduce the body, allay its feverish desires
and sharpen its senses. Pythagoras once said to a
man who took great care to keep bis body in a flourish-
ing condition and to allow it everything it desired,
'Thou art not lazy in building thy prison and making
thy fetter as strong as possible '." 1

6. Human equality. — At a time when the caste-
system was developing with rapidity, the better type
of Hindu thinkers continued to believe in the doctrine
of human equality defined not from the view-point of
citizenship but from the view-point of salvation. "The
Hindus differ among themselves as to which of these
castes is capable of attaining to liberation ; for, accord-
ing to some, only the Brahmana and Kshatriya are
capable of it, since the others cannot learn the Yeda,

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, pp. 74-75.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 21

whilst according to the Hindu philosophers, liberation
is common io all castes and to the whole human race,
if their intention of obtaining it is perfect. This view
is based on the saying of Vyasa : ' Learn to know the
twenty-five things thoroughly. Then you may follow
whatever religion you like ; you will no doubt be
liberated.' This view is also based on the fact that
Vasudeva was a descendant of a Sudra family, and also
on the following saying of his, which he addresses to
Arjuna : 'God distributes recompense without injustice
and without partiality. He reckons the good as bad
if people in doing good forget him ; he reckons the bad
as good if people in doing bad remember him and do
not forget him, whether those people be Vaisya or
Sudra or women. How much more will this be the
case when they are Brahmana or Kshatriya' 1 .

7. Hindu Science. — Hindu popular tradition
about the creation of the world from the Brahmanda,
about Mount Meru and the seven seas and the seven
islands is well-known, It is described by Alberuni in
some detail. But the astronomers thought otherwise.
"The religious books of the Hindus and their codes of
tradition, the Pur anas, contain sentences about the
shape of the world which stand in direct opposition
to scientific truth as known to their astronomers. By
these books the people are guided in fulfilling the
rites of their religion, and by means of them the
great mass of the nation have been wheedled into a
predilection for astronomical calculations and astrologi-
cal predictions and warnings. The consequence is

1 Alberuni : India, vol.. I, p. 104.

2*2 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

that they show much affection to their astronomers,
declaring that they are excellent men, that it is a
good omen to meet them, and firmly believing that
all of them go to paradise and none to hell. For
this the astronomers requite them by accepting their
popular notions as true, by conforming themselves
to them, however far from truth most of them may be,
and by presenting them with such spiritual stuff as
they stand in need of. This is the reason why the
two theories, the vulgar and the scientific, have become
intermingled in the course of time, why the doctrines
of the astronomers have been disturbed and confused,
in particular the doctrines of those authors — and they
are the majority — who simply copy their predecessors,
who take the bases of their science from tradition and
do not make them the objects of independent scientific
research".

"We shall now explain the views of Hindu astrono-
mers regarding the present subject, viz., the shape of
heaven and earth. According to them, the heaven as
well as the whole world is round, and the earth has a
globular shape, the northern half being dry land, the
southern half being covered with water. The dimen-
sion of the earth is larger according to them than it is
according to the Greeks and modern observations, and
in their calculations to find this dimension they have
entirely given up any mention of the traditional seas
and dvipas, and of the enormous sums of yojana attri-
buted to each of them. The astronomers follow the
theologians in everything which does not encroach
upon their science, e.g. , they adopt the theory of Mount
Meru being under the north pole, and that of the

INDIAN CULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE 23

island, Vadavamukha, . lying under the south pole.
Now, it is entirely irrelevant whether Meru is there or
not, as it is only required for the explanation of the
particular mill-like rotation, which is necessitated by
the fact that to each spot on the plane of the earth
corresponds a spot in the sky as its zenith. Also the
fable of the southern island, Vadavamukha, does no
harm to their science, although it is possible, nay,
even likely, that each pair of quarters of the earth
forms a coherent, uninterrupted unity, the one as a
continent, the other as an ocean (and that in reality there
is no such island under the south pole ). Such a dis-
position of the earth is required by the law of gravita-
tion, for according to them the earth is in the centre of
the universe, and everything heavy gravitates towards
it. Evidently on account of this law of gravitation
they consider heaven, too, as having a globular shape." 1
And further on he quotes the Brahma Siddhanta :
" ' Several circumstances, however, compel us to attri-
bute globular shape both to the earth and heaven, viz.,
the fact that the stars rise and set in different places
at different times, so that, e.g., a man in Yamakoti
observes one identical star rising above the western
horizon, whilst a man in Rum at the same time
observes it rising above the eastern horizon. Another
argument to the same effect; is this, that a man on Meru
observes one identical star above the horizon in the
zenith of Lanka, the country of the demons, whilst a
man in Lanka at the same time observes it above his
head. Besides, all astronomical calculations are not
correct unless we assume the globular figure of heaven

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, pp. 264, 265 & 266.

24 INDIAN CULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE

and earth. Therefore we must declare that heaven is
a globe, because we observe in it all the characteristics
of a globe, and the observation of these characteristics
of the world would not be correct unless in reality it
were a globe. Now, it is evident that all the other
theories about the world are futile V 1

The law of gravitation had been very definitely
grasped. Varamahira says, "Mountains, seas, rivers,
trees, cities, men, and angels, all are around the globe
of the earth. And if Yamakoti and Eum are opposite
to each other, one could not say that the one is low in
its relation to the other, since the low does not exist.
How could one say of one place of the earth that it is
low, as it is in every particular identical with any other
place on earth, and one place could as little fall as any
other. Every one speaks to himself with regard to his
own self, 'I am above and the others below', whilst all of
them are around the globe like the blossoms springing
on the branches of a Kadamba-tree. They encircle it
on all sides, but each individual blossom has the same
position as the other, neither the one hanging down-
ward nor the other standing upright. For the earth
attracts that which is upon her, for it is 'the below'
towards all directions, and heaven is 'the above'
towards all directions."

As the reader will observe, these theories of the
astronomers were based on a correct knowledge of the
laws of nature but, at the same time, they practised a
little deceit upon their traditionalists and theologians. 2

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 268.

2 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 272-273.

INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 25

It is not necessary for us to follow Alberuni into astro-
nomical details. On a question which perplexed con-
temporary Muslim thinkers, and even led to occasional
persecutions — the indestructibility of matter — the
Hindus took a bold view. If matter has a real,
objective existence, then it must be presumed to be
eternal. So we say, on the plane- of common sense
and of science, that • matter can be neither created nor
destroyed. Physical science ( at least in the Newtonian
sense ) is not possible except on the presupposition of
the indestructibility of matter. "The Hindus believe
matter to be .eternal. Therefore they do not by the
word ' creation ' understand a formation of something

out of nothing By such a creation, not one piece

of clay comes into existence that did not exist before,
and by such a destruction not one piece of clay which
existed ceases to exist. It is quite impossible that the
Hindus should have the notion of creation as long
as they believe that matter existed from all eternity." 1
"The doctrine of the First Cause," Dr. Hoffding
remarks in his History of Philosophy, "is like a nun —
philosophically sterile but of religious significance."
The Hindus are to be congratulated for having thrown
this doctrine overboard ; its extensive use by Muslim
philosophers and theologians could result in nothing
except palpable antinomies.

III. Sanskrit Literature.
"The various forms of the institutions of the
Hindus, both political and social, their knowledge of
mathematics, especially of astronomy, their systems of

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 822.

4

26 INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

metaphysics and ethics ; all of these had long ago made
the people of India famous far beyond their own
borders ; while the renown of Hindu philosophers had
reached even Europe." 1 The literature of ancient
India on astronomy, mathematics, arts, crafts and
poetry was excellent and highly advanced. The
literature of the middle ages may be divided into
three parts — Sanskrit literature ; Prakrit Bhasha,
the common languages of the people, viz., Bengali,
Hindi (Eastern and Western), Punjabi, Gujrati and
Maratbi and the literature of the South in the Tamil,
Telugu, Malyalum and Kenari languages. 2 The ques-
tion naturally arises — How far was this literature,
the priceless heritage of earlier generations, within the
reach of a scholar in the eleventh century ? First as
to the Vedas : "The Brahmins teach the Veda to the
Kshatriyas. The latter learn it, . but are not allowed
to teach it, not even to a Brahmin. The Vaisya and
Sudra are not allowed to hear it, much less to pro-
nounce and recite it. If such a thing can be proved
against one of them, the Brahmins drag him before
the magistrate, and he is punished by having his tongue
cutoff." 3 Afraid that the sacred texts maybe lost
for ever, a Hindu scholar of Kashmir, Vasukra by
name, who seems to have flourished a little before
the time of Alberuni, took the revolutionary step, from
which others had recoiled, of writing down the sacred
texts. Though Alberuni describes in a general way

1 From the Preface of Abbe J. A. Dubois : Hindu Manners,
Customs and Ceremonies.

3 Indian Civilization in the Middle Ages ( Urdu ), by Pandit
Gauri.Shankar, Ojha, pp. 83-84.

3 Alberuni : India, vol . I, p. 125.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 27

the contents of the four Vedas and the manner of recit-
ing them, he does not seem to have studied them, and
never refers^ to them in the course of his discussions.
Perhaps for even a mlechcha of Alheruni's distinction
access to the Vedas was not possible. He never refers
to. the Upanishadas. It was not,. in fact, till the time
of Dara Shikoh, the only Indo-Muslim scholar to whom
one can refer in the same breath as to Alberuni, that
the Mussalmans, and through them the outer world,
obtained a knowledge of Vedic philosophy. The
Puranas, being human compositions, were within
Alberuni's reach.. He gives us two lists, one read out
to him from the Vishnu_ Purana and the other com-
piled by personal inquiry. But he admits that he
had only seen portions of the Matsya, Aditya and
Vayu Puranas ; the rest were mere names to him.
A bold list of twenty Smrites, composed by the 'twenty
sons of Brahman,' is given- How far Alberuni studied
them we do not know, but there is good reason for
believing that copies of the more popular Smrites were
not difficult to obtain. Besides he tells us, "The
Hindus have numerous books practically on all the
different branches of. knowledge,.,.. The Hindus have
hooks about the jurisprudence of their religion) on
theosophy, on ascetics, on the process of becoming god
and seeking liberation from the world, as, e.g., the
book composed by .Grauda,. the anchorite, which goes
by his .name ; the book Samlthya, _ composed by Kapila,
on divine subjects; the book of, Patanjali, on the search
for liberation and for the union of the soul, with the
object of. i ts meditation: ; . . the .book Nyayabliasha^ con>
posed by Kapila, on the Veda and, its interpretation,

28 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

also showing that it has been created, and distinguish-
ing within the Veda between such injunctions as are
obligatory only in certain cases, and those which are
obligatory in general ; further, the book Mimamsa,
composed by Jaimini, on the same subject ; the book
Lankayata, composed by Brihaspati, treating of the
subject that in all investigations we must use the
apperception of the senses as well as tradition ; and the
book Vishnu-dharma. The word ' dharma ' means
reward, but in general it is used for religion ; so that
this title means 'the religion of God,' who in this case is
understood to be Narayana. Further, there are the
books of the six pupils of Vyasa, viz., Devala, Sukra,
Bhargava, Brihaspati, Yajnavalkya and Manu. The
Hindus have numerous books about all the branches
of science. How could anybody know the titles of
all of them, more especially if he is not a Hindu, but
a foreigner ?" 1 The Bharata (Mahahharata) is referred
to as consisting of 100,000 sloJcas, divided into eighteen
books, and also the Harivamsa Parvan, which followed
it and was believed to contain 'passages, which like
riddles, admit of manifold interpretations'.

The following extract from Pandit Gauri Shanker
Ojha's Indian Civilisation in the Middle Ages supple-
ments the information we get from Alberuni : "In the
middle ages different works of Sanskrit poetry such as
Karatarian, Amroskatah, Hheopal Budh, Nalravaday
and Raglwpandvay were composed. Short stories and
novels were written by Buddhist and Jain scholars.
The famous Panch-Tantra and Barhat Katlia were
completed and translated into several languages.
1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 132.

INDIAN CWLTttRK AND SOCIAL LIFE 29

March EatJca of . Maharala Shodrak ; Batnavati and
Parya Darshaka ; Malli Madho (representing love and
romance) ; Mahabir Charat (representing bravery and
heroism); Olr Bam Charat (a tragedy), . Hanuman
Na'aJc by Damodar ; and Budh Chandar Vaday by-
Krishna Misr Koi were the more important dramas
of the age. 1

"The Hindus had books on grammar and metrics,
called VyaJcarna and Ghandas respectively. It was
essential for a Pandit to be well-equipped in VyaJcarna.
In 662 a.d. Jayadatya and Bamu supplemented a
commentary to the VyaJcarna of Panini ; Bhartri Hari
wrote many valuable works on the subject and
Chandra Goman wrote his Chandra VyaJcarna. In
the 9th century, however, VyaJcarna was rearranged
by Shaktain. 2 'A chapter of the BraJima-SiddJianta
treats of metrical calculations. Then there are books
on rhetoric and figures of speech, Kama Prahesha as
completed by Alakh Suri ; Dhun AluJc by Gobardhan
Acharya ; Kavia Anosliasan by Himchandraka ; the
same by Bag Bhat ; Kavia AlanJcdr SangraJi by
Rodrat and Sarsoti by Bhoja require special mention.
AmarhosJi by Amar Singh, Harvali by Parsatoma Deo,
AbJiic DJian Batan MaliJt by Halacbah 3 AbJii DJian
Chinta Mani by Him Chandra and Nana VatJi
Sanhlan by Kesho Swami were the important dic-
tionaries of the age 3 Literature on other subjects,

like politics, law, education, music and dancing, was

1 Indian Civilization in the Middle Ages (Urdu), by Pandit
Gauri Shanker, pp. 86 to 95.
2 .Ibid., pp. 98-99.
3 Ibid., pp. 100-101.

30 INDIAN CpLTtTBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

not wanting in the middle ages. Shanti Parab of the
Mahabharata is rightly regarded as the best book on
politics ; but the Arthshastra of Kautalya, Naiti Sar by
Kamandak, Naiti Vakyamarat by Deo Suri, Dash
Kumar Charat, Kavatar Jan and Mudra Bakshas are
the next important authorities on the subject. 1 In
the domain of law, Manusmiriti was supplemented
with commentaries like Magathathi and Kobind Baj ;
the book Yagia Valkiya Smiriti with its commentary
by Vigyaneshar, Smiriti Kalptru by Lakshmi Dhar
were also published." 2

To return to Alberuni : "The number of Hindu
sciences is great, but the science of astronomy is the
most famous and the most cherished of all. Astrono-
mical literature • consists of the Siddhantas ( called
Sind-Hind by the Muslims ) and less important works
called Tantra or Karana. 3 The Siddhantas are
derived from the book Paithamaha — so called from the
first father, i.e. Brahman of the five Siddhantas
enumerated by him." Alberuni says he could, till the
time of writing, only obtain the works of Brahma-
gupta and Pulisa ; but Vramahira is quoted in the later
chapters of his work. The Brahma Siddhanta, he says,

1 Indian Civilization in the Middle Ages ( Urdu ), by Pandit
Gaud Shanker Ojha, pp. 157-158.

2 Ibid., pp. 159-160.

-" An Indian astronomer • was invited to the court of
Al-Mansur to give instruction in Indian astronomy. The Indian
system was then adopted by the Arabs and the name Sind-Hind
was given to one of the Indian works, which appears to have been
Brahmagupta's Siddhanta. This book, by command of the Caliph,
wasusedas a guide by the Arabs in matters pertaining to the
stars. ( See Hindu Astronomy by W. Brennand, p. 92. )

INDIAN ctiLTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE c51

contains twenty-four chapters on different subjects like
the nature of the globe and the figures of heaven and
earth, the revolution of the planets, the moon, eclipses,
conjunction and latitudes of the planets, and arithmetic,
etc., Astrological literature consisted of the Samhitas,
books on fortune-telling and palmistry, and Jataltas or
books of nativities. 1 "The book Cavaka is the best
of the whole literature on medicine and it has been
translated into Arabic."

The Hindus, unlike other nations, went beyond
the thousand in their arithmetical terms, and extended
the order of number to the 18th, called parardha, for
religious reasons. According to some bhuri, the 19th
order, is the limit of reckoning, while according to
others the Jcoti. 2 The Hindus were far advanced in
numerical notations, and if a word did not suit a
metre, they easily changed it for a synonym. "Hindu
Algebra contains," in Mr. Strachey's opinion, "a great
deal of knowledge and skill, which the Greeks had not,
such as the use of an infinite number or unknown
quantities and the use of arbitrary marks to express
them ; a good arithmetic of surds ; -a perfect theory of
indeterminate problems of the first degree ; a very
extensive and general knowledge of those of the second
degree; a perfect acquaintance with quadratic equations,
etc." 3 Their knowledge of mensuration was also
remarkable ; they held that the circumference of a

1 Alberuni: India, vol I, pp. 157-158.

2 Ibid., vol; I, pp. 174 to 176. ■

3 Dr. Huthons in his History of Algebra- as quoted by W.
Brennand in his Hindu Astronomy, p. 99.

32 INDIAN CULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE

circle is thrice its diameter but according to Brahma-
gupta 3y times the diameter. 1

Cosmology was an important branch of Hindu
science. The Hindus enumerated the planets in the
order of the week-days, and unlike the Mussalmans,
they held that day and night follow each other without
having a separate dominus. The names of the sun and
the moon were many, and the names of the month were
related to those of the lunar stations. The signs of
the Zodiac were named corresponding to the images
which they represented. "The Brahmanda (i.e., the
totality of all spheres ) is a globe comprehending the
eighth or so-called Zodiac sphere, in which the fixed
stars are placed and the two spheres touch each other." 2
"The Hindus, unlike the ancient Chinese, had not the
ambition of making a catalogue of all the stars which
were visible to them. They had a more important
object in view, namely the study of the motions of the
sun, the moon, and the- planets, and other astronomical
phenomena, primarily for the purpose of computing time,
and of constructing and perfecting their calendars....
They accordingly confined their attention to those
stars which lay in the moon's path, immediately north
or south of the ecliptic-stars, which are liable to be
occultated by the moon, or which might occasionally be
in conjunction with it and with the planets." 3 The
Hindus had also 'rules for the calculation of the
various phases both of lunar and solar eclipses, the
times of beginning, middle, and end as set forth- in

1 Alberuni: India , vol. I, p. 168.

8 Ibid., p. 225.

8 Hindu Astronomy by W. Brennand, p. 38.

INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 33

their various astronomical works, chiefly the Surya
Siddhanta.'

One of the works mentioned — the Pancatantra —
along with the game of chess had a unique history in
Muslim lands. There is an oft-repeated tradition to
the effect that the Pancatantra and the game of chess
were sent as a present by a Hindu raja to Anushirwan,
the Great. The Persian Court suspscted that these
presents were inspired by a spirit of intellectual arro-
gance — the conviction that all human affairs could be
controlled by human wisdom — unbecoming mere
mortals ; and Anushirwan's famous Vazir, Buzur-
chemehr, replied by sending to the Hindu raja the game
of nard, which depends entirely upon chance or the
throw of the dice. Be this as it may, the Pancatantra,
owing to its popular character, received a cordial
reception in foreign lands and suffered from the mis-
fortunes such popularity generally brings. "I wish",
says Alberuni, "I could translate the book Pancatantra,
known among us as the book of Kalilar and Dimnah.
It is far spread in various languages — in Persian,
Hindi, and Arabic — in translations of people who are
not free from the suspicion of having altered the text.
For instance, ' Abdallah Ibn Almukaffa has added in
his Arabic version the chapter about Barzoya, with
the intention of raising doubts in the minds of people
of feeble religious belief, and to gain and prepare them
for the propagation of the doctrines of the Mani-
chaeans. And if he is open to suspicion in so far as
he has added something to the text which he had
simply to translate, he is hardly free from suspicion

5

34 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

in his capacity as translator." 1 The later history of
the book is summarised by Ferishta ; in its present
Persian form, the Kalila and Bimna, known as the
Anwar-i Suhaili, is the work of Waizul Kashifi,
author of the Bushhat, a friend of Maulana Jami, who
emigrated from Herat to the Deccan. The Hindu game
of chess was very different from the game as we have it
to-day. It was played not by two persons but by four
and the moves depended upon the throw of the dice. 2

In estimating the intellectual achievements of
Hindu India, a modern critic should not forget some
of the difficulties which confronted the scholars of
those days. Paper was brought to India by the
Mussalmans, who had learnt the art of making it from
Chinese captives. Early Muslim Arabs had used bones,
hide or prepared leather (vellum). At a later age they
began to use the papyrus ( charla, the qirtas of the
Quran ) ; it had one advantage over both paper and
vellum ; the writing could not be erased without the
destruction of the material, and the papyrus was, there-
fore, extensively used for the firmans of the Caliphs.
Hindu religious ideas did not permit the use of hide
or vellum ; papyrus was not obtainable. In southern
India the leaves of a tree of the palm species, the
Borassus flabelliformis , were extensively used. They

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 159.

I leave it to persons conversant with the subject to decide
whether the old Hindu chess is worth reviving. It is to be hoped
that some enterprising Indian firm will take the matter in hand
and manufacture the chess-boards necessary. The following
description of Alberuni should enable an intelligent chess-player to
reconstruct our ancjent national game of which the whole world
is now seized ;==

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

35

were about one to two inches broad and sometimes
even a yard in length. They had, of course, to be

They play chess — four persons at a time — with a pair of dice.
Their arrangement of the figures on the chessboard is the
following : —

Tower
(rukh)

Horse , *
pnant

King

Pawn Tower

Pawn

Pawn

Pawn

Pawn

Pawn

Horse

Pawn

Ele-
phant

Pawn

King

King

Pawn

Ele-
phant

Pawn

Horse

Pawn

Pawn

Pawn

Pawn

Pawn

Tower

Pawn

King

Ele-
phant

■Horse

Tower

As this kind of chess is not known among us, I shall here
explain what I know of it.

"The four persons playing together sit so as to form a square
round a chess-board, and throw the two dice alternately. Of the
numbers of the dice, the five and six are blank (i.e., do not count
as such). In that case, if the dice show five or six, the player
takes one instead of the five, and four instead of the six, because
the figures of these two numerals are drawn in the following
manner: so as to exhibit a certain likeness of form to 4 and 1,
viz., in the Indian signs :

6 5

4 3 2 1

36 INDIAN CULTtJBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

properly rubbed, oiled and polisbed. A fine and hard-
pointed needle was used for writing instead of a pen ;
dry cowdung ( or some similar material ) was spread
thinly over the surface of the leaf and then rubbed
off, leaving the indentations of the needle darker in

"The name Shah or king applies here to the queen ( firzan ).

"Bach number of the dice causes a move of one of the figures.

"The 1 moves either the pawn or the king. Their moves are
the same as in the common chess. The king may be taken, but is
not required to leave his place.

"The 2 moves the tower ( rukh ). It moves to the third square
in the direction of the diagonal, as the elephanb moves in our
chess.

"The 3 moves the horse. Its move is the generally known
one to the third square in oblique direction.

"The 4 moves the elephant. It moves in a straight line, as the
tower does in our chess, unless it be prevented from moving on.
If this is the case, as sometimes happens, one of the dice removes
the obstacle, and enables it to move on. Its smallest move is
one square, the greatest fifteen squares, because the dice sometimes
show two 4, or two 6, or a 4 and a 6. In consequence of one of
these numbers, the elephant moves along the whole side of the
margin on the chess-board; in consequence of the other number, it
moves along the other side on the other margin of the board, in
case there is no impediment in its way. In consequence of these
two numbers, the elephant, in the course of his moves, occupies
the two ends of the diagonal.

"The pieces have certain values, according to which the player
gets his share of the stake, for the pieces are taken and pass
into the hands of the player. The value of the king is 5, that of
the elephant 4, of the horse 3, of the tower 2, and of the pawn 1.
He who takes a king gets 5. For two kings he gets 10, for three
kings 15, if the winner is no longer in possession of his own king.
But if he has still his own king, and takes all three kings, he gets
54, a number which represents a progression based on general
consent, not on an algebraic principle." (Vol. I, pp. 183-185.)

NDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 37

colour. A hole bored- on one side of the leaves enabled
them to be tied into a book by a chord or a metal
fastener; when required for reading, the book was
spread out like a fan. In central and northern India,
the bark of the tuz tree, called bhurja, was used. It
was larger in size, about one yard in length and seven
or eight inches in breadth 1 . Leaves were used for
writing in India long after the introduction of paper
had made them superfluous and cumbersome. In
spite of this unpromising writing material, the better
class of leaf-manuscripts, which have survived in large
quantities, show a high standard of calligraphy and
drawing. Mediaeval Persian literature is full of the
complaints of the authors against the errors of the co-
pyists. Sanskrit literature fared no better. The cost
and the paucity of writing material and the errors of
the copyists must have caused a lot of useless labour and
mental strain on both pupils and teachers. Add to
it, a number of different scripts were used in the
country, all closely allied but, nevertheless, entailing
a good deal of labour when a book written in one script
had to be rewritten for use in another region. Some
of these scripts are mentioned by Alberuni. The
Siddha-ma'rika alphabet, the most generally known,
was used in the town of Varansi ( Benares ) and
Kashmir — 'the high schools of Hindu sciences'— as
well as in Maddhya desa (middle country) and Aryavarta
(the territory of Kannauj). The Nagara script pre-
vailed in Malwa and the Ardha nagara ( haAi-nagara,
compounded of the first two ) in Bhatiya and some

1 Alberuni, p. 171; also Abbe Dubois, Hindu Manners, Cus-
tom? and Ceremonies.

38 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

parts of Sind. Other scripts known to our author
were — Malwari, used in Malwashan, in southern Sind
and on the sea-coast; Sindhava in Brahmanava
( Brahmanabad ) and Almansura 1 , Karnata in Kar-
nata desa (Carnatic), Andhri in Andhradesa; Dirwari
(Dravidi) in the Dirvara desa (Dravida desa) ; Lari in
Lara desa (Lata-desa) ; Qauri in Purva desa ( Eastern
regions ) ; and BhaiJcshuJd used by the Buddhist in
Udunpur in Purva desa.

The greatest shortcoming of Sanskrit literature
( I say this with great diffidence ) is the paucity of
good prose. Versified books are easier to remember,
and so long as the sacred and secular texts were
not reduced to writing, there was good reason for
putting everything into verse — from the hymns to
the gods to the method of calculating longitudes.
But by the tenth century, A. D., all important books
had been written down. Nevertheless the method
of composing slokas on all subjects continued. The
astrolabe not being known in India, Alberuni com-
posed a treatise on the subject for the sake of his
Indian friends and they immediately proceeded to put
the whole of it into Sanskrit slokas. Now in versification
the exigencies of rhyme and metre have naturally to be
considered. So that if the word 'two' will not give
you the rhyme and metre necessary, you have to say
the sun and the moon — or the reverse. In order to
eliminate personal idiosyncracies in the matter,
elaborate canons of interpretation had to be laid down,
so that natural prose-thought may be converted into

1 Almansura and Brahmanabad are not two names for the
same town, as is sometimes supposed.

INDIAN CDLTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 39

impossible verse and impossible verse be reconverted
into intelligible prose-thougbt. All ancient languages
suffer from tbis sort of artificiality. But the Sanskrit
language surpasses all others. Nothing increases our
respect for the Hindu scientists so much as a contem-
plation of the extremely difficult conditions under
which they worked 1 .

IV. Popular Hinduism.

Though the India of the eleventh century had
fallen far from the cultural standards of the era of
Harsha, not to mention the Golden Age of the Guptas,
it may be safely affirmed that no single country even
in that age, with the possible exception of Persia, could
boast of a finer culture. But while in Persia the
culture of the Achemenian and the Sassanian periods
had entirely perished, India bad, in spite of foreign
invasions and internal wars, preserved the continuity
of her traditions. The researches of Alberuni prove
beyond doubt that Hindu philosophy and science,
though not so progressive as in the preceding centuries,
were living and vital. Even a solitary scholar, like
Alberuni, could collect the material necessary for re-
constructing the metaphysical and scientific achieve-
ments of the past. This glorious heritage, however, was
not the heritage of the Indian people but only of a very
small section of the bourgeoisie classes. The overwhelm-

1 "In all metrical compositions there is much misty and
constrained phraseology merely intended to fill up the metre and
serving as a kind of patch work, and this necessitates a certain
amount of verbosity. The metrical form of literary composition
is one of the causes which make the study of Sanskrit literature so
particularly difficult." ( Alberuni, vol. I, p. 19\ )

40 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

ing mass of the people were intentionally, purposehj and
maliciously left to wallow in degrading superstitions by
'the preconcerted tricks of the priests'. 1 This can be best
illustrated by a review of popular beliefs concerning
those 'categories of thought' which we have already noted.

1. Polytheism and Idolatory. — The Vedic gods,
if gods they may be called, were merely poetical personi-
fications without images or temples. The origin of
idol-making among the Hindus does not concern us
here. But it is significant that Alberuni, who spared
neither money nor pains in obtaining instruction from
the best Hindu teachers, repeatedly declares that
educated Hindus had faith in God alone. "We shall
now mention their ludicrous views ; but we declare at
once that they are held only by t!ie common, uneducated
people. For those who march on the path of liberation,
or those wlw study philosophy or theology, and who desire
abstract truth, which they call 'sara' are entirely free from
worshipping anything but God alone, and would never
dream of worshipping an image manufactured to repre-
sent Him." 2 And again : "Such idols are made only for
the uneducated, low-class people of little understanding;
the Hindus (i.e., the educated Hindus) never made an
idol of any supernatural being, much less of God. The
croivd is kept in thraldom by all sorts of priestly tricks
and deceits. 3 When the ignorant crowd get a piece of
good luck, by accident or something, at which they had
aimed, and when with this, some of the preconcerted
tricks of the priests are brought into connection, the

1 Alberuni, vol. I, p. 123.
? Ibid., p. 113.
8 Ibid., p. 123.

INDIAN CtfLTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 41

darkness in which they live increases vastly, not their
intelligence." Our author found the whole of India
studded with idols and proceeds to give, on the basis
of the Samliita of Vramahira, an account of the
principal idols his reader is likely to meet — Ram,
Vishnu, Baladeva, Bhagvati, Sambha, Brahman,
Skanda, Indra, Mahadeva, Buddha ( sitting on a lotus
' with a placid expression as if he were the father of
creation,' or as Arhaub, a naked youth with a fine face,
beautiful, with the figure of Sri, his wife, under his left
breast ), Eavanta, Yama, Kubera, the Sun ( Aditya ),
and the Seven Mothers. This list picks out the most
popular idols of the day. But Alberuni confesses that
he could find no Buddhists in India. On the other
hand, he speaks of Magians in the country; they were
the special devotees of the Sun-god who was 'dressed
in the style of the Northerners', i. e., he wore a pyjama
instead of a dhoti. "The worshippers of the Seven
Mothers kill sheep and buffaloes with their axes (katara)
that they may nourish themselves with their blood."
Some of the idols were famous and are noticed by our
author in detail — the Linga of Siva at Somnath,
the statue of the Sun-god at Multan, of Vishnu at
Thaneswar, and of Sarada at Kashmir. The India of
Alberuni was predominantly Vaishnavite. Saivaism,
at the time, seems to have been more or less, a
southern creed.

The more famous temples drew crowds of pilgrims
and gathered fabulous wealth owing to the devotion of
the rich and the poor. The pilgrimages, whether obli-
gatory or not, had undoubtedly the effect of bringing
the people of distant parts together and thus creating

42 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

a common religious and national spirit. 1 They were
also centres of business and industry, and in some
cases, particularly Nagarkot, the Brahmans had good
reputation as bankers. Alberuni like Abbe Dubois.,
who wrote eight centuries later, asserts that the moral
atmosphere of many temples was not clean. An Arab
traveller had made the preposterous remark : "The
Hindus regard fornication as lawful and wine as unlaw-
ful." The reference was, of course, to the devadasi
girls, so plentiful in the temples of those days. On
this count, however, Alberuni does not blame the
Brahmans. "People think with regard to harlotry
that it is allowed with them.... In reality the matter
is not as people think, but it is rather this, that the
Hindus are not very severe in punishing whoredom.
The fault, however, in this lies with the kings, not
with the nation. But for this no Brahman or priest
would suffer in their idol-temples the women who sing,
dance and play. The kings make them an attraction
for their cities, a bait of pleasures for their subjects,
for no other but financial reasons. By the revenue
which they derive from the business both as fines and
taxes, they want to recover the expenses which their
treasury has to spend on the army." 2

Corresponding to the material idols, there was, of
course, a spiritual, or rather spiritualistic, pantheon-
first, the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, the three
primary forces, Vishnu being often given the superior

1 See Mahatma Gandhi : Hind Sioaraj, reprinted as Indian
Self-government.

"An adulteress is driven out of the house of the husbani
and banished." (Alberuni, vol. T, p. 162.)

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 43

place as the unifying element ; secondly, eight classes
of spiritual beings, devas, daitya, danava, gandharva,
etc. ; lastly, pitaras ( ancestors ), bhuta, siddha, etc.
Totalling up, they counted some 330,000,000 beings.
It is not necessary to go into further details.
Unfortunately, the Brahrnans while disbelieving in
all devas and proclaiming with no uncertain voice
that the human rishi was inferior to God alone,
manufactured innumerable stories about the gods.
"They represented the devas as eating and drinking,
cohabiting, living and dying, since they exist within
matter, though in the most subtle and most simple
kind of it. 1 They allow them all sorts of things, some
perhaps not objectionable, others decidedly objection-
able." It is unnecessary to give instances. The stories
to which Alberuni refers are only too prominent a
feature of that low-grade literature, falsely called reli-
gious, to which alone the Brahrnans admitted their
low-caste coreligionists. The Greek gods were no
better — that is Alberuni' s consolation.

Whatever the origin of idolatory or the justification
of it in earlier days, there can be no doubt that by
the eleventh century — long after the foundation of
Christianity and Islam and at a time when, had the
Brahrnans so desired, the principles of the Gita, the
Patanjali and the Upanishads could have been pub-
lished broadcast — the system of idolatory had develop-
ed into ' a foul and pernicious abuse '. The real
objection to idolatory is not that it is a false doctrine,
for we have to believe in many things — time, space,
causation, etc.,— which are obviously untrue, but that
1 Alberuni, vol. I. p. 92.

44 INDIAN CULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE

it degrades and demoralises the human mind. The
psychological effect on the people at large of inculca-
ting for generations, and centuries the cult- of immoral
gods, and enshrining it in temples designed for this
purpose, can be more easily imagined than described.

2. Reincarnation, Metempsychosis. — The doc-
trine of reincarnation, the sine quo -non of Hinduism,
as explained by the best Indian thinkers and accepted
by some of the best Muslim thinkers, is essentially a
doctrine of human dignity and human freedom. It is
also the most rational explanation, though not based on
authority of any sort, yet offered of man's place and
man's duties in this universe. Divested of all needless
technicalities, it means that man can only annihilate
the phenomenal world ( maya, hijab ) — first, by a
virtuous life which removes the veil between him and
his fellowmen and thus annihilates the individual cons-
ciousness by enlarging it into the social consciousness;
and, secondly, by contemplation (mushahida, dhiyan)
which enables the individual consciousness to be
absorbed into the Ultimate Reality which can only be
the Supreme Consciousness ; for Reality without Cons-
ciousness is meaningless and Consciousness alone
can be considered Real. Minor differences in inter-
pretation do not change the substance of the doctrine ;
for example Shaikh Shahabuddin, out of regard for
Muslim orthodoxy which contemplates only two lives,
one here and one hereafter, gets round the difficulty by
declaring that the next life consists of many progressive
stages. Salvation thus contemplated has no need of
paradise or flowing-lawns or crystal wine-cups or
alluring huris ; it needs the Lord alone. "The suits,

INDIAN OULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 45

too," to quote Alberuni once more, "do not consider
the stay in paradise a special gain for another reason,
for there the soul delights in other things but the
Truth, i.e., God, and its thoughts are diverted from the
absolute Good by things which are not the absolute Good."

"We have already said," continues Alberuni, "that
the soul exists in these two places without a body.
But this is only the view of the educated among them,
who understand by the soul an independent being."
The lower classes took, or were induced to take, a
materialistic view of the doctrine. "They cannot
imagine the existence of a soul without a body."
Hence the agony of death — a terrible thing for the
onlooker— was attributed to the fact that the soul had
nowhere to go to and had, consequently, to stick to
the decayed and useless body. Prayers were necessary
and payments to the Brahmans so that a tabernacle
might be obtained for the soul of the dying relative.
Popular tradition, moreover, postulated that every
soul, regardless of its virtue or karma, had to put up
for a whole year in a hastily prepared body — the
ativahika — in which it abode for a year (as a mini-
mum period) "with the greatest pain, no matter
whether it has deserved to be rewarded or punished."
The last qualification was necessary, otherwise many
people would have remained satisfied with the con-
viction that their dead relations were reaping the
reward of their good life. According to a tradition
mentioned by Ferishta, all these 'probationary souls'
came to Somnath. Be this as it may, 'the one-year
probation theory' made it necessary for the heir of
the deceased to perform a series of rites during the

46 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

year, and enabled the Brahmans to levy ' Death
Duties ' on all who were in a position to pay them,
regardless of the virtues and vices of the deceased.
The tradition must have been very strict and uni-
versal ; for the custom of fatiha for the dead — -ten days,
forty days, six months and one year after death (or
rather burial) — has persisted among the Indian Mussal-
mans though six or seven centuries have passed since
their conversion. After this year is over, the mind
of the Muslim heir, though he is even ignorant of the
term, alivahika, feels definitely relieved. 1

1 In Chapter LXXII devoted to Inheritance, Alberuni again
returns to the subject and summarises the duties of a legitimate
heir to the soul of the deceased. On a projecting shelf before
the door of the house, it was his duty for ten successive days to
put a vessel of water and a dish of cooked food. ' Possibly the
spirit of the deceased has not yet found its rest, but moves still
to and fro around the house, hungry and thirsty. ' On the tenth
day he was expected to spend 'in the name of the deceased' as
much food and cold water as his means permitted ; thereafter,
for the whole ' mourning-year ' he was to send food for one person
along with a copper coin (dirham) to the house of a Brahman.
Further, he was to give sixteen banquets in all at which the guests
received both dinner and alms — on the 15th and the 16th day
after death; then onc9 every month, the banquet of the sixth
month being more splendid than the others, and, finally, on the
last but one and the last day of the ' mournirg-year '. 'With
the end of the year the duties towards the deceased have been
fulfilled.' The heir, if a legitimate son, was also expected to
spend the year in mourning dress and to refrain from intercourse
with women. {Vol. II, pp. 165-166.) It must not be forgotten
that apart from the ativahika- legend, these banquets were a means
by which the heir asserted his right to the property of the deceas-
ed, and the sub-caste or biradari to which he belonged, by accept-
ing his invitation, acknowleged his right. Hence the wide
prevalence of these 'death-banquets' among both the Hindus and
the Mussalmans of India down to the present time.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 47

3. Popular Cosmology. — A man's -outlook on the
problems of practical and even spiritual life is very
much conditioned by his conception of the material
universe. The belief that matter, and human life so
far as it is materially conditioned, is determined by
scientific laws has certainly tended to eliminate supersti-
tion. People who believe the world to be round will,
inevitably, attempt to navigate it. The conception of
a flat earth, washed by an unlimited sea — or of islands
within islands and seas within seas — will induce a
people to shrink more and more within itself. The
Sanskrit treatises, known as Siddhantas, incorporated
the greatest advance made in the realm of astronomy,
mathematics and allied subjects before the advent of
modern science. 'There is always darkness under the
lamp,' says an Indian proverb. It is tragic that while
the labours of Brahmagupta and his Indian fellow-
workers enabled the people of Khwarazm and Khorasan
and Baghdad to obtain a healthier and saner idea of
the physical universe which surrounded them, the
popular 'world-out-look' of the Indians was left un-
touched. Early Arab cosmology, unlike Indian cos-
mology, was based not upon any venerable traditions
but upon the immediate sense-experience of an un-
scientific people. Among the Mussalmans, as among
the Hindus, traditional astronomy was considered a
part of religion, and any attempt to question it was
regarded as heretical and suppressed either with the
persecutor's sword or the universal hostility of popular
opinion. But, fortunately, mathematics in all its bran-
ches is considered, and has always been considered,
a perfect science ; its truths were the only Gertain

48 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

truths and even dogmas of the theology had -to be
given up, or explained away, when they came into
conflict with the principles of mathematical logic. So
after the first heat of conflict in the ninth and tenth
centuries, a Muslim astronomer could pursue his scien-
tific studies without any great fear of persecution by
public opinion or the state. In India it was otherwise;
the principles of science had to be explained away to
suit the fantasies of the masses or misrepresented for
the purpose of exploiting them.

4. False Sciences. — This brings us to 'the false
sciences' which 'preyed upon the multitude'. By far the
most popular of these sciences was astrology. Man's
life on earth is inevitably reckoned by the revolutions
of heavenly bodies as he perceives them, and bis reli-
gious practices from the earliest days have become
attached to their changing but recurrent phases. In
this there is nothing mysterious. But the union of
wicked theology and false science brought astrology
into existence — a hybrid child. There is good reason
for believing that India is the original home of 'scien-
tific astrology' if this contradictory term may be per-
mitted ; it was certainly very popular among the
Mussalmans who had borrowed it from the Greeks and
the Indians 1 . But the influence of astrology among

Alberani was not, as is sometimes supposed, an astrologer.
A careful examination of his Tafhimun Nujum, a popular work
on astronomy which he wrote for his daughter, Eaihana, leaves
little doubt that he had no faith in astrology; but his detailed
discussion of the methods of Hindu astrology shows beyond doubt
that this science was extremely popular. He expresses a regret
that Muslim knowledge of Hindu astrology does not go beyond
the Sind-Hind.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 49

the Mussalmans must not be overrated. A resolute
Mussalman— like Babar before the battle of Khanwa —
could tell the astrologer to go and hang, and direct
his steps by his faith in God and in secular reason.
Also the average Muslim consciousness throughout
the middle ages regarded astrology as something dark,
forbidden, irreligious ; it came into sharp conflict with
his faith and his reliance in Divine Omnipotence.
The world is governed by Allah directly, not by the
angels or the stars. "And when He intends anything,"
says the Quran, "He says, Be, and it is." In India,
on the other hand, astrology became the basis of
popular religion ; it was the lever by which Brahmanical
scholars controlled and exploited the multitude and,
incidently, earned their own livelihood. If man's fate,
his sacrifices and his prayers depended upon the
stars — and the stars could only be studied by years of
careful training in technical sciences made even more
technical by an artificial methodology, the esoteric
characters of Brahmanical learning could be preserved
without danger. Fortunately for the Brahmans, the
mass of mankind are utterly incompetent for the
study of mathematics. The Siddhantas and the
Jatakas were not sealed books like the Vedas. But
they were unintelligible, to the uninitiated and the
untrained.

The matter is best examined by reference to a
concrete question — the eclipses. Hindu scientists had
by the fourth century a.d. proved by a series of irrefu-
table deductions that the solar and lunar eclipses were
due respectively to the interposition of the moon between
the sun and the earth and of the earth between the sun

7

50 INDIAN CULT QBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

and the moon. Centuries of careful observation had
also enabled them to predict the cycle of eclipses with
remarkable accuracy and to assure themselves that
this recurrent phenomena entailed no danger to any-
body. Nevertheless the people of India were thrown
into ungovernable panic again and again from fear that
ahu, the terrible Head, would swallow up the Sun
and the Moon ; and the astrologers were beseeched by
the people with prayers, alms and gifts to prevent
an untimely termination of the history of mankind.
Needless to say, they always succeeded. Alberuni
suggests, following a hint of the Brahma Siddhanta,
that the eclipse should be regarded not as the reason
but the occasions for prayer — just as the Mussalman
prays before the dawn ( or omits his prayer ) without
the slightest fear that the sun will fail to rise. But
such an admission would have annihilated the influence
of the Brahmans, and the scientific explanation of the
eclipses was never popularised. Alberuni's remark on
the topic is significant. "The scholars" — and we are
bound to add Brahmanical scholars more than others —
"are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are
ignorant of the nobility of science." In Muslim coun-
tries the scientists, regarded as protagonists of heresy,
were helplessly dependent upon the charity and the
patronage of princes, from which soon after Alberuni's
days they were effectually excluded by the mullas and
poets 1 . In India the practice of astrology and
allied sciences enabled the scholars to control the
princes as well as the multitude. But this was poor
compensation for a wide-spread and undeniable evil.

1 Alberuni's : India, Vol. I, p. 152.

iNfiiAtf ctttTtraii aM> Social life 61

Similarly five centuries after the phenomena of the
tides had been satisfactorily explained as due to the
revolutions of the moon, we find the temple of Somnath
being built and popularised on the basis of a significant
legend. The Moon being married to the lunar stations,
the daughters of Prajapati, began to love one of his
wives, Rohini, more than the others. Thereupon
Prajapati, worried by the complaints of his other
daughters, cursed the Moon and it became leprous.
The Moon repented, but Prajapati's order had been
given and could not be recalled. He, however, pro-
mised to veil the Moon from the eyes of men for half
the year provided the latter worshipped the linga of
Shiva properly. This linga at first was on the sea-coast,
about three miles from the point where the Saras wati
then fell into the gulf of Cutch, and was washed by
the tidal wave. About a century before Mahmud, the
idol was removed from the sea-side and the famous
temple was built. 1 The nature of the legend shows

1 The general belief that the original Somnath temple was
on the southern coast of Kathiawar is not correct, (l) Alberuni J s
description leaves no doubt about its exact situation. The river
Saraswati is in Gujrat and fell into the Gulf of Cutch. (2) The
remarkable ebb and flow of the tides, which the legend postulates
and which accounts of Sultan Mahmud's invasions confirm, are
not possible on the open sea-coast of Kathiawar but were then
possible in the Gulf of Cutch. (3) Somnath was an important
sea-port for which the Gulf of Cutchwas the only possible place.
(4) Sultan Mahmud, according to Ibn-L-Asir, reached Somnath
after marching from Patan or Anhilwara for two days and a half;
this would hot have been possible if Somnath had been then
(as now) on the southern sea-board of Kathiawar. (5) A new
Somnath, as Barni tells us, was built after the destruction of the
first Somnath by Mahmud, apparently at its present site. The

52 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

that the people who invented or popularised the cult
of Somnath (Moonlord, Siva) were well aware of the
nature of the tides ; the phenomenal growth of the
temple in popularity and wealth shows the rapid rise
of Siva worship and the extraordinary influence of the
Brahmans devoted to him 1 The Ganges-water
with which the linga was washed everyday was
guaranteed to cure persons of all diseases. The
influence of Somnath probably helped in popularising
the cult of the lingum. Alberuni tells us that the
linga was often found in the temples of south-western
Sind 2 .

Other sciences which 'preyed on the ignorance
of the multitude' also deserve a passing mention.
Alchemy, though not unknown, was not so popular as
among the Mussalmans. On the other hand Kasay-
ana — the art of restoring old men to youth and of
prolonging life — was extremely popular. All sorts of
herbs and concoctions were tried. Apparently this
mediaeval science of 'rejuvenation' or 'regeneration'
led to much evil owing to the greediness of the Hindu
princes. About a hundred years before Alberuni, a
native of Daihak, near Somnath, Nagarjuna by name,
wrote a precious treatise on the subject. "The greedi-
ness of the ignorant Hindu princes for gold-making
does not know any limit. If any one of them wanted
to carry out a scheme of gold-making, and people

temple was obviously built once more {i.e., for the third time)
after its destruction by Nusrat Khan. (See Habib : Mahmud of
Ghaznin, and Campaigns of Alauddin Khilji.)

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, p. 104.

2 Ibid. vol. II, p. 1C4.

■IKDUN CULTtEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 53

advised him to kill a number of fine little children,
the monster would not refrain from such a crime;
he would throw them into the fire 1 ."

Then, as now, India was reputed abroad for all
things strange from the tricks of her jugglers to the
God-compelling maniras of her priests. The topic is
as long as it is frivolous and the modern critic may be
permitted to dismiss it with Alberuni's veiled derision.
"I, for my part, do not know what I am to say
about these things since I do not believe in them 2 ."

5. Cults and Sects. — A critic anxious to declaim
against Hinduism will find enough material in Abbe
Dubois and other missionary writers. That, of course,
is not our task. But about Hindu sects of the time
two things deserve to be noted : First, there was a cons-
tant tendency towards degeneration. The spiritual
comprehension of the religious movements was often
lost and vulgar stories did duty for spiritual truths.
This was balanced by a constant effort at reform, which
in its turn took the form of new cults. The same
phenomena is found in other religions but perhaps
not to the same marked degree. For Hinduism, unlike
Islam and Eoman Catholicism, is not a creed at all but
c a civilisation-process' ; almost every doctrine — good,
bad or indifferent, could find a place within its ample
folds. Secondly, the most remarkable phenomena about
Hindu religious movements is the almost complete
absence of religious persecution. No one was prepared

x . Alberuni: India, vol. I. p. 193.
*. Ibid, vol. I, p. 194.

54 INDIAN CtJLTUftE ANt) SOCIAL LIFE

to kill — or to be killed — for the sake of his idols Or his
gods. "On the whole, there is very little disputing
about theological topics among themselves; at the
utmost, they fight with words, but they will never
stake their soul or body or their property on religious
controversy 1 ." This may have been due to the
doctrine of ahimsa, or to a genuine desire for tolerance,
or to an implicit understanding among the governing
classes that the more sub-divided the community, the
easier it would be to govern it. Be this as it may, a
wide door was left open for the propagation of degrad-
ing cults and the construction of degenerate temples
for shameless forms of worship. Even the price for
tolerance — one of the highest principles of our social
life — may be sometimes too great. If the cult of the
lingum had been invented in a Christian or a Muslim
country, it would have been suppressed without much
ado as a pure police measure; the claim that such
worship could be religious would not have been
entertained for a moment. But in India it went
forth, north and east, west and south, gathering all
sorts of associations — sometimes degraded by the
grossest form of sex-suggestions and at other times
sublimated by philosophical speculations that left
nothing to be desired. The Turkish Muslims— and
the Indian Muslims perhaps even to greater extent —
were bitterly horrified by the lingum. The statues of
Vishnu and other gods were admired aesthetically and
were often merely defaced by a hammer-stroke on the
nose out of a mistaken loyalty to the 'true faith' or
iman. But the Siva-lingum was smashed wherever
1 . Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 19.

Indian cUltuee and social life 55

it could be found. Still too much emphasis must not
be laid upon the elements of spiritual degeneration in
Hindu life, though they have left undeniable impression
upon the statuary of the period. The India of Alberuni,
though fallen from its former high-state, was culturally
alive ; its political collapse is to be explained not by
the existence of a few degrading cults but by the
shortcomings of the best politico-social conceptions
of the day.

It is generally believed that the Hindus are divided
into two principal sects, the Vaishnavites and the
Shivaites. This in a sense is true. But these sects
have not the remotest likeness to the Shias and
Sunnis among the Mussalmans or to the Roman
Catholics and Protestants among the Christians. No
memories of past persecutions — no martyr's memo-
rials—embittered the relation of the two Hindu sects.
Also, since Shiva and Vishnu have so many incar-
nations, and may, with their differently named wives,
be worshipped under any number of forms, it is
difficult to get to any concrete sectarian dogma with
the seal of permanence upon it. The Hindus have
a bad habit, as Alberuni noted, of praising one god
to the skies and then hinting darkly that there is
some one greater behind him. And so, whatever god
the votary begins to worship, he is brought ultimately
to the, syllable Om — denoting the Supreme Being and
connoting all, qualities, or, possibly, none; for- our
human minds cannot comprehend the real nature of
the Absolute Reality. All gods lead to Om — the logical
equivalent of Allah— just as all roads lead to Rome.

56" INDIAN CtfLTUKE AND SOCIAL LlPfi

The following summary from Pandit Gauri Shankar
Ojha's Mediceval Civilisation will give the reader
some idea of the Vaishnavite and Shivaite cults : —

"In view of the teachings of the Bhagvat Gita,
the priests (jadhavas) started the worship of Vasu
Deva in order to popularise his cult, which came to
be known as Bhagvat or Satiyavat. The arduous
Vedic and other religious ceremonies prevalent at the
time had alienated the minds of the people, who now
welcomed the Bhagti cult cheerfully. Sometime after
its origin the images of Vishnu were also made. The
matter has not yet been completely explored, but the
inscription of Nagri mentioned above refers to the
constructions of temples for the worship of Sankara
Shiva and Vasu Deva. There is no reference to an
idol in any previous inscription, but in the 4th century
B.C. Magesthenese asserts that the Sursena Jadhavas of
Mathura worshipped Heracles ( i.e., Hari Krishna
and Vasu Deva ). Panini has also mentioned the
name of Vasu Deva in his Save'ras and Patanjali,
and regards Vasu Deva as a deity. It seems that the
worship of Vasu Deva had already been started at the
time of Panini about 600 b. c. The Bhagvat creed
must, therefore, be earlier *.

"At first the new creed retained the sacrifices of
the Vedic faith but later, on coming under the in-
fluence of Buddhism, it preferred the ahimsa dharma.
The Panj Baner Santha is the authoritative book
of this sect. The followers of this sect believed in
five daily prayers, worship in temples, recitation of
mantras and the attainment of Ishwar through yoga.
1. Medieval Civilisation by Pandit Gauri Shank ar, p. 18.

INDIAN GULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 57

Then the Vaishnavites began to represent Vishnu in
twenty-four incarnations, of whom ten were con-
sidered to be the highest. The inclusion of Buddha
and Rishwah in the list of Hindu avatars makes it
evident that the Hindu religion had undergone a
change owing to the predominance of the Buddh and
Jain creeds, and, therefore, the founders of these creeds
were given a place by the side of Vishnu. It is also
possible that the invention of the twenty-four incar-
nations was due to the adoption of the twenty-four
Buddhas or the twenty-four tirthankars of the Jains.
The Vishnu temples have existed from 200 B.C. till
to-day, and a mention of the Vishnu-worship is found
in inscriptions, copper-plates, and books of yore. In
the Deccan, the Bhagvat sect began to rise in the 9th
century A. D. ; and the Alwar rajas of the Deccan
were the devotees of Sri Krishna. It is strange that
in spite of the fact that Ram was an incarnation of
Vishnu, no temple or image of him is found till the
tenth century A. D. It is extremely unlikely that the
cult of Ram prevailed in ancient days like the cult of
Krishna. In later days the worship of Ram was
started, and festivals like Ram Nomi were observed.

"The Vedantic teachings of Shankar Acharya,
however, struck a blow to the Bhagvati creed. If
the Atman ( soul ) and Brahma are one and the
same, what is then the need of bhagti ? In order to
revive the decreasing power of the creed, Ramanuj
began to criticise the Vedantic teachings of Shankar
Acharya. *

1 Mediaval Civilisation by Pandit Gauri Shankar Ojha, pp.

10 & 20.

8

58 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

"The worship of Shiva began, like that of Vishnu,
and his devotees, to regard Shiva as the Omnipotent
Creator and Preserver. The various works on this sect
are known as Agam and its devotees began to make
numerous forms of the images of Shiva. Ordinarily
the image was a small round pillar, or else the upper
round part was surrounded by four heads— the round
top to represent the Brahmanda, and the four faces to
represent the Sun ( east side ), Vishnu (west), Brahma
(north), and Rudra ( south ). Idols have also been
found not with the faces but the images of these
deities. It meant that Shiva was the master of
the Universe, while the other deities were the
manifestations of his attributes. At various places
images of the trinity of Shiva have also been found,
with six hands, three faces and three heads ornamented

with large locks Such Trimurtis have been found

at Elephanta, Chittor, Sirohi, etc. 1

"The Shivaite sect was popularly known as 'Pasho-
pat;' later on the 'Lakolesh' sect was added, which
seems to have spread over the whole of Bharata. The
four followers of Lakolesh — Kushk, Gurg, Mutr and
Kursh — are referred to in the Linga Purana. It is
after these disciples that the Shivaite sub-sects are
known. To-day the Lakolesh sect is not found
anywhere and people are not even acquainted with
the name 2 .

" The followers of the Shivaite sect believe Mahadev
to be the Creator, the Preserver and the Destroyer of

1 Mtdimval Civilization by Pandit Gauri Shankar Oi'ha
pp. 23-24.

2 Ibid.., p. 25.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 59

the universe. The Shivaites consider yogabhyas and
the sprinkling of ashes over their bodies to be
necessary; they also believe in inohsha. The six
essentials of their worship are — laughing, singing,
dancing, bellowing like a bull, praying prostrate on the
ground and reciting on the rosary ; there are also other
similar customs. They believe that man reaps the
fruit of his life according to his karma. Life ( jiva) is
eternal ; when life is released from the delusion otmaya,
it becomes Shiva, but does not become omnipotent like
the Mahashiva. These people pay great attention to
recitations ( jap ) and yogsadhan, holding of breath.
The other two sub-sects are Kapalak and Kalamakh
who worship Shiva in his manifestation as Bhiru and
Rudra. There is no difference • between them. They
have 6 symbols- — mala, ornaments, caudal, ratan,
ashes and janiva. They believe that man can attain
to salvation through the sadhus ( mystics ). The
followers of this sect eat out of human skulls ; they rub
the ashes of shamshan over their bodies and eat it also.
They keep a staff and a cup of wine, and regard them
a means of salvation both in this world and the next.
Their sadhus lead a dreadful and nefarious life. The
sect consists of sadhus exclusively ; there are no lay-
followers. Now such sadhus are seldom found. 1

"The Shiva sect also flourished in Kashmir

There Aspand Gupta wrote . a book known as Aspand
Shastra, according to which it is believed that God
does not stand in need of man's karma, but creates

1 MedicBVal Civilisation by Pandit Gauri Shankar Ojha, p. 26.

60 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

the world according to His own will without the
intermediation of matter. *

"When the Vishnu Dharma, with ahimsa its new
doctrine, reached the Andhra and Tamil lands, and the
opposition to the Shivaite cult was spreading in the
eastern region, at that very time a new Shivaite cult

arose in the Karnatic In the 12th century a.d.

a Brahman, named Basu, started a new creed
known as ' Lingayat ' in order to wipe off the Jain
religion. The Eaja of the place, Bajal by name,
patronised him and spent large sums of money in
popularising the new creed. Though the deadliest
enemies of the gainis, they laid emphasis on the doc-
trine of ahimsa, but did not believe in castes or sub-
castes. Basu taught that a person, even if he be a
sannyasi, must earn a livelihood, and begging was for-
bidden. The linga was the special sign of this sect,
and its members used to wear the linga of Shiva in a
silver casket round their necks. It was their creed
that Shiva had divided his soul into two parts, the
linga and the body. 2

"The Shivaite sect was very strong in the Tamil
province. Here they were deadly opposed to the Jains
and the Buddhists. The principles of their religion
have been compiled in eleven volumes at different
times." 3

V. Hindu Nationalism.

There were many elements of Hindu thought, the

1 Ibid., p. 27.

a Mediceval Civilisation by Pandit Gauri ShankarOjha, p. 29.

8 Ibid, p. 29.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 61

doctrine of nirwana, for example, or the doctrine of
non-violence, with which a non-fanatical Mussalman
of the eleventh century felt himself in close kinship,
whether he acknowledged it publicly or not. It was
otherwise with the Hindu social system. To-day
after the two religions have lived side by side for
eight or nine hundred years, the Hindus and Mussal-
mans of the country — partly owing to the mutual
influence of the two religions but primarily owing
to the persistence of Hindu outlook and modes of
thought among the Muslim converts — are children of a
common culture, however much communalists may
ignore, or reformers lament, the fact. In the eleventh
century the two systems stood in sharp and apparently
irreconcilable contrast for the intermediate link
between them — the Indian Mussalman — had hot yet
appeared.

Hindu nationalism — and there can be no other
name for it — was aggressive and violent. "All their
fanaticism is directed against those who do not
belong to them — against all foreigners. They call
them mlechchha, i.e., impure, and forbid having any
connection with them, be it by intermarriage, or
any other kind of relationship, or by sitting, eating
or drinking with them, because thereby they think
they would be polluted. 1 " No conversions to
Hinduism were permitted. "They are not allowed
to receive anybody who does not belong to them,
even if he wished it or was inclined to their religion.
This, too, renders any connection with them quite
impossible, and constitutes the widest gulf between

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, pp. 19-20.

62 INDIAN CDLTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

us and them In all manners and usages they

differ from us to such a degree as to frighten
their children with us, with our dress, and our ways
and customs, and as to declare us to be devil's
breed, and our doings as the very opposite of all that
is good and right." Needless to say the Indians
thought they had a monopoly of philosophy and
science, art and culture. "The Hindus believe that
there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs,
no kings like theirs, no sciences like theirs. They are
haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited and stolid. They
are by nature niggardly in communicating what they
know, and take the greatest possible care to withhold
it from men of another caste among their people, still
much more, of course, from any foreigner. According
to their belief there is no other country on the earth
but theirs, no other race of man but theirs, and no
created beings besides them have any knowledge or
science whatsoever." 1 As they never went beyond
the frontiers of their own country as in earlier days,
it was impossible for them to observe the progress
made in other lands. A grudging recognition was
extended to the Yavanas or Greeks, and Alberuni
quotes a remark of Varamihira, 'a self-lauding fellow
who gives himself airs as doing justice to others' :
"The Greeks, though impure, must be honoured, since
they were trained in sciences and therein excelled
others.. "What, then, are we to say of a Brahman, if
he combines with his purity the height of science." 2
From the Mussalmans even this condescending

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 23.

2 Ibid., p. 23.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 63

patronage was withheld. No Hindu would acknow-
ledge that they were anything but barbarians. "Their
haughtiness is such that if you tell them of any science
or scholar in Khorasan or Persis, they will think you
both an ignoramus and a liar." 1 -

Now nationalism, whether cultural or political, is
not a peculiar feature of the Hindus or the Indians ;
we see in the twentieth century its most fanatical
developments in spite of an extensive diffusion of
knowledge and all kinds of cultural contacts. Alberu-
ni's sane advice is, therefore, worth remembering:
"We must confess, in order to be just, that a similar
depreciation of foreigners not only prevails among us
and the Hindus but is common to all nations towards
each other."

There were, however, a number of political and.
other causes which contributed to increase the Indian's
dislike of foreigners. Alberuni's analysis of these
factors is worth re-interpreting in the light of modern
knowledge. 2 The labours of Asoka and Kanishka
and the Buddhist missionaries, who in their desire -to
proclaim the sacred gospel were not afraid- of crossing
the salt-water or the land-frontiers of India, - had
spread the Buddhist creed in many Asiatic lands.- "In
former times, Khorasan, Persis, Irak, Mosul, and the
country up to the frontier of Persia was Buddhist."
Though the Buddhist disliked the Brahmans, the two
sects were, after all, offshoots of a common creed and
the Mahayana interpretation of Buddhism brought it

1 Ibid., p. 23.

2 Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 22.

64 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

closer to Brahmanism. Its architectural remains, as
well as the sectarian and religious movements of Persia
and the adjoining countries in Islamic days, are a
sufficient proof of the profound influence Buddhism
exercised in those countries. But, unfortunately, it
came into conflict with the reviving Persian ( Sassa-
nian) Empire, and the Persian Emperors made Zoras-
trianism the obligatory state-religion for Persis (Persia,
Faris) and Iraq. 1 As a consequence, the Buddhist
were banished from those regions and had to emigrate
to the countries east of Balkh. This set-back, deci-
sive in its political effect, may have led the Indians to
give up the idea of travelling abroad.

Secondly, the advent of Islam crushed all Indian
cults in northern Afghanistan ( Balkh ), Mawaraun-
Nahr and Turkistan. There was constant friction on
the frontier, which ultimately led to Mohammad-bin-
Kasim's invasion of Sind. He marched to the frontier
of Kashmir and was planning a campaign against
Kannauj at the time of his fall. The young general
was tolerant in religious matters, and the Chach Nama
and Alberuni both assure us that ' he left the people
to their ancient faith. ' But one great Hindu state
was pulled down with surprising rapidity and others
had been threatened ; and at a time when the land-
route to India through the north-western desert was
extremely difficult, Muslim travellers and missionaries
found a foot-hold in Sind. Later on Subuktigin
built good roads through the north-western frontier
and they were utilised by Mahmud for his invasions.

1 Alberuni attributes this to Gurshasp; Alberuni, vol. I, p . 21.

INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 65

No Muslim was in a better position to estimate the
effect of these invasions on the Hindus than
Alberuni : "Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of
the country, and performed those wonderful exploits,
by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust
scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the
mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish,
of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all
Muslims. This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences
have retired far away from those parts of the country
conquered by us, and have fled to places which our
hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir, Benares, and
other places. And there the antagonism between
them and all foreigners receives more and more
nourishment both from political and religious sources 1 ."

For the moment, it seemed that even peaceful
association in trade and barter which had continued
between the Indians and foreign nations — Arabs,
Persians and Turks — for centuries would come to a-
standstill. Fortunately for India, Mahmud's central
Asian empire crumbled to pieces ten years after his
death, and the way to India was left open to other
and better people, the Muslim mystics.

VI. The Brahmans

The Indian social system of the eleventh century,
as described by Muslim writers, was based upon three
principles, not quite consistent with each other and
giving rise to contrary practices — the principle of non-
violence or ahimsa; the principle of division of labour,
caste or varna ; and the principle of hygiene or chhut.

1 Alberuni : India, vol. I, p. 22.

9

66 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFF

We should not, in a developed mediaeval society,
expect these principles in their primitive simplicity ; as
very often happens in most societies at this stage of
development, the fundamental principles of social life,
not scientifically or critically apprehended by the
multitude, were twisted out of their proper shape and
extensively misapplied by the far-fetched casuistries
or tawils of theologians. Concerning another feature
of Indian society — the war-cult of the Rajputs — which
is so obvious in the Persian annals of the thirteenth
century, Moslem writers before the period of Shaha-
buddin are silent. And this silence is not without
significance.

There can be little doubt that an educated Hindu
of the eleventh century, if asked to formulate the
basic doctrine of his creed, would have referred to the
principle of metempsychosis. Now metempsychosis
or salvation (molcslia, nirwana, fana) through a life of
virtue and contemplation (ahhlaq and mushahidah,
karma) implies, first, the equality of man, for it places
salvation within the reach of all, and, secondly,
ahimsa, the avoidance of harm to all living creatures
(jiv hatya). The doctrine of human equality ( as
we shall see presently ) was eliminated from Indian
society owing to the growth of the caste-system.
It was otherwise with the doctrine of ahimsa. The
doctrines of metempsychosis and ahimsa were not in-
vented by Gautama Buddha, but the Buddhist revolt
is by far the greatest and the most effective protest the
moral feeling of man has yet made against the criminal
methods of nature (himsa) which require, both among
plants and animals, that the continuance of the life of

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 67

one creature should depend upon the destruction of
another. The long prevalence of Buddhism in India as
well as foreign countries enabled the doctrine to take
very deep roots ; the decline and fall of Buddhism did
not eradicate ( either in India or elsewhere ) the atti-
tude of mind Buddhism had created. Wherever we
turn — from the Hindu avoidance of onion and garlic
to the pacifist-attitude of the Muslim mystics — we see
the visible and profound influence of the ahimsa doc-
trine. So far as Indian society of the eleventh century
is concerned, it may be confidently stated that, in
spite of notorious exceptions, the acceptance or the non-
acceptance of the doctrine of ahimsa created a sharp
and quite visible dividing line between the civilised and
the non-civilised sections of the community. The cult
of physical and spiritual cleanliness, a distinct concep-
tion in the earlier ages, was in the eleventh century
definitely identified in many matters with the ahimsa
doctrine. Thus meat-eating, permitted to the earlier
Aryans, was by the time of Sultan Mahmud forbidden
to the Brahmans and permitted to the other castes
under restrictions and as a matter of necessity. Both
doctrines (ahimsa and chhutjt were used by the Brah-
mans in guiding the affairs of the community as it
suited their class-needs or the principles of their reli-
gious sects.

The caste-system of India, as formulated in the
classical literature from which it drew its intellectual
sustenance, has often been described by mediaeval and
modern writers and a detailed account will be found
in Alberuni. We are here only concerned with the
system as it actually worked..

68 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

Eeligion had become the exclusive monopoly of
the Brahman class. It was not to be expected that
all the members of a large, hereditary class would be
able to perform the extremely onerous duties that
tradition required of them. "The Brahmans recite the
Veda without understanding its meaning, and in the
same way they learn it by heart, the one receiving it
from the other. Only few of them learn its meaning,
and still less is the number of those who master the
contents of the Veda and their interpretation to such a
degree as to be able to hold a theological disputation 1 ."

1 No feeling of modesty or hesitation born of religious doubt
restrained the Brahman's claim to supreme pre-eminence. Thus
(Mann, Chap. J) :

"87. But in order to protect this Universe, He, the most
resplendent one, assigned separate (duties and) occu-
pations to those who sprang from his mouth, arms,
thighs, and feet.

' 88. To Brahmans he assigned teaching and studying ( the
Veda ), sacrificing for their own benefit and for others,
giving and accepting ( of alms ).

"93. As the Brahmana sprang from ( Brahma's ) mouth, as
he was the first-born, and as he possesses the Veda,
he is by right the lord of this whole creation.

"95. What created being can surpass him, through whose
mouth the gods continually consume the sacrificial
viands and the manes the offerings to the dead ?

"98. The very birth of a Brahmana is an eternal incarnation
of the sacred law ; for he is born to ( fulfil ) the sacred
law, and becomes one with Brahman.

"99. A Brahmana, coming into existence, is born as the highest
on earth, the lord of all created beings, for the protection
of the treasury of the law.

INDIAN CTJI/TUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 69

In this there is no matter for surprise or regret. The
Quran has, similarly, been recited without understand-
ing in all non-Arab countries and there was through-
out the middle ages a grave objection to its translation
into the languages of the multitude. The exclusion of
low-grade intellects from the field of theological disputa-
tions is not a matter to be deplored. The records of
Mohammad bin Kasim leave upon one the impression
that, apart from the Brahmans who dedicated their
lives exclusively to religion or acted as purohits for
well-to-do families, the rest of the community obtained

100. Whatever exists in the ivorld is the property of the
Brahmana; on account of the excellence of his origin
the Brahmana is, indeed, entitled to it all.
"101. The Brahmana eats but his own food, wears but his own
apparel, bestows but his own in alms; other mortals
subsist through the benevolence of the Brahmana.
"105. He sanctifies any company ( which he may enter ),
seven ancestors and seven descendants, and he alone
deserves ( to possess ) this whole earth.
Chap. X :

1. Let the three twice-born castes ( varna ), discharging
their ( prescribed ) duties, study ( the Veda ); but
among them the Brahmana (alone) shall teach it,
not the other two; that is an established rule.
"3. On account of his pre-eminence, on account of the
superiority of his origin, on account of his observance
of (particular) restrictive rules, and on account of
his particular sanctification, the Brahmana is the lord
of (all) castes (varna).
(The Laws of Manu, edited by E. Max Muller, pp.

24-26 & pp. 401-402.)
No post-war dictator, in spite of the modern cult of
"blood and soil", has made a more daring and a
more preposterous claim for his chosen race on the
ground of mere birth.

70 INDIAN OULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE

its livelihood by service in the government departments
as tax-collectors and clerks or by helping society in
managing : its business or civil affairs through its al-
most exclusive knowledge of the three Es. There
is good reason for believing that its functions in the
eleventh century were substantially the same. The
highest offiee in the state — that of the Eaja — was still
within the reach of the Brahmans, and had not become
the exclusive monopoly of the Eajputs. "The Brahman
(*. e., the religious Brahman) lives by what he gathers
on the earth or from the trees." For the 'secular
Brahman' there were privileges denied to members
of other communities, the most important being
exemption from state-taxes and dues. Mohammad
bin Kasim had very wisely confirmed this exemption
from taxes which the Brahmans had enjoyed under
Eaja Dabir, and most Muslim statesmen of the middle
ages, anxious to win over the religious leaders of the
Hindu community, followed his example. "The
Brahmans", Alberuni tells us with reference to his own
time, "are not, like other castes, bound to pay taxes or
to perform services to the kings 1 ." Such an exemp-
tion, without necessary restrictions, was bound to
create abuses ; fictitious transfers of land and business,
capital could prevent the state from collecting its
legitimate dues, and the Brahman community would
have deprived the other castes of all profitable
ventures. "The Brahman may try his fortune in the
trade of cloths and betel-nuts, but it is preferable
that he should not trade himself, and that a Vaishya
should do the business for him. Further, he is not

1 Alberuni India, vol. II, p. 132.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 71

allowed continually to busy himself with horses and
cows, with the care of the cattle, nor with gaining by
usury." It is difficult to say how far the public
opinion of the country or of the Brahman community
itself, which must have resented any degradation of
its status, prevented the less scrupulous members of
the community from exploiting for their selfish
personal purposes the general respect in which the
community, was held and the privileges which were
extended to it by the state. The stray glimpses we
get show that the relations between the Rajas and the
Brahmans were not always cordial.

Alberuni's account of the ceremonies appertaining
to consecration or the second birth, the investment of
the yajnopavita or the sacred cord and the pavitra or
the seal-ring and of the rites of bathing, dining," etc.,
show that the external ceremonies prescribed by the
Brahmanical texts were followed. Scrupulous care had
to be observed in eating and drinking. Every Brahman
was required to have his separate drinking vessel and
eating utensils ; if another man used them, they wei*e
broken. "I have seen," says Alberuni, "Brahmans
who allowed their relatives to eat with them from the
same plate but most of them disapprove of this." To a
Mussalman two things were the symbols of equality and
brotherhood — standing shoulder to shoulder at the
congregational prayers before the God who has created
us all, and eating promiscuously from the same dishes
and at the same table-cloth. 1 Neither of these things

1 Two other insignia of equality — intermarriage without
any regard to tribal or national restrictions and equality of
political opportunities — though permitted by the letter of the
law were more honoured in the breach than the observance.

72 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

were tolerated in India. When Brahrnans dined
together — inter-oaste dining was out of the question —
a separate square table-cloth was prepared for each
guest 'by pouring water over a spot and plastering it
with the dung of cows.' Meat, as has been already
explained, was prohibited to the Brahrnans and five
vegetables — "onions, garlic, a kind of gourd, the
root of a plant like the carrots called krnen, and
another vegetable that grows round their tanks
called noli."

Alberuni does not tell us anything of the sub-
castes into which the Brahman community was pro-
bably divided. But he tells us that the individuals of
all the four castes got a second name according to
the work they did. Hindu law allowed the Brahrnans
to marry women of other castes. But the privilege
was not utilised. "In our time," Alberuni tells us,
"the Brahrnans, although it is allowed to them, never
marry any woman except of their own caste 3 ."

The four stages of the life of a Brahman, who had
dedicated himself to religion, have been described by
Alberuni, probably from personal observation though
he refers to Vishnu Puran as giving a different
age for the various stages 2 . Two centuries after
Alberuni wrote, the great orders of the Muslim
mystics organised the lives of their disciples in detail

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, p. 156.

2 The Vishnu Puran gives the fiftieth, the seventieth and the
ninetieth years as the end of the first, the second and the third
stage. Alberuni objects to these demarcations as not practicable
in view of our present short span of life.

INDIAN CUI/EUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE 73

on lines very similar to those of the Brahmans and
the Shamaniyyas ( Buddhists ). Alberuni's observa-
tions, made at a time when the Muslim mystic orders
were not even contemplated, deserve to be noticed in
some detail.

1. The first stage, that of the disciple (Brahma-
acharya) extended from the eighth year, the period
of consecration, to the twenty-fifth year. "His duty
is to practise abstinence, to make the earth his bed,
to begin with the learning of the Veda and of its
explanation, of the science of theology and law, all
this being taught to him by a master, whom he serves
day and night. He washes himself thrice a day, and
performs a sacrifice to the fire both at the beginning
and the end of the day. After the sacrifice he worships
his master 1 ." The worship of fire, according to
Alberuni, was the holiest of devotions. "No other
worship has been able to draw them away from it,
neither the worship of idols nor that of stars, cows,

asses or images He fasts a day and he breaks

fast a day 2 , but he is never allowed to eat meat.
He dwells in the house of the master, which he
only leaves in order to ask for a gift and to beg in
not more than five houses once a day, either at morn
or in the evening. Whatever alms he receives he
places before his master to choose from it what he

1 Very similar to the doctrine of f ana- fish- Shaikh (annihila-
tion in the Shaikh or Pir) of the Naqshbandi mystics. And the
translator of Shaikh Shahabuddin Suhrwardi in the Misbah-ul-
Hidayah invites us to believe in the following tradition. "The
Shaikhs {sufi teachers) are the brides of Allah on this earth."

2 Cf. the Roza-i-Daudi of the Mussalmans.

10

74 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

likes. Then the master allows him to take the re-
mainder. Thus the pupil nourishes himself from the
remains of the dishes of his master 1 ."

The Misbah-ul-Hidayah, the Persian summary of
the famous Awarif-ul-Maarif of Shaikh Shahabuddin
Suhrwardi composed in the twelfth century a.d., will
give the reader some idea of the relation of the Muslim
Shaikh ( guru or pir ) and the disciple ( or murid ).
"The disciple must have a firm belief in the Shaikh
as being the best of all preceptors and divines, and
must remain firm in his service. Further, he must
submit to the Shaikh's control over his life and
property and be prepared to do as the Shaikh orders.
In no case may he find fault with his Shaikh ; and if
ever he falls into doubts regarding the Shaikh's
behaviour or actions, he must attribute this to his own
ignorance. At the same time, he must remain
submissive to the Shaikh in all his worldly and spiritual
affairs, and he is forbidden to engage himself in
anything without the Shaikh's explicit permission.
Being a firm believer in the Shaikh's virtues and
attainments, the disciple should never indulge in such
matters as are against the will of the Shaikh. The
disciple must turn towards his Shaikh for an inter-
pretation of his revelations in dreams. He must
anxiously await the sayings of his Shaikh, for the latter
is always in direct communion with God. He must
lower his voice in the presence of his Shaikh. He
must not as a rule, either by words or deeds, become
familiar with the Shaikh, and whenever he wishes to

1 Albemni : India, vol. II, p. 131.

INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 75

talk to him, he must first find out if the Shaikh is free
from his worldly and spiritual anxieties. He must
in no case lose sight of his position, and while putting
questions to the Shaikh, he must not go heyond his
needs. Whenever the mysteries of the Shaikh are
revealed to him, he must not question them, but at
the same time he should not conceal his secrets from
the Shaikh. He may repeat only those sayings of his
Shaikh, which he understands well, but must remain
silent over such matters as are beyond the grasp of
his intelligence and understanding."

2. During the second stage, from the twenty-fifth
to the fiftieth year, the Brahman was to live as a
householder 1 ( grihastha ). "The master allows him
to marry but he is not allowed to marry a woman
above twelve years of age. He marries, establishes a
household, and intends to have descendants." The
Chishti mystics of the thirteenth century, while
insisting upon the married state as the tradition of
the Prophet, only permitted the disciple two means of
livelihood — zamin-i-ahya, the produce of barren land

1 Though the life of the world-abandoning ascetic was often
applauded, it was clearly seen that *ihe whole fabric of society
depended upon the householder, e. g., Warm, Chap. VI :

"87. The student, the householder, the hermit, and the
ascetic, these (constitute) four separate orders, which
all spring from (the order of) householders.

"89. And in accordance with the precepts of the Veda' and
of the Smriti, the housekeeper is declared to be superior
to all of them; for he supports the other three.

"90. As all rivers, both great and small, find a resting-place
in the ocean, even so men of all orders find protection
with householder {Manu, Chap. VI., pp. 214-215).

76 INDIAN. CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

which the mystic and his family had cultivated, and
futuh, gifts and presents which neighbours brought to
his house unasked. Begging was prohibited ; service of
the state was considered sinful and even private service
as a teacher was deprecated 1 . The Brahman of the
eleventh century was fettered by rules comparatively
lenient. "He gains his sustenance either by the fee
he obtains for teaching Brahmanas and Kshatriyas,
not as a payment but as a present, or by presents he
receives from some one because he performs for him
the sacrifices to the fire, or by asking a gift from the
kings and nobles, there being no importunate pressing
on his part, and no unwillingness on the part of the
giver. Also there is always a Brahman in the houses
of those people ( i. <?., the rich ) who administers the
affairs of religion and works of piety 2 . "

3. The third period, extending from the fiftieth to
the seventy-fifth, was once more a period of abstinence.
"The Brahman leaves his household and hands it as
well as his wife over to his children, if the latter does
not prefer to follow him into the wilderness." He
dwells outside civilisation, and leads the same life
again which he led in the "first period.

4. The fourth period extends to the end of life.
"He wears a red garment He strips the mind of

1 The Chishti mystics and to a large extent also other
silsilahs considered government service a sin. ( Compare Manu,
p. 142, Chap. IV ) :

"86. A king is declared to be equal (in wickedness) to a butcher
who keeps a hundred thoiisand slaughter -houses; to accept
presents from him is a terrible (crime).

2 Albaruni's India, vol. II, pp. 131-132.

INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL, LIFE 77

friendship and enmity, and roots out desire and lust
and wrath ; when walking to a place of particular
merit he does not stop on the road in a village longer

than a day, nor in a city longer than five days He

has no other business but that of caring for the path
which leads to salvation, and for reaching moJcsha,
whence there is no return to this world 1 ." The
achievement of Indian Brahmans in the field of
asceticism, whatever its moral or spiritual worth,
could not fail to draw the attention of outsiders. The
following extract from Abu Zaid will give an idea
of a foreigner's impressions : "In India there are
persons who, in accordance with their profession,
wander in the woods and mountains, and rarely
communicate with the rest of mankind. Sometimes
they have nothing to eat but herbs and the fruits of

the forest Some of them go about naked. Others

stand naked with the face turned to the sun, having
nothing on but a panther's skin. In my travels I saw
a man in the position I have described ; sixteen .years
afterwards I returned to that country and found him
in the same posture. What astonished me was that he
was not melted by the heat of the sun 2 ." A special
feature of the last two stages of the Brahman's life
(specially of the third) was the spirit of wanderjdhre.
Travelling in those days, specially under the strict
conditions intended to ensure that it would be sufficient-
ly uncomfortable, was a very necessary supplement

1 "Let him not desire to die, let him not desire to live;
but wait for his (appointed) time as a servant (waits) for the pay-
ment of his wages." (Manu, p. 207, Chap. VI, 49.)

2 Elliot and Dowson : History of India, Vol. I, p. 6.

78 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

to scholastic studies. It eliminated insularity and
broadened the intellect. Contemporary Muslim mystics
had made travelling a speciality and stern rules were
laid down for this peculiar discipline 1 . In the
four succeeding centuries the spirit of travelling was
still further developed, and the Muslim mystics became

1 The following extract from the Misbah-ul-Hidayah will give
some idea of the discipline prescribed for Muslim Khanqahs and
for Muslim mystics when travelling : —

"The people of the monastery may be divided into residents
and sojourners. It is the convention of the sufis that they
make it a point to arrive at monasteries before the afternoon-
prayer, but if due to some unavoidable circumstances, they
reach after the specified hour, they usually take their abode
in some other quarter or mosque, and visit the monastery
at sunrise next day. As soon as they enter it, they offer
two rakats of namaz, then shake hands with those present
and make arrangements for board and lodging. Tradi-
tionally they do not stay for more than three days to
accomplish their mission, and do not leave the monastery
without the permission of the managers. In case they
wish to stay longer, they must perform the duties (that may
be allotted to them) ; as a rule, even the non-mystic guests
are to be accorded proper reception and entertainment.

The residents of the monastery may be divided into three
grades — servants, associates and recluses. A 'fresher' may
rise successively from one stage to another.

In case the monastery is maintained by a charitable endow-
ment, provision of food should be made in accordance with
the conditions laid down in the wakf. If the monastery is
not supported by a wakf, the presence of an enlightened
Shaikh is essential to instruct the visitors to beg or to work
in order to obtain their livelihood. So far as possible there
should bd concord and friendship between the residents and
not discord. All frictions must be removed, and every error
forgiven in order to form a wholesome society of well-
wishing and well-behaving individuals."

INDIAN CULT UBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 79

the spear-head of Muslim civilisation and culture in
foreign lands. In India, unfortunately, the sphere of
the Brahman's itinerary became circumscribed by the
growing spirit of insularity and hostility to foreign
lands. He was not, if Alberuni's informants were
correct, even allowed to go to the extreme south.
"The Brahman is obliged to dwell between the river
Sindh in the north and the river Carmawati in the
south. He is not allowed to cross either of these
frontiers so as to enter the country of the Turk 1 or of
the Karnata. Further, he must live between the
ocean in the east and west. People say that he is
not allowed to stay in a country in which the grass

1 Does this mean the country directly governed by the
Turkish rulers ? Not likely. The frontiers of the country in
which the Turks then lived (and now live) were far distant from
the middle and lower Sind, i.e., north of Bamian and west of the
Kabul-Ghaznin valley. It must also be remembered that the first
battle between Jaipal and Subuktigin was fought beyond the
modern Jalalabad at some place (possibly Nimla) between the
Lamaghan valley and Ghaznin. It is probable, we might almost
say certain, that by the river Sind, Alberuni meant only the upper
regions of the river (though they are not in the modern province
of Sind) as suggested by the word north'. Indus, thus defined,
roughly divides northern India from the territories of the Turks.
"The river Sind rises in the.mountains of Unang in the territory
of the Turks", Alberuni tells us elsewhere (Vol. I., p. 207), "which
you can reach in the following way : Leaving the ravine by
which you enter Kashmir and entering the plateau, then you have
for a march of two more days on your left the mountains of Boler
and Shamilan, and Turkish tribes who are called Bhalta-varyan.
Their king has the. title of Bhatta-Shah. Their towns are Gilghit,
Aswira and Shiltas, and their language is Turkish. Kashmir
suffers from their inroads." The entrances to Kashmir, then one
of the two principal centres of. Hindu culture, were strongly
guarded. Sultan Mahmud twice attempted to reach the fertile

80 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

which he wears on his ring-finger does not grow, nor
the black-haired gazelles graze 1 . This is a description
of the whole country within the just-mentioned
boundaries. If he trespasses them he commits a sin 2 ."

valley, so full of rich and historic temples, but failed. This in-
duced the Hindus to be still more vigilant, "in former times they
used to allow one or two foreigners to enter their country, parti-
cularly Jews, but at present they do not allow any Hindu whom
they do not know personally to enter, much less other people."

Where, then, were the north-western frontiers of India, not
of political India but the India of the Brahmans ? The province
of Balkh (Afghan Turkestan or the Mazar Sharif of modern days)
and Ghor (or Hazara) were Turkish. But the Afghans, living on
the two sides of the middle Indus river and, one might add, even
the Tajiks, were then culturally and linguistically more allied to
the Indians than to the Turks. In their form and structure both
Persian and Pashto are allied to Indian dialects and are very
different from the dialects of the Turks. The territory of Lama-
ghan (or more accurately the Lamaghanats or the fertile banks of
the Kabul river beyond the Khyber Pass) had been ruled till the
time of Subuktigin by the Hindu Shahi Dynasty of Waihind or
Und, a city on the bank of the Indus. Kabul was ruled by an-
other dynasty which had been converted to Islam. A Brahman
could, theoretically, travel to these regions, which are studded
with Buddhist remains. But it is probable that after the time of
Subuktigin the country beyond the middle Indus was seldom
visited by the Brahmans.

1 Alberuni, India, vol. II, pp. 133-134.

2 Manu, p. 138, Chap. Ill :

"61. Let him not dwell in a country where the rulers are Sudras,
nor in one which is surrounded by unrighteous men, nor
in one which has become subject to heretics, nor in one
swarming with men of the lowest castes.

"79. Let him not stay together with outcasts, nor with Can-
dalas, nor with Pukkasas, nor with fools, nor with over-
bearing men, nor with low-caste men, nor with antya-
vasayins.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 81

There was, lastly, the fifth period, or rather stage,
not within the reach of all— that of the maha-atma
or the great rishi, who was on the threshold of
moksha or had realised it. On such a person the
restrictions of caste were not externally binding nor
the Puranic rules. "He has attained to such a degree
that the Brahmans and the Chandalas are equal to him.
All other things are equal to him, in so far as he
abstains from them. It is the same if they are allowed
to him, for he can dispense with them, or if they
are forbidden to him, for he does not desire them." 1
Here we have the predecessor, or in any case the
equivalent, of the Qutbul Aqtab of the Muslim mystics.
The underlying idea and the verbal definitions are the
same in both cases.

VII. The Kshattriyas.

The Kshattriya — Alberuni never uses the term
'Rajput'^could learn the Veda but was not allowed to
teach it. He was consecrated in the twelfth year with
a single cord of the threefold yajnopavita and a single
other cord of cotton. 2 Though not entitled to officiate
as a priest, he was permitted to perform the Puranic
rites. The Kshattriyas had apparently ceased to make
any contribution to the progress or the preservation of
Indian culture. But their political prospects were
improving. "Their degree is not much below that of
the Brahmana;" Alberuni tells us, "he rules the people
and defends them, for he is created for this task." 3

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, p. 158.

2 Ibid., vol. II, p. 136.

" Ibid., vol. I, p. 101.

11

82 INDIAN GUI/TUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

"The Hindus relate that originally the affairs of
government and war were in the hands of the
Brahmans, but the country became disorganised, since
they ruled according to the principles of their religious
codes, which proved impossible when opposed to the
mischievous and perverse elements of the populace.
They were even near losing also the administration
of their religious affairs. Therefore they humiliated
themselves before the Lord of their religion. Where-
upon Brahmans entrusted them exclusively with the
functions which they now have, whilst he entrusted the
Kshattriyas with the duties of ruling and fighting." 1
We must be grateful for the preservation of this item
of popular tradition. But to what period is our
author referring ? The word ' originally ' should
not mislead us. The reference is obviously to the
Brahmanical ruling families that preceded, and even
followed, the Buddhist period. The rise of the Rajputs
is a later phenomenon.

These were the two twice-born castes, exclusive
heirs to the spiritual and intellectual achievements of
Hinduism. Between them and the two remaining
castes — the Vaishyas and the Sudras — there was a
very sharp distinction, while the Sudras and Vaishyas
were very near to each other. The duty of the Vaishya
was to devote himself to agriculture, cattle-breeding
and business, either on his own behalf or on behalf of a
Brahman. ' The Sudra is a servant of the Brahman,
taking care of bis affairs and serving him.' The
Vaishya was entitled to a single yajnopavita of two
cords and a Sudra, at the most, to a linen one.

1 Albenuv' , India, vol. II, p. 162.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 83

VIII. The Masses.

The Arab travellers of the ninth and tenth
centuries, who looked at Indian society from the view-
point of import and export merchants and were
concerned more with the vocations than the castes
(or religious distinctions) of the people, put the same
ideas in a different form. "There are," says Ibn-i
Khurdadba, "seven classes of Hindus, viz., 1st,
Sabkafria, among whom are men of high caste, and
from among whom kings are chosen. The people of
the other six classes do the men of this class homage,
and them only. 2nd, Brahmans, who totally abstain
from wine and fermented liquors. 3rd, Kataria,
( ? Kshattriya ), who drink not more than three cups
of wine, the daughters of the class of Brahmans are
not given in marriage to the sons of this class, but
the Brahmans take their daughters. 4th, Sudaria,
who are by profession husbandmen. The 5th, Baisura
( ? Vaishya ) are artificers and domestics. The 6th,
Sandalia ( ? Chandalia ) who perform menial offices.
7th, the Lahud ( ? musicians and jugglers ) ; their
women are fond of adorning themselves, and the men
are fond of amusements and games of skill. In Hind
there are forty-two religious sects ; part of them believe
in a Creator and Prophet ( the blessings of God be
upon them ) ; part deny the mission of a Prophet, and
part are atheists." 1 It is useful to keep in mind these
seven vocational grades to which the Arab writers keep
on referring one after another. But, substantially,
it is the caste-system of Manu seen from a different

1 Elliot and Dowson : History of India, vol. I, p. 16,

84 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

angle : (a) the governing classes consisting of the four
varnas, duly graded, but subordinate politically to the
royal families who till the time of Sultan Mahmud at
least belonged to different varnas, and (b) an upper
and a lower set of sub-castes which the Manu-smriti
also contemplates. "In all these kingdoms of India,"
says Abu Zaid, "the nobility is considered to form
but one family. Power resides in it alone. The
princes name their own successors. It is the same
with learned men and physicians. They form a
distinct caste, and the profession never goes out of the
caste." l

Now caste-spirit, stern in the extreme, laid down
three different principles, two of which were enforced
ruthlessly by the power of the state. The caste-system
could only have been preserved and strengthened in
an atmosphere of ignorance ; had the lower orders been
allowed access to the sacred books, they would have
undoubtedly claimed equality. For we are at a fairly
advanced stage in the history of mankind — eleven
hundred years after the death of Christ and five
hundred years after the advent of the Arabian Prophet.
Elsewhere the doctrine of equality and common
citizenship had been preached in no uncertain terms.
Thrones had been smashed to bits, and hereditary
aristocracies and priesthoods completely overthrown.
The fall of the Sassanian Empire must have caused some
reverberations in this country also. It is inconceivable
that the educated upper classes of India were ignorant
either of the political democracy of the Greeks or the

1 Elliot and Dowson : History of India, vol. I, p. 6.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 85

social democracy of the Mussalmans. The latter, at
least, had been their neighbours in Sind for at least
three hundred years. But they preferred to attempt — •
and what governing classes would not ? — a continua-
tion of their power by further strengthening the bonds
of a vicious system.

First, the doors of knowledge were closed on all
persons not belonging to bhe twice-born castes ; and
any attempt to cross the barrier was severely punished.
"Every action," Alberuni tells us, "which is considered
the privilege of a Brahman, such as saying prayers,
the recitation of the Veda and offering sacrifices to
the fire, is forbidden to him to such a degree that when,
e.g., a Sudra or a Vaishya is proved to have recited
the Veda, he is accused by the Brahmans before
the ruler, and the latter will order his tongue to be
cut off." A non-caste person committing the same
offence would have doubtless met a quicker and
severer punishment. 1 So, while in the rest of Asia as
well as in Europe the educated classes were desperately
busy in carrying light and knowledge to the multi-
tude — while elsewhere, under the shadow of the
cathedral or the mosque the sons of weavers and
farmers and shopkeepers were being collected to-
gether, thanks to the munificient endowments of
the rich and the more precious subscriptions of the
poor, to learn whatever store of wisdom that age
possessed at the feet of masters no better-born
than themselves — the Brahmans of India could. think
of no better plan for the preservation of knowledge

1 See Alberuni, vol. II, p. 137 : Story of King Bama and the
Ohandala.

86 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

than preventing the spread of education. Such a policy
may, or may not, have been necessary in the period
of the Eig Veda. But in the eleventh century — in the
generation of Alberuni, Avicenna and Sultan Mahmud —
it was stupid, mad and suicidal ; and the Brahmans,
themselves a rationalistic and highly enlightened
group, were destined to pay a terrible price for the
most unpardonable of social sins.

Secondly, it was not enough to keep the lower
orders in ignorance ; it was necessary to divide and sub-
divide them to prevent their developing a corporate
spirit similar to that of the Brahmans and the
Kshattriyas. So the Vaishyas and Sudras were offered
amenities denied to the rest. 1 They were offered the
status of low but regular castes. They were allowed
to ' meditate on God ' whom they had to comprehend
not on the basis of the Vedas or other sacred texts
but through such wild Puranic tales as bad filtered
down to them by word of mouth. Also the Brahmans
would accept their alms. Finally, they were allowed
to live within the city-walls. These favours, however
effective they may have been in making an insuperable
distinction between the lower caste and the non-caste
people, did not, as the subsequent political history of
the country was to show, attach them to the Brahmans
and the Kshattriyas.

It was difficult then — and it is equally difficult
now— to give an account of the non-caste sections of
the Indian people. Lacking cultural traditions and

1 But there were limits. "A Sudra, though emancipated by his
master, is not released from servitude; since that is innate in him,
who can set him free from it ?" {Maim, vol. I, 326 )

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 87

uniformity of organisation, they must have varied
from district to district. They had only one thing in
common — they were not allowed to live within the
city-walls, and could only enter, presumably after due
notice> to carry on that work without which the
city could not exist. According to Alberuni, whose
remarks can only be considered generally correct of
that part of the country which he had seen, the non-
caste people were broadly divisible into sections — an
upper or more fortunate section, called Antjaya, and
a lower section without recognised organisation or
status. "These guilds live near the villages and towns
of the four castes but outside them. There are eight
classes (guilds), who freely intermarry with each
other, except the fuller, shoe-maker and weaver, for no
others would condescend to have anything to do with
them. These eight guilds are — the fuller, shoe-maker,
juggler, the basket and shield-maker, the sailor, fisher-
man, the hunter of wild animals and of birds, and the
weaver." 1 The lowest people are enumerated as the
Hadi, Doma, Chandala, and Bhadatau. 2 "They are
occupied with dirty work like the cleansing of villages
and other services. They are considered as one sole
class, and distinguished only by their occupations. In
fact, they are considered like illegitimate children ; for
according to general opinion they descend from a Sudra
father and a Brahmani mother as the children of
fornication ; therefore, they are degraded out-castes

1 Alberuni, vol. I, p. 101.

' J "A Chandala, a village pig, a cock, a dog, a menstruating
woman, and a eunuch must not look at the Brahman as while
they eat." {Mami, Chap. Ill, p. 119.)

88 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

All other men, except the Cbandala, in so far as they
are not Hindus, are called mlechcha, i.e., unclean, all
those who kill men ( i.e., hangmen ) and slaughter
animals, and eat the flesh of cows." 1

Thirdly, the fearful doctrine of chut, 'theological
contamination,' to which we have already referred, was
invoked to strengthen the fabric of the caste-system. 2
Alberuni is right in declaring that ' everything, which

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, p. 137.

2 The following shlokas of Manu will give some idea of the

orthodox view-point about the lower orders; and it may be
safely assumed that in this matter the tide of public opinion
among the ruling classes was running strongly in favour of
Manu's doctrines : —

4. The Brahmana, the Kshattriya, and the Vaishya castes
(vama) are the twice-born ones, but the fourth, the Sudra,
has one birth only; there is no fifth (caste).

5. In all castes (vama) those (children) only which are begot-
ten in the direct order on wedded wives, equal (in caste
and married as) virgins, are to be considered as belonging
to the same caste (as their fathers).

6. Sons, begotten by twice-born men on wives of the next
lower castes they declare to be similar (to their fathers,
but) blamed on account of the fault (inherent) in their
mothers.

"7. Such is the eternal law concerning (children born of
wives one degree lower (than their husbands); know (that)
the following rule (is applicable) to those born of women
two or three degrees lower. {Manu, Chap. X, pp. 402 & 403.)
"25. I will (now) fully enumerate those (sons) of mixed origin
who are born of Anulomas and of Pratilomas, and (thus)
are mutually connected.

"26. The Suta, the Vaidehaka, the Chandala, that lowest of
mortals, the Magadha, he of the Kshattri caste (gati) and
the Ayogava.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 89

falls into a state of impurity, strives, and quite success-
fully, to regain its original condition, which was that
of purity'. The sun cleanses and fresh air, and salt in
the sea-water prevents the spreading of corruption.

"27. These six (Pratilomas) beget similar races (varna) on
women of their own (caste), they (also) produce (the like)
with females of their mother's caste {gali), and with
females (of) higher ones.

28. As a (Brahmana) begets on (females of) two out of the
three (twice-born castes a son similar to) himself (but
inferior), on account of the lower degree (of the mother),
and (one equal to himself) on a female of his own race,
even so is the order in the case of the excluded (races,
vahya).
"29. Those (six mentioned above) aslo beget, the one on the
females of the other, a great many (kinds of) despicable
(sons), even more sinful than their (fathers), and ex-
cluded (from the Aryan community, vahya).

"30. Just as a Sudra begets on a Brahmana female a being
excluded (from the Aryan community), even so (a person
himself) excluded procreates with (females of) the four
castes (sons) more (worthy of being) excluded (than he
himself).

"31. But men excluded (by the Aryans, vahya), who approach
females of higher rank, beget races {varna) still more
worthy to be excluded, low men (hina) still lower races,
even fifteen (in number).

"40. These races, (which originate) in a confusion (of the
castes and) have been described according to their fathers
and mothers, may be known by their occupations,
whether they conceal or openly show themselves.

"41. Six sons, begotten (by Aryans) on women of equal and
the next lower castes (Anantara), have the duties of
twice-born men; but all those born in consequence of a
violation (of the law) are, as- regards their duties, equal
to Sudras.

12

90 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

But for this, life on this planet would have been
impossible. But the Brahmanic conception of ' theolo-
gical contamination ' in the thirteenth century was
only remotely connected with the principles of hygiene,
which is necessary for physical health, or with that
conception of tabu,, which modern investigators have
found so prevalent in primitive races. It was a pseudo-

"43. But in consequence of the omission of the sacred rites,
and of their not consulting Brahamnas, the following
tribes of Kshatrivas have gradually sunk in this world to
the condition of Sudras :

"44. {Vie.) the Paundrakas, the Kodas, the Dravidas, the
Kambogas, the Yavanas, the Sakas, the Peradas, the
Pahlavas, the Kinas, the Kiratas, and the Daradas.

"45. All those tribes in this world, which are excluded from
(the community of) those born from the mouth, the arms,
the thighs, and the feet (of Brahman), are called Dasyus,
whether they speak the language of the Mekkhas (bar-
barians) or that of the Aryans.
51. But the dwellings of Cliandalas and tliwapiachas shall be
outside the village, they must be m.ule Apapatras, and
their wealth (shall be) dogs and donkeys.

"52. Their dress (shall be) the garments of the dead, (they shall
eat) their food from broken dishes, black iron (shall be)
their ornaments and they must always wander from place
to place.

"53. A man who fulfils a religious duty, shall not seek inter-
course ivith them; their transactions (shall be) among
themselves, and their marriages with their equals.

"54. Their food shall be given to them by others (than an
Aryan giver) in a broken dish; at night iliey shall not
walk about in villages and in toivns.

"55. By day they may go about for the purpose of their
work, distinguished by marks at the king's command, and
they shall carry out the corpses (of persons) who have ?io
relatives ; thai is a settled rule.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 91

spiritualistic conception, expressed in one thousand
and one detailedfregulations intended to preserve the
separateness and the predominance of the governing
classes. The food of a Mussalman may or may not be
considered unclean. That is a matter of opinion. But
what about his fire ? How can that be unclean ? If a
Brahman's house catches fire, it is purified by the flames
thereof. But if that fire spreads to a Mussalman's

"62. Dying, loithout the expectation of a reward, for the sake
of Bi ahmanas and of cows, or in the defence of women
and children, secures beatitude to those excluded (from the
Aryan community, vahyaj.

"64. If (a female of the caste), sprung from a Brahmana and
a Sndra female, bear (children) to one of the highest caste,
the inferior (tribe) attains the highest caste within the
seventh generation.

"65. (Thus) a Sudra attains the rank of a Brahmana, and (in
a similar manner) a Brahmana sinks to the level of a
Sudra; but know that it is the same with the offspring
of a Kshatriya or of a Vaishya.

"66. If (a doubt) should arise, with whom the pre-eminence
(is, whether) with him whom an Aryan by chance begot
on a non-Aryan female, or (with the son) of a Brahmana
woman by a non-Aryan.

"67. The decision is as follows : "He who ivas begotten by an
Aryan on a non-Aryan female, may become (like to) an
Aryan by his virtues ; lie whom an Aryan (mother) bore
to a non-Aryan father (is and remains) unlike to an Aryan.

"73. Having considered (the case of) a non-Aryan who acts

like an Aryan, and (that) of an Aryan who acts like a

non-Aryan, the creator declared, "Those two are neither

equal nor unequal." {Manu., Chap. X, pp. 402-418.)

Even such amelioration of the caste-system as Manu had

allowed disappeared in the ten succeeding centuries.

92 INDIAN OULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

house, the flames themselves become unclean, and you
may not (if you are a Brahman) use them to light your
hearth. Now the conception of theological impurity
or eJihut is an old idea and persists till to-day. But it
seems to have reached its high-water mark in the
eleventh century. The food of the mlechchas, as well
as foreigners, and their water and their fire were con-
sidered unclean. The lower orders were thus prevent-
ed from associating with the twice-born castes and
driven beyond the city-walls. The life of a caste-
Hindu, and specially of the majority who were pro-
bably inclined (like the majority of men everywhere)
to take a mechanistic view of religion, may well have
been one long struggle to avoid the physical contami-
nation of their fellow-men. Later ages, from necessity
if not from choice, were compelled to adopt artificial
means of cleansing (e.g., bathing in the Ganges) from
imaginary impurities like the accidental touch of a
Mussalman's water-bucket. But in the eleventh
century this was not allowed. A person or a thing
contaminated was damned for all eternity. u The
Hindus never desire that a thing that has once been
polluted should be purified and thus recovered." 1
The principle is best explained by an extreme and
tragic case. What happened to a Hindu warrior, high
or low, who, having been captured by the Mussalmans,
of necessity partook of their food and drink, and then
returned to his native land ?' Society, one might
imagine, would have received the hero with open arms.
No ! He had lost caste. Though physically alive, he
was legally and theologically dead. To the mother

3 . Albaruni : India, vol. I, p. 20.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 03

who had nursed him, he was now filth and dirt ; the son,
whom he had cherished, would succeed to his property
and shut the door of his own house on his father ; his
relations and friends, if he happened to meet them in
one of the few streets on which he was allowed to walk,
would turn away their faces. Such things indicate,
to use Alberuni's phrase, ' an innate perversity of
character '. "I had been told that when Hindu slaves
{i.e., prisoners of war in Muslim countries) escape
and return to their country and religion, the Hindus
order that they should fast by way of expiation, then
they bury them in the dung, stale and milk of cows
for a certain number of days till they get into a
state of fermentation. Then they drag them out of the
dirt and give them similar dirt to eat, and more of the
like. I have asked the Brahmans if this is true, but
they deny it and maintain that there is no expiation
possible for such an individual, and that he is never
allowed to return into those conditions of life in which
he tvas before he ivas carried off as a prisoner. And
how should that be possible ? If a Brahman eats in the
house of a Sudra for sundry days, he is expelled from
his caste and can never regain it." The captives, as
we know for a fact, seldom cared to return to the land
of their birth. Since they had ceased to be Hindus
owing to their reckless courage on the battle-field, was
there any alternative for them but to accept the faith
and the social equality offered to them by their con-
querors ? For while the Brahmans strove to prevent
the mass of their countrymen from taking the road to
Heaven, the Mussalmans were only too anxious to
drive the multitude heaven-ward with the tongue

94 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

and the whip and (though not very often) also with
the sword.

IX. Dress and Manners.

Foreigners have very often misunderstood the
institutions of our country. But sometimes they
have noticed things — generally, it must be admitted,
of an obvious and blatant type — which our own
historians have failed to record. We may well start
with the list of strange customs given by Alberuni. 1

It was not to be expected that in a country, where
three months of intense dry heat are followed by
three m?nths of monsoon, people would cover them-
selves as profusely as in Khorasan or Khwarazm.
The majority of the people went about in a langot,
the rest of the body being left uncovered on account
of the heat. In a country like ours it is, perhaps, the
best thing to do. The upper classes ' wore turbans
for trousers '. The phrase requires some explanation.
It is strange what wonders an oriental nation, specially
its women, will work with a plain piece of cloth. In
Arabian lands the cloth was wound round the head
as a turban ; in India it was wound round the loins as
a dhoti by men and round the body as a sari by women.
Trousers, though they are found in the surviving
statues of foreigners, were not in use, but Alberuni's
statement seems to show that during winter some
people wore huge trousers stuffed with cotton, the
string or imrband of which was fastened at the back.
The I'ulah or hat was Turkish and early mediaeval
Persian literature shows that there was considerable

1 Alberuni : India, vol. T, Chap. XVI.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 95

prejudice against its use by the Mussalmans, though it
was ultimately adopted. In India hats (meaning by
that any kind of head-dress) were not worn, but people
grew long hair to protect themselves from the rays of
the sun. There seems to have been nothing equivalent
to the modern shirt or qamees. Men in winter-time
covered their bodies with a chaclar. The women,
however, wore a kurti or blouse with slashes on both
sides. The shoes or slippers, instead of coming up to
the calf, as in foreign countries, terminated below
the ankle. 1

The following account of the dress and ornaments
of the time is given by Pandit Gauri Shankar Ojha
in the Urdu version of his Mecliceval Civilisation :
"Some scholars think that the art of sewing was not
invented in India till the time of Harsha, and quote
a statement of Huien Tsang in support of their asser-
tion. But the statement is wrong. India is a con-
tinent of diverse climates. From early ages, all sorts
of clothes were worn according to climatic needs, and
the word 'needle' (sochi or baishi) is mentioned in
the Veclas and Brahmau-grantha. The Taittriya
Bralimauas refer to three sorts of needles, i.e., of iron,
silver and gold. The Big Veda describes scissors as

1 The interpretation of Alberuni's sentences is not [fee from
difficulties. "The siclar (a piece of dress covering the head and
the upper part of the breast and neck) is similar to the trousers,
being also fastened at the back by buttons. The lappets of the
kurtakas (short shirts from the shoulders to the middle of the body
with sleeves, a female dress) have slashes both on the right and
left sides. They keep the shoe3 tight till they begin to put them
on. They are turned down from the calf before walking (?)
(Vol. I, pp. 1S0-181).

96 INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

bhoraj, and sicshnot Samhita mentions ' sewing with
thin thread '. The silken cloth was known as tarpiyah
and woollen Jcurtah as shamole. Drapi was also a
sewn cloth — a dress about which Sain says that it was
worn in battle. Not only cloth but leather was also
sewn, and leather-bags are referred to in the Vedic age.
We are referring to a period much earlier to prove that
the art of sewing has existed in our country from
ancient times.

"At the time under review, women used to wear
an triya or sari, half tied round the legs and half
wound round the shoulders. An utriyah or dopatta
was wrapped round it outdoors. A skirt (lahnga)
was worn at the time of dancing. The statute at
the Kankli-mount at Mathra shows a rani and her
maid-servant. The rani wears a skirt (lahnga) and
chadar round her shoulders. The people of the Deccan
used to wear two dhotis, one round the loins and the
other round the shoulders. The dhotis had often
ornamented borders. The people of Kashmir used to
wear half-pants (janghia). Colour, beauty and
decency were the chief features of such dresses. The
Kshatriyas used to wear long beards as is shown by
a life-like description of Bana. Most people did not
wear shoes. Smith in his book gives the painting of a
relief-work in which a Jain idol is seen standing with
two or three companions. All the three women are
wearing lahngas, and the lahngas are the lahngas
of to-day. In the Deccan, where lahngas are not
usually worn, the women put it on when dancing.
Women used to wear calico cloth also, as is shown by
the painting of a black women standing with a child

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 97

in her arms in an Ajanta cave painting. The woman
is wearing an angiya (blouse) with short sleeves from
the waist upwards. Merchants used to wear cloaks
stuffed with cotton and kurtas.

"All sorts of decorations and ornaments were
common ; both men and women were fond of them.
Huien Tsang states that 'even rajahs and nobles used
ornaments, costly pearl necklaces, rings, bangles, malas
and arm-rings studded with gold and silver.' Kundals,
plain or ringed, were often worn. Women sometimes
had their ear-lobes pierced at two points to enable
them to wear strings of gold and pearls, and images
of women with ears so pierced are found in many
museums. The use of ear ornaments was common.
Ornaments, plain and with bells (ghunghru), were
also used round the legs, bangles of inlaid ivory round
the wrist, various types • of bracelets round the arms,
and beautiful and valuable necklaces round the
necks. The breasts were either left open or tied with a
breast-band or covered with a bodice. The rich and
well-to-do persons used to hang garlands of fragrant
flowers round their necks. In short, there were no
restrictions, and all persons used ornaments according
to their status and income. Nose-rings (nath and
bulaq) are not referred to in old books ; possibly these
ornaments have been borrowed from the Mussalmans."

P<z«-chewing was a national habit ; then as now
and the red teeth of the Indians were not considered
a pleasant sight by foreigners. The growing of
moustaches was not, probably, a wide-spread habit,
but Hindus who grew their moustaches wanted them

13

98 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

to be long and pointed, unlike the Mussalmans who
are recommended to shave their moustaches or to keep
them short. Among other Indian habits, not neces-
sarily universal, the following struck Alberuni as odd :
growing long nails (like modern ladies of fashion) as
they were useful for scratching the head and for catch-
ing lice ; wasting the remainder of a meal ; drinking
wine before meals ; smearing the body with cow-dung
as a disinfectant ; use of female ornaments — cosmetics,
ear-rings, arm-rings, etc. — by men ; consulting women
in emergencies ; preference of younger children ; sitting
cross-legged at public meetings ; grasping the convex
side of the hand at a hand-shake ; spitting, blowing
tbe nose and cracking lice in the presence of seniors and
elders ; and the use of black tablets (tahlitis) by school
children on which they wrote from right to left along
the length and not the breadth of the tablet. x

X. Laws and Customs.

An intelligent Hindu of the age realised that
the laws by which he lived had greatly changed.
The practice of polyandry, though the Pandu
brothers had one wife in common, had disappeared
except among some backward tribes like the
Gakkhars. Hindu public opinion frowned upon
the practice, once legal, which allowed a husband
to connive at his wife begetting a son from a
stranger so that the family may be continued.
This practice was prevalent among the heathen
Arabs, and doubtless survived among a few Indian

1 The habit of Muslim school-children was and is exactly
opposite in these respects.

INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 99

social groups, that had been left untouched by Aryan
culture. "The Hindus say that many things which
are now forbidden were allowed before the coming of
Vasudeva, e.g., the flesh of cows. Such changes are
necessitated by the change in the nature of man."
Custom, slowly changing, perforce adapts itself to
new conditions. But there was no authority in
the eleventh century empowered to change the laws
consciously and for the public good — in other words,
no sovereign power in the Austinian sense existed.
"No law can be replaced or exchanged for another, for
they simply use the laws as they find them."

It is to be greatly regretted that our knowledge of
the actual laws and customs of the middle ages, as
distinct from prescriptions of the sacred texts and
their interpretations by the priest, which were respected
but not necessarily enforced, and the processes of
litigation and adjudication is so very meagre. Among
the Mussalmans there was a constant complaint that
the sacred law as interpreted by the text-books of the
faqihs was overridden by the constitutions or firmans
of the secular state. This was specially the case with
criminal law, which as expounded by the faqihs did not
cover all crimes and failed to recognise indirect
evidence ; also the punishments prescribed being too
severe even for the conscience of the faqih, the only
possible remedy was to prevent the proof of the crime
by making the laws of evidence extremely stringent.
Thus with the unprovable crimes on the one
hand and impossible punishments on the other, the
faqih, though he would not acknowledge it, had left
the door open for state interference and secular reason.

100 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

The same change had taken place in India by the time
of Alberuni. "The pena] code is exercised under the
control of the kings, not under that of the scholars."
Expiations and fasts, as prescribed by religion, had
become a matter for the private conscience of the
individual. The two higher castes were exempt
from capital punishment under all circumstances 1 .
But the rajas, generally speaking, confiscated the
property of a Brahman or a Kshatriya who had
been guilty of murdering a Brahman (Vajra-
brahmana hatya) or killing a cow or drunkenness or
incest, and drove him out of their country. Members
of other castes who committed the same crimes were
put to death. 2

Punishment for theft varied according to the
value of the thing stolen. In minor cases exposure
to ' public shame and ridicule ' was considered enough.

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, p. 162. So I interpret the words
but besides the king inflicts upon him a punishment in order to

establish an example'.

2 Eor the Hindu theory of punishment or social discipline,
it would hardly be possible to improve upon Manu : —

"18. Punishment alone governs all created beings, punishment
alone protects them, punishment watches over them while
they sleep; the wise declare punishment (to be identical
with) the law.

"19. If (punishment) is properly inflicted after (due) con-
sideration, it makes all people happy; but inflicted
without consideration, it destroys everything.

"22. The whole world is kept in order by punishment, for a
guiltless man is hard to find ; through fear of punish-
ment the whole world yields the enjoyments (which
it owes).

INDIAN CULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE 101

In extreme cases the criminal, if a Brahmana, was
blinded and mutilated by the dismemberment of the
left-hand and right foot or of the right-hand and
left foot, a Kshatriya was mutilated but not blinded ;
.and criminals of other castes were put to death. An
adultress was driven from the house of her husband —
and, presumably, took to the streets. The Muslim
and Jewish punishments of adultery were notoriously
more severe. The attempt to treat adultery as a
crime during the middle ages was never anything but
a farce and a humbug. Most cases of the offence
were not detected ; suspicion, when aroused, was more
likely to fall upon the innocent than the guilty;
prevention of collusion was impossible; the public
punishment of the guilty partner inevitably disgraced
the innocent spouse ; and, at best, the law for the
punishment of adultery only brought to book those
who have been careless and inefficient in their mis-
deeds. Hindu outlook on the question was, on the
whole, more sensible and sane than the stern laws
which the Mussalmans and the Christians tried to
enforce.

Purdah was not known to Hindu India, but there
was seggregation of sexes varying froni community

"23. The gods, the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Eakshasas,
the bird and snake deities even give the enjoyments
(due from them), only if they are tormented by (the
fear of). punishment.

"25. But where punishment with a black hue and red eyes
stalks about, destroying sinners, there the subjects are
not disturbed, provided that he who inflicts it discerns
well. (Mann., Chap. VII, pp. 219-220.)"

102 INDIAN CULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE

to community. Manusmriti lays down some im-
portant precepts on the matter : —

352. Men who commit adultery with the wives of

others, the king shall cause to be marked by
punishments which cause terror, and after-
wards banish.

353. For by (adultery) is caused a mixture of the

eastes (varna) among men : thence (follows) sin,
whieh cuts up even the roots and causes the
destruction of everything.

354. A man formerly aecused of (such) offenees, who

seeretly converses with another man's wife
shall pay the first (or lowest) amercement.

355. But a man, not before aecused, who (thus)
speaks with (a woman) for some (reasonable)
eause, shall not incur any guilt, since in him
there is no transgression.

356. He who addresses the wife of another man at a

tirtha, outside the village, in a forest, or at the
confluence of rivers, shall suffer ( the punish-
ment for ) adulterous acts (sangrahana).

357. Offering presents (to a woman), romping
(with her), touching her ornaments and dress
sitting with her on a bed, all (these acts) are
considered adulterous acts {sangrahana).

358. If one touches a woman in a place (whieh ought)

not (to be touched) or allows (oneself to be
touched in such a spot), all (such acts done)
with mutual consent are declared (to be)
adulterous (sangrahana).

359. A man who is not a Brahmana ought to suffer

death for adultery (sangrahana); for the wives

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 103

of all the four castes must always be earefully
guarded.

360. Mendicants, bards, men who have performed
the initiatory ceremony of a Vedie sacrifice,
and artisans are not prohibited from speaking
to married women.

361. Let no man converse with the wives of others
after he has been forbidden (to do so) ; but he
who converses (with them), in spite of a
prohibition, shall be fined one suvarna.

362. This rule does not apply to the wives of aetors
and singers, nor (of) those who live on (the
intrigues of) their own (wives) ; for such men
send their wives (to others) or, concealing
themselves, allow them to hold criminal inter-
course.

363. Yet he who secretly converses with such
women, or with female slaves kept by one
(master), and with female ascetics, shall be
compelled to pay a small fine.

364. He who violates an unwilling maiden shall
instantly suffer corporal punishment ; but a
man who enjoys a willing maiden shall not
suffer corporal punishment, if (his caste be)
the same (as hers).

365. From a maiden who makes advances to a (man

of) high (easte), he shall not take any fine ;
but her, who courts a (man of) low (easte), let
him be forced to live confined in her house,

366. A (man of) low (easte) who makes love to a
maiden (of) the highest (caste) shall suffer
corporal punishment ; he who addresses a
maiden (of) equal (caste) shall pay the nuptial
fee, if her father desires it.

104 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

367. But if any man through insolence forcibly
contaminates a maid&n, two of his fingers shall
be instantly cut off, and he shall pay a fine of
six hundred (panas).

368. A man (of) equal (caste) who defiles a willing

maiden shall not suffer the amputation of his
fingers, but shall pay a fine of two hundred
(panas) in order to deter him from a repetition
(of the offence).

373. On a man (onee) eonvieted, who is (again) aeeused
within a year a double fine (must be inflieted) ;
even thus (must the fine be doubled) for
(repeated) intercourse with a Vratya and a
Chandali.

374. A Shudra who has intercourse with a woman of

a twice-born easte (varna), guarded or unguarded,
(shall be punished in the following manner) :
if she was unguarded, he loses the part (offend-
ing) and all his property ; if she was guarded,
everything (even his life).

375. (For intercourse with a guarded Brahmani) a
Vaishya shall forfeit all his property after
imprisonment for a year ; a Kshatriya shall
be fined one thousand (panas) and be shaved
with the urine (of an ass).

376. If a Vaishya or a Kshatriya has connexion with

an unguarded Brahmani, let him fine the
Vaishya five hundred (panas) and the Kshatriya
one thousand.

377. But even these two, if they offend with a
Brahmani (not only) guarded (but the wife
of an eminent man), shall be punished like a
Shudra or be burnt in a fire of dry grass.

tftDlAN CULTURE ANB SOCIAL LIFE 10&

378. A Brahmana who carnally knows a guarded
Brahmani against her will, shall be fined one
thousand (panas) ; but he shall be made to
pay five hundred, if he had connexion with a
willing one.

379. Tonsure ( of the head ) is ordained for a

Brahmana ( instead of ) capital punishment :
but ( men of ) other castes shall suffer capital
punishment.

380. Let him never slay a Brahmana, though he have

committed all (possible) crimes ; let him banish
such an (offender), leaving all his property (to
him) and (his body) unhurt.

831. No greater crime is known on earth than slaying
a Brahmana ; a king, therefore, must not even
conceive in his mind the thought of killing a
Brahmana.

382. If a Vaishya approaches a guarded female of
the Kshatriya caste, or a Kshatriya a (guarded)
Vaishya woman, they both deserve the same
punishment as in the ease of an unguarded
Brahmana female.

It is obvious, however, that these rules could, at
no time, have been thoroughly enforced, except when
the prestige of the upper classes was touched. And
further, as to the proper relation of husband and wife,
Manusmriti remarks : —

2. Day and night women must be kept in depend-
ence by the males (of) their (families), and, if
they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments,
they must be kept under one's eontrol.

3. Her father protects (her) in childhood, her
husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons

14

106 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

protect (her) in old age ; a woman is never fit
for independence. 1

10. No man can completely guard women by foree ;

but they can be guarded by the employment of
the (following) expedients : —

11. Let the (husband) employ his (wife) in the

collection and expenditure of his wealth, in
keeping (everything) clean, in (the fulfilment of)
religious duties, in the preparation of his food,
and in looking after the household utensils.

12. Women, confined in the house under trustworthy
and obedient servants, are not (well) guarded ;
but those who of their own aecord keep guard
over themselves, are well guarded. 2

Two further problems arose owing to the concep-
tion of the family as a 'corporation', as Maine has put
it, or, to be more exact, owing to the necessity of an
heir for performing those rites without which the
soul of a dead man could not attain to salvation.
If a man died without leaving any male issue, could
his widow beget a male child by another man for the
performance of these necessary duties for the soul
of her dead husband ? And for the same reason, was
a man who, owing to a fault of his own, could not
have a male issue, justified in permitting his wife to
beget a child by another ?

The text of Manu leaves little doubt that in an
earlier age the answer to both questions had been
in the affirmative. But social development led to
re-examination of the principle and to a complete

1 Ibid., Chap. IX, pp. 327-328.
* Manu : Chap. IX, pp. 329.

INDIAN CTJLTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 107

change of attitude. First, critics (referred to by
Manu as 'great ancient sages') pointed out that such
a child belonged not to the woman's husband, dead
or alive, but to the man to whom she bore the child.
"They (all) say that the male issue ( of a woman )
belongs to the lord, but with respect to the (meaning
of the term) lord the revealed texts differ ; some call
the begetter (of the child the lord), others declare
( that it is ) the owner of the soil. By the sacred
tradition the woman is declared to be the soil, the
man is declared to be the seed ; the production of all
corporeal beings (takes place) through the union of
the soil with the seed. That one (plant) should be
sown and another be produced cannot happen ; what-
ever seed is sown, ( a plant of ) that kind even comes
forth. Never, therefore, must a prudent well-trained
man, who knows the Veda and its angas and desires
long life, cohabit with another's wife." 1

Secondly, was begetting such children desirable ?
Manu, with the more developed moral consciousness
of a later age, replies emphatically in the negative.
"The wife of an elder brother is for his younger
(brother) the wife of a Guru ; but the wife of the
younger is declared ( to be ) the daughter-in-law of

the elder By twice-born men a widow must not be

appointed to ( cohabit with ) any other ( than her
husband ) ; for they who appoint (her) to another
(man) will violate the eternal law." 2 Manu makes
compromises out of respect for the ancient texts.
Nevertheless he has a clear conception of the

1 Manu, Chap. IX, p. 333.
" Ibid., Chap. IX, pp. 337-338.

108 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

incompatibility of such practices with the life of purity
and marital devotion which he prescribes for the
householder. "He only is a perfect man who consists
( of three persons united ), his wife, himself, and
his offspring ; thus ( says the Veda ), and (learned)
Brahmanas propound this (maxim) likewise. ' The
husband is declared to be one with the wife. ' Neither
by sale nor by repudiation is a wife released from
her husband ; such we know the law to be, which
the Lord of Creatures (Prajapati) made of old. Once
is the partition ( of the inheritance ) made, (once is)
a maiden given in marriage, (and) once does (a man
say, 'I will give') ; each of those three (acts is done)
once only."

"Many thousands of Brahmans, who were chaste
from their youth, have gone to heaven without con-
tinuing their race. A virtuous wife, who after the
death of her husband constantly remains chaste,
reaches heaven, though she have no son, just like
those chaste men. But a woman, who from a desire
to have offspring violates her duty towards her
(deceased) husband, brings on herself disgrace in this
world, and loses her place with her husband ( in
heaven). Offspring begotten by another man is here
not (considered lawful), nor (does offspring begotten)
on another man's wife (belong to the begetter), nor
is a second husband anywhere prescribed for virtuous
women. She who cohabits with a man of higher
caste, forsaking her own husband, who belongs to a
lower one, will become contemptible in this world,
and is called a remarried womam (parpurva). 1 "

1 Manu , Chap. V, pp. 196-197.

INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 109

During the ten or twelve centuries that separated
the Manusmriti and the Kitab-ul-Hind, it may be
safely assumed, all such customs — whatever the
high authorities that may be cited in their favour —
disappeared from among the Aryan upper classes,
though their existence up to a much later date among
the lower orders and the backward communities is
proved by undeniable evidence. All the 'spiritualistic
apparatus' required by the soul of a man who had
died without male issue could be provided for by an
adopted son.

With reference to the absence of the purdah
system, the following remarks of Pandit Gauri Shankar
Ojha deserve to be noted, though it is difficult (in view
of Manu's injunctions) to believe that the opportunity
of mixing freely with men was not the exclusive
privilege of princesses exceptionally circumstanced :
"At the time under review there was no pardah
system, and the women of the royal household
attended the court. Huien Tsang writes that after
the defeat and capture of the Hun Rajah, Mahrkul,
the mother of Baladitya came to see him. Harsha's
mother used to associate with the courtiers. It is
stated in Ban Kadambari that Bilaswati used to
interview the priests, the astrologers and Brahmanas
and heard the Mahabharata in the temple of Mahrkul.
Raj Shri herself met Huien Tsang. The dramas^of
the time reveal no trace of the pardah system. The
Arab traveller, Abu Zaid, states that women used to
appear before Indians or foreigners, and accompanied

110 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

their men-folk in social gatherings and amusements. 1
Earn Sutra mentions that women also served in the
army, and accompanied the Kajahs in their darbars,
campaigns, pleasure-parties, etc. They rode horses
in arms, and some of them are reported to have been
captured during the war. Aka Devi, sister of the
western Solanki ruler, Vikramaditya, was very daring
by nature, and was so expert in politics and adminis-
tration that she ruled over four provinces of the
kingdom. It appears from an inscription that she
also laid siege to a fort. Other examples of the same
kind can be given to prove that the purdah system
did not exist. It is true, however, that common
people were not allowed to enter the Eajah's palace.
It was after the advent of Mussalmans that the
purdah system was established in India. As the
Mussalmans became predominent in northern India,
the system of purdah and veil (ghunghat) grew there
rapidly. Where the influence of the Mussalmans was
less, the purdah and the veil were not established.
Even to this day, no such system exists from Eaj-
putana to the Deccan, or else only nominally." 2

1 Arab travellers were impressed by the male Indian's fondness
for ornaments and the absence of the veil. Thus Abu Zaid {Elliot,
vol. I, page 11): — The kings of India are accustomed to wear
earrings of precious stones, mounted in gold. They also wear
necklaces of great value, formed of the most precious red and green
stones. Pearls, however, are held in the highest esteem, and are
greatly sought after... Most of the princes of India, when they
hold a court, allow their women to be seen by the men who attend
it, whether they be natives or foreigners. No veil conceals them
from the eyes of the visitors..." See also Al-Idrisi {Elliot, vol.1,
pp. 87-88 ).

2 History of Mediaeval Civilisation, pp. 77-78.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 111

The complainant at a legal trial was required to
put his case in writing, a special script being used,
or in the alternative to produce four witnesses — the
number being the same as among the Mussalmans.
The evidence o: one witness was only considered
sufficient if it was consistent, conclusive and complete.
Indirect evidence, the bete noire of the mediaeval
jurist, was not admitted. "The Hindu Judge," says
Alberuni, "does not admit prying about in secret,
deriving arguments from mere signs or indications in
public, concluding by analogy from one thing which
seems established to another, and using all sorts of
tricks to elicit the truth as "Ilyas ibn-i Muaviya used
to do." Plain statements on both sides supported by
witnesses came first ; if that was inconclusive, both
parties took oaths before ' five learned Brahmans '.
It was not to be expected that the oaths would reveal
the truth. The presumption was that one, or pro-
bably both parties, would lie again. Trial by ordeal
was condemned by the Muslim shariat. But it pre-
vailed among the Christians and also among the
Hindus. Six varieties of increasing severity are
enumerated by Alberuni : (1) The accused was invited
to quaff a drink called Vish ; it would not injure him if
he was innocent. (2) He was thrown into a deep well
or a rapid stream. An innocent man would not
drown and die — nor, perhaps, would a good swimmer.
(3) Defendant and plaintiff are taken to the most
celebrated temple of the neighbourhood. The plaintiff
fasts on the first day and on the second day he puts
on new clothes and takes the defendant before the
idol. The Brahman pours water over the idol and

112 INDIAN CULTttKE AND SOCIAL LltfEl

gives it to the defendant to drink. He will vomit
out blood if he has not spoken the truth. (4) The
defendant is weighed in the pan of a balance ; then he
invokes the devas, writes down his statement and is
weighed a second time. If he has spoken the truth,
his weight will have increased. (5) Butter and sesame
oil in equal quantities are heated in a kettle. A gold
coin is thrown into the mixture when it reaches the
boiling point. The defendant, if innocent, will be
able to put his hand into the liquid and take out the
coin. (6) The sixth and the highest ordeal required
even more honesty (or ingenuity) of the defendant.
Eice-corns, still in the husk, were sprinkled over the
palm of the defendant and over them was placed a
very broad leaf. If he was honest, he would be able
to carry a piece of iron, heated to the melting point,
for full seven paces. This is obviously not a complete
list of all the ordeals which the ingenuity o c the
Indians had devised. But they are a fair specimen and
do not show the brutality of European ordeals of
the same period. The success of an ordeal in sifting
the false from the true depended upon the faith of
the accused, the weakness of his nerves and the sugges-
tions of the Brahmanas. An amateur would quail
before even the trial had begun 1 .

Hindu law of inheritance was very different from
the law of the Mussalman. "Women were not entitled
to inheritance but they could transmit the right to

1 The ideal law o£ orthodox Hinduism will be found in Manu,
Chap. VIII. But it is difficult to say how far it was modified in
practice by the customs of different castes and communities.

IftDtAft CULTURE ANiD SOCIAL LIFE 113

inheritance. The prescription of Manu with respect
to a daughter's right, however, seems to have been
observed. She got a share equal to one-fourth of her
brother's; it was spent upon her upkeep and the pur-
chase of her marriage-portion. But after her marriage
she had no claims on her father's property. Among
male heirs the descendants had more claims than the
ascendants ; the claims of collateral relations were even
weaker, for they ' inherit only in case nobody has a
better claim. ' When there were several claimants of
the same degree, the property was divided equally
between them. If a Brahman died without heirs, his
property was given in alms but in the case of other
persons it escheated to the State. "If a widow does not
burn herself but prefers to remain alive, the heir of her
deceased husband has to provide her with nourish-
ment and clothing. The debts of the deceased must
be paid by his heir, either out of his share or out of
the stock of his own property, no regard being had
whether the deceased has left any property or not.
^Likewise he must bear the just-mentioned expenses
pf the widow." Alberuni's account of the Hindu law
pf inheritance is very meagre. He does not mention
the joint-family system, though his remark that the
heir, whether he liked it or not, inherited the debts
of the deceased and was saddled with a number of
other obligations, can only be explained by the theory
of the family as a permanent, undying corporation.
Duties were, therefore, more important than rights.
Among the Eomans a slave could be saddled with the
debts of his master by the latter's will ; in Muslim
countries no one could be saddled with another man's

15

114 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

debts. Hindu conception of property rights was
entirely different from that of foreign countries.

Most of the Vedic sacrifices had disappeared. The
Ashvamedha sacrifice, the most famous of all, is
described by Alberuni, but it had not ( at least in a
proper manner ) been performed, by any Indian king
for several centuries. Pilgrimages, on the other hand,
were very popular. Visiting the shrines for the
Hindus is optional or facultative — a thing meritori-
ous but not obligatory like the Haj of the Mussal-
mans. Presents to the idol and to his Brahman
devotees were necessary, and tbe pilgrim had to shave
his head and beard. 1 There is good reason for
believing that pilgrimages, including gifts and endow-
ments to the temples, were more popular in the
ninth and the tenth centuries than at any previous or
later period. At a time when institutions for looking
after the poorjDr the helpless hardly existed, much
insistence was laid upon alms-giving. A Hindu
householder was expected to spend one-fourth to
one-ninth of his income on charity. 2 Accumulation
of money was considered wrong, but putting by
enough for three years ' to guarantee the heart against
anxiety' was permissible. Contrary to the general
impression prevailing in Muslim countries, usury and
interest were severely prohibited. 3 Only the Shudra

1 Alberuni : India, Chaps. LX V & L17I.

a Albaruni : India, Chap. LXVII.

3 "Neither a Brahmana, nor a Kshatriya may lend money at
interest ; but at his pleasure (either of them) may, in times of
distress, when he requires money, for sacred purposes lend to a
very sinful man at small interest " (Manu, Chap. XI, p. 427.)

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 115

could take interest, but 2% per annum was the
maximum allowed.

The rules about food and drink had been made
more and more stringent in the course of generations.
" Some Hindus say that in the time before Bharata it
was allowed to eat the meat of cows and that there
then existed sacrifices part of which was the killing of
cows. After that time, however, it had been forbid-
den on account of the weakness of men." 1 There
must, of course, have been economic reasons also;
even Al-Hajjaj, as Alberuni points out, prohibited the
killing of cows when he was told that Babylonia was
becoming a desert. In the eleventh century meat
was totally prohibited to the Brahmans. But .to the
other classes ( according to Alberuni ) the flesh of

1 The primary reason for the prohibition of eating meat is
the sinfulness of himsa — it causes pain to living creatures and
hardens the heart of man. Nevertheless the processes of nature,
for which a divine origin may be claimed, are based on the
necessity that one living creature can only live by depriving other
creatures of their lives.

The following argument of- the Code of Manu deserves a
careful scrutiny; the doctrine of ahimsa is accepted and yet
discarded... "The Lord of Creatures ( Prajapati ) created this
whole (world to be) the sustenance of the vital spirit; both the
immovable and the movable (creation is) the food of the vital
spirit. What is destitute of motion is the food of those endowed
with locomotion ; (animals) without fangs (are the food) of those
with fangs, those without hands of those who possess hands, and
the timid of the bold. The eater who daily even devours those
destined to be his food, commits no sin ; for the Creator himself
created both the eaters and those who are to be eaten (for those
special purposes) '. The consumption of meat (is befitting) for
sacrifices, that is, declared to be a rule made by the gods..."
{Manu, Gh^. V, pp. 173-174).

116 INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE

certain animals was allowed. 1 The animals had to
be strangulated. The flesh of animals who had died
of a sudden death or (presumably) of a natural disease
was prohibited. Wine was prohibited to the caste
Hindus ; we are far away from the days of the Soma
plant, the fermented white juice of which may — or
may not — have inspired some of hymns of the Big
Veda. The Brahmans of the eleventh century were
a steady, stay-at-home, pedestrian people who pre-
ferred a single caste-wife, plain water, vegetarian
dishes and prose slokas. The Sudra was allowed to
drink wine provided he distilled it in his own house.
The sale of wine and probably also of meat was totally
prohibited. 2

1 Among animals the meat of which is permitted, Alberuni
enumerates the following : Sheep, goats, gazelles, hares, rhino-
ceros, buffaloes, fish, water and land birds; as, sparrows, ring-doves,
francolins, doves, peacocks, and other animals which are not
loathsome to man nor noxious. Among the forbidden are — cows,
horses, mules, asses, camels, elephants, tame poultry, crows,
parrots, nightingales, all kinds of eggs and wine. (Vol. II, p. 151.)

2 Alberuni, vol I, p. 152. Compare Ibn Khurdadba: "The
kings and people of Hind regard fornication as lawful, and wine
as unlawful. This opinion prevails throughout Hind, but the king
of Kumar holds both fornication and the use of wine as unlawful.
The king of Sarandip conveys wine from Irak for his consump-
tion." The lawfulness' of adultery is of course an erroneous
impression due to the large number of temple-girls ( devadasis )
of the period. Also Masudi, "The Hindus abstain from drinking
wine, and censure those who consume it; not because their
religion Jorbids it, but in the dread of its clouding their reason
and depriving them of its powers. If it can be proved of one of
their kings, that he has drunk (wine), he forfeits the crown; for
he is (not considered to be) able to rule and govern (the empire)
if his mind is affected." {Elliot, vol. I, p. 20.)

INDIAN CULTUKE AND SOCIAL LIFE 117

Marriage took place at an immature age and the
match was arranged by the parents. The Code of
Manu had permitted a maiden to select her own
husband. "Three years let a damsel wait, though
she be marriageable ; but after that time let her choose
for herself a bridegroom (of) equal (caste and rank).
If, being not given in marriage, she herself seeks a
husband, she incurs no guilt, nor (does) he whom she
weds. A maiden who choses for herself, shall not take
with her any ornaments, given by her father or her
mother, or her brothers ; if she carries them away, it
will be theft. But he who takes (to wife) a marriage-
able damsel, shall not pay any nuptial fee to her
father ; for the (latter) will lose his dominion over her
in consequence of his preventing (the legitimate result
of the appearance of) her menses. 1 "

But this limited liberty was vitiated by the age
prescribed for the marriage of women and the status
allowed to them.

"A man, aged thirty years, shall marry a maiden
of twelve who pleases him, or a man of twenty-four
a girl eight years of age ; if ( the performance of ) his
duties would ( otherwise ) be impeded, ( he must
marry) sooner." 2 Along with all this -went a
thorough contempt for women as creatures of sin.
"Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention
fixed on age ; (thinking) it is enough (that) he is a man,
they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly.
Through their passion for men, through their mutable

1 Manu, Chap. IX, pp. 343-344.
" Ibid., Chap, IX, pp. 343-344.

118 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

temper, through their natural heartlessness, they
become disloyal towards their husbands, however
carefully they may be guarded in this (world). Know-
ing their disposition, which the Lord of Creatures
laid in them at the creation to be such, (every) man
should most strenuously exert himself to guard them.
(When creating them) Manu allotted to women (a
love of their) bed, (of their) seat and ( of ) ornament,
impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad.
conduct. For women no (sacramental) rite (is per-
formed) with sacred texts ; thus the law is settled ;
women (who are) destitute of strength and destitute
of (the knowledge of) Vedic texts, (are as" impure as)
falsehood (itself) ; that is a fixed rule. And to this
effect many sacred texts are sung also in the Vedas,
in order to (make) fully known the true disposition (of
women) ; hear (now those texts which refer to) the
expiation of their (sins)." 1

The resultant social feeling was inevitable. A
daughter was the heel of Achilles in the-family corpora-
tion to be got rid of as early as possible by a legitimate,
if not a suitable, marriage. "No gift (i.e., mehr) is
settled between them. The man gives only a present
to his wife, as he thinks fit, and a marriage gift in
advance, which he has no right to take back, but the
wife may give it back to him of her own free will." 2
Unhappy marriages could only be terminated by
death. There was no divorce. The man, of course,
could marry again. As to the number of wives a

1 Manu : Chap. IX, p. 330.

a Alberuni : India, vol. I. p. 154.

INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE 119

Hindu may have, Alberuni's Brahman friends gave
him conflicting accounts. At one place he says that
the Hindus are allowed to have four wives and not
more, though if one of the four dies, she may be
replaced. But later on he adds — "Some Hindus say
that the number of the wives depends upon the caste ;
that, accordingly a Brahman may take four, a
Kshatriya three, a Vaishya two wives and a Sudra
one. 1 " The figure four — the Muslim maximum-
makes one suspicious. Our author's Brahman in-
structors, one is impelled to conclude, were probably
one- wife householders.

As to the forbidden degrees of marriage : (1) Inter-
caste marriages were legally allowed so long as a man
married a woman of a caste lower than his own ; the
reverse was never permitted ; and the childern belonged
to the caste of their mother. The Brahmans, we are
definitely told, did not marry except in their own
caste. A Brahman, though permitted by the earlier
law still extant, was gradually deprived of the pri-
vilege of marrying lower caste women ; the marriage
was not made invalid, but it was deprecated and a.
Brahman who defiled himself by such a marriage was ■
deprived of his full religious status. Even as early
as the Code of Manu we find Brahmanical public
opinion frowning upon such marriages. "But he who,
being invited to a Shraddha, dallies with a Sudra
woman, takes upon himself all the sins which the ,giver
(of the feast) committed." 2 "If twice-born men wed

1 Alberuni : India vol. I, p. 155.

2 Manu, Chap. Ill, pp. 111.

120 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

women of their own and of other (lower castes), the
seniority, honour, and habitation of those (wives)
must be (settled) according to the order of the caste
(varna). Among all (twice-born men) the wife of
equal caste alone, not a wife of a different caste by
any means, shall personally attend her husband and
assist him in his daily sacred rites. But he who
foolishly causes that (duty) to be performed by another,
while his wife of equal caste is alive, is declared by
the ancients (to be) as (despicable) as a Chandala
(sprung from the) Brahman (caste)." 1 "Children of a
Brahman by (women of) the three (lower) castes, of a
Kshatriya by (wives of) the two (lower) castes, and
of a Vaishya by (a wife) of the one caste (below him)
are all six called base-born (apasada)." 2

It may be safely assumed that in practice the
Brahmans by the time of Alberuni had successfully
succeeded in preventing the pollution of their domestic
lives by low-castes women. The same rule was pro-
bably observed by other castes also. Inter-caste mar-
riages must have been rare. The spirit of the time
was against them.

(2) In addition to the foregoing restrictions, it was
not permitted to marry anyone (a) in the ascending
lines (e. g. mother, grandmother) or (6) in the descend-
ing line ( e.g., daughter, granddaughter ) or (c) the
collaterals ( aunt, neice, etc ). But if the collaterals
were removed from each other by five generations
(? degrees), marriage was permitted but disliked. It

1 Manu, Chap. IX, pp. 342-343.
2 Ibid., Chap. X, p. 404.

INDIAN CULTUBE AND SOCIAL LIFE 121

was considered better to marry a stranger within
the caste, than a relative, however remote. l The
institution of gotra is not discussed by Alberuni.

A widow was not allowed to remarry. 2 "She has
only to choose between two things — either to remain
a widow as long as she lives or to burn herself ; and
the latter eventuality is considered the preferable be-
cause as a widow she is ill-treated as long as she
lives." It is curious, however, that in the Persian
literature of the period references to sati are very rare.
Probably the custom, which is obnoxious to all the
sentiments of humanity, was not as common as it
afterwards became.- But there is good reason for
believing that the widows of kings were burnt,
' whether they wish it or not. ' There was a danger
that their behaviour may bring disgrace to the memory
of their illustrious husband ; their step-son, now on
the gaddi, was in supreme control and their ornaments
were needed for charitable purposes. An exception
was made, however, in the case of queens of advanced
years and of queens who had children. The mother
of the new Raja would probably not be burnt, nor the
mothers of his brothers who were in a position to
protect them. The rest of the harem, by a saturnalia
of revolting executions, was cleared for the favourites
of the new monarch 3 .

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, p. 155.

2 "Offspring begotten by another man is here not (considered
lawful), nor (does offspring begotten) on another man's wife
(belong to the begetter), nor is a second husband anywhere
prescribed for virtuous women." (Mamismriti , p. 197, V.)

3 Compare Abu Zaid, {Elliot, vol. I. p. 6). "When the king
of Sarandip dies, his corpse is carried on a low carriage very near

16

122 INDIAN CULTUEE AND SOCIAL LIFE

The complicated rites concerning the principal
items of life — birth, consecration, marriage and death —
need not be discussed here. But the Mussalmans,
who always buried their dead, naturally observed, the
various methods among the Hindus about one of the
most sacred human obligations — the last duty to
the departed. Contemporary thought attributed the
custom of cremating the dead to Narayana (Lord
Krishna). But it must have been very much older,
whatever date we assign to Lord Krishna. The dead
body, washed and wrapped in a shroud, was burnt in
as much sandal wood and ordinary wood as the family
-could procure. "Nothing remains. Every defilement,
dirt and smell is annihilated at once." Part of the
calcined bones were cast into the nearest stream or
taken to the Ganges and dropped in its sacred water.
Over the spot where the body had been burnt a
monument, resembling the large mile-stones of the
middle-ages, was raised. The custom of throwing dead

the ground, with the head so attached to the back of the vehicle
that the occupant touches the ground, and the hair drags in the
dust. A woman follows with a broom, who sweeps the dust
on to the face of the corpes, and cries out, '0 men, behold I
This man yesterday was your king; he reigned over you and
you obeyed his orders. See now to what he is brought; he has
bid farewell to the world, and the angel of death has carried
off his soul. Do not allow yourselves to be led astray by the
pleasures of this life,' and such like words. The ceremony lasts
for three days, after which the body is burnt with sandal,
camphor and saffron, and the ashes scattered to the winds. All
the Indians burn their dead. Sarandip is the last of the islands
dependent on India. Sometimes when the corpse of a king
is burnt, his wives cast themselves upon the pile and burn with
it; but it is for them to choose whether they will do so or not,"

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 123

bodies into flowing water is attributed by Alberuni
to Gautama Buddha. "Therefore his followers, the
Shamanis, throw their dead into the rivers. It may-
be safely assumed, however, that this custom prevailed
among the Hindus also ; otherwise Alberuni would not
have heard of it. Elaborate ceremonies were not
within the reach of the poorer classes. "Those who
cannot afford to burn their dead will either throw
them somewhere on the open field or into running
water." By throwing on the 'open field' Alberuni
probably, means casting into shallow, hastily made
graves, just sufficient earth being thrown on the dead
body to veil it from the eyes of the living. Suicide
was condemned. Brahmans and Kshatriyas were
sternly ordered not to burn themselves alive. Though
public opinion seems to have Gondoned suicide in the
case of old age and incurable disease, no members of
the twice-born castes took advantage of it. There
was, however, one exception. Alberuni tells us of a
famous banyan tree at the confluence of the Ganges
and the Jamna. "Here the Brahmanas and Kshatri-
yas are in the habit of committing suicide by climbing
up the tree and throwing themselves into the Ganges 1 .
Two other cases are noted by Abu Zaid 2 , the first
in the territory of the Bashtrakutas and the second
(probably) among the Nairs of Malabar. "In the state
of Balhara ( the Bashtrakuta kings ) and in other
provinces of India, one may see men burn themselves
on a pile. This arises from the faith of the, Indians
in metempsychosis, a faith which is rooted in their

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, Chap. LXXIII.

2 Elliot, History of India, vol. I, p. 9.

124 INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE

their hearts, and about which they have not the
slightest doubt. Some of the kings of India, when
they ascend the throne, have a quantity of rice cooked
and served on banana leaves. Attached to the king's
person are three or four hundred companions, who have
joined him of their own free will without compulsion.
When the king has eaten some of the rice, he gives it
to his companions. Each in his turn approaches, takes
a small quantity and eats it. All those who so eat
the rice are obliged, when the king dies or is slain, to
burn themselves to the very last man on the very day
of the king's decease. This is a duty which admits of
no delay, and not a vestige of these men ought to be
left." The Vaishyas and the Sudras had greater
freedom in the matter of suicide, specially at sacred
moments, like the period of the eclipses, when the road
to heaven seemed more certain. "They hire somebody
to drown them in the Ganges, holding them under the
water till they are dead. 1 " "When a person", says
Abu Zaid, "either woman or man, becomes old, and the
senses are enfeebled, he begs someone of his family to
throw him into the fire, or to drown him in the water;
so firmly are the Indians persuaded that they shall
return to (life upon) the earth." 2

Whatever the misfortunes of the mass of the
people— and the power of the governing classes
and the rigidity of laws intended to enforce their
authority must have been extremely galling — there
was at least one compensation. India was a land of

1 Alberuni : India, vol. II, p. 170.

2 Elliot : History of India, vol. I, pp. 9-10.

INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 125

festivals and festivities. The life of the people was
not happy ( in the proper sense of the word ) but it
was joyous and cheerful. That grim sense of duty
and atmosphere of gloom in which life was only con-
ceived as of a traveller's inn where a man had merely
to discharge his covenant (misaq) with the Lord and
depart, which is the most striking feature of the
religious circles of mediaeval Islam and medieval
Christianity, is not found in India. The jogis who
tortured their flesh were respected but not imitated.
The Hindus had plenty of fasts; but they were
not obligatory. Nor were they as exacting and
sombre as the Ramzan of the Mussalmans. The
Brahmanical system would have tottered to its founda-
tion had it not found some means of reconciling the
people to their lot ; and it succeeded in doing so by
eliminating foreign influences, so far as possible ; by
creating a cheerful outlook in the people; and by
providing them with a series of fairs, fasts and festi-
vities throughout the year. It is wonderful how
song and dance and gossip will make people forget
the gnawings of an empty stomach. Most of the
festivals, Alberuni tells us, were primarily intended
for women and children. But the spirit of gladness
and good cheer must have infected the elders as well.

Mohammad Habib.

£>ome Publications

THE ARAB CIVILIZATION \

^>BY JOSEPH HELL

' Translated from the Gerfhaft - . t -

5y S*HAti?ri Khuda Bakhsh ; ;

Prqfessor Hell's monograph— Die Kultur. de^Araber— is at
once a summing up and a revaluation of Arab "Civilization.
Spfar as the, translator is aware, there is no such handbook-
compact, accurate^, felicitous in diction, andi sound in' judg-
ments— to be found in any language^' Eastern or Western. ./

' Demy 8vo., 2nd Edition, Rs. 6/-

HI§TORY OF THE EARLY MUSLIM POLITICAL
-'V THOUGHT AND ADMINISTRATION

, -, BYIH.K. SHERWANI, M.A., (OxON)

The author has done avgreat. service in giving jis an insight
not Only in the -working of the political rfiind of some of the
tmost eminent' Muslims of old but also in giving us a runping
commentary ,ofc the working of political^ institutions, under
which they lived in order to find out"whether there.-was any
connecting link between the political ideas Qtidt, their actual
application. % ■ ' ■' : :

A work of outstanding merit, result of laborious study and
.research and indispensable to the students of Muslim history.

; Demy 8vo., Rs. 8/- ~

DECiSIVE MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF ISLAM,

" ; BY MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH ENA'NH

It dqaii|. with^sorne of the-,mpst decisive; encounters between
Islarn and: Christiehdom, such as the Arab siege of Gonstanti-
noplej the battle of Tours, the famous Moslem naval invasions
of Rome, idea of the Crusades, battle of Zallak'a, fall of Gra-
nada,, faliof Mc/p'risK-Jcivilization, etc. It also contains some
critical studies orLtHe characteristics and'poficy of,v Arab'coh-
quests, ^diplomacy in Islam, slaver^, chivalry^ etc.,- Success or
failure in every decisive encounter, between East and Weft and
between Islam and Christendom, always represented a phase
of this struggle. The historical fact is fully explained in this
book.

Demy 8vo., 2nd edition, Rs. 6/-
SHAIKH, MUHAMMAD ASHRAF

-,_: KASHMIRI BAZAAR, LAHORE